#grey tarpaulins

[uk-tarpaulins]

TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins, Top-Tier Protection

In the domain of outdoor safeguard, the TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins stand as a demonstration of development and greatness. These mammoth sheets of defensive covering have reclassified the guidelines for top-level protection in different applications, from building locales to setting up camp undertakings. In this top-to-bottom investigation, we will dig into the highlights, applications, and advantages of TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins, revealing insight into why they have turned into the go-to decision for those looking for unrivaled protection against the components.

Features of TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins:

Colossal Size: The most characterizing element of TitanTop Tarpaulins is their extra-large size, offering extensive inclusion that outperforms regular tarps. Going from XXL to TitanMax, these giant sheets are intended to oblige the broadest protection needs, whether it be for modern gear, development materials, or large outdoor occasion spaces.

Durable Construction: TitanTop Tarpaulins are created from excellent materials, commonly using supported polyethylene or comparable tough textures. This development gives uncommon solidness, guaranteeing that the tarps can endure the afflictions of outdoor use, including openness to cruel weather patterns, scraped spots, and weighty utilization.

Top-Tier Weather Resistance: One of the main roles of TitanTop Tarpaulins is to give top-level protection against the components. These tarps show predominant climate opposition, safeguarding against downpours, snow, UV beams, and other natural variables. The high-level materials and coatings utilized in their creation make them impenetrable to water, forestalling spillage and water harm.

Secure Tie-Downs: TitanTop Tarpaulins come outfitted with built-up grommets along the edges, working with secure straps. This element guarantees that the tarps can be immovably secured and set up, keeping them from being removed by wind or other outer powers. It additionally takes into account flexible establishment, adjusting to different settings and designs.

UV-Resistant Coating: Delayed openness to daylight can prompt corruption and variety blurring in regular tarps. TitanTop Tarpaulins are outfitted with UV-safe coatings, giving an extra layer of protection against the harmful impacts of the sun. This component upgrades the life span of the tarps and jams their primary honesty over the long haul. Applications of TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins:

Industrial Protection: TitanTop Tarpaulins find broad use in modern settings where large hardware, development materials, and significant gear require strong protection. Their extra-large size and sturdiness make them ideal for covering and defending resources in development yards, producing plants, and storage spaces.

Construction Sites: Building destinations are dynamic conditions with continually changing weather patterns. TitanTop Tarpaulins give a basic answer for project workers and manufacturers, offering solid protection for development materials, apparatuses, and works underway. The enormous size guarantees that whole workspaces can be covered, limiting free time brought about by the antagonistic climate.

Agricultural Use: Ranches and horticultural activities benefit from TitanTop Tarpaulins in safeguarding harvests, hardware, and animals. Whether utilized as transitory safe houses for animals or covers for collected produce, these tarps give solid protection against the components, adding to the achievement and productivity of cultivating exercises.

Camping and RV Protection: Setting camp lovers and RV proprietors value the White Tarpaulins for making sweeping safe houses in outdoor settings. The extra-large size considers the foundation of agreeable and climate-safe living spaces, guaranteeing a dry and secure setting up camp experience even in unfriendly weather patterns.

Benefits of Choosing TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins:

Comprehensive Coverage:: The most obvious advantage of TitanTop Tarpaulins is their capacity to give thorough inclusion to large regions. This makes them especially worthwhile in circumstances where customary estimated tarps would miss the mark, offering an answer that limits the requirement for various more modest tarps.

Versatility in Applications: TitanTop Tarpaulins' flexibility permits them to be utilized across many applications. Whether it's safeguarding modern hardware, making occasion spaces, or guaranteeing an openness to setting up camp insight, these tarps adjust to different settings effortlessly.

Long-Term Durability: The solid development of TitanTop Tarpaulins means long haul unwavering quality. The tear-safe texture, UV-safe covering, and secure straps add to the tarps' capacity to endure broadened use in testing conditions, making them a savvy interest over the long haul.

Ease of Installation: Despite their size, TitanTop Tarpaulins are intended for simplicity of establishment. The supported grommets and lightweight materials make them sensible for a scope of clients, from development laborers to occasion organizers. This usability upgrades their common sense and openness in different settings.

Protection Against Environmental Hazards: TitanTop Tarpaulins go past fundamental climate protection by safeguarding against ecological perils. Their UV-safe covering safeguards against sun harm, and the tear-safe texture gives a boundary against expected actual harm, guaranteeing that resources stay with no problem at all.

Customization Options: Makers of TitanTop Tarpaulins frequently give customization choices, permitting clients to pick the size, variety, and extra elements that suit their particular requirements. This degree of customization guarantees that the tarps consistently incorporate into different conditions and applications.

Conclusion:

TitanTop Extra-Large Tarpaulins have legitimately procured their place as a top-level answer for those looking for unmatched protection against the components. From huge size and strong development to flexible applications and long-haul solidness, these tarps typify advancement and greatness in outdoor guard.

[tarpaulinsshop]

Heavy Weight Grey Ripstop Canvas Tarpaulins 17OZ Water Resistance Tarp

Heavy Weight Grey Ripstop Canvas Tarpaulins 17OZ Water Resistance Tarp

The Ripstop Canvas tarpaulins are blended with a polyester yarn which localises tears and stops them running. At 15oz before treatment, our Ripstop Canvas is a 17oz once proofed. These tarpaulins are imported from India.

Ripstop Canvas grey tarpaulins are manufactured from a heavyweight cotton which has been treated to make them water resistant, ensuring that they are easier and lighter to handle than traditional wax-processed canvas tarps. 12mm brass-plated eyelets sit at 2ft intervals in single-stitched hems. Strengthening tabs are located at each eyelet, to ensure a firm fixing point.

Please bear in mind that these tarps are a cut size so the finished size will be slightly shorter, also a minimal amount of shrinkage can occur where canvas tarpaulins are subject to varying temperatures. These robust canvas tarps are treated to make them water-resistant and they don’t have the same wax processed feel as some other canvas tarps.

Features

Eyelets of Brass-plated at 2ft intervals in stitched hems

Water-Resistance

Untreated 15oz / 17oz material when treated

Chemically treated and therefore lighter to handle than wax-processed tarpaulins

Easy To deal with

Fabricated from cotton canvas blended with polyester yarns, resulting in ripstop properties

[monstersandmaw]

Male ‘yautja inspired’ alien x gender neutral reader - Part Three (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

___

Well, folks. You’ve absolutely floored me with your support for this story. I don’t know where to begin to thank you. Without further ado, here’s Part Three. It’s only had one edit this time, so please forgive any mistakes???

I will just quickly remind you that this isn’t technically a Predator/Yautja fanfic. It’s heavily inspired, but to the people ‘correcting’ my lore mistakes with asks that I’ve largely ignored, it’s not supposed to be ‘canon’ or accurate. It’s just a story with aliens who look like predators because I don’t want to spend time doing research and I love the design. Yes, they are basically a feral predator and a jungle predator, but just not in name and not in lore detail, so there’s no need to ‘correct’ me. Thanks. (Also Croc is gonna get his own story at some point in the future, I’m determined. Just not with this reader)

Contents: mention of loss of comrade’s life, thunderstorm, all the tropes, the start of some classic pining, some misunderstanding, some soft chat, Croc starting to be an exasperated wingman, and everyone’s favourite trope to finish with: there was only one bed... Wordcount: 4744

Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw)

Neither of the aliens was anywhere to be seen when you finally stepped out into the chilly, misty morning after a night of broken sleep. Your neck twinged and your back hurt something fierce after so many nights with nothing but a flimsy camping mat between you and the lumpy forest floor. Arching your spine and hearing it pop quietly in the still air of the campsite, you moaned and wished for a comfy bed and a hot bath.

“The hell am I doing…?” you whispered.

Groggy, stiff, and more than a little sticky and gritty after days of hiking alone through the pine forest, you knew that face wipes were just not going to cut it for the fourth day in a row.

