#like circles and spheres / diamonds and the cube

[raayllum]

X marks the spot

[toastedclownery]

So curious about your shrike theory abt him and his anatomy 👀 i'd love to hear more if you have more to share!

@payaso-gomi

Buckle up, and I mean it, because I have quite a lot of thoughts about the show and that thing -> 🦑

There are some parts where I will be getting into headcanon territory but they make sense hear me out:

I think I can divide all of this into 3 parts

1. The Primaries and the "glasshole"

Ok first off, we have to get into the Primaries

These are two instances where we have seen visual representations of the Primaries (cleanup and collages courtesy of my friend @awwkie-dot-jar. Here is their post and their thoughts on 'em!)

So from what we can see, the Primaries seem to be, quite literally, the shapes that represent them in the LAW symbol. A red triangle/pyramid, a blue circle/sphere and. A yellow square/cube

I'm gonna have to use Tezzoree as a gateway for what I want to say here

Commander Tezzoree is a character name-dropped at the end of episode 1. We get a faint glimpse of her in the Punti plush commercial.

Here is a trace of the frame made by @spagheddiesquash (here is the post with it + his theories and ep 4 predictions!)

From what we can make out, Tezzoree also has a shape for a head like the Primaries (a red pyramid! although it's smaller than the ones on her "shoulders").

Tez' body looks more articulated than the Primaries', she has arms while the Trinity only seem to have formless gowns for bodies. Given how she has the title of commander, I suppose it's because she has more practical duties than them. As galactic rulers, they must keep a regal appearance.

I think they're their own kind of entities, and these shapes are all they are really, their bodies are built by other people for them to interact with the world around them. I say this because Primary Red and Tez aren't the only red pyramids we have seen so far

It's been made pretty clear that LAW doesn't want people going in the Quarantine Zone. These things could potentially not be ships, but sentient shapes roaming around the QZ, keeping watch of the corrupted species there.

So what we know about the Primaries' kind so far is that:

They're different shapes, each with a color attributed to them (triangle = red, circle = blue, square = yellow)

They can vary in size

They have to be built bodies for them to interact with the world. ...Or at least with other, non shape beings. Mortals? More on that later.

Now, we can finally get into our dear friend Shrike!

Shrike has a little cyan diamond in his head. With Beebs' attitude on Shrike having an internal translator and this line, it gives us the impression that it's connected to his brain.

There's also more evidence pointing to that, like

Only Shrike can use it

He has to think of what object/thing he wants to take when pulling it out

He has to coordinate his hand, put it inside the light the diamond emits to get things in our out

But then there's something Shrike says about the diamond:

He's had it for as long as he can remember.

That leads me to believe that Shrike is the diamond. He's a Primary (or the same kind of entity as the Primaries) but instead of a robotic body, he was given an organic one.

And with that, I can talk about what that means for his character

2. His personality and him being a "separate"

From how Scratch talks about the Primaries, it looks like they are seen as deities (the praying motion, "give me strength", the use of the word "Trinity" also has religious connotations)

I believe the Primaries are seen like that because they are immortal entities in a different, possibly higher plane of existence than the mortal characters in this world. Their way of thinking is much more abstract and it's incomprehensible to us.

If Shrike is one of them*, it could explain his disregard for other life like the Lythops, and his lack of sense of morality.

*Now, the cyan diamond is an entirely different shape and color to the Primaries', but that doesn't disprove that it's not one of them. It could mean that there are more shapes and colors to their kind than just the basic three we have seen so far. And maybe those have their own followers too...

But if Shrike is this godly thing, how does he not know? Could he have possibly forgotten? Well I have an idea based on a character that's not quite like him, but might be going through something similar

Us used to be part of a hive mind along with Them. That's why they call themselves "Us" and their friend, "Them". It takes them some time to assimilate that they're an individual being now, after being separated from Them. They only use the first person to refer to themselves until the end of the episode.

It's unclear if they were in a hive mind for the fact that they're a fungal species, or because of the cataclysm's corruption. But for either case, once they get separated, Us starts getting curious about every little thing Beebs says, but particularly about

Money and material possessions! Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?

What I think is happening with Shrike is that he got put into this organic body and he's experiencing all these feelings that come with being fleshy and mortal, and he is loving it. He loves food, he loves money, he loves adrenaline, he's having fun with it! It's all new and exciting to him because it's not natural to him as a higher plane being.

The more he indulges in these feelings, the more he becomes an individual and he separates himself from others like his kind. The colors could each be hive minds of their own and Shrike got separated from his because of this. But where did he get this organic body in the first place?

3. His body/anatomy and Enforcement

Nobody knows what Shrike is. Not even he knows what he is. He's supposed to be from a squid based species, but his anatomy is a bit weird for a cephalopod.

For example, my friend and cephalopod enthusiast @samscartoonsofficial brought to my attention that squids and octopuses have blue blood. Shrike has yet to bleed on screen, but it's been hinted a couple of times that he has red blood. ...In fact he has a lot of red based attributes.

This is why I'm going for the science experiment theory. His body was created either by the red department of Enforcement or the yellow department of Science, but it was designed with all these red elements to be fit to be an enforcer. We've been introduced to bio science like the Fodder clones in episode 1, and it's not unlike LAW to do unethical things to their members, like the metal straps on their waists.

They might have taken away his cyan diamond memories in the process of inserting him into that body. Shrike might think he had a life before LAW, but we have yet to see that.

There is this small exchange that kind of challenges this theory however

This implies that Shrike is the last of "his race". And if he was a science experiment, there shouldn't be anyone like him.

My guess is that his body could be designed as a paleontological reconstruction of a long extinct squid species? Think of the first Jurassic Park movies dinosaurs, before it started becoming common knowledge that they had feathers. It's the only way I can see the science experiment theory and this line both making sense.

We don't have enough material on this last point, but I can see the red blood thing going one of two ways

1. It's not blood, but ink

If his body was created by Enforcement, being mostly red based, it'd be no surprise if Primary Red took part in his creation. And maybe they made him be fuelled by ink, just like the ships and many of the objects in the show. Is it possible for species to have ink for blood though?

Maybe?? Skeletons seem to bleed their fire color, and because Ricket's is pure cyan it leads me to believe that he's bleeding ink here.

2. It's blood, but not cephalopod blood

Sam was the one to bring up this theory. Remember when I said that he could be designed to look like a long extinct species?

Yeah. He could have been designed to be a squid-terran hybrid, with Terran-like blood. After all he has an although distorted, similar anatomy to them. It would explain the Spanish and his appreciation for Terrans.

-

I'm derailing a bit there on that last part, but to summarize, I believe Shrike to be the same kind of entity as the Primaries, a cyan diamond, controlling a red organic body that was made for him to be in Enforcement. His body might be based on an actual squid species, or perhaps Terrans could be involved.

I could go on and talk about the meaning behind those two colors but I've already gone through a lot of things here and I've hit the image limit so I'd like to do that on a future post :o]

[nerdythebard]

#4: Ah Puch, Horrific God of Decay

Welcome back, gods and goddesses!

Today, we take a quick peek into the domain of death with Ah Puch (pronounced either ah-POOCH or ah-puh-ASH), one of many Maya gods of death residing in the cold and dark afterlife called Xibalba. We know very little of Ah Puch (as is the case with a lot of Maya and other Mesoamerican gods), but from several texts we do have, we can learn he was known as "Ruler of the North" and that he was later banished for breaking his promise to the Maya king. But let's see what SMITE tells us about him!

Next time: Here comes the Sun... Is it a dog? Is it black ninja fire? No, it's...

As always, let's see what we need for Ah Puch to sow decay and death around:

Corpses: We need to do all kinds of freaky stuff with corpses of our enemies (including but not limited to: animating them, exploding them, making them heal us).

Decay: Related to the previous one. Area damage from miasma is another technique we need to implement.

High Area Damage: Ah Puch's Ultimate skill is a large AoE that summons the dead to rush the enemies. We need to find a way to empty the crypts en masse.

--- Once again, we're gonna play around a little bit. None of the established races fits Ah Puch... we could've picked Fallen Aasimar for that spark of divinity and a smell of the underworld, but let's follow the previous build's example and turn to the Wizards' Unearthed Arcana playtest material. This time, Gothic Lineages from 2021!

Ah Puch is a Reborn creature. This gives us a double creature - it lets us force a Wisdom saving throw on a target and paralyse them if they fail. Remember, it only works on humanoids; it will not stop animals, monsters, dragons, etc.g speed, 60 feet of Darkvision, and two languages – Common and one of our choosing. We also get to add a +2 and +1 to any of our ability scores. Let's get +2 Wisdom and +1 Intelligence.

There are two key features Reborn creatures get. First is Deathless Nature, which gives us several benefits:

Resistance to poison damage;

Advantage on saving throws and being poisoned;

We don't need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe;

Magic cannot put us to sleep. Similar to elves, we can finish our long rest in 4 hours instead of 8 by remaining in a motionless state.

We also get Knowledge from the Past, which doesn't necessarily fit Ah Puch's lore, but it's too good to pass on. We get a pool of d6 dice equal to our proficiency bonus. When we make an ability check that uses a skill, we can roll a d6 and add the number to the result. We get all of the dice back when finishing a long rest.

Ah Puch walks the world of the living far and wide, so making him an Outlander seems like a good choice. We get proficiency in Athletics and Survival skills, proficiency with one musical instrument, and we get to learn one more language. We also get the Wanderer feature, which gives us photographic memory when it comes to geographical features and nearby terrain.

ABILITY SCORES

We start with Intelligence and Wisdom for our two best scores. Then follow it with Constitution, because spellcasters need those Hit Points, then Charisma for when we need to scare somebody into the afterlife, and we're gonna finish it with Dexterity and Strength.

CLASS

Level 1 - Druid: Some of you probably can see where this is going. Yes, I am that predictable. OR AM I!?

Ekhm... Our Hit Dice is a d8, we start with Hit Points of 8 + CON mod. We get proficiencies with light armour, medium armour and shields (with a note that druids will not wear armour or use shields made of metal), as well as clubs, daggers, darts, javelins, maces, quarterstaffs, scimitars, sickles, slings, spears and Herbalism kit. Our saving throws are Wisdom and Intelligence and we get to choose two class skills; let's get Insight and Medicine.

At the first level, we learn yet another language – Druidic – which is unreadable for anybody but other druids, unless by means of magic. We also get Spellcasting from the very start. For our two cantrips, Shillelagh transforms our staff (we got one from our Wanderer background) into a magical weapon for 1 minute and lets us use our Wisdom modifier instead of Strength when attacking with it. Poison Spray creates a puff of toxic gas within 10 feet range. The target must make a Constitution saving throw or suffer 1d12 poison damage.

At the first level, we get two 1st-level spell slots and we can have four 1st-level spells prepared:

Charm Person targets a single creature; if it fails a Wisdom saving throw, it is charmed for 1 hour (no concentration needed). A "charmed" creature cannot directly or indirectly attack us, and we get an advantage on any ability checks while interacting with it. Remember, it's not a mindless control, and the creature realizes it was charmed when the spell ends.

Earth Tremor forces targets in 10 feet range to make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 1d6 bludgeoning damage and fall prone from the ground shaking.

Fog Cloud creates a 20-foot-radius sphere of fog centred on a point within 120 feet from us. It lasts for 1 hour (concentration) and is a great way to either obscure our movement or to sneak up to the enemy.

Detect Poison and Disease lasts for 10 minutes (concentration) and shows us any and all poisonous things and diseased creatures within 30 feet from us. It also lets us identify the kind of poison and disease.

Level 2 - Druid: Next level of Druid gives us their signature ability – Wild Shape. This lets us assume the form of an animal and the CR of the animals we can turn into increases at the 4th and 8th level. This doesn't necessarily work for us, who make Ah Puch, but there is another option: Wild Companion from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything lets us burn one usage of our Wild Shape to summon a creature to our side as per the Find Familiar spell.

We get another 1-st level spell: Faerie Fire summons colourful flames in 20-foot-cube that stick to all inanimate objects and creatures that fail their Dexterity saving throw. For 1 minute (concentration) any attacks against creatures and objects affected by the fire get an advantage, and the targets cannot benefit from concealing effects, such as invisibility.

At the second druid level, we get to pick our Druid Circle and for Ah Puch, there is nothing better than the Circle of Spores. Those who find beauty in fungi and moulds are perfect subjects for the Lord of Decay. When we pick this Circle, we learn the Chill Touch cantrip, with more spells coming to us at later levels.

Our first Circle feature is Halo of Spores. We are surrounded by microscopic necrotic spores that are harmless unless we activate them. When a creature moves within 10 feet of us, we can use a reaction to deal 1d4 necrotic damage to it, unless it makes a Constitution saving throw.

We also get the Symbiotic Entity feature, which lets us channel some more magic into our Spores. As an action, we can sacrifice one Wild Shape use to gain 4 Temporary Hit Points for every Druid level. We also get an additional dice roll for our Halo of Spores and if we have a melee weapon, it deals additional 1d6 necrotic damage to any target it hits. Those benefits last for 10 minutes, until we lose all Temporary Hit Points, or until we use Wild Shape again.

Level 3 - Druid: At this stage, we don't get any new class features. It's focused mostly on spells:

From our subclass, we get two spells - Blindness/Deafness, which does exactly what it says if the target fails their Constitution saving throw, and Gentle Repose, which prevents the target from decaying and becoming undead.

We unlock 2nd-spell slots, which means we can get Hold Person - it lets us force a Wisdom saving throw on a target and paralyze them if they fail. Remember, it only works on humanoids; it will not stop animals, monsters, dragons, etc.

