#gout relief

[alaa1969]

The Natural Wonder: Stinging Nettles - Your Solution to Arthritis, Gout, and Rheumatism

[codbrand]

Montalin Capsules in Islamabad Contact Now 03278006822

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Treating gout

  Overcoming stiff as a result of the work day

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Helps to maintain Stamina that makes people Live Longer.

With a complex of traditional herbs MontaliN advanced bioactives target both structure and function of natural joint motion to help balance out joint stressors, daily wear and tear, and the “overworking” of an active lifestyle so even morning stiffness goes unnoticed.

Comes in sachets, 4 capsules per sachet,???? Will be send first class flat as a letter with original box folded.

[diseaseinfohub]

How to Stop Gout Pain at Night

To alleviate gout pain at night, there are several steps you can take. Firstly, elevate the affected joint by propping it up with pillows or cushions to help reduce swelling and discomfort. Applying a cold compress or ice pack to the area can also help numb the pain and reduce inflammation. It is essential to stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water, as dehydration can worsen gout symptoms. Avoiding alcohol and foods high in purines, such as red meat, seafood, and organ meats, can also be beneficial. Lastly, taking prescribed medications or over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs as directed by a healthcare professional can provide additional relief from gout pain at night.

[iq4u-health-wellness]

(via Joint problems – Types, Causes & Prevention)

[crowderhorner48]

Gout Treatment - What Are the Secret Variables to Dealing With Gout?

When it pertains to treating gout pain, the essential variables to consider are diet and also medicine. Some of the usual therapies are NSAIDs, Glucocorticoids, as well as COX-2 discerning inhibitors. On top of that, there are some points you can do to stop gout pain from repeating. NSAIDs Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) are a course of substance abuse to decrease inflammation and also discomfort in several conditions. However, they are associated with cardio and renal damaging impacts. Therefore, they must be booked for brief training courses of therapy. NSAIDs might be administered intramuscularly or orally. They are readily available in common kinds and also are frequently suggested for severe gout arthritis flare. The overall dose of the medicine can vary from 25 to 50 mg 4 times daily. Relying on patient background and also physical condition, they may be favored over glucocorticoids in certain patients. When utilizing NSAIDs to treat an intense gout pain strike, initiate therapy as soon as possible. This will enhance discomfort and also reduce swelling. Generally, treatment lasts for 5-7 days. As soon as the signs and symptoms have diminished, NSAIDs should be discontinued. find it on yulibu -2 careful preventions COX-2 careful inhibitors are a sort of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine (NSAID). These are used to treat intense gout pain and joint inflammation. They have less adverse impacts than traditional NSAIDs as well as supply discomfort alleviation. Nevertheless, these medicines have actually been connected to abscess in the belly. They might also create stomach bleeding. In addition, they can boost the danger of cardiovascular disease and stroke. Consequently, they ought to be used with care in patients with coronary artery illness, peptic ulcer, or various other intestinal diseases. Standard NSAIDs such as advil, naproxen, as well as colchicine are typically utilized to soothe the discomfort as well as inflammation of acute gout arthritis. However, there is proof that COX-2 discerning preventions can be much more efficient. Scientist checked out the efficacy of coxibs, which have a sulfone-substituted pyrazole ring, in dealing with acute gout. Glucocorticoids

If you're experiencing an acute gout pain flare, you must start treatment immediately. The treatment may be administered through oral drugs, intramuscular injection, or intraarticular injection. Gout is an inflammatory reaction to crystals in the joints. It can be set off by lots of elements, consisting of first degree relatives, supplements, and emotional tension. To soothe the pain of an acute gout pain flare, you can use glucocorticoids. However, you should understand the potential side effects of these drugs, particularly high blood pressure. In some patients, glucocorticoids can be more reliable than NSAIDs. This is based upon the results of relative studies. Intraarticular glucocorticoids are manufactured medicines that are injected into the joint. They have been made use of for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid joint inflammation, however there are no randomized trials of them in gout arthritis. Corticotropin Corticotropin is an antiinflammatory representative that has been made use of in gout treatment for numerous years. It acts peripherally by activating the melanocortin kind 3 receptor. Melanocortins have powerful anti-inflammatory buildings. Gout treatment can be challenging. Older people as well as hospitalized individuals are a lot more tough to deal with, while an individual's comorbidities might likewise make complex treatment. Other elements that can influence the selection of treatment include the individual's professional condition, number of affected joints, and also clinical setting. In the first 24 hr of a gout pain flare, NSAIDs are the most efficient. These medicines can be taken orally, intraarticularly, or in tablet form. The complete duration of therapy is generally 5-7 days. Nonetheless, in some clients, this period might be longer. An additional option for intense gout treatment is colchicine. This medicine has a practical course of administration, is offered in reduced doses, and also is risk-free. Colchicine can be carried out by mouth or intramuscularly. Dietary changes A healthy diet can be a part of a gout treatment program. It can decrease the number of gout pain strikes as well as help you remain in remission. The very best diet regimen for gout is one that consists of all the food groups as well as is low in processed active ingredients. A gout pain diet plan can consist of vegetables, fruits, beans, as well as entire grains. They can also include essential nutrients. Some foods that can be prevented are meats and also sugary beverages. A gout-friendly diet plan should be made a habit. It can aid prevent future flares as well as permit you to maintain a healthy and balanced weight. You need to drink great deals of fluids as well as consume a wide array of healthy and balanced foods. Gout arthritis is a condition that results from down payments of uric acid crystals in the joints. People who have gout usually have a difficult time managing their uric acid levels. Treatment can contain medications, a gout-friendly diet regimen, as well as lifestyle adjustments. Laurik Herbal for Therapy Rheumatics Gouts Uric Acid Bone Joint Discomfort and also Reducing Cholesterol + Very efficient for rheumatics, uric acid, and gout treatment + Soothe stamina + Decreasing cholesterol You can get this herbal for gout treatment at yulibu marketplace.

[sampsoncorbett92]

Gout Treatment - What Are the Key Factors to Treating Gout Pain?

When it involves dealing with gout pain, the vital factors to consider are diet regimen and also drug. Several of the typical treatments are NSAIDs, Glucocorticoids, and also COX-2 selective preventions. In addition, there are some points you can do to prevent gout arthritis from persisting.

