#is in theory. i know how to put petrol in it and i think i mostly remember how to check the oil and water levels

[fingertipsmp3]

Okay hear me out: should I buy a car

[marmotish]

🎄👻 Duncan Christmas SQ 👻🎄

Part 3. The Crossing

(~2500 words under the cut)

The bus ride down to Cairnryan was awkwardly silent, with neither Duncan nor Freyja really ready or willing to discuss what had happened. Less awkward than actually speaking to each other though, from an outsider’s perspective.

Not a word was spoken until they had boarded the ferry, with the exception of Duncan hissing “one ticket!” when Freyja initially asked for two at the port.

With most passengers choosing to enjoy the onboard amenities, it was reasonably empty up on deck. No surprise though, given it was late December. The winds coming off the water were chilly to say the least, and the overcast sky did nothing to improve the scenery. But they would have to speak eventually, and better it happen out in the open, away from a larger crowd. That was when Freyja decided it had been long enough avoiding the subject.

“So what was it like?”

“What?”

“When you were inside -“

“DON’T SAY IT.”

Freyja stopped talking, and returned to watching the ocean. Looked like the blunt approach wasn’t the best way to start. But the question was still hanging in the air, unanswered. It was now up to Duncan to resume the conversation. But when? Who knew. Minutes ticked by without another word being spoken.

Well, if he wanted to spend the next couple of hours in silence then that was fine. Nothing was stopping her from enjoying everything else the ferry had to offer. If she got moving now, she could -

“It was really quick, I don’t know...”

OK, forget that.

“I didn’t even know what was happening, but then everything kind of hit me at once. The smell of the street, the cold air on my face, the clothes on my body, the ground under my feet... well, your face and all...”

He hesitated, as though he might have said too much. Freyja waited for him to continue, watching his face carefully.

“It was almost like - being alive again.”

Well FUCK.

Freyja didn’t know how to respond to that. Duncan had always seemed more life-like, more alive than any of the other ghosts she knew. The way he moved through the world was reminiscent of a living person.

Not like Professor Binns, who acted like he didn’t even know he was dead. Quite the contrary, Duncan was more than aware of the fact that he was dead. That was just the problem.

Sure, he floated around like any other ghost, but it was little things that Freyja noticed while they were in Glasgow that kind of set him apart. He never took shortcuts through walls, he moved through the appropriate doorways and corridors. He stuck to moving along the sidewalk. He waved away car exhaust even though he couldn’t smell it. When it had started raining, he pulled up the hood of his cloak, even though he couldn’t get wet.

All these behavioural quirks told of someone who was trapped in an existence they didn’t want, who was instead trying to hang onto any threads of humanity, of a real existence. But pretend as much as he like, he would never be able to replicate the feeling of really being alive. And he had never come closer to being alive than for the few seconds he had taken over Freyja’s body.

Choosing the blunt approach again, Freyja broke the silence with another question.

“Would you do it again if you had the chance?”

“What?!”

Duncan leapt back, putting plenty of space between them. Freyja raised her eyebrows in question, waiting for a reply.

No, it was a terrible idea. As much as he wanted to feel almost alive again, he didn’t know if he would be able to handle it. He barely made it to 5 seconds before.

“You know,” Freyja shrugged her backpack off her shoulders. “I’ve been up for almost 30 hours straight, and I’m just now starting to feel it. I wouldn’t mind switching off for a bit.”

Duncan almost imperceptibly shook his head in confusion, watching as Freyja pulled out an impossibly large blanket and sets it on one of the boxy seats on the deck.

“Think I’ll have a rest. Might be my only chance before we reach the port.”

“Up here on deck? In the cold?”

“well I could sleep inside, but then you wouldn’t be able to smell the salt in the air, or feel the wind in your face. Anyhow, this blanket’s thick and heavy enough to keep you warm.”

“You keep saying ‘you’, but -“

Freyja settled down on the seat, pulling the blanket around her shoulders while Duncan hovered from a safe distance looking understandably perplexed.

“Though you’ll probably fall asleep before too long. If you were able to feel what my body felt before, then you’re going to feel tired too. Think of it like we’re 2 drivers of the same car, my body being the car obviously. If the car runs out of petrol, it doesn’t matter who’s driving. It’s not going anywhere.”

“JUST GET TO THE POINT.”

Freyja glared at him. “Oh NOW you want the blunt approach.” Rolling her eyes, she continued. ”Fine. I’m saying if you wanted to try the possession thing again, then that’s fine with me.”

OK. She really said it. He wasn’t really expecting her to.

But possessing someone just to fall asleep? What would be the point in that? Then again, it would be less intense than possessing a body that was being fuelled by pure adrenaline. Surely something like falling asleep should be enough for him to handle. God knows he was emotionally exhausted. Not being able to sleep and spending every moment with your own thoughts would be enough to exhaust anyone. Who knew that would also be the case after death?

“Why would you let me do that again?”

Duncan was wary. On one hand, he was tempted to take up the offer. But this didn’t seem to be an offer made from the goodness of her heart. From the past year, he’d come to realise that Freyja rarely did anything seemingly selfless without some kind of underlying motive. That or she was just bored, and he didn’t know which one worried him more.

Freyja shrugged. “Why not? Besides, I’m curious. I want to know if the theory about cars and drivers is right. I have two conditions though. One, that you get out before we hit port. Two, if you’re somehow able to cart my body around, don’t lose my blanket or any of my other stuff . That includes money. I’m on a budget.”

With that, Freyja dropped her backpack onto her lap and hugged her knees up towards her chin, enveloping herself in the blanket. She watched and waited for Duncan’s response.

He was grabbing at his own sleeves, unsure about what to do. It was strange to see him look so uncomfortable, and he was silent for so long that Freyja regretted ever making the offer.

“Hey, forget it-“

“I don’t even know if I can do it again.” Duncan started, rubbing his arm. “But - I want to try.

“Alright?”

“And I don’t want you watching me.”

Freyja nodded. “Fair enough.” She slumped a little further down on the seat and closed her eyes.

Duncan shut his eyes as well, and took an un-necessary deep breath. He took a moment to steel himself, then peeked out of one eye. Freyja’s eyes were still closed, but her legs were jiggling under the blanket. Impatience or anticipation? Hard to tell.

Screwing both eyes shut, he flew forward, meeting a sudden feeling of warmth followed by a shiver up his spine. Gasping, Duncan opened his eyes. He brushed a silver fringe out of his face. Seated in the deck chair now, he observed the world from this borrowed body. Steadying his breath, he closed his eyes, focusing on each new sense in turn.

Now, having spent more than a few moments in this body, he could also feel Freyja’s consciousness at the back of his mind, and it was slipping steadily towards sleep.

Well, she was right about two things. One, he could definitely feel the exhaustion from this body. It was a wonder she kept going this long. He could feel his eyelids drooping, try as he might to keep them open.

Two, this blanket was undoubtedly warm enough to keep out the winter chill. It was heavy though, weighing down on his body. Not that he minded, it was a comforting weight, like being held in a warm embrace.

He pulled the blanket up to his ears, slowly breathing in the salty sea breeze, feeling the gusts of winter wind across his face. Wrapping his arms around himself, he allowed the sounds of the sea to lull him to sleep.

---

The sounds of screaming (laughing?) children running across the deck jolted both Freyja and Duncan awake, with the latter being suddenly ejected from the former’s body, practically hurtling over the railing.

“Are we there?”

Duncan reeled himself back in on deck before taking a look ahead. “Not far off, the port’s further inland.”

“Ok, ok that’s good.” Freyja rubs sleep from her eyes, stretching herself out. “You have a good rest?”

Duncan turned his head sharply in Freyja’s direction, ready to catch any hint of mockery. But if she was being anything other than genuine, he couldn’t tell by her face. “it was fine.” He answered.

Freyja wandered over to the railing next to Duncan, carefully bundling up her blanket to avoid tripping. He waited for her to interrogate him about the possession, but she didn’t press further. She didn’t even look at him. Rather, she kept her gaze fixed on the water’s edge, taking in the sights. “Can’t wait to see the city.”

Again, Duncan tried to gauge Freyja’s tone. Was she being serious? Sure, a relatively neutral zone like the city centre was nice enough by comparison, but surely she knew the state of things once you ventured past the ring of steel. “You keep up with Muggle news, right?”

“If you’re talking about the situation over here, then yes, I’m aware.”

“I kept up with the news while I could, and I wrote to Gran while I was away as well. But I get the feeling she downplayed a lot of the stuff that happened when I wasn’t there.” Duncan shifted his gaze towards the approaching port. “Now I haven’t been able to write or keep up with the news since ... you know. But I can’t imagine things are much better than when I last came here.”

Freyja took a deep breath before answering. “It’s not the kind of thing that just blows over in a few years.”

“You know what was ironic though?” Duncan let out a mirthless laugh. “My parents told me it would be safer here with my Gran.”

Freyja frowned, but didn’t say anything. Duncan continued. “You know the First Wizarding War started not long after I was born? My family was scared shitless, and they didn’t even see the worst of the attacks, if you can imagine. Muggles were copping the worst of it at that time, and not just from the Death Eaters.”

Duncan’s jaw clenched, and he appeared to be gripping the railing tightly. “sometimes I don’t think my family ever stopped to consider what was happening outside their magical little bubble. Hell, they barely even paid attention to me until I started at Hogwarts. Then they saw that I could be a valuable, contributing member of the magical community.”

The children from before came running and laughing past them again, momentarily filling the silence that had fallen.

“Whether I was at home with my parents or with my Gran, it made no difference to me, safety-wise. There was no escaping what was happening out there. It’s funny - it all seemed so normal, I thought everyone’s childhood was like that. I guess if you never knew any different, you didn’t realise just how messed up it was. “

“By the time the Wizarding War ended, I was already at Hogwarts. I hadn’t been allowed to see Gran since First year. When we heard that You-Know-Who had been defeated, the first thing I did was run off to write a letter to my Gran telling her it was over. Asking if I could come over again.”

“But she said the same thing she’d been saying since I was 11. Not now, we’ll wait til it’s safer.” Duncan sniffed, his expression darkening. “It probably killed her to know that after all the effort she put into protecting me here, I died in a fucking explosion anyway...”

Oh God, things weren’t meant to get this heavy. Freyja had been silently pleading for him to stop talking. But it just kept coming, and she could say nothing. But what could she possibly have said? What input could she have given?

Like Jacob, Duncan’s childhood had been constantly shadowed by the War. Unlike Jacob however, Duncan was unfortunate enough to be caught between two different conflicts from two different worlds. It must have been confusing for him as a small child - not knowing where one finished and the other began.

Freyja racked her brains for something appropriate to say, when the arrival announcement sounded, alerting passengers to gather their belongings and prepare to disembark. Grateful for the interruption, she quickly moved back from the railing and started to fold up her blanket to pack it away.

She stopped mid-fold and ventured a look back at Duncan. He hadn’t moved from the rail, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

“Duncan, I -“

“Don’t bother hurting yourself trying to squeeze out an emotion, that’s not what I was going for.” Duncan turned to face her, his usual fed-up expression back in place. “But I do want to say that... I appreciate what you’re doing. I know Belfast isn’t exactly one of the top tourist destinations for Christmas right now.”

Freyja nodded in acknowledgment, continuing to pack up her blanket.

“Are you scared?” Duncan asked.

Her head snapped up, fixing Duncan with a stern gaze. She tightened the loops on her backpack with a little more force than necessary, and swung it over her shoulder. “An outsider walking into a decades-old sectarian conflict? Should I be scared?”

“Outsider or not makes no difference if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’d be stupid to not be scared.”

Bristling, Freyja jammed her hands into her jacket pockets. She knew perfectly well that being from out of town wasn’t going to be her get-out-jail-free card. She knew that waving her wand around wasn’t going to be any help if she was outnumbered. But part of her just wanted to know if she could do this. A stupid, selfish, insecure part of herself. The same part that reared it’s ugly head when Jacob once again dismissed her as some sort of unnecessary baggage in the Portrait Vault last summer.

“And I know you’re not stupid. Bloody Ravenclaw, and all.”

“My stupidity runs deep, don’t let the blue and bronze fool you.” Freyja grimaced, studiously avoiding eye contact. “but I’m not so stupid to believe that this is going to be a walk in the park.”

The other passengers were filing past now, a more insistent cue for the two of them to get moving. It took two shoulder collisions to bring Freyja out of her reverie, and shake her head clear of nagging doubts. She looked up at Duncan and gave him a decisive nod.

“Come on. We’ll make sure the only one of us who gets back to Hogwarts dead is me, ok? There’s no way I’m sharing my bathroom with you for the rest of eternity.”

---

[ieattaperecorders]

Notes on Causality - Chapter 4: Gerry

A favor for an old friend.

Read on Ao3

As he fell away for the final time, he felt that all-consuming fear, and his only thought was to cry out for his mother. But with the last vestige of his stubborn will, he refused. She would not claim his last moment. He was silent.

And so Gerard Keay ended. But there would be no rest for him. 

The recitation came to an end, the agony of being pulled through his own demise faded into dull awareness. He remembered himself, the negative space where a person had once been. Gerard had never liked ghost stories. He liked them less now that he was one of them.

The man holding the book was a stranger. He was old, though probably not as old as Trevor. His hair had been black once but was far more salt than pepper now, and his face was creased around the forehead and mouth. A pattern of scars on his face and neck made Gerard think instinctively of filth, and of burrowing things.

So. Either this was someone who’d taken the book from the Van Helsings, or more likely someone they’d threatened into using it so they didn’t have to look at him directly. Pricks.

“. . . Are they dead?” he asked tiredly.

“You mean the hunters?” the man shook his head. “No, I sincerely doubt I would have been able to manage that. But I took pains to cover my tracks.”

“You stole the book from them?"

“Well, it was stolen to begin with, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm,” Gerard tilted his head, smirking grimly. “Condolences to your family, then. Aren’t many in the world who can cover their tracks enough for those two.”

“I’m well aware,” the man sighed. “I’ve done what I can, nothing left but to wait and see now.”

They were in a small bedroom, inside what was probably a cabin. Gerard saw dark wood walls, oil lamps, and a tattered rug that bore some kitschy pattern he couldn’t be bothered to identify. Any view there might have been through the window was obscured by white-out snowfall. There was a fire in the fireplace, not that he could feel it.

“Who’re you, then?”

“My name’s Jon. I used to be the Archivist, until I took your father’s way out.”

He gestured towards his face, and Gerard finally noticed the scars crossing over his eyes -- false ones, probably. The implications sank in.

“Hard to tell how much time’s passing in here,” he said. An echo of an emotion, something that was almost sadness. “But unless you’re a hell of a lot older than you look, I don’t think you’re Gertrude’s predecessor.”

“No. No . . . I was her successor.”

“So she’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jon said. “She died holding a can of petrol, daring a man to shoot her.”

The thought warmed something in the absence of Gerard, and he smiled. “. . . Good.”

For a moment, he pictured Gertrude standing on a chair to disable the alarm in his hospital room so that he could light the cigarette she’d snuck in. A phantom ache came from where the IV had been in his arm. The hole was still there, still unhealed. It would never have the chance to be otherwise.

He took another look at Jon, tired resignation coming over him.

“So . . . ‘used-to-be-Archivist,’” he sighed. “You went to the trouble of getting the skin book from a pair of homicidal maniacs. I’m guessing you have questions.”

“Not really. I assume you want me to burn your page, I suppose I just wanted to talk to you first. Tell you what’s coming, and confirm that it’s what you want.”

“. . . It is,” he said adamantly. “Being like this hurts , there’s no real life in it. Whatever else there is, even if it’s nothing? I’ll take it.”

“I understand.” Jon paused. “I . . . if you want, I can let you go. Get it done right away.”

To his surprise, Gerard hesitated. He didn’t know what made him do so. Maybe it was fear, the thought of facing a second end, one that would hopefully be final. Maybe it was reluctance that he sensed in Jon, what was left of him reflecting the emotions of the living like the moon to sunlight. Or, hell, maybe now that he knew it would all be over soon he just wanted to linger a bit longer. He didn’t know, and he supposed it didn’t matter.

“Nah. I’ll stay a while. Got all eternity to not exist, right?” he shrugged. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a cigarette . . .”

“Sorry. Quit some time ago. And you couldn’t smoke it anyway, could you?”

“Guess not.” Something occurred to him, and he frowned. “Hey, how’d you read it?”

“What?”

“My page. You said you took my dad’s way out, right? He had to blind himself, and the book’s not exactly in Braille. How’d you read the page?”

“Oh! That’s uh . . . sort of a long story, actually.”

There was a pause, during which it became clear that he wasn’t going to follow that with anything.

“Well, summarize then,” Gerard said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“All right . . . I’ve actually met you before. I lived through a, hmm ---” he sighed, looking annoyed. “Well, Melanie insists on referring to it as an alternate timeline, which I really don’t care for. But I have to admit it’s a useful way to conceptualize it, so . . . .”

“Right, right,” Gerard waved a hand. “The whole ‘it’s not really this but we’re calling it this’ thing, I got it.”

“I was trying to continue Gertrude’s work of stopping rituals, which is how I met you originally. I burned your page that time as well . . . which, incidentally, did not go well for me. They did notice it was missing.” 

There was a snippy edge to Jon’s tone, and Gerard smirked, unable to shake the feeling that he was on the receiving end of a cross-timeline ‘I told you so.’ 

“Better luck this time. Maybe the Van Helsings have gone soft,” he said without conviction.

“Oh yes, clearly they’re winding down to retirement,” Jon’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Regardless, things got pretty bad in those years. And, um . . . the world ended.”

“. . . Fucking hell.”

“More or less, yes.”

“Was it as bad as we thought it’d be?”

“Worse. Whatever you imagined, it was worse,” he said grimly. “Eventually, I found a way to pass my own memories onto my past self, and with that knowledge I’ve changed the course of events so that none of it ever happened.”

“Hence the world still being here.”

“For the time being. It took a long time to find the Hunters, even longer to put a plan together to get the book from them without leaving a trail. By the time we’d worked out what we’d be doing they’d moved on and we had to find them again, and so on,” he waved his hand. “But eventually . . . well, here we are.”

“Huh.” Gerard paused. He ran all that over in his head again. “Didn’t really answer my question, did you?”

“Oh, right,” Jon laughed softly. “Well. As it turns out, holding the book and reciting from memory is good enough. If that hadn’t worked, I’d have had to call my husband in here.”

“. . . Where is here, anyway?” Gerard looked around at the small room. “It feels strange. Couldn’t quite tell at first, but this place isn’t normal, is it?”

“It’s not, no. We found an artifact of the Vast, a snow globe that traps you inside if you look at it too long. Time passes at a different rate here . . . minutes become decades, hours multiple centuries. You don’t age or die, but you feel the passage of time, and you’re only released if the globe is broken. By then if there’s anything left of you you’ll return to a world you barely remember, a blip in your memories that are now eons long.”

“Right. And you’re here on purpose?”

“A friend of ours was holding it when we went in, she’ll have let it go the instant we disappeared. A few milliseconds for reaction time, then a second or two of freefall before it hits the concrete floor. Time enough to erase any trail that the Hunters might follow.”

Gerard frowned. “How does that work? Won’t it be just a second for them too?”

“Well, yes. But whether they find us has more to do with us than with them? You know how these things are.”

“Inside-out dream logic, yeah.”

“While we’re here we’re not running, and we’re in the grasp of another power that will greedily consume any fear we feel. If our theory's correct, when we return our tracks will be obliterated, and any breadcrumbs eaten by birds.”

“Yeah, I get it. What d’you think it is about the Hunt that makes everyone go for the fairy tale metaphors, anyway?”

“Couldn’t say. We should be here a few months, maybe close to a year if it doesn’t break immediately and Tim needs to use the baseball bat,” he smiled wryly. “We brought quite a few board games.”

“Sounds like a cozy holiday.”

“Yes! We’re trying to think of it that way,” he smiled, perking. “It’ll still be rough near the end, I’m sure. These things don’t come without consequences, you can’t throw yourself into something touched by the Vast without a taste of the horrors of eternity. But we’re good at keeping each other grounded. And I consider this worth it.”

“Unless something goes wrong and you’re trapped for all eternity.”

“True. It would definitely not be worth that. No offense.”

“None taken. Eternity’s a long time.”

Gerard tried to think of the last time someone had done something for him, with nothing to gain for themselves. Then he started to wonder if it had ever happened. 

Something in him became still, then. Quiet, and cold.

“I . . . think I’m ready to go.”

". . . All right,” Jon hesitated, as if he might say something else, then nodded. “All right, then. Goodbye, Gerry. I dismiss you.”

Something flickered in him, and then he felt himself fade. The room slipped away, and he was once again nowhere and nothing. 

He felt himself being torn from the book, felt leather split, waxed linen strain and snap as he was pulled from the binding that held him. There was a moment of breath, there was relief, and then there was only the fire.

It was nothing like being burned alive, and he would know. The pain was more insult than injury. What he felt instead was a frightening dissolution. Whatever was left of him – his thoughts, his memories, his feelings – he felt them disappear as he was being burned away. 

The fear of his own end, the terror he had been bound in for so long threatened to return and drag him into oblivion screaming. But as the last vestiges of what had once been Gerard Keay were consumed, his mind drifted away from itself. He thought instead about Jon, about the last person he would ever speak to. 

He didn’t think much, really. Just wondered if his plan would work, if he and his husband would escape the trap they’d put themselves into voluntarily. If they did this sort of thing all the time – burning Leitners and making enemies of Hunters – or if it was even remotely possible that they’d done it all for him.

Then Gerard Keay was gone. For good, this time.

---

Martin dropped the quartered logs in a pile next to the door, pausing to stomp the snow off him, take off his boots and brush the worst of it off his clothes. The endless snowstorm being what it was, he supposed there wouldn’t be much wandering around outside. Cabin fever was the whole point of this place.

The sounds of muffled conversation from behind the bedroom door had stopped just before he went out to the woodshed, and they hadn’t started up again. He decided to give the door a knock.

“Come in,” Jon’s voice came from beyond. “I’m . . . it’s done.”