Given that it would be three days until their backup arrived, you figured you’d hang around the crash site — see if you couldn’t get them to open up a bit more about their culture, and about these other terrifying aliens they were hunting — and then slip away well before their help arrived. No need to push your luck with a species that was not known for being universally peaceful with strangers; after all, their backup might mistake you for the reason they were shot down…

You poked your head into the now-cool wreckage of their ship and stared around at the dark grey, polished metal walls and surfaces. Some areas though looked more like black, woven carbon fibre than metal, with glowing gold panels behind like carved, back-lit amber. They were too far off to see properly though, and with the grounded ship sitting at that angle, it was difficult to make out much else. There were a few doorways and compartments you could have poked around in, but since neither Big Red nor Croc was anywhere to be found in the limited area of the grounded ship that was still accessible, and since you couldn’t read the glyphs on any of the surfaces, you decided to leave it all well alone.

Their stuff was all still at the campsite though, stacked neatly beneath the tarpaulin. They hadn’t tramped off during the night to meet their rescuers at a different rendezvous point then, and you stood with your hands on your hips and stared around the campsite. Your breath fogged the air in front of you and you watched it twist and billow.

For a moment, it seemed as though the scent of fresh smoke drifted through the silent trees, but it could just have been coming from the wreckage, eddying in slow-spiralling drafts around the crash site. The acrid smell of it got in your nose and made you scowl and cough.

Your canteen needed refreshing and a glance down at your hiking gear brought a grimace to your face. After digging out a camping towel and the rest of your dirty laundry from your pack, you headed back to the stream from the previous night to rinse it out, wondering all the while where your two companions were. Even though the autumn air was cold, your clothes were all made of light, quick-drying fabric, and with an abundance of summer-dry pine wood all around you — half of it conveniently shattered to kindling from the impact of the crash — you’d have no trouble starting a fire if you needed a bit more heat.

With no one in sight when you reached the creek, you started by rinsing out your clothes in the clear water. The cold bit into your hands, piercing right down to the bone and making your movements slow and clumsy, but with that eventually done, you draped your laundry temporarily over a branch and weighed up whether you wanted to risk hypothermia just to get yourself clean for a while.

Deciding that getting briefly cold was preferable to remaining perpetually sticky, you stripped off and stepped down into the gully again. The basin of rock at the bottom was just deep enough and wide enough to stand in so that the water came up to lap around your ankles, but it wasn’t the kind of dreamy plunge pool worthy of a travel blog. It was slippery, slimy with green algae, and excruciatingly cold. Still, it would be enough for what your grandmother used to call a ‘cat’s lick and a promise’.

Stark naked, you dunked your upper body into the spattering stream of water and bit back a shriek as it hit your flesh. Hunched over and leaning close to the mossy wall, you rinsed your head and face, scrubbed beneath your arms and briefly between your legs, and then turned your back on the stream to rinse off your shoulders and back.

Turning around revealed a sliver of the view between the trees of the horseshoe valley below, and, more immediately, Big Red standing on a boulder about twenty paces away.

He wasn’t watching you though. Quite the contrary, he had his back to you and was staring off at the same sliver of forest framed by trees, but nevertheless you yelped in surprise at finding him there.

“I will not look,” he said in response.

“Fucking hell,” you spat back at him through chattering teeth as your whole body started to spasm from the cold. “How long have you been there?”

“Not long. I heard movement as I was coming back up the hill, but discovered… you.”

“Right.”

Perfect.

An alien had probably just seen you buck fucking naked, even if for only a second.

“Fuck. Fuck it’s cold.” You thought you heard him chitter a little laugh as you careered and splashed out of the stream like a panicked wildebeest and floundered up towards your camping towel to dry yourself off.

All the while you flailed around with the towel, Big Red remained completely silent and unmoving. Eventually — dry, dressed, and a little bit warmer — you turned around to find him exactly as you’d last seen him, staring out at the misty forest below.

There was something eerily melancholic in the set of his colossal shoulders and the stack of his spine though, and you paused, leaving your laundry where it was and approaching him quietly from behind.

Perhaps it was the cold that had taken the majority of your brain cells offline, but you came over to stand beside him on the flat rock and looked up at him. “Are you alight?” you asked in a soft murmur.

At that, he tilted his head down at you, mask glinting in the misty morning light. “Yes,” he said. After a beat he added, “We — ‘Croc’ and I — We burned our fallen squad-mate’s body at dawn.”

That explained the smoke on the air. With all the goings on of the previous evening, you’d forgotten that he’d said there had been one more.

Your heart twisted in your chest at his words and you reached instinctively for his bare bicep to squeeze the solid muscle with half-frozen fingers. “I’m so sorry,” you said, and turned to leave. “I won’t intrude.”

“Your presence is… welcome,” he rasped, though he returned his attention to the view. “You do not have to leave, though you have lost a lot of heat in that water.”

With a cosy fleece on to help warm you up, it was hardly an inconvenience to keep Big Red company for a while.

Neither of you broke the silence for a long time. Red just stood there with his hands cupped under his elbows, arms hugged across his bare chest, staring out at the trees in the crescent-moon valley below. It was choked in a pale fog beneath a heavy, iron-grey sky, and the details of the landscape blurred into nothing after no more than a quarter of a mile. Birds were still singing though, and Red seemed completely captivated by it.

Eventually, rocking on the balls of your feet to try and keep warm, you glanced back up at him. “What’s your planet like? ‘Secundus’, I mean.”

He spoke without looking down at you. “It is… not like this —” he gestured with his hand towards the gap in the trees “— Prime is more like this, but… the jungle there is… hot.”

“We’ve got hot and sweaty jungles here on Earth too. Croc might be happier there.”

Big Red nodded once.

“What about you?”

“I am used to… arid deserts,” he said. “Heat, sand, rock… Not trees for miles. Not… cold.” He said the word with such bafflement that you wondered if perhaps this was the coldest place he’d ever been.

“You’re cold now?” you asked and he nodded. With a little smirk, you said, “Well, maybe you should wear some more clothes then, you big exhibitionist.”

At that, Red did look down at you. At least, you thought he was looking. It was hard to tell with the mask on. His mandibles pinched inwards, puckering his mouth into a tight kind of scowl. “You are still below average temperature for a human,” he said.

“I’m warming up though. The walk back up to the camp should help too.”

Big Red nodded. “You should go.”

“Do you want me to?”

After a pause, he shook his head. The movement was so tiny you might have missed it altogether had not his braids clicked together softly.

“Can I ask you something else then?”

Again, he nodded. “So many questions.”

“Can you blame me?”

He laughed quietly at that and shook his head.

“Do you see in heat? In infra-red, I mean?”

Another nod. “I can see with my eyes too, but… they are weak. Especially here. The mask… lets me see the distance… and details.”

“Is that why you keep it on all the time?”

A long moment of silence stretched between you. “No.” He didn’t seem to want to elaborate more on that and you inhaled deeply, wondering what to ask next.

“How does it work?”

He sighed and raised his hand to his face. He lifted the mask off and immediately turned his face away from you again so that you couldn’t see him properly.

He was almost tall enough for it to work.

In profile though, you could just about see the delicate, prehensile mandibles, and a flat looking face that sloped up towards his large cranium, and you even glimpsed small, very deep-set eyes. His skin was a greyish red, like campfire ash, that faded to a pale, speckled gold in the centre of his face, and he didn’t seem to have the coronet of short spikes that Croc did just before the start of his cylindrical ‘braids’.

Without turning towards you, he stuck his hand out and offered his mask to you, inside facing upwards. You took it carefully in both hands, tearing your eyes away from what you could see of his face to stare at the mask, turning it over to stare at the smaller details. It was heavier than you’d expected it to be, but while the outside was made of stark, smooth bone, the inside was a warm, dark metal, similar to that of the ship’s interior. It was obvious that there were no eye-holes like there were in the metal ones you’d seen in the footage back at the base, and there were tiny little pads all over the inside that tingled when you ran your fingers over them. Some kind of electrode, perhaps.

