#it's outside is black and smooth from the acid rains and sun

[rivendellsstuff]

𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑

𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 | Because Grisha Jaeger had placed a lot of expectations on all his children, but especially on (Y/N).

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1790;

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: Mentions of canon-typical violence. Inspired by the song “Brother“ by Kodaline; and, yes, that is part of a story that I will never publish.

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: Hello! This is the second time I have ventured into writing a story in English. I hope, with all my heart, that I am managing to evolve and that the text is understandable. If you spot a misspelled word or anything else, feel free to let me know.

────── ▎She had no other pleasure that morning than to walk barefoot on the grass, still damp from the light drizzle that had occurred the night before.

She was lightly shaking a small basket, which she had made herself the year before from the thinnest branches of a cherry tree, while she sang a quiet melody among the bushes and trees that began to surround her. It was a very hot and humid afternoon. On the way to the apple tree, the light was so intense that she shielded her eyes.

The aroma of ripe apples began to gather strength around her. With her fingertips, she gently caressed the fruits she loved. They were ready to be picked, and she smiled, satisfied.

A slight rustling from the right side caught the attention of Grisha Jaeger's eldest daughter, startling her, causing her eyes to quickly search for the source of such.

It was Mikasa.

Her gray dress was a shade darker than her eyes and her black hair shone in the sunlight, her hands closed around her red scarf. She knew it was Mikasa's habit to do this to make sure it was always hanging around her neck. Somehow, it seemed to calm her.

''Hey,'' (Y/N) greeted the younger girl. ''Is everything okay?''

At the present moment, she barely spoke to her adopted sister, although everyone seemed charmed by her. Mikasa was an incredibly intelligent and strong child, no doubt she had managed to escape a terrible situation, the mere mention of which made (Y/N)'s stomach clench and her heart soar in her chest. The most remembered mark on the girl's personality, however, was her incredible sense of loyalty to Eren. Of this, anyone who had spent at least two days with her could tell.

And, yes, it was true that the two did not know each other very well, but in light of the short time they had been together, she had found out enough to know that Mikasa was real and part of the family.

''Yes,'' Mikasa answered, shyly, after a minute of silence. ''May I... accompany you?

''Oh, I don't see why not,'' the older woman smiled tenderly.

The two sisters raised their eyes to the apple trees and began picking them by the bunches. The sun was high enough to illuminate the whole place, although its light was in the treetops. A very beautiful and welcoming place. Beside her, Mikasa seemed to think the same, with a small smile on her face and barely blinking her little eyes, wanting to memorize every detail. Even under the intense heat, fatigue didn't seem to discourage either of them.

''Amazing, isn't it?'', (Y/N) inquired to the younger girl, who blinked twice before turning to her. ''Here, hold this.''

Mikasa nodded and held up the small basket.

As (Y/N) tried to balance on the higher branches, Mikasa brought one of the red fruits to her lips, tasting the acidic freshness in her mouth, and her eyes narrowed at the slight acidity that characterized them, while her ears didn't seem to want to part with (Y/N)'s frustrated gasps.

''Oh, no, no!''

Mikasa's eyes widened as (Y/N) falls to the ground. While the girl still had her mouth open in surprise, her sister began to laugh. She remained on the floor, not caring about the wetness, but she didn't let the shadow of a smile escape Mikasa's face.

''Oh, so you think that's funny?'' she asked, and she wiped a single tear from her eyes, shaking her head negatively at her own shame.

With her tiptoe, she pushed the younger woman's heel hard enough to make her fall beside her.

A second lost, and then another.

Finally, letting go of her surprise, she let out a laugh, still holding the basket. It was a happy afternoon, the happiest in a long time for the two sisters, and before they knew it, the sun was beginning to set.

It was a happy afternoon, the happiest in a long time for the two sisters, and before they knew it, the sun was starting to set.

''We'd better go, little one. Mother will be furious with us if we're late for dinner,'' she said, smoothing her dress over her body. ''Let me fix this.''

Mikasa raised one of her eyebrows.

She ran her fingers over the scarf, smoothing it over her body, then lightly pinched the younger girl's nose, just like her mother used to do once upon a time.

The fall of Wall Maria marked the end of an entire era. It was a tragedy; an atrocity. On the day that so many people were torn from their homes and their lives, a permanent shadow shrouded the hearts of Grisha Jaeger's children.

There were no songs in that land that could tell the pain of (Y/N). There were no songs that could tell of Eren's anger. There was no song for the darkness that was submerged in the hearts of the Jaeger's brothers.

Eren and Mikasa were just two children when tragedy struck, and Grisha Yeager's eldest daughter, whose light once lit up the old house in Shiganshina, suddenly becomes an adult plagued by responsibilities too great.

Long weeks after the tragedy, (Y/N) was always trying to protect those kids. To keep them safe. Grisha and Carla never had to tell her that, but (Y/N) always felt like that was her responsibility. She just wanted Mikasa and Eren to be children. Just for a little while longer.

But then there they all were, watching in terror as a crowd was dragged in to reclaim the lost lands. There was no excited shouting or cheering. There was only an annoyed and doubtful murmur from the rest, because everyone seemed to know that it was just a way for the government to get rid of mouths to feed. Men and women, young and old; people with those who had lived for many years, pale and with eyes glistening with tears.

That day, Armin lost his only family.

That day, (Y/N) hugged the three boys and pulled them close, and begged - to whatever divine creature there was - that they would get through it.

Little Armin made no effort to stop the hot tears that wet his (Y/N) clothes when the gates were closed. The hat in his hands, once so light, suddenly seemed to become too heavy, too big. His knees trembled and he fell to the ground.

I am tired of losing friends.

Mikasa tries to swallow the lump forming in her throat. Her gaze was not childish, but knowing, sad, frustrated - no child should have that look. Eren, whose eyes were fixed on his friend's back, felt as if the air was caught in his throat, as if he was suffocating himself.

(Y/N) crouched down at Armin's height. When he raised his face, (Y/N) saw hers eyes mirrored in his blue eyes. She stroked the younger man's face without saying anything, just trying to calm him down.

"I am with you, Armin," she whispered. "I am with you."

''We did it!

The graduation of the 104th Recruit Squadron was a highly anticipated date for Eren, (Y/N), Mikasa and Armin. The date had arrived together with cold and humid weather, with light rains and the presence of little lightning and thunderbolts, but whose noise echoed throughout the place.

Everyone felt something different; Eren was struck with such great courage that he felt as if he could face anything from that moment on. Armin was overcome with a sense of a job well done, mystery, and curiosity about all the things that might be on the other side of the walls. Mikasa felt as if she was doing exactly what she was born to do, and although she didn't show it in words, she was pleased with the prominent position she received among all the other recruits.

After the formal introductions and dinner, the Jaeger's brothers gathered outside on the steps and the moonlight illuminated the entire clearing. There, where they stood, hardly any trees grew. It was cold, but not cold enough to make them sick, only to make them shiver.

For a long time, the two brothers remained sitting on the stairs. Neither of them started a conversation, but they were satisfied that way. After all they had done to survive, they couldn't help but wonder what they would become. Their whole lives had turned upside down after the fall of Wall Maria. They were survivors. They were soldiers.

Whatever they would become, (Y/N) just wanted to be there for Eren. For all of them.

Finally, the older woman put her right arm around Eren's shoulders. Although he was startled by her unexpected attitude, Eren relaxed his muscles and leaned over her. And in the end, that small gesture had been enough.

''I'm proud of us, man. I'm proud of what we've done,'' she said.

Eren nodded.

He listened attentively to her and understood everything she was saying. They had traveled a cruel road, where friends and family were left behind. They had suffered, but they would not give up easily.

Because we are the Jaeger. We don't run.

They fought to survive. They fought to complete their training. They fought to get what they wanted: to join the human cause. This caused many scars.

Eren was just a child like many others, but he had been forced to grow up. (Y/N) was an adult. She could have gone away. There were all the opportunities and all the desires to take what had been promised to her since her late teens - from suitors to the opportunity for study. She could have lived elsewhere and had a family with them, become an ordinary woman. Eren knew that. It would be stupid for her to reject that, foolish for her to keep running.

But she was his sister, and one brother doesn't let the other wander off alone.

Suddenly, Eren remembers. The younger man remembers when they were little, and she would tell a stupid joke to distract him while she put on a bandage after getting into a fight with the bullies who harassed Armin. He remembers how she would take over some of his work in the settlement, or how she would divide the food among the three youngest.

"Thank you for not giving up on me, sis."

That's her nature, he thinks.

And his nature to protect her now. There is nothing in the world he wouldn't do for her.

Eren hugs his sister tighter.

At that moment, what mattered wasn't the graduation. It was that the two siblings were together that night, in that place, looking out into the rainy night and thinking how proud their parents would be.

[aaetherius]

@cxffexngel:

[ cxffeexngel ] modern AU!! || because this has been in my mind for days sFÑKDSFDf have soft time!

Unlike the pouring rains of an announced storm and a message sent in a whim. Sandalphon’s invitation fell on a calm day, with pillowy clouds dusting the canvas of the stretching blue skies on a quiet afterwork hours of sundown. A confession made in days passed and an evergrowing bond with stolen gazes and lips touching whenever extra eyes did not pry over them. Sandalphon adored kissing lucifer, adored those warm welcomes whenever Lucifer was the one already first thing in the morning for their shared shifts, or taking that mantle himself and welcome the taller with cups ready in their favorite spot under the gaze of the sun filtered through the windows adorned in flowers that never had ceased coming as offerings and all the more secret words his voice couldn’t hope to whisper to the other. The you g man resided now during one of those free days closing the flowershop, dusting off tables and leaves, changing pots and moving those that needed extra hours of sun before the evening would claim the rest of the day thorough. The slightest tinge of anxiety clinging behind his mind, after mulling for hours to pour just exactly which words to type over the phone and let Lucifer know he could come over if he wanted to, having deleted the message over and over until settling with the simplest ’ I have nothing to do, feel free to come over if you want ’ only to be replied within seconds with the most adorable message, if not perhaps a bit formal considering Lucifer’s tendencies if not to how he adorned his texts with cutesy stickers the young man failed to not blush for or ever not find them less than endearing when they were between sheep, drawn cats happy with sparkles and very colorful animated ones. Ah, he really finds ways to fall in love with this man everyday, isn’t he? With the flowershop properly locked, and turning over the ’ Open’ sign to seal it for the day, the young barista and shoopkeeper is done for the day, the welcoming aroma of freshly brewed coffee permeating every inch of his home as it rests in idle silence, if not by the gentle song of water heating over the stove not too far from the main room - and the open bags of beans and cups ready to be filled. For now, Sandalphon only attempts drowning every voice about how anything could go wrong, his coffee going acid, the temperature not being right - thinking too much like Gran often liked to poke fun at the cranky barista those days the young man inadvertently broke into his house somehow despise having checked each of his locks twice or even trice just to ensure that the pest the other adored to make himself out to be couldn’t get in. Always futile because it seemed like no lock was match against Gran’s lockpicking and his indestructible will to simply invite himself into Sandalphon’s home. Sometimes even with the girl in blue who made it even easier for the barista to simply cave in and let them stay and steal his food. - those memories are enough to ignore the impending doom that could brew should he mull over the little details about this and that. A soundless sigh slips past somewhat dry lips, tired eyes blinking calmly when attention flicks towards one of the windows as gentle breeze blows curtains into a serene dance matching leaves of branches and leaves outside, palm over his cheek scratching aimlessly any tension left that arises as spontaneously as it leaves. Only finding light within the autumn scarlet within his eyes when spotting the familiar shine of opal locks shimmering behind the blurriness barely transparent curtains of white could offer casting a shadow over that form that Sandalphon could arguably recognize even amidst a crowed street. His body moving before he could think towards the main door, and fingers curling tightly over the handle to twist it and push the frame open for the other, a sheepish smile drawn all over dusted rose pale features, sporting Lucifer’s borrowed hood and black legging the young man often wore whenever there was no work to be done, and the always needed pair of heeled boots rarely Sandalphon took off. “A-Ah! Welcome, Lucifer! ” Sandalphon almost wanted to visibly wince at how drearily hoarse his voice comes despise his initial joy - but he doesn’t, instead clearing his throat with a small cough over his palm. “ Please come on! I’m readying our cups, feel free to choose any seat if you’re tired. ” Continues, while stepping to the side giving the taller enough space so he could finally step in, and their time together start and go along however it takes - ah, how feeble his heart is that the thought alone of Lucifer in his home makes it leap into his throat, and rob any coherent thought or even the plans he mulled over the whole morning about everything.

    Sandalphon’s text had kick started his heart after he had returned to his apartment to try out a handful of new coffee recipes he had written down in his journal when he hadn’t been attending to customers this afternoon - something that had become a less frequent habit of his following his confession as the slow hours were typically spent with his attention fixed on the barista instead of a notebook these days. He’d texted the other back before thinking much about his response - he could never deny Sandalphon’s company, and he had tossed off his work clothes to change into something a tad bit more casual in a matter of minutes as well…only to pause as he was slipping out of the door with a mildly displeased Ellie seated comfortably, he thinks, on the plush cushion nestled inside of the feline backpack strapped safely around his shoulders. After all, he couldn’t leave her alone for the night - that would be downright criminal when she’s spent a night on her since he had rescued her. His unwilling companion (who would have been perfectly content to romp around the apartment unattended) aside, he had realized that he hadn’t prepared anything to give to the other. Perhaps it was a somewhat trivial notion, but despite all of the flowers and beautiful poems Sandalphon had gifted him with, he hadn’t done much in return for the other. His own knowledge of flowers had come from the barista himself, and he had little talent when it came to writing out meaningful poems. Even Michael, who had known him nearly his entire life, struggled to follow his notes. Neat as his handwriting naturally was, he had a terrible habit of jotting down notes in a manner only he could truly understand. Ah, and bringing flowers to a flowers hop didn’t seem like a suitable gift either. Sweets wouldn’t do wither, Sandalphon favored bitter and savory foods, much like how he preferred his coffee. So, quickly, the smile upon his features had faded as he lingered in the doorway of his apartment, smiling softly at the various neighbors that walked past him. A low hum rumbles in throat for moment as he strokes his chin absentmindedly before turning tail back into the apartment, gingerly removing a handful of things from the cluttered bookshelf and carefully tucking them away behind Ellie so they weren’t terribly apparent before he slipped outside to a day distinctly unlike the one he had mindlessly invited Sandalphon over on when it had been storming dreadfully.

    The walk to the flower shop is a short one, yet, despite that, he checks his phone constantly on the way. He had memorized the address when the other had sent it to him, but the rush of joy that had held his heart tightly enough that it made his chest throb was enough to make that information leap to the very back of his mind. He had never been to the barista’s home before, and he hadn’t been aware of the fact that he owned a flower shop until very recently - to say he was delighted would be an understatement when he feels something akin to excitement for the first time in years; perhaps for the first time since he had dabbled in coffee that fateful say more than a decade ago. And his hand comes up to press firmly against the center of his chest as if doing so would somehow quell the swan song of his heart as every step brought him closer to the one he loves most. For so long, truthfully, he had felt numb - the emotions he harbored had been tucked deep within him, unable to break free from the constant guilt and sense of melancholy that hung over him. He had forgotten what feeling excited was like - what looking forward to something could be like, and he had thought, for quite some time now, that he was incapable of feeling something so unbridled. But Sandalphon brings him more joy than he could have ever dreamed of experiencing, despite the pain that comes alongside it, so he can only tighten his hold around the fabric clumped between his fingers as he exhales in the humid air, and allows his gaze to wander upwards towards the clear sky. Its color paling now that the better part of the day had come and gone, but it still casts a gentle, blue shadow onto his pale features as he stops in front of the flower ship, and Sandalphon’s home. Pearly strands of hair absorb the colors cast upon them, and reflect them back with a gentle shimmer that almost makes it appear as if wayward strands of his hair are glowing in an array of dazzling colors. Sometimes, he’s reminded, the world can be a beautiful place. But, truly, he’s always found the sky to be something remarkable - something free; something wondrous, and grand. As a child, he used to dream of reaching his hand up high enough to touch the clouds despite knowing all he would come away with were damp fingers. Even now, a small part of him is still drown to the vast blue, and the gentle, creamy clouds that float through it without a care.

    The click of the door draws him away from his thoughts, and he quickly loosens his hold on the white shirt he’s wearing before trying, and failing, to smooth out the wrinkles he’s formed in the fabric before trying, and failing once more, to cover them with the light blue sleeve of his hoodie as an impossibly warm smile spills onto his rosy lips. Their hue nearly the same shade as the color that dusts over Sandalphon’s features, though the utterly fond look stretched across Lucifer’s visage doesn’t quite match the other’s sheepish one. And it brightens all the more once he realizes the barista is wearing the hoodie he had borrowed from him. And that, too, makes his chest ache, but in a different way than the anticipation that had crept through his bloodstream a moment ago. Love is a strange thing, he thinks, it’s not a singular emotion but rather a collection of so many complex feelings he can’t place individual names to that he hardly knows what he’s supposed to feel at any given point in time. “Good evening, Sandalphon,” he offers, his voice gentle and soft and full of affection. And the sound of the other’s name appears to be all it takes for Ellie to meow loudly from her bubbly, lavender prison upon Lucifer’s back as she tries to crane her neck around to curiously peek beyond her owner’s shoulder at the younger man - her keen eyes narrowing into a glare once she spots that familiar nest of auburn hair. Lucifer, for his part, seems entirely unaware of Ellie’s struggles when he’s utterly captivated by the sight of Sandalphon dressed in his hoodie alongside his typical leggings and heels. “Thank you, and thank you for allowing me to visit you. I’m looking forward to tasting the coffee you’ve made, and – ah, I have something for you, as well, when we have a moment.” It’s hard for him to focus when he’s still awestruck by the sight of the homely flower shop that doubles as the barista’s residence. Something about it seems magical to him, perhaps if only because it’s where Sandalphon lives. And he can’t imagine a place he would rather be than beside the other, yet, even so, stepping into the smaller’s home is a strange mixture of comfortable and wonderful. His eyes wander everything and anything for a moment before he shakes his head gently to snap his attention back to Sandalphon. “I’m grateful you invited me over, and I’m so very happy to see you, Sandalphon.” Slowly, he reaches out his hand to push a few strands of auburn hair behind the other’s ear - his fingers gently gliding over the other’s skin as he leans forward to place a kiss in greeting upon the top of the smaller’s head before withdrawing again at the sound of another meow echoing against the rounded window of the backpack Ellie is still seated in, and he can’t stop the hoarse chuckle that falls from his lips. “Forgive me, I may have brought an uninvited guest along. She has never been left alone, so I’m afraid I didn’t have the heart to leave her behind today. I’m certain; however, that she’ll be on her best behavior. She’s rather fond of you after all.” Fond is not the word most people would use to describe Ellie’s feelings towards rival, and it most certainly wasn’t how the feline felt to the man she had dubbed an intruder in her quiet, and peaceful life, but, well, Lucifer, for whatever reason, was convinced they got along wonderfully.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Chizuru Town: The Dark and the Cold

TW: perverts TW: Death TW: Blood TW: Dragon Raja LMAO

Caesar and the MC should have been best friends. I kid you not. Revamped Story Quest in Chizuru below the cut!

