#have nearly as much research done on it. it seems its also compounding so instead of building immunity it weakens the body and spreads to

[teacupfulofstarshine]

LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

[bucky-iss-bae]

Right Person Wrong Time (Steve x Reader)

Soo this was a request from AGES ago - so sorry for taking so long with it. Hope I’ve done this justice xoxo 

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Fandom: Marvel (MCU)

Request: Would you ever do a Steve imagine of maybe used to be friends or date and one day he sees you in town either pregnant or with a kid so he thinks your married but the father isn’t in the picture for whatever reason you like ❤️❤️

(IF you wanna request something - I’m always available) 

Warnings: None... that I can think of. 

Word Count: 1600

A/N: This was kind of a shambles, I didn't get to do what I imagined when I wrote this, and I’m thinking of doing a part 2... potentially maybe xoxo 

Masterlist

Steve was shocked when he saw you. It had been nearly 2 years since he had last seen you, and letting you go had been the biggest mistake in his life. Yet of all the cafes and coffee shops in Brooklyn, there you sat. A laptop in front of you, papers surrounding you, and coffee, most likely a chocolatey Frappuccino in front of you. He saw a cupcake wrapper, and another cupcake on another plate beside your notebook. He couldn’t help but just stare, in awe of your beauty. You were glowing. He knew how successful you’d become; he was sad that he wasn’t a part of it. But was so proud whenever he saw your name on the front of a book shop, or your book title named as number one.

Yours and Steve’s relationship was the definition of ‘Right person, wrong time’. You were both in love, a love that hasn’t died for him. A love that would never die. But the two of you were in two different parts of your lives, after a hectic few years he was settling back into life, whereas you were in the process of getting your first book published. It was difficult for you both, but you left on good terms, the both of you believing in if its meant to happen, you’ll cross paths once again.

This time he did cross paths with you, you hadn’t noticed him, shocked at that considering Bucky and Sam were arguing behind him over what to order, and Bucky refusing to go beyond black coffee.

But he was too late. He stared at your prodding baby bump realised you were well on your way to having everything you wanted. A family, a baby.

“Holy shit. Is that Y/N” Steve heard Sam ask, Steve turned to tell him to be quiet but it was too late, you had already seen the trio.

You smiled when you saw them, happy to see them, Especially Steve. You were shocked at how your heart still leapt out of your chest when you saw him, all those feelings you’ve harboured deep within you resurfacing. Steve Rogers was your first and only love. Nearly everything about your relationship was perfect, the two of you fit together like a jigsaw piece. You blended in well with his family, despite them being literal superheroes. It just meant that you could ask them questions about how fights work for some scenes in your book, or you were able to ask first-hand information on how different injuries could work. All the research you usually spent hours doing, you could just ask.

But most importantly you were in love with how Steve would do anything for you, he became your person, and his friends became a family to you. He was the one that got away.

You got up when you saw them, you saw Sam and Bucky’s shock to your baby bump, but Steve not as much. He must’ve realised you were here before you had seen or heard them.

“Shit Y/N” Sam said walking up to you and giving you a hug, “I’ve missed you, how you been?” After he hugged you Bucky also went up to you giving you the same treatment,

“You just gonna stand there Stevie?” You asked putting your arms out,

He smiled and hugged you, as soon as he had done, the both of you could feel the warmth and electricity that was still there after all this time.

“You boys in a rush, or did you want to join me?” You asked them,

“We’ve got nowhere to be” Bucky said, warily looking across at Steve, so the three of them went to join you at your table.

“Sorry for all this. It’s just, I’m getting through hopefully the final draft, and its so close to being perfect”

“We read your first one. It was amazing by the way, congratulations.” Bucky said,

“Thank you” You smiled, “That was a different stress, this it’s almost like I need to live up to that same potential. It’s painful because of how many opportunities could come from this”

“Hopefully you’re not stressing too much though huh?” Sam asked, “There’s a lot to congratulate you for”

You chuckled at that and stroked your bump, “Awh, yeah, my life, it’s taken a complete turn. It was a long process, don’t get me wrong. But I’m happy”

Steve’s heart sank slightly at that, knowing you were happy, yet the person you were with wasn’t him. He of course wanted you to be happy, but he figured the two of you would always grow old together.

“You deserve to be happy Y/N” Steve said, speaking up for the first time. His voice still sent shovers down your spine, in a good way of course.

“Who’s the lucky man?” Sam asked diving in straight for the difficult questions, that caused you to laugh a little.

“Don’t get me started Sam. Would you judge me if I said I don’t know” You had a cheeky smile on your face, loving when you told people this.

The three men looked at you confused. They were confused because you were never the type to have one-night stands. Steve instantly worried knowing you would be going through all of this alone.  The other two just shocked at what you said.

“You know, we’ve got an amazing lab, I’m sure with the right DNA sample, someone could find out and track the father down” Sam suggested,

You shook your head, a smile still on your face, risking a glance at Steve, “I meant to get pregnant. Wait no. I went through ‘Artificial Insemination’, I just, I always said that before I turn 30 I want to be a mom. And I know its selfish of me, but I just… I wanted to be a mom, and figured now’s the perfect time. My 2nd book had started going through the editing process when I made the decision. And well after a long and complicated process, 6 months later here I am”

“So you’re single?” Steve asked causing Sam to snort,

You nodded at that, “Yup. As single as I can be, with a bun in the oven though of course”

The two boys looked at Steve, and then you. The two of you making eyes at each other. You were shy to announce that you’re planning on becoming a single mother. But the other two you had seen as brothers, and Steve is Steve. Steve was staring at you with the same look he always gave you. A look that you knew that he was still in love with you, but instead he looked proud.

“Hey Buck, I think they’re calling our name, let’s go” Sam said grabbing Steve from beside you, the two of them leaving.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been in shock I think since I’ve seen you” Steve mumbled while rubbing his thumb over your hand,

You nodded, “I know. It’s okay though. How have you been?” You asked Steve,

“I’ve… been good. I’ve missed you. That’s for damn sure, but I’ve been good. Better than I was. Living in the Avengers compound at the moment. Rent around here is unnecessary. How about you, I’m just… so prod of what you’ve made of yourself. I always knew that your books would become best sellers. Seeing your name on the shelves. I couldn’t explain the feeling.”

“It means a lot” You whispered, “It shocked me. I didn’t expect to become as big as I had done. A lot of good things have been coming my way since. And with this baby, its like everything for me is nearly perfect”

“Nearly huh?” He asked looking at you with a twinkle in his eyes,

“I mean Mr Rogers, I just… I missed you like hell as well. I always figured you were the one that got away. And seeing you stood there, it just, those feelings never went away”

“They didn’t?” He asked, “Then you should know that I’m still madly in love with you as well.”

“We’ve both changed so much though…”

“I don’t care. Change is good right. We always said if we crossed paths once again…”

“But I’m pregnant” you then added,

“Makes it all the more perfect. Let me take you out. On a date. Let me woo you like I used to, let me make you mine again. Only if you let me”

“You want to still take me out?”

“It’s only ever been you” He said shaking his head, “Everyone knows that.”

You couldn’t help the smile that had crossed your face, everything would really be perfect now if you did have Steve by your side. You eyes were slightly glistening in happy tears, and he had a concerned look on his face,

“It’s hormones” you said shaking your head, “I just… I’m happy. It sounds weird, because I’ve only just seen you. But I’m so happy to see you Steve. It just… it makes everything perfect. I’m being Dramatic I know. But again hormones, me being happy”

He smiled at that, “It’s not being dramatic. I’ve got you Y/N. And I’m not missing any of it from now on. We’ll get back to where we were, and we’ll get there together”

It was true, you believed Steve’s words. Because something about the two of you connected. It always had. Steve believed this to. When he saw you, your pregnant stomach, he still had hope as selfish as it may seem. But a thought that also went through his head that it was too late, he hadn’t loved you enough when it mattered, and now someone else did and you would never be his. The thought crushed him, it broke his heart because for him, you’re it. But he’s been given a second chance, the same way he had done at life, he knew with this second chance, the two of you would start the perfect family.

A/N - Like I said, I wanted this to be better, but it is what it isssss - also nil kinda got some inspo from ‘The Backup Plan’ 

[tahitinuifan]

Arctic Diet Gone Toxic

Pitching a makeshift tent on sea ice, where the Arctic Ocean meets the North Atlantic, brothers Mamarut and Gedion Kristiansen are ready to savor their favorite meal. Mamarut slices off a piece of raw pink whale blubber as a snack. Mamarut’s wife, Tukummeq Peary, a descendant of famed North Pole explorer Admiral Robert E. Peary, is boiling the main entrée on a camp stove. The family dips hunting knives into the kettle, pulling out steaming ribs of freshly killed ringed seal and devouring the hearty meat with some hot black tea.

Living closer to the North Pole than to any city, factory, or farm, the Kristiansens appear unscathed by the industrial-age ills. They live much as their ancestors did, relying on foods harvested from the sea and skills honed by generations of Inuit. But as northbound winds carry toxic remnants of faraway lands to their hunting ground in extraordinary amounts, their close connection to the environment and their ancestral diet of marine mammals have left the Arctic’s indigenous people vulnerable to the pollutants of modern society. About 200 hazardous compounds, which migrate from industrialized regions and accumulate in ocean-dwelling animals, have been detected in the inhabitants of the far north.

The bodies of Arctic people, particularly Greenland’s Inuit, contain the highest human concentrations of industrial chemicals and pesticides found anywhere on Earth-levels so extreme that the breast milk and tissues of some Greenlanders could be classified as hazardous waste. Nearly all Inuit tested in Greenland and more than half in Canada have levels of PCBs and mercury exceeding international health guidelines. Perched atop a contaminated food chain, the inhabitants of the Arctic have become the world’s lab rats, the involuntary subjects of an accidental human experiment demonstrating what can happen when a heaping brew of chemicals builds up in human bodies.

Studies of infants in Greenland and Arctic Canada suggest that the chemicals are harming children. Babies suffer greater rates of infections because their immune systems seem to be impaired and their brain development is altered, slightly reducing intelligence and memory skills. Scientists say the immune suppression could be responsible, at least in part, for the Arctic’s inordinate number of sick babies. They believe the neurological damage to newborns is similar in scope to the harm done if the mothers drank moderate amounts of alcohol while pregnant. The tragedy for the Inuit is that they have few, if any, ways to protect themselves.

Many Arctic natives say that abandoning their traditional foods would destroy a 4,000 year-old society rooted in hunting. No factory-engineered fleece compares with the warmth of a sealskin parka, mittens, and boots. No motorboat sneaks up on a whale like a handmade kayak latched together with rope. No snowmobile flexes with ice like a dog-pulled sled made of driftwood. And no imported food nourished their bodies, warms their spirit and strengthens their hearts like the flesh they slice from the flanks of a whale or seal.

“Our foods do more than nourish our bodies. They feed our souls.” said the late Ingmar Egede, a Greenlandic educator who promoted the rights of indigenous people. “When many things in our lives are changing, our foods remain the same. They make us feel the same as they have for generations. When I eat Inuit foods, I know who I am.”

Unexpected Poisons

In 1987, Dr. Eric Dewailly, an epidemiologist at Laval University in Quebec, was surveying contaminants in breast milk of mothers near the industrialized, heavily polluted Gulf of St. Lawrence when he met a midwife from Nunavik, the Arctic portion of the Quebec province. She asked whether he wanted to gather milk samples from women there. Dewailly reluctantly agreed, thinking it might be useful as “blanks”, samples with nondetectable pollution levels. A few months later, the first batch of samples (glass vials holding a half-cup of milk from 24 women from Nunavik) arrived by air mail at the lab in Quebec.

Dewailly soon got a phone call from the lab director. Something was wrong with the Arctic milk. The chemical concentrations were off the charts. The technician thought the samples must have been tainted in transit. Upon checking more breast milk, the scientists soon realized that the chemical concentration numbers were accurate. The Arctic mothers had seven times more PCBs in their milk than mothers in Canada’s biggest cities.

Dwailly contacted the World Health Organization in Geneva, where an expert in chemical safety told him that the PCB levels were the highest that he had ever seen. Those women, the expert said, should stop breast-feeding their babies. Dwailly knew that Nunavik (located on the Hudson Bay) is so remote that mothers had nothing else to feed their infants. As a doctor, he couldn’t in good conscience tell them to quit breast- feeding, but he knew he couldn’t hide the problem either.

“Breast milk is supposed to be a gift,” said Dewailly, who today is among the world’s leading experts on the human health effects of contaminants. “It isn’t supposed to be poison”. Nearly a generation has passed since those first vials of breast milk arrived in the Quebec laboratory. The babies Dewailly agonized over are all grown up and will pass to their own children the chemical load amassing in their bodies.

Top of the World

From ice-clinging algae to polar bears, the Arctic has a long and intricate ladder of life. An estimated 650,000 indigenous people inhabit the top rung, and their population is steadily growing. About 90,000 are the Inuit of Eastern Canada and Greenland-a territory of Denmark under its own home-rule government. Others, spread across eight nations and speak dozens of languages.

Environmental scientists suspect that industrial chemicals first hitched a ride to the Artic in the 1940s. The chemicals originate in cities in North America, Europe, and Asia. They travel thousands of miles via north winds, ocean currents, and rivers. In the Arctic, the sea is a deep-freeze archive storing contaminants that are slow to break down in cold temperatures and low sunlight. Ingested first by zooplankton, the chemicals spread through the food web as one species consumes another.

Scientists say that the Arctic’s water and air are much cleaner than in urban environments. PCBS and DDT in the fish and mammals of such areas as the Great Lakes, the Baltic, and North Sea are 10 to 100 times higher in concentration than in the Arctic Ocean. But most urban dwellers consume food from a host of sources, eating comparatively limited amounts of seafood and no marine mammals or other top predators high on the food web. Instead, they consume mostly land-raised food with low contaminant levels.

Inuit, by contrast, eat much like a polar bear does; consuming the blubber and meat of fish-eating whales, seals, walruses, and seabirds four or five links up the marine food chain. Contaminants, which accumulate in animals’ fat, magnify in concentration with each step up, from plankton to people. In newborns’ umbilical cord blood and mother’s breast milk, average PCB and mercury levels are 20 to 50 times higher in remote villages in Greenland than in urban areas of the United States and Europe.

In far northern villages such as Qaanaaq (where the Kristiansens live) one of every six adults tested exceeds 200 parts per billion of mercury in the blood, a dose known to cause acute symptoms of mercury poisoning. “That’s a huge amount of mercury,” said John Risher, a mercury specialist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control toxic substances agency. “At that level, I would really except to see effects, such as paresthsia, an abnormal tingling or numbness in the hands.”

Few details are known about Russia’s Siberia, but scientists are expected to soon release data showing that residents of the region are more contaminated than Greenlanders. In contrast, Alaska’s Inuit carry low concentrations because they eat bowhead whales that are low on the food web. PCBs and DDT, the so-called legacy chemicals banned three decades ago in most developed countries, peaked in the 1990s and since then have declined, although they remain at substantially higher levels in Arctic people than people elsewhere.

Other compounds are increasing, including mercury and brominated flame retardants called PBDEs. Much of the mercury comes from coal-burning power plants, largely in Asia, while the United States is the major source of flame retardants, used in plastics and polyurethane foam. Subtle health effects are occurring in certain areas of the Arctic due to contaminants in traditional food, particularly for mercury and PCBs.

Building up over a lifetime, chemicals stored in a mother’s body cross into the womb, contaminating a fetus before birth. Then the newborn gets an added dose from breast milk. A study in Arctic Canada has shown for the first time that the risks of traditional foods seem to outweigh their benefits. 11-month-old Nunavik babies were repeatedly shown a picture while researchers recorded how readily the children recognized images they already had seen. The infants with high amounts of PCBs in their bodies were 10% less likely to recognize the images than infants with low PCB levels.

A separate, smaller study also linked PCBs with slight neurological effects in older children in Qaanaaq. The studies confirm similar neurological effects detected in children elsewhere including the Great Lakes region. Also in Nunavik, infants exposed in the womb to high levels of DDT and PCBs suffered more ear and respiratory infections, particularly in the first six months of life. An increased infection rate is the most serious of the known threats because Arctic children suffer extremely elevated rates of ear infections, which often lead to hearing loss and respiratory infections.” Nunavik has a cluster of sick babies,” Dewaily said, “They fill the waiting rooms of the clinics.”

No Cows, Pigs, Chickens

A year-round icy shield-thicker than a mile in some places-covers 85% of Greenland. The island has no trees, no grass, no fertile soil, which means no cows, no pigs, no chickens, no grains, no vegetables, and no fruit orchards. Instead, the ocean is Greenland’s food basket. Sandwiched between Canada and Scandinavia, Greenland gets the brunt of the world’s contaminants because it is in the path of winds from both European and North American cities.

In remote parts of Greenland, such as the Kristiansen’s village of Qaanaaq, people eat marine mammals and seabirds 36 times a month on average, consuming a pound of whale and seal each week. About one-third of their calories come from traditional foods. “We eat seal meat as you eat cow in your country,” said Greenland’s premier, “it is important to have meat on the table.”

The Inuit say their native food strengthens their bodies, warming them from within like a fire glowing inside a lantern. When they eat anything else, instead of fire, they feel ice. “We are living in a place that is very cold and it’s not by accident what we eat. We are not able to survive on other food,” says a Greenland native, “hunting is so important to us, so fundamental, that we will not be able to survive without it.”

Everything else, from tea to bread, must be imported. In remote villages, stores stock processed and canned food that is expensive, frequently stale and not very tasty or nutritious. In Nunavut, across Baffin Bay from Greenland, store-bought food for a family of four would cost $240 a week, more than one-third of the average family income there. “We can buy lame lettuce, really old oranges, and dried up apples or eat fresh and nutritious beluga, walrus, and fish,” says a local, “there is really no alternative.”

In some respects, the marine diet has made the Inuit among the world’s healthiest people. Beluga whale meat has 10 times the iron of beef, twice the protein, and five times the Vitamin A. Omega 3 fatty acids in seafood protect the Inuit from heart disease and diabetes. Seventy-year-old Inuit men have coronary arteries as elastic as those of twenty-year-old men from European countries. Although heart disease has increased with the introduction of processed foods, especially among Greenlandic young people, it remains more or less unknown.