“Is this how I saw all those images yesterday?” you asked and he grunted assent. “Never imagined I’d be plugging my brain into a piece of alien technology like it’s the fucking Matrix.”

He chirruped in confusion and almost turned to look at you, but caught himself in time. “I… do not understand.”

“It’s a film from the late nineties,” you muttered, returning your gaze to the mask and turning it over to look at the bone side. Trailing a fingertip along the tiny, almost cuneiform carvings that had been delicately engraved into the surface in an interlocking pattern, you asked, “Do you guys have movies?”

“Yes, but not like you do. They are… generated with… something close to what you call computer.”

“Boring. No actors and celebrities then?”

He shook his head. “We have famous warriors.”

“Naturally,” you quipped and he clicked his mandibles at you in amused agreement. “I think you’d like The Matrix,” you said, glancing up at him again. He was still angled away from you but you could feel his whole attention on you just the same. “I wonder if you could watch it in your head with this… Actually, that would be kind of perfect. The premise is that humanity is trapped in a kind of simulated reality, while machines feed off our bodies for energy but there’s this one guy — you know what, never mind. You should just watch it if you can.”

His mandibles twitched into what you’d come to assume was a slightly exasperated smile. He clicked at you but didn’t say anything in English.

When he didn’t move for a long stretch of minutes, either to take the mask back or to show you his face, you went out on a limb and asked, “Why don’t you want to look at me?”

He tensed and rotated his torso just a fraction further from you and shook his head, making his waxy ‘braids’ rattle against each other across his powerful shoulder and back muscles. The desire to touch, to feel his cool, hard skin beneath your fingertips was almost overwhelming again.

Exhaling in resigned defeat, you nudged his mask against the crook of his elbow and turned away while he took it in fumbling fingers. You left him standing on the rock and headed back up to the camp without looking at him. You were different species, after all, and you couldn’t expect to understand every little nuance of custom in a single day. Maybe Croc would explain it to you, if you could get him alone.

Croc was actually already back at camp when you trudged in with your armful of wet laundry, and he had started a cheery little campfire going too, despite the damp weather. You used the bit of spare cabling he offered you from the ship to string a temporary washing line between two trees, and draped your wet clothes over it to start drying off. That done, you approached Croc’s fire and asked if you could sit.

He grinned up at you from where he was perched on a crate and nodded enthusiastically.

“Big Red told me about your friend. I’m sorry,” you said.

Inclining his head formally, he said, “He is… at peace now. It is… the way of all our warriors.”

With a nod, you left the matter there. “How’s your arm?” It looked blackened and burned, but he seemed oddly sanguine about such a significant loss.

Again, he just shrugged.

“Is it… painful?”

Croc nodded. “A little,” he admitted. “But when we are… back on the mothership, I will… have a… How do humans call it…?” He mimed slotting something over the stump with his hand.

“A prosthetic?” you ventured.

“Yes! Though I have seen yours…” He didn't look impressed. “Ours are… permanent. Many warriors have… lost limbs… fighting the enemy. It is not so bad to… get made a new one.”

You nodded. “We could use tech like that,” you said under your breath. “Red told me a bit about this ‘enemy’ of yours… where are they from?”

The fire cracked and popped, and Croc told you what he could in his faltering way about the enemy they had fought for millennia on their planet. Apparently they had begun to spread off-world, and so his kind had followed, hunting them down. Croc then began to ask you a bit about your life, and about humans in general, and while you were sitting there, the mist thickened into a sheeting drizzle. You raced to pull in your laundry while Croc watched and laughed at you for trying to save the fabric, and once you’d dumped it all in your tent in a damp pile, you returned to sit with him again under the shelter of the tarp.

“Wear no clothes,” he said. “Then nothing to worry about!”

“Easy for you to say,” you scoffed, laughing. “Look at you! You’re both built like a tank!”

The rain drifted across the crash site in thick curtains, and despite the fleece and the protective tarpaulin, it wasn’t long before the elements started to creep down your collar and make you shiver.

“Red’s gonna get cold out there,” you murmured. There had been no sign of him for hours.

“Boss knows… how to take care of… himself,” Croc shrugged, but he didn't say it with his usual, affable confidence. He was worried about his friend too. “I must… take care of my weapon,” he announced, and you hoped to God that wasn't a euphemism.

Luckily it wasn’t, and he rose and returned a moment later from the ship with a complicated looking weapon that resembled some kind of sci-fi blaster gun. He laid it down on top of a crate, took out some kind of maintenance kit, and got to work.

You watched in silent fascination while he worked, and when he was just tightening the last screws on the casing, you asked about Red’s mask.

“Croc? Can I ask you something?”

He straightened up from his work, a tiny screwdriver held in his thick, clawed fingers like a surgeon’s knife. His yellow, reptilian eyes met yours, openly intrigued and he nodded. He seemed to enjoy answering your questions when he could.

“How come Big Red wears a mask all the time but you don’t? Is it a different species thing?”

Croc laughed at that, and half-turned his attention back to tightening whatever it was in the weapon that needed it. “No. But you have great honour… in seeing a warrior without their… helmet,” he said. There was a playful lilt to his tone that was almost self-effacing. From the way he said it, you got the impression that it would have been a great honour if he’d actually been given the choice about it, but now that it had happened, he didn’t mind.

His words kindled a sinking feeling in your gut though; Red clearly didn’t think you worthy enough of the honour of seeing his face, despite having saved his squad-mate’s life. Then again, you supposed it was fair enough. You barely knew him, and you were an alien too, in his eyes. Why should you get the honour of seeing him anyway?

Croc watched your reaction carefully. “My helmet…” he said, “It was destroyed… in the crash. When —” he cut off to make a series of clicks that clearly formed a name, though it didn’t sound like Red’s “— was killed and… that hole was blasted into the ship,” he said, indicating the gaping maw in the hull, “My helmet took… damage. Broken. I will manage without technology though.” With an honest-to-God, conspiratorial wink, he added, “Boss would struggle without his… He cannot see well with his eyes. And I am… much smarter than him. Adapt much better to Earth…” With another coltish grin he leaned in closer and added, “And much better looking, even to humans.”

Without warning, just as you barked a loud laugh, a small section of pine log hurtled through the air towards Croc. He spun and shot it out of the sky with the freshly-conditioned weapon, where it shattered to a spray of tinder on impact. He roared a belligerent, joyful challenge while debris rained down around you, and you turned to see Big Red standing on the far edge of the clearing, his shoulders rising and falling noticeably as he breathed. Then he spread his jaws as wide as he had when he’d charged you down the day before, and bellowed back at Croc.

Croc laughed and shook his head, responding to his superior in their own language. Croc then shot you a look when you just stood there in shock. “He challenges me. You are doubly honoured, human,” he said with a wry intonation that wasn’t dimmed by his difficulties in getting the sounds out around his sharp mandibles. “You get to watch two great warriors of our kind fight.”

“But… your arm,” you faltered, horrified. “Croc, you’re still healing…”

The shock must have shown in your face because he just laughed again. “We spar, small human… Not a real fight. Though,” he added with a few taunting clicks of his mandibles in Red’s direction, “Boss will not hold back.”

The ensuing fight took your breath away.

Croc reached into the cavity of the ship and tossed a small, metal stave over at Red, who caught it deftly and activated it to turn it into another one of the long, harpoon-like spears that were holding up two points of the canvas roof over part of the campsite.

The clearing naturally formed a kind of fighting ring, and the two circled each other with the familiarity of old sparring partners.

Croc said something that was clearly a taunt, but Red didn’t fall for it. He let Croc go first, whirling the spear around one-handed with surprising deftness. He clearly missed his other arm though, and went to grab the spear with a limb that was no longer there a few times, but once the two got into their stride, it was incredible. They danced around each other until finally Red struck with whip-crack speed. He swept Croc’s legs out from under him and held him in place on his back with the spear point steady at his throat. When Croc clicked at him, Red stepped back formally and waited for him to rise.