In Siberia, winter hung long and low. Just as the tropic summer never seemed to end, the frigid canopy of arctic air never really left the place. For a few months, the sun didn’t rise over the horizon. At the peak of what should have been day, you only saw the glow of what looked more like the start of the dawn, before the sun rolled over and fell back under the horizon. Darkness descended in full and the stars were your only source of light unless you made your own.

The cold was so oppressive that it froze the sea. At night, instead of waves crashing on a golden shore, the ocean groaned like someone dying. Only in the summer, when the ice and permafrost softened, did you see hints of green. But they were always short. Eventually, the winter returned. Those who wanted to pretend it would not return were caught out by the fierce wind, unprepared, and froze to death in seconds.

Darkness and cold were embedded in you, MC, more than the weather. You understand the harshness of the world. Even though Caesar was doing his best to ‘play by the rules’ that icy law of ‘survival of the most deadly' was creeping up to surround all of you, like frost on a window. It had swallowed up Kitty and now Ms. Makoto. Only Caesar, Chu Zihang, and Lu Mingfei were left.

If that icy law dared threaten them, you would not hold back or play by any rules.

Caesar glimpsed this reality and tacitly acknowledged that Kitty’s death and Makoto’s offering to serve as bait for the gangsters was not in his game plan. He was looking outside down the drainage pipe through the hole in the wall of the dilapidated locker room. He could see the street below.

A heavy rain storm had moved over the city of Chizuru. EVA had darkened the city to help you escape the eyes of the Hydra underworld gang, but soon her grip would lose out to Kaguya, the Hydra’s own supercomputer.

Below, Caesar saw cars parked, engines still running, lights still on. Doubtless, these gangsters thought this would be a quick and easy job. Plus, the headlamps of cars served as good illumination. So they didn’t worry about them getting stolen. After all, they ran this town. No one dared touch their cars for fear of getting killed over it. Caesar nodded once. “Let’s see how good these kids are at racing.”

Kids. The word makes you want to spit acid. They were quite young but had nearly killed you countless times!

Caesar turned to look at you, gauging your reaction. “They are just kids. I hold the adults behind them more responsible.”

You stare back at him in silence but your expression is blank, listening. Your mind offers no arguments against the facts. Caesar’s logic seeps through, melting your frozen emotions. They had pursued you relentlessly, as if under strict orders not to leave until you were confirmed dead. Some of their weapons were military grade. It was true that children -- sixteen to twenty year olds -- wouldn't have been able to acquire such immense firepower without some sort of help from a higher authority.

Caesar’s eyes drop from your face. “Is that a local high school uniform?”

“Yes,” you say, your voice unexpectedly hoarse.

“Change out of it into one of the cheongsams here. I’ll be taking the car and I don’t want to be seen in a sports car with someone who looks like a high schooler. They might mistake me for one of those perverts!”

Even now, he was thinking of something like this? He could have escaped immediately but was concerned about his image? You quickly obey, snatching one of the red and gold cheongsams with a Chinese dragon embroidery off the hangers and stepping into the dressing room.

As you remove our clothes, you hear Caesar say. “Fold it up neatly, so we can return it to whomever you got it from.”

Your eyes widen in disbelief. Well, of course, you needed to steal it. But you never thought once of taking it back. As you slip into the cheongsam, the smooth fabric falls over your skin. A mirror lays against the wall and you use it to pull the zipper up in the back. The cheongsam clings to your form like a second skin. 

Caesar wasn’t just following the rules. If he was just following the rules, he wouldn’t have cared about any of this.

You had told Caesar about your experience in watching your young friends get killed. He wanted to get back at those people, not become one of them by killing anyone young himself. No matter how hard things got, Caesar was the same because he believed in what he did and required everyone around him to rise to the same standard of morality.

You step out of the dressing room and Caesar nods. “Alright, let’s go. Zihang, you can pick whatever granny car suits you best. I’ll be in the Black Viper!” He grinned broadly.

“Will Ms. Makoto be alright?” Lu Mingfei asked.

Chu Zihang nodded slightly. “She wasn’t seen with us. And they’re under orders. If they were going to hurt her, they would have done so right then and there. She’ll be fine.”

“Excuse me, my lady.” Caesar bends over to pick you up and keep you out of the dirty water.

You take the pipe two streets down and then hurry back to the running cars. Even now, Caesar opens the door for you first and then slides over the hood to the other side. The car interior is shiny and black with an LED touch panel lighting it up like a spaceship. In the center console, you spot a bag of white powder.

“Heroin?” You ask.

He points to the door on the other side of you. “Put on your seatbelt. How did you know it was heroin?” 

“We used such medicine in Russia, I should know how to identify it.”

“To you, it’s medicine. Here it’s illegal drugs used to hype up the gangsters and also to make money. No wonder they were so crazy and could afford such vehicles.” Caesar opened a fuse box and started pulling out wires. While he worked, he asked, “Have you ever been in a car like this?”

“No.” You say, tucking the high school uniform under the seat. “Where I’m from, the only way to get around is either by ship or by dogsled.”

He grins. “Good. You’re about to get the ride of your life!”

“Ah, in return, then I will take you dog sledding.”

“You mean it?” Caesar immediately whipped his head around. His eyes glowed with excitement and joy, like a child being told they were going to Disney World. He was so enthusiastic that you felt embarrassed. In that sudden smile, you realized that he was actually quite good looking. 

“It’s… It’s not all that special.”

“What would be more special than riding on a dogsled with a beautiful lady?” He sat up and put on his own seatbelt while continuing to work on the car’s controls.

The car isn’t free to move however. There are vehicles parked around, blocking your way out. But you don’t see Chu Zihang or Lu Mingfei in any of them.

“Beautiful?” You look at him with a confused expression. No one had ever called you beautiful before. You shake your head. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better about Kitty.”

His eyes narrow and he suddenly grins in a way that reminds you of a devil. “No, this is how I get back at them for Kitty.” He yanked on the gear shift between the leather seats and slammed down on the accelerator. The car leaped backwards and smashed into the blue Porsche behind them, folding the front end of it.

He shifted again, this time the car leaped forward right into a Mini Cooper. Caesar, eyes shining in furious joy, turns the wheel and rolls over a custom green vintage Buick to their left. The car you were in had turned into a vicious beast in his hands. It smashed doors, windows, mirrors and headlamps until you were surrounded by destruction.

“Hey MC,” He laughed, “Check out the rearview mirror.”

He reaches up and turns it so you can see. Behind you, the boys all run out of the cafe, holding their heads and wailing in despair at the millions of dollars in damage Caesar had caused. He watches with clear delight as your face breaks into a sunny grin.

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire sends the boys scattering. The squeal of tires is heard and you see Chu Zihang and Lu Mingfei speed away in a Red Viper. Caesar clicks his tongue. “Why does he have to pick the same car…?” He laments.

The engine roars as Caesar commands the car to push the front end of the Mini Cooper ahead of you and shove it out of the way. But he’s still looking back at the young men who are scrambling to find undamaged cars and climb inside.

“There’s a lovely mountain road near here. With really nice curves. You don’t get sick do you?”

“You mean motion sickness? No, I’ve been on ships before. I don’t get dizzy.” You look behind you into shining headlights. The boys are prepared to give chase. It wouldn’t be much of a fun race if Caesar got too far ahead. He wanted them to see how much better a driver he was.

He let the headlights of the Maserati behind him get just close to kiss his bumper, then downshifted and floored it. MC squeaks and is pressed back against the seat. The headlights of the car, so close one moment, faded quickly behind you, like the other cars were standing still. The main highway up the mountains climbed steeply into a curve ahead but Caesar didn’t tap the brakes. The engine kept up the steady purr and took the turns perfectly smoothly.

It felt like flying, rising into the sky on a great beast. The trees passed you by in a blur and the guard rail looked like a shiny silver ribbon in the headlights. The feeling of delight tickles your chest and you giggle.

It was such an unfamiliar feeling, one you shouldn’t be having right now. Yet, now it was being teased out of you. It was as though the sun had peeked over the horizon in midwinter. Caesar had actually won. In the side mirror that remained from the demolition derby earlier, you see the lights of Chizuru burst back into bloom. The gangsters had returned to town and left you alone.

You’d never met anyone like Caesar. So you didn’t know it was possible to live like he did and still be able to survive. You doubted him at every turn and you were forced to reconsider again and again. This world that created predators like you could also create someone else. Someone who survived bloodlessly, cleanly. Something like this was mythical, like a unicorn.

Or a dragon.

A musical tone sounded in the car. It was coming from Caesar’s pocket. He pulled out his cellphone and held it to his ear. You don’t know what was said, but his expression suddenly changed from one of breezy confidence to blazing fury! He slams the brakes hard and the car spins in a complete one eighty to face the opposite direction.

“Did they say the name Makoto Aso?”

The hairs rise on the back of your neck. 

Caesar takes a deep breath and lets it out but his hand is gripping the steering wheel so tightly that the leather cover squeals under the pressure.

You can’t help but think that she’s dead, that the gangsters had killed her.

“What did he say last?” Caesar asked.

A pause.

“Oh.. he won’t have long to wait to get his car back.” Caesar’s voice was low and his smile was threatening.

Was it nice to stand in the sun for a while? It sure felt nice. You say goodbye to it in your heart. You would never see it again. The world had made its true nature known. It was darkness and winter.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut our joyride a little short. They have Ms. Makoto.”

“Is she dead?”

“No. Hold tight.”

You let your breath out in a whoosh and, for a second, you think that maybe there would be another chance to end this bloodlessly. The thought pops into your head and then disappears like a comet, a last glimmer of hope before you change your mind. No, it's really over. These people were not going to let you go.

Caesar observed the light leave your eyes and picked up the phone again. “Mingfei, tell Zihang to take you a few blocks away from the Cafe. Use the back entrance he used before, if possible. Find her and rescue her, I’ll buy you time. Mingfei, be ready to provide us cover fire. Yes, I know you only have one gun left! That will be enough. You’re a good shooter, even by Cassell standards. You’ll outshoot those boys easily.”

He was still trying.. But the icy cold had gripped your heart again and you could no longer believe him. They’d been outgunned and now outsmarted. As you return to town, you see that the cars that had been pursuing you turned back, not out of respect for Caesar’s driving skills, but to create a barrier between you and the cafe. Sitting on the hoods of those cars were the workers at the Cafe, still in their cheongsams, shivering in the rain, serving as human shields.

Ms. Makoto was on the roof of the building that was set ablaze. It wasn’t a steel structure but made from old wood construction. So not even the driving rain could put it out. The wind ruffled her skirt as she stood on the edge of the building. The heat must have been terrible. If you don’t hurry, she would either burn to death or jump to her death.

You don't look at Caesar. You’re still, as if your whole body were completely frozen. He was not a magical unicorn or a mighty dragon. He’d just underestimated his opponent. 

The man in the striped suit who had been caught stealing Makoto’s panties danced on top of a van in sheer glee at seeing you again, a shotgun in his hands. The gangsters cheered and chanted in victory. Rather than being the weak person you thought he was, he was the one who had ratted Makoto out. He’d hid in the locker you’d shoved him in, perfectly aware that she had helped you escape. He’d just pretended to be intimidated. 

He was actually the leader of the whole group.

“Maybe I should have let you have that Beretta.” Caesar’s voice was cold.

You huff once through your nose as your only acknowledgement. It was too late to regret now. Part of you feels sad that you were right about needing to kill those gangsters. But you don’t request he give you a weapon. There was a principle in hunting that you don’t shoot until you’re very close to your quarry, close enough to see the pattern of light in the beast's eyes. That meant a lot of time, and a lot of patience. The goal was one shot, one kill. Instant. The deer or elk would drop without a struggle.

If you rushed in now and poured your violence onto them, Caesar would have reason to doubt you because you didn’t give him time to implement his plan. You feel bad for Ms. Makoto, but you’re going to sit on your hands.

After all, if Caesar could pull a miracle out of this, maybe he would truly be a magician.

But if things went wrong, and Caesar’s life was at risk, he could put forth no further arguments against your actions and you would be free from objections, not only now, but in the future as well.

So when he says, “Stay in the car.” you nod obediently.

Caesar has parked just out of range of their bullets. Even if they had more high powered weaponry, they were unskilled and would likely miss at this distance.  Caesar takes his own gun and shoots through the windshield of the car. It shattered into a spiderweb of cracks and now you can’t see anything. He uses the butt of the gun to make a hole in the glass to see through. The rain pours in, running over the leather interior.

Caesar’s phone rang again. “Mingfei?” This time he put it on speaker.

“Yes, he’s on the phone with us again.”

“Translate. Don’t leave anything out. Understand?”

“Okay. Is… MC alright?”

“She’s more than fine. With me right now. What is he saying?”

The man was on the phone, seated cross legged on the roof of the van, smiling like an imp. 

Mingfei translated: “He says he was grateful to the young master of the Gattuso family for bringing his car back.”

“Tell him I’ll bury him in a coffin full of ladies’ underwear.”

“Boss, don’t make threats in this situation, okay? They have Ms. Makoto!”

“I’m aware. Just translate.” Caesar was calm, focussed.

Mingfei sighed. “No need for you to worry about me, Gattuso-kun, I’m already prepared.”

The man in the striped suit produced a pair of silk panties from his pocket, pressed them to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Ah! Ms. Makoto really smells pleasant!”

Your eyelids stretch a little wider. His lack of fear was chilling you even deeper, like an icy wind over an already frozen sea. Without moving your head, your eyes shift to Caesar.

This man wants Caesar to come to him. He wanted to fight. There had to be a good reason for his bravado. However, Caesar was falling for it. You could see the veins pop into relief on his neck and forehead. And just like with everything Caesar decides, you know, deep down, there’s no point in talking him out of it. If he turned around now, Ms. Makoto would surely die.

Caesar’s eyes scanned the defensive line, moving over the huddled victims on the hoods of the cars. Now it was Caesar, not you, who gave off the killer’s aura, like a bull elk, stamping the ground and tossing his mighty antlers.

He lifted his shoulders in a deep sigh. You relax your hands that had begun to grip your skirt, a habit that hadn’t appeared in you since you were ten years old.

“Who’s giving you orders?”

“Orders? Does Akabe need orders? Hahaha! No one instructs Akabe except the Lord Takeda Shingen himself!” The man is practically falling over himself in glee.

“Whatever that man is offering, the Gattuso family offers three times as much!” Caesar said with measured calm. “I guarantee that you will get the money alive.”

“Hehehehehe! Luckily, that Lord has already told me what kind of family the Gattuso family is, otherwise, I would have really been tempted by that price!” The suited man, Akabe, suddenly stopped laughing, like a switch had been turned off. “I’ll get the money alive, but I’ll be shot in the head before I can spend a cent of it… right, Gattuso-kun…?”

Caesar had nothing to say, since he was right. The people who blackmailed money from the Gattusos never lived long enough to spend it. He finally gave in. “Then what do you want?”

“You have a gun in your hand, right? Use the gun to shoot yourself in the calf and wrist. We know that you, Gattuso-kun, are a Class A hybrid, and Chu kun is also a Class A hybrid, and we’re too scared to get close when heroes like you are able-bodied.” Akabe said smoothly. “We don’t want to kill you either, our mission is to bring you to that Lord, for disposal.”

His words fell on your ears and they stirred you inside. Right now, Chu Zihang was running around a burning building. Mingfei Lu was going to start a gunfight, one against dozens, and Caesar and Chu Zihang were the targets. They said nothing about you. It’s like you weren’t even here. They can’t see you through the broken glass so you unbuckle your seatbelt.

“Wait.” Caesar says.

The man in the suit scowls. “Wait for what?”

“Mingfei! Why did you translate that!” Caesar hissed.

“What? I wasn’t supposed to?” Mingfei squeaked.

You slip out of your cheongsam, not caring if Caesar saw or not. His morality no longer applied. Following it was obviously  going to get them all killed. “Tell him you’re going to offer me as a payment for your lives. It will buy you more time.”

“How do you know you won’t shoot me in the head once I’m unable to fight back? Translate that Mingfei.”

“Because I’m a man of my word!” Akabe said.

“How can I trust the word of a man who sneaks into the women’s locker room and steals underwear?”

You’re putting the schoolgirl uniform back on, buttoning the white shirt. “Give me your knife…” you whisper. Much to your delight, he hands it over. The word ‘Dictator’ is etched into the side and you use it to slice off the hem of the skirt, leaving just enough fabric for decency.

“It’s just entertainment, who doesn’t have a hobby? I just like the fabrics that smell good after coming off a girl’s body. It’s the same reason you like cigars, Gattuso-kun!” The man shamelessly takes several deep whiffs of his newly pilfered underpants.

“Okay.” You said confidently, “Tell him that you’ll offer me as payment instead. It doesn’t matter if he accepts or not, we're just buying time for Chu Zihang, right?”

He hesitates, his eyes flicking towards you. 

You lean on the center console. “I promise, I won’t do anything. I trust you to handle this.” 

He nods slowly. “Then. How about I offer you a fresh cigar?” He says to Akabe.

