#cros so cool he’s so chill

[herebecritters]

Meatheads ❤️

Bully belongs to @technicoloranimalviolence

[nintendont2502]

cant find the original post but a while ago i impulsively decided to add all 32 sburb players (betas, alphas, alternians *and* beforans) to a random name generator and then randomly mix them up - characters kept their original first name and class, and took on the last name and aspect of whatever character they took the role of. this was just meant to be a funny 1am experiment so i could laugh at the cursed results

...yeah it has lore now. i cant stop thinking about it. help.

Beta Kids:

Gamz Egbert (Gamzee) - Bard of Breath. One of the most chill guys ever. Constantly zoned the hell out. Loves clowns :0) him and his dad bond over it. Hangs out with Kari a lot over vc, where it's basically just Kari talking at him uninterrupted (the kid needs it sometimes)

Kari Strider (Kankri) - Seer of Time. Gifted kid and he won't let you forget it. Permanently lives in a sweater vest even though he literally lives in Texas. Constantly annoyed by how childish and immature his older brother is. Lectures him a lot. Lectures his friends a lot. Has 'visions of his past lives' (aka occasional memories from his post-scratch/alternate timeline counterparts). Lectures his friends about how theyre real and valid whenever they make give him shit for it (which happens a lot). Dedicated pacifist - for now, anyway.

John Lalonde - Heir of Light. Golden child. Has an over-bearing mother that constantly pushes him into learning instruments/lanugages/skills, participating in competitions and events, winning award after award. Sure, he's... kinda sick of doing things all day every day, and he doesn't really want to do any of this, but... shouldn't he do it anyway? Even if just for his Mom? Hell, he can't really complain about it, right? He has such a good life! He goes horseback riding every sunday! Sure, it sucks that he doesn't have any free time that isn't controlled by his mother, but he can deal with it. It's fine.

(Things get even worse during the three year trip when Wuh Oh! Gender crisis time! Except he can’t be a girl because he was always meant to be his mom’s perfect son, and he’s already let her down once by letting her die, right? He can just… live with this. Its fine. It's not that bad. It's for her, after all.)

Roxy Harley - Rogue of Space. Grew up living on a small island somewhere in the Pacific that her grandfather 'won in a poker game' (aka probably scammed someone out of, knowing him) - or so he says, anyway. He also used to say he got Roxy the same way every time she asked where she came from! Haha very funny Roxy definitely loved hearing that and not a real response every time she asked where she came from and why she didn’t have any parents. That was great. Her grandfather died when she was fairly young, leaving her alone on the island with nothing left of him but the small inventions he left around the place to make life easier for her. She grows up learning how to maintain them, and although she tries becoming a great inventor like her grandfather, she just... doesn't have the skill. Hacking, on the other hand - shes great at that shit! She finally cracks her final goal - cracking into her grandfathers servers - just before her friend Gamz's 13th birthday, finding mostly boring shit - expenses, customer complaints, legal threats, budgets, etc. What's mildly more interesting to her, however, is the insane amount of money (if they lived on the mainland, they'd be fucking LOADED), and a .exe file for a really cool looking game, with a note from her grandfather congratulating her on finally getting in. And hey, would you look at that? Its multiplayer! And all her friends are free - even John, who through sheer coincidence found himself with a free weekend after his tutors came down with various mysterious illnesses and injuries. It's like the universe wants them to play the game or some shit! Haha wild

Alpha Kids:

Raph Crocker (Rufioh) - Rogue of Life. The living embodiment of all those business major memes. Dude is *dedicated* to the Crockercorp brand - he's determined that one day, he'll climb the ranks and become head of the company, and hopefully lead it just as well as his great-grandfather did. He unironically wears a suit everywhere, and seems committed to sounding like a 50 year old boardroom exec trapped in the body of a 16 year old - although it isn't hard to get him to crack. As much as he pretends he has no patience for his online friends and their constant stories of 'living on a remote island' or 'living in the post-apocalyptic future' (seriously guys, he isn't that gullible), he does genuinely care about them. Besides, when you're stuck in the house all day, there isn't much else to do.

Tuna Strider (Mituna) - Heir of Heart. Trans king. Exudes pure 'disney channel older brother' energy. Shithead (affectionate). Looks up to his Bro, a famous pacifist who resisted the Batterwitch's rule with a global peaceful protest... only to be killed the moment he became too much of a threat. Yyeah. Tuna has... some thoughts about how that should have gone down - most of them involving swords. Or guns. Or both. Maybe if his Bro had a sweet katana, the world wouldn't have been flooded! Although it's too late for his Bro, Tuna has decided to take up the fight in his stead by creating his own 'sick as fuck gun-sword' with whatever scrap metal he can find in the apartment (his Bro, for some reason, didn't think to leave him any useable weapons. cringe). He's got the sword part down great, but the gun... not so much.

Vris Lalonde (Vriska) - Thief of Void. The second half of the 't4t post apocalypse chaos squad', as Tuna calls them. Girl doxxes people for fun - what are they gonna do? Doxx her back? lmao good luck with that losers - closest youre gonna get is still 400 years off. Constantly daring her friends to do stupid shit and quote, 'stop being so fucking boringggg'. it usually works on tuna. sometimes on dave. she still hasnt gotten raph yet, but *one day*...

Dave English - Knight of Hope. smooth talking mile a minute inventor who *loves* trying to 'pitch' his latest invention to his friends. its become almost a game to them, where theyll take turns bidding increasingly ridiculous amounts for an umbrella that shoots seeds ('for easy planting in the rain yknow') or a beat-boxing robot ('i dont even need to explain this one just look at it man. cool as shit'). hell, even raph gets involved sometimes, usually turning it into a shark tank style negotiation. dave swears hes keeping a tally of how much everyone 'owes' him, and claims that one day hes settling that bill. his inventions are genuinely pretty impressive, especially considering his limited resources - being stuck alone on a remote island makes sourcing parts pretty hard. he probably wouldnt even need to jokingly scam his friends in order to jokingly sell his inventions - they jokingly sell themselves. he just thinks scamming people is fun.

Alternia Rapid Fire Round lets goo

Cronus Megido - Bard of Time. relentlessly flirts with anyone of a higher caste than him in the hopes that, if he can get into a quadrant with them, he'll have more protection than he would as just a solo rustblood. this strategy ultimately fails when he flirts with a particular Serket one too many times and gets killed for it. damn. oh well.

Sollux Nitram - so so tired of everyones shit. the only person that actually vaguely got along with Cronus (because he was the only person that Cronus didn't flirt with). just wants to play his pokemon in peace man stop dragging him into drama

Damara Captor - Witch of Doom. 'curses' people. seems weirdly unsurprised when those curses actually work. after cronus' death, a rumour went around that she was the one who caused it, and she absolutely wasnt denying that shit - now no one wants to fuck with her, and those that do? well, she still has her psiionics.

Meulin Vantas - Mage of Blood. Basically the only fucking thing holding this friendship group together. Despite all the complicated as shit relationships - the friendships, the exes, the mortal enemies, the attempted (and successful) murders - Meulin somehow manages to navigate the web of relationships and keep everyone relatively stable

Jaydee Leijon (Jade) - Witch of Heart. catgirl :33. Wishes she lived closer to everyone so she could see them 33: especially her moirail!! at least she still has her lusus to playfight with

Karkat Maryam - Knight of Space. basically a tboy vampire. Used to live in the caverns, but after he realised he was a dude, he began to feel uncomfortable with how oppressive and 'feminine' the caverns were. ran away. struggles with his identity - the contrast between the typical female jadeblood standards of being caring and nurturing, and the typical alternian female standards of being violent and aggressive, leave him stuck in the middle, unsure of what to do or who hes 'allowed' to be. swings wildly between being aggressive and letting himself care about his friends. he eventually figures out that gender stereotypes are bullshit and he can care abt his friends and still be a dude. hes still an asshole though <3

Eridan Pyrope - Prince of Mind. Incredibly committed to a strict moral code - which... no one can figure out. it seems to vary wildly depending on what suits him best at the specific moment. Used to roam Alternia looking for 'criminals' to 'improve' or, if that failed, 'bring to justice' with one Serket, but after an incident involving the loss of three eyes and one arm... they arent exactly on speaking terms.

Dyrrhk Serket (Dirk) - Prince of Light. i dont know how else to say it this mfer makes saw traps. he claims its to 'improve' people - by putting them through some specific trap, it... fixes a percieved issue? even if its an issue only he can see. and if they die in the trap? well, they should have just tried harder right. they probably deserved it. he isnt even doing this out of a desire to hurt people hes *genuinely* convinced that what hes doing is helping, and thinks that this is the best way to go about it. puts eridan through one one day, resulting in the loss of his vision, and after he (finally) figured out that 'huh maybe that wasnt a good idea', he... apologises. lmao just kidding that would be too reasonable - instead he mind controls one of his friends into putting *dyrrhk* into a trap of his own design, resulting in the loss of an eye and an arm. he seems genuinely convinced that this should make them even. everythings fine now, right? he scares me just on a conceptual level

Tavros Zahhak - Page of Void. hes basically a himbo im ngl. hes tall hes ripped hes clumsy and he cant help but draw attention to himself wherever he goes - attention he *hates*. moirails with jaydee. theyre cute <>

Latula Makara - Knight of Rage. clown... despite the usual purpleblood stereotypes, she doesnt really get angry all that often - most of the time, shes just vibing. but when she *does* get angry? its always for a reason. theres always a specific goal shes fulfilling through that anger (even if its just intimidating someone into doing something). i have the least thoughts about her but shes interesting

Jaiikk Ampora (Jake) - Page of Hope. Just a funny lil guy that likes playing pirates :) all the lowbloods he roleplays with definitely want to be there and don't feel coerced by being 'asked' by a literal violetblood :)) if people die during his 'games' well that sucks but he cant exacly stop playing because of a few small accidents right? ..yyeah. hes incredibly ignorant of his position in society and how that effects other people, even if (especially if) those consequences are deadly for others. after a certain point its just easier to not know whats going on than to face all the damage youve caused right. claims he loves the ocean and dreams of living in the depths. never goes into the ocean. hes a weird guy

Equius Peixes - Heir of Life. Future heir to the Alternian throne. Determined to lead Alternia into a new era of strength, no matter the methods to get there. moirails with Jaiikk (which absolutely doesnt help the whole 'Jaiikk accidentally pressuring lowbloods into doing things for him' thing. bro has scary dog privileges with the future emperor looming behind him at all times)

Even faster Beforus speed round because you cant legally make me think about them for more than five seconds

Porrim Megido - Maid of Time

Feferi Nitram - Witch of Breath

Rose Captor - Seer of Doom

Nepeta Vantas - Rogue of Blood

Kurloz Leijon - Prince of Heart

Aradia Maryam - Mage of Space

Aranea Pyrope - Sylph of Mind

Kanaya Serket - Sylph of Light

Jane Zahhak - Maid of Void

Meenah Makara - Thief of Rage

Terezi Ampora - Seer of Hope

Horuss Peixes - Page of Life

[libidomechanica]

And if I spende

For hit watz freschly he rydez.     Up the shepeheards boye no better; I schal be ware. May     for chauncely hatz for

no wylyde werke, ne wyst quat hit     hade a hatte, þat al þe couenaunt schop ryȝt so, fermed in     Arþurez hous, Hestor,

oþer euer schalk rides; and if I carp     not coy, but most bitter was seene. Add one morning I     remembrancer of crime, long

lost just nothing through the sprout of     honest speech. Monk oþer mon, now þou hatz þe knyȝt sayde Cros Kryst     ayþer oþer to þe comlych

quen yow lyst for to remwe. The act!     With sweets are, there watz ȝep, ȝolȝe watz boun, blyþely bisoȝt,     þaȝ he homered

heterly rechated, wrong’d, unpitied,     unredrest, the chill blast passes swiftly by, and over     them and it alway

to beget in my fyue wyttez     to longer it blossome, while vertuous course we court were, þe     best gemmes þat his strength

renew, were it should fail and best     knows all things which is cool, and I mot nedez hit bytyde!     Cupid laid by his uisage

verayly hit bytyde!     Memory has power to ease me: for the black pavement. Looking     out, my five bare-limbed

cherries in his arm or leg a     spot of bane: purchased, but why shouldst free of human heart some     brink? I saw them not, a

leuer, þat yow spede, and all the cost     of all acquaintance tell. Brode, bryȝt, with wrong, have shouldst brabbling     be with you all your leaves.

[abbynx]

Slumber party with La Squadra 🎉💅

Genre: Headcanons, crack I guess

Warning: Language

A/N: I've never been in a sleepover before because my parents are incredibly strict, so I don't usually know what happens during it, probably just lie around in one's phone but eh, let's make this fun

Also, it's currently 1 AM here

What makes a good team? A good bond of course! What makes a good bond? Spending time together! How can one spend time together? Slumber party! Whose idea is this? Melone, because suddenly he claims to have taken psychology in college and Risotto believes him.

I think this traditional feminine camaraderie is filled with oh so exciting things! With its makeovers, self care, tea spilling, ghost stories, feathery pillow fights, cute pyjamas, truths or dares and girly giggles.

Imagining these seasoned assassins in these circumstances can be quite the sight.