Red was faster and more precise than Croc, but Croc, even with his recently-acquired disability, was as powerful as his namesake, and more than once he knocked Red to the ground with a grunt of expelled air from his lungs. Once he even nicked Red’s upper arm with the blade at the tip of the spear, sending a trickle of lime green blood down his rust-red skin.

The way they moved together through the rain in perfect synchrony was mesmeric. Time passed, and it could have been minutes or hours before they finally drew to a halt.

They bowed, breathing hard, mandibles open, and then stepped close to one another. Touching foreheads as they had done the previous day, they touched their fang-tips to each other’s and then relaxed, turning away. Both of them were breathing hard, chests rising and falling while the rain poured off them like water down a cliff face.

“I’ve seen the soldiers on the base fight before…” you said as Red stalked over and grabbed a canteen of his own from the ship’s supplies, upending it into his stretching maw. The liquid was an unappetising pinkish-purple, the same as the plants you’d seen in the footage of the alien they were hunting, and although he drank deeply, he was obviously listening to you. “…But I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. You two are…”

“Impressive?” Croc grinned, coming up beside Red and slapping his commander on the small of his back, well out of the way of his braids.

Red tossed a snide comment over his shoulder at Croc, who laughed. “I can still… almost beat him… with only one arm. Boss is losing his… edge. Even with an audience.”

Big Red shook his head and quietly offered Croc the bottle, which he took.

The three of you settled down by the fire after that while the weather worsened, and by late afternoon, you had listened to them tell you, in their stilted, awkward way of speaking English, about how their ships worked, what the structure of their society was like, and roughly how many of their kind there were on Earth at the moment. Not many. Not enough to face the enemy, you realised.

“You’re going to need humans to get involved in this hunt too, aren’t you?” you asked, and after exchanging a brief look, both Croc and Red nodded. “You want me to talk to my boss when I get back?”

“I will show you… what you need to know… about them,” Big Red said, tapping his mask with a claw again. “You can tell them. Prepare.”

Puffing your cheeks out, you exhaled and nodded.

They ate rations that seemed similar to what you were living off — necessary, but not something they’d pick given the choice — and as night closed in and the weather picked up to a lashing rain, you dashed across the muddy crash site and dived into your tent for the night to write up your notes. You had a small camera with you, but you hadn’t dared ask them if they would consent to being filmed, and something about it made you feel… wrong somehow. It turned them from a vastly intelligent, sapient race into something akin to laboratory specimens for analysis, and that didn’t sit right with you.

Three hours later, as a full-blown storm crashed down on the forest outside, you began to shiver. It wasn’t so much the cold, though the damp was creeping up through the earth, through the groundsheet and into the mat, but good, old-fashioned fear. You’d never been outside in this kind of weather before, and although your tent was military-issue, its flapping walls felt very flimsy.

A tree fell with an ear-rending series of cracks a little while later and you forced yourself to breathe steadily. It did absolutely nothing for your galloping heart rate, and you curled in on yourself, huddling more tightly in your sleeping bag and trying not to whimper. Like a child, you wanted to draw something over your head and hide away until it was all over.

An indistinct roar rose above the howling wind and you opened your eyes to see a figure silhouetted against the fabric of your tent like a slasher from a horror movie. For a wild moment, your mind went completely blank until you recognised the timbre of the roar. It was Big Red.

With shaking fingers, you unzipped your tent and a face full of rain and spray blasted in almost immediately.

“Not safe…” Red growled, reaching into your tent with his huge hand and practically yanking you to your feet.

“Wait!” you shrieked, flailing. “Let me put some boots on before you drag me out into a fucking storm!”

Red released you and stepped back. Water cascaded in rivulets down his bare, hard skin, and the contours of his body were illuminated by the steady glow of a flashlight that must have come from their ship.

You stuffed your feet into your boots, grabbed your phone and the small emergency pack from the top of your rucksack, and bundled yourself up into a waterproof.

Praying that your flimsy tent would still be there in the morning, you stepped out, zipped it up again, and scuttled at Red’s side towards the hole in the side of the hull of his ship.

“Now what?” you yelled up at him above the racket of the wind that raced past the opening.

Red didn’t waste time with words, and just pointed. A small hatch was open in the ship’s inner wall that you could have sworn was closed earlier, and you ducked unquestioningly through it to find a cosy chamber, though everything was rotated ninety degrees after the crash. A bunk had been bolted to the bulkhead, but Red had dragged the mattress off it and laid it on the wall which was now the floor.

“If you do not… mind,” he said. “You may sleep here. It is safer than out there.”

You nodded. “What about you?”

“I will go with Croc.”

Red turned to go, but something made you call out to him. “Wait.”

He stopped halfway through ducking out of the doorway and regarded you.

“You could stay,” you said. “I’m smaller than Croc. You’ll have more room.”

“You… would not… mind?”

With a little smile, you shrugged out of your waterproof and crossed to hang it from a peg near the door. He watched you closely, as though expecting you to change your mind.

The water that was still dripping off your coat made a musical little rhythm as it hit the floor and you shook your head. “So long as you dry yourself off first, I don’t mind at all.”

___

Next Chapter --->

I hope you’re still enjoying where this is going! Your asks and tags in the reblogs have kept me going these last couple of days, so thank you.

If you happen to have a couple of bucks spare, you could always drop a tip on my Ko-fi, but reblogs are just as welcome and just as helpful! More soon, I hope... I know where it’s going - I just have to write it and things are about to get super busy in my life.

| Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

[picturesofthegoneworlds]

Preview for Interwined - Chapter 15

Laudna rouses to the sound of birdsong; a rhythmic rumble of woodpeckers - one nearer, its drumming travelling down the root forming their camp’s wall, probably what woke her - another dulled by a distance too great to travel to be felt through the floor. Parakeets cawing as they gossip in groups on the branches, the cheerful calls of search parties of jungle babblers as they scour the undergrowth for insects –

and a breathily exhaled profanity.

The camp around her is packed away (save for the tarpaulin canopy stretched overhead and held aloft by the immovable rod); Imogen's bedroll curled like a snail’s home, the iron spikes that construct the hearth over the fire tied together in a hempen rope bow, the skillet and the cauldron gently clattering against one-another, everything attached to the outside of Imogen's rucksack by means of various belts and ties.

Laudna shifts her head away from the press of her own pack that she uses as a pillow, eyes blinking out the sleep, her cheekbone probably imprinted with the pattern of the seamed leather. She smells the bowl of porridge offered in-waiting by the side of her head before she sees it.

“Imogen…”

Imogen smiles at her from where she is kneeling on the floor a few feet away, hands working at a buckle.

trays of burnt cookies and flour on the end of her nose-

“Mornin’-”

The smile grows, somehow, spreads - Laudna finding it landing on her own face when Imogen giggles at her removal of the tangle of hair that had been adhered to the corner of her mouth between the press of the leather and the glue of her saliva.

She cradles the bowl of porridge between her hands and their rest on her knees as she sits-up fully, squinting at the light breaching the gaps between the high tree leaves, trying to calculate time and place from the angle of the beams with a foggy brain

the smoke caught under the supporting joists and rafters holding the floor above the kitchen

“How long have you been awake?”

Imogen was there (again) - dead but alive this time, skin grey and portal carved to a void under her ribs. The waking-world Imogen showed her the silvery scar above her midriff yesterday, smooth and flush between bronze, the alchemy of her flesh. Did the spear-puncture split a timeline?  Will Laudna have to ask Imogen every morning after she has dreamed of her to bare her stomach and prove the fused skin?

Imogen squints her own eyes at Laudna, calculating something too, though likely not the height of the sun from the breaks of light in the canopy, even if Laudna’s own body in sleep could lend itself to be the sharp point of a sundial.

Imogen smirks. Subtle. Laudna’s focus is more than enough.

“Didn’t wanna wake you, figured y’needed the rest.”

Laudna scoops a mouthful of porridge to herself; cheeks filling with the oats bathed in butter and cinnamon, holds the wooden spoon in place between her teeth.

Her eyes meander to where there could be a split in the weave of Imogen's waistcoat, but they find no fraying.

“Y’all alright?”