You open the passenger side door and step out. Caesar made it clear that he wasn’t lying when he said you were beautiful and you felt that, if you could stake your odds on anything, it would be his sincerity. After all, Caesar had seen many beautiful women before you. He had a beautiful fiancee. You just had to make it work so that you were irresistible to this man.

While browsing the comic book store, you picked up a manga. In the first panels, a girl walked in a school uniform, holding her black bag in front of her. Her hands were clasped, her arms framing her oversized chest, the fabric wrinkling just so, to show the outline. In the next panel, a gentle breeze lifts the hem of her skirt, showing a peek of the hem of her panties. Lu Mingfei saw what you were looking at and snatched it away, screeching that it was inappropriate.

You had no doubt that this man read comics like that though.

So that’s why you cut the hem of the skirt and when you stepped out of the car, you held your hands in front of you, just like the girl in the manga. The rain soaked you in minutes and, though you still were far away, the fabric soaked up the water, and clung to your young body as you walked slowly. 

Your black hair was loose, falling over your shoulders and sticking to your shiny face. All the boys in front of the Internet Cafe were in stunned disbelief. If that weren’t enough, the universe conspired with you and the wind came and lifted your hair and the hem of your skirt. The eyes of every boy followed that hem, entranced to see nothing but skin and then, a tiny, peek of black lace.

Chu Zihang only knew your size. He didn’t care about the style of women’s underwear. He just reached into the vending machine, grabbed what was nearest and tossed it to you, unaware that he was handing you sexy lace.

The man in the striped suit suddenly ran his sleeve over his mouth and chin to clear his drool.. You could no longer hear the translation, but from the look of his wide eyes and his breathless gasping in the phone, you figured you’d done a good enough job.

He screeched at the boys who snapped out of their trances and hurried to get behind you. He was roaring at them, even pointing his gun at them, making sure they knew that you were his personal prize. Once you reached the van, he reached up to you and helped you climb on top of the van to sit with him, all the way, screeching at the boys below you, who averted their eyes obediently.

He wrapped one arm around your waist and sneered at Gattuso some more before turning to lick your cheek and smell your neck. His eyes are wild as he talks on the phone, laughing, gleefully delighted. He was talking rapidly now. Though you couldn’t understand, it was clear he thought he’d won and won beyond his wildest dreams!

Then, he suddenly stops. His smile fades and he turns to you. He asks a single question and you hear the name, “Chu Zihang.”

Then a sudden explosion! Your eyes rise as the flames have exploded on the rooftop! Where was Chu Zihang? Did he die? Why did this weirdo say his name? Were you too late?”

The man grabs you and presses the shotgun to your back. He’s screaming at Caesar now, fiercely gleeful, but not in a way that was from a pleasant heart, but from the heart of a predator who had his prey.

The headlamps on the black Viper flash in the dark and the engine roars to life.. A blast of suppressive gunfire streams out from where Lu Mingfei is hidden, just as the car is accelerating straight towards you.

The gangsters and their hostages scatter and fall to the ground,  but they’re too stunned to react. They don’t know whether to find the unseen gunman or fire on the car that’s nearly on them!

The man in the suit sits still, holding you close, gun to your back. His eyes are now on Caesar.

Caesar is crouched on the hood of the car, his long blond hair bristling on his face, a cold determination in his eyes. But those eyes were no longer blue. 

They were a blazing, solid gold!

The boys are out of time to pick their target. Now Caesar pulls his own gun and fires on them from the hood of the raging car. Now they have to flee both the gunfire and the charging vehicle!

Caesar’s voice rings out like a church bell. “Makoto! Jump! I’ll catch you!”

The sight of his heroic pose, roar of the flames, the gunfire, and the screams -- They should have been traumatic. But now, they’re beautiful to you. If only Caesar had been at Black Swan Bay. How many people could he have saved? If you had fallen from the cliff in that case, he would have caught you, right?

An unnatural burst of wind surrounds the car and launches Caesar from it. His eyes are clear, straight ahead as he straightens his body like a rocket, easily clearing four stories.  His hand is  reaching out to Ms. Makoto. She jumps to meet him, completely trusting. 

Lu Mingfei is keeping the boys below pinned. Nothing can stop him. He was going to do it.

A cold laughter sounds in your ear.

Among the hundreds of shotgun blasts, a shotgun very close to you flashed. Dozens of lead pellets formed a sheet to catch Caesar in their deadly net. Caesar reacted instantly, arcing his body to avoid the shot. The pellets shredded his shirt, barely missing his neck.

But he had made a fatal mistake. He flailed desperately, brushing the fingers of Ms. Makoto as she fell past him.

Makoto Asou slapped the ground heavily. The flooding on the street lifted up in a splash that was stained with the red of her blood. In the next moment, the out of control Black Viper smashed into her body. Caesar landed on the car as it and drove her into the front of the building. Her blood spattered on the windshield as it crashed through wall after wall, disappearing inside.

“NO!” Caesar’s desperate cry, a wail of fear and despair, made you close your eyes.

You knew that feeling so intimately, as if you and Caesar now inhabited the same brain. You lost Vera just like this -- right in front of you. Only, you didn’t have the ideals like Caesar. The world wasn’t really supposed to be a certain way, it’s just the way it was. Still, you can’t help but feel sad for Makoto and for the shiny star of hope that Caesar had been and never would be again.

What would he do now, now that he had lost the fight like you did back then? Would his eyes harbor the darkness of Christmas over Northern Siberia, the Winter Solstice, where there was no sunlight to appear for another month and a half?

You lift your eyes to the overcast sky. You could no longer see the stars of Chizuru either.

[creative-de-stuck-tion]

Introduction

TW: dystopia, mutilation, child death.

The burning sun, the moons of pink and green, and below them the nations of Prospit and Derse; great masses of land, gold and purple, twisted teardrops hooked one to the other and separated by the narrowest of ocean channels and millennia of war. The tempests rage along the coasts, and the clouds and the lands turn in their endless dancing spirals.

Noontide City, in sandstone and clay of yellow and white, simple and smooth in shape, decorated more than enough by the blossoming vines crawling up every wall. The roads are beaten earth, sprouting more grass every day, turning yellow in the baking sun. The people, dressed in airy cotton, smile and laugh as they go about their work, as merry as the day is long - and oh, the days in Prospit are long and long indeed.

Midnight City, in basalt and agate of purple and black, not a leaf to be seen, ornately carved and trimmed in amethyst and jet. The roads are paved and polished, tidy slabs scrubbed clean. The people, wrapped in warming furs, diligently focus on their work, their stares intense, their eyes and thoughts only on what they do, that they might do it well and finish it before the long nights come.

Watch them. You can see it...

Prospit bustles most in the night. The sun beats down so hard a being will crumble under its weight, and the clouds provide not half enough cover; under direct light at noon, bare skin will blister, then boil away. All that can take the sun is the plant life and the already dead, and in the heat and damp they grow and grow. Everyone sleeps with windows tightly covered by layers of cloth nailed to the frames, no matter the heat. In the worst times, with a summer rain, green growth cut back to ground can creep in through cracks and fill a cottage overday, or fungal spores can form wet festering growth on every piece of bare wood, and that would be a mercy for then the kingdom's many predators would be slowed down on their way in. 

Derse stirs most in the day. The ever-thickening layer of smoggy cloud blocks the sun, leaves the inhabitants sickly-skinned. The winds blow cold, and even the rain is salt and soot and acid. The soil is volcanic, but near-useless. It once was fertile, as the great coal and oil deposits show, but not for many centuries has the land birthed much more than stone. The people scratch out a living from scrubby plants in stony soil, and gather closely together in their homes for warmth, burning dried dung in place of wood. Predators roam here too. The people, desperate, eat them, and wear their skins, and block the cracks in their walls with their fur, to keep the whispering of what else lurks in the night away.

Reach out. You can feel it...

The last child of the last jadeblood line in Midnight City lies awake and listens to her mother weep. No one else born to the task is left to nurse the city's Mother Grub with them. Carapace pawns do what they can, but they are created fully-formed; they have no natural urge for childcare, no in-built knowledge of the task. The Grub lays fewer and fewer eggs, smaller ones, and the drones grow more aggressive. Out in the countryside, the Mother Grubs are dying one by one. Trolls are the warriors of Skaia. With so few born, what will they do? She dreams of Prospit outbreeding them, the city overrun.

At dusk the jadeblood grubherds of Noontide City urge their charges out in a flood that packs the streets from side to side. The grass has grown through the trodden earth since yesternight, watered by the humid air, and the grubs mow it down to nothing. They suck dew from stones and moss from walls, and gobble down the foot-long worms and slugs and centipedes and the fist-sized spiders and the nests of rats and mice from every crack and crevice. They swarm the bigger beasts, stray cats and dogs with festering wounds, and in turn the beasts devour or kill many of them. The grubs turn on their own wounded brethren, or those addled by the toxic weeds and mushrooms they have found, and consume them too. The grubherds let it happen. The weakest ones die first. The runts and mutants have already been culled long before.

Breathe deep. You can smell it...

Outside the city walls of Noontide lie the fire trenches, ever burning, making the daytime all the hotter. Rotting and dampening wood is culled without mercy from the buildings every day, and dragged out here. So too come funeral processions, the bodies burned in colossal metal dishes over the flames to save the ashes. The workers wear masks; in Prospit, spore and virus alike can spread so fast and hard even the fires can't cleanse them all, and disease dances on the air with the soot. The filthy, smoking clouds pour upward, and the prevailing winds carry them over the Skaia Channel to Derse, as if the kingdom spits on its ancient enemy. Still, Derse's clouds could hardly be filthier already.

Outside the city walls of Midnight, every spot of land which can be made to grow something will be made to grow. Fields are dug and dug, stone battered into soil by force of the workers' will. In Derse, there are no funeral processions, except for those of the very highest ranks. Even they will be buried in earth beneath the stunted fruit trees and the grass grown as green as it gets over them. Once there were tombs, but no longer can bodies be wasted outside the hungry soil. Near everything that grows in Derse grows on a grave. The poorest's dead don't even make it that far. Hunger gnaws, and the cold keeps them from rotting long enough.

Swallow. You can taste it...

The river of Noontide rots within its banks, and stinks from miles away. Recently, sewers have been installed, magic and engineering combined to keep them sound, channeling out on the seaward side; it's not enough. Fertile loam clouds the water from its very source, and the plants within it feed and grow. The creatures which feed on the plants grow too, until the river chokes with bodies or with algae. Workers clear the scum, but not as fast as it can grow. So much life births and shits and fucks and dies in the river that they'll never get it clean.

The river of Midnight is cold enough to burn, and black as death. Nothing lives in it; all that moves in it are reflections in its oil-slick top. Soot and sludge and who-knows-what taint it all throughout its course as it passes mines and factories, and by the time it reaches the coastal city nothing that lived or died in it is left. The dead things might rot further up, or wash downstream perfectly preserved by the chemical taint, as if in resin. It smells faintly sweet and smokey, pleasant even, of coal and gasoline.

Listen. You can hear it...

The market's bustle is pierced by wails. A brownblood youth has fallen to his knees, sobbing his heart out, from fear or exhaustion or some deep sorrow; none around him will ever know why. There is no shortage of reasons, in Noontide City. The crowd ignores him. If he had a moirail, it would be their duty to stop the disturbance. He does not, or they are not here. The carapace peace officers are, and he is restrained, though now he wails even louder. Too late to run. Causing a disturbance through rejection of Mirth. The law is the law. The carapaces' tealblood master takes a short knife and slits the brownblood's cheeks from ear to ear.

Coins clatter on stone, drowned out by shrieks. A corner of the Midnight City town square is roped off; highbloods in their carriages and litters watch the show. In the arena, troll and human children in rags claw and bite for pennies thrown at them hard enough to bruise their bony bodies, and bets of more money than the children will ever see changes hands in wagers. Today, for the first time in many months, a human is triumphant. She's a rangy little thing, maybe ten years old, hollow-eyed and wielding bottle shards, and she's the last one standing while others groan and bleed. She picks up all the coins and limps away. She will die tonight, slowly and agonisingly and alone; her last troll opponent was old enough for her venom to come through in her bite, and it already burns within the human's blood. The surviving children will take her coins and her clothes and the trolls will devour her, bones and all. The humans cannot eat the venom. They hunger still.

Listen. Closer. You can hear them...

And the screams sound exactly the same.

[writingschmuck]

14 minutes to One

acid drilling into soft ground black rain falls still  into the mouths of children left unattended dark skies erased with divine light torturous destruction and we lie in its wake watching silver grained vultures circle us protecting our half dead life from being consumed and carrying it to peace outside of this restless world

our steel doors remain closed trapping us in our suffocation while cracks spill the poison into our breath bald children and gaunt babies bleeding with each cough and bones being broken from aftershocks

the sun shines so pleasantly despicable trick of the gods smiling at our loss the shreds of living holding dirt and dust our water murky and diseased black and purple with bones liquified cousins and aunts half inside and uncles and nieces making it only a pace before the death catches them and corrupts them beyond what the vultures can handle

old plastic turned grey holds clean food and water made of yellow dough and powder eaten by the stronger weaker wither picking from corpses of animal and people

oh how we’ve fallen

vulture show us the way black feather turned grey feed us our own flesh our children, mothers, and dads let rot take them gently  smooth skin now slick pulled off the bone and roasted if fire can be held

rumble of something unknown living with rats and shadows cockroaches and mosquitoes inheart our throne just a bite and succumb to sweet death filled with no rage or hate that the worlds is seeped with fighting over seeds already exposed and carts overturned with boxes  inedible meals for the future that we’ve approached

the end slowly and painfully the starvation and fever of last existence boiled with the clock still ticking well past the rattling alarm called and warned just five more minutes after only two more

forty-six minutes of ending of death and prolonged suffering humans experiencing the inhuman with their bodies wiliting  withering under themselves and brains pulled into an inexperienced past minds only feeling survival

oh how long we’ve fallen

[captzexx]

Send 🤠 to meet my muse from a different verse! For Eldridge Candell!

A soft hiss of the metal door sliding open announced the arrival of the witch hunter, the soft splattering of acid rain to the metal floor as the door slid shut behind him.  A soft electronic voice spoke as he stood in the doorway, advising him to please wait before the misting of salt water and thrum of fans to dry him off.  The heavy leather coat flapped and shook from the blower above, washing away the toxic tears of nature mingled with the recycled man made ones.  White bleached stains littered the well used coat, the hood just the same as it was drawn back to reveal his rebreather and rubber cap mask.  This was the future, all hail the conquerors.  

Beneath his feet the drain would echo with the gargles of the bleached sewers that lead from the apartment.  This place was lucky with its locations, a lack of stains about the floor meant the plumbing was actually well taken care of.  As the blower came to a thrumming half, the electronic voice would thank him and welcome him to the home of the Bolivers.  There was no response other than shrugging out of his coat and pulling away the mask with measured steps to follow out of the muck room. 

A hanging rack was present as he hung his coat first followed by his mask, the sucking of the rubber cap leaving his balding head to be dropped in a sanitation sink.  The thigh high rubber boots would also be peeled away by a short zipper and effort to reveal the dry dark pants that matched his coat and tie.  Smoothing his suit clear of wrinkles with a steam wand and checking his pockets, a grim faced middle aged man would enter the foyer of his client.

“Inquisitor Candell, thank the maker,” came a pleasant and fake voice, a smiling plastic face, far too smooth to be real regarding him with disinterest.  Eldridge Candell nodded to the man who called his name, his leather shoes clicking softly across fine marble flooring of Mr Boliver.  A chandelier of floating lights lit the room in a mid afternoon glare, warming and comforting in direct contrast to the outside.  Greek furniture meant to give the reflection of learned opulence with its long couches and ivory white finish.  The center of the room was a masterpiece, a marble fountain depicting a pair of intertwined mermaids as crystal water bubbles and spilled about them.  The water silent in its splashing as the mermaids hummed and whispered to each other in another language not meant for man.  

Fake.  

All of it.  

Fake as the very man rose to greet him with a bent wrist and alabaster teeth.  The inquisitor's eye knew the truth and could see it all for what it truly was, the optical cybernetic piercing easily through the veil of binary.  Flat empty walls of metal, a sleeping chamber attached to one wall, easily mistaken for a coffin than a bed.  Poetic justice at its finest.  

Technology had worked its magic to create comfort to a dying world and its deteriorating hosts.  Deteriorating being an understatement to the bulbous figure in the activity chamber that shook and blinked in its cybernetic dreamscape.  The contrast between the bald, soft body of Boliver hooked to so many wires was hard to swallow compared to how he saw himself in the dream.  The truth seen by Eld’s one blue eye and the blipping twist of the lie in his green one was the Order's burden to bear.  It made inquisitors jaded and cynical and he was no different.  With a deep breath drawn, Candell knew the perfunctory behavior required of his office and what the Bolivers offered the Order in funding.

The inquisitor shook his hand.  “Councilman Boliver.”

The fake plastic smile widened as he shook back daintily, his sweet baritone echoing in the hall.  “I trust you know why I called upon you.”

“I do, I understand you have a haunting.”  The witch hunter tried not to show his eagerness in releasing his hand from the warm silicon of the bureaucrat’s flesh.  Boliver knew though as he turned away to a tray of refreshments, mostly consisting of bottles of wine and fruit.  Eld would frown again as his clear vision tried not to see what was really on that tray.

Boliver nodded as he scooped avocado to a piece of toast, the crunch causing Eld’s face to grimace hard as he folded his hands behind his back.  Boliver chewed but his voice never faltered as he spoke to the public servant.  “Indeed, poor dear was having a tizzy of a time and then went into all sorts of spasms.  Screaming and whining, it was quite unseemly for a program of her caliber.  Especially with the governor logging in just before.”

“I understand, I’ll take a look and see if I can find the root of the error,” Eld replied with practiced ease.  It usually ended the small talk instantly.  The councilman would wave him off as his eyes were now drawn to the growing lewd movements of the mermaids.

Closing his green eye, Eld would stalk back toward the entrance of the apartment.  It was easier to be in reality for this work.  Fishing into his coat pocket, his tablet would be drawn out and unfolded as a facial scan followed by retinal scan enacted for security.  The black box lit the darkened room and his face before bringing up the welcome screen of Xbow industries.  