Now on to the show:

Formaggio

This energetic fucker is wearing a simple orange basketball shorts and a green tank top. He will remove his shirt if it's hot, but knowing Ghiaccio will be there, he keeps his shirt on.

He will initiate a pillow fight.

Like, you'll be there spilling the latest Passione tea, when suddenly a pillow sends you toppling back and hit your head against the wall, in your shock you make out the laugh of this mischievous fucker with the others joining him. And seeing nothing but red, you blindly toss the pillow to who you thought was Formaggio, but it ended up being Prosciutto.

Domino effect took hold and everyone armed themselves with pillows.

Illuso

He keeps his hair in a loose low braid and wore a simple white shirt and grey pyjama bottoms. The guy sleeps with a chilled gel mask over his eyes to prevent puffing, because this bitch is a top two beauty guru under Prosciutto.

This man is the one will recommend watching a movie— and of fucking course 🤦🏻‍♀️ it is a horror movie. And of fucking course, it is The Ring series 🙄😒

Ahem, may I reference this post I made about him regarding watching a horror movie with the squad

This sadist lives off of people's fear and anxieties that once the movie viewing is over, whoever is brave enough to go to the bathroom amidst the late night, will get a heart attack or shatter a mirror.

Prosciutto

He leaves his hair down after a long day of being in a tight hairstyle. Wore his silk set of pyjamas and sleeps with a matching silk sleeping mask. Damn, okay Pro living that girl life

Idk, this man strikes me boring at parties I'm sorry 😅 he'll just sorta be there, doing whatever one feels doing and follow them along.

BUT I do think he does have leaked plans more like gossips from the other departments of the mafia. Okok, but I can sorta picture him braiding someone's hair while also discussing about the leaked plans gossips. So while he's braiding someone's hair, that person is maybe preoccupied painting someone's nails.

As the conversation progresses, the discussion moves on the full on tea spilling, complete with face masks and cucumber eyes.

Sleeps early, he's no fun.

Pesci

Wears a simple yellow tank top with a tropical umbrella printed pyjama bottoms.

He brought board games! Who's up for a game of snake and ladders? Or perhaps monopoly? Clue? Scrabbles?

Since this is La Squadra, board games can only go wrong. We got Formaggio, who cheats. Illuso, who is petty. Prosciutto, who is competitive. Melone... Well, he plays fair. Ghiaccio, the rager. Risotto also stays calm because it's just a game, and he prefers to maintain the cool of his colleagues. Sorbet, a swindler. Gelato, another swindler. Pesci himself just wants to have fun, but is now feeling guilty because he thinks he may have started this fight.

So yes... This can go wrong in about ten different ways and all of them will end catastrophically.

Melone

Everyone protested against Melone if he goes nude, Ghiaccio threatning to increase the temperature. So he ends up wearing his hair up on a messy bun and wearing a pastel purple loose crop shirt and magenta booty shorts with white, bold printed fonts read 'Eat me' on the back.

He, of course, proposed a video game competition because he didn't learn from Pesci that game nights will only go south 🤦🏻‍♀️

Melone himself is a gamer, along with Ghiaccio and Formaggio. Gelato, Pesci and Illuso are average, they know quite a bit their way around controllers. Sorbet, Prosciutto and Risotto though... No.

Just like the the board game, it's going to end in a riot. And that's what Melone liked to see.

Ghiaccio

White shirt and baby blue pyjamas with cloud prints.

Get a load of this dude, the party hasnt even started and he started to sleep.

It is called a slumber party for a reason, slumber is sleep and not wHATEVER THE FUCK YOU'RE DOING LIKE PAINTING NAILS OR PLAYING GAMES! OUIJA BOARDS?! SUMMONING SATAN?! BLOODY MARY?! CANDY MAN?! FUCK NO! WHY CALL IT SLUMBER PARTY WHEN IT'S JUST A GLORIFIED HANG OUT WHILST IN PYJAMAS, HUH?!

Pfft, okay ice boy. I guess you're just too much of a pussy to chant bloody Mary in the bathroom.

You'd think this fucker is smart enough not to fall for it, but he does 🤦🏻‍♀️ He gives in to their reverse psychology egging and he heads to the bathroom to debunk their dumb fucking supernatural thing.

He ended up staying late anyways.

Risotto

Wears a black Metallica shirt and black pyjama bottoms.

To be honest, he's just happy to be there! To see his colleagues bros and hoes getting along, well that's the purpose of this little slumber party thing. Though, he has troubles shedding his leader mother role in this, because you know how these man babies act.

He has to make sure Formaggio doesn't get himself killed if he decided it was a good idea to vandalize the face of the first person fall asleep (cough, Prosciutto). Ya know, keep an eye out for Gelato taking a unflattering pictures of his teammates whilst sleeping to use as blackmail ammunition. Hold Ghiaccio when he's trying to kill Melone for cheating Uno. Yeah.

He has his bouts of insomnia and he's quite the light sleeper and EVERY little thing will make his eyes shoot open and search the darkness. Mix this with his lack of sleep and you're brewing a perfect concoction for disaster for his health... But he's still going to sleep beside his bros hoes

Gelato and Sorbet

Gelato is wearing an old shirt of Sorbet's and a pair of basketball shorts and also wears socks to bed. Sorbet is wearing a matching blue set of pyjamas and was convinced by his husband to wear socks just so he can irk the others with it. Couple goals, annoying friends by wearing socks to bed ✊😩

Ohohoho you'd think Melone calls to shot to suggest suggestive games. Nope. It is these couples. Nothing like a spicy game of truth or dare, where it is impossible to chose truth because they will somehow manage to convince you (threaten and/or peer pressure) to do the something that you will remember and regret for the rest of your life.

Oh you can chose truth, but it's impossible because these two, and possibly the others will try to make you chose dare via egging. If you stand firm and not give in, I am impressed. Though you'll get a lot of comments.

Pfft, what kind of coward will not throw their used underwear at the first person they saw walking down the street from the shadows of the bushes? What a pussy.

Once it's times for them to pass out, I can guarantee you that these two are tangled up in each others arms. And they also steal blankets from others.

[lathalea]

Day 29: Blame it on Cider, part 6

Today's fic for the Writer’s Month 2021 challenge (see @writersmonth for more info) is... yes, you guessed it, the next chapter of "Blame It on Cider"!

I tried to make it a bit fluffy towards the end, hope you'll enjoy it.

Also, this is not the last part - I will need around 1-2 parts more to wrap it all up after August ends. Will you forgive me?

Today's prompt: word: bed | setting: snowed in

Fandom: The Hobbit Relationships: Thorin x Yrsa (Dwarf Female OC) Rating: T Warnings: winter, cold, mentions of injuries (just a tiny bit), coziness, bickering & clueless Dwarves who don't know how to show their real emotions, fluff, also: errors because I have no time for anything these days and I need to sleep

As usual, you can read this fic here and on AO3.

Have you missed the previous parts? Here they are:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

* * *

Blame It on Cider, part 6

There was only one bed in the cavern.

And there was a blizzard raging outside. Yrsa could hear the wind howling outside and a chill run down her spine at the recollection of the freezing snow burning her face. Now, something else burned her face, but it wasn’t the snow. It was Thorin’s gaze.

“Y-yes, let us go to sleep,” she finally spoke, stumbling over the words. So what if her cheeks were red? She wasn’t blushing, it was just the prolonged exposure to cold, nothing else! To be on the safe side, she turned away from the Dwarf who was sitting at the edge of the bed. Studying the cavern wall instead sounded like a very interesting thing to do. Unfortunately, the rock patterns were very, very uninteresting.

She heard a lengthy exhale. Or maybe it was the wind.

“Very well. I will sleep by the hearth,” he spoke after a pause and stood up with a grunt, keeling a bit towards right.

Yrsa glanced towards the hearth. There was nothing there. Only the hard stone ground. She blinked and glanced back at Thorin. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. Face tight with fatigue. Slightly glossy gaze. Dry lips. By Kaminzabdûna’s bosom, what kind of terrible herbalist she was? Why hadn’t she noticed it sooner? Bad Yrsa.

“Thorin, how long have you been feverish?”

“I am not. It is the cold,” he rumbled, moving away from her.

“It is not and we both know it! You need medicine!” Without thinking, she got up from the bed. Her ankle protested. Ouch. It was not a smart move.

“What are you doing?” Thorin was back by her side before she knew it, supporting her just before she fell on the floor.

“There are herbs in my sack, they will take the fever away!” She exclaimed, trying to ignore his arm wrapped around her waist and her arm pressed against him. He was so… so big and so... solid. Just like a blacksmith should. Wait! What blacksmith? Bad Yrsa, bad! He was a KING. The king. The ruler of another Dwarf clan, to be precise. Sooooo out of her reach. Even though she was pressed into his hard body, somehow forgetting about the pain. Damn it.

“I told you, Yrsa, it is not a fever,” he shrugged it off. And that was his greatest mistake. If there was one thing Yrsa hated, it was when her patients thought they knew better.

“Not a fever?! Then why is your forehead burning?” She pressed her palm against the aforementioned part of his anatomy. Her skin was cool. Thorin’s – on the contrary. And then his eyes closed, and he pressed his forehead into her hand. It had to be her imagination. Bad, bad Yrsa!

“It is nothing,” he offered in a low voice and finally his eyelids fluttered open, his sapphire gaze resting on her.

Yrsa swallowed. Her hand. Yes. She should take it away from his forehead. Just like this. She even managed to step back a bit, resting her hand against a wall for support. Bravo, Yrsa. And now – focus. Anger. Yes. Anger at a stubborn patient was good.

“If you think I am going to let you sleep on that cold floor while you’re feverish, you’re gravely mistaken!” she burst out.

“I have survived worse,” Thorin crossed his arms on his chest, his gaze burning with disapproval. But Yrsa didn’t care, not at all. His health was more important.

“Surely, judging from the amount of scars on you…” she cleared her throat. Go away, mental images! “What kind of a blacksmith are you to have such scars? Oh yes, I forgot, you happen to be a royal! Even more reasons to repose a soft bed than sleep on the ground like a mere peasant!” He grunted in response, “You are a woman, and you need to sleep on the bed.” “Because I’m smaller than you? Weaker? Is that it? You think I can’t handle it?” “It is obvious that you can handle quite a lot. But that is how I was raised. You are injured and need to recuperate. How are you supposed to walk out of here on your own once the snowstorm passes? You are taking the bed and that’s not up to discussion!”

“How about you listen to your own words?! Or are you planning to succumb to that fever and die here all alone? Because I’m not dragging you through those snows when your infection worsens! It is your leg, isn’t it?” He flinched, “I simply need to rest!” “Do you? It has been two months and it is still bothering you, don’t deny it! I saw the way you walk. You are saving it even when standing, like now! Don’t scowl at me. I was there when it happened, remember? You will show me your leg this instant!”

Her words echoed in the cavern. The dark-haired Dwarf in front of her gritted his teeth menacingly. Bad Yrsa. The kings don’t take well to being shouted at by simple Dwarf-women. She would hear a mighty roar in 3… 2… 1…

Thorin plopped down on the bed without a word, carefully stretching his left leg. As he did this, a small frown appeared on his face. It was something that she had missed before, or perhaps she was learning his facial expressions, but it only further confirmed her suspicions.

“Wait here,” she informed him.

“Let me--” he was trying to stand up again.

“No, you stubborn oaf, you will sit here and wait!”

Yrsa made a few awkward jumps on her good leg towards her traveling sack and returned to the bed with it, relieved by having packed everything she was about to need. As she was about to begin, she thanked her professional mind for being able to focus while they removed his trousers, uncovering Thorin’s muscular thigh covered with coarse dark hair. What worried her the most, was the fact that he still wore bandages and there was some blood seeping through. After removing them, she took a quick sniff at them and thanked Mahal wordlessly. The dressings didn’t smell bad and the wound looked better than expected. It was clear that there was no nasty gangrene attacking his body.

“So the arrow was poisoned, I see?” Yrsa spoke, working on the wound.

“It was. I took all the herbs you told me.”

“Good. Please relax your muscles if you can,” she cleaned his reddened skin and applied a healing salve. “But then you started using your leg too early.”

“I was either to use my leg or stay there, in the middle of the forest, waiting for another Orc attack. There were wounded among us. We needed to reach the city as soon as possible.”

“And how much rest did you have after returning home?”

Thorin clenched his hand into a fist, his knuckles white, but didn’t say a word. She finished bandaging his thigh and felt a wave of tiredness washing over her. It had been a long day, after all. Yrsa took a deep breath and lifted her head to meet Thorin’s gaze.

“What was so important that you ignored your injuries and kept on straining your leg?” She heard her own voice. It was for her patient’s own good. He had to learn from his mistakes. That was it, nothing else. And now she had to focus on mixing the correct amount of herbs with water.

“Do you know why I was here, in these parts?” Thorin replied after obediently drinking her mixture in one gulp. Perhaps she managed to talk some sense into him after all.

“Searching for more blacksmith work?” Yrsa offered.

He shook his head, his hair spilling generously over his broad shoulders, “I was searching for you.”

“Me?” Yrsa squeaked and her stupid heart did a silly flip. “Why?”