“Fabulous.” She articulates sloppily over the mouthful, eyes keen on any tearing that may be made obvious by Imogen’s movements.

“D’ya have somethin’ you wanna ask me?”

She chews, swallows.

“How did you sleep?”

“Good. Better, thanks.”

“And your wound?”

She tracks back to Imogen’s eyes now, finds their focus already trained on herself and mildly perplexed.

“Just a scar.”

Right. Awake. Healed. Saturated. Adds up.

Could be an illusion-

“Can I touch it?”

(you can read the previous chapters here)

[rockethorse]

Day eight: A random object recolour/mesh edit dump!

First up is a mesh edit of this wheelchair ramp by beosboxboy. I really liked the concept of this, but originally it had a huge “wheelchair access” sign standing off to the side, which made it difficult to place and, ironically, less accessible. So I got rid of it in Milkshape.

Then, as it had always bugged me that it didn’t align properly with foundations even though it so easily could... I learned how to tweak that, too.

If you have the original by beosboxboy you’ll have to delete it to use this one. You can find it in Deco > Sculptures for §2,500.

Next up - I always loved this tarpaulin/canvas “rug” converted from TS3 by Misty-fluff, especially for placing under yard sale items. Unfortunately, it was a bit too high off the ground, and it clipped really noticeably with any objects on top of it. So again, I lowered it a tiny bit, and figured I’d share.

The recolours are NOT included - you can get them over at misty-fluff’s original download post. Let my file override hers.

Now onto the Maxis object recolours!

Here are some first-aid kit recolours for the non-reflective medicine cabinet that came with Apartment Life (original in the bottom right for comparison) and one “hazardous materials” recolour I thought would work well for medical labs or hospitals.

You’ve got the typical red cross, and then - if you would like your game to comply with the Geneva convention - a green cross, then a white cross on a blue background taken from the hospital in The Sims 3. Finally you have a few made using the TS2 icon for the Medicine career, the white-on-red version of which turned out to be my favourite overall, surprisingly.

These are extremely simple recolours of the H&M wall banner (original on the left) to use as a green (or blue) screen for your aspiring influencer/gamer/streamer Sims.

And finally - some practical, everyday recolours of the “Mystic Dust” craftable reagent from Apartment Life (last swatch), because normal people own mortars and pestles too. You get black stone, a coppery sort of thing, grey and brown granite, cherry wood, marble, green stone, white porcelain, and then five cute retro colours.

They’re all grinding the same thing - probably sesame seeds.

You don’t need any mesh, but remember that you’ll need a buyable reagents mod to get it from the catalogue if you don’t want to have a witch craft one.

Download all mesh edits & recolours @ SFS

[popchoc]

FANFIC: (I Saw The Crescent) You Saw The Whole Of The Moon

Fandom: Grey's Anatomy

Characters: Mika Yasuda & Taryn Helm

Summary: There was a hint. There was a longing stare. There was a question about a hole in the roof. There was an eager answer, saying yes! And then there was a whole lot of nothing... for us, the audience. So here we go: the missing Mika & Taryn scene from 19x09... at least until proven wrong! 😎

‐---------------------------------------------------

Climbing the attic stairs, they reach the top floor of the fire-damaged house that Mika may now call home.

"Sorry," she calls over her shoulder, "there's no light up here. Still need to fix that."

"You can?" Taryn asks from right behind her, a tinge of awe and excitement in her voice.

"Sure." Though she has no clue, Mika shrugs nonchalantly. After all, she's learning to fix bodies, and brains... how hard can it be to fix the light? Turning around, she takes Taryn's hand in her own. "Come, it's over here."

The attic is completely empty, as Meredith and her family took all their belongings with them, which helps to reach the other side without stumbling despite the darkness around them. And once there, they can actually see a little, with the hole in the roof serving as an unintentional skylight.

"Oh wow," Taryn exclaims, "That's... way bigger than I expected. Is it safe?"

Mika shrugs again.

"According to the firefighters, it is. I might call them again though, for another check. They're not the worst looking people to invite." The second the words are out, she wants to kick herself - seriously, who starts about hot people in a moment like this?! - but thankfully Taryn simply agrees with her.

"Amen to that," she grins. "So why isn't it covered?"

For a moment Mika just stares at her, stunned by the question that seems the best she's ever heard - though that might be the booze messing with her brain. But then she bursts out laughing. "I have absolutely no idea!" she snorts. Looking up, she squints her eyes thoughtfully. "It should, shouldn't it?"

Taryn rubs her chin, examining the situation like a pro, then slowly nods. "I'd think so. Knowing the Seattle weather and all... It would also explain that thing over there." She points at a piece of tarpaulin lying lost on the floor.

"Oooh yeah, I remember now," Mika chuckles, "We took it down."

"You took it—" Taryn turns to her in astonishment. "Why would you take it down?!?"

CONTINUE ON AO3 >>

[ironfoot-mothafocka]

#KhazadWeek Day 1: Longbeards

Sorry for being late. In return, dwarf lesbians and an Eastern dwarf quickly gets over some preconceptions of the Elder Folk.

-

“Y’ can’t get a hardier folk than khazâd from the Iron Hills,” belched Tagrar impressively. “Long have we defended the north from many foes. Packs of goblins, wargs, wyrms—” “Except,” retorted Firdri, “there aren’t wyrms in the Grey Mountains no more, and none would venture as south as the Iron Hills.” The dwarf of Ered Luin’s teeth were bared, glinting gold at the edges of his mouth where the two lower canines had been punched out in a fight years ago. Tagrar fixed Firdri with one menacing eye. “I’ve seen one,” he said, drawing a meaty hand over his lips and leaning forwards to face his adversary, “years ago, when we were tracking down a group of marauding, renegade northmen pillagers, and they led us into a crevasse where the earth grew hot, and rumbled with the sound of a—” “Of some kind of natural geyser, no doubt,” snapped Firdri. He clenched the mug of beer in his hand so tightly that Zâda could have sworn she heard the metal fixtures of the handle crack.

Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two dwarves as though she was watching a game of takrak, or an arm-wrestling match, or an axe-throwing bout. Truthfully, she would have rather watched them just punch each other until their faces resembled mashed potatoes — at least their incessant boasting would be over then and she could get some peace. With the practised patience of the middle child of seven dwarves, she tuned out the griping from her right and stared around the tavern. ‘Tavern’ was a strong word — it was a patched-up watering hole. Smaug had rampaged through much of Erebor and there was practically no corner unscathed from fiery breath or whipping, lash-like tail that had tumbled stone. Zâda had already been on her way to Laketown when she had seen the pines caught alight, smouldering like candle-stubs on the far-away mountainside. The battle had been over when her wagon-train had reached the outskirts of the dwarf-held lands, though many of her party who had set out a week ago from the banks of the Sea of Rhûn had turned and fled back as they watched the northern arm of the River Running flow red with blood — dwarf, orc, and human.

It wasn’t what she had expected, but then nothing in her life had ever gone smoothly since she had left Ghomal for the small settlement of rolling, fertile hills that surrounded Dorwinion. Once she had arrived at Erebor, she was immediately escorted inside the mountain. Jubilant shouts of liberation mixed with the tearing of beards at so many dead, and there was no room for bystanders. Every dwarf able to lift something and stand upright was put to work, and Zâda had spent much of the first week in Erebor breaking down large slabs of fallen rock and piling them into carts to be hauled away for building stone. It was back-breaking, muscle-wrenching work and Zâda hadn’t cared where she had slept, as long as she got a corner to herself. A large mustering hall down in one of the lower quarters wasn’t as badly damaged as some of the others, and it had garnered the name ‘Survivor’s Hall’. A fire had been stoked high in its middle, radiating warmth and a sense of security that swept away the lingering darkness in the corners of the hall. Tents and tarpaulin sheets had been strung up, and a makeshift encampment had steadily grown, sprawling from Survivor’s Hall to the rest of the kingdom as more and more became habitable.