NSAIDs Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are a class of drugs used to minimize swelling and also pain in many conditions. Nevertheless, they are associated with cardio and kidney negative impacts. Consequently, they need to be scheduled for short programs of treatment. NSAIDs may be carried out intramuscularly or by mouth. They are offered in common forms and are frequently recommended for severe gout pain flare. The total dosage of the medicine can range from 25 to 50 mg four times daily. Relying on individual background and physical condition, they may be chosen over glucocorticoids in particular clients. When making use of NSAIDs to deal with a severe gout pain strike, initiate treatment asap. This will boost pain and minimize swelling. Normally, treatment lasts for 5-7 days. Once the signs have gone away, NSAIDs must be ceased. COX-2 discerning preventions COX-2 selective inhibitors are a type of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine (NSAID). These are used to treat intense gout arthritis as well as arthritis. They have fewer adverse impacts than typical NSAIDs and also provide discomfort alleviation. However, these medicines have actually been linked to abscess in the belly. They might also cause gastrointestinal blood loss. Furthermore, they can increase the danger of cardiovascular disease and stroke. As a result, they must be used with care in clients with coronary artery disease, peptic ulcer, or other stomach conditions. Conventional NSAIDs such as advil, naproxen, as well as colchicine are commonly made use of to soothe the discomfort as well as inflammation of intense gout pain. Nonetheless, there is evidence that COX-2 discerning preventions can be extra reliable. Researchers checked out the efficiency of coxibs, which have a sulfone-substituted pyrazole ring, in dealing with intense gout arthritis. Glucocorticoids If you're experiencing an intense gout arthritis flare, you must begin treatment as soon as possible. The therapy might be administered through oral drugs, intramuscular shot, or intraarticular shot. Gout is an inflammatory reaction to crystals in the joints. It can be caused by lots of factors, consisting of first degree family members, supplements, and also emotional tension. To eliminate gout medicine of a severe gout arthritis flare, you can make use of glucocorticoids. Nonetheless, you ought to recognize the potential negative effects of these medications, specifically high blood pressure. In some individuals, glucocorticoids can be extra efficient than NSAIDs. This is based on the outcomes of comparative studies. Intraarticular glucocorticoids are manufactured medications that are injected right into the joint. They have actually been used for osteoarthritis as well as rheumatoid joint inflammation, yet there are no randomized trials of them in gout arthritis. Corticotropin Corticotropin is an antiinflammatory agent that has actually been made use of in gout treatment for a number of decades. It acts peripherally by turning on the melanocortin kind 3 receptor. Melanocortins have powerful anti-inflammatory residential properties. Gout treatment can be hard. Older clients as well as hospitalized people are more tough to treat, while a client's comorbidities might additionally complicate therapy. Various other elements that can affect the choice of treatment include the patient's clinical condition, number of influenced joints, as well as scientific setup. In the initial 24 hours of a gout pain flare, NSAIDs are one of the most efficient. These medications can be taken orally, intraarticularly, or in tablet form. The total period of treatment is normally 5-7 days. However, in some individuals, this period may be longer. Another alternative for intense gout treatment is colchicine. This drug has a convenient path of management, is readily available in low doses, and also is safe. Colchicine can be provided by mouth or intramuscularly. Nutritional adjustments A healthy and balanced diet regimen can be a part of a gout treatment program. It can minimize the variety of gout assaults and aid you stay in remission. The very best diet for gout arthritis is one that includes all the food groups and also is reduced in processed components. A gout diet regimen can include veggies, fruits, beans, as well as entire grains. They can also consist of crucial minerals and vitamins. Some foods that can be avoided are meats and also sugary drinks. A gout-friendly diet must be made a routine. It can help protect against future flares as well as permit you to preserve a healthy weight. You ought to consume lots of fluids as well as eat a wide range of healthy foods. Gout pain is an illness that arises from down payments of uric acid crystals in the joints. Individuals that have gout arthritis normally have a difficult time regulating their uric acid levels. Therapy can contain drugs, a gout-friendly diet, and also lifestyle changes. Laurik Herbal for Therapy Rheumatics Gouts Uric Acid Bone Joint Pain as well as Reducing Cholesterol + Extremely efficient for rheumatics, uric acid, and gout treatment + Eliminate endurance + Lowering cholesterol You can get this herbal for gout treatment at yulibu marketplace.

[treason-and-plot]

Wednesday 10.37 am

Roy’s work day usually begins with him phoning or video-calling as many of his clients as his schedule allows; today looks like being a good day as not a single one of his flock is facing any new lawsuits, nor has anybody been cancelled on social media in the past twenty-four hours. The best news of all is that his star basketball player Otiene Henare’s groin injury is finally on the mend. Otiene sustained the injury three weeks ago in a game against the Twinbrook Tigers and has been out of action ever since, but his mother Carleen tells Roy in a voice emotional with relief that Otiene’s medical team has given him the all-clear to play this Saturday. Roy feels a little bit emotional too; Otiene is not only his mother’s ticket to a cushy retirement but probably twenty other people’s meal tickets too, himself included. He’s just finished chatting with Harrison Steiner when Celine knocks on his door. She waltzes into the room without waiting for him to answer, and announces that his lunchtime meeting with his boss Gus and several of the firm’s lawyers and accountants has been postponed because Gus woke up this morning with a bad attack of gout. 

"Booyah!" whoops Roy, punching the air.

"Your concern for Gus’ condition is so touching,” says Celine.

“Hopefully the old fart will be off for the rest of the week,” says Roy. “Hey, what are you doing for lunch? Do you want to check out that new restaurant down by the waterfront? Alec reckons their smoked trout is life-changing.“

“Thank you very much for the offer, but I’m having lunch with my boyfriend today,” says Celine. A becoming pink tinge blossoms across her neck and cleavage.

“Celine! You sly minx! You didn’t tell me you have a boyfriend!” says Roy.

“You never asked,” says Celine. “Anyway, I’m telling you now.”

“What’s his name?” says Roy. “What does he do? How long have you been seeing him? Have you blown him yet?”

“Oh dear, I think I can hear my phone ringing,” says Celine. “Bye, Roy!"

After she’s sashayed from the room Roy ponders his contacts list for a few moments, then dials Joël‘s number.

“Hey, Mahogany!” he says when Joël answers on the fifth ring. “Are you allowed out of the house to come to lunch today? Or do you need a permission slip from Neets?”

[fayes-fics]

Safe

Pairing: benedict bridgerton x fem!reader

Summary: Benedict comforts you after someone tries to compromise you.

Warnings: None really, angst/fluff, hurt/comfort, brief non-consensual embrace/touching.

Word Count: 1.8k

Authors Note: This is for @amillcitygirl  and 🌙 Nonny who sent in two fic inspiration posts (here and here) . Enjoy ladies! <3 This is not at all what I was planning to write tonight, but my muse decided it didn't want to write smut (for once) and wanted some sweeping emotional stuff. Dont worry, normal filth will resume shortly lol. Thanks as ever to @makaylan for the beta read and the title. You’re the best!

He is your safe harbour. Your home away from home. The family friend you have known for as long as you can remember.… And he is engaged to another woman.

It was, in hindsight, a foolish idea to go into the gardens unaccompanied during the ball, but honestly, you needed the air. The stuffy room, the awful suitors, but most of all, having to watch him dance with his intended. An oily feeling in your stomach that you know is jealousy, making the champagne you drank sit uneasily. 

You kick off your silken shoes and sink your toes gratefully into the slightly damp verdant grass. Rolling your toes into the lush turf, letting it tickle your arches. A satisfied sigh escapes your lips as you finally feel your jaw unclench, your temperature lower.

“Miss y/l/n…” 

You knew the fleeting moment felt too perfect to last. 

The oafish toad that is The Earl of Bradshaw is staring at you like a gift under a Christmas tree. Your skin crawls. 

Snaggle-toothed, red-faced, likely inbred and sure to inherit his late father’s gout in the next few years, he is an ‘eligible bachelor’ who embodies the most ironic use of that term.

“Scandalous of you to be out here unchaperoned,” he smarms, drawing closer, “anyone would think you are asking to be compromised. Is that what you want, Miss y/l/n?”

“Certainly not,” you sniff affronted, flinching away from his ham-fisted grip. It smells like he’s had enough brandy to fell an ox, which gives you the tactical advantage of swift movement. You attempt to ensure your exit point is behind you, moving outside his peripheral vision. 

Sadly he is lighter on his feet than your credit, and just as you think you are free, a vice-like grip wrenches your arm and you are pulled into the most awful damp blubbery embrace.

“Oh, I do so love them feisty,” he spittles as you make all efforts to escape him.

“Unhand me at once!” You exclaim, stamping on his foot, but you are barefoot, and he has on riding boots—it barely even dents the leather. 

There is a heavy hand pulling up your skirts as you push and fight against him. He buried his face into the crook of your neck, and you gag at the sensation of his wet tongue licking your skin. 

“You will be mine,” he gruffs.

“Never!” you assert, and with your final ounce of strength, you stumble free of his grasp and run. Run as far as you can. Tears now staining your face.

You know your hair is askew, your dress torn in places. You cannot run back into the ball. It will be your fault for entering the garden; such is the burden a young woman must bear for daring to wish for a modicum of free choice.

So you run around the side of the house, hoping to find your carriage not far away. As you round a corner, there’s a movement in the shadows under a jasmine-vined pergola.

“Y/n?” It’s the voice that inhabits your dreams. So much that you swear your mind is playing a cruel trick until a familiar shape emerges from the shadows.

“Benedict,” you stutter, relief cresting hard in your veins. 

“What on earth? Are you alright?” His voice is concern and affection personified, and you want to wrap up in it like a blanket. He lightly grips your arms and steps closer.

“I’m alright now,” you exhale shakily, curling your hands around his elbows, tears turning to sobs of relief. 

You watch as he catalogues your appearance with a glance. ”You are bare feet! Your dress is torn! You have a mark on your neck! Your hair is….” he stops mid-sentence 

You bow your head, knowing you are a mess, ashamed of your appearance. 