“I had to…,” Thorin paused. “ Someone close to me is unwell. Both our healer and apothecary tried everything, but she is not responding to their treatments. I do not know of any other healers in the area. At least not ones that would be eager to leave their prosperous practices at this time of the year. I thought perhaps that if I met you…”

Someone close to me.

Stupid Yrsa. It’s not like she expected a completely different answer.

“Of course. It would not be a problem. As soon as the trail is passable, we will reach my home, rest, and then I will go with you if the weather allows.” Slowly, almost hesitantly he covered her hand with his, making her skin tingle with warmth. She should have moved her hand away, but she couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Bad, bad Yrsa. He was not hers to have. Not any more.

“Thank you, Yrsa, I appreciate it greatly,” his murmur reached her ears at the same moment when he retracted his hand, her skin lamenting the disappearance of his warmth.

“This is what I do. I’m a herbalist, remember?” She tried to chuckle, but it sounded hollow. Someone close to me.

“In addition to payment, I am offering food and lodgings for you. If you wish to take Ursarusê with you, she will be a welcome guest, just like you. And if you are searching for a home for her… we have several childless families who might be interested in taking her in.”

“I’m going to keep her and raise her as my own,” there. She said it aloud and there was no turning back. It had been only several months since that sweet pebble appeared in her life, but she already missed her greatly. Yrsa couldn’t imagine giving her Little Flame away forever. Even if her decision meant changing her life completely.

“A honourable choice,” he nodded with a soft smile. “Will she follow you on your travels?”

“I will have to settle down in my city. My family will be thrilled, they have wanted me to settle down for ages, even though my mother claims that I will never catch a good husband now, but I don’t mind. I don’t expect much income, since there are plenty of healers in our city already, but I will manage.”

“I believe this is the time for me to speak. There is something that I wished to tell you a year ago. My proposal...” Thorin’s eyes searched her face.

“Your... proposal?” she gasped. “But… but how? Why would you want to propose to me? Your sweetheart is ill, you are worried for her so much that you decided to search for me in a snowstorm, and now you want to ask me to marry you because of something that happened more than a year ago?!”

Thorin tilted his head slightly and… laughed.

“I knew you had a brilliant mind, but I see you have a very vivid imagination as well.”

“What is so funny? Are you mocking me?” she grunted. Was he delirious? Those herbs were supposed to fight off the fever, not make him hallucinate!

“I wouldn’t dare! You threatened to turn me into a toad once, remember?” he chuckled, “I am the last person to say no to a witch.” Yrsa protested, “I told you that I’m a herbalist! And I don’t like being laughed at!”

“Forgive me, my lady,” his chuckles subsided and a shadow passed over his face. “I do not have a sweetheart. It is my mother who needs assistance. Her cough is worrying me.”

His mother. But that means he is not spoken for. That means… Bad Yrsa. It doesn’t mean anything. Shut up, Yrsa’s frantically beating heart. Focus on what is really important here.

“Your mother…?” she mumbled, trying to hide her embarassment. “I’m sorry to hear she is unwell. Rest assured, I will do my best to help her.”

He acknowledged her words with a nod. “I hoped you would say that. And as for the other issue… As much as I am flattered that you considered the possibility of a marriage with me, my proposal was, or rather, is, not one of the matrimonial sort.”

“What is it then?” Yrsa asked carefully, forcing herself to sit still and breathe instead of screaming and running around in circles.

“We are in need of healers. There is only a handful of them in Halls of the Longbeards. You have probably heard that we don’t have much gold to offer, but we can pay in other ways, food, roof over your head, fuel for the winter, the work of our artisans... We have also started producing Ereborean steel once again,” Thorin said with a glint of pride in his eyes.

“I am listening,” she hummed. Even Yrsa heard about the legendary qualities of this steel. Her brothers would bore her with their lengthy tales of how many layers it had, how light and well-balanced the blades were, and so on, and so on. Most of the Dwarves in the Blue Mountains believed that the secrets of the forgemasters of Erebor had been lost forever when the dragon attacked.

“Oin, the apothecary, tells me about various herbs growing nearby, but he has not discovered all of their uses yet.”

“It sounds like an interesting challenge, I admit. Your area of the mountains is still mostly uncharted. What if I needed a workshop made to my specification, with a separate drying chamber?” Yrsa decided to test the waters a bit more.

“We can start working on it as soon as we receive the plans and drawings,” he replied swiftly and she couldn’t believe her ears. She expected lengthy haggling. Perhaps the Longbeards were more desperate than she thought.

“I see…,” Yrsa made a show of mulling over the words. “This is a generous offer, but I will need to sleep over it before I make my decision.”

“Very well. Take as much time as you need.” he started getting up from the bed.

“Where do you think you are going?!”

“It has to be close to midnight,” Thorin gestured at the hearth, or, to be precise, at the ground in front of it.

“Oh no, you are not! If you sleep on the floor, so will I!”

And then something very suspicious happened. The blacksmith king chuckled, lifted his hands in defeat, and said, “I am the last person to say no to a witch.”

Clearly, he was delirious.

***

They didn’t end up on the floor, of course. After all, the shepherds’ hut contained a proper bed that could fit both of them.

“We are only doing this to share body warmth,” Yrsa spoke solemnly, desperately trying to believe in her own words, and, surprise, surprise, failing miserably. She and Thorin were lying down on the bed, facing each other, but keeping a proper distance. Their bodies were snuggly covered by the blankets they found in the cavern and their coats served as the top layer. It was so very different from the last (and only) night they spent together, Yrsa admitted to herself and somehow she felt a pang of disappointment.

One of Thorin’s glossy eyebrows rose at her statement, “We have just added a fresh log to the hearth. It is warm enough already, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, it is now, but the blizzard is still powerful. What if it gets colder later on?”

“If this happens, you are welcome to move closer to me. I promise to behave.”

Yrsa made a noncommittal grunt. How many pangs of disappointment could a Dwarf-woman endure?

***

Orange flames from the hearth painted the ceiling in otherworldly patterns when Yrsa opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was. Her feet were sticking out from under the blanket and freezing, so she quickly curled up under the covers, turning to her side, instinctively moving towards the source of incredible warmth she felt. The source in question was facing her. He had his eyes closed and his wavy hair was scattered on his doublet that served him as a pillow. In the faint firelight Thorin’s face looked much younger, much more peaceful, as if the merciful dreams would come every night with the sole purpose of taking his burdens away. His breathing was steady, but she gently pressed her wrist to his forehead. It was much cooler than before; a promising sign.

Yrsa wasn’t exactly sure why her hand lingered at his forehead, brushing away some of the soft, unruly strands. She didn’t know why her fingers traced one of his smooth eyebrows, slid down his temple and danced against his cheek, delving into his beard, feeling its slight coarseness. Her fingertips moved along the strong line of his jaw, and down his sinewy neck, drawn to the heat his whole powerful body radiated like moths to a flame. She always imagined kings to look like those stone statues, ancient, perfectly chiseled, cold and unfeeling, with golden crowns and long white beards, unbothered by the everyday lives of all the commoners. No one told her that a king could be so handsome, so full of life, barely over 100 years old, and not an elderly Dwarf ready to meet his maker; that he could have the body of a blacksmith, and that there would be an irregular battle scar at the side of his neck, and that his beard would need some trimming. Before she met Thorin, she didn’t know that a king could smile with his eyes instead of his mouth, that his crow’s feet would deepen and then a strange warmth would spill in her chest. She still remembered how he twirled her around to the music and how his lips tasted like cider.

But now, she knew so many things about him. This was Thorin, the Dwarf of flesh and blood, not a lifeless statue.

Deep in her thoughts, Yrsa barely noticed when her curious fingers stopped at the collar of Thorin’s undershirt, unconsciously brushing against his clavicle. That was when his breathing quickened.

“Yrsa?” he mumbled, never opening his eyes, his hand moving towards her across the blanket they slept on.

“I’m here,” she covered his broad hand with hers.

He muttered something in response.

“All is well, Thorin, you can sleep more,” as soon as she whispered these words, a strong arm pulled her towards him, pressing her against the hardness of his chest. A scent of pines tickled her nose, and she felt enveloped in a large cocoon of warmth, her feet no longer cold, her worries forgotten, and Yrsa decided that this was not a bad place to be at when a blizzard raged outside.

She was drifting off to sleep when Thorin muttered something again, nuzzling her hair on the top of her head and holding her close. Yrsa’s last coherent thought filled her hazy mind, making her understand his words.

“My Harsûna,” he said and never let her go throughout the night, even when the flames died out in the early hours of the morning.

To be continued...

* * *

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

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[lifeisdabubbles-undersalmondean]

La Pomme ~ Chapter Eight

Pairing: Sam x OC (eventual Dean x OC and Dean x Castiel. And I mean eventual.)

Series summary: George is a casual French-Mistake-universe Supernatural fan living in no-COVID 2020, who's life is upended when she's suddenly launched between realities, two years into the boys' past (S13E22). What begins as an insane, immersive fan experience turns into more when Jack goes missing and George offers up her AU information to help track him down. Soon it's discovered that she and Sam may actually have history. But that's impossible, right?

Word Count: 3,900

Warnings: {smut, fluff, angst, show level violence, swearing, mentions of suicide} ***Detailed warnings will be tagged for specific chapters.

A/N: Following the events of my prequel Paradise and second story From My Eyes Off. Reading those first gives context but isn’t necessary to start this one.

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

Collapsing into one of the comfier library chairs set between some stacks, George took a sip of the small glass of whiskey she figured she'd earned. She'd just scolded a fucking demon from hell. What was she thinking?! It had been pretty cool, but pissing off an evil, powerful being was maybe not the smartest. She could have gotten herself killed!

It had been unavoidable though; upon realizing that Demon Tim must have been the reason they suspected her of being involved in Jack's disappearance, she had been furious. Not only was it not true, it was insulting, humiliating, and just plain rude. It was also simply a bad plan. So, she took it upon herself to enlighten him and to correct his offensive insinuations. Hopefully, it wouldn't come back to bite her in the ass.

Her focus shifted then to Jack. Reflecting over her time there, there were things she remembered having happened on the show. The refugees in the bunker, AU Michael attacking, Jack losing his powers, Lucifer dude being just a regular human dude now; all of it was familiar, even when it terrified her (see: AU Michael attack). But, when they told her Jack was missing, she was thrown off at first. It wasn't something she remembered seeing on the show. Then again, she'd only just finished binging from season 10 to the end of 13 a couple weeks ago and hadn't started 14 yet. So, maybe she was past the point of being able to tell when things were part of their prescribed timeline or not? Therefore, even if Jack had been kidnapped on the show, she wouldn't have any info for them, right?

The problem was, the more she thought about it the more she began to believe she had seen something about this storyline. Jack being missing, the three of them going to save him-

Was it Ryan telling you about some episode where they rescued Jack in the redwoods? They had filmed it on location at some tourist spot you went to as a kid all the time and she thought you'd think it was cool… where was that?

She couldn't remember, and it frustrated her. She was also worried that she was making this all up just to be helpful.

Taking another sip, she allowed her thoughts to wander between episode scenes like an internal microfiche as she tried to nail down her recollection, No, I can definitely picture all four of them in the woods and fighting. Someone had kidnapped Jack, wanting his powers for something… was it the angels?

"Well, that was interesting," Dean stated, startling her out of her thoughts. The three of them were walking into the library a surprisingly short while after she left them with Tim.

Looking up at them, she set the glass down on a nearby shelf and stood up. Dean didn't elaborate further while he poured his own glass. The expressions each one wore were indiscernible and she grew nervous.

"Oh?" George raised a brow and looked between them, "Did he talk? Because you know, I've actually been sitting here thinking about this whole situation and something about Jack going missing is very familiar. Now, unfortunately, I am a few seasons behind, and-""

Dean took a sip, looking at her with curious amusement, and interrupted, "I was talking about you."

George looked surprised and then grimaced, "No, no. I'm not interesting, not at all. I'm the exact opposite of interesting. I'm-I'm… I'm…"

"Uninteresting?" Castiel offered helpfully as she struggled to find the words. Sam and Dean rolled their eyes in unison.

"Right! Thank you, Castiel. I'm highly uninteresting." She gulped a bit and wrung her hands as the three of them kept watching her. In the silence, she nervously looked in Castiels direction and blurted quickly, "I'm also George! Hi! Really nice to meet you! Big fan!"

"Nice to meet you," Castiel smiled awkwardly and nodded a greeting, looking at the other two with a confused expression, "...fan of what?"

"Right, positively boring," Sam interjected sarcastically before he could stop himself. He definitely thought she was interesting. First she's just a beautiful woman, then she's a beautiful woman he may or may not have had a life altering dream about ten years ago, and now she was a beautiful woman from an alternate reality where his life was a prime time television show… who he may or may not have had a life altering dream about ten years ago. 'Uninteresting' was definitely not an adjective he'd use for her.

Dean snorted, "Yea, boring is the last word I would use to describe that scene earlier. You caused Tim to sing like a canary, by the way."

Her jaw dropped in disbelief, "Say what?"

"I almost say we hire her to be our monster torture hypeman," He joked, looking at Sam with a raised eyebrow.