This, however, was not the heady hubbub Survivor’s Hall. This watering-hole, with drunken Longbeards lying amid broken chairs and vats of vinegary ale, was the Pig’s Tooth. And it stank. “Sigin-tarâg,” Zâda muttered, watching as the shouting match continued. There were some things about the Elder Folk that mystified her Eastern sensibilities. To her, Longbeards were snobbish, rude and aloof, whereas her Blacklock folk prided themselves on generous hospitality — even to the Men of the surrounding Easterling settlements. Longbeards were quick to dismiss the skills of other dwarves, those from the other Houses. Common story went that Longbeard craftsdwarves had stolen structural ideas from Blacklock architects and copied work from their ancient halls inside Khazâd-dum without credit. Zâda didn’t quite know what to believe, but she wouldn’t put it past them. Their beards were too long. They smelled odd. They weren’t what she was used to.

She rolled her eyes as the Iron Hills warrior expounded the virtues of being bred in those sparse, cold hills; whereas the one from Ered Luin was regaling the tragedies the band who had followed the King’s dwarves into exile had encountered.

And then she saw her.

It was the first time that Zâda had seen her, because she knew she would have remembered her. With an easy gait, she strode into the tavern, looking around with piercing blue eyes. A battered Iron Hills helmet, now jerry-rigged into a mining cap, swung from one hand, and the other balanced an pick across her broad, scarred shoulders. She was grimy and her shirt was more hole than cloth. And she was mesmerising.

Zâda inhaled sharply — she had forgotten to breathe for what felt like several minutes, and stars popped in front of her eyes and her lips tingled. The worker slung down her pick and helmet with a clatter and slid into the seat next to Zâda. The other dwarves had moved off to continue their quarrel outside. “Were they bothering you?” The dwarf’s voice was deep and smooth, and Zâda could feel it more than she could hear it. “No. I mean, yes, in general. But not personally,” she said quickly. The dwarf grimaced apologetically and puffed her chest out in defiance. “Not all Longbeards are as uncouth as those louts. There are some of us who know how to behave ourselves in front of guests from other Halls.” She stroked a finger through her bushy auburn moustache — Zâda noticed how meticulously her long brown hair and beard were kept, well oiled and neatly plaited through with glimmering green and blue beads, even though she was in need of a wash. The dwarf pressed a fist to her chest and rose to her feet, bowing low, her beard brushing her knees. “Igdi, child of Umnir, of the Iron Hills at your service. Don’t judge the Hills by Tagrar’s display,” she said with a wink. “Zâda, daughter of Khafun, at your’s and your family’s. And no — I wouldn’t!” she said. Her lips seemed to be running on without her, and she also appeared to have less air in her lungs than she would have liked. There was something about the dwarf’s quiet confidence and genuine smile that spread from their lips to their eyes which made her forget where she was — in a foreign land, far from home, in a mountain that had been the home of a dragon.

Maybe Longbeards weren’t so bad after all.

[sadubkiduniya]

Our First Meet

Rain

"Okay, Mr. Suraj it's our last question to you. "

"Have you ever felt a feeling of love at first sight?"

"Umm... Okay, Nehaji!!!! Yeah, I did experience it. Maybe most of you will say that practically it doesn't exist. But it does exist. It's just that not all people have enough luck to experience that feeling of first sight in love.

"Let me share a small experience from my side where I met a sweet woman who became a part of my life."

I still remember that day when I finished my work earlier and I was returning to my home. It suddenly started raining out of the grey sky filled with clouds. So I had to run for a shelter as I didn't have an umbrella with me. I ran towards a tea stall that had an extension of tarpaulin to provide shelter to the customers on the stall... As I was in a rush my head got hit by some random person. My eyes were closed and I wasn't able to see anything clearly because my hair was covering my vision.

I heard a very sweet voice. "Hey, are you mad or something?" I was confused so I apologized to her for my rush and clarity. I took my handkerchief and wiped my face then set my hair back. When I opened my eyes I saw a very beautiful face in my front. She had long jet-black hair, beautiful brown eyes, a height of around 5'7, and her skin tone was a bit darker and she had a cute face. Her lips had a very soft texture and she had a very smooth skin. When I saw her my mind was blown. I was silent and still stood there for a minute and kept listening to her meanwhile she was scolding me about being reckless.

Now, she made me snap out of my dreams and asked "Hello mister, Are you even listening? Or you are just dreaming about me in your thoughts?"

Then I answered, "Yes, I'm listening to you." in a very scared tone.

After seeing the reaction on my face she suddenly started laughing and said "You were scared. Weren't you?"

I answered, "Yes I was scared though like your furious tone and angry look made me a bit scared."

She said, "Chillax, I was just testing you because I thought you were chasing me but now I believe that you are a good guy and you also ended up under this roof like me."

Then I got calm down and said "Oh!!! I see, I might look like one but I'm not like them who chase a girl who is alone in the road."

She said "No no!!! You don't look like any of them. You seemed fine to me it's just that I misunderstood you in a first sight."

After listening to that my reaction was in my mind "Bruh!!!!! How could someone have this kind of misunderstanding?" But after that suddenly she and I started laughing out of nowhere. She was also enjoying the conversation with me.

At first, I thought I should ask her name but I was holding as it might sound creepy to her but instead, she herself started introducing me to me. She said, "Hello, I'm Nikita. I live 4th district of this town and I work in a company named Balaji Electricals. What about you?".

Having that kind of introduction I let my guard down and in a flow, I also introduced myself to her. "My name is Suraj and I also work in Balaji Electrical under the marketing department. I also live in the 4th district of this town." After giving my intro to her I didn't realise that we live in the same and work in the same but we both don't know each other.

She was shocked to hear that we were working in the same company but in different departments and we both also lived nearby. She said "Oh!!! So you are Suraj. I have heard your name many times in my department. People always talk about you being very hard-working and honest to others. We have crossed our lines in company projects and meetings many times but I never knew that it was you. We also live nearby but I never thought that I would get an opportunity to converse with you here like in this situation."

Meanwhile, she was talking about all of this I was cursing myself for being ignorant and stubborn like this. A beautiful girl who is talking to me works in the same company as mine but I never thought that someone could talk to a person like me.

She said, "Mr. Suraj, can we please exchange our contacts?"

I said, "Yes, we could exchange numbers." I put my hand in my pocket to take out my phone but my pocket was empty then I checked my bag and my phone was not there. I realized that I had left my phone in the my phone in the office while leaving. When she asked about my phone no. then I didn't remember it. So I was like in what kind of misery I'm stuck god?

She was standing there and waiting for an answer. Before I could speak anything she said "It's fine. You don't have to push yourself for these small things. I think you must've left your phone somewhere in the office and now you are having trouble finding it."

I was shocked that she guessed everything just with my expressions and gestures. I honestly said "Sorry, I was in a hurry so I left my phone there."

She said, "It's okay, People can be stubborn sometimes but you don't have to act like you are fine. If you have your Insta then we can have a convo there."

Luckily I remembered my Insta ID so I said yes to her. Then she followed me on Instagram.

Now we were having fun and our convo was getting deeper and we were getting closer. I thought we could talk even longer until the rain stopped but fate wanted something else and the rain stopped. When it happened her mood was a bit down and before I could say a word to her. There was someone's call. She picked up the call and said "Hello maa, Yes I'm coming back soon. It was raining here so I took shelter to avoid getting wet. Yes maa, Don't worry. I'm fine and I will be back home in an hour." She hung up and said "Sorry, I have to leave now. I wish we could talk longer."

I was also a bit down but I said, "It's fine and also it is almost getting late. We have already spent enough talking to each other.

Then she asked me, "Do you have plans for this weekend? We can go out together and have some fun."

Hearing this shook me so I said, "No, I don't and Yes we can go out if you are inviting then I would like to come."

Then she said, "Okay, then I have set a reminder for this weekend. Meet in the Palace cafe this weekend. The rest of the day will be planned together there." Now she waved a hand sign of bye and said "Bye, I will be meeting this weekend so please there. I am looking forward to it. I said, " Okay, I will follow you up." After hearing this she left and I was also going back to home.

