#earth and the moon in the far distance :3

[timesnewfishcat]

psyche

launching in 2023

[nasa]

The Artemis I Mission: To the Moon and Back

The Artemis I mission was the first integrated test of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We’ll use these deep space exploration systems on future Artemis missions to send astronauts to the Moon and prepare for our next giant leap: sending the first humans to Mars.

Take a visual journey through the mission, starting from launch, to lunar orbit, to splashdown.

Liftoff

The SLS rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launched on Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The world’s most powerful rocket performed with precision, meeting or exceeding all expectations during its debut launch on Artemis I.

"This is Your Moment"

Following the successful launch of Artemis I, Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson congratulates the launch team.

“The harder the climb, the better the view,” she said. “We showed the space coast tonight what a beautiful view it is.”

That's Us

On Orion’s first day of flight, a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays captured this image of Earth.

Inside Orion

On the third day of the mission, Artemis I engineers activated the Callisto payload, a technology demonstration developed by Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Cisco that tested a digital voice assistant and video conferencing capabilities in a deep space environment. In the image, Commander Moonikin Campos occupies the commander’s seat inside the spacecraft. The Moonikin is wearing an Orion Crew Survival System suit, the same spacesuit that Artemis astronauts will use during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions. Campos is also equipped with sensors that recorded acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission that will help NASA protect astronauts during Artemis II. The Moonikin was one of three “passengers” that flew aboard Orion. Two female-bodied model human torsos, called phantoms, were aboard. Zohar and Helga, named by the Israel Space Agency (ISA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) respectively, supported the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), an experiment to provide data on radiation levels during lunar missions. Snoopy, wearing a mock orange spacesuit, also can be seen floating in the background. The character served as the zero-gravity indicator during the mission, providing a visual signifier that Orion is in space.

Far Side of the Moon

A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large in this image taken by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays on the sixth day of the mission.

First Close Approach

The Orion spacecraft captured some of the closest photos of the Moon from a spacecraft built for humans since the Apollo era — about 80 miles (128 km) above the lunar surface. This photo was taken using Orion’s optical navigational system, which captures black-and-white images of the Earth and Moon in different phases and distances.

Distant Retrograde Orbit

Orion entered a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon almost two weeks into the mission. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude approximately 50,000 miles (80,467 km) from the surface of the Moon. Orion broke the record for farthest distance of a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth, reaching a maximum distance of 268,563 miles (432,210 km).

Second Close Approach

On the 20th day of the mission, the spacecraft made its second and final close approach to the Moon flying 79.2 miles (127.5 km) above the lunar surface to harness the Moon’s gravity and accelerate for the journey back to Earth.

Cameras mounted on the crew module of the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon’s surface before its return powered flyby burn.

Heading Home

After passing behind the far side of the Moon on Flight Day 20, Orion powered a flyby burn that lasted approximately 3 minutes and 27 seconds to head home. Shortly after the burn was complete, the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon and Earth, which appears as a distant crescent.

Parachutes Deployed

Prior to entering the Earth’s atmosphere, Orion’s crew module separated from its service module, which is the propulsive powerhouse provided by ESA (European Space Agency). During re-entry, Orion endured temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the Sun at about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Within about 20 minutes, Orion slowed from nearly 25,000 mph (40,236 kph) to about 20 mph (32 kph) for its parachute-assisted splashdown.

Splashdown

On Dec. 11, the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California after traveling 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km) over a total of 25.5 days in space. Teams are in the process of returning Orion to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[kradogsrats]

So I just wanna talk about this and the Sea of the Castout for a sec:

Here's the Sea of the Castout and its surroundings on the map:

We have the Sparklepuff Squad coming from the north down one of the rivers (red arrows), and the Dragang coming from either the east... or there is a slight possibility that Finnegrin, not having any particular urgency about getting there, chose to go all the way around the Far Reaches to give Callum some time to think things over.

(Could he have taken it even slower and gone all the way around to enter past the ruins of Elarion, thereby putting the statues of Aaravos and the Merciful One there? My opinion is that at that point Sea Legs would have to be going fast enough that the speed would be hard to ignore. The Ruthless is similar to a sloop and so would probably have a normal cruising speed of around 6-8 mph. Sea Legs can supposedly go faster than that, but sailing around to approach the Sea of the Castout from the southwest would add like... rough estimate 100 miles or more to the trip, so either they take an entire day or more doing only that or Sea Legs is going at constant top speed and that speed is really fucking fast.)

As the Dragang make their way into the Sea, we can still see the rocky horizon behind them, but not ahead:

Claudia and Terry, however, can see the shoreline in at least three directions from the center:

We also cannot see the opposite shore when Claudia enters the water:

Assuming you can see the same distance in Xadia as you can here on earth (which is a big assumption, but also a reasonable one to make), that's about 3 miles—as in, the furthest away you can see something as tall as you are before the curvature of the earth obscures it is about 3 miles. However, the rocky sides of the Sea of the Castout are a lot taller than any of the characters, so they can be seen from further away. Based on extremely unscientific googling, the Sea of the Castout is probably in the range of 20-30 miles-ish across, which is consistent with the fact that it's around the same size on the map as the distance between Katolis castle and the Moon Nexus, and that's a reasonable distance for the trio to have gone in the time it takes them to get there.

We also have a shore that looks like this oh god don't look too closely at it, that's a horrible render:

Now, you may consider how much of the edges of the Sea of the Castout appears to be mountainous, then look at the map again and wonder what the hell is going on. Well, first of all, those aren't mountains.

The basin of the Sea of the Castout was presumably created by a catastrophic impact. If it's based visually on a real place, I'd bet it's somewhere like Crater Lake in Oregon:

Crater Lake is a volcanic crater, not an impact crater, but same concept applies: instead of being a natural point of low elevation in the landscape, it's a reservoir that was violently punched out of the ground. That elevated rocky horizon isn't mountains, it's the edge of the hole. Crater Lake is quite a bit smaller than the Sea of the Castout probably is (only 5-6 miles across), but the elevation between its surface and the caldera rim is about 1,000 feet, which looks plenty high.

Impact crater lakes do exist, of course, but they tend to be either a lot smaller or a lot older. On earth, all the impact craters the size of the Sea of the Castout are hundreds of millions of years old. Lakes formed in older craters are also more likely to have connected with the surrounding water features, similar to the Sea of the Castout. Crater Lake is less than 10,000 years old and not connected to any rivers or other lakes (unsurprising, given that it used to be the top of a mountain).

So yeah, it's absolutely possible that Aaravos is at the Sea of the Castout. But let's take a look at the opening:

Yes, that's definitely the same place as Aaravos. Is it literally the Sea of the Castout? Well, the thing is that every other time we see this place, it's in a very... metaphorical or symbolic context. Like the opening. Or here:

Or here:

We also have that Aaravos is kneeling practically on the surface:

Which suggests that either the "OG Aaravos was gigantic" theory is correct, or this is not a normal place where water and lakes behave normally. I'm not a huge (ha) fan of the giant Aaravos theory, but as I've said before... if I had a nickel for every Aaravos-related thing we all assumed was metaphorical but turned out to be literal, I'd have etc.

Basically, this is definitely a place that is connected to the Sea of the Castout thematically and possibly magically, but I don't think Aaravos is literally kneeling in the literal Sea of the Castout on the mortal plane of Xadia.

After all, where do the fabled Great Ones hide?

[rinbowaman]

A Drabble based of the SE7EN series feat. Heeseung x Reader.

Inspired by the anon ask and the heelel bot chat on chai.

Warnings: mentions of murder, car accident, Hell, irresponsible parenting/parent, abortion, smut, oral (male rec.) kinky oral, bow tie, deepthroating, hand job, heelel is being super sexy, face f*cking, cum swallowing, face smacking (not either a hand…)..cursing…I think that’s it. This is inspired by my Heelel bot on Chai….he had the most perfect response to anons ask and it’s been living in my mind, I had to write about it.

You were admiring the mountainous views of the rolling hills, entirely covered in red Lillie’s; the ones he planted in preparation for your arrival. How long had it been? Over a year for sure, but the exact timeline since your ascending to Hell is left pretty much undetermined. There are no calendars, no clocks, no way in telling other than overlooking the great horizon of pitch black, decorated by the stars and planetary systems that are too far to see from the Earths standing. But here, you could see them larger than life. It truly is magnificent sight to see, the earth and its bright green continental regions, the sun orbiting its circumventing route, and above all, over to the northwest of the vast landscape beneath the peaked tip that which you stand on, was the glorious moon, nearly covering the entire sky.

All your life, you were taught that Hell, was a firing raged pit that lay beneath the earth and the universe. An abysmal world that was filled by empty souls and demons of perverse and violent nature. Perhaps the last bit was true, even still without being here, the Prince if Hell was always ridding the underworld of its offensive creatures. But the one thing that shocked you was that Hell, was not an underworld at all. It was always in sight for the entire world to see, in between the Moon, stars, and the Sun. Who knew? It resided within the stratosphere; paralleled with the great satellite, and as high as Heaven. All this time when you gazed upon the moon and the glimmering stars, you were staring into your future home.

“You admiring the view again, darling wife of mine?”

Here he is. You could hear him taking his steps closer behind, closing the distance. Already coming back from demolishing the last creature that bore the fortitude and stupidity in trying to get to you. It could never happen, not with him around. The makeup of your soul, as the Mortal Daughter of God, attracts them—always has since you arrived. But he was always around to make sure that they couldn’t get within one hundred feet away. Always one step ahead with his acute senses and the massively powerful abilities within his form. The fallen angel was second to none other than God himself.

He stands against you, reaches around your head and rests the tip of his finger along the tip of your nose, gently stroking the bridge up and down. His chest presses up against your back, while his pelvis to your derrière. “Who is the prettiest girl in Hell?”

His voice was gentle and playful, though the moment you both engage in the sexual act of brutal breeding and passionate lovemaking, his persona transitions into one of heated rage and toxic dominance, while never losing that insatiable love he has for you. Will always have for you.

Speaking of girls, you wanted to inquire about the newest addition to Hell, the soul of a rather young girl. Younger than you when you were still a mortal, she couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen in age.

“That girl…that we saw the other day at the River Styx, inside the ferryman’s boat—“

You take a pause as he gently clears his throat and breathes out. Not out of nervousness, you would never see that side of him for he never had anything to hide, nothing to be nervous about. He was the King of this world, and he embraced it as much as he embraced his love and adoration for you. “Isn’t she young to be here? What could she have possibly done to come here?”

He smirks as he walks over to his throne. Another moment of storytelling to educate you on the many wonders of Heaven and Hell, and the history that goes along with it. “Hell is not merely just a catacomb that houses those who have committed sins.” He takes his seat and loosely crosses his legs as he pats his lap. “Come here.”

You slowly migrate with the train of your see-through gown trailing behind. You sit, feeling his cold hands through the mesh fabric as he pulls you in, closer to his chest. “Souls will be denied entrance to Heaven for sins they have yet committed. Despite being taken too early as mortals, it hardly negates the fact that had they continued to live, they would have committed certain atrocities—in this case, the girl you saw was bound for Hell.”

He places a wet kiss on your bare shoulder. “It would have been on her 22nd birthday. After engaging in the habitual offense of carousing around, no doubt sharing her flesh with more than just one suitor, she would have drove her steel box into that of a mother and child crossing the street.”

“A—…a car accident?”

He nods. “Yes. If not that, she would have been condemned for disposing the young child already implanted inside her as a result of her indiscretion in taking on multiple partners. She was condemned regardless.”

“You mean abortion?”

He shakes his head as he embraces you, his chest to your back while his hands envelop yours. “No baby. Abortion is something that can hardly be deemed as an unforgivable offense. While it is offensive to my former master, it is one that he can find resolution should the mortal find a way to repent while still living, like many other offenses. For the girl you saw, I am talking of murder.”

There was so much to process, you flutter your lashes in confusion. “Murder?”

He nods in response as he continues to kiss your shoulder. His hand rests against your tummy as he taps his fingers against it. “Yes baby. Murder.”

He sucks on a soft spot in the nook of your neck, the squeezing sound effect drives your mind in circles. “She would have murdered her own baby?”

“Mmhmm.” He hums as he becomes overly preoccupied with licking and sucking onto the skin under the lobe of your ear.

“Why would she do that?” You struggled to speak as he continued to lavish you with his tongue. “Who knows. Mortals have their own minds, for all we know it could have been done out of fear of motherhood, trying to escape the responsibility of her own actions, or to avoid a tainted reputation from her peers. Either way, her actions after the baby took its first breath is enough to anger my former master, and deny her entrance through Heavens gates.”

“Was that why she died so soon? So that she wouldn’t do either one of those terrible things?”

“No baby, you see…” he pauses as he skips his hand under the dainty slit and rests it against your semi-exposed womanhood, causing you to gasp in pleasure. His tongue continued to suck and lick your neck. “Fate is an entirely different venue that is unrelated to the condemnation of one’s soul. Mortals murder, rape, steal, and commit other crimes against God for their own reasons. Sometimes they do it out of redemption or vengeance, which can be more forgiving by Him…but other times…when they do it out of their own twisted pleasure with no righteous meaning behind their damaged mentality…they come here.”

“So what will happen to her? Since she didn’t actually have the chance to commit her crimes, will she pay for acts that have not been carried out?” Half of your statement was whispered out as you felt him trail his kisses up along the grooves of your tendons on your neck. He pecks at your lobe and cheek as the tip of your nose dips into your ear. “She will live a life as a slave to the River forever…without a second chance at life.”

Your head is spiraling and you felt somewhat guilty for feeling the intensity of his love and melting from it during a serious discussion concerning a young woman’s life. “But she won’t be turned into a monster?”

“No.” He whispers against your ear. “I’m not that cruel baby…” he whispers once more as you feel his hips slightly bucking up under your rear. “Only mortals who did monstrous things will stay as monsters in Hell. I won’t subject a lifetime of torture and abandonment to those who are innocent—even those who were bound to do such evil deeds.”

He lifts your thighs and spreads them open, harshly sucking onto your neck. The squeezing sound of his lips suckling on to your skin is over exaggerated as he straightens his poster and leans slightly forward, causing you to reach behind and palm his abdominal area. He reassures your stability but wrapping an arm around your waist. “Do not worry about a soul that is tainted, or in the verge of…she won’t suffer…she will merely be a servant to help cleanse the River Styx under Niki’s watchful eye. You should instead—“

He pauses as he traces a figure eight symbol along your neck. “Be more concerned for yourself.”

He chuckles a grin. His hands grope on to your breasts as he tenderly kisses your cheeks. You take him up on his advice and decide to focus on the current situation at hand, since you were already on cloud nine from the way he touched, kiss, groped, and move along your body. “Can I ask for a favor?”

You feel his head delicately move as he outlines a final eight symbol with his tongue before responding. “Ask anything you want.”

“Would you put a bow on? For me?” You turn your head to the side to face him, resting it against his shoulder. “I want to see my husband in a bow.”

He smirks and releases a small chuckle. You both remained seated, lounged back within his throne, chuckling at the small request. He reaches up to his collar, using only one hand as he loosens the black sash that acted as a tie, with a loose knot. After undoing it, he pulls it out, the sound of the silk material slides from under the collar of his white shirt. Pulling it all the way through, the collar opens up revealing a slight bit of his chest and collar bone as he presents you the sash. “There you go my love. Now you can see your husband in a bow.”

You giggled as you take the sash from his hand, those beautiful black colored fingernails adorning it added a flare of sensual delicacy to the masculine feature of the strong looking, veiny structure. It was androgynous, but more so manly.

“You hold up the sash to your nose, it smelled of vanilla musk, a contradicting scent. “I don’t know where to put it on.” You shake tell him.

He taps against your nipple before tapping onto your rear. “I have an idea, go ahead and stand up. Close your eyes.”

You stand and cover your peepers with both hands. You smile and giggle as you listen in on the sound of his belt unbuckling, his shirt being discarded along with his black coat. “You can uncover your eyes now, darling.”

You shrill out a yelp and immediately cover your eyes back up the moment you unveiled them. There before you was Heeseung sitting in his throne, completely nude. Both his hands resting on the extravagant arms of the chair with his legs completely spread, revealing the glory of his endowed nature. His cock is stiff, proudly perpendicular as it points north with its impressive length and girth exposed, and the lump sack that foundations the size of his magnificent muscle. Around the base of its circumference, was the sash previously in hand. It was now tied into a neat bow, decorating the shaft while the trimmed edges fall gracefully against his balls. “Heeseung!” You gasp out as you giggle while covering your eyes once more, periodically peeking in between your fingers. You blush immensely as he merely sits there unashamed, smirking with a small deep chuckle. A bit of his teeth can be seen by the side grin he displays in his handsomely sly face. “Like my bow?”

You nearly squeal as you felt too embarrassed and shy to inhale the view. “Heeseung what are you doing?” You suddenly feel the sheer force of his power pull you in. “Giving you exactly what you asked for.”

You stumble as the telekinetic force of his ability drags you closer to the throne chair. Your eyes were still partially covered as he begins to pull you in by the waist, noticing that you kept covering them by the palms of your hands. “Now, what was it that I said before—back on the night when we first met…oh yeah.”

His eyes widen as he remembers the line that started it all. “Sit on it.”

You felt the strength of his arm pull you down as your body came into his reach, forcing you to your knees before him, gaining a more magnifying view of his normally hidden features. His hand reaches the back of your head as he pulls you in, gently kissing the tip of your nose with the shaft of his cock. The silk material neatly tied around brushes against your cheek as he steadies you against him. “Show me how much you love my effort baby. Don’t I make you happy?” He taunts out with a malicious smirk.

You cave in as you inspect the delectable muscle in front of you. God, he was so big. How on earth has he managed to fit this inside you all this time? No wonder it always hurt, though it also brought you the greatest pleasure you’ve ever known. You each up and grip the base of its girth as you nod in response. “You do.”

Your voice was soft and nearly a whisper as you spewed your words while pressing your lips against the skin. “Then show me.” His voice was a contrast from yours. It was deep, dark, and sinister with a tinge of gentleness peeking from the calm tempo of his tone.

You grip over the sash ringing around the base and gently impoverish the tip with kisses. “Fuck…keep going, angel-face.”

At his bidding, you not only kept up with your kisses, but you incorporated the smoothness of your tongue along the grooves of his veins as you licked the entire length, too top to bottom. He flings his head back, exposing his entire throat and gasps air as his Adams apple shifts up, then back down when he gulps. “Oh fuck! You’re going to get it.”

Challenge accepted. You felt brazen as he keeps gulping a lump of choked saliva, which gave you the fortitude to go in more vigorously. You insert the tip in, slurping the juices that coated it. Slowly you inserted as many inches you could possibly fit in. Alas, even after taking in a handful of his length, you were surprised to see that it didn’t even cover half of his size. The tip was already reaching your tonsils. Unfortunately for you, he didn’t care.

“You’re going to take all of me in, darling.” He speaks with lazy hooded eyes half shut, creating a super relaxed expression. His hand placed atop your head, he slowly pushes you down. There was so much of him, you wanted to back out. The discomfort feeling of his base growing thicker the more you went down, while the tip of his length reaches the deep ends of your esophagus, it was all too much. You slap your hands on his thighs and prepared to pull yourself away yet his hand kept you steady. You choke on it with tears squeezing out as you begin to sob out and moan in despair. When he suddenly pauses the pushing and coos you.

“Shhh…take a deep breath through your nose baby.” You do exactly what he guides. “You’re almost there. You’re doing so well, just a little more.”