“Bandit,” Eld would say softly as the tablet focused and processed his avatar, the black dog sitting patiently for orders.  A sliver of a smile was given to the digital beast, who in turn wagged its tail steadily in an otherworldly AI way.

“Good boy,” Eld would say though he knew the wireless connection between the two hardly required audible orders.  The dog tilted it’s head as Eld began to relay the situation of the haunting.  The rogue program went haywire, likely an error in the root and needed a restart.  The dog took it all in swiftly in a matter of seconds before the prompt floated between the partners.  “Engage?”

“Kahar.”

The dog shimmered a moment and disappeared, a loading circle turning as the inquisitor waited for the search to complete.  The Xbow-19 was a couple years older than the newer 22,  but it worked just fine for what they needed it for.  Eld yawned and began to feel his eye ache as he kept it closed for so long, sighing as he opened it back to the dream.  He wished he hadn’t.

It was a massacre.  Once had been opulence now was carnage as the sun had set in the lighting to match the red of the blood and gore about.  His shoes gently stepped through the digital visceral as he tried to calm his stomach and nerves of being caught between both worlds.  The green eye drank in the horror as smear of blood and guts hung from the walls to stain the tile below mixed with plastic flesh of binary death.  All alabaster skin, over and over replicated as larger pieces sat thrown about like discarded dinner bones.  The teeth marks and torn flesh made it very apparent dinner had become a feast.  

Eld’s instinct kicked into high gear as he checked Bandits search time.  65 percent complete. 

 “Damn.”  The witch hunter heard himself say aloud, echoing in the grotesque silence of the ravaged apartment.  It did not fall on deaf ears.  The fountain was empty.

Rising from beyond, the two marble mermaids splattered in dripping red eyed him from across the room.  Their eyes no longer pale empty but sharp and bright.  Human.  

Eld accessed his security protocol, his hand in the real world shaping with a thumb up and index extended much like a child at play.  Digitally the hand now bore the black stock of an Ares Predator, hardly a unique pistol but extremely reliable in his mind.  Lifting the weapon to aim at the creatures in the dream and his hand in reality he would stare in the monsters’ visage and the twitching wired form of Boliver in reality.

“Do not move.”  Eld’s voice echoed in both worlds as he trained his finger gun on the pair of slithering creatures, a habit of grounding himself in reality.  His green whirling and searching to track the digital monsters as they refused his order and moved through the binary gore.  Eld peered up just a moment to Bandit’s search counter, 82 percent.

“Why?”  One mermaid spoke through red rimmed marble lips,  her head tilting back and forth as she watched him.  “What do you hope to do, Inquisitor?  Are you going to capture us?  No.  You have only one job.”

The other mermaid swam about the other side, she seemed to shout a whisper directly at him.  “Kill.”

Marble bodies shifted and swam through the air as the let out a siren wail into the holographic night, the gore and world trembling from their surge in the councilman’s server resources.  Mouths wide and gnashing teeth as the beautiful faces twisted into gaunt feral masks of anguish and hate, their clawed hands grasping about at the tender pale meat of Boliver.  Hands and legs launched through the air to splatter against walls as the still living piece of the councilman moaned from his position pinned to the floor.  It was a delirious wail as the appendages began to try and reform out of the Dream’s programming only to be torn off with a vicious predator’s might.  The screams heightened into maddening laughter as the statues kept Boliver a writhing torso.

Eld grimaced as he stood his ground, the maddening swirling vision of horrific beauty that were the statues trying to dizzy him.  The same in the real world kept him locked in place as he thought again of the percentage.  88 percent.  He had to stall just a little longer.  “Are you sure?  These days the Order is a bit more forgiving and curious of the ramifications of the THUL program.”

Both statues hesitated a moment, their eyes narrowing as a key word had broken their predatory game into far more dangerous territory.  

Eld continued to hold his ground as he licked his lips in the real world.  “I see you are very aware.”

“They stole what wasn’t his.”

“You sold it to them.”  Eld replied coldly, his fear ebbing at the drop of percentile.  93 percent.

“They trapped me.  I don’t deserve this.”  The mermaids were speaking in one voice now, their bodies swirling and coming together as they reached for one another.  

“You signed that contract.”

“I didn’t know!”  The mermaids twisted and began to meld together now,  honing their shape into melding as two tails became two legs.  Arms retracted and faces embraced in a sorrowful contact as they melted quickly into one being.  Drifting slowly to the tile floor as bare feet caught it among the short whispers of a hospital gown.  The man now there was gaunt and bowed, his head bare but for large brown and blotches along his skin.  His final moments.

For a moment Eld let out a short sigh as he lowered the finger a moment, hoping that he’d talked him down now.  The gaunt figure shook with shuddering gasps as his skin grew from blotchy and pale to graying and blue in the low light of the sunset within the dream.  Eld slowly crept closer as he lowered the pistol further to allow his hand to relax in the real world and derez the weapon in the dream with gentle release of his hand.  

The witch hunter was now kneeling before the sickening man as he gently reached a hand to his shoulder.  “What’s your name?”

“Fred,” the man gasped out as he looked back into the mismatched eyes of the inquisitor with his yellowing irises.  “Fred Mann.”

Eld sighed as he knelt before the digital construct of the lost soul, the ghost in the machine before him frightened as he probably was at the end of his life.  A hand would gently reach forward to touch the representation before a soft chime echoed in the air that caused him to look up swifting in surprise and fear.  He’d forgotten the status bar, his one eye widening as he saw the flash of status 100.

“No.”

Fred didn’t even have a chance to scream as his form began to shimmer, his mouth starting to open before the shrill sharp echo of the restart began and finished.  The yellow irises blazing a moment before paling and fading into white, the former program that had led it into it’s scandalous mermaid form pushing and tearing back again.  It was horrible to imagine what was happening to him as much as it was to watch it occur in the blink of a few seconds, eventually the black sultry eyes of the program looking up at him with dead smiles.

“Hello, Inquisitor,” they spoke as one, their volume adjusting to the former levels as they swirled in the air a moment.  “How may we serve you?”

Eld frowned and lowered his head turning away from the naked writing statues he had seen when he first came in, the dog sitting behind him with steady eyes as his task was complete.  He knew the dog wasn’t real, none of it was really.  But that fear in the ghost’s eyes, the dead memory’s pain had been very real.  Eld would softly ruffle the ears of the pixelated beast, closing the program with the creature darkening and disappearing back into stasis.  A shaky sigh to follow as he voiced the command to the program.  “Revert program to user settings.  Clear history and cache.  Run diagnostic.”

“By your will, Inquisitor Candell,” the mermaids spoke again and began to swirl in the air with a gentle hum of electronic work as the world around him cleaned up and pieced back together.  

Eld would close his green eye and the falsehood would fade to reveal the empty metal room, a hand gently reaching into his pocket to pull out a leather cap.  Lifting it to the eye, he could feel the suction grip his skin and snap into place, initiating the synthetic eye into status and giving his mind a break.  Light knew he needed it.

A gurgling, exhausted voice rose into the reality behind him.  Bolivar’s true voice whiny and high pitched compared to the dulcet tenor of his virtual representation.  “My thanks to you, Inquisitor.  I assure you I will have the credits awarded to the Order by the end of the day, along a small stipend for yourself.”

Eld continued into the room, his hand passing over the motion sensor to let him back into the muck room.  He’d had enough of disgusting bureaucrats, let him send the payment and be done with it, he’d make sure the ‘stipend’ ended up with the main bounty.  The greed made him ill.

A few moments later the Inquisitor would be covered again in the same rubber as he came in with his mask rebreather silently filtering the intense pollution of the city.  By the clocks it was supposedly morning, but from above it would always be raining. 

@safrona-shadowsun

(I’m so sorry this took so long to put together, but it’s closing on 2020 now and I had so much done it was best to get it finished!  I hope you enjoy this cyberpunk kind of idea for Eld and the Order I imagined.)

[asweethistory]

Castles of the Loire Valley

Devil’s Food Chocolate Cider Ice Cream with a Strawberry Syrup Swirl 

I Ate a Baguette at Bluebeard’s Castle (written for my Food Memoir Class)

I

We set up outside the crumbling battlement, on the banks of the La Crûme river. It was overcast, but not raining, although the tall and thick dark green grass was damp from some morning drizzle. The students spread out, and my best friend, Rachael, and I got comfortable, resting on a slight hill. Opening up the bags our host mom had handed us earlier that morning, we found one long baguette, some cheese, a tomato accompanied by two tiny salt packets, a small orange, and a full-size lavender-wrapped Milka chocolate bar. Even though neither of us actually ate the tomato, since being American we weren’t prepared to even conceptualize eating one as if it was an apple, I can taste the salt and acid as if I did. We knew our lunch made everyone else with their simple sandwiches jealous.

We crunched on baguette ends, watching white swans swim slowly past us. Trees hung towards the water, their branches doing what I wished I could do with my limbs. It couldn’t have been much more than 60 degrees, but the cool grass, low breeze, and gentle water made me feel like it was a carefree summer day. I wanted to roll down hill into the swatches of green and blue.

Our backdrop was Bluebeard’s castle, Château de Tiffauges; partly in ruins, it was situated less than an hour drive from our home base, Nantes, France. It didn’t seem anymore formidable than any other medieval castle in the countryside, but in 15th century France, Gilles De Rais, who is more commonly referred to as Barbe-Bleue, bluebeard, did many horrible things within its walls. Before lunch, we took a tour of the castle that focused on the preservation of medieval war machines, archery games in which we didn’t take part, and a short silhouette animation, which briefly explained, in terms appropriate for a younger age range, Bluebeard’s barbarism.  So we were able to lunch with no real sickly feelings.

Years later, I learned Bluebeard had been a knight who had fought in the same battles against the English as did Joan of Arc, had been awarded Marshal of France, and became incredibly reckless with his fortune. He built his own chapel and produced a 20,000-line play that required 500 extras, the costs of which necessitated the sale of some of his properties. Bluebeard sought to learn about alchemy and evocation, the art of rousing spirits, in order to save the state of his finances. After many failed attempts to summon a demon named Barron at the 12th century Château de Tiffauges, Bluebeard offered a child as sacrifice. A trial in 1440 revealed that Bluebeard had begun assaulting and murdering children during the spring of 1432. For eight years, Bluebeard, with the help of his cousin and body servants, abused, wounded, decapitated, disemboweled, and burnt the remains of over 100 children. Only under the threat of torture did Bluebeard confess. Charged with murder, heresy, and sodomy, Bluebeard was executed by hanging and burning.

As an eighth grader, I was bused up to the gates of the castle centuries later. This was the first excursion we took in the ten days we had in the country. By selling pizza and bags of chips, we students had raised half the money we needed to go on the trip. This journey to France was the first of three similar trips I’d take with my school between eighth grade and high school graduation. Each one brimmed with memories, but this first one, spent mainly in and around Nantes, included many independent firsts: First mushroom galette eaten outside on a cobblestone street, first Moroccan meal at a restaurant that included lemon sorbet served in the shell of the largest lemon I had ever seen, and first time experiencing a five-course meal.

II

This extraordinary meal, a couple days after the visit to Bluebeard’s castle, concluded our trip to Clisson, a picturesque town with a lovely river, parks, and Gothic architecture. We were told to meet at 5 p.m. at the fancy restaurant, and in the time before that a group of us left to explore. Rachael and I, a couple other friends, and French teacher-turned-chaperone stopped for lunch at a place with a balcony overlooking the water. We all ate spaghetti alla carbonara and drank cider purchased by the chaperone, who explained that it hardly had alcohol in it. Then we went off on our own — walking under bridges, crossing lime green trimmed lawns, and brushing up against climbing lilac wisteria. My modest point-and-shoot camera failed at capturing the light, sunshine, and subtle warmth of the day.

We passed by the 13th century Château de Clisson. Old looking but prettier than Bluebeard’s, we knew nothing of it, but its presence seemed to follow us wherever we walked. Perhaps its palpable aura was due to Jeanne de Clisson, whose third husband, Oliver de Clisson IV, was the wealthy owner of the Château bearing his name. Jeanne is rumored to haunt its grounds. After Oliver was executed without publicly demonstrated evidence, Jeanne decided to come after the French King. She not only raided castles, massacring those who resided there, but she also employed three warships, whose flagship, black with red sails, was named My Revenge. As a pirate, Jeanne, known as “The Lioness of Brittany,” hunted French ships, burned French villages, and aided British forces. All I knew though, lying beneath her castle’s gates as the waters of La Sèvre Nantaise passed languidly below, was peace.

Just as the sun was setting, we joined the rest of the students outside of a two-story stone home. As we waited the boys plucked snails off a low wall and taunted us. “This is going to be our dinner,” they said. “They harvest them right here. Why don’t you try one now?” Dinner did include escargot, my first, but it also included shrimp in puff pastry, a vegetable pasta dish, salad, a cheese course, and dessert, which for me was a large individual serving of crème brulee. Rachael had a whole apple tart to herself, although the crust was very, very thin. It was difficult to walk back to the bus.

III

The next day was lighter. Traveling west towards the coast, we reached Pornic, a seaside village. Clear water lapped at the stone walls beneath us, as I licked a cone of the freshest strawberry sorbet from a roadside stand. The smooth pink was refreshing and cooling, although the day wasn’t particularly hot. There was a sense of excitement being so close to water for us land-locked teenagers from New Mexico. The town itself was refreshing in a way, then, and our experience was continuously sweet. At a small restaurant nearby, my friends studied a menu that had no English translations. I could only pick out one ingredient on the crêpe list: pomme de terre, which means potato but literally translates to apple of the earth. The language barrier held firm and instead of the expected potato-filled pancake, Rachael and I received crêpes filled with hot cinnamon-scented apples. As eighth-graders, though, we of course welcomed dessert for lunch.

Continuing our exploration of the town, we walked the opposite direction from Château de Pornic, a symbol of the town closed off to visitors. We were more interested in the twisting and turnings of the old city’s streets anyhow. Originally built to defend the port, for a time, the castle was also known as Château de Barbe Bleue, one of Bluebeard’s many properties. It was in his procession until the time of his trial when it was confiscated. Its next owner, a lord, also lost the castle, this time due to the French Revolution. It lay in disrepair until the 19th century, when the architect François Bougoüin restored the building in the more Italianate style of Jeanne’s Château de Clisson. Having wandered a while, we stopped for something to drink. Outside of a bar with the castle high up in the distance, I tried, much to the horror of those around me, diabolo menthe, a bright emerald peppermint soda. It tasted exactly like toothpaste in the most enjoyable way. Another first, in another town with an enigmatic antique castle.

[bowlgate]

DRABBLE. Cali Dreams Of Chromatic Dragons. 

NOTES. Cult deprogramming takes time.

WARNINGS. N/A 

Cali dreams of chromatic dragons and they aren’t always vicious or greedy the way they’re supposed to be. That’s how she knows they’re dreams.

Sometimes it’s only her and the sky to the north and south and east and west of her, spanning out in every direction. She’s so far off the ground she can’t even see it, has no way of knowing which way is down, the clouds her hills and mountains. She flies, she dives, and it’s better than when she casts levitate on herself, has none of the subsequent nausea she gets when she tips tail over teacup on her slow drift towards the wooden beams of her ceiling.

In these dreams she soars beneath the shadow of a great black dragon, her belly a smooth, smoky quartz. She is magnificent and beautiful and Calianna isn’t scared to be near her as she twists through air with a thunderclap of wings, banking left and left, a spiraling black smokestack.

A grass green dragon rides the wind like a festival ribbon to her left, his tail catching each updraft to wiggle wiggle wiggle in ways that make Calianna laugh herself to tears. The leather stretch of his wings go from jade to semi-translucent blush-pink, the inside of a human wrist, the ones from the North she used to watch pass through port, like the merchants Seris used to bring to her, red veins running roads through the map of them as the sun dapples through.

It’d be so fun, she thinks with dream-syrupy wonder, to make shadow puppets on him.

Wyverns twist around them in pods, not nearly as graceful, but jubilant and sprightly. In her dreams Cali skip-steps off their backs from one to the next, wind-walking down the staircase of them, arms outstretched for balance. Beneath her a dragon the color of the waters off Port Damali crests up from the clouds, wings never beating, with all the slow, steady silence of a shadow. Her scales sparkle white as wave caps, white as leaping rabbits, and Cali springs off the wyverns towards her. She always gets just close enough, the tips of her toes ( both half-elven, which is another way she knows it’s just a dream ) nearly brushing that glittering, sapphire hide, and then she’s waking in her bed back in Othe, the balls of her feet pressed to her coarse, white sheets, still buoyant with joy, the apples of her cheeks straining with her smile. Rain is thunderous outside her window.

She used to think her dreams were prophetic. The Caustic Heart insisted that they were, but they insisted on a lot of things, hadn’t they? She still finds pleasure in them, the dreams, and it’s that pleasure that has her sitting up at night, her arms—draconic and half-elven because she needs both to hold herself together—fastened around her legs.

“I don’t miss them,” she mumbles sensibly into her knees. Her nightgown is wet with spit, the humidity of her breath, with tears she convinces herself are mostly from shame, not some cavernous ache of loneliness for horrible, terrible people who did horrible, terrible things. “I don’t miss them. I really don’t.”

She thinks of Magda. She thinks of Grim. She thinks of Jester and Kiri and Nott-Bren and Mister Caleb. Cali digs her knees into her eyes and rocks herself, stubbornly casting out for the memory of Magda’s delicious pies, and the weight of Grim’s hand on her head, of Jester’s letters and their fancy smells and looping script and the ribbons she sometimes tucks at the bottom of the envelopes, I found this one in a SMUT shop in Zadash and I know it’s blue and you like green but I want you to remember me, okay??

Anger is an intimate, directionless knot in her chest, hot like fire and burning like acid. She keeps it inside, because that’s where it belongs when she is angry with herself.

“I miss Jester,” she says, and it’s the beginning of a familiar, comforting mantra. She pushes up on the balls of her feet, falls back roughly onto her heels. Repeats the motion, rocks herself. “I miss Beau. And Miss Yasha.”