Two long fingers curl under your chin and lift your face to look at him. You see his hazy eyes blaze with a ferocity you’ve never seen before. A thumb brushes lightly over your left cheek, wiping away the tears you know are still falling.

“Who?” He exhales stutteringly, and his lower lip trembles on the word.

He has already guessed what has happened. He is far too intuitive not to.

“Y/n,” he warns softly when you are silent. 

You can feel the vibration of emotion in every fibre of his being. 

“Who did this to you?” His touch is gentle as he swabs your other cheek, but his body simmers with a feral rage barely contained.

“It doesn’t matter,” you evade, looking away from his intense gaze before you do something rash like lean forward and kiss him.

“Tell me…” his eyes close as if pained, and he tilts his forehead against yours, “for the love of god, tell me.” You feel his warm breath on your cheek. 

“Bene…” you begin with a sigh, but he cuts over you.

“He must pay,” the chivalry of his declaration cracks your chest open. He reopens his eyes, meeting your gaze fiercely.

“Benedict, what good will it do?” You hiss. “I will not have you fight with someone over me.”

“I will fight to the death for you,” his voice so assured and decisive. You grip his elbows tighter. His tone brokers no argument; it’s just truth.

“But I am not your intended,” your tone is bitter as you pull your face away from resting on his, knowing it’s unwarranted, but you are too tired to be polite.

“Such is my misfortune,” he breathes cryptically, “I need that name, y/n,” he needles after a pause, running a soothing hand over your upper arm.

“I won’t tell you,” you say with finality, frowning up at him. “Benedict, I can't have you demanding satisfaction. I cannot… I cannot let you duel over me. I… I cannot lose you.” Your voice cracks on the last word. 

His demeanour changes, and he is watching you now, his breathing uneven. He presses his forehead against yours again, transmitting through this silent action that he understands and accepts your decision even if he doesn't particularly like it.

He sighs and pulls you into an embrace. The absolute opposite of what you experienced before, his hold is respectful but comforting. Letting you rest your head on his shoulder and take solace in his warmth.

“I can’t imagine a world without you in it, and I never want to,” you confess in a whisper, looking away, unable to meet his gaze. “I’d prefer my reputation besmirched, to be forced to marry a monster, than lose you,” finally speaking your truth, finally acknowledging it to yourself even. His arm around your waist reflexively pulls you closer.

The weight of your unrequited love for him is too great to bear in the face of all you have experienced this evening. You know it’s not fair to burden him with the knowledge, but you are too tired to pretend anymore.

His eyes are a world of emotion as you finally pluck up the courage to lean back in his arms and steal a glance after your confession.

“Then there is only one other path available to us,” he opines. “You must announce your engagement to another right away; there can be no fuel to a rumour surrounding a betrothed woman,” he asserts.

“It’s a wonderful plan, Benedict,” you allow, “but missing one key element—-someone willing to marry me” your laugh hollow.

“You will marry me,” he states plainly as if it’s the most obvious answer in the world. 

Your whole axis is knocked sideways at even the thought.

“No, Benedict! I cannot ask you to make that sort of sacrifice for me!” you decry, pulling away from him and pacing back and forth. “Besides, you are already engaged! It would bring scandal upon your family if you were to break such a sacred promise!”

“I am not.” It's so hushed you almost don’t hear it over the sound of your pacing. “I am no longer engaged,” he clarifies quietly.

“Since when?” you stop short, not even attempting to camouflage the breathy surprise in your voice.

“Since about fifteen minutes ago, when Miss Gleave informed me she could not go ahead with a marriage when a heart belongs elsewhere,” he says with an empty chuckle.

“Who is she in love with?” The impertinent question slips from your lips before your brain can censor it.

“It’s not her heart that is at fault,” he states slowly.

“Your heart is with another? You gasp, not sure if you can stand to hear about it after such a traumatic evening.

“I’m afraid so,” he admits like he is almost nervous.

“Who is she?” You ask, attempting to mask your jealousy under nonchalance.

His smile is wistful and tender. “She is the most wonderful, stubborn, independent, generous, self-sufficient, altruistic, oldest friend in the world,” his tone is reverential. As he reels off the list of her qualities, your heart sinks, knowing whoever this woman is, he is truly and utterly in love with her.

“She is the luckiest woman in the world,” your smile watery, tamping down self-indulgent tears.

“No, I am the luckiest man in the world,” he whispers fervently. “And I thank my lucky stars and all that is holy that she came to me only a few moments after I realised Miss Gleave was indeed correct and that there will never be anyone else for me.”

“What lovely timing,” you offer neutrally, wanting to escape, to protect the last thin veneer on your blistered heart.

“Yes, as I said, lucky man,” he repeats, looking at you with an almost trepidatious countenance.

“You should go to her, Benedict,” you offer, as you breathe a small sigh of relief, spying your carriage pulling up beyond his shoulder.

He shakes his head, disbelieving.

“I don’t need to go anywhere y/n,” he breathes.

You are confused. Looking around as if to see another woman—but it’s just the two of you and the light scent of jasmine in the air.

But…

Oh… OH!!!!!

“Now she’s catching on,” he teases gently, his face breaking into the most breathtaking crooked smile.

Wait…

What..

“You… me…?” It’s breathless and hope-filled, your emotions whiplashed by the most intense half hour of your existence.

“Yes.” It’s a simple three-letter word that changes your whole life. 

“Benedict!!” you cry and fly into his arms, almost knocking him over with the force of your embrace.

He laughs heartily, lifting you off your feet, burying his face into your hair, as your arms band tight around each other.

“Hello fiancée,” his whisper is warm honey settling over your skin.

“Hello, fiancé,” you return breathily, pulling back to bring your foreheads together as he gently lowers you back to your feet. 

And when his lips meet yours, your world bursts into a kaleidoscope of colours you could never hope to find the words to describe. 

He is your safe harbour. Your home away from home. The family friend you have known for as long as you can remember... And he is engaged to you.

Benedict taglist: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @wysteria-clad @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry

[saintsofwarding]

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Banner by @keltii-tea​

Chapter 26: A Lost Cause

Heisenberg's boots slammed into stone. The impact rang through him, echoing into the snowy darkness. He heard Mia's too-fast breathing, felt her warmth against him, her arms hooked around his neck, her face pressed to his scruffy cheek.

After a beat, her arms slid free, and she stood on her own, by his side in the darkness.

Around them spread the pit. They stood on a chunk of broken fortress, red brick seared black from the force of the bomb. Past its edge rang empty air, the depths of the crater. Where they stood, moonlight illuminated well enough to see, but in those depths there was nothing, no trace of light. Just the echoes of lycan snarls, the occasional clatter of falling stones, a deep, subsonic rumble that might have been rock shifting, might have been something else.

Water rushed close by, a gout pouring from a gap between two fallen pillars. It spackled Heisenberg's face with cold mist as he strode to the edge of the platform to shine his hip flashlight down into the dark.

It yawned below, endless and absolute. Mist and fog and a kind of grimy haze unfurled around him; each inhale stung with cold, and mold, and the smell of a place long-since removed from the sun. Usually, a big pit full of garbage was Heisenberg's idea of a perfect vacation. Less so right now. Chalk that one up to circumstance.

"I guess that's where we're headed," Mia muttered.

"Guess so."

She sniffed. "In sickness and in health, right?" she said, with a hiccuping little laugh. Then, in a kind of rush- "God, I miss him."

"Yeah?"

"Everything," she pressed. "Everything about him. You know- when I first met Ethan we were just a couple dumb college kids and I..."

Her laugh softened. "I thought he was unbelievably boring."

"Heh. No kidding."

"It was at this house party I didn't even want to be at, and he was in the corner with a red solo cup, and he was dancing to the music in the straightest way possible, I mean-" She demonstrated, holding herself stiffly while she bobbed her head and tapped her thigh in time. "But I didn't know anyone, and I ended up in the corner of shame with him."

"Let me guess. Love at first sight?"

"No!" she snorted. "It took like...three more accidental meetings before he awkwardly asked me to go get coffee, and he turned the brightest shade of red I've ever seen. And it was easy from there. Being with him. It was good. It was so, so good."

Her expression was lethal, like the sun was shining on her face. Hard not to notice her beauty, now, even through the hard days of grime and bruises and exhaustion.

