#by which i mean i saw a picture of some deep sea beast and got a vision of a wish you were here postcard

[constancelaufeydottir]

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐝

Pairing: Neighbour!Bucky x reader

Warnings: Mentions of knife, blood, cursing, murder, mention of cannibalism, dark!Bucky(?), major character death, slight smut, fluff.

Summary: Bucky set his eyes on his sweet and cute neighbour who had suffered from a loss recently, determined to make her his.

Word count: 4.3k

a/n: This is my entry for @ambrosiase hotel indigo writing challenge. It’s my first ever writing challenge, and I had a lot of fun writing this! Honestly, I'm really grateful for this challenge because it motivates me to finish this wip that has been sitting in the draft for too long. Thank you for this lovely challenge mae ♡♡

Not beta’d, all mistakes are my own. If you see any mistakes, do let me know!

Room ⥤ Modern muse

Room service ⥤ neighbour + criminal

“Oh that poor thing.”

Bucky whipped his head in the direction of the voice. It was Mrs. Lockwood, his neighbour on the right.

“Huh?” He didn’t mean to voice out his confusion, but his brain was somewhat short-circuited, barely able to function when his sight was filled with you, and you only.

“That sweet girl over there,” Mrs. Lockwood was referring to you, his sweet neighbour to the left he was staring at, before the old lady came interrupting.

He had been staring for 5, 10 minutes maybe? He swore he wasn’t a pervert, you were just a sight for sore eyes, the healer of the wounds in his soul.

“What about y/n?” He asked, curious to listen to what his neighbour would say about the other neighbour. Also, he was fairly new to the neighbourhood, having just moved in last month, he ought to catch up with the gossip.

“Her boyfriend went missing a few months back, poor girl was devastated. Police suspected it was murder, even suspected y/n!” The old lady shook her head, casting pitying glances at the oblivious girl in the sundress, bathing under the sun with a book in her hand. “She’s such a sweet girl, how could they have suspected her?”

Bucky glanced at you, heart racing when you caught him looking. You shyly waved at him, a small smile plastered on your face hiding the underlying sadness of the loss of your loved one. His hand felt clammy when he raised one of them to wave back, his usual flirty self vanished whenever you were involved in the equation.

“Boy, you are in love aren’t ya,” Mrs. Lockwood teased, “I say go for it. Our lovely y/n definitely needs some lovin’ after what she’d been through and young man, I think you are the right person.” Her eyes crinkled as she patted Bucky encouragingly on the shoulder, like a loving mother cheering up her son.

Bucky, who was usually composed, blushed furiously. That big brain of his still hadn’t regained its functions thus he found himself unable to stop Mrs. Lockwood when she hollered at you.

Clearly immersed in your book, you jumped a little when you heard your name being called.

“Y/n, this young man would love to take you out on a date, what d’ya say?” His eyes widened at the accusation, though it was true that he wanted to date you, he just needed time to gather the guts to ask you out.

He saw you put down your book, walking towards him and Mrs. Lockwood. You were a front yard away from him, shielding the harsh sunlight from your eyes with your hands while leaning onto the fence.

“I’d love to,” you had to speak louder, and Bucky loved your voice as he only heard it only a handful of times now, often you were shy and quiet when you saw him.

“U-uhm, how about Saturday then,” He stuttered like a teenage boy who first received a love letter, suddenly forgetting how to speak, speech lost in the sea of disbelief and excitement, and affection.

You said nothing, only nodding and smiling at him, flashing those pearly whites.

“Great. 6pm. I’ll pick you up,”

“See you soon, James.” He watched as you walked away, a teasing smile on your face before you disappeared into the door. Gosh how he loved the way his name sounded on your lips, and he’d give anything to hear it again, and again.

Saturday came too soon, Bucky was not prepared at all. Well, he had done the reservations for the restaurant he’d planned to bring you to tonight, ironed out the creases and wiped off the non-existent dust on the dress shirt he would be wearing, so why was he nervous?

5:50 pm.

Call him old-fashioned or whatever, he’d prefer early to late and would love to escort you to his car. He stood in front of your porch, palm sweating and if his metal arm could secrete sweats, he was pretty sure it would end up like its counterpart.

You opened the door as soon as he rapped his knuckles on the wooden door, seeming eagerly waiting for him as he was for you.

He took in your outfit, the moderately revealing dress he liked, the one he saw you undress from, through his window countless times.

If it was possible to fall into a deeper love, he would.

The date couldn’t possibly be better than he imagined, it was perfect. Everything was great; the atmosphere of the restaurant, the quality of the food, and most importantly, you.

You were shy at first but opened up fairly quickly, telling him stories about you, and vice versa. You sympathized with him when he told you how he got the metal arm, your fingers grazing the delicate and intricate loops and lines on the metal surface.

His fingers were woven into yours halfway into the dinner, the cool metal fingers of his absently caressing your knuckles as you shared the story about your family, who disappeared mysteriously, then your ex-boyfriend, who went missing 5 months ago, like your family.

It was hard, talking about missing loved ones. Bucky could tell, by the way your hand unconsciously tightened, the lingering sadness in your eyes as you mentioned how happy you were before him. The way your tears were brimming in your eyes, threatening to glide down your face, it wrenched his heart, seeing how broken you were. He would try to pick up every broken piece of you in a heartbeat, mending them back together, fixing you until you were happy again if you would let him in.

He was kind of glad your ex-boyfriend was out of the picture, though it was a selfish thing to say. He desperately wanted to claim you, wanted to be your last and only boyfriend.

He’d been going on dates with you for a few months now. You were perfect, almost too perfect if he would say. You were practically his dream girl, so kind and generous. So sweet and loving. Pretty much everybody in this neighbourhood would agree with him and he sometimes wondered if he really deserved you. A beauty mingling with a beast. No one would ever want to see that, after all, even the beast turned into a handsome prince at the end of the fairytale.

Bucky wondered, if you found out what he did every night after you were asleep or what he took from your closet when you were away, would you still want him? If you found out the beast within him, would you still love him the same?

His thoughts were occupied and it wasn’t until the sharp pain in his fingers that he snapped out of his trance.

“Fuck!” You heard him cursing and went to him, gasping when you saw the streams of blood flowing from the deep cut from two of his fingers.

Hastily reaching out for the clean cloth from one of the drawers, you placed it over the wound, applying pressure on them.

The red quickly seeped through the pristine white cloth, two colours clashing as the red engulfed the white.

Bucky noticed you wincing at the red, gulping at the sight, head slightly turned away. It was obvious you were uncomfortable at the sight of blood, so he took the cloth himself and nudged you to wash the faint hint of blood on your palms.

“Sorry, now you might have to do this alone,” Bucky gestured at the ingredients on the counter, “and sorry for the cloth, blood stains are quite hard to get rid off.”

“Don’t you worry, a little hydrogen peroxide and the cloth will be as good as new,” Bucky let you tend to his wounds and pushed him towards the living room where he would sit at the couch for the next hour while you were busy at the kitchen preparing dinner.

While he was in the living room, he took in the interior of your house. He never got to take a close look, as he always had to sneak in when it was dark. The beige colour walls, cream coloured furnitures, books arranged perfectly on the floating shelves. The pictures and art hung on the clean walls, not one of them is crooked. The square coffee table with only the remote and a display plant on it, and when he shifted himself to sit at the center of the couch, did he realize the coffee table was lined up perfectly in the middle of the TV and the couch.

Bucky’s eyebrows raised, he didn’t depict you as a meticulous person. No wait, whenever he went out with you, you’d arrange the plates to sit between the utensils perfectly. When you get boba, the straws must precisely be in the center of the cup, and if you missed it, your eyebrows would furrow in annoyance subconsciously.

His eyes wandered over to your figure in the kitchen and was not surprised to find you wiping and hanging the cutting board on the ceramic wall, adjusting it with your fingers so it wouldn’t be crooked while waiting for the stew to simmer.

You caught him looking at you and threw a smile at him in which he reciprocated, then continued to let his eyes wander through your living room. This could easily be an IKEA showroom, he thought.

Another week went by, Bucky found himself more and more in love with you, if that was possible in the first place as if he didn’t already dedicate all the space in his heart for you.

You were both in the kitchen again. This time however, he was busy mixing the sugar, flour, and cocoa powder mixture, with you snuggling behind him, arms circling his waist as you watched him do the magic.

He felt sorry for not helping last time so he was making up to you by baking some brownies.

As you both were cleaning up, brownies baking in the oven, Bucky turned to you.

“Hey, I never asked, but what do you do for a living?” He questioned nonchalantly while wiping the huge plastic bowl.

The wet spatula fell from your grip, dropping into the sink of water, droplets of soapy liquid flecked on your shirt.

“O-oh, i’m an artist!” You let out a laugh to conceal your flustered state, “Aspiring artist to be exact.”

“An artist,” he hummed, as if chewing onto the meaning of the word, “could you show me your works?”

Your head whipped towards his direction, mouth parted in surprise. Nobody has ever appreciated your dream. Your family, your friends, your ex-boyfriends, all of them claimed that being an artist would lead you to being unsuccessful, and you deemed to prove them wrong.

“Yes, yes, of course,” you were overjoyed. Abandoning the half-washed utensils, you clasped your hand around his wrist and dragged him to follow you towards the second floor, into a room hidden behind another beige coloured door, where you kept all your works.

Rows of headless mannequins clothed in white dresses painted with red blossoms appeared before him as you pushed open the door.

He was utterly mesmerized. He trailed his gaze across the display, a smile painted his lips as he deduced that every piece of them was unique. No two dresses had the same pattern.

Some had plain red blossoms splattered on it, some had dark red waves littering on the bottom hem; some with brush strokes of red. There was also a different tone of red, bright and dark or somewhat in between.

“Wow, this is just … amazing!” He found himself at a loss for words, “are those blood?”

“Yes, they are.”

“I thought you don’t like blood?” Bucky teased.

“These are animal blood. I’m fine with it as long as it’s not coming out from a human,” you retorted.

He chuckled. Once again admiring the intricate patterns of your works, marvelling at how talented and perfect you were. His heart sank at the thought of the question he frequently found himself asking, how can someone so perfect like you end up with someone less than perfect like him.

You apparently noticed his changed demeanor as you inched yourself closer to pull him into an embrace, placing your chin on his chest, eyes searching for his sad blue ones.

“Are you okay?” He hugged you tighter, sighing.

“I’m fine. I just … I think you’re perfect and you’re everything I've ever wanted. But I'm not sure if I'm perfect enough for you.”

“Oh James, you’re more than enough. I assure you, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted too.”

Bucky felt like his heart was filled to the brim with adoration, butterflies erupted from his stomach. Your assurance was everything to him, keeping his wandering soul anchored and he was grateful for it, grateful for your existence. The more the reason to cage you by his side so you couldn’t ever leave him.

His lips were on yours the next second, his grip on your waist tightened as you deepened the kiss, tongue finding his; busy hands sliding from his stomach to his shoulder.

Both of you were drowning in this ecstasy, unwilling to part away from each other’s touch.

The loud ding of the oven startled the both of you. Momentarily parting from each other, you stared at him with a heated glance. His eyes were hooded, filled with lust, desire.

“Fuck the brownies,” you whispered, molding your soft lips on him once again, the hunger for each other far greater than the stupid brownies, “need you now.”

Bucky didn’t need to be told twice, large hands cupping your bottom as you hopped and hooked your legs behind him, arms instinctively went to his shoulders for support.

He brought the both of you to your room, the one he was all too familiar with, the one with the same cream coloured theme which could definitely pass as another IKEA showroom judging by how perfect the layout was.

The only odd thing that stood out in this far too perfect room was the trail of scratch marks extending from the door frame to the wall outside of the room.

The deep scratch marks were somehow etched deep in his brain, he couldn’t let it go. It felt as if there was a dot of blank ink on a piece of white paper, and even though there was more white than black, you’d only be fixated on the dot of black.

He would ask you about the haunting marks on the wall and your fingers that were tracing patterns on his skin would falter, you’d give him the warm smile he loved while brushing it off saying it was the huge Dobermann your aunt owned which did that.

Even when he was balls deep in you, the vivid image of the scratch marks were there in his head, though you were quick to draw back his attention with a grind on his hips, both of your bodies covered with sheen of perspiration. Strands of your hair sticking to your body, but you pay no care to them as you rocked your hips, chanting his name over and over again like a mantra, like a prayer.

His eyes were on your fucked out state, his grip on you like steel. The cool surface of his metal arm contrasted with your hot flushed body as you chase your high like a traveller chasing the oasis in a desert, desperate for a quench of thirst.

Even when he was chasing the same high, vision blinding with bliss, the marks were still there and this time they were accompanied by the white dresses painted with red, and red only.

Bucky was always a doubtful person. Doubting every single decision he’d ever made. Doubting himself, doubting others. But there was one thing he was certain of, there was something less than innocent lurking underneath your skin. Of course, he was still head over heels for you but he was pretty adamant to find out the sinister in you, hoping it would answer his questions, mainly the recurring image of a certain mark.

Bucky was a lot of things, dumbass , dork, clumsy(per sam), but he was not stupid. Hell, he was far from stupid. Those scratch marks, definitely not the Dobermann.

You were a perfectionist, you couldn’t possibly leave the mark there and acted like nothing happened in the first place. He’d imagine if it was the dog, you’d probably have someone fix the dent the same day, unwilling to allow even a speck of blemish in your flawless house.

Bucky was a lot of things, and being a dumbass was definitely one of them as he was showing up on your porch in the evening unannounced.

He’d considered sneaking in like he used to do but he knew, he saw that you were still in the house. He couldn’t and wouldn’t jeopardize your relationship with him knowing he’d get caught.

He knocked on your door, hearing footsteps paddling, rushing to him.

As you opened the door, your eyes widened at the sight of an awkward Bucky. Although you were quick to throw him an unalarming smile, he still caught the nervousness in you.

There was something off with you. The disheveled hair, thin layer of sweat adorning the crown of your head, unknown wet liquid staining your shirt.

He caught a whiff of the strong smell of chemicals wafting through the door, it smelled a lot like bleach.

“I’m sorry,” he scratched at the back of his neck, “is this not a good time?”

“It’s fine, come on in.”

The smell of bleach invaded his nose the moment he stepped into your house, flooding and overwhelming his senses causing him to wince.

“Were you deep cleaning?”

“Yeah, I accidentally spilled some of the animal blood this morning. Had to use hell lots of hydrogen peroxide to get rid of them. Sorry for the smell.”

“No no, it’s okay. Let me just open the windows and door, okay?” He was getting a little light-headed now, desperately needing some fresh air. “Doll, you need to ventilate every time you use bleach, it’s harmful for your health to inhale all these fumes.”

You blushed at the term of endearment, yet wanting to blame him for not calling you that earlier.

He went over to open the windows, sighing contentedly at the waves of fresh air hitting his face as the wind blew in.

He felt your arms snaking around him, head leaning against his broad back.

“I love you, James. Wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

“I love you too.” He turned around and hugged you, his chin propped on your head, not knowing you had a solemn expression on your face.

He’d spent the evening with you, watching TV on the couch with you in his lap. It was so mundane yet he’d never got bored of this, wanting to do this with you for the rest of his life.

Outside the window, the orange and yellow sky faded into darkness.

“Let’s order take out, how about Thai food?”

“I’ll cook,” you kissed him on the lips and got up from his lap before he could reply anything.

“Ok, you need help?” He heard a faint ‘no, it’s fine’ coming out of the kitchen followed by the clanking of pots and utensils.

His neck stretched to peek at your figure in the kitchen, too busy chopping up ingredients to notice he was no longer at the living room.

He made his way down the basement, where the pungent smell of the bleach was still lingering.

The wood creaked as he stepped on the stairs, announcing his arrival to the darkness surrounding the basement. The soft glow of light illuminated the large space, a wall of tins stacking on each other revealed to him. A few easels of different sizes were propped on the wall with several grey aprons hanging beside them.

He walked closer to examine the insane amount of tins. A small label that said Pig blood was stickered on the body of the white tin.

His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. Do people really sell animal blood in metal tins, wouldn’t they go bad?

There were loads of questions in Bucky’s head, questions with answers only you could provide.

He noticed a chest freezer sitting in the corner of the basement and his legs brought him to it before he came to realize. The whole basement was so quiet he could hear the soft ringing in his ears, the racing of his heartbeat amplified as his hand inched towards the lid.

There was nothing in the freezer, to his surprise.

The empty freezer stared back at him, as if mocking his fruitless attempt. He was relieved, or disappointed, he couldn’t tell the difference and there was no point in distinguishing them now since you had nothing to hide. He wasn’t even sure what he was expecting to find in the freezer.

“Babe?” You stood behind him with an apron on, a knife in your hand, a second after he closed the door to the basement.

He leaned against the door frame, hand went to his head, eyes squeezed shut as he pretended he was having a headache.

“Felt dizzy all of a sudden, I was just making my way to the bathroom.”

“Oh, okay. I was just about to tell you dinner's almost ready,” a tooth-rotting smile was plastered on your face.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he watched as you walked away, letting out the breath he’d been holding. His palm was clammy, heart beating rapidly.

“I love you,” You placed your hand on his arm, eyes meeting his.

“I know, doll. I love you too.”

This was seconds before dinner.

“James, I love you.” You whispered, watching him giving you a grin before he stuffed the meatball into his mouth.

“Wow, I'm so loved today. It’s the secon- no, third time you’ve said ‘I love you’ to me today.” He grinned, heart bursting with love. “You know I love you too.”

This was mid-dinner.

“I love you so much, James.”

Bucky was getting suspicious of you. Were you hiding something, perhaps cheating on him? For there were no reasons for you to keep telling him you loved him even though he knew how much you loved him and vice versa.

“I love you,” you kissed his knuckles, “this might be the last time I get to say I love you, James.”

His eyebrows furrowed at your statement, mouth parting to question what you meant. Before he could voice out something, the world faded into nothingness.

A thin film of blurriness clouded his eyes when he opened them, Bucky had this feeling like he was drowning in a swamp and his whole body was bound.

Blinking furiously, he regained his vision. You were sitting on a chair leaning forwards while looking at him endearingly, your elbows propped on your knees, palms supporting your chin.

“Hello, my love,” you were smiling oh so sweetly. The same smile that got him mesmerized and head over heels, except this time he didn’t feel the warm fuzzy feeling exploding in his chest, this time it was the goosebumps crawling on his arms and the chill creeping up his spine.

Now everything made sense, every single of his questions was answered.

You looked down at his body, the one that was once full of life, full of love. You watched as his glassy blue eyes etched with fear quickly reduced into this grey lifeless orbs, still pretty but lacking the element of a beautiful soul.

You weep for him, mourn for him. Mourning the short duration of love shared between the both of you. Mourning for yourself, for falling too hard. Mourning for him who kept you always in his heart.

To be honest, you were a little hesitant to end his life, he was better than the last one. He was perfect, warm, kind, loving, gentle, but not perfect enough. He simply did not reach your expectations, and you, could not bear imperfections, even the slightest. The answer to his downfall was pretty easy, he was too close to the ugly truth. And despite you knowing his love for you outweighs his doubt and fear in you, you simply couldn’t risk it.

Your love for perfection exceeds your love for him.

The melodious music of your ringtone echoed in the ample space of the basement, you brought up your phone to your ears as you answered the call.

“Mrs. Lockwood? Yes. Of course. I did. No no no, I’ll do it for you this time. He would definitely taste delicious I assure you.”

Time to get to work, you sighed as you stood there with a white dress splattered with blood. How artistic, you thought.

You always loved this part of the process, you’d wear the whitest piece of dress you own whenever you work with your projects.

You loved how the blood peppered your clothes, forming blossoms of dark red flowers on the fabric.

You kept every single piece of them, because no two are the same. Every one of them tells a story, of men and women who loved you and who you loved, of those who were once a body with a soul.