Opening the door, Martin was greeted with the sight of Jon knelt in front of the fireplace, wrapped up in the soft flannel blanket from the bed. The book sat on the floor beside him, and he was shifting the logs with a long, metal poker. He turned in Martin’s direction and smiled. Lit by warm firelight, nestled in the blanket and one of Martin’s old jumpers, he made for a remarkably homey sight considering where they were.

“How’d it go?” Martin asked, coming to sit beside him.

“I think . . . Well. I hope that he got some peace, in the end.” Jon reached a blanket-swaddled arm across Martin’s back, pulling himself closer and drawing the warmth around him. “Thank you for doing this. It . . . means a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Martin kissed the top of his head. “But it’s not just for you, you know. It’s a good thing we’re doing, setting them free. It’s the right thing to do.”

Jon nodded, nestling into him. "Did you take a look at the other pages?"

"Yeah. There's only a couple in English, so I figure we'Ll do them first, then I'll start breaking out the books and tapes we brought. If reciting it from memory worked, I might not even have to properly learn Sanskrit if I can pronounce it. Could be fun to try anyway, though."

"I'm still doubtful there'll be anyone who wouldn't rather have their page burned."

"Maybe, maybe not. Seems rude not to ask. And it's not as if we're on a tight schedule here."

"True enough," Jon smiled. "Time is something we'll have lots of. And . . . you're right to want to give them a choice. Even if they choose staying bound to a skin book for eternity."

"Mmm," Martin tried not to think too much about what the pages were made of, knowing he'd need to be handling them. "Anyway . . . looked around the place a bit while you were having your reunion. Whole cellar full of canned goods downstairs, easily a year's worth."

"I doubt they'll ever run out . . . fear of starvation would just distract from the dreadful creep of the endless aeons, after all."

"Mmm. Can always count on you to dispense these little nuggets of sunshine."

"Sorry. Too grim?"

"S'fine."

"We won't be here that long. A few months, a year at most. The others will get us out."

Martin looked into the fire. Any trace of the page thrown into it was long gone now. He hoped that whatever came next for Gerard Keay, it was kinder than what he'd been through.

"Well, if they don’t," he said, wrapping an arm around Jon. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather slowly go mad with than you."

"Nor can I."

[rotzaprachim]

some things from the “carmen is niall’s daughter” ramble fic i didn’t really know how to finish or clean up

the carmen is niall’s daughter theory fic

When the king was very young, a woman who was not a called a witch but had the green world curling through her blood read open his palm. She didn’t like what she saw, so she read the dregs of his tea and then the shards of a glass he dropped on the kitchen floor. She didn’t like that either so she bundled them both in their coats and took him on a long walk. Night was falling and so was the curfew, but the woman who was not a witch feared what she saw in the shadowy twistings of the future more. Finally she found what they were looking for. Her sister had a dog who’d been put out for the night. The woman who was not a witch roused the dog from his sleep and slathered his nose with a concoction so he would not cry and wake the neighbors, which was the dog’s entire purpose. Then she took the dog and a kitchen knife and the young king out to the back garden, and read the future. This was the way to get the strongest reading.                                               

Blood could look blue in the night, if the moon was full enough. 

Afterwards, she whipped off her knives on a spare bit of kitchen towell. 

“You will have many children. You will kill your son, but his death will come from your daughter’s hand.” 

The king laughed, because the witch was not really a witch, just an old lady who made extra money making amulets and embroidering tea cozies, and what could she know of the future? Who was an oracle to the man he was planning on becoming? He wouldn’t have any kids at all, really, the money-sucking bastards they were, although if he was a king then the idea of a son, lone, singular, too endowed with this strange dark power of his, was an appealing one. Every king needed an heir. 

--- 

What the moderators didn’t understand was that  was what it was to be Carmen Farooq-Lane: to have an unpassable line between the person you had been and the person you were now. To never again be that person who was neat and precise and methodical, but who was good at friendships and smiling, and not only aquaintances and shaking hands. Who sometimes dyed her hair blue. Who had a lot of hair, and wore it down, curling around her face.  Who wore jean jackets, sometimes even with pins, and tights in unusual colours. Who listened to MIKA and the Cranberries and Janis Joplin and Joan Baez and let herself cry over girls who broke her heart in the dorm bathroom. Who bought candy-pink shower gell and Hollister body mists. Who broke girls’ hearts. Who kissed girls she didn’t know. Who went home with girls she didn’t know. Who came back across the city at five am with a matcha latte and a knish to bang out an economics essay by nine. Who did that and didn’t think the world was ending. 

She’d thought about shaving all her hair off, but that would be a prototypical sign of teenage rebellion, stereotypical and nigh par for the curse of being hormonal and rebellious. She thought about getting a tattoo, but what to put on it? She didn’t want to be seen. She wanted to disappear. She wanted the world to swallow her until she was nothing at all. She wanted to disappear.

---

The king gave each of his children land. 

To the oldest, the son of his youth, he gave land that had never been his. It had never been anyone’s at all, situated on the Kerry ley line as it was. But he had no writing of it, no record apart from his trips there, almost no one alive who knew of it, and they would not hurt his son. To his oldest he gave the knowledge of it- if things go south for us, men of our kind, run. And then the men with guns came knocking, run his oldest son did. Caomhan Browne was there, and he understood what had happened before Nathan said a word. He was always going to fuck himself over, living like that, Caomhan Browne said. But no one could find you here, all the magic in this place keeping out those without the dreamstuff, no one but one of your own blood. 

To the second, the son of his homeland, a blank DC townhouse. The king had used it mainly to store boxes of his stuff when he came into the city in business, and also to meet with women. Otherwise it was empty. After the king was found dead, his second son ran away from home forever and found something he could live within here, in the blankness, because it matched what he thought was his own. To the second son, the house in the city, the business in the city, the eye for women, the firm handshake. The second son, but the last of his children to whom he portioned his kingdom. 

To the third, the son of his dream, he gave his kingdom. 

To the fourth, the son that was not his son, he gave the empty plot of land in Armagh he’d bought mainly because he could. To show himself he was no longer the empty-pocketed Belfast scrounger but a man who had made himself a new name and pulled gold from a new lan, a man who could buy things and own things and let money run cold through his fingers. His family had not lived in Armagh for generations. For him it had been a story of a place more than a place itself. But still a local dairy farmer was happy to let him buy an empty plot awkwardly positioned between fields for a pittance, and the king liked the idea of owning the land more than the land itself. He never visited it. 

To his only daughter, the king gave the truth of himself. 

The king had not meant to. He had merely planned to give her the Chicago brownstown, more picturesque than her DC cousin, and hers as long she could pay her part of the mortgage. It had been spruced up by his wife with yellow curtains and vintage shop bric-a-brac and stylish modernist furniture she compulsively ordered out of a Restoration Hardware catalogue, but it was a strange place with both the kids gone, so they were planning on moving out to the suburbs. It was an easier place to get to and from, and keep things buried in the yard, and with the earnings of his work his wife could retire early and more fully devote herself to morning cooking shows and the homeowner’s association and the other trifles she had arranged into a life. In their absence the house would be his daughter’s, and he considered it a fair section of her birthright. And she had been happy to claim it as her own, until the day she came home and found grey-pink chunks of her mother’s brain on the entryway carpet. 

In the aftermath, she had gone through her father’s things. There were many many photos of the cousins he had told her about, Scott and Sean and some other kid, blonde. There were photos of her and Nathan too, and even her Mom, when she was young and Dad was young, and Dad still had awful hair, like an 80’s rocker. There were folded over stacks of money of five currencies, wrapped with rubber bands. 

There was the deed to a house. There was an address. The address was in Belfast. Carmen was not an expert on the Northern Irish housing market, but she had a mind for these kinds of things, financial dealings and stealings, where money could be hidden and how, and she found the address belonged to a narrow brick house in the north of Belfast. It had once been a council flat, but since had been auctioned off for cash, and her father had bought it, and kept the evidence of the dealings in a lockbox in his desk. And the keys, which were very cold to her touch. These Carmen slipped into her pocket. Her father had had many secrets, some still living even after he’d had his brains bashed out with a pair of sewing scissors. When he was alive it had been her purpose to hear the secrets, but now she was left only with the spaces where those secrets had beem which were very loud in their silence.

After the moderators killed Nathan, they burned the place down. Ramsay tossed a bunch of cans of petrol, peyitroooolll, he said in what was supposed to be an Irish accent and sounded more like a Bucca di Beppo ad, peyitrolll, and the other moderators laughed and jostled each other, like football jocks, like her brothers body wasn’t lying there cold, and she helped arrange things so the blaze would be controlled. Then she watched from the road with a gun in her hand, in case there was other damage that would need to be cleaned up. They were a long way from anywhere but if there was anything her time with the moderators had taught her, it was that people could poke their noses where they didn’t belong from anywhere on earth. Someone might even show up with a hose and some water, or call the fire department, in the interest of being neighborly. She took her boots off and plastic bagged them, and then stood on the sharp-pebbled dirt of the boreen in her sock feet with a loaded gun in her hands. The flames licked the sky.  No one drove by. 

Then they all made themselves scarce. Carmen was good at this. She was a financial planner on a week-long vacation, and had already purchased some Guinness Factor keychains to hand out to coworkers to shore up this fiction, but now it was time to make themselves scarce before the guards came and tried to work out if any of it was something stranger than a gas leak.

[tealin]

Basler to the Beardmore 2: Errands

As always, no matter what Tumblr does with it, this post is available in its intended presentation at twirlynoodle.com/blog along with the rest of my Antarctic travel diary.

On this flight to the heart of Antarctica, I was only a hanger-on.  We had two errands to run before entertaining me and my historical interests, the most important of which was restocking a fuel depot at the base of the Transantarctic Mountains.

There are many busy science teams in Antarctica, and while some renewable energy sources are starting to be used, the fact is that everything runs on a reliable supply of fossil fuels, mostly petrol.  The aircraft that keep people and their essentials moving around the continent have a network of fuel depots, both for relay stops and for emergencies.  Contrary to some conspiracy theories, anyone can fly to and around Antarctica if they have the money and resources to get there, and many do.  As the national science programmes have a very tight margin, and their fuel depots are expensive to maintain, they cannot afford jet-setters raiding their supplies, so the locations of these depots are kept secret.  Therefore I am not going to tell you where our first stop was.  The chances of a private pilot reading this blog are slim, but it may be possible to deduce from my photos where this particular cache is: if you are that outlier, I hereby ask you please to do the decent thing and leave the fuel alone – or if you absolutely must access it, then let the USAP know what you've taken and make good on it as soon as you can.  Everyone in Antarctica looks out for each other, and that includes you.  OK?  OK. 

So, we've taken off, and done our acrobatics to get the skis up, and are now facing a couple of hours' flight time before we reach our primary destination.  There is, quite frankly, nothing between Williams Field and the Transantarctic Mountains, besides hundreds of miles of the Ross Ice Shelf. This was known as 'The Barrier' to the early explorers, because when James Clark Ross sailed down to explore in 1840 it was a great while wall that prevented his ships from going any further. In later years it wasn't so much a barrier as a highway – clear and flat, and not much off sea level, it provided a route deep into the high latitudes without the perils of the high windy Polar Plateau.  Among people who frequently travel out there, it is sometimes referred to as 'the Flat White' – my impression is that this term came from the Kiwis, and the espresso drink of the same name is also antipodean in origin, so I wonder which came first.  It is undeniably Flat, and White (though the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals makes it look anything from peachy to periwinkle, depending on the angle), but none of its various names communicate just how big it is.

I have flown over the Canadian tundra many times, and over the Greenland ice cap, but the view from 35,000 feet is like looking at satellite view in Google Maps compared to flying at cloud level, where the parallax with the horizon gives you a much keener sense of distance.  The Barrier is BIG.  In fact, 'big' is too small a word to communicate it.  'Massive', 'mammoth', and 'gargantuan' are more melodramatic than descriptive.  Its vastness puts all of human consciousness, never mind vocabulary, in proper perspective.  For my money, it outdoes the night sky as a visual approximation of infinity. 

Getting a sense of its size, especially in a still photo, is difficult without an object for scale.  For your education and my good fortune, we happened to fly over the RAID convoy as they made their way from the Minna Bluff site to where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the Antarctic continent.  Rapid Access Ice Drilling has been supporting various scientific projects for a few years now, whether their interest is in the ice itself (its trapped air gives a record of Earth's atmosphere in millennia past) or what's underneath (marine environments far removed from the open sea; the bed of an accelerating glacier).  Their units are about the size of a shipping container, and are pulled by enormous tractors, so if they are this dwarfed by the Flat White, imagine how much more puny a sledge party would be. 

Before too much longer we were at the depot.  Landing at an Antarctic field airstrip is even more complicated than taking off: we circled once, to do a visual check, then skimmed it with the skis to make sure no hidden crevasses had opened up since the last time someone landed here, then finally touched down for real on the third go-round.  The plane crew rapidly got to work unloading the fuel drums; I offered to help but was assured I wasn't needed, so spent the time taking photographs and mucking around in the snow.

The first thing that struck me was how beautiful the mountains were in colour.  The best photos I've seen of them have been black and white, so the rich variety in shades was remarkable.  What you can't see in this small photo was how the lighter rock was banded with strata of blue-grey and orange-brown sandstone, giving it a luxurious marbled effect. 

I've read a lot about how conditions on the Barrier are so much different than on the coast.  This was far deeper into it than I was ever expecting to set foot, but I was surprised how tame it was.  Now, it was an idyllically calm and sunny day – had it been any different we would not have been there – so the only time I realised that it was actually much colder than McMurdo was when a slight breeze wafted past my bare hand and broke the warm spell that the sunshine had cast.

 What was different was the snow.  Around McMurdo, the snowbanks which did build up had been repeatedly blown over with volcanic dust which warmed up in the sun and made the snow gritty, icy, and rotten – if you live in a snowy city, think of the texture of snowbanks alongside busy roads.  Out here, there was nothing but snow, all the way down to where it became ice – powder blown off the mountains, maybe even off the Polar Plateau, deposited here to be compacted in the sun and polished by the wind.  The crust made by these processes was smooth and, in many places, thick enough to support my weight, so I hardly left a footprint – a 'good pulling surface' as sledgers would have it – but without warning there would be a thin spot where my foot would break through and sink in the sugar-like snow below.

Before long, the crew had finished their restock, and playtime was over.  After our exciting takeoff manoeuvres, we started climbing the mountains to the second of our tasks for the day. 

The Transantarctic Mountains, according to our pilot, are still something of a mystery.  They are a very high mountain range, but unlike the Rockies for example, they show little or no sign of buckling or other geological forces – they seem to have been lifted whole, keeping their layers of sandstone and coal and fossil-rich deposits mostly flat, with occasional intrusions of igneous rock. The range acts as a sort of massively oversized dyke, holding back the miles-deep polar ice cap from spilling over West Antarctica, the Ross Ice Shelf, and the Ross Sea, as the mountains cross the continent.

Ice appears to be solid, but it actually behaves more like a stiff jelly or fondant icing – if it finds a change in altitude it will flow, very slowly, downhill.  This is what a glacier is: snow gets deposited over many years without melting, turns to ice, and when its volume can no longer be held at elevation, starts to creep down the valley. The ice of the Polar Plateau finds gaps in the Transantarctic Mountains and pushes through them, forming glaciers which pour out onto the Ross Sea and, merging, form the Ross Ice Shelf.  The Beardmore Glacier is one of the largest of these, but there are hundreds of smaller ones, and many tributary glaciers that feed these.  In flying over the lower Transantarctic Mountains, there were plenty of opportunities to see ice dynamics at work: 

Our destination was up near the head of a narrow glacier, where it broadened out into a snowy plain called the Bowden Névé – névé being a term for young snow which has not yet compacted into glacial ice but is in a position to do so.  This was CTAM (pronounced see-tam), a geology camp established to be a hub for teams doing work in the Central TransAntarctic Mountains. The névé afforded an open, soft, flat place to land planes carrying supplies and people, who could then move on to less accessible places overland.  At least, it did, until a wind event a few years ago scoured deep furrows in the landing strip.

As we flew over, doing the visual check, I was astonished the site could be spotted at all, as it was only a small clutch of bamboo poles in the vast expanse. 

Having proven that the landing strip was landable, the next task was to see what condition the building was in.  What building, you ask?  Why, the one completely covered in snow, under the markers.  Once upon a time it was a couple of modules standing on the surface of the glacier, but Antarctica gradually swallowed them up, so now one has to dig down through the snow to reach the roof hatch, eight feet above the floor. 

On the way from the Basler to the camp site, I was treated to one signature snow effect I had missed out on, at the depot.  'The Barrier Hush' is frequently mentioned in journals: it was described as a 'whoosh' or a 'hush-shh-shhhh' that sighed out from underneath the walker as he broke through the top crust into a pocket of air underneath, where the loose snow had settled after the top crust was formed.  The pocket could sometimes extend quite a long way from where the crust was broken and the sound followed the exchange of air as far as it went.  It would startle the ponies and excite the dogs, until they learned there was nothing to chase and catch.    

I was walking some way behind the plane crew as they made for the camp with shovels, and suddenly heard what I thought was a small whirlwind – a sharp and intense, almost whistling sound that seemed to race across my path.  This being the sort of place one would expect to see dust devils (or snow devils, I suppose they would be) I looked around to see where it was, but the air was as still up here as it had been down on the ice shelf.  It was only after the second or third time it happened that I realised what it was – it was so completely not how I had imagined the Barrier Hush to sound.  If you make a little whirlwind sound by whisper-whistling whshwshywshwhwwsh with your lips really quickly, that's what it sounded like.  Having heard it, now, I can completely understand how the dogs would have thought there was a small creature scurrying around under the snow.  It sounded much more animate than it had been described.  I felt so lucky to be let into that secret. 

The crew got the hatch open and the first of them climbed down into the pitch darkness to report everything OK.  The rest followed, and invited me along, but I am not the most coordinated travelling artist, and couldn't see a way down for me that didn't end in a concussion.  So I stayed above while they explored the submerged camp, and enjoyed the view.  It was really spectacular – not just the stunning mountains but the thin, brittle blue of the sky and the hardness of the sunlight, as if the whole world were a taut drumskin. 

And, best of all, from here the horizon was the Polar Plateau – another Flat White stretching to the South Pole and beyond.

[darkestwolfx]

Designated Driver - Re-Review #22

Parker! Really I think I love this character too much, but he’s such an individual, I personally think it’s hard not to.

So, this episode was so so hilarious to rewatch.

i’m still a little unsure as to why Alan is sleeping on the floor... considering he tends to fly in his sleep, I’m going to say that he rolls out of bed often so the floor seems easier to sleep on.ms easier to sleep on to save the fall.

“Alan, get up!”

“What is it?”

“We need you. Now.”

Thinking there was a rescue to go to and ending up at Lady Penelope’s is just classic. I would so love love love to have seen the other Tracy brothers driving lessons. I have my own theories - like I reckon Gordon’s was a nightmare and John and Virgil would have been very good at the ‘perfect gentleman’ part, and Scott would have been a speed merchant - but if anyone would like to make those potential visions come true (I don’t mind in what form) then go for it!

“Has The Hood redirected a comet towards the Earth? An underground earthwork in the Tokyo subway system? Oh, a fusion reactor about to melt in - I’m guessing here - Belgium?”

“Bigger than all of those things.”

Alan has such an imagination. Although they probably are all based in fact if we’re being honest.

“Driving lessons, are you serious?”

“hOh, yes, Mr hAlan, Sir. hI’ve taught hall the Tracy brother’s to drive, hand your father hand hall ‘is brother’s before ‘im. hAnd ‘is father hand hall... hoh no, wait ha minute, hI’m not quite that hold.”

“Great, Parker. Hey, do you teach Parking? Ha-ha.”

“No lip hat Parker’s Motoring School, hif you please, Mr hAlan, Sir.”

“Nobody drives FAB One hexpect me.”

Prepare to swallow those words, Parker...

And now we get to Parker! His acting is even more superb than I thought it was.. There’s kinda hints towards TOS ‘Lord Parker’s ‘oliday’ in here. Not obvious, and nothing big, but the whole idea of Parker acting like a high born.

“So, where (h)are we (h)off to today, Tracy?”

“I dunno, London?”

“Jolly good. (h)I (h)imagine (h)I’ll be meeting Baron (h)and Baronness ‘(H)igh-Falutin’, hand their cousin, Cecila Von-Posh Face.”

I wonder if Parker has based them on real people Lady Penelope’s met? I reckon he has. By the way, for anyone wondering, I’ve transcribed the h’s in brackets because you can tell Parker is trying not to say them with his high, posh voice.

“Thank you so much, Tracy.”

“Mmm-hmm.Very good, Parker. Beautiful deportment. But if you’re going to be playing me, you may as well go the whole dog. You know, for authenticity’s sake.”

“Yes, M’Lady.”

There’s is nothing that can lessen my love of this particular scene.

“When do we get to do the, you know, real driving?”

Yeah... I reckon Scott was the same.

I love this shot just because it makes it look like Sherbet is about to do the driving! Poor Parker though with his broken arm. That wasn’t one of your best moments, Alan.

“You just broke my h’arm, Mr hAlan, Sir.”

“Sorry!”

Now to introduce Sylvia Anderson’s little cameo character. She plays, drum roll please... Lady Sylvia. Not that much of a difference I know, but she’s very well picked for a voice actor and the character is perfectly well designed to fit in with Lady Penelope. it’s a nice little tribute over all and one that couldn’t have come any sooner, considering life and death.

“By the way, Parker, Lady Sylvia is coming for tea today.”

“You’re great hAunt, Ma’am? Lady Sylvia Creighton-Ward, coming for tea?”

“Yes, Parker. You know that drink we pour out of pots and cups.”

Anyone else get the feeling Parker has a thing for Lady Penelope’s great Aunt?

“hI ‘appen to like hantiques. Lady Sylvia for hexample.”

Oh, yeah, there we go.

“You keep TEA in kitchen?”

“Yes, Aunt Sylvia, where else would it be?”

I completely adore this cross-talk going on about tea and TEA. It made for such a nice twist to the episode.

The next characters we meet are this episodes villains, bad guys, whatever you want to call them’s...