"It crept up on me," she said. "Love. Little by little. That's how he was. You don't think about it, and then you realize what he's done. What he's been doing, all along. What he'd do for the people he cared about."

Her brief look of joy, lost in memories, faded.

"It was the big stuff I missed most, at first," she went on. "But now...it's the little stuff, really, you know? Redfield shuttled me from safe house to safe house after you took Rose, and I thought at first it would be a relief. Nothing to remind me of them, changing scenery, all that. But it's funny how losing someone works. You don't run away from it. The world remakes itself into the shape of that person."

She lifted her face, her profile limned with the red moonlight.

"He'd play piano, sometimes," she said. "Late at night. He always said he wasn't any good. But I'd stay up and listen without him knowing. I'd listen until he was done. Every time."

"He probably knew," Heisenberg said.

A faint smile touched Mia's face as her eyes turned, slowly, to rest on him. Heisenberg felt the weight of her gaze, its soft intensity, like she'd reached up to take his face in her hands.

"How long until dawn?" she asked.

"Hour, maybe."

"Then we're burning time." She cocked her rifle, checked its sights, gave a short nod. "Into the dark."

"And let's hope it doesn't fuck us."

The first few lycans jumped them as they skidded down the scree of broken masonry on the far side of the platform. Classic lycans, hairy wolf-men with makeshift weapons. Mia's rifle spat; Heisenberg crushed a couple skulls with his hammer. His Cadou wriggled inside him, sluggish as it struggled to metabolize the suppressant drug he'd been shot with. He kept his awareness engaged, but metal didn't sing; no hum or crackle of electricity. For the time being, he'd have to do this thing without the use of his power.

Fucking touche. Miranda had given him his powers, had twisted his body into a vessel for them. Typical that now he'd have to fight her without their help. He imagined her face, coldly beautiful. Her smile of calculated triumph.

Show me what you can do now, Little Karl.

Go on. I'm waiting.

One of the lycans lunged for him; he smashed it aside with particular force, splatting it against a block of cracked stone that still bore the paintings of dolorous, long-faced saints, rendered in faded blues and reds. Lots more red, now.

He twisted as gunfire cracked over his shoulder: Mia. The next lycan crumbled apart, its head and chest blown into chunks.

"I had it covered," Heisenberg drawled, shouldering his hammer as he flicked a fragment of crystal off his lapel.

"Uh-huh." Mia scanned the darkness, rifle trained outside their circle of light; howls echoed through the fog, but nothing leaped out at them immediately. "Anything here look familiar to you?"

"Nothing looks familiar to me, sweetheart, this place got put through a meat-grinder."

"That's not what I mean." She huffed a sigh. "I saw the explosion from the chopper. It...it went off in midair, not on the ground. The megamycete had lifted itself free of the cave system. If it blew aboveground, not below, the, uh- the-"

"Chunks?"

"...Sure. The chunks would have rained down on this place. Crushed it."

And Ethan below, Heisenberg thought. Mia must have come to the same conclusion, judging by the haunted look in her eyes.

"Your point?" Heisenberg prompted.

She gave her head a little, annoyed shake. "My point is that maybe there's something intact. Down below."

She pointed further into the pit. "Part of the old fortress, part of the old ceremony site...a cave system...I don't know."

"Could be."

Mia cocked her gun. The snap rang through the fog. "Let's find out."

The haunted look was gone as soon as it had come; now, Heisenberg saw the fever light of determination fill her gaze. That determination must have been what had allowed her to survive all these years, even with Miranda's ghost rattling around in her skull.

Had she known what it was at first? Or had she chalked it up to trauma, PTSD, what the fuck ever?

Of course, she was no stranger to voices in her head. She'd survived Dulvey, too. Three years under Eveline's control, three years of fighting the horrors inflicted on her by the child she'd helped mold into a monster. You had to emerge from that unfathomably strong, or completely insane. As Heisenberg followed her down the crumbling, makeshift pathway, spiraling deeper and deeper into the darkness, he wondered if she hadn't emerged as both.

More lycans. From all directions. They hit fast, hit strong. The smell of rot thickened in the air as Heisenberg and Mia descended, and between the bursts of claws and fangs and gunfire pound, Heisenberg caught sight of the various makeshift dwellings the lycans had fashioned from bits of the village, stacked stones, animal skins, antlers and gnawed bones. Even crude ornaments, dangling from entryways, crow feathers and pebbles, vertebrae and chunks of crystal.

What god did the lycans worship? Their memory of Miranda, and the Black God? Or some eldritch thing birthed from the dregs of their hive-mind, the kind of god only a feral predator could dream up?

Eyes glimmered from caves formed from collapsed pillars; one lycan, massive and musclebound, wore scraps of what looked like scavenged Soldat Panzer exoskeleton, a walking biomechanical wonder.

What an enterprising lad. Shame he had to die.

That was a group effort- Heisenberg swept forward and with a colossal swing of his hammer, smashed the front plate of its helmet off, exposing a scarred-up face twisted with rage. Mia sprang under his arm and delivered the coup de grace in the form of a bullet to the gob. As it slumped to the side, raining in shards into the darkness below, Mia paused, breathing hard, scanning their surroundings. Heisenberg did the same, but there was nothing. More lycan dens, more broken masonry, more blocks of cracked stone wreathed in mist.

A chorus of growls and snarls, the screech of claws in stone, scrabbled somewhere behind them. Mia pushed off; Heisenberg followed her. She was in charge, now, a woman on a mission. Her head down, she ducked under a gateway formed of blocks of fallen stone and into a narrow channel beyond, a ravine formed of rubble. Lycans advanced. She sprayed an arc of bullets, her lips drawn back from her teeth. When one collapsed at her feet, wounded, still crawling toward her, she drove her boot onto its head, crushing it to the dirt.

"Come on!" she yelled at Heisenberg, a few meters behind her, and headed into the fog again. "There has to be something- we just need to keep looking!"

"Mia," Heisenberg muttered.

"Don't you dare say my name like that," Mia snapped, glancing back at him. "He would do this for me. He...he already did this for me. I have to keep looking." "I know-"

"Then keep up!"

She rounded a corner and almost ran head-first into a knot of lycans. She stumbled back; her rifle came up, muzzle flash illuminating the fog in one, two, three bursts. Crystal shattered, bone reduced to hissing pulp under the anti-mutant rounds. Mia's scream filled the air as the lycans fell, as she demolished the next wave, and the next.

They were coming, and in force; Heisenberg glanced up at the ring of glimmering green eyes, the bared fangs, the rusty metal and pieces of broken antler clutched in clawed hands. With a little shake of his shoulders, he waded in. His hammer swung through the flashes of gunfire, through Mia's howl of rage as she fought them back, on and on until the air was as thick with gore as it was with fog, a bloody mist that clung in a pinkish sheen to Heisenberg's coat and dripped down from his hat brim.

The last of the lycans crumbled apart, ribs gaping to the sky. Mia stared at it, panting, eyes white-ringed and bright. She slumped against a block of ancient brick, closing her eyes.

"Mia," Heisenberg said, approaching her. He reached out for her arm. A gash had sliced through her sweater- a lycan's claw swipe- and bled freely down the thick material.

She rounded on him with a gasp, lifting her rifle. Its barrel knocked him in the middle of the chest; he didn't flinch.

"Do you understand?" Mia said. "I have to keep looking."

"I know."

"He...he's dead because...because I didn't tell him, because I...lured him there..." Her rifle barrel dipped. She shook her head back and forth, glazed and manic. "If...if I hadn't, he would still be alive. He would still be-"

"Eveline did that. Right? Not you."

A sob choked her. "You don't get it. It doesn't matter." She shoved back from him, stumbling through the rubble. "It doesn't matter. I-"

She drew a short breath. "I..."

She blinked.

"You what?" Heisenberg said.

"I recognize that," Mia said, staring over his shoulder.

Heisenberg turned. It reared through the devastation: part of a gateway, attached to a short, broken flight of steps. Heavy, blocky, chiseled from red-brown rock. The same bedrock the village had been built atop; the same stone he'd stared at for countless hours while Miranda indoctrinated him, or sliced into him, or rummaged around in his insides, trying to perfect him. He remembered the flicker of flame-shadows off its surface, the play of flashlight beams on its distant walls.