Wiping away the tears rolling down your cheeks, you gave Bucky one last loving look and the blade of your butcher knife came in contact with his once pink but now pale skin as you hummed, the sound bouncing off the walls of the basement, forming echoes.

A few blocks away, a baby cried, body covered in mucus. The tiny infant cried, each time louder than the previous, wailing his lungs out, as if mourning. For one soul born, another reaped.

[lostcoves]

ft. tendou satori x fem!reader

genre: fluff & a lil angst 

wc & warnings: 3.1k | none

premise: tendou satori has a massive crush on you. could performing with you in beauty and the beast be his chance to finally get with you?

tendou satori loved you.

plain and simple, he loved you. he loved the way you walked, the way you talked, everything about you screamed beauty and grace. you laughed at his poor jokes and smiled whenever he smiled at you.

tendou didn’t understand why you were so kind to him.

you were a beauty while he was a beast.

an irony that would come forth during shiratorizawa academy’s annual charity fundraiser. 

“hello i’m (l/n) (f/n) from the drama club!” you greeted tendou’s homeroom class one cloudy morning. tendou was in the middle of trying to balance a pencil on his finger when you began to speak about the annual charity fundraiser. apparently, the drama club was putting on a musical and needed more male participants.

“you should try out, tendou-san!” his classmate– a freckle faced boy by the name of kawasaki hitoshi– proposed to tendou. tendou paused from balancing his pencil and asked, “huhhhhh? how come?”

“cuz everyone knows about your massive crush on (l/n)-san,” kawasaki snickered. other boys joined in on the snickering and kawasaki exclaimed to you, “(l/n)-san! tendou-san will participate!”

your eyes brightened at the mention of tendou’s name, “really?!”

“well, i mean– oh thank you, tendou-san!” you cut him off with an embrace. tendou’s cheeks turned as red as his hair at your touch, you were so soft and squishy. you released tendou from the hug (much to his dismay) and handed him a flyer, “auditions are tomorrow! can’t wait to see you there!”

tendou watched as you scurried off to the next classroom before examining the flyer. it was in bright, obnoxious colors with the words ‘BEAUTY AND THE BEAST AUDITIONS’ in bold. 

oh the irony.

─────────────────

“you’re trying out for a musical, tendou-senpai?!” goshiki yelled at tendou during lunch. tendou shot him a stare and signaled him to lower his voice. goshiki covered his mouth and nodded before resuming his eating. 

ushijima, reon, and semi stared at tendou and the four didn’t speak, unsure of what to say to one another.

“will this interfere with volleyball practice?” ushijima asked.

“i don’t think so,” replied tendou before picking up a chunk of white rice, “the practices would be during school hours since it’s a charity event and what not.”

ushijima nodded, “good. you should do it then.”

tendou choked on his rice, “are you serious?”

semi nodded along in agreement, “i think so too. i mean, why not? now you’ll have an excuse to be around (l/n)-san without being a creep.”

tendou scoffed at semi’s commentary and fought the urge to give him the finger. reon chuckled at the exchanged and added his two cents, “i think it would be a great idea, as well. it would also look great on college applications from a community service and extracurriculars side of things.”

“not you too, reon..” tendou groaned, “i’m not–”

“hi, tendou-san!”

tendou nearly screamed and whipped his head around to see you standing behind him, smiling happily. tendou cleared his throat and attempted to be a cool guy, “heyyyyyy, (l/n)-san! what’s uppppp!”

“just wanted to say hi!” you answered, batting those gorgeous lashes of yours, “you’re still coming to auditions tomorrow, right?”

tendou looked back at his friends, all of which gave him double thumbs up.

“yeah, of course! wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

tendou just dug his own grave.

─────────────────

tendou nearly forgot how big shiratorizawa’s auditorium was. it felt daunting, as he stepped inside and made a beeline towards the stage. a group of students stood by the stage, practicing their lines and singing their songs. 

“tendou-san! you made it!” tendou looked down and saw you approaching him. he swallowed his nerves and greeted you with a smile, “heyyyyy, (l/n)-san! how you doing today?”

“i’m doing great!” you answered, “are you ready for your audition?”

“yup!” tendou smiled, “but if you don’t mind me asking, (l/n)-san, who are you trying out for?”

“i’m going for belle!”

the lead? of course, you would get the lead. tendou remembered seeing you perform in the blossoming of kamiya etsuko where you played the titular character. you brought tears to the audience’s eyes with your amazing performance. 

“oh that’s cool! i– er.. i’m going for the beast!”

damnit, tendou! were you trying to embarrass yourself?

your eyes sparkled like diamonds at tendou’s words, “really?!”

tendou masked his anxiety with a laugh, “haha! for sure!”

“i can’t wait to see you perform!” you gave tendou a high five, “break a leg!”

oh he would break a leg, all right. hopefully, in a literal fashion.

─────────────────

“tendou satori?” the director– an over zealous english teacher by the name of hasegawa ryuji– called tendou onto the stage. tendou felt like his legs were jelly, wobbling with each step he took. he gripped onto his sheet music tightly, as he made his way on stage. 

“what song will you be singing for us today?” hasegawa-sensei grinned. 

“i’ll be singing–” tendou scanned the crowd and found you among a group of girls. you locked eyes with him and mouthed, ‘break a leg! you got this!’ to him, “–if i can’t love her.”

not many people knew tendou’s secret but he took vocal lessons from the ripe age of five and until he entered high school. his parents forced him to go in an effort to improve his social skills and make him more approachable. while it didn’t improve his social skills, tendou gained a nice singing voice.

“you can begin at the start of the music.”

tendou took a deep breath.

do it for (y/n).

the music began to play.

and in my twisted face there's not the slightest trace of anything that even hints of kindness and from my tortured shape no comfort, no escape i see, but deep within is utter blindness

tendou’s voice was gentle yet powerful.

hopeless as my dream dies as the time flies love a lost illusion helpless unforgiven cold and driven to this sad conclusion

tendou pictured all those times people made fun of his looks. every person who laughed at him, every person who shunned him. he channeled that into his singing and thought of you, you with your kind nature and you with your warmth.

no beauty could move me no goodness improve me no power on earth, if i can't love her no passion could reach me no lesson could teach me how I could have loved her and make her love me too if i can't love her, then who?

who would love him? tendou was but a beast. hideous and unworthy. 

long ago i should have seen all the things i could have been careless and unthinking, i moved onward

tendou looked out among the crowd and stared at you. 

no pain could be deeper no life could be cheaper no point anymore, if i can't love her no spirit could win me no hope left within me hope i could have loved her and that she'd set me free hut it's not to be if i can't love her let the world be done with me

i could only wish you could love me, (y/n).

the music came to an end and a shush fell over the auditorium. tendou’s cheeks flushed a warm red, did he mess up?

applause suddenly exploded among the crowds. tears were in the eyes of hasegawa-sensei, “that was amazing, tendou-san! your voice was just perfect!”

“o- oh!” tendou cleared his throat, “thanks..”

he could only hope he was good enough to get the role.

─────────────────

“are you going to check the cast list?” ushijima asked a few days after the auditions. tendou saw people crowding outside hasegawa-sensei’s classroom, the bulletin board containing the cast list for beauty and the beast.

“i rather not,” the redhead grumbled. 

“tendou-san!”

tendou perked up at the sound of his name. it was you, standing before him with that dazzling smile of yours. 

“wanna check the cast list with me?” you offered to tendou. 

how could he say no to you?

“sure thing!” he chuckled before approaching the cast list with you. the crowd parted like the red sea upon your arrival. tendou’s eyes started from the bottom of the list, thinking he got an ensemble role.

“hey tendou-san?”

“yes, (l/n)-san?”

“look up.”

tendou looked at the top of the cast list and choked when he read who got the role of the beast.

TENDOU SATORI – THE BEAST 

his eyes darted up above it and tendou nearly fainted.

(L/N) (F/N) – BELLE

tendou was in for a whirlwind.

─────────────────

tendou paced outside the auditorium, unsure if he should head inside. today was the first of ten six hour rehearsals for the musical and tendou was panicking. should he face the music or cower in fear?

“tendou-san? are you okay?”

shit, it was you. tendou couldn’t let you see him like this. he plastered on a grin and turned around to greet you, “hiya (l/n)-chan! how you doing!”

“i’m fine–” you cut yourself short, “–oh, (l/n)-san? that’s a new one. i like it.”

tendou laughed nervously, adverting his gaze from you. damnit, why did you have such an effect on him? 

“well, i’m heading to rehearsal so come along,” you grabbed him by the hand and dragged tendou into the auditorium. you were surprisingly strong for such a short person, or at least someone shorter than tendou. 

the auditorium was jam-packed with students conversing excitedly about the show. tendou felt as if he was the only one not completely invested in the show. after all, he only auditioned for you.

“attention, cast members!” hasegawa-sensei called everyone’s attention. he then launched into some speech about rules and expectations, to which tendou toned out. all he could focus on was you. 

rehearsal went by at an agonizingly slow pace. tendou managed to introduce himself to the rest of the cast, most of which knew him from the volleyball team. still unused to the environment, tendou stuck by your side like a lost puppy dog. 

tendou remembered sprinting out of the auditorium the moment hasegawa-sensei dismissed everyone from rehearsal. he wasn’t sure how he was gonna balance schoolwork, volleyball, and the musical. but the one thing he did was it would be worth it to spend more time with you.

nighttime fell over shiratorizawa academy by the time tendou got out of volleyball practice. he dragged himself out of the gym, not even bothering to see his goodbyes to his teammates from how exhausted he was. 

“tendou-san?” you approached the redhead outside the gym. tendou rubbed the guck out of his eyes and waved to you, “oh hey, (l/n)-san.”

“tired?” you offered tendou a sympathetic smile.

tendou nodded and let out a yawn, “very.”

“here,” you handed tendou some canned coffee, “this should help.”

“thanks,” he cracked it open and took a generous sip. tendou let out a satisfied sigh and smiled, “this is some good coffee.”

“glad you like it!” you returned tendou’s smile. tendou could feel his chest tightening at the sight, you were just.. beautiful. it wasn’t fair, you were too beautiful for this world.

“oh, by the way.. whatcha doing outside the gym?” tendou questioned to you.

your cheeks heated up, maybe from the cold air or maybe from embarrassment, “i– i just wanted to tell you that you did a great job at rehearsal today! that’s why..”

tendou’s chest tightened at the praise, “oh really? that means a lot, coming from you!”

“of course!” you brushed back a loose hair from your face, “and i wanted to extend an offer to you.”

“oh?” now tendou was intrigued. 

“if you need any help with rehearsing our one on one scenes, i’m more than happy to help! like our kissing scene!”

tendou grinned, “alrighty! thanks, (l/n)-chan!”

wait, rewind.

kissing scene?

─────────────────

tendou paced about outside of the auditorium. rehearsals were half way through and tendou had yet to confront the fact that he had to kiss you in the show. he should have had read the script ahead of time; what did he get himself into now?

“tendou-san, are you alrighty? you look pale in the face,” hasegawa-sensei greeted tendou by the doors to the auditorium. tendou nearly puked on his shoes but put up his typical tendou satori charade, “oh hey, sensei! how– er.. how are you doing?”

“i’m fine. tendou, what’s wrong? you can be honest with me,” answered hasegawa-sensei with a frown. tendou broke character and confessed to his director, “i’m scared about the kissing scene.”

hasegawa-sensei patted tendou on the back, “oh, it’s more than fine to have some first time jitters! if it makes you feel better, it will be a stage kiss. you won’t actually be kissing (l/n)-san.”

tendou wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or disappointed.

“tendou-san? hasegawa-sensei?” speak of the devil– or in your case, the angel.

“morning, (l/n)-san! ready for rehearsal?” hasegawa-sensei turned his attention to you with a grin. you nodded and fist-pumped the air, “ready as i could ever be! we got this today! right, tendou-san?”

“yup!” he chirped in response, trying his hardest to conceal his fear. 

did tendou really got this?

─────────────────

tendou laid on the auditorium’s dirty stage, eyes closed and pretending to be dead. this was the moment where he would be revived by true love’s kiss. he anxiously waited for you to pretend kiss him.

“please don’t leave me.. come back,” you stage-whispered your line, leaning in to “kiss” tendou on the forehead.

then the worst thing imaginable happened. 

some dust from the stage floor got up into tendou’s nose and he jerked upwards in an attempt to sneeze. his lips collided with yours in a messy kiss, the two of you kissing one another with wide eyes. 

tendou could only stare when you pulled away with wide eyes. he felt like vomiting, as the crowd in the auditorium fell silent. hasegawa-sensei broke the silence and exclaimed, “take five, people!”

tendou stormed out of the auditorium with you hot on his tail. he managed to find a quiet place to hide when you appeared, covering his face in shame. tendou looked back up at you and his voice croaked, “hey.. (l/n)-san..”

“what happened (l/n)-chan?” you asked. 

“i don’t think i have the right to call you that after what happened,” grumbled tendou in embarrassment. you took a seat next to him and rested your head against his shoulder, “hey it’s okay! i know it was an accident! the stage floor is so dusty, it’s only natural for you to sneeze.”

“that was my first kiss.”

“what?” you blinked once, then twice. your face erupted in a fierce blush, “oh– oh my god! it was?! d– did i take your f– first kiss?!”

“hey, hey!” tendou gently gripped you by the shoulders in an effort to calm you now. you stared at him with an erratic look in your eyes, “i– i’m so sorry! you should have had your first kiss with someone special!”

but you’re someone special, (y/n)-chan.

“i’m glad it was you.”

“wh– what?” you stammered.

“i’m glad my first accidental kiss was with you, (y/n)-chan,” tendou replied. 

your face flushed at his words, “n– now, i’m (y/n)-chan? god, y– you’re gonna be the death of me, tendou-san..”

“you can call me satori if you want,” tendou commented to you.

you smiled, “well.. okay, satori-kun. let’s head back to the auditorium.”

god, you were going to be the death of tendou satori.

and you two haven’t practiced the second kiss yet.

─────────────────

today was the day, opening night for shiratorizawa academy’s production of beauty and the beast. tendou was being held hostage by the makeup crew, as they applied his beast makeup. it itched, the fake fur itched against his skin. 

“we need tendou on stage in five!” the stage manager called for him. tendou rose from the makeup chair and examined himself in the mirror. the makeup crew did a great job, he truly looked like a beast. 

“ready to wow the crowd, satori-kun?” tendou turned around and found you standing in the doorway, dressed in belle’s village girl costume. god, you looked adorable. 

“ready whenever you are,” tendou gave you a thumbs up. you returned the thumbs up with a smile and extended a hand to tendou, “let’s wow this crowd.”

tendou took your hand and squeezed it, “let’s wow this crowd.”

the musical progressed quite smoothly, tendou nailing every line of dialogue and music. the crowd was mesmerized by his singing voice and acting skills, as well as yours. 

then it was time, time for the kisses.

tendou laid motionlessly on the ground, thankful that the tech crew dusted the floor beforehand. no more accidental kisses! you approached his still body with heartbreak in your eyes, “please don’t leave me.. come back.”

tendou felt your sweet lips against his forehead, his eyes opening wide and the music playing to play. he “transformed” before the crowd, morphing from a hideous beast into a handsome prince. 

tendou stood before you, dressed in his princely garments and smiling bright, “belle,” he greeted you breathlessly. 

nerves overtook tendou’s mind, as the second kiss– the kiss on the lips– quickly approached. he took a step forward and covered both of your lips with his hands, just as hasegawa-sensei taught him. 

then something unexpected happened.

you pressed your lips against his, a full blown kiss. tendou remained still as possible, unsure what to do. you– his crush– were kissing him. you were kissing him, tendou satori of all people.

fuck it, he thought to himself and allowed himself to get lost in the kiss. the curtains closed on the two of you kissing. tendou didn’t pull away, too into the kiss to realize what was happening. 

“wow,” tendou whispered when the kiss was broken. you touched your forehead to tendou’s and giggled, “that was great, satori-kun.”

“that almost felt.. real,” he sighed with a smile.

“that’s because it was,” you answered, “i like you, tendou satori.”

everything came to a standstill the moment those words came out of your mouth. you liked him? you liked tendou? for real? you weren’t kidding? you actually liked him for him?

“i like you, (l/n) (f/n),” tendou finally responded after a moment. you broke out into a grin and kissed him again, the two of you unaware that the curtains were rising. a shush fell over the crowd at the sight. you two didn’t realize that your mics were on for the long exchange.

“go tendou! go (l/n)!” 

the silence broke. the crowd erupted in cheers, essentially derailing the show. you and tendou looked out onto the crowd sheepishly, both of you holding one another’s hands.

the beast got with the beauty.

tendou couldn’t have asked for a better ending. 

[hellomynameisbisexual]

“Faggot.” “Cocksucker.” “Femboy.” “Abomination.” Gay. The list of names I’ve been called since coming out as bisexual in June 2020 doesn’t stop there — nor did it stop when I went public with my sexual identity either.

From a young age, I knew I was different from my peers.

Maybe it was the way I walked. Or the way I talked. Or the way I dressed. I just knew I stood out to them like a sore thumb — or perhaps a rainbow of color in a sea of dull gray.

My differences became evident to me when other children at the preschool I attended in suburban San Diego, California, would forsake my company in favor of each other, already forming cliques and inciting drama at such an innocent age.

When my family and I moved to dreary Erie, Pennsylvania, I knew my struggles would only get worse.

Many of the children in my kindergarten class had already known each other for several years before I entered the picture.

They quickly noticed differences in my mannerisms, speech patterns, thoughts and ideas. I wasn’t like the other boys, but I wasn’t like the girls either. I was an outlier, a foreigner and a stranger considered dangerous and unwelcome.

Though I made friends the following few years — including some who would become lifelong companions — most of those primary friendships mirrored the kernels of a neglected ear of corn: delicious when ripe but quick to harden, rot and flake off.

By my fourth grade year, I was teased and bullied nearly daily for being too feminine, too weird, too annoying to fit into my school’s social circles.

When I told my teachers about my struggles, their solution was to attempt to masculinize me by placing me in groups of athletic boys in my class, boys I had nothing in common with and who certainly had nothing in common with me.

Even my grandparents — then and now my caretakers — noticed my un-boyish behavior and enrolled me in the local little league baseball team — whether to also attempt to instill in me a sense of masculinity and male toughness or to help me make new friends I knew not.

I would grudgingly participate in the sport for six, nigh on seven grueling years, never making a single lasting friend and crying almost weekly from the torment it caused me.

Needless to say, I felt like a floundering fish without fins in a sea of angry, hungry sharks during those years.

It wasn’t until the final year of my elementary education that I was introduced to the concepts of puberty, adolescence and sex.

I was told that very soon, I would start noticing the girls in my class and would begin to want to form meaningful relationships with them. Eventually, I would become sexually attracted to them and want to have children with them.

But in those coming years, though many girls would pique my interest, it wasn’t them who ignited the fire in my soul and made me feel the burning passion of desire — it was men.

I quickly realized it was this that set me apart from my male peers and resulted in me being shunned by the girls. I was a boy — soon to be a man — in every physical way, but I wasn’t attracted to or passionate about girls like the other boys in my class were. I was obsessed with men.

But I couldn’t possibly be gay, could I?

Growing up in a household of religious relatives, I was always taught that sex before marriage was a wicked abomination and that being anything but straight was a sin comparable to none.

I distinctly remember watching a news broadcast with my family around the time I was transitioning to my middle school years. The ABC World News clip showcased LGBT marriages being performed out west and contained affirming remarks from then-President Barack Obama on the matter.

“The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman,” I remember my aunt saying in utter disgust at the television, murmurs of agreement echoing her around the room.

I resolved then to hide my feelings and my pubescent curiosity from my family at all costs, lest I be scolded, shunned or worse: abandoned.