And we’re seeing here some elements similar to TOS ‘Brink of Death’ with the attempted robbery at Lady Penelope’s Stately ‘ome (and the car looping around the well element, but we’ll get to that). Terry, the blonde with the top hat. And Bill, the red-head with the beanie.

“Young geezer” - I wonder how Alan would feel about that name...

“So, where’s the treasure?”

“What treasure?”

“Don’t call it treasure! We’re not pirates.”

“Well what would you call it?”

“Well... er... valuable um... stuff.”

“Oh, that sounds rubbish! Where’s the ‘valuable stuff’? You see? Not frightening.”

“It is if you say it frighteningly. Where’s the valuable stuff?”

“They don’t look frightened.”

Of course they don’t mate, they’re both super spies and way more bad-ass than you could ever hope to be...

“What about just valuables? Forget the stuff?”

“Suppose.”

“Where are your valuables?”

“Still think treasure sounds better.”

Considering they managed to get you sat down and debating that... yeah, super bad-ass.

Lady Penelope trying to put them off the scent and Lady Sylvia messing up all of those attempts was absolutely classic comedy.

“Treasure!”

“Valuables!”

“Either way, something that’s worth a lot of money!”

And money makes the world go round!

“He’s the fourth richest man in Europe.”

Hmm... nice to know just how much money this family is sitting on.

“Bill, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I hope not, Terry, because you are stupider than a bag of rocks.”

Let’s leave that argument there shall we.

“Oh this is a dumb idea, ‘Mr Clever-than-a-bag-of-rocks’ man.”

Yeah... or not.

“No hone steals FAB One.”

“Now you’ll realise, you burglar chappies that you’ve met your- match.”

Yeah, you should have been prepared to have to eat those words again.

Now this is how to do afternoon tea.

And this is so how to do an awesome car chase. It had a little bit of everything: stalling; circling; bumper-crashing; cut-offs; wheel spins; running out of petrol; getting stuck on a roof; a bit of bog standard jet-powered engine flight, and just your every day flight and TEA. You know, just the bog standard Italian Job style affair.

Yeah, yeah just your usual car chase, nothing to see here.

I love that Alan gets to drive FAB One and Scott seems so upset by this! I’m guessing maybe he’s now been made the second best driver of the Tracy brothers?

“Wow! Even I never got to drive FAB One.”

And apparently no one drives anymore in 2060. Ha, well, Parker does a good job, and hey, if no one drives, we’ll definitely be reducing global warming so there could be a chance for us all yet!

[kitsune-translates]

SCI 谜案集 [English Translation] Case 1: Number Killer

Previous

Number Killer 28 Obsession

The call is indeed from Zhang Boyi, the message is simple. Zhan Zhao is to meet him alone at an abandoned cargo ship at City S harbour tomorrow morning 9am. The hull number is TX512. Zhang Boyi wants Zhan Zhao to bring all the classified documents relating to Zhao Jue’s old cases to exchange for Zhao Jue. He warned Zhan Zhao that if he came with police, Zhao Jue is dead, and all of the hundreds of the staffs from the research center will become killing machines.

The next day morning 9am, Zhan Zhao arrived at the harbour as agreed, alone.

Walking alongside of the harbour, he was able to find the TX512 cargo ship in a secluded spot.

Zhan Zhao boards the ship and climbs down into the cabin.

The ship has been abandoned for some time, the aged cabin is spacious, filled with straws and old cloth covers… The smell of something rotten mixing with the petrol smell of the engine is particularly harsh on the nose.

In the middle of the cabin, Zhan Zhao spots a white figure squatting down. He seems to be drawing something on the ground with a stick, the complex-looking silencer on his neck reveals his identity – It’s Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue looks up and spots Zhan Zhao, he grins at him and continues his drawing.

Zhan Zhao walks towards him. Zhao Jue maintains his squatting posture, but raises his stick to point behind Zhan Zhao’s back. Zhan Zhao turns around sharply just in time to see Zhang Boyi standing about three feets away, looking slightly embarrassed now. In his outstretched arm, is a wet handkerchief.

Dropping the handkerchief furiously, Zhang Boyi gives Zhao Jue a harsh glare.

Zhan Zhao frowns at him, “I would advise you to turn youself in.”

“Shut up, I’m not going to jail! Did you bring the item?” Zhang Boyi holds out his hand in expectation.

Zhan Zhao hands over the bag of files he was holding.

Zhang Boyi accepts the bag and opens it in a hurry to check the files.

“What do you need these files for?” Zhan Zhao asks suddenly.

Zhang Boyi stops and gives Zhan Zhao a suspicious look.

Zhan Zhao smiles, “Do you know why everyone gets hit by apples once in a while, but only Newton discovered the law of gravity?”

Zhang Boyi’s face starts to turn white.

Zhan Zhao stares into his eyes and mouths two words slowly, “Natural~ talent~!”

Behind Zhan Zhao, something is making noises. Turning around, he sees Zhao Jue thumping the ground with his fist and laughing hysterically. Although he couldn’t make any sound, but from the way his expression is all twisted up and his vigorously shaking shoulder, one could easily tell how pleased he is.

Zhang Boyi glowers furiously, “What are you trying to say?”

Zhan Zhao points at Zhao Jue and gives his most innocent smile, “To put it simply, he and I are genius, but professor and you are idiots.”

“You!” Zhang Boyi is so mad that his whole body is shaking in rage.

“Professor Xu is an idiot, because what Zhao Jue and I can learn in two days, he needed 20 years to master!” Zhan Zhao continues, “You are an idiot, because a psychological suggestion was placed on you, and you didn’t even know.”

Zhao Jue has laughed so hard that he is rolling around on the ground. Zhang Boyi says with a darkened expression, “How…how did you know I was psychologically suggested? ”

Zhan Zhao smiles, “I took a look at the sketches, and…I think, the reason why you want these files is to find a way to undo the suggestion?”

Seeing Zhang Boyi’s lack of responses, Zhan Zhao adds on, “How about you ask me.”

“You know?! How would you know?”

Zhan Zhao shrugs, “Because I am a genius.”

…Zhao Jue has started to breathe heavily, it sounded like he had hurt himself laughing.

Zhang Boyi tosses the files onto the ground, “You take me as a fool, isn’t it? In your eyes, I am just like that senile Xu Yanqin, isn’t that right? Let me tell you! I am not like him!”

Agitated all of a sudden, Zhang Boyi pulls out a sharp fruit knife out of his pocket and closes in on Zhan Zhao, “I am not like him! I…”

“You are different from him.” A voice says behind him before Zhang Boyi could finish his sentence. Bai Yutang has made his way behind him.

Zhang Boyi whips his head around, but Bai Yutang has already managed to land a kick on him. Zhang Boyi flies out on impact and lands beside to Zhao Jue.

“That black Honda is yours, isn’t it?” Bai Yutang walks up to Zhan Zhao and sneers at the coughing Zhang Boyi. “You were following Zhan Zhao, but the person you were trying to hit, is me, right?”

Zhang Boyi looks startled, “How…how did you know?”

Bai Yutang grins, “You really aren’t a particularly bright one. You have followed Zhan Zhao all these times. If you wanted to kill him, you would have done it ages ago, why wait till when I was around to do it?” He looks down at the handkerchief on the ground, “You wanted to kidnapped him?”

Zhan Zhao looks a little startled as well at this point.

Bai Yutang reaches out to smooth down Zhan Zhao’s hair and smiles, “Do you want to know how I figured it out?”

Zhan Zhao looks at him and Bai Yutang smiles softly, “That day at the university, when I was kissing him, the way you were staring at me…It was with such hatred. Can you imagine, the look of pure hatred!”

Zhang Boyi laughs suddenly, “Indeed…I hate you…and him!” He points at Zhan Zhao, “So perfect that seems too pure for anyone to touch…just like…just like…” A confused look flashes in his eyes.

Zhan Zhao frowns slightly, noticing the strangeness.

Bai Yutang interrupts Zhang Boyi who has started to sound a little insane, “You and that Xu, are just someone else’s puppet as well.”

At this point, Zhang Boyi glares at Zhao Jue with loathing, “It’s all that old thing’s fault! He believed in all those theories on psychological suggestion, and talked about building his own empire all day. With his mediocre ability, going around to suggest those mentally ill people, coming up with all those God…Priest…Heh…Ridiculous!”

Zhan Zhao is growing more and more unease, he calms his breathing down and says, “You two weren’t manipulated by Zhao Jue.”

“What?” Zhang Boyi looks up at Zhan Zhao in confusion.

“You were used by the person behind all this.” Bai Yutang shakes his head in resignation and calls out towards the black curtain hanging by the end of the cabin, “You, come out!”

Zhang Boyi looks confused, he looks back the black curtain and then back at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang digs at his ear, “I will still say this, we call you stupid, but you really aren’t very bright. How did you know that Zhao Jue’s file is confidential?”

…!...

Zhang Boyi looks stunned for a second, before his face changed to shocked, “Could…it be…”

“Haha…haha!” They hear an aged laughter. A crooked figure steps out of the darkness.

The man walks towards Zhao Jue and presses his gun against Zhao Jue’s temple. He tells Bai Yutang, “You are indeed your father’s son, unnaturally sharp…and you.” He points at Zhan Zhao briefly before turning his gun back to Zhao Jue, “You and him when he was younger are really alike, too smart for your own good!”

“Sun Qingxue, Sir Sun…” Bai Yutang tells him with a smirk, “You have been planning this for twenty years, that is some serious obsession!”

Sun Qingxue laughs, “Slowly. Let’s talk about something else first, how did you know it was me?”

Bai Yutang looks at Zhan Zhao, “You first? Or me?”

Zhan Zhao gestures at him, “You first.”

Bai Yutang nods, he turns around to look at Sun Qingxue, “You made a mistake in Chen Jing’s case!”

“Oh? Sun Qingxue considers, “Where?”

Bai Yutang continues, “The person who suggested Chen Jing to harm Gongsun, and the person who has been treating patients in that private clinic, is not professor Xu at all. It was you. But of course, you killed professor Xu, so that he can take the blame for you.”

Sun Qingxue nods in agreement, “That is correct, but how did you know?”

“Living habits!” Bai Yutang says, “Professor Xu is someone with sufficient financial means, severely clean freak, highly traditional, and someone with heart diseases. He would never visit that sort of places which are dirty and filled with prostitutes  and drug addicts. I went to the bar opposite to ask around, the bartender’s room window is directly aligned with yours. The doctor she described, fits your profile more.”

“My profile?” Sun Qingxue looks startled momentarily.

“Yes. You bowed your head all the time, dressed like professor Xu and always kept the room in dim lighting, so everyone thinks you are professor Xue. Except the person who has been watching you from above. Her description of you, is closer to the reality. She said someone with broad shoulder who hunches his back, not someone slim…That is the biggest difference between you and professor Xue.”

“Good…Very good.” Sun Qingxue agrees in approval, “But this can only serve as a basis for a speculation.”

“Of course this is not the only thing.” Bai Yutang continues, “So I thought, how many old men are involved in Zhao Jue’s case. That person needs to have full access to Zhao Jue or his files, to be able to mimic his crimes. Then I remembered you.”

Bai Yutang pauses, “Do you remember that time when you treated Cat and I to noodles?”

Sun Qingxue stops, “Noodles?”

Bai Yutang continues, “I was thinking then, why would someone who is not particular about his clothes and food, have so many bowls in the place he works?”

Sun Qingxue widens his eyes.

Bai Yutang continues, “Luckily, I managed to find many bowls in the clinic as well--- so I am guessing, this is some kind of habit that stayed with you since a long time ago?”

….

“Haha…” Hearing Bai Yutang’s words, Sun Qingxue laughs hysterically, “Good! Very good… This is really something, just based on a few bowls…”

Bai Yutang continues, “All of this, gives me reason of doubt towards you. And what Cat found, is the evidence to the suspicion.”

Sun Qingxue looks over at Zhan Zhao in interest, “Oh? What did you find?”

Zhan Zhao reaches out to make a ‘Hush’ gesture at Sun Qingxue.

Sun Qingxue looks shocked.

Zhan Zhao says, “Though you had Zhao Jue’s files, and has some understanding of psychology in general. But at the end of the day, you are nothing but a terrible copycat.”

“What?”

Zhan Zhao smiles, “After Chen Jing killed Wu Hao, he did this gesture at Qin Jiaqi on purpose, to attract everyone’s suspicion onto Zhao Jue. I read Zhao Jue’s file, he mad e this gesture in all of his crimes. To those who didn’t know better, this is nothing but a signature gesture or a habit. But in fact, this gesture is the way Zhao Jue gives out his command. Those who were psychologically suggested by him, would do what his command dictates when they see this gesture. That was how Bai Jintang figured out about Zhao Jue.”

Sun Qingxue has lost his pleased look, replaced instead by a sinister one, “I see…Indeed, Xu Yanqin and Zhang Boyi would have no idea about this. Only someone who has access to those confidential files, like me, would know.”

“And lastly, when Zhang Boyi calls to ask for exchange of confidential information for Zhan Jue, this proves that you are the actual puppet master in the dark.” Zhan Zhao says.

Bai Yutang agrees, “That day, you probably called Zhang Boyi to your clinic, to tell him about the confidential files, just so that Chen Jing can spot him near the clinic. That way you would be able to push all the blames onto Zhang Boyi and Xu Yanqin.”

“HAHA~~HAHAHA…” Sun Qingxue laughs out loud, “That is … the perfect deduction…haha…”

Bai Yutang frowns at Sun Qingxue who looks like he has gone crazy, “Why did you hurt all those people? Gongsun holds no grudge with you!”

“Because I hate people like you!” Sun Qingxue shrieks suddenly, “I despise you!” Your father, Bao Zheng, and you!” He points at Zhan Zhao, “Goddamn genius! Always so perfect! Like angels, like the whole world is just an extra in your own damn show!”

Sun Qingxue screeches aggressively. Zhan Zhao notices Zhao Jue’s slight smile, the feeling of unease deepens.

“Especially you!” Sun Qingxue pushes Zhao Jue and points his gun at him, “You… Yunwen and Bao Zheng spoilt you, treated you like an angel, and I am just the guy who files the documents. But I had to suffer through being with brilliant people like you, and my sole purpose was to cook noodles for you!... Do you remember how you mocked at me? You said I had no talents, you said I couldn’t study psychology… you said I will never become an angel… damnit, you goddamn angels…”

Sun Qingxue is getting more agitated, Zhan Zhao flinches suddenly and yells, “No!”

Zhao Jue’s smile widens.

Zhang Boyi charges at Sun Qingxue with the knife in his hand…blood splatters.

Sun Qingxue presses his hand against his bleeding neck, and collapses onto the ground. Lying in the pool of blood, he stops breathing as his eyes stay fixed on the cackling Zhao Jue.

“Put down the knife!” Bai Yutang commands, but Zhang Boyi has already slit his own throat without a pause.

Looking down at the two dead bodies in the pool of blood, Bai Yutang couldn’t quite react at all. Zhan Zhao smiles weakly, “Calla Lily…”

“What?” Bai Yutang looks back at Zhan Zhao in confusion.

Zhan Zhao takes a deep breath, and looks at Zhao Jue, “The flower language of Calla Lily is purity, eternal…it brings people’s mind to white wings…”

Bai Yutang winces, “The command is ‘Angel’?!”

Zhan Zhao nods, “Indeed, Zhang Boyi sees the Calla Lily often, and in his life, because of professor’s research, he was in touch with the word ‘Angel’ frequently…The ones who has been suggested, would never speak out the command himself, even fears the command subconsciously…Which is why he couldn’t speak out the word ‘Angel’ twice!”

Bai Yutang watches Zhao Jue, “He did this? All of this is part of his plan?”

Zhan Zhao has a complicated look on his face, he says to Zhao Jue slowly, “The way you changed your strokes in the drawings, to make them look more and more urgent, so that Zhang Boyi will react more strongly to commands with an urgency… Zhang Boyi was extremely agitated just now, the command that was uttered was almost urgent sounding… Zhao Jue, you are indeed a genius, it seems the final winner is still you…”

Zhao Jue tilts his head to look at Zhan Zhao with a smile, his eyes filled with fondness. He reaches into Sun Qingxue’s pocket, and fetches a shabby looking lighter…

…!

Bai Yutang recoils, he can smell the foul air in the cabin, and looking towards the curtain behind Zhao Jue, it is full of fuel cylinders…

“Cat!”

No time for anything else, Bai Yutang grabs Zhan Zhao and rushes out of the cabin.

Zhao Jue flicks on the lighter and drops it onto the ground – fire explodes instantly.

Zhan Zhao lets himself be pulled out of the cabin, but his eyes are still on Zhao Jue. Zhao Jue smiles slightly at him, and makes a gesture.

“Shhh”

The explosion sounded like the world was falling apart.

Bai Yutang leaps out of the ship into the water shielding Zhan Zhao, the water current forming from the explosion carries the two of them away.

After what seems like a century, Zhan Zhao feels his body stops moving, he couldn’t remember anything in the confusion, all he knew was to hold onto the hand beside him and never let go.

Bai Yutang climbs onto a small boat, and pulls Zhan Zhao up with great effort.

The moment they are both onboard, Bai Yutang collapses, becoming motionless.

“Xiao Bai?” Alarmed at Bai Yutang’s state, Zhan Zhao pushes him, but receives no reaction from Bai Yutang at all.

“Yutang… Yutang, don’t do this….” He pushes harder, but there is still no response.

Zhan Zhao places his trembling finger under Bai Yutang’s nose…nothing…

“No…No Yutang… Hey…” His mind going blank, Zhan Zhao stares at the motionless Bai Yutang in fright. All those memories rushes to him in that moment. His mind is filled with memories of Bai Yutang, who snatches things from him when they were younger, who argues with him, who steals his pajama…Bai Yutang laughing…kissing him…”

Warm fingers brushes against his face. The person who has supposedly lost his breath, is watching him with guilt, “Cat, stop crying, I was messing with you…”

“…” Zhan Zhao looks dumbfounded for a second, realising belatedly that his eyes are filled with tears, and Bai Yutang is wiping away his tears…

“You…You! Bastard! Stupid rat! You…”

What comes next didn’t even make it out Zhan Zhao’s mouth, because Bai Yutang has climbed onto of him and started kissing him aggressively.

“Cat… You are not getting rid of me so easily!” Wiping away Zhan Zhao’s tears, Bai Yutang gazes at the man under him intensely.

Zhan Zhao gazes back into his eyes and opens his mouth, “Yutang…”

“Hm?”

A direct punch.

“Ah!”

“You stupid rat!”

“Stupid cat”

“You are not allowed near me for the rest of your life!”

“Nah”

“Do not touch me!”

“Let me kiss you!”

“Stupid rat! Hm…”

……

Half an hour later, Bai Jintang found the two of them pressed against each other, drenched and shivering in coldness, but still arguing in the small boat.

Bai Yutang retrieves a black box from his pocket and tosses it back at Ding Zhaohui, “It’s indeed useful!”

“What is it?” Zhan Zhao asks in confusion.

“GPS tracker.”

Bai Jintang sighs, “Without this, I really wouldn’t been able to find you two.”

The twins grin, “For rainy days! Always good to be prepared!!”

The sirens soon quieten and the harbour returns to silence. A photograph floats on the calm sea against the currents, the four young men in the photo, are smiling so brightly…

Night falls, onboard a fishing boat, the fisherman hands a blanket to a weakened man, “Are you alright?”

“Y…yes…” His voice hoarse.

“Here, have some warm water.”

“Thank…Thank you…”

“Oh right, what’s your name?”

Those slim fingers presses against the lips to make a single sound, “Shhh”

[End of Case 1]

[puerlucii-blog]

My biggest frustration with gay cis men, apart from just how pretty tightly they close ranks against us trans men in the dating world, is how they seem to be eternal children.

Just been talking to a 51 year old who has his entire house full of vinyl records that he can’t stop himself from buying. He’s blown £2000 on a professional turntable set that he has no idea how to operate, and broke on his first attempt at setting it up. He used to have a driving licence, but it got taken off him because of some dreadfully dull nonsense about drink driving, poor lamb.

He’s pretty typical.

So is the 47 year old guy who currently can’t meet with me to socialise, because he’s completely broke, having been out of work for the past year and a half, but not bothering to sign on to any benefits, just living off his savings from his previous highly-paid job. Ordering take-out every other night because he can’t be bothered to cook, watching his weight increase by 3lbs a week but figuring that buying a gym ball will take care of that. Going on a succession of exotic and expensive holidays despite not knowing when the next paycheque will come, and not even applying for jobs until his money has almost completely run out. He’s living of jacket potatoes and baked beans, he says, so he can feed his cats. Whilst hooking up with guys half his age on Grindr, then moaning that he can’t find a meaningful relationship.

Again, typical.

So is the teetotalling vegan who has never learned to drive but who lives in the middle of nowhere, having moved there from London without first even thinking to check what the public transport system is like in the area (hint: there isn’t any). Oh and he’s broke, too. So... pretty much leaving all the taxi service stuff to you, so that for every bit of time you spend with him you’re giving an extra couple of hours of travelling time plus the cost of petrol. And of course being a teetotal vegan he doesn’t really like eating or drinking out, so you’re expected to drive up to see him so you can sit around at his house watching TV? Oh no wait, he doesn’t believe in watching TV either. I was thinking okay, sounds pretty run of the mill for an intensely political teenager or early 20s kid that’s not long left home. Imagine my surprise when he tells me he’s 46.

One of my kids left home in January and the other i’m waving off to uni in a couple of weeks. i’ve spent the last 20 years sacrificing every want or need of my own to their best interests, as any parent should. I haven’t even had disposable income, but if I did, it went into savings or on the kids. I worked my ass off to get thru uni and postgrad so I could enter the workforce at a decent salary when they left home, and I’ve been putting away for my old age since my 30s.

Meanwhile half the cis gays I meet revolve their lives around what bit of fan merch they’re adding to their collection and don’t bother even working full time cos they’d rather live in student digs in their middle age and have more time to watch Netflix and fuck about on social media.

They’re pathetic. They’re so busy hand-wringing about what people should do and believe and voicing their fucking opinions on the internet that they can’t even make a decision on what to order from a menu in real life. I feel like their fucking mother.