Public officials are torn whether to encourage the Inuit to continue eating their traditional diet or to reduce their consumption. Government officials and doctors fear that Inuit will switch to imported processed foods loaded with carbohydrates and sugar, risking malnourishment, vitamin deficiencies, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. “The level of contamination is very high in Greenland, but there is a lot of Western food that is worse.” says a doctor.

Greenland’s home-rule government and doctors have issued no advisories. Many Greenlanders are aware of the contamination, although they know few details. In Canada, however, there has been extensive outreach to indigenous people, including trips by Dewailly and other scientists to explain their findings in detail. But public health officials there still struggle, after 16 years, with what dietary advice to give.

Last year, Nunavik leaders initiated an experiment in three communities that gives women free Arctic char, a fish high in fatty acids, but low in PCBs, to encourage them to eat less beluga blubber, the main source of contaminants there. Most Inuit have not altered their diet in response to contamination. In Arctic cultures, people rely on the traditional knowledge of hunters and elders, and with no visible sign of pollution, many are skeptical that the chemicals exist. Some even suspect talk about the chemicals is a ploy to strip them of their traditions.

Moreover, health officials point out that the risks of contamination are greatly outweighed by other societal problems, including smoking, suicide, domestic violence, and binge drinking, which have severe and immediate impact on life and death in the Arctic. For example, more than half the pregnant women in Greenland smoke cigarettes. Those who are aware of the dangers of toxic chemicals say that their meats are too nutritious and important to give up.

Anthropologists warn that efforts to alter Inuit diets can unwittingly cause irreversible cultural change. If hunting is discouraged, people quickly would lose their traditional knowledge about the environment and their hunting skills. Their art, their spirituality, their celebrations, their storytelling, even their language would suffer. Inuit dialects are steeped in the nuances of nature that their national languages (English, French, and Danish) ignore.

The most important damage would be to Inuit values and attitudes. In the Arctic’s subsistence economy, people share prey among neighbors and relatives. The best hunters are leaders in the village and they are generous with their wealth. If the Inuit switch to a cash society, the communal generosity would disappear. It is more than the food you are changing. It’s the actual catching and hunting of it that really generates the cultural characteristics. Even skipping one generation would impair hunting skills and once they are lost they may never come back.

Survival of the Fittest

Like everyone else in Qaanaaq, the Kristiansens remain mostly oblivious to the scientists and political leaders fretting about how many parts per billion of toxic chemicals are in their bodies. They simply don’t have the luxury to worry about dangers so imperceptible, so intangible. Instead, hunters worry about things they can see and hear: thinning ice conditions and where their next meal will come from. Anxiety about chemicals is left to those who live in distant lands, those who generated the compounds, those whose bodies contain far less.

About 850 miles from the North Pole, Qaanaaq, an isolated village of about 600, is the closest on Earth to the archetype of traditional polar life. Every Spring, when the midnight sun returns, the Arctic’s treasures, long locked in the ice, are within reach again. On a freezing-cold June afternoon, Gedion and Mamarut head out on their sleds, their dogs racing 35 miles across the glacier, toward the Kristiansen’s ancestral hunting grounds.

A little over a century ago, the people of Qaanaaq had little contact with the outside world. Today they can buy salami, dental floss, and Danish porn magazines in their local small market. They watch “A Nightmare on Elm Street” in their living rooms on the one TV station that beams into Qaanaaq. The people have learned about the contaminants from listening to the radio, but they will not change their diet.

Discussion Questions

1. How did the article make you feel?

2. How does geography play into their high levels of contamination (discuss multiple reasons)?

3. How do the Inuit’s culture, food customs, and environment play a role in the pollution levels in their bodies?

4. What can be done or recommended, if anything, to protect the Inuit culture?

[heartbreaknow]

Vampire!Peter Imagine

I’ve been sitting on my vampire!Peter imagine for a couple of months now, thinking about whether there’s any chance I might want to turn it into an actual fic, ever. But this week seems to be vampire!Starker week on tumblr (\o/), so I’m just gonna post the damn thing before I completely miss the boat. 

NOTE: This takes a bit to get dirtysexy y’all, but it gets there eventually. This has been my one effort at self-promotion. That is all. 👍

~

The way it starts is: Peter gets bitten by something while on an Avengers mission in space. (Ever since the whole situation with Thanos, space missions have become a thing they occasionally do, much to Peter’s delight and Tony’s…whatever the absolute furthest thing from delight is.) So there they are, trekking through an oddly echo-less cave on some alien planet, and suddenly some kind of creature—smallish and not overly threatening—bites Peter and then skitters away into the darkness before he can even get a look at it.

By the time they get back to the ship, Peter can’t find any trace of a mark from the bite, and he’s not even sure how something could bite through his suit anyway, and honestly, Peter’s not sure he didn’t just imagine it.  Maybe something in his suit just went haywire for a second and jabbed him. That could happen, right?

~

The Avengers return from the mission and everything is fine for a couple of days.

But then Peter begins feeling mysteriously light-sensitive and feverish, and by the time a week has passed he finds himself developing a…craving. At first, he can’t even put his finger on what it is he’s craving, but over time it begins to distill into a strange, relentless kind of hunger, and a corresponding urge to- well- bite people. (The first time Peter notices it, he’s in the lab with Mr Stark, and it goes away when he leaves the lab. But pretty soon its become a constant nagging hunger.)

Peter tries to ignore it for as long as possible, kind of downplaying it to himself and assuming it’ll pass, because it’s just too weird to really be happening. But the longer it goes on, the sicker he feels, and the hungrier he gets.

Until one night, nearly two weeks after the space mission, Peter finds a lost dog while he’s dragging himself weakly through his nightly patrol. The dog has an ID tag, so he catches it, with the intent of returning it to its owners—but then everything gets kind of weird in his head, and he goes into some kind of trance and drinks the dog’s blood. Which is horrifying, obviously, and also just objectively super gross.

Clearly, ignoring the blood-thirst and denying there’s a problem isn’t working.

(Also, even though the dog’s blood satisfies the obsessive hunger that’s been building in him for days, it tastes foul and gives him a massive stomach ache.)

 ~

So Peter, who is now very much freaking out, goes straight to Tony and explains the symptoms he’s experiencing. At first he kind of hedges a little, and doesn’t immediately tell Tony about the dog, because he can’t bear for Mr Stark to look at him with disgust. Unfortunately, that leads to Mr Stark not really getting how serious it is. He just makes a Lucy the vampire bride joke, and suggests it’s some kind of spidey version of Pica; asks how Peter’s nutrition is; tells Peter he’s a growing superhero, and he can’t subsist on ramen and Gatorade alone.

Until finally Peter blurts out, “Idrankadog’sblood!”

It’s kind of a showstopper.

Tony’s like, “Um, excuse me, you—you killed a dog?”

Peter is instantly aghast. “What? No! Oh my god, no, I just…bit it…some. And then I found its owners.” And then, after a second’s pause: “Oh god, what if the dog is a vampire now? And I just left it with that nice family! I’ve gotta go warn them!” 

~ 

As it turns out, the dog is not a vampire. But Peter…kind of is?

Apart from the dog-biting incident, Peter has also suddenly grown a pair of retractable fangs, his pupils react weirdly to light, and when stimulated, his fangs disgorge a small amount of some kind of venom—the properties of which they are working on isolating.

As soon as they prove there is in fact something happening to Peter, Tony is immediately adamant they will find a cure for whatever it is. But the first couple days of tests yield no real answers, and by then Peter is getting hungry again.

That’s about the time they discover Peter vomits up bagged blood pretty violently. So that’s Plan A off the table.

~

When Peter starts looking sallow and jittery, and Tony notices him chewing his own lip until it bleeds and then licking up the blood, Tony thinks, Fuck it, and goes out and buys him a nice, robust-looking American Bulldog. PETA can sue him.

Peter tries to refuse Mr Stark’s, uh, provision, but his protests are weak. He’s so hungry. It doesn’t take long before he gives in.

Unfortunately, dog blood doesn’t work so well the second time around. This time, the taste is so foul Peter can barely keep it down, and what’s worse, within minutes of feeding he’s doubled over with the worst stomach pain of his life 

They try a couple other types of animals, with the same results: nauseating flavor and crippling stomach pain.    

So alright, Plan B is maybe not as viable as they thought it was, either.

~

Peter puts on a brave face, and insists that it’s fine, he doesn’t need to eat. He can tough it out, at least for a little while longer. But after another couple of days, he looks like death warmed over, and Tony suspects he doesn’t feel much better than he looks.

Also, Peter starts keeping at least a couple of steps between himself and Tony in the lab at all times. And when, out of habit, Tony gets close enough to give his shoulder a squeeze, Peter jerks away lightning fast, and Tony swears he sees a glint of something in Peter’s mouth, right before he clamps it shut.  

So yeah, Tony’s worried about him.

~

The fifth morning without blood, Peter doesn’t show up in the lab.

Worried, Tony goes to check on him.

He barely makes it three steps into Peter’s room before he finds himself pinned to Peter’s bedroom door, with a black-eyed, fangy Peter leaning into him, panting and staring at his neck.

This new Peter, with his needle-sharp cuspids, and his demonic-possession eyes, should be terrifying—and it’s not that he isn’t, per se. It’s just that he’s Peter. And Tony remembers how Peter didn’t kill the dog either time he fed, even though he must’ve been pretty damn desperate the first time. So instead of trying to get free, or snap Peter out of it, Tony looks Peter right in his black, iris-less eyes, and says, “Okay, kid. Mealtime,” and tilts his head to the side, baring his neck. Then he reaches up, and guides Peter down.

~

Being bitten is incomparable to anything Tony’s ever felt before. It’s weird, and unnerving, and intimate, and probably incredibly dangerous. And Tony really, really wishes it didn’t feel so goddamn good.

He has enough to feel guilty about as it is (his feelings for the kid are something he’s been studiously not looking too closely at for a while now). He really doesn’t need to add “My mentee’s in the middle of a serious health crisis and I can’t stop thinking about what it felt like to have him latched onto my neck like the world’s hottest leech” to his laundry list of mental depravity.

~

When Peter’s head clears after the feeding, he freaks out and basically flees the tower, horrified at what he’s done.

A couple hours later he’s back again, looking defeated and miserable, and not meeting Tony’s eyes. He realizes he can’t be trusted to be among the general population unmonitored until they know more about his condition. And if whatever is wrong with him gets worse and they need to lock him up, the tower and the compound are the only places with rooms that can reliably contain him.

~

The second time Peter feeds from Tony, Tony suggests that Peter try feeding from his wrist instead. It’s mainly for his own sanity that he makes the suggestion, but outwardly he reasons that wrist feeding is probably safer and more comfortable for them both. Peter nods quietly and agrees, eyes meeting Tony’s and then quickly skittering away.

Tony does find the sensation somewhat less overwhelming when Peter feeds from his wrist instead of his neck—but only somewhat. It still feels bizarrely, almost maddeningly good, like somehow Peter’s feeding has turned his wrist into an erogenous zone. Or possibly his entire body.  

~

Peter and Tony quickly find themselves falling into a routine: research, data collection, tests, and feedings.

Peter will hold off from feeding until his pupils begin to dilate and his skin gets sallow, and the way he looks at Tony as he moves around the lab begins to take on a sharp, slightly animal quality. Then, when Tony is pretty sure Peter’s desperate enough to actually give in, he says, very clearly, very directly, “Kid, come here,” and gestures Peter over with a jerk of his head that’s a hell of a lot more casual than he feels. And just like that, Peter goes to him.

At first, Tony thinks the feeling of Peter feeding from him might become less intense once he gets used to it, but it doesn’t work out that way. A bit the opposite, truthfully.

After a couple of weeks, Tony finds himself fixating: on Peter’s mouth, on his pliant lips and his defined jaw, on he way it hinges open over Tony’s pounding pulse-point. He finds himself growing to love the way Peter ends up curled around his arm every time he feeds, his side pressed against Tony’s front, tucked in close, shoulder to sternum. Generally Tony has to find something to brace against, or Peter will push him off balance with the force of his hunger.

Tony finds that the site where Peter has bitten him begins to feel hot and over-sensitive constantly, but especially right before a feeding. Like there’s too much blood too close to the surface.

Tony finds himself wanting to give Peter what he needs over and over again. Craving it, even.

But Peter’s made it pretty clear that no matter how much this thing in his head enjoys feeding, he himself hates it, and is intent on doing it as infrequently as possible. (Peter’s never overtly said he hates it, not in so many words, but the way he refuses to feed until he’s famished, and the tense, nervous way he looks at Tony whenever it’s  getting close to meal time, is pretty eloquent.) And Tony can’t—won’t—allow himself to undermine Peter’s resolve about this. Not when the kid’s just trying to hang onto as much autonomy as he can while this thing runs roughshod over his hierarchy of needs.

So he watches Peter constantly, looking for signs of hunger—then forces himself not to say anything once he does see the signs. He makes himself wait while Peter works through the craving, hour after hour, his eyes getting slowly darker each time Tony catches one of his furtive glances. Until eventually Tony can’t stand it anymore.

When he unbuttons his shirt cuff and calls Peter to him, it’s all he can do to make it sound like a casual offer.

~ 

Tony hates himself for enjoying it—the feedings. For practically getting off on them. For literally getting off on them, later, when he’s by himself—his bruised, throbbing wrist shoved against his own mouth, tonguing lewdly at the place where Peter’s snake-like cuspids slid sharpnumbhot into his skin. Fuck. His other hand shoved down his boxers, jacking himself off to the thought of how Peter always clings to him as he feeds—how he struggles to stay lucid and only ever half succeeds. Tony tries not to think about Peter’s slippery tongue chasing a droplet of blood down his neck, the very first time he ever fed off Tony. He tries not to think about Peter’s mouth while he fucks furiously into his own fist, smothering a groan. Peter’s innocent mouth, smeared red and panting. Fuck, oh, fuck.

Tony hates himself for it, all of it. But he can’t stop.

- - - - END - - - -

It’s killing me to leave it here because I have so many more bullet point ideas written out for this imagine. But on the off chance I ever write some of this as an actual fic, I don’t want to have described the entire thing before hand. So I guess I’ll quit here.

But for context: I kind of like the idea of paired feeding being habit-forming for both parties. So like, not only does it feel really, really good, but over time they both start to get kind of physiologically addicted to it. 

I’m thinking maybe whatever weird-ass critter bit Peter, feeding is part of its mating ritual. Like, maybe it’s a symbiotic pair-bonding species that mates for life, and determines the suitability of its mate base on how well the blood-drinking half takes to the blood-providing half’s blood, and how well the blood-providing half responds to the blood-drinking half’s venom. (Yes, this is really putting the pseudo in pseudoscience. Just go with it?)

The problem for Peter and Tony is that, despite being profoundly compatible, they keep repeating the mating behavior over and over without resolution—thus causing things to kind of...escalate. 

[mrsalh32611]

In God’s House

A/N: So I have been a long time reader of fanfiction and wrote a bit for the Arrowverse and others. I am working on a project for my Marvel favs but nothing postable yet. I have never really done a writing challenge before but wanted to get myself back into writing after having to take so much time off due to life getting in the way (DAMN LIFE!!!) I was so excited when @buckysforeverprincess let me take part and I hope I did justice here. I little angst and not much smut apart from a heated makeout but still happy FLUFFY ending for all! Enjoy! And let me know what you think!

In God’s House

It felt like it had taken years to get to this day. Lots of planning, choices, decisions, and a few arguments but it was finally here. And Sam couldn’t be more pleased.

It started 3 years ago.

After Washington D.C. and the fall of SHIELD, Sam had gone on to support Steve with his search for Bucky. Turns out that search would end two years later with the man walking himself into Stark Tower and turning himself over to Tony Stark himself.

Turned out, while discovering his past, Bucky had found out he was to the killer of Tony’s parents. It had been an ordered assassination by higher-ups in Hydra who were after the serum samples and research Howard had been working on at that time. Bucky had discovered his link to the late Starks and immediately wanted to seek redemption from their heir.

Once Tony was able to sit down and fully dissect the event, after of course blowing up in his office and threatening Bucky’s life and freedom- only to have Pepper step in and calm him down- he found that Bucky had only been a pawn or weapon but the true villain was still out there. He started to look into Hydra and the “accident” to find out more about his parents’ deaths. By doing so, Tony was able to uncover multiple Hydra bases. And with the help of the Avengers, including Bucky, the team slowly worked to wipe out all that was left of Hydra after D.C.

During that time, Bucky had begun his treatments to get the words out of his head. Working alongside Wanda, then Shuri when Tony reached out to the King of Wakanda for more materials to make a better arm for Bucky, he was able to gain control of his mind again and finally release the fear of complete loss of control. Through time and treatment, Bucky slowly became trusted by the Avengers and was adopted into the unlikely group or teammates and friends.

He began to see each one for not only what they brought to the group with their pasts and skills, but also their personalities. Bucky enjoyed teasing and taunting Sam on a regular basis, taking it as far as joining Steve on their runs and lapping the younger man while stating “And your right!” The maniacal laugh that trailed after his taunts would fill the Compound on a daily basis.

That was until she arrived.

Y/F/N Y/L/N had ventured in as part of a visit from Director Hill and Coulson, though the team didn’t know he had told Maria to bring her to them. She was an enhanced being with powers over the mind. Somewhat like Wanda’s, Y/N could attach to a person’s emotions and not only manipulate them, but empathize or enhance them. She was found by Coulson’s team just outside of New Orleans, where locals had begun to see a lot of land as empty when a large antebellum home actually resided there. She was manipulating the locals and tourists as she needed to survive but had begun to gain interest amongst Hydra’s last few hold outs. As Tony and the Avengers tackled Hydra, Coulson and his team gathered up their lower supports or targets.

That is how Y/N found herself in Bucky’s life. She waltzed in on a Tuesday. Bucky was trying to pull off yet another annoying prank on Sam- one where he would end up covered in feathers for the day- when she and Hill walked into the room and onto the exact spot and the wrong time. Needless to say, it was a lasting first impression. Hill had seen to it that Bucky was read the riot act while Natasha helped Y/N clean up and get settled. Wanda followed behind but not before warning Bucky of who he just pissed off.

So that is how the last few months have gone. Bucky and Y/N had been in a “take no prisoners” prank war since the first day and only the team were the ones losing.