During middle school, I relentlessly dug deep within myself and attempted to alter what I thought was but a simple mental barrier to social normality. All thoughts of being with men were forcibly suppressed in my mind before they could even become tangible, and each of my increasingly urgent bodily needs went ignored and unsatiated.

I even resorted to religion, the only weapon I thought strong enough to aid me in the war raging inside myself.

Day and night, I attempted to “pray the gay away,” but to little avail. Much to my chagrin, I realized that even divine intervention could not “help” me: My homosexuality seemed to be an immortal, malignant tumor infecting each and every one of my thoughts.

Thus, the preliminary years of my second decade of life became miserable and unfulfilling — I was engaged in a fierce battle with an integral aspect of my identity and was inadvertently shattering the chains that bound a beast capable of obliterating every fiber of my cognitive being — anxiety.

By my high school years, men — mean, nasty and indifferent but awe-inspiring, mystifying and oh-so-gorgeous men — had begun to control my deepest, darkest desires and fantasies. My lust had grown large enough to thwart even my most furious attempts at diminishing it.

As I slowly came to terms with the realization that nothing in the universe could “fix” me, my mental situation severely worsened. I fell into a dangerous downward spiral of self-doubt and woefulness.

My relationship with my grandparents quickly began to deteriorate, as did my relationships with my friends. Every day brought with it a new reason to hate my existence — the constant verbal altercations, the continued teasing and even bullying at school, the countless lonely nights spent sobbing quietly into my pillow.

And, to make matters worse, the true nature of my sexuality seemed to express itself in each of my social mannerisms. It wasn’t long before despicable rumors about me spread through the student body of my high school like wildfire.

My teachers noticed my strife, and some took the time to speak with me about a few of the different mental illnesses they suspected I had. But not even they could halt the hordes of horrifying thoughts racing through my head or the string of ruthless comments that would assault me in the hallways.

Soon, however, the light at the end of the long, grueling tunnel that was public education began to shine: I was graduating from high school and about to start fresh. Nothing could have contained my excitement at the prospect of escaping the largest source of my daily torment.

As I digested the freedom going to college offered, idealistic daydreams began to flood my mind — I could live how I wanted with whomever I wanted, and no one could judge me or tell me differently.

How wrong I was.

My first year as an undergraduate student at Penn State Behrend was a living hell.

Though the petty and immature teasing of high school was no longer an issue, standing up for my newfound political identity was, as well as dealing with my growing anxiety.

I was constantly engaged in polite yet heated political debates with those in my dorm. I felt like they were blatantly attempting to oppress me with their own beliefs and had grown to hate me for mine.

The same situation occurred with my grandparents, and we grew increasingly distant over the course of that year.

It didn’t help that I was still “in the closet,” so to speak, and contemplating methods of publicly revealing my true sexual identity. I hadn’t yet officially told anyone I was bisexual, and it remained my most closely guarded secret.

Needless to say, my social circumstances and the added stress of my adjustment to college academics and lifestyle allowed my mental state to reach an unprecedented low. I needed help.

That same year, I saw my family physician and then a psychiatrist, who prescribed me antidepressants in an attempt to lessen my now untameable anxiety. I took them with gusto and also began attending therapy sessions to teach me how to manage my thoughts and emotions.

For a small while, I felt better — I was actually happy in my skin and even happy with my bisexuality.

But then, even my long-awaited mental comfort abandoned me, and I slipped into the deepest, darkest pit of my life.

I became suicidal but never acted on that petrifying potentiality.

I didn’t trust myself to be alone, so I constantly sought the company of others, which only made me feel like a nuisance and waste of time, energy and space.

About a month later — in October 2018 — I got into an accident.

I was barrelling down the highway, escaping a particularly heated verbal altercation with my grandfather. It was raining that day, and the roads were slippery.

Going around a curve, I lost control of my vehicle and flew into a small ravine, flipping not once, not twice but three times in midair before landing upright — dazed, but alive.

Escaping relatively physically unscathed from the incident, with only a broken right clavicle, I was not mentally the same for weeks afterward.

I decided at that time I would come out and reveal my true sexuality at the soonest possible opportunity — I blamed my silence on every terrible situation that had occurred in my life up to that point. If I didn’t come out, I quite literally thought I would die.

Telling even my closest friends was difficult, but I managed, and the relief I felt was paramount to that of the titan Atlas in Greek mythology: I felt like the weight of the entire world — sky and all — had been lifted from my shoulders.

Fast forward to the present: I’m alive, well, out and proud. I’m no longer ashamed of my innate traits or of my thoughts.

Being a bisexual man has taught me many lessons, but foremost among them is that the people who can’t accept me for who and what I am don’t deserve to be in my life.

My anxiety made it difficult to let go of toxic relationships over the years — I learned that the primary source of my mental strife is a fear of abandonment by those I care about — but doing so opened the door to newer, healthier relationships that build me up and boost my confidence instead of chipping away at it.

I’ve since improved tremendously, and not even the onset of the coronavirus pandemic was able to pause my progress. Every day is a learning experience, and I’ve grown so much from the helpless boy I was mere months ago that if you showed me a map of my mentality from 2018, 2019 or even 2020, I wouldn’t recognize myself at all.

Revealing my bisexuality to the world didn’t solve all my issues — there were and still are other factors that contribute to my anxiety and mental health — but coming out was perhaps the most profound, life-altering moment in my 21 years. Nothing compares to the freedom I now enjoy, nor will any other experience compare to the relief I felt following my announcement.

[yangsrose]

Blurbs of my WIPS

The order of these are not the order of them being released, but rather in a random order

if you would like to be added to the tag list for any of these please send an ask or reply to this post!!

WIP #1: Xiaojun Fic (heavily based off of the book "Son" by Lois Lowry)

Water. That’s all you felt around you. Water sloshing up and taking over every little part of you, leaving little to no air for you to breathe. You slowly felt your body get submerged by the harsh waves, and before you knew it, you were sucked into the black abyss. You closed your eyes to stop the harsh stings of the salt water, feeling a peaceful spirit come over you as you sunk deeper and deeper into the water.

The next thing you felt was a burning sensation in your lungs. Wanting to get rid of the water that was forcing its way up, you coughed out the cold, bitter liquid that was congesting your lungs. A pair of sweet, warm lips met yours, serving as a contrast to the sea water, and you felt air being forcefully pushed into your airways. You opened your eyes and blurrily saw a man towering over you, his small yet muscular frame hovering over you in worry. You closed your eyes once again, feeling tired from the effort put into taking out the water in your lungs and once again sunk into the familiar black abyss.

WIP #2: Ten FBI AU (based off of this time stamp)

Ten’s job was fairly easy. Or so he liked to believe that. I mean, all he did was just sit in front of a computer and monitor people as they surfed the internet on a daily basis, and make sure that they didn’t do anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. Since he was one of the newer recruits, he was scheduled to look over the more innocent people such as the ones who never searched up anything bad or out of the ordinary. His daily searches consisted of “how to bake a cake” or "how to make a necklace". Innocent stuff as these topics whizzed by his computer screen daily, leading for an easy job on his end. That however, changed when he got assigned to you.

Your searches weren’t… bad or anything, they were just more on the questionable side. In the beginning, your searches were always definitions to words, or just memes that you didn’t remember to save but really needed to send to a friend since you thought it was appropriate. For example, once you searched up “chicken with a knife meme”. Since your search included the word “knife”, Ten was alerted of it, but he dismissed it, not taking the search seriously since he too had that same meme saved as a contact picture for one of his friends.

It wasn’t until your searches became a bit more... progressive for a lack of better terms that Ten began to grow worried. Your searches started pretty innocently, such as “How to erase fingerprints from a surface” and he just suspected that you accidentally got fingerprints on a laptop screen and just wanted to erase them. But after a while, you began searching up things like “acids to get rid of blood stains” and “blunt surfaces that can cause a head trauma.” That caused him to become concerned. He began to monitor your searches more closely, and it wasn’t until recently one day when you searched something extremely concerning that he realised that you were someone that required to be monitored at all times.

Ten called for his boss, showing him the most recent search on your end. “Non-lethal stab wounds'' popped up on the bright screen, and Ten looked back at his boss to see a mirror expression of wide eyes looking back at him.

“I think we have to send you undercover.” Ten’s boss said. He simply nodded and got up from his seat, walking over to his apartment to get everything ready for his mission.

WIP #3: YangYang Zombie Apocalypse AU

"Wait wait wait don't shoot I'm a human I promise!" the young boy held up his hands and walked out from behind the wall the he was using as his hiding place. You refused to lower your weapon down, not wanting to let your guard down out of a fear of being tricked into your own death. You made eye contact with him and felt your hands shake, fearing that the worst might come to you.

As he walked closer, you realised that he was in fact who he claimed to be, the light tan colour of his skin glowing under the moonlight. You felt the gun drop from your hands and your body seemed to work on its own, causing you to run up to him and do the unthinkable.

You kissed him right on his lips.

WIP #4: Kun Astronaut AU

Being one of the only female biomedical engineers in NASA led to some pretty beneficial aspects of your workspace. For example, you were never asked to stay longer than an hour before sunset, out of a fear that you wouldn't be able to reach home safely. The only downside was the fact that you were the smallest one on the team, which put you in some... well, for a lack of better terms, unfortunate circumstances.

If anyone asked you how you ended up face to face in a underwater lab with your workplace crush, you would not be able to tell them why you were in this situation, but what you could tell them was that even after working strenuously underwater for the past 48 hours, Qian Kun still had the softest skin known to mankind.

WIP#5: YangYang Racer AU

why did this take so long to find an except that actually made sense😭

“You'll love YangYang trust me. He’s a first year just like you, and he’s single” Hendery said, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

“Why does that matter.” you scoffed, rolling your eyes at the older boy’s antics.

“Just saying.” Hendery said, shrugging his shoulders. You sighed and shook your head, being hit with the smell of freshly roasted coffee as soon as you entered the cafe. Hendery looked around and spotted his roommate, whose back was currently faced towards the both of you. Hendery walked up to him and tapped his shoulder, causing the male to turn around. As you made eye contact with him, you felt your breath hitched up in your throat.

The boy in front of you was absolutely ethereal.

His dark brown hair swept over his forehead, parting a little in the middle. HIs wide eyes scanned over the both of you, scrunching up as his gummy smile overtook his face, standing up to greet you. He was absolutely adorable, resembling a small puppy or sheep with his fluffy hair flopping over his eyes. Hendery noticed your state and smiled before muttering a soft “whipped” under his breath before introducing him to you.

“This is my roommate YangYang. He’s studying automotive engineering as well but secretly he wants to be a formula one racer- OW why are you hitting me? That’s the truth, right?”

“No one’s supposed to know that!” the younger male gritted through his teeth, sending Hendery a fiery glare.

“Sorry about him, Hendery has trouble keeping his mouth shut.” YangYang said, glaring at Hendery in the process.

“I’m y/n.” You muttered, feeling shy all of a sudden. YangYang beamed and stuck his hand out to you to shake, which you took gratefully. You felt your hands get clammy at the thought of holding hands with him, and you felt as if you were stuck in some sort of a trance as you shook his hand.

“Okay love birds you both can hold each others hands at the table let’s get going come on now.” Hendery walked towards the table while turning back to smirk at the both of you. You and YangYang let go of each other's hands and followed Hendery to the table, feeling your faces grow warm at his comment. You gritted your teeth and walked over to the table, silently vowing to never let him use your notes the next time he asked for them.

WIP #6: YangYang Haunted House AU

"YangYang I swear if you try to scare me one more time I will leave you here all alone and I don't care if you're the only way that I can get out of here."

"Uhh y/n? That wasn't me. I'm over here." YangYang said, appearing from the small passageway that was in front of you.

"Wait. If you didn't tap my shoulder, then who did?" you asked, feeling the hair on the back of your neck raise. You turned around and found yourself face to face with a bloodied man holding a pickaxe who was currently swinging it uncomfortably close to you. You felt a scream rise up on your throat and you screamed while grabbing YangYang's arm, using all the strength in your body to pull him along with you. YangYang soon began running faster than you, and he started pulling you after him through the numerous twists and turns.

"Next time you ask me to go anywhere with you I'm saying no" you said, venom seeping through your voice along with deep gasps for air.

"Agreed" YangYang said, regretting every action that led up to his decision.

WIP #6: YangYang Gamer AU

"So you're saying you've never played a single game in your life."

"Do coolmath games count? Because if so I am a beast at fire boy and water girl." you said, your eyes lighting up at the fond memories of playing that game. YangYang sighed and rubbed his temples, feeling stressed at the fact that there was a lot more than he expected to have to teach you.

"Okay how about this. You, me, tomorrow after school in my dorms to learn how to play games because there is no way that I am letting my best friend go their entire life without knowing how to play anything other than coolmath games."

WIP #7: Sungchan Spider-Man AU

"You're Spider-Man. The one who was just on the news." you said, feeling your heart rate accelerate.

"No? What are you talking about? I think you had too much caffeine and too little sleep let's get you to bed now." Sungchan said, maneuvering you over to the door.

"Sungchan, I just saw you crawling on the ceiling and you just shot a web out of your wrist. I even pinched myself so I know for a fact that this was not a hallucination." you said, your speech accelerating with every word. Sungchan sighed and tried to look for a way to cover up his odd behaviour, but in the end opted against it when he realised he was still wearing his suit.

"Please tell no one." he pleaded, turning around to face you with the biggest puppy eyes.

"So it is true" you whispered, your eyes growing wide at the revelation. The last thing you remember was seeing Sungchan's panicked eyes as he lunged forward to catch you before darkness enveloped you.

WIP #8: Johnny Secret Agent AU

"What do you mean run?" you asked, turning to face your partner.

"I may or may not have accidentally set off a bomb timer somewhere around here and if we do not book it out of here in the next two minutes we are going to be like the toast that you had this morning."

"Hey! Just because I like my toast slightly burned does not mean that you can make fun of it."

"You call that slightly burnt? The whole bread was a different colour and the house smelled like smoke." you scoffed and rolled your eyes before turning away from Johnny, wondering why the both of you were still here.

"What's taking Mark so long?"

"Listen here Mark if I die I will haunt you in my sleep please find a way to get us out of here." Johnny said, speaking into the in ear that was directly connected to your "man in the chair" back at the headquarters. You heard frantic typing as Mark tried to find a way out of the room, but as every second passed, it was apparent to you that you and Johnny were one second closer to your great demise. Thinking quickly, you grabbed Johnny's hand and ran out of the room, hearing Mark's voice as he directed you throughout the area, leading you two to safety only a few mere seconds before the bomb went off.

WIP #9: WayV Social Media AU

You think your roommate is going to take you out sometime soon, but you don't know whether it's with a knife or on a date.

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

His Blood Runs Gold IV

Percy is a God: Part IV

Here’s my masterlist for the next part and my other stuff

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

we are products of war

and enemies of peace

we are universes finally standing still

ready, ready, ready

to destroy us all

this time

there is only power baby boy

and i will be brutal.

“Hey,” Jason said faintly, tapping the bubble.

Percy stood from his perch on the rock and waved goodbye to the school of fish he had been talking to. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Like I haven’t slept that well in months.”

Percy produced an immortal grin at that, “You hungry?”

“Starved, you got any of those cookies?”

“You sure you don’t want a proper meal first?”

“Where are we gonna get a proper meal from? My backpack has some lonely granola bars and possibly a fast over-ripening banana.” His eyes furrowed in confusion.

The God simply smiled, “What do you feel like?”

Jason gave him a look but said, “Breakfast burrito?”

He laughed, flicking his wrist and before the demigod could blink a foil-wrapped cylinder appeared in the bubble.

Mouth hanging open, Jason grabbed the burrito and unwrapped it before staring between the God and his breakfast like his head might explode.

“I promise it’s safe to eat.”

“You can just- you just?” The blonde was at a loss for words.

“Believe it or not, it isn’t really handy now. When I was a demigod, I would have loved to have that neat little trick but these days I don’t need to eat much.”

“Well if nothing else I’m keeping you around for that alone.” Jason mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“So you’re just gonna use me for your own selfish needs?”

“Mhmm it may be nice to use the gods for once, instead of the other way around.”

“Fair enough,” He shrugged, and wondered when he’d stop feeling the blow of that statement, uttered so many times by his friends and former camp-buddies alike.

He knew how they felt, hell he had felt like that once; but since becoming one of those gods it was hard not to feel hollowed out. He knew the half-bloods wouldn’t outright curse them, but Percy still heard all their bitter thoughts, He wasn’t sure if it was because he was the god for demigods that the whispers followed him around like a ringing in his head.

Jason’s voice pulled him back to the present.

“Anyway, thank you for the breakfast,”

“Uh yea no problem. So, I was thinking about the prophecy and the direction of the north star,”

“Yea what about it?”

“We’ve been heading south and if my coordinates are correct, we should reach the equator in a day or two”

“Are you saying we’re headed in the wrong direction?” Blue eyes widened.

“No, I think your direction is good, I do think, however, that the arrow isn’t on land. I think it’s in the ocean just before the equator.”

“Why there?”

“You can only see the north star in the northern hemisphere, after the equator it disappears. The further south you go the lower on the horizon it is, which means at some point it looks like it’s on the horizon or close enough.”

“So, you’re saying the arrow sits underneath the star at its lowest point?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Okay that’s good news.” Jason took a deep breath, raking a hand over his face. “I guess we just wait for night and keep following the star.”

‘Actually…” Percy grinned,

“You have a plan?”

“If we just have to get to the equator, I can take us there now.”

“How would you know when we’re there?”

“I know the coordinates at any time when I’m at sea. Son of Poseidon and all that.”

“Well I’m convinced.” Jason nodded, thoughts fluttering behind his eyes. “How are we doing this?”

“I think it’s time to call in a friend.”

With a low whistle, that defied the laws of nature, because how on earth do you whistle underwater, the God whipped a dazzling smile over his shoulder.

“Do I want to know what you’ve invited to the party?”

“You’ll see.”

Just then the water rushed around them. When the clouds of sand and swirling water disappeared a beautiful, iris-coloured beast revealed itself, along with a cyclops already barreling towards them.

“Brother!”

They slammed into each other and Percy was grateful for his godly bones, because he’s sure his mortal ones wouldn’t have survived that collision.

“Hello Tyson, how are you?” He laughed in relief, in comfort.

“I knew I’d see you. A school of firemouth-killfish passed by and said you were around.”

“Thank you for coming. I’m helping Jason and I need Rainbow’s speed.”

“Of course, brother. What are you doing?”

“Jason has a quest to find Eros’ arrows.”

Finally Tyson looked over Percy’s shoulder to see the demigod still wrapped in a bubble, bobbing behind them.

“Jason. I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“Hello Tyson, how are you?”

“I am good. And you are good?”

“Yes thank you. How’s Ella?”

His brother flushed a red as bright as Corallium.

“She is nice, fine.”

Percy decided to put the poor cyclops out of his misery and focus their attention on the mission at hand.

“Rainbow, can you take us where we need to go?”

The hippocampus gave a noise of agreement and brushed its head along Percy’s arm.

“We must be off,” He said, turning to Tyson.

“When will you be back?” A brown eye blinked in question.

“As soon as Love finds us, I guess,” Percy winked.

It was Jason’s turn to blush the colour of coral, but the god was already looking away, turning to hug his brother.

“I will see you soon Tyson.”

“Goodbye Percy,” and with a wave to Jason the cyclops was gone.

“Alright Jas–“

Percy had felt the deepest senses of fear and love and sadness many times, but never in his twenty years of life had he felt such raging, storm-filled anger. For standing behind an oblivious Son of Jupiter, ready to pounce was a sea creature that probably spawned from the depths of Tartarus itself.

It hadn’t noticed the God, or it wouldn’t even have dared come close to this space.