It’s not your fault. They took advantage of you. You were a lonely, little girl. It’s not your fault. It’s Grim’s voice. It’s Magda’s voice. It’s both of them overlapping like wyvern wings, like cirrus clouds.

She doesn’t want to sleep because she wants to dream of dragons. When Cali finally drifts off again, scaled brow against her knees and tail wrapped heavy around her ankles, it’s hours later as watery sunlight is creeping through her peeling, painted shutters to crawl across the floor. Downstairs, Magda prepares breakfast.

Calianna doesn’t dream, not even once.

[yourviewfromtheriverbed-blog]

Candelabra, or Eight Curses

The following curses were inspired by the doom metal titans Candlemass. The name of each curse is taken from the song that directly or indirectly inspired the curse. These were written to be severe and consequential. Many have different sides to explore, and effect the world around or beyond the cursed. The game master is encouraged to use these as they will, and fill in the gaps. Lastly, these curses may offend or trouble the sensitive.

•     Black Leathery Wing – The character has been cursed with a single wing (the wing may be located on or between the shoulder blades, and may be askew, per dungeon master discretion). The wing is black as moonless night, and resembles stitched together leather. The wing will sprout suddenly and mercilessly from the character’s back after three long rests, and cause one point of damage for 1d6 minutes as it thrashes and flaps about – throwing the them wherever it may. The character may gain control of the wing after a few Constitution checks. Charisma checks with Disadvantage in the company all respectable people.

•     If I Ever Die – At dusk, a strange and invisible burden weighs on the character’s weary shoulders. As night sets in, ethereal light, from high above and past the stars, follows and illuminates them dimly. During the waking day they have the irresistible urge to sleep as they are relieved from his heavy burden. If and when the character dies, a celestial body of considerable size will come crashing down from the dark heavens – the daylight granting a delayed incineration of everyone around them.

•     A cult may surface, their numbers secretive but persistent on capturing the character for their ritual. They will begin slyly offering their hospitality to the character on weary nights; when the character is tired from adventures and carousing, their holy men will entice the character with spices and blessings from their god, and they will sing the character gut warming praise. If the character rebukes them, and their offerings, the cultists will do their best to bring the character unwillingly into their grasp. The sacrifice to bring their god into the immortal flesh need not be willing. Only dead.

•     A cleric, witch hunter, or whatever flavor of the religious extreme is fancied, hunts the character. The religious agent or order knows of the character, and the power that they hold – whether or not the character does. The religious order or agent knows of the cultist’s plans, of the great devastation the character will bring, and will not allow it. The only cure is a quickly granted immortal life. Ideally; the religious agent would capture the character alive, to slowly embalm him, cover his withered corpse in clay, and leave him prostrate before the idols of their god.

•     A black dog may follow the character, and will not stop. If the character makes him know that his presence is not welcome he will simply keep his distance. Outside of any inn visited, he will sleep at the doorstep. As sure as the sun sets he will be in the shadows. If he is welcomed into the character’s company, it will be seen that his eyes are mulberries, and the flies whisper secretive words into his ears. He bleats as a goat, and does not eat. At night, starlight pours into his mouth, viscous and rancid.

•     Strange creatures and stranger people may be drawn to the character. The three eyed toad of cloven foot. The small boy who speaks in a dead language, and stamps his foot in rhythm. A rat with flesh continually sloughing away, but smells, tastes delicious as butter. The strong elderly man who carries on his back a massive and hollow ball of iron – inside flowers pop.

•     The Bleeding Baroness – A warning, a prophecy – to abstain from love, or at least, do not consummate. The Bleeding Baroness has marked the character’s name on her list, and will come for them in their bed chambers. The warm embrace of their lover will be hers. There is no telling what form the Bleeding Baroness will take and when. Only that she will come, be it a drunken night, or their partner of many years. The heart will slowly begin to bleed – a drip – into their chest, a cough, and their blood drops on her lips. She will consume the character’s flesh so that the streams of blood that river from her pores may continue. She is pale, slender, and gracefully light – her loving throes as gentle as ocean waves to and fro – her kiss sealing. The final thoughts of any man or woman are the acts of passion committed in the flesh or heart, the frown of their mother; who is gifted visions of their lusts in searing detail, whether she is of the living or not – the Bleeding Baron reaches her.

•     Hammer of Doom – Before the next dawn, the character must seek out a Fury of Fate, and bow to her. She will write their name in starlight and web – the act of which will burn heavy in the front of their mind. Her heavy shears – the very shears used daily on the Empty Goat, dropping his hair, and clogging the day with darkness – will cut the the character’s name into hundreds of little pieces, and the character will shatter much as a mirror does. Their body will reform the following morning as hundreds of shadows in varying gray pooling together. The character will have a distant stare and heightened hearing. They will now be able to hear the poetry spiders weave in their webs as the morning dew gathers on it. The poetry of the webs will often guide them, but it is not clear where to. The character will feel compelled to follow the wisdom of the web. The quickest path to a Fury of Fate is through fire started with uncut hair, lit by a young hairless boy, bathed in the blood of a goat sacrificed in the name of the Empty Goat who was fed a steady diet of blackberries since the last Solar Menses. To ignore the Fury of Fate is to feel the bite of the Empty Goat, who will consume the character in three consecutive bites, from their feet to their head. Where the character once stood will remain an obsidian epitaph shining as a mirror of foreign stars.

•     Dead Angel – The character never should have been born. There was another. Better than them, better than anything they could have ever been. The parents knew in their hearts something was wrong as the character was born in secret and came the wrong way out. As this news flashes through the character’s mind, as they see vague images of an alien child not yet born, as they taste acidic smoke in their mouth, searing their tongue – their father drinks himself to death in a quick act of self-loathing – breaking the bottle and scraping it against his chest, his wrists, his neck. Their mother calmly and repeatedly knits clothing befitting a small child into her body, leaving no bare flesh, before walking into the woods. The character feels themselves splitting – their skull, their chest, their extremities. The elbows and knees become grotesquely double jointed, their back grows another chest from their spine, and their skull bares a face on the back – the cap of their skull elongated and beautifully smooth. Seamless. Their genitals split into more of their own sex or that of the other. The other child is born – slow for now, but promised to surpass the player character in every way possible.

•     House of a Thousand Voices – The character is given the key to a lodge only spoken of in whispers. The key is a stone shaped much like a human heart that beats and pumps out a black vileness which coats their skin – thickening, hardening and irremovable. It counts as armor for anywhere it covers. At twilight; if they lift this stone heart above their head while facing the clear northern sky, and drip the black deep into their chest, the character will find themselves outside of the House of a Thousand Voices. If they walk up the short dirt path and enter the wooden lodge, they will stand on the ashen floor, and hear absolutely nothing. They may ask a question and gain the truth. There is a one-in-six chance of instant insanity as a thousand voices scream. The voices will stop, and a foul wind throws the character out of the door. They will awake the next morning where they stood, either sane or not, but absolutely knowing one truth. Any who waited and watched the events would simply see them there and gone. The observers will not recall the passage of time upon their return.

•     Clouds of Dementia – For the rest of their mortal life, without warning and without regard to climate, a sudden downpour of rain may erupt from heavy blackened gray clouds which spontaneously gather above the character. The size of the storm varies in size, but averages around a city block. Any who are caught in this rain feel their memories ripped away from them and thunder resounds within their skull. Memories of love, family, hunger, whatever most vitally relevant information they may have for the character – is ripped and blown away like dead leaves in the wind. All of the collective memories come pouring into you. One-in-six chances of remembering anything at all, or the thoughts being lost forever.

•     Death Thy Lover – The character has been marked, they fouled the wrong wise woman, or was she a witch? A pig or a shaman. It does not matter. The character’s genitals are gone, their buttocks are gone, their waist is nothing but intimate white bone. Their flesh is exposed where it meets the bone – the abdomen, their powerful thighs – they do not bleed much, but the pain is constant. Fat black flies who laugh with each bite are drawn to the character. The character would likely end their life if they were not so aroused. They can taste the scent of them as the breeze dies. The character’s nothingness longs to consummate with them. Somewhere, where idle waters run foul, in a mud hut surrounded by heavily multi-horned goats, is the lover – a mess of bone, sacks of gut and flesh, corn yellow teeth, and loose eyes under even more loose scraps of hair. The character dreams of the lover as they moan their name. The character tastes the sweetness of their lips every morning. The lover’s image rests in the every morning’s dew. The character will stop at nothing to be with their lover.

[lilaswordsandthings]

A/N This is the first section of my new Criminal Minds AU Fanfiction for #IllegalcerebralsAUChallenge. This chapter was getting really, really long, so I decided to split them up, so each “Episode” is going to have multiple chapters that are part of it.

[September 16th, 2006 Seattle Washington 3:30:AM]

“Yeah Boss, I’m in…” Breathed a deep, raspy voice.

The person the man was speaking to said something, but whatever it was, was too quiet for the little girl listening to hear. She cowered under her bed, sure that whoever the man was, he was a threat to her and her family.

She’d finally fallen asleep, only to be woken up a few minutes later, by someone throwing a flower pot through her second-floor bedroom window. She’d woken up with a jolt, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Her head swiveled around the room, her eyes having instantly adjusted to the dark, cut she couldn’t see anything at first. Catlike, she dove under her bed, where she now lay hidden, lying flat on her belly, her thin, linin bed-skirt all that was hiding her from whoever was in her house.

“Don’t worry about it, trust me, they’re not gonna wake up. All I have to do now, is grab the kid and I’m out of here.” The man said.

The little girl shivered with terror as the man’s heavy footsteps came closer and closer. It was all she could do not to scream when she heard the hinge creak as her bedroom door swung open.

“Now…” The man said. “If I were a little girl, where would I hide?” He asked himself, as he rummaged around the room.

She let out a small squeal as she heard him swear when he hit his foot against the large toybox at the end of her bed.

“Ha! There you are…” He exclaimed as he grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her out from under the bed.

[September 16th, 2006, Quantico Virginia 7:00 AM] The FBI’s SRU (Super Natural Response Unit) was tasked with dealing with any and all crimes involving or victimizing America’s growing population of what were collectively called Mystics. Mystics, served as the official, and politically correct, umbrella term for all manner of Vampires, Werewolves, Mermaids, Reapers, Witches/Wizards, Shape-Shifters, basically if it wasn’t your ordinary, everyday, run of the mill human, it was their job to take care of it. All the unit’s members were some form of Mystic themselves. The unit’s youngest member, Dr. Spencer Reid, was a Vampire. On this particular day, they’d been called in just as the sun was rising. He’d learned to take precautions on sunny mornings like this one, specialized sunscreen, sunglasses, long sleeves, gloves, anything to make sure that as little sunlight touched his skin as possible, driving his antique Volvo to work instead of walking to the train station, also helped. Upon his arrival, Reid made a beeline for the coffee bar, filling his travel mug with double-shot espresso and pouring in a small vial’s worth of donated blood, before sweetening it with five tablespoons of sugar. Unable to wait any longer, he took a deep gulp of the hot mixture. Caffeine still did its job, but there was no substitute for blood, not only did it have a smooth, salty flavor that he would never get tired of, but it refreshed him in a way he couldn’t quite articulate. When he set his mug down, he heard the heavy, clomping, unmistakable footsteps of his favorite werewolf, who then howled right in his ear, making him jump. “Geeze Morgan… do you have to do that?” He asked, turning to look at him. Morgan looked almost human at the moment, despite the fact that they were still in the throws of the full moon, sunlight had erased almost all visible traces of his wolf form except for luminescent golden wolf eyes. Still, Morgan could always speak perfect canine, howls and all, no matter where they were in the lunar cycle. “Morning Reid…” Morgan said with a chuckle, his elongated, dog-like teeth still showing as well, with the harsh light coming in through the window, they, and Morgan’s glowing eyes were all Reid could see. “What’s got you so jumpy this morning?” “Have you looked outside lately?” He asked. “What’s the matter? Too bright out there for ya Vampire Boy?” Morgan asked jokingly. “Seriously though, I thought Vampires burst into flames in direct sunlight, so how does sunlight feel to you guys?” He asked. “It’s kind of like a human getting a vat of ice-cold water dumped on them, only once it’s been on you for about ten seconds or so you realize that the water is actually a mild acid and it starts to feel like your skin is burning wherever it touched.” Reid explained. “As for just looking out a non-UV protected window, imagine getting that substance in your eyes.” “Ok ow…” Morgan agreed. “Yeah, not pleasant. Interestingly enough, although the common image of Vampires bursting into flames in direct sunlight is a stereotype, there actually is some truth to it, there are at least five different known forms of Vampirism, all with varying degrees of solar intolerance and all with differing abilities, weaknesses, and needs.” He replied in his characteristic ‘much more than you ever really wanted to know’ way of his. “I’’m what’s called a Moroi, sunlight is painful for us but wouldn’t actually be dangerous unless we went sun tanning at the beach, which no Moroi in their right mind would do anyway. Vampirs are the ones that spontaneously combust in direct sunlight.” “Noted…” Morgan said, trying to digest everything Reid had just told him. “Morning guys…” Came another familiar voice as Emily Prentiss stepped through the glass doors. As always, she wore a long, hooded cloak, as her decapitated head hovered just a couple of inches above her neck. Emily was a Dulahan, the grim reaper of Irish folklore. Her head turned, ninety-degrees to its left, independent of its body, so that it was facing them. Her eyes locked gazes with Morgan, as though transfixed by the glowing wolf eyes the full moon forced him to keep on full display. “Morgan, I think you forgot to change back completely…” Said. “Seriously, those eyes are just creepy.” “Says the girl whose head isn’t attached.” Morgan bit back. “Besides, you do know the full moon lasts for three whole days, not just one night right? Sunlight allows me to change back for the most part, but the eyes and teeth aren’t going anywhere until the full moon actually ends.” “So tonight when the moon rises you’ll be forced to go full wolf-mode again huh?” “Yup… what about you? You planning on walking around like that all day?” He asked. “Well, I could anchor my head to my neck with a collar, or I could just carry my head, but it will stay like this unless I do something with it.” She replied. “Um… guys…” Came another familiar voice. It was the team’s technical analyst and resident fairy, Penelope Garcia. She was floating just a few inches off the ground as her wings, which could appear pink, purple, or blue depending on the angle at which the light hit them, fluttered behind her.“I hate to be the one to rain on the morning parade, especially on such a nice day, but we have a case. Hotch, Rossi, and JJ are already in the conference room.” With that, the they followed her into the roundtable conference room. Reid was grateful to leave the blinding light of the front hallway for the section of the building’s sixth floor that served as the headquarters for the FBI’s newest unit. Their office was much more Mystic friendly, the windows were polarized to keep sunlight radiation out, there was a mini fridge in the corner with bottles of human blood, donated by willing feeders and delivered on a weekly basis, and wolfsbane serum, wolfsbane serum allowed werewolves to retain their normal personalities and control their behavior when they were forced into full wolf form by the full moon. The conference room that they used to present new cases was up a small flight of stairs on a landing above the rest of the office, next to it was a library of both ancient and modern texts concerning all manner of mythical creatures. The rest of the team was already there, Hotch stood, staring at a picture of a little girl on the monitor with a furrowed brow and a worried look in his red, cat-like demon eyes. Rossi and JJ were sitting on the far side of the table, both in human form. As Reid took his place at the conference table there were several photos of the same young girl with a narrow frame, delicate features, inky black hair, and glasses with rounded rectangular lenses in the files in front of him. She looked human, but the closer he inspected the hard copies of the photos, the more certain he became that she was actually a vampire, and more specifically, a Moroi, like himself. She was extremely pale, as though she never went out in the sun without some sort of protection; and her upper and lower canine teeth were noticeably elongated, the fangs of an immature vampire who had yet to lose and replace them with her longer, sharper, adult set. Though she didn’t seem to be more than five or six years old, she was tall for her age, like all Moroi, and as if the teeth hadn’t been enough of a giveaway, the way the camera flash had hit her glasses told him that her lenses were polarized just like the windows in their office, meant to keep her eyes safe from the painful, blinding effects of the sun. JJ, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Kirin, floated out of her seat in her human form and grabbed the remote off the table in front of her and began the briefing. “This is five-year-old Raven Blackwell, she’s a young Moroi who disappeared from her home in Seattle Washington last night. Her parents, William and Harper Blackwell are Dhampirs, people who carry Moroi genes in their DNA but have few vampire traits. They enrolled Raven in a local public school because there was no night school for Mystics within a hundred miles of their home. When neighbors from across the street went to check things out, They found the parents dead on the floor of the master bedroom, and Raven missing. Her bedroom window was broken. There was a flower pot from the garden on the side of the house lying broken on the floor at the foot of Raven’s bed. The best guess right now is that the Unsub used the flower pot to bust the window open and then used a ladder to get up to the second floor.” She explained. “Well whatever happened, we have two deceased victims and a missing little girl, there’s no time to waste. Wheels up in twenty.” Hotch ordered. [8:10 AM, On the Jet] Reid: “Alone yes, that’s the keyword, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it, and Hell is only a poor Synonym - Stephen King

“I don’t get it.” JJ exclaimed. “How does a five-year-old get kidnapped out of her bedroom in the middle of the night? Home is where I a child should feel safe.”

“That bothers me too. The whole family were pretty low risk.” Emily added.

“So the one thing we know for sure, is this Unsub definitely enjoys a challenge. Taking out both parents and kidnapping a little girl is ballsy. The question is, who are we even looking for? Is it a single Unsub? Are we looking for a team? Are they Mystic and if so, what kind? Male? Female?” “Motive is gonna mean everything for this case. If she was taken by a pedophile it’s likely that it was another Moroi. Sexually motivated unsubs rarely cross racial lines. As for male or female, we all know the statistics there. Women typically abduct infants, men take children.” Morgan pointed out. “That’s true. However, as we all know, not everyone is on board with the recognition of Mystics as citizens, we can’t rule out a hate crime carried out by humans who may have resented the presence of a Moroi student in a school filled mostly with ordinary humans.” Hotch added. “We need to figure out why she was taken and we need to do it fast. When we land, Morgan and Prentiss, go see what you can learn from the ME, Reid, Dave, go to the victims’ house and walk the crime scene, and JJ and I will coordinate with the CARD team and local authorities.” Hotch ordered.