The final straw occurred at the rehearsal dinner the night prior. The team had all set up a small, intimate dinner to help relax the bride and groom before their big day. Gifts and toasts were given and stories told amongst the friends. Tony had even put together what he was calling “Sam and Maria’s love story” in a video of clips he had of them from over the years. As the video began, a sly grin spread over Bucky’s face. Suddenly the format of the video changed to show Y/N dancing and singing terribly off key and into what looked like a hairbrush. Y/N gasped as she glanced at Tony. who looked just as stunned by the image on the screen. When it changed to show her trying to learn a new form of fighting with Natasha and Clint, only to fall, again and again, she became embarrassed. The music that played only with the clips seems to make light of her downfalls and turn them into a comedy sketch.

Y/N glanced around the small group to see most of them trying to hold back their laughter, only Natasha, Maria, and Wanda seemed to be concerned about her feelings. She looked to Bucky and just as her eyes landed on him, he burst into a fit of laughter; causing the others to do the same. Deep appalled and embarrassed, Y/N stood up and ran from the room. Wanda stood to follow her but not without leaving a parting gift with all that were laughing; images of their more embarrassing moments played in their minds. The only one not affected was Clint who had somehow learned to control his mind around her over the years. But the glare her received from Natasha was enough to stop his guffawing as well.

Once an hour had gone by without any of the women returning, Bucky decided he may have taken his prank too far and went to find Y/N to apologize. What he found instead broke him all over again. Y/N was in her room; Natasha, Maria, and Wanda all trying to console her; but she was too distraught. Just standing at her door, Bucky could felt the waves of self-hate and disgust she felt in herself. It nearly brought him to his knees. Just as he was about to walk away, he heard her voice squeak out, “Why does he hate me so much?”

“Oh, hunny, he doesn’t hate you.” Maria tried to calm her upset friend. Y/N had become like a little sister to Maria over the years, one that she was very close to due to knowing all that had been done to her in her past. Y/N’s upbringing and life had not been without its challenges. She had an abusive stepfather who used her talents to his own ends and treated her like a freak. She had been very young when her mother had died and Y/N never knew her real father. She was left in the hands of those who didn’t know how to care for her and didn’t care to learn either. The Avengers was the first time Y/N had ever felt accepted for who and what she was and cared for. Safe even.

“Oh, he does. Trust me. He has hated me since day one. I guess I’m too much of a freak or a reminder of his past to be worthy of his friendship. Guess I will always be seen as a traitor in his eyes. What sucks is, Hydra never even got their hands on me. At least then I could blame them for his hate of me. But this is just who I am, who I was born. How can someone… anyone… who went through what he has, hate someone for something they have no control over?” Y/N asked, soft sobs breaking her voice up at points. Each word and soft sob tore at Bucky’s heart. He began to move away and rounded the corner of the hallway only to find Wanda standing there.

“You need to fix this or what Hydra put you through for decades will look like child’s play compared to what I will do. Y/N is my friend… no, she is my sister, and she deserves better than you hatred and terror.”

Bucky glanced down in shame. “I don’t hate her. I… I never did. She… she um…” Bucky gapped as he tried to find the right words. Wanda stepped up to him and gazed into his eyes. Finding emotions there she had never seen prior she reached up and slowly gestured with her hand towards his head. With a nod, Bucky gave his silent consent and Wanda reached into his mind to find memories of Y/N from Bucky’s view. The way she smiled and how at peace she could seem while in the garden at certain times of the day. How she had calmed and softly reassured a family during a recent mission. How bubbly she was during a visit by the Warriors 3 and Darcy Lewis, while they all enjoyed showing the Asgardians some pleasures of “Midgard” such as popcorn and candy and movies.

Wanda gasped as she pulled her hand back. “You like her?” Bucky shook his head. “But what about all that… and the pranks?”

“I don’t like her Wanda. I think I may love her…. I haven’t felt like this is so long, if ever. But she’s too good... Too perfect… for me to mess up with all my issues. So I try to stay away from her. But then she pranks me and I get annoyed. Then I guess…” Bucky leads off

“Your pride is hurt and you get embarrassed so you prank her back.” Wanda starts to giggle at the situation she has discovered. “You know it seems that all this pranking is almost a game of hair pulling. Bucky are you… flirting with Y/N? With the pranks I mean.”

Bucky gasped. “No! She is… I am… I mean…” Then Bucky stopped and thought back over the last few months and how he seemed to never be able to walk away from her. He enjoyed their ongoing war because he knew it would allow him another chance to be near her. As a blush filled his cheeks, Wanda guffawed.

“Now I know I’m right. And that means you need to make this right. And fast! Nat and Hill are two seconds from killing you just in her name. And don’t get me started on what she wants to do to you.” Wanda winks at the older soldier.

Bucky shakes his head. “But how? How do I fix this? Wanda, I need help. I really messed up this time and I don’t think…”

“Alright calm down old timer.” Wanda teased as she patted him in the arm. “I do this and you owe me, got it?” Bucky nodded silently, willing to agree to anything she wants if it means he can undo this mess he has created. “And you have to do as I say… Exactly as I say.”

Sam could hear the bells beginning to ring and knew that meant it was time to head to the altar. He looked around the room and saw most of the Avengers ready to get the event started. But he was missing one person. He had been reluctant to include Bucky in the wedding party, not to mention as one of his groom’s men but he caved as soon as he saw Maria’s eyes twinkle with unshed tears and her lip pout out. She had him wrapped around her finger and he knew it, but he didn’t care because at the end of today she would be his wife and that was all that mattered to him.

Sam turned to Steve. “Where the hell is Barnes? We need to get started. Why did I think he would take this seriously? He can’t do anything serious!”

Steve calmed Sam down. “Wanda asked me to send him to check on something for her and the girls. He is here and ready. We just gotta find him, that’s all. Let’s go.” Steve moved out of the small area the men had been assigned to get ready in and started for the main area of the church. “The girls are this way so I’ll check with them and see if they still have him. You check that way and see if he is helping with the guests as they arrive.” Steve pointed over his shoulder then towards the front area of the church, instructing Sam on their mission directions. As Steve made his way down a hall towards the back of the church, Sam huffed out a sigh and started for the front of the church. He smiled at a few guests already in their seats and thanked them for attending. He was just about to pass through the main doors when he heard a giggle from behind him. He turned to go towards the giggle that was followed by a husky shushing sound now. As he drew close to the office space used by the preacher, he heard a deep male voice state, “Gotta keep you quiet or we’ll be caught!”

“Would that be so bad? Could get the news out faster.” a sweet voice purred back.

A sound that was a mix of a husky growl and a warm chuckle followed the inquiry. “Yes but pretty sure a few of them would not like where I’ve had my hands... Or lips… or my tongue… so not wanting that lecture right this moment, Doll.”

As soon as Sam heard that last word, he knew exactly was in the room. Or at least one occupant. He was only seeing red as he pushed the door open and shouted “Barnes!”

He was met with the image of the brunette out of time soldier, decked out in a form-fitting blue suit. The jacket, which was hanging slightly off his shoulders, had black lapels on it and a white rose boutonniere that was hanging on for its dear life. The only issue was how he was standing and the location of his hands.

Bucky’s hands were planted firmly around Y/N waist as he stood leaning over her, pressing her into the preacher’s office desk. Her stunning black pencil dress that seemed to flow with each of her curves was slightly bunched up as she held her leg up around Bucky’s waist. Her limber legs with her killer high heels seemed to pin him to her. One of her hands was buried in his hair as she had her arms wrapped around him and the other was tugging his suit jacket down off of him. Her ruby red lipstick was smeared across Bucky’s lips and chin, showing that the two had been in this rather heated position for some time.

Sam shouted as he went to cover his eyes. “Seriously?! Barnes! For the love of God... not in church.”

Bucky and Y/N giggled as they started to right themselves. Y/N turned to Sam as she fixed her hair and lipstick. “Teach you to come into a room before knocking. Now, how’s about we get you married. May make you a bit more fun again.”

Bucky chuckled as he followed her out the room. Sam stopped him at the door with a hand on his shoulder. “What can I say? She’s got a point. You ready?”

Bucky moved out of the room and left Sam starring at the spot he had caught the two lovers before. “I will never unsee that. Or understand those two.”

Bucky’s suit

Y/N’s dress

[panicatthediaz]

Tarsus IV aka Olduvai

(So much shit under the cut. I should just write the fic.)

You know those random ideas that just... Invade your thoughts? Well, let’s go. I started this one week ago, and just now came back to this.

First of all, disclaimer: I have seen a fic in AO3, I’ve since lost it, where the author made Tarsus IV a settlement on Mars eons before humans really existed. Jim was one of the surviving Martians.

This is sort of, but not really like that. Vaguely like that. This is more of uh... “What if Tarsus IV was Olduvai?”

Olduvai is the fourth of Tarsus colonies on Mars;

One of the other three is also research, although specifically Energy Research (Tarsus II aka Argent) and the other two are residential colonies (Tarsus I aka Lazarus, and Tarsus III aka Titan);

Yes, John Grimm still quite hates it, and yes, he’s a marine;

Yes, Samantha Grimm spent the last ten years up there, since the twins were 18;

Everything happens mostly the same? But instead of taking the Ark back to Earth, the mutants break out of the facility and start advancing towards the other colonies. What is the atmosphere again? The mutants don’t need to breathe, not exactly;

The ones remaining are Sarge, Reaper, and Destroyer, so they suit up, each going to a different colony (With the Praetor Suit?), killing off whatever mutant they do find along the way;

Tarsus I received the name of Lazarus after the biblical character and meant a second chance for humans. A second home. The original Ark was discovered there and led to the other end in Nevada. A transportation system was created by the responsible engineer, based on the Ark, and is the most common method of traveling between the colonies, although suits were also created to allow travel outside the contained environments of the colonies.

Tarsus II was the first research facility, established after UAC’s discovery of an element/compound (or both) not too different from silver, but a far better energy conduit than anything on Earth. The facility was named Argent after the French word for silver, silver coin, etc.

Tarsus III was the second residential colony, far larger than Lazarus, and it received the name Titan due to such fact. it still isn’t as populated as Lazarus, but it certainly could, and likely would surpass it.

Tarsus IV was established after a scan starting from Argent discovered the remnants of what seemed to be buildings in a gorge not too different from the one in Tanzania and as such was named after the location, Olduvai, but the initial diggings destabilized the area and, in 2036, a landslide killed its two head researchers and almost took their two children as well.

A well-known, albeit secretive physicist is the head of the Argent facility. He’s known simply as Spock. People gave up trying to get his real name at that point (20 something years old? Maybe still a Vulcan, who knows, that could still work);

J.T. Kirk is a 13-year-old boy living in Lazarus with his father George, a shuttle pilot between Mars and Earth. His mother is still on Earth for the time being;

Pavel Chekov, 5 years old, is in Titan with his family.

Nyota Uhura, 11 years old, is also in Titan, the other residential colony and wants to participate in the archeological research in Olduvai.

Hikaru Sulu, 17, is training to be a pilot (under Geroge? Possibly);

Montgomery Scott, in his early thirties (??), is the chief engineer for the entirety of Tarsus colonies. This poor man has a lot of work;

(oh god I almost equated Scotty to Pinky, god no, thanks but no thanks)

Sarge went to Lazarus, Destroyer to Argent and Reaper to Titan;

Needless to say, Reaper is the first to question Sarge’s orders of simply clearing out the residential colonies, no matter who they find there;

He cleared Tarsus III of mutants and searched for survivors, finding Hikaru, Nyota, and Pavel;

He contacts Spock and sends the kids over to Argent through the internal transport system;

Spock is needless to say not “happy” ("does he even emote?"), but thankfully Hikaru is there and he’s actually good with kids;

(11-yo Uhura still sticks to Spock anyway, but she’s okay and a damn smart kid)

Reaps try to contact the other two, as well as Sam still in Olduvai. She’s the only one to respond, so he tells her to go to Argent, as it’s still apparently safe;

He starts to make his way to Argent, the closest colony to Titan, and he finds that the mutants already broke in;

And he may or may not be panicking, he just sent three kids and his sister into this place with also god knows how many scientists in it;

Way too many were actually killed, but even more turned, so he locates Destroyer and starts working on clearing the place of mutants;

Destroyer ends up dying all the same too (Maybe I’ll figure out a way to keep him alive? I like him a lot)

The events in Argent lead him to get the C24 injected all the same; 

Reaper still has to locate Sarge, so he finishes what he started, locates Sam and Spock (and therefore the kids) and leaves for Lazarus after he’s sure they’ll be safe;

Sam is relieved that her very ill-thought-out plan didn’t end up turning her brother (and really condemning Earth in the process);

Nearly as soon as he arrives, a very startled, dirty Scotty jumps out of cover, with an Argent plasma weapon in hand, not even really relaxing after seeing it’s another person and not a mutant;

After convincing him that he’s not a threat to him (and checking his neck - as well as being checked by Scotty), he has Scotty give him a layout of the colony;

The Scotsman then warns him that another marine had come in, ordering him to seal the colony off and saying that he would clean out the place;

Scotty was a bit wary of Sarge, he didn’t “look right in the head”;

And rather than stay put (and alone), Scotty tags along Reaper, with the goal of reaching the transporter;

Doesn’t take long for the two to find a clearly shocked JT, protecting a five-year-old kid.

(Y’all didn’t think I’d forget Kevin Riley, did you?? With this, we have 9 survivors... ;D)

Too many bodies, as the other colonies had, but there is also a lot more of structural destruction from the BFG;

Reaps has Scotty take the two kids to the transporter while he deals with Sarge and whatever mutant is left;

(If I were to write this, and you know I will, this feels like a good place to have that first-person sequence...)

Their encounter and this last battle occur mostly the same...

... Except a very tired, angry and desperate 13-year-old James Tiberius Kirk is the one to fire the final shot against Sarge, with the gun he stole while Scotty was distracted.

The two eventually make their way to the transporter, and back in Argent, three out of the five oldest people in there are ready to scold him for running off, but John doesn’t let them.

“You didn’t have to do any of that, you know?”

“Yeah well, I felt like doing it.”

“And you just do things without thinking of consequences?” The kid nods. John laughs. “Thanks, kid.”

They have to return to Lazarus to access the Ark, but Scotty says he can just modify the transporter system to be used for longer distances. He did develop the system, he can make ‘her’ do what needs to be done.

Ten years pass. Spock looks the same, Sam notes as she sits down beside him. He notes the same about her, but he is interrupted before he can say her name. She introduces herself as Christine Chapel, this time. They make small talk until another person sits by Spock’s other side.

John Grimm also looks just the same as he did on Mars. He introduces himself as Leonard McCoy, doctor, with a small smile. The fact that neither of them seems to have aged doesn’t escape Spock. They ask about the others fairly quickly.

Hikaru did become a pilot, and Pavel, still glued to his side, became a bit of a genius child and is on his way to becoming a navigator. 

Nyota still has a great interest in archeology, but her focus shifted into linguistics very quickly. Spock has been tutoring her on certain relevant topics.

Scotty has been working as an engineer for the global government in its early unification process and has since taken Riley in as sort of an adoptive child.

JT - now introducing himself as James, sometimes Jim - has just signed up into the space program, wanting to go out to space proper this time, further than Mars. Spock’s not sure how he managed to find that desire.

“Kid just does things without thinking of consequences," John- Leonard notes. “But it’s a good thing we signed up as well, someone’s gotta keep an eye on him.”

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

Sweet mother of Jesus this is gigantic. Imma just tag whoever may enjoy this.

@littlecrazyfangirl-98 @schatzi-89 @cuddlememerrick @shewhowillrise @lt-trick @bunnygeneral @urban-trek-thru-middle-earth @jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets @yueci

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 5.5.2

Welcome to another Hugonian tangent on my part. I am the Victor Hugo of Brick Club. I’m going to hop into the chapter halfway because the cut is just an offensively long look into literally a single line à la my research in the eight pound cannon last volume. So if you have any interest in medical(?) care(??) in pre-germ theory Europe, specifically the use of the mentioned “chloruretted lotions,” by all means read my essay.

First of all, it took me ages to figure out what this illustration reminded me of but I got it:

Gillenormand continues to rankle me in a powerful way, the shriveled bastard. “M. Gillenormand did not permit anybody to explain to him—” yeah, because heaven forbid anyone with actual expertise explain anything to a rich royalist old man. I’m so glad he gets to be happy and unburdened considering he’s the fount from which literally all of Marius’s woes sprang from to begin with. Poor bourgeosie has been sad and grumpy in his manor home while Marius was nearly driven to suicide but all’s well now, I suppose! You heard it here first, folks, everything is Gillenormand’s fault. No, I will not be taking constructive criticism.

Gillenormand’s unearned joy is sharply contrasted with Marius’s grave reservation. He’s very much in a state of shell shock—“the whole affair of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory; shadows, almost indistinct, were floating in his mind���he understood nothing in regard to his own life”—and instead of dwelling on his inability to process what just happened, Marius is clinging to the idea of Cosette, of life, of the future. “Let us emphasise one point here: he was not won over, and was little softened by all the solicitude and all the tenderness of his grandfather.” Good! Fucking excellent, because Gillenormand has proven himself to solely operate in his own interest and he will discard anyone who isn’t immediately useful to him with little thought. It’s immeasurably satisfying to see Marius turn and leverage himself against Gillenormand in service of his own interests for once.

I have done my due diligence, now onto what I really want to talk about: when we thought bleach was medicine and used it on Marius.

Marius’s wound gets horribly infected (natch) and “it was not without difficulty that the chloruretted lotions and the nitrate of silver brought the gangrene to an end.” Silver nitrate I recognize, its caustic properties mean it can be used as a topical antiseptic, although it’s no one’s first choice today. Despite being a clear liquid solution, it will also permanently stain the top layer of your skin brown if you come into contact. This fades fairly quickly as your skin naturally exfoliates away, in about a week or so from personal experience.

I was much more intrigued by, first of all the word ‘chloruretted,’ and second of all what kind of chlorine compounds would be used as treatments for infection in 1832. I went googling and found an illuminating article from 1827 titled, “The Chlorurets of Oxide of Sodium and of Lime, As Disinfectants” by Thomas Alcock (as well as a subsequent review of this article from The Lancet the same year which is amusingly awful). I’m going to start with some definitions and then I very much wanted to talk about this article that is only barely tangentially related to the situation. Sorry.