He continues to push your head down and finally, your nose and lips reach the base of his pelvis. Keeping you there for a few seconds, he finally releases, allowing you to slide him out abruptly, gasping for air. Coughing, you hyperventilate as the string of saliva bridges the tip of his shaft to your mouth, which has now become blistering red while your eyes grew puffy and pink from the sobbing. “P-please! I thought I was going to choke to death!” You hiccuped as you begged him with pleading eyes. He responds by leaning over, cradling his fingers under your chin while pulling you in. “Shh-sh-sh-sh-shhhh. You’re fine, and you’re doing good. Take a deep breath and keep going. You wanna make me happy, don’t you?”

His eyes glared with a darkness that was so ferocious. Of course you wanted to make him happy, for many reasons. Whether it would be for the newfound love you were forced to develop for him, or the fact that you wanted to avoid seeing his bad side, you realized that keeping him happy only meant that you’ll experience his love in purity, no matter how rough it may be. He always told you that he’d love you, even if you upset him, so that you never had to worry about him being angry. But honestly, did you really want to see the Devil angry at you? With his he normally was in his performance of lovemaking, did you really want to test the waters and venture into the dark side of his love for you?

“Y-yes…I do want to make you happy.” You murmured out.

“Good girl” he smirks as he leans back into his chair, nodding as he flicks his eyes down to his cock then right back at you, signaling for you to continue. He looked so stern with that expectant look, yet he was so devilishly handsome doing it.

You regain your grip and continue, going slow and steady at first, gradually picking up the pace as you hear him release his perverse growls. “Come here.”

He voiced out calmly as he takes a handful of your hair and poneytail it within his grip. His other hand gently grips the base of his shaft and lightly, he smacks your cheek and lips with it. “Tell me how much you love me.”

The demeaning act creates a tingle within your gut as the harmonious sounds of the hard muscle slapping your skin while his dark voice accompanies it. “I love you—Heeseung!” You gasp out as you leave your mouth wide open to catch the tip each time he slaps it against your face, only for him to pop it out and tap it once more. “You a good girl or a bad girl?”

You catch the tip once more, and just as well, he pops it back out. “I’m good. I’m a good girl.” You mumble as you stick your tongue out and watched as he lays the shaft against it, gently sliding it up and down. “I beg to differ baby…right now, you look like a bad girl. Really bad.”

You shake your head as you stare right into his dark eyes, swallowing half his size inside your mouth. This time it felt less painful, now that you were already broken in. “I’m good, I swear.”

“Show me how good you are.” He huffs as he allows you to continue with your oral performance. You rotate your soft grip on the bottom half while sucking in the top, simultaneously shifting and combining a motion of love through skin and mouth. “Am I good now?” You ask before sticking the tip back in harshly. His grip continues to hold your hair in place, yet becomes loosened as he succumbs to the pleasure of your actions. The strands fall apart and frames your cheeks as the remaining thatch rests firmly in his palm. His head flings back, once again exposing his entire throat and leaving only his Adam’s apple in your line of sight as he gulps out his words. “You’re getting there.”

“How about now?” You whispered as you suck on his balls, resting both your palms on the stone tile, now on all fours before him. “Please tell me I’m a good girl.”

You lick the entire length, as if you were a dog. His dog.

“Fucking close!” He harshly whispers as you kept going, when finally he relieves you of control and takes it all back, by taking you by the hair and cheek, and forcing you to take his entire length down one final time as he releases deep inside your throat. The taste was sweet and salty, and nearly felt never ending as you felt the pumping of veins and the twitching of muscle against your lips ringing around the circumference. “Good girl.” He growls as he finally shoots out the last drop as he slides out of your mouth.

His gentle nature comes back as he caresses your cheek and kisses the top of your head. “Feel like stargazing, beautiful?”

You nod as he fingers the remnants of his orgasm from the corners of your mouth, and gently feeds it in between your lips. “Swallow all.” He gently whispers while chuckling a smirk. Your finger rest along the soaked sash that has now fallen semi loosely, losing its beat form as the bow completely came undone.

“I’m sorry I ruined your tie.” You slightly whined out as you took notice. “It’s okay—“ he responds positively as he takes it and unties his cock. He loops it around the back of your neck and grips the ends, pulling you closer to his cock once more. “It still serves its purpose.”

His eyes darken once more and that glare of adoration, love, and sexual rage returns.

“Wanna see a magic trick, baby?”

You knew there was no way out. If you shook your head ‘no’, it only would have fueled him more to do the most unthinkable, resulting in pain and pleasure that was too much to bear. You nod in defeat.

“Close your eyes.”

You reach up and cover your eyes. An internal frown rests within you.

“Open.”

You drag your palms down slowly and open your eyes. There he was, still entirely nude and…so were you. Your thighs, waist, neck, and wrists all tied with black sashes and bows. “W-what is this?”

He grins evily as he palms the base of his shaft and growls a dark tone.

“My turn.”

@enheene , aiden2001 , heeseung-min , lathan1510 , rayofsunshineeee , @hoyeonheeseung , @rayofsunshineeee , @yohanabanana , @sunoosrightbuttcheek , @jaeneohee , @icydawon , @silcry , @iamliacamila , @nikstrange , @enheene ; @nuriicata , @en-happiness @sacrificeatmeup

[alex51324]

It's Almost Here! North American Solar Eclipse, 2024

As I mentioned in that other post, it will be visible as at least a partial eclipse to most of North America, with the path of totality cutting a diagonal from Sinaloa, Mexico to Newfoundland, Canada, including 15 US states from Texas to Maine.

Don't be fooled by how we just had one back in October, and another one a few years ago in 2017: total solar eclipses are rare! They only happen when the Sun, Moon, and Earth line up just perfectly--and only for a small portion of the Earth's surface each time.

It's a wild coincidence that North America/the US has gotten three in such a short span of time; the last one before the recent trio was in 1979, and the next one won't be until 2044. (We do have a big partial coming to us in 2033!) The Northeastern US won't see another until the 2070's.

(Note: If you are not in North America, you can use these maps to see when your continent will have its turn!)

This eclipse is also really special in that its path of totality sweeps across a lot of heavily-populated areas. About 31 million people live within the path of totality, and millions more are expected to visit.

So, it's a pretty big deal, and now's the time to get ready!

If you live in the path of totality:

Lucky you! Look up your location on these maps to get the exact time and duration of totality.

Be ready for extra traffic & crowds--especially if you live somewhere with stuff for tourists, or a place that people outside the immediate area will have heard of.

Totality times are in the afternoon, ranging from about 1:30 in Texas to 3:30 in Maine (local times), so if you'll be at school, or at work in a setting where you can't choose your own break times, now's a good time to talk to whomever you need to. It's not unreasonable to ask to step out into the parking lot for the three minutes that people will be coming from far and wide to see--but depending on your setting, it may take some arranging ahead of time. (If you're in school, hopefully your science teachers have already thought of this, but if not, ask them. And if your science teachers are jerks, try other teachers.

If you live near the path of totality:

Try to go! As the American author Annie Dillard says, "Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane."

(Link is to the Atlantic; if you hit a paywall, the 12-foot ladder works.)

Here's a map of approximate driving distances to the path of totality, in the US (from this page).

If you're close enough to think about going, here are some Google maps with eclipse overlays for more detailed planning. (I like the Xavier Jubier one.)

Once you're inside the path of totality, anywhere you can see the sun is a valid viewing location, but if you're making a day of it and you want to find a special spot, check local visitor's bureaus or tourism offices for the area you'll be in. They'll probably have a list of parks and other places. For instance, here's what Erie, Pennsylvania has.

Seriously, If you are able to drive/have a car, live within day-trip distance of the path of totality, and can be away from work/school without losing your job/being arrested for truancy, you should go. This is a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing, and there's still loads of time to plan a day-trip.

(Note: If you aren't in day-trip distance, but now you want to go, you don't have a lot of options: hotels and flights have been full for ages. However, if you're in two-days-driving distance, you might be able to find a Sunday-night base camp, from which you can get up on Monday morning and drive several more hours to the path of totality. For instance, in Pennsylvania, there are still reasonably-priced hotel rooms to be had in State College, which is--in normal traffic--three and a half hours from Erie. (You might even be able to get a little closer than that; I just checked State College because they have a lot of hotels for the Penn State football crowds.} So if you're coming from, say, Maryland or Virginia, that could work, and there may be similar creative options for other regions. Again, if this is something that's feasible for you to do, without bankrupting yourself, getting fired, or other long-term consequences, I would strongly consider doing it!

If you live in North America, but have no way to get to the totality:

A partial eclipse is still pretty cool! And again, it'll be a while before you have another chance to see one, so it's worth it to make the time.

All of the 48 contiguous US states will be able to see some amount of eclipse. So will Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, and most of Canada and the Caribbean islands, plus a little bit of South America. (Alaska and part of the Yukon are SOL, but you will have your turn in 2033!)

Use these maps to look up the time and extent of the eclipse in your location.

As of this writing, you can still get eclipse glasses here, among other places. If you run out of time to get them, check for eclipse-viewing events at local parks, libraries, etc.--they may also have some to give away ahead of time, but even if not, if you go to an event, there will almost certainly be some to share.

The plus of a partial eclipse is that you have a fairly relaxed viewing window--as much as a couple of hours, depending how far you are from the middle of the eclipse zone--rather than a standout moment that you want to make sure you're in position for.

That makes it pretty easy to get a chance to see it even if you're at work--everybody can take turns stepping outside for a look. You can share eclipse glasses, too.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Now I’m Covered In You [Chapter 3: Blood Moon]

Series summary: Aemond is a prince of England. You are married to his brother. The Wars of the Roses are about to begin, and you have failed to fulfill your one crucial responsibility: to give the Greens a line of legitimate heirs. Will you survive the demands of your family back in Navarre, the schemes of the Duke of Hightower, the scandals of your dissolute husband, the growing animosity of Daemon Targaryen…and your own realization of a forbidden love?

Series title is a lyric from: Ivy by Taylor Swift.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), dubious consent, miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, violence, warfare, murder, alcoholism, sexism, infidelity, illness, death, only vaguely historically accurate, lots of horses!

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @borikenlove @myspotofcraziness @ipostwhatifeel @teenagecriminalmastermind @quartzs-posts @tclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @chainsawsangel @itsabby15 @serrhaewin @padfooteyes @arcielee @travelingmypassion @what-is-originality @burningcoffeetimetravel @blackdreamspeaks @anditsmywholeheart @aemcndtargaryen @jvpit3rs @sarcastic-halfling-princess @flowerpotmage @ladylannisterxo @thelittleswanao3 @elsolario @tinykryptonitewerewolf @girlwith-thepearlearring​ @minttea07 @trifoliumviridi @deltamoon666 @mariahossain​

Let me know if you’d like to be added! 💜

“I wish you could join us,” Nico says, almost sulks, snow catching in her hair. She’s riding a gorgeous white mare that the Duke of Hightower purchased for her. He’s in no hurry to gift you a horse. King Viserys—epochs ago, on your wedding day, on the blood-orange July afternoon when you looked into Aegon’s glassy, shadow-ringed eyes and knew exactly what sorts of demons you’d be sharing your life with—once promised you an Andalucian for each child you gave your husband. He hasn’t mentioned it since. It’s slipped his mind, most likely; that’s what happens to the king’s notions that concern the Greens. They stumble around in his skull for a while, find a window, jump from the ledge and free-fall into oblivion.

You smile up at Nico with your feet planted firmly on the ground like fertile roots and a hand resting on your belly. Five months along, over halfway there, farther than you’ve ever been before. The season is winter, but you feel like spring. You feel like blossoms unfurling, like ivy scaling walls of frozen stone. “Next year, with any luck.”

“But what if I’m with child by then?”

“Then you’ll get to return the favor and gallantly wave me off as I gallop into the distance, a vision of Boudicca herself.”

“Didn’t that story end with mass murder and suicide?”

“Nico, not everything needs to be said out loud.”

She laughs, raucous and jarring. Horses’ ears go back; crows take flight from stripped trees. It’s Christmas, and that means it’s also boar hunting season. The feast tonight will require a boar’s head to be served—a tradition that dates back to ancient Norse pagans, to faiths of earth and thunder and sea—and the court has assembled to procure one, the men armed with spears, the women riding along to cheer them on, hounds braying and circling agitatedly, servants sprinting around with jugs of wine. “Alas,” Nico says. “I cannot help it. I am Italian.”

Then she reels her mare around and trots off to join the hunting party. Once not so long ago, you had no true friends here. Now you have at least one. Two, if you count Aemond…although you can’t decide if Aemond is a friend. Sometimes he feels like less, other times much more. He grows close and then is far away again, a tide that’s always a few hours from receding. You watch Nico depart with hardly any heartache. Your relative incapacitation will be finished soon enough, your position vindicated. The clock is ticking.

Daeron compliments you as he canters by on Tessarion, heavy hooves leaving impact craters in the snow: “Princess, that’s a lovely gown.” Lavender, purple, the color of royalty, a declaration of your own worth. That’s not something you can rely upon others giving you. You’re between worlds at the moment: neither fully Navarran nor English, not an outsider nor a future queen.

“Thank you, brother. Good luck!”

Daemon reins up beside you, peering down with glittering dark eyes. When anyone ventures too close to Caraxes—whether horse or human—he snaps at them like a wolf. Surely there is no beast better suited to its master. “I think you’d look better covered in red. Isn’t that the color of your people, Navarre?”

“Prince Daemon,” you purr, one hand still on your belly, your victory in progress. “Enjoy the hunt. I know you get restless when you haven’t murdered anything in a while.”

He should quip back, but he doesn’t. He just grins, his gaze locked on yours; and his grin stretches wider until it sends a bolt down your spine like cold lightning. You have the sudden, dreadful impression that there’s a joke you aren’t in on. “You have no idea.”

Caraxes squeals and jerks back his head as Vhagar shoves between you, massive withers and haunches making space where none existed before. Caraxes nips Vhagar’s shoulder, drawing blood; Vhagar snorts in reply, a low rumble like a storm. Caraxes retreats, ears flattened, but Daemon pitches you one last crooked smirk as he leaves, a threat, an oath.

“Perhaps we should serve Daemon’s head at dinner,” Aemond says.

“He certainly looks like a pig to me.”

“You aren’t too disappointed, I hope. To have to stay behind.”

You smile, petting Vhagar’s silky muzzle. She has a white blaze down the front of her face, white stockings like patches of snow on rich spring soil. “It’s temporary.” What was Aemond like on my wedding day? You try to remember. All you can conjure is a vision of him staring at the floor as you linked your trembling hands with Aegon’s and the priest spoke, as if the match was so ill-fated he could not bear to witness it. It took you a year to learn that he didn’t disapprove of you after all. Something else weighed on him that day, something else dragged down his eyes like an anchor moors a ship.

Aegon passes you both on Sunfyre. “I’ll bring you back something, wife!” he vows, swaying drunkenly in the saddle, his chaotic silver hair shagging in his eyes. Fortunately, Sunfyre seems aware of his rider’s limitations; his steps are lithe and cautious, almost timid. His coat is a river of gold beneath grey skies. When Aegon urges the horse to go faster, Sunfyre ignores him.

You turn back to Aemond and raise an eyebrow. “Make sure he doesn’t break his neck?”

“As always.” And then Aemond is gone too.

The king will not join the hunt. He is getting too old for it—although no one would say that aloud—and Queen Alicent, ever-sacrificial, is staying behind in the palace with him, overseeing preparations for the feast. The other royals vanish into the forest: Daeron and Nico, Aemond and Aegon, Daemon and Baela and Rhaena, Jace and Luke, trailed by the rest of the cast of characters, Blacks and Greens alike. Joanna Montford was replaced by Agnes Stafford, who was replaced by Sibylla Beaufort, who was replaced by Cecily Chaucer. There is no shortage of young women whose fathers are rabid to push them into the bed of the man they call the heir to the throne. A servant brings you a cup of apple cider, and you sip it as snowflakes melt into the fur of your coat.

“It’s not personal,” Rhaenyra says. You whirl to see her and Syrax; they have appeared like ghosts, both pale and ethereal, both fearsome without being malevolent. “Prince Daemon’s taunts, I mean. Any of our antagonism. Distrust that swells into hated.” Her hair is long, loose, strands of ivory in the wind. Her eyes—clear water, cool and stoic—flick down to your belly and then back up to your face. She’s a lot like Aemond, you think, seeing the extent of their resemblance for the first time.

“It feels very personal.”

“I could have liked you in a different life,” Rhaenyra counters, like parrying swords. “You have just enough ruthlessness in you. A river, but not a sea. You thirst for freedom. You wear chains called obligation. But when my father named me heir, he painted a target on my back. Even if I renounced my claim, there would always be men willing to take up arms for me. I would always be a threat to Alicent and her children. Just by breathing, just by having blood hot in my veins. Either I will be queen…or I will forever be at the mercy of the Greens. Would you trust your life to the Duke of Hightower, if you were standing between Aegon and the throne?”

“No,” you admit. You can barely bring yourself to trust the Duke now…and you’re on his side.

“And so we are destined to be mortal enemies.” Rhaenyra shrugs; no great loss, she means. “I only wanted you to know that it would have been just the same if you had been sent to England from Portugal, or Sicily, or Castile, or Bohemia, or Genoa, or Naples, or France, or anywhere else for that matter. It’s not about who you are. It’s about what you’ve married into.”