Level 4 - Druid: Our Wild Shape improves, we can now assume a form of a 1/2 CR creature (such as a crocodile, a shark, an ape, etc.) without flying speed. We also get our first Ability Score Improvement of the build! Let's raise our Wisdom by 2.

We get two more spells, since raising our Wisdom puts us at 18.

Locate Animals and Plants lets us name a specific kind of plant or animal and notifies us of its position within 5 miles of us.

Healing Spirit summons a small nature spirit to soothe the wounds of an ally who walks into its range.

Level 5 - Druid: We don't get new class features, but we get to unlock 3rd-level spell slots. For this, Revivify brings back to life a creature that died within 1 minute of casting the spell. It consumes a diamond worth at least 300 gold pieces, so remember to hit up a jeweller whenever stopping at a town.

Feign Death lets us touch a willing creature (or ourselves) and put it into a state indistinguishable from death. The target is blinded, incapacitated and its speed is 0. It has resistance to all damage except psychic.

Our subclass gives us two extra spells: Animate Dead lets us bring a pile of bones or a corpse for our temporary service as a skeleton or a zombie for 24 hours. Gaseous Form transforms us (or a willing creature) into smoke. For 1 hour (concentration), we get a flying speed of 10 feet, we have resistance to non-magical damage, and we can slip through openings even 1 inch in diameter.

Level 6 - Druid: We get another subclass feature. Fungal Infestation lets us infest a Small or Medium corpse with our necrotic spores and animate it. The animated creature comes back to life with 1 Hit Point and obeys us for 1 hour after which it crumbles away and dies again. We can use this feature a number of times equal to our Wisdom modifier and we regain the uses when finishing a long rest.

We get another spell - Barkskin turns our skin into rigid, rough, and tree-like. For the duration (1 hour, concentration), our AC cannot be lower than 16.

Level 7 - Wizard

Come on, be honest, who saw that coming? :D

Time to play with some magic bois! Picking the first level in Wizard gives us 4 + our CON modifier of Hit Points, no extra proficiencies, but we do get Arcane Recovery, which lets us regain some spell slots the combined level of which is equal to half of our Wizard level (rounded up) and they cannot be 6th level or higher. For now, it will let us recover 1st-level slots, but we'll make it useful later.

We also get three more cantrips from the Wizard (yes, they stack when you multiclass!):

Fire Bolt hurls a mote of fire, which deals 1d10 fire damage on a successful hit.

Ray of Frost deals 1d8 cold damage on a successful hit and reduces the target's speed by 10 feet.

Toll the Dead forces a Wisdom saving throw on one target and deals 1d8 necrotic damage on a failed save. If the target misses any Hit Points, they instead receive 1d12 necrotic damage.

1st level Wizards get to pick six 1st-level spells at the very beginning. I'm not gonna describe all of them because it would take forever, so let me just list the ones we should get:

Ray of Sickness

Tasha's Caustic Brew

False Life

Cause Fear

Feather Fall

Mage Armour

Level 8 - Wizard: At this level, we get to pick our Arcane Tradition and to nobody's surprise we pick School of Necromancy. We get Necromancy Savant, which halves the cost and time of writing spells in our spellbook, and we double down on death magic with Grim Harvest - whenever we kill a target with a spell of 1st level or higher, we regain Hit Points equal to 2x that spell's level (or 3x if it's a Necromancy type spell).

Every time we gain a Wizard level, we can learn two new spells. For this one, let's get Shield for some extra AC in a clutch, and Witch Bolt.

Level 9 - Wizard: Since we get access to Wizard's 2nd-level spells here, let's pick Ray of Enfeeblement which lowers the target's damage dealing by half, and Spider Climb for some better mobility.

Level 10 - Wizard: For our halfway point, we get our next Ability Score Improvement. Let's bump up Constitution for better Hit Points and put the second point in Intelligence.

We get another cantrip, so let's get Infestation, to conjure some nasty creepy crawlies on those who fail their Constitution saving throw.

We also get two more 2nd-level spells: See Invisibility lets us detect all invisible creatures within our field of view for 1 hour (no concentration required). Phantasmal Force is a personalized illusion, which creates a creature, object or another phenomenon, perceivable only by a target that fails their Intelligence saving throw. Flavour it as threatening the target with being dragged to Hell, or their hands shrivelling up and decaying, etc.

Level 11 - Wizard: No new class features, but we do get 3rd-level spell slots unlocked. For this one, we can get Bestow Curse - which affects a target who fails their Wisdom saving throw. The curse produces several effects:

We pick one ability score. For 1 minute (concentration), the target has a disadvantage on all checks and saving throws using that ability;

Their attack rolls against us gain disadvantage;

At the start of each turn they have to make a Wisdom saving throw, or completely lose their turn doing nothing;

While the target is cursed, our attacks against them deal extra 1d8 necrotic damage

For our second spell, Spirit Shroud uses a bonus action to summon a horde of ghosts circling around us for 1 minute (concentration). Until the spell ends, every attack we make within 10 feet of us deals extra 1d8 radiant, cold, or necrotic damage (our choice). Additionally, any creature hit by this extra damage cannot heal until the start of our next turn AND any creature that starts its turn within 10 feet of us has its speed reduced by 10, until the start of our next turn.

Level 12 - Wizard: At this level, we get the subclass upgrade - Undead Thralls. Normally, it would give us the Animate Dead spell for free, but we already know that one because of our Druid subclass spells; therefore, I would just give that spell the upgrade mentioned here. When we cast Animate Dead henceforth:

We can target one additional pile of bones, or a corpse, for two thralls to control at the same time;

Our thralls' Hit Points are increased by our Wizard level;

The thralls can add our proficiency bonus to their weapon attacks

We also get two more spells: Summon Shadowspawn calls forth a shadowy wraith in an unoccupied space within 90 feet from us. We get to choose between three types of shadows (Fury, Despair, and Fear). To further enhance our Army of the Dead, Summon Undead works in a similar way, except it summons an Undead Spirit, also with three types (Ghostly, Putrid, or Skeletal). Both spells come from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Level 13 - Wizard: No class features, but we do unlock 4th-level spells here, so let's add two of those: Blight causes a wave of necromantic energy to strike one target; they have to make a Constitution saving throw or take 8d8 necrotic damage (half damage on a successful save). If we target a plant creature or a magical plant, it takes maximum damage. If we target a regular non-magical plant, it withers automatically.

Sickening Radiance creates a 30-foot-radius sphere of necrotic energy within 120 feet of us. When a creature enters the sphere starts its turn there, it must make a Concentration saving throw or take 4d10 points of necrotic damage, suffer one level of exhaustion (i.e. disadvantage on ability check) AND glow like the fresh rivers of Chernobyl, which also prevents them from becoming invisible, for 10 minutes (concentration).

Level 14 - Wizard: We get another ASI at this level. Let's go for Intelligence and Constitution for some better casting ability and HP.

For our spells, Banishment forces a creature to disappear from the Plane of Existence it currently resides in, provided it fails a Charisma saving throw. If the creature is native to the Plane we're banishing it from (e.g. a bugbear in the Material Plane), it is transported to a pocket dimension for the spell's duration (1 minute, concentration) and reappears in the space it left. If the creature is not native to the Plane we're banishing it from (e.g. a fire elemental in the Material Plane), it returns to its home plane and doesn't return, provided we manage to hold the spell without breaking the concentration for 1 minute.

Phantasmal Killer is similar in mechanics to Phantasmal Force, except here if the target fails its Wisdom saving throw, it is frightened for the duration (1 minute, concentration) and it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw every turn or take 4d10 psychic damage.

Level 15 - Wizard: No new class features, just spells. We unlock 5th-level spell slots, which gives us a few new delicious death-themed magicks:

Danse Macabre lets us animated up to five corpses to raise as either a skeleton or a zombie. They obey our command for 1 hour (concentration) and as a bonus action, we can issue a command that all five of them will execute.

Negative Energy Flood sends out lashes of necrotic energy at a single target. It must make a Constitution saving throw or suffer 5d12 necrotic damage (half damage on a successful save). If the creature is killed with that spell, it comes back as a zombie albeit not under our control. If we target an undead creature with this spell, it gets half of 5d12 Temporary Hit Points.

Level 16 - Wizard: This level gives us our second-to-last subclass feature - Inured to Undeath. We now gain resistance to necrotic damage and our maximum Hit Points cannot be reduced.

We get our final cantrip - Mind Sliver, which forces an Intelligence saving throw on one target. On an unsuccessful save, the target suffers 1d6 psychic damage (3d6 in our case, because of lv. 16) and must subtract 1d4 on its next saving throw made before the start of our next turn.

For this level's spells, we take Enervation, which deals 4d8 necrotic damage on an unsuccessful save, and it lets us trigger 4d8 necrotic damage every turn for the spell's duration (1 minute, concentration). It takes an action to activate the automatic damage, and the spell ends if the target leaves its range (60 feet) or is behind a full cover.

Hold Monster is the same as Hold Person but can be used to paralyse beasts, monstrosities, aberrations, etc. It cannot be used against the undead, but we've got those under control.

Level 17 - Wizard: Once again, no new class features, but we do unlock 6th-level spell slots. For this, let's take Create Undead which does exactly what it says on the packaging; up to three corpses become ghouls under our control for 24 hours. We can extend the control over them indefinitely if we continue to re-cast the spell before the current 24 hours end.

Magic Jar is the closest thing D&D players have to become a lich and let's be honest - Ah Puch is the closest SMITE players have to a lich. The spell rips our soul from our body and stores it in a pre-prepared container for as long as we desire. We cannot do anything while we're stored inside a container, except attempting to possess a humanoid body within 100 feet of us. We can jump bodies as many times as we desire but if we decide to jump back to our own body and we're 100 feet or further away from it, we die.

Level 18 - Wizard: For our last ASI, we'll max our Intelligence to 20.

For this level's spells, we'll grab Contingency, which acts as a sort of failsafe program; we can pick a 5th-level or lower spell and select conditions for its activation (e.g. "cast water breathing as soon as the head is submerged in water or similar liquid").

Soul Cage allows us to use a reaction to snatch the recently deceased humanoid's soul and store it in a tiny silver cage. It is another "lich" spell, as it allows us to utilize the captured soul in several ways: we can regain Hit Points, ask a question, etc.

Level 19 - Wizard: Here is where we receive our 7th-level spell slots. However, there isn't that many 7th-level spells we need. Instead, let's pick two more 6th-level spells:

Disintegrate is a concentrated ray of green energy that strikes one target within 60 feet from us. If the target is a living creature, they must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 10d6+40 points of necrotic damage. If the target is reduced to 0 HP with this spell, it turns to dust immediately and can be only brought back via True Resurrection or Wish spells. The spell can be also used to destroy inanimate objects and magic constructs, such as barriers.

Guards and Wards is a powerful protection spell that transforms our resting place into a secured fortress (after all, we're the Death God of Xibalba, we need to have our own stronghold). We create a ward that protects an area up to 2.500 square feet of floor space, up to 20 feet tall. Within the protected area, all corridors are filled with dense fog, all doors and windows are sealed and locked, and all stairs are covered in sticky webs. The protection lasts for 24 hours (no concentration), but if the spell is cast on the same area every day for a year, it becomes permanent.

Level 20 - Wizard: For our capstone, we get another subclass feature. With Command Undead we can now bind all undead to our control, even those created by other wizards. As an action, we can choose one undead within 60 feet of us; it has to fail a Charisma saving throw against our Spell Save DC, or be friendly towards us and obey our commands until we use the feature again.

For our final two spells, let's move to 7th-level:

Finger of Death causes a blast of necromantic energy to pierce a single target. The target must make a Constitution saving throw or take 7d8+30 necrotic damage (half damage on a successful save). A humanoid killed by this spell rises back as a zombie permanently under our control.

Power Word: Pain targets every creature within 60 feet of us. If they have 100 Hit Points or less, they feel immense pain throughout their bodies. While affected, the creature's speed cannot be higher than 10, it has a disadvantage on all rolls (skill checks, attacks, saving throws) except Constitution, and it prevents any spellcasting unless the target succeeds on a Consitution saving throw. At the end of its turn, a creature can make a Constitution saving throw to shake off the spell's effect.

---

Now, let's see what we got from making the Death God of Decay.

First off, we've got cantrips for days, 20 Intelligence and 18 Wisdom, various types of corpses on our beck and call, and enough death-related spells to put a few liches to shame.

Unfortunately, we barely scratch the surface of 100 Hit Points, and we gotta manage two casting classes with two casting abilities. Our Charisma score is also not that good, so those saving throws might be difficult for us.

Anywho, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'll see you next time!

Edit: WOW, that took way longer than I expected. I'm really sorry, I guess this was a difficult build and I worked pretty slowly on it. I'll do better from now on!

- Nerdy out!

[inknerdblog]

Is Spinel 4 Dimensional?

https://my-little-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Spinel

Finally, after hours of research, analysis, and a ridiculous amount of editing all with only 5 hours of sleep I have completed my masterpiece! The idea I found in the two previous posts was interesting, to say the least. So, I just had to run this idea into the ground with the power of the Internet!

WARNING: EXTREMELY NERDY CONTENT BELOW

Side effects of content consumption may include second-hand knowledge on physics and geometry, rant-induced headaches, accidental consumption of glorified nerd spaghetti, and unintentional theory crafting.

READER’S DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Definition of 4th Dimension:

Before determining if Spinel is 4 dimensional, we need to define the 4th dimension. From a math perspective, it’s just another coordinate. Just like the x-, y-, and z-coordinates or length, height, and width on a 3-dimensional coordinate plane, adding a fourth coordinate gives you a fourth dimension to move along. 