But after walking a few meters I realized that I had to go back to the office for my phone.

THE END

I hope you all enjoyed reading it and might find the story interesting.

I will be writing a few more parts of this story. Until then stay connected and please share. For more content follow me up. It gives me the motivation to write more topics and try something new.

[nanoland]

The alley on the left of 17 Abigail Way was dark, narrow, and currently occupied by two middle-aged women, wrapped in blankets and regarding Gus with frank curiosity.

He’d woken them up.

“Hey there, ladies,” he said, aware that any protestations of innocence would be in vain. There weren’t many legitimate reasons for a man to be caught lurking beside a dumpster in the dead of night, alone and trying to open up an extension ladder that had, until his arrival, been concealed beneath a sheet of tarpaulin, several dozen garbage bags, and a fair amount of actual garbage.

Virtuous pretences being a lost cause, he threw his audience a grin and a wink, hoping to come across as the sort of cool, nonchalant gentleman thief whose daring deeds were always well within the bounds of conventional morality.

“Boy, what are you doing?” said the older one. She had wispy black hair, streaked with grey, and a thick Russian accent.

Gus continued to wrestle with the ladder, wincing at every clatter. “Nothing you need to worry about, ma’am.”

It was thirteen feet long when retracted, forty-three when fully extended, and had belonged to the Sacramento Fire Department until Gus had called in a favour from an old school friend, who’d bribed a cousin, who’d bribed someone else, who’d blackmailed someone else. So far, this adventure had cost him two thousand dollars – every last penny he’d ever saved and then some – and utterly nuked his karma. His grandmother had once told him that he’d go to Hell when he died and it kinda sucked that he’d proved her right.

Because it was so big, opening it up safely and efficiently was a job for three or four properly-trained firefighters. Trying to do it by yourself was just impractical.

The gentle flower of practicality had long ago been smothered by the rampant weeds of creativity in Gus’s soul, leaving him prone to ideas that reeled wildly between brilliance and lunacy with absolutely no middle ground. He’d spent weeks familiarising himself with every latch and pulley and had eventually devised a method, involving ropes, counterweights, and several extra hours a week in the gym, of getting it upright and extended all on his own.

“Um – question? Why don’t you go in via the first floor, genius? Break the latch on the front door or break a window, then go up the stairway? Wouldn’t that be way simpler?” Helen, his bratty kid sister, had asked.

“Don’t be dumb,” he’d scoffed. “There’ll be an alarm. Cameras. Someone might see me.”

(Disabling the alarm and cameras would have been hard, not impossible. He’d not wanted to go in the front door or smash a window because that felt like the sort of thing a common burglar would do. He wasn’t a burglar. He was a man on a righteous mission.)

Regardless of his plan’s very obvious cleverness and feasibility, it was still tricky to pull it off in the dark, with the nearest streetlight thirty yards away.

“You’re doing that wrong,” the younger homeless woman commented, sounding amused, and took a sip from her thermos. “A ladder needs to be set at a seventy-five degree angle. Otherwise, it ain’t safe. You a burglar, son?”

“Nope. I’m a nice guy.”

Shaking her head, the Russian one said, “Nice guy not out so late. Nice guy home with mother, not out in streets dressed like ninja.”

“I’m a harmless guy,” he amended, and that they seemed to accept. Unsurprising; aside from the fact that his jeans, shirt, boots, and gloves were all black, he looked like any other pasty nerd with stress acne and messy red hair he’d cut himself.

At last, the ladder was up and positioned correctly. Now he just had to climb the damn thing. He swallowed.

READ THE REST HERE

[chaletnz]

Antigua to Cerro Verde, El Salvador

After enjoying the buffet breakfast of hash browns, fruit, bread and cake I walked down to get a flat white from Fernanda's. There was a precious little grey cat asleep on the counter and the coffee was top-notch! We all sat on the bus waiting for our driver Edwin to secure all the bags on the roof under a tarpaulin and listened to Emily and Georgi's crazy story about how they'd ended up going from a rooftop bar in Antigua to a house party in a dodgy neighbourhood where the police were called. The tale involved drugs and a BMW being driven at high speeds down the cobblestones at 6am to get them back to the hotel early this morning. I had actually heard them walking in shouting "hola chicos y chicas!" repeatedly. Walter intercepted Emily on her way to her room and warned her about the beers she was carrying in each hand and Georgi ended up having a complaint sent to Intrepid Travel's head office about her behaviour trying to sneak her British boytoy back in to her room. Georgi slept on the floor of the bus for most of the three hour ride to the El Salvador border. While we drove Walter told us about the Mayan history of Guatemala, which only remains here because Mayans and indigenous peoples in other countries were all murdered. Unbelievably Guatemalans of Mayan heritage were considered second class citizens until 1997 when they were finally given even rights and access to medical care. While literacy levels are improving throughout the country, the average ratio of public school students to teachers is 450:1 for the first 6 years of education. Only the best and brightest 20% make it to secondary school and even less into universities with scholarships. We drove through a lot of rural farmland as we neared the border and the fitting fact that 38% of Guatemalans rely on growing their own food source was shared. We exchanged our Guatemalan quetzales to USD while standing in the line at the border waiting for our turn to cross. It was hot and when I stood at the window to hand over my passport I could feel the air conditioning from inside the immigration officer's office on my hands. Once successfully in El Salvador Walter gave us a bit of backstory on the new El Salvadoran president who is cracking down on gangs and violence. He also changed the official currency to USD and Bitcoin to help the economy prosper. El Salvador looked more run down to me than Guatemala, without such beautiful scenery and more trash. The gas station toilet even lacked a door. Due to the American influence they seemed to make more effort with using English though - I saw a sign reading "car wahs". We were dropped off at a mall to buy lunch and groceries before we went to our campsite for the next two nights. I didn't wait around for the others and just headed to the food court to have a Pollo Campero sandwich meal. They took my order and gave me a receipt but didn't actually serve my meal. I figured out by watching the other people who skipped over me that I was supposed to hand my receipt to the person standing beside the cashier who would then build the order. I waited stupidly for ten minutes before giving him my receipt and them finally making it, all the while watching an obese family drinking their weight in coke and refilling while they waited for their orders. I took a table and ended up sitting with Boukje and Wout - the Belgian couple, British girl Jess, and Dutch girl Tyrza to eat lunch. It was a lunchtime-rush food court complete with screaming kids, lazy parents, and inconsiderate people leaving trays of rubbish all over the tables. We hit the supermarket to buy a few drinks and snacks and then our bus took us all to Tres Volcanes, a campsite in the Cerro Verde National Park near Santa Ana volcano. We were briefed on tomorrow's optional activity - a $45 hike up to the volcano crater, followed by lunch at the campsite, and then a trip out to the lake for the afternoon. The price tag was steep but there was nothing else to do around here so I was in. Our dinner was pasta, then a couple games of Uno and it was time for bed.

[reallygrossstuff]

Sollux - Soothing Solzilla

Another personal project from me inspired by some art my boyfriend drew! No extra warnings apply, please let me know what you think because I really enjoyed writing this!

“-reports that the city has now been completely evacuated, and the national guard is maintaining an observation perimeter in case of further movement. For those not in the area just tuning in-.”

Nobody could agree on exactly where the creature came from.

The night before, New Hell, Michigan was exactly the same as it had always been, nothing out of place. Then, sometime before most of the population would have been up on an average weekday, everyone was rushed out of bed by insistent, ominous thudding from the city centre, and there it had been.

Its proportions weren’t entirely dissimilar to a troll, though there were enough distinctions to make it clearly its own entity. Its proportions were somewhat squashed, its squat legs only just longer than its torso. While its head was easily the size of a small blimp, it only just poked up above the tallest buildings, giving the impression that whatever species it was, it was something of a shortstack.