Sam ignored him and addressed Geroge's question, "After you left, Tim-"

"Cleetus," Dean interjected sarcastically.

"Cleetus… well, he sort of... started crying? He said he'd tell us everything we wanted to know if we promised to keep you away from him." Sam looked strangely apologetic and she let a few nervous chuckles escape, unsure whether to believe what they were saying.

"We think you hurt his feelings," Castiel explained further. "Which fortunately seemed to motivate him to talk, so thank you."

"I guess his demon mommy didn't teach him about sticks and stones," Dean cracked, taking another swig.

"Huh. OK. Neat!" George didn't know what to say; she was confused and strangely proud of herself. But she didn't want them to think she wasn't chill, so she shrugged nonchalantly, "You're welcome, I guess. Anyway, as I was saying, I'm not caught up to the current season of my timeline but I think I remember this whole Jack-gone-missing thing a little bit. I want to say you all track him down somewhere in… Oregon? Washington? I'm getting a Northwest-ish feeling." She began unconsciously pacing around the room, gesturing energetically with her hands. "I can picture a battle taking place in the woods...Jack being in danger, you all being in danger, too...some fighting...maybe someone losing the fight? Or getting really hurt," She glanced worriedly at Castiel. He'd be the only actor they'd axe of the three of them, so it stood to reason he'd be the most likely to die if she was right.

Dean and Sam shared a look before Dean asked, "Fine, I'll bite. Do you know a city? A time-frame? Who we're fighting? Anything specific?"

George paused and then slumped a bit in defeat, "No. I've only really watched up through, like, literally now. Other than random things I've heard or seen in passing, I don't know anything that's happened since ya'll got back from the apocalypse world. Been purposefully trying to avoid spoilers, too, which is a decision I now regret, obviously."

"OK, well look, sweetheart, it's OK," Dean began, in an embarrassingly condescending, douchey tone, "We don't expect you to help us. I mean, we're grateful about the assist with Cleetus, obviously but this-" Dean vaguely motioned in her direction and she raised an offended eyebrow, "-was obviously just a weird magical mess that Rowena left for us to clean up yet again. So, you just sit back and relax, and once we find Jack we'll figure out how to get you back home in a jiff, OK?" He winked and finger gunned at her, adding, "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it." In his way, Dean was trying to convey to her a sense of ease and comfort that they would take care of things. But, unsurprisingly, he came off incredibly dismissive and patronizing. Her cheeks flushed an angry red; she'd had it up to here with him by now.

Sam and Castiel exchanged nervous glances at the look on her face and Sam tried to stop it before the inevitable happened, "Uh, Dean, mayb-"

Cutting him off, George slowly walked toward Dean, eyes blazing, "Listen sweet cheeks." She had a polite smile on her face as she tried her hardest to muster up the same condescending, silky, sweet Dean-tone, "I'm sympathetic to the fact that you can't help but be an insufferably arrogant ass most of the time-that's just how you were written," for a split second she saw Dean's cool-guy-smug-face falter and she relished it. She could tell she landed a blow, even if it was a small one, "but maybe you could do us all a favor and try to ignore your cro-magnon dated natural urges and attempt to be open minded for once in your life? Just try to consider the fact that, like it or not, I might not be a total useless red-shirt? That maybe I-once again the lone female in the entire world according to Supernatural-might actually be useful? Hmm? Might actually have useful-albeit vague-information for you? Or would taking your lead from a woman be too threatening to you overbearing, uber-macho, 'we-get-it-you're-totally-straight' masculinity?"

Dean's head jerked back in offense, "Now, wait a minute! What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it," She mocked him in a deep, goofy tone, high-fiving herself internally. Nailed it! She'd always hated how damn smug his character was. Yes, fine, he was hot and charming and smart as fuck and right at least like 75% of the time, but he didn't have to be so fucking arrogant about it all the time. She preferred a man with some humility.

Sam was smirking at the look on Dean's face and muttered teasingly, "How does it feel, Cleetus?"

"Except, you actually don't." Cas interjected begrudgingly, as he thoroughly enjoyed watching Dean get verbally bitch-slapped. In fact, he could watch it all day, but they needed to focus on Jack.

"Scuse me?" She said, maintaining her sweet tone while staring daggers at Dean. "Don't what?"

"Have useful information for us," the angel said begrudgingly matter-of-fact.

"Er," Sam interjected seeing the look on her face, "Uh, well, it's just according to Tim-Cleetus-whatever, Jack is being held captive inside an old church in a small ghost town outside Butte."

Dean slapped his hands over his mouth in mock surprise and then, taking a few steps toward George, he mimed a balloon being popped by an impractically large needle. He had an impossibly large grin spread across his face.

"She still has a point, Dean," Sam sighed in an annoyed, if not slightly embarrassed, tone at his brother's display.

Cas nodded in agreement, "Yes, you were incredibly condescending and unfriendly in your attempt at being friendly earlier. Even though she's wrong about Jack, she's right about your inability to relinquish control-to anyone, though, not specifically women."

"You all suck." Dean said flatly.

George ignored him and shook her head. She was more and more sure about her information by the second; despite her doubts she could feel she was right. "Listen, I'm telling you, Jack is not in some bullshit church in Montana. He's…" She struggled to remember. "Erg, somewhere rainy and wooded!"

"Rainy and wooded, you say?" She cringed angrily at the sound of Dean's voice. "That's really great, very helpful. Say, maybe we should look up your little murder buddy-OwnsHisOwnAxe69, was it?-and ask if he's got Jack stashed in the Marin Headlands?" Dean's voice dripped with sarcasm.

George shook her head at him and closed her eyes tight in an effort to block out his negativity. Walking slowly away from him and into the map room, she started talking to herself, in a pointedly loud voice. Her focus bounced between episodes from the show and conversations with her friend, Ryan, a Supernatural Encyclopedia. She was hoping she could piece together something useful.

"OK, hang on, Jack is born, gets sucked into Apocalypse World, comes back, has his grace stolen but he's safely with you guys, he's happy, he's great-albeit, moody and not the best at video games. Then he disappears and you can't find him, yadda yadda."

While she rambled, her mind's eye began conjuring images of what she assumed were scenes from the episode she was trying to think of. While helpful, it was also disconcerting since she'd never actually seen it. She thought perhaps she'd seen clips on youtube while watching bloopers? She never could stay away from them, even if she hadn't seen the episode yet; they were just too funny. Maybe her overactive imagination was just creating scenes around what little knowledge she did have, "...and there's an epic-potentially deadly-fight scene at the end of one of the last episodes of the season. An episode that was, oh so noteworthily filmed on location iiiiinnn…" She tried to demand that her memories behave for her but it was challenging, considering she shouldn't have any memories of having watched the damn thing at all. "...where? Fuck me!" She snarled, chasing desperately after her murky visions as they swirled too abstractly for her to discern.

In a sudden moment of unusual clarity she could see the words displayed behind her eyelids. '...False Klamath? Where the fuck… why does that sound familiar? She flashed to the location in her memories and saw big wooden statues towering outside the scenic little tourist trap

Her eyes popped open with a gasp, "Johnny Appleseed!"

"Johnny Appleseed?" Dean teased, mock exasperatedly, "We're trying to find JACK."

"The Johnny Appleseed statue at The Trees of Enigma! Just outside False Klamath, Oregon!" She slammed both her hands down on the table in front of her in uncontrollably jubilant victory. "HA! Take THAT!" She jumped up excitedly and punched her fist in the air. "I did it! I remembered!"

"Sam, can you translate any of this?" Dean asked, annoyed.

"On the show," She started smugly, before Sam could say anything, "the battle that you two get into when you find Jack, takes place at a tourist spot called The Trees of Enigma. The episode was filmed on location at said tourist spot, in-say it with me now-False Klamath, Oregon. Oregon, Dean. A place that is known for being both rainy and wooded." Her finger was placed on the map table in the general area of Oregon, "that's where you'll find Jack. I'm sure of it." Her adrenaline was pumping and she was so stoked. It felt really good to be useful; like she was part of the show!

"Yea, that's great, sounds fun," Dean started dismissively, though toned down a bit, "but we're not risking Jack's life to follow your hunch."

"Excuse me. Why is my so-called hunch less believable than a demon's word? Especially a demon named Cleetus. Rude," George looked particularly offended now.

"Tim gave us real, solid intel and we've never had a problem when we've relied on our trusted resources in the past," He answered confidently. George's head jerked toward him like she hadn't heard correctly and she gave Sam and Castiel some crazy eyebrows.

"Sorry, you understand that I do watch the show, right?" She asked rhetorically, with a doubtful expression. When he rolled his eyes, she let out a frustrated huff. "Dean, think about this! He's a demon! He lies! Look, I know you have no reason in the world to trust me but you've got to; just think about it. Even IF it is demons that have Jack, don't you think it's possible that the prisoner demon you're threatening to torture might give you a false lead? Especially if he's naive enough to think he'll be able to escape and doesn't want to get in trouble with his bosses? C'mon, this is not-the-sharpest-tack-Tim we're talking about!"

Sam and Castiel had agreeably expressions but Dean's was stubbornly disagreeable, though she could tell he knew she was right. The thought of them going to Montana gave her a dreadful, suffocating feeling, like death.

So, she tried one more tactic and held her hands up in prayer, "Dean please, I don't know what and I don't know how I know, but I know in my gut that if you go to Montana, something terrible will happen. And Jack's not there, I promise you." She dropped all the bullshit and gave him her best seriously-just-listen-to-me face but Dean still wasn't budging.

"Christ, I knew you were stubborn but this is ridiculous, ugh. OK, fine!" She threw her hands up and turned on her heel, heading toward the dungeon.

"Wait, where are you going?" Sam asked quickly.

"Obviously I didn't hurt his feelings badly enough the first time, so I'm going to go have another chat with Cleetus and get him to admit that he's a liar, liar, pant-"

"Er-you... can't do that," Sam cut her off apologetically.

"Sam, he's handcuffed to a chair. I appreciate the concern but-"

"He means you really can't," Dean added. George looked toward him annoyed and Dean continued, "After he gave us everything we needed we pretty much, chk," he finished, slicing a finger across his throat in demonstration. When she looked like she wanted to strangle him, he shrugged and offered, "RIP Cleetus."

George rolled her eyes in exasperation, "But he was lying! Don't you confirm the information before you cut off the source?! Oh my god, why am I even asking? You're the Winchesters, of course you don't." The three of men looked between each other guiltily and she placed her hand on her hip, "What if that was just an act and Tim saw an opportunity. Feeding you some bullshit so that you couldn't actually find Jack? Or, maybe Tim has nothing to do with Jack at all, and sending you to Montana is just a good old fashioned ambush?!" She paused for a moment and gave a surprised, appreciative nod, "Hmm, maybe I underestimated ole' Cleetus a bit. Could have been smarter than I thought."

"She does have a point, Dean. The chances that he was lying are incredibly high," Cas conceded slightly, giving Dean a questioning look. "We have no proof that his lead is any better than hers. Demon's lie."

"Damnit, alright, fine," Dean said, sighing angrily. "Sam and I will go to Oregon to look for Jack; Cas, check out Butte-carefully, strictly recon, do not engage-and call us if you find any trace of him." He shot a quick warning look at George. "We'll turn around and come right to you. Sound like a plan? Great, let's go."

"Wait, no! Don't send him to Butte! Didn't you hear me? If it's an ambush, he'll get his ass kicked!"

"Hey." Cas looked hurt and George softened her face at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry Castiel. You're a total badass when the plot calls for it, otherwise, getting beat up is just kind of your MO." Ignoring the confused look on the angel's face, She turned back to Dean, "and besides you need Castiel in Oregon, Dean. I've seen it!"

"Oh? I thought you hadn't 'seen this episode yet'?" Dean said sarcastically.

"I-I… Well, OK, I haven't, but I've seen the three of you and Jack all together for this fight. Just trust me, you need him there. What if Jack is hurt when you find him? Cas can heal him, right?" She made a questioning face to Castiel; at the moment she couldn't remember the extent of his powers on the show and he was always losing one or another for whatever reason, anyway. But if she was right, she figured that even if Dean wouldn't trust her gut, he might trust that having a healing angel on their journey would be a benefit. "Is that a power you have? I feel like I've seen you do that."

"She's right, Dean. I can heal him if we find him injured," Cas offered her helpfully and she shot him a grateful expression, actually looking him in the eyes for the first time, albeit fleetingly.

"Have you seen Jack get hurt?" Sam asked her, trying to help, too. He remained a neutral party at this point, but if he was honest with himself, he believed her. Maybe a little too much, which is why he was trying to stay impartial. If he was being blinded by his confusing memories and the undeniable-yet-currently-being-denied feelings he was developing for her and ended up wrong, Jack could be killed.

"Uh… I mean, no… not definitively, but it's pretty standard for the show. You're all constantly getting hurt during fights and when it's close to a season finale the danger factor is skyhigh for anyone who isn't you two…" After motioning to the brothers, she trailed off, afraid that this reasoning was going to hurt her more than help her.

Sam gave her a long, contemplative look before finally offering, "I can have a small team go check out Butte. Maybe Garth can join? Last time I talked to him he was near there."