Of course, that doesn’t exactly explain what the 4th-dimension IS. In simplest terms, a 4D shape is just a bunch of 3D shapes fused together (which is very fitting for Steven Universe). Take a cube for example. 

https://www.transparentpng.com/cats/lines-1247.html (edited)

A 1-dimensional cube is just a line. 

https://www.vexels.com/png-svg/preview/139342/basic-square-outline (edited)

Fuse 4 lines and you make a 2D cube or a square. 

https://www.vexels.com/png-svg/preview/155839/stroke-cube-icon (edited)

Fuse 6 squares and you make a 3D cube which is obviously just a cube.

http://centerofmathematics.blogspot.com/2015/03/throwback-fact-magic-squares.html (edited)

By this logic, a 4D cube, known a tesseract, is a fusion of 8 cubes. These are many ways to draw a tesseract including a view from one of its axes like seen above.

A full view of a tesseract can be very hard to see in a diagram. A fusion of 8 cubes means there are...a square has 4 lines...multiply by 6 squares per cube...times 8 cubes per tesseract… THAT’S LIKE ALMOST 200 LINES (192 to be exact). Luckily there’s a way to kind of see what a 4D cube would look like.

https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/four_dimensions/index.html (edited)

You essentially just have to cross your eyes to “fuse” these figures together. If you have trouble, just try to look slightly over it.

Another way to interpret the tesseract is with a “beach ball” cube.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

This is just a cube that has been printed along the sides of a sphere to give it a bloated appearance.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

When shining a light on its north pole, the cube creates a 2D plane.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

This can then be converted into a 3D object and connected with circular faces.

4 Dimensional Being Abilities:

The easiest way to explain the abilities of a being that is 4-dimensional is to consider how a 2-dimensional being would interpret us as 3-dimensional beings. In a 2-dimensional world, 3D beings would only be cross-sections. This would make us appear to only be blobs of shapes floating in mid-air.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/619210/4D_Toys/

Moving into the 3rd dimension (i.e. a different z-coordinate than the one the 2D world is in) would make us “disappear.”

With this in mind, a 4D being would essentially be extremely powerful. They would be able to see everything in the 3rd dimension at once. They could “disappear” by moving into the 4th dimension. Heck, they could remove your heart without cutting you open, much like a 3D being could remove a dot from a circle without cutting it.

So Could Spinel Be 4-Dimensional?

Short answer: no. With what we’ve seen from the Movie and Future, Spinel could not be 4-dimensional.

Spinel would be super OP. She would have no problem defeating all the Diamonds AT ONCE let alone Steven without any of his powers except the power to stick to smooth surfaces, apparently...

https://makutas-chronicle.tumblr.com/post/187538461056/spinel-garnet-and-true-kinda-love (You should check out this post. It brings up some really good points about the song “True Kind of Love”.)

Her whole reason for attacking Earth would be completely pointless! As a 4D being, she would have SEEN what happened to Pink Diamond and left the Garden before the show even started.

Even if gems had the technology and the massive amount of resources to create a being beyond their comprehension, what would be the point? Spinel was only meant to be a playmate. If they wanted Spinel to also have surveillance on Pink that could MAYBE justify creating a gem as complex as her. However, that still gives Spinel enough power to overthrow the Diamond Authority BY HERSELF. 

The only way the events of the movie could take place AND Spinel could be this powerful is if she spent her time in the Garden suppressing her ability to avoid peaking while playing the “game” with Pink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBTN4ewBPQc

Maybe after thousands of years of suppressing her power, she lost the ability to use it? But then how did she get the Injector if not by walking into the 4th dimension? When she reset, wouldn’t she regain the ability without the memory of suppressing it? Wouldn’t she constantly morph and contort whenever she moved as her ability becomes goes haywire!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyhqb1ciB2s

I think it’s more likely that she can only infer the 4th dimension. Kind of like how we infer the 3rd dimension. 

Yeah, apparently humans can’t actually see into the 3rd dimension. We only see the 2nd projections of 3D shapes and use light, shadows, and our position relative to objects around us to interpret depth.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

Maybe Spinel just has advanced retinas. Maybe she can see into the 3rd dimension and infer the 4th.

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/

Yes, she wouldn’t be able to flatten her gem or be the next dictator of all gem-kind, but it could explain what we see her do. She could walk around without half her head being gone one second and her leg the next.  She could have seen where the Injector and the Rejuvenator were through the 4th dimension. She maybe could have even navigated into the 4th dimension with her advanced vision and some effort.

The only thing this theory can’t explain is where that Rejuvenator came from and why it was so close to the Garden...Did Pink have a backup plan in case Spinel tried to follow her!?

https://vocal.media/geeks/everything-you-need-to-know-for-steven-universe-the-movie-part-2

And that’s it! If you made it this far, you’re just as hopelessly nerdy as I am! Only you didn’t spend hours of your life writing a 10-page paper on whether a fictional character could take over the universe...

Special thanks to  a-second-chance-su-au for inspiration. I never would have made this nerd spaghetti if you hadn’t handed me the ingredients! Check them out if you like SU AUs featuring CG Spinel.

Do you have any suggestions? Criticisms? Ideas you want me to obsess over explore? Did I miss something? Do you have a counter-theory? Then just send in an ask! I’ll try my best to respond. Have a nice day and drink your energy beans! 

References (Order of Appearance I think... I may have messed up the order):

http://eusebeia.dyndns.org/4d/vis/01-intro (Humans Only See in 2D)

https://plus.maths.org/content/richard-elwes (4D math perspective)

https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/four_dimensions/index.html (Shape Fusion)

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2017/04/26/visualizing-the-fourth-dimension/ (“Beach Ball” Tesseract)

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/fourth.html (3D Beings to 2D Beings = 4D Beings to 3D Beings)

[justlookatthosesausages]

“Lift the Spirit” :: a post-Frozen 2 Elsamaren fanfic

Chapter 3: Clap together, snap together

Elsa watched Honeymaren sleep with a grin filled with love. She was lying down next to her, her cheek against her hand, her elbow propped on the fresh grass. The blonde had gone down to the river to fetch some water for them. But even when she tried to wake her wife up and insist that she should drink, the Northuldra leader refused to sit up from the comfy spot that Elsa had found for them two.

Trips to Ahtohallan however made one thirsty, contrary to popular belief, for humid glaciers didn’t change anything to the effort that was needed to hike them. So the Snow Queen was stubborn.

As Honeymaren went back to sleep, Elsa smirked discreetly and pointed with her palm to the bowl filled with water, then focused to make the drops blob out of it and form a sphere of liquid in the air. She bit her lip to refrain herself from laughing, and moved the sphere to above Honeymaren’s face.

Then she stopped focusing to make all the water fall. The brunette gasped, and accidentally swallowed water in the process. She coughed and grumbled as she wiped her face. Elsa was dead laughing, and even rolled on the grass, her hands on her belly.

“You… DORK! Okay, now I’m fully awake.”

“At least you’ve drunk water.” Mocked Elsa.

Honeymaren grabbed Elsa’s bowl, which was still full, and splashed its content on her wife’s face. Elsa gasped loudly when she received her revenge.

“You’ll regret this.” She glanced, threatening. “Water has memory, and I will not forget that.”

She waved her fingers around her wet face, and all the water on her skin floated to rearrange in another blob, which she threatened the brunette with. Surprisingly, Honeymaren then jolted forward to swallow it, and grinned after she did.

“What the hell?” Blinked Elsa.

“Well, the hares you hunted and cooked for us at noon were a feast, but I’ve got to admit, a bit dry. I’m actually thirsty.”

Elsa lifted an eyebrow. That was just tease, and she knew it.

“But that’s not the only thing I’m thirsty about…” Continued Honeymaren, smirking.

Oh. Here we go.

She turned to be in Elsa’s lap, and they were now sitting face to face, then she kissed her lips, cheeks and neck. The blonde giggled.

“You’re aware that even in the isolated patch of grass we’re in, any Northuldra can see us, right?”

“I don’t care.” Murmured Honeymaren, and Elsa could feel her smile against her skin.

Elsa bent her head and let herself go into the emotions that her wife’s touch conveyed, then she suddenly startled.

“Wait, do you hear that?”

Honeymaren giggled in her neck, her eyes still closed. “Your heart beating louder than drums? Yes dear.”

“No, I heard something up there.”

The brunette smirked from where she was, still kissing her lover’s neck, and quite enjoying how Elsa’s muscles had tensed right at the spot she was aiming.

“Honey, wait.”

The Northuldra was about to tell her she was imagining stuff, when she heard something too. Her head snapped up as she twirled, joining Elsa’s eye level, and starring in the same direction than her. Both women stood alert, keeping their gaze on the trees, but they didn’t know that it actually was a diversion trick. Another enemy was arriving from behind them.

“It’s probably a bear…” Relativized Honeymaren. It wasn’t that far-fetched, because they were often sniffing around their camp for food, especially after Elsa was the one to cook.

Elsa squinted. “No… It’s magical… I can feel it in the air.”

She then focused harder. “In fact…” She realized that the presence also was behind them, and she twirled around, throwing her arm in front of her wife, and grabbing her hand so she would get behind her.

“WATCH OUT!”

Right at the same time, a gooey monster, that had the silhouette of a two and a half meters tall muscular man, lowered its hand on them. Elsa’s fast reflexes saved them as she crafted an ice shield out of nowhere, so fast and so big fueled with her terror that it rose even higher than the size of the creature. It had the shape of a half circle barrier and was unmindfully decorated with a giant Spirits union snowflake symbol. The Snow Queen extended the shield with a flick of her hand, the other still firmly holding Honeymaren’s and forbidding her to make any move. She encompassed them almost entirely in a dome, and fled by the remaining space at the end of it. It protected them from the horrible yet clever double attack, and gave them enough time to flee. Elsa tugged on Honeymaren’s hand to take her in the move, but the Northuldra leader had already understood her plan, and they entered the village at high speed.

“ALERT!! WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!! EVERYONE, GET IN FORMATION!!” Yelled the brunette with all the force in her lungs, and everyone heard, quickly placing themselves in positions.

While the Northuldra were getting prepared, Elsa kept her eyes on the monsters, trying all she could to not get physically repulsed by their hideous appearance.

So that was what dark magic could create… While her magic allowed her to bring snow and ice to life, this one seemed to make mutant humanoid forms crawl and stumble to her, like they were half alive and half dead. With a shiver, Elsa created another layer protection with a three meters tall shield to protect this entrance of the village, especially when she saw that the two monsters had followed them. The creatures didn’t run fast, in fact it was more like they walked in brisk steps, and they seemed a bit dumb because they bumped head first on her shield, due to the blur transparency of the ice. The magic matter they were made of splashed on the surface, but they didn’t die nevertheless; the two big spatters of dark black slime still seemed alive, and Elsa winced in disgust and worry when she saw it shape again. It was like ink had been mixed with mud, and was now getting the silhouette of two men again. Even if one could tell where their head was, they had no eyes, no nose, no mouth, so it made them even more scary in a way. They had long crooked fingers that now grinded, squeaked and creaked along the ice shield as they tried to climb it to get on Elsa’s side. The blonde gasped, and she waved her hands so that the surface would project them away with horizontal spikes. It was effective, for one of them got impaled right away, and the other stumbled to the grass.

The beautiful and comfy grass that Honeymaren and her had been relaxing on barely minutes ago. And that now Elsa would never want to touch again after she saw the way the monster was getting up, leaning on a hand that splattered black goo everywhere.

The creature that should have been killed with her spikes simply turned a bit more liquid to escape the ice stalagmites, shifted a bit on the side, then continued its ascension. It even helped itself with her upgrade to go to the top faster.

“Oh no, filthy slimes, not on my watch.” Muttered Elsa with a frown.

She moved her elbows back, then quickly projected her arms and hands forward, sending the ice shield slide on several tens of meters, projecting the two creatures away with the force of a freight train at full speed. She waved her hands so that the shield would splash them against the ones she had created earlier, and they all smashed in an explosion of ice and goo.

Nobody human could have survived that, for Elsa’s magical ice was as dense and unbreakable as diamond if she decided so, but she figured that they would still stand up harmless afterwards. She crafted a dome above them and flipped her hands down to trap them, but as soon as they reshaped, they started to dig to go underneath. Elsa extended the dome to go deeper in the ground, but she couldn’t do that eternally; also, she wasn’t willing to damage Nature in order to stop two stupid creatures.

She thought about if they deserved to be called stupid. They had an idiotic behavior, by they erratic moves, but they seemed really well made, or designed; she could tell quickly that the absence of eyes or nostrils actually meant that they were attracted to Elsa’s magic, and tracking her like hounds on a trail.

The blonde gulped at how the theory had been correct: she was, since the beginning, the target of those magic attacks. Victor Eiglatson was sadly as clever as she had expected. First, he had created those monsters to attack the camp in her absence to see if the Spirits of Nature could intervene against dark magic, but they couldn’t, because that was how the balance between good and evil was maintained; now, he attacked Elsa when she least expected it. He had waited for Honeymaren, her protector, to fall asleep, before launching the attack.