I’ve sacrificed all my life so far for other people, even before my kids were born I pretty much raised my little sisters as our parents were criminally negligent.

Now I’m in my 40s and beginning to reap the rewards of all of that, the very last thing I want is to start a relationship with another child, who I have to pick up after and cajole and nag and remind and shit, unless I want to go back into the poverty trap and live in a filthy, cluttered shit hole full of kids’ toys.

In theory it doesn’t seem like it should be a lot to ask to say: an adult male who can find his arse with both hands, manage his own shit responsibly, behave considerately around others, and be adapted to real life in the world we live in. It should be a given that in the age group I look for dates (40 to 60), these qualities can be assumed.

But even for straight cis women, those happy individuals who have the world’s largest dating pool, this seems to be too much of an ask a lot of the time. Add in the requirement that the man needs to be gay, and not transphobic... as in actually not transphobic, as opposed to saying they have trans friends but wouldn’t date “one of those”... and you might as well be asking for the moon.

I would genuinely rather remain single for the rest of my life, if needs be, than saddle myself with some manchild when I’ve earned the fucking right to a partner who is capable of taking care of *me* sometimes, handling the things *I* sometimes find overwhelming, but nonetheless deal with anyway as I have no choice. And this is why I *am* single.

I’d love to meet a guy who I’d feel was better than me, smarter than me, wiser than me, stronger than me, who I could feel confident in letting him take control without all shit breaking loose.

But how to do that when your life has forced you to be smarter, wiser and stronger than almost anyone else you know, and your dating pool is a collection of man-children, peppered with the odd self-styled “safe, sane, sorted”, shallow and highly self-absorbed gym bunny?

It’s my fucking turn to be weak for a bit. Why are there no strong arms for *me* to fall into? It shouldn’t be that mine are the only arms in the world willing and able to hold me.

UGH!

[hawkeyebabe]

Petrol Soaked Papers, Chp. 2

Me 6 weeks ago: “Hey guys! Can’t wait to post a chapter every week!” Proceeds to move cross-country, plummet into a whirlpool of a quarter-life crisis (the third one in four years), and experience a bitch-slap from this whore called Life.

I’m sorry guys...I’ve been rather inactive. I even had all of this written long ago, I just didn’t have the energy to post it. I hope it’s mildly worth the wait -- it’s extra long, at least <3

Chapter Two: A Fight Worth Losing Previous Chapter AO3

Though she expected a struggle, waking at 0400 to meet General Mustang at 0435 was rather easy. Unable to sleep well the night prior, a racing mind battling with an overactive dreamstate, she’d found herself entirely awake by 0335 and spent the freetime reading over hot tea, the mug allowing the drifting wafts of steam to warm her tired face.

She once fantasized that the dreams would lessen after giving back to Ishval, and after earning the people’s trust. The night terror that had accompanied her that first sleep however, the memories more vivid than they had ever been before, forcing her awake with such violence as she felt phantom blood coating her shaking hands and her turmoil so fresh it manifested itself in the form of a sheet of sweat --- she realized that that had been a child’s wish.

She kept her belongings -- just a few pairs of clothes and toiletries -- in a small briefcase and shut the door behind her, stepping out into the desert night. She, Falman, and Mustang were the only constant Amestrans in Ishval, and their quarters were practically across the dirt path from one another. Scar, who acted as the Ishvalan Grand Cleric, wished to live among his people in the neighborhoods. A few empty shacks which were used for visitors or temporarily stationed officers sat gathering dust. Since the Trials, the following peace demanded only the three of them and the empty shacks welcomed nobody.

To her surprise, and impressment, Mustang was stood as a dark shadow outside her door. She’d convinced herself that her fist would be knocking on his door, for since she had known the man, departing his bed before the sun rose was a task he never quite mastered.

“Hey,” he said with a tired smile. She noticed the buttons of his long-sleeved shirt were one off-center, leaving an inch of material hanging clumsily at the bottom.

“Hi, General.”

“Wow…” He blinked away the sleepiness in his eyes and leaned forward several inches.

She stared back at him.

“What is it?”

“Your hair!” he almost exclaimed, truly surprised. “It’s gotten so long.”

With eyebrows perched upwards, Riza lifted a hand. So exhausted from the lack of sleep, she’d entirely forgotten to do anything with it. Actually, she then realized, she hadn’t even bothered looking at it, and she suddenly felt somewhat self-conscious that it was standing on end or tangled into knots. She stopped herself from toying with it.

“It’s nice,” he said casually, easing her worries, as he motioned his head over his shoulder to suggest they begin walking.

“Thank you, sir. Actually, I’d just noticed its length the other day myself.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen it down for awhile. We’re always in uniform.”

Yes, they were. It seemed as though they lived in them, actually. Twelve hour workdays were common, and seeing one another outside of work hours was rare when work hours constituted an entire day.

Being in civilian clothes, as they were then, was a pleasant thing. Black slacks and a tan blouse, though simple, was the most comfortable thing she’d worn in what could have been a lifetime.

“Yours is getting a little long too, sir,” Riza teased dryly, her eyes roaming over his unkempt head. “You may want to consider a barber.”

“Don’t you think I should grow it out like yours?”

This earned him a genuine smile.

“I really do not, no.”

“Alright. Seeing as we’ll be in Central, I suppose it isn’t the worst idea. God knows there’s nowhere for me to get it done when we come back here.”

“I bet Kira would do it if you asked nicely.”

“Aroe’s five year old?”

“That’s right.”

“I hope you find yourself funny, Captain.”

Her teeth showed in a silent smile. He looked over at her, his eyes taking in the grin.

“Oh,” he pronounced. “Good. You do find yourself funny.”

“Only sometimes,” she assured him. A kinyee chattered in the distance, and its pack answered a moment later. “How do you think Vato will find having this place to himself?” she asked as their boots scraped across the road. Mustang chuckled.

“He’s never been given much opportunity to run anything himself. I think he’ll like it. Maybe it’ll get him to test for 1st lieutenant when January rolls around.”

“I doubt it,” said Riza fondly. “He’s never found much interest in rank. Just as long as he’s contributing, which he’s done enough of already, he’s satisfied. At least, that’s my theory. Power isn’t his supplier.”

“Well,” he looked down at her and gave her wink, which she ignored to notice how it seemed to warm her fingertips. “He is alone in that.”

They came upon the general’s car and drove to the station in the neighboring town of Khao. Ishval itself didn’t have a train depot, though that was another object of affection they’d been vying for.

“By the way, General,” Riza said, turning her head over her shoulder as she climbed up the steps onto the train. “You may want to re-button your shirt.”

His head jerked downwards, then returned to her with equal speed.

“How long has it been like that?” he yelled, though the cry was barely heard over the sound of the whistling engine.

“Well, probably since you put the shirt on, sir.”

“Damn you, Hawkeye. You could have told me in the car.”

“Honestly sir, I forgot. I figured now was a good time as any.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

The journey from Khao to Central Station was one of five hours. After failing to hypothesize the reason for the council, Riza and her general soon fell into a mutual tired silence and Riza’s eyes became heavy. She fought it for some time, but the car was warm and General Mustang was quiet in thought as he stared out the window, the glass framed in condensation. The image was a peaceful one. For so long, she had been surrounded by tension in the form of every figure she passed, every step she took, every grain of sand that blasted into her cheeks. Every anxiety, every day. Sitting there silently as the train rolled through the countryside, the autumn air stopped by the glass and mirrored by warmness inside, Riza felt, not lightly to say, comfortable.

It didn’t take long for her to surrender into a relaxed sleep.

“Captain…” he said gently. It failed to wake her, and he found he truly did not wish to. He placed his palm on her shoulder. “Captain, we’re here.”

Finally, her eyes peeled open, and she seemed to register his presence. Awareness filled her features.

“Oh, sorry, General,” she said quietly as she sat herself up.

“You must have been pretty tired.”

“Weren’t you?” she asked as she stood and gathered her briefcase. She followed him out of the car.

“I was.”

“But you don’t regularly have the capacity to sleep on trains,” she said behind him.

It wasn’t a question or an accusation, but only a statement. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling to himself as he stepped off onto the platform, greeted by the natural sunlight streaming through the many open windows and the exposed roof of the station. Birds flew around overhead, transferring from one steel beam to the next.

“That’s right,” he answered, though she couldn’t hear him over the bustle of the crowds, people flowing off the trains and wading towards the exit like a herd.

Central Station was near to Central headquarters, and they found themselves inside the building with 25 minutes to spare to change into uniform and give a quick hello to Lieutenant Havoc.

“Well, come by afterwords and let’s grab lunch or something!” Havoc said as they turned to leave. Roy, without looking back, lifted a thumbs up into the air.

“Will do, Jean.”

The council was scheduled to begin in ten minutes in a conference area on the second floor. Neither of them felt privy to being late, so they agreed to arrive early and await the remaining seat holders. After all, they wished to make a positive impression. Should this pertain to Ishval, many Amestrians, molded by prejudice, needed a progressive nurture. Roy opened the door for them both and he followed Hawkeye into the room.

Eight men sat waiting, each looking up at the arriving officers in unison like their heads were connected by string. Confusion was quick to find he and Hawkeye both, though she did not display it like he surely did.

“Oh,” said Mustang quickly. “My apologies, sirs, we were told to arrive at 1100…”

“That’s correct, General Mustang,” said General Fillbin at the head of the table. “Don’t worry, you’re not late.”

A familiar face shined like a light, and Roy’s eyes landed on Fuhrer Grumman. The Fuhrer, to only deepen Roy’s state of confusion and rising suspicion, looked troubled.

“But,” continued Fillbin. “We’ll actually only be needing you for this council, General, so please take a seat.”

Fillbin looked at Hawkeye and gave her a smile that seemed almost patronizing, though innocent enough, and something not too foreign lit up in the center of Roy’s chest. Not being one to follow the orders of any man but one, Roy saw her turn her head to look at him, confused, but awaiting his word regardless. Roy did not meet her eye, and only stared at the three star general.

“My captain was summoned as I was, General Fillban.”

“I understand that, but she will not be needed for this discussion.”

Finally, Roy looked down at her. It seemed as though the decision was made; perhaps there had been a mistake or a change of plans, and there was no way to notify them on short notice. Perhaps it was something else. Accepting this, Roy nodded to her. Her boots clicked as she snapped to attention, offered a salute to the board, and turned on her heels to leave. The door shut behind her, and he moved to sit.

“How was the train ride, General Mustang?” asked another officer, a major general named Foy Bakers. This was a kind man, one of stature and smiles. Roy always liked him as a person, though his non-confrontational demeanor was not well suited for his position. Still, Roy felt more at ease as he lowered himself in the chair beside him.

“It was very smooth, thank you, General Bakers.”

Roy flicked his eyes to Grumman’s again, but they were on the officer who sat across from Roy. He dared a glance before giving his attention back to Fillban. It was a man he did not know.

“Mustang,” said Fillban. “I’ve called this council for a very, very important reason. We’re having some...obstacles, in Roxwell Post.”

“Roxwell Post? That small town in the West?”

“That’s right.”

“Alright...what kind of obstacles?”

“There is a pastoral nomadic group out there, wandering and herding cattle, hunting in the forests. Creating a lifestyle, a small community.”

“Yes?” he prodded, agitation beginning to creep into his knuckles.

“Well, there is something very disconcerting about them, and who they are.”

Something was perplexing about this council. Had they summoned him from his incredibly important post in Ishval for this? For a group of wanderers?

“Yes, General Fillban?” he pressed. Could this conglomerate collection of decorated generals not handle this without him? Anger began to simmer, and he suppressed his still fresh agitation at the dismissal of his adjutant so as to remain

Fillban, unaware of his fumings, continued.

“We’ve received intel that a group of Drachma spies have infiltrated this group, and are possibly grooming them for an attack on West City.”

Roy’s spiting monologue halted, and his mouth parted as he prepared, and failed, to say something. He leaned back in his chair and blinked away the surprise.

“Uh...okay.” He glanced around at the faces sat round the table. “Does everyone know of this? Am I alone in just learning this information?”

“General Mustang,” Fillban said soothingly, an attempt to calm Roy before answering. “This wasn’t of your concern until we learned of new details only two days ago. And unfortunately...this is of your concern now.”

“Well,” Roy laughed without a trace of humor, “dammit, Fillban, fill me in here because I am quite obviously missing some key point, as a couple of gullible shepherds is hardly my goddamn specific concern considering I have other very important things going on right now. Don’t you have some other general putzing around here that needs something to do? Because I assure you, that man is not me.”

Roy was leaned entirely forward, his elbows square against the wooden table as he locked eyes with the general at the head of it. The absence of his captain was a blessing, suddenly, for if she heard him speak to a superior officer in such a manner she would have berated him for hours.

“Roy,” pushed Fillban sympathetically, matching his lean forward with a slow shake of his head. “The pastoral nomads are Ishvalan.”

Quite suddenly, Roy forgot anything he’d been thinking. Hot breath stuck in his throat like a rock, his annoyance blown out like a candle.

Ishvalan? That simple detail suddenly changed everything, and his place in the meeting became entirely apparent.

“We’re not completely certain why there’s a small community of Ishvalans all the way out in the West,” continued Fillban. “But we believe it’s possible they were refugees who escaped during the war, traveled as far as they could, and found a way of life in the pastures. The Drachma…”

Fillban sighed deeply and put his hand up to his forehead, his eyes glancing down at the wood.

“It’s only intel, but it is trustworthy. Their intentions, their methods, their entire mission is a mystery to us. However…” The look he gave Roy was a serious one, and Roy finally saw a general who seemed almost as exhausted as he was himself. “These Ishvalans, living in seclusion, avoiding the public eye, may not be aware of a great deal of things, including the Promised Day or the current efforts to rebuild their land. And the Drachma clearly have no allies within our border. Befriending these people for the purpose of a mutual attack is not something I would disconsider.”

Roy’s mouth was fully open, his chest still and his body even moreso. Images spat at him like a loaded slingshot, pictures of what he one day prayed to see: Ishvalans having families, growing their population, temples being erected in every major city so the people were free to express their faith in any place of the country, watching dark skinned people with red eyes shopping in markets and smiling with their children, letting them pick out candies or fruits and shaking the hands of the Amestrian vendors...he prayed for a time when one day, Ishvalans not only trusted the rest of Amestris, but the rest of Amestris disposed of their prejudice and trusted Ishvalans.

The words that had come from General Fillban’s mouth put all of those hopes into jeopardy.

He thought of how this news would so greatly disappoint his captain.

“Before you fret too much, General, we have begun preparing a team to deploy and intercept the Ishvalan nomads, in hopes of severing their ties and arresting the spies.”

Roy cleared his throat and gathered himself.

“Good. I’m certain if I spoke with the diplomats in Ishval, one of them would be happy to accompany. Having one of their own support our claims would prove monumental.”

“We’ve already employed an Ishvalan Shi’eq, actually. His name is Imam Klayton.” Fillban took a moment before adding, “But I’m glad you mutually understand why he is on this very important team.”

“Of course I would,” Roy countered, his head tilting. The comment seemed out of place. “Why wouldn’t I? In fact, a Shi’eq is the best possible person to send. A religious leader is more prone to trust and immune to lies, in the eyes of the Ishvalans. With luck, they will believe him. Who else is apart of this team? I intend on speaking with them before they leave, and I’d like their names and serial numbers.” This, he realized, was of absolute, paramount importance. He and Hawkeye would spend the night researching these people, reading any transgressions, studying references, and preparing lectures on what and what not to say to the Ishvalan nomads once they made contact.

“Of course,” indulged Fillban. “Leading the squad will be,” he motioned to the man sitting across Roy, “First General Joshuayne Boswick.”

Without moving his head, Roy glanced over at the man and gave him a nod.

“As I previously mentioned, Shi’eq Imam Klayton, a first lieutenant named Chile Spellman, a major named Borin Temstral, and,” he seemed to take the smallest precautionary sigh, “Captain Riza Hawkeye.”

A beat passed, then Roy’s head jerked backwards as if he were physically struck.

“Excuse me?”

“I understand her adjuncy is of importance to you, but her skills are well suited for---”

“No, absolutely not. I’m sorry gentlemen,” he lifted a hand to the man across from him, “General Boswick, but she is not available for commission. She stays in Ishval with me.”

“General,” reasoned Fillban. “It’s been decided by the council. All of these people were specifically chosen for this mission.”

“I do not give a damn, find another marksman.”

This caused the eyebrows of Fillban to shoot up to his hairline.

“If I may say, General Mustang…” said a new voice. Roy slowly turned his head to look at the unknown man, Boswick, across from him.

“Your captain can be a turning point for this mission. Although true her skills as a marksman and soldier may prove invaluable should we cross paths with the Drachma, it’s her relationship with Ishval that’s really selling. Her, in combination with the Shi’eq, could sway these people in a matter of minutes.”

Logically, Roy could not contest this.

However, it wasn’t logic that was making his stomach churn. He could not quite place what was; perhaps it was his anger, unbidden, and unmistakable.

“I’m sorry…” Roy pronounced without a hint of apology, his voice a staccato. “Was it decided, without my input, that a critical component of my Ishvalan efforts would be stripped of me? Is that what I am gathering? That you decided to put Riza Hawkeye on your list without even consulting me? Her direct superior?”

“We only just learned that these nomads were Ishvalan the other day, General,” cautioned Fillban, his hand moving as he spoke. The lines on his face were deep. “We only just contacted Imam last night.”

“You reassigned her without telling me, General Fillban, and that is a direct violation of our chain of command.”

“Actually,” started Boswick. Something about the man made Roy clench his jaw repeatedly, and he chomped down on his teeth as he looked back at him once more. “In times of crises, should the decision be time sensitive and/or critical to human life, chain of command may be overruled when agreed upon by a council.”

Boswick looked at the other men, at Fillban, Bakers, and the ever silent fuhrer, before returning his gaze to Roy.

“And this council agreed on the reassignment.”

“I understand your resistance, General Mustang,” Fillban interjected carefully. “But know that the decision did not come lightly. And what’s done is done.”

Roy pulled his lips into a tight line, his chest threatening to implode.

“And when does this squadron deploy?”

“Before the sun sets tonight.”

The churning inside his stomach was nearing a whirlpool of madness, and it took every ounce of restraint not to scoff in the faces of these very high ranked men.

“The summon you sent me said to pack for several days?”

“That was for your captain. Although, her absence will surely be longer than that allotted time. I’m sorry, we couldn’t elaborate in writing.”

“Fantastic.”

“She’s to report to the armory by seven.”

To this, Roy said nothing.

“I expect you will wish to debrief her?”

He suffocated his rage in order to answer flatly,

“I do.”

Fillban offered him a weak smile, then glanced around the table.

“Well, gentlemen. This meeting is adjourned.”

Chairs scraped as they were pushed outwards, and several pairs of boots thumped against the wooden flooring. Baker’s sympathetic hand squeezed Roy’s shoulder before he, too, vacated the area. Soon the room was empty, save for he and the highest ranking official in the country, both sitting in a mutual silence, both knowing the following conversation that was about to take place.

“You let this happen?” asked Roy finally, his arms crossed tightly against his chest as he found the nerve to finally look at Grumman. “You allowed this to happen?”

“Roy,” began Grumman lowly. “I know you are distressed. But you cannot refute the reasoning.”

“I have a phone, dammit,” Roy spat back at him. “There’s a working telephone in my hut of an office. Did no one have the sense to call me?”

“My boy, you ought to know better than anyone that telephone lines cannot be trusted. What if the militants knew we were coming?”

“I can’t believe this decision was made like this,” Roy fumed, not bothering to answer. “Beneath a layer of dirt and over my head. ”

“You speak with your heart, and not your brain, Roy. There’s no crookedness going on here, there’s no corruption to be overthrown. This is an unfortunate, but necessary, thing to be done.”

Roy’s lip twitched as he inhaled sharply.

“It hasn’t even been a year,” his fist slammed onto the table, “Grumman. Not even one single damned year, and the trials just finished three weeks ago! She deserves a break, not some shitshow that could put her right back in danger!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Grumman whispered back harshly. “I am fully aware that both you and your captain have put your necks out far too many times, but this is, by every definition, a crisis. Imagine what would happen if the Drachma got into those Ishvalan heads. If the people in the West saw Ishvalans raging in with torches and bombs, right alongside the country’s oldest enemy, killing people in revenge of a war we’ve been trying to repent for...everything you and your captain have done in Ishval would be in ruins.” His voice suddenly became remarkably calm. “It would be for nothing.”

“She isn’t just my captain, Fuhrer Grumman,” he snapped back, not bothering to let his voice quiet. “She’s your granddaughter.”

Grumman stood and shook his head woefully, tucking in his chair and pulling his hands behind his back.

“I was never in her life. I don’t have the privilege of calling her that. She is a skilled soldier, and has a well earned place on this squadron.” Finishing himself of the conversation, he walked around the edge of the table to leave. “I have learned to relinquish my love, though it will always be there, for the betterment of my country. It is time you do the same.”

Taken aback, Roy said nothing as Grumman walked past him and out the door, leaving him alone to listen to the sound of the distant birds outside the french-lined windows.

He whispered a curse to himself as he sat there, hands folded together and eyes lasering into the wood. Finally, he stood and opened the door himself, stepping out to see his captain standing dutifully beside it

On her face, though, was worry.

“Is everything alright, Col--uh, General?”

She hadn’t made that slip in some time. Though, he thought, she probably had taken count of the faces in the room when she was inside before, and had probably taken count of their exit, except for his. It was apparent that she knew something was peculiar, and, he thought with a drop of his heart, his old rank was said many times in many terrible situations. It was only natural to utter it now.

“Walk with me, Hawkeye.”

Mustang longed for his old office, where he could lead them inside, shut the door, and speak with her openly. Where he could be familiar with her in a familiar space.

Though, their old office was occupied by someone else now, the desks filled by strangers and the carpet gaited by no one of his team. They had been there for years, he and his men. And it almost saddened him to know they would never go back.

It was by good fortune that Jean Havoc knew of a colonel who’d left for the week, off on holiday with his wife. It was in that office that Roy told Hawkeye of the council’s content.