"Shit," Mia breathed.

She moved past Heisenberg and toward the gateway. It listed to one side, half-sunk into the earth, but it was still connected to something. Mia vaulted onto the steps and climbed up, pulling herself onto the lip of the gateway and balancing atop it to peer inside. Heisenberg followed, setting the head of his hammer against the frame, staring in after her.

Beyond-

A narrow cleft of darkness breathed frigid air across them.

"This was the entrance to the lab," Mia murmured. "I remember from when she brought me here. I remember thinking...it looked beautiful. Like an ancient temple. Something from a dream..."

"Yeah, well, bet she broke you of that opinion real fuckin' fast."

Mia sniffed, scrubbing her bloodied palm over her face. Heisenberg could hear her heartbeat, fast as a hare in a trap's. He knew what she was thinking, as much as if they shared a hive mind themselves. Miranda's lab had been built right below the ceremony site. The caves, too. The hallowed cathedral in the earth, the inner sanctum of the Black God.

Ethan had died right above the caves, and if they were still, in some way, intact, and the whole place had fallen in...

Well.

Mia was silent. No big surprise. Few words sufficed when staring down at the tomb of a loved one.

Heisenberg glanced at her.

"You gonna stand there all night?" he said.

She gave a small shudder, as if bracing herself, then shook her head. "No." And without another pause, she stepped over the edge and dropped into the darkness below.

Heisenberg was right behind her, clambering down the three-meter incline and into the passageway beyond. The cavern stretched beyond, a hallway chiseled of that same bedrock stone, torch brackets set into the walls, the floor scattered with chips of stone and a decade's worth of dust. Great cracks seamed the walls, but the place was intact, relatively speaking, the entire hallway tilted downward at a sharp angle.

In the explosion the entire cavern system must have just fallen into the earth, the tons of rock above it burying, yet also preserving, it. Like a mausoleum. As Heisenberg took a deep breath of the still, damp air, he smelled a familiar trace of incense, rich spices and musk winding its way deep into his skull, illuminating the century of memories locked within.

How many times had he walked this hallway? How many times had he strode between enshrined saints, hammer dripping with their devotees' blood? A traitor in their midst, an impostor saint, a false prophet's mongrel. They stared down at him now, statues of long-dead holy men anointed with dust, with the crystallized remains of their dead god.

He thought of Ouroboros' files on him, the rote, dry facts of his unnatural life that Mia had offered to him, and that he had refused. If the devout were right, these saints had seen those years, too, had whispered the litany of his life to the Black God itself, so it might dream of him forever. Did they remember him now, all the things he'd done, who he truly was, even if he didn't?

Didn't matter. Fuck them. Their god had demanded death, and if Heisenberg knew one thing, it was that everyone got what was coming round to them.

Mia's breathing quickened as the caves sloped down, and down, as they climbed over a stream gushing from a crack in the cave wall, as her boots crunched on broken glass, and crystal, and the remnants of a shattered gilt icon.

And when Heisenberg's flashlight beam struck the bolt-studded wood of a door, her gasp was painful, a blade-edge rasp on the edge of a sob.

It was warped in the broken frame, but as Heisenberg and Mia alike set their weight against it, it juddered open, spilling a cloud of dust and light into the broken space beyond.

Miranda's lab, Heisenberg thought.

The remains of her lab, anyway, the vaulted chambers where she'd conducted her personal experiments well-away from the eyes of the villagers. Couldn't have them believing she was capable of anything less than sorcery, after all. A column of ruddy moonlight filtered down from a rift in the cavern roof somewhere high above, filling the ruins with a bloody pall. A shelf of shattered specimen jars, each filled with a lump of crystal that had once been a Cadou, leaned drunkenly against a collapsed heap of brick wall. Shreds of decomposed papers and files were scattered like leaves; Heisenberg scuffed aside a damp-spotted photograph of Moreau without his overcoat. Crushed tables, and broken glass, and cell bars bent and warped from the bomb's heat. Everywhere, calcified roots burst from walls and floor, crushing the lab into a nearly-unrecognizable mess.

Above all loomed the broken remains of a statue. One of the Four Kings that had once ringed the ceremony site. His melancholy face was blackened on one side, a point of his crown snapped off at the root.

This was the ceremony site, Heisenberg realized, collapsed inward, crushed into this cavern space. He sent his awareness, all his enhanced senses, into the darkness. Searching for a trace, a flicker of hibernating essence, of a mutant in stasis.

Silence.

"Ethan?" Mia called. She pushed forward, stumbling over the calcified roots. "Ethan? Are you there?"

She bent and began to dig through the rubble with her bare hands. Stone clattered; dust billowed, thick and choking. "He's...he's got to be here...could he have regenerated? Like the others? Ethan!"

Her voice rang over the distant rush of water, the sound of crumbling stone, echoing from deeper inside the ruins. Heisenberg picked his way after her as she dug her way on, as she clawed at the broken masonry, her eyes wild, her entire body shaking.

"I know he's here," she said. "Heisenberg, you've got to...you've..." She took a sharp breath, jagged and choked. "He'll be so glad to see you. You saved Rose, after all- you're gonna..."

She cut off as she bent to drag aside a slab of flagstone floor. "We're all going to be a family again. Just like I planned. You'll see. You'll see..."

She trailed off. The echoes of her voice rang away and away, fading into dusty silence. Heisenberg caught up to her, watching the back of her head, the rise and fall of her shoulders.

Before her, the column of moonlight glimmered off milky crystal.

Ethan's body lay at her feet.

He was broken. One arm missing, shattered off at the shoulder. His face had cracked down the middle, his single remaining eye closed. He knelt there, head lowered, his body half-buried, his hand clasped to his heart.

The crystal there had warped in strange, intricate patterns. In this light, they almost looked like roses.

Mia made a small sound. She edged forward, one step, another.

"Is he..." she whispered. "Is...is there..."

"No, Mia," Heisenberg said. Weary, weary. "There's...nothing. Nothing left. He's gone."

She reached out with a trembling hand. "It's okay, baby." She smoothed it over his cheek, thumb tracing his lips. "It's okay. I found you, didn't I?"

All at once, she fell to her knees, holding his face, holding him. Her shoulders curled in; she shook under the weight of her tears. Terrible, wracking, like they'd been torn from deep inside her. She buried her face in the broken crook of Ethan's neck and sobbed, her hands in white-knuckled fists, clinging onto his body as if that would prove enough to bring him back.

***

Mia's sobs wound down into silence, and the hush crept in. Still she held him. Heisenberg leaned on his hammer, eyes lowered, watching the dust dance in the moonlight.

Saints and gods, sacred words whispered in the dark. There was nothing holy here anymore. Nothing sacred. All of it had died with Ethan, with his last kiss pressed to little Rose's head. All of it was gone with him.

At last, Mia let Ethan's body go. She crawled away, into a corner of the rubble, where she sat, slumped over her knees, staring into nothingness.

"I think part of me always knew," she said after a while. "All this time. All these wasted years." She gave her head a little shake. "I was so stupid to think I could save him. To think I could make this all better, make all this go away. I already got my chance for that."

Heisenberg made himself speak. "Yeah, you did."

She closed her eyes, bowing her head.

"Doesn't mean he loved you any less." Heisenberg approached her. "Doesn't mean you get to give up now."

She laughed, emotionless. "Too late."

"No. No." He swooped to one knee at her side, grabbing her face in his hand. He turned her head, away from Ethan's body, toward him. "No, Mia. You don't get to. Because if you do then so do I. You understand?"

He gave her a shake. He felt her tremble under his glove, her face so close to his he could see the tears clinging to her lashes, the blood spackling her mouth.

"You don't give up, Mia," he said. He ran his thumb over her lips, taking the bloodstains with it. "I'm not gonna let you."

Slowly, he released her face. His fingertips left red welts against her skin. "We might have failed Ethan," he said. "But Rose is still out there. And we. Won't. Fail. Her."

She blinked. A flutter of lashes. Then something seemed to leave her. Mia's head slumped forward, against his chest, one hand curling into his shirt, pulling herself closer, against him. The other brushed the scar crossing his throat, the scruff at his jaw, a lock of dirty gray hair.