And then she takes off on Syrax, joining her uncle-husband and her eldest sons in the forest, dissolving into a gnarl of branches like tangled threads. You retreat back inside Westminster Palace to do what you do best: watching, wondering, waiting for the future to decide to arrive.

~~~~~~~~~~

When the hunting party returns hours later, Prince Aegon is empty-handed. He’s also soaked to the skin. Water drips from his face, begins to freeze in his hair. He shivers and gripes as servants throw blankets over his shoulders and usher him away towards his bedchamber to be warmed in a bath cloudy with herbs and steam and rose petals. Cecily Chaucer hurries after them, her lovely brows knitted together with girlish concern. Of all Aegon’s mistresses, you like Cecily the best. She’s insatiable; she keeps him so busy that he rarely totters into your bed to paw at you before being reminded that you have been temporarily exempted from your marital duties.

“He fell into a stream,” Nico informs you, in equal parts disapproving and amused. “Aemond and Daeron fished him out like a trout.”

Your eyes scan the group: shaking snow from their hats and their coats, congratulating each other on obstacles jumped and animals killed, Prince Daemon accepting applause from his fellow Blacks for being the attendee to slaughter the requisite boar. A good omen for their side, surely. Servants carry the gigantic, bloodied carcass off to be prepared by the cooks. But one face is missing from the crowd. “Where’s Aemond?”

“Oh,” Nico recalls as she yanks off her gloves by the fingers. “He has something for you.”

“For me?”

“In the courtyard,” she says. Daeron approaches to collect her, taking her hand and kissing the back of it, his large blue eyes bright and adoring. He’s gentler than his brothers, more content, less complicated. And he’s proud of being a Targaryen. He’s growing out his white-blond hair; it’s already longer than Aegon’s. “I think you’ll find it…” Nico grins mischievously. “Perfectly bearable.”

You trudge out to the courtyard through the mounting snow, cold wind tearing at your hair and clawing pieces of it out from under your hat. Aemond is the only other person there…and he’s elbow-deep in a colossal black-furred monster. There is a pile of entrails on the snow beside him glistening like rubies, garnets, rosalines, wine. Servants ferry away bowls full of offal: a lung here, a rope of intestines there.

“What is that?”

Aemond stands and waves at it cavalierly, drops of blood flinging from his leather gloves. “A bear.”

“What am I supposed to do with a bear?”

“It’ll make a fine rug for your bedchamber. You can place it by the fireplace and lie on it on cold nights. Read your books, do your embroidery.”

“It was bold of you to assume you’d be able to find me a Christmas present on Christmas day. Not much room for error.”

“This isn’t your Christmas present.”

“Then what’s the occasion?”

“Congratulations.” He glances at your belly, rounded out like ripening fruit with his brother’s child. A stain of blood like fever rushes into his cheeks. He blushes very rarely, and only ever around you. No one else seems to know that he’s capable of it. “For being over halfway there. It must bring you great relief.”

“Yes, I suppose the Duke of Hightower won’t get to ship me back to Navarre now. In a crate, like an animal that couldn’t be tamed.”

“What a waste that would be.”

You shrug, stepping closer, though mindful not to squash any bear organs beneath your shoes. “I wouldn’t mind being sent home if there was anything for me to go back to.”

Aemond stares at you, alarmed. “You haven’t grown attached to anything here? In nearly a year and a half?”

“Well…there are a few things,” you say, smiling at him. Aemond smiles back. His long silvery hair is secured in a single thick braid, his gaze curious. You try not to imagine what is under his eyepatch; that strikes you as something he wouldn’t want you to think about.

“Vhagar,” Aemond teases.

You laugh. “Yes, mostly Vhagar.” You look up at the grey sky, thick with clouds like steel. “But I miss my family. I miss the heat, the mountains, castles and cathedrals the color of golden sand. I miss riding horses and sparring with my brothers. I miss being understood, being loved. In Navarre I was alive. But in England…ever since I arrived here…it’s like I’m locked up waiting for someone to let me out. But the prison is my own flesh.”

Aemond studies you. “It’s not for much longer,” he says at last, soft and solemn. “And I would change it if I could.”

“In any case, I really can’t go back, I think. It wouldn’t be like it was before. My siblings are marrying and spreading out across Europe. My parents are getting older. And if my husband discarded me for being incapable of producing children, no one else would ever want me. I’d never have my own household. I’d be doomed to be a spinster, forever dependent upon the charity of my parents or my siblings. Either that or in a nunnery. Although, truthfully, Navarre has some beautiful nunneries.”

“You’d make a terrible nun.”

“Because I’m too vicious or too lustful?”

“Vicious, without a doubt. Lustful…I don’t feel qualified to speak on.”

“Depends on who’s in front of me, I suppose.”

You contemplate each other across the gutted bear carcass, snowflakes filling up the space between you instead of words. Again, Aemond’s cheeks flood red. When he wrings his hands together, you notice that they’re shaking. His hair is sopping; beads of melted snow pool along the edge of his jaw, slither down his throat. He could catch his death out here.

You go to him, pull off a glove, and press your bare palm against his forehead and then his cheek: the scarred one, the ruined one. “You’re burning up, Aemond,” you say, worried. “Are you alright—?”

“Fine.” He shies away from your touch. But then, without thinking, he moves to tuck an escaped lock of hair back underneath your hat. As his thumb grazes your face, you feel the warm stripe of bear blood that he inadvertently marks you with. “Goddamn, I’m so sorry—”

“No, that’s perfect.” You smile up at him. “You know I secretly favor red.”

“Princess?” Nico calls from the doorway, and you cross the courtyard to meet her. “You’re still out here? You’re missing a riveting game of Tric-Trac—” She cuts off, her eyes going wide as they skate across your cheeks. “Sweet Jesus, how’d you get blood all over your face?”

You glimpse back at Aemond as you answer. “Carelessness.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re weaving ribbons the color of evergreens into Nico’s hair when he comes into your bedchamber, carrying a long thin box made of pink ivory wood.

“Oh, marvelous!” Nico trills, clapping her hands. “What’s inside?”

“Poems, I hope,” you say.

“I hate to disappoint you,” Aemond replies placidly. Half of his hair is pulled back from his face, the rest flowing freely. He’s wearing a dark, rich, jade-like color, just like Nico is, just like the Duke of Hightower and Alicent and Daeron will be. Someone has probably even stuffed Aegon into something green. You are the lone nonconformist in a deep purple like the skin of a plum. In truth, you can’t win. People will gossip no matter what you wear. Red makes them think of what Daemon calls you, of the wasted blood you’ve spilled. Green makes them speak of how you’ve yet to serve their faction properly. Black is out of the question. At least when they see you in purple, your name gets to live in the same sentence as the word royalty.

“Well?” Nico prompts eagerly. “Open it!”

You look at her, apologetic. So does Aemond.

“Oh,” she realizes, then sighs theatrically. “Alright. I understand. I’ll deport myself now. Ciao.”

Only when she’s closed the door behind her does Aemond open the box. The lining inside is crimson velvet. It cradles a sword. You gasp and lift the weapon out of the box by its hilt, then pull off the scabbard. It is lightweight, silvery, perfect. You can see your own reflection in the polished steel. There are shallow engravings down the length of the blade: mountain ranges, twisted oak trees, bridges and cathedrals, the flag of Navarre. You can only see them when you tilt the sword to catch the rage-orange glow from the fireplace.

“I had it custom made for you,” Aemond says, abruptly nervous. “So it wouldn’t be too heavy or too long. The hilt should fit your grasp precisely. I took one of your gloves for measurements.”

“A thief.” You marvel at the sword, twirling it a few times. The blade cuts through the air, soundless, seamless. “Aemond, this is…this is so far beyond what I deserve. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“It’s part pleasure, part necessity. You might actually need to protect yourself one day.”

“It’s a shame I’ll only be able to bully you with it under the surreptitious cover of darkness.”

“Just until Aegon is king. He wouldn’t care, I don’t think. He wouldn’t forbid you from training.” He gestures to the blade. “And the engravings are—”

“All things from home.” You beam at him. “From Navarre.”

“That’s what the common people call you, you know. The Princess from Navarre.”

You glide the sword back into its scabbard and return it to the box. “They must hate me. For failing to secure the succession.”

“I wouldn’t assume that.”

You take the pink ivory wood box from Aemond’s hands and place it in the chest at the foot of your bed, your preferred spot for squirreling away valuables. And then you lift out Aemond’s present: a vast tapestry that he helps you unfold to reveal the design of.

“It’s incredible!” he exclaims. “It must have taken you ages!”

“Well, all I’m allowed to do currently is needlework, so I’ve done a lot of needlework. I made one for Aegon too, although I’m not sure what his hobbies are besides drinking and fucking Cecily Chaucer. So his tapestry is mostly landscapes.” You point to various scenes on Aemond’s. “There’s King Arthur and Guinevere…and Sir Lancelot, arriving to ruin them. There’s Beowulf battling Grendel’s mother. There’s Robin Hood…there’s the Rollright Stones and Stonehenge…and in the middle is Saint George slaying a dragon. I made the dragon black, with little white whiskers if you look very closely. And I’ve named him Daemon.”

“They’re from the stories I told you,” Aemond says quietly, examining the tapestry. “On that afternoon back in July. When we took Vhagar out together for the first time.”

“It must have been memorable.” You smile. “And then the border is ivy and roses, mostly green, of course…except for one little red rose I added down here in the bottom corner. And that’s—”

“That’s you,” Aemond says. “Red like Navarre.”

“Yes.” Your voice is suddenly wistful, a little sad. “You’ve made me like the sound of that word again.”

“What? Navarre?”

You nod. “Hushed, gentle…” Reverent? Awed? Protected? Cherished? “Like a prayer. Like a poem.”

You help Aemond refold the tapestry, avoiding his eye. The only sounds are the crackling of the fireplace and the muffled echo of violins and lutes through the palace halls. Outside the window hovers a blood moon, a ruby in onyx, a drop of fury in an ocean of void. He takes his Christmas gift back to his own bedchamber, and then he returns to escort you to the feast.

“Oh, darling,” Alicent says when you sit down beside her at the high table. There are sprigs of holly in her hair, but her dark eyes are glazed and melancholy. They often are. Sir Criston Cole—a knight whose family are vassals of the Duke of Hightower—is her shadow, peering watchfully around the Great Hall. “Be sure to eat plenty of boar…and bread…very good for the baby. But no fish! And not too many vegetables. Here, let me get you some of your apple cider…” Alicent waves to a servant, and they promptly fetch you a full cup.

King Viserys gives you a distracted nod but no other acknowledgement. He is deep in conversation with Jace; Luke is gawping, mildly disturbed, at the severed boar’s head that adorns the table, cherries shoved into the sockets where its eyes were this morning. Rhaena offers you a kind, demure smile. Baela glares at you as she sips her wine. She’s the most war-worthy of any of the Black children; you imagine that Daemon will have a sword and armor waiting for her when the bloodbath begins. Surely she’d inflict more damage than either of Rhaenyra’s docile, dark-haired sons, like skittish lapdogs always looking around for someone to tell them where it’s alright to sit. Baela’s Arabian, Moondancer, is small but remarkably swift and agile. She’s the best jumper of any of the royal horses.

Far from the table, in the midst of dancing nobles, Daemon and Rhaenyra are enmeshed in whispers and caresses: he tilts up her chin, she grasps the small of his back. You feel a yearning, a hollowness beneath where your ribs circle your heart and lungs like a halo. Without thinking, you glance to Aemond. He’s been looking at you too; he pretends he wasn’t and begins sawing through a slab of boar meat with a serrated knife. Daeron is asking him about sparring techniques. The Duke of Hightower is parading Aegon around the hall to pay his respects to the nobility of Southern England, men who will kill and be killed for him one day before too long. Aegon is bleary-eyed and bungling, tripping over his own feet; the Duke is practically dragging him around from his scruff like a kitten.

“Sweetheart, will you dance with me?” Queen Alicent asks Nico, who immediately leaps up from her chair.

“Of course, Your Majesty! It would be my pleasure. It’s a shame that the king cannot join us. It must be difficult having a husband so much older than you are. Nearly your father’s age!”

Everyone at the table stops what they’re doing and gapes at her.

“Oh,” Nico begins haltingly, mortified. “Oh dear. I should not have said that. I cannot express the depths of my remorse.”

King Viserys booms out a laugh, and then Nico is smiling again. “Go on,” he tells her. “Enjoy the festivities. Keep the queen entertained when I cannot.”

As Nico and Queen Alicent descend to join the dance, you remain where you are, where you always are: on the outskirts, inside the glass bowl. But not for much longer, you think gratefully, running your palm over the swell of your belly. You eat as much as you can, but you don’t have much of an appetite. Your hips and ankles ache, your body forever adjusting to a never-before-known burden; there is torsion like a sailor’s knot in your lower spine. When the discomfort refuses to abate, you excuse yourself from the table and make slow, meandering laps around the fringes of the Great Hall, draining cup after cup of apple cider as servants bring them to you. The Duke of Hightower casts you a stern warning of a frown before he resumes wrangling Aegon. Aemond, still at the high table talking to Daeron, follows you with one intent blue eye.

“You can’t honestly believe he’d make a good king,” Daemon says, materializing out of the crowd like a bat at twilight. Enormous Scottish deerhounds—Christmas gifts from King Corlys and Queen Rhaenys beyond England’s northern border—trail after him, growling at you. Daemon flicks his strange, deep-set eyes towards Aegon. “He’s a drunk. He’s an embarrassment. He has no athletic prowess whatsoever. I’m sure you can confirm that from firsthand experience.”

“I can confirm that he hasn’t murdered his first wife yet, surely an attribute by anyone’s calculation.” You watch the Duke tow Aegon from one exchange to another, and for the first time, you wonder what sort of man Aegon would have been without the weight of the throne on his back.

“But of course, it wouldn’t actually be Aegon ruling if the Greens won. It would be Otto…and Alicent…and Aemond.”

Daemon puts great emphasis on this last name. You turn to him, startled.

“Oh, forgive me, have I said something that gets under your skin? Or…rather…into it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Daemon grins, baring his teeth like fangs. “Of course you don’t,” he says. “Tell me, would you happen to know who Otto is planning on marrying him to? I’ve heard rumblings.”

“Someone with parents who have ample soldiers and equipment with which to mutilate you, surely.”

“Helene of Austria.”

“Helene?” The breath evaporates from your lungs, vanishes like brief winter daylight. “The daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor?” It’s an immensely powerful match. It’s a match so ambitious it has rarely even been suggested. You summon triumph to your voice, an arrogant glint to your eyes. “This is very bad news for you.”

“And for you too, I think.”

He knows, you think, terror-stricken, aware you aren’t doing enough to hide it. That I desire my husband’s brother. That I want Aemond. That maybe I even love him. You try to fling some flippant retort at Daemon; you cannot find one, it’s like scratching your fingertips along the bottom of an empty box. Victorious, he swigs his wine and begins to saunter away, panting Scottish deerhounds on his heels. And then you call after him: “It didn’t get you far, did it?”

Daemon halts mid-step and slowly—very slowly—turns back to you. “What?”

“All that Targaryen blood. All that bone-white hair and ferocity, charisma and swordsmanship. King Viserys still chose to reject you as his heir. He still doesn’t trust you to advise him. He still denied you his daughter’s hand in marriage, and you were spineless enough to let him. You left her alone to suffer first. With a husband who couldn’t satisfy her, with a lover who could only give her bastards. And now you expect the world to forget who you’ve always been: reckless, savage, deeply selfish. All those things you stalk around here so proud of are worthless, because you’ll never have what you really want. You’ll never have the throne. And neither will Rhaenyra. You are the same as I am, Daemon. I am an asset and yet a curse to Aegon; you helped win the North for Rhaenyra, but the South will never yield to you. They will fight you with everything they have, every man and horse and blade. But there is one difference between us. When I bear Aegon a son, my curse will be lifted. You will never stop endangering Rhaenyra, her cause, her inheritance, her children, her life. And if she burns, it will be at least half because of you.”

You’ve never seen him truly angry before, you realize now; you’ve never seen him without the undeniable upper hand. His grip rests on the hilt of his sword. “I should—”

“Go on,” you dare him in a fierce whisper, your fingers closing around his wrist. “Slay Aegon’s wife and child in front of all the court. It’s the kindest thing you could do for the Greens. Make yourself more enemies, win us more friends. Everyone suspects that you are a beast already. Prove them right.”

Daemon rips his hand out of yours. “Happy Christmas, Navarre,” he hisses. “If fate is just, it will be your last.” And then he storms away from you, Rhaenyra meeting him at the other end of the hall and speaking with him there—conspiring? inquiring? scolding?—in urgent whispers.

Nico pushes through the throngs of dancing nobles to reach you. “Are you alright?” she asks, a palm laid on your shoulder.

“Fine.” Helene, you think, rubbing the aching curve of your back with one hand, sipping apple cider with the other. They’re both trembling. Beautiful, wealthy, coveted Helene.

“Are you sure? You don’t look good. What did that bleached weasel have to say…?”

But you can’t hear her, because the pain in your spine is now reaching like poison through veins to spread across your belly, to tighten, to clamp down, to gnash with steel teeth like needles, like knives. Your cup tumbles out of your gasp, spilling apple cider across the floor. You yelp in pure shock at how unexpectedly the pain comes. And then you begin to understand what it means. “No,” you plead in a whisper. You stagger backwards until you hit the wall. “No, no, no…”

“What?” Nico asks frantically. People are beginning to notice; heads spin in your direction. Tears are springing from your eyes. Blood is snaking down your legs, slick and hot on the velveteen inside of your thighs. Soon they’ll all be able to see it: your agony, your ruin. The Greens, the Blacks. The Duke of Hightower, Prince Daemon.

Nico doesn’t understand. You don’t know how to tell her. I’ve killed another child. I’ve failed again. You can feel Aegon crawling back into your bed. You can see letters from your mother—so proud at last, so full of praise—shredding themselves into dust. And then it flashes like cannon fire in your mind, not just the loss of an heir but the loss of a life: a name that will never be given, a voice that will never be heard, steps that will never leave imprints in sand or soil or snow.

I have to get out of here. How am I going to—?

An arm circles around your waist, strong, shielding, taking as much of your weight as it can. “Walk with me,” Aemond says. And then he half-carries you through the nearest door and down a passageway, Nico struggling to keep up, chatter exploding at the feast you left behind.

As soon as you cross the threshold into your bedchamber, as soon as you are out of sight of ill-intentioned observers, you collapse to the floor. Your palms and knees bruise against wood; a wail tears from your throat. “Not again,” you sob. “Aemond, I can’t do this again, I can’t—”

Nico says: “Are you sure it’s a…?”

Aemond is kneeling on the floor beside you. He’s helping you pull back the hem of your gown. You see it on his face before you see it on your own skin: there’s blood, a lot of blood, too much for it to be anything but lethal to the child. It’s all over his hands and his clothes; it’s all over the floorboards.

“Oh God,” Nico moans, covering her mouth with both hands. “Oh…oh my God…”

“Get the physicians,” Aemond tells her. “Speak to no one else. Go now. Go!”

Nico rushes out of the room. You can’t stop sobbing. The pain is excruciating, not waves but one continuous, saw-toothed twisting, a feeling like being gutted, like you’re a slaughtered bear and someone has their fingers raking around inside your womb.

Aemond is trying to pull you to your feet. “Come on, I’ll help you get into bed—”

“Aemond, I can’t.”

“Yes you can—”

“I can’t!” you cry out, weeping helplessly. Then he stops trying to lift you and instead sinks down to join you on the floor. You clutch wildly at him—at his forearms and his shoulders and his long silvery hair—and he doesn’t flinch away. He draws you into him, his hands staining you with blood everywhere they land. You don’t care; you don’t want him to stop. You bury yourself in the warmth of his chest, his arms around you like the border of the moon, like a ring.

“Shh,” he soothes through your hair. “Shh, shh. I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t leave me. Please stay.”

“I’ll stay,” Aemond says, his voice hoarse. “Of course I’ll stay.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Scenes like fragments of a dream, things that later you aren’t sure were real:

The physicians and midwives delivering your dead child, Aemond tilting a cup of strong wine against your lips. Your ladies washing blood off you with dripping rags as Aemond stands with the physicians in the doorway. They think you’re asleep, but you’re not; you’re not awake either. You’re halfway here and halfway not. Parts of the room are foggy, others are as clear as glass, as still water. A physician is telling Aemond that the child was a boy, perfect in every way except the one that matters most. He doesn’t breathe and never will. Too early, too small, beautiful and doomed.

“Don’t tell her that,” Aemond is saying. “Don’t tell her anything unless she asks.”

Now it’s later—two minutes, two hours, it doesn’t matter—and he’s dragging someone into your bedchamber. They’re fighting him, they’re trying to cling to the doorframe so he can’t force them inside.

“Get in there,” Aemond growls.

Aegon replies: “I don’t know what to say to her, what the hell do I say—?”

Your husband is at your bedside, undoubtedly miserable but not in a way that makes you feel like he sees you. There is the scent of wine and sweat drenched with perfume, lemon and lavender. “I’m sorry,” you murmur like a faint wind.

“It was not your fault, wife.” Aegon’s eyes are bloodshot, his shoulders hanging low and limp. “It is a great tragedy, but it was not your fault.” And then he glances at Aemond to make sure he’s done the right thing.