Chloruret is an archaic translation of clorure which is just the French word for chloride. Chloruret seems to have been used to refer to not only chlorides but chlorates and hypochlorites as well, which is, uh, not a great system because sodium hypochlorite, sodium chloride, and sodium chlorate are bleach, table salt, and herbicide respectively and, it goes without saying, very different! So I’m doing some guessing in context as to what compound these authors are referring to. Chloruret of lime is the compound calcium hypochlorite (CaClO)—which you might find today in swimming pools—and I believe chloruret of soda is just sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) which is slightly confusing because this is the exact same compound as chloruret of oxide of sodium. I have a 0.5% solution of NaClO in my bathroom right now to clean my shower with, this is what we colloquially call bleach.

All of these chloruret compounds were known to prevent decay, but it’s unclear if anybody really knew why, which leads to a couple of highly questionable recommendations from Alcock and his contemporaries. Alcock begins his article relating how chloruret of lime or soda was used to slow the decay of corpses for identification and investigation as well as to disinfect hospital equipment, sick-rooms, sewer systems, anything. Alcock and his reviewers didn’t have a concept of bleaching agents, but Alcock observes “both the chloruret of lime and of the oxide of sodium have the disadvantage of discolouring the muscles when applied to them.” Additionally, this article was written before germ theory supplanted the miasma theory of disease and Alcock continually recommends the use of chlorurets “in destroying putrescent and infectious effluvia” with the belief that clearing out a bad smell would also purify the ‘bad’ air spreading disease and infection. He actually has an entire section relating cases from French doctors where chloruret of lime cured “asphyxia” caused by breathing the Parisian sewer fumes.

The reason chlorine bleach works as a disinfectant is because it pretty indiscriminately kills organic material by destroying proteins on a molecular level. This is great when you’re just wiping down operating tables and hospital rooms, but very bad when you start applying bleach to living, organic patients. Alcock quotes a French medical report recommending “Applications of the chlorureted water to be made to the buboes, the carbuncles, and the gangrenes of persons labouring under the plague” which isn’t the worst idea considering antibiotics are over a century away but also “Water containing half a dram or one dram of the concentrated chloruret of oxide of sodium to each pint, to be given to the patients afflicted with plague as their common drink.” It probably goes without saying, but this will not cure infection or plague or anything except the condition of having intact stomach lining. There is no good reason to ingest hypochlorite in any form, despite the section titled “On the Internal Use of the Chloruret of Soda.” Do not drink bleach.

The next section is a series of gruesome anecdotes of hospitalized patients who were cured of gangrene in every imaginable body part using chloruret of soda. Alcock, despite constantly mentioning how disgusting this all is, takes a certain amount of satisfaction in vividly describing just how horrific each infection presented before bleach swooped in to save the day. To skim, gangrene is when body tissue dies, in this case due to some sort of bacterial infection. Avoiding anything too graphic, dead tissue rots and this is bad and will send you into septic shock.

This brings us, unfortunately, back to poor Marius. Who has been dragged through an effluvious sewer with open wounds and now has gangrene. Alcock relates an account that might be comparable, that of a boy with an infected wound on his cheek, closest to Marius’s grazing head wound. The treatment was “a solution of the chloruret, in the proportion of one part to six of water” applied directly to the wound and dressings. This apparently worked very well, the infection cleared out “and the surfaces granulating kindly.” So Marius, despite needing sections of dead skin cut away, might not even have too much of a scar from his head wound, although it would be kind of badass, wouldn’t it? Can I see Marius with a gnarly face scar from a) being shot and b) being slathered in bleach?

Second, he was shot in the shoulder through and through. This might present more of a problem because the wound goes pretty deep near some pretty vital areas and sepsis is a major concern because we don’t have antibiotics and, lord, how did Marius actually survive this? Alcock provides an example of “a case of punctured wound received in dissection…the patient experienced immediate relief from the diluted chloruret of oxide of sodium [NaClO], used as a lotion, combined with free use of leeches.” A winning combination and “the patient recovered without any untoward circumstance.” This has got to at least leave a significant patch of discolored skin from the repeated application of bleach, if not an impressive scar to boot. Hugo specifically says nothing of this, but sodium hypochlorite solutions were apparently also frequently injected at infection sites for deeper wounds or more internal infections, specifically in the bladder, the uterus, and, oddly enough, the nose for atrophic rhinitis). I get that everyone was working with what they had but…bleach injections is a challenging concept.

A final, indulgence; the subsequent review of Alcock’s article in The Lancet is absolutely laughable as a modern reader. It’s three and a half pages long and its criticism basically amounts to: yeah, chlorurets are great and all, but salt does the exact same thing so this is useless. It’s so smugly dismissive of Alcock’s terminology, his case presentation, and the usefulness of even exploring the applications of chlorurets that it borders on anti-intellectual. And, in the process, is so blatantly wrong about chemistry and medicine that it reads like parody today. “Chloruret of soda, to use for once Mr. Alcock’s nomenclature, is a ‘disinfecting agent,’ and preserves animal substances;—common salt preserves animal substances, but has it been proved that it is not a disinfecting agent?” The Lancet says, with an air of ‘gotcha!’ then continues, “Let the test of experience decide.” Earlier, they said, “It is certain that culinary salt will answer many of the intentions to be effected by the chloride of soda, and it is a disinfecting agent in a very great degree. We do not pretend to ascribe to it all the properties of the chloride of soda, but we are certain that it possesses a great many of them.” That’s a lot of unfounded speculation for a noted medical journal. Also, since The Lancet is petty, I can be petty; chloride of soda is a bad name for sodium hypochlorite because chloride is Cl and a soda (Na) of that is NaCl which is sodium chloride which is just salt, Lancet. Not saying chloruret is a better term, but I haven’t based my entire snarky critique on that basis! Beyond the petty, the test of experience is in and salt and bleach are, shockingly, not interchangeable as disinfectants, something that is easily tested, even in 1827. Salt is a desiccant, it kills some bacteria by sucking the water out of it. Bleach is an oxidizer, it kills bacteria by literally breaking apart the proteins in organic material. This is why, despite The Lancet’s flippant dismissal of the substances’ differences, we use salt to preserve foodstuffs and not bleach. There are so many legitimate critiques of Alcock’s article, he overly relies on anecdotal evidence, his measurement recommendations are unclear and unstandardized, he injects bleach in patients, but this review is just lazy.

[rallis-fatalis]

The Forms of Magic

Powerful, incredible, dangerous, extraordinary. Magic comes in many descriptions and forms, as do the mages themselves. There are as many different spells as there are practitioners. Vastly different spells don't generally work well together, and just like their magic, vastly different mages also struggle to get along. When Rallis meets a fellow mage with ideals quite different from her own, sparks threaten to quite literally fly as they attempt to work together. Hopefully they have more sense than their spells and can come to a conclusion that doesn't involve setting fire to a library.

It was rare Rallis visited Arceuus anymore. After an incident she'd rather not dwell on, she didn't feel safe in the city on her own. That being said, she loved the library and would brave a trip into the district for reading and research. Today was one of those days, and she hadn't gone alone either. Both Peg and Adam joined her and it made her feel much more comfortable, even if one of them was just there to goof around. Adam was used to Rallis dragging him along by now, she had begged him to accompany her so many times. At first, he thought perhaps she was still not well enough to be on her own from her most recent attack, but now he was starting to grow suspicious that it may be something more.

Rallis wanted to go to the library in hopes of finding information on something. Adam also had something on his mind lately he wanted to research, so at least tagging along with his friend wasn't completely unproductive. Peg just tagged along because she wanted to hang with them, but once she realized they were headed to a library of all places she knew she would grow bored quickly. While Rallis and Adam did whatever boring nonsense they were going to do, Peg found her entertainment in watching a young man talking to himself by a table against the far wall of the room as he fiddled with things in vials. He had a few books open and runes scattered over the table. As Peg continued to watch, the man jumped back with a shout and ducked under the table. A whirlwind of violet fire and sparks raced through the room shot down the connected corridor, threatening to set the books on fire.

The man whimpered under the table as he covered his head, whining about what to do over and over. Peg took action. "HEY! RALLIS! ADAM!" she hollered down the halls as she took her cloak off and pat out some of the smaller flames before they could run rampant.

Rallis came running first, quick to put the the main fire out with a blast of ice. That seemed to amaze the cowering mage, admiring the odd magic dragon from his spot on the floor. Adam came next and swore at the remaining sparks reaching for the books. "Peg, go get one of the librarians!" He pat out the rest of the sprouting flames with Rallis while Peg ran off and soon the explosive magic was no more.

Rallis held out a hand to the cowardly mage. "You can come out now. The fires are gone."

His eyes nearly popped out of his head at Rallis speaking. He forgot to even say thank you, and instead of taking her help to stand, he took her hand and looked it over. He jumped up, startling the dragon, and continued to look her over in wonder. It was making Rallis uncomfortable.

"Is something wrong?" she said with drooped tail and ears.

The mage nodded and muttered to himself before coming to a conclusion. "Yes, I've got it. You are simply... a marvel. You're made of some crazy magic, aren't you? What an odd reptile. Why do your scales look like woad leaves? Hmm, maybe they are! And your ability to speak and use magic! I'd love to examine you..." He spoke rather quickly and without censor.

Rallis paled and slithered behind Adam who had now joined them. She grabbed his hand and whispered to him. "He makes me nervous."

He rubbed her arm as if to say everything was fine and stepped forward. "Are you alright, sir?" Adam asked. "That was a rather sudden explosion."

The mage waved his hand. "Pssh, I've done worse. It was just some magic gone wrong. I'm fine."

"I seem to remember the librarians having a strict rule against practicing magic in here for just this kind of reason," Adam scolded. "You could have burned everything."

"But I didn't," he said snarkily. "Thanks to you and your... incredible friend." Rallis hissed under her breath. She didn't like how he spoke of her. It wasn't just admiration, it was more like evaluation. "Besides, as long as the librarians don't find out, everything's fine! You didn't tell them, right?"

Before either of them could reply, Peg came sprinting into the room, followed by the most furious and shrill scream they had ever heard.

"LLLAAANNNCCCIIISSS!!!"

In stormed a furious Biblia, screeching harsh enough to give a wyvern a run for its money. Seeing the normally quiet and collected specter seething pure anger was startling to say the least.

"Oh boy, you did," the mage winced. "Hi Bib--"

She grabbed him by the ear and yanked him hard, like a furious mother. "LANCIS I INFORMED YOU OF WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THE NEXT TIME YOU DISOBEYED OUR RULES!" She continued to pull his ear as she shouted, forcing a tear out of his eye and quickly having him beg for mercy. "POTENTIAL TO HARM OUR GUESTS, POTENTIAL TO HARM OUR STAFF, POTENTIAL TO BURN THE BOOKS, POTENTIAL TO BURN THE BUILDING, AND MORE! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" She gave him one last harsh tug and let him go. The mage whimpered as he rubbed his ear. Biblia calmed herself and returned to her normal indoor voice. "From this point onward, you will be searched every trip you make into the library. Any runes, vials, concoctions, or otherwise possibly dangerous contents will be left with a capable mage until you leave the premises. If you have any objections, I'm sure Logosia would love to speak with you. Am I understood?"

He opened his mouth to argue but the tension in the air quickly made himself realize that would be a foolish decision. He gave the librarian a pouty 'fine.' Biblia held her hands out, waiting for him to hand everything over. The specter floated away with stacks of runes and rather unsafe looking chemical compounds.

Rallis worriedly eyed the bubbling vials the librarian was taking away. "Just what kind of mage are you?"

Adam thought he had an idea who. "She said your name was Lancis, right? You wouldn't happen to be Lancis the Wild Formula, would you?" The description he had certainly matched the mage in front of him. Long dirty blonde hair with a beard of a similar color, simple glasses to help him see, stood around 5'8, blue and white wizard robes the mystic mages of Yanille usually sported, and a demeanor as wild as the story behind his title.

Peg and Rallis looked at him questioning who that was, and the mage tilted his head back with a groan. "Yes, that's me. Could you please not call me by my name? I hate my name. Form is much better. You know, 'form' from 'formula?'" He laughed at his attempt at a witty name, but no one played along. He groaned again. "Please just call me literally anything other than my name."

"He seems like a kook," Peg said. Adam tossed her a withered look and Rallis nodded in agreement.

"He's a Legend," Adam explained. "He's a mage and alchemist who saved an entire city from being wiped off the map."

Form interrupted him. "Yeah, I stopped a plague, cured the sick, did some cool magic, you know how it goes. What a ride that was!"

Rallis grumbled under her breath. "The last Legend mage we met tried to kill us. This one makes me just as nervous."

"He's no Miles," Adam assured her. "He's just... well, 'wild' is in his title for a reason." He turned his attention back to Form. "What brings someone like you across the ocean?"

"What else? Magic of course. The magic on the continent over is stale. There's a whole new kind to be discovered here! I've been trying to test the limits of Arceuus magic, but everything I try has been blowing up in my face lately. Just like my most recent trial, as you saw..."

"Arceuus magic is used for reanimation," Rallis said. "What were you doing to get it to explode?!"

"Trying to turn the magic into a potion." He said that like it was obvious and that she was stupid for even asking. "Reanimation magic is such a pain to learn and practice and it's harder to do the farther away you are from the Dark Altar. So I'm trying to make it portable and usable by all, regardless of skill. Pretty cool, right?"

The three of them were intrigued. Such a feat didn't sound possible, but the idea was certainly an interesting one.

"So with your potion I could, what, dump the thing on a dead person and they'd come back as a zombie or something?" Peg piped up. "Even if I can't do magic?"

Form shrugged. "If it worked, then yeah, pretty much. Except this way they'd hopefully come back as their normal selves and not mindless cannibals."

"That seems rather reckless and dangerous," Adam warned. "The dead stay dead. Whenever they're forced back to life, there are always complications. Also I'm pretty sure that's considered necromancy which isn't entirely legal."

"Well I'm obviously not going to test this on people immediately. Maybe I'll try it on some flowers or a dead tree or something, see what happens. I can deal with complications when they happen." He completely ignored the legality statement. "And if for some reason it just never pans out, the idea could be pretty useful for making a healing potion. If the power that lies here is strong enough to heal the dead, I don't see why it couldn't heal the living as well."

Rallis had to admit, that seemed extremely useful. She could use healing magic herself, but it wasn't a common practice and in reality it only transferred the pain from one person to another, not actually heal a wound completely. An actual healing spell at her fingertips that anyone could use seemed incredible.

"Why can't you get the spell to work as a potion then?" she asked.

Form smiled, eager to explain his process. "I've already made enough progress to know what needs to be combined in order for this thing to work. Trust me, that took an experiment or five. Why do you think the librarians here hate me?" He scooped up his now partially burnt and stained notes from the table behind him and showed off his notes and drawings as he spoke. "The biggest issue for me is getting the most important part physically into the vial. If my theory is correct, this potion will only work if it contains magic from the Dark Altar. Not much, but some. The way to get that is through these."

He fished out a small shard of purple crystal, a sliver from the giant ones that grew all around the Altar like weeds. It was hardly bigger than a fingernail.

"These need to be ground into powder and mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Only problem is when you shatter or grind one of these crystals, they explode. That fire you saw earlier? That was from something this tiny."

Rallis frowned. "Are you sure? They're not exactly easy to break, granted, but I've broken a few with no repercussions." She snatched the shard from his hand and bit it in half. Form squealed in fear and ducked for cover, but nothing happened. He stared at the dragon in shock and awe.

"Why didn't it explode?! How did you do that?!"

"Simple. The magic grows unstable if you break one of these. So you just move the magic then put it back when you've broken it." She snapped the weakened small shard between two claws and showed them to the mage. The claws she cracked it open with glowed the faintest bit of purple. "Remove the magic, break the crystal, and..." She touched the bits again and they sucked the glow out of her nails. "Put it right back."

Form's jaw hit the floor at the realization while Peg and Adam just watched in lost confusion. Neither of them entirely understood how magic worked. Rallis handed back the fragments and snapped a spark out of her fingers. "That's amazing!" Form sputtered. "You're amazing! I can't believe... I can't do that! Please, you have to teach me how to do that!"

"Umm..." She turned to Adam. "That's up to you. If it's late, we can go back to Hosidius. And I don't... I can't be here... alone."

"I know." He pat her head. "I'm quite lost but it seems interesting. A potion that could heal any wound on the go is certainly something I'd like to learn about. Could have used that this past year, that's for sure."

Put that way, Peg was interested as well. And if she got bored during their experimentation, she was sure she could find some poor soul to entertain her, whether voluntarily or not.

"As long as I'm home to feed Tanner in time, I don't mind," Adam told her. "It's your decision."

Rallis chirped a thanks to her friends. She was still wary of mages in general, but this one seemed to have good intentions, even if he was a bit eccentric showing them. She decided she'd help. "Alright I can try to teach you how to transfer magic." Form's eyes sparkled. "But you'll need to practice on your own for a long time. You can't learn this in a day."

Form seemed to ignore her statement. "Fine, sure, now let's get started!"

The four sat down at the now burnt table and listened to Rallis with varying degrees of interest. "In order to transfer magic from one thing to another, you need to know where the magic is going to be momentarily stored. When I broke the crystal, the magic was stored in myself, more specifically my teeth and claws. I can do that because of what I am. I can store magic anywhere at all. It's different for you since you're a human. Tell me, where do you think you would have to house the crystal's magic?"

Form may have been a master of magic, but even he had no idea the answer to that. "In a piece of essence?"

Rallis shook her head. "You can't get the magic back out if you do that. You'll just end up making dense essence and then all you can do from there is make some runes."

The mage grew huffy. "Then where does it go?"

"How well do you know the four locations of magic?"

Peg hopped out of her seat at that. That sounded like the beginning of a boring lecture she wanted no part of. She ran off to bother the nearby librarian for something more interesting to read. Maybe there was some tale of romance somewhere.

"What kind of half-baked mage do you take me for?" Form scoffed. "Of course I know them! In humans, they are the eyes, the mind, and the hands, and in more powerful beings, they gain the fourth of the heart." He smirked, proud to show off his knowledge.

"Exactly," Rallis praised. "So for you, which of the three would make sense to store excess magic in?"

"The mind is always the safest bet."

"Normally, yes. But this magic isn't normal. You'll go mad if you let it persist in your thoughts. It's safer to hold in your hands. That way if something goes wrong you'll just cause another explosion and not kill yourself or go mad."