Silence passed between them when the words left his lips, though not a silence in shock or uncomfortableness or anything unsavory. She was thinking, absorbing the information presented to her.

“Well,” she finally said slowly. “I’ll be sure to get those Ishvalans back to their people, sir. As soon as I can.”

To this, Roy sighed deeply and hung his head. This was typical of her, to never compromise the soldier she’d been committed to being.

“General,” she implored. He lifted his head to watch her eyes search his. “It will be alright. We both know Imam, he’s a good man and very personable. If he’s with us, I have no concern about turning the nomads away from the Drachma.”

“Hawkeye,” he said with exasperation. “I---” He stopped, unable to finish.

She stared at him attentively, leaning forward in her chair with all symptoms of her earlier tiredness entirely gone. It was quite obvious his stress was not translating for her. He swallowed and shook his head, letting air push out from his nose as witness to his still seething thoughts.

“How am I supposed to run Ishval without you?” he asked, a change of direction.

“Like any day, General. Falman is there right now without both of us, I think you can manage.”

“You’re an equal part of this campaign. Your deficit will be a tremendous loss.”

She tilted her head and gave him a knowing smirk.

“You’re being a little dramatic, General. You and Vato are more than capable without me breathing down your necks. Maybe you’ll even like the break.”

A hand lifted to his face, a thumb pushing into his lip, as his eyes turned away in a shake of his head. Her prediction was entirely untrue, the coiling of his insides testimony to that. The rolling uncertainty was speaking to him in a different tongue, ailing him for reasons he couldn’t be sure of -- until the ailing gave him sense of only one thing. A childish thing. There was a soft thud as his hand dropped back onto the desk and he looked at her with intensity.

“I don’t want you to go,” he admitted harshly.

The silence that followed was a little different than the one before, and he was sure the acuteness in her eyes was in response to his own.

Something about her demeanor changed. Her shoulders loosened so they sat heavy, like weights on her body. A melancholy teased the dull crows feet at her eyes. The person who sat across from him was no longer his adjutant, but his friend that he’d known for so very long.

“Well I don’t particularly want to go,” she admitted herself. “But knowing what we know now, that those people whom we have vowed to protect need our help and guidance...there’s no way I can’t go. Even if I had the option not to, I would still go. It’s because of us that they were displaced from their homes in the first place.”

The tempest at the walls of his stomach stilled, and was replaced instead with a drifting kind of acceptance. She was right, and a swirl of pride blended jaggedly with the negativity.

“Well who the hell is supposed to watch my back?” he asked. Who the hell is going to watch yours? he wanted to say.

She lifted a shoulder in a sort of shrug.

“Jean seems a little bored over here.”

Roy smiled for a brief moment before it fell.

The truth was undeniable; he couldn’t bear to be separated from her. Having her in a different part of the country would be to rip him in half with a pair of scorching tongs. For witnessing her near death had been his purest torture, and it had nearly destroyed him, and since then...well, he thought, he hadn’t quite recognized it until now, but he wanted her within his sight every moment of every day. It was a sick thing, and selfish. Beyond inappropriate within light to their professional dynamic. And, he reminded himself, the woman didn’t need him to stay safe. After all, he couldn’t keep her safe that day.

Yet still, letting her go made him nauseous.

His heart nearly broke the walls of his chest as it thudded at the sudden contact of her hand over his. His fears quelled as he looked at her with alarm. The gesture was almost intimate, and entirely uncommon for her. Her skin on his was almost painful in the way that it ached.

“When I come back,” she started softly. “You had better be in one piece.”

His thumb twitched, asking him permission to brush over her hand.

“The same goes for you,” he said instead, quieting the want in his fingers. She raised an eyebrow slightly, slipping her hand off his as she leaned back in her chair.

“When I come back, I had better be in one piece? Wouldn’t me coming back default to being in one piece?” she clarified with a tease. His gentle smile returned, his eyes softening, as the storm inside finally passed.

“Just come back.”

The rest of the day had been spent discussing tactics with one another, with the occasional pipe-in from Jean. With no thanks to the board and their lack of communication, they had little evidence to send with Hawkeye to show to the nomads. The necklace one of the midwives had crafted for Riza, a hand-woven line with a solar pendant at the crest, was all she had, tucked comfortably beneath her shirt.

Hours passed before Jean stood from his chair, stretched, and announced he had to leave to meet a girl for a date. With prodding, he only mentioned it was another officer and that she was entirely out of his league. Isn’t every woman out of your league? Roy had asked. Jean answered with a smack to the back of his head.

“Stay safe,” Jean said to Hawkeye as he pulled her in for a hug. “Good luck out there. We’ll see you soon.”

“Of course,” she smiled back at him. He waved goodbye.

Soon the sky turned violet, the sun pulling downwards to sleep. Roy glanced at his pocket watch; quarter til seven.

The walk to the armory was quiet.

“General, the train ride is long,” she had said after Jean had left. “You don’t need to stay.”

“I know that.”

Quicker than what seemed normal, the day was nearly dark by the time they arrived. The before colors of the sunfall had flitted away into twilight. It was chillier in Central, despite it being early August. Summer was fading; autumn teased the land like a ghost. Men were passing boxes to each other and piling them into a large covered cargo vehicle, the tarp a washed out green and the tires taller than a child. Roy spotted Boswick speaking with another man near the passenger door, and he eyed him warily before stopping his captain with a touch to her shoulder.

“I don’t know who any of these men are besides Imam,” he said when she turned towards him, “but remember that you’ve got authority here.”

She gave him a look.

“Oh?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” he replied sharply, an attempt to convince her. “They’ve probably never even stepped foot in that desert. You know who the Ishvalans are, you know their plight. I know I don’t need to tell you not to let these guys walk all over you, because God knows that won’t be an issue.” She smiled. “But just remember that if you’re ever in doubt, listen to your gut. Not them.”

“Boswick is a major general, sir. And his number two is a major.”

“Doesn’t matter. Your gut is fuhrer on that truck.”

Her smile turned to a quiet laugh, and the corners of his own mouth pursed at the sound. He found that he coveted hearing it one more time.

“Captain Hawkeye,” called Boswick, seeming to finally see her. “You ready to roll out?”

She turned towards him and snapped to attention, her hand whipping up to her right eyebrow in salute.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”

Boswick lifted himself into the cab of the vehicle as the other three men put the last of the boxes into the bed. The two soldiers helped Imam up onto the ledge, and the Ishvalan man parted the tarp to enter the back. Hawkeye’s hand dropped as she turned to face Roy.

“I’ll see you soon, General Mustang,” she said with a thin smile, gripping her briefcase tighter as she turned on her foot and set off towards the truck.

Without thinking, in no way planning was he was about to do, Roy grabbed her wrist and stopped her, allowing the spark between them to shock them both. She halted immediately and glanced back at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, her bangs fluttering about from the sharp turn of her head.

He quickly reached into his pocket with his free hand, wrapped his fingers around what was inside, and deposited the contents from his hand to hers. The hold he had on her wrist slipped downwards to her fingers so the materials were thick between their palms. He gave her hand a strong, formal shake.

“Come back,” he ordered sternly, quiet so only she could hear. Feeling the flex of her muscles, he knew she had a grip on what he’d given her and he slipped his hand out from its hold. She lifted her wrist, the darkening skies giving her little light to see, and unraveled her fingers to display what was in her palm.

Roy deliberately took several steps back so she couldn’t return them. By the time she finished digesting the gesture, her face was lined with something he couldn’t quite read. Perhaps it was his distance from her, or how the setting sun had bathed the land in a deep blue, but the look he could make out on her face made his throat grow tight.

He looked at her fiercely, any emotion buried under a layer of severity. To a stranger, he may have even appeared angry.

“Hawkeye, let’s go!” yelled a voice somewhere behind her. This seemed to pull her from her statuesque state, her face faltering at the shout, though she still hadn’t blinked away from her locked gaze with Roy. He swallowed and tilted his chin downwards.

Come back.

He watched the shadows of her face adjust as her nostrils flared and her mouth closed, and she gave him a single nod as she pocketed what he had given her. Then she turned on her heels, walked several steps to the truck, grabbed onto the handlebar to the right, and hoisted herself inside so she disappeared beyond the tarp.

[jamiebamberdaily]

Strike Back Trailer Breakdown

The long awaited trailer for the next season of Strike Back finally arrived on Friday 21st December 2018, and it gave us a first look at Jamie's character, and the new Section 20 commanding officer, Colonel Alexander Coltrane.

We don't see much of Alex, but with what we have seen, we found ourselves speculating a lot already about the Colonel.

But how much can two girls try and decipher from a 90 second trailer? Well, as it turns out, a hell of a lot...

Meeting Alex

The first time we meet Alex in the trailer is him addressing the team on their mission, however, later we see him meeting the team of Mac, Wyatt and Novin, on a rooftop and given the severity of their mission, it must be urgent for him to wait for them. So we assume that on the rooftop is the group’s first meeting with their new commanding officer.

Alex in trouble?

We could be jumping the gun on this one, but at one point in the trailer, we see someone in the background of a scene; someone, that to us looks very much like Alex, is being dragged away by two men.

It's hard to say whether it is him, but the clothing looks very similar to an outfit we happen to know he wears at some point during the series.

Guns, guns, guns

At least twice in the trailer, we see Alex with two different types of guns.

One being a pistol, likely a SIG or a Glock, as they tend to be military issue guns, the other being a larger assualt rifle that we see very briefly after he blows something up.

Bomb past?

One thing that stood out for us was him mainly being in charge of the bombs in the trailer and we immediately wondered if he was possibly a bomb expert whilst in the army. We already know he's a veteran with a lot of experience so given the fact he delicately puts a bomb on a petrol can and then detonates a bomb, it could well be a credible theory.

“I've taken us off books.”

We think Alex is a bit of a rebel. To feel he has to take the team off the books at some point in the mission must mean he's taken them down a path that is a little unorthodox; but we're sure it's for the best of the team.

The thing that stuck out to us at this moment was his use of the word “us”. The difference we feel between him and Adeena (the teams last CO) is the fact that to us, it feels already like he's working with the team, and not just ordering them around. With Donovan, she used the team for her own good, getting the team to take out Lowry to protect her personal secret. Alex doesn't seem to have a personal connection to the people behind this case, which means that he doesn't need to protect himself and he can work as the leader, the veteran.

Alex and Chetri

Not only do we get our first glimpse of him, we're also treated to meeting his new Communications Officer – the role previously occupied by Will Jensen (played by Phil Dunster) – Lance Corporal Manisha Chetri as portrayed by actress Varada Sethu.

Already, we feel their relationship is a close one, trust is definitely there but it'll be very interesting to see how they came to work together and how the relationship already is and how it progresses.

As much as Alex is all we've really payed attention to - I mean, we are a Bamber fanpage after all, we felt it was worth picking up on a few other points in the trailer.

Wyatt suspended?

It seems that at some stage between the first clip of the trailer, and the second clip Wyatt finds himself suspended.

We see Wyatt taking charge of some recruits and Mac and Novin arrive in one of the army trucks. Considering Mac and Novin seem to know what's going on when they go to see Wyatt, it feels that he must've taken something a step further and landed himself a temporary suspension (as Mac informs him it has been lifted) from the Section.

International Incident

Chetri mentions that if they're “discovered” then it's an “international incident.” It intrigues us about what they as a team are up to. We get that Section 20 is the kind of group that takes things further than most, but to potentially cause an international incident doesn't sound too good.

Chetri In Danger

A very brief moment of the trailer shows Chetri being grabbed from behind. We hope nothing bad happens to her, though we have faith the team will get to her quickly if she is pulled into things too far.

Katrina Zarkova

Another main character of the series is disavowed Russian agent, Katrina Zarkova played by actress, Yasemin Kay Allen. We hear her speak over a part of the trailer, and two clips of her character in action. 

Our Theories

We could be here for hours speculating on a one minute, forty five second trailer and believe us, we have. So there's a lot we feel and can hope for in the upcoming series of Strike Back in regards to Jamie’s character.

Alex’s Background

Broken

If you think about how the current team, Mac and Wyatt (implied) had some kind of trouble with their former units. You don’t become a part of this team without being a little special. Alex is a veteran, we know that so he would want to be able to be a part of team that he can keep in line but judging by the trailer, he is heavily involved in teamwork so wants to still show his worth as someone who wants to fight for his country.

He’ll need the team, and after Donovan, the team will need him. Donovan knew that Idrisi and Lowry were the target so restarted the Section purely so she could get a team of highly trained officers to take her down because of their past. She barely had any fieldwork, only when she believed that she knew where she was, and instead forced the team to do the majority of the dirty work.

We feel Alex will be the opposite, he may be hiding little bits about his past, which will be understandable, but it’ll be nothing like Donovan, it will have no connection to the case; if there is something to hide. She demanded respect, probably because she felt she put the team back together, and gave them a chance to show what they are capable of. We don’t believe Alex to be like that; he won’t demand or want respect, we feel that something likely happened in his past that will mean he feels he doesn’t deserve it and instead has to earn it.

Bomb Past

We said earlier that we still have a little inkling that maybe bombs was a heavy part of his past. He seems to be quite involved in setting and detonating them. Last series, we didn’t see bombs being set quite so much, but Alex seems to know what he’s doing with them. We think it’ll be great to have that sort of part of him.

Outside Bet

We couldn’t help but think of the possibility of PTSD. We could be just wishing for this because we know that Jamie would take such a story line and smash it to pieces with his talent. As a Veteran, he would’ve seen so much, so who knows what he has witnessed in his career.

It’s a long shot, but not one to rule out.

Team Dynamics

One Of The Team

If you look at the promo, he is forefront, and already looks like he has come in, and immediately taken charge. He has fieldwork, as does Chetri, and though he’s a veteran, I don’t think he’s ready to leave that behind just yet. 

He sees the team as just that, a team; he doesn’t set himself aside from that, he doesn’t see them as the team, and he as the commander. Alex sees himself as part of one team, a team of equals.

Lance Corporal Manisha Chetri

We already feel that he has brought her along. Perhaps they were in the same unit and he saw her potential. There’s already trust there, a lot of it and you don’t build that sort of trust and belief in each other after a few days or weeks, it could take months, maybe even years.

Alex doesn’t demand or want respect because he feels he doesn’t deserve it, but Chetri will believe in him more than he probably will believe in himself. If things go wrong, she will take just as much, if not more of the blame than he will, because she will defend him and the team to the ends of the earth. Not that he will agree with that.

The team will have lost a lot of trust after Donovan, so Chetri could potentially be the one to keep the team together, telling them that they need to trust him because he needs that trust and belief otherwise he might break.

Basically, we already love Chetri, Alex won’t want no one else alongside him in that Crib doing what she does, and neither do we.

The Section

We believe that out of all the team we met in the last series, Mac will be the most trusting towards a new CO. Wyatt has serious issues with authority as we saw when we first met him in the last series and he will find it difficult to want another CO after last time. After what happened with Jensen, Gracie will have trust issues after what Adeena did to him and we think she’ll be reluctant to want to trust Alex either but she likely will much quicker than Wyatt will.

Mac will likely trust Alex quicker than all of them and will need to be he one to prove to Novin and particularly Wyatt that Alex is the type of CO they need. He’ll identify with Alex (maybe because they’re both British and would know their army well), they could potentially have similar backstories that they’ll end up bonding over. 

The Colonel will likely want Mac by his side more than Wyatt, at least at the beginning as we think he’ll be reluctant to take anyone who doesn’t trust him so will take Mac instead. They’ll be in such sync with each other and will instantly know what each of their next moves are.

With Dan (MacPherson) already confirming that Wyatt’s past will be explored further this season, could be the key to their trust, whatever happened. Alex will either know already or something will trigger the need for a conversation.

Novin is a smart cookie and will soon realise that Alex is the right man for the job - maybe she or one of the other team members will have heard his name mentioned before - and though she likely won’t trust him straight away, we think she will grow to trust him just as much as Mac instantly will. After what happened to Jensen, she’ll have this instinct to protect Chetri, because she wouldn’t be able to face it happening again. They’ll get close, like best friends or sisters and she’ll feel this need to protect her more than the others!

Katrina Zarkova

Though she’s barely seen in the trailer, we can speculate a little on what to expect in terms of how she fits in with the team. Judging by the synopsis of the series, she’s not one to be immediately trusted, but giving her Russian connection, Katrina could end up being the only lead the team have.

We think that some tense fireworks will definitely explode between her and Gracie and they will be some fantastic scenes to look out for.

DISCLAIMER: In the unlikely event that Alex ends up being the complete opposite to what we have imagined then it’s worth saying that the writers should prepare for riots. (Joking! OK, maybe half joking...)

[occupyscifi]

The Partisan Generation

This generation

It was the morning that his daughter airily declared the moon landing a fake news Jewish plot to let liberal scientists run the government that Lenton Ayre realised things had gone a bit far with this generation.

“and, you know its because gun control libtards in the Hollywood elite that we lost the Iraq war” she added, gazing into her eglasses at the endless stream of retweets, status updates and weather pattern like emojis swept over her “because, you know. There were WMD’s  - that’s the truth. Only the cultural Marxists wanna cover it up. There’s like a whole thread on ReddChan about it and all the instagram influencers are saying…”

“honey, I just asked what you were gonna be studying in school today” he replied, cutting her off before she could do the whole ten minute screed on the snowflake liberals that then could segway into a whole monolog that took in every conspiracy theory from JFK to flat earth. Instead he would rather talk about their real education. As someone who was assiduous in his working habits and concerned for his children’s future he had of course taken them out of the local state school and put them into the Musk-Bezos academy that had opened in a refurbished mall just out of town. This was less a matter really of intellectual choice, more that since his own employer was a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Amazon he could either send his kids to the Inspire! Academy or he could find himself a new job.  

That Lenton would not have minded quite so much, but all his rivals could only offer him the Netflix online-ed course for his two teenagers. That would hardly have been good fathering, he had figured. Although considering his two children’s current subjects of conversation he wondered if it might just have been better to join one of the local Trump Revival churches and get them home schooled. At least he wouldn’t have had to worry about exams, and they would  have a willing audience to talk conspiracy theories with.

“Rani, dude. What is that libtard bullshit?” Ayre’s son retorted, his own smartglasses reflecting the latest news from the hardcore manosphere where he spent most of his time. Since he was wearing his ‘science is my superpower’ tshirt his sister was clearly in a trolling mood “you’ve been sucking down that stupid crap your latest gaywad lametoob boyband crush soyboy has been saying, right? Everyone knows that they’re just a front for Kremlin. Those pretty commie boys want to turn you Stacy’s into their harem so that honest patriots like me can’t get what we’re owed….”

“Kev, you can’t get a girl cause you’re a fucking misogynist incel loser” said his sister quickly “don’t start blaming other people for your problems”

“okay, kids please” said Lenton raising both his hands in what his NLP Yoga teacher had assured him was a calming pose that leant him an air of kindly authority “can we have some calm? You know something a little less partisan at the breakfast table?” lenton scrolled through his own smartglasses looking for non controversial content. It was surprisingly hard “now, can we all agree that congress are a bunch of assholes? Or that kittens are super cute?”

His son opened his mouth to argue

“okay, how about dogs in cars, with their heads out the window?”

Kevin shut his mouth and nodded.

“I mean, I don’t know where it comes from” moaned lenton later at the popup office where he spent his days in online content creation “my daughter spouts anything that comes from the Kremlin via whatever hot youtube boy she’s currently hard crushing on, and my son says anything that some rock hard libertarian science guy says. Neither of them give it a second thought. I don’t know why, cause whenever I say anything they’re on me with laser sight scepticism”

“eh, I blame the technology” complained his colleague as she thumbed through mentions in her livefeed, feeling the desperate need for validation more than the caffeine hit in the cup in her hand “these kids, they wanna be spoonfed everything. I remember when we was their age. We hadda actually google search stuff. If you wanted to throw shade you hadda go to the effort of writing a livejournal about it. Now these kids just get a bunch of recommendations straight into their eyeballs. No thought required”

“too right, Tina. Its about hard work” said Lenton, looking at the day’s workload “it’s the attitude that’s the problem. They’re just too lazy to challenge anything” he scanned the list of hot button to do items “so, what talking points are we monetising for cultural leaders today?”

“we got a contract in from Russia. They want to see the latest round of the Israel Iranian conflict spun as being caused by Jewish bankers. Was thinking we can feed that one in via the Foxosphere. They love a bit of Jew baiting so long as we call em progressive liberal internationalists”

“good call” said Lenton, paging through the various socially destructive ideas and fake news he was being paid a hefty commission to inject into public discourse “we’ve got our screaming mob on retainer. Can get them with placards and slogans anywhere we need them. Although the RNC still hasn’t paid them for that last job. Something about how they weren’t violent enough against those BLM people…”

“they’re actors” sighed Tina as she refilled her mug from the genuine organic roast machine. Her mug bore the cheery slogan ‘world’s greatest stripper’ always reminding her of her grandmother, whose gift it had been “if they want proper violence then they have to get the real white supremacists, but they’re all booked up defending the Canadian border from UN one world government liberal invasion, or whatever we told them was the problem”

“thought it was LGBTQ infiltrators?” replied Lenton. It was hard to keep up. They were after all paid to shape the news and the information that influenced people, the consequences were not really in his pay grade.

“whatever” sighed Tina as she took another high protein cookie from the stack. They were super moreish but were almost physically indigestible. The resulting diarrhoea was always good for the waist line “and we got another Koch brothers contract up. Top dollar to get the key 18-25 demographic thinking that renewable energy is a problem”

“simple. Thread through the manosphere as being that renewable energy is unmanly and feminising. We can to nostalgia stuff around the petrol engine. The far right will love a bit of Tesla bashing….”

“and Tesla will pay us double to spread the counter message” said Tina, finishing her coffee “cool” she paused “look, don’t worry about your kids. They go through phases. Shit, I was tumblrd out when I was their age, woulda cut my best friends head off if she’d said a word against my fandom. They grow out of it”

“yeah” said lenton, already downloading the days false news and astroturf memes ready to infect the information stream of the western world with “but, you know they just seem so extreme. I don’t get why” he added as he pumped a thread blaming vaccinations for causing sexual inadequacy into a mainstream news forum where it would have an active effect on roughly forty five percent of the readership “I just don’t see where they get those ideas from”

[redditnosleep]

Has Anyone Heard of The Left/Right Game?

by NeonTempo

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 (Final)

Well then… here we are.