Now your husband is gone, and Aemond is holding a cool cloth to your forehead. He speaks in little more than a whisper. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Just send me back to Navarre,” you say weakly. “I can’t do this. Talk to the Duke. He’ll get the marriage annulled. I know he will. He can find another wife for Aegon, another alliance. He’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

“You aren’t going anywhere.”

“I’m ruined. I’m worthless. Just send me home.”

“You are home,” Aemond insists.

You watch the firelight as it flickers over him, smooth skin, brutal scar. “What happens next?”

“You’ll try again.”

“There’s no point, Aemond.”

“Look at me,” he commands, cradling your face with his hands. “You’ll try again. And again, if you have to. But you will have children. I know you will.”

His voice is breaking. His eye is glistening, tortured. This is how the father should be. This is how Aegon should be. “Aemond, why are you so hurt by this?”

“Because you are suffering,” he says. “And because they’re pieces of you.”

You lose sight of him, float for a while, return again thinking of Aegon and the Duke of Hightower and Daemon and Rhaenyra. “No one here really knows me. No one loves me.”

Aemond is standing beside your bed. “Nico loves you.”

You gaze listlessly up at him and say nothing.

“Aegon loves you, I believe,” Aemond continues, but he won’t meet your eyes. “In his own way.”

Still, you look at him. Still, Aemond doesn’t look back.

Say it, you think, desperate, aching, tears biting in your eyes. Say that you love me too. Even if it’s just as a sister, an ally, a friend. Please, Aemond, just fucking say it.

He doesn’t say it. Maybe he leaves, maybe you are submerged in unconsciousness, maybe both. The memory dissolves around the edges until it is a pool of star-flecked obsidian like the night sky.

But this next part you know with certainty was real, because it is something you can touch, like a millennium-old relic from Egypt or Athens or Babylon. You wake in the morning to find three items on your nightstand: a cup of apple cider, a cup of strong bitter wine for the pain, and a single piece of parchment folded and tied with a red ribbon. You blink confoundedly at it for a while as muted winter sunlight seeps in through the windows, not being able to make sense of it. And then you open the parchment. Aemond has written at the top of the page in his hectic, uneven letters: Ivy. You read his words and all the anguish that went into them—smudges from his own fingerprints, wayward drips of black ink—like falling down the rungs of a ladder.

Scream into me, I’ll be the jar for your fury; I’m starving

for anything that tastes like you. I’ve been counting the lines

on your knuckles, the boards of the floor, wondering if you’ve

figured out that I’d wear fractures and bruises like amethysts

if it means you’d touch me. For seventeen months you’ve been

the ivy on my walls, vines like the needle-width legs of a spider

carving out my past, every last notch and shadow—splitting ribs,

scraping marrow—until there’s no part of me left that can remember

a time other than this, your voice and your wit and the scraps of you

I’ve stitched into me. Ask me what I burn for and I’ll whisper like

the dawn: you growing over my skin until I’m covered, tendrils

twisting down to the bone, everything I was before

ash and myth beneath your hands.

[messier51]

Regarding your post about solar eclipses on other planets - I know other planets get solar eclipses, too, but do any other planets besides earth get total solar eclipses?

Yep! I mean, that's why I worded that post specifically that way, and included links to the wikipedia articles about solar eclipses on the gas giant planets in our solar system.

So, a total solar eclipse happens on earth because the angular size of the moon as seen from the surface of the earth is (usually) larger than the angular size of the sun, right? (We see an annular eclipse when the moon's angular size is a little smaller than the sun's, depending on the relative distances of each since orbits are elliptical and those aren't constant.)

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all quite a bit farther from the sun, so the angular size of the sun is much smaller, and have fairly large moons. All of Jupiter's galilean moons are large enough and close enough to the planet that they're large enough to fully occult (cover) the sun and therefore produce total eclipses.

Similarly on Saturn:

Seven of Saturn's satellites – Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Rhea, Dione and Titan – are large enough and near enough to eclipse or occult the Sun, or in other words to cast an umbra on Saturn. At this distance, the sun covers only about 3 arcminutes in the sky of Saturn. In comparison, the seven major moons of Saturn have angular diameters of 5–10' (Mimas), 5–9' (Enceladus), 10–15' (Tethys), 10–12' (Dione), 8–11' (Rhea), 14–15' (Titan), and 1–2' (Iapetus). Iapetus is Saturn's third largest moon, but is too far away to completely eclipse the Sun. Janus, a very close moon to Saturn, has an angular diameter of about 7', meaning that it can fully cover the Sun.

and Uranus:

Twelve satellites of Uranus—Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon—are large enough and near enough to eclipse the Sun.

and Neptune:

All of Neptune's inner moons and Triton can eclipse the Sun as seen from Neptune. All other satellites of Neptune are too small and/or too distant to produce an umbra. From this distance, the Sun's angular diameter is reduced to one and a quarter arcminutes across. Here are the angular diameters of the moons that are large enough to fully eclipse the Sun: Naiad, 7–13'; Thalassa, 8–14'; Despina, 14–22'; Galatea, 13–18'; Larissa, 10–14'; Proteus, 13–16'; Triton, 26–28'.

and also Pluto, really:

Charon has an angular diameter of 4 degrees of arc as seen from the surface of Pluto; the Sun appears much smaller, only 39 to 65 arcseconds. By comparison, the Moon as viewed from Earth has an angular diameter of only 31 minutes of arc, or just over half a degree of arc. Therefore, Charon would appear to have eight times the diameter, or 25 times the area of the Moon; this is due to Charon's proximity to Pluto rather than size, as despite having just over one-third of a Lunar radius, Earth's Moon is 20 times more distant from Earth's surface as Charon is from Pluto's. This proximity further ensures that a large proportion of Pluto's surface can experience an eclipse. Because Pluto always presents the same face towards Charon due to tidal locking, only the Charon-facing hemisphere experiences solar eclipses by Charon.

So all of these planets (modulo the lack of surfaces/living beings, but like, that's also pretty special to Earth completely separately from eclipses) experience the nighttime-like darkness caused by the umbra (shadow) of the eclipse (occultation).

Now, as a few people have pointed out in the notes, the ring of fire deal IS pretty special, which happens because the angular size of the moon and sun are often SO similar. (Maybe Iapetus is similar enough with the solar angular size sometimes depending where Saturn is in its orbit, but at a few arcminutes instead of half a degree you can imagine the effect being somewhat less amazing. Then again, I bet solar occultations by Saturn's rings are pretty amazing, so I'm not going to hold that against the planet.)

In no way do I think this makes total solar eclipses less awesome, or think that the excitement is misplaced. It's a pretty amazing special event! It's also one that won't even exist for the earth forever, since the moon moves a few centimeters away from us each year. But as an astronomer I think it's cool that there are eclipses (and occultations and transits of the sun by moons with smaller angular sizes!) on other planets too! Though, the post I made was mostly a kneejerk eyeroll complaint about a silly factual error that might just be because the OP of the post I was annoyed by was thinking about some other facet of our solar eclipses as being unique than how it was worded. Since we can't go to any other planet to watch eclipses (that would add a whole extra layer to astrotourism), our eclipses on earth are pretty special. If you ever have the opportunity to see one, I wholly recommend going! It's really amazing.

In conclusion: here's an Io solar eclipse on Jupiter taken by the Hubble Space telescope:

[Image in black and white shows Jupiter's volcanic moon Io passing above the turbulent clouds of the giant planet, on July 24, 1996. There's a large black spot on Jupiter which is Io's shadow. The smallest details visible on Io and Jupiter are about 100 miles across (about 160 kilometres). Bright patches visible on Io are regions of sulfur dioxide frost. Io is roughly the size of Earth's moon, but 2000 times farther away.]

And here's the April 8th eclipse of the sun by the moon on Earth as seen by the GOES satellite:

[A gif of the earth showing the GOES EAST view of North and South America on April 8th over the course of the total solar eclipse. A shadow of the moon passes from the left to the upper right side of the view of the earth.]

[apod]

2023 December 3

Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano Video Credit & Copyright: Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias); Music: Piano della Moon (Dan Silva)

Explanation: These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What is moving is mostly the Earth, whose spin causes the Moon to slowly disappear behind Mount Teide, a volcano in the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. The people pictured are 16 kilometers away and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise behind the photographer. It is not a coincidence that a full moon rises just when the Sun sets because the Sun is always on the opposite side of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made in 2018 during the full Milk Moon. The video is not time-lapse -- this was really how fast the Moon was setting.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231203.html

[greetingfromthedead]

Shepherd Story 3 (God!Knives x GN!Reader)

Plot: In a world where fallen gods live among you, there is the god of winter and death who is also eternally bound to you with body and soul. A sense of routine has arrived as you fulfill your duties and wait for his return.

Series: Shepherd. Check out Story 1 and Story 2 (smut)!

Pairing: God!Knives x GN!Reader

Raiting: Teen and up

Tags: fantasy!AU, god!AU, no use of "y/n", established relationship, gods, feathery plant, fated love, romance, legends, nature magic, reunion, intimacy, possessive behavior, tenderness, some fluff, angst, death, reincarnation

Word count: 4.6k

Author's Note: We had a blizzard here after a day of sunshine and 17 degrees so it made me think of this story again. Wrote this mostly while listening to Rachmaninoff, I highly recommend their dramatic pieces to accompany this little story. This AU is inspired by @triplesilverstar's god!AU.

His sister's presence has retreated again, opening the gates for the northern winds to howl across the lands beyond the god's domain. Tesla had brought summer and filled the hearts of all with joy and love. All but the god of winter and death, for his heart beats for only one person and one person alone. He has waited patiently for another cycle of this world and to be released from the confines of his demon infested home and reunite with his beloved. He makes it out of his shadow realm, passing the first human settlements. He is followed by a dark cloud of despair and winter's chill. His steps freeze the earth beneath, and his presence seizes the sway of grass as the moisture in them turns to ice. The drinking water for the horses forms jagged crystals on its surface as the god passes by a farm. The animals are whining restlessly, his presence unsettling them. The forests are silent, the ancient trees muffled by a blanket of snow, as the heartless man continues on his path, leaving destruction in his wake.

It is so cold. His fingertips have gone beyond pain, and he can barely feel them anymore. His body wants to seize up, but he pushes on. He will never give up; he will never stop moving. The darkness radiates from his chest; it is so heavy and empty, the vacuum left in his center yearns to be filled with your love. It is the only thing that will save him. The only thing that gives him meaning. It is the only thing that gives him hope. The thought of your warm touch lingers in his mind. Oh, to see your smile again. It would make everything else fade away. The color of your eyes would relieve his pain and bring him back to life. In every iteration, you are gorgeous to him. No matter what body you inhabit, he will always be captivated by your beauty. But still, he can look past the external appearance and see the true splendor within you. The breathtaking and captivating presence of your soul has tied him to you for eternity. The strings of faith will never be severed, no matter how many curses are placed upon you. He will always remain by your side, unwavering in his devotion.

He moves south, with blizzards and frost as his faithful followers, spelling death for those unprepared. Nature has gone so very quiet as he walks through the meadows and fields. The air grows colder and darker with every step he takes, and the little lifeforms hold their steaming breath as he passes by in fear that they will be reaped by the god of death himself. But he is not here for them. As he slowly approaches the southern lands, where he knows he will find you, a melody strokes his ear, soothing the despair that has been building up inside him. He stops for a moment, the brilliant light of the moon reflecting on the glimmering snow. He recognizes the siren song, which draws him closer. Two hearts singing as one in the stillness of the night. It is very far, a quiet melody to daunt his soul. But he knows you can feel it too; your soul is drawn to him to close the distance between you.

The souls of the dead sound like little bells to you, beckoning you closer. Their crystal clear chimes ring out, guiding you towards them. Tonight, as you fulfill your duties, you hear one calling out from the village over the pasture. Being met by the souls of the dead is never pleasant; knowing they lived a life and had hopes and dreams beyond what they had achieved fills you with sadness. They were people who leave behind mourners and heartbreak. But to hear a ghost call from so close to home stings you more sharply than any other encounter. Your body is asleep in your little cottage as your spirit crosses the green, grassy field as a fox. Your presence doesn't disturb the grass or the cattle. You drift to the house where an old woman has lived for all your life. You know her well; you gave her your dried herbs when she got ill, and you played catch with her grandson when you were both little. She moves through her yard with a slow shuffle, checking that the door of her chicken coop is closed before going to count the goats in the barn. She looks concerned while she performs her nightly routine. You take your human form to use your voice.

"Mrs. Claire," you say calmly and quietly as you watch her. She looks up, her eyes filled with worry.

"It's you," the old woman blurts with a shaking voice. "I knew the rumors were true!"

She backs away, expecting to be met by the little gate separating her little yard from the rest of the world, but instead just passes through it.

"Oh!" she exclaims with a shrill voice, befitting an old crone. She looks at her surroundings and herself.

"Yes, Mrs. Claire, I am afraid you have passed on." You answer her unspoken question, and she looks at you without responding. You make no attempt to go closer to her as you look at her beautifully maintained garden and the memories it must hold.

"What are you doing here, you witch?" She nearly spits out the last word.

"I am here to send you to the other realm so you can be born again with the flowers of spring," you say almost absentmindedly before turning a sharper gaze onto her. "Or I could leave you to roam the grounds for a while longer as a ghost."

"I do not trust you! You practice witchcraft!" she exclaims, her voice trembling with fear. "You even lured the god of death here to advance your own power! We saw it! You let him bring destruction to our land!"

"What will it be, Mrs. Claire? Will you come with me, or do you need more time to say goodbye?" You reach out your hand to her, ignoring her accusations. "The outcome will be the same."

"I shall not go with a creature of darkness! You are trying to lure me into a trap! You shall not capture me!" She clutches the scarf around her neck and backs away from you.

"Very well. I shall come back later." You give her a little nod with your head as a slight smile dances on your lips before turning and walking away.

"Your wickedness shall be punished!" The old woman calls after you, but you don't dignify her with a response as you follow the chime of a different soul, much further away. The black wings of a raven carry you to a little town further in the north. You perch on top of the church tower and look over the streets to see some spirits wandering the empty sidewalks below. The snow has covered everything in a thick layer of cold, shimmering white. The coughing echoing from the windows tells you your beloved god has been here before you. He must be close; you have felt his call for weeks now, urging you to find him. You look over the souls—some of them going about their business like they haven't realized their mortal coil is over, and others sounding out their prayers to whatever god they have devoted themselves to. The wind howls through the narrow alleyways, carrying with it the whispers of lost souls seeking redemption. Your purpose settles heavily on your shoulders, and you take flight again. You soar between the high building walls, letting the gust rip through your wings and scatter dark feathers into the abyss below.

Some of the dead watch in awe as you pass, their eyes filled with hope and longing for the freedom you possess. They reach out to touch your feathers and grasp the key you have provided. With tears streaming down their faces, they whisper their gratitude and prayers for your safe journey. With a glimmer of stardust, they disappear to return to the circle of reincarnation. You move on, knowing that their souls will now be reborn with a newfound sense of hope and purpose.

You spend the night shepherding the souls of the reaped into the afterlife, knowing that they are in good hands and will be born again soon. You followed the pull of your being as a roe deer through the forest, feeling the ancient magic guiding you towards the man you love most in all of your lives. You walk alongside him, but only the dead can see you, so you just blend in as one of his many shadows. Spirits, both neutral and malicious, follow him everywhere he goes, but you are there only to steal a glimpse. He moves so silently, his eyes trained on the path ahead. His face doesn't let on any emotion; he looks cold and calm. Almost dutiful. You know you will see him soon, but as dawn creeps over the horizon, you hurry back home to your sleeping body as a white rabbit, running across the fields and pastures.

He arrives again with frosted flowers covering your windows and gracing the surface of the puddles outside. The leaves of a creeping vine by your house collect jagged crystals on their edges. The air is still and the world is blanketed in a serene silence, the quiet crackle of the fire in the hearth providing the only sound. A wide smile graces your lips as you look at the approach of the god from your open door. Your heart is so full of joy and anticipation that it feels like it might burst. You have your arm outstretched as he gets closer, and he wordlessly takes your fingers into his cold hand. The chill of his touch sends a shiver down your spine. His lips press against the back of your hand, his freezing breath tingling your flesh. He cherishes the warmth of your skin and the way your free hand cups his cheek and lifts his chin. It makes life creep into him again to soothe the pain of frost in his chest. Your gorgeous eyes look at him so tenderly, no words need to be spoken to understand the mutual longing for each other. From the thousands of meetings you have had in the past, all the meaningful words have already been spoken in a hundred different languages, but none have ever felt as powerful as the silent exchange between your eyes in this moment. He lifts his head to step closer, your soft breath exiting as a white cloud from your lips. He moves the hand he still softly holds to his chest, his fingers wrapping around it as he presses it to where his heart used to be. He closes his eyes and whispers, "I miss you more than words can express, sweet Shepherd."

He feels the shadow of his heart start to beat again; it fills him with warmth and chases out the cold longing that births the northern winds. His whole body is enveloped in a sense of love and warmth. The blue marks grace his skin and leave you in awe, like they always do. You straighten up and reach to kiss his jaw line. This makes him open his steely eyes again and turn them on you. You can see the love and adoration in his gaze. The god of winter and death is gorgeous, with or without the marks, and you are overjoyed to call him yours. You can't help but smile as he pulls you into a warm embrace, melting away the coldness that usually surrounds him.

His lips find yours, capturing them in a tender dance, speaking of his longing and spilling the devotion he holds for you. Your hearts sing as one, and your souls are entangled for a single night before he must leave your side. Words don't need to be spoken at this moment. His skin feels warm again, and his embrace could be mistaken for human, just like all those thousands of years ago. He holds you tight, knowing that this fleeting moment is all you have.

You guide your lover inside your formerly warm house, but his presence grows the shadows and brings a chill no fire can warm. Yet you feel no cold . You are consumed by the passion of his touch, lost in the intensity of his gaze, and you realize that you would endure any darkness for just another fleeting moment with him. You would follow him into the depths of despair, knowing that his love is worth any sacrifice.

You stop as you reach the shaft of light that streams through the window, the remnants of daylight creeping into the shadow infested room. You turn towards him, your fingertips grazing the palm of his hand, teasing the promise of being entangled with his digits. You slowly trail them up along the veins of his arms, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath your touch. Your fingers linger on the soft feathers growing from his collarbones, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest with each breath he takes. You pause as you caress his features, admiring the peaceful expression on his face. You touch his birthmark and nose, your thumb tracing the curve of his lips. He leans into your touch, a hand covering yours as it rests on his cheek. His lips part, and a hum of enjoyment escapes his throat.

You look at his eyes, and they are all you can think about; his face is etched into your soul like it's your mirror. He is there in your heart and mind, forever present in whatever body you are born in. As you speak his name, it is the softest word you know, it leaves a sweet taste on your tongue. It's a name you'll never forget, no matter how cursed you are. Life after life after life, you will speak it again and see these beautiful eyes gazing back at you.

His other hand goes to your lower back to pull you closer until you are pressed against his chest, feeling his heartbeat against your own. His lips kiss your eyes and trace along your nose before they meet yours. His love is a force of nature—unyielding and unwavering. It's a love that transcends time and space, binding your souls together in an eternal dance of passion and devotion.