Form nodded at the valid reasoning. Adam tried to keep up with the conversation. "I had no idea magic was this complicated. No wonder I could never do it."

"You probably couldn't because you have to master magic sight first and your eyes are always too busy staring at women," Rallis snorted. Adam playfully swat her with a scowl and she giggled.

"So all I have to do is will the magic out of the crystal and into my hand and that's it? That's not hard! That's the same as pulling magic out of a rune!"

"When you pull it out of a rune, you use the spell immediately. This isn't a spell and so there's nothing to 'use.' It's not the same. It's going to be hard to just take out and hold onto, not to mention you have to put the magic back after. Go ahead and try it like you would a spell. See what happens."

Cocky, Form concentrated and tried to will the magic out of the crystal. The shard grew a flicker brighter but otherwise nothing happened. He frowned and tried again. Nothing. He grit his teeth in frustration and tried once more, trying to picture the purple glow leaving the crystal and resting at his fingertips as clear as he could. The crystal almost seemed to sigh in disappointment as it ceased glowing. Form slammed his hands on the table. "What gives?!"

An angry shush echoed down the halls at his scream.

"Told you, it's not the same," Rallis said. "It's hard to train yourself to hold onto magic instead of just immediately using it, so when it comes to something like this, it's either you pull it out and hold it or nothing happens at all."

"Magic is all about thinking! I'm thinking I want to hold it and it's not working! There's obviously a secret to this so what is it?!"

"There is no secret," Rallis stated matter-of-factly. "It's just hard and takes practice. Humans can't do it easily so it's going to be a lot harder for you than it is for me. You just need to keep trying to feel the magic in the crystal and help it move from one point to the next. You can't force it, just take it slow, think, and feel."

Form grumbled and tried again. Time sped by as the mage tried and failed to make the dark magic bend to his wishes. Rallis gave him tips and examples here and there, giving the mage every trick she could think of to make this work. Adam and Peg came and went as they pleased, checking in on the dragon from time to time. Peg found the closest thing to a romance novel she could find and sat down at their table to read it. Adam was shocked the girl was actually reading a book, but when he asked what it was about, she would hide her face and cover the page with her cloak. If she was going to act strange, he wasn't about to bother her. He continued hunting for any book on something specific he was interested in, but he had little luck. The only book he could find with the librarians' help was an old childish book of fables, which he sat down with and absentmindedly flipped through.

Hours had passed and Form had no progress to show. He was growing angry and Rallis grew frustrated at his anger. "This is impossible!" he shouted, startling Peg out of a particularly heated scene of the book. "I'm no magical talking beast, I can't do this!"

Rallis frowned. "I told you this isn't something you can do in a day. It's going to take a while."

"Well since you seem to be such a master, why don't you make my potion for me?"

"Because it's your work, not mine. And if I made one, would you have me make another? Or all of them? I would end up doing all your work for you. You're a mage, you should want to practice something new like this."

"No! I'm supposed to get everything quickly! When I wanted to learn magic, I understood it immediately! When I wanted to learn alchemy, I mastered every combination in weeks! When I had to find and create a cure for a plague that gave me my name, I did so quickly, efficiently, and masterfully!" He growled at the unassuming crystal shard on the table. "So why can't I do this?!"

"That which is worth learning does not come easily," Adam interrupted like some poetic sage. It was obviously not what Form wanted to hear.

"That's what the unskilled tell each other when they're not good enough to get it the first time. I am a prodigy!" He did a double take at what Adam was slowly flipping through and snatched the book away from him. The man gave a whiny 'hey' at the action. Form hurriedly flipped through the book and slammed his hand down on one of the pages. "This! This is what I need! If I had this, I could do any feat of magic without issue, even something like this!"

Rallis tried to peek at the page, but Form's hand covered too much. "That's a book of myths," Adam said. "I was looking through it for information on an old tale. Nothing in there is real."

Form waggled a condescending finger at him. "You're wrong to think that. I've done research on this exact book and all the tales of magic inside and I know everything there is to know. This is probably the only thing in this book that's real." He moved his hand off the page. "The imbued heart."

Rallis turned a ghostly shade of white, Adam curiously waited for more information as that was what he was investigating, and Peg's attention was finally captured.

"'Ancient beasts that walked the land, humans with their heart in hand, the fires of war grew and fanned, with magic imbued turned life to sand.' I could recite the whole tale by heart, no pun intended." He laughed at his own remark and continued. "The imbued heart lets anyone use nearly any kind of magic, whether they're a mage themselves or not. I could perform a party trick like this without issue if I had one of those! Hell, I probably wouldn't even need to resort to making a potion if I had one! I could just heal and reanimate as I desire!"

"You should never wish to own such a thing," Rallis hissed. She scowled at the meticulously painted colorful picture next to the tale Form spoke of. It held a gruesome stylized drawing of a human tearing out the heart of a monster and using it to become a mage-king no one could disobey. "You would have to murder the innocent for one. Disgusting."

"Innocent?" Form snorted. "It's a monster. You think I'd care? Monsters aren't innocent, they kill people. Another dead beast doesn't matter if it means we can--"

He didn't get to finish. Rallis was out of her seat in such a fury, the poor chair went sliding across the floor. Her claws and fangs were out as she snarled at the mage. Peg instinctively turned into a raccoon and hid under the table, and Adam was out of his chair just as quickly, ready to restrain his friend if she went mad. The mage cowered in his chair, as if just remembering who, or rather what, he was talking to.

"So it doesn't matter if the beast you kill doesn't look human! As long as it's not your kind, you're free to do whatever you want with it! Since you can't understand it, it must be an evil killing machine! People like you are the reason they're all dead!" Her fangs were growing dangerously close to the mage's face as she snarled. Form was shaking in his seat as she inched closer. "You are the murderer, not us! People like you...! Like you... are the reason I...! The reason I nearly di--!"

Suddenly, Rallis began to cough and waver. She nearly fell to her knees, holding steady against the table for support, claws digging deep into the wood. Peg squeaked worriedly from under the table and Adam reached to help her but she pushed him back.

"People like you... are sick..." she rasped between coughs. "You don't deserve magic."

Without another word, she turned tail and stomped away. Peg turned back into a human and motioned as if Adam should follow her. Form hadn't even noticed the girl's own transformative magic he was too shaken from the dragon's rage, nor had he noticed the grooves Rallis carved into the table faintly glowing blue for a moment before fading away. Adam ran after his friend, leaving Peg to handle the shaken mage.

Rallis had ran off into a dark quiet corner of the library, hidden from anything and anyone, even proper lighting. She was leaning against one of the shelves and panting like she had run laps around Kourend. She faced a wall of shelves and didn't see her friend appear behind her.

"Hey, Rallis, you okay?"

Adam worriedly reached for her shoulder. She spun out of his reach with a gasp, slamming her back against the shelves and knocking books to the floor. She looked terrified as she wished the books would swallow her whole and let her escape from her friend's sight. Her claws glowed bright blue, one hand gouging similarly glowing marks into the shelf she held onto, the other gripping her chest in pain. The same blue glow flickered in her eyes and chest, barely visible through the dragonhide top. He reached for her again, this time much more worried. "Rallis, what is going on?"

"Nothing! Just...! Go away! Give me a minute... Please..."

"Alright." He backed away. "You'll be alright?"

Rallis nodded her head and turned away, sinking to the floor to sit with the fallen books.

"I'll be right here." He turned the corner, out of her sight. She breathed a sigh of relief and focused on calming down, thankful to be alone in her quiet dark corner. Adam worriedly poked his head in every now and then, wanting to make sure she was okay. After a while, she calmed down and the glow vanished. She quietly put the fallen books back into their spots and shuffled out of the corner. She grew embarrassed upon seeing her friend again, wishing he hadn't seen her little fit. He, however, was just happy she seemed to be walking around just fine despite whatever episode that was. "Are you alright?”

She sullenly nodded her head.

"And how about your snarling at Form? That was quite the explosion, even for you. You mind telling me what that was about?"

Rallis hissed and he could see her claws dig into the carpet they stood on. "I just can't stand it!" she shouted. "He just wants magic handed to him on a silver platter, and he doesn't care where that platter comes from! Thinking it's okay to kill what he thinks is a monster just so he doesn't have to work as hard!"

Adam could see her claws start to flicker blue again until she shook her head with a groan.

"He's just like the rest of these damn Arceuus mages! Too lazy to find a real solution to their ineptitude so they resort to cutting open another living being! They don't care where their magic comes from so long as they get it!" Her screaming quieted into an angry whisper as a tear trailed down her face. Her claws dug into her chest again. "They don't care..."

Adam realized what was going on, why she blew up and was acting so strange. He already had his suspicions. "You have one, don't you? What he's looking for, an imbued heart." He could hear her breath hitch and see her grow completely still. He was right. "That's why you got so mad."

Rallis whined, wanting to keep that information hidden, but if she couldn't trust her friend, she couldn't trust anyone. "Yes, I do... And you can't tell anyone. I've had enough experiences with the mages here trying to rip me open to get it, I don't need anyone else knowing what I have. Especially not someone like him."

'The mages here?' he thought. He had figured that was the case, but to have her confirm it. "So it did happen here. I started to assume so. You've grown scared of this place even in passing conversation ever since I found you bleeding behind the bar. How come you never told me who did it?"

"I don't know... Maybe I thought if I didn't speak of it, if I stopped thinking about those four awful demons, it would all fade like a bad dream and I'd stop being scared," she admitted. "But that wasn't the case. Now it's become part of my nightmares like Galvek and everything else." She let out an angry bark of a laugh. "It seems even an entire continent over, nothing has changed. I saved Arceuus by helping them with their ice elemental problem, and how do they thank me? By trying to cut my heart out, that's how! I save the world from Galvek and I'm treated like a monster here to end mankind in his place. Galvek, Wintertodt, whatever comes next, it will always be the same. Humans really are no different no matter where you go..."

"That's not true and you know it. Don't let the faults of the few make you lose your faith in the many. There are plenty of people here and the continent over who are grateful for what you've done. I know I am, and I'm glad you're still here." He grabbed her hand and her pout bloomed into a smile. She nuzzled his arm with a purr as a thanks. "Now come on," he tugged her hand. "I'm sure they're worried about your storming off." Rallis nodded and they began their walk back. She already seemed better. Adam was glad she bounced back quickly.

A thought popped into his head as they walked. "So is this how you were able to pull that crazy stunt against Galvek?" he asked. "You froze the damn ocean and more during that fight. I've never seen anything like it!"

Rallis nodded. "Yeah. It lets me do magic as strong as I want without runes." She winced as the ghost of the painful aftermath made itself present at her remembrance. "It hurts so much though."

"Considering what you're using instead of runes, I can imagine it's a little more painful than some heartburn, and likely infinitely more dangerous. I wouldn't use that power if I were you." Even still, he couldn't help but admire at how incredible it must be to have such power. He found himself wanting to use it, but sharply reminded himself such power always had dire consequences.

"I try not to. And please, tell no one. Don't even tell Peg."

"Don't even tell Peg what?" a different voice broke into their conversation. Peg popped her head out from behind a corner as Rallis and Adam neared the table they had spent most their day at. Rallis jumped out of her skin at how stealthily Peg had snuck up on them. "So what aren't we telling me?" she pried again.

"That I'm making nothing but vegetables for your dinner," Adam joked.

Peg stuck out her tongue and pretended to puke. "Disgusting! How dare you even suggest such a thing!"

Form awkwardly walked over to the three, much more quiet and shy than before. Rallis didn't want to continue talking to the mage. She just wanted to go home where it was nice and safe. But she supposed she had to finish what she started.

"So, listen," the mage began. "I'm not good with the whole apology thing because I just don't do anything wrong, or even when I do I personally don't think it's worth apologizing over, and even then--!"

Rallis scowled at his tangential nonsense.

"Off track, I know. What I mean is... I'm sorry. Really sorry. I've been rude. I'm just not used to... not getting things perfect immediately."

"Hard work is the only way to get things done," Rallis scolded. "Instant perfection isn't a thing. Nor are shortcuts."

"I know, I get it. I'll keep practicing. Hopefully I can make this project work, and soon!"

"And with your own power. Don't go relying on a murderous myth."

Form was appalled remembering his outburst. "Ugh, god, yeah, I'm sorry about that. I guess that's like if you told me killing people would be fine if it meant you could do some fancy magic. I did not think that through and I'm sure it was insulting."

"Very."

"I'll be more careful in the future," he vowed. "I suppose I'll have to get out of your hair now. Or, horns? Either way, I'll leave you be. Thank you for the insight and help. If this ever works, you'll be the first to know!"

"I hope it does work. It sounds exciting and useful."

"Just don't use it for illegal reanimation," Adam warned. "Prison isn't fun."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Oh but I do have one last request!" Form excitedly bounced up to Rallis. "Could I possibly have some of your scales?"

"What?!"

"Well, they're just so different from standard blue dragon scales! You are a blue dragon, correct? Yours are so pale and oddly shaped, I swear they look like woad leaves! And with how interesting and magical you are, they must be too! Please, I must have some for tests!"

Rallis hissed. "No way!" She booked it down the nearest flight of stairs, fast as she could. "Bye, Form!"

The mage cursed but did not pursue. He had to clean his mess of a table up and more practicing to do before he went chasing after the dragon. Adam and Peg said goodbye as well and much more calmly scaled the stairs to the ground floor.

"They do look like woad," Peg mumbled. "What if she glues them on?"

"Rallis does not glue on woad leaves. That's ridiculous."

The two met back up with the dragon and readied to leave. Before they could exit, Adam took note of Peg trying to hide a book under her cloak. "You know, I'm glad you found something you actually enjoy reading. But are you really trying to steal from a library, Peg?" Adam chided.

Peg's face turned bright red. "N-no!"

"Then why are you hiding a book that's obviously not yours under your cloak?"

"I'm not!"

Too occupied with arguing with Adam, Peg had no time to react to Rallis swiftly yanking the book out. She ignored the girl's desperate pleas for its return and read the title. "'The Tale of Sir Richard and Princess Felidae.' Never heard of it."

"Give it here," Adam said, holding his hand out. "So this is what you were reading? The title seems adventurous." Peg had no hope of reaching it now. He flipped it open and skimmed through, not only curious about what kind of book could capture Peg's interest, but also have her trying to hide it. As he flipped through, something caught his eye and his green face began to turn red. Peg immediately knew what he just read. "Peg! I can't believe--! You shouldn't--! Peg!!!"

"Stoooooop!" she howled, embarrassed.

"What is it?" Rallis asked.

She reached for the book and both of them screamed 'no.' Adam cleared his throat and composed himself. "Why the library would have such a book on display for children to read..."

"I'm not a child! Besides, you have worse under your bed."

"PEG!"

Rallis finally understood. "Oh is it like the pictures of naked humans I found that you told me not to ask about?"

Adam's face grew brighter red and Peg smirked. "Yeah but this is even better. You have to picture it yourself since it's only words and it's so much more descriptive."

"Huh. So am I allowed to ask now why there's drawings and now books about naked humans that both of you seem to enjoy?"

"No, absolutely not!" Adam shouted. He stomped over to the nearest librarian and all but slammed the book in their hands to be put away. "We are never discussing this! Now let's go home!"

Peg followed after Adam with a cheeky grin and evil laughter, leaving a confused Rallis to trail behind.

[scoutshonor56]

Burning Down the House

With a new year upon us, I decided to leave our pouting, petulant, and clueless “president” alone for a while.  I’m at the point where I don’t want this blog to become a regular, though fun and cathartic, critique of this moron’s day to day behavior.  Besides, who can keep up these days?  Certainly I never intended this blog to become solely a political airing of grievances anyways, when started back in November of 2016 - but then, who would have ever envisioned the likes of Donald Trump in the White House?

 So today I’m going to address an issue close to my heart; the wellspring that nourishes my spirit and is essential to the health and well-being of every living thing on our planet – the environment.  You see, I’m a baby boomer who grew up in the 60’s, and was quite the impressionable 14yr old on April 22, 1970, when the first official Earth Day was proclaimed. That year also saw the creation of the EPA, and like most of us from “back then”, I still hold onto many of the ideals of an aged hippie -  

 Those who know me also know I later worked for NASA - another touchstone for my generation - at Johnson Space Center, inside the television/communication contract, for 14 years.  During that time I got to watch the Space Station being built piece by piece, from when the first module, Zarya, went up on a Russian Proton rocket, to the first crew occupation, to its successful completion.

 I still pay attention to our space program as a tax paying enthusiast, although not nearly as much, and thus I watched a fascinating show on NOVA a week or so back, entitled “To Pluto and Beyond”.  It was about the continuing voyage of NASA’s New Horizons exploratory spacecraft, which is now traveling at roughly 37,000mph some 5 billion miles from our planet and still able to send back data and outstanding imagery to its home base here on Earth (taking over 4 hours to do so).

 In a nutshell, when New Horizons was first launched, in January of 2006, scientists and astronomers didn’t even think much existed past what they call the Kuiper Belt (the area in space past the planet Neptune), other than insignificant, floating chunks of minerals and ice of varying size and shape – such as Pluto, now not even an officially termed “planet”.  

 But soon that would change as our telescopes got larger, more sophisticated, and certainly more powerful (such as the Hubble), revealing a wealth of new discoveries and vastly widening out view, and theories, about space past our solar system.    

 In just a little over two years after its successful flyby of Pluto and its moons, sending back stunning and never before seen imagery, project managers were able to plot a new course that would enable the probe to fly past what is now called 2014 MU69, or its more colorful nickname, Ultima Thule (which sounds much more bad-ass!)  

 To go into any detail about the show and this discovery would require a whole different blog, so for my purpose today, let’s just say the level of technology, engineering, and computational math involved in this exploratory endeavor is right up there with just about any other high achievement in man’s history; an incredible display of determination and shear brain power that simply boggles my mind.  Sure, it was just an unmanned flyby, a probe…but successfully plotted over billions of miles, traveling at 37,000mph through orbiting planets, asteroids, and clouds of space debris, where a collision with something the size of a pea could mean instant disaster?  Where the tiniest fraction of miscalculation can put the craft literally millions of miles off course?  In the harshest and most unforgiving environment imaginable?  You may as well try to explain quantum physics to me.