At the thought, Elsa crafted another ice layer for safety, and turned to search for her wife, inspecting the moves in the camp. To her deepest fear, but she had to admit, not biggest surprise, she realized that the Northuldra camp wasn’t attacked at this only entrance; the monsters had made their way to two other spots. One was taking care of by the tallest people of the camp, and the other by fearless hunters armed to the teeth led by Honeymaren. Meanwhile, the children were being taken care of at the center of the village by everyone remaining. Elsa’s eyes darted from one spot to another to count the assailants; there were six of them. Two for each entrance. She took a guess that Victor couldn’t create more creatures than that. She also noticed that, while it took at least ten people to stop the progress of two monsters, she had been able to take care of her two on her own. But this was no time to brag. It also was no time to admire how beautiful Honeymaren was when she fought, so she shook her head when her eyes checked on the Northuldra leader’s group a bit longer than needed.

Elsa twirled around to trap the two creatures in a giant ice cube, because she knew that an ice cage would be useless; they would go through the bars with their black ink constitution. She then ran to the group that wasn’t helped by Honeymaren, giving enough trust into her wife to hold the attack there longer. She pushed away the monsters with a blast of magic, and the Northuldra of the group smiled at her help and talent. However, the blonde winced and frowned; all of this was only making them gain time. They had to actually kill them, and she didn’t like this idea at all. Now she understood why Nature’s magic didn’t have to interfere with dark one. They didn’t have the same ethics. Elsa was a pacifist, and she pouted a bit at the task that was coming. She rose other walls of ice between the people and the monsters, postponing the moment when she would have to actually harm them.

Also, this use of magic against magic was starting to tire her a bit; she knew that sensation, for she had felt the same when she fought Bruni or Nokk ages ago. It wasn’t like she was raising an ice palace out of nowhere; dark magic was draining all of her forces at each and every defense she crafted. One creature had managed to pass on the left side of the shield, and Elsa’s head twitched to it, sending it back in one swift move of the coldest ice.

“AGH!” Suddenly screamed a Northuldra on Elsa’s left. She was holding her arm, trembling.

“What is it??” Worried the blonde.

“It splashed on me as you fended it off. The goo hurts…”

“It’s burning your skin?” Analyzed Elsa, looking away from the creatures for a moment to inspect the arm of the woman.

Indeed, until now, she hadn’t been touched by the enemy - she would never get a scratch in battle, had once said Anna - so she couldn’t know.

“It’s not exactly like fire…” Winced the Northuldra. “It’s more like it’s toxic. Like nettles mixed with rosary peas…”

Elsa blinked as she processed that. It helped that the victim was the botanist of the tribe, and yet made her confused for a moment. When she understood the sensation that the Northuldra botanist was describing, she hovered her hand above the touched part of her arm, and infused ice to calm the sensible skin.

“There. It will soothe it a bit, and I’ll have a look at it once this is all over.”

The woman blinked at the sensation. “I’m actually feeling way better already. Thank you, Fifth Spirit.”

Elsa nodded, then turned to the monsters. A frown wrinkled her usually calm features.

So they could harm the Northuldra, uh? Oh. That was it. She had a hard time motivating herself to actually harm them, but now she was enraged. When the ice wall crumbled down after the monsters insisted passing through with their long crooked fingers, she screamed and ran head first to the nearest creature, her hands glowing bright blue, her azure eyes vibrant with anger.

Honeymaren turned at her lover’s war shout. She had a peek at her between the trees. Elsa was fighting fiercely, but something made her frown. The Snow Queen rarely sweated, for her magical body always cooled off her skin. So when she saw the pearls of sweat on her forehead as she dodged from the monster’s blow, she knew that the situation was critical.

“ELSA!” She called, panic raising her voice.

“I’m okay!” Yelled the blonde back, not even looking at Honeymaren, which would have distracted her anyway.

She hit the creatures with a snow blast, and it stumbled back, then she waved in a discarding way at the Northuldra leader.

“Keep helping the people! And watch out for the dark matter they’re made off, it’s toxic!”

She could however still feel the insistent gaze of her wife on her shoulder, despite the silence coming from her that meant she had taken in account her advice.

Elsa turned around. “I’m fine, Honeymaren!” She said, but it was a blatant lie. She was out of breath, and perfectly aware that this fight was the most difficult she had ever been in.

“Elsa! Look out!” Screamed a Northuldra, pointing behind her.

The Fifth Spirit turned around, but it was too late. By the time she would raise her hands to make a shield, the creature would have finished extending their long hands to touch her.

When suddenly, something whistled next to Elsa’s ear, and planted loudly in the wood of the nearest tree, piercing the monster. It stumbled backwards with the force of the blow, and hit the three, splashing on the bark.

Elsa let out a gasp of surprise, but also relief to see that she had escaped death by a second. She recognized her wife’s arrows, identifiable by the deep green fletching feathers. The blonde twirled around and saw Honeymaren, face focused, her long bow taut for another shot, a new arrow already placed and ready to go. Elsa could see fire in her brown eyes, even with the distance. Despite the urgency and certainly her panic, Honeymaren had a perfectly composed posture, her whole body optimized to shoot the monster a second time if needed. Elsa had to say, both of those physical traits made her incredibly attractive. She gulped and focused on the way more urgent problem, and dove aside as the creature recovered and moved, refilling the hole the arrow had made in its magical body. Honeymaren immediately shot another arrow, and this time it planted right into where its heart would have been if it were human. The monster got planted to the tree from there, and stopped moving.

Elsa blinked in amazement at the precision of her wife. She had acknowledge it long ago, but now made the mental promise to never mess with her when she had a hunting bow in hand. If she could aim from that far, who knew what she could do when--

An idea suddenly struck Elsa’s mind, with the same force than an arrow.

“They don’t freeze once touched with my magic…” She muttered, thinking out loud. “Because they need to be killed with magic, though like humans.”

To prove that her suspicions were correct, the creatures started to move, like it came back to life, and started to break free from the arrow. It stood tall in front of Elsa, and the latter ran away. It wasn’t to save herself; she was running right to Honeymaren.

“Don’t shoot at it!” Ordered the Fifth Spirit.

“What?!” Frowned the brunette, and she unfocused from her aim to look at her lover. She saw on her face the familiar ‘I have a plan’ expression, and she relaxed her posture. She lowered the bow, the arrow still at the ready, and looked at Elsa.

She then looked down when she saw blue light shimmer from her hands. Elsa was staring at Honeymaren’s arrow and doing her best fo make a replica in ice, as close as she could get, while keeping the same weight and density than a regular wood one. She twirled and waved her hands until her work was done, and a satisfied grin stretched her lips.

“Try with that.”

Honeymaren delicately took the creation in her hands. It was just unbelievable. She spinned the ice arrow in her fingers. It was cold but not too cold, and radiating with strong magic to such a level that even herself could tell. It was like holding a glass replica of her own arrows, but she knew, by its density, that it would be unbreakable.

“Clever, snømus. With that, they will finally die.”

She spent a few more seconds to lift the object and observe the arrow point. Even the hafting was reproduced to perfection.

“Waow, the details are so precise…”

“No time for admiration!” Scolded Elsa.

Honeymaren hurried in her moves. She put her arrow back in her quiver, and placed Elsa’s. She looked in the distance to track the monster, which was getting hit by several Northuldra and their staffs. She aimed perfectly and, with the same astonishing precision than a regular arrow, she planted it right into the monster’s head.

Something incredibly happened then; until now, when the dark creatures were hit, they reshaped, to everyone’s disgust and disappointment. But now that they had been hit at a vital point by Elsa’s magic in a one-shot kill, they dissipated in the air, like when magic was vanishing after use.

A moment of silence appeared as most of the Sami stared at where the creature had been, pointing at the spot with their weapons. They expected it to form again, but when nothing happened, they shouted in joy. Honeymaren smirked at her successful revenge, and shook her head at her lover.

“More, more, more, create more!”

There was no need to say; Elsa was already at task. Several arrows were floating in the air around her as she modeled them in sequence, and Honeymaren grabbed them. She ran back and forth in the woods and between the huts to aim at the five remaining creatures, and in less time than it would take to say it, she killed them one by one. She hopped, she slid, she sprinted, and Elsa observed as she took care of all the enemies by herself. In satisfying ‘thwacks’, the creatures got hit at the head or at the heart, and all tumbled and died instantly like the first one.

When they all disappeared, the Northuldra couldn’t believe their eyes, but soon bursted in cheers. Everyone raised their arms in victory, some hugged, some danced, some jumped.

Elsa jogged to the middle of the camp to join Honeymaren, who was smiling widely.

“Well, I call that excellent teamwork.” Sighed the leader, in relief and pride, seeing how they all had successfully faced the dark magic attack. “Elsa, those arrows are simply amaz--”

She stopped talking when the blonde grabbed her collar and crashed her lips on hers, kissing her deeply. Honeymaren widened her eyes in surprise, and the few Northuldra around grinned and diverted their gaze politely. Elsa sighed in emotion once she stepped out of the kiss. She was slightly taller than Honeymaren, so when the brunette looked up at her confusedly and dizzily, the Snow Queen giggled.

“I had to. You have no idea how seductive you are when you’re archering.” She whispered.

Honeymaren smirked, delighted to see that for once, Elsa had taken the lead.

“Also, you saved my life. Thank you.” Said the blonde on a higher voice.

Her collar grasp turned into a hug, and Honeymaren held her tight with closed eyes.

“I will never let anyone or anything take you away from me, snømus.” She smiled.

=======

The Northuldra leader observed the state of the village, and smiled at how the Spirits now were making their best to prevent any other surprise attack. Gale, who already was a true snitch, made sure to shake every bush to check that no monster was hiding behind it.

The tribe also searched for the dark slime that had splashed on the trees or ground because it could be toxic for the environment. When they saw that no trace of it had remained once they got killed, they understood that just like Bruni’s flames disappear once Elsa stops him, the goo was linked to the creatures it belonged to and had vanished with them. Another thing that had vanished was the possible presence of Victor. The Northuldra had looked everywhere, but there was no sign of him. Only footsteps betrayed his presence, but they led to the river.

Honeymaren prefered it that way, glad that this was over, at least for now. She looked for her wife through the trees. After some time walking, she heard Elsa’s voice in the distance like she was chatting with someone.

“...doesn’t have a second wave. I love you. Bye.” She said when the brunette joined her, sounding like the end of a conversation, and the latter was confused. There was no one in front of her.

“Talking to yourself?”

Elsa turned at her voice, feeling better by her sole presence. “No. I needed to create a memory of me saying that out loud to…”

She waved her hand to be more explicit, and it was like humidity in the air formed around her palm, layers of snowflakes glowing with magic and looking like floating blue sparkles.

Honeymaren smiled widely when she understood, amazed. “To send a message to Anna. You’re going to craft an ice memory of you saying that.”

Elsa smiled, and nodded.

“Holy Ahtohallan, I married a genius.” Exhaled Honeymaren.

The blonde snorted with modesty. “Actually, I’m hesitant… Do you think this is cheating? Sending fake memories as a medium of communication?”  

“Don’t panic, cute Spirit. These are not fake, the one you’re making for example had just happened. You’re not a fraud against Nature’s laws.” Chuckled the Northuldra.

She placed her hands on her hips. “This actually is brilliant. As my favorite redhead once told me: ‘You cracked it!’”

“You’re favorite redhead… Anna?”

“Yes, obviously. I’m not referring to Oaken.”

“I mean, I’m surprised that she told you that. What was the context?”

“We were playing chess. I apparently made her discover a new tactic. Though I still can’t fully grasp how this game works. Sidenote: she desperately wants to beat you.”

“I can pretend that she won the next time we play.” Shrugged Elsa.

Honeymaren puffed as the blonde then waved her hand to send the message.

They both watched the pack of glowing blue snowflakes fly away and leaving the Forest towards Arendelle.

“We should change our minds.” Suggested Honeymaren, already filling her head with a dozen tasks to do to stop thinking about the attack.

“Yeah. I need to fidget with something. I’m gonna go build a cairn or two. Or twenty.”

=======

Anna was standing up and pointing at a giant map on the table of the room, indicating to her daughter the strategic points of the kingdom, but also of other kingdoms, so she could get the big picture on a country scale. Eydis was standing up next to her, very attentive and taking notes, which warmed Anna’s heart and filled her with maternal pride. Her suspicions were correct: the young blonde loved to solve problems. Whether they were a broken chair to fix with tools, an ice shortage in Summer to palliate with thanks to ice harvesting expeditions, or an economical issue that Arendelle was facing. While she smiled as she gave a small pause in her explanations to let Eydis the time to write the advices down, something shimmered on the balcony.

It caught Anna’s eye, but she thought for a moment that it was just a seagull landing on the railing in a white blur. She didn’t pay much attention, and turned to her again.

The thing kept shining, though, so she interrupted her sentence a few seconds later to keep watching by the window.

“And uh… I was saying…” She said in a troubled voice, trailing off.

“Is there something distracting you?” Smirked Eydis. “Or maybe you’re thinking of escaping?”

Anna puffed. “Don’t be silly. I love teaching you. I actually missed these sessions. It’s just…”

She walked to the window to stare through it closely, and suddenly she gasped when she recognized what it was. The redhead violently opened the handle of the door and went on the balcony, staring at what had just appeared. Eydis turned to watch, and with the open window door, she could see it clearly.

Aunt Elsa?

Somehow, Elsa was standing on the balcony, and yet it wasn’t Elsa at all. Eydis squinted and then realized that it was a representation of Elsa, in the same style than the ice statues she made sometimes, and that always amazed by how detailed they are. This one looked like Elsa herself, but entirely artic blue, with almost imperceptible irises.  Another difference was that this one seemed to move, and both the girl and the woman startled when it suddenly came to life and began to talk. The voice was undeniably Elsa’s, but sounded cristaline and echoed weirdly, like if she were talking in a glass bottle.

“Anna. I have to inform you about something. The Northuldra camp has been targeted by a man with dark magic. He can create monsters made of nearly indestructible and unstoppable matter, and he attacked twice to this day.”