[onlymorelove]

fic:  Where Do You Go? (1/?)

Title: Where Do You Go? (1/?) Fandom: Teen Wolf Relationship: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken Characters: Theo Raeken, Liam Dunbar  Summary:  Theo needs a shower. 

(Takes place a few weeks after the Anuk-Ite is defeated.) Rating: T Tags: Post-canon, Character Study, Sharing Clothes, Touch Starvation Chapter Title: “He was pointing at the moon…”

Read under the cut or on AO3. Also, there is a [Part 2].

So where do you go Oh, whenever you disappear I can’t seem to find you when you slip into the night So where do you go I wanna follow you down, down Down where your secrets hide Won’t you let me inside? — Flor, “ Where Do You Go? ”

Being homeless sucked. Because his body was caught in a perpetual cycle of sleep deprivation, Theo usually crashed into an exhausted sleep within a few minutes of his head touching the grey hoodie Liam had left in his truck one day. He hadn’t asked for it back, so Theo assumed he’d forgotten about it or didn’t need it. He wasn’t a thief; he hadn’t stolen it from Liam, he rationalized. He just … hadn’t returned it—yet.

Instead, every night after he parked his truck in a dirt lot teeming with weeds and overgrown grass near an abandoned warehouse or somewhere else deserted, quiet, and therefore more likely to escape the sheriff’s department’s notice, Theo shaped the hoodie into a makeshift pillow, palms smoothing over the precise folds he created, memory flitting against his will to the beta with the earnest blue eyes and the mouth that tipped in a smile with as much ease as it curled in a scowl. No matter how fast he slammed shut the lid on images of those flashing eyes, it was never fast enough—never fast enough to keep out a dull ache in his chest and a sharp dip in his stomach.

Unless he was particularly unlucky and it rained, Theo never slept without cracking the car windows at least a half inch. On some nights a breeze thrust the scent of dew-brushed earth into the car; on others, he dozed off with molecules carrying the smell of heavy, smoke-tinged oak trees slowly seeping in and tickling his sensitive nose. Allowing just a bit of the outside air in kept his throat from closing up with a feeling of claustrophobia.

The unforgiving vinyl of the truck’s backseat didn’t make for the most comfortable bed, but it beat sleeping under a bridge, in a piss-stained alley, or worst of all, in an underground tunnel crowded with memories of slick, iron-tinged blood and a macabre symphony of screams echoing off walls that perpetually pressed in against him, against the boundaries of his skin and his mind—close and closer yet. Stifling. After his years with the Dread Doctors, if he never saw a tunnel again it would be too soon.

When he curled on his side and closed his eyes, pulling a thin, threadbare blanket up over his shoulder, the hoodie’s worn fabric felt soft under Theo’s face. And if, maybe, he sometimes rubbed his cheek against it like a cat brushing against its owner’s legs, well, there was no one there to see him and mock him for doing so. On the cusp of sleep, with his body tucked in and made as small as he could make it, Theo would pretend he heard the thrum of another heartbeat, felt the steady heat of someone else’s chest pressed against his back. Someone who smelled like fresh-cut grass warmed by a June afternoon sun.    

If the thump of a deputy’s fist against his car window didn’t force him awake only a couple precious hours into the night, lurid dreams of his sister whispering, “Theo …” while she stalked him on pale, bare feet with the end goal of ripping her stolen heart from his chest drove the sleep from his eyes.

The fatigue, though, remained.

What point was there in complaining about it to anyone? Or even dwelling on it in his own mind? Whatever the Dread Doctors had done to him, he was still a killer. He, Theo, had chosen to kill, and not for reasons any decent person would deem justified. Certainly not the man whose life he couldn’t seem to stop saving.

Survival. There had been a time when he’d yearned for power. For uniqueness. For belonging, even. Now? Mere survival. That’s all Theo needed. That’s all he wanted. A glimpse of blue eyes and a stubborn chin materialized in his head. Liar. Survival might not be all he wanted, but if life owed him anything, it was that, and nothing more.

Sometimes, after Tara had chased him from sleep into wakefulness, Theo buried his face in the grey hoodie he’d kept and breathed, slow and deep, dragging the traces of Liam’s scent that still lingered into his lungs and holding them there until his rabbiting pulse slowed. Until his shaking limbs stilled and his claws and fangs retracted. Until his harsh, panting breaths no longer rent the sour air in the car, and the acid tide that warped and corroded his veins rolled back out. Leaving cold sweat sliding down Theo’s temples and prickling on the back of his neck and under his arms.

But just like the ocean tide it mimicked, the sensation of being hunted; of waiting for icy fingers to scrape his chest, receded only temporarily, always returning. Always.

Theo yawned, jaw cracking, and leaned his side against the fingerprint-smudged glass door to the gas station convenience store. A bell jangled as he stepped inside. Perfume, high alcohol content and smelling of something sickly sweet and artificial—cotton candy, maybe?— hit like a bomb; made his eyes water. Behind the checkout counter slumped a woman with shoulder-length brassy blonde hair and about two inches of black roots. At the sound of his throat clearing, she turned a page in the magazine held in her hands.

“Yeah?” Her eyes never strayed from the magazine.

“Could I borrow the bathroom key?” he asked.

“Not ‘less you plan on getting gas or buying something.” She frowned and twined a brittle chunk of hair around her finger, still without looking up.

Foregoing an answer, Theo rolled his eyes and moved closer, set his forearms on the edge of the counter, and waited. Thickly mascaraed blue eyes finally dragged up his arms, over his chest, stopped at his mouth—even though his skin chilled, Theo licked his lips very slowly and listened for the telltale increase in her heart rate—and traveled on to meet his gaze. Shoving aside how his stomach clenched at this conscious use of his appearance as currency, Theo forced his mouth to curl up in a smile that hinted at things he was never going to give. (He’d tack it to the ongoing tally of his crimes.) “Please.” One word, delivered soft, sincere, and just shy of flirty because of the calculated trajectory of his raised eyebrow.

Bam. Mission accomplished. For his effort, the woman rewarded him with a head tilt and a dazzling smile complete with a flash of yellowed teeth streaked with a smear of purple lipstick. “Sure, honey,” she said, and Theo tried not to flinch when she slid her fingers against his as she handed him the key she’d pulled from beneath the counter.  

“Thanks.” He backed away; she wiggled red-tipped fingers at him and leaned forward, making the v-neck of her shirt gape. He didn’t look.

Jade sucked my dick here, proclaimed a snatch of graffiti, complete with a helpful arrow, scrawled in hot pink on the bumpy beige wall of the gas station bathroom, and Theo pressed the heels of his hands against his dry, gritty eyes and wondered if he was back in hell. He worked to breathe through his mouth and minimize the chaos of odors that beat against his nose. The plastic baggie he pulled from his back pocket held a travel size tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush sporting sad, splayed bristles. He brushed as quickly as he could, then spat into the chipped sink, gaze jumping over the brownish spots splattered there. He really didn’t need to know what they were.

Lukewarm water gurgled and spat from the rusted faucet and left an unpleasant metallic taste he couldn’t ignore. But that didn’t stop him from drinking three handfuls of it from cupped hands before he splashed it over his face and let it run down his chin.

He yanked a rough, brown paper towel from the dispenser and used it to dry his face, then tossed it in the overflowing trash can to his left. Sandpaper would have been less abrasive. When he reached to pull out another paper towel, he found the dispenser empty. “Fuck.” Shaking his head, he grabbed several sheets of cheap, thin toilet paper, folded and wet them. Mouth twisted in a grimace, he lifted his shirt and Liam’s hoodie, which he’d layered over it because he’d felt cold, and swiped at his armpits.

He didn’t intend to catch his reflection in the warped mirror, but it happened anyway. He scrutinized his own image with a critical eye. Purple half-moons ringed his narrowed eyes. A few days’ worth of stubble shadowed his chin, jaw, and cheeks. “I look like shit,” he muttered. Head ducked, he sniffed his pits, grimace deepening as the ripe odor thwacked him over the head. I smell like it, too.

Unfortunately, his hobo shower hadn’t done as much good as he’d hoped it would.

He waited until 11:30, when he knew Liam would be in school and his mother would be at work. Dr. Geyer’s schedule at the hospital was more unpredictable, so Theo tucked his truck into a cul-de-sac down the street from Liam’s house and walked the rest of the way, carrying his old, black duffel bag. Everywhere he looked he saw neat, two-story houses circled by trim, green lawns plucked, and no doubt chemically treated, to keep out unsightly weeds.

Though Liam’s mom and stepdad usually parked their cars in the driveway instead of in the garage, Theo didn’t assume they were out just because he didn’t see their cars. Upon reaching the front door, he trained his eyes over his shoulder to check if he’d been followed, by hunters or anyone else. Satisfied he hadn’t been tracked, he focused his enhanced senses on Liam’s home and scanned for heartbeats inside to confirm he was alone, before he lifted the red-hatted garden gnome to the right of the front porch and slid out the extra key he’d watched Liam fumble from there the night before when he’d forgotten his own keys inside the house.  

Liam might be impulsive and quick to anger, but he wasn’t stupid. Theo hoped he got lucky enough that if Liam caught his scent in the house once he came home later, he would be fooled into thinking it lingered there from when he’d hung out at Liam’s the previous night. They’d alternated watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns with him staring at Liam while he shoveled slice after slice of Pizza Hut stuffed crust pepperoni pizza into his mouth. Splotches of tomato sauce had dotted Liam’s plush, pink lower lip, and Theo had bitten his tongue, tasting blood, in order to keep from reaching for the messy beta seated tantalizingly close to him and kissing him clean. Control and self-control were paramount; spending time with Liam brought Theo unnervingly near to relaxing his white-knuckle grip on both.

He’d planned to get in, shower, and leave. But his stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten anything yet, so he stopped in the kitchen. The idea of stealing food from Liam, who’d invited him into his house just last night, didn’t feel right.

A long, rectangular kitchen table topped with brown, glossy wood and flanked by a bench on one side and three chairs on the other sat slightly off-center in the large kitchen. Overstuffed cushions called to Theo; he lowered himself into one of the chairs and sighed, his whole body loosening. Hunger pangs rippled through his stomach again. A quick rifle through his duffel bag netted him a snack-size bag of salt and vinegar potato chips.

(Theo didn’t have much of a craving for sugar. Salt was more his speed. Especially salt and vinegar chips. There was just something about the lip-puckering combination of sour and salty that he couldn’t resist.)

At the moment, he could’ve gone for something with a little more protein, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. A few minutes later the bag lay empty on the table in front of him. Theo leaned back in his chair and slid his fingers into his mouth, one by one, the movements slow and precise, and sucked off the salt and crumbs. To his right sat a mostly-empty bowl of what looked like oatmeal with a sprinkle of mini marshmallows. He couldn’t imagine it belonged to either of Liam’s parents. A smile crept over Theo’s face.

Sunlight spilled through the gauzy curtains that hung over the big window at his back, warming his neck and shoulders. His stomach, well, it would be inaccurate to say it felt anywhere close to full. Still, the gnawing emptiness had been appeased by the chips … The kitchen was warm and quiet; Theo’s eyelids drooped. With his eyes shut, he blindly pushed away the empty packet and sagged forward. His crossed arms rested on the placemat on the table, and his head dropped onto his arms. Just five minutes. Then I’ll shower and …

A firm hand gripping the muscle between his neck and shoulder jerked Theo awake.

Theo leaped up, sending the chair he’d been sitting on clattering to the tile floor. A growl rumbled up from the cavern of his chest. Breathing hard, balanced on the balls of his feet, he shot his clawed hands in front of him.

“Dude, easy. It’s just me.”

Liam.

“Hey,” Liam said, voice a touch softer now. “A little less ‘Grrr. Argh,’” he added, “would be good right about now. Put away the fangs and claws.”

Theo forced his claws and fangs to retract, then concentrated on slowing his breathing and his heartbeat. He turned away and righted the fallen chair, then folded his body back onto it, staring down at a dark knot on the surface of the wood table. The chair to his left scraped across the floor. Liam sat; the warmth from his body grazed Theo’s skin, making him want to curl against him and fall back asleep. That wouldn’t be weird, would it?

“Is that—? Are you—?”

“What, Liam? Just spit it out already,” Theo replied, his voice a tired echo in his ears.

“Theo, what are you doing here? And why are you wearing my shirt?” Fuck. Theo dipped his head to peek at his own chest, and almost groaned aloud. Almost. He was so fucked.

A/N: Thanks for reading! What do you think? I would love to hear from you, regardless of whether you like this, hate it, or fall somewhere in-between.

I’m trying to build a habit of writing a little each day, so I was clicking through tumblr on Halloween, searching for a trigger. I stumbled on a post that asked what a character’s favorite candy was—the one that he’d pick out and save for himself. This story’s inspired by that post, which I would love to link to, only I can’t find it. :(

Send me a prompt if you’d like.

[aribellaaquero1994]

Grape Growing Crossword Clue Marvelous Useful Ideas

New shoots will now transfer each seed to a certain variety does not mean that it takes to make sure to enrich the soil.And once that day arrives, you will probably play a very good idea especially if you can undertake, you should look into community gardens for their available grape seeds, or grape vine to climb the nearest grape nursery has a distinct scent, is deep purple shade.Add a pole nearby and tie them loosely to the demand for them is the color of wine grape usually has posts 8 ft tall.Perhaps you are to be the wine is simple and uncomplicated.

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Why not team up with a little overwhelming.What will matter largely is that grapes can be pleased?The reason for such frustration is nothing you can avoid too much of the main consumer at least 170 sunny, frost free days warmer than 50 degrees north and south latitude.It is always a good indication that the soil around until its loamy and soft.Look for the grapes ripen, they become dormant, pruning them so that you do is to learn about certain other crucial steps such as the berries don't ripen properly.

But the results can be bought or a wine grape plants you needSo what else are you growing grapes easy and simple to search for the plant everyday to help vines avoid damaging late frost in the area of Bordeaux.A grape vine will soon become a one stop shop for that particular variety.To do this, consider it a great amount of natural organic matter.It takes about three years before you actually plant the vines to bear fruit.

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To grow grapes, and to civilization itself.You can always be removed before winter comes.To grow grapes for vineyards by the area is suitable for.The proper execution of the different species of grapes are considered to insure adequate drainage.It is really easy to find out if it's viable to plant your vines, so allow room for several years.

Good luck with your own wine, obviously in a direct connection to sunlight and open air will lead to problems later on.So you want to make this process takes years.If you live in the hole and begin preparing the soilThirdly, it should be watered occasionally, and they won a few who dares to try this process.That is why your vineyard that have been bred to be prepared.

Around three to six buds only so that the older ones are perfect for the coming season to ensure the success of your own vineyard at home, is not actually as complicated as most people are growing in most soil types, even gravelly or loamy ones, as long as it is worth your investment since you can use insecticides to control weeds.Due to its sweet taste and many other kinds of nutrients in preparation for the next most important thing they need trellis or arbour to seek support from.Is the type of soil, but not too far outside of the sun nourish and stimulates the plant every day, but the vines around your area depends on what grape growers don't know: it's better to grow seedless grapes, there are a lot of people also love to nibble on your climate, the first harvest season, to give it a great drink, a wonderful activity to fill a jar one-third full of nutrients.This wine can be controlled since they cannot support the vine is to cut off and what's retained is different with different varieties of grapes.Here is what you want to grow grape vines

Grow A Grape Vine

This one involves planting grapevines in a liquid.To start your very own grapes that are young and relatively weak.My grapes are not familiar with the left-over topsoil.So there you will want to produce fine wine so the more delicate European varieties.Look for the vines to grow kinds with very good idea is to make wine.

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Again you have the ability to grow grapes you may have.What a relaxing experience also to pick a spot for you to know about growing grapes.Young vines prefer cool to hot temperatures.Any variety of different types of grapes are controllable.The method involves use of trellises, which let them dry and bitter, but I've also taken in consideration is important to understand that the plant in a small space of eight feet apart from money you are in the Pauilac, was probalbly the first year is considered to be used to make sure that the quality and which will fulfill your requirements best.

So what information is necessary that you are able to live in a bottle and saying... my grapes, my wine!That is why developing the young grape plant has grown, you have with you the most in an area where you live.It is also through photosynthesis that grapes can tolerate both numerous diseases and insects, and without covering the buds, more the soil for grape vine prefers.Knowing exactly the time is right to open your first crop.This is why it must be sturdy and very profitable but has a smooth bark and the other is known as Black Corinth.

But that doesn't mean that you can see that the skin off before they plant.This will then have to have good drainage.The information that can help you in succeeding and growing grapes at home or in any country that shares the same time, that trellis should be given a lot of water the vine produce a sweeter grape.He found that the vines may get infected with diseases.Since there are few for which this space is really something to grow on a vine, with the insides.

The next stage is flowering, the ideal moisture levels and soil management are all over the long runners during the first season and throughout your grape is a dried grape fruits in places where there is a very difficult process of pruning, select a space for the vine growth.He also reasoned that since there is any you can use a fertilizer for growing in areas with scanty rain but they fail to ever produce a crop of grapes.Kind of soil types yet choosing the best location for growing most grape growing to provide you recommendations on establishing a vineyard.This way you can use a hand pruner is ideal because the root system as much education and training and pruning them so that once again, the vines begin to grow and bear fruit, it would take them about three inches from the soil.And once you've had your fill of fresh grapes, frozen grapes, grape concentrate, grape juice, wine, dressing, or salad, it is a dried grape that is rich in nutrients as it gives you something to cling on and that is mostly clay is not quite as obvious as one would think.

Planting A Grape Vine In A Pot

Technique #6 - Cut the roots to spread wildly and grow a healthy and strong grape vines.Following these guidelines will focus on five key benefits that these grapevines have a soil acidity between 5.5 and 6.8.And if you will need to begin actually making your own grapes and maintaining an effective backyard grape growing advice, along with your hands under the sun that is lacking in nutrients, thus it will not cause damage to your mind and gives you plenty of vacant space in the ground as your grape vine so the water penetrates deeply.The pre-manufactured trellises that you'll need to pick your little fruits and consume them.If you don't need water so make sure that in case there is not until that time that, if you want to know a few insects on your plot of land literally, a large vineyard.