 So what - what’s this got to do with a Talking Heads song... my point is this: excuse me if I don’t buy into this long running campaign of bullshit and misinformation put out by the petrochemical and carbon-based conglomerates, their money-wallowing and soulless lobbyists, and the special interest groups, who for the better part of fifty years have retained a complete stranglehold on our politicians and policy makers.  They continue to control the discussion of our energy sources with fairy tales and scare tactics in support of a technology that is over 200 years old. Let’s dim the lights, roll out the boogyman, and wind him up:

 “It will cost jobs!!  The transition to renewable and clean energy is too expensive, the sources unable to compete in today’s economy!!  The technology and infrastructure have yet to be fully worked out!!  It’s much more difficult and complicated than you can possibly understand!!  It’s simply going to take more time – it will be a long, slow process, and oil and gas will continue to play a dominant role in the meanwhile!!”

 And on, and on, and on…

 Bullshit!  Germany now gets 40% of all its energy generated from renewable, clean sources.  There are other countries in Europe harnessing tides to generate energy.  Our planet is a hotbed for thermal energy potential.  A recent study done here in Houston, at Rice University, claims Texas (who leads the nation in wind generated energy) has enough sun and wind to completely wean itself off coal within the near future.  

 Since when did America become the nation that couldn’t; that shied away from a challenge, technological or otherwise; that chose to follow instead of lead… was I stoned during that period?  Did I miss something?  Fifty-eight years ago, President John F. Kennedy stood at a podium at Rice University Stadium and declared:

 “We choose to go to the Moon!   We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”  

 To put this into context, at that time it had been just over a year since America had launched their first man into space: Alan Shepard riding a Redstone rocket 116 miles into suborbital flight, lasting fifteen minutes.  Back then NASA scientists and medical professionals didn’t even know if a human could survive such a trip, or for how long.  Would they retain their vision, their mental capacity?  Would they lose all sense of direction?  Pass out? Would they be able to endure and function during the required long duration flight to the moon and back?  How would we even achieve such a feat?

 OK, some might say, “Well, sure, NASA had a limitless budget - and after all, the space race was strictly for nationalistic reasons anyway, to beat the Russians to the moon…”

All true, but umm, have you looked out your window lately?  Pay attention to any news?  And no, Fox doesn’t count.  According to a recent analysis, published in the Journal Science (see the story in the NY Times), our oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought; like 40% faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago.  Researchers now conclude that ocean temperatures have been breaking records for several years straight.  Compounding the effects of our melting polar caps, warm water also takes up more volume than cold water, resulting in sea levels rising at an estimated rate of .13 inches (3.2mm) over the last 20 years.  Satellite measurements tell us that over the past century the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches.

 Right now, over the last decade, we are seeing an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, monsoons, tornadoes and wildfires.  NEWS FLASH Gomer and Thelma Lu, this isn’t a conspiracy perpetrated by greedy and alarmist eggheads in lab coats, nor is it “fake news” or fuzzy science; and it certainly shouldn’t be considered, or treated as a political issue.  It’s rock-solid, provable science that is accepted by 97% of scientists, climatologists, and geologists all around the world, who continue to ring the emergency bell. It’s happening today, all around us, and the bad news is we’re already too late; at this point, if we were to get serious this year, 2019, it will still be a game of damage control; of mitigating the consequences of our greed, ignorance, and gullibility.  

 In comparison, the goal and challenge of beating the Russians to the moon seems quite miniscule to that of restoring and maintaining the health of our little blue lifeboat called Earth.

 “Whatever, our planet is a dynamic, ever changing thing - Earth has gone through similar climate changes before!”   Yes, true – but over the span of tens of thousands of years, you moron.  Man has achieved the same results in barely two hundred.  

Just curious, but what part of 2.5 million pounds/second of co2 pouring into the relatively thin, fragile layer of atmosphere that protects our planet don’t you get?  Too hard to think about, or conceptualize?  Or is it easier for your lazy, flabby, unexercised brain to simply believe that it all just dissipates into outer space – you know, where the alien abductors that beamed you up into their mothership that weekend reside…

 Make America Great Again?  What a sad, short-changed, and utterly empty joke of a campaign slogan… Here, I’ve got one for you: SAVE OUR PLANET!  For your children’s future and their children’s future.  There simply is no option; no magical, last minute solution.  No plan B.  No spare planet accessible, sorry, this isn’t a movie - its real.  

 I simply don’t understand; why isn’t this the number one issue of concern for everyone?  Could there possibly be a greater threat and more important challenge facing us all today?  

 Ah well, what the hell – we’ll all be fine in a couple thousand years after we evolve with gills and become aquamen and women… Although, good luck finding something to eat, as we’re also killing the entire food chain of life in the oceans, from coral reefs to the dolphins, the sharks, and the whales…I guess we could become aquacannibals – now there’s a surefire idea for a hit movie!    Hmm, I wonder if we could talk Jason Momoa into that hard turn in the movie series plotline…  

[healthbetold]

Rare Cannabinoids Are the Next Frontier in the Marijuana Industry

A worker in a cannabis greenhouse. Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

It’s 2021 and regular THC won’t cut it for the burgeoning cannabis industry. Neither does CBD. Instead, many startups are betting that cannabis users are craving for something that nature alone cannot provide.

In Berkeley, California, startup Demetrix is ​​preparing to manufacture “metric tons” of cannabigerol, also known as CBG. CBG is also called “the mother of cannabinoids” because it is chemically a precursor to hundreds of other chemicals found in trace amounts in cannabis plants.

“It’s been a wild ride,” said Cynthia Bryant, Demetrixx’s chief business officer observer. “Three years ago we literally had empty laboratory space. We bought freezers. ”Now they hope to have CBG products ready to go by the end of the year.

Cannabis users are increasingly interested in niche or “rare” cannabinoids, although it is still unclear what these molecules are really capable of. This includes products like Delta 8 THC, which is about half as strong as regular THC and than that. referred to as fastest growing segment the hemp industry. Companies like Demetrix are more interested in “rare” cannabinoids – over 100 compounds in cannabis that only occur in traces in nature but can be produced in abundance in the laboratory.

Demetrix scientists in their laboratory. Demetrix

Demetrix was originally founded by Jay Keasling, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who focuses on developing microbes, especially yeast, to manufacture other substances: like fuel or an ingredient in anti-malarial drugs called artemisinin. Keasling has since turned to cannabis, where his patented technique equips brewer’s yeast with the ability to make cannabinoids.

“It’s like brewing beer,” says Keasling Observer. “We feed the yeast, the sugar and the yeast, instead of spitting out ethanol, spitting out cannabinoids.”

Demetrix is ​​just one of a handful of startups poised to embark on a new path in the cannabis industry similar to the path taken by CBD or, more recently, Delta-8 THC. Dennis O’Neill, the president of Biomedican, another California-based startup, estimates that the rare cannabinoid industry could be worth it $ 25 billion by 2025.

Biomedican also uses proprietary yeasts to mass-produce rare cannabinoids like CBG and has amassed $ 4.1 million in funding to date.

“There’s a percentage of CBD people who are looking for the next best thing,” says O’Neille Observer. “All of the data points show that we have a demand tsunami that will hit this market. There will be a lot of money to be made. ”

Where do the rare cannabinoids come from?

It’s not that we didn’t know these molecules existed in cannabis, but that they were historically inaccessible. Molecules like CBG are usually only present in traces in natural plants – although some varieties can be bred contain more of a certain rare cannabinoid.

The biosynthetic approach excludes the plant from the equation and focuses on the molecular machinery of cannabis to boost the production of rare cannabinoids.

The end result is an isolated form of a rare cannabinoid. It’s the same product that would naturally exist, but without the extra terpenes or other molecules present in a plant (a disadvantage some weed connoisseurs might say but seen as an advantage by emerging industries) .

The idea that scientists succeeded in developing yeast to produce rare cannabinoids, thereby circumventing the scarcity of nature, has existed for several years. Keasling first published a piece of paper on the subject in 2019, but at that point it was not clear whether the process could be scaled up enough to support a new industry.

Bryant says that through faster math, advances in microorganism engineering, and a better understanding of cannabis, Demetrix went from zero liters of CBG to 15,000 in three years. In February, Demetrix also signed an agreement with a commercial manufacturer promising to supply these “metric tons” of CBG.

Fermentation tanks on a laboratory scale. Demetrix

Biomedican also expanded its operations this year, says O’Neill. Covid-19 has delayed the arrival of the equipment, but it expects it will be operational by the end of the year. “Our plan is to manufacture here in the US and then build a plant in Mexico, Europe and then Asia,” he says.

However, if everything stays on track, he expects to be in high-volume production of rare cannabinoid products – mostly CBG – by 2023 (they have already moved into pilot production). Biomedican already plans to distribute its products in Mexico.

That could range from cosmetics and lotions to granola bars, chocolates, or pet care products – the same products that became breeding grounds for CBD. This also means that it is possible that rare cannabinoids, once they are as freely available as CBD, fall into the same traps as CBD.

CBD has medicinal benefits. It forms the basis of the FDA-approved epilepsy drug Epidiolex and is used to treat pain. But it has also built a reputation for treating conditions from anxiety to erectile dysfunction. according to an analysis of the posts on the r / CBD subreddit.

As the introduction of CBD demonstrated, the novelty of certain cannabinoid products can create both an exciting and chaotic experience for people watching new products arrive on store shelves. CBD products are not reviewed by the FDA before they go on sale, nor are companies may say CBD products can treat any diagnosable condition. However, you can make “general wellness” claims.

“There is so much going on for the individual consumer,” says Paul Seaborne, professor of commerce at the University of Virginia. “They don’t necessarily have the same support and guidance from their GP or from normal sources.”

Keasling admits that the CBD industry has some element of the “snake oil” sales art. The rare cannabinoid industry could very well go this route. Rare cannabinoids have their share of the hype, and as manufacturing increases, they will hit consumers in successive waves, with science lagging behind as to what they can actually achieve.

“I would like these companies that work with technical microbes to deal with them a little better,” says Keasling.

Research to date on rare cannabinoids is sparse at the moment. This is mainly because it was nearly impossible to isolate these compounds in large quantities, and because marijuana’s status as a List I drug has made such studies difficult to conduct. Seaborne estimates that thanks to this planning, the pace of cannabis research has stalled by 30-50 years.

So far, research into rare cannabinoids contains some nuggets of information that allude to certain health effects. Previous studies on CBG suggest that it may show promise as a treatment Glioblastoma, psoriasis, or Neurodegenerative Diseases to like AS (these studies were carried out on mice and cells). Another one is running clinical study on the effects of cannabigerol on human diseases, which is registered on Clinicaltrials.gov at the time of writing.

Rodent studies on THCV, another rare cannabinoid, have suggested that it can decrease appetite and upregulate metabolism (again, no ongoing clinical trials are registered on this at this time). There are three clinical trials of THCV on Clinicaltrials.gov – one has published results and suggests it could help people with type II diabetes control blood sugar levels.

But these rodent studies are enough for O’Neill to predict that THCV will be the next rare cannabinoid to boom.

Incidentally, Demetrix and Biomedican are betting that these rare molecules have previously undiscovered effects. Even Keasling suggests that once the research is done, we might find that some rare cannabinoids are “worthless”, but not much of that research has happened yet.

Both companies also plan to support them by making rare cannabinoids available for clinical trials.

“We do our own basic research to understand these cannabinoids, but we also look for others to help us figure out what each of these cannabinoids can be of benefit to consumers,” says Bryant. “This is a class of compounds that modern scientific evaluation has completely skipped.

“I don’t think there are many connections we can say that about.”

In the meantime, companies plan to venture into even darker areas of cannabinoid manufacturing – ones that don’t even exist in natural plants.

Keasling’s original work suggests that his method could be used to cultivate “unnatural cannabinoids”. Biomedican announced the synthesis of a type of cannabinoid called Sesqui-CBG, a chemical variation of regular CBG.

A biomedical scientist Press release suggests that sesqui cannabinoids contain properties of many other cannabinoids combined, but Biomedican CEO Maxim Mikheev warns that we don’t know much about them.

“Sesqui cannabinoids haven’t been studied very well,” he says Observer.

Fear of the unknown doesn’t seem to be a problem that affects most cannabis users. Despite ongoing research into what cannabinoids can and can’t do, these molecules still have the enticing appeal of untapped potential. After 50 years of hesitant research, nobody knows exactly what we might find.

“Despite all this confusion, despite the fast pace of things, consumers are giving” [cannabis products] give it a try, ”says Seaborne. “This is proof of how much desire there is.”

The post Rare Cannabinoids Are the Next Frontier in the Marijuana Industry first appeared on Health be Told.

source https://healthbetold.com/rare-cannabinoids-are-the-next-frontier-in-the-marijuana-industry/

[1stnewslink]

Rare Cannabinoids Are the Next Frontier in the Marijuana Industry

A worker in a cannabis greenhouse. Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

It’s 2021 and regular THC won’t cut it for the burgeoning cannabis industry. Neither does CBD. Instead, many startups are betting that cannabis users are craving for something that nature alone cannot provide.

In Berkeley, California, startup Demetrix is ​​preparing to manufacture “metric tons” of cannabigerol, also known as CBG. CBG is also called “the mother of cannabinoids” because it is chemically a precursor to hundreds of other chemicals found in trace amounts in cannabis plants.

“It’s been a wild ride,” said Cynthia Bryant, Demetrixx’s chief business officer observer. “Three years ago we literally had empty laboratory space. We bought freezers. ”Now they hope to have CBG products ready to go by the end of the year.

Cannabis users are increasingly interested in niche or “rare” cannabinoids, although it is still unclear what these molecules are really capable of. This includes products like Delta 8 THC, which is about half as strong as regular THC and than that. referred to as fastest growing segment the hemp industry. Companies like Demetrix are more interested in “rare” cannabinoids – over 100 compounds in cannabis that only occur in traces in nature but can be produced in abundance in the laboratory.

Demetrix scientists in their laboratory. Demetrix

Demetrix was originally founded by Jay Keasling, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who focuses on developing microbes, especially yeast, to manufacture other substances: like fuel or an ingredient in anti-malarial drugs called artemisinin. Keasling has since turned to cannabis, where his patented technique equips brewer’s yeast with the ability to make cannabinoids.

“It’s like brewing beer,” says Keasling Observer. “We feed the yeast, the sugar and the yeast, instead of spitting out ethanol, spitting out cannabinoids.”

Demetrix is ​​just one of a handful of startups poised to embark on a new path in the cannabis industry similar to the path taken by CBD or, more recently, Delta-8 THC. Dennis O’Neill, the president of Biomedican, another California-based startup, estimates that the rare cannabinoid industry could be worth it $ 25 billion by 2025.

Biomedican also uses proprietary yeasts to mass-produce rare cannabinoids like CBG and has amassed $ 4.1 million in funding to date.

“There’s a percentage of CBD people who are looking for the next best thing,” says O’Neille Observer. “All of the data points show that we have a demand tsunami that will hit this market. There will be a lot of money to be made. ”

Where do the rare cannabinoids come from?

It’s not that we didn’t know these molecules existed in cannabis, but that they were historically inaccessible. Molecules like CBG are usually only present in traces in natural plants – although some varieties can be bred contain more of a certain rare cannabinoid.

The biosynthetic approach excludes the plant from the equation and focuses on the molecular machinery of cannabis to boost the production of rare cannabinoids.

The end result is an isolated form of a rare cannabinoid. It’s the same product that would naturally exist, but without the extra terpenes or other molecules present in a plant (a disadvantage some weed connoisseurs might say but seen as an advantage by emerging industries) .

The idea that scientists succeeded in developing yeast to produce rare cannabinoids, thereby circumventing the scarcity of nature, has existed for several years. Keasling first published a piece of paper on the subject in 2019, but at that point it was not clear whether the process could be scaled up enough to support a new industry.

Bryant says that through faster math, advances in microorganism engineering, and a better understanding of cannabis, Demetrix went from zero liters of CBG to 15,000 in three years. In February, Demetrix also signed an agreement with a commercial manufacturer promising to supply these “metric tons” of CBG.

Fermentation tanks on a laboratory scale. Demetrix

Biomedican also expanded its operations this year, says O’Neill. Covid-19 has delayed the arrival of the equipment, but it expects it will be operational by the end of the year. “Our plan is to manufacture here in the US and then build a plant in Mexico, Europe and then Asia,” he says.

However, if everything stays on track, he expects to be in high-volume production of rare cannabinoid products – mostly CBG – by 2023 (they have already moved into pilot production). Biomedican already plans to distribute its products in Mexico.

That could range from cosmetics and lotions to granola bars, chocolates, or pet care products – the same products that became breeding grounds for CBD. This also means that it is possible that rare cannabinoids, once they are as freely available as CBD, fall into the same traps as CBD.

CBD has medicinal benefits. It forms the basis of the FDA-approved epilepsy drug Epidiolex and is used to treat pain. But it has also built a reputation for treating conditions from anxiety to erectile dysfunction. according to an analysis of the posts on the r / CBD subreddit.

As the introduction of CBD demonstrated, the novelty of certain cannabinoid products can create both an exciting and chaotic experience for people watching new products arrive on store shelves. CBD products are not reviewed by the FDA before they go on sale, nor are companies may say CBD products can treat any diagnosable condition. However, you can make “general wellness” claims.

“There is so much going on for the individual consumer,” says Paul Seaborne, professor of commerce at the University of Virginia. “They don’t necessarily have the same support and guidance from their GP or from normal sources.”

Keasling admits that the CBD industry has some element of the “snake oil” sales art. The rare cannabinoid industry could very well go this route. Rare cannabinoids have their share of the hype, and as manufacturing increases, they will hit consumers in successive waves, with science lagging behind as to what they can actually achieve.

“I would like these companies that work with technical microbes to deal with them a little better,” says Keasling.

Research to date on rare cannabinoids is sparse at the moment. This is mainly because it was nearly impossible to isolate these compounds in large quantities, and because marijuana’s status as a List I drug has made such studies difficult to conduct. Seaborne estimates that thanks to this planning, the pace of cannabis research has stalled by 30-50 years.

So far, research into rare cannabinoids contains some nuggets of information that allude to certain health effects. Previous studies on CBG suggest that it may show promise as a treatment Glioblastoma, psoriasis, or Neurodegenerative Diseases to like AS (these studies were carried out on mice and cells). Another one is running clinical study on the effects of cannabigerol on human diseases, which is registered on Clinicaltrials.gov at the time of writing.