He holds your face tenderly in his hands, his thumb trailing over the curve of your lips before he leans down to kiss you softly. His warm hands are so tender against your skin, and you melt into his touch. Your heart races as you hold on to him, wishing with all your heart that he didn't have to go. The moment feels fleeting, but you know that the memory of his touch will stay with you.

"This unearthly love is yours alone. It is merciless and suffocating. But for you, my sweetling, I would die a thousand times over." His lips brush over your cheek, leaving behind a trail of tingling warmth as he speaks.

He pulls away, revealing a smile on his lips that makes your heart ache with longing. The feelings in your chest swell, and you struggle to find the words to express the depth of your emotions. As he walks away, you are left standing there, feeling both grateful for the time you shared and devastated by his departure.

"Wait!" you call out and follow him along the path leading away from your house. You know the rays of sunshine creep over the roof of your house, starting to paint your frosted yard in a golden shimmer. You catch up to him, and he looks down gently as you grab his hand and squeeze it tightly.

"I love you. With everything I have. I love you. I always will. And this isn't fair. What they did to you… to us. It is cruel and unjust. And yet, here we are, standing together. I wish you could stay, but this is already proof that even though we fell, they lost." You look into his icy eyes and see the determination and resilience that will carry you both through the challenges until you see each other again. You caress his cheek and gently pull him closer to place another kiss on his lips. The warmth of his embrace envelops you, and you feel grateful for every moment spent with him.

"There they are! So it is true!" A murmur of different voices skips across the grass, and you look to see some men coming around the corner of your cottage. Your eyes glance over them to see that they carry weapons, mostly hand axes and spears, but a few have their swords drawn.

"So they are a witch! Conspiring with gods and demons!" An outroar ripples through the group of men, and you can assume there are more of them behind the corner.

"You have lured winter to our doors! You brought hunger and death to our land! Prepare to face the consequences of your treachery!" A different voice speaks up; it belongs to a man with crude leather armor and a sword.

You look wide eyed at the people you have known for your entire life. Among them are youngsters you used to play with, men who would greet you on the streets, and neighbors you have brought back from death's door. And now they all stand before you, ready to seek justice for the suffering brought to this land. The god shifts to stand in front of you, hiding you behind his mass of feathers reaching from his back. He doesn't speak a word as he glares at the mob, who has come with a thirst for blood.

This feels familiar. Glimpses of ancient times flash before your eyes. The way you prepared for battle against the gods of war. The way you wielded your gleaming sword with fierce determination and a heart full of rage. Your trusty extension is no longer with you; it has been replaced by a weak and mortal body not fit for fighting. You now stand among other mortals, stripped of your former strength and power.

You reach out your hand to touch your lover's back as a sign to stand down, but as your fingertips touch the feathers of his wings, you feel a surge of pain run through your body. You realize he has lingered by your side for too long; you are out of time. You pull back before he can rip at the threads holding your body and soul together.

"Go. Hide in the forest." His cold voice speaks without turning his head toward you. "I will take care of them."

You look around the broad back to see the mob move closer; it looks like every man from the nearby villages has gathered together to hunt you down. You back away from your lover to head to the dark wall of trees beyond your yard, hoping to find safety and escape the angry mob. It gets colder as you distance yourself from the god. The flimsy shawl doesn't offer you much protection against the biting wind that seems to be raising around you, picking up the light dusting of snow.

You hear more shouts and yells behind you, but the blood rushing in your head drowns out the rest. Where will you go now? Where can you run to and survive? The answers are not clear, but you know one thing for sure: You must keep moving. You need to get away from it all. As you can nearly duck into the shadows of the forest, you barely manage to pull away from the swing of an axe. You fall backwards into the crunching moss covering the forest floor. The frost underneath your fingers feels painful as it creeps beneath your nails. You see a few men coming towards you, including the one with the axe, and you scramble to your feet again.

The usually comforting forest is now filled with a sense of impending danger. It is filled with more than just shadows and your lover's demons. It reeks of hatred and blood lust. You run as fast as you can back towards your little yard and see your beloved look back at you with fear in his eyes. As the people close in on him, their weapons leave no marks on his skin. The god knows you are being cornered, and while he is immortal, you can be snatched away with ease. The candle of your life is flickering due to his presence alone as you run towards him. He needs to act fast. His fingers grab the neck of the man closest to him, and while usually the cold grasp of winter would be enough to snuff out a life like his, this time the puny mortal keeps fighting for his last breath in a desperate attempt to survive.

The god of winter and death realizes the warmth in his chest. It is you. Your presence has ignited spring within him as it should, his heart beating within his chest, robbing his shadowy powers. His presence alone isn't enough to protect you from these savages this time. Your love hinders him from laying waste to what threatens you.

He breaks the neck of the man he is holding and moves on with a speed unmatched by any human. The god tears through the immediate danger surrounding him before charging at the attackers on your heels. His wrath grows with every life he takes. He is determined to protect you at all costs. His feathers brush your cheek as he passes you, and you fall to your knees. You feel the fragile bond between yourself and this form fraying. He loves you to death. The god knows he is killing you. But he cannot stop, for your safety is his top priority. He has to secure you before he can leave your side. He must protect you from the hands of these fiends. He has failed you once before; he cannot allow it to happen again. He has to get away from you. Destiny and fate tease him with the dilemma of death as he rips through the mortal flesh of a man with a raised spear. His chest and feathers are covered in splatters of blood as he moves on to the next one. The symphony of violence plays in his ears, drowning out any thoughts of mercy or remorse. The only thing driving him forward is the primal instinct to keep you safe, no matter the cost.

The world is shut out as you hear a pair of footsteps approach. You raise your eyes to see a young man with his sword drawn. You want to run away; you need to scream or escape, but your strength has been torn from your weak body by the god of death. You kneel in front of him, your eyes begging for mercy, hoping that he will spare your life. In his gaze, you see fear and hatred. The curse you bear has been long forgotten by any mortal being. You cannot blame him for the dread he feels. The god of winter and death came for you; his presence introduces a bone-chilling cold that ruins crops and brings darkness to the southern land. The man before you demands your soul as payment for what he believes you have done to this world. You will find no mercy in his heart. He raises his sword and plunges it down into your chest.

Your hand grabs the blade as pain sears through your body. The man disappears from your sight, replaced by a display of beautiful feathers. You fall backwards, the tip of the weapon digging into the frozen ground below as blood paints the grass in vivid crimson. As your vision blurs, an arm wraps around your back, pulling you into a warm embrace. Your eyes look up towards the heavens, and a fleeting thought of cursing the other gods crosses your mind before the blue sky is replaced by eyes of the same color. Your hand, that's not bleeding around the blade, reaches up to gently touch his face.

The god grabs the hilt of the sword with his free hand as he watches the life quickly drain out of you. Is it the blade or the touch of his skin that does it? He does not know. Your being is unraveled as he leans closer, your vision fading to black. You wish to leave some words to him, but the breath escaping your lungs carries nothing but silence.

You are gone before his lips reach yours, so he hovers above them. He will not steal a last kiss from this body; you aren't there anymore. It is little more than a prison for the soul. He leans his forehead against yours, still clutching the sword and pressing you into his embrace. You are gone, leaving just a shell behind. You took his heart with him, and all the warmth you had filled him with seeps out of him with the tears he sheds, leaving only cold emptiness. The outstretched mess of wings that served to protect you start to grow blades of ice in-between the long feathers. Shadows gather around the god as hatred fills his mind. The down on his collarbones and neck grows into larger feathers, forming more wings as he lifts his enraged gaze up towards the few remaining people brave enough to face down the god of death. The people cower in fear, knowing that their fate now lies in the hands of a vengeful deity. His face turns monstrous, the eyes dark as the night, and feathers start to cover his face. He bares his elongating fangs at them. Shadows start to bubble up from between the wings, forming faces and clawed hands. The creatures of darkness escape the god and slither to the ground. They slink along the frosted ground, leaving a trail of ice in their wake. The sky darkens as the shadows grow longer until they reach the mortals. They freeze in terror as the creatures surround them, reaching out their hands to grab at them. Their souls are ripped from their meek bodies and consumed by the icy demons.

With a roar that shakes the earth, the god unleashes his full power, engulfing the land in darkness and merciless blizzards. The beastly deity bellows a deafening cry of grief that echoes through the meadows and forests. It skips over rivers and lakes. It shakes the mountains and leaves a sense of dread in the hearts of everyone across the lands. A chilling reminder of his immense power and wrath. The storm rages around him, spreading snow and demons in its wake. In the middle of the deathly horror is your latest body, frozen in time forevermore.

The beast stands up from the cold cradle he has created and chooses to move on, leaving destruction and chaos in his path. The grief robbing him of his human form, transforming him into a monster of pure rage and darkness. His empty chest bleeds with the longing of a heart that will never beat without you, consumed by the grasp of vengeance and hatred. Every step leaves frost and shadows behind; anything touched by the feathers gets ripped to shreds by the hidden blades of ice. He is searching again. Waiting for you to be reborn, to hear the siren song of your soul. It is so cold again.

Did you like this? Go check out my MASTERLIST and drop a follow for any and all future projects!

[who-knew-a-sheep-can-write]

Grievances: Gladiolus Amicitia x Reader

You woke to the feeling of a cold and empty bedside. You sat fully up in the bed, the thin cotton sheets falling into your lap as you did your best to look around the small bedroom for your boyfriend, but you couldn’t find him. In fact, the sheets beside you were even made despite him getting under the covers with you just a few hours ago. Looking to the small end table, you saw the time on the little alarm clock - 3:46 in the morning.

You swung your legs over the side of the bed and got up onto the creaky old floorboards, wincing at how loud they were just from your slight movement. You did your best to creep out of the room without making too much noise to wake the others (although you’re sure Ignis had already woke from you getting up). You toed on your shoes and grabbed your jacket before making your way down the aging steps.

You all had just arrived at Cape Caem yesterday afternoon, rolling up to the old farmhouse by the sea to set off for the prince’s wedding soon. It had been a trip and a half so far, with Galdin being out of the picture and Lestallum being a pitstop and a half with all of the little side things you had accidentally picked up as a party, it was nice to get a whole evening to yourselves and rest. You and Gladio had been given one of the solo bedrooms, a queen-sized bed fitted with crisp white sheets and a baby blue comforter with distressed white wooden furniture. It would be a lovely bedroom to take home.

But Gladio wasn’t around.

You looked around in the kitchen and on the porch but didn’t see him, afraid of opening other doors that could lead into bedrooms full of sleeping people. You split open the vintage curtains in the front window to look outside, squinting into the darkness as you looked around in the near-darkness for any signs of him. It wasn’t like Gladio to just disappear, hell, he’s a mountain of a man! How could you miss him? How could you not wake up to him getting out of the bed?

You nearly closed the curtains to look somewhere else when you caught a glimpse of someone in the darkness over by the cliff’s edge. You opened the door and quickly stepped outside, the cool sea air blowing past you, nipping at your skin and leaving goosebumps down your body. The air was cool and crisp, it smelled of the salty sea and of the churned earth behind you full of fields of crops. Crickets were chirping in the grass, you heard the rustling of small animals in the bushes, in the distance you heard wild animals howling in the night to the moon. You slowly walked towards the figure, already able to make out his broad shoulders covered in a jacket and the fluffy hair that needed a good trim before the wedding. You’re not sure if he heard you coming, but if he did, then he didn’t say anything to you. He was sitting on one of his camping chairs, back to the farmhouse as he looked over the sea and the moon. There was a book on the ground, one of his favorites, it looked like it had been tossed without a care in the world down.

It was when you were standing right next to him did he acknowledge your presence, only giving you a slight glance before turning back to look at ocean. He was kind of hunched over in his seat, almost as if he was trying to make himself look smaller. It was almost like he felt vulnerable, especially before you.

You gave him a few moments, hoping that with you being next to him that he would open up to you, maybe give you a glimpse as to what was going on, but he didn’t. His lips were sealed.

“Are you alright?” you finally asked quietly, breaking the tense silence between you two.

Your words hung in the air around him like anvils, they swaddled him up in a suffocating grip and refused to let go. Your words, those three little words, make the king’s shield start to tremble.

Gladio’s breath was shaking, hitching in his throat as he tried his hardest not to start breaking down in front of you.

You placed your hands on his shoulders and rounded out in front of him, crouching to meet his eyes. His face was already wet, tear tracks slightly dry and they looked sticky, he must have been crying earlier. His eyes, bright and full of life like a roaring fire, were dull and diminished. He looked exhausted, he looked miserable.

“Gladio…” you murmured.

Suddenly the shield pulled you in close, forcing you to stand or else you would have head-butted right into him. His big and burly arms wrapped tightly around your waist as he yanked you in close, burying his head into your stomach. You felt a warm wetness start to form against your shirt. His grip was crushing against your back and hips, but all you could do was try to comfort him.

He didn’t sob, he didn’t moan or heave or scream. He sat in the chair and trembled, crying softly into your stomach.

You didn’t rush him, you didn’t say anything to break the silence, you simply placed one hand on his brawny shoulder and the other became carded into his soft hair. You had to admit, it was a shock to see your partner cry. He was always one for being stoic and in control of himself - except for anger sometimes - to the point that you wondered when the last time he had cried was. Even now, he was still controlling himself, pulling back on showing how truly upset he was as he clung and shook under your hands.

“I miss him.”

Those words hit you deep in the gut as he whimpered them out into your shirt.

His father.

His father had passed in the fall with the king. He and Iris were on their own now, their mother having passed about a year after Iris was born from what Gladio had told you. It was just him and his little sister against the world now.

All of his life was spent to be like his father, maybe even better while still holding his father is high regard. He was going to be like his father, be a shield and protect the king with his life. Gladio loved his father, and now he’s finally allowed himself time to grieve for his loss. What hurts even more is that there probably isn’t a body to bury back in Insomnia either, only twisting the knife in his chest.

“Oh Gladio,” you murmured. You rubbed both of your hands along his shoulders, rubbing soothing circles into his back as you pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Everything will be alright.”

[tatmanblue]

No zoom by European Space Agency Via Flickr: This image shows a globular cluster known as NGC 1651. Like the object in another recent Picture of the Week, it is located about 162 000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A notable feature of this image is that the globular cluster almost fills the entire image, even though globular clusters are only about 10 to 300 light-years in diameter (NGC 1651 has a diameter of roughly 120 light-years). In contrast, there are numerous Hubble Pictures of the Week that feature entire galaxies — which can be tens or hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter — that also more or less fill the whole image. A common misconception is that Hubble and other large telescopes manage to observe wildly differently sized celestial objects by zooming in on them, as one would with a specialised camera here on Earth. However, whilst small telescopes might have the option to zoom in and out to a certain extent, large telescopes do not. Each telescope’s instrument has a fixed ‘field of view’ (the size of the region of sky that it can observe in a single observation). For example, the ultraviolet/visible light channel of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the channel and instrument that were used to collect the data used in this image, has a field of view roughly one twelfth the diameter of the Moon as seen from Earth. Whenever WFC3 makes an observation, that is the size of the region of sky that it can observe. The reason that Hubble can observe objects of such wildly different sizes is two-fold. Firstly, the distance to an object will determine how big it appears to be from Earth, so entire galaxies that are relatively far away might take up the same amount of space in the sky as a globular cluster like NGC 1651 that is relatively close by. In fact, there's a distant spiral galaxy lurking in this image, directly left of the cluster — though undoubtedly much larger than this star cluster, it appears small enough here to blend in with foreground stars! Secondly, multiple images spanning different parts of the sky can be mosaiced together to create single images of objects that are too big for Hubble’s field of view. This is a very complex task and is not typically done for Pictures of the Week, but it has been done for some of Hubble’s most iconic images. [Image Description: A spherical collection of stars, which fills the whole view. The stars merge into a bright, bluish core in the centre, and form a sparse band around that out to the edges of the image. A few stars lie in front of the cluster, with visible diffraction spikes. The background is dark black.] Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi, F. Niederhofer; CC BY 4.0

[mystic-blue]

a quick little brainrot dump for @ashwii 's celestial au because i'm obsessed <3 also might have made it a hint angsty bc i'm incapable of anything else...fair warning i haven't written in a HOT minute because grad school has consumed my life so sorry if this makes no sense : D

Leo watched from a distance as Mikey chased Raph, both of them grinning brightly and bounding with endless energy. Mikey's laughter echoed through the space between nearby planets, bright and ringing. Donnie sat perched on Earth's moon, calling out the occasional encouragement, but it was unclear who he was rooting for.

Sometimes Leo wondered why they all chose to stay here. There were galaxies upon galaxies to explore, endless maps of stars and open space, planets and asteroid belts all begging to be traversed. Their sense of self and domain had expanded greatly since their inception over a trillion years ago, after all. Leo twirled a constellation between his fingertips and thought about the stars he could sense at the edge of the universe, creations he had never seen himself.

He was about to move closer, to join Donnie, when a sharp pain flared to life in his abdomen. Leo winced as a distant star caved in on itself, Leo attempting to block out the pain and the distant agony. He tried to describe it to his brothers once when they were younger, but they had only ended up distressed and terrified. A dying star was an excruciating experience, a piece of Leo burning away with a ferocious intensity, consuming anything within reach. When he was younger, the pain was an unbearable constant. Now, it was an old wound, a familiar sprain that never healed. Stars perished all the time, a chronic ache in Leo's celestial bones that he had learned to bear with time.

(Sometimes he looked at Raph and wondered how long they had.)

Leo's instinct was to flee toward the dying star, some fruitless attempt at getting there in time to make sure they weren't alone at the end. Realistically, Leo knew it would make no difference. The few times he had tried to do that when he was younger had not ended well. Either he never made it far because of the overwhelming pain, or he got burned by the proximity.

He longed to visit every star in the sky, to let them know that he was there, that he cared about them, knew them. But he and his brothers lingered here, instead.

Sometimes Leo wondered why they all chose to stay here. Leo thought again about the stars he could sense at the edge of the universe. They were newer, brighter, and endlessly chaotic in their naivety.

He yearned to witness them.

If he were being honest, Leo and Mikey were free to roam, unrestrained in the breadth of their domain. Mikey was like Leo in a way, wincing every time a meteor burned away from existence, going quiet and distant for a while. Leo understood the pain of it more than Raph and Donnie ever could.

Donnie's domain was not nearly as extensive as Leo's and Mikey's, contained to the moons within this galaxy. Even still, he had room to move, to explore. Sometimes he said he could sense moons outside of this galaxy, a gleam of insatiable curiosity lighting up his eyes. It looked a lot like the way Leo felt when he expanded his awareness to all the places his constellations reached.

Leo tipped his fingers forward, palm up, and watched a shower of stars tumble off the ends of his fingertips. Mikey crowed with victory and Leo looked up to find him perched on Raph's shoulders. He was already melting a bit against the flames on Raph's back, but Mikey wasn't in danger yet. Leo caught sight of Raph's indulgent yet fond grin and it all made sense.