Anna’s knees nearly buckled at her sister’s words. Wait what? What what what? Also, she hated already how fast this pre-recorded message was. She couldn’t intervene, because it kept going without interruption.

“My fears had turned to be right. Those creatures are after me, and they are made to kill me.”

The redhead missed a heartbeat at that sentence, and her breathing hitched. The magical message continued, undaunted.

“But what the most important is, I’m safe. Honeymaren is safe too. And the whole tribe has no body to mourn. We only have lost two men yesterday, but that was another attack.”

The message obviously was something that Elsa had made in advance, so she could not hear Anna’s current reaction or replies. However, the elder knew her little sister by heart, and it was like she had predicted what would happen. Right when Anna gasped loudly, Elsa immediately continued with: “Wait, no, don’t panic. I know you well enough to know that you’re already leaving the balcony to grab a coat to come to me, and please listen, because I’m not done.”

Anna grumbled and let go of the coat she had picked up from the wardrobe, and reluctantly went back to the balcony. Eydis laughed at her mother’s reaction, because it was even more funny than if she had been scolded directly; Elsa’s ice statue was now giving a few seconds of time for Anna to come back in front of her. That was just comedy gold.

“You’re back? Okay. Good. So, I actually really don’t advise you to come because those creatures could harm you. I believe in your skills, that’s not the problem, but it would be best if you stay in Arendelle. I need to tell you about who the enemy is too, but that can wait.” “THAT CAN WAIT?!” Jolted Anna, her jaw dropping.

“Shhh”, warned Eydis. “You’re missing the rest of the message.”

“...I’ll get to Arendelle once I’m sure that this current attack doesn’t have a second wave. I love you. Bye.”

Both Anna and Eydis blinked at how the message ended. The ice statue dissolved into tiny snowflakes, and they softly swirled to get carried away by the breeze. Anna’s shoulders slumped.

“What… THE HELL?!”

Eydis snorted. “Calm down.”

“How can I be calm?” Yelled Anna, and her daughter jumped, especially at the way her mother had come back in the room, closed the balcony doors, and grabbed her coat to… Immediately go?

“Hey, she told you to stay here.”

“Yeah, and I’ve stopped listening to her advice long ago.”

“But she’s right! If those things are after her, then you’re safer here.”

Anna pretended she didn’t hear that. She put on her coat, changed her shoes, tied her hair in a more practical way, and shoved random food that was on the table into a satchel that she put across her chest.

“Mother, it’s okay…” Soothed Eydis.

“But she NEVER send messages via ice statues! We usually use Gale, or she comes by herself! Something must be wrong. Or bad. Or both.”

“She doesn’t seem that panicked… Unlike you.” Noted the princess.

Anna wasn’t paying attention anymore. She was out of breath, her eyes darting left and right to check if she needed something else from the room, and she looked like a real mess. Eydis stared at her with a dropped jaw due to disbelief. She startled when Anna suddenly came close to her, kissed her on the forehead, and left the room in a gust.

“I’ll be back when… When I’ll be back!”

“What?” Said Eydis, staring at the corridor.

A moment passed, the room now completely silent, and she blinked in utter confusion. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She knew that her mother often had improvised behaviors like those, but she was flabbergasted. Eydis kept blinking, and one of her blonde dutch braids fell off her shoulder as a perfect representation of her disarray.

=======

Kristoff smiled at Eydis’ sudden entrance in the building.

“You escaped your lesson again, uh?”

Since she was a teenager, his daughter despised theory classes, and prefered to learn manual things, so it wasn’t the first time she was entering the ice harvesters guild in a hurry. However, this time, she was not running away from an angry teacher, and in fact, Anna’s geopolitics lesson had been interesting.

The ice harvesters greeted their princess with nods and waves, and Kristoff smiled from the seat where he was, at the end of the table, which was reserved for him as both the King and the Official Arendelle Ice Master and Deliverer. He put his grinning face on his fist.

“You know, you remind me of your mother when she was younger. There was a time when she would cross the village running and find me here, in panic after she broke something in the castle or set the kitchens on fire.”

“Father!! You have to come to the castle right now.”

The blond’s smile fell and his face twisted to concern. Eydis indeed looked like her mother, but when the latter was utterly panicked. And something told him that Anna also was in a similar state as they were speaking.

“Why?!” He asked, standing and joining her on the threshold.

“Mother just received an ice message with a magical statue. I mean, a magical message with-- whatever. It’s from Elsa, and she’s imagining the worst. But I saw the message and it’s actually not that bad! And Elsa told her to not go to the Forest! But she didn’t listen! And she’s leaving anyway--”

“She’s leaving?” Repeated Kristoff, his eyes wide.

Eydis didn’t even have to answer. He already was running to the castle, and she followed him close. But it was too late. When they arrived to the courtyard, the stables doors were opened wide, with the evidence that she had just left.

Kristoff sighed. “Did she at least take food with her?”

“Well, mostly chocolate and strawberries.”

=======

Elsa was satisfied to see on the following morning that everything that had been broken during the battle had been fixed, and that they had managed to place everything back to where it was. Her hands on her hips, she smiled with a huff as she watched the village returning to its casual activities.

“Fifth Spirit, may I ask for your help?” Came a timid voice behind her, and she turned.

It was Hilka, a girl from the family living a hut away from the reindeer paddock. She was really shy and also very pious, so Elsa wasn’t surprised to see that she had took off her hat and was placing it above her heart, not daring to look at Elsa directly, and instead staring at the dirt on the ground.

“Please, Hilka, you can call me Elsa, I told you already.” Assured the blonde in a soft and smiling voice.

The girl blushed. “But I’d never dare to be this familiar with a magical divinity...”

“If that makes you uncomfortable, you can keep calling me Fifth Spirit, it’s okay. But I swear that I don’t mind it if you call me Elsa. In fact, none of us, the Spirits, mind.” She searched for an example. “See, you don’t have a name for the Wind Spirit, and yet since Olaf nicknamed them Gale, I call them Gale, and they don’t mind at all. You know, except from Nokk, who’s the most susceptible being I’ve ever seen, no one actually cares.” She giggled.

It made the Northuldra smile, and she seemed relaxed. She finally dared to look at her in the eyes, and Elsa realized for the first time that she had emerald-like irises.

“Could you please help me lift a barrel… Elsa?”

“Sure!” Chimed the blonde, delighted by the way she dared now.

They walked to the barrel in question, and the Fifth Spirit noted that indeed, they usually asked Gale or an Earth Giant to help with it, but they were busy keeping an eye on the village’s surrounding to prevent any attack.

Elsa casually waved her hand, and a gust of snowflakes surrounded the barrel in a magic blue glow, lifting it in a cold wind, and moving it to the spot Hilka was pointing at, a few meters away.

“There. Anything else?” Smiled Elsa once she conjured her snowflakes down to delicately place the barrel on the floor of the stock.

Hilka seemed to be in complete awe to the miracle that her deity had just made. Elsa had casually lifted a very heavy barrel that would have taken two strong men and a lot of effort to move away. Now, Elsa was just looking at her like she had simply picked a twig from the ground, and was asking for the next instruction.

“That… That is all.” Muttered the girl.

“Okay. Tell me if you need anything else.”

The Northuldra blushed and nodded vividly, then Elsa walked to her hut. On her way, she heard Gale going down from the treetops to float above her head, and the Wind Spirit shared a feeling, that resonated to Elsa’s heart. It brought a flash of the Elemental Stones to the blonde’s mind, and she smiled.

“Yeah, the four of you are forgiven and really helpful.” She said, interpreting the meaning of her emotion. “Together, we--”

Gale suddenly tugged on her double train, making her lose her balance. “Hey! Rude. I was talking. What did I tell you about not interrupting people?”

The magic wind however was insistent.

“What is it?”

They floated above her, making different sounds.

“Approaching from the South?” Frowned Elsa, interpreting Gale’s chimes.

She now understood why the Wind Spirit had exhaled that familiar feeling earlier. They had been mentioning the actual Elemental Stones place, not what they represented.

“Who is approaching from the South, Gale?” Inquired the Fifth Spirit, her worry rising, because she knew that Honeymaren was there picking up weeds with other Northuldra.

Gale then made a very specific chime, and it was absolutely unique; it meant one and only word.

“Anna?!”

Elsa twirled around, nearly tripping on the ground covered with pine needles as she suddenly dashed to the South. No time to summon Nokk. She was running so fast that wind was whistling in her ears, and even Gale had to rush to follow the athletic and dramatic human.

=======

Honeymaren startled when she heard hooves coming at full speed, someone heavily jumping to the ground and running to her. If that wasn’t enough to announce Anna’s arrival, the redhead appeared panting and haggard right in front of her, and yelled her name the instant she recognized her.

“HONEYMAREN! WHERE IS ELSA?!”

If the Northuldra leader wasn’t used to the Arendellian sisters’ drama, she would have stumbled to the grass instantly. There, she only dropped her jaw and tried to talk, but it was hard to ignore Anna’s dress that clearly wasn’t meant for riding.

Apparently, her processing took half a second too long to Anna’s taste, for she grabbed her shoulders and dove her teal blue eyes in hers. It felt like she inspected her very soul, and Honeymaren’s words vanished in her mouth even more.

“WHAT HAPPENED?!”

The brunette’s ears rang at how hard she was yelling. The other Northuldra stopped picking up the weeds to stare at the scene with worry.

“What is going on?!”

“Woah, Anna, okay, hello, and sweet Ahtohallan, calm down.”

“I don’t want to be calm! Is Elsa safe?”

“I… Yes, she is! What the heck, Anna?! Are you okay?”

Anna squinted suspiciously. “If I am okay? You’re not calling me ‘fire head’. Something must be wrong.”

Honeymaren blinked, torn between the need to burst of laughter or be seriously concerned for her sister-in-law. “Now you’re overinterpreting.”

“I just hate it when she uses ice statues memories as a message!”

The brunette finally understood what this was all about, from the context of Anna’s dress to why she was in such distress. The Queen was breathing loudly, close to hyperventilation.

“Yeah, I know. But she had no choice. The Wind Spirit is bu--”

“ELSA!!” Screamed Anna suddenly, looking over Honeymaren’s shoulder, and the latter jumped at the sudden shriek. Once again, her ears rang, and she winced.

While the redhead ran at full speed to her elder, she shook her ear lobe. “Ouch.”

“ELSA!”

She hugged her fiercely, but it was short; she then stepped back and checked her arms, legs, waist, face… Elsa couldn’t say anything for how rushed and abrupt her gestures were. Then, once Anna made sure that she was alright, she slapped her arm.

“AOH! What was that for??” Winced the blonde.

“Being an idiot!”

“I’m sorry…?!” Recoiled Elsa. She had no idea what was going on.

“Why did you send me an ice statue message?” Growled Anna, and the Northuldra watched as it looked like she was her mother in this moment.

“Gale’s busy, and the Spirits in general aren’t really in the mood to leave the Forest. We’re all a bit… Disarrayed…”

Anna’s scolding frown transformed into a worried expression. “Do you mean the Spirits, or the Northuldra?”

Elsa’s hands, which had remained in Anna’s after the hug, started to retract. The redhead gripped them.

“Elsa.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine now.”

Anna didn’t even bother to get the nuance. She didn’t believe her. She stared right into her eyes, and Elsa blinked at the intense irises. They were filled with wisdom and foresight, sharpened with her years of monarchy and motherhood. In addition, there also was the experience of years of knowing her elder sister by heart, and Anna recognized the mimics Elsa had when she minimized her actual mood to not panic her sister.

“No you’re not.”

Elsa came closer to insist. “I swear I am.”

The Queen still didn’t seem convinced. When Honeymaren approached, she turned to her vividly. “Maren, is she saying the truth? Is she really fine?”

“Hey!” Gasped Elsa.

The brunette chuckled at how she preferred to ask her to be sure. “She is. No trick there. She’s only very concerned, but you know, that’s just Elsa in the daily.”

Anna sighed. “Good.”

Elsa let go of her younger’s hands to cross her arms with a pout. Anna winced at her reaction. “Excuse me. It’s just that at least, with Maren, I know if you’re hiding something.”

The blonde kept pouting.

“Why did you come to the Forest!?”

“Well, happy to see you too.” Replied the Queen with sarcasm.

“I specifically told you not to come!!”

Anna put her hands on her hips.

“As far as I know, I’m a grown adult, and can do whatever the hell I want. Also, I HAD to. Did you even proofread your message, you dramatic oaf?!”

Elsa blinked as she moved back at the scold. “Uh… No…”

Anna sighed longly and rubbed the top of her nose with her thumb and index. “Sometimes I wonder if you didn’t leave your brain cells up the North Mountain.”

Honeymaren bit her lip as she sadly looked at Anna, then at her wife. “Elsa, she hates it when you use ice statues for messages.”

The blonde was so preoccupied by other topics that her mind didn’t grasp the problem, and she frowned as she was about to ask ‘Why?’.

And then it hit her.

She distinctly remembered the day Ahtohallan had showed memories of Anna curled in that pit, sobbing after she thought that she had lost everything. And one sinister thing had started this long night of sorrow. The last message that Elsa could send before freezing eternally for going too far in the glacier: an ice statue.

With an audible gasp, the Fifth Spirit then realized that it meant that Anna had thought, when she received her message in Arendelle, that it was her last way of communication before tragedy.

Without any further addition, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Anna, clenching tight as she buried her face in her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean… I didn’t realize…”

She passed a hand in her younger’s back in case she needed to cry.