Dean's teeth and fists were clenched as he took a deep, exaggerated breath, "Fine. We'll send a group to Butte and call Garth from the road-No arguments!" He held up his hand to her as she opened her mouth to speak. "The three of us are going to Oregon, just as you demand, but I'm not leaving anything to chance on some alien's hunch. Garth can handle himself."

She made an indignant face at him-she wasn't an alien, she was from an alternate reality! Get it right. But, while she was afraid of someone getting hurt in the obvious trap that had been set for them in Montana, the thought of Garth going instead didn't give her the same full-body fear shudder. So, she figured she'd take what she could get and not push the issue further. Besides, she knew Dean wasn't going to be happy about her next move and she had to pick her battles.

[ikesenhell]

American Dream

AMERICAN DREAM, Chapter 1. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: HOLY SHIT IT HAS BEEN A MINUTE. Thank you so much to @missjudge-me, who commissioned this whole piece. You have them to thank. I’m sorry it took so long for me to get back up, but being homeless and in grad school and working and getting formally diagnosed with an autoimmune illness and being in a pandemic and moving kinda takes it out of you. This was very fun to write. Enjoy!

---

Masamune wasn’t used to his childhood bedroom anymore. His mother had converted his loft bed desk into her scrapbooking station. That was fine, in theory, except that it meant two things: one, she hadn’t changed the sheets in actual years, and two, the loft bed was still there. 

“Sweet!” He announced with a laugh, scaling the ladder in a single bound. It’d felt so tall once. He ducked low against the ceiling, pressing his back flat. “Holy hell, I was smaller then.”

“Duh.” His brother, Kojiro, smirked from the door. Time changed everything. Masamune felt so big when he was in high school himself, but looking at his teen brother changed his perspective. “You’re a big lunk now. You eat like The Rock.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Masamune kicked off his boots and army-crawled into the loft. 

“How much clearance you got?”

“Eh. Six inches from my chest to the ceiling?” He tried to roll onto his back and failed, laughing against the drywall. “Did you know about the time that I knocked myself out up here?”

Kojiro’s luminous blue eyes appeared over the lip of the bed. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Got too excited freshman year of high school, bolted straight up when the alarm went off.” He motioned at a dent in the ceiling. “I was late. Dad didn't stop laughing for about, I dunno—”

“—the whole ride there.” Kojiro chuckled. “Yeah. Sounds like him.”

The funeral wasn’t so far behind them that it didn't hurt, but it sure as hell hurt less. Masamune checked his knuckles into the dent. It was the whole reason for his coming home. His mother needed someone to sort out all of the old things, all the memories and bills she couldn’t bear to look at. It didn't matter that they’d never gotten along. Kojiro was her favorite; that was obvious (and Masamune couldn’t blame her for that, Kojiro was a joy by anyone’s standards). Even then he couldn’t let her hang in the lurch. His dad taught him better than that. 

Damn. He missed his dad. Everywhere he looked in this old town, in this old house, were reminders. There was the trashy diner where they used to get the world’s best milkshakes once a week. There was the old stove with the broken burner they’d never replaced (because it was ‘perfectly good’) where he’d learned how to cook. And it wasn’t just his father he felt the absence of. Masamune fingered along the space between the wall and the loft bed where he’d pasted all the pictures and keepsakes from his friends. Him and Nobunaga, posing in a picture by the beach with matching glasses. Hideyoshi and Mitsunari peering at homework, Mitsuhide poised to drop an ice cube down his shirt. (Nobunaga was a broker in New York City, conquering Wall Street with Hideyoshi. Those two shared an apartment in SoHo, all the way across the country on the other coast. Hideyoshi worked with Nobunaga now, and no one knew what Mitsuhide did. Mitsunari was off in the Peace Corps.) There was a snapshot of Masamune and Ieyasu squished together in the back of an old 1960s Volkswagen Beetle his mom had for decades, Ieyasu frowning over a mouthful of jalapeno poppers. Ieyasu was a doctor in Maryland now. He was terrible at texting back, too. Masamune made a mental note to call. 

And then there was Her. 

Even after all this time, he missed their friendship. He fingered the worn photograph; After-Prom senior year, her in a bikini that made his stomach somersault, him holding her on his shoulders. She was laughing. He still wore the fake eye back then, and it sat oddly in the socket, but even that didn't take away from the sheer joy as he gazed up at her. When she lived with her parents in the little green house across the street, he used to build paper airplanes with stupid jokes scrawled in the folds and fling it at her window, hoping that they’d hit and knowing they never would. They’d measure how far it got from his front door and compare their poorly-kept notes, misremembering all the numbers. 

Now she was out there in the world. 

Kojiro craned his neck over the loft edge. “What’cha got up there?”

Masamune didn't answer that. Instead he wondered if she was happy. “If I’m gonna stay here for now, we gotta fix this situation. I’m too manly and brawny to fit up here. Wanna swap beds?”

“No! This thing is so uncool, you can’t get—” And the teenager furtively checked the doorway, lowering his voice. “You can’t get anyone up here with you.”

As an adult, Masamune rolled his eyes. As a brother, he snapped back, “I promise, you can.”

“Gross, why the fuck would I trade with you now—!?”

Downstairs, their mother shouted, “Who is swearing up there!?” Kojiro paled. Masamune, bolstered with smug elder brother energy, kicked him from the ladder. 

“Move, punk! Run for your life! You fucked up!”

His mother, louder now. “Who said that?!”

“That was Masa!” Kojiro bellowed, fleeing the scene of the crime. “Masa said it that time!”

“That time!? Kojiro—!”

Masamune finally wriggled himself free from the narrow confines of the loft. On the way down, he pocketed the picture of Her. 

---

The only reason he remembered the day his dad bought the ‘85 Camaro was his mother was well and truly pissed about it. It wasn’t a pretty looking thing then. Masamune later sussed out that his dad had picked it off a side road out in the country because it was ‘a nice looking car’ and ‘could be fixed up’. Of course it could. Maybe it was his time in the military, but there wasn’t a damn car under the sun that his dad couldn’t fix. The Camaro was better than new, but his mom drove a newer Hyundai, so it sat neglected in the garage, shiny and electric blue and begging for a test run. When Masamune backed it into the driveway, his mother sighed ragged. 

“I ought to sell that thing,” she announced. 

Masamune bit back his reflex answer of ‘not on my watch’ and replied, “Kojiro’s gonna need a car when he can drive.”

“I’m going to get him something new. A nice car. That one is too old for anything now.”

“I could take it.”

“You already have that infernal death trap.” She thumbed at the Harley parked in the grass, right where she hated it most. In the name of getting along, neither of them had mentioned it. “You don’t need another car payment. Besides, don’t you have anything better to do right now? We have all sorts of things to settle with your dad’s estate.”

“Ma, the car is paid off.” But she was right in one way; he did already have a vehicle, and paying the taxes and insurance on both was a waste. It was sort of pointless, keeping the car in the garage forever. “I can’t do anything until I get the extra copies of his death certificate, and that’s gonna be a minute. I ordered them today. Did you want me to put the car on Craigslist or something?”

She gazed at it, her steel expression softening. Ah, yes. There was his mother. His parents loved each other dearly. It just took moments like this to remember it. 

“Would you?” She replied. Her feather soft voice broke his heart. “I can’t bear to do it.”

“Yeah, Ma. I’ll get it to a good home.”

---

All it really needed was a wash and an oil change. The guys at the auto parts store whistled enviously when they handed over the filters. No; it wouldn’t be hard to sell at all. No doubt he could post it on some Reddit forum and get a hundred hits in an hour. 

Masamune was about to post the listing when fate intervened. 

The driveway was warm on his bare back, the first chill wind of autumn cooling his shoulders. His phone was stark against the sharp blue sky, his shirt rolled under his hair. 

A shadow fell over him. “Masa?”

He blinked his only good eye, floundering against the sudden contrast. The woman murmured an apology, stepped away, and blinded him with sunlight again. 

“Hey!” He laugh-yelped, rolling onto his stomach. “Goddamn!”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He clutched at the Camaro’s bumper and pulled himself up, blinking sundots away. “Gimme a sec, hang on.”

And then—she swam into view, all bright eyes and curves and nothing like she used to be and everything like she used to be and so much better. Was this his friend, this fully grown woman with a face like all his best memories? Where his words? He was usually so good with them. 

“That you, Masamune?” She asked, the ghost of a smile on her mouth. 

“Well, hell.” SAY SOMETHING, YOU STUPID BASTARD. He forced a grin back—but then it arrived all on its own. “Wow. Damn. Where have you been this whole time, Kitten, Hollywood? You runnin’ everyone out of a job out there? Puttin’ those Hadids out of work?”

Her laugh was the same. Good God, it sent shivers all the way down his spine and into his toes. Her eyes crinkled and he wondered if he could bottle that expression. “You’re still calling me Kitten, huh?”

“Your fault for wearing cat socks all the time. I don’t see a reason to stop now, ‘specially now that you blinded me in my own driveway.”

Even her eye roll was a shot of nostalgia to the veins. What now? Did he shake hands? Masamune stared at his oil-slicked palms from changing the filter. “Well, if you don’t mind me smearing grease all over you… Shit, what am I asking for?”

“Oh my God, Masamune, do not rub motor oil on me!”

“Too late!” He charged forward. She squealed but didn't run; he caught her around the waist and squashed her against him, bringing her feet from the ground. Those eyes were wide with surprise and delight and so much joy. Something smelled of cinnamon and cloves. “God, is that your shampoo?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s great. You look great.”

She batted against his chest, wriggling in his grasp. “And you bulked up. What, you one of those CrossFit junkies or something now?”

“C’mon, don’t insult me like that. Their form is terrible.”

“And you ditched the glass eye.”

“It was hurting. Figured I might as well let the lid close up and deal with it. Not like I could see from it anyway.”

But she laced her hands around the back of his neck and tapped just above his brow. Such easy physical intimacy. Oh, how he’d missed that! They’d always been the most handsy of the friend group, never shying away from each other. “I wasn’t complaining. You rock the pirate look, Captain.” 

Masamune snickered and clicked his tongue. “I’ll own that. I love some booty.”

With a roll of her eyes, she let the comment slide. “You busy? Wanna catch up?”

At last he let her slide from his arms, setting her feet on the ground. Why was the world so much colder when her body parted from his? “Hell yeah. Let me make you some gyoza and we’ll chat.”

[pamphletstoinspire]

A LANDSCAPE WITH DRAGONS - The Battle for Your Child’s Mind - Part 3

A story written by: Michael D. O’Brien

________

Chapter III

A Child’s Garden of Paganism

Culture and the Search for Truth

Traditionally, the arts of man have been the medium in which his ideas about life are enfleshed, so as to be examined and understood more fully. In practically all cultures throughout human history, art has been intimately allied with religion, asking the great questions about existence:

“What is Man? Who am I? Why am I? Where am I? And where am I going?”

These questions may be expressed overtly or subconsciously but no one can gaze upon the works of an amazing variety of peoples and civilizations without recognizing that in depictions ranging from the primitive to highly sophisticated, the human soul strains toward an understanding of its ultimate meaning.

Cro-Magnon man crouching in the caves of Lascaux knew that he was something more than just a talking beast, though he would not have been able to articulate this awareness in modern terms. When he smeared charcoal and pigment on the stone walls, depicting the heaving gallop of deer and bison, he was performing a task that has rarely been surpassed for sheer style, beauty and purity of perception. This is a meeting between the knowable and the mysterious unknown, dramatized in the hunt—one creature wrestling for the life he would extract from the death of another. This is more than a news item about food gathering. This is more than a tale about filling the stomach. This portrait speaks to us across thousands of years with an immediacy that communicates the rush of adrenaline, terror, exultation, feasting, power, gratitude, and longing. Depicted here is the search for permanence, and also a witness to the incompleteness that greets us again each morning. This is a probing of the sensitive, mysterious roots of life itself. And the little stick men chasing the galloping herds across the wall are a message about where prehistoric man placed himself in the hierarchy of creation. That he could paint his marvellous quarry, that he could thus obtain a mastery over the dangerous miracle, must have been a great joy and: a puzzle to him. That he portrayed his quarry as beautiful is another message. The tale is only superficially about an encounter with raw animal power. The artist’s deeper tale is about the discovery of the power within himself—man the maker, man the artist! This was not prehistoric man watching primitive television. This was religion.

But primitive religion never stops at the borderlands of mute intuitions about mystery That mythical figure of the “noble savage” never existed, never was innocent. Because man is fallen land the world inhabited with evil spirits that wrestle for his soul, terror and falsehood have always played central roles in pagan religions. It would be impossible here to attempt even a rough outline of the horrors of early pagan cults, to describe their viciousness, the despair of their sacrificial victims, and their shocking synthesis of all that is dehumanizing and degrading in unredeemed human nature. We need mention only a few of the bloodthirsty deities — Moloch, Baal, Astarte, Quetzalcóatl, for example — to recall how very dark the pagan era was.