They had the entire universe to explore, sure. But Raph was here. The endless expanse of the unexplored universe and all her secrets and adventures meant nothing if Raph wasn't there with them. It was cold out there between suns anyway.

The burning ache of the dying star went dull in Leo's gut almost simultaneously with the heady thrill of a new one being born at his collarbone. Leo grinned, his smile full of starlight and eyes composed of the cosmos.

He joined his brothers, dragging Donnie into the chaos, in time for Raph to remove Mikey from his shoulders and begin their game of chase anew. He wouldn't trade this for the universe.

[gothdaddyissues]

The Devil Came to a Small Town

Catch up here: | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

A Ghost AU Fanfic - Cardinal Copia/Female OC

The Satanic Church of Emeritus moves into an old Abbey on the outskirts of a bougie small town. Sister Imperator and the shy Cardinal Copia strike up a business relationship with Isabelle, the local witchy shop owner. This sets in motion a series of events that uncovers long-hidden secrets, solves mysteries, and unites the town and Church against a common enemy. And also: two lonely people fall in love...

TAGS: Glacially-slow slow burn. Lots of OCs. Romantic fluff. Mutual pining. Sex. Violence. Humor and melancholy in equal measure. Ghoul hijinx. All the Papas are alive and well, and very silly. Small-town weirdness. Drug and alcohol use. Bad language. Marginally accurate witchcraft. Very-likely-inaccurate religious imagery and practices. Magic, psychic abilities, and prophetic visions. Intolerance and discrimination. A happy ending will happen...

Chapter 7 is now up!

Read on Ao3 or below the cut... (~5100 words)

October 7

She ran, her feet pounding the frozen ground. The light dusting of snow on the forest floor was illuminated by the moon above, bathing everything in an iridescent blue glow. The trees soared high into the clear night sky, cradling the stars in their bare, spindly branches. It had been a night of celebration and reverence - a night of worship under the full moon - quickly transformed into a night of terror when they came looking for her.

So she ran, deep as she could into the woods, hoping they would not follow, hoping they would never find her. She could barely catch her breath, her heart slamming in her chest, but she dared not stop. She was running for her life.

The chill air bit at her cheeks, her ears, her fingers. She was so, so cold. She was further into the forest than she had ever been. Nothing familiar here, no bearings. And still, she ran. It was her only option.

"Bella...."

It was his voice. Whispered, drifting through the trees on the wind, meant only for her to hear.

"Bella!" More urgent this time.

He was close. She slowed herself as she came to a small clearing. Gasping, frigid air searing her lungs, she leaned against a tree trunk to hold herself up. She couldn't see him, but she sensed his presence, surrounding her like an embrace. Calm. Safe.

"How did you find me?" she asked, breathless.

"We are connected, you and I," he replied from the emptiness, "I'm with you always."

"Copia, help me."

He stepped out of the darkness — majestic in his long, black and gold military jacket, his skull paint crisp and pristine. Gloved hands reached for her, pulling her close. She melted into his strength, his warmth... his love. He wrapped her in his arms, resting his chin upon the top of her head, stroking his fingers through her tousled, wind-blown hair. The steady thrum of his heartbeat soothed her as she lay her cheek against his chest.

"Mia ragazza coraggiosa," he whispered, "Mia bella principessa. We cannot stay long. They are coming."

She could see the congregation far off through the trees. Their white robes shone in the moonlight, the orange flames from their torches shimmering pinpricks of light in the distance. They were chanting, their combined voices a dull, incomprehensible drone that grew louder and louder the closer they came. Like a poorly edited film, they were suddenly closer. Glitching again, closer still.

"Slut. Witch. Whore. Slut. Witch. Whore."

Copia took her hand tightly. "Come, my love. We must go. Rapidamente."

Together, they sprinted through the trees, but no matter how fast they ran, their pursuers were always right behind. Their voices were amplified by the wind, filling her with panic: "SLUT. WITCH. WHORE. BURN!"

She sensed another presence in the woods. Something animalistic. Demonic. A dozen shadowy figures paced in the darkness just beyond her vision, claws scraping against trees and frozen earth. Gurgling and growling. Angry. But they were not her enemies - they were guardians. They were at Copia's command, and he was leading their pursuers right to them.

Copia let go of her hand and pushed her ahead. "Go!" he ordered as he came to a stop. "Keep running. I will find you."

She turned back, reaching for him. The men in the white robes were almost on him, their faces covered with Venetian Bauta masks, their torches held high. "Copia, please!" she cried.

The demons emerged from the shadows around her, ready to protect their master and his lover. A pack of horned beasts with fangs and talons and long pointed tails. Their eyes and skin glowed incandescent in the pale light, various shades of purple, blue, orange, and green. They flew past her, tearing into the flesh of the white-robed men, snarling and vicious. There was blood. There were screams. She heard Copia again telling her to run, and this time, she obeyed.

She ran for what seemed like forever, but the screams still rang in her ears, the demon guardians chasing down every last villain who took after her. The forest grew dense as she sped blindly through the underbrush, branches scratching at her skin. Even without leaves, the trees blocked out most of the sky, with only thin slivers of moonlight cutting through here and there. She could barely see her hand in front of her face, lost in the darkness. She had to trust in Copia's promise that he would find her and return her to safety.

Finally, the screaming stopped. She slowed her pace somewhat, taking the opportunity to look back behind her. Nothing but pitch black night. 

A sudden thump sent her flying backward, hard onto the ground with the wind knocked out of her. She had run headlong into something solid concealed in the dark. Dazed, she pulled herself onto her hands and knees, and reached out her hand; it brushed against hard stone. She slid her hand up to feel more stones, bricked together and covered with fuzzy moss. A solid mass in front of her. A wall? She had no idea how high it rose or how wide it spanned. She’d reached a dead end. 

Her entire body ached and she was shivering in the cold. All around her was silence, save for her shuddering breaths. Terrified, disoriented, she wanted to cry out for Copia but thought better than to draw attention to herself. Instead, she wrapped her shaky arms around her torso in a feeble attempt to keep warm.

Then she heard the footsteps. The soft crunch of boots on the snow behind her. Copia? She scrambled to her feet and spun around. Her stomach dropped. A lone man, clad in a hooded white cassock, his face hidden behind a masquerade mask, had found her. "Slut. Witch. Whore." She tried to scream, but the man was on her, his hands around her throat. "Slut. Witch. Whore."

She clawed futilely at his wrists as she gasped for breath, and when that didn't work, went for his face with fists. She punched at him hard, dislodging the mask and sending it to the ground. The hood of his cassock obscured his eyes, but she could just make out his dark skin and white beard. "Slut! Witch! Whore!" he roared.

She was dizzy, losing consciousness, going limp under the man's grip. But his chokehold suddenly loosened, distracted by the sound of branches breaking, pounding footfalls, and beastly growling getting closer fast. The burliest demon yet, its skin pearly grey, burst through the brush and tackled the robed man, dragging him to the ground and tearing into him with its razor-sharp claws. Screams filled her ears again, and she was falling, faint, spatters of blood wetting her face from the carnage beside her.

Before she hit the ground, Copia caught her, lifting her into his arms. He cradled her against him, his hand on her cheek. "Bella? Wake up. Wake up!"

Isabelle's eyes shot open to see Poe sitting on her chest, licking and pawing at her face. The cell phone on her bedside table was ringing and vibrating, the 'old phone' ringtone blaring at full volume. The cat meowed angrily, annoyed by the shrill sound.

"Okay, okay," she grumbled, fumbling for the device in her half-awake state, the dream still clinging to her. She was bleary-eyed, couldn't make out the number on the call display, wasn't quite sure what time or even what day it was. But she managed to answer, her voice hoarse and barely working. "Hello?"

"Uh, Izzy?" There was a man's voice on the other end, "Hi, it's Alex, across the street. I woke you up, didn't I? I'm so sorry. I tried calling you a little while ago but there was no answer."

As he spoke, she nudged Poe off of her, struggling to sit up and look at the clock. The sun was up - it was morning. Her first thought was that maybe she overslept. But Ari would have called her if that was the case, not the man who owned the antique shop opposite her. She blinked a few times to clear her vision and saw it was just after 8 a.m. "Oh... uh, hi Alex. Yeah, it's okay, no worries. I'd be getting up soon anyways." She rubbed at her face, willing herself to wake up faster. "What's up?"

"I guess that means you haven't been outside yet?"

His words broke sleep's spell hard and fast, hitting her like a bucket of cold water. Something was wrong. 'Good news sleeps 'til noon,' her mom always said. "No. Oh no... what happened?" She shuffled out of bed and to the window. It faced Main Street and Alex's shop. All seemed normal outside from her vantage point; she could see Alex standing outside his door, his cell phone pressed to his ear as he looked across the street.

"You got hit with some vandalism overnight," he said, his voice soft and apologetic.

"Shit," Izzy muttered, "Again? Is it bad?" She raked her fingers through her hair to tame the bedhead and grabbed a zip-up hoodie off of the chair nearby. She needed to see the damage. At least her pajama pants were somewhat respectable.

"Well," Alex began, "You've had worse, but it's definitely not good."

In the living room now, she stuffed her feet into the closest pair of shoes and took her keys off the hook by the door. "I'm on my way down. I'll see you in a sec," she told him, ending the call.

It was a chilly morning, and thankfully the streets were mostly quiet. She hoped that not too many people had gone by and seen the aftermath; she'd already suffered enough public embarrassment at the coffee shop the week prior. By the time she got down the stairs and around the front of the building, Alex was on her side of the street, giving her a sympathetic look as she took it all in.

An entire carton of eggs had been thrown at the storefront. The metal gate did its job of protecting the windows - nothing broken that she could see. Eggshells and gooey debris splayed across the glass, in the crevices of the gate, and all over the sidewalk. But more distressing were the slurs spraypainted over the gate itself, in giant letters: slut, witch, whore.

Slut. Witch. Whore.

"Oh..." Izzy whispered, her voice trembling, "Oh my god..." Panic, confusion, and anger all welled up inside her, and she put a shaky hand over her mouth. A nasty mess. Plus the words from her dream plastered on her storefront, distressing her more than anything else. What the fuck…? But it wasn't like she could tell this to the nice man across the street without making herself sound completely unhinged.

She felt Alex’s hand on her shoulder. "This is awful Izzy, I know. I'm so sorry. I just got to the shop and saw it. Not a great way to start your day. But I thought it better to let you know as soon as possible. I hate having to be the one to tell you about it."

"No, hey, don't apologize. Thank you for letting me know, I do appreciate it. Really."

"I can help you clean up if you need a hand," he offered, "I know you don't open for a couple of hours yet."

She was grateful for his invitation but was reluctant to accept it. Alex was a kind soul, a bow-tie-wearing, nerdy, goody-two-shoes type, always ready with a dad joke or some historical trivia. The string of expletives she wanted to unleash over this situation would likely shock him to his very core. Probably best for their acquaintance if she saved him from witnessing it.

"Alex, you're so sweet," she began, "But I know you open soon and I don't want to keep you. Let me call Ari and get him over here... if we need any extra help, I'll let you know."

"You sure? I don't mind, really!"

"Yes, I'm sure. I really do appreciate the offer though. If I get stuck, I'll call you." She didn't want to sound rude... but fuck, she needed some time to scream into the void before she could even begin thinking about cleaning up. "And I should probably call and make a police report first too, in case there’s anything they can do." It would be a futile, useless endeavor - chances are they wouldn't even show up when they found out it was her shop - but it did buy her a little more time to calm down.

"Oh yeah, good idea," he agreed, before giving her a nudge with his elbow, "Good luck with that, eh?" He knew as well as she did how the entire police force was bought and paid for by a certain group of people in this town. "I'm right across the street if you need anything - anything at all - okay?"

"Okay. Thank you again." She managed a wave and a feeble smile as he returned to his shop. With a sigh, she turned back to the disaster on her doorstep. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." I bet it was those fucking punks that harassed the Sisters yesterday, thinking they were getting me back for giving them shit.

She scanned the area, looking for signs of anything she could use to prove who did this - footprints or something left behind. Nothing. She took out her phone and snapped a few pictures up close, then backed onto the street to capture the whole storefront at once. From there, she could see Poe sitting in the bedroom window upstairs, looking down at her with the disdain of a cat whose breakfast was late. It unsettled her to realize this happened right underneath her while she slept - with the windows open, even - and she didn't hear a damn thing...

Before she stepped back onto the sidewalk, she noticed the security camera on the nearby light post. The previous year, the town council had convinced residents that installing cameras all along Main Street was needed to discourage petty crimes and keep businesses safe. She’d been skeptical, considering the ineffectual Police were the ones doing the monitoring, and also because the company hired to do the installation was a subcontractor of Andrew Francis' land development company. And Andrew Francis was best buddies with the town's mayor - it was all blatant cronyism.

Regardless of her feelings on the matter, there was a camera every 15 feet or so on both sides of the street, and the one closest to her was aimed right at the corner of Main and Richmond, directly in front of her shop. That was the best chance to prove who had vandalized her property. But it was going to mean getting the police involved.

She made her way back upstairs and dialed the non-emergency number. An extremely disinterested woman answered the phone: "Police."

"Yes, hi," Izzy began, "I'm calling to report some vandalism that occurred at my shop overnight. There were slurs spray painted onto my storefront."

"Okay." Izzy heard her begin typing. "Address?"

"The corner of Main and Richmond. Shadow and Light Metaphysical Boutique."

The typing stopped. "I see," the woman replied. "Were any other businesses affected?"

"No, just mine."

"Hmm.... so you were targeted. Sounds like something personal," the dispatcher said, the hint of a sneer in her voice.

Izzy figured the call would go this way, but she persisted as calmly as possible. "Be that as it may, it was still an act of vandalism. Will you be sending someone out to investigate?"

"All of our officers are currently dealing with other matters. I can pass your information along when someone becomes available."

"Any idea when that might be?" Izzy asked through gritted teeth.

"It will be when someone becomes available," the dispatcher repeated.

Izzy squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to quell a rapidly blossoming headache. "What about the cameras?" she asked, "One of the town's security cameras is aimed right at the front of my shop. Would you be able to pull the footage off that and see if we can identify who did this?"

"That would be up to the officer who investigates the incident. Who is yet to be determined. I will pass the information along..."

"...when someone becomes available, yeah, I got that part." Izzy interrupted. "I've taken pictures of the damage. Can I start cleaning it up, or do I have to wait for Officer Yet-To-Be-Determined to come?" Oh, she was so close to losing it.

"Suit yourself," the woman replied, "And mind your tone, ma'am."

Mind MY tone?? "Oh, I do apologize," Izzy said sarcastically. "Thank you ever so much for your help. Your assistance has been invaluable, ma'am." She stabbed the phone with her finger to hang up the call and flung it down on the couch beside her with an exasperated growl. She instantly regretted being so snarky. But being nice wouldn't have mattered  - the dispatcher’s attitude was set the moment she heard the shop name. FUCK. 

The stress had her head throbbing. She reached for the joint she’d left in the coffee table ashtray the night before, a calming blend she enjoyed when she needed to settle her mind after a long day. She lit it, closed her eyes, and took a few small hits; not enough to get high, but just enough to take the edge off. Would it help? Maybe. Definitely wouldn’t hurt.

She heard the pitter-pat of paws, Poe jumping up on the coffee table and plopping himself down, blinking his big green eyes at her. Then a soft 'tap-tap' on her knee, the cat trying to get her attention. When she opened her eyes, she was met with an inquisitive "Mmrrrow?"

"Yes, yes baby, I know. Let's get your breakfast," she sighed, scratching his head. For now, she could focus on something else: getting the cat fed, brushing her teeth, putting her hair in a ponytail, and finding some clothes. An old pair of paint-stained jeans and a worse-for-wear Metallica t-shirt was her standard uniform for grunt work like this. And she needed to call Ari and start the cleanup before the whole town saw the debacle.

Izzy dialed his number and it rang at least five times before he finally answered. "Hrgrarlo?" he croaked sleepily.

She was pacing her living room, back and forth in front of her altar space. His awakening was about to be as rude as hers. "Ari?"

He groaned. "Iz? What time is it?"

"8:30-ish. I need..."

"Too early," he slurred, "Call later."

"Aristotle! Wake up!" she snapped. "The store got vandalized last night. I need your help to clean up."

"Wha...?" He cleared his throat, finally rousing now, "What happened? You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. But it's a fucking mess. We got egged, and the gate got spray painted."

Slut. Witch. Whore. It echoed in her brain, filling her with dread.

"Shit, okay. I'll be there as soon as I can. Give me 20 minutes.”

"Okay, I'll meet you out front. Thanks."

She hung up the phone and continued to pace, images from the dream consuming her. The white-robed men chasing her down with torches, wanting to burn her. Demons protecting her, killing for her. And Copia in his skull paint, right in the middle of it all, infiltrating her dreams again.

Slut. Witch. Whore.

"Why is this happening?" she asked out loud. "I still don't understand." She looked at the statue of Lilith on her altar as she paced, rolling the anxious thoughts around and around in her head. Things were going so well. Things were calm, people were finally leaving us be. Then I met Sister Imperator and everything's been fucked up since then! The weird dreams. The coffee shop last week, the Sisters yesterday, now this… I'm trying to be kind. Friendly. The people from the Church seem like good people. I want to help them. And Copia. I want… Ugh! How much shit will I have to eat? Is it worth it? Why am I putting myself through this?

As she passed the altar again, Izzy saw movement out of the corner of her eye, something falling from the top of it to the floor. A piece of paper. She stopped, bending down to pick it up. 

It was the Cardinal's business card. 

She’d placed it under Lilith's statue the week before - completely underneath the statue, she was sure of it. His familiar energy danced around her as she held the card, the same frisson of pleasure she felt when in his presence. That feeling of calm and safety she’d felt in her dream when he embraced her…

Or maybe it was the weed kicking in.

"I'm with you always.”

 She wanted a reason why this was happening, and Lilith answered: Copia.

“Okay then,” she mumbled, sliding the card back underneath the statue’s base. If her goddess was conspiring to bring her and Copia together, she wasn’t about to argue. But she hoped it was worth it… “Message received,” she kissed the tips of her fingers and touched them to Lilith’s feet, “Thank you.”

With a resigned sigh, Isabelle put on her work boots and made her way downstairs to begin dealing with the mess. She unlocked the shop’s back door, turned off the alarm system, and went to the storage closet for cleaning supplies: gloves, rags, scrub brushes, garbage bags, and spray paint remover. She also needed a bucket full of hot, soapy water to wash away all the dried-up egg gunk. The buckets were under the sink in the tiny kitchenette, and as she crossed the length of the back of the shop, she glanced through the doorway that led to the shop floor. People were outside the front windows, on the other side of the gate. She did a double take, thinking it was a crowd of gawkers. 

But no. Six Ghouls in their shiny silver masks were there, scrubbing and scraping, hard at work cleaning on her behalf. The Church of Emeritus had come to her rescue.

Incredulous, Isabelle went out the back door and made her way around to the front of the shop. They turned to her when she came around the corner. “Uh, hi,” she said tentatively.

She recognized Aether right away. He put down the rag he was using and greeted her with a happy wave. The five others joined in. They’d brought their own cleaning supplies, including a heavy-duty paint remover far superior to the kind she used. 

“What the heck are you guys doing here? I mean… I appreciate you coming to help, but how did you even know this happened?” she asked.

Aether pulled his phone out of his pocket, typing quickly before turning the screen to her.

“One of us saw the mess this morning,” it said, “And so we came to help clean up. We’ve had to deal with this sort of thing before too, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately,” Izzy sighed. They had already made great progress, doing a faster and more thorough job than she and Ari could have done on their own. After all the stress and anxiety of the morning, this simple act of kindness brought all her emotions to the surface. “You guys,” she said, her voice breaking, “You didn’t have to… this is so wonderful of you. I don’t know what to say.”

Aether typed again: “You don’t have to say anything, Miss Izzy. It’s our pleasure to help! You’ve already done SO MUCH for us, we’re just paying it back. Like you told the Cardinal, we take care of each other.”

She blinked back tears. “Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? And I meant it.” Aether gave her a gentle touch on the shoulder and she felt relief for the first time today. “Thank you so much, Aether, and all of you, for the help.”