Yet Anna didn’t cry. She simply sighed. Of course Elsa hadn’t meant it. But what kind of crazy situation were they in that she forgot it when she sent the message?

She gave a pat to Elsa’s shoulder to tell her that she was fine with it, and that she had long figured that it was done by mistake.

The blonde looked deeply sorry as she detached from the hug. “Now it makes sense on why you wanted to come... Wait... How did you come? I thought that Kristoff didn’t want to have another reindeer after Sven.”

“I rode a horse. I had to think fast. In every meaning of the term: I rushed to the royal stables and asked for Rask.”

Elsa lifted surprised eyebrows, and looked over her sister’s shoulder to see the now fully grown horse calmly walking to them, as Anna had hurried to go down to finish her route running.

“Rask!” Exclaimed Elsa, her face lighting up.

The horse neighed, and she petted his head with affection, scratching him in the right spots.

“Hey there. It’s been a while, uh?”

“That’s a very athletic horse.” Commented Honeymaren, impressed.

“He is.” Smiled Elsa. “He proved his talent many years ago. And his name definitely suits him.”

“So you’ve rode him already. I was wondering how you knew him.” Smiled her wife.

“Yeah, she did.” Confirmed Anna. “Fun fact: it also was out worry and need to go fast to a neighbor land.”

Elsa giggled, admitting that the parallel was funny. She looked at Rask’s eyes. “You live through the sisters’ drama, don’t you?”

The horse snorted, like he actually laughed from that.

She took off his bridle, saddle, stirrups and bags, and gently led him to the water point where the reindeers were.

Anna and Honeymaren followed, mute at the expert way she did that.  

“I hope we have enough hay for him to eat. We obviously weren’t expecting you.” Said Elsa.

Anna frowned.

“Wait, if you didn’t expect me, then how did you know I was there?”

“Gale is standing guard. I mean… Floating guard...? So they told me when they saw you arrive at the horizon. They make a specific sound when they’re carrying a letter from you. I quickly learned that this sound meant ‘Anna’. Honestly, this is one of my favorite sounds to hear in the world now.”

“Aww. And what’s your top favorite?”

“Hmm… That’s a good question. Probably Honeymaren’s laugh.”

The Northuldra eye-rolled as she was petting Rask. “And I’m the romantic flirt, uh?” She mumbled.

The redhead had lifted her head to the sky and observed the Wind Spirit guarding the camp, shaking the pine trees branches on their way. “They’re doing a great job.” She smiled. “Now I understand why you didn’t want to send me a letter, to not disturb their work. Or maybe their duty?”

Honeymaren shrugged at the nuance. The Spirits were so dedicated to protection that it could also be called ‘vocation’.

“If you understand, does that mean that you’ve forgiven me?” Asked Elsa, only half joking.

“Certainly not.”

Elsa pouted at Anna’s frown. It made Honeymaren laugh, and she lifted her hands to put one on each sister.

“Come on, you two. Let’s sit down.”

“No, wait, no time to sit down.” Rejected Anna. “Maren, you will stay here. Elsa and I, we go back to Arendelle and suit up, with outfits and weapons, warn everyone about the situation, and come back ASAP.”

Elsa blinked. “Waow, waow, calm down. No ASAP. You will get some rest. Even if we go and come back on Nokk, you can’t make all of that in one go. Have some sleep.”

“Look who’s talking!”

“Listen to her.” Advised Honeymaren.

Anna stared at her judgingly. “Of course you defend her. Tsk, I miss the time you two weren’t married and you were on my side, Maren.”

After some insistence, they sat down on a lying trunk.

“I’ll need to talk to Mattias when we’re in Arendelle.” Announced Elsa. “We had planned to ask him something through a letter too, and, well…”

“What was it?” Asked Anna.

“He knows who Victor Eiglatson is.”

Anna rose an eyebrow. “What does Victor Eiglatson have to do with any of that?”

Elsa and Honeymaren widened their eyes. “You know him too?” They said, in one voice.

The redhead stared at them. “Why, yeah. We put him in jail years ago with Mattias, for insulting the Crown. He recently escaped.”

She thought it would be impossible, but the two women dilated their eyes even more.

“Escaped? Someone escaped Arendelle’s prison?” Asked Elsa.

“Why didn’t you tell us anything about him?!” Asked Honeymaren.

Anna blinked. “Do you guys ever read newspapers?” She reproached.

Then it hit her that no, obviously. And that was why her sister-in-law made that remark. “Sorry, but you didn’t ask about him. Also, the investigation is still ongoing to know how he managed to escape. He’s the first one in the History of Arendelle to do that.”

“Anna.”

“What?”

“He’s the man who attacked us with his monsters. He has dark magic.”

“Ohhh, that would explain how-- WAIT, WHAT?!”

The Queen’s eyes darted from Elsa’s face to Honeymaren’s, and they both nodded. She blinked confusedly. “Are you certain? Did you ask Ahtohallan?”

They nodded again.

“Holy cheese and crackers. Now I’m terrified. But it all makes so much sense.”

“Let me guess…” Started Honeymaren. “The hate he has towards the Crown… He insulted Elsa’s name, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, how do you know?”

The brunette sighed. “He has some common past with the previous Fifth Spirit. And it’s obvious that they were enemies.”

Anna nodded slowly. “Yes… It would just explain everything. He used to be in the Arendelle army, Mattias can tell you more about him. He kept proclaiming that Elsa should die.”

Elsa gulped and looked down. “Well, he’s consistent. And tenacious. He tried to kill me, after all.”

Anna looked at her, feeling heartbroken for her.

“Hey, Elsa… Are you okay?”

She didn’t have the time to put her hand on Elsa’s back that the blonde stood up. “I’m fine. Do you want tea?”

“Uh… Yeah, actually, it’s a good idea.”

She watched her walk away, but had enough experience to know that Elsa needed some time alone with her thoughts. The blonde had obviously used this suggestion as an excuse to make the most of the round trip to the hut where they dried the herbs. Anna sighed and looked at Honeymaren.

“She’s feeling guilty for the two deaths, right?”

The brunette nodded sadly. “You know her. And she still think that she doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. As her sister, you surely know what I mean…”

“And as her wife, you do as well.” Snorted Anna.

They giggled a bit. It was best to laugh about it.

“You should see her face when she opens your letters next to me.”

“Maybe I send her too many…” Winced the redhead. “Sometimes I feel like I’m too talkative, or too worried, or too curious.”

“Don’t. She loves them. She even keeps them and stores them neatly in a wooden box. It’s in a chest in our hut.”

“Oh my goodness, really? It’s so nice!” Grinned Anna.

Elsa had come back with three mugs, holding them in a way that would have burned the hands of anyone not fitted with ice and snow powers.

“You keep all of my letters?” Asked Anna, her smile not leaving her while her sister sat down.

“No, I actually always give them to Bruni and ask him to burn them down.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. I’m dead laughing.”

Elsa smirked and sipped, watching her with a side glance. Anna smiled, because she saw in her azure blue eyes that all guilt had gone, now replaced by tease. She loved that Elsa could switch from one mood to the other.

They drank their tea peacefully, though their topic of discussion remained about this mysterious Eiglatson.

=======

Elsa hugged Honeymaren tight, her face buried in her neck, taking in her natural scent.

“I love you.” She muttered, like she was still shy to say it, even after 4 years of marriage.

Honeymaren slightly pulled back to look at her lover. “I love you too, snømus. You’re glowing.”

Elsa’s eyes widened, panic suddenly stretching her features.

“I am?”

Her hands detached from her wife’s waist, like she was afraid of hurting her, and even took a safe step back.

Honeymaren laughed. “No, not really! I mean, you do, baby. You always do. But not literally.”

Elsa blinked, then sighed. The brunette continued to laugh, taking her hands back. “Why are you so tensed about it?”

“Sorry, it’s just…” Muttered the blonde, looking elsewhere. “Since the magic attack, I’m afraid that my powers got affected in a way…”

“Shh… They aren’t. They never will. Ever. You’re safe for the rest of your life now.”

She caressed her cheek, and a small smile tugged Elsa’s lips, but it went away too soon. “I just don’t want to go through this again.”

“Losing control?” Guessed Honeymaren.

Elsa missed a heartbeat at her wife’s wise analysis.

“You’re not losing control.” Assured the brunette.

“I know, but those creatures will come back, you can’t deny it. What if that time, I’m not--”

Honeymaren silenced her with a kiss. She had found out long ago that it was an infallible way to make Elsa’s worries vanish right away. The blonde closed her eyes, and melted in the kiss. Yep, love indeed was the key against anxiety. Honeymaren looked at her when they parted.

“We’ve been ready for this one. We’ll be even more for the next. Even if it means more angry.”

Elsa smiled, her eyes still closed, then chuckled. When she opened them, two calm walnut irises were embracing her mentally in a warm cocoon.

She bit her lip, her hands roaming the brunette’s hips.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, okay?” She teased.

“How is taking care of a tribe ‘stupid’?” Smiled Honeymaren. “Also, now that the dork one of the couple is gone, I’m safe.”

“I’m not a dork.” Huffed the blonde with a pout.

“Sure you are. May I remind you that I surprised you and Bruni having a tongue blep competition the other day?”

Elsa blushed lightly. They often had fun with the Fire Spirit, and she refused that Honeymaren made this an awkward moment. They had laughed a lot.

Ryder snorted. “Did you win?”

The Northuldra leader turned to her brother, frowning at how he once again eavesdropped one of their conversations. “You do not get to tease her. Only I do. And of course she did.”

They all laughed. Anna smiled as Elsa kissed her wife deeply, then the blonde joined her on Nokk’s back.

The Fifth Spirit placed her hands on the water horse’s neck, and Anna placed hers around her waist.

With a final nod, and wave to the Northuldra, they dashed to the South, Anna once again impressed by the swift moves of Nokk, even if it was for the hundredth time. Via the water stream, they would arrive to Arendelle in a record speed.

A long silence passed after they disappeared on the horizon, the Sami slowly getting back to their tasks.

Ryder looked at her sister’s behavior, and smiled tenderly.

“Nervous much?”

Honeymaren stared at him. “How do you know I’m nervous?”

Ryder chuckled. “First, because I am your brother and I can tell when you’re worried about something. And second, because you have that big mannerism when you’re concerned about Elsa. When she’s away in Arendelle or in Ahtohallan or simply not around for too long... You always fiddle with your ice wedding ring.”

Honeymaren sighed. She couldn’t help this mannerism, so actually, she was fairly certain that Ryder wasn’t the only person who noticed it; the whole folk probably did. Except of course for Elsa, because Honeymaren didn’t do that in her presence, by definition.

“It relaxes me to touch her magic. And this ring is the product of her magic mixed with her love for me. So it brings a lot of happiness to my mind and heart. It erases sad thoughts. Also, it’s the easiest way to know that she’s safe.” She confessed.

Ryder didn’t have to comment out loud to say that he understood her drift. If Elsa were to die, then the ring would instantly melt.

Honeymaren gulped, looking at her brother, who now felt sorry for bringing that up.

“Damn, I didn’t mean to make you think about that. Look, Elsa will be fine. She’s with Nokk and Anna. And they’ll arrive to Arendelle soon. We’re worried about her too, you know? She’s still our Fifth Spirit.”

“I know, of course. I’m not hogging on her.”

Ryder smiled. “Those last days filled with dangers and threats have been heavy for all of us.”

Honeymaren nodded. “And it’s out of question that I get some rest.”

Her brother grinned. “Let’s go practice.”

========

Wind blowed in Anna’s ears as they traveled at high speed to Arendelle. In fact, they could see the castle appearing in the horizon, and the Queen smiled as she held her sister in a hug.

“Are you alright back there?” Worried Elsa, wondering why she was now holding her that way.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Assured Anna, and the blonde was happy to hear the smile in her voice. “I’m just happy that you’re safe.”

“It’s been a crazy week, but Honeymaren helped me go through this. She’s purely amazing.” Admitted Elsa.

Her younger could feel the upcoming praise, and grinned in advance.

“I owe her so much. You know, I used to be scared of thunderstorms because they reminded me of that night we lost mother and father, and that time I almost drowned in the Dark Sea because of... You, buddy.” She smirked as she patted Nokk, and they neighed.

“...But she healed me from them. She has a way to take care of me that is… So unique. And sweet, and nice.”

Anna smiled. “Like honey?”

Elsa frowned, and turned to slightly stare at her. “Honey is nice?”

“Well, it is unique and sweet. But also nice because it’s used as a medicine.” Smirked the redhead.

“I meant that Honeymaren had a warm way to reassure me.”

“Honey can be heated.” Grinned Anna.

“Will you please stop comparing my wife to actual food?”

“Well, by the way you constantly devour her with your gaze… Ouch!”

Elsa had pinched her leg, and she laughed.

They finally arrived in the kingdom, and Nokk made a show when they let them them go down on the harbor pontoon. Elsa thanked the magical horse with a loving scratch and they left in a bounce, merging with the water. The Fifth Spirit got all the usual acclamations from the townspeople, and she, as usual, blushed a bit and thanked them bashfully as they made their way to the castle.

“Walk faster, Anna. Why are you so slow? I thought you were in a hurry.”

“I am. But I want you to fully get those claps that you deserve.”

Elsa grumbled with modesty until they arrived to the castle’s gates. Inside, they quickly were greeted by the servants, and the youngest of them hurried to go upstairs to warn their family of their arrival.

“His Majesty got a bit worried by your sudden leave, but Princess Eydis was able to reason with him.” Smiled Ronny, the new butler.

Anna giggled. “I expected no less.”

“AUNTIE!!” Yelled two children at the top of the hall’s stairs, and they smiled at their joyful and loud entrance.