With a light brush against Rainbow’s side, the hippocampus disappeared. He turned fully, focusing on the beast, hiding himself within the folds of the current. He watched as it slithered out it’s tongue in sickening excitement.

“Jackson you were in the middle of saying something?”

He didn’t bother replying as the creature looked up, finally taking notice of everything other than his prey.

“Hello, found something to enjoy?”

“What?” Jason said

“This fight it not with you Percy Jackson,” It gurgled

Before they could take their next breath, the monster swiped its tail through the bubble and slammed Jason to the ocean floor. Something cracked, the demigod did not rise again.

Percy’s smile was sharp and terrifying.

“That,” He laughed, “Was not very smart.”

With a single movement of his fingers he wrenched the water from the monster’s body.

It seized and gasped, flopping about in the air pocket it found itself in.

“The fight is always with me if it involves my friends,” Malice dripped from the God’s lips.

The monster tried to respond, try to splutter and roar but there was no water in its gills. It gasped and writhed, attempting to escape the air.

Percy simply smiled, darkness gleaming in his green eyes, and watched as the Ketos Troias suffocated.

“Jason slayed you when he was fourteen, just a young demigod, but you decided to come back and oh what a horrible mistake that was,” He wondered briefly if he sounded as manic as he felt, and then decided he didn’t care. “Because now, now you have to deal with me, and I will not make it pretty.”

“I will kill you Percy Jackson,” It rasped.

“You can try.” He laughed, and then spat, “And it’s Lord to you.”

Its eyes widened as Percy revealed his godly form, golden light basking him. With a final roar, the monster turned to dust.

He heard a gasp from below and saw Jason finally coming to it, pushing on the walls of the new bubble Percy had formed around him.

“Are you okay?”

“Feel like I’ve been smacked with a ten-ton sledgehammer and I may have a broken rib but otherwise dandy.”

“Oh good, here’s some ambrosia.” He handed a small square to the demigod who nodded in thanks and gobbled it down.

“Was that the Trojan Sea Monster?”

“Yes, seems it was feeling revengeful.”

“Did you send it back to whatever hole it came from?”

The grin that graced his face could kill mortals, “It’s scattered in the deepest depths of Tartarus. It shouldn’t bother you in this lifetime again.”

“Shall we go then?”

Jason stared at him, and grinned back.

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

One of the strangest things I’ve ever googled was “type of fish off the Liberian coast” because i needed Tyson to be accurate when he told Percy fish had been talking to him. So yes firemouth-killfish do in fact exist and they do reside in the North Atlantic Ocean. Liberia is around where i pictured the two would be at this point. Anyway just some fun fic A/N’s for ya.

How are you guys finding it? Tell me your thoughts because i am inexplicably in love with Dark!Percy and i need to know if others are too????

Tags (if you want to be added to/ taken off the tag list just let me know, all my channels of communication are open):

@thepersonyourparentswishyouwere @lesbian-peanuts @thegirlwiththegoldenarm @thatis-americas-ass @whatevertakesmyfancy @lucyisblue @lrelikohll @tmifangirl24 @queenkivi @nishlicious-01 @whitelacepants @leydiangelo @urbanpineapplefarmer @queen-of-demons-and-hell

[dogboy-willgraham]

Crabs??

*Does the Crab Rave* So...crabs. From Dungeness to King (King Crabs aren’t true crabs but whatever) crabs are some of the most eaten crustaceans next to lobsters. I think personally think they’re terrible taste wise, but they’re pretty cool in other ways. 

(Except when they invade other places and go absolutely nuts. *Cough* King Crabs *cough cough* No worries though. I’m pretty sure we got it under control. Maybe. I can’t find consistent reports. I’m pretty sure we’re good though. Maybe. Don’t quote me.) 

While I could’ve gone with a nice little Purple Shore Crab I decided no, not today. We’re going to talk about something that probably shouldn’t exist. The Japanese Spider Crab. If you don’t know about this unholy beast already, then good for you. You’re about to. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love these big bois, but look at this bitch and tell me it belongs here:

[ID: A picture of a Japanese Spider Crab on a black background. End ID]

Remember, the ocean is terrifying and we should be very careful about exploring it, this is only the beginning of what’s down there. Only the beginning. 

People used to think that they dragged sailors off boats to their deaths, and I mean can you blame them? If I were a sailor, doing my sailor things, trying to flirt with the captain by keeping my shirt unbuttoned, and saw this, I too would think death was near. I also would go and pet it so I have no survival instinct it seems. They don’t actually pose a threat to humans, they scavenge carrion and hunt tiny animals or eat plants. So I suppose if you’re under 5 feet you’re in danger /j. Sorry 4′10, you were meant for a spectacular death /j. 

Japanese Spider Crabs are tall, and Big. Their leg span alone is on average 12.5 feet or 3.81 meters. *Legs by Lucian Piane starts blasting* And for looking quite thin, they weigh 42 pounds or roughly 19 kilos on average. 

Compare that to the Dungeness Crab, a very common and popular crab in culinary use, who at best only gets 10 inches/25 centimeters in width. At best. More common is 7-8 inches/17.78-20.32 centimeters. Big Big Bois. 

So, you’d think for having that much leg they’d be well built, right? Wrong. They’re weak and poorly attached at the joints. They looked Survival of The Fittest in the eyes and laughed. When caught, they’re usually found with missing legs, which will regrow when they molt. So I guess it’s alright to have weak ass legs if they regrow. 

These guys live a long time, about 100 years. So remember, these things are older than you and often will outlive you, a baby will likely be there past your life, past your child(ren)’s lives, and maybe some of your grandchild(ren)’s lives. Assuming you have kid(s) and they have kid(s). Some things exist to keep us humble and remind us of the inevitable end and remind us how small we are in the whole universe, and this is one of them.

These guys live at about 50-600 meters under the surface, mostly in Honshū,  Kagoshima Prefecture, and Tokyo Bay. Deep as fuck. 

King Crabs are a type of decorator crab. Juveniles put little sponges and other things on their shells to camouflage. Adults don’t seem to exhibit this behavior, given they have very few predators where they live. Which is like, what the heck evolution I want a giant crab with a little sea sponge on it’s head. Eat a dick. And go fix what you did with humans and periods instead of pulling this shit-

Ehem. 

While this species has not been reviewed for conservation status, they are thought to be doing just fine, there has been a decline in large-scale fishing for them because of how deep they live so deep. And climate change doesn’t seem to be affecting them so far. The moral here is if you evolve to live so deep capitalism won’t bother you. So this is why I am moving into the midnight zone wanna come- 

 Though Japan considers them a delicacy, but will not allow fishing during breeding season. Which is awesome! This prevents a severe decline by letting them reproduce and make more so that when a some adults are taken for food it doesn’t hurt the population. When we don’t do this, we end up with empty lakes/rivers that have to be filled with farm grown fish that aren’t as big as they were before. This has literally happened in the US. A lake/river my dad and/or other male family member used to fish in was overfished and a farm grown population had to be made to replace them. Don’t overfish y’all, don’t take home small fish, they’re likely babies/juveniles, and make sure that there’s a firm limit and little/no fishing during a breeding season. 

I don’t believe that has been done with ocean animals, the best we can do then is rescue injured creatures and release them when better, and prevent them from getting to endangered in the first place. 

I love my dear Japanese Spider Crabs, even if they’re slightly terrifying, they deserve to be protected forever. 

[big-bad-a-detective-story]

CHAPTER 03

It was obvious I wasn’t getting anywhere with the kid nor the creep, so I decided I’d try my luck with the woman at the root of it all; Ms. Fawcett herself. In only moments, I was knocking on her cottage door. I was soon greeted by the smiling face of what appeared to be a kindly old woman. But I knew better than to let my guard down for a second.

“Oh, hello, dear!” The old woman readjusted her spectacles and got a better look at me. If her frown was any indication, she wasn’t pleased with what she saw. “You’re not Little Red ...”

“How astute of you, ma’am. I’m known around these parts as the Big Bad Wolf, and I’ve got a few choice questions I’d like to--”

“Oh my, wolf? Wolf!”

I’m not sure which hurt worse in that moment: my feelings, or my snout when she slammed the door in my face. Alright, fine. It was quickly becoming clear to me that a direct approach wasn’t going to work here. On to plan B.

The B stands for boring, and boy was it. A good stakeout takes patience, vigilance, and dedication to the craft. I just so happen to possess all three in spades, but even I was beginning to nod off in the tree I’d perched myself in by the time I spotted movement along the adjacent treeline. 

It was Larry Lemonade! Just this fact alone was enough to jolt my senses-- as well as nearly caused me to topple from my roost. Grabbing onto the sturdy branch of the tree, I shielded my eyes with a free hand. 

All the better to see him with, you know.

Larry was the perfect vision of a sneaking snike-- mostly because that was what he was doing. He slithered out from behind the trees, tip-toeing through shrubbery as he made it to the door of Fawcett’s cottage. I watched, ever vigilant, as the depraved delinquent turned himself side to side-- no doubt on the lookout for my familiar face.  

Ha! For someone who took such pride in his intelligence, apparently looking UP was above him! 

After a few minutes the wolf seemed satisfied enough, straightening his crooked frame as he knocked on the door. It was only as an afterthought that Larry bent over to pluck a handful of posies from the window box, holding them as a makeshift bouquet.

It was the moment the old woman had opened the door to her home that I had realized my mistake: I was too far away to hear anything! Cursing that my brilliance had been my downfall, I strained my eyes to get a better view. I happen to be an amatuer lip reader, so it was at that moment my skill was put to the test.

Ah, Fawcett was surprised. Larry handed the flowers over, something about ‘for you, my dear’. My head was beginning to ache from the agony of my peepers peeping beyond their limits, but I could see that scoundrel kissing her hand, and Fawcett feigning a demure attitude. My frustration was building, and it was building fast. 

I didn’t need to see Larry getting himself a sugar granny, after all!

Thankfully some higher power was on my side, as the flirting came to an end. Either  Maybelle was suddenly offering an avocado, or she had just asked the wolf to come in.

“The plot thickens!” I cried out triumphantly, troubling my temporary twittering neighbors. But who cared about THEM, anyway. No birds were going to keep me from my case!

The robins apparently disagreed, as their sudden swooping caused me to tumble out of the tree. But no matter! The vines and underbrush I now found myself entangled in provided the perfect cover I needed. I’ve gotten so adept at camouflage, I don’t even need to try anymore.

I heard her long before I saw her. I'd know that chipper humming anywhere. And wouldn’t you know it, a moment later there she was, skipping into the clearing, her basket in one hand, a bouquet of flowers in her other. The final piece of the puzzle had arrived, and I waited, I watched, held in place just as much by my keen sense of intuition, as by the shrubbery.

Red shifted the flowers to her other hand, and she knocked on the door. The door opened, but it wasn’t the old woman standing there.

“Hiya, Granny! Hey wait,,,”

The girl was snatched up so quickly I barely saw it, her optimistic cry of “Whee!” cut off abruptly as she was pulled inside, the door slamming shut behind her. I was beginning to think maybe the girl was in danger, after all.

It wasn’t the time to think of suspects, it was time to save lives! The make it or break it moment where heroes were born!

Thus, quite naturally, my birth of valor was through breaking the cottage window.

Glass shattering was merely a cymbal in the sea of sounds coming from the home-- heavy thuds and muffled screams being the key notes. I might not have known the full story of what was going on, but I knew trouble when I heard it on the soundtrack of life! So, I used this opportunity to stretch my paw inside-- fiddling with the lock on the other side. The noise continued, and I was beginning to grow-- dare I say it-- worried.

With a small metallic click I was allowed entrance.  AHA! It was with a cry of success that I threw up the panel, and climbed inside-- only just missing having the window slam back down on my back. I clambered to my back paws, dusting my coat and gave a look about.

The place was an absolute wreck-- and I didn’t just mean from the taste of tacky furniture! Tables were flipped, picture frames were thrown to the floor. Chairs were… Actually, they were fine--BUT EVERYTHING ELSE! Oooh, this had the markings of a genuine struggle!

My deducing would have to wait, as it was the sound of the little girl screaming that sprung me into action.

“I gotcha Red!”

 I scurried to the foyer, followed by stumbling up the steps. I was huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top floor. Another cry! All that stood between me and saving the child was a simple door.

I charged with everything I had.

I collapsed, along with the wooden door. Boy, they sure don’t build houses like they used to anymore… Where were the Walrus and the Carpenter when you needed them?

Oh, right. Prison.

I shook my head, visions of singing oysters leaving me as I took in the room I had so desperately demanded entrance to. Blinking with heavy eyes, I was shocked by what I saw!

The room was absolutely deserted.

The open window told me everything I needed to know … granny and the girl had been nabbed. But where had Larry taken them, and for what purpose? I asked myself these very questions as I descended the stairs, my deep contemplative concentration broken by a loud clatter that could have only been the front door crashing open.

Even more guests? The last thing I needed. Or perhaps the very thing I needed … perhaps whoever it was had seen something, had some information vital to this new questionable quandary I suddenly found myself with. I continued my way down the stairs, and prepared to confront the guest.

Or the intruder.

What I didn’t expect, however, was to see a modern day Adonis. If you asked a barkeep for a tall glass of water, this guy would be the equivalent of getting the whole barrel. Seemingly kind eyes were tinged with worry, as the large lumbering man stumbled through the door. He picked it up afterwards, leaning it back into its frame in some sort of manner of bashful etiquette. Hand on his ax-- Woodsman, then-- he called into the destroyed home.

“Mrs. Fawcett? Ma’am? You home? I brought you this week’s supply!” Boots crushed a picture frame, the lad stopping in his tracks as he bent over to pluck it from under his heel. “Oh my, bingo must have been intense. Shame I missed it!”

This was said with enough cheer that it caused me to facepalm from my spot on the stairs. Oh no, the kid was a nimrod in every sense of the word! I continued to watch: while I was sure he wasn’t the brains of the operation, I wasn’t yet sure where the Woodsman fell on the morality scale. (For all I knew he was a goon of Larry’s!) After I witnessed a cleanup of the crime scene, the Woodsman stopped himself to frown at the rest of the mess.

I could practically hear the squeaks of unused wheels, as the lad was attempting to make a thought.

“I… am beginning to suspect this wasn’t from bingo.”

“Nooo, you THINK?”

My outburst came as a surprise to us both-- my only weakness being the fact I couldn’t stand the simpleminded. Unfortunately for me, I wouldn’t be standing for long: for the moment the Woodsman spotted my fury complexion… Well, let’s just say profiling caused the oaf to have an ax to grind with little old me. 

I have no shame in admitting I yelped, falling down the stairs as I dodged the swing of the blade.

“H-hey, pal, let’s be reasonable!”

Another swing of the ax told me that logic and reason may not have been this guy’s strong suit. The way said ax sliced through an overturned table, barely missing me as I scrambled out of the way, told me he may have been wearing his strong suit,

“Halt, foul beast!” This man had a voice like a tuba. “What have you done with poor Ms. Fawcett? I don’t see her anywhere!”

“I’ve been trying to tell you! If you’d just put the ax away, and give me a chance to explain myself...”

My wit is quicker than my legs, I’m afraid, and I failed to escape the hand the size of my head. I was snatched up off the ground like an unfortunate rabbit in the talons of a hungry hawk. The brute of a man looked me up and down as I dangled there. 

Not my most prideful moment.

“Hmmm. You didn’t eat her, did you?”

“EAT HER?!”

Now, let me tell you a thing or two about wolves: we get a bad rap. Sometimes it felt like wolves were getting the short end of the stick on everything.  Treating all the world's problems on wolves like me. You know what it’s like to get stink eyes everywhere you go? Can’t even fish for a bargain on salmon without people grabbing their kids and running for the hills!

So let’s just say I am a smiggen sensitive when it comes to the subject.

“I’ll show YOU ‘eat her’!” I growled, rage blinding me as I attempted to do the same to the bigot-- claws swiping at nothing. “I walked IN on this, you loony lout! Now put me DOWN before I-”

If the Woodsman considered my threat, even for a fraction of a second, it didn’t show. Head starting to feel like a cheap stress toy, the barbarian secured his grip as he began stomping towards the kitchen.

At this, I protested.

“Hey! Where are you taking me? You can’t do this! I’m a detective: I have RIGHTS!”

I was starting to think the sore throat I was getting from yelling was all for nothing-- especially as the guy ignored me. In some ways that was WORSE than being accused of sentience cannibalism. However, I quickly deduced what the plan was, as I saw the Woodsman reaching for the phone hanging on the wall. 

My suspicions were confirmed when I heard the seven words every detective loathed to hear:

“I’d like to speak to the police.”

[kkintle]

Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wisława Szymborska; Quotes

Dreams flickered on white canvas.

The future—who can guess it. The past—who’s got it right.

Trite Rhymes     A great joy: flower upon flower, the branches stretch in pristine blue, but there’s a greater: today’s Tuesday, tomorrow will bring mail from you, and still greater: the letter trembles, strange reading it in spots of sun, and still greater: just a week now, now just four days, now it’s begun, and still greater: I kneel on top and make the suitcase lid shut tight, and still greater: the train at seven, just one ticket, thanks, that’s right, and still greater: rushing windows, with view on view on view on view, and still greater: dark and darker, by nighttime I will be with you, and still greater: the door opens, and still greater: past the door, and still greater: flower on flower. —Ohhh, who are all these roses for?

Do you open each human fate like a book, seeking feelings not in fonts or formats? Are you sure you decipher people completely?

Are people really so simple as far as people go?

Lovers     In this quiet we can still hear what they were singing yesterday about the high road and the low road . . . We hear—but we don’t believe it.   Our smile doesn’t mask our sorrow, and goodness needs no sacrifice. The pity we give to nonlovers is even more than they deserve.   We’re so astonished at ourselves, what’s left to astonish us? Not a rainbow in the night. Not a butterfly in snow.   And when we sleep we dream of parting. But it’s a good dream, it’s a good dream, since we wake up from it.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.

Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow.   With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

If we haven’t had enough of despair, grief, all that stuff, lofty words will kill us off.   Then we’ll stand up, take our bows: hope that you’ve enjoyed our show. Every patron with his spouse will applaud, get up, and go.   They’ll reenter their lives’ cages, where love’s tiger sometimes rages, but the beast’s too tame to bite.

I TEACH silence in all languages

FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds— dogs barking, guitars in the street— into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

We know ourselves only as far as we’ve been tested. I tell you this from my unknown heart

An Effort     Alack and woe, oh song: you’re mocking me; try as I may, I’ll never be your red, red rose. A rose is a rose is a rose. And you know it.   I worked to sprout leaves. I tried to take root. I held my breath to speed things up, and waited for the petals to enclose me.   Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Leave me, leave, but not by land. Swim off, swim, but not by sea. Fly off, fly away, my dear, but don’t go near the air.   Let’s see each other through closed eyes. Let’s talk together through closed mouths. Let’s hold each other through a thick wall.

Since eternity was out of stock, ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.

Everything’s mine but just on loan, nothing for the memory to hold, though mine as long as I look.

One day the answer came before the question. Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression by the type of silence in the dark.   Gender fades, mysteries molder, distinctions meet in all-resemblance just as all colors coincide in white.

Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand, with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink— a view served round the clock, until you go blind.

Parable     Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: “Somebody save me! I’m here. The ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!” “There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said. “And he doesn’t say where. It’s not even clear which ocean,” the second fisherman said. “It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,” the third fisherman said. They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with universal truths

Ballad     Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.”   It’s an honest ballad, penned neither to shock nor to offend.   The thing happened fair and square, with curtains open, lamps all lit:   passersby could stop and stare.   When the door had shut behind him and the killer ran downstairs, she stood up, just like the living startled by the sudden silence.   She gets up, she moves her head, and she looks around with eyes harder than they were before.   No, she doesn’t float through air: she steps on the ordinary, wooden, slightly creaky floor.   In the oven she burns traces that the killer’s left behind: here a picture, there shoelaces, everything that she can find.   It’s obvious that she’s not strangled. It’s obvious that she’s not shot. She’s been killed invisibly.   She may still show signs of life, cry for sundry silly reasons, shriek in horror at the sight of a mouse.                      Ridiculous traits are so predictable that they aren’t hard to fake.   She got up like you and me.   She walks just as people do.   And she sings and combs her hair, which still grows.