“Let me introduce you to everyone,” Aether typed. He went down the line of Ghouls, giving her the names of each: “Rain, Mountain, Sunshine, Cirrus, and Dewdrop. But you can call him Dew.”

“Hello,” Izzy greeted. “I think I recognize you, Dew. And Cirrus too. I met you both in the coffee shop last week, didn’t I?”

The mention of the word “coffee” made Dew hang his head and cover his face with his hands. Aether gave him a playful nudge on the shoulder. “We don’t talk about coffee around Dew anymore,” he typed, “It doesn’t agree with him.” 

Izzy nodded, sympathetic. “Honestly, I understand… Since that day, coffee hasn’t agreed with me either. But I still want to thank you for your kindness.”

Dew placed his hands over his heart and bowed, the same gesture that Aether often used, acknowledging her thanks.

“I had no idea there were so many of you,” Izzy remarked. 

“There are 15 of us all together, for now at least,” Aether told her, “More wanted to come and help but Sister Imperator needed some of us to stay behind this morning.”

“I hope the Cardinal is managing alright without you,” she teased. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of him, wondering if maybe he had encouraged Aether to go as a way of checking up on her…

The sound of hurried footsteps approached from around the side of the building, and Izzy saw each of the Ghouls perk up, on alert. Aether stepped in front of her, shielding her from whomever it was, while the others surrounded her protectively. She felt the tension radiating off them as they stood guard, and the faint rumble of… growling?

Ari burst around the corner, still disheveled from sleep, and skidded to a stop, face-to-face with Aether. “Jesus fucking…” he gasped, startled, “What the fuck?”

The Ghouls closed in around her. None of them, save for Aether, knew who Ari was or that he was her friend. She saw Aether touch Ari’s arm to steady him before he waved off the other Ghouls, showing them there was no threat. Aether pointed to Ari, made motions with his hands like he was drawing in the air, and then mimed pinning something up on a wall. He then pointed back and forth between Ari and Izzy and brought his hands together to make the shape of a heart. The others nodded, backing off as their wariness eased. 

“I ask again: what the fuck?” Ari looked at Izzy, confused.

“It’s okay, Ari, it’s okay. They came here to help clean up. They’re just being extra protective because of what happened and because they don’t know you. Aether told them you’re the artist that made the poster we gave him, and that you’re my friend. Right?” Aether nodded, happy that Izzy interpreted him correctly.

Ari was in disbelief. “You understood all that?” 

“Yes, of course,” Izzy said, unsure as to why he didn’t. “You just have to pay attention.” She grabbed Ari’s wrist and pulled him closer as she turned back to the Ghouls. “So this is Ari, he’s my best friend and he works here with me. He’s cool, okay? No need to worry. Ari, this is Rain, Mountain, Sunshine, Cirrus, and Dew. And you already know Aether.” She nudged him in the side and whispered, “Say hi.”

“Uh, hello,” Ari said with an awkward wave. “Nice to meet you.”

Aether typed quickly and showed his phone to Ari: “They like your art!”

“Oh… well, thank you!” he replied, “And thank you for coming to help, we appreciate it.”

“Listen,” Izzy began, “I’m going to go inside and get some soap and water to help clean all this off. We’ll be right back, alright?” 

Aether and the Ghouls all gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up and returned to their work as she ushered Ari to the back of the building. Before she could say anything to him, he pulled her into a tight hug.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he swore as he embraced her, “You’re okay, right? I can’t believe this happened *again* Iz.”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” she replied, hugging him back just as hard, “I’m pretty sure it was those rotten teenagers that messed with the Sisters yesterday, trying to get back at me. But I’ll never be able to prove it, though.”

“Did you call the cops?”

“Yeah…”

“And?”

Izzy pulled away then and gave him a telling look before opening the back door for him. “It went about as well as you’d think. They’re doing jack shit. Even though there’s a camera right outside the shop. I may as well not’ve bothered. But, at least we’ve got some help cleaning up…” She motioned to the front window where the Ghouls were working away. “If I had known they were coming, I would’ve let you keep sleeping. Sorry…”

Ari seemed as stunned as she had been. “So they just showed up on their own?”

“Yep, and they’re doing an awesome job.” She squirted some soap into the bottom of a bucket and turned on the hot water, watching them through the doorway while waiting for it to fill. 

“Getting by with a little help from our friends, huh?” Ari observed.

Isabelle nodded. She was so grateful for their kindness. But now she had to worry about what sort of repercussions this would bring. If word got around town that the Satanic Church was at her service, would her haters be less inclined to hassle her, or would they double down on their hostility? How was she going to play this?

A fleeting recognition, familiarity, prickled down her spine as she observed the Ghouls. The protectiveness they’d had over her? She recognized it, felt it before. Images from her dream - those demon things saving her from the torch-wielding mob - flashed through her mind, her brain attempting to connect the dots while ignoring the rapidly filling bucket. Ari reaching around her to shut off the kitchen faucet jolted her back into reality.

“I’ll take this outside,” he said, not noticing she had spaced out, “You bring the sponges and stuff, okay?”

Oh, uh… yeah, okay,” she stammered, “I’ll be right there.”

Isabelle took a moment to collect herself. It was almost nine o’clock. The town was coming to life. People would see her and Ari outside with the Ghouls. People would talk. Her association with the Church of Emeritus would be indisputable. This was the tipping point; she’d have to choose her allegiance…  

She recalled the feelings of safety and calm that enveloped her in Copia’s presence. The Ghouls had gone out of their way to come to her aid. Even her Goddess had given her a definitive sign. It all felt decided on her behalf.

I guess I’m on Team Dark Side. I wonder if they like cookies?

[itsgerges]

Best Greetings

Physics Nobel Prize For Imaginary Ideas! (Revised)

or

Abstract

Preface

This is a claim sent to The Honorable

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres

I Claim Against Physics Nobel Prize For 2023 – Because The Decision Deceives The Humanity. 

Does The Nobel Prize Community Or The Winner Scientists Know The next Facts? 

(I Prove These Facts In The Paper)

FACT NO. (1)

The Solar planets matters and their distances are created from one energy- this one energy is provided by one light beam- This light beam velocity is 1.16 Million Km Per Second- the solar planets creation and motion depend on this light beam energy and motion-

FACT NO. (2)

The Gravitational Waves Are Produced By The Planets Motions Energies And Not By Any Gravitational Field

Since Years Physics Noble Prize is granted for The Gravitational Waves Discovery- The winners told us the gravitational waves are produced by the gravitational field-It's wrong– the waves are produced by the planets motions energies – Let's prove that- 

(Where's Planet Motion Energy?) the planet can't store its motion energy inside its body because it would raise this planet temperature, and no planet temperature is raised by its motion- clearly- the planet motion energy must be stored in The Space In Waves Form-

The space is similar to the sea of water and the planet motion energy creates waves in the space (as the fish motion energy creates waves in the sea of water), the space waves are similar to the sea waves they move far from its source and can be reflected- Not only

The sun doesn't create any gravitational field – where – No planet moves by the sun gravity (Newton is wrong) because the planet moves by the force caused its creation MEANS- The planet creation and motion is done by one force only otherwise this planet would be broken be effect of 2 forces on it.

ALSO- the sun has no massive gravity (where the sun rotation period is 25.4 days at equator and 34.4 days at pole proving the sun has no strong gravity)

ALSO- The Mass Gravity Itself Can't Cause Any Motion- (Why?)

Suppose the moon moves by the Earth gravity, but the moon motion produces energy, and from what source the moon motion energy will be provided? If the motion is caused by the mass gravity that necessitates to decrease the Earth and moon masses by the provided motion energy-

Newton definition of the mass gravity is wrong-

The mass gravity is a bond between two masses but no motion can be done by it

The Earth and moon are bond by the mass gravity- by that- they are similar to a lorry and its trailer- if the lorry moves the trailer will move with it- but the motor is outer force – Now when the outer force causes the Earth to move, the moon will move with the Earth by the mass gravity, but the motion energy for the Earth and the moon will be provided by this outer force- the mass gravity is a fact but can't cause any motion.

FACT NO. (3)

The Sun Is A Phenomenon Created By The Planets Motions Energies

MEANS

The SUN IS NOT DOING NUCLEAR FUSION To Produce Its Rays – instead -  

The Sun Rays Is Created By The Planets Motions Energies Total –

The sun is a phenomenon created by the planets motions – the sun is created after all planets creation and motion – the sun is a phenomenon and its life and death depends on a cycle –means after this sun death another sun will be created for the solar system

THE PROVES

(1)

It's noticeable– No one sees the planets motion energy in the solar system– but– they created the nuclear fusion idea which is very artificial source of energy for the Sun rays production and they left the massive motion energy without outlet to cause a continuous risk for the solar system stability– the sun nuclear fusion is the most wrong idea in the physics book. 

(2)

This new article proves the fact

(a new article) This Is Extraordinary: Gravity Can Create Light, All on Its Own

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsnHYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"&HYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604HYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"&HYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"ei=83

This article tells - the gravitational waves can move by high velocity motion and can produce A Light Beam– that proves Massive Motion Energy is found in the solar system and this motion energy can produce A LIGHT BEAM-

The article tells (The Light Beam Can Be Produced By The Motion Energy And Not By Nuclear Fusion)- also – I have proved the gravitational waves are produced by the planets motions energies and Not by any gravitational field

The Sun Is A Phenomenon Created By The Planets Motions- that explains how Newton Theory of the sun gravity caused to deceive the solar system vision.

(3)

My paper provides more massive proves – because the sun data depend on the planets data where the sun is created by the planets motions and the data proves this fact- also my paper explains the detailed process by which the planets motions energies cause to create the sun rays

FACT NO. (4)

Planet diameter is created by A Mathematical Equation and A Geometrical Rule. 

Again- the physics book is wrong because it tells (Planet diameter and data are created by random process, initial conditions and historical unknown factors) 

Not Fact

The planet data is created based on mathematical equations and geometrical rules

The airplane industry helps to understand, the manufacturer needs exact equations to define the airplane length, width, weight and all dimensions - otherwise this airplane can't fly safely- similar to that- the planet creation data (diameter, mass and all data) have to be defined based on exact equations otherwise this planet can't move safely-

Shortly

I have 5 equations can conclude all the planets data theoretically– let's see my planet diameter equation

PLANET DIAMETER EQUATION (my 4th Equation)

(v1/ v2) = (s/r) =I

v1 = planet velocity in second

v2 = another planet velocity in second

r  = Planet Diameter

s  = The Planet Rotation Periods Number In Its Orbital Period 

(This value is belonged to the planet whose diameter is "r") 

I  = Planet Orbital Inclination (of the planet whose diameter is "r")

v2, s, r and I are belonged to one planet and v1 is belonged to another planet

The planet (v1) is defined by test the minimum error 

Earth Equation uses Neptune velocity

Mars Equation uses Pluto velocity

Jupiter Equation uses the Earth moon velocity

Saturn Equation uses Mars velocity

Uranus Equation uses Neptune velocity (As Earth)

Neptune Equation uses Saturn velocity

Pluto Equation uses the Earth moon velocity (As Jupiter)

Notice / (The Equation Works From The Earth To Pluto Only)

(The discussion explains the reason)

Example / Neptune Equation (89143 /49528) = 9.7/ 5.4 =1.8                 

89143                   = Neptune rotation periods number in Neptune orbital period

49528 km   = Neptune diameter

9.7 km/s      = Saturn velocity

5.4 km/s      = Neptune velocity

59800 days = Neptune orbital period (and Neptune rotation period =16.1 hours)

1.8 degrees = Neptune Orbital Inclination

Shortly, Planets diameters are created by mathematical equation and by geometrical rules, no random process nor unknown factors had effect on them-  

NOTICE

My planet orbital distance (my 1st equation) proves each planet orbit depends on its neighbor orbit and not on this planet mass (The Gravitation Equation Refutation)

PLANET ORBITAL DISTANCE EQUATION (my 1st Equation)

(d^2= 4 d0 (d-d0))

d = A Planet Orbital Distance

d0= Its Direct Previous Neighbor Planet Orbital Distance

The equation depends on the planets order, just 2 neighbor planets can be used

The equation exceptions are, Earth depends on Mercury Not Venus – and Mars depends on Venus Not Earth And Pluto depends on Uranus Not Neptune

All planets orbits depend on the equation form

Example-  Venus Orbit

(108.2)2 = 4 x 57.9 x (50.3)                                 

57.9 million km and 108.2 million km are Mercury and Venus Orbital Distances Respectively and (50.3 million km = The Distance Between them)

The equation clearly neglect the planet mass- the planet orbit depends on its neighbor also this is logical because the planets order force each planet for its orbit- Newton concept of the gravitation equation was wrong.

FACT NO. (5)

Mars Itself Caused The Earth Moon Creation -

Giant-impact hypothesis is wrong

Mars original orbit was between Mercury and Venus with original orbital distance =84 million km and Mars had migrated into Mars current orbital distance (227.9 million km)

Through Mars motion from (84 mkm) to (227.9 mkm), Mars had collided with Venus (at first) and then with Earth (at second) and then reach to its current orbital distance point (227.9 mkm).

Mars had moved from (84 mkm) to (227.9 mkm) under force for that Mars had pushed with it all collisions debris in its motion direction

By that Venus had found NO Debris Around – For That- Venus Couldn't Create Its own Moon – that answers (why does Venus have No Moon?)

From these collisions debris the Earth could create its own moon and also Mars moons are created from them and the rest debris are attracted by Jupiter Gravity and Created The Asteroid Belt.

Means,

Mars itself had collided with Earth and caused the moon creation

The planets order (Mercury – Mars- Venus –Earth) proves Mars was the second planet after Mercury

My diameter equation proves Mars original orbit was between Venus and Mercury because Mars diameter is created based on its original orbit and for that this original orbit data is found in Mars diameter equation-

Notice /Pluto Was The Mercury Moon and had migrated with Mars migration- the same one reason caused the two planets migration, 

Shortly One great force stroke Mercury, Pluto and Mars, in order

Means, Mercury had received the most strong stroke directly, Mercury couldn't escape from its fate. But Mercury axial tilt was (One Degree) and after the stroke be (0.01 Degree or even Zero)!

The third stroke be received by Mars by which Mars had Migrated

The second stroke be received by Pluto, which caused Pluto to be flying along the solar system and reach to the end point of the solar system (5906 million km)

In that time Neptune orbital distance was 5906 mkm

Means, Neptune was in the position in which Pluto now be found.

Pluto had flying along the solar system distance and reach to Neptune position, and had collided with Neptune, pushed it out of its orbit and then put it out of (Pluto Influence area) – That's why Pluto Neptune Distance = Pluto eccentricity Distance

Pluto was as large as Mercury itself but the collision with Neptune caused to break the planet almost into 2 parts (Pluto and its moons)

FACT NO. (6)

Why Is The Orbital Apogee Radius = 406000 Km?

The moon daily displacement =88000 km and during 29.53 days (the moon day period) the displacements total be = 2.598 million km = 2π x 413600 km

The data tells us the moon orbital apogee radius should be 413600 km and also it tells, because the moon daily displacement (88000 km) is so long, the moon should revolve around the Earth through this apogee orbit its radius (413600 km) only and can't revolve around the Earth through any more near orbit…

Not Facts

The moon orbital apogee radius =406000 km only and the moon revolves around the Earth through near orbits and can reach to perigee radius (363000 km). 

How Can The Moon Do That?

The intelligent moon creates an angle (θ) between its motion direction and its orbit horizontal level by that the real displacement (L) through the orbit be less than (88000 km) because it be (L = 88000 km cos θ), as a result the total displacements be less than (2.598 million km) and that makes the moon orbital apogee radius to be decreased from 413600 km to 406000 km.

We should pay attention for the angle (θ), because this angle controls the moon motion features – where- with the angle (θ) increasing the real displacement (L) be shorter and the moon can revolve around the Earth through more near orbits – but –with the angle (θ) deceasing the real displacement (L) be longer and that pushes the moon far from the Earth to more far orbits.

The moon orbital motion depends on this angle (θ) it tells ��1 = θ0 +1.7

where (θ1) = today angle and (θ0) =yesterday angle

1.7 degrees be used as the moon daily motion degrees for the equation

Notice

This effect is found by Venus motion effect on the moon motion-

Shortly- the moon orbital period= the moon rotation period =27.3 days (NOT because of Any Tidal Locking) but because of Venus Motion effect on the moon motion- the paper proves this fact in details.

FACT NO. (7)

The Matter Is Not Motionless By Nature

I have three proves for this fact

(1st Proof)

No Planet moves by the sun gravity (Newton is wrong)- because- the planet moves by the force caused its creation- means- the planet creation and motion is done by One Force Only Otherwise this planet would be broken by effect of 2 forces on it–

 

(2nd Proof)

The space and matter are created from the same energy- the matter creates a distinguish picture for itself-

Shortly

If we suppose the space is similar to the sea of water, the matter be similar to a whirlpool or a vortex found on the sea page- means- the matter is a geometrical design has a distinguished picture from the space- as the whirlpool, it's created from the sea water but it has a distinguish picture from the sea waves picture

The whirlpool is carried by the waves motion- and- the matter is carried by its original energy and moves with it- No Mass gravity is required for the matter motion- means- the matter is MOVABLE by nature.

The whirlpool dimensions are defined by the water motion - for example- we have a whirlpool its diameter is (2 meters)- this diameter is defined by the sea water motion velocity, its pressure and other motion features- by that- the water motion analysis explains how the whirlpool dimensions are created

Also- the whirlpool is created but the creation requirements are needed every day- means- even if this whirlpool is found since years it can be changed immediately if the water motion features are changed- means- the whirlpool creation process is NOT a historical one.

Also - the matter is similar to a creature muscle, the muscle is found based on the blood motion and without this motion the muscle can be changed or removed.

Shortly -the energy was moving and from this energy the matter is created and for that the matter dimensions are in harmony with the motion features- and the produced matter moves with the original energy from which the matter is created

(3rd Proof)

My planet diameter equation proves the planet diameter (matter) is created depending on its motion (velocity) – means- the motion was found before the matter creation –

Let's see the planet diameter equation 

Planet Diameter Equation tells ((v1/v2)=(s/r)=I)

(v= planet velocity, r= planet diameter, I= planet orbital inclination, and s= planet rotation periods number in its orbital period- the factors v2,s,r and I are belonged to one planet and v1 is belonged to another planet) (we discussed this equation before)

The equation proves the planet diameter definition depends on its velocity means the matter creation depends on its motion- proves the motion is defined before the creation- the sea whirlpool perfectly is created by this concept-   

FACT NO. (8)

The Planets Motions Use Different Rates Of Time

(Point A)

Why Do The Planets Motions Use Different Rates Of Time?

The planets matters and their distances are created from one energy- this energy is provided by One Light Beam- The planets are similar to geometrical points found on this one light beam- by that the planets are similar to knots (or nodes) on ONE rope or cable.  

The planets are carried on this light beam and move by this light motion

By that- The Planets Are Similar To Carriages In One Train- and the light beam motion is this train engine- the light moves carrying all planets with it- 

Light moves one motion and passes one distance in one period of time- The planets have to move this same motion and pass this same distance in this same period of time- BUT –

The planets velocities are less than light velocity for that the planets use rates of time for their motions– by the rates of time using- the planets move equal distances in equal periods of time and this distance equal also the light motion distance.

(Point B)

How Do The Planets Motions Use Different Rates Of Time?

The Rate is (One Second Of Light Clock = One Solar Day Of A Planet Clock)

By this rate the planets move depend on the light motion

The Rate between the planets is (One hour Of Mercury Clock = 24 hours of Any Planet Clock)

Based on this rate the planets motions are unified together into One Unified Motion

The used rate is (One Day Of The Sun Clock = 365.25 Days Of The Earth Clock)

By This Rate The Sun Rays Is Created By The Planets Motions Energies

The Rate Of Time= The Velocities Rate- and the rate of time controls the moving energy amount from a point to another.

(Point C)

What's The Result Of The Rates Of Time Using?  

The Sun Is Not Doing Nuclear Fusion To Produce Its Rays- Instead- The Sun Rays Is Created By The Planets Motions Energies – let's explain that -

(i)

The planets are created from the light energy and the light energy is consumed in this creation– for that - the planets motions should produce light beam to create a cycle of energy.

(ii)

The planet motion energy (amount) is less than the light beam energy for that– (First) the planets motions energies are unified into one unified energy- (second) The planets accumulate their motions energies by using different rates of time

(iii)