“Next praise; after the people, your nephew and niece.” Announced Anna with a tap on her elder’s shoulder.

Elsa got emotional when she understood that Anna insisted she should get more into the spotlight.

Isak tackled her waist for a hug with his tiny arms. Eydis search for room and decided to hug Elsa’s neck. The blonde’s lips trembled in joy, and she closed her eyes as she hugged them as tight as possible with her arms.

“I missed you too, little rascals.”

Then she realized how tall her niece was.

“Eydis!” She exclaimed. “You’re growing up so fast!! I’m astounded.”

“The physician says that I’ll be taller than mother when I’m an adult.” Grinned the girl.

“I don’t like idea at all!” Frowned Anna, who had been hearing her from where she was talking with Ronny to check on the news.

“Though, you haven’t seen me in a while. That’s maybe why you’re impressed.” Said Eydis.

Ouch. Touché.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to come more often.” Muttered Elsa, feeling bad, and her guilt was perceptible.

“Eydis, do I need to remind you that last time she came to the castle, you were up the eastern mountains in an ice harvesting expedition?” Reprimanded the Queen.

Isak looked at them, his eyes darting from one to the other. Did she say that to defend her sister or to scold hers for going out of the castle for too long?

“Yeah, sorry…” Groaned Eydis.

“It’s okay. How was it?” Asked Elsa.

“Elsa!” Frowned the redhead.

“What? I’m genuinely interested.”

“Sure you are. You should see your face when ice is mentioned.”

Isak giggled at her mother’s remark.

“The lake on the north-east valley had a thick surface and we harvested a lot of ice this year. It was awesome.” Whispered Eydis to her aunt’s ear.

“Tell me more at dinner.” Grinned Elsa.

Kristoff soon came down the stairs with diplomats he visibly had a meeting with, and they greeted.

Elsa later asked to talk to the King and Queen alone, and suggested them to go to Mattias and Halima’s house to ask him about Victor Eiglatson. It was better to keep it secret from the children and staff for now.

“Maybe that later, we can warn the guards.” Suggested Elsa on a low voice.

The two other nodded, and they exited the castle, pretending to go on a walk.

What they didn’t know was that Eydis had been listening in the shadows, and now was following them discreetly from a distance.

=======

“Please come in, I’ll make some coffee.” Invited Mattias.

Elsa worried instantly. Since Mattias was retired, he had little habits that Anna and her had become really good at finding out. When he prepared coffee at such a time in the afternoon, it meant that he was embarrassed about something. Given his face when they explained their venue and said the name ‘Victor Eiglatson’, she would bet that he was not willing to talk about him.  

“This Victor is a terrible man.” He murmured once they were all seated in his living room.

Halima and Anna exchanged a gaze. Victor’s arrest had marked the old man thoroughly. Mattias was deeply kind and sensible - which made him a compassionate general - and to face Victor’s mean and violent personality had shocked him.

“I suppose that Anna told you about when and why we put him in prison.” Gulped the black man, talking to Elsa.

The latter nodded.

“What else to do know about him? Maybe information about his past? Anything would be helpful.”

Mattias took the time to drink a bit of his cup before answering with a sigh.

“All I know is that he used to be a merchant, with a business based on trades between kingdoms, and he often went back and forth between the Forest and Arendelle; even before King Runeard started looking into the potential of the Northuldra land.”

“Waoh, long ago then.” Kristoff noted.

No wonder why Elsa described his face in the memories of Ahtohallan as an old cranky and stiff man.

“I was told that he was very rigid when he was in the army”, added Mattias. “Something must have happened in his life, because I always found it odd that a merchant could become this harsh. Who knows, maybe he enrolled in the Arendelle military forces to plan revenge over something.”

He then pretended to stir his coffee to look down.

“Anyhow, high-ranking soldiers started reporting his hateful behavior to me, so I had to act.” Said the man in a low tone. “He was extremely violent in his words and swore many times he would kill Elsa one day.”

He lifted his face, and Elsa’s eyebrows knotted in a sad expression.

“Don’t ask me to repeat what he shouted when we took him away and locked him in the prison. I’d never dare to put such words in my mouth.” Muttered Mattias.

She gave him a sad smile. “It’s okay. You don’t need to. I know how much he hates me.”

Anna turned an intrigued face to her, so she continued: “When we saw memories of him in Ahtohallan, I saw that he had a common past with, say, my previous life. The former Fifth Spirit.”

“The man who was the Northuldra leader before Yelena, right?” Remembered Halima.

Elsa nodded. “Yes. For now, I can’t access his memories about the moment or moments he met Victor, but when the day comes, I’ll certainly have to face a truth I might not appreciate.”

They all gave her sad stares over their coffee cups, and Anna put a hand on her thigh. They had learned that their grandfather was murderer and a colonizer, and now they might learn that the previous Fifth Spirit did something that was worth a deadly revenge? The sisters exchanged a gaze to bring the other courage, but in their souls, they both were trembling.  

Anna gulped. “Thank you for your help, Mattias.”

“Please, stay.” Smiled Halima. “There’s plenty more of coffee, and it’s been a while since we’ve last seen you. We have a lot to catch up on.”

“It’s true.” Grinned Elsa.

Her smile then turned malicious.

“By the way, do you have one more cup? We have another person joining us.”

Anna frowned. “What?”

Mattias did as well. “Who?”

Elsa simply stood up in silence, and opened the nearest window briskly.

A girl suddenly screamed on the other side, jumping in fright.

Anna’s eyes jolted wide. “Eydis?!”

The princess titled her head back within sight, and smiled nervously with gritted teeth. “Hiii.”

Anna dropped her jaw in astonishment. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

“She’s been following us since we left the castle.” Informed Elsa with a sly smile. “I was wondering if she would dare to come in or sneak back through the village.”

Eydis blinked at her aunt. “Wait, you could tell I was following you all along?”

“What, you think you can escape my sight?” Smirked the Snow Queen. “Eydis, I hunt several times a week. And now that I mention this, I actually realize that I have a lot to teach you about how to walk silently to go undetected.”

“You will NOT teach her that.” Scolded Anna.

The princess grinned with a giggle. Elsa closed the window when Halima opened the door for her, and the teenager entered. Then she cleared her throat, and huffed as she placed her hands on her hips, proud chest up.

“Well, now I know your little secret. So you have to take me with you.”

Everyone exclaimed.

“No, Eydis, you can’t possibly--”

“That’s too dangerous.”

“You shouldn’t--”

“There’s no way we’re allowing you--”

She snorted at all their refusals flying at the same time.

“Say what you want, I heard all about this Eiglatson, and I want to come.”

Her mother frowned. “Oh, you won’t, young lady. This is adult business.”

“I’m thirteen!!” Exclaimed the princess.

“And that is way too young.” Persisted Anna.

“You were eighteen when you had your first big adventure!” Replied Eydis with a rebellious frown. “What does it change?”

Anna scoffed. “Well, five years, for starters!”

The young blonde sighed and pouted. “Mama, please let me come with you.”

“Oh, now you ‘Mama’ me?”

“Please! I can fight, I can think strategically, I can help you!”

Elsa recognized in her niece’s begging the traits than Anna.

“I swear I’ll stay with you, Mama.”

The Queen sighed longly, looking at Kristoff to get his advice. But the blond was staring at Halima as she poured a cup of coffee to the new guest.

“Wait, do you have something else to drink? She’s too young for cafeine.” Frowned Kristoff, worried for her health.

Her wife stared at him with sarcasm. “That’s the only part that concerns you?”

“What?” He said with lifted eyebrows.

Anna blinked. “I’m sorry, did you miss the whole part where our daughter asked to come with us and face mortal danger?”

Kristoff didn’t seem to be bothered by it. He shrugged. “She’s excellent at fighting. You said it yourself the other day. And if she swears to stay with us, she doesn’t risk anything.”

Anna jaw dropped. Eydis smirked. “You said I was an excellent fighter?”

Now the redhead blushed. “I… I did not understate that you could come along with us in a battle.” She insisted, weighing on that word as she stared at the King.

Kristoff was ignoring her now, helping Halima pour a glass of fresh fruit juice to Eydis.

Mattias and Elsa were enjoying the scene with discreet smiles.

“Also, it would be rude to doubt about my worth.” Teased the princess, referring to her encounter with no less than Thor when she was a child.

Anna grunted at that clever point. After a while, she sighed longly, and her shoulders slumped. “Fiiiine. Eydis, you can come.”

The princess bit her lip and tried all she could to not make any noise as she internally screamed in joy, her fists tight.

“But you NEVER leave our side, okay?”

Eydis nodded with sparkling eyes. “I promise. Pinky promise.”

Anna melted in a smile, and Elsa observed as mother and daughter tied their pinky fingers together.

The blonde noticed once more how close they were. She was intrigued by the pinky promise, and wondered when they had decided of the cute gesture. Eydis wasn’t the type of child who lied. She even sometimes was awfully direct, and rarely put filters to her remarks if she wasn’t in a royal context or surrounded by dignitaries. She was never afraid to speak the truth. Then why the pinky promise?

Elsa gulped. Was it because when she was the one to promise something, she only did it it orally, and often broke the promise because she used it as a device? She looked at Anna sadly. Was it because her younger sister had been disappointed multiple times and hated it? And therefore created this with her daughter so that she would never break her promise, unlike her?

“Elsa?”

Did Anna hate her for how many times she had broken her promises?

“Elsa!”

The blonde startled, suddenly aware of her surroundings. Time had passed, and Mattias had just told a really good joke, to which everyone laughed, except for Elsa. Anna looked at her while the others were distracted.

“What’s wrong?”

The Fifth Spirit gulped. “Nothing.”

“Elsa.”

Now she had called her with a scolding tone.

“You can tell, uh?” Sighed the elder.

“Obviously.”

The blonde inhaled calmly, and muttered what she had on her heart. “Are you… Are you mad at me for the numerous times I broke my promises?”

Anna blinked at that odd doubt. She then linked it to what had possibly made her come to this conclusion, and smiled sadly.

“Elsa… Of course I’m not. You know, even if I’m upset sometimes, I also have an open mind. I know that there are times when you can’t keep them. And yes, I have entirely forgiven you for that one time you sent me away to save my life. You do realize that, if you didn’t break a promise here and there, I’d be dead by now?”

Elsa giggled slightly. “I suppose.”

Anna booped her nose. “Take those sad thoughts out of your mind, okay? Tonight, I’m gonna ask the cooks to make us a chocolate cake.”

The blonde grinned.

Eydis turned to her mother. “Hey, I was thinking… Why can’t Ahtohallan help?”

The Queen smiled at her clever question. “She already is helping, sweetheart. By giving Elsa her blessing to use her powers against Victor. And based on what happened on the last attack, I can tell you they’re very effective.”

“Awesome.” Beamed Eydis, admiration in her eyes. “In fact, you’re like Joan of Arc.”

Mattias blinked. “Uh?”

“Yeah, because she heard voices, then those voices asked her to go at some place, then she became a fierce warrior, and now she’s a tough legend.”

Anna laughed, then suddenly gasped with wide eyes. “Oh my gods, you are like Joan of Arc.”

Elsa puffed. “And you only realize it now?”

They started helping Halima to clear the table, and the redhead approached her elder. She started to open her mouth, and Elsa rose a finger to stop her right in her tracks.

“No, I will not pose for an epic painting riding Nokk and  waving the Arendelle flag.”

Anna closed her mouth and pouted.

=======

They prepared their battle gears and equipments and placed them in a wagon, that would be drawn by two horses given the four people on it and the heavy weapons and armors that were transported. Anna had asked the soldiers to stay in Arendelle, for there was no need for them to come alone and this was the perfect opening to attack the kingdom while they were gone.

“Why don’t you go there flying?” Asked Isak when they packed their stuff, still unaware on how physics work.

Eydis burst out of laughter. “Oh my, if only. I’d love to go there in a flying house.”

Anna overheard them as she closed a chest aboard the wagon. “You know, there’s a guy named Zeppelin in Germany who’s thinking about that.”

The two children exhaled in amazement.

“I love technology.” Smiled Eydis broadly. “You know, Isak, science actually is really close to magic, in a way.”

“Oh?”

“That makes me think… Father, did you pack my Thermos flask?”

“Yeah, I did.” Answered Kristoff, his voice muffled as he was checking the wheels with the cartwright.

They spent the afternoon with family and talked about so many different topics at dinner that Elsa’s head spinned with joy at how many things had changed in Arendelle. She also got to know Ronny better, now that he was the new butler and replacing Kai, and the servant promised to keep an eye on Isak while they were all gone. Mattias also had promised to check on the little prince from time to time, feeling sorry for not helping in the battle, given his old age.

The Fifth Spirit was now lost in her thoughts, staring at the night sky from Isak’s bedroom.

“Auntie! Thank you for the magic colors!” Jolted the boy, grabbing her out of her reverie.

Elsa turned and squinted in confusion. “Uhh… The what?”

He lifted his head with a big smile, and pointed at the windows. “The beautiful magic lights in the sky!”

She tried to understand. Oh. He was referring to the northern lights.

“Sweetie, this is not my doing. They’re due to solar wind and magnetic disturbances.” She simply said, on a casual nerdy tone.

Therefore, the boy stared at her with a blink. “What?”

Elsa realized what she had said, and remembered that she was talking to a child, and shook her head as she immediately corrected herself. “I’m kidding. Yes. Magic. Of course it’s magic. Obviously.”