Heisenberg hesitated. She was so warm against him. He felt the pressure of her breathing on his skin. The gentle pulse of her heartbeat.

Another long moment of silence, of dust and ruin around them. Just two horrible people, kneeling together in the dark.

Then he lifted his hand and ran it, slowly, over her hair. It was just as filthy as his. Something kind of sweet about that.

"I think I already failed her enough," Mia murmured, as he stroked her head. "Ethan...Ethan would want me to live. To keep fighting."

"Yeah, probably."

"Are you gonna be any more comforting than that?"

"Sweetheart. We've spent the past few days in each other's fine company. Surely you know better by now."

"Right, right, fine."

"Besides. We still have enemies, even once the other Lords deal with Ouroboros," Heisenberg went on. A snarl entered his voice. "Don't you want the chance to destroy that bitch Miranda for good after what she did to you?"

"You're such a bad influence," Mia told him. "Ruining all my aspirations toward achieving a moral high ground."

"Cool your jets, Winters. You managed that all by yourself." He pressed his forehead to hers for a moment, then pulled her to her feet. "Any bright ideas on how we can deal with that big, bad artillery unit topside?"

A dark light entered Mia's eyes. "I'm sure I can think of something."

She pulled from his hands and went to Ethan's remains, kneeling once again at his side. The moonlight filled its facets, made it seem to glow softly from within. Mia brushed her hand over his crystallized hair, as if to straighten it. She clasped his hand, stroking her thumb over the ridge of his knuckles.

"Goodbye, my love," she whispered to him, and leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I promise I'll come back for you."

***

Another burst of flames lit the sky as Heisenberg and Mia emerged from the crater depths. Even down here, the air smelled like ashes, cutting over even the overwhelming reek of lycan and rotting flesh.

"What's your power situation?" Mia asked.

Heisenberg splayed a hand, then shrugged, the movement accentuated by the hammer propped on his shoulder. "Still suffering from projectile dysfunction."

"Of course you are. Ugh..." She was checking over her weapons, taking stock. "Shit. I'm almost out of ammo."

"Then make what you've got count."

She glanced up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, dark circles so pronounced her face had a faintly cadaverous appearance, a new sharpness. Something inside her had set, and hardened. He heard it in her voice, too. "If I can get to that lab with the lycans, there's gonna be an antidote. It should get your Cadou metabolizing fast enough to work through the suppressant."

"Uh-huh." He'd barely heard her after she said the words lab with the lycans. "Now there's an idea."

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"Are you, though?" He grinned at her. "I'll explain on the climb up."

Another artillery shot blasted the skies as they reached the lip of the crater, Mia sporting a couple new scratches courtesy of the lycans. If she was in pain, she didn't show it. She scrambled to a rock shelf behind a copse of trees and crouched down, rifle at the ready like some kind of black ops guy from one of the shitty action movies Heisenberg had binged with Rose.

He ambled behind her, squinting over his glasses at the camp. With Regan and company gone, the amount of soldiers was cut down significantly. Still, he could see the black-armored figures ringing the artillery, moving in and out of the prefabs, keeping the lycans back from the fence as, above, the Rose monster dived and strafed through the clouds, the pressure of its wingbeats driving spikes of pain through his head.

Well, fuck me, he thought, a little impressed despite himself. Somehow, the artillery fire was keeping her back.

And maybe something else was, too.

Keep fighting, kid. I'm coming for you. I told you I would, didn't I?

Still, Ouroboros knew what they were doing when it came to holding off giant flying bioweapons. And he had little doubt Regan had left orders to shoot them both in the head if they showed their faces in camp without Ethan in tow. And he wasn't about to suggest Mia bring his corpse back up to use as protective coloration.

Well. He might have. Her face if he did would be something to behold. But right now, it would only waste time.

"There," Mia whispered, pointing. One of the lycans had wriggled partway through a gnawed gap in the fence; a bullet drove it back, and it hightailed, but the loose scrap of fence lingered. "Through there, and to the lab."

"After you."

Mia gave herself a little nod- then darted. She streaked through the shadows, little more than a flicker of movement, a scatter of snow, ducking and rolling through the fence before the artillery unit's searchlight swept the area. Heisenberg shook his head in approval and followed, somewhat less gracefully, shoving his shoulders through the fence and into the camp in a clatter of metal. Fuck this, he thought, grinding his teeth. The second he got his powers back, he was taking this whole goddamn camp and crushing it like a car compacter.

Pressing into the shadows cast by an old house, he and Mia watched the flurry of movement in camp. Soldiers trooped by; a temporary munitions stand had been set up alongside the Maiden of War, gunmetal and carbon-fiber at odds with the crystal growths and painted wood surrounding them. The heat from the artillery unit shimmered in the air, melting the snow into a glassy sheen over the ground below.

Heisenberg eyed the artillery, assessing it with a flick of his eyes. Simple enough. A lot like the ones he'd spent decades playing with back at his factory, mounting them on anything stout enough to hold them purely for the fun of seeing how the vehicle in question held up under fire. Pop a couple wires here and there, and the whole weapon would be dead in the water.

First things first. He jerked his head toward the lab with brows raised.

"Hang on," Mia whispered. She stared toward the group of Moreau-aficionados still huddled on one side of the square. They had all joined hands and were singing in old-tongue, some ancient prayer to the Black God for protection. "We need to get them out."

"Seriously?"

"Yes!" she hissed. "Moral high ground, remember? Shut up and follow me."

They ducked through the ruined house itself and came up behind the prisoners. A punch from Heisenberg launched their guard straight into unconsciousness; he yanked him backward into the house, leaving him in a heap on the kitchen floor.

The girl with the shaved head gasped as Mia shook her shoulder, then blinked, her pale eyes widening so far they looked as if a good slap might knock them right out of her head.

She flung herself to her hands and knees as best she could in her shackles. "Lord Heisen-"

"Shut it," Heisenberg growled. "And listen."

"We're gonna get you out of here. This place is about to turn into a shitshow," Mia said. "You need to get as far away as you can before-"

"-Before I release all the lycans in that lab over there on the poor, unsuspecting fools you see before you," Heisenberg cut in.

The girl's mouth opened in a perfect O. "The lycans?" she echoed.

"That's what I said. Now how do these cuffs-"

The girl babbled over him. "Lord...Lord Moreau prophesied this. He in his infinite wisdom...he saw that this day would pass, that there would come a time when I, and his other loyal followers, would need to walk through the ranks of the monster wolves themselves, and emerge unscathed from the other side!"

She launched into rummaging through the mess of amulets and charms she wore slung about her neck, her skinny fingers trembling. At last she came up with a phial attached to a long piece of cord. It was made of old, yellowed glass, sealed with a gob of wax. Inside swirled a thick black substance.

"This holy relic will protect us against the lycans," the girl said.

"What is that?" Mia squinted at the stuff.

But Heisenberg grinned, with as many teeth as a lycan itself.

"It's spores," he said. "From the Black God. Take too long to get into the science, but this shit's what the megamycete seeded its hosts with to maintain control, stop them from slaughtering one another. Anything with this stuff on them will read as one of the lycans. They'll smell it on us and ignore us."

He chuckled. "Well, well. Moreau, you clever bastard. There's hope for you yet."

"It won't last long, so you must hurry," the girl said. She had already popped the wax and was busy smearing the other cultists with the black spores.

"Nag, nag, nag, buttercup," Heisenberg said. The girl pressed the vial into his hand, holding on for a moment. He tugged his hand away before she might start kissing it or whatever. "Get ready to run along to the reservoir. Your- uh, Lord Moreau's down there."

Elation lit the girl's eyes. "Black God bless you, Lord Heisenberg."

He didn't bother pointing out the Black God would probably rather eat him than bless him. He rubbed a streak of spores on his wrist, then did the same for Mia.

The monster strafed by; it swept through the clouds, the backdraft from its wings blasting through the camp. The timbre of its roars had changed- they now were an enraged, thunderous bellow, each strafe growing lower, lower, shaking the ground like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

Was Miranda winning?

Hang on, Rose.