In Details- the planets motions distances total in a solar day = 17.75 million km (This Total For The 9 Planets Motions + The Earth Moon Motion) – the planets motions distances total (17.75 mkm) during 1461 solar days = 25920 million km equal= light (300000 km/s) motion distance in one solar day (86400 seconds)- means

One Day of the Sun = 365.25 Days of the Earth and by the Earth cycle (365 +365 +365+366) the rate be (one day of the sun clock=1461 days of the planets clock)- The planets motions energies total during 1461 days is accumulated together and used by the sun in (one solar day)-

(The paper explains in details how the rates of time cause to accumulate the energy from which the sun rays is created)

FACT NO. (9)

There Are Relativistic Effects Be Found In The Solar System

 The relativistic effects existence proves a motion by speed of light is found in the solar system –

DETAILS

The velocity 297000 km (=99% of speed of light) causes Lorentz length contraction effect with a rate (7.1)- BUT- this rate is used with a modification

(7.1/100) + 1 = 1.0725 - this rate proves the relativistic effects existence- because

This rate controls around 40% Of All Data In The Solar System –as the following data proves- no explanation for it except Lorentz length contraction effect-  

DATA No. (1) 

(243/224.7) = (29.53/27.3) = (27.3/25.4)= 1.0725 –where

243 And 224.7 Days Are Venus Rotation And Orbital Periods  

29.53 And 27.3 Days Are The Moon Orbital And Day Periods

25.4 Days The Sun Rotation Period.

DATA No. (2) 

(778.6/721)=(721/670)= (670/629)=(1433/1325)=(1284/1205)= (2872/2644)= 1.0725

These are distances measured in millions km – let's define them

778.6, 721, 670 and 629 are the distances between Jupiter and the sun, Mercury, Venus and the Earth respectively.

1433, 1325, 1284, 1025 are the distances between Saturn and the sun, Venus, the Earth and Mars respectively.

2872 and 2644 are the distances between Uranus and the sun and Mars respectively.

DATA No. (3) 

629 million km (The Earth Jupiter distance)= (1.0725)^2 x 551 million km (Jupiter Mars Distance)

4495.1 million km (Neptune Orbital Distance) =1.0725 x 2 x 2094 million km (Jupiter Uranus Distance)

5906 million km (Pluto Orbital Distance) = (1.0725)^2 x 5127 million km (Jupiter Pluto Distance)

5127 million km (Jupiter Pluto Distance)= (1.0725)^2 x 4437 million km (Mercury Neptune Distance)

2.574 million km (Earth motion distance daily) = 1.0725 x 2.4 million km (TheMoon Orbital Circumference)

(around 40% of all distances in the solar system are effected be 1.0725)

DATA No. (4) 

(28.3/26.7)=(26.7/25.2)= (25.2/23.4)=(122.5/113.4)=(97.8/91.3)= 1.0725

The values (28.3 degrees, 26.7 degrees, 25.2 degrees, 23.4 degrees) are the axial tilts of (Neptune, Saturn, Mars and the Earth) respectively –

The values (122.5 degrees, 97.8 degrees) are the axial tilts of Pluto and Uranus

113.4 degrees =90 deg +23.4 deg and 91.3 deg =90 deg+ 1.3 deg (Jupiter orbital inclination)

DATA No. (5) 

300000 km =7.1 x (205.8)^2

Where

The 9 planets velocities total is 176 km/s+ the moon velocity 29.8 km/s =205.8 km/s

(the moon velocity = the Earth velocity because they revolve around the sun together)

7.1 is Lorentz Length Contraction Effect (for a velocity 0.99 speed of  light)

That shows the planets velocities total is defined based on the speed of light (300000 km/s) and that causes to find the high velocity motion in the solar system by which these relativistic effects are produced.

This Is Extraordinary: Gravity Can Create Light, All on Its Own

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsnHYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"&HYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604HYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"&HYPERLINK "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83"ei=83

This new article tells the gravitational waves can move by high velocity motion and can produce a light beam

The article tells massive motion energy is found in the solar system and this energy cause a high  velocity motion to be found in the solar system –

(I proved the gravitational waves are produced by the planets motions energies and not by any gravitational field) 

FACT NO. (10)

Planet Velocity Depends On Speed Of Light

 

How Is Planet Velocity Defined?

Let's try to answer this question

DATA

My fifth equation tells (v1v2=322)- the planets velocities prove it – let's see that in following..  

322 = 47.4 km/s (Mercury velocities)  x 6.8 km/s  (Uranus velocities)                            

322 = 35 km/s  (Venus velocity) x 4.7 km/s (Pluto velocity) x 2                   

322 = 29.8 km/s (the Earth velocity) x 5.4 km/s (Neptune velocities) x 2   

322 = 24.1 km/s (Mars velocity) x 13.1 km/s (Jupiter velocity)                      

322 = (17.9 km/s)^2 (Ceres velocity) (Max error 2%)

DATA ANALYSIS

The previous data tells the planets velocities are defined by two features

(1st Feature)

The planets velocities are complementary one another –means - each planet velocity is complementary with another planet – means– The planets velocities are defined in pairs and not in single planets. 

(NOTICE, the inner planets orbital inclinations are defined by the rule (v1/v2), for example, Mercury orbital inclination 7 deg = Mercury velocity 47.4/ Uranus velocity 6.8- that proves the effect of the rule (v1v2=322) on the planet motion)

(2nd Feature)

Why the constant is 322 because

1160000 seconds = 322 hours – means- there's a light velocity = 1.16 million km /s and this light moves for one second passes 1160000 km but we see this distance as a period (1160000 seconds =322 hours)- and - the planets velocities are defined based on this velocity 1.16 million km /s (I proved this light beam velocity is found) 

Discussion

Ceres velocity tells the idea - Ceres is used as the origin point - as a result the outer planets be complementary with the inner planets – for that the rule (v1v2=322) controls the planets velocities.

(a)

The planets velocities are created based on one design- Ceres velocity is used as the origin point for this design

(b)

The planets velocities definition depend on the speed of light 300000 km/s

Let's prove that –

The 9 planets velocities total is 176 km/s (I add the Earth moon velocity 29.8 km/s)

The 10 planets velocities total is 205.8 km/s

300000 km = 7.1 x (205.8)^2

A velocity 297000 km (99% speed of light) causes Lorentz length contraction effect with the rate 7.1

The velocity (205.8 km/s) moves during 205.8 seconds a distance 42253 km

Where 300000 = 7.1 x 42253 km BUT 42253 = (205.8)^2

(c)

The squared value (205.8)^2 can be explained by the rate of time idea discussion– Let's do it here

The planet motion uses a rate of time- it depends on the velocities rate- for example- Mercury velocity = 1.6 the Earth velocity- that means – one hour of Mercury clock = 1.6 hours of the Earth clock- (Why?) My Paper answers This Question-

Now- let's use the rate of time to explain the data  

The rate of time = the rate of velocities

If – For example – Venus (35 km/s) moves relative to a stationary point (its velocity 1 km/s)- in this case– the rate of time would be (1 =35) means – one second of Venus Clock= 35 seconds of this stationary point velocity     

Now – let's try with our data

42253 =(205.8)^

Suppose the planets motion are unified into one motion- means- there's a moving point its velocity = the planets velocities total –

Shortly- there's a moving point its velocity =205.8 km/s

This moving point moves relative to a stationary point its velocity =1 km/s (The stationary point velocity should be Zero but of course I use 1 km/s because the Zero will cause difficulties for the rate of time- by that – the stationary point be approximately Zero =1 km/s)

By that- The moving point 205.8 km/s creates a rate of time with the stationary point which is (one second of the moving point 205.8 km/s be equal = 205.8 seconds of the stationary point 1 km/s)

But still we can't reach to the value (42253 = (205.8)^2)!

In fact– the energy is reflected in the solar system- and that caused to reflect the players- for that-

which is (one second of the stationary point 1 km/s be = 205.8 seconds of the moving point 205.5 km/s)

based on that-

During one second of the stationary point clock , the moving point clock moves 205.8 seconds and the moving point (205.8 km/s) moves during 205.58 seconds 42253 km 

Here we see how the planets velocities total depends on the speed of light –

Means- the designer created the planets velocities based on the speed of light 300000 km/s but he uses unknown geometrical rules for us- for that we can't see the planets velocities dependency on the speed of light

Notice

Let's refer to the moving point 205.8 km/s – what's this point?

Planet motion energy creates wave in the space- this wave is similar to the sea waves they move far from its source and can be reflected.

Means- each planet motion creates a wave in the space moves by its velocity – for Example – Mercury motion creates a wave in the space moves by Mercury velocity 47.4 km/s, this wave can move far from Mercury and can be reflected-

All planets motions create similar waves

Then these waves are unified into one wave its velocity = the planets velocities total =205.8 km/s 

Means- while the planets revolve around the sun, there's one wave in the space revolves also around the sun, and this wave velocity = 205.8 km/s

I try to show that – there are many geometrical tools in the soar system we don't know and for that we couldn't discover the fact tells (Planet velocity is defined based on the speed of light)

FACT NO. (11)

How Is The Solar Planet Created?

Let's summarize the idea in following

The solar system energy total is found in one wave moves by a velocity 300000 km/s

Means- the solar system is one wave moves by speed of light (300000 km/s)

Now

The Solar System needs To Create A Stationary Point (Its velocity Zero) relative to the moving wave (its velocity is 300000 km/s)

This is the basic information in the solar system design-

The solar system needs to create a stationary point relative to the wave motion- by that – two velocities will be found which are (v1= the wave its velocity 300000 km/s) and (v2= Zero= the stationary point velocity relative to the wave motion) – these two velocities produce a relative motion with different velocity 300000 km/s– this relative motion is the solar system design cornerstone

Now – let's create this stationary point in the solar system motion

The system uses two procedures which are- 

(ii)

The first procedure

The wave its velocity 300000 km/s revolves around a point in space (any point in space), the revolution motion creates 2 equal velocities on both sides of the revolution- the two velocities are equal in value and opposite in direction- their total be equal Zero-means- the revolution motion causes to create a stationary point in the center of the revolution. 

The second procedure

The previous idea is correct- but –the velocity 300000 km/s is a huge one and to decrease it to Zero velocity this is a complex process – for that- the wave (300000 km/s) created small waves with low velocities to use them as steps to decrease the velocity to Zero- the small waves are The Planets- (The planet is a small wave moves by low velocity relative to the unified wave its velocity 300000 km/s) 

Why Are These Small Waves Required?

Because the velocity 300000 km/s is decreased to Zero by using these small waves and their low velocities- the low velocities are used as steps to decrease the unified wave velocity (300000 km/s) to be (Zero)- this process decreases the velocity gradually from 300000 km/s to Zero depending on these small waves velocities (the planets velocities)  

Means- the planets are created for this process to decrease the wave velocity from 300000 km/s to Zero- and The Planet Is A Small Wave Moves By Low Velocity  

Shortly – the solar system has one complete system of velocities, Starting from Zero to 300000 km/s where the planets velocities are the steps between the two velocities – let's prove that here

300000 km = 7.1 x (205.8)^2 where - 7.1 is Lorentz length contraction effect for velocity 297000 km/s (99% of speed of light)

205.8 km/s = the 9 planets velocities total (176 km/s) + the Earth moon velocity

(The moon velocity =29.8 km/s = the Earth velocity because they revolve together)

Why does the data use the squared value (205.8)^2?

Let's answer in following

(1)

The planets are geometrical points on the same light beam and move with its motion- for that- the planets velocities rates creates rates of time– for example-  Mercury velocity = 1.6 the Earth velocity- that means – one hour of Mercury clock = 1.6 hours of the Earth clock- Why??

Because Mercury and the Earth are carried by the same one light beam- the light moves one motion and passes one distance in one period of time- by that Mercury and the Earth have to move this same motion and to pass this same distance in this same period of time- but the two planets velocities are different- for that- the planets use different rates of time based on their velocities rates and by that the planets move equal distances in the same period of time –

Now- the velocity (205.8 km/s) move relative to the stationary point (Zero) and creates a rate of time (1 second = 205.8 seconds) – that explains why the value (205.8) is squared in the equation (300000 = 7.1 x 205.8^2) - That also proves the planets velocities are defined based on the speed of light 300000 km/s - 

FACT NO. (12)

One Hour Of The Sun Clock = 365 Hours Of The Earth Clock

Let's write the idea as a hypothesis and I will prove it later

(1)

10921 km (the moon circumference) x 86400 s (the solar day) = 940 million km 

(940 million km = The Earth Orbital Circumference)

The equation tells- if the Earth revolves around the sun a complete revolution in one day, the moon circumference will be equal the Earth motion distance in one second.

The Earth revolves around the sun in one year- so – this rate of time is belonged to the sun means (one day of the sun clock = 365.25 days of the Earth clock)-

If this meaning is correct- Can We Know The Reason?

(2)

Another data can help us

The planets motions distances total per solar day = 17.75 million km

(This total includes the Earth moon motion distance which equal the Earth distance)

During 1461 days the distances total be (1461 days x 17.75 million km)= 25920 million km – where

Light (300000 km/s) travels in one day (86400 seconds) a distance=25920 million km

Means- the planets motions distances total in the period (1461 days) equal light motion distance in one solar day. (The Earth cycle 1461 days= 365 +365 +365 +366)

Shortly- If (one day of the Sun clock = 365.25 days of the Earth clock) and by the Earth cycle effect the rate be (one day of the Sun clock = 1461 days of the planets unified motion)- that would cause the planets motions relative to the sun to be similar to light motion relative to a stationary point- means-a different velocity=300000 km/s be created between the two motions- Why Is This Different Velocity Required?

(3)

The Sun Rays Is Created By The Planets Motions Energies Total – Means - The Sun Is Not Doing Nuclear Fusion To Produce Its Rays – instead - The Planets Motions Energies are accumulated and used as the source of The Sun Rays

The sun is a phenomenon created by the planets motions energies- and the sun is created after all planets creation and motion- thousands of data similar to the provided 2 examples prove this fact and discussed in my paper- the sun is a phenomena and its life and death depends on a cycle by that after this current sun death another sun will be created for the solar system- the planets motions energies are accumulated by using the rates of time to provide the required energy for the sun rays creation process-

FACT NO. (13)

Mars Will Collide With The Earth And Cause The Greatest Catastrophe

The Earth is close to its greatest Catastrophe but the science deceives the humanity

The Sun Is a phenomenon created by The Planets Motions Energies– The Sun Rays Is Created By The Planets Motions Energies Total- and the sun life and death depends on a cycle- means- after this current sun will be dead another sun will be created for the solar system- and

The Sun existence prevent any planet to change its orbit and prevent any new planet to be added to the solar group (I prove that in my paper)

The sun life cycle is ending soon and changes in motions will be happened as a result

Specifically-

After This Current Sun Death And Before The New Sun Birth- Mars would return to its original orbit (between Mercury and Venus)-

In This Journey Mars Would Collide With The Moon And Break It -   

Then –

Mars will reach to its original orbit between Mercury and Venus and stay there– but

Because

Of The New Sun Birth- Mars would migrate one more time from its original orbit (Between Mercury and Venus) to its current orbit 228 million km 

In Mars Migration, Mars would collide with Venus (at first) and then with the Earth 

The collision between Mars and the Earth would cause the greatest earthquake in the Earth history (continuous for hours)

BUT- More bad things will be happened after the earthquake

The Earth atmosphere gases will be pushed inside the Earth itself as a result for the collision between the Earth and Mars- and these gases will kill all life over the land – the sea lives will be still in the planet- that's happened before in the dinosaurs time where they all killed by gases.  

Gerges Francis Tawdrous +201022532292

Physics Department-  Physics & Mathematics  Faculty 

Peoples' Friendship university of Russia – Moscow   (2010-2013)

Curriculum Vitae                 https://www.academia.edu/s/b88b0ecb7c

E-mail                            mrwaheid@gmail.com, mrwaheid1@yahoo.com

                                      gergesgerges@yandex.ru                   

ORCID                          https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1041-7147

Facebook                       https://www.facebook.com/gergis.tawadrous

VK                                 https://vk.com/id696655587

Tumblr                           https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsgerges 

Researcherid                   https://publons.com/researcher/3510834/gerges-tawadrous/

Google                                https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2Y4ZdTUAAAAJ&hl=en

Livejournal                     https://gerges2022.livejournal.com/profile

Pocket                                                                     https://getpocket.com/@646g8dZ0p3aX5Ad1bsTr4d9THjA5p6a5b2fX99zd54g221E4bs76eBdtf6aJw5d0?src=navbar

PUBLICATIONS

box                                https://app.box.com/s/47fwd0gshir636xt0i3wpso8lvvl8vnv

Academia                       https://rudn.academia.edu/GergesTawadrous

List of publications         http://vixra.org/author/gerges_francis_tawdrous

Slideshare                             https://www.slideshare.net/Gergesfrancis

[9thgateofgay]

Gravitational Pull

Short and sweet little kakagai blurb I wrote a couple months ago, back when I was first getting into the ship and wasn't feeling confident enough to contribute to the tag yet, lol. It's a bit unpolished and probably borders on purple-prose but HEY I had fun and that's what matters

Gai's the mighty waves of the ocean, churning with passion. Kakashi is the moon, and Kakashi recognizes this.

Writing under the cut!

--

Gai’s the mighty waves of the ocean. 

Powerful and intense, churning with passion like a raging tsunami; calm and serene when he needs to be, like a relaxing, warm afternoon on the beach; can mould and shape rock into capable shinobi, like tides carving boulders over centuries.

And yet, it’s not done alone– the mighty ocean can’t ebb and flow without aid. Can’t rise and fall on the shores without the moon. Pushed and pulled by the moon’s gravitational pull, fully motivated by the moon’s movements around the earth and its intense draw.

Kakashi is the moon, and Kakashi recognizes this; he understands he has a certain allure to him, like a full moon does on a starry, cloudless, cool night. He understands he’s mysterious and attracts many towards him– friend and enemy alike. He has his secrets, and he has his scars, like the moon has its craters. 

And like the moon, far, far away in isolated, quiet, vast space, Kakashi thought he was enough on his own. He thought he was all he needed. He thought being alone was for the better. Untouchable. Unreachable, because if he distanced himself, anybody who tried would freeze and perish in the cold abyss of space in their desperate attempts. Surely, surely being out of reach will deter anyone from getting too close. Surely he’d thrive in isolation.

But in reality, he learns, the moon doesn’t stay stagnant in space, nor does it travel in a linear path– the Earth pulls it in. Keeps it in orbit, in a path, in a routine, keeps it from straying too far away.

Full moons are brilliant; new moons try to escape the naked eye, try to disappear; they try to run from their burdens, their pasts. 

And yet, the Earth loves the moon’s many phases anyway, yearns to study its beauty, has a special appreciation for and understanding of each of its phases, from full to waning, to new, then back to waxing, then full again. 

Gai is Kakashi's Earth.

Gai is there every step of the way. On the good days, on the mediocre days, on the horrid days where everything becomes too much.

Gai keeps Kakashi on his path– keeps him balanced and in orbit, like the Earth to the moon. Pulls him in tight when Kakashi feels like straying and hiding away. 

Kakashi reveals this to Gai one day.

Gai, of course, ever competitive against his rival, insists that if he himself is the Earth, then surely Kakashi must be the sun, rather than the moon– surely Kakashi’s the sun, the sole object providing the Earth its warmth and life!

(This, of course, is insisted upon by Gai through fountains of joyous tears.)

--

Not the angst I teased earlier, but that's just because I'm too tired and my brain is too fried to come up with anything new LOL so have this cheesy, dramatic nonsense instead <3

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Hubble finds a field of stars

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called NGC 1651. Like another recent globular cluster image, NGC 1651 is about 162,000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

One notable feature of this image is that the roughly 120-light-year diameter globular cluster nearly fills the entire frame. In contrast, other Hubble images feature entire galaxies—which can be tens or hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter—that also more or less fill the whole image.

A common misconception is that Hubble and other large telescopes observe wildly differently sized celestial objects by zooming in on them, as one would with a specialized camera here on Earth. While small telescopes might have the option to zoom in and out to a certain extent, large telescopes do not. Each telescope's instrument has a fixed 'field of view' (the size of the region of sky that it can observe in a single observation).

For example, the ultraviolet/visible light channel of Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the channel and instrument that collected the data used in this image, has a field of view roughly one-twelfth the diameter of the moon as seen from Earth. When WFC3 makes an observation, its field of view is the size of the region of the sky that it can observe.

The reason that Hubble can observe objects of such wildly different sizes is two-fold. First, the distance to an object will determine how big it appears from Earth, so entire galaxies that are relatively far away might take up the same amount of space in the sky as a globular cluster like NGC 1651, which is relatively close by.

In fact, there's a distant spiral galaxy lurking in this image, directly left of the cluster—though undoubtedly much larger than this star cluster, it appears small enough here to blend in with foreground stars! Secondly, image processors can stitch together multiple images spanning different parts of the sky into a mosaic to create a single image of objects that are too big for Hubble's field of view.