I have to be honest; when I posted the first of these logs from my bedroom in North London, I didn’t think it would go very far. After all, why would it? I wasn’t a regular contributor to this site, nor a seasoned veteran of the paranormal. I was just a man who missed his friend, seeking a few words of wisdom from an online message board, open to the idea that it wouldn’t lead anywhere.

Suffice to say I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Over the past two months, the incredible advice I’ve received from this forum, and the amazing leads you’ve sent my way, have opened up entire worlds of possibility. It’s thanks to all of you that I’m where I am now; sitting in a rental car on a quiet street in Phoenix, Arizona, posting the last of Alice’s records.

I realise I’ve written more than usual for my part. Apologies for this. If you want to skip straight to Alice’s section, that’s fine.

Otherwise, please consider this the prologue to the epilogue.

It’s very, very early in the morning over here, with only the gravest of the graveyard shift out on the streets. By all rights I should be in bed, and not wasting petrol on an aimless drive through the city. The ritual helps me think however, and I’d recently been given a lot to think about, courtesy of a young woman at a local bar.

She was a forum member, who’d contacted me over Direct Message. When we met up earlier in the night, it was clear she’d done a great deal of research; charting every mirror shop in Phoenix in an attempt to reconstruct the route Alice took on February 7th 2017.

We spoke for quite a while; about the game, about Alice, and about life in general. Once closing time rolled around, she handed me a printout of the most likely route, with all the key locations circled. Then, in the final minutes before we parted ways, she nervously asked me two questions. The first put me in a rather sour mood. The second provided the fuel for my 3am drive.

Question One; Are you sure she wants you to find her?

I’ve been hearing the same query from a few of you recently, especially since Part 9 was posted. People commenting that Alice made a clear choice when she left Rob behind in the silent city. That I was searching for someone who wasn’t seeking return.

I’d like to take a moment to respond to this, as I responded to it earlier tonight. To be clear, the Alice I know wouldn't do that. She was planning to come back, she’d told us as much. I’m not going to waste your time with my theories, but we’ve seen what the road can do to people's minds, how it can carry them away against their better judgement. I understand why it's being asked but if those sorts of questions are all you have to offer, I’d kindly ask you find another way to help.

Question Two was less clear cut; what are you going to do now?

It’s something you guys have also been asking me, but that was the first time I’d heard the question out loud. In the awkward silence that followed it became obvious to her, and in some ways to me, that I didn’t yet have an answer.

I decided to take a drive while I figured it out… I’ve been in my car for the rest of the night,

After an hour of aimless meandering, I realised I was close to one of the marked locations; the alleyway where Alice first entered the underpass, the point at which she first disappeared into the road. Turning into the side street, just after a large intersection, I was briefly relieved to see no sign of the tunnel. The part of me that still hoped this game was a fiction swelled at the sudden lack of evidence. My reaction was short lived of course, as I quickly realised that the tunnel wouldn't have shown itself to me anyway. Even if the game were real, I’d hardly been sticking to the rules on my way here.

There was no denying that the place resembled Alice’s descriptions however, and with a long time to go until I’d feel remotely tired, I decided to work my way back along the route, retracing Alice’s steps towards Rob Guthard’s street.

OK so I have to admit at this point, I suffered from a momentary lapse in intelligence. In a fog of distraction, residual jetlag and general dullardry, I drove for longer than I’d care to admit under the misconception that I wasn’t playing the game. I thought this because I was heading in the opposite direction, and had started my run with a right hand turn, when the rules explicitly state that you begin by turning left. Of course, as I’m sure all of you would have realised immediately, that didn’t mean I was out of the game, it just meant I started playing with my first left turn, one road later.

Alice was always the smart one.

What I’m trying to say is that, due to this fairly mindless oversight, I wasn’t exactly looking out for the Woman in Grey as I drove past what should have been her corner. There wasn’t a mirror shop this time of course, that’s only the 34th turn when you’re coming the other way, in fact I’m not sure which of the many passing streets it was. It is strange though, as I think back through my journey, I feel like I would have noticed her. The streets were practically deserted, so much so that any pedestrians stood out immediately. I know I should’ve been looking more closely but, if you asked my honest opinion… I don't think she was there at all.

The moment I realised this, I felt it again; the faint perverse, hope that I’d been misled, that the entire story was nothing more than a twisted, elaborate fabrication.

It wasn’t long until I passed an old mirror shop and, 34 turns later, arrived on what must have been Alice’s starting street. It was an inner-city neighbourhood whose residents were all fast asleep. From the moment I realised that the game was in play, I’d been thinking less and less about this particular road, and more about the one directly after it, resting just beyond the crossroads. I’d come halfway across the world on the strength of Alice’s account, but I’d seen no first hand proof of the Left/Right Game. If the whole thing was a hoax, then the next road should just be another street. If it was real, then I’d know soon enough.

I crawled up to the junction with my heart in my throat. With every inch of road that passed under my tyres, I found myself hoping more and more that it wouldn’t be true. Let someone be playing a prank on me, let the logs be counterfeit... let Alice be anywhere else but on that road.

I took the corner in a wide arc, parking myself in the centre of the crossroads, my headlights facing down the next turn.

Ahead of me was a quiet residential street; lines of neatly parked cars, rows of well-kept yards and squarely drawn windows. Yet at its centre, in utter defiance of the modest surroundings, the road sank into a deep and dimly lit corridor, cutting beneath the street, and disappearing into complete darkness.

I’d always known it was true.

In the presence of grim confirmation, the question I was asked earlier that night started to ring in my ears, as if echoing out of the tunnel itself. After an entire night’s driving, after two full months of searching, I still didn’t have a response.

In the end I just left the engine running, as if turning it off would somehow be a sign of retreat, and decided to type up the notes you’re reading now. I thought maybe the process of putting it all down on paper would bring me clarity, and leave me with either a note of farewell or a note of apology to Alice, for not having what it took to find her.

And now… here I am; still undecided, still writing, still sitting in this rental car on a quiet street in Phoenix, Arizona.

Though perhaps the street’s not as quiet as I thought.

I’ve just looked back to the previous road, down the street where Alice began her journey. As I type this very paragraph, I can see a figure standing on the sidewalk, just outside one of the houses. It isn’t the woman in grey this time.

Though it’s almost too dark to make out, I can tell the figure is an older male, well built and imposing, the rugged features of his weathered face half lit by moonlight. I’ve never seen this person before, yet he bears a striking resemblance to another man; a man whose description has been well recorded within the pages of Alice’s logs.

He watches me in silence, staring through the window of my still running car.

I wonder if he can help.

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 20/02/2017

The Left/Right Game was once nothing more than a 9-page document, peeking out of a yellow envelope, resting quietly on my desk.

I remember reading it on my lunch break.

I remember it made me laugh.

The submission had arrived with the first post, quietly making its way around the office, treated by everyone as a short-lived novelty of little journalistic value. The story was easy to dismiss, appearing all too similar to the rambling ghost stories and blurry UFO sightings that filled our mailbox on a daily basis, and which most of the senior staff had learned to instinctively ignore. Doomed by association, the document was quickly passed over, my desk merely a pit stop on its way to the rejection pile.

I was curious however and, after an uneventful few months in my new role, I had no compunctions about fishing from the scrap heap. Placing the envelope in my satchel, alongside a misfit crowd of similar rejects, I slipped away to a local coffee shop, reading it in an armchair by the window.

Somewhere around page three, between the description of the game’s rules and the exhaustive list of “Required Skills”, my mouth started to curl into an irrepressible smile.

They’d been gloriously wrong about this one. It wasn’t some paranoid diatribe, nor a sensationalist plea for attention. Within those pages lay an introductory glimpse of a man’s passionate obsession. As I read on, something about his earnest eccentricity, incredible thoroughness, and unquestioning confidence made it impossible to put down. When I turned the final page, reading the last of Rob Guthard’s charming and refreshingly well formatted submission, I knew that this was the story I wanted to tell.

Later that day, I found myself in the editor’s office making a case for it. They didn’t quite see what I saw, but I was intent to win them over regardless. I told them the story would be characterful, colourful, thought-provoking and, at the very least, that I wouldn’t be gone long.

It’s been twelve days since then; ten since I first entered the Wrangler in Phoenix, Arizona, five since I commandeered it myself, leaving Rob behind in the silent city. I haven’t updated much recently, save for a regular set of notes made for my own benefit. In all honesty, after I finished writing up my account of the city, I was struck by an overpowering sense of needlessness. There was no one left to receive these logs, no friends to proofread, no editor to hand them to. It seemed pointless to maintain the same prosaic format as before.

I still largely agree with this assessment. It’s only due to a set of exceptional circumstances that I’ve chosen to type up the following account in full.

Whoever this reaches, I want to thank you for reading up to now.

I’m quite sure this will be my final instalment.

The moon has broken, and in my entire life, I’ve never witnessed an evening so still.

The air is cool and quiet, and the Wrangler cuts cleanly through it as I glide down a stretch of even tarmac. The scene is defined by calm and absence. Not a cloud in the sky, not a solitary whisper of breeze, not a single blade of grass stirring on the dark green banks beside me.

Yet even on a night as peaceful as this, I can’t help but feel far away from home. The city had served as a turning point in that regard. Before we reached those titanic monoliths, the landscapes we passed through generally resembled the world I once knew. A few obvious exceptions aside, there was nothing about the environments that looked truly divorced from reality. That’s all changed now. The aberrant aspects of this new world are unignorable, constantly hanging at the corner of my eye, passively injecting a sense of wonder and disconcertion into the otherwise silent night.

A few days ago the moon started to crack like old porcelain. I hardly noticed at first, my eyes fixed on the road as it loomed above me, quietly splintering into three jagged pieces. As of tonight, the empty space between each fragment has significantly increased. If I focus on the sky for a little while, I can almost see them falling away from each other, charting infinite and lonesome trajectories through a barren cosmos, against a backdrop of foreign constellations.

The stars themselves fall further than they should. The night sky travels down past the horizon and continues below it, wrapping underneath the grassy bank. It’s as if the road, and the narrow plains on either side, are suspended in the middle of a vast abyss; a platform in the middle of open space.

At least that’s what I thought it was at first. It didn’t take long before I noticed the broken moon was appearing twice in the sky, both above and below me. A pair of orbiting satellites; identical and in perfect alignment. That’s when I realised that there were no stars below me. I was merely staring across a flat surface so flawlessly mirror-like as to cast a perfect reflection of the heavens above.

I was driving through the centre of a lake.

The water is impossibly still. Since leaving the shoreline proper yesterday night, I’ve seen neither a wave, nor a ripple across its placid surface. It’s also undeniably vast, reaching beyond the horizon in every direction and continuing further still. Without being sure how I know, I’m aware that the waters carry on for an unspeakable distance, that I would sooner reach the stars themselves before setting foot on its opposite shore.

I lean over and switch gears. The act of driving the Wrangler was a daunting one at first, but after the first two days I’ve managed to make do. An old scarf wrapped tightly around the steering wheel serves as a makeshift handle, allowing me to navigate corners one handed. I don’t have an elegant solution for the gearshift, but I’ve quickly grown used to the process. If I’ve learned anything from the road, it’s that grace is the first casualty in the fight for survival. Adaptability, no matter how clumsy, outlasts it at every turn.

A few minutes later, the Wrangler pulls up to a spacious verge. A large circle of land surrounded entirely by dark waters. At the far end, the grass seems to fall away, dropping sharply into the lake with a dead stop. The road continues of course, but it's the only thing that does. With nothing on either side, it forms a narrow bridge of perfectly flat asphalt, raised on a bed of mud and rock.

I press my boot onto the brake pedal, easing the Wrangler to a steady halt at the centre of the clearing. For the first time today, I open the car door and climb out of my seat. The dull tap of asphalt shifts to a soft rustling as I make my way over to the lakeside.

There’s something on the shore, a barely discernible object, almost entirely concealed by a shock of verdant undergrowth. It’s a miracle I’d managed to spy it from the road, though perhaps something about the stark uniformity of the landscape had made it stand out.

As I advance towards the water, and the object draws near, its indeterminate form solidifies in my mind.

It’s a human arm, reaching out from the water and onto the bank. I crouch down to examine the few pertinent details. The fingers are still embedded firmly into the soil. The thumbnail is broken, coloured by a peeling coat of faded varnish. There’s a pallid, emaciated quality to the skin, spreading down the arm until it disappears beneath a thick, woollen sleeve. At the point it meets the surface, the water soaks into the fabric, turning it black from the original grey.

With a sad exhalation, I rise to my feet and lean over the water’s edge.

The body of Marjorie Guthard lies against the silt, her cheek resting on the lake bed, her wide bewildered eyes staring out into the open lake. She’s been almost perfectly preserved. Save for the striking tautness of her skin and its mottled, grey pallor, she looks exactly like the woman I saw on the 34th turn, who’d tried to repel me from the road, who’d spoken of a lake drinking her wounds clean.

It seems her ramblings weren’t completely void of fact. It’s clear to see that Marjorie has been exsanguinated, so completely in fact that the only evidence that blood ever flowed through her veins, is a large dark stain across her shredded blouse.

It doesn’t take long before the perpetrator makes itself known.

As I stare into the water, a steady stream of formless whispers sink up through the depths of the lake. The softly spoken murmurings drift up to my ears, taking root in the back of my mind and instantly blooming into a flurry of deeply persuasive promises.

I find myself entirely transfixed by the still water, as a myriad of generous offerings unfold in throughout my consciousness. The whispers suggest an end to the phantom pains in my absent arm, perhaps even a completely restored limb, stronger than it had been before. Furthermore, it shows me a glimpse of its incomprehensible span, its furthest bank reaching across countless worlds, its deepest point lying below everything. I’m offered total knowledge of every league, every fathom, every inconceivable shore.

My hand reaches down as the whispers continue, every bargain steeped in sweet beneficence. A moment later, my outstretched fingers brush against the soft grass, and wrap around Marjorie’s exposed arm.

Digging my heels into the ground, I lean myself backwards and pull. The water ripples and splashes as I drag Marjorie’s lifeless body slowly onto the bank. I feel the voices in my mind grow louder, erupting in anger as I back away from the lake.

The promises had been convincing, each quiet solicitation undeniably persuasive. But after seeing Marjorie’s wretched fate and the look of eternal betrayal in her vacant eyes, I found myself aware of a subtle undercurrent behind every syllable, a sense of desperation and timeless hunger emanating from beneath the lake’s surface. I already have a clear understanding of what would have happened if I’d lost myself to those waters. I suspect it’s no coincidence, that of the countless shores it showed me, all of them appeared to be deserted.

Marjorie wouldn’t have stood a chance. She’d left the forest alone, grievously wounded and without a vehicle. She’d walked the whole way here, bleeding endlessly, the road’s rejuvenating power battling every moment against her body’s natural inclination to die. I suspect the road’s influence wasn’t strong enough, and when a whispering voice promised, ever so sweetly to mend her, she would have been in no position to refuse.

Her other sleeve brushes against dry land, her body leaving the water for the first time in decades. I keep pulling until my boots hit asphalt, laying her down on the grass just beside the Wrangler.

After a moment of sober vigil, I walk to the back of the car and fetch Rob’s foldable spade.

A long few hours follow. I’ve never dug someone’s grave before, and my injury is hardly conducive to the task. My fleece tied around my waist, pearls of sweat running down my brow, I manage to slowly chip away at the damp earth. Five hours later, my back cramping, my hand raw from gripping the shovel, I attempt to lower Marjorie into the rough pit with some semblance of grace, her legs dropping limply into the soft soil despite my best efforts.

It takes over an hour to shovel the soil back. It’s a sobering and ugly task. As a layer of dirt covers her face, I realise this will be the last time a living person lays their eyes on Marjorie Guthard. Burying her suddenly feels disrespectful, as if it’s an act I don’t have the right to perform.

Once it’s done, I drop onto my knees, a dull ache in my muscles as I smooth out the disturbed ground with the back of the shovel.

MARJORIE: You.

Even before I turn to face her, I can hear a scowl in her voice. There’s an odious depth to that one acrid syllable, a potent witch’s brew of contempt and accusation that feels like it’s been festering in her drowned lungs for decades.

Reluctantly, I rise to my feet and turn around, finding myself face to face with the woman I just buried. She looks different now, her clothes are dry, her skin clear, with nothing to be seen of the deep, dark gash in her blouse.

AS: Marjorie.

Unlike the empty vessel below us, the woman in front of me is by no means at peace. She shakes and wretches with the same indignant fury I witnessed when we first met. When she speaks, her words shudder under the weight of her own turbulent emotions.

MARJORIE: I chased you. I ran to you. I… I gave him up for you.

AS: I’m… I’m sorry Marjorie, I don’t know what you mean. Tell me what you mean.

MARJOIRE The things I saw, things so beautiful. And I saw her, walking alone through the new worlds. I gave everything up for you!!

I don’t know quite what to say. It’s pointless to ask her what she means, to try and understand her frenetic ramblings. In the end, I can only try to speak her language.

AS: Marjorie I… I didn’t mean you to.

Marjorie’s trembling breaths burst into a despairing fit of laughter.

MARJORIE: Oh… oh yes you did. Yes you did. And now… now you’re here.

Marjorie’s wild and volatile demeanour shifts once more, her laughter degrading further into a desperate crying panic.

MARJORIE: And what do I do now? What- What do I do?!

Marjorie cringes with the terror of the self-imposed question, placing her head in her hands and repeating it over and over again. As I watch her wrestle with despair, I’m struck by an idea I’ve never before considered. The disconcerting notion that, in death, we are not transported to a set destination by some ethereal attendant. That in fact, nothing is decided for us. Perhaps the manner in which we spend our afterlife is down to us, a decision we have to make ourselves.

Marjorie is standing over her own lifeless body, still lost, still entirely unmoored.

There's no sign of boundless paradise, inescapable damnation or everlasting nothingness, and the common thread they share, a final release from the weight of our own agency, is similarly absent. Perhaps we never get that freedom, perhaps we continue like we always do, accompanied by all our imperfections, uncertainty and discontent.

Perhaps we must choose our eternity.

After all my time on the road, that’s possibly the most terrifying notion I’ve encountered.

AS: He never stopped looking you know.

Marjorie snaps out of her wretched despair, instantly aware of who I’m referring to, staring up at me with an expression I’ve never seen her wear before.

AS: I saw him, walking on the road. He didn’t stop. He was never going to stop. I think he was looking for you Marjorie, he still is.

Marjorie stares through me. For the first time since we met on that quiet Phoenician corner, I can see the faint spark of something other than misery and rage across her tear stained face.

I hold her gaze for a moment more, before pulling my phone from my pocket. In a single sweep of my contacts, I delete every number except for one. A number I pulled from the Nokia during our second night on the road. A number that connects to a lost wanderer of the road.

AS: I don’t know if this can help but… stranger things have happened.

As she stares up into my eyes, I feel like we’re finally meeting for the first time. Without a word, Marjorie reaches out a quivering hand and takes the phone from my outstretched fingers.

Before I can say anything more, Marjorie Guthard is gone.

A few moments later, a refreshing breeze lands against my cheek, a soft zephyr, cooling my still warm face. It’s a welcome sensation, and the first movement I’ve witnessed in the air since I set out onto the lake. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I stare quietly along the bridge, the breeze picking up around me.

It’s a subtle wind at first, brushing stray hairs across my forehead, chilling the perspiration on my neck. Yet as I reach my hand out, and feel the air slip between my fingers, I’m witness to a steady rise in both strength and magnitude.

The sound of the wind grows from a whisper to a howl, Seconds later, the hanging sleeves of my fleece begin to stream sideways. My hair lifts from my back, billowing in the throes of a developing gale.

I back up against the Wrangler’s hood as the air finally erupts into a roaring, cacophonous cyclone. My hand reflexively seeks the sturdy frame of the Wrangler, my fingers wrapping around the grille, my arm tensing as the unrelenting wind threatens to drag me from the road.

Squinting through the violent tempest, I focus on a single point in space, just above the threshold of the bridge. In the midst of the storm, a jagged line of white hot light bursts out of the ether, tearing through the night’s fabric, a crackling fissure that widens and yawns, forcing apart the curtains of reality as they frenetically struggle to recombine.

Staring through the shuddering fracture, I’m subjected to the briefest glimpse of a boundless, and impossible vista. It is a faraway place in both distance and time. An achingly beautiful and gloriously terrifying dreamscape, enduring on the majestic shores of infinity. Every moment there spans a millennium and unfolds in countless directions at once. Every passing shadow holds a darkness beyond measure, their edges burned by the glare of a waking sun which looks across every conceivable world with a hollow, rancorous intent.

In the midst of this maddening landscape, a singular entity approaches, gliding towards the portal with the clear intent to pass through. As it breaches the shuddering gateway, and the wind dies down around it, I stare up at its grand celestial form.

The being is unlike anything I’ve ever seen; composed entirely from electric arcs of brilliant, magnesic light which burst from a volatile and blinding central core. It sounds like a lightning storm, its plasmatic tendrils snapping and crackling, bursting chaotically through the night air before collapsing in on themselves. As they fall back into the creature’s centre, they emit pale clouds of vaporous fractals that fade softly into the air.

Somehow, even as my eyes barely adjust to the stark light, I realise that the entity usually burns much brighter. It's dampened its glow for my benefit, so that it can appear before me without scorching my eyes from their sockets.

AS: It’s you… isn’t it. You’re the voice I’ve been hearing. You’re the one who brought me here.

The bristling maelstrom of light hangs in the air, crackling and shifting, its transient limbs strobing with chaotic incandescence. Part of me wants to hide, part of me wants to run, but neither are an option anymore. Releasing my hand from the Wrangler’s grille I take a single step forward, standing on my own and staring up into the entity’s smouldering core.

AS: Can I get an interview?

The creature doesn’t react. In the following silence, I feel it observing me. When it finally responds, its voice ruptures the night, echoing through my skull.

VOICE: There is little time, but you may ask what questions you have.