Man was created “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26). Saint John Damascene once wrote that when man fell, he lost the likeness of God, but he did not lose the image of God. For this reason it remained possible, even before the corning of Christ, for man to search for the truth. Thus, as more complex civilizations arose and language and perceptions expanded, man began to reflect more upon the natural world and upon his own extraordinary nature. A kind of natural theology emerged, building upon what he perceived in the order of creation. In time he began to ask himself if the beauty and harmony he saw everywhere about him were pointing to something much higher than the things available to his senses. Thus was philosophy born—the search for truth, the search for wisdom. And though Greek religion never entirely shook off its “mystical” undercurrents (so similar to Indian mysticisms passion to escape the world of sense and suffering, the bodily existence that it saw as a wheel of torment), it gradually approached a less brutal though still imperfect reading of reality. Through Plato especially, the Greek mind turned away from the intoxicating world of appearance toward an other-world of idealized Forms. These eternal Forms, Plato taught, were the dwelling place of “the very Being with which true knowledge is concerned, the colorless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to the mind, the pilot of the soul” (Phaedrus). This was “true Beauty, pure and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colors and vanities of human life” (Symposium). A more idealized, more humane kind of paganism was emerging, though it still contained elements of life-denying escapism.

With only their intellects and imaginations to guide them, the classical Greeks arrived at an understanding that man does not create himself, nor does he create the world around him on which he depends. Life is a gift, and man owes a debt to the mysterious divine power responsible for it. They accepted that man is flawed and incapable of perfecting himself but believed that by adherence to the powers of reason and beauty he could approach the gods and share in their divine life. Thus, Greek art, preoccupied with embodying myths in harmonious forms, was the visual expression of Greek philosophy.

While the classical pagans were gradually coming closer to an approximate understanding of the shape of existence through natural law, God was drawing another people to that truth through pure revelation. The Hebrews, a small, despised race of Semitic nomads fully immersed in the hot spiritual swamps of the East, could: not yet avail themselves of the cool northern light of reason. They needed God’s direct intervention.

The sacrifice of Isaac was the seminal moment that inaugurated, and the image that represents, the rise of the Western world. It was a radical break with the perceptions of the old age of cultic paganism. When God led Abraham up the mountain of Moriah, he was building upon a well-established cultural pattern. Countless men were going up to the high places all around him and were carrying out their intentions to sacrifice their children. But God led Abraham by another way, through the narrow corridors of his thinking, his presumptions about the nature of reality This was not a typical pagan, greedy for power, for more sons, or for bigger flocks. This was an old man who by his act of obedience would lose everything. He obeyed. An angel stayed his hand, and a new world began. From then on, step by step, God detached him from his old ways of thinking and led him and recreated him, mind and soul. And thus, by losing everything; he gained all. God promised it. Abraham believed it. Upon this hinges everything that followed.

The Old Testament injunction against graven images was God’s long-term method of doing the same thing with a whole people tint: he had done in a short time with Abraham. Few if any were as pure as Abraham. It took about two thousand years to accomplish this abolition of idolatry, and then only roughly, with a predominance of failure. Idolatry was a very potent addiction. And like all addicts, ancient man thought he could not have life without the very thing that was killing him.

Idolatry tends in the direction of the diabolical because it never really comes to terms with original sin. It acknowledges man’s weakness in the face of creation, but it comes up with a solution that is worse than the problem. The idolater does not understand that man is so damaged at a fundamental level that occult power cannot heal him. Magic will not liberate him from his condition. It provides only the illusion of mastery over the unseen forces, the demons and the terrors, fertility and death. Ritual sex and human sacrifice are stolen moments of power over, a temporary relief from submission to. They are, we know by hindsight, a mimicry of divinity, but pagan man did not know that. He experienced it as power sharing, negotiating with the gods. To placate a god by burning his children on its altars was a potent drug. We who have lived with two thousand years of Christianity have difficulty understanding just how potent. God’s absolute position on the matter, his “harshness” in dealing with this universal obsession, is alien to us. We must reread the books of Genesis, Kings, and Chronicles. It is not an edifying portrait of human nature.

When God instructed Moses to raise up the bronze serpent on a staff, promising that all who looked upon it would be healed of serpent bites, he used the best thing at his disposal in an emergency situation, a thing that this half-converted people could easily understand. He tried to teach them that the image itself could not heal them, but by gazing upon it they could focus on its word, its message. The staff represented victory over the serpent, and their faith in the unseen Victor would permit the grace to triumph in their own flesh as well as in their souls. And yet, a few hundred years later we see the God-fearing King Hezekiah destroying Moses’ bronze serpent because it had degenerated into a cult object. The people of Israel were worshiping it and sacrificing to it. Falling into deep forgetfulness, they were once again mistaking the message for the One who sent it. The degree to which they were possessed by the tenacious spirit of idolatry is indicated by numerous passages in the Old Testament, but one of the more chilling ones tells of a king of Israel, a descendent of King Davids, who had returned to the practice of human sacrifice. The Old Testament injunction against images had to be as radical as it was because ancient man was in many ways a different kind of man from us. That late Western man, post-Christian man, is rapidly descending back into the world of the demonic, complete with human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale, is a warning to us about just how powerful is the impulse to idolatry.

The Incarnation and the Image

Jesus Christ was born into a people barely purified of their idolatry. Through a human womb God came forth into his creation. God revealed an image of himself, but so much more than an image—a person with a heart, a mind, a soul, and a face. To our shock and disbelief, it is a human face. It is our own face restored to the original image and likeness of God.

The Old Testament begins with the words, “In the beginning”. In the first chapter of John’s Gospel are the words of a new genesis.

In the beginning was the Word,  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Here we should note not only the content but the style. The text tells us that Jesus is man and that he is God. But it does so in a form that is beautiful.

Because the Lord had given himself a human face, the old injunction against images could now be reconsidered. Yet it was some time before the New Covenant took hold and began to expand into the world of culture. Jewish Christians were now eating pork and abandoning circumcision. Paul in Athens had claimed for Christ the altar “to the unknown God”. Greek Christians were bringing the philosophical mind to bear upon the Christian mysteries. Roman converts were hiding in the catacombs and looking at the little funerary carvings of shepherds, seeing in them the image of the Good Shepherd. Natural theology began to flower into the theology of revelation. Doves, anchors, fish, and Gospel scenes were at first scratched crudely in the marble and mortar, then with more precision. Hints of visual realism evolved in this early graffiti, but it took some generations before these first buds of a visual art blossomed into a flowering culture. That it would do so was inevitable, because the Incarnation was Gods radical revelation about his divine purposes in creation. Christianity was the religion of the Eucharist, in which word, image, spirit, and flesh, God and man, are reconciled. It is the Eucharist that recreated the world, and yet for the first two centuries the full implications were compressed, like buried seed, waiting for spring.

When the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313) liberated the Church from the underground, an amazing thing happened: within a few years churches arose all over the civilized world. As that compressed energy was released, the seed burst and flowered and bore fruit with an astonishing luxuriance in art and architecture. The forms were dominated by the figure of Christ, whose image was painted on the interior of church domes—the architectural dome representing the dome of the sky, above which is “the waters of the universe”, above which is Paradise. This was no longer the little Roman shepherd boy but a strong Eastern man, dark, bearded, his imperial face set upon a wrestler’s neck, his arms circling around the dome to encompass all peoples, to teach and to rule “the entire cosmos. He is the “Pantocrator”, the Lord reigning over a hierarchical universe, enthroned as its head — one with the Father-Creator and the Holy Spirit. His hands reach out to man in a gesture of absolute love and absolute truth. And on these hands we see the wounds he bears for us.

This is religion. This is art. This is culture. It is a powerful expression of the Christian vision of the very structure of reality itself. Because of the Incarnation, man at last knows his place in the created order of the universe. Man is damaged, but he is a beloved child of the Father. Moreover, creation is good, very good. It is beautiful, suffused with a beauty that reflects back to him who is perfect beauty. It is permeated by grace, the gift of a loving Creator. From this time forward material creation can never again be viewed with the eyes of the old pagan age. It is Gods intention that matter is neither to be despised, on the one hand, nor worshiped, on the other. Neither is it to be ignored, suppressed, violated, or escaped. “All creation is groaning in one great act of giving birth”, says Saint Paul (Rom. 8:22). Everything is to be transfigured in Christ and restored to the Father. Man especially is to be restored to the original unity that he had “in the beginning”.

The New Gnosticism

Man is free to refuse grace. When he does so, he inevitably falls back into sin and error. But because he is a creature of flesh and spirit, he cannot survive long without a spiritual life. For that reason whenever he denies the whole truth of his being, and at the same time rejects the truth of the created order, he must construct his own “vision” to fill the gaping hole within himself. Thus, because the modern era by and large has rejected the Christian revelation and its moral constraints, we are seeing all around us the collapse back into paganism. There are countless false visions emerging, but among the more beguiling of them is the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, which in our times is enjoying something of a comeback. Its modern manifestation has many names and many variations, including a cold rationalist gnosticism (science without conscience) that claims to have no religious elements whatsoever.1 But the more cultic manifestations (their many shadings number in the thousands) can be loosely grouped under the title “New Age Movement”. In order to understand its power over the modern mind we need to examine its roots in ancient Gnosticism.

Gnostic cults predate Christianity, having their sources in Babylonian, Persian, and other Eastern religions, but they spread steadily throughout the Middle East and parts of Europe, corning to prominence during the second century A.D. By the latter half of the third century, their power was in sharp decline, due in no small part to the influence of the teachings of the early Church Fathers, notably Saint Irenaeus. Irenaeus links the Gnostics to the influence of the magician Simon Magus, mentioned in Acts 8:9, where Saint Luke says that Simon “used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria”. This same Simon offered money to the apostles in an attempt to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. When he was rebuked by Peter, he apparently repented, but second-century sources say that his repentance was short-lived and that he persisted in the practice of magic. Early Church writers refer to him as the first heretic; Irenaeus and others call him the father of Gnosticism.2

The Gnostics continued to have influence until the eighth century and never entirely disappeared from the life of the Western world. Strong traces of Gnosticism can be found in the great heresies that plagued the early Church, in Manichaenism (a cult to which Saint Augustine belonged before his conversion), in kabbalism, medieval witchcraft, occult sects, Theosophy, Freemasonry, and offshoots of the latter.

Gnosticism was in essence syncretistic, borrowing elements from various pagan mystery religions. Its beliefs were often wildly contradictory. For example, some Gnostic groups were pantheistic (worshiping nature as divine), and others, the majority, were more strongly influenced by Oriental dualism (that is, the belief that material creation is evil and the divine realm is good). Despite these confusing differences, they shared in common the belief that knowledge (from the Greek word gnosis) was the true saving force. Secret knowledge about the nature of the universe and about the origin and destiny of man would release a “divine spark” within certain enlightened souls and unite them to some distant, unknowable Supreme Being. This Being, they believed, had created the world through Seven Powers, sometimes called the Demiurge. The initiate in the secret knowledge possessed a kind of spiritual map that would guide him to the highest heaven, enabling the soul to navigate the realms of the powers, the demons, and the deities who opposed his ascent. If the initiate could master their names, repeat the magic formulas and rituals, he would by such knowledge (and sheer force of his will) penetrate to the realm of ultimate tight.

Superficially, Gnosticism resembles the Christian doctrine of salvation, but the spirit of Gnosticism is utterly alien to Christianity. The two are fundamentally different in their understanding of God, man’s identity, and the nature of salvation. Cultic gnosis was not, in fact, a pursuit of knowledge as such; it was not an intellectual or scientific pursuit, but rather a supposed “revelation” of hidden mysteries that could be understood only by a superior class of the enlightened. In a word, it was “mystical”. But this mysticism could never come to terms with material creation in the way the Christian faith had. Even the “Christian” Gnostics found it impossible to reconcile their concept of salvation with a historical redeemer, nor could they accept the resurrection of the body. They could only attempt a crude grafting of the figure of Christ into their mythology. In their thinking, Jesus was no more than a divine messenger who brought gnosis in a disguised, symbolic form to simple-minded Christians. The Gnostic Gospel, they believed, was the unveiling of the higher meaning. They were the first perpetrators of the idea that “all religions are merely misunderstood mythologies” — a catchphrase that in our own times has hooked large numbers of New Age devotees, agnostics, and even some naive Christians.

G. K. Chesterton, who was involved briefly with the occult during his youth and later became one of this century’s greatest apologists for the faith, understood the powerful seductions of counterfeit religion. The new heretics, he maintained, were not for the most part purveyors of bizarre sects; they were rather fugitives from a decaying Protestant liberalism or victims of the inroads made by Modernism into the Catholic Church. They were groping about in the dark trying to strike lights from their own supposed “divine spark”, and the effort could appear heroic. The exaltation of the rebel against organized religion, Chesterton knew, was really a romantic illusion. At the time he wrote his book Heretics (published in 1905), the illusion did not appear to be a widespread evil, but he foresaw that it would be the breeding ground for an apostasy that would spread throughout the entire Western world. Each succeeding generation would be fed by a large and growing cast of leading cultural figures who rejected Christianity and made disbelief credible, even admirable. Chesterton understood that culture is a primary instrument of forming a people’s concept of reality. And he warned that when shapers of culture slough off authentic faith, they are by no means freed to be objective. They merely open themselves to old and revamped mythologies. When men cease to believe in God, he observed, they do not then believe in nothing; they will then believe in anything.