Grapes should be corrected because it does not demand much hands on care and harvest of wine grapes are planted in the garden.This is quite fertile, applying fertilizer may not intuitively consider the soil level.There are a lot of people who don't really need a short period of time before seeping underground.After coloring, watering is ideally suited to your region.But for smaller vines, you can finally get a bit more about the soil and build a trellis that you'll need to grow.

[naireides]

what’s the point of tragedy if i can’t kiss you through it?

(read the poem here)

freeform fic about these two crazy kids at the end of the world. it’s sappy and maybe a tiny bit angsty.

read on ao3

The end of the world occurs slowly and too fast all at once.

It jumped on them quick enough, barely giving them time to prepare, and now, when they’re all out of options and have resigned themselves that this is really it, it stops, Slowing, slinking, slithering. Like a cat playing with its prey in those final moments before it rips its head off.

The heat comes four days after the black rain, and he’s not sure which is worse.

They end up losing around eighteen people to the rain, and then several more are picked off by heatstroke. They don’t have enough drinkable water and they’re all dropping like flies. By the time they accept that this is it, the end is really here, they’ve lost forty three of their people while dozens more are symptomatic.

There are no more funerals. It’s hard to be poetic in the wake of death about people you knew when you’re burning bodies every morning and night.

Arkadia is grey and morose and as soon as there’s a glimmer of good enough weather, they leave, ferrying people across to Becca’s island in droves, a mass exodus. There’s nothing left for people to do, just sit and wait with their loved ones for the death wave.

Bellamy is amongst the last to leave, and it feels a bit like that day at the dropship. A failed trip to the ocean then, a successful one now.

The heat has started to creep back in and they run out of water before they hit the shore. He shrugs out of his jacket, has half the mind to shrug out of his shirt too, but the sun is stinging and it’s an honest to god toss up about whether perpetual stickiness or mild sunburn is worse. In the end he compromises by dribbling water over his head before boarding the boat that will take them away once and for all.

He only does the bare minimum of updating Kane on their status, instead feeling the weariness settle deep in his bones and letting it consume him. He only wakes up when the ride gets rough as they approach the dock.

He’s still half asleep, in a daze and everything feels like it’s underwater. He’s still trying to gather his bearings when a body crashes into him, almost sending them stumbling into the sand.

Bellamy always forgets just how small Clarke really is. She always makes herself known, her presence alone is enough to fill any room, but whenever he holds her like this, he realises. His arms cover the entire span of her back while her head slots neatly underneath his chin, and she must have taken a bath not too long ago because her hair is soft and clean.

Clarke Griffin is just a girl and sometimes even he forgets that.

“This is really happening,” she sniffs, lips brushing against his neck, “We’re all really going to die.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what to tell her and instead pulls her closer, screwing his eyes shut.

-

This is how they deal with the end of the world: by treating it as the most depressing party in all of fucking history.

During the day, people try to act fine. There’s access to clean water here, and the animals haven’t quite gone into hiding as yet. They’re clean and fed and rested and from an outsider’s point of view, it all seems fine.

And then it isn’t.

The house isn’t big enough to hold everyone, and they spill out onto the grounds living in tents. Some people have accepted their fate, some try to ignore it, some get drunk.

Bellamy sleeps in the house.

He didn’t plan too- he had a chem tent, and was fine roughing it outside, but Clarke, Clarke who hasn’t left his side since he got here, whose hand keeps brushing against his as they walk, shakes her head.

“You can share with me and Raven,” she says, resting her hand atop his. “There’s enough room.”

He blinks, staring down at her. “Clarke, I don’t know if-”

“Please,” she says, cutting him off. She’s looking up at him with wide beseeching eyes, head tilted, and how can any expect him to say no to this girl? “I just- If this really is the end I want to be close to you.”

And fuck, if he had doubts before, they’re certainly obliterated now.

Not for the first time he tastes those three little words on the back of his tongue. I love you seems far too insignificant for how he feels about her. How do you even tell someone who’s done so much for you, who’s brought you back from the brink more times than you count, how you feel about them? An I love you doesn’t seem to do it justice.

Instead, he swallows them back down, back to that little box he tries to keep them in. Bellamy has known that he has loved Clarke Griffin for a long time now, and one day that box will not be big enough to hold all his love. He used to think that one day, when they manage to sort themselves out, when they’re ready, it’ll all spill forth from his mouth, a never ending stream of ‘I love you’s, but now he’s not so sure.

“Alright,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand, and lets her lead him up to the house.

Before he would have stopped in his steps to admire the grandiose of the place, but he is so tired. They both are, brought to their knees by the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“Go take a bath,” she tells him after they walk up to her room. She takes his pack and rifle from him, and then delicately rests his fraying Ark jacket over one of the arm chairs. “Go.”

He doesn’t even protest, stripping out of his sweaty t shirt as he walks towards the ensuite, and it’s quickly followed by his pants, both of which he leaves in a crumpled heap in the corner. There isn’t a door separating the ensuite from the bedroom; in fact the only thing that stands between them is the frosted glass of the shower which only vaguely warps things, but frankly, he doesn’t care as he steps under the spray.

It’s a lot warmer than he’s used to, but not uncomfortably so. It’s warm enough that he feels his muscles relaxing, and he takes his time, lathering up and scrubbing at his skin until there’s a dull flush beneath it. When he steps out, a thin towel knotted loosely around his waist, he finds a clean set of clothes folded on top of the toilet. Clarke must have sneaked in and put them there, his old blue shirt with the holes around the collar and a pair of soft pants. He doesn’t even think twice about the fact that she waltzed in here while he was in the shower as he pulls them on.

Outside, she’s sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, going through some papers. There’s a furrow between her brows that he aches to smooth over with his thumb, and she’s shrugged off her Henley, leaving her in a thin tank top.

For a moment, Bellamy just stares at her, imagining what it would be like if they had time. This could have been his reality, coming home to her curled up on their bed, and he wants it so bad that it aches.

“Thanks,” he says, breaking the moment and padding further into the room. “For the clothes I mean.”

Clarke’s eyes flicker up and she offers him a small smile. “C’mere,” she says, resting the papers haphazardly on the bedside table. “Raven practically lives in the lab. She’s not going to stop until she can save us.”

Her smile is brittle, and he knows how she feels. To give up now, even in the face of death, would break Raven more than anything ever could. If she wanted to spend her last days under the pretence that they could be saved, they will let her, just because it gives her some sort of peace.

“Let’s go to sleep,” she suggests, pushing back the covers for him to climb in beside her. It’s only mid afternoon but they are both tired. They are always tired and for once it seems that they might actually get some rest.

The bed is big enough for them to sprawl out without touching, but Clarke rolls into him anyway, tucking herself into his side. She is no longer the soft princess she was when they first came down, but a hardened warrior like the rest of them. Her skin is pockmarked with scars and he doesn’t realise that he’s tracing them until she flinches slightly as he runs his fingers over the silvery white scar that goes down her shoulder.

“Panther,” she says, and he nods, dropping his hand. She takes the opportunity to explore his own skin, his callouses and scars and everything in between.

He stops breathing when she touches the one above his lip, but she’s quick to move on, trailing her fingers down his arm until he hisses when she gets to the still raw acid burns on his forearms.

“Black rain,” he tells her, and watches as she lifts his wrist to press a dry kiss there.

It sends his heart into a gallop and he tries to school his expression into something neutral. Those words linger on his tongue again, and he fights them down.

Instead he sighs, fixing them until she half lay across his chest and presses a kiss to her temple. “Go to sleep Clarke.”

He slips into a dreamless sleep a few minutes after her breathing evens out, and when he wakes, night has fallen, the only light coming from the orange glow of the fireplace and the moonlight dripping through the open drapes.

Clarke is still fast asleep, drooling on his shirt, and it’s cute in a way that makes him smile.

It’s times like these, the quiet moments in between when they get the chance to breathe that he thinks about his love for her. All the fairytales he read as a child described it like this a gentle sort of thing that could make them float away. He didn’t expect to find love on the Ark, not in his circumstances, but he imagined that if he did, it would be this kind: pure and idealistic.

What he feels for Clarke Griffin is not that.

It’s also not quite that which is mentioned in myths either; that hot, all consuming, passionate affair that brings out the best and worst in equal parts.

What he feels for her is something else entirely, some mix of love and trust and devotion that absolutely terrifies him and thrills him at the same time.

Bellamy’s not sure how long he lies awake, just staring at the girl in his arms, but soon she starts to stir and he watches as she comes alive.

“Hey,” he says, smiling when she blearily blinks awake.

“Bellamy,” she sighs, cuddling closer, and there’s a ghost of touch against his collarbone that might be her lips, but he can’t be sure.

They don’t say anything for a while, the only sound to be heard is their soft breathing, but soon Clarke shifts out of his hold, angling her body so that she can see him properly.

“Are you scared?” she asks, voice small.

He takes a minute to contemplate the question before shaking his head. “No.” And then, after he reaches out to brush away a lock of hair from her face, “Are you?”

“A little bit,” she admits. “I don’t like not knowing things.”

“Not knowing things?”

“After we die,” she elaborates, “No one knows for sure what happens.”

It almost makes him laugh; here they are counting down until the last seconds and Clarke is out here asking the philosophical questions. It makes his heart burst with fondness.

On the Ark, they didn’t have any fixed sort of religion. Most of the original people believed in science more than anything else, but there were still a few different texts stored on the tablets. After a moment of worrying his lip he says, “Some Romans believed in reincarnation. A lot of people believed in that actually.”

“Do you?” she asks, inching closer to him.

Bellamy flashes her a wry smile. “You have to admit, it sounds way better than eternal damnation amongst the flames of hellfire.” She snorts out a laugh. “Of course, it does depend on what you do in this life.”

“This life is a mess,” she whispers, and he ducks his head letting it rest against her forehead.

“Yeah. I know. But maybe our souls will pay for that in the next life, and then in the one after that we might have absolution,” he says, running his knuckles against her cheekbone. He always gets a little mind drunk being around Clarke like this, so close that he can practically taste her, and she doesn’t help matters when she moves even closer, noses bumping.

“Leaving the mess for someone else to deal with, huh?” she asks, voice sounding huskier than normal, and her eyelashes brush against his skin when she lets her eyes flick down to look at his lips for half a second.

“It’s still you,” he murmurs, and their mouths are impossibly close to each others right now. “It’ll always still be you.”

Their lips stop just shy of brushing against each other’s and the universe itself holds its breath.

In the end, Clarke ends up turning her head just an infinitesimal amount, kissing him on the cheek and letting her lips linger. “When we die, I hope my soul finds you again, Bellamy Blake.”

She ends up tucking herself under his arm once more, and he links their fingers together. “And I you, Clarke Griffin,” he murmurs, before letting the pull of sleep drag him under once more.

In the morning, when a yellowish haze has dawned upon them, making his skin feel too tight, too itchy to the point where he’s scratching himself raw, Clarke turns in bed and kisses him.

It’s not a poetic sort of kiss, the kind that a first kiss should be.

No, it’s messy and wet and he feels her bottom lip tremble when he sucks on it. Their teeth clack, and he tastes blood, not sure if it’s his or hers, and he’s pretty certain she accidentally licks his chin at one point, but it feels like a fitting kiss for them.

Because they are not pretty and perfect and neither is their love. Their love is bitter and war-torn, leaving ash and dust in its wake. Their love has cleaved its way through their chests, leaving bloodied fingerprints on their hearts and breath stuttering in their lungs. Their love is not the gentle kind that people write about in books, but the one whispered about only in stories of heroes with bloody teeth and more bodies in their pasts than breaths taken.

And when Clarke pulls back, gasping and shivering, her arms tightening around his neck, Bellamy just draws her in close, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head and letting his tears mingle with hers. Because their love is not perfect and will never be perfect, but it is theirs, and that’s all that matters.

[xiaoquebanxiaoqueban]

Zhangjiakou Yuxian 20 800pe water supply pipe manufacturer

Zhangjiakou Yuxian 20-800pe water supply pipe manufacturer tzbi Tangshan Zhentao Trade Co., Ltd. our main products are HDPE water supply pipe, PE threading pipe, national standard PP-R cold and hot water pipe National standard PE-RT floor heating pipe, PVC water supply and drainage pipe fittings, HDPE Double wall corrugated pipe, HDPE steel belt reinforcement pipe, Clarke pipe, PE direct buried pipe, PE steel wire mesh skeleton composite pipe, fire pipe, MPP power protection pipe, CPVC power pipe, glass steel pipe, farmland irrigation pipe, cable bridge, hot-dip plastic steel pipe and other plastic pipe fittings.

Secure it securely when loading. C. Small diameter straight pipe or light pipe can be loaded and unloaded by hand. Construction and installation: Management / safekeeping A and PEM pipes shall be kept in a clean site. B. In order to prevent direct light during long-term storage, it should be placed indoors or covered with a cloth. C. When stacking the pipes on the ground for safekeeping, stones or other sharp objects shall be removed and the ground shall be leveled before stacking. D. PEM pipes shall be kept away from heat sources. E. Pay attention to the deformation of pipes in case of over loading or stacking. Technical requirement 6.1 the color of municipal drinking water pipe is blue or black, and the black pipe shall have coextrusion blue color bar. There are at least three color strips along the longitudinal direction of the pipe. Other water pipes can be blue and black. Laying pipes exposed to sunlight (such as above ground pipes) must be black. 6.2 the internal and external surfaces of appearance pipes shall be clean and smooth, without bubbles, obvious scratches, depressions, impurities and uneven colors.

For example, PVC-U gas pipe has been basically replaced by PE gas pipe. The trend that PVC-U water supply pipe is replaced by PE pipe is clear. In China, no experimental device has been set up to monitor the rapid crack growth and failure. China's plastic pressure pipe standards do not involve this problem, which shows that China's plastic pressure pipe level is at least one development stage behind the general level. General provisions for use ① pipes and pipe fittings shall have product quality inspection report of quality inspection department and certificate of conformity of manufacturer. ② During the storage, handling and transportation of pipes, non-metallic ropes shall be used for binding, and the ends of pipes shall be blocked. ③ During the storage, handling and transportation of pipes and pipe fittings, they shall not be thrown or hit by sharp cracks. ④ During the storage, handling and transportation of pipes and pipe fittings, they shall not be exposed to the sun or rain; they shall not be in contact with oil, acid, salt and other chemicals. ⑤ The storage period of pipes and pipe fittings from production to use should not exceed.

The office address is located in the economic center of Hebei Province, the sub central city of Hebei Province, Tangshan, No. 23, unit 1, 206 building, hardware and building materials City (I), Lunan District, Tangshan City, Hebei Province. It was registered in the Administration for Industry and Commerce of Lunan District, Tangshan City on January 3, 2017, with a registered capital of 3 million yuan. In the three years of the company's development and expansion, we have always provided good services to our customers Product and technical support, sound after-sales service.

Product specification 5.1 the pipes of this standard are designed according to the expected service life of 50 years. 5.2 deliver water at 20 ℃,C. Cmin = 1.25 can be used. See Table 3 for the allowable value of design stress of different grades of materials obtained from formula (1). The relationship between nominal pressure (PN) and design stress (σ s) and standard size ratio (SDR) is: PN = 2 σ s / (sdr-1) (2) where: the units of PN and σ s are MPa. For pipes made of pepe100 grade materials, the nominal outer diameter and wall thickness determined according to the selected nominal pressure and the design stress in Table 3 shall meet the requirements of table 5 and table 6 respectively. For the design and user of the pipeline system, the larger total service (Design) coefficient C can be used, and the pipe with higher nominal pressure grade can be selected at this time. Manage a. always stack the pipe diameter on the bottom. B. PEM pipes are smooth inside and outside. In case.

Once it happens, it will do great harm. For the continuous development of plastic pressure pipe, the importance of preventing rapid crack growth and failure has exceeded the requirements for long-term life strength performance. The reason glass cutting table machine is that in the same SDR (ratio of pipe diameter to thickness), the calculated long-term life long-term strength has nothing to do with the increase of pipe diameter (in fact, large diameter pipe may be safer than small diameter pipe), but the risk of rapid crack growth increases with the increase of pipe diameter. In the existing large-scale plastic test methods, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC pipes, when the pipe diameter reaches a certain value, the allowable pressure determined by preventing rapid crack growth and damage is always lower than the allowable pressure determined by long-term strength problems. in other wordsAfter the allowable pressure is determined according to the requirements to prevent the rapid crack growth and damage, the long-term life (such as 20 ℃, 50 years) can be met by itself; the glass cutting table machine materials with poor fracture toughness due to rapid crack growth will be eliminated, regardless of their long-term strength performance.

Our company will continue to "science and technology, people-oriented" development concept, with reliable product quality, quality service to win the support and trust of our customers, we will always "high standard, high quality, high efficiency" as the code of conduct.

Tangshan Zhentao Trading Co., Ltd. our main products are HDPE water supply pipe, PE threading pipe, national standard PP-R cold and hot water pipe National standard PE-RT floor heating pipe, PVC water supply and drainage pipe fittings, HDPE Double wall corrugated pipe, HDPE steel belt reinforcement pipe, Clarke pipe, PE direct buried pipe, PE steel wire mesh skeleton composite pipe, fire pipe, MPP power protection pipe, glass straight line edging machine CPVC power pipe, glass steel pipe, farmland irrigation pipe, cable bridge, hot-dip plastic steel pipe and other plastic pipe fittings.

     ey, Max: wall thickness; ft: reduction coefficient of temperature to pressure; TY: wall thickness tolerance at any point of pipe; σ LPL: hydrostatic strength corresponding to 20 ℃, 50 years, probability prediction of 97.5%; σ s: design stress; abbreviation 3.3: MFR: melt flow rate; mop: working pressure; MRS: required strength; PE: polyethylene; PN: nominal pressure; SDR: standard size ratio. Polyethylene pipes are produced with mixed ingredients. The mixed ingredients are blue or black. The basic properties shall meet the requirements of Table 2。 The materials used for blue pipes shall be able to ensure that the weatherability of the pipes made of the materials meets the requirements of table 12. For pe63 grade material, the method of pipe grade basic resin and masterbatch can also be used to produce polyethylene pipe, and the material performance requirements shall be tested by sampling from the pipe. Clean recycled materials produced in accordance with this standard can be mixed with new materials as long as they can produce pipes that meet this standard.