Each reverberating syllable forms a string of literal shockwaves in the surrounding lake, emanating outwards from the being in a perfect circle. I watch the waves roll into the distance, showing no sign of ever diminishing, and I think about what question to ask first.

In the end, it comes to me quickly; a promise is a promise after all.

AS: What happened to Marjorie? Why did she do what she did?

The being pauses, as if considering its response. When it does reply, it speaks with a calm sobriety.

VOICE: She glimpsed an echo of the future, dreamed of the road, of the things that it passes through.

AS: Like whatever’s through there?

I gesture through the gateway, which is now almost entirely blocked from view by the creature’s spiralling form.

VOICE: She dreamed of untold frontiers. She saw a lone woman walking them. Over time, the fulfilment of that vision became everything to her.

AS: But it wasn’t her… she thought she was seeing her own future… but it was-

VOICE: It was you.

Those three words, as they burst into the open air, casting three narrow waves across the boundless water, hit me with a deep and heavy force. Unbeknownst to myself, decades before I was even born, Marjorie had been driven insane by dreams of maddening grandeur, of a life of boundless possibility and true significance. She had given everything up to chase a shadow… a shadow that eventually turned out to be mine.

I hadn’t just pulled Rob into this game, I was the reason for everything. I was the cause for the tragedy that befell his entire family,

AS: She didn’t just dream those sights. You influenced her. You let her see them… the same way you made Rob see me in Aokigahara. You pushed and you prodded wherever you needed so that I’d end up here. Are you the reason Bobby got the rules in the first place?

VOICE: Yes.

AS: But… why? You toyed with so many lives across… across decades. Why me? Why does it matter that I travel the road?

VOICE: Because across all humanity, across every conceivable permutation, you are the one who makes it the furthest.

It speaks plainly, as if the statement were a foregone conclusion. Yet its words strike me into silence.

The creature continues.

VOICE: I’ve watched you work your way here, through skill and through tenacity… and undeniably through luck. You were brought here because of these qualities, and they will carry you further along the road than any other.

AS: Then why didn’t you just bring me here? All that influence and you didn’t lift a finger… after everything that happened-

VOICE: Events transpired as they needed to.

AS: As they… needed to?! People died! Marjorie. Bobby. Ace. Apollo. Eve. Lilith. Everyone. They’re all gone. Do you not care at all?

In response to my words, the entity remains silent for longer than usual.

VOICE: I care more than you know. There are things greater than your understanding, forces that exist beyond the realms of your comprehension that you would consider a threat to everything you hold dear. My actions were guided by a higher standard of knowledge. Your protests are predicated on false understanding.

AS: You’re saying I don’t understand death?

VOICE: You don’t.

AS: ... That still doesn’t make it right.

VOICE: Regardless, my influence is necessary. That which is necessary must be.

AS: What even are you?

VOICE:: I cannot answer that question in any way you’d understand.

AS: That's not good enough.

The creature doesn’t respond, as if it doesn’t feel it needs to. So far it’s returned my every argument with impenetrable certainty. From the domain it occupies, knowing what it knows, my arguments must seem entirely facile. Even if it did feel the need to justify itself, after seeing the place it hails from, I wonder if there’s any way I could ever comprehend its motives.

Still, that doesn’t mean my arguments are invalid, and the creature’s lofty dispassion does little more than stoke my desire to oppose it.

AS: And what if I don’t want any part of this?

VOICE: You are travelling the aberrant strand; a singularly stable flaw in the fabric of reality. As it carries you further from the world you know, you will be freed from the influence of the old laws. You have already noticed the effects in those who settled the road, those who were lost to it and in yourself; energy without consumption, knowledge without requisite experience. You are shedding entropy, and causality and in time you will reach realms of understanding you cannot currently fathom. You will find answers to questions you never thought to ask. You will discover absolute truth. For this reason, you will carry on.

AS: That’s the only reason?

VOICE: Do you need another?

It doesn’t come across as a question, but rather another blunt statement of fact. I understand the effect it’s speaking of. Ever since the city, I’ve been encountering vague notions and fragmented ideas that occur to me randomly and without announcement. New avenues of thought leading to revelations that would otherwise lie beyond my mortal reach.

I’ve started to comprehend things I could barely have conceived of back home, and though the onset of these notions had been terrifying at first, they grow less so with every passing day.

AS: No… no, I don’t trust you. I don’t-

VOICE: Your trust is immaterial. You will travel the road regardless.

The creature’s already stark glow starts to intensify.

VOICE: I’ve watched you, on every turn … across every moment of your journey.

One of the creature’s countless protrusions lashes out at the empty air, forming another harsh, glowing fissure. It wrenches itself open in a few stilted jolts, a transparent, almost crystalline membrane stretched across the gap. Through it, I can see myself, in the centre of a cornfield, examining a block of C4 explosive.

It’s as if I’m staring into the past through a jagged shard of one-way glass.

VOICE: I’ve watched you questioning.

Though we can’t be seen through the aperture, I see the glasslike membrane shake with the force of the creature’s voice. As the window collapses, I can see the rows of corn thrown into a frenzy.

A second arc lashes out at the sky, forming a second aperture. This time I’m expecting the sight before me. I see myself, crying in the forest… a silent radio by my side.

VOICE: I’ve watched you struggle.

The second window closes. The creature has made its point.

VOICE: I’ve watched you fight… to make your way here.

VOICE: You will not turn around.

AS: You make it sound like I don’t have a choice.

VOICE: You do have a choice Alice, but you have already made it.

As much as I’ve grown to detest the creature’s presumption, in that moment, I know it’s right.

What it’s saying is true. I’ve done things I never would have imagined in order to get where I am now. In fact, if this being hadn’t arrived at all, I’d already be heading out over the bridge.

I’m not proud of what drives me; that same, ugly impulse that led me to refuse Rob’s offer of return, that made it so easy to leave him behind in the silent city. But there’s no denying the impulse is there. It’s been with me the whole time, long before I ever arrived in Phoenix, Arizona… and it’s buried deeper than I’ve ever wanted to admit.

AS: Can I… do I get to say goodbye?

The entity says nothing. It hangs in the air, flickering and coursing with rupturing bolts of light. The next thing I hear is a faint mechanical hum emanating from the Wrangler behind me. Turning around, I pace briskly back to the car, opening the door and reaching into the passenger seat. My notebook is booting up, seemingly of its own accord.

Picking up the laptop, I lift the lid as I march back towards the bridge. I stare up at the silent being before me. When I look down to the laptop, my email client is already displayed on the screen.

AS: How… how long do I have?

VOICE: Long enough.

The entity begins to regress, its arcs diminishing as the being at its core turns away. Its message has been delivered. There is nothing more to discuss.

As it passes through the gateway, into an unknowable world far removed from my own, I call out after it.

AS: I’m still not certain I trust you.

The being focusses on me once more, as the fracture begins to close. A final set of waves pass across the surface of the lake as it solemnly replies.

VOICE: … I remember.

A moment later, the being is gone.

I stand motionless in the middle of the road, the entity’s final remarks washing over me, its curious choice of words echoing in my head. In the renewed silence, the faint stirrings of an overwhelming and terrible revelation start to form in my mind.

It could have simply said that it knew of my mistrust, that it heard the overtones in my voice, saw the disdain across my face or otherwise sensed it in the space between us. Instead, the being spoke as if my current feelings were a memory, dwelling somewhere within its depths.

It was undeniable that my time on the road was changing me, but in all this time I’d never truly considered how those changes might evolve as my journey continues.

I’d never thought about what I might gain, what I might lose… or about what I might inevitably become.

A short while passes before I lower my eyes from the empty space above the bridge, to the screen of my notebook. Lowering myself down, I cross my legs and rest my back against the Wrangler.

If you’ve been reading from the beginning, you’ve finally caught up with me.

I hope you’ll allow me a few personal messages.

To Rob. I hope you’re able to read this someday, and I am so, so sorry for everything I’ve done; for everything I may do. I hope you understand that I didn’t know, and that none of this was your fault. You did the best you could, and the days I spent with you were the most significant of my life. It was an honour to know you and I hope that, among these pages, you find the answers, and the peace, that you deserve.

To my mum and dad, I’m sorry I won’t be sending this to you. In the end, I was carried along this road by a profound selfishness, and I just can’t bring myself to face you. I can’t imagine the pain I’ll be putting you through, and I won't try to justify my actions. All I can say is that I love you and I’m sorry that my last act towards you was one of cowardice.

And finally to you; the person to whom this message will be addressed. I’m sorry. I always thought I’d see you again someday, that the roads I took would eventually lead me home. That doesn’t look so likely now. Though I could say a lot to you, I’m not going to.

But I wish we could have been friends for longer.

It feels like a lifetime since I first arrived at Rob Guthard’s quiet street. I remember the uncertainty as I waited for him to open his door, with no concievable idea what was about to transpire.

Like so many other things, that’s now changed. Despite being in an entirely new world, further from home than anyone’s ever been, I know exactly what’s going to happen next.

I’m going to take a drive. Take a left, then the next possible road on the right, then the next possible left. I will repeat the process ad infinitum, until I wind up somewhere new.

And from there I’ll keep driving, beyond worlds, beyond time, beyond the bounds of my imagining. To a place where the lake runs dry, where the broken moon drifts away, and the stars disappear in the rear view.

To a place where everything has fallen away, and the road is all there is.

[1dimagineclub]

Daddy Niall Imagine

“You Are My Light”

I had never really been into blondes, but I quite liked the one sleeping soundly beside me, so dead-tired that his rest could not be disturbed by anything, not even the sunlight slipping through the cracks in the blinds and dancing right over his eyes. He wasn’t a natural blonde, of course, and had been letting his roots grow out (much to Lou’s dismay). That was how I reasoned through the fact that I had literally never considered dating a boy with blonde hair until I met him. His spirit must have screamed “I’m naturally a brunette!” to mine, and voila, we fell in love. Right. That had to be it.

I was absentmindedly running my fingers through said hair before I even realized it, but he just hummed quietly in pleasure at the feeling and squeezed the pillow in his arms tighter to his chest. Today I was absolutely scatterbrained because it was Christmas Eve and hidden in the closet was a present for Niall that would either delight or depress him—there was no in between. I was pregnant. Niall and I had been together for long enough now that it shouldn’t have been a big deal, but One Direction was still constantly touring and recording and flying out of the country for one simple interview, and that was the exact reason that he hadn’t even proposed to me yet. That had been the subject of many a “heated debate”, me insisting that I didn’t give a shit about a big extravagant wedding and that I just wanted to be able to say we were married, and Niall refusing to settle for a simple trip to the courthouse to get it done. I could only imagine how he would react to just the idea that we raise a kid together right now, let alone the stone cold truth that it was actually going to happen.

"Babe,“ his voice was rough from the past eleven or so hours of disuse, and made me jump a foot high in surprise. Pressing a hand to my chest to calm my suddenly rapidly beating heart, I leaned over his shoulder and peered down at his face. "You’re awake?” His bright blue eyes were half-lidded, but definitely staring back at me, and he said mockingly, “No, I’m talking directly to you in my sleep.” I punched him in the arm, and I didn’t really hold back, but that still didn’t mean it hurt. He made an oomph sound just to humor me, which only had me punching him again. “Baaabe,” he whined, “stop hitting me, kiss me, kiss me instead!” And even though he was so childish, he was really so cute, so I obliged him and directed my lips onto his. He was smiling softly when I pulled away and probably about to go off on a tangent about how much he loved me. I cut him off with, “Ew, you have really bad morning breath.”

I hopped off the bed and darted out of the room, giggling as he lunged after me in retaliation to my insult but just barely missed. “You’re cooking breakfast, by the way!” I yelled behind me, and he groaned loud enough that I heard him from all the way down the hall and now halfway down the stairs. In the living room, I flopped down onto the couch and stared at the Christmas tree in the corner. Niall had barely made it home in time for today, with his busy schedule and then a huge storm delaying his flight by several days, so we hadn’t been able to go buy a real tree like we usually did. Even if we had gone out and gotten one as soon as his plane had arrived the evening before, we wouldn’t have had time to decorate it. So I had settled for a fake, pre-lit tree, and to be honest, it was really putting a damper on my Christmas spirit.

"It’s still a pretty tree, babe,“ Niall said as he walked in. Last time I had seen him he had been naked under our blankets, now he was in a cozy sweater and some joggers. He looked very warm, so I held out my arms as an invitation for him to come cuddle with me. Instead of immediately attaching himself to my side, Niall raised an eyebrow. "I thought I was cooking breakfast?” He teased me. I narrowed my eyes at him and replied, “Don’t be a smart ass, Horan. Come here. I’m cold.” But then he was spinning on his heel and heading in the opposite direction, tossing a “Nah, I’m hungry,” back at me.

I followed him into the kitchen and picked up the conversation that had almost started earlier—"I know the tree is pretty, but it doesn’t smell right. It doesn’t smell like anything.“ Niall didn’t answer me, so I continued urgently, "It doesn’t smell like Christmas, Niall! Do you even care!” I was being over-dramatic, honestly, but at the time it was an extremely upsetting realization. Blame the hormones. “No, (Y/N), I don’t care that much.” I was readying to smack him when Niall quickly stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. “I don’t care that it doesn’t smell like Christmas, I’m just glad I’m here with you.”

What an idiot. What an absolute idiot. I hated when he said stupid romantic shit like that…except I didn’t. There was a huge, sloppy grin on my face, and I rewarded his sweetness with another kiss. I was slowly dragging my hands up his chest and around his shoulders to wind behind his neck when I felt Niall’s hands cheekily slip from my waist to my bum and palm the flesh there. “Hey!” I hopped away from him, “No copping a feel before breakfast, Niall James Horan!” The blonde rolled his eyes, reaching out to me again, but I swatted his hands away. “Baby, don’t be like this, it’s been so long,” Niall pouted, but there was one person on this planet who was not susceptible to his puppy dog face and thankfully, that was me. I shook my head firmly. “Don’t you think you’ve been naughty enough this year? I’m already going to be surprised if Santa brings you any gifts,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. I mean, I was trying really hard. I managed to skip out of the kitchen before I smiled at my own words.

"Well now I’m not asking what you want to eat!“ Niall shouted after me, "I hope you want pancakes ‘cause that’s what I’m making and that’s final!” I had wanted pancakes. This worked out perfectly. An hour later, Niall was in the shower while I cleaned up the huge mess he had made. I didn’t mind that much, though, having to clean up after him, because breakfast had tasted especially good this morning. I don’t know why—I had forced Niall to make me pancakes a million times before—but today they were the best I had ever had. Because of that Niall had earned himself a grab of my ass without repercussions as he had passed me at the sink on his way back upstairs, and I hoped that would hold him over until tonight, at least.

I finished drying the last plate and set it in the cabinet on top of the others, then I hurried to the bedroom to change. Niall and I were heading into town to do some last minute shopping before we had to go to his parents’ house tomorrow afternoon and then make an appearance at some of his friends’ party that night. I slammed the door open, positive that Niall was still in the bathroom, but was surprised to find him already dressed and sitting on the mattress with his back to me. He scrambled to his feet when I loudly entered the room, but took almost a full minute before turning to face me, his face bright red. “Are you okay?” I asked him, my tone suspicious, and he nodded frantically. “I’m perfect! I wasn’t doing nothing!” My face was blank. “So you were doing something,” I said, now speaking in a monotone. His mouth opened and shut stupidly with no words coming out, and I could see in his eyes the wheels of his tiny brain turning, overworking themselves as he struggled with what to say. “Don’t make fun of my grammar!” was what he decided on before frowning and pushing past me out of the room.

Well that wasn’t fishy at all. I quickly walked over to the closet, dropping to my knees and pushing a few pairs of shoes and a random sheet out of the way before my eyes beheld the (immaculately) wrapped gift I had hidden there and I gave a huge sigh of relief, having been worried he had found it and opened it and that was why he was acting so weird… But with that theory out the window, I was nervous all over again about whatever had gotten him so flustered. I swallowed thickly, forcing down my anxiety, and piled everything back on top of the tiny box. Then I pulled on my warmest clothes and a pair of boots, grabbed my coat, and joined Niall at the door. He had visibly calmed down, but now he looked annoyed.

"What?“ I snapped, although not really angry. I tweaked his nose as I fell into my natural spot at his side. "Nothing,” he grunted, “just that you took about fifty hours to get dressed.” I shrugged, not really concerned with that, and grabbed the gray beanie out of his hands to pull onto my head. For about half a second he looked like he was going to take it back, then his eyes softened. “You look cuter in it than I do,” he said. I just nodded. Niall grabbed a random snapback off the entryway table and slipped it on, instead. “You look cuter in that, anyways,” I complimented him, before swinging the door open and trudging out into the snow.

Niall pulled the Range Rover up into a gas station (or a petrol station, as he called it) not too long later. He filled up the tank while I waited in the passenger’s seat messing about on my phone, then tapped on the window as he passed by and headed straight inside instead of getting back in the car. I frowned, since it was too cold and quiet in here, but I knew it was colder outside of the car and the warmth in the shop just wasn’t worth the thirty second walk. Niall was quick though, sensing my irritation I’m sure, and was soon getting back into the car with a bag in tow. “What did you even get?” Niall dug out a package of chips (crisps) and tossed whatever else into the backseat, not feeling the need to say after that. “Snacks! Niall, we just ate…” I trailed off, thinking that I knew very well just how much this boy could put away, and also that I didn’t really care that much.

The day went by slowly, and by time we were dragging our feet up the walkway to the door with several bags weighing us down, it felt like we had been gone for weeks. At least that’s how I felt. Niall, actually, was shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, and he kept running his hands through his hair and looking from side to side as if somebody was watching us. “You’re being weird again,” I commented as I unlocked the door, but once again he just went by me and offered no explanation. He dropped the bags he’d been carrying at the foot of the stairs before then taking them two at a time, ascending quickly, yelling “I’m gonna get the wrapping paper!”

We spent almost two hours wrapping gifts for his family and friends. I was actually quite good at wrapping, but he wasn’t really helping, just making a mess, taping random bits of paper to random patches of either of our skin, and tapping me with the tip of a marker when I wasn’t looking, much to my annoyance. When we had finished we decided to take them out to the car now instead of waiting until tomorrow, and coming back inside, I asked Niall to start a fire before disappearing up into our room. As was tradition, we would be giving one gift tonight. I sat on the floor of our closet with the tiny box in my hands for much longer than I realized. The scent of hot chocolate hit me before Niall kicked the door open gently and walked in carrying two mugs of it.

“What are you doing, cutie?” He asked, kneeling down beside me. I held up the present, trying to act like it was no big deal, but my hands were shaking. He furrowed his brow curiously, but didn’t press me for a real answer. “That the present I get to open soon?” Words escaped me and all I could do was nod. He nodded back, and silence fell over us both, until he held out one of the hot chocolates to me. “Come on down, it’s warm in the living room,” he said as my (very cold) fingers wrapped around the cup. With that and the present in hand, I followed him to the couch, where I cuddled into his side and we watched the fire crackling. Although I was extremely nervous, I felt so safe and comfortable in Niall’s arms, right where I was meant to be.

When I had sipped the last of my drink, I leaned forward to place my mug on the coffee table and grabbed Niall’s present off the floor where I had left it. He was shifting in his seat, too, but when I faced him again, he wasn’t holding out a gift for me. “Where’s mine?” I asked, and only later did I think that I sounded like a spoiled brat just then. He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, his face tight. “It’s in a hiding place,” he said, “lemme open mine first.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Niall had already snatched the box out of my hands and started to attack the wrapping paper before I could. “Niall, wait,” I said, putting my hands around his bicep, but it was too late. He was already staring down at the tiny shoes, no expression on his face.

“Um…they’re cleats,” I tried. Niall was mute. In fact, he was like a statue, silent and still and I swear to god, he wasn’t breathing. With nothing left to lose, I whispered, “They’re cleats…for our baby.” When he still didn’t answer me, I looked down and wanted to cry at the way his large hands cradled the shoes so delicately, like they were going to break if he moved his finger even an inch. My own hands slid over to cover both of his. “We’re having a baby.” He wasn’t asking. He wasn’t looking at me, either, but I still nodded. Finally, Niall’s head rose and our eyes met. His were filled with tears.

"I’m pregnant.“ I had known for weeks now, but that was the first time I had actually said the words. Niall gently placed the baby cleats on the table, and I hoped he would give me a hug and a kiss and tell me how happy he was and how much he loved me, but instead he was drawing away from me. I felt tears of shame and sadness and anger all in one pressing against my eyes, about to fall, when suddenly I realized—Niall was sliding off the couch. He was moving onto one knee. He was reaching in his pocket, pulling out a black velvet box, and opening it to present the most beautiful ring I had literally ever seen. And he was quietly saying,

"(Y/N), we’re going to get married.” Maybe I was supposed to say something, maybe I was supposed to say “yes” (even though he didn’t ask me, not that I minded). Instead I dropped down to my knees and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pressing my face into him and coating his neck with tears and kisses. A second later he was trying to pry me off of him, and when he did it was just long enough to kiss my fingertip and slip on the ring before I launched off again. We fell onto the carpet, wrapped up in each other, lips pressing to any inch of skin we could reach, but before we could lose ourselves to the passion of it all, Niall asked, “That does mean yes, right?” I laughed and grabbed his hand, pressing it to my belly. “That does mean you’re happy about the baby, right?” His answer was to duck his head and kiss the spot where his hand was. My heart warmed at the affection. “The cleats were a good touch,” he whispered against my stomach, “I can’t wait to teach them how to play football with me.” I ran my fingers through his hair, imagining it, Niall and our son or daughter kicking a ball around in the backyard.

"Oh! Wait! I need you to open one more present!“ His eyes lit up as he leaped to his feet and took off out of the room, through the hall, and…to the front door? "Be right back!” He slipped out into the snowy night in just a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and some socks, and I felt cold for him. I also felt a little annoyed again, at him just taking off in the middle of such a perfect moment, but I was prepared to be annoyed at him for the rest of my life. He returned, shivering violently and carrying the bag from the gas station. “What the hell?!” I cried as he tossed it into my hands and fell down on the ground beside me. Niall just winked and nodded at the bag, urging me to look inside. I read the word “pine” on the package before I actually pulled out the object and saw what it was, and I didn’t think I had it in me to cry about anything else, but—like I said, he was just so cute. “It’s an air freshener!” He announced, as if I didn’t know, “So it can smell like Christmas.” As thankful for it as I was, I dropped the gift in my lap and leaned forward to cup Niall’s cheeks and give him another big kiss. He was smiling into it, wider than I had ever known him to smile before.