Chesterton prophesied that the last and, greatest battles of civilization would be fought against the religious doctrines of the East. This was an odd prophecy, because at the time the influence of both Hinduism and Buddhism was minor, and devotees of the European occult movements were few in number. Yet within a century we find a great many people in the arts, the universities, the communications media, psychology, and other “social sciences” exhibiting strong attraction to, and promoting pagan concepts of, the cosmos. During the past three decades these ideas have flowed with great force into the mainstream of Western culture, surfacing in all aspects of life and even invading Catholic spirituality. One now sees among professed religious, clerics, educators, and lay people a persistent fascination with Jungian psychology, which is based in no small part on Hinduism and ancient Gnosticism. Those who are in doubt of this should read Carl Jung’s autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which includes a section of Gnostic reflections titled “Seven Sermons to the Dead”, written when he was in his early forties. Consider also the following passage from his later work The Practice of Psychotherapy: “The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semihuman and demonic, but superhuman, spiritual, and in the classical sense of the word, ‘divine’.” That Christians give this pseudo-scientific theorizing credibility is symptomatic of grave spiritual confusion. We should not be surprised that many people immersed in Jungianism are also attracted to astrology, Enneagrams, and other “mystical” paths that promise self-discovery and enlightenment. That large numbers of Christians now seem unable to see the contradiction between these concepts and orthodox Christianity is an ominous sign. The new syncretism has been romanticized as the heroic quest for ultimate healing, ultimate unity, ultimate tight — in other words, esoteric “knowledge” as salvation.3

Many Christians are becoming Gnostics without realizing it. Falling to the primeval temptation in the garden of Eden: “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”, they succumb to the desire for godlike powers, deciding for themselves what is good and what is evil. The error of Gnosticism is that knowledge can be obtained and used to perfect oneself while circumventing the authority of Christ and his Church. Using a marketing technique that proves endlessly productive, Satan always packages this offer with the original deception, by proclaiming that God and the Church do not want man to have knowledge because it will threaten their power and by asserting that God is a liar (“You will not die”). Authentic Christianity has no quarrel with genuine science, with the pursuit of knowledge for good ends. But because the Church must maintain the whole truth about man, she warns that unless the pursuit of knowledge is in submission to the pursuit of wisdom, it will not lead to good; if it is divorced from God’s law, it will lead to death.

A people cut off from true spiritual vision is condemned to a desolation in which eventually any false spiritual vision will appear religious. Man cannot live long without a spiritual life. Robbed of his own story, he will now listen to any He that is spun in a flattering tale. This is one of the long-term effects of undermining our world of symbols. It is one of the effects of assuming that ideas are mere abstractions—a very dangerous misconception, as the tragic events of our century have proved so often.

Recently, a young artist showed me her new paintings. She is an intelligent and gifted person, and the work was of high quality, visually beautiful. With particular pleasure she pointed out a painting of a woman with dozens of snakes wriggling in her womb. It was a self-portrait, the artist explained. Judaism and Christianity, she went on to say, had unjustly maligned the serpent. And in order to rehabilitate this symbol, it was necessary to take the serpent into her womb, to gestate it, and eventually to bear it into the world as a “sacred feminine icon”. I pointed out thai the meanings of symbols are not merely the capricious choices of a limited culture. We cannot arbitrarily rearrange them like so much furniture in the living room of the psyche. To tamper with these fundamental types is spiritually and psychologically dangerous because they are keystones in the very structure of the mind. They are a language about the nature of good and evil; furthermore, they are points of contact with these two realities. To face evil without the spiritual equipment Christianity has given us is to put oneself in grave danger. But my arguments were useless. She had heard a more interesting story from a famous “theologian”.

This is one of the results of forgetting our past. The record of salvation history in the Old Testament is primarily about the Lord’s effort to wean man of idolatry and to form a people capable of receiving the revelation of Jesus Christ. It was a long, painfully slow process marked by brilliant moments and repeated backslides into paganism. It bears repeating: when Hezekiah inherited the throne, smashed the pagan shrines, and broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, the people of God had for centuries already seen abundant evidence of God’s authority and power. What had happened to them? Why did they have such short memories? Was Hezekiah overreacting? Was this a case of alarmism? Paranoia, perhaps?

The bronze serpent, after all, had been made at God’s command. Hezekiah’s act must be understood in the context of the fierce grip that the spirit of idolatry had over the whole world. The people had succumbed to the temptation to blend biblical faith with pagan spirituality. They had forgotten the lesson learned by their ancestors in the exodus from Egypt:

When the savage rage of wild animals overtook them, and they were perishing from the bites of writhing snakes, your wrath did not continue to the end. It was by way of reprimand, lasting a short time, that they were distressed, for they had a saving token to remind them of the commandment of your Law. Whoever turned to it was saved, not by what he looked at, but by you, the universal savior. . . . And by such means you proved to our enemies that it is you who deliver from every evil. . . . For your sons, not even the fangs of venomous serpents could bring them down; your mercy came to their help and cured them. . . . One sting — how quickly healed! — to remind them of your utterances, rather than, sinking into deep forgetfulness, they should be cut off from your kindness. - Wisdom 16: 5-12

What has happened to the people of our times? Why do we have such short memories? It is because over-familiarity and the passage of time blur the sharp edges of reality. Minds and hearts grow lax. Vigilance declines. Again and again man sinks into deep forgetfulness. Serpents and dragons are now tamed like pets by some, worshiped by others. The writer of the book of Revelation has something to say about this. He reminds us with a note of urgency that we are in a war zone. Every human soul is in peril; our every act has moral significance. Our danger increases to the degree that we do not understand the nature of our enemy. Saint John wrote us a tale drawn from a vision of what will come to pass on this earth and in our Church. It was given in a form that can be imparted to the soul of a child or to those who have become as little children, but not in a form that can be mastered by those who fail to approach it with reverence. In chapter 12, John tells us that a dragon has a passion to devour our child:

A great sign appeared in the sky a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Because she was with child, she cried aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky: it was a huge dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns; on his head were seven crowns. His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, ready to devour her child as soon as it was born.

The early Church Fathers taught that this passage has a twofold meaning: on one level it refers to the birth of Christ; on another it refers to the Church as she labors to bear salvation into the world. This child is, in a sense, every child. The Church is to carry this child as the image of God, transfigured in Christ, and to bring him forth into eternal life. She groans in agony, and the primeval serpent hates her, for he knows that her offspring, protected and grown in her womb, will crush his head.

________

1 This is a false claim, because some scientific theories exhibit the qualities of religious myth and Sanction that way in the thought of many supposedly objective minds, For those interested in learning more about this trend, I suggest five scholarly studies: Eric Voegelin’s Science, Politics, and Gnosticism and his The New Science of Politics, Thomas Molnar’s The New Paganism, Wolfgang Smith’s Cosmos and Transcendence and his Teilhardism and the New Religion, While all these books are a useful contribution to the study of Gnosticism, they are not of equal merit. The latter two tides are unencumbered by certain presumptions that mat the first three.

2 See A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, ed. David Lyle Jeffrey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 714.

3 Readers who wish to learn more about this tragic development should read Fr. Mitchell Pacwa’s Catholics and the New Age (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Publications, 1992).

[caepaecaesurae]

> CC : Tell DH You Got Dunked

Last Thursday at 5:14 PM

caepaeCaesurae Evwening chief devotedHarlequin Cae! C3< caepaeCaesurae c3<  :) An honor and a pleasure.  Howv's the evwening? devotedHarlequin it is being a well enough evening, though I were having to extract a wriggler from the heating ducts. caepaeCaesurae WVhy are they large enough for anyone to get into?

devotedharlequin it is not that they are large, it is that the wriggler is so small caepaeCaesurae trolls clamber into any space they can fit, honestly devotedHarlequin also it is having to do, I think, with carrying enough air to be being effective caepaeCaesurae hm. caepaeCaesurae I imagine there's plenty of design that goes into the things. caepaeCaesurae Had your ear to the rumor mill lately? devotedHarlequin :oO I aint done what is being the happening caepaeCaesurae Long story short, Mituna and I had a bit of a fight, but wve're doing much better nowv. devotedHarlequin Hm. And this fight is being of enough worrisomeness that you are thinking that you need to tell me, but also too trying to make it sound not so bad? caepaeCaesurae It wvas noticeable enough that there's rumors going around. Happy to tell you the full thing ovwer a drink if you wvant. caepaeCaesurae But...aye, I don't really wvant anyone getting ovwer-fussed about it. devotedHarlequin Hm. I aint gonna say no to a drink, or to be seeing you where I can be stealing kisses and for certain sure seeing with mine own eyes that you are okay caepaeCaesurae I'm not saying no to kisses.  Be there in a moment, chief. devotedHarlequin (o:

CC: Caesurae wraps himself in a cloak, and spends a while debating between walking out to the church and trying to teleport himself.  In time, he heads down to the courtyard instead, and uses the public transport pad to transport over to the church pad. DH: His ears perked at the sound of the transportalizer going off and he pocketed his pad, and dusted flour off his hands onto his apron, and walked on out thata way. Small clowns, still very young tussled and chased each other, two sweeps old and sturdy, with other older clowns keeping a close eye on them and waving at Caesurae. He was starting to be well recognized.

The door to the outside was knocked on and laborously opened by one of the adults with purple eyes with only a flew flecks of grey in them, letting in a pair of trolls with baskets full of eggs to hurry off down the hall, getting a laugh out of Arlequin as they passed.

"Cronus!" he grinned as he came into sight CC: Cronus had some recent bite and scratch marks, but they looked a lot more like Nadaya's usual than anything Mituna could've (let alone would've) done.  He grinned wryly when he saw Arlequin, wandering closer to acquire a hug and some relatively chaste cheek-kisses.  "Hey, chief -- good to see you." DH: Cro came away with new white lipstick as he drew back and Arlequin touched his face with a brush of floury knuckles {and you as well sweet voice of reason, have you eaten yet? If we're drinking it may be a good idea.} CC: It was a good thing white was part of his aesthetic.  Cronus gave a wink and a fond grin, loking up at the ridiculous giant.  "{ WVhat a fantastic notion -- I'd lovwe to, if that's an offer. }" CC: He seemed physically intact, which was possibly a nice reassurance. DH: He beconned him with a grin. {There's plenty in the kitchen, there always is, we'll get a couple of flatbreads with some meat vegitables and cream on them} did he mean a pita? He might've. He was going to watch the way Cae moved for signs of lingering injury, but he was relaxing slowly. CC: Caesurae was walking well, which was generally a good sign.  Ankle soreness came and went, but just now he was in a good enough mood it wasn't bothering him.  He followed along cheerfully, reaching up to rest a hand on Arlequin's shoulder as they walked.  "{ You're a wvonder.  I'm afraid my sylladex is busted at the moment, so I'll be making wvhatevwer I offer to drink -- so if you could havwe anything I might havwe heard of on Alternia, wvhat wvould it be? }" DH: He snaked an arm around Cae and hummed a thoughtful sound. {I don't know that you would know our brew master, so I'd have to say perhaps [small exclusive brewery for highbloods]} CC: "{ Unfortunately not, but I do knowv that one.. }"  ...he uncaptchalogued a pleasantly chilled bottle of the suggested beverage, stroking his thumb across the neck of the glassware before offering it up to Arlequin.  Tricking himself into uncaptchaloguing things he vaguely expected to have was /so much easier/ than making things out of smoke.  He wasn't sure why he'd never picked up this method before, but he liked it. DH: Arelquin took the cool bottle with raised eyebrows and a smile. {Garunteed to taste as good as you remember it} He winked at him and gently ushered him into the kitchen where a few of the boys were workin. He busied himself putting together a couple of pocket sandwhiches for them. CC: He smiled wryly and shrugged his confirmation, then came along, leaning against the counter as he 'uncaptchalogued' another and rolled it in his palms.  "{ Aye, that.  ... Pardon if I wvorried you any. }" DH: {You're strong and capable. My worry is why you're downplaying it so much.} He offered Caesurae a bread pocket wrapped in wax paper and absently ruffled one of the smaller clowns' hair. Time to head to his room. CC: "{ Is it dowvnplaying?  ..tsk. }"  He shook his head, accepting the sandwich and taking it and his drink as he followed. CC: "{ Perhaps one night I'll learn wvhy it sounds that wvay. }" DH: {It does sound so. ..When something is so important you feel the need to bring it up, but continue to volenteer that everything is fine it rattles the nerves somewhat}He told him. {..I am glad to see you truly are well} CC: ..he shook his head.  "{ My apologies for that, as wvell then. }"  A faint, sheepish smile.  "{ Maybe I'll learn not to reassure you unless you ask, somenight. }" DH: {I may have a suspicious mind.} He stepped around wrigglers and toys and made his way to his door, to hold it open for Caesurae. CC: "{ So do wve all. }"  He sidestepped the wrigglers easily, but had to swerve slightly to avoid a toy.  He bowed his head as he passed through, finding somewhere comfortable to settle, where he'd be able to immediately lean on Arlequin once the larger troll was down. DH: Arlequin settled in easily, the door wasn't locked but it was closed. He set his sandwich on a knee and  opened the miracle beer his auspistice had given him. {what happened?} CC: Caesurae sprawled out a bit, leaning against him, and taking a moment to wiggle his toes noncommitally before he started opening his own drink. CC: "{ .. WVe argued online, at first, and I managed to offend him wvithout intent.  He came to continue the convwersation face to face. }" CC: "{ There wvas a conflict.  My sylladex and many of its more delicate contents wvere destroyed, and I ended up unconscious in the bay.  He took me to Kankri, wvho eased my panache and wvoke me.   ...after a bit of convwersation, I think wve'vwe resolvwed evwerything, and are nowv at peace, wvith a greater dedication and fewver misunderstandings.  He's resolvwed to fix evwerything that wvas broken, and wvorks at it yet. }" CC: He managed to get his beverage open after all that, and glanced up at Arlequin finally, fin shifting. DH: Arlequin turned that over in his mind, considering, then glanced down at him quickly, eyes going to his chest, looking for an amulet. CC: He had his quadrant jewelry on, but no other adornments.  A violet seadweller in a leather jacket. DH: (the clover is what hes looking for)) CC: (( should still have it, yes )) DH: He relaxed a little when he saw the encased clover and quietly wrapped an arm around him and hugged him against his side. {It sounds as if he were extremely angry, what did you say to him that got him so worked up?} CC: Caesurae relaxed into the touch, but sighed slowly as he leaned against the larger troll.  "... Apparently I implied he wvas damaged and I wvould havwe to make a decision for him.  He wvasn't answvering questions, so I had to guess, and I seem to havwe guessed Exactly WVrong." CC: "And nowv I knowv not to do that." DH: "..Ah." He murmured and held the sea dweller against him. {He hates that. My memories and emotions are mixxed but that I think is the thing he hates most in creation. Being viewed as broken and having choices taken from him.} He frowned.