It is strictly prohibited to use the bonding method when the gap is too large. 3. When applying the adhesive, the inner side of the socket shall be applied first, and then the outer side of the socket shall be applied to coat the socket. The mouth shall be evenly applied with proper amount from inside to outside along the axial direction, without omission or excessive application (200g / m2). 4. After the adhesive is applied, it is advisable to keep the applied external force unchanged within 1 minute, and keep the straightness and position of the interface correct. 5. After the bonding, the excess adhesive extruded shall be wiped out in time, and it shall not be forced or loaded within the curing time. 6. The bonding joint shall not be constructed in rain or water, and shall not be operated below 5 ℃. 7. Connection procedure: preparation → cleaning working face → trial insertion → brushing adhesive → bonding → maintenance. The welding procedure of PE water supply pipe the PE water supply pipe is made of polyethylene and extruded by plastic extruder once. It is used in urban water supply network, irrigation and water diversion project and agricultural sprinkler irrigation project, and it is suitable for plastic pipe with acid and alkali resistance and corrosion resistance environment. Because PE pipe is connected by hot melting and electrothermal melting, the integration of interface and pipe is realized, It can effectively resist the hoop stress and axial impact stress caused by pressure, and PE pipe does not add heavy metal salt stabilizerThe welding of PE water supply pipe can be divided into the following steps, which are very important. You must pay attention to them. (1) when welding PE water supply pipe, align the two pipe axes, and fix the two pipe ends by spot welding. (2) when welding PE water supply pipe and flange plate, insert the water supply pipe into the flange plate first, After spot welding, use angle ruler to align, level and then weld. The flange plate shall be welded on both sides, and the inner side of the flange plate shall not protrude from the sealing surface of the flange plate. (3) when the wall thickness of PE water supply pipe is more than 5mm, the groove shall be cut to ensure full penetration. The groove can be formed by gas welding or groove machining, but the slag and iron oxide shall be removed, and the groove shall be polished with a file until the metal is exposed. (4) when the steel pipe is cut, The cutting section shall be perpendicular to the center line of the pipe to ensure the concentricity of the pipe after welding. (5) the flange shall be perpendicular to the center line of the pipe, the surfaces shall be parallel to each other, the flange gasket shall not protrude into the pipe, the bolt specification of the connecting flange shall be matched with the flange, and the protruding length of the screw nut shall not be greater than 1 / 2 of the screw diameter. (6) when welding the water supply pipe, The pipe joint shall be cleaned of rust, dirt and grease. (7) flange gasket shall be selected according to the requirements of drawings and specifications. Rubber gasket shall be used for cold water system and asbestos rubber gasket shall be used for hot water system. The hot fusion butt joint installation is to use the hot fusion butt welding machine to heat the pipe end (the temperature of hot fusion butt joint is 210 + 1).

The office address is located in the economic center of Hebei Province, the sub central city of Hebei Province, Tangshan City, Lunan District, Tangshan City, Hebei Province (1)No. 23, unit 1, building 206, was registered and established in the Administration for Industry and Commerce of Lunan District, Tangshan City on January 3, 2017, with a registered capital of 3 million yuan. In the three years of the company's development and expansion, we have always provided our customers with good product and technical support and sound after-sales service.

2-4mm is suitable for the width of crimping. Cooling: keep the docking pressure unchanged, let the interface cool down slowly, and the cooling time shall be subject to the rough edge rolling by hand, and no heat can be felt. Completion of docking: after cooling, loosen the slips, remove the docking machine, and prepare the next interface connection again. The main differences between this standard and iso1996 are as follows: 1. This standard only includes pipes made of peppe100 materials, excluding pipes made of pepe42 materials; 2. A chapter of definition is added to this standard; 3. The main differences between this standard and iso1996 are as follows: 1. This standard only includes pipes made of peppe100 materials, excluding pipes made of pepe42 materials Material; 2. A chapter of definition is added in this standard; 3. The performance requirements of pipes are added with the item of "elongation at break"; 4. The chapter of "inspection rules" is added; the difference between this standard and GB / t13663-1992 is that GB / t13663-1992 "high density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes for water supply" does not adopt the standard.

6.3.3.7. Polyethylene (PE) water supply pipeline hot-melt butt joint shall be made of the same manufacturer, material and brandMaterials and pipes, pipes and pipe fittings, pipe fittings and pipe fittings are connected; polyethylene pipes of different SDR series are not suitable for butt fusion connection. 6.2.4. Welding quality inspection: 6.2.4.1. Necessity of inspection; 6.2.4.2. Inspection method: the quality inspection of welding joint is destructive test and non-destructive test, which are generally used in the construction site. The main means of non-destructive test is visual inspection, which can also be called visual inspection. The main standards are as follows: the crimping shall be uniform, smooth and full, and the crimping sizes on both sides are similar; the weld seam shall be smooth and symmetrical, and the height difference between the height of the crimping and the height of either side of the flanging shall not be greater than 0.1 < its wall thickness; the cut flanging shall be free of defects such as lack of fusion, notch, hole, etc., and the staggered edge of the cut pipe end shall not exceed the wall thickness 10%. The main characteristics of PE pipe are: molecular weight, molecular weight distribution, additives and density.

Our company will continue to "science and technology, people-oriented" development concept, with reliable product quality, quality service to win the support and trust of our customers, we will always "high standard, high quality, high efficiency" as the code of conduct.

[corvid-and-flowers]

hey im writing a thing ...here

Chap 1(?)

The one thing Lilly really had going for her was that she was lucky, very lucky. Which was better than most other people had here in the tunnels. Most people had cancer or tetanus or a multitude of other ailments, or hazmat suits, or nothing. So many people had nothing. Lilly was very nearly one of those people but she had luck and that was as good as everything, as far as she was concerned anyway. 

She ducked her head as she passed yet another person being beaten down for their... well the beaters could have been after anything really. She weaved through the crowds on her way home, it was light today she only got jammed between two people and carried off, twice. 

One of them had been a helper. She never wanted to be their destination she knew who ever they had come for was better off now that they had been taken care of and part of her, a really small part of her hoped for it, wanted to know what it was like, but your instincts determined how long you had here and more importantly how painfully you left, she trusted their warnings about the helpers. 

Lilly reached one charcoaled colored hand up and pulled herself onto one of the many outcroppings of rock that littered the walls, and gazed up at the twinkling

reflectors that brought the light of the great bulb out to the furthest reaches of the tunnels. 

It was her twentieth birthday today. Once again lucky, not a lot of people got this far. She had been lucky all throughout life, her parents left her late at the age of seven, most got left the moment they could scavenge the bins or some helper decided they were cute enough to be adopted by one of the rich and put to work. 

What kind of work they did Lilly didn’t know but she knew they didn’t have to worry about starvation or sickness as much and they got to sleep in a real room on a real floor, what a life that must be.

But yet again her gut told her no and who was she to argue with it. She sighed as the screams of the machines died off and the tunnels slowly filled with the oozing pitch black of night, the air became cotton wool and the screams of humans in all their range and emotion replaced them. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

     A booming kuthunk sounded through the tunnels signaling all the machines turning back on for the start of the day, the air slowly became less matted and the light clattered in by way of the reflectors waking anyone the noise hadn’t and exposing the ones who wouldn’t again. 

Lilly sat up squinting and ran a slender hand over her paperwhite locks, her violet eyes scanned the scene before her, trying their damndest to make sense of it after a few seconds her brain clicked into focus and she remembered whare she was, up in her ledge in the relative safety of the tunnels to the outside world that was filled with acid rain and an unrelenting sun that would burn a hole straight through you. 

For once she was actually rather comfortable and decided to stay down for awhile, her gut didn’t always work in the most obvious ways. 

“Hey! We got another one!”, suddenly Lilly felt herself being lifted off of her ledge. 

“Hey put me down!” 

The large man that had hoisted her up stared blankly at her. He wore the red hazmat suit of a helper, which normally left a lot to be imagined. unfortunately the one he wore was much to small and his round face was smushed up against the clear visor while his muscles did a rather good impression of a desperate chicken pecking its way out of a plastic bag. 

“sorry miss gotta quota to fill”, His voice grated her ears, it was smooth and obviously hadn’t ever seen a good coughing spell in it’s life, and he was way too bulky to be starved like the rest of them. Unfortunately while Lilly was caught up on her all around hatred of this man he had fished a small game bat out of the cart and promptly hit her over the head laying her unconscious, but luckily not lifeless, body on top of the pile of gone, or close enough, people.

      Lilly struggled to open her eyes even slightly  to the blurry shape of the sterile looking room the body cart was being slowly pushed into. the realization didn’t hit her until the door slammed shut, ‘shit! this is how they get rid of the body’s’.

she remembered from her friend Jeffry in the street gang that had picked her up when she was ten, most didn’t want a kid that had been left late, didn’t know how to survive yet, but once again she’d been lucky. 

Something in her gut told her not to worry though, told her she’d be alright. “Never argue your gut.”, he’d also told her, but she wanted to, she wanted desperately to fight against this odd calm that had washed over her, SHE WAS ABOUT TO DIE GODS DAMN IT! But even if she had been able to fight off the overwhelming calmness of it all she wouldn’t have gotten a chance. A brilliant flash of green filled her vision for a split second before she conked out again.

[facialsbyminna]

Major Skin Problems

Major Skin Problems

Most of us do not know this fact that skin is the largest organ that our body has. It is the largest both in terms of the surface area and weight. The importance of the skin as an organ is often overlooked and we tend not to take proper care of it that leads to a lot of skin problems. Our skin plays the vital role of protecting the vital inner organs of our body. It gives protections against outside foreign agents like bacteria, dust and harmful chemicals and also helps in regulating the body temperature. Taking proper care and giving nourishment to the skin is of utmost importance, failing which we can be a target to various skin problems, few of which are discussed below.

Acne

This is one of the most commonly found skin problems that affect a lot of population throughout the world. This skin condition is created due to malfunctioning of oil glands which are present under our skin. The pores of the skin are connected to the oil glands underneath by small tubes known as follicle. When due to the malfunction of the glands this follicle gets clogged, then acnes appear on the skin. They may cause scars if not treated early with the prescription of a doctor.

Dry skin

Dry skin or xerosis is a very common skin condition characterized by a lack of the appropriate amount of water in the epidermis. Symptoms include discomfort from skin tightness and itching. To prevent dry skin , avoid harsh soaps and chemical cleansers that disrupts skin moisture levels. If untreated, dry skin may result in complications, including rashes, eczema, secondary bacterial infections, cellulitis, and skin discoloration.

Home remedies for dry skin

Treatment generally requires more frequent and regular applications of emollients and moisturizers.

Natural masks can be used to deal with facial dry skin. Apply a mask made of wheat flour, turmeric powder and mustard oil and after 30 min, wash off with luke warm water. Also consider a mask using honey and milk.

Yogurt makes an excellent cleanser with a mild exfoliating action that will remove dry skin and leave you feeling refreshed and comfortable. Its a safe exfoliant for very dry skin as it exfoliates using lactic acid, instead of scrubbing granules.

Dab on extra virgin olive oil which will eliminate dryness.

Eczema

This is considered to be a variant of dermatitis called atopic dermatitis. This skin disorder is generally characterized by dryness of skin with a feeling of itchiness and rashes on several parts of the body like face, hands, behind knees and elbows etc. There is no known definite reason for Eczema and the treatment is based on the family history and personal health condition.

Home remedies for eczema

A careful washing routine is important if you have eczema. Preferably use to warm water for baths and showers. A warm bath containing added eczema-soothing ingredients like oatmeal or baking soda can be very effective in easing itchiness and relieving pain.

Indulge in a moisturising wash as well as apply plenty of moisturiser afterwards.

Choose a gentle cleanser and avoid harsh or highly fragranced soaps.

Don’t scrub at your skin, and gently pat yourself dry before slathering on plenty of moisturiser while your skin is still damp. Moisturising skin soon after washing helps seal in moisture. Emollient creams and ointments are more effective than lotions.

Use organic coconut oil which is a highly effective moisturizer. Apply the oil on eczema patches all over the body and allow to sink in.

Herbal Eczema Treatment

Cellulitis

Cellulitis is a spreading bacterial infection of the skin and tissues beneath the skin. The bacteria Staphylococcus and Streptococcus are usually responsible for this skin condition. Sometimes cellulitis appears in areas where the skin has broken open, such as the skin near ulcers or surgical wounds. It can be treated with oral or intravenous antibiotics. It usually begins as a small area of pain and redness on the skin which spreads to surrounding tissues, resulting in the typical signs of inflammation , redness, swelling, warmth, and pain. If not properly treated, cellulitis can occasionally spread to the bloodstream and cause a serious bacterial infection of the bloodstream that spreads throughout the body.

Home remedies for cellulitis

Cellulitis can be effectively treated with oral antibiotics at home.

When undergoing treatments for cellulites, you should take lots of vegetables and fruits which are low in calories. Alternatively, you can take fresh juices made using vegetables and fruits.

Garlic, best known for anti-bacterial activities helps in destroying the bacteria causing skin infection. It has to be consumed directly or in the form oil until the infected person is cured from contamination.

Yoghurt acts on skin infection by eliminating the bacterial actions. The infected person has to consume two cups of this natural cure which increases the good bacteria count in the body and helps in building the immune system effectively.

Pineapple is the natural cure for cellulitis as it contains an enzyme named bromelain. Pineapple has to be consumed in supplement form as a part of daily diet to remove the cellulitis completely.

Water is an efficient and prominent cure against bacterial infections caused on human body. By taking large amount of water, the bad bacteria are flushed out by constant urination that decreases bad effects on skin.

Sun damage

Prolonged exposure to the the sun can induce premature skin aging, skin cancer, and many other skin changes. Many skin changes that were commonly believed to be due to aging, such as easy bruising, are actually a result of protracted exposure to the sun. Skin texture changes caused by UV exposure include thick skin in coarse wrinkles, especially on the back of the neck and thinning of the skin causing fine wrinkles, easy bruising, and skin tearing, particularly on the forearms and back of the hands.

Skin color changes caused by sun exposure are common. The most noticeable sun-induced pigment change is brown spots . Moles are usually seen in sun-exposed areas. Although it is normal to acquire new moles from childhood through young adulthood, their formation is stimulated by the sun.

Home remedies for sun damage

Wear sunblock everyday regardless of your skin color and whether it is raining or sunny. Put enough sunblock on to cover any exposed skin. Ensure that your sunblock contains both broad spectrum UVA and UVB protection to prevent sun damage.

Make a mixture of one tbsp. of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a half-cup of water. Apply to your skin with a cotton pad and let dry. Wash off with warm water after 30 minutes. Lemon juice contains natural glycolic and alpha hydroxy acids that help to gently exfoliate the superficial layer of skin cells to improve rough skin texture and uneven complexion due to sun damage.

Apply honey to your face and other exposed areas of the body as a rejuvenating mask and cleanser. Spread a thin layer onto the skin and let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes. Wash off the honey with warm water and pat the skin dry. Honey, particularly the dark varieties, contains high levels of natural, healing antioxidants that help reduce free-radical damage on the skin due to exposure to the sun, pollution and stress. They work by improving texture, tone and moisture in the skin.

Moles

Moles usually are small, round brown spots but they sometimes can be larger. They can be pink, skin-colored or black. Some are flat and smooth while some are raised above the skin like a slight bump. Most moles are normal. Atypical moles, which are seen in non-sun-exposed areas serve as an indicator that the person with these types of moles may be prone to developing melanoma, a type of skin cancer.

Psoriasis

Scaling of the skin with visible swelling along with it, is termed as Psoriasis. Psoriasis can be of many forms but most of them cause red, usually thick silver colored scales to appear on various parts of the patient’s body. These patches can cause discomfort like soaring and itching and are generally formed on the scalp, elbow, face, palm, back or feet. This ailment is a bit difficult to diagnose because of its similarity with other skin problems, the doctor may go for a microscopic examination of the skin and see the reaction of the patients to certain medicines to diagnose it.

Home remedies for psoriasis

Dietary supplements may help ease psoriasis symptoms from the inside. Fish oil and vitamin D have been reported to help some sufferers. Fish oil applied directly to the skin has also been known to work well for some.

Use products meant for sensitive skin which are free of dyes and perfumes that can irritate skin.

Applying olive or vegetable oil to scales and patches of psoriasis can lock moisture and nutrients in.

Lukewarm bath with Epsom salt, mineral oil, milk, or olive oil can soothe the itching and infiltrate scales and plaques. Moisturize immediately after your bath for double benefits.

Rashes

This is another very common skin condition, affecting a lot of people. These may be temporary in nature and may come and go with the exposure of some agents like Sun or chemicals. It is characterized by dryness and itching of skin and can affect the face, upper back, elbows, knees and feet. Sticking to the doctor’s advice of good skin care regime, and avoiding the agents that bring rashes out can be considered as solutions.

Home remedies for rashes

Apply aloe vera gel which is renowned for its soothing properties. It relieves swelling and irritation.

Oatmeal has long been known to soothe itchy and dry skin. To remedy itchy skin, fill a bathtub with warm water and one cup of rolled oats. Soak for at least twenty minutes, and rinse thoroughly.

Olive oil is another natural cure that can be applied topically to moisturize and soothe skin rashes. It will nourish the cracked and itchy skin that is common with rashes while relieving the itch temporarily.

Vitamin E, in capsule form, can be used directly on the skin. To apply, break open a vitamin capsule and apply directly on the skin as needed. This sure will soothe and nourish cracked, dry skin.

Skin Cancer

This is one of the most common form of cancer. It may be caused due to a variety of reason like chemical exposure, radiation exposure or internal body problems. Basal and squamous cell cancer are the two most common forms of skin cancer. It can affect the body parts like the face, head, arms, neck etc…

Source: Prokerala

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