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.

Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out. With birdlike feet and palms, they strove to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades.   The thirteenth century would have given them golden halos. The twentieth, silver screens. The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the unvoluptuous.   For even the sky bulges here with pudgy angels and a chubby god— thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed, riding straight into the seething bedchamber

He grew rozes with a “z.

(...) the rest of your life? Old age is a precipice, (...)

I am too close for him to dream of me.

Silence—this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Funny little thing How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it.

The Railroad Station     My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot.   You’d been alerted in my unmailed letter.   You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time.   The train pulled up at Platform 3. A lot of people got out.   My absence joined the throng as it made its way toward the exit.   Several women rushed to take my place in all that rush.   Somebody ran up to one of them. I didn’t know him, but she recognized him immediately.   While they kissed with not our lips, a suitcase disappeared, not mine.   The railroad station in the city of N. passed its exam in objective existence with flying colors.   The whole remained in place. Particulars scurried along the designated tracks.   Even a rendezvous took place as planned.   Beyond the reach of our presence.   In the paradise lost of probability.   Somewhere else. Somewhere else. How these little words ring. Alive     These days we just hold him

But this is ancient history. I can’t dwell on it forever or keep asking endlessly, what’s next, what’s next.   Day to day I trust in permanence, in history’s prospects. I can’t gnaw apples in a constant state of terror.

Arduous ease, watchful agility, and calculated inspiration.

Old Folks’ Home     Here comes Her Highness—well, you know who I mean, our Helen the snooty—now who made her queen! With her lipstick and wig on, as if we could care, like her three sons in heaven can see her from there!   “I wouldn’t be here if they’d lived through the war. I’d spend winter with one son, summer with another.” What makes her so sure? I’d be dead too now, with her for a mother.   And she keeps on asking (“I don’t mean to pry”) why from your sons and daughters there’s never a word even though they weren’t killed. “If my boys were alive, I’d spend all my holidays home with the third.”   Right, and in his gold carriage he’d come and get her, drawn by a swan or a lily-white dove, to show all of us that he’ll never forget her and how much he owes to her motherly love.   Even Jane herself, the nurse, can’t help but grin when our Helen starts singing this old song again— even though Jane’s job is commiseration Monday through Friday, with two weeks’ vacation.

Sell me your soul. There are no other takers.   There is no other devil anymore.

I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies. What a loss when you think how much effort was spent perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed, so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.

The abyss doesn’t divide us. The abyss surrounds us.

In Praise of Dreams     In my dreams I paint like Vermeer van Delft.   I speak fluent Greek and not just with the living.   I drive a car that does what I want it to.   I am gifted and write mighty epics.   I hear voices as clearly as any venerable saint.   My brilliance as a pianist would stun you.   I fly the way we ought to, i.e., on my own.   Falling from the roof, I tumble gently to the grass.   I’ve got no problem breathing under water.   I can’t complain: I’ve been able to locate Atlantis.   It’s gratifying that I can always wake up before dying.   As soon as war breaks out, I roll over on my other side.   I’m a child of my age, but I don’t have to be.   A few years ago I saw two suns.   And the night before last a penguin, clear as day.

True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing.   Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

And it so happened that I’m here with you. And I really see nothing usual in that. 

Under One Small Star     My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all. Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five A.M. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don’t pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.   Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man. I know I won’t be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Non omnis moriar—a premature worry.

Thank-You Note     I owe so much to those I don’t love.   The relief as I agree that someone else needs them more.   The happiness that I’m not the wolf to their sheep.   The peace I feel with them, the freedom— love can neither give nor take that.   I don’t wait for them, as in window-to-door-and-back. Almost as patient as a sundial, I understand what love can’t, and forgive as love never would.   From a rendezvous to a letter is just a few days or weeks, not an eternity.   Trips with them always go smoothly, concerts are heard, cathedrals visited, scenery is seen.   And when seven hills and rivers come between us, the hills and rivers can be found on any map.   They deserve the credit if I live in three dimensions, in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space with a genuine, shifting horizon.   They themselves don’t realize how much they hold in their empty hands.   “I don’t owe them a thing” would be love’s answer to this open question.

Dentistry turned to diplomatic skill promises us a Golden Age tomorrow. The going’s rough, and so we need the laugh of bright incisors, molars of goodwill. Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Our solitary existence exacerbates our sense of obligation, and raises the inevitable question, How are we to live et cetera? since “we can’t avoid the void.

No way out? But what about the door? No prospects? The window had other views.

You think at least the note must tell us something. But what if I say there was no note— and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

(...) to linger longer, not to go home again. Since only prisoners want to go home.

In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself     The buzzard never says it is to blame. The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean. When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame. If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.   A jackal doesn’t understand remorse. Lions and lice don’t waver in their course. Why should they, when they know they’re right?   Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton, in every other way they’re light.   On this third planet of the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is number one.

I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine, I can’t exchange it.   I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about

The star is large and distant, so distant that it’s small, even smaller than others much smaller than it.

Small wonder, then, if we were struck with wonder; as we would be if only we had the time.

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

“How should we live?” someone asked me in a letter. I had meant to ask him the same question.   Again, and as ever, as may be seen above, the most pressing questions are naïve ones.

Whatever you say reverberates, whatever you don’t say speaks for itself. So either way you’re talking politics.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned. (...) Price, not worth, and title, not what’s inside. His shoe size, not where he’s off to, that one you pass off as yourself.

Nothing’s sacred for those who think. Calling things brazenly by name, risqué analyses, salacious syntheses, frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts, the filthy fingering of touchy subjects, discussion in heat—it’s music to their ears.

During these trysts of theirs, the only thing that’s steamy is the tea.

May delivery be easy, may our child grow and be well. Let him be happy from time to time and leap over abysses. Let his heart have strength to endure and his mind be awake and reach far.   But not so far that it sees into the future. Spare him that one gift, O heavenly powers.

For the sake of the children that we still are, fairy tales have happy endings. That’s the only finale that will do here, too. The rain will stop, the waves will subside, the clouds will part in the cleared-up sky, and they’ll be once more what clouds overhead ought to be: lofty and rather lighthearted in their likeness to things drying in the sun— isles of bliss, lambs, cauliflowers, diapers.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries that can be celebrated every day.

A miracle, just take a look around: the inescapable earth.   An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: the unthinkable can be thought.

When I see such things, I’m no longer sure that what’s important is more important than what’s not.

Hatred is a master of contrast— between explosions and dead quiet, red blood and white snow.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields, those we remember and those that are forgotten: (...)

Without us dreams couldn’t exist. The one on whom the real world depends is still unknown, and the products of his insomnia are available to anyone who wakes up.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

We agreed to death, but not to every kind. Love attracted us, of course, but only love that keeps its word.

We were besieged by doubts. Does knowing everything beforehand really mean knowing everything.   Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone. They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.

The Three Oddest Words     When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past.   When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.   When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

But how to answer unasked questions, while being furthermore a being so totally a nobody to you.

Talking with you is essential and impossible. Urgent in this hurried life and postponed to never.

Understanding came only later: not all misadventures fit within the world’s laws and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t happen.

And what can you say about one day of life, a minute, a second: darkness, a lightbulb’s flash, then dark again?   KOSMOS MAKROS CHRONOS PARADOKSOS Only stony Greek has words for that.

There must be an exit somewhere, that’s more than certain. But you don’t look for it, it looks for you, it’s been stalking you from the start, and this labyrinth is none other than than your, for the duration, your, until not your, flight, flight— (...)

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost. The body has its own installment plan.   And as an extra, added feature, you spin on the planets’ carousel for free, and with it you hitch a ride on the intergalactic blizzard, with times so dizzying that nothing here on Earth can even tremble.

At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too. 

Assassins     They think for days on end, how to kill so as to kill, and how many killed will be many. Apart from this they eat their meals with gusto, pray, wash their feet, feed the birds, make phone calls while scratching their armpits, stanch blood when they cut a finger, if they’re women they buy sanitary napkins, eye shadow, flowers for vases, they make jokes on their good days, drink citrus juice from the fridge, watch the moon and stars at night, place headphones with soft music on their ears and sleep sweetly till the crack of dawn —unless what they’re thinking needs doing at night.

It’s good you came. Sit here beside me. He really was supposed to get back Thursday. But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.

Page after page at a snail’s pace. But we’re still going in fifth gear and, knock on wood, never better.

We eat another life so as to live. A corpse of pork with departed cabbage. Every menu is an obituary.   Even the kindest of souls must consume, digest something killed so that their warm hearts won’t stop beating.

In the end I stopped knowing what I’d been looking for so long.   I woke up. Looked at my watch. The dream took not quite two and a half minutes.   Such are the tricks to which time resorts ever since it started stumbling on sleeping heads.

[evolutionsvoid]

As you venture through the grassy plains and sweeping savannas of an arid land you may find the wide open spaces suddenly disappearing. The grass around you will start to climb higher and higher, until they tower over your head like bamboo. The vegetation around you will become a thick curtain, engulfing you in a sea of green. There will be no trees to be found, yet it will feel like a choking jungle. No matter which way you look or go, the walls of grass will still surround you. Many will find themselves lost in this strange environment, as the grass blinds your vision and hides your tracks. You will stomp and push your way through, but it seems like you are going nowhere. As you stop to get your bearings, you may get the feeling you are being watched. With the endless vegetation around, though, it is impossible to tell. But then, a flash of movement! An orange blur darting past the corner of your eye! When you whip around to look, though, there will be nothing. There is no beast, and the grass remains still.  In time, you may see it again, but you will fail to catch it. Again and again, it shall be gone before you can spot it. It is then you realize that you are not alone in this green ocean, and that you best find your way out soon. For this land is home to the Razor Fleas, and they are not nearly as dangerous as I just made them out to be. Apologies, I just got caught up in the moment.   The Razor Flea is a beast that carries many names, much like the Bladed Prowler. Some regions refer to them as Grass Tiger Fleas (or simply Tiger Fleas), while others call them Saw Backs. As far as I know Razor Flea is a more common name, so I am going to stick with that one for this entry. That aside, the Razor Flea is a large insect that prowls grasslands and savannas, but only those that possess tall grass species. They won't be found in those wide open grassy fields that you may picture at first. Sure, they may wander into these areas in pursuit of food, but they prefer to stay in places where the grass grows taller than you! Here is where they are in their element, using the thick foliage to hide their presence and disorient their prey. What makes the Razor Flea the perfect creature for such a habitat is their interesting body shape. Their form is laterally flattened, giving them a thin and tall silhouette. Such a design may seem strange and fragile, but it is actually quite useful in this environment! While other creatures must plow their way through the thick grass to travel, the Razor Flea can slip through it like a fish cutting through a flowing river. They don't need to push and fight against the vegetation like we do, so it gives them quite the advantage! Combine that with their incredible speed, and you got a creature that can zip through the thickest of fields without the slightest trouble. Though my story above may be a little dramatic, it wasn't lying about their speed and agility. Most encounters with them last for only a second, as they zoom by without warning and vanish without a trace. Since they can slip through the blades and stalks, they hardly disturb the vegetation around them, which hides their approach and escape. There were so many times during my travels through the grasslands where I would be right in front of a running group of these insects and not realize it until they were long gone. There would just be brief flashes of orange and then a quiet rustling of the grasses, which I often mistook for the breeze. I have even heard stories of hunting parties who would have Razor Fleas dart between them while they were only feet apart! I can imagine that these speedy creatures have inspired many tales of horror within these grasslands, as some invisible presence haunts you without leaving a trace. 

These skills are what they rely on when they are hungry, as it is hard to fight what you cannot catch! Though I have made them sound quite scary (apologies again for that. I don't wish to defame a wonderful creature like this!), they are not ravenous predators. They don't possess sharp teeth or really any chewing mouth parts. Instead they have a proboscis, as they subsist on a liquid diet. One of their main foods on the menu is blood, and they will get it from animals that wander through their grassy land. With their speed and stealthy movements, they are capable of hunting down beasts and closing in without notice. They will stick close to their target, but they will not strike until opportunity presents itself. When their prey stops to rest or feed, they shall sneak up from behind and jab their sharp proboscis in. Due to its sharpness and coating of numbing fluid, prey will not feel a thing when the strike occurs. Then the Razor Flea will quickly suck out a serving of blood before zipping back into the grass. In most cases, they will not drink their fill on the first strike, as their target will move and disrupt the feeding. So they will often drain away blood bit by bit through multiple feedings, only stopping when their bellies are full or when the prey becomes too difficult to fool. While their blood drinking ways sound terrifying, they don't usually kill their victims. Their targets are often large beasts, as they are slow and possess plenty of tasty fluids. When a single Razor Flea feeds on them, they may feel some drowsiness but not much else. If a Razor Flea attacks a human-sized target, they will usually only strike once and will rarely get a full meal from it. Such folk are too aware of their surroundings and are prone to moving. This makes them risky targets, so the Razor Flea will often go after something a bit slower. However, Razor Fleas can also hunt at night, where they will feed on sleeping animals. Their thin bodies will allow them to sneak up without a sound, and easily nab a drink. Many creatures make their nests in the tall grasslands, and this species takes advantage of that. That also means they may try to feed on you if you decide to set up camp within this environment. In this case, they may be dangerous, as multiple specimens may drink from you at once, which can cause anemia. This may not kill you outright, but it will leave you weakened in a dangerous land. Though it is a scary possibility, it is one that can be easily avoided. Do not leave yourself exposed if you are sleeping in the tall grass, protect yourself with some thick layers. Or perhaps don't go dozing off in the middle of cramped savanna! Get yourself to a safer location, you fool! Though blood is a major staple of their diet, they do feed on other things. Eggs are another favorite of theirs, as their proboscis can puncture the shell and suck up the yolk. Since others build their nests in the grasslands, they will search for those that have eggs. Often a parent remains close by as a guardian, so they must use their stealth and speed to sneak past. If they are caught in the act, they will zip back into the grass and disappear. If they cannot, they are quite capable of defending themselves. Though thin, they have a tough segmented exoskeleton to protect them. They will also face their foe head on so that the enemy has very little to target. They will dodge attacks and wait for an opening, looking for the right moment to pounce. When their foe is exposed, they shall use their powerful hind legs to launch themselves forward. As they jump, their speed and strength will send them spinning through the air! This acrobatic move is impressive enough, but it isn't just for show! Razor Fleas are topped with wickedly sharp spines that are tough as any blade. When they are spinning, these sharp projections turn them into flying saw blades! Those who are in their path will receive deep cuts and nasty wounds as the soaring flea shreds through their skin. Often the flea will not go for a direct hit, as they could get stuck in a large, tough target. Instead they aim for a glancing blow, so that their teeth may slice clean through and allow them to stick the landing. An attack like this usually only needs to be performed once before their foe calls it quits and runs! This maneuver is what gave this species their name, as well as some infamy. This flying shredder they become is quite intimidating, and it can do a lot of damage to a small target like us! A glancing blow from this attack can easily cut down to the bone (though some say they are capable of fully severing a limb), and such an injury can easily become fatal if one does not act quickly. This is why it is best not to provoke these creatures and corner them. If you don't want to be a meal, just scare them off and call it good. They are quite skittish, so it shouldn't be hard. Despite this, folk are quick to say that Razor Fleas do this maneuver quite often, and that this is how they kill people. If you listen to the tales, you would think these fleas are constantly flying about like a sawmill with wings! Some even say that Razor Fleas can clear away entire swaths of tall grass by shredding them with their back spines, and that is why we have short grassed savannas! Preposterous! Such a method consumes a bunch of energy, so I can't imagine them using it all day. However, I cannot ignore the fact that people have indeed been injured or killed by these creatures. The deep lacerations are unmistakable, but I argue that some of these incidents are not intentional. Sure, those who have trapped a Razor Flea will be the target of an attack, but I think stories of people be sliced out of the blue is due to another reason. When Razor Fleas jump, they do so with a lot of speed and strength. This can launch them for quite a good distance! When they attack a foe, they are well aware of the target right in front of them. However, they don't really know what is past their enemy and hidden by the walls of grass. I think that some incidents are a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The poor soul just happened to be in the path of a flea who was sailing blindly through the air. The creature did not know they were there, but they cannot stop themselves mid flight. It is an unfortunate accident, but an accident nonetheless. I mean, I can't tell you how many people and things I ran into when traveling through the grasslands! The grass is thick and requires some force to push aside, so you can easily barrel into another traveler if you aren't careful! Bad enough that I knocked over some poor folk with my sudden entrance, now imagine what would have happened if I had knives glued to my body!     Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian ------------------------------------------------------- Was thinking about fleas at one point and decided to do something with their weird flattened bodies. With such a thin shape and speed, I figured they would work as a living saw blade! Also I just realized I got to edit my entry on Arctic Wolf Fleas, because it says that there are no fleas close to the size of them. Whoops! I guess past me didn't think that through!

[lawluheaven]

Hello !!! First of all I love love love your blog ^^ second of all I love your stories they are amazing !!! And third of all I hope you don't mind me saying this but will we get a second part to your little mermaid au I really wanna see Law's face when he sees Luffy as a human ^^

Law got up extra early on his day off, breakfast eaten and ready for the day before the sun had properly risen in the horizon. 

If you had told him this a summer ago, he would have thrown his tea on you appalled the mere thought of losing what little sleep he could get. (Hence the soothing tea) but ever since his near-death experience things have changed.

He smiled more for one, took time to rest, went out of his way to keep communication stronger between his loved ones and often find himself daydreaming about the ocean and all it’s underwater secrets- when he wasn’t performing surgery of course.

His friends and family chalked it up to him coming face to face with his mortality. They keep a closer eye on Law, but they were pleased by the changes none the less.

As he loaded up his fishing boat - One he had to wrestle Lami into allowing him to operate alone -  he thought about how much had of a positive influence Luffy has been on his life.

The young mermaid was a peak of curiosity, who saw the world- Law’s world- as a wonder-filled fantasy land, his eyes not yet jaded to the cruelty of humans. He wanted to know about everything, and anything Law was willing to share, staring up at him among the waves with wide sparkling dark eyes.

They made an agreement to meet in the mornings, just as the light breached the surface of the water. Every six days, Law would take his boat out to the spot where the corals dropped into the deep sea, and as the sky light up, Luffy’s head would pop up somewhere near him.

His mermaid friend had quickly informed Law of his royal status- and wasn’t that something? A whole kingdom right under all humans noses!- which was why they needed to sneak around to meet up.

Luffy’s people had laws against interacting with humans, afraid of what may happen to them if the surface dwellers were to learn of them. They also saw humans as strange and somewhat dim, meaning those like Luffy who was fascinated by them, were considered childish or odd.

Now Luffy never full out admitted it but as an outcast kid who survived bullying for some of his boyhood years, Law heard the unsaid comments whenever the mermaid spoke of his home. 

But they didn’t really talk about Luffy’s home. They instead spent hours describing places they wish the other could see. Law had a mental picture of some of the deepest parts of the ocean, the canyons and gorges that Luffy explored with his best friend Zoro.  He could almost hear the whales and dolphins that sang songs only the highest scholars of meremaidians could understand. Could see fish that lived in schools and migrated as world citizens but could never settle as full citizenship.

The dangers of sharks, and other mermaid eating beasts that often tested the countries bourders 

 The different types of oceans and the kingdoms the Five Great Clans ruled them.