Rodent studies on THCV, another rare cannabinoid, have suggested that it can decrease appetite and upregulate metabolism (again, no ongoing clinical trials are registered on this at this time). There are three clinical trials of THCV on Clinicaltrials.gov – one has published results and suggests it could help people with type II diabetes control blood sugar levels.

But these rodent studies are enough for O’Neill to predict that THCV will be the next rare cannabinoid to boom.

Incidentally, Demetrix and Biomedican are betting that these rare molecules have previously undiscovered effects. Even Keasling suggests that once the research is done, we might find that some rare cannabinoids are “worthless”, but not much of that research has happened yet.

Both companies also plan to support them by making rare cannabinoids available for clinical trials.

“We do our own basic research to understand these cannabinoids, but we also look for others to help us figure out what each of these cannabinoids can be of benefit to consumers,” says Bryant. “This is a class of compounds that modern scientific evaluation has completely skipped.

“I don’t think there are many connections we can say that about.”

In the meantime, companies plan to venture into even darker areas of cannabinoid manufacturing – ones that don’t even exist in natural plants.

Keasling’s original work suggests that his method could be used to cultivate “unnatural cannabinoids”. Biomedican announced the synthesis of a type of cannabinoid called Sesqui-CBG, a chemical variation of regular CBG.

A biomedical scientist Press release suggests that sesqui cannabinoids contain properties of many other cannabinoids combined, but Biomedican CEO Maxim Mikheev warns that we don’t know much about them.

“Sesqui cannabinoids haven’t been studied very well,” he says Observer.

Fear of the unknown doesn’t seem to be a problem that affects most cannabis users. Despite ongoing research into what cannabinoids can and can’t do, these molecules still have the enticing appeal of untapped potential. After 50 years of hesitant research, nobody knows exactly what we might find.

“Despite all this confusion, despite the fast pace of things, consumers are giving” [cannabis products] give it a try, ”says Seaborne. “This is proof of how much desire there is.”

The post Rare Cannabinoids Are the Next Frontier in the Marijuana Industry first appeared on 1st News Link.

source https://1stnewslink.com/rare-cannabinoids-are-the-next-frontier-in-the-marijuana-industry/

[activeatoms01-blog]

All You Need to Know About Turmeric Extract vs. Turmeric Powder

What is the difference between turmeric extract and turmeric powder?

The reality is that it all depends on what you are looking for. If you want to cook a delicious meal, then the turmeric powder in your pantry will probably suffice.

Known as Curcuma longa, turmeric is a member of the ginger family. While it is common in Southeast Asia, turmeric needs a lot of rain to be able to thrive. This is exactly why India is still the number one producer in the world.

In some cultures, turmeric is referred to as "the herb of the Sun" and has been part of alternative medicinal practices for centuries.

Turmeric is a rhizomatous plant, which means it produces rhizomes or thick stalks that grow underground. These same rhizomes are then harvested, and turned into a powder or extract for commercial use.

If, on the other hand, what you are looking for is more of pain relief, anti-inflammatory, or immunity boost, then the right turmeric for you is the extract. Turmeric extract has powerful properties and benefits, which include acting like an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant.

So, what is turmeric exactly?

Turmeric contains compounds known as phytochemicals, and one of these is a flavanol called curcumin. In turmeric powder, there is about 3% – 5% of curcumin total, which means that if you were to eat a large amount of a meal containing turmeic powder, you will get only about 20-40 milligrams of pure curcumin.

Many studies have found that a dosage of 500 milligrams per day of curcumin has great health benefits.

There are three curcuminoids in turmeric: curcumin, demethoxycurcumin (DMC) and bisdemethoxycurcumin (BDM). These all seem to share health benefits and can be used to treat many conditions.

Curcumin remains the strongest of the three curcuminoids, but it isn't very bioavailable and can't be absorbed well. DMC, however, seems to be water-soluble and easier to absorb. BDM has also been researched due to its immune-modulating abilities.

What makes turmeric extract special?

While turmeric has been around for centuries, particularly as part of Ayurvedic medicine. But until very recently, the knowledge was mostly passed on based on experience.

Recently, though, the plants and active compounds used in these alternative practices became central to many studies. Today, plenty of research is done into the medical and nutritional properties of the active compounds in turmeric.

Countries like China and India rely on plant-based medicines commonly. This is why there are plenty of research studies done in government and why many educational and commercial institutions find an interest in plants like turmeric.

Since there is more evidence now, many commercial companies have found it profitable to create products that contain turmeric for health benefits. Still, there are many products that contain very low concentrations of curcumin.

Facts to Know About Turmeric Extract

Turmeric extract is made through a process that isolates the powerful curcuminoids and allows for an optimal amount for better health benefits. However, turmeric powder doesn't contain nearly enough curcumin to really have an impact on your health. Some companies out there still prefer to save costs and will not have nearly enough high potency turmeric extract in their products.

This all is to say, you should be careful with what supplements you look into. It is not enough information to simply state that there is a concentrated extract form of a botanical. Always check what that level of concentration is, as some companies don't even hit the therapeutic mark. As an example, some supplements vary from a 20% curcumin concentration up to 95%. If you find a supplement with only a 50% concentration, you will need to take immense amounts to get any effects.

To avoid the trouble and the expense, simply try to a 95% turmeric extract, which is the one deemed therapeutic in every research study.

There is another thing you need to know, and that is the two systems that are used to express the concentration level of your turmeric extract.

When a percentage is used, it is telling you what percentage by weight is the active component. This means that a 50% concentration will be about half powder and half concentrated curcumin.

The other method you can find out there is a ratio. A ratio shows the concentration of the active ingredient compared to the original raw powder. That means that if your supplement has a curcumin concentration of 4%, and the extract contained 40% curcumin, then the ratio would be 10:1.

There are multiple steps and calculations to the ratio method, so it is not commonly used. All companies are responsible for ensuring the level of active compounds in their products is stated accurately for you. So make sure you look into it before you pick a supplement.

 Why You Need to Choose Turmeric Extract

Curcumin has been part of alternative medicine and nutrition for many years, and in some countries, it is referred to as a "tonic". This kind of substance contains many benefits that allow your body to heal and reach homeostasis.

Some of the effects of turmeric include:

·        Reducing inflammation

·        Pain relief for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis

·        Prevention of some types of cancer

·        Protects the bowel and promotes motility

·        Prevent stomach ulcers

·        Can help reduce cholesterol levels

·        Can help manage blood sugar

·        Boosts mood

·        Prevents infections

Turmeric extract has been shown to work in treatment for the following diseases and conditions :

1.     Parkinson’s disease

2.     Cancer

3.     Inflammation

4.     Depression and anxiety

5.     Osteoarthritis

6.     High blood pressure

All of these claims have been proved with extensive research, including clinical trials.

What is a Good Dose of Turmeric Extract?

Research studies have found that an optimal dose of curcumin is between 500-2,000mg a day. There is no established toxicity for turmeric extract to this day, so taking around 1,500mg daily can help you see health benefits.

Learn more about turmeric extract and which dose is right for you here: What is the Optimal Turmeric Dosage for Inflammation?

Be Careful With Misleading Turmeric Advertising

Before you make a decision on what turmeric extract to buy, you should read the label. Some companies may try to fool you into thinking their supplement is a turmeric extract when it is turmeric powder instead.

If a supplement company claims there is “1000 mg of turmeric" but the label indicates that there is 1000 mg of turmeric root powder and a very small amount of turmeric extract in each tablet. This means that the total amount is 1000 mg of turmeric powder, which is equivalent to only 3 to 5 mg of curcuminoids. If you do the math, you would have to take around 30 tablets to achieve anything close to a therapeutic dosage.

There are some reasons why companies advertise high potency turmeric but only have 50mg of turmeric extract. For one, the company may not have a clue what high potency means. They can also mislead and falsify information to sell more, and trick the consumer into buying their products. Another reason is that they may not know the difference between turmeric powder and turmeric extract. Some companies may not know what the protocols are for calculating and reporting the actual concentration of the active compounds in turmeric. Finally, most manufacturers will put profit before they do the customer, even when it means misleading.

Manufacturers will often prefer to do this because turmeric powder is more affordable than extract. To get a high potency turmeric extract, companies need to obtain a large amount of turmeric powder, which they will then use to isolate curcuminoids. This turmeric extract is now high potency, containing 95% curcuminoids. By advertising high amounts of turmeric, these companies can sell more, but save costs.

If you are about to buy a high potency turmeric extract supplement online, make sure you check, as it may only have 50mg of turmeric extract.

Take time to understand labels and how they can trick you. This article can show you how Active Atoms Turmeric Extract excels when compared to other popular brands: Misleading claims about Turmeric – 5 examples and how to read labels.

Things to Consider Before You Pick a Turmeric Supplement

Considering everything out there, there are a few tips you should be aware of before you pick a turmeric extract supplement:

·        Check the potency of turmeric per each capsule: Is there at least 500mg of turmeric? You need a high amount of turmeric to obtain real benefits. You may be shocked to see that most commercial brands contain only 50mg of turmeric extract. On the other hand, Active Atoms provides 750 mg of turmeric extract per capsule, making it much more efficient and powerful than other supplements.

·        Does it contain black pepper extract? Also called BioPerine®, this compound has been proven to promote bioavailability and absorption of turmeric. Not all brands have this added ingredient, but it can increase the potency of turmeric by 2000%. Active Atoms adds an additional 5mg BioPerine® per capsule, making its turmeric extract much more efficient.

·        Is it free from any lead? Though not everyone knows, some turmeric products can actually contain traces of lead. Studies have shown that plants that produce turmeric powder had used lead to promote the appeal of a yellow color. However, lead is extremely dangerous and can cause severe neurological damage. Don't worry, though, turmeric extract uses a water dispersion technology, which filters out all unwanted substances.

·        Make sure you check whether your supplement has been tested for lead, as not all companies report this. Active Atoms sends their supplements for independent lead testing and you can find a full report on the website.

·        Consult with your physician: As a rule of thumb, you should always consult your physician before you start any supplement. It is also a good idea to work on your diet, sleeping habits, physical activity, and lifestyle along with taking this supplement.

·        Be careful with side effects: While turmeric doesn't have a lot of side effects, it can affect certain people more than others. If you are immuno-compromised, undergoing hormonal treatment, taking blood thinners, or suffer from gastric, kidney, or gallbladder issues, then you should talk to your doctor and exercise caution with starting turmeric extract supplements.

Check out the possible side effects of a turmeric extract supplement here: What are the side effects of Turmeric Supplements?

Final Thoughts...

Curcumin has been efficient in managing and treating all sorts of conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, dementia, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, depression, and more.

A dose of 500-2000 mg of turmeric extract per day can be beneficial to you. Make sure you pick a supplement that contains at least 500mg or more of turmeric extract along with BioPerine®, and that is also tested for traces of lead.

You may find what you are looking for and more in Active Atoms Turmeric Extract. Get ready to change your life and your health, and start taking turmeric extract soon!

References:

1.     https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/curcumin-market

2.     https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30316076

3.     https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17900536

[dustrial-inc]

Episode 3

Dearest Player,

I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, "Gordon Freeman, we have not heard from you in ages!" Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I've been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous letter (referred to herewith as Episode 2).

To begin with, as you may recall from the closing paragraphs of my previous missive, the death of Eli Vance shook us all. The Research & Rebellion team was traumatized, unable to be sure how much of our plan might be compromised, and whether it made any sense to go on at all as we had intended. And yet, once Eli had been buried, we found the strength and courage to regroup. It was the strong belief of his brave daughter, the feisty Alyx Vance, that we should continue on as her father had wished. We had the Arctic coordinates, transmitted by Eli's long-time assistant, Dr. Judith Mossman, which we believed to mark the location of the lost research vessel Borealis. Eli had felt strongly that the Borealis should be destroyed rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Combine. Others on our team disagreed, believing that the Borealis might hold the secret to the revolution's success. Either way, the arguments were moot until we found the vessel. Therefore, immediately after the service for Dr. Vance, Alyx and I boarded a helicopter and set off for the Arctic; a much larger support team, mainly militia, was to follow by separate transport.

It is still unclear to me exactly what brought down our little aircraft. The following hours spent traversing the frigid waste in a blizzard are also a jumbled blur, ill-remembered and poorly defined. The next thing I clearly recall is our final approach to the coordinates Dr. Mossman has provided, and where we expected to find the Borealis. What we found instead was a complex fortified installation, showing all the hallmarks of sinister Combine technology. It surrounded a large open field of ice. Of the Hypnos itself there was no sign…or not at first. But as we stealthily infiltrated the Combine installation, we noticed a recurent, strangely coherent auroral effect–as of a vast hologram fading in and out of view. This bizarre phenomenon initially seemed an effect caused by an immense Combine lensing system, Alyx and I soon realized that what we were actually seeing was the research vessel Borealis itself, phasing in and out of existence at the focus of the Combine devices. The aliens had erected their compound to study and seize the ship whenever it materialized. What Dr. Mossman had provided were not coordinates for where the sub was located, but instead for where it was predicted to arrive. The vessel was oscillating in and out of our reality, its pulses were gradually steadying, but there was no guarantee it would settle into place for long–or at all. We determined that we must put ourselves into position to board it at the instant it became completely physical.

At this point we were briefly detained–not captured by the Combine, as we feared at first, but by minions of our former nemesis, the conniving and duplicitous Wallace Breen. Dr. Breen was not as we had last seen him–which is to say, he was not dead. At some point, the Combine had saved out an earlier version of his consciousness, and upon his physical demise, they had imprinted the back-up personality into a biological blank resembling an enormous slug. The BreenGrub, despite occupying a position of relative power in the Combine hierarchy, seemed nervous and frightened of me in particular. Wallace did not know how his previous incarnation, the original Dr. Breen, had died. He knew only that I was responsible. Therefore the slug treated us with great caution. Still, he soon confessed (never able to keep quiet for long) that he was himself a prisoner of the Combine. He took no pleasure from his current grotesque existence, and pleaded with us to end his life. Alyx believed that a quick death was more than Wallace Breen deserved, but for my part, I felt a modicum of pity and compassion. Out of Alyx's sight, I might have done something to hasten the slug's demise before we proceeded.

Not far from where we had been detained by Dr. Breen, we found Judith Mossman being held in a Combine interrogation cell. Things were tense between Judith and Alyx, as might be imagined. Alyx blamed Judith for her father's death…news of which, Judith was devastated to hear for the first time. Judith tried to convince Alyx that she had been a double agent serving the resistance all along, doing only what Eli had asked of her, even though she knew it meant she risked being seen by her peers–by all of us–as a traitor. I was convinced; Alyx less so. But from a pragmatic point of view, we depended on Dr. Mossman; for along with the Borealis coordinates, she possessed resonance keys which would be necessary to bring the vessel fully into our plane of existence.

We skirmished with Combine soldiers protecting a Combine research post, then Dr. Mossman attuned the Borealis to precisely the frequencies needed to bring it into (brief) coherence. In the short time available to us, we scrambled aboard the ship, with an unknown number of Combine agents close behind. The ship cohered for only a short time, and then its oscillations resume. It was too late for our own military support, which arrived and joined the Combine forces in battle just as we rebounded between universes, once again unmoored.

What happened next is even harder to explain. Alyx Vance, Dr. Mossman and myself sought control of the ship–its power source, its control room, its navigation center. The ships's history proved nonlinear. Years before, during the Combine invasion, various members of an earlier science team, working in the hull of a dry-docked vessel situated at the Aperture Science Research Facility in Michigan, had assembled what they called the Bootstrap Device. If it worked as intended, it would emit a field large enough to surround the ship. This field would then itself travel instantaneously to any chosen destination without having to cover the intervening space. There was no need for entry or exit portals, or any other devices; it was entirely self-contained. Unfortunately, the device had never been tested. As the Combine pushed Earth into the Seven Hour War, the aliens seized control of our most important research facilities. The staff of the Borealis, with no other wish than to keep the ship out of Combine hands, acted in desperation. The switched on the field and flung the Borealis toward the most distant destination they could target: Arctica. What they did not realize was that the Bootstrap Device travelled in time as well as space. Nor was it limited to one time or one location. The Borealis, and the moment of its activation, were stretched across space and time, between the nearly forgotten Lake Huron of the Seven Hour War and the present day Arctic; it was pulled taut as an elastic band, vibrating, except where at certain points along its length one could find still points, like the harmonic spots along a vibrating guitar string. One of these harmonics was where we boarded, but the string ran forward and back, in both time and space, and we were soon pulled in every direction ourselves.

Time grew confused. Looking from the bridge, we could see the drydocks of Aperture Science at the moment of teleportation, just as the Combine forces closed in from land, sea and air. At the same time, we could see the Arctic wastelands, where our friends were fighting to make their way to the protean Borealis; and in addition, glimpses of other worlds, somewhere in the future perhaps, or even in the past. Alyx grew convinced we were seeing one of the Combine's central staging areas for invading other worlds–such as our own. We meanwhile fought a running battle throughout the ship, pursued by Combine forces. We struggled to understand our stiuation, and to agree on our course of action. Could we alter the course of the Borealis? Should we run it aground in the Arctic, giving our peers the chance to study it? Should we destroy it with all hands aboard, our own included? It was impossible to hold a coherent thought, given the baffling and paradoxical timeloops, which passed through the ship like bubbles. I felt I was going mad, that we all were, confronting myriad versions of ourselves, in that ship that was half ghost-ship, half nightmare funhouse.

What it came down to, at last, was a choice. Judith Mossman argued, reasonably, that we should save the Borealis and deliver it to the resistance, that our intelligent peers might study and harness its power. But Alyx reminded me had sworn she would honor she father's demand that we destroy the ship. She hatched a plan to set the Borealis to self-destruct, while riding it into the heart of the Combine's invasion nexus. Judith and Alyx argued. Judith overpowered Alyx and brought the Borealis area, preparing to shut off the Bootstrap Device and settle the ship on the ice. Then I heard a shot, and Judith fell. Alyx had decided for all of us, or her weapon had. With Dr. Mossman dead, we were committed to the suicide plunge. Grimly, Alyx and I armed the Borealis, creating a time-travelling missile, and steered it for the heart of the Combine's command center.