Looking past its humanoid anatomy, there was plenty more to gawk at. Its body seemed naturally heavyset, almost as wide as it was tall with dark grey flab jutting out in every direction. Its stomach sagged down in front of it, almost brushing the asphalt every time it was pushed forward by its flabby legs. It had breasts, covered by some sort of folded tarpaulin that, even at a significant size, didn’t manage to obscure their flabby shape or the small protruding areolae on each tit. The tail that dragged behind it was equally tubby, carving a small groove in the road wherever it went and brushing aside any car or cart that wasn’t pancaked by its plodding footfalls.

Unlike in the movies, the monster didn’t seem motivated by hatred for people or rage towards the city itself. Sure, it destroyed infrastructure with a terrifying casualness, and there was no doubt what would happen to anyone who couldn’t avoid its pacing, but it only seemed to move around the space to search for one thing specifically: food. Its stomping route around the city stopped at every food truck, refrigerated van or suitably large restaurant, at which point its searchlight eyes (one glowing red and the other blue, leading to it being named Sol after one of the mythologised creation gods) would fixate on the object until it was rent open with psionic force, and any food within was suctioned out into a thin stream terminating in the creature’s snaggletoothed mouth.

For now, the city had enough food to keep its interest contained, but already steps were being taken to keep it from roaming further when that source dried up. While a small force of helicopters was indeed circling the city’s perimeters, ready to sound the evacuation alarm in case of a sudden burst of movement, the majority of the national guard’s squadron was occupied with the task of shuttling yet more food into the city limits, dropping it as close to Sol as possible without risking being grabbed from the air in a fit of curiosity.

So far this had worked, but it wasn’t exactly scalable. The more Sol ate, the faster it did so, such that quantities that had initially kept it in place for almost an hour now left it unfed for five minutes between deliveries. The squadron had to strategically position the food drops to keep it from roaming too far, a measure that was seeming all too temporary.

“-receiving word now from the national guard that the creature is still contained within the tourism hub of the city. A briefing just minutes ago from incident chief Crocker confirmed there was no loss of life during the evacuation. While details have not yet been discussed, her statement also implied that steps are being taken to ensure no further displacement of American citizens from the surrounding area-.”

It was a good thing the permanent solution was already in the works.

Sol had appeared overnight, but it took the better part of two days to put a guaranteed end to its wandering.

The plan had taken shape gradually, contingencies coming together or being discarded as needed, under the observation of dozens of helicopters. Food quantities were increased. Enzymes were introduced or artificially removed to encourage a larger appetite when needed, and to momentarily shrink it pending the arrival of the custom-fitted blimp that now dominated Michigan airspace.

When it had first arrived, its size dominated even Sol itself, though this made it incredibly slow-moving, relying on a battery of secondary crafts to propel it to its destination directly above the monster. It was a soft-body vessel, yet it was pre-filled with such a quantity of feed that the whole thing appeared uniformly round without a single crease in sight.

Sol had watched the blimp’s movements closely; whether concerned about its size or already sensing the food within was unclear. Blue and red sparks pelted its body as it tried to peel it open like the trucks and stores before, but steps had been taken to make sure it would hold against such an attack. The creature had been unable to pierce it prematurely, its access to the fluid within entirely controlled by the airship’s pilot.

And then the hose had been dropped.

Only a few people knew the exact chemical makeup of the feed that now drizzled over Sol’s massive cheeks and chin. It was the culmination of dozens of patents, hundreds of proprietary secrets, all leading to a mixture that was entirely irresistible to Sol. In the hours that it was still able to, it hadn’t moved once from beneath the hose, mouth open greedily to guzzle down as much of the slop as possible, psionics ablaze to scrape any loose dollop or dribble that went wide back into his maw. Like a machine, or perhaps an animal, it was rendered completely ignorant to anything else by the new self-reinforcing desire for more of the formula.

The mix had been designed so Sol would never develop an immunity to its addictive effects, but even so there were contingencies to ensure a permanent de-fanging of the creature. Every dribble that passed its lips seemed to convert to twice as much flab on its already-padded frame, rendering even the drag of its fingers across its sides or the slow whumping glide of its tail a ponderous feat. Its skyscraper ass thudded against the ground well before its lard-covered legs fully gave out and slid from beneath it, a belly the size of a city block pinning it down terrifyingly effectively.

Throughout its beaching, Sol remained unaware. Even as its cheeks hemmed in its vision, as its sagging tits rose up to hide the ground from its eyes, as the buzz of psionics lessened and atrophied into useless sparks, it remained wholly devoted to the food it was being neutered with. Its only method of interacting with the city was reduced to its slowly-swelling flab, encroaching outwards like a glacial flow that consumed buildings and cars beneath it as greedily as its permanently-gaping mouth consumed its feed. Already it would never stand under its own power again, but the incident chief had been unyielding in the demand for absolute control – Sol was never again to do anything under its own power, never again to twitch a flabby finger or sway its tanker-sized tail. It would sit where it was and eat where it was given, until its exact nature could be understood and brought to the benefit of society.

Where previously people had gasped or flinched at the sight of it on television, with free reign over a whole city and seemingly nothing to stop it, a new image took over the airwaves in the coming days: the creature’s face, buried in a divot of its own immeasurable back, shoulder and chest fat. Cheeks the size of small apartment buildings weighing down on its face, forcing its incomparable mouth permanently open to let drool spill out across its chins. Eyes that had once flared with intent and power could now barely open, their unearthly glow reduced to a candle’s flicker. And its whole face, from its brow to well down its chest, was splattered with the messy leftovers of the formula used to turn a force of nature into a docile, if spreading, landmass.

“-Crocker again confirming for international speculators that the creature colloquially referred to as Sol now poses no threat to the American people or any other power. Examination of its potential abilities as well as the responsibility of its inhibition has been given over to the Crockercorp international conglomerate, which has stated its first priority as determining a final target weight for the being. For continual updates on this story and a live feed of the current situation, viewers can switch to-.”

[sanguinarysanguinity]

for the wip word asks, let's talk about the weather? fog! rain! mist! sleet!

No hits for sleet, I'm afraid, but here are the rest, in their order of appearance!

~

The morning dawned painfully bright, Horatio stiff from the ground and with sand in his mouth. He could hear Bush still snoring above him in his hammock, and the memory of those idyllic weeks on the Loire flooded back to him: the two nights when it rained and he woke under Bush's sleeping arm, Bush snoring peaceably in Horatio's ear. It had been dim under that wet tarpaulin, the river beyond their feet silent and shrouded with mist -- a morning as unlike this bright and airy daybreak, filled with the cacophony of birdcall and crashing surf, as it was possible for two mornings to be. Nevertheless, this morning held a kind of spiritual kin to that one: Horatio lay in the dry sand, listening to Bush snore above him, and for a few moments nearly felt at peace.

~

The night before Brown was due, Horatio woke in pitch darkness to hear the wind beating rain upon the shack walls. At moonrise there had only been scattered cloud; if there had been another sign of the impending storm, he had been too distracted to mark it. Casting his mind back, he had no clear idea of the month, Brown's visits having long since blurred together, but it seemed to him it might already be the advent of the rainy season -- his second since arriving in the West Indies. The first rainy season, he had spent in an inn in Port-of-Spain, despondent with grief. The inn had at least been dry and comfortable, but to spend the rainy season trapped in this leaky shack with William--

William. With a gasp, Horatio remembered William: he had rigged an awning for his hammock, but it would be no match for wind-driven rain. Horatio groped for tinderbox and lantern and fumbled them alight, then grabbing the lantern, went to the door.

William was already on the porch, his arms full of wet canvas, his nightshirt clinging to his skin.

~

England, when she finally arrived, was a grey smear of fog and cloud. Many times in his years at sea, Hornblower had regained her shores to feel a lightening in his heart: he had sacrificed comfort and peace for those green hills, and those green hills were worth the sacrifice. But the hills looked differently to him now. He had sacrificed his honour for England's sake, but England, if she welcomed him home at all, would greet him with snubs and sneers. He felt he understood now the venom with which William had spoken of England. There was a coldness to those hills, and not of winter only: the coldness of a tavern cross-girl who wanted only a sailor's coin, and had no use for him after.

[nzdepot]

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