Luffy’s family has ruled the Atlantic Ocean for thousands of years, he is third in line for the throne and their main capital was based somewhere in the South. Law theorized it was near Brazil but he was never sure, seeing as Luffy didn’t know coordinations well enough to pinpoint where exactly he lived. 

He once admitted to swimming very far and very fast to meet up with Law off of the shores of Mexico but he assured that it was not that difficult to do and that his family never notice he was gone.

It made him wonder just how fast mermaids could swim.

On the other hand, Law attempted to describe his home to the mermaid. It was painstaking slow since he needed to break all the bad assumptions Luffy had come on his own.  His seagull friend Ussop- who Law swears if the one that visits him to pick up forks- has fully convinced the young prince that things were called “Who’s-its’”  “What’s-its” “Thingy-mc-bobers” and forks were apparently combs.

But he still brought allow pictures with him, amuse that Luffy would get them all wet as he eagerly took in images of cars, skyscrapers, TVs, pens, paints, and any other random thing Law could think about. It made him so happy to learn, which made the surgeon so willing to share.

Law turns off his motor and drops his anchor. He patiently waits to see where Luffy may be. Doing a quick scan around him, he is pleased to see no other boat meaning it safe for the mermaid to come up. 

Tugging on his anchor chain, he makes it shake three times, pauses slightly and then shakes it twice sending the code. That done, Law takes a step back to wait.

He waits. And waits. And waits. 

Until the sun is high in the sky until his stomach growls in pain from hunger until his skin turns painfully red. After a while, he realizes Luffy’s not coming.  

It’s never happened before, they usually warn each other if they can’t meet up or Luffy sends Zoro who would do three jumps in the air to inform Law of his prince’s inability to see him. But he’s never been full out quite.

The surgeon returns home the unsettling of his stomach as wavy as the sea. That night he tries to tell himself to not worry, it could have been a fluke, or maybe Ace had caught Luffy while he was sneaking out of the palace? 

Surely, his friend would be there next week.  

Except he’s not. Nor the following week and the one after that. Law still goes ever sixth day but his hopes of seeing the little mermaid die each crushing time. After a month Law must admit that Luffy will forever be a happy memory lost beneath the waves. 

It’s not till that moment that he realizes he fell in love with someone who’s world was thousands of miles from his own. Law cries himself to sleep that night unable to bear looking out his window to the sea.

He moves on.  Lami (His younger sister) and Bepo (His cousin) notice how suddenly he’s unable to bring himself to smile too much, how he retreats into himself. They come to the right conclusion: he’s suffering from heartbreak but he refuses to name who broke his heart.

As far as they know, Luffy may as well be made up.

Which was why one weekend when Lami and Bepo force him to host them to help him overcome the old flame that he receives the shock of his life.  

It comes in the form of knocking on his door at sunrise on the sixth day. On his doorstep was a young man wearing an old straw hat with wide sparkling eyes. Law stares at him for a full minute unable to speak until Lami demanded to know who he was.

Luffy’s answering  “Law’s boyfriend” had the doctor throw himself forward with a loud cry falling into the not-anymore-mermaid’s arms and pulling him into a kiss. Luffy allowed it for a while before pushing him off.   “What are you doing!? I need air now! I could land drown!”

“Land drown?” Bepo repeats bewildered but it makes Law laugh.

Todays a good day.

[doomedandstoned]

Metal Legends Cirith Ungol Return Triumphant and ‘Forever Black’

~By Billy Goate~

Remember when metal was wicked? You know, the harsh, heavy metal vibe and those hammer blast beats that used to scare the bejesus out of your folks See: Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It".

No, you don't know, do you? Because you had the cool mom and dad who not only let you listen to metal, they said you could borrow their records anytime you wanted. I wasn't so lucky.

My metal consciousness awakened just at the tail end of the Satanic Panic, though outrage against heavy metal was far from over in transitioning from '80s to '90s. Initially it was FM radio that introduced me to bands like Ratt, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Poison, Cinderella, and a host of others often derisively labeled hair metal (sure, I suppose they deserve their fair share of digs, but they were still badass). But it was when my family finally got cable TV in the home that MTV introduced me to the wider world of 1988-89 metal -- most memorably to Metallica's "One" and Guns N' Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine".

The ban hammer came crashing down once my mom saw me rocking out to Scorpions one day and decided this preacher's kid was headed in the wrong direction, with long hair, tattoos, demon possession, and The Number of the Beast not far behind. We were homeschooled then and there in an attempt to rescue us from the godlessness of this age.

I can sympathize with my parents now that I'm older. Imagine how scary it must have been to raise children in the world of "Welcome To The Jungle." It all must have sounded truly wretched to their ears.

Now here's a band that maybe comes closer to personifying those fears, as CIRITH UNGOL frontman Tim Baker immediately strikes a note of dread with his demonic voice box (I pray my pipes are even a third as lusty as this when I'm 63). Add to that dueling guitars and a charging rhythm section and the Ventura band sound downright mean and nasty, like they'll cut you for no good reason if you pass them on the same side of the street.

Had I half the chance, I would have surely relished this sound as a 10-11 year old and cherished it well into my adult years. As it stands, I only had the opportunity to soak in the band's impressive discography over the past three years. Let's just say I've been making up for lost time with a lot of repeated binge listening.

Frost and Fire by Cirith Ungol

Though Cirith Ungol have been together since 1972, their first album didn't appear until the early-80's. 'Frost and Fire' (1980) may not have gotten the credit it deserved for pioneering the heavy metal sound. They did, after all, pre-date Iron Maiden by three years.

Both Iron Maiden and Cirith Ungol's LPs debuted the same year, too, but they were practically an ocean apart musically. There are many songs on Frost and Fire that, while beloved, clearly were composed in the '70s and rightly belong to that era (check out "What Does It Take" and tell me I'm wrong). You won't find vocals this gnarly, this snarly, in most any other band in '72, though, that's for damned sure!

1984's King of the Dead was a huge leap forward for the band musically and forever established their characteristically evil style. The record was a milestone for metal, as well. You'll not hear anything wilder than the opening number "Atom Smasher" from Cirith Ungol's contemporaries.

Where Ronnie James Dio may have brought macho bravura and operatic grace to his performances, Tim Baker, Jerry Fogle, Michael "Flint" Vujejia, and Robert Garven delivered on the menace, striking Tolkeinian fear in the hearts of all those who dwelt in Middle Earth.

King of the Dead (Ultimate Edition) by Cirith Ungol

Two more albums followed in 1986 and 1991, respectively, then the band called it a day, hanging up the hat for some 23 years. Whispers of reunion materialized in 2015 and we got our first teaser of how a retooled Cirith Ungol (still composed of many of its original members, some dating back to the band's '70s era) with the single "Witch's Game" in 2018. This got fans more than a little excited and a live album followed in short succession.

Cirith Ungol's big return, 'Forever Black' (2020), definitely matches the intensity of their oeuvre to date. I'll be straight up with you guys, though. Four songs in, I felt a little exhausted. It's like being around someone with tons of energy who wants to talk your ear off, when all you want to do after work is go to bed.

Well, I decided to do the sensible thing and sleep on it, then revisited Forever Black the next day. What I can tell you is, as a morning person this is definitely a morning person's kind of album. It's got power, plenty of gumption, and the will to fight -- just the kind of thing you need to face the world when you awaken to tackle life's daily struggles.

Speaking of which, the attack of "Legions Arise" makes me want to get up and shout the chorus with a thousand other fans, fists raised staunchly into the sky. It's at this point I noticed how deep and spacious the recording is sonically, giving it that arena feel. You are right there at the front of the stadium, listening to every instrument distinctly and a voice crying out with authority.

I'm especially drawn to the march-like force of "The Frost Monstreme" with its "Holy Diver" beat and those ferocious pipes stoking the faithful minions to take on the Sea Mingols. Two-minutes into the track and we meet with a Sabbath-like transition. In fact, the lead riff of that mid-section sounds like a "wrong note" version of "Iron Man." Definitely digging it!

Judging from the Bandcamp reviews, the big fan favorites are "Stormbringer" and "Nightmare," followed by "Fractus Promissum," "The Frost Monstreme," and "Before Tomorrow" -- all of which are fine songs in their own right.

As solid an album as it is, there is really only one other song that had me wanting return to again, and that is "Forever Black." It comes the closest to matching the emotional punch of Cirith Ungol's classic "I'm Alive" from their immortal debut LP.

Don't misread me: this sound is ideal for open air fests and big stadiums. I can picture the crowd now -- so pumped and ready to fuck shit up. Additionally, I could see myself taking the whole album on a road trip or a long hike without complaint. In my mind, it's music that demands a physical response from you, or at least grabbing the keys and getting out of town.

Dedicated fans of fantasy and science fiction will no doubt be sufficiently absorbed by the album's abundant references to fantasy literature. For the casual listener, though, I'd recommend taking it in doses...as generous and as deadly as you like.

Out now in all formats on Metal Blade Records.

Give ear...

Forever Black by Cirith Ungol

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[lindoig4]

The Last Post for this time.

I have just posted lots of photos and a few videos through to the end of our adventure so this will probably be my last post to this blog.

On Friday the 13th (Black Friday), we took a streetcar to the ferry terminal and a ferry to Larkspur, a town across the Bay in Marin County.  I love larkspurs (but we didn’t see any there) and I am not sure what other attractions are around the town of Larkspur, but that is where San Quentin prison is - a big forbidding fortress of a place.  Pretty horrible really, not at all larkspur-ish, but so was Alcatraz in its day.  A good place to avoid, I think!!

It was not much more than filling in a day, but we had a slow lunch in a pub out there and returned to San Fran 2 or 3 ferries later.  When we got back to SF, we decided to take the Castro streetcar to the end of the line just for a look and then stay on it until it brought us back to our hotel.  We had (good) vague memories of Castro in 1995 and thought a visit might be nice.  Alas, our streetcar driver had completed her shift and was returning streetcar vehicle to the depot, so tipped everyone off a few stops early.  We decided to just catch the next streetcar back to downtown which she assures us would be along shortly. ‘Shortly’ turned out to be just over 55 minutes with us and a few others standing around the bus-stop in the blazing sun - not at all the sort of thing we expected.

Saturday, we had booked to go on a 9am whale-watching tour and we were up early and out at the Pier 39 meeting place almost an hour early.  We wandered around the precinct and watched the sea-lions and birds for a while until it was time for the tour. We saw a few harbour seals and glimpsed some small porpoises, but the anticipated dolphins eluded us.  And as soon as we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, the fog rolled in and we were enveloped in it for the rest of the tour. Visibility ranged from about 50 to 150 metres and although those on the bridge reckoned they sighted one (or maybe 3) whales, they quickly got lost in the fog so none of the tourists saw anything.  Having said that, I enjoyed it greatly, not for the whale-watching, but as a pelagic birding excursion and added nine more birds to our trip list.  I suspect I was the happiest person on board by a mile!

Back at Pier 39, we had fish and chips and a cold drink for lunch, then sat and watched the world go by for an hour or so before catching the trolley back.  We broke the journey halfway to visit the Friday market that sets up not far from the ferry terminal but it was generally disappointing - a lot of junk jewellery, some artwork and not a lot else.  There was some sort of parade or military drive-through that delayed traffic and the streetcars for quite a while.  Not quite sure what it was, but there were lots of military vehicles, historical and more modern, with lots of personnel waving to the crowd and a dozen police bikes having a great time hooning up and back in some sort of escort but whatever the occasion, it remained a mystery to us.

Needless to say, the parade delayed the streetcars so we had another wait of well over half an hour, thankfully in the shade, until we got our ride the rest of the way home.

We went out a bit later to get some food to-go and ate in the room again with a bottle of local fermented grape juice of the cab sav variety.

Then Sunday was our last day in San Francisco!   We fly out tonight and it will be a long uncomfortable trip so we decided to go easy on ourselves.

We caught a trolley bus (by far the best form of urban mass transport) out to the beach, just for the ride.  It took us out along McAllister, a long road with all those wonderfully quaint colourful Haight-Ashbury houses - just love them - and along the full length of the Golden Gate Park (North America’s largest urban park) to Ocean Beach.

We watched the crows and gulls for a while, then decided to walk up to Cliff House, a bit over a kilometre along the beach.  We visited it back in 1995 and didn’t remember a lot about it other than that they had a big Camera Obscura set up just below Cliff House itself - and I do have vague memories of doing that tour then.

Cliff House has featured in a number of movies, usually as a desolate hideaway miles from anywhere, usually with a gale blowing, thunder and lightning, a storm raging and the baddies on the brink of some dastardly deed that will pour treasure at their feet - until the hero turns up, rescues the maiden and captures the evildoers just before their wicked plan succeeds.  The truth is somewhat different with at least two upmarket bars and three restaurants.  We had a wonderful lunch in the bistro.  They even had a version of a Caesar so we both had one of them - each a meal in themselves and pretty healthy at that.  We shared half a dozen deep-fried dumplings (gyozas by another name) and the most delicious baked meatballs I have ever enjoyed.  The gyozas were also tastier and more substantial than those we have had before.  We sat over the meal for an hour or so then strolled back to the trolley bus and thence back to our hotel.  It was a really delightful day, warm and sunny, great for a visit to the beach, to enjoy a superb lunch and we loved every minute of it.  As they say, somebody has to do it.......

We sat in the foyer of the hotel for an hour, writing and identifying a couple more birds and suddenly, the shuttle was there and we were on our way to the airport.  We got through reasonably easily, although Heather lost a few utensils out of our picnic bag because we forgot to move it into our checked baggage before sending it on its way along the great conveyor belt that will hopefully deliver it to Melbourne tomorrow - whatever day that is (Monday here, Tuesday in Melbourne).

We stocked up on the makings for quite a number of homemade Caesars as we went through the Duty Free clip joint and sat in the lounge for an hour and a half until they called our flight. I intended doing a lot of stuff on my PC - but once again, the beast wouldn’t boot when I turned it on. Fortunately, I backed up most stuff a couple of days ago, but it would still be nice to wake it up and strip the hard drive before tying a brick to it and throwing it into the ocean.

One cute thing that happened as we sat there waiting for the very last episode of our Arctic Odyssey to conclude was that we both got emails starting the formal part of our next adventure to the Antarctic in February - what could be more appropriate?

The long flight home was predictably as dreadful as we imagined.  I just don’t know how people endure such flights on a regular basis – I am in awe of them!  But obviously, we made it through the very long night – we left SF (30 minutes late) in darkness and we arrived in Melbourne (an hour early) shortly before dawn. Our wonderful driver (Nick) who our more wonderful travel agent (Bev) provided as a freebie for us gathered up our bags and delivered us home in style, quick and comfortable after our overnight ordeal.  The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, starting the elongated unpacking process, wading through the mountain of mail Nath had collected for us, making a few urgent appointments and planning the schedule for attending to the 30-odd tasks that had accumulated on our to-do list while we were away.  After no sleep the night before, we were in bed before 10pm and asleep about 15 seconds later.

Some statistics…… Our trip took us to 6 countries (depending on how we count them) with 9 border crossings, including 13 US States (a quarter of all of them) and all Canadian Provinces except Prince Edward Island. In total, I calculate we travelled close about 80000km.

And perhaps more important (for me) was our bird count.  I identified 148 discrete species, but some were seen in more than one country – so my country stats were as follows:

     USA                     55      Canada                64      Norway                30      Iceland                30      Greenland           20      Denmark             10       (Total 209)

We had previously seen some of these before, either in Australia or our other trips, but of the 148 species we saw this trip, were 78 species we had never seen anywhere before.

So what were the highlights of the trip?  Very hard to say, but perhaps some narrative would help me to get a clearer picture in my own head.

It is hard to rank my experiences on this trip, but some of the highlights so far are as follows:

*     In the US, the Zephyr train, specifically the romance of the buttes, mesas and arroyos of the Cowboy Country, mainly in Colorado, took me right back into so many hundred Westerns and cowboy books I read when I was just a young buck trying to emulate John Wayne. Then it was the Canyons - truly majestic scenery in the Cascades and particularly the Rockies.

*     In Svalbard, the close wildlife encounters with Arctic Foxes, Reindeer and Walruses - and to a lesser extent, the Polar Bears.  My favourite birds have been the beautiful white Ivory Gulls and dainty Arctic Terns. I was also delighted with the miniature flora in the tundra.

*     Being in the Arctic Circle, right up to 83 degrees, only about 1000-odd clicks from the North Pole, was an experience I only ever dreamed about.  Seeing so many dozen glaciers, watching them calve icebergs, and navigating through the resultant ice fields was wonderful. Even more so, being in the pack ice, leaning over the bow and watching our mini-icebreaker crunching through a metre of ice was mind-boggling.  But actually standing on and walking on a glacier topped even that - simply thrilling!  (Not sure why that was such a big deal, but it was unforgettable for both of us!)

*     The Polar Plunge – insane but absolutely an experience of a lifetime.

*     Then the extreme challenge of climbing the moraine and finding a fossil for myself was an achievement of which I am quite proud.  The fossil is less than spectacular but getting there and back alive was no mean feat.

*     In magical Greenland, the splendour of the mountains, cruising up close and personal with the magnificence of the mighty icebergs, the dramatic scenery in stark contrast with Svalbard, the dearth of birds that barely outnumbered the musk ox, were all issues that made us think about so many things in a new way.

*     Iceland was simply gorgeous with the waterfall, the geyser and spectacular coastline.  I want to go back and explore a lot more widely.  Standing with one foot on each of two of the world’s great techtonic plates was another ex\perience of a lifetime.

*     Newfoundland was beautiful and Cape Spear a tick to mark the start of our cross-Canada journey.

*     Niagara – not something I would do again, but like Uluru, the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Canyon, an iconic tourist destination that one has to endure if one is passing.

*     The birds and other uncommon (for us) wildlife and flora – especially the tiny Arctic trees and other plants.

I could probably replace several of these with other wonderful sights and experiences, but that is at least a sample of the things that will stay in my mind for the rest of my life.

I think that is it for this time but we are already well into the planning for our next trip – already booked and paid – so roll on February and the Antarctic!!!

[ariela-of-aedyr]

Reunion

Ariela and Eder take a detour on their way to find someone who might be able to help them to fix up their wrecked ship, and end up meeting an old friend. Under a read more because this got waaaay longer than I’d ever intended it to be.

They had been walking for miles. 

It wasn't that Ariela was opposed to walking, in fact she rather liked it, in the right circumstances. She'd enjoyed a good stroll in her leisure time back in Aedyr, taking in the beautiful sights that surrounded her hometown, often with a pretty companion of her choosing to keep her company. She'd even found a nice trail near Caed Nua, after settling there, which she'd taken to walking with Vela, teaching the young girl about the flowers and animals that they saw along the way. But trekking for hours through an unfamiliar land, in the aftermath of a storm, still sore and tired from the shipwreck, and... well, whatever it was that had happened to her before that... was not exactly her idea of fun.

The Dawnstars that they'd met along the road a couple of hours before had pointed them in the direction of the nearest town, but Ariela had been beginning to worry that they'd somehow managed to get lost along the way, until the day's light began to dip as the evening came upon them, and she saw the gentle glow of streetlights on the horizon. The end of their walk was finally in sight.

"Doesn't look too much further now." Eder remarked, turning his attention from the road ahead to flash her an encouraging smile. "You holding up OK?"

Ariela let out a long breath. "That's a big question. But, in the short term... I think so?" 

"Good." Relief flooded her friend's face, before he added, "You know, you had me pretty worried back there for a while."

"You mean when I died?" Ariela tried to lighten the mood with a smile, making out like she thought the whole thing was trivial, but in reality, that was the part of her recent experiences that she wasn't handling so well. She'd been starting to remember, as they walked, what exactly had happened back in the Dyrwood. Though she didn't quite have a clear picture of everything- she suspected that she'd been in and out of consciousness for a lot of it- she remembered enough. The ground rumbling; erupting. Pain wracking her body. Screams. 