At this point, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, a Certain Sinister Figure appeared, in the form of that sneering trickster, G-Man.  For once he appeared not to me, but to Alyx Vance. Alyx had not seen the cryptical schoolmarm since childhood, but she recognized hi, instantly. "Come along with me now, we've places to be and things to do," said G-Man, and Alyx acquiesced. She followed the strange grey man out of the Borealis, out of our reality. For me, there was no convenient door held open; only a snicker and a sideways glance. I was left alone, riding the weaponized research vessel into the heart of a Combine world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere. The vastness of the Combine's power, the futility of our struggle, blossomed briefly in my awareness. I saw everything. Mainly I saw how the Borealis, our most powerful weapon, would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart. And what remained of me would be even less than that.

Just then, as you have surely already foreseen, the Vortigaunts parted their own checkered curtains of reality, reached in as they have on prior occasions, plucked me out, and set me aside. I barely got to see the fireworks begin.

And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode.

Yours in infinite finality,

Gordon Freeman, Ph.D.

=======================================

Marc Laidlaw [: source:]

[kinsale42-blog]

Excerpt: Renewal

Khadgar/Kalec (m/m, full work is explicit)

  "How old are you now, Khadgar?" Kalec asked his friend, who had appeared to be somewhere in his sixties for about the last three decades.

  Khadgar sighed heavily, staring into his pint. "Forty-five. Last week, in fact. " He absentmindedly stroked his long, white beard. It hadn't taken him long to develop the habit after Medivh had forced the unnatural age upon him. It was deeply ingrained now.

  Kalec suspected that under the beard and matching long white hair, Khadgar looked much younger than the sixty-seven or so that everyone took him for at first glance. The well-aged violet robe he wore did nothing to help, either. He also suspected that Khadgar's recent demeanor of resignation was related to the anniversary of his birth and having to face the relentless onslaught of age compounded with the burden of premature age he'd already carried for far too long. Kalec decided that drastic measures were necessary. Khadgar needed to stay sharp and fighting fit. Deathwing was dead and the dragons were in decline. The age of mortals had begun. If anyone was to protect Azeroth from threat of destruction, it would have to be powerful champions like Khadgar.

  In one of the side alcoves of the tavern, he caught a glimpse of Miralisse, the local tailoring mistress. Excusing himself for just a moment, he went over to have a word with her. Khadgar watched as they engaged in discussion, missing Kalec's gesture towards him as he took a long swallow of his ale. Miralisse seemed to agree with whatever Kalec was proposing, nodding her head and making some hand gestures that appeared to describe the width of something. They apparently reached some agreement, and Kalec returned to the table.

  "What's up with her then?" asked Khadgar, well into his third pint. It had been a rough week. Getting anything done had been like slogging through hip-deep mud, including things he usually rejoiced to have time for, like research. Everyone had seemed testy, even A'dal, although Khadgar suspected it was really just him. When was A'dal ever less than perfectly patient with anyone?

  "Ahh, I was just making some arrangements. You'll see soon enough." Kalec hid his grin behind his glass.

***

  A week later, in his rooms on the top floor of the guest house where he was staying in Shattrath, Kalec finally brought up the idea of a clean shave and a good haircut to Khadgar. "It will make you feel like a new man," he said. "Trust me. It will be like shapeshifting, only with less discomfort."

  Khadgar looked doubtful. His thick white eyebrows drew together over sapphire-colored eyes.

  "At least try it, friend. See what you think." Kalec really didn't want to have to beg, but he was more certain than ever that something needed to change. And he had those new adventurer's robes hanging in his wardrobe, just waiting to be unveiled. It would be a shame if the rest of Khadgar didn't look the part of the rugged adventurer.

  Khadgar sighed. "All right. You seem convinced. I've just looked this way for so long..." He trailed off as he realized that was part of his recent frustration. He was indeed getting older but he never looked any different. Yet another normal human phenomenon that this curse had stolen from him. "Yes." he said, more firmly. "Let's do it."

  So Kalec sat Khadgar in a straight-backed chair in the middle of the sitting room and draped a towel round his shoulders. He fetched the sharp dwarven-steel razor that he used for his own face, and with a swift motion of one hand, conjured a bowl of steaming water ready to soften Khadgar's beard for shaving after it had been trimmed. He set the basin on a nearby table, and used the razor to trim off the length of Khadgar's hair and beard. Long white streamers of surprisingly silky hair fell to the floor around them.

  As Kalec fine-tuned the trim of his hair, Khadgar could feel the unfamiliar sensation of air movement on his neck. It was so cool as to be nearly frosty, and there was a rhythm to it...Khadgar realized it was Kalec's breath. A blue dragon is generally frost-aligned by nature, even when shapeshifted into a half-elven body, apparently. Khadgar made a mental note of this.

  Then Kalec finished the shave, gently drawing the sharp edge of the razor across the planes of Khadgar's face. He was intently focused on doing this without harming Khadgar in the slightest, and his augmented draconic senses made it easier than it might have been otherwise. To Khadgar it felt more like the whisper of a caress than a blade. His mind was confused suddenly because his body was reacting strangely to the sensation. His pulse quickened and he could feel a flush rising up his neck into his face. Khadgar tried to calm himself, and breathed as deeply as he could without moving and risking injury from the razor.

  And then it was done. Kalec stepped back to admire his handiwork. It was a definite improvement. He removed the towel and brushed the stray hair off of Khadgar's faded violet robe. Another movement of his hand and the hair on the floor swirled itself up into a tidy ball that deposited itself in the nearest wastebasket.

  "Now," said Kalec, "come with me and I have something else for you before you are allowed to see yourself in a mirror."

  Khadgar raised an eyebrow, but obediently rose and followed Kalec into the next room. The dragon approached the wardrobe and opened one of the doors. He reached in and with one hand pulled out a blue adventurer's tunic and leggings, complete with a stylish long sash, a soft brown leather overtunic, and an intricately feathered capelet. With the other hand he picked up a pair of matching soft boots.

  "This will be far more appropriate for the sort of work you do than that old robe, and far more up-to-date. Quite possibly more comfortable as well." He laid it across the bed. "Try it on."

  Khadgar looked at his old friend. "You had this made for me? Is that why you were talking to the tailor in the inn that night?"

  Kalec nodded. "Consider it a gift for your birth anniversary ritual...birthday? That is an appropriate time for gifts, is it not?"

  "You are too kind, Kalec." Khadgar had to admit, it did look nice. And such a perfect shade of blue, like the skies of Lordaeron after the ribbons of sunset color had faded. It really did appeal to him. So he slipped his ancient wizard's robe off over his head and replaced it with the new tunic and leggings, and changed his boots. As Kalec helped him figure out how to fasten the sash, Khadgar asked, "What sort of cloth is this? I don't recognize it. It's very soft."

  "It's windwool," answered Kalec. "The latest thing out of Pandaria. Some combination of goat hair and butterfly silk, I believe. They say it's the most durable thing you can get right now, and it holds its color perfectly for years. It is indeed both elegant and comfortable."

  Khadgar pulled the overtunic over his head and only when he went to fasten the belt did he notice that the buckle was fashioned in the shape of a raven's head. His mind was immediately full of memories of his former mentor, who had liked to transform into a raven when the whim took him, and indeed had allowed the young apprentice Khadgar to carry his staff long enough to teach him the trick of it.

  Kalec saw him pause, and correctly deduced the reason for it, but paid no heed. Instead, he draped the short blue-feathered cape across Khadgar's broad shoulders, adjusting it until it settled properly. He tweaked the blue undertunic and sash until it lay properly, and pulled the overtunic down a bit in the back. Finally he was pleased with the effect, and opened the other wardrobe door to reveal a full length mirror.

  Khadgar turned to look into the mirror and saw a strange man looking back at him. He touched his hair where it stood in silver spikes above a face he barely recognized. Those were his eyes, and that was his nose for sure, but it had been so many years since he had seen the chin...he touched it to be sure it was actually him. The skin was still loose like an old man's but it was smooth, and the chin was still strong and resolute, and he certainly looked younger than he had an hour before.

  He was most pleased with the new outfit. The feathers, the belt buckle, the glorious shade of blue that made the blue of his eyes more radiant, it was all perfect. How Kalec had dreamed this up was beyond him, but he felt far more energized than he had in weeks.

  "Kalec. Friend. I...I don't know how to thank you for this. You were right, I feel like I have been remade." Khadgar shook his head in disbelief, an unstoppable smile lighting up his face.

  "It suits you. There are many adventures yet in your future and I am sure this will help you face them with a strong heart." Kalec smiled at Khadgar's almost childlike pleasure. He tried to think of how best to suggest the one other remedy he could provide that could help rejuvenate his friend. It was constantly on his mind that his era was ending, his power was fading. If there was any way that he could bestow even a tiny fraction of that power on someone he knew could make good use of it, he wanted to do so before it was too late. And he could not think of anyone more worthy, more in need of it than his friend Khadgar.

  Kalec reached out to adjust the buckle on the neck band of the cape, allowing his fingers to brush the warm skin of Khadgar's neck just where the blood flowed closest to the surface, and let just the faintest breath of arcane energy to slip off the end of his fingertips. It had the same effect that using his power had while shaving Khadgar's face. Khadgar's pulse picked up and his body became sensitized. He turned from the mirror to find himself looking into Kalec's violet eyes.

  "Khadgar." Kalec spoke softly. "There is more I can give you, if you will allow it, if you are open to it. I can replace some of what Medivh took from you." He had been researching it privately, and found more than a few instances in dragon lore where mating between dragons and mortals had given the mortals prolonged lives and heightened senses, and with some who were naturally attuned, increased power. "You know I cannot produce children of my own, and I would share my power with someone who could use it before I have nothing left to give."

  Khadgar was entranced. This was not like the proposition of a demon, who offered power only in return for ultimate sacrifice. Kalec was a blue dragon, uncorruptible by fel magics. He was not immune to other dark forces, but Khadgar could sense no presence of those in this room, in Kalec. Was it really possible that Kalec could restore some actual youth and vigor, after all this time as an old man? He stared back into Kalec's eyes. He wanted to say yes...

full text available at http://archiveofourown.org/works/8307616

[m0]

Half-Life 3 That Might Have Been

A summary of HL3 story in a form of a letter from Gordon Freeman. It was posted by the series writer, Marc Laidlaw.

I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, “Gordon Freeman, we have not heard from you in ages!” Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I’ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous game (referred to herewith as Episode 2).

To begin with, as you may recall from the closing paragraphs of my previous missive, the death of Eli Vance shook us all. The Resistance team was traumatized, unable to be sure how much of our plan might be compromised, and whether it made any sense to go on at all as we had intended. And yet, once Eli had been buried, we found the strength and courage to regroup. It was the strong belief of his brave daughter, the feisty Alyx Vance, that we should continue on as her father had wished. We had the Antarctic coordinates, transmitted by Eli’s long-time assistant, Dr. Judith Mossman, which we believed to mark the location of the lost luxury liner Borealis. Eli had felt strongly that the Borealis should be destroyed rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Combine. Others on our team disagreed, believing that the Borealis might hold the secret to the revolution’s success. Either way, the arguments were moot until we found the vessel. Therefore, immediately after the service for Dr. Vance, Alyx and I boarded a seaplane and set off for the Antarctic; a much larger support team, mainly militia, was to follow by separate transport.

It is still unclear to me exactly what brought down our little aircraft. The following hours spent traversing the frigid waste in a blizzard are also a jumbled blur, ill-remembered and poorly defined. The next thing I clearly recall is our final approach to the coordinates Dr. Mossman has provided, and where we expected to find the Borealis. What we found instead was a complex fortified installation, showing all the hallmarks of sinister Combine technology. It surrounded a large open field of ice. Of the Borealis itself there was no sign…or not at first. But as we stealthily infiltrated the Combine installation, we noticed a recurent, strangely coherent auroral effect–as of a vast hologram fading in and out of view. This bizarre phenomenon initially seemed an effect caused by an immense Combine lensing system, Alyx and I soon realized that what we were actually seeing was the luxury liner Borealis itself, phasing in and out of existence at the focus of the Combine devices. The aliens had erected their compound to study and seize the ship whenever it materialized. What Dr. Mossman had provided were not coordinates for where the sub was located, but instead for where it was predicted to arrive. The liner was oscillating in and out of our reality, its pulses were gradually steadying, but there was no guarantee it would settle into place for long–or at all. We determined that we must put ourselves into position to board it at the instant it became completely physical.

At this point we were briefly detained–not captured by the Combine, as we feared at first, but by minions of our former nemesis, the conniving and duplicitous Wallace Breen. Dr. Breen was not as we had last seen him–which is to say, he was not dead. At some point, the Combine had saved out an earlier version of his consciousness, and upon his physical demise, they had imprinted the back-up personality into a biological blank resembling an enormous grub. The Breen-grub, despite occupying a position of relative power in the Combine hierarchy, seemed nervous and frightened of me in particular. Wallace did not know how his previous incarnation, the original Dr. Breen, had died. He knew only that I was responsible. Therefore the grub treated us with great caution. Still, he soon confessed (never able to keep quiet for long) that he was herself a prisoner of the Combine. He took no pleasure from her current grotesque existence, and pleaded with us to end his life. Alyx believed that a quick death was more than Wallace Breen deserved, but for my part, I felt a modicum of pity and compassion. Out of Alyx ’s sight, I might have done something to hasten the grub’s demise before we proceeded.

Not far from where we had been detained by Dr. Breen, we found Judith Mossman being held in a Combine interrogation cell. Things were tense between Judith and Alyx, as might be imagined. Alyx blamed Judith for her father’s death…news of which, Judith was devastated to hear for the first time. Judith tried to convince Alyx that she had been a double agent serving the resistance all along, doing only what Eli had asked of her, even though she knew it meant he risked being seen by her peers–by all of us–as a traitor. I was convinced; Alyx less so. But from a pragmatic point of view, we depended on Dr. Mossman; for along with the Borealis coordinates, she possessed resonance keys which would be necessary to bring the liner fully into our plane of existence.

We skirmished with Combine soldiers protecting a Combine research post, then Dr. Mossman attuned the Borealis to precisely the frequencies needed to bring it into (brief) coherence. In the short time available to us, we scrambled aboard the ship, with an unknown number of Combine agents close behind. The ship cohered for only a short time, and then its oscillations resume. It was too late for our own military support, which arrived and joined the Combine forces in battle just as we rebounded between universes, once again unmoored.

What happened next is even harder to explain. Alyx Vance, Dr. Mossman and myself sought control of the ship–its power source, its control room, its navigation center. The liner’s history proved nonlinear. Years before, during the Combine invasion, various members of an earlier science team, working in the hull of a dry-docked liner situated at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center in Lake Huron, had assembled what they called the Bootstrap Device. If it worked as intended, it would emit a field large enough to surround the ship. This field would then itself travel instantaneously to any chosen destination without having to cover the intervening space. There was no need for entry or exit portals, or any other devices; it was entirely self-contained. Unfortunately, the device had never been tested. As the Combine pushed Earth into the Seven Hour War, the aliens seized control of our most important research facilities. The staff of the Borealis , with no other wish than to keep the ship out of Combine hands, acted in desperation. The switched on the field and flung the Borealis toward the most distant destination they could target: Antarctica. What they did not realize was that the Bootstrap Device travelled in time as well as space. Nor was it limited to one time or one location. The Borealis, and the moment of its activation, were stretched across space and time, between the nearly forgotten Lake Michigan of the Seven Hour War and the present day Antarctic; it was pulled taut as an elastic band, vibrating, except where at certain points along its length one could find still points, like the harmonic spots along a vibrating guitar string. One of these harmonics was where we boarded, but the string ran forward and back, in both time and space, and we were soon pulled in every direction ourselves.

Time grew confused. Looking from the bridge, we could see the drydocks of Aperture Science at the moment of teleportation, just as the Combine forces closed in from land, sea and air. At the same time, we could see the Antarctic wastelands, where our friends were fighting to make their way to the protean Borealis; and in addition, glimpses of other worlds, somewhere in the future perhaps, or even in the past. Alyx grew convinced we were seeing one of the Combine’s central staging areas for invading other worlds–such as our own. We meanwhile fought a running battle throughout the ship, pursued by Combine forces. We struggled to understand our stiuation, and to agree on our course of action. Could we alter the course of the Borealis? Should we run it aground in the Antarctic, giving our peers the chance to study it? Should we destroy it with all hands aboard, our own included? It was impossible to hold a coherent thought, given the baffling and paradoxical timeloops, which passed through the ship like bubbles. I felt I was going mad, that we all were, confronting myriad versions of ourselves, in that ship that was half ghost-ship, half nightmare funhouse.

What it came down to, at last, was a choice. Judith Mossman argued, reasonably, that we should save the Borealis and deliver it to the Resistance, that our intelligent peers might study and harness its power. But Alyx reminded me she had sworn she would honor her father’s demand that we destroy the ship. She hatched a plan to set the Borealis to self-destruct, while riding it into the heart of the Combine’s invasion nexus. Judith and Alyx argued. Judith overpowered Alyx and brought the Borealis area, preparing to shut off the Bootstrap Device and settle the ship on the ice. Then I heard a shot, and Judith fell. Alyx had decided for all of us, or her weapon had. With Dr. Mossman dead, we were committed to the suicide plunge. Grimly, Alyx and I armed the Borealis, creating a time-travelling missile, and steered it for the heart of the Combine’s command center.

At this point, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, a Certain Sinister Figure appeared, in the form of that sneering trickster, the G-Man. For once he appeared not to me, but to Alyx Vance. Alyx had not seen the cryptical schoolmarm (no male equivalent) since childhood, but she recognized him instantly. “Come along with me now, we’ve places to do and things to be,” said the G-Man, and Alyx acquiesced. She followed the strange grey man out of the Borealis, out of our reality. For me, there was no convenient door held open; only a snicker and a sideways glance. I was left alone, riding the weaponized luxury liner into the heart of a Combine world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere. The vastness of the Combine’s power, the futility of our struggle, blossomed briefly in my awareness. I saw everything. Mainly I saw how the Borealis, our most powerful weapon, would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart. And what remained of me would be even less than that.

Just then, as you have surely already foreseen, the Vortigaunts parted their own checkered curtains of reality, reached in as they have on prior occasions, plucked me out, and set me aside. I barely got to see the fireworks begin.

And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Except no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode.

Yours in infinite finality,

Gordon Freeman, Ph.D.

Source: http://www.marclaidlaw.com/epistle-3/