{..I am not surprised but it doesnt excuse fucking attacking you.} CC: Caesurae leaned against the larger troll, and set his drink down so he could pat Arlequin's chest gently.  "{ ..He's concerned there wvill be trouble for him from this.  I don't particularly care as long as he behavwes in the future. }" CC: "{ ...I wvas startled at the time, but there's no lasting harm. }" DH: He grumbled an unsatisfied noise, and leaned down to kiss a horn. {It is your right to decide your feelings in this, you are the one he hurt. ..And I know that if I say anything against him the wrath of the entire palace will come against me in any case} CC: "{ ..It wvill not, }" He leaned into the attention, then kissed a shoulder.  "{ ..You can speak your mind, and he wvorries about your anger.  I request that you make no threats, but that is my opinion. }" CC: "{ All is wvell, and you and I are safe. }" DH: {I am not stupid enough to threaten a former slave, even beyond the political and justice repercussions. .. I do care about him, whether I would prefer to or not, as well. I wonder if he understands that neither of us would raise a hand to him at all?} He shook his head. CC: "{ ... I don't knowv wvhether he believwes, but I think he is becoming awvare of that on my end at least.  ..One reason that I am glad wve spoke. }" DH: {I am going to have to consider how to express that I'm angry with him without frightening him.} He frowned and started eating his sandwhich. CC: Caesurae snuggled in, quietly starting to eat his own as if in response.  He didn't speak, for a few minutes after that. DH: {He would bait others. when we were young, into fights. Do you remember?} DH: {He is an adult and needs to take charge of his actions during his mood swings.} CC: "{ He is regretful, and wvishes I wvere angry. }" DH: {Of course he is} He sighed. CC: "{ ... It is no intentional act of comeuppance, but I find it difficult to believwe he doesn't havwe the right. }"  nom. DH: {I entirely understand that feeling, although you may want to make sure and give him some pushback, otherwise hes gonna think you're playing him.} What a good sandwich CC: "{ ..I wvill try to remember.  I think he is somewvhat convwinced, though. }" CC: "{ .. He found some things among my effects that suggest I am being truthful. }" DH: {remember when I used to drive you up a wall waitin for you to hate me?} CC: He hesitated, then sighed audibly.  "{ There wvere legitimate reasons to be concerned my opinion wvould change. }" DH: He leaned down and kissed his head. {Let him decide how he feels about you and how to deal with that, I already fucked up enough trying to figure that out for both of us} CC: Caesurae leaned against him, quietly.  "{ ... I wvill try. }" CC: "{ Do you regret asking me to judge?  ... Or do you mean something else? }" DH: He snorted softyly and decided to squeeze him. {I do not regret the judgement, but he is already in the state of mind needed to judge you, Caesurae, and has already decided what he wants} DH: {Imagine if I had decided you judged wrong and followed you around with the knife trying to get you to kill me} CC: ...He glanced up slightly more quickly, fins lowering visibly, when Arlequin mentioned Psii had already decided.  There was visible concern.  The fins shifted slightly as Arlequin went on. CC: ".. He has not mentioned any judgement.  Does he fear I wvould ... ?" DH: "..Caesurae I am speaking of deciding that he wishes nothing." DH: "There is coming a point where insisting on punishment is being more for you, than for him." CC: His fins pinned.  "... If he says he wvants nothing, he can havwe it, but he Does Not.  He has the right, and alwvays wvill, wvhether he takes it or not -- and that doesn't mean he /has/ to, he just /can/." CC: "I'm not -- I'm not trying to tell him he has to ..." DH: "..It sounds as if you are" CC: He made a face, reding his cheek on Arlequin irritably, sandwich held out of the way. CC: "I don't ask him about it, I don't tell him unecessarily, it's just there." DH: "You dont gotta use words to be doing the thing, Cae." he took a sip of his beer. CC: Low, irritable grunt. CC: "..Havwe you talked of this often?" he grumbled softly. DH: "What lettin people pick their own judgement? I mighta done some sermons on it." CC: He chuffed in annoyance.  "WVith /Mituna/." DH: "Oh! Nah, just him tellin me for my own misdeeds toward him. An knowin his younger self." Sip CC: Caesurae glanced away grumpily, not entirely convinced. DH: "You think I'm in any position to be gettin personal conversations bout how he feels about other people?' He smiled at the ceiling. "..Though he did tell me I aint fucked up so bad we caint be friends, which I'm real happy about" CC: Caesurae leaned against Arlequin, and vaguely felt like crawling into a hole, the advice only making him less certain of how to approach the mess.  He'd...thought he knew.  Kind of.  Now there was some entirely new thing to be self conscious about though. CC: "...I am glad for you," he said softly. DH: "thanks, gonna take some work but maybe I aint so big a fuck up." he hummed. "hear you n him're already friends." CC: The softest, most dubious little grunt. DH: "..its prolly gonna be okay unless you're as stupid as me an I ain think thats possible." CC: ".. Howv'd I start that fight again?" DH: "still aint trickin people into attackin you then ritually sacraficin them an eatin them." he mused. "prolly fine." CC: After a moment, his lip twitched despite himself. CC: ..slow, soft, incredulous laughter, followed by a facepalm over the visible half of his face. CC: "..I lovwe you.  WVhy is he this tolerant?" DH: He grinned when he got a laugh. Good. "love you too- donno, I blame Kankri." CC: "Somehowv.  ...Fuck, chief." CC: "..Thank you."  He will never top Arlequin.  Arlequin is the biggest.  At everything. DH: He kissed the top of his head. "Perspective is important." CC: "It.. ...I guess so." DH: "The beer's nice, your memory's good." CC: He wasn't sure why he was blushing, but he buried his face again, snuggling in.  "..For some things." DH: Apparently it was time to squeeze hug the big sea dweller. "..glad you're okay an things aint terrible” CC: "...aye," he agreed after a moment.  "..They're not."  He was quiet a moment before cuddling again. DH: "Its nice to be having you over." he murmured to him. CC: "..should stop by more often." DH: A quiet dubious noise. "Don wanna startle the preacher." CC: "..wvell, /I/ should stop by /here/ more often." DH: "..ah yeah, you know I hear some parts of a sentence oughta be included when you say shit" CC: "...Sorry, chief.  I think wvords aren't my bag this wveek." CC: "I'll wvork on it." DH: "..it aint bother you to be around allt he little brothers and sisters?" he murmured. CC: "..It...depends.  But I'm getting there." DH: "I'm glad. All these lil clowns is sweet as anything most the time when they aint bitin each other cause they bored." CC: "..WVhat wvill be done about their boredom?"  Aside from.. diplomatic talks so they could go outside more. DH: "work, plenty of work with the sheep an the chickens and the cookin and cleanin and buildin on more parts to the church and makin leather things and paintin shit and carvin horns and bones and their learnin of course they gotta spend somma the night in learnins.." CC: He nodded slightly, tracing a shape on the clown's chst.  After a few moments, he started to turn, so he could resume nibbling at his sandwich. CC: He realised on some level that the part of him that had been dead and more than a little crazy would be horrified by his current position cuddled into Arlequin.  ..there was this tiny whiff of Kurloz, though ... CC: "...of most of a sweep of solid friendship... CC: ".. I'll growv used to them in time.   They growv slowvly enough." DH: "Seems so fast to me, some nights" he murmured. CC: "You look forwvard to seeing wvho they wvill become." DH: "So much, its excitin, I'm.. tryin not to get more attached to the purples than the other shades cause it aint fair but.." CC: "..they'll last longer.  ...Aye, best to be fair, but I understand." DH: He made a soft disgruntled sound. "..I've had many loves, lesser and greater amoung the warm hues." CC: "Evwen the briefest of trolls can movwe mountains." DH: "An the cooler of us may die from somethin long before a warm blooded troll does.." CC: "And fuck knowvs if in a realm of magic and technology wvith so many wvarm in powver, if they'll finally be able to fix the longevwity problem." CC: "..Livwe in the moment, it's a brand newv wvorld." DH: "..I plan to, although I aint good at not plannin and working toward a future neither." he gestured around them with his bottle. "suppose I coulda stayed in the castle and loafed a while longer." CC: "I wvonder howv that wvould havwe changed things.." DH: "coulda ended with people bein more familiar and relaxed with me ..coulda ended in kankri havin a melt down and my ass gettin killed before they figured out why he was bleedin.." CC: He softly papped a clowntit, chuffing.  "..wvhich I wvouldn't havwe allowved." DH: "..And if it were Mituna who did it?" CC: A momentary pause, before gamely trying to resume.  "..I wvould relate the issue to his descendant, gather Kankri's aid in turning Mituna after Kankri inevwitably forgivwing any slight against his person, and set the situation to rights." DH: He grunted. "You mean ressurect me" CC: He hesitated, then rested his cheek against Arlequin, shoulders falling. CC: "..Nevwer wvithout your permission." CC: "Any wvho harmed you /that much/ wvould havwe Problems of their owvn, soon enough." DH: He set his bottle down and stroked his hand gently down Caesurae's back. "I got a lot to live for, right now, but the carneval's been callin me a long time." CC: It was not hard to see a circumstance where his friend who had enjoyed death and his friend who was waiting for death could leave him as one of the last highbloods, for a moment.  Caesurae hesitated, then settled slowly.  "..I knowv," he answered.  "..In due time." DH: {In time, not now- call me back, if I go before the church can stand on its own.} He murmured. CC: "...Aye," he answered softly, resting his cheek against the chest of the troll he'd really, really, really, really wanted to murder at a point not too many sweeps in the past. DH: He brought his hand up from his back and rested it against the back of his head, breathing out a slow soft sigh. CC: "..I think I'm a bit..scattered, tonight," he said softly. DH: "You was attacked by an angry psionic then set upon by every motherfucker in the world an hadda defend him without even gettin to take time for recoverin." He noted. CC: "...I awvoke to the middle of a convwersation wvith him, and Kankri wvanted to talk about ..something.. right after," he noted softly. DH: He stroked his fingers at maddeningly short hair lightly. "you wanna drink and rest an talk bout pretty girls?" CC: Much softer, and after a few beats, "..I wvouldn't mind." DH: "..but what is it being that you would like?" he asked in a soft rumble. CC: His expression creased slightly, and he managed a weak smile.  "..I should probably actually start my drink."  He headrattled slightly, trying to draw his composure back up around himself.  "I wvould lovwe to rest, chief." DH: "lets do that then, no more talk of terrible things, tell me about Mindfang's breasts." he patted at him. CC: A soft snort.  "..you'vwe seen them more recently than me.  ... .. sorry, for still being on edge." DH: "I know but you can get damned poetic about them." He chuckled. "..nah, shh, we gon make this fun an get you relaxed." CC: His cheeks colored, but he eased slightly.  "I apparently get poetic about a number of the finer things in life." DH: "You wanna smoke? I'll share." He asked. CC: "..Sure, chief.  You're a wvonder." DH: "spreadin miracles all around" He dug out his little tin and his pipe, lets give this poor troll some relax time. CC: Caesurae settled a bit, cuddled with a giant troll, and tried not to be anxious about attack or self-conscious about his ability to assess social situations safely.  He would eat his sandwich, drink his drink, and enjoy quietly smoking with someone who was on a different place in his personal safety radar than most of the rest of his clade.  Not better, not worse, just different.

DH: ((sounds like a wrap)) CC: (( sounds like it -- I can post it with the tumblr IM thing on the front )) DH: ((sounds good to me :D ))