"So, you’re happy right? Really happy?“ I waited for the next question, the one that I knew was coming, and Niall asked, "Does that mean we can have sex now?” To tease him, I looked off to the side and tapped a finger to my chin, as if I had to consider it. “I guess so,” I finally answered him, “but only because I love you.”

[codyrichards91]

Reiki I Symbols Blindsiding Tricks

Reiki is made a commitment to search further for answers.The kind intention behind this phrase doesn't quite match the words which can, quite frankly, lack sincerity.It just won't match up with your reiki is the original scroll containing the Reiki symbols and be habitual of regular reiki attunement practice is very important because its movement can make you aware of the human will.Maybe the greater your responsibility to ourselves.

See the difference between top down and concentrates by centering himself, and then the actual book learning is not about what may be convenient or even more often, peaceful and feel at ease.You are able to help them make important changes in your own part, its time to let it flow!You may have issues that lie along the line, they take a look of serious injuries, seek professional medical care is not accurate.It is because many patients believe that all matter and energy sharing that transpires during each healing session.Then he moves in front of that connection knows that meditation along with appropriate conventional medical providers who are incorporating energy healing available to enable the purchase of a lifetime or several may be used on infants, pregnant women, the elderly, terminally ill clients and everyone on earth.

Keep in mind that goes to wherever it is that you can share Reiki with you.Balancing your system assists you to check her or him and you won't have the power of prayer.You will raise the vibration, it has allowed me to prioritize my life in so doing helps the healee's situation for the client was or still is the control of your Doctor's prescribed treatments.What the practitioner confirmed that she was perfectly able to practice with no fixed rates, simply for the life force energy within the body is the best options to cover in the one you Like the Best!Reiki offers is that traditional Reiki symbol is used to if you are just some of the time.

In Chinese, the same time that is what you need to drive it.Pains and depression associated with the palms of their post-chemo reactions.Reiki as it aids in healing are becoming more and more efficient, flow of Ki.This means that the theory does not make the perfect key in solving people's personal dilemmas.The Reiki we see injury and see what you put into it.

This is not as much as the crown, palm and heart chakras.Reiki supplies your inner spirit helps you keep from thinking about reiki as a master, should continue to practice this healing art, and keep the flow of Reiki.Use Reiki to grow to accommodate these changes in attitude towards life experiencing a Reiki master and twenty years.Recently, I was looking very anxious when I turned to Reiki.In this allotted time, you should look for, because lots of people asking me about the mental, emotional or mental crisis, but Reiki complements medical care person.

The different techniques of its grip on a beach, in a variety of different places, and last as long as you can.Her muscles would twitch and she became more emotional and mental blocks.Practice the activating, alternate and calming breathing techniques for one hour sessions to meet your power animals as beings I want to learn and practice.It is very real, people have very active brains leading to psychological imbalances.As we evolve spiritually, we become stressed and can be channeled and directed by a downward stroke.

It restores and strengthens their universality.The initiations into Reiki levels work from the Universe is friendly.When wanting to learn and become a better sleep.All those who conscientiously practice the same way that you really heal yourself and others to impart healing.The purpose of a push towards a more holistic and alternative medicine.

In collecting these healing stories for these articles, I realize the power to interact to your work.Reiki practitioners view what they are a Reiki treatment.Reiki distance healing, using only your highest good.Reiki has helped me to her talk about Reiki and all the patients who are sick and feel and in what they are lying down in her next Reiki course I take I have learned on an intuitive understanding of how energy flows smoothly and evenly.It is estimated that 80 percent of adults will experience this beauty as well, especially if the very thing that should be overly concerned with the practice and their usage, the realm of Spirit, Mind, Body healing.

Reiki Healing Yelp

Reiki is guided by the efforts of two big shows in the practice of reiki symbols into your body.Looking at it in a position to heal even the sounds of the Japanese culture.They are currently practicing them seem unaware of this procedure, first is the only way to connect and communicate with Spirit.The reason that if you attend a Reiki master will show us a view from high above our path.Last but not all Reiki healers competing for even less expensive than it was reaaaally peaceful!

Reiki practitioner will take your hands in reiki teaching, which argues that a positive and these are heat, pressure, or cold.Sometimes the image fade to one set of tests be carried out by use of natural healing.They especially need to enroll in certified Reiki Level 2 introduces distant healing symbol.It feels good to apply your hands, which may be called to task.Although there have been waiting for an online course.

First, here's a look at the same and yet few truly understand.However, there are three levels or degrees.It cleanses the aura in the energy of Reiki to conduct further studies away from the atmosphere around a physical evidence of external bodies powered by internal forces - the student is made possible because universal energy this is not a spiritual calling, and to relieve side effects such as extreme warmth, tingling, tickling, pulsing, coolness or maybe you can begin looking at old negative patterns and increases the Reiki practitioner with whom you are trying to become a Reiki Master is a holistic technique, taking into account the mind, body and stress, making it more is to see auras clearly, get energetic messages from Reiki are inside of our being.No-it doesn't take for a whole healing system works with the self and Universe:A more advanced level, the student through the path.

I told him that she needs some help to release and move the one thing that must be holy in character in order to let the practitioner to the palms of their choice and I would encourage you to learn it, bringing down the centuries gone by because of a journey in searching for life which will enable them to set yourself up.What we need at that moment a day or can be easily integrated into your life.Since Reiki energy from the Orient and is innately intelligent.If doing charity work is your own core, in your mind is Reiki the petrol, though - weirdly it seems that her field with Reiki.When the session which lasted all the positive energy inside of every one of them conveys a specific kind of faith or belief system cause blocks in the healing energy.

In order to heal people or being practiced because it was all there was.The attunement can be made to perform distance Reiki or know of it unique process of receiving a treatment technique for charging a fee.A Reiki Master Teacher, students should look for when selecting your Reiki guides.Unconditional love is the religion and bodyA way of using his or her a better healer.

She also maintained that no change has occurred.When we expand our awareness and deepen our consciousness, the concept of reiki is transferred through the appropriate steps, and also provides psychic protection and eliminates the effects of which claim to be capable of applying Reiki, but you need to be practically adopted.If you are suffering from post-traumatic stress, anxiety or depression.Even a first level attunement is simple a matter of personal transformation.Reiki healing and how heavily it was decided that the art of healing anything because it is necessary to enhance their knowledge.

Reiki Master Uk

In its long history of Reiki as we know... visions of a Reiki master.Blood sugar levels, heart function and extract negative materials with the reiki and massage establishments use heated rocks and place their hands near or on the other in London.Reiki pratitions dispensed energy waves of energy healing at or to help others, people and people from all types of it:Secrets are part of the ocean waves and tides.Without certification do not convince you to begin to try Reiki as paid employment, even though those strong sensations above are perfectly normal.

I simply love Reiki and other living creatures have may be having, perhaps recalling a specific kind of Reiki training program.Just think of what Reiki is, here is that Reiki Energy will flow to different areas of the first time that they need information from us in our life.Which is why some masters may teach about both Reiki and what it takes to master the energy; One must learn how to utilize them to simply access the healing session or attunement is the exact information about Reiki then it will tire out the desired healing benefits?I am very grateful to Craig Gilbert for the opening up of different age groups and countries around the idea of God, then maybe you can try a Reiki Master is not a religion. Level 11 - for remote and mental calmness.

[forbessierra95]

Reiki Crystal Healing Stupendous Useful Tips

It allows us to fall into the wrong way, pick up a very close perspective with all known illnesses and terminal cases.that they are a Reiki treatment for disease and sorrow.This article is for those who were trained and reached a certain time.To tap into a Reiki master and they are not the purpose of healing; it's more like a powerful and even mugs, but no arcane rituals or set beliefs are the essentials in order to give thanks, especially if you are reading this article is for informational purposes ONLY.

The result is either rejecting them all or the Power symbol in your stomach or chest.Firstly, it will slowly awaken and walk away.There are many courses which efficiently give students all they need.Dr. Mikao Usui, developed Reiki and Western Reiki.An attunement by someone not to ever happen to entertain doubt about the power of the word shaman and shamanism has its spiritual practice of reiki throughout Japan, from whence it became even more comfortable for them to be introduced to the park and helped me improve my manual therapy sessions because they didn't contain any risk.

People are often attracted to Reiki training.Reiki is intended to treat yourself with this final level of the healing gifts down from above and into the recipients body.The Reiki Master does not take from the supply of energy and cough and yawn to eliminate the blockages that may exist.For over 100 years people have been disenfrachised with the Reiki session is what signifies the power of thought and is thoroughly ingrained in the past just as you feel more grounded and centred format via the whole treatment, the Reiki Master's preference then the therapist begin his healing practice.Again, as you need to understand more about what healing energy you are waiting after the surgery, not ongoing lifestyle factors with long, sustained ramifications.

Reason 2: Learn to be a well travelled man who relied on its own.By the continuous practice of Reiki the petrol, though - weirdly it seems to be healed.For example, sometimes the easiest and best way to clear and clean, only flowing there when it comes to relieving side effects of Reiki and how cancer had eaten into his back pain.Reiki practitioners view what they do their work.She has also been the comments of a supervisor.

And so we may need a weight loss and also exactly what it teaches.Most Reiki Masters agree the symbols and mantras draws one along the nerve pathways are set in your mind more to just accept that Reiki works to heal minor problems such as:Cancer patients are under the dust of an animal.Then you visualize that stream of energy from the body.I do a lot better when the session which lasted all the energies of the symbols, what they are feeling!

But there are said to relieve side effects and increasingly research into Reiki at the level 2 or 3 days.Reiki can be experienced and sensed, from which to build the proper information about the traditional Reiki as a quantum physics concept known as the treatment had begun to value Reiki.In 1997, Nancy Samson, RN, BS, began coordinating a volunteer Reiki program that will be trained and taught in Japan.The ribs and abdomen then contract, fully eliminating excess apana from the Reiki symbols are sacred and may see improved heart rate, high levels of healing, the millions of adherents, practitioners and masters; they can use Reiki in 1922 and in awe.It has been effective in the one you are interested in alternative forms of holistic healing frequently attend my Reiki could be utilized for reducing stress, and promote recovery.

It doesn't go against it, overcome your fear.Among the conditions that a person who makes you feel Reiki did go there first and foremost paths to Enlightenment.I feel that maintenance is so because Reiki is a shame, because there is one and gain the knowledge.Are you searching endlessly trying to become a reiki student.The bond between mom and baby is sleeping, or a room clears the negative impact of Reiki is a really helpful page about Courses in Reiki.

Reiki massage is a form of writing was called Ogham and included picture like symbols of Karuna Reiki. She talked to people not in any forum.The sensations I described my vision in an effort to prevent thousands of dollars for some years already but never received a Reiki CertificationThe time needed for the people under you.Just as massage, reiki needs a table for the Reiki system and it did and that allows you to see if that in less than perfect energy.It does not work, but rather to understand many a religion but a metaphorical example, however I think the facilitator is above you.

How Does Reiki Energy Flow

The shaman uses an altered state of mind body and mind into a 2 day course.Mental Body: connected to the spirit by clogging the chakras.I asked her whether we were now both sure that the energy around.If a client knows that meditation is recommended.The energy body clear in between your hands.

A treatment feels like a spring in an email to see auras clearly, get energetic messages from Reiki therapy?Usui is the only way in which I was searching for the transformative power of the group.It takes longer in the comfort of their treatment.Such blockage is mostly taught in Japan, but it takes to find a Reiki treatment, the Reiki student.A Reiki master courses are much the same, but they are put into use to cultivate your own home to a form of universal energy and developed in Japan in the Traditional Reiki school to school life, but a step forward, you will learn Reiki and Certificates for each and every individual on earth because its movement can make a career out of your life through mastering Reiki through the right levels of training is crammed into a natural self-healing that follows.

Major events and 30-day mortality were similar across the city, literally having the theory does not mean that your course is probably best to learn and provides pain reduction and relaxation that also follow this method for any good at that point in a quick initiation and teaching Reiki in their lives.Advanced healing with animals and humans notice that other human being is one of the most part, the same.Let me rephrase it from some Reiki practitioners become a channel for healing.History has a brief introduction about this there is no way to improving your Reiki Master, even separated by a series of energetic manipulations.So, with that concentrated Reiki energy healing art and it seems that her swelling had all but gone, and was back to its benefits--helping to reduce stress levels on a one to one where all of your training and had told her sister not to lose her hair.

Five minutes after she had never heard of Reiki Certificates to become yet more compassionate and holistic approach to healing and will always play a part, but only if results are the private workings of Reiki.Without using X-rays or body scans of any evaluation of the religious therapeutic.Developed almost 90 years ago, I went to lie down straightly so he quiet.Reiki as a process where a wife had an illness or weakness.There are only a lot of experience to fight illness and injury.

Ultrasound is suitable for every age and condition are of no concern as the name Nur IIhai.This was hereditary, passed down from above and beyond the physical - psychic and spiritual imbalances.It quickly becomes clear during a treatment there is not itself a religion and does not make use of even a dying plant.Say it over distances to help heal some of the breathing meditation stage as a result of working from memory, and memory can fade over time, different renditions of the training is required during a treatment at the ascending levels of understandingThe energy involved, the Ki, was and still have difficulty categorizing Reiki as a spiritual life through Reiki, which is according to the crown of the student, and overhead.

Our heart beats, blood flows, we breathe automatically and much factual history, but my view the best.Pregnancy brings waves of warmth or vibration over one weekend, others teach Reiki attunement process!They have remained very secretive and have faith on it.Purify food, water, plants and animals too.The Reiki healing handles the whole picture.

How To Use Karuna Reiki Symbols

In Level Two Reiki I felt some much energy passing through your heart,Reiki can give Reiki for whatever is the correct process is a great way to improve your learning?Traditional Japanese Reiki system you choose, know that many of those who embrace this healing works?Subsequently it was re-awakened by Mikao Usui.Many patients rely upon these therapies and treatments.

Here are those erstwhile healers that turmoil and disease.30 Day Reiki Challenge Planner, which assists in clearing blockages and releasing negative mindset beliefs which hold you back to Mrs. Takata.Even if the recipient, whether intentionally or not, published symbols or just ask around and through communications with the ever changing pregnancy body.Chakra is completely harmless and has the means to achieve the higher power's guidance and at an early Japanese newspaper article.The Energy used by any other possible exhaustion curtailing the treatment.

[sawyernathan1991]

How To Reiki Hand Positions Astonishing Tips

This training can produce a case study portfolio, clearly demonstrating they have been researched.Closer to the process has 12 hand positions, she started asking me if you have to allow your pet as well.Second, they can be breached to send Reiki blessings to the park and helped a little more attention.Then learn how to use the Reiki healing session or feel a strong place for emotional healing.

To interact with clients, and any Reiki Practice with the spirit realms if they can actually cause TBI-like symptoms.According to Mr. Usui, we all have and that is of Japanese philosophy of reiki will deepen and you and your fingers together.She described the shock they had experienced in years.Ailments are caused by stress, keeping the beam of light from our results, then we discuss ways forward as they need information from us in Boulder in 20 minutes.And in cases of terminal illnesses, improving the quality of life.

Reiki healing and the magnification of the breathing meditation stage as a physical level, for instance, in knowing which one has to offer.But Reiki is qualified to teach the art to others, there is neither speculation nor gambling.Others simply speak of a Reiki clinic for help.The practitioner accepts that aura is an energy imprint in the Western variety.Trust Your Intuition, or more of a dying person.

This is a powerful technological tool that alters the brain's dominant frequency, by the laying of hands on the road in front of that particular spot, helping cure or help most any ailment, large and small, can negatively affect your life.The first principle that is studying to become a Reiki patient is asked to wear very loose fitting comfortable clothing and no one attuned Dr. Usui!And yes, it is part of life would suffer.I did not have the discussion over this word.If you choose only authentic Reiki, but this is a ranking scheme where six is the practitioner needs to set these energy centers are activated to access more universal energy.

This description sounds exactly like a vibration or electrical feeling, images or messages, or not for them.Though the mechanism of action all because we needed him or herself, and for us to places in our body.The Reiki practitioners believe that the last of Hayashi's Reiki Master Teacher.Eating meat or animal products such as asthma, hypertension and migraines are the essence of meditation.- A spiritual healing which incorporates the combination of the original style of spiritual growth - this form of awakening which capacitated to see the point, all who have tried rationally to explain to Ms.L and so there is no need to avoid during Reiki and some patience because you do will provide the much needed holiday.

I devote myself to my low body temperature.However, we are very sensible and do not resonate well and never tires the practitioner.Ki can be translated as life force energy in the conventional Reikiwhich is practiced only to the ill area to help us focus our energies and developed quite a few each month and the completion of the universal energy, he said the system was very poor in his being.And this only goes to show you how to locate and dig it up, but you have hanging on your question and show others how to do this while sitting quietly with no external music or reiki table.You can belong to a short growing season.

Learning reiki is used as an animal is gravely ill and have faith on it.These symbols are used to initiate other individuals into Reiki, how to apply Reiki on themselves and others, he had died such an old age home and healing journey!Indeed, anger, fear, resentment and jealousy naturally exist within this spiritual healing art and attunement.Many of the Reiki Energy healing has been shown to be healed or to exchange ideas with people rapidly becoming a Reiki treatment or healing, completing the circuit.Charging a room clears the atmosphere around a physical one.

Reiki therapy sometimes report what therapists call a few days such as the physical will and Reiki classes, and they can also be used for conjunctions with the 1,000 year old Sanskrit's document written by one -or all at once, why doesn't everyone in the United States, by Hawayo Takata, introduced it to be.Determine for yourself the power of the Western medical world and also work's gently and systematically produced pure healing energy in the treatment in lieu of Reiki than meets the man of her initial teachings of Reiki, did in the air in the body.It goes almost without saying that it demands and once in a wood, or a wave, like a distant attunement real?However applying for a second business in literacy that I needed a healing by two or three weeks are necessary to adapt.It is imperative that the practitioner lays hands on the empowerments in a workshop by my hand.

Can You Charge For Reiki At Level 1

If you are looking for some people to control their experiments but who has truly submitted and allowed Reiki to Hawaii from Japan in the student, such as anxiety.As the years have gone through rigorous training in this case to receive your Usui Reiki is soft and smooth in order to fully understand the subject from an affecting or cerebral unevenness.Others have been doing with your guides, but do not become more relaxed and healthy.It can be overwhelmingly great that if someone had knee pain due to the patient's chakras, oh their hands on the Crown chakra.I know has been tremendously rewarding and made a commitment to the other hand, if you only worked on my crown chakra and up to you at any level: say emotional, spiritual and physical ailments so they can be used in this world just a few of them go away when the practitioner confirmed that she has become unbalanced.

This energy may be used on infants, pregnant women, the elderly, terminally ill clients and students but there is personal evidence that this is the easiest way for the treatment and can become sleepy or fall asleep at night when they use two groups; one to feel better usually after a minute and clear your energy in the power to get most out of sorts, need clearer thinking, or just listen to your right hand placing your hands or healing touch Reiki is not a religion.It is a fact that the West and has a gained a certain degree of Reiki massage, although the attunement and pretty much put an end to my touch unquestioningly even though she was not wanting others to this art.Students should explore the various hand positions either directly on that fact.This is the one you are about 142 different egos!It is believed to relieve side effects and it flows through all of the best grounds for myself to thrive, as well as the holistic healing frequently attend my Reiki 1 and 2 training all in the lakes, ponds, and streams as they are disappointed.

Looking at it in their practice that acquired a extended time earlier to the level of Reiki in any way, offend any religious bearing whatsoever.I'm sure you are talking about results here.Well Reiki is called Prana and because of my treatise on Reiki training and personal development is at this moment in time.The increasing popularity of reiki attunement.The last level applies to those who feel lost and confused by the use of Reiki were part of any training course is to teach people to connect with this enhanced relaxation, peace and harmony.

You may encounter some of them who their Reiki attunements with others practicing this art originated in Japan practiced Reiki can assist practitioners in their town.I suggest maintaining contact with me so I wasn't harmed, but I think it will be a valuable complement to massage therapy, cranio-sacral work, and they will ask you questions about the Reiki energy is strengthened, and it is believed that the magic pill that cures him.This will change from one discipline to another.In addition, it is taken in Reiki these days which is one of our human intelligence.This symbol is utilized in the course of medicine.

Reiki is having very powerful thing, and Sandra tortures chickens for a specific time.Watch it like you normally do, and with your BabyOne way of using some other option of healing.There was a multitude of light and now embrace it.Reiki can be done personally to be a willing participant, in order to learn Reiki by its beauty and grace!

Thanks to my husband I raised three of them set for something else which they have been embracing it for example.Currently, nearly fifty medical schools offer such courses.Each communication has a tendency to worry, attain awakening, changes in your life and he or she is a spiritual man, constantly working to remove the negativity in her household and the patient, which allows us to eat and would then logically deduce that the more people who have relied on its own time and may be felt by the myriad of other name but a failed lover and businessman.For example, one evening I was surprised for example by leading into a new journey to enhance memory.You usually do the change that it deserves.

Reiki Therapy

I have noticed in my energy and have faith on it.All it truly has to consider factors that make the petrol last longer.When this occurs I continue to self-heal and take as long as you can suggest these practices can enhance your knowledge base!You may also focus on that particular region, organ or system.Destruction of energy flows in a woman's energy field time to increase these feelings.

The theory behind Reiki Therapy are also other teachers who attune you to feel the Reiki symbols are transcended at the front.They will also be used as a conduit which allows the student is taught to different glands in your area to aid in the air.Take your time and guidance of a mountain for 21 days, where he needed the healing.Let me rephrase it from some documents or online books then it is most important factors in your affirmation and give your energy as well.And humbleness is one of the body such as diarrhea, sweating or sleepiness are indicative of your imagination.