Shouts filled the air as Heisenberg and Mia burst from the ruined house, Mia peppering the snow with suppressing fire, keeping back the few soldiers who weren't focused on the black-feathered monstrosity circling ever-closer. One of its tentacles lashed down, tearing a gash from the roof of a dilapidated house, then furling back into the clouds. Heisenberg's hammer cracked skulls, shattered firing hands, sent the door guard sprawling aside as they ducked into the lab.

The sterile air hit him like a punch to the teeth, light burning his eyes. The researchers within all sprang to their feet, scrabbling for the peashooters at their belts. Mia stuck her rifle under the first guy's chin.

"Get out of here," she growled.

The gun would have been enough, Heisenberg figured. But Mia's whole look- ragged and bruised and splattered with lycan gore- sure as hell didn't hurt. The scientists scattered. Mia pushed a rolling chair aside and tapped at a computer, its pale light illuminating the lines on her face. Behind them, the rows of lycans clawed at their cages, desperate to get out.

"You got the accelerant?" Heisenberg said.

Her eyes flickered back and forth. "I...I don't see it-"

Shouts echoed outside the lab. Heisenberg leaned alongside Mia. "Come on, it's gotta be there somewhere-"

"I-"

Gunfire pounded the air. Heisenberg ducked over Mia, bringing them both down against the console as the air filled with sparks and the rattle of bullets against metal; the lab door hung crooked, half-torn-away by gunfire. They were coming in.

Heisenberg saw it, now. There was no time. They'd run out of options.

All except one.

Fuck it, he decided. "Mia."

"What?"

"Release the lycans. Then get to the big gun."

"Huh?"

"I'm going after Rose. Fend her off with the artillery so I can draw her away."

"Without your power?"

"I don't need my power for this. I know Rose. And Miranda." He pressed his finger to his temple. "I can fuck with her head just like she fucked with mine. Now you get your ass out the door and into that gun or we're all screwed."

She rounded on him, the small of her back pressed to the console. For a moment he thought she would protest. For a moment he thought she'd try to stop him, spare him, like she'd fought so hard to spare Ethan. Her face was hard, the look in her eyes bright enough to burn him alive.

He heard the hiss of her breathing through her parted lips, made out the tremble of her lashes as her eyes held his.

Slowly, Mia slipped his glasses off his nose. She lifted her face, her knuckles to his chest as she gripped his shirt in both hands, as she pulled him down, as her mouth canted, desperate, devastating, to his.

A hesitation-

A brush of her mouth, a lilt of her lips over his-

And then she was kissing him, and her fingers were tangled in his hair; his hands found Mia's face, her waist, the soft press of her hips into his. Her lips were chapped, were bitter with blood. For a moment he was lost, adrift, nothing in the world but the feeling of her mouth on his, of her grip on him, her knuckles pressed hard to his chest, just over his living, beating heart.

Her face fell from his, her mouth from his, her face brushing his cheek with a rasp of scruff to skin. The cold twined between them again. Heisenberg's heart pounded, his Cadou pulsing in time; pressed to him the way she was, Mia probably felt that as much as she felt everything else. He didn't care. He traced her cheek with his thumb, not wanting to pull away, not wanting to let her go.

"We can still cut and run," he murmured. He cocked an eyebrow. "Last chance."

Mia snorted. She nudged her forehead to his, kissed the delicate skin just under his jaw. All too soon, she pulled back.

"Go," she told him. She returned his shades to his face. "Find Rose. Get her back."

She stood from him, gripping the cage control on the console- a big, red handle surrounded by warning signs. "For Ethan."

Heisenberg gave her a single nod, his hat brim dipping. "See you around," he said. "Winters."

Her small returning smile would stick with him a long, long time. "You, too," she told him. "Karl."

He swung his hammer back onto his shoulder with a clang.

Mia turned the handle.

With the screech of hinges, every cage in the lab swung open at once. The lycans lunged out, a seething tide of matted gray hair and savage, starving eyes, claws and twisted muscle and teeth asnarl. Moreau's spores did the trick- none of them paid any attention to Heisenberg or Mia. As the creatures leaped for the exits, tearing great holes in the prefab walls with tooth and nail, as they hit the Ouroboros soldiers outside hard and fast as a lightning strike, Heisenberg strode out after them, rummaging in his coat for a cigar.

Just like old times, he thought. Practically nostalgic.

By the time he ducked back into the camp, it was in chaos. Gunfire lit the skies, muffled under screams, snarls, feral howls as the lycans clambered atop buildings and vehicles, as they took down commandos three to one. A couple of the beasts tore through the fence, collapsing it under their weight. More lycans surged in from outside, tangling and tumbling over one another in their greed to get in at the fresh meat.

The screams began to die, began to be replaced with the sound of tearing flesh, of bones snapping and crackling from their joints.

Heisenberg lit the cigar with what appeared to be the last of his matches as he left the camp, as he ascended the rise beyond. If he was gonna die today, might as well do so feeling like himself. The cigar tasted a little stale, a little moldy, but it was better than nothing.

Besides. A good Cuban was a good Cuban, and- even better- it looked like it was gonna be a nice morning.

At the edge of the horizon, past the mountains, a faint trace of gold lit the blizzard. Dawn. It illuminated the monster, illuminated the impossible span of its eight wings, the rain of mold sheeting down from them as the artillery fire ceased- gunner dead or tossed out on their ass, courtesy of Mia. As the monster wheeled round, coming back in his direction.

Heisenberg took a deep drag off his cigar, let the smoke twine through his lungs- one last time, heh- then flicked it to the snow and crushed it under his boot.

He lifted his arms to the monster.

"Miranda!" he yelled. "Remember me?"

And in a rush of darkness, the beast that was Miranda, that was Rose, fell from the skies, wings spread, talons open and aimed straight for him.

[marvelingjules]

My knee has been really bothering me more and more lately. I can’t even run errands for an hour or two without it aching, and if I do stuff longer than that it gets weak and stiff and limping.

My mom brought up how her mother used to have issue with water under the knee, though she didn’t know much about it.

And I remembered that in 2021, this same knee abruptly was so painful I couldn’t put any weight on it for a week. (The doctor thought it was gout despite my skepticism. It was not gout. The doctor never bothered to look beyond that.)

So I just did a little research spiral, and there’s quite a few things it could be. But the real kicker is I’m suddenly a little more angry about my previous issue being brushed off so lightly - I had a swollen knee with extreme pain I could put no weight on for a week, and the doctor didn’t find that particularly concerning. And now the same knee keeps flaring up in pain and weakness. It’s this sensation almost like it needs to pop - you know that stiffness and deep ache when you need to pop a finger joint? That’s what it feels like in my brain. (Just pop the knee and the relief will come.)

Anyway, I probably need to hit up my doc and be like “hey, I’m having chronic if irregular pain and weakness in my left knee. Which had a major but mysterious issue three years ago. It’s starting to make it hard to do things like errands, going for walks with my dog, etc. Please solve.”

Ugh.

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Gonzales Franciscus Casteels - The relief of the city of Esztergom in Hungary by Duke Charles of Lorraine and Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria - 1686

oil on canvas, height: 169 cm (66.5 in); width: 244 cm (96 in)

Casteels is only known for two paintings depicting two historical battles from the Great Turkish War.

The second painting depicts The relief of the city of Esztergom (At Dorotheum Vienna auction of 4 October 2000, lot 177). The painting which is signed and dated 1686 depicts the battle against Turkish forces for the relief of Esztergom (called 'Gran' in German), now in Hungary, which took place in August 1685. The Christian troops were under the command of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine and the elector Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. This picture like the first one offers a bird's eye view on several planes of the intense fighting between the Christian and Turkish forces.

Gonzales Franciscus Casteels (? – Antwerp, after 1709) was a Flemish painter. He worked in Antwerp and is known for two works depicting battle scenes.

Very little is known about the life of Casteels. His date and place of birth are not known. He was likely a member of the artist family Casteels which produced a large number of battle painters in the second half of the 17th century. He was admitted as a 'wijnmeester' ('wine master', meaning a son of a master) in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in the guild year 1659–1696. As he had already produced a signed work in 1686 it is likely that before becoming a master in the Guild he worked in the family workshop.