The screams of people who had trusted her to keep them safe, begging for help, as she laid there powerless to do anything. 

She averted her gaze from Eder's quickly, not wanting to cause her friend any more worry, and swallowed heavily, trying to shake the memories from her mind. "I don't rightly know what happened to you, Ari, but I'm glad that you're..."

"Eder, look!" She hadn't meant to cut him off in the middle of what she was sure had been going to be a heartfelt message of support, though it was true that she didn't particularly want to dwell on the subject any longer. But in her attempt to look anywhere but his eyes, not wanting to let on how she was truly feeling, she had noticed that something off with the ground not too far away. "It's a footprint! A massive footprint. Eothas must have went that way."

"And so you want to go that way too?" Eder looked dubious, his eyes drifting back and forth between the lights on the horizon and the huge indent in the ground, heading off in a different direction. "We're not far from that town. It might be a safer bet."

"I know." Ariela bit on her lower lip, nibbling anxiously. "But the ship can wait a little longer. The crew managed to salvage some supplies, they'll be alright for a little while. If there's people that way..." Her eyes fixed on the direction that the God had apparently traveled. Pain. Screams. Disaster. She didn't want anyone else to suffer. "Please, Eder. I couldn't help anyone in Caed Nua. If anyone else was caught in his wake... If there's still someone that can be saved here, I have to do all that I can for them. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't at least try."

--

It was just when Ariela had decided that there was no-one along this path that needed her help, as the last of the evening light that had been guiding them through the unfamiliar terrain was beginning to fade completely, that they reached the first signs of civilization. It was a ruin of some sort, Engwithan, but the well-maintained and well-lit route deeper into the structure suggested that it was still regularly accessed, or, at least, had been recently. 

"You know, I might have plenty to say to my God, but if he's standin' just around the corner, I don't know that me and you can take him all on our own." Eder remarked, dodging around another of the footprints as they moved along the path. Ariela tried not to dwell on how deep the impact of just one foot had been, tried not to remember the keep she'd rebuilt being crumpled into rubble. "I figure we're gonna need at least another person, maybe even two."

Ariela chuckled, despite her nervousness. "Well, perhaps you should have thought about that before you put me on a boat and headed out to sea to chase a God."

"True enough."

"Perhaps I didn't mention enough how much I hate boats while we were traveling together. Though, in my defense, I did have other things on my mind at the time." Ariela's eyes darted about, looking for any sign of life as she walked, relying on the torches that had been set up along the pathway to light her way. 

It was as the path widened out into a clearing, at the top of a wooden staircase which seemed to be a more recent addition to the site, that she saw them. She might have mistaken them for statues at first, were it not for the unusual positions that the figures were in, forever frozen cowering in terror, and for the fact that she had seen something like this before, all those years ago, when her soul had first been Awakened. These were people, had been people, before their bodies had been turned to ash, souls ripped from them.

"Gods." Ariela breathed, fighting back tears that had begun to well in her eyes. Had this been the fate of everyone back home, the people she had been supposed to protect? Swallowing heavily, she turned for the staircase, leading the way down into ruin. "Come on, let's just... let's see if there's anyone left."

Moving down and into the ruin properly, it became apparent that this had been some kind of digsite; tools and equipment were left scattered across the ground where they had been discarded by users in the moments before their deaths, and a few benches were set up along the way, covered in papers and the occasional relic. She kept moving past it all, searching for any sign of survivors, against all reason.

The first sign of movement raised her hopes, until a blast of flame crashed into the ground just in front of her, and she realised that it was a wurm- two wurms, in fact- and not a person, that she had seen moving. She jumped back quickly, thankful for the quality of her boots and the poor aim of the creature, that had helped her avoid harm. Eder began to move past her, hand already moving towards the hilt of his weapon, but she reached out to stop him.

"Wait!" The creatures weren't supposed to be here, they'd probably been displaced from their actual homes as the God that that she was following had strode through them. They were lost, and scared. This didn't have to end in violence. "I can handle this. We don't need to hurt them."

Reaching out with her mind, it wasn't difficult to influence them, convincing them to leave this place and head back to their homes. It wasn't a permanent solution, when her influence faded, there was every chance that they would eventually make their way back here, but for the time being, the creatures turned and left without any further fuss.

"Hey, that was pretty good!" Eder smiled at her encouragingly. "You should do that for every fight."

"Well, frightened creatures are easier to influence than angry kith, but I'll certainly keep it in mind." 

Moving across to a wooden ramp, leading down to a lower level of the ruin, Ariela found a pair of panthers and a large contraption made out of equipment that Ariela vaguely recognised as having some kind of relevance to the animantic sciences. The panthers she dealt with quickly, scattering them back into the surrounding forest without any need for confrontation, but the contraption required further study. It seemed to be a cage of some sort, she could figure out that much, though there appeared to be no way to open the thing from the outside that she could see. Moving closer, she caught sight of some kind of movement behind the clouded glass walls, and with a little focus was able to make out the silhouettes of several kith inside.

"Hello?" Ariela called out, moving up to the machine properly and trying to focus her eyes on what was inside. "Is someone in there? Are you alright?"

"Are the beasts gone?" A voice asked from inside, and she saw one of the figures move up to the glass, stopping right in front of her, moving their face closer as if trying to get a better view.

"I can't guarantee that they'll stay gone forever." Ariela admitted. "But I drove them off, so it's safe right now."

There was some murmured discussion between the residents of the cage that Ariela couldn't quite make out, but relief flooded through her veins all the same. Whatever they chose to do now, at least there were some survivors coming out of this mess. She was glad that they had come this way, even if it had delayed finding someone to help them fix the ship, because at least now she knew for certain there was some hope. People in Eothas' wake may still yet survive.

There was a rattle and a loud clank, followed by the whirring sound of machinery, and Ariela moved back a few steps as the door to the cage began to open, the people inside spilling out. They looked tired, a little shaken, but physically not too worse for wear.

A young man towards the back of the group began cheering that they were saved, but the woman who stepped to the front of the group seemed less enthusiastic. She was human, not yet middle aged- though Ariela was notoriously terrible at judging the ages of younger races- and wore a serious expression on her face. 

She peered past Ariela curiously, as if expecting someone else to be there. "Governer Clario must have sent you to rescue us, no?"

"Um, no, actually." Ariela corrected, with an apologetic expression. "We just... well, we happened to be in the area, and I had to see if there was still anyone to be saved."

"She's like that." Eder remarked, from beside her. "You just kind of have to get used it."

"Well, you are here, and that is what matters." The group spokeswoman seemed somewhat dejected that they had not been an official search party, but considering Ariela was not entirely sure where they were, let alone what local politics might be at play, she decided to let it go and not probe any further into the matter.

"What were you all doing out here?" Ariela queried, supposing it was a natural change of subject. And now that she knew there were survivors, she had to admit to being a little curious about the ruins.

"Hiding, of course!" The young man, the same one that had been cheering as he came out of the cage, remarked.

"We were taking measurements of the luminous adra when something strange began happening." The first woman explained, somewhat more helpfully.

The ground rumbling; erupting. 

"It was fascinating." The young man continued. "The pillar started to dim. The ground shook, and our instruments showed unusual variations of-"

"That's when those of us with a grain of sense got into the cage." An older woman from somewhere in the middle of the group piped up, cutting of the younger man mid sentence.

"What exactly is the cage?" Ariela asked, glancing past the group to look at the work of animancy behind them. It wasn't a topic she knew a lot about, though she'd always found it somewhat fascinating. It was outlawed where she had grown up, after all, so naturally she'd always wondered what all of the fuss was about.

"Something we made to protect ourselves from surges in the luminous adra." Ariela glanced at Eder, dropping her voice a little. "If Eothas is using the adra statue to collect soul essence, that would explain why they were protected inside, while everyone outside..." She trailed off, the end of the sentence apparent without her having to say it.

"What would he need with souls?"

"I... don't exactly know. And frankly, I think I'm a little terrified to find out." Turning back to the survivors she asked; "Did you see what happened?"

The woman at the front of the group nodded solemnly. "The colossus. Some kind of construct made from luminous adra. It passed through towards the pillar. The pillar went dark, and all of our colleagues outside the cage froze. Like they were turned to ash."

"I'm very sorry for your losses." Ariela added, respectfully. "If you need to take a moment..."

"After that was when the panthers and wurms showed up!" The enthusiastic young man took over. "They started going through the tents, it was awful. But Engferth-"

The woman that had been speaking shot a terrifying look in his direction, and he fell quiet so that she could speak once again. She addressed Ariela with a somewhat desperate look. "Some of our people are still missing inside the ruins, including our lead researcher, Oderisi. It could be possible that he managed to hide."

"I... don't know how likely that is." Ariela admitted, carefully. "But I'm perfectly willing to help however I can. I can go and take a look inside, if you'd like? See if I can find more suvivors?"

"You would?"

"Of course. We want to help, that's why we're here." She glanced in Eder's direction, and to Ariela's relief he gave an approving nod.

"Well, if you're going below... you should take Engferth with you." She turned to motion somebody to the front of the group. 

"Oh, don't worry, we're quite capable-" Ariela began, not wanting to drag anyone from the group into potential danger.

At the exact same time, Eder remarked; "Hey, he looks just like-" 

Ariela followed her friend's gaze, confused as to why Eder had cut himself off. Her confusion was short lived, however, as her eyes landed on the person being ushered to the front of the group. She knew the face well, and had, in fact, dreamt about those pretty features regularly over the last few years. The woman may have identified him as 'Engferth', but the man now standing before her was most definitely Aloth Corfiser.

She cocked an eyebrow in his direction, but carefully schooled her expression to be as close to neutral as she could manage as he discretely tapped a finger to his lips. She wasn't a fan of dishonesty, but she trusted Aloth, and if he felt there was a need to keep his identity concealed, then she would respect his decision to do so.

But... that didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun with him. Five years was a long time to go without even so much as a letter to your dear friend, after all. Tilting her head curiously, she tried not to let the smirk threatening to play on her lips show. "What else can you tell me about 'Engferth'?"

"I... I don't think that's really-" Aloth began to insist, but the woman had already begun to answer.

"He has only been with us for a few weeks. He's inexperienced, but he came from a glowing recommendation from an academy in Selona."

"Oh, I'm sure he did." Ariela murmured, to herself.

"That's surely a generous overstatement." Aloth interjected, shooting Ariela a look.

She feigned innocence, returning her attention to the other woman, pointedly. "A glowing recommendation, you said?"

"'A pupil of unnatural talent' is the phrase I recall." The woman elaborated, ignoring the further attempts at protest from the man himself. "It seems he was loved and regarded by almost all of his instructors, though misunderstood, I gathered, by his fellow students."

A deep blush had spread across Aloth's cheeks by now, reaching up to the tips of his ears, and despite the glare he was leveling at Ariela, she couldn't help but think that he looked adorable. 

She knew that she should stop her line of questioning now, that the task in front of her was far more important than this, but she'd been wound so tight with the tension of everything that was going on, and now that she'd allowed herself even a few moments of release, she wasn't entirely sure how to stop. "That's all very impressive. He doesn't even sound Vailian."

"Engferth's story is especially sad!" The young man at the back of the group announced. "He was only a boy when both his parents died. In a fire."

"Wishful thinking, surely." Ariela remarked, somewhat more loudly than she had intended. Thankfully no-one questioned her comment.

"He came to the Dyrwood and lived at the manor of a wealthy old aunt from Aedyr until she also died... in a fire."

Ariela turned her attention back to her former travelling companion, and found a sheepish look on his face. She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. 

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Aloth remarked; "Well, if that's all, then perhaps we should be off. That is... if you want my assistance?"

"Of course. I'd like nothing more."

--

"Your wealthy old aunt!?" Ariela moved in front of Aloth as soon as they were out of view and earshot of the animancers, a mock frown on her face. "Really?!"

He grimaced. "It seemed like a convenient story. Besides, you do have the oldest soul of anyone I know."

"I'm still younger than you, you cheeky-" 

"Don't mind her, Aloth." Eder remarked, clapping a hand on the other man's shoulder with a chuckle. "She's been in a funny mood ever since she died again."

"You..." Aloth's gaze snapped to her face once more, a briefly horrified expression plain to see, before his eyes began roaming over her, searching for something. "What happened? Ariela, are you...?"

"I'm fine." That wasn't exactly true, but she said it all the same. It seemed easier than the reality. "What's more important is what you've been up to. 'Engferth'. Five years since I saw you last! You don't visit, you don't write."

She wasn't entirely sure why it bothered her so much that he hadn't been in contact with her since he'd left Caed Nua all those years ago. She'd encouraged him to follow his heart, to do what he thought was best, even if it meant parting company with one another. It wasn't as though one year of adventuring together meant that he owed her a lifetime of acquaintance. No, that wasn't quite right. Ariela did know why it bothered her so much. It was obvious, really. The feelings she'd developed for him during their time together had been beyond those of friendship, and though she'd kept those feelings to herself, she knew that she had been really quite smitten with him. The fact that he had broken off contact with her so entirely, it surely meant that he didn't return those feelings. And, as much as she knew that it shouldn't, that hurt her.

"Ah. Yes. Thank you for your discretion back there. Well, 'discretion' in the loosest definition of the word, anyhow." 

"Sorry," Ariela smiled. "Once I started, I couldn't seem to stop." 

"All the same, I appreciate that you didn't reveal my true identity. We can speak more freely about my movements once we're away from the island."

"Of course." Ariela made to walk on, to head deeper inside the ruins in search of more survivors that she suspected they would not find, but before she could take a step, she quickly changed her mind.

Turning back to face Aloth, she wrapped her arms around him in a sudden embrace, releasing him after a brief moment to find that ever familiar, incredibly adorable flushed face. 

"It's good to see you again."

A genuine smile overtook his face, and, horribly, Ariela could feel herself falling in love all over again. "And you as well." 

[bidrums]

Religious Imagery in AHS Apocalypse from someone with a weird sense of humor that involves grape soda for some reason

BIG DISCLAIMER: Any and all views expressed here are my opinion and do not reflect the actual beliefs and operations of religions and their subsets. If I ever say anything incorrect, then please let me know and I will correct myself. This is not meant to be used as concrete evidence of any religion’s workings and should be used as the opinions of bidrums dot tumblr dot com. Also, the views of this blogger are entirely their own and should not be used to attack said blogger for using their First Amendment right of expressing their opinion. This is not an attack on AHS, Ryan Murphy, or any real persons or beliefs. Frustration does not equal open hate.

This has been a PSA because some people apparently can’t take an opinion without an essay before said opinion covering every base on how it’s potentially problematic instead of just leaving people the fuck alone.

Okay, so I would like to say something right off the bat that many people don’t know and that inadvertently caused my 10th grade chemistry class to think I was a Satanist for a few months (I’ll tell that story another time):

AN UPSIDE DOWN CROSS IS NOT A FUCKING SATANIC CROSS IT IS A CHRISTIAN CROSS THAT IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM LOOKS LIKE THE LEVIATHAN CROSS- THE ACTUAL SATANIC CROSS ACCORDING TO A QUICK GOOGLE SEARCH (Tumblr won’t let me post pictures of the two but look them up sorry for the lack of pictures)

One looks way more like a dick

If you need a quick way to distinguish the two, remember that the Satanic cross is the fancy one that looks like a dick okay I’ll stop with that

Why does this bother me so much? Well, I am a Christian, and I was taught from a young age (and when I say young, I mean 5) that crosses look different and some of them represent people other than Jesus.

So Peter- one of the most famous of the Twelve- was sentenced to be crucified like Jesus. Which he was surprisingly chill with, apart from the detail of the cross itself. He said that he was not worthy to be crucified in the same way Jesus was, so put tin a different position. The Romans obliged and put him upside down, which is arguably a much worse position to be crucified in (look up what being crucified will do to your body to understand how sick it actually is- part of what hurt so much was that they put the nails right next to the funny boy so the slightest movement would hit it).

Peter had some serious balls.

I fully understand why people would think an upside down cross would be more Satanic than Saint-like. It makes perfect sense, actually. If a regular cross represents Jesus, then wouldn’t flipping it upside down be a way of disrespecting God, and by extension be more Satanic? It’s actually pretty sound logic. That’s another part of why it’s annoying to see it aligned with Satan, since to me it’s really awesome how something that’s seemingly disrespectful actually came out of a deep, passionate, respect and admiration.

Now, because the fact that Satanic crosses are super phallic fancy isn’t exactly common knowledge, I won’t be openly annoyed at Ryan and crew for going with it.

Or, at least, I wouldn’t.

Because they obviously understand some religious imagery and what it actually means.

Another common misbelief is that 666 is the number of the Devil.

Again, it comes from. a logical place. 7 is the Biblical number of Perfection, and 6 by extension is less than perfection. That paired with the fact that in the book of Revelation, 666 is associated with the Apocalypse will lead to the conclusion that it’s the number of the Devil.

But it isn’t!

And Ryan acknowledges that multiple times!

Revelation 13:16-18– “He required everyone- small and great, rich and poor, free and slave- to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man (in some versions, “of humanity”). His number is 666 (or in some versions, “616″).”

This is referring to the Beast from the Earth, commonly believed to be the Antichrist. Funnily enough, in Episode 6, Vivien quotes a passage about a beast, but it’s the Beast from the Sea:

“Then I saw a beast rising up out of the sea. It had seven heads and ten horns, with ten crowns on its horns. And written on each head were the names that blasphemed God. This beast looked like a leopard, but it had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion! And the dragon gave the beast his own power and throw and great authority.”- Revelation 13:1-2, Vivien’s quote.

“Then I saw another beast come up out of the earth. He had two horns like those of a lamb, but he spoke with the voice of a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast. And he required all the earth and its people to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.”- Revelation 13:11-12, the one with 666.

Yeah, it’s a bit confusing and honestly I’m making a bit of a big deal of this seeing as almost everyone I’ve known has mixed up the two but in this case it’s not being overdramatic so much as being annoyed.

Why?

Because Ryan did enough research to know that 666 is more commonly associated with the Antichrist and not Satan, and that it’s called the number/mark of the Beast, and even got a Bible passage to quote but used one referring to the wrong Beast and still uses upside down crosses to represent Satan!

Okay, in this episode I honestly wondered if he was using it to show how clueless the Satanists are but nope, it’s Satan. And my headache grew because he obviously does his research, but he relies on lazy cliches to drive some of the plot forward, and that just devalues the genuinely clever religious references. And it’s disappointing because there’s some genuinely clever parts that are great, but the way they’re written and presented and paired with the misinformation devalues everything and lessens their impact and also confuses everyone!

Wow that was a really bad way to segway into the last point sorry guys

So the scene in the forest is actually really clever and here’s why:

I’m not the first person to make this comparison, but the forest scene heavily invokes a parallel to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.

I haven’t seen the Exorcist, so don’t expect me to even come close to whatever that was. I also burst out laughing when he said, “Are you my father?” to the goat because 1) Black Phillip from the VVitch anyone? and 2) it sounded like the Dr. Seuss book “Are you my Mother?” and I couldn’t.

But the temptation part was really interesting and clever, I think.

Just a quick recap of the story in case anyone isn’t familiar with it: Jesus goes out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and doesn’t eat or drink anything for that duration (fun fact: that’s what Lent represents and why we give something(s) up). After the 40 days and nights, Old Scratch shows up and is like, “Yo, I got bread that you need to live.” and Jesus says, “Remember where it’s written that man doesn’t live by just great but also the word of God? I’m good.” Then Lucy takes him to a high point in the world and goes, “You worship me and it’s yours” and Jesus goes, “No thanks.” Then they go to a super high point right next to a populated city and Satan says, “If you jump, God has promised that his Son will have the protection of Angels and will not be hurt. Prove that’s legit.” and at this point Jesus gets fed up and says, “Yeah, but Dad also said that he won’t be tested for some vanity project, so get lost!” Satan leaves, then some Angels come and give Jesus food and refreshments and help him recover from the self-imposed starvation.

I think that scene in the forest was Michael being tempted by God, as a parallel to this.

It’s weirdly edited and confusing and not that great, but that’s what I think it was and thought it was while watching it.

Let’s break it down: Michael is in the woods for 4 days without food or water. He is then tempted with grape soda and an apple- food needed to live that he hasn’t had for a time period that’s a multiple of 4. Then he has people who admired him talking to him/confronting him/expressing their admiration for him because of who he is- the adoration and attention received by his powerful nature. An Angel-like figure approaches and expresses Heavenly affections- God sending his Angel to the one being tempted, as was promised. Finally, animals associated with the Devil show up- the temptation is over, and the spiritual guardians show up.

It’s a subtle callback to it, but it does check out. Writing like this is what annoys me when lazy writing happens because Ryan and crew obviously know what they’re doing and referencing, but they can’t be bothered to even find new ways to subvert the cliches while keeping the gross sacrifice parts.

Anyways, that’s my rant on this. Thanks for reading!

[azwoodbomb]

Des the Boot, or “This city guard kicked a cat. You won’t believe what happened next.”

On Brussendar 16th, 835 P.D., I moved into my single room corner of the barracks after the last workman had finished his labours. The restoration had been a simple task, yet because the workmen spent more time on break than working it had come at no small expense. The place had not been inhabited since early in the reign of Bertrand Dwendal, when a tragedy of intensely hideous, though largely unexplained, nature had struck down the previous tenant.

Life was gentle at first, as much as it can ever be for a man of shallow pockets. The weeks went by without incident, work mostly consisted of standing around and looking stern, yelling and getting yelled at. The bums felt my wrath, an extension of my boss’, which in turn was an extension of his superior’s and so on, a deep and winding wrath ever-raging that probably stretched all the way to the throne, its roots growing from the emperor’s stony heart, cold as the steel that forged his empire. A fitting foundation for the long arm of the law, with me and my buddies as the fist.

Then it all changed. We were standing guard outside the Tri-Spires, keeping out the riff-raff like usual. A fancy looking tiefling goes in, dirty hobo stays out. Then this cat appeared, weird-looking somehow, thinking it’s slinking right by me. A quick kick should teach it, I think, that the law also has long legs when the need arises. Except it didn’t go quite right. I kicked it alright, and it yowled like you’d expect, but after that it all went wrong. It sorta... poofed. Gone. Obliterated.

The guys loved it. First I’m Desmond Doom-toe, then Des the Boot, then Deathboot the Destroyer. Some of the weirdos we dragged to the cells even seemed to take it seriously. I enjoyed the attention. It was a great ice-breaker, a story that got better and better as it was retold over countless mugs of ale.

But all good things must pass. A few days ago things started to get weird. A cat yowling outside my window prompted me to step outside to employ my trusty boot, but when I got out the noise stopped and the creature nowhere to be seen. Shortly after I returned to my room it started again, then stopped once I peered out. In the end I ran all around the building looking for the little beast, but there was nothing to be seen. As soon as I got back in it resumed torturing me. I eventually succumbed to sleep despite the incessant wailing, but was harassed even then by horrible dreams. I seemed to be looking down at a dim sewer, knee-deep with filth, where a red-bearded hobo drove before him a flock of strange, outlandish creeps whose appearance filled me with unutterable loathing. Then, as the hobo stopped and nodded over his task, a mighty swarm of enormous spiders rained down on the stinking darkness and fell to devouring man and woman alike.

From this terrific vision I awoke to little comfort, for as my laboured breathing calmed I could hear strange noises in the dark. There was something scratching at the walls, but for all my fumbling in the darkness I couldn’t find its origin. I went to work a shade of myself, too tired to do much more than look mean.

The next night went similar to the last. An unseen cat wailed without pause, escaping my every attempt at locating it, ignoring my own shouts entirely. Covering my ears as best I could I eventually drifted off to sleep, but found no more refuge there than the previous night. I dreamed I sat staring into a roaring hearth on a cold night, yet it was no comfort to me. The fire was wrong. I stared and found I could not look away. The crackling of the logs slowly grew louder, and were soon joined by a peculiar whining, which grew ever louder until it rose into a crescendo of wailing and in the flames I saw anguished faces and I sat still and stared, until the veiled figures reached fumbling hands out of the hungry fire and I reached out and took them and the flame ran up my arms and as I opened my mouth and screamed flames bubbled out of my mouth.

Again I woke to noises in the night and again I could find no source. The day passed agonizingly slowly, so tired was I that even the captain’s yelling couldn’t rile me up enough to let the lowlifes on the street have it. Only once I got home and was confronted by a neighbour who asked me to keep it down at night did I find the energy to give someone a bruise.

That night followed the same old pattern. I didn’t even bother looking for the damned cat and just went to sleep. I dreamt of running through a small village filled with screams. I ran through darkened streets amid the sound of battle and bloodshed, darting into shabby buildings and grabbing whatever little objects struck me as useful or interesting. I kept going, ignoring the sounds around me, the spatters of blood on the wall, until I was met in one of the buildings by a tiny shriek. I froze and locked eyes with a terrified little girl and suddenly I could see what she saw: A hunched little monster with long, spindly arms, bloodshot eyes and a row of jagged teeth gleaming in the dark.

The scratching at the walls persisted, but I didn’t bother moving. Once dawn broke I inspected the walls closely, but there seemed no possibility of anything having infiltrated them. The lads joked at work, asking me whether I’d finally found a girl to keep me up at night. In the evening I hit the pub and got deeply into my cups.

The noise that evening was less of a problem due to the mercies of ale, but still my dreams were troubled. This time I was a little doll, locked behind a pane of glass looking down onto a busy street. I could do nothing but watch as people passed by my window, laughing and loving as I looked on. Occasionally people would come into the building, and an achingly beautiful, haunting voice would sing somewhere behind me, but I could never turn to look. Time passed agonizingly, days and weeks and months and years flowing sluggishly beneath my window. I would scream but find I had no voice, cry and find I had no tears, blink and find I had no eyelids. After what felt like years I heard a new sound in my life. At first I couldn’t fathom where it was coming from, for the people were walking and the voice was singing same as ever. Only when night fell and silence seeped in did I realize I was laughing.

I woke up with a start and on every side of the room the walls seemed alive with nauseous sounds- the infernal scratching and wailing of ravenous alley-cats. I hid beneath the covers. The following day I picked up the slack and let the scum on the street have every ounce of my anguish. The captain seemed almost pleased, for once.

The next night I sat and listened to the familiar song of the damned cat for hours before drifting off to bed like a ghost. As I slowly passed into dream I realized that was probably what it was, the ghost of that damned disappearing cat wailing at me from beyond the veil. In my dream I walked with an old friend of mine, chatting about life and death and the empty spaces between the stars. But it was like looking at a translucent painting, with another picture lying beneath the paint. The harder I strained the clearer it became. Beneath my friend’s face was an ocean, and floating just beneath the waves was a person watching me, backlit by a dim light coming from the murky depths beneath him in the shape of an enormous, staring eye. I visibly shuddered and my friend smiled sadly. His face started slowly dripping and from the depths a hand and a monstrous tentacle reached out as one and dragged me down into the dark.

I awoke sweating and screaming, my heart pounding. I lit a candle and looked frantically around, seeing the walls shake with the incessant scratching. The pounding continued, louder and louder, until I realized it was at my door. I inched closer to assure myself the sound was real, then threw it open. I saw the vague form of a person just as my candle burned my finger and expired. I heard voices, and yowls, and echoes but above all there gently rose that impious, insidious scurrying; gently rising; rising, as a stiff bloated corpse gently rises above an oily river that flows under endless onyx bridges to a black, putrid sea. Something bumped into me- something soft and plump. It must have been the cats; the dirty, ravenous army that feasts on the small creatures of this world. Why wouldn’t they feast on me, slayer of their kin, after reducing me from man to mouse through nights of torture.  Shall a king’s guard die at the mercy of street vermin, alone and helpless like the lowlifes? No, no, I tell you, I am not like that filthy beggar in the sewer! Who says I am a king’s guard? ...It’s dark magic, I tell you... that stinking cat... ’Swroth, thou stinkard, I’ll learn ye how to gust... Mutter! Himmlischer Mutter!... Erathis... Hilf mir, denn ich habe die Sünde gegessen...  Das einzige Wahrheit des Lebens auf der Erde ist der Hunger... Yee...rrlh...Yee...chchch...noghu!

That is what they claim I said when they found me in the morning, crouching in my room over the unconscious, bleeding body of my neighbour, his whole body covered in claw marks. Now they have locked me away in the cells I used to walk past grinning. They talk about me in hushed tones as they pass now, whispering about the state of my mind. The neighbour knows what happens but they won’t let me talk to him. They are trying to suppress the facts, they must know that I did not do it. They must know it was the cats, the scurrying cats whose scampering will never let me sleep; the demon cats that race behind the bricks in this cell and beckon me to greater horrors than I have ever known; the cats they can never hear; the cats, the cats in the walls.

[chameleonspell]

197: fire

Fire in the clouds, a flaming beast of a storm. Howling circles around the summit of Red Mountain, ready to descend in ravenous fury and devour the slopes. Iriel, on the slopes, almost wished it would. Anything to break this living mummification in a shroud of smog. Anything to know something other than the scab-red darkness, and the ash coming down. But here inside the Fence, it was always dark, and the ash always coming down. The moment we fall, the ash will cover us. We'll vanish in seconds, drowned in a senseless sea of wasted life. Wasted energy. Perhaps in another thousand years, someone will find our relics, and wonder who we were.

He adjusted his mouth-filter, but there was no stopping it. The ash was outside and inside, filling every space and coating every surface with a red that was bloody yet barren, dull with decay, a wound past all healing. Filling him up with rusty greyness, the null remainder of things long since burned and lost. Who are we? What am I? The ashes of all the possibilities I set fire to along the way. And whether we fall or rise, the ash takes us all back, eventually. Nothing endures. Nothing can burn forev-- Shut the fuck up, Ire! Stop thinking! Walk! All you have to do is walk! Three days. Two on the lower slopes, where camping was still barely possible. One in the blightstorm, where any shelter would have to be wrenched from the mountain itself, and so far, the mountain hadn't given an inch. All they could do was keep going. Wind in his ears, a ceaseless, hollow roar that blocked out everything but the old, brittle monologue, creeping out of the cellar on its spindly legs again. I can't remember the stones. How can I, when there are no paths, everything shifting, reburying me endlessly. Only the ash drinks our tears, and ash has no memory. Ash has my memory, ashes of memories. Ash is eaten fire. We have been eaten and burned... no, burned and eaten. I was burned, so I burned things. Many things, far too many. Sweat ran down his back, beneath his protective layers. The Armigers had shown them how to sew frost-charms into their cloaks, but the heat was still relentless. The air coming through his filter smelled of charred corpses and tasted of dread. Nothing behind me, and nothing ahead. Past ash, future ash, what exists between, what pins me placeless, hauls me helpless? An illusion. Nothing. No rudder, because no ship. There is no room for it. I am trapped between past and future in the no-space of the present which is absent, imaginary, noth-- Something caught his foot, and he stumbled into blind space, landing in ash that yielded so numbly, he thought himself still in mid-air. He floundered, lost. There was only the ash, he was adrift and alone. Panic crushed his chest in an airless fist. nothingthereisnothingnothingnothing--SHUT UP!!! He choked a word out into the red: "Where--?" A voice, closer than he'd expected. "Hold on, I see you." "Where are you?" "Here." "Are you still there?" "I'm here." "I thought you were gone." "No." A darker shape in the air. Fingers on his arm, a brush that slipped into a firm grip. "Can you see me?" "I've got you." "Look at me. Please, I'm..." "I see you." "Don't look away!" "I see you." A hand around his wrist, hauling him on through tear-muddied, gore-red fog. He followed, forcing his legs through knee-deep ash-drifts that clung, heavy as swampland, but dead, dead, dead. The red-veined clouds belched open, and burning stones began to fall, tiny glinting shards and sparking embers, the largest as big as his fist. Julan raised his shield and dragged him faster. "This way! I see something!" Harder uphill. Lungs burning, muscles burning, the air acrid with smoke. Missiles clattered on the shield above him in harsh, staccato bursts. Some struck his shoulders and arms, lighter than he feared. Charcoal, perhaps, or pumice. The ash evened out, and he saw pipes buried in it, felt firmer ground beneath him. "There's a tower!" Julan yelled, and Ire squinted upwards past the shield, rubbing his goggles clean with his sleeve. Great shapes loomed over him, colossal metal cylinders studded with rivets and augmented by massive geometric structures, ranging from the conceivably functional to the aesthetically perverse. Statues, even. A brass-bearded Dwemer king hung bent, skewed horizontal in midair, dead-eyed and creaking in the wind. It was awe-inspiring. So much so, that he didn't notice an ember had caught his scarf until Julan shouted, and by then, his cloak was on fire. He should have thrown himself down and rolled. Instead, blindsided by flaming panic, he clawed wildly at his face and neck, breaking the clasp of his cloak as he ripped it off, screaming as his blue silk scarf fell apart in his hands, and the wind snatched the last shreds into darkness. In that moment, he felt his soul disintegrating with it. He came a little undone. When Julan finally got Iriel into the shelter of the brass-panelled porch that cupped the tower's round entrance, Ire was shaking and coughing, hyperventilating ash. He was no longer burning, but his head and neck were bare, and he'd torn the front of his shirt down to the waist. "A short season of towers," he was reciting, eyes glassy. "A rundown absolution, and what is this, what is this, but fire under your eyelid?!" "What?" Julan tried to hold Ire's head still long enough to check it for injury. "Your eye? It looks fine, where d--?" "The fire is mine! Let it consume thee!" "Aagh! Stop that!" As Julan hissed and worried at him, Iriel looked down at his bared chest and began to laugh. "Look!" he gasped. "I've given my honour to the rav'nous flame! I've burned everything now, everything!" His voice was rising again, breaking into shrill, jagged ribbons of sound. Julan tried to quiet him, but Ire's laughter only grew more uneven, weighted with sobs. "My blood, my family, my beauty and wisdom! Who did I burn it for? What did I ever get for it? Was it all a false exchange, a trick? A test of devotion? To what? What?!" "It wasn't anything, you're just babbling. Shhh..." "Even... even my sorrow, the thing I though I'd never lose, the tears I thought would never stop... it all burns away, in the end! Everything, everything... I've burned all my bridges, burned all my ghosts..." "Shhh, Iya. You're safe, nothing's burning." "I cursed the stars! Of course I'm doomed to lose everything, of course I’d never win my true love! My pa'd tell me I had it coming!" Julan wrapped his arms around Ire's head. "Shhh. It wasn't your fault." He pulled him near, held him still. "Shhh..." Drained and red-eyed, Iriel watched the blightstorm rage through a crack in their small, metal shelter. Julan had found a fallen panel in the ash and propped its corrugated bulk across the porch entrance. Only swirling darkness showed through the narrow gap, but Ire stared at it anyway, transfixed. "It feels like there's nothing else left in the world," he whispered. "As if everything has already burned and crumbled away." At his back, he felt Julan's ribcage expand in a slow breath. "Not yet." "There'll be no going back, after we walk off this edge. Nothing will be the same." A shrug. "That's the whole point." Despite the hoarseness of his throat, Ire began to sing, weak and breathy: "The dawn broke hard upon the ash, my hands were barren and blistered..." "But," Julan interrupted gently, "the dawn broke." His hand was on Ire's arm, and he squeezed it. "You can't really burn things like that, you know. Weren't you the one who hated trite metaphors?" He gave Ire a soft but meaningful nudge. "Your pa wants to see you." Iriel sighed. "I just... can't picture... anything. How can you ever know what to keep and what to cast into the fire? What will warm you, and what burn you to the bone, if you let it get close to you ever again?" Julan said nothing, only held Ire tighter against him, and reached out to improve the seal on their makeshift door. "Even if we live... what will be left, after all this is over? When we sift through the ashes?" A still pause, before Julan said: "Love?" Ire couldn't quite laugh, but he got as far as a watery smile. "As if it were a gemstone, formed once, in times of great heat and intense pressure, then perfect forever after? They give crystals as wedding gifts, back home, you know. To represent permanence and purity. Such guarshit; love is nothing like that. It's a living thing. You have to care for it or it dies. And even then, nothing mortal lasts forever. Time eats love, desire, everything. But... the fact you would say that is part of why I love you." "You make it all so complicated." Julan stifled a yawn. "You sure it counts, saying you love me, now? Seems to me, brushes with flaming death should be like orgasm, under your rules. You need to be a certain distance away, before saying you love someone means anything." Ire settled back against Julan's chest. "I have a new rule. It's called shut the fuck up and let people love you." A little later, Julan felt movement, and glanced down. Iriel had turned away from the storm and was fumbling with the straps of his cuirass. Julan chuckled. "You getting that sexy imminent doom thing again?" "No. I don't think that works, when it's real. But I need to be closer to you. I need to feel your heartbeat, instead of that other one, out there." Julan co-operated with the straps, and shrugged out of his armour. It was glass, found on an unfortunate Armiger's body, their second day on the mountain. It had taken some argument, but Ire had eventually convinced him that the greatest respect they could pay the fallen warrior was to wear his armour on their journey. Iriel was trying to press himself against Julan with all his limbs at once, but had too many of them to really succeed. "I guess you're right about imminent doom not being all that sexy," Julan muttered, after a few minutes of this, "but you squirming around half naked between my legs certainly is." Ire sat bolt upright. "Wait!" he said. "Yes! Right! I've changed my mind! Fuck me!" "Uhh... You're sure that's really a good--" "Yes! I'm full of nothing but morbid nonsense, and I need to get it screwed out of me." Julan rubbed his eyes and stretched, bracing his back against the curving brass wall. "Iya... no offence, but... when has that ever worked, before?" "Previous failure is no reason to stop repeating an experiment," mumbled Iriel, but the energy had already left his voice, and he stopped interfering with Julan's belt. "I'm sorry," he sighed, head sinking forwards. "It's just... lately, every time I touch you, I start thinking... what if this is the last time? What if this is our last chance?" "Look, how about you stop trying to make sure our last time is the worst one ever, and focus on how we make sure it's not the last?" Julan was pulling blankets from his pack. "Like by keeping your strength up, and getting some rest." Iriel offered no resistance, cushioning the metal beneath him as best he could, and curling foetal. Settling himself alongside, Julan wrapped an arm around Ire's shoulders and pressed his mouth to his ear. "Harileth, ka harilethar zunni, Iyabibi." "Hmm? I love and... will love... something else?" Ire shifted in Julan's embrace to pout at him. "It's not fair to say sweet things, if I can't understand!" "How d'you know they're sweet? I could be insulting you." "You didn't mention guar, so..." "It's just a way to say goodnight," Julan said. "To children, usually," he added, a touch sheepishly. "I used to hear it in the camp. It means: I love you, and I'll love you tomorrow." Ire's mouth twitched. "Tomorrow..." "As many as we get. And I intend to fight for them. I know... it's not about us. That succeeding is more important than whether we survive it. But... this isn't a suicide mission. I'm going to fight with everything I've got. You have to, as well. Don't burn out on me yet, Iya. Think about what you want, afterwards. Hold onto it." Ire managed a laugh, this time. "There you go again with the storybook hero talk, it's adorable." Dodging Julan's nose, he nuzzled close. "Harileth," he whispered, between kisses. "Harilem. Either. Both. All the forms. All possible tenses. Yesterday and tomorrow, and now... and now... and now..." next: 198: sunder previous: 196: dawn beginning: 1: numb