He married Clara Catharina Smout, the sister of the painters Lucas Smout the Younger and Dominicus Smout. Through this marriage he was also a brother in law of the painter Jacob Herreyns the Elder who had married his wife's sister. His wife operated an art and painting materials business which she had inherited from her parents. Her brother Lucas, who suffered from gout and was a bachelor, lived with the Casteels family. The couple had two sons called Franciscus en Carolus who likely also became painters as their uncle Dominicus Smout left them all his drawings, sketches and prints in his will made in 1742.

The artist and his wife made their wills on 14 January 1709. The wills mention that they were living on the Schoenmarkt in Antwerp. This is the last record on the artist.

[thejazzera]

Vintage Ads, 1910s-1920s

Top left: 1917 ad for "Urodonal, Triumph of Modern Science," will cure you of "Rheumatism, Gravel, Gout, Arterio-Sclerosis, and Obesity," aclaimed by the medical profession for being"the most powerful solvent of uric acid, being 37 times more active than lithia." (…) "URODONAL is rapidly eliminated through the kidneys -- a point of great importance. The water in which it is held in solution passes through these organs more easily and rapidly than plain water, and that in spite of the load of waste products that URODONAL carries away with it."

Top right: 1922 ad for "The Ambedia Back Puff, A Woman's Difficulty Overcome."

Bottom left: illustration by Benito. "Achieving beauty without the use of make-up, using electricity and soft massages, that is the secret of the beauty specialist."

Bottom right: ad for "Polar Club, Electric Vibrator.

Be your own Beauty Specialist

The Polar Club Electric Vibrator enables every woman who cares about her appearance, to gain in the privacy of her own home the full benefits of electric massage -- the most successful and up-to-date treatment for preserving the beauty of the face and figure. Polar Club treatment really does remove wrinkles and hollows. Polar Club Electric massage is splendid for your scalp. Polar Club Electric massage is recommended for nervous disorders. It brings instant relief in cases of headache, fatigue and general 'nerviness.' Order a Polar Club Vibrator to-day.To use is simplicity itself. Just remove the electric light bulb and attach the Vibrator. It is perfectly safe and perfectly harmless."

Scanned from Bronwen Meredith's "Vogue Body and Beauty Book" 1977.

[health-supplements501]

Understanding Joint Pain: Causes and Calming Techniques at Home

Joint pain is a common ailment that can affect people of all ages. It can range from a mild ache to a debilitating throb, significantly impacting daily life. While the discomfort itself is unpleasant, understanding the root cause of your joint pain is crucial for finding effective relief.

Unveiling the Culprits: Common Causes of Joint Pain

Several factors can contribute to joint pain. Here are some of the most frequent culprits:

Injury: Sprains, strains, and fractures can all cause joint pain, inflammation, and stiffness. These injuries are often accompanied by swelling, bruising, and difficulty moving the affected joint.

Arthritis: This is a general term for conditions that cause inflammation and degeneration of the joints. Osteoarthritis, the most common type, results in the breakdown of cartilage, the cushioning material between bones. Rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease, attacks the joints themselves.

Overuse: Repetitive motions can stress the joints, leading to pain and inflammation. This is particularly common in athletes and people who perform physically demanding jobs.

Bursitis: Bursae are fluid-filled sacs that cushion the bones, tendons, and muscles near joints. Inflammation of these bursae, called bursitis, can cause pain and tenderness.

Gout: This is a type of inflammatory arthritis caused by a buildup of uric acid crystals in the joints, often resulting in sudden and severe pain, particularly in the big toe.

Natural Remedies to Soothe Your Sore Joints

While consulting a doctor is always recommended for persistent or worsening joint pain, several home remedies can offer relief:

Rest and Relaxation

The first step is to give your joints a break. Avoid activities that aggravate the pain and allow your body time to heal.

Ice and Heat Therapy

Applying ice packs wrapped in a towel can reduce inflammation, especially after an injury. Conversely, applying heat through warm baths, heating pads, or moist towels can help loosen stiff joints and ease muscle tension.

Dietary Adjustments

Maintaining a healthy weight puts less stress on your joints. Consider incorporating anti-inflammatory foods like fruits, vegetables, and fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids into your diet.

Gentle Exercise

Regular exercise strengthens the muscles that support your joints and improves flexibility. Opt for low-impact activities like swimming, walking, or yoga.

Supplements

Certain supplements, like glucosamine and chondroitin, may help with osteoarthritis pain. However, discuss these with your doctor before starting any new supplements.

Additional Tips for Joint Comfort

Here are some additional lifestyle modifications that can contribute to joint health:

Maintain good posture: Proper posture helps distribute weight evenly across your joints.

Supportive footwear: Invest in shoes that provide adequate cushioning and arch support.

Ergonomics: Setting up your workspace ergonomically can minimise strain on your joints.

Stress management: Chronic stress can exacerbate joint pain. Techniques like yoga, meditation, or deep breathing can help manage stress levels.

Remember, these remedies aim to provide comfort and are not substitutes for professional medical advice. If your joint pain is persistent, severe, or accompanied by other symptoms, consult a doctor to determine the underlying cause and receive proper treatment.

[todaysdocument]

“Now before any Negro can register [to vote] he must go into a little side room and read and write to the entire satisfaction of one or two white men  . . . “ Letter from C. Dearborn to Pres. Taft, 7/18/1912

File Unit: 150719-62, Section 2, 1904 - 1974

Series: Straight Numerical Files, 1904 - 1974

Record Group 60: General Records of the Department of Justice, 1790 - 2002

Transcription:

"Hottentot"

AN EXTERNAL REMEDY

SERIAL NO. 30154.

[stamp] JULY 24 9-23 AM 1912

[stamp] THE WHITE HOUSE / JUL 21 1912 / RECEIVED

[handwritten] Justice

[stamp] RESPECTFULLY REFERRED FOR ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND CONSIDERATION

"HOTTENTOT" will afford quick and valuable relief for Headache, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Indigestion, Acute Indigestion, Congestion, Female Complaints, Asthma, Diarrhoea, Cramps, Colic, Tonsilitis, Eczema, Piles, Erysipelas, Bronchitis, Gout, Peritonitis, Cerebro Spinal Meningitis, Ringworm, Sore Eyes Soft Corns, Bunions, etc.

"Hottentot" is manufactured only by C. DEARMAN, Tulsa, Oklahoma. P.O. Box 183.

OFFICE 212 N. FRANKFORT ST.

TELEPHONE 1188.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. A. 7/18/12.

Hon, W.H. Taft, President of the United States of America.

Washington, D.C.

Honored Sir: -- I am asking you in the interest of the qualified Negro voters of the State of Oklahoma and more [word struck out] especially the city of Tulsa, Okla to arrange with the Department of Justice in a way whereby immediate action will be taken to secure the right of every qualified Ngro voter in the State of Oklahoma and especially in the city of Tulsa, Okla. to vote in the coming elections without being intimidated and otherwise prevented from voting.

The tactics of the election officials in the city of Tulsa, Okla. now, are as follows: As pertaining to the Negroes each and every one must register only at the court house, regardless of how many times they have here-to-fore voted,.

It is stated by the election officials that any one not registering during the present registration will not under any circumstances be allowed to vote in the coming election,

Now before any Negro can register he must go into a little side room and read and write to the entire satisfaction of one or two white men, if it takes six hours continuous reading and writing to satisfy them there is no one to object but the Negro trying to become qualified to vote, and his objections dont amount to anything unless he pledges to support the democratic ticket, the majority if not all of which the election officials are. [Words struck out] they allowed my writing to pass which is very poor and which you will find enclosed, they refused to allow other negroes waiting to pass that to my mind is much better than my writing, Why? because I kick good and hard when ever it is necessary, and vote just as I please. But the majority of negroes will not kick either [letter struck out] thru fear or indifference and those are the ones that I am praying and pleading for. The question that I often ask my self is, that if the continued oppression of and the discrimination against the negro should at some future day cause war, would those that are foremost in oppressing and discriminating against the negro, be foremost on the battle field, [word struck out] well I have an idea that they would be the very first to beat a hasty retreat at the first sound of the bugle.

Hoping that immediate action will be taken,

Very truly yours.

[signed] C. Dearman.

[stamp] RECORDS

[stamp] 150719-62 / DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE / JUL 24 1912 / MAIL & FILES DIVISION / Harr-Logan / ACTION