She then smiled when the boy grinned and looked up at the aurora borealis with sparkling eyes. She sighed tenderly at how he was the perfect mix of Kristoff and Anna, having exactly what she found touching in the two people, in addition to his usual cuteness. While Eydis was the spitting image of her mother, minus the freckles and with messy blonde hair, Isak had as much facial features from his father than his mother, and sported very curly red hair.

Elsa passed a hand in that tiny bush. “You know what those magic lights also mean? That it’s time to go to bed.”

Isak giggled at her touch. “Mama says that it means that the sky is awake.”

“Yeah, well, your mother isn’t really the best example for sleeping schedules. Come on, chop chop, in the sheets.”

He groaned a bit, but once his aunt tucked him in and sang half of a lullaby, he dozed off. Elsa smiled tenderly again, looking at him. She would never stop being emotional at how her family had grown. Isak always had loved magic, literally from the earliest age. The Spirits had been keeping an eye on Anna’s children every time they would visit the Forest, and Isak had been born there. Elsa remembered with a smile how Gale actually was the first one to have played with him as a baby, twirling softly above the wooden cradle and waving his rattle.

“Elsa, can we talk for a minute?”

The blonde jumped high in surprise at the sudden voice at the door frame.

“Damn it, Anna, do you want me to freeze your son??” Gasped Elsa, one hand on her heart while the other clenched on Isak’s sheets, trying her best not to let out the ice that had rushed to her fingertips at the spook. She furiously glanced at her sister, who apparently found her reaction funny.

“I couldn’t help observing you. You’re very cute.”

“You mean, Isak and I? Or just me?” Asked Elsa, standing up to join her, and matching her whispering tone to not wake the child.

“Mmmh, both.” Answered the Queen, thinking it would be the best answer.

Elsa eye-rolled, and she followed her to her study so they could be in a private spot.

“Okay, what did you want to talk about?”

“I need to know as much information as possible before we leave. What were the creatures like, from your point of view?”

Elsa tried her best to not omit any detail when describing the monsters.

Anna frowned. “How can something be loathsome, disgusting and fascinating at the same time?”

“That’s truly how I feel about them. As they’re also magical beings, I can’t help but admire how they’re made.”

She had a shiver at that admission, and Anna passed a hand in her back. Her elder was having conflicted emotions lately. She wanted to know more about Victor Eiglatson, and stop his doings, but he also captivated her. The redhead smiled as she thought of a joke to make her feel better.

“You know what else is loathsome, disgusting and fascinating at the same time?”

“What?” Snorted Elsa, hearing the jesting tone.

“Your wife.”

“Excuse me?”

“Have you ever seen Honeymaren running away with her face covered with purple after she ate all the berries you spent an hour picking up?”

Elsa burst out of laughter.

“Yeah, very funny.” Groaned Anna. “I’m never helping Northuldra gatherings again. She’s a dork.”  

“I’m well aware.” Giggled Elsa, who couldn’t stop imagining Honeymaren laughing out loud as she was chased by a furious Anna.

“She hides that childish personality really well under her serious leader and calm lover masks.” Admitted the blonde.

They smiled and looked at the beautiful night through the study’s window.

“Why did you ask me about the creatures?” Frowned Elsa, suspicious.

“Well, we don’t all have magic to protect us. And I just ordered a new custom-made armor that I couldn’t wait to use. This is the perfect occasion.”

She rubbed her hands excitedly with a spark in the eye, and Elsa laughed.

=======

The Elemental Stones was a symbolic place for a meetup, but the spot where once stood the dam had turned out to be just as well. Indeed, now that it was completely destroyed since years, moss had appeared on the rubble and stones, and where once stood a horrible construction, had grown a tree. On the bank of the river, it was now the size of a house, and the Northuldra had decided not to cut it because of how beautiful this sign of Nature was. How meaningful was it, that a fruit tree had grown at this exact place, among the ruins? And now was feeding the whole tribe?

Anna often asked to see the tree when she visited Elsa, so naturally, when Honeymaren picked a place to go to celebrate their venue, she had chosen to sit in the resplendent grass under the tree.

“I’m getting good at this.” Smiled Eydis happily, turning the wooden spoon in the kettle.

Kristoff smiled down at her. “Yeah, you’re getting a hand to it. I think that all the Northuldra can’t wait to taste your soup.”

Anna looked at them lovingly and sat down next to Elsa and Honeymaren, who were cuddling on the ground. The brunette noticed how nervous Anna was when she kept staring at the corn she was in charge of cooking.

“You don’t need to put your family through pressure to cook a perfect meal, fire head. Your presence among us already is fulfilling.”

The Queen drummed with her hands on her knees. “Nonsense. I want to make sure that the whole tribe eats well.”

Elsa smiled. “You don’t need to watch over the corn like that. You know, we were on a hike once with Honey and we forgot it on the fire because we got distracted, and all the kernels had exploded. Yet the result turned delicious.”

Anna scoffed.

“Exploded corn? You can’t make much of that. A lot of Northuldra specialities will certainly go through time, but this? Naaah.”

Elsa shrugged as she drank some water.

“Wait…” Suddenly realized Anna. “Distracted? What had possibly distracted you during meal?”

Honeymaren smirked. “It depends what you mean by ‘meal’...”

Elsa spat and coughed at her wife’s words. The brunette grinned happily, but Anna was confused and didn’t catch the naughty innuendo.

Kristoff turned to them.

“The meal will be ready soon. Hey, Anna, could you get Ryder? He’s surely busy in the vicinity of reindeers.”

“Sure.”

The redhead stood up and walked through the camp. When she found him, he was painting the enclosure with a layer of odorous lacker.

The Queen winced like she had just received a physical blow. “Waoh! What’s that smell?”

With the wind blowing in her direction, she felt attacked, and almost blamed Gale for doing it on purpose. Ryder interrupted his brush strokes to look at her apologetically, though with a smirk.

“Yeah, you don’t want to know what I put in that brown mixture for it to resist heavy rains.”

Anna’s eyes widened. She wanted to ask ‘reindeer poop?’ but refrained herself.

“Boiled linseed oil is what smells the worst.” Explained Ryder, resuming to polishing the barrier. “But with it, we can go through Autumn’s weather without any problem.”

The redhead smiled with admiration. “It’s nice to see that even as a nomad tribe, you put so much effort and care into those little things.”

“Just because we change our living place every now and then, doesn’t mean that we can’t let the wood get damaged. I prefer our reindeers’ enclose to be pretty.” Smiled Ryder.

Anna grinned back. His love for reindeers would always be cute to her.

“Where are you moving after Winter?”

“Hmm, a bit more West, at the same hills we’ve been to last year.”

“Oh! Yeah! They’re beautiful.”

“They are. It’s not all; the soil fertility is why we go there again. We had good seed stock.”

He finished painting the fence, then looked at the spot where the Arendellians had set up.

“Do you need help to unload your wagon?” Proposed the man.

Anna smiled. “No, it okay. We took care of it already. There is no shortage of kind people in your tribe.”

Ryder tilted his head at the enormous chest that had been added to the armory hut.

“Waoh, that looks heavy.”

The Queen smirked. “Yeah, not gonna lie, we all brought our own battle equipment.”

“I wonder what type of weapon each of you picked.”

Anna grinned. “Want to have a look?”

She led Ryder to the chest, and invited him to open it. He smiled as he did.

When he saw what was inside, his eyes widened in astonishment.

[mustafa-el-fats]

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HOW TO LIVE MULTI-DIMENSIONALLY THROUGH SACRED GEOMETRY

Adapted from a lecture at the Astrological Society of Connecticut

19 August 2012

All the graphics are originally from the two volumes of the Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life (c) by Drunvalo Melchizedek, although I have altered them in many cases (for instance, I created the looping gif, and the multicolored Flower of Life sphere, and colored the merkaba positions).

Sacred Geometry is not what you learned sophomore year of high school. This is something much different and much more fun. Sacred Geometry is the organizational basis of all that exists, has existed and will exist. Found within these patterns are both two and three dimensional shapes which carry archetypal memories.



This is a very brief introduction to what Sacred Geometry is and how you can use these concepts to expand your consciousness. The basic form of sacred geometry is called the Flower of Life. It is a beautiful interlocking series of circles. Each circle’s circumference crosses other circles’ center points.

You can draw the Flower of Life yourself, using a high quality compass. The basic steps look like this, with the finished product (usually illustrated with a double circle as a frame) in the lower right.

The eye-shaped space in between each set of circles has its own meaning. One circle represents universal consciousness, the gold/solar source, and unchanging archetypes linked with, in the other circle, empirical consciousness, the silver/lunar reflection, and the changing realm of the senses, through the eye-shaped center that encompasses balanced human consciousness.

The curved lines of the Flower of Life promote feminine, right-brained thinking. When you apply the straight lines of Metatron’s Cube (connecting all the centers), you add in the left-brained, masculine thinking. So if you need to concentrate more on one type of thinking or the other, or you feel unbalanced, you can meditate on either the curved shape, the straight line shape, or the combination.

I call this Flower of LIfe figure “the mother of sacred geometry” because every important shape can be found within it, including the five Platonic Solids, named for the great Greek philosopher Plato. It is an ancient symbol which has been found all over the ancient world.



The five Platonic Solids are the tetrahedron, the cube (hexahedron), the octahedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron. If you have ever been involved with role-playing games, these will be familiar to you, as the shapes of the dice.

To find the 5 shapes within the Flower of life, you extract a shape called Metatron’s Cube. You select these 13 circles from the Flower of Life shape—this is called the Fruit of Life—and then join all the centers with 78 straight lines to make Metatron’s Cube. This ancient shape, named for an angel, has been used to ward off evil and can be carried as a talisman.

From within Metatron’s cube, you can find the five Platonic Solids:

Tetrahedron



Cube (hexahedron)



Octahedron



Dodecahedron



Icosahedron



The 5 Platonic solids are ideal, primal models of crystal patterns that occur throughout the world of minerals in countless variations. These are the only five regular polyhedra, that is, the only five solids made from the same equilateral, equiangular polygons. They have the same face shape on every side and only 1 angle per edge. All other shapes have different faces and/or angles. Also, if you spin any of these 5 shapes around its center point, its corners will describe a perfect sphere. The Platonic Solids occur in the crystal world. Working with them connects us to nature and the higher realms of the cosmos, especially those attributes associated closely with each polyhedron.

Each of these shapes has metaphysical properties, making them valuable tools for meditation and rituals.

The Tetrahedron is the four-sided pyramid. Each side is a triangle. (The pyramids of Egypt, Central America & elsewhere are five sided pyramids--four sloping triangular sides and a flat square/rectangular base.) It represents the powers of manifestation & creation, the element of Fire, the color Red and the Solar Plexus (third) chakra. Can help you burn through problems. It is masculine.

The Cube (Hexahedron) is the six-sided box. Each side is a square. It grounds the creation of the Tetrahedron into the physical realm. It represents the element of Earth, the color Green and the Base (first) chakra. Use for grounding. It is masculine.

The Octahedron is the eight-sided diamond. Each side is a triangle. It represents love, the heart and compassion, integration, the 8-fold path to Enlightenment, the element of Air, the color yellow and the Heart (4th) chakra. It can help you move forward. It represents your inner child.

The Dodecahedron is the twelve-sided ball with the pentagon faces. It represents the 12 faces of the God/dess within, Ascension, Mystery school teachings, the color Gold, the element Ether/Spirit and the higher chakras (8-12 and up). It connects you to the universal life force. It is female.

The Icosahedron is the twenty-sided ball with the triangular faces. It represents prayer, transformation, the color blue, the Naval (2nd) chakra and the element Water. It can help you sustain focus and momentum. It is female.

Each of the five Platonic solids carries special teachings. The tetrahedron invokes the power of manifestation and the cube grounds that creation in our bodies and this reality. Our core heart is found in the octahedron as an expression of selflove and compassion. Prayer is invoked in the form of the icosahedron. The twelve faces of 'God within' are discovered in the dodecahedron.

Four of the five platonic solids embody the number thirteen. The cube and octahedron have twelve edges or lines surrounding one center. The icosahedron has twelve corners around one and the dodecahedron has twelve faces around one.

The only solid not supporting this is the tetrahedron and when two tetrahedrons are joined (star tetrahedron) there are twelve edges around one. More about the star tetrahedron in a moment.

Platonic Solid

Edges

Corners

Faces

Total

Numerology

Tetrahedron

6

4

4

14

5

Cube

12

8

6

26

8

Octahedron

12

6

8

26

8

Icosahedron

30

12

20

62

8

Dodecahedron

30

20

12

62

8

Star Tetrahedron

12

8

8

n/a

n/a



There is a 6th mystical shape, also found within Metatron’s cube. This is the star tetrahedron, made up of 2 tetrahedrons. This powerful shape is also called a Merkaba. It is basically a 3 dimensional Star of David. It contains within it the geometry of the cube, the octahedron and the tetrahedron. The word Merkaba, in ancient Egyptian, is translated as MER: rotating fields of light, KA: spirit, and BA: soul and in Hebrew it means 'chariot'.

Everyone knows about auras. You can get the colors of your aura photographed or looked at by a psychic. What a lot of people don’t know is that your aura is not really a shapeless blob. It’s the shape of a star tetrahedron. Three of them, actually.

Stand up straight. Hold out your arms. Your static field is a hand’s width past the edge of your finger tips and the top point of that field is one hand’s width above your head and the bottom of that field is one hand’s width below your feet. These are your hands’ widths so for each person it’s slightly different.

Running from top to bottom is a tube, the pranic tube, which carries energy from both earth and sky into your physical body. It is as big as the circle made by your thumb and forefinger. The top of the pranic tube is your soul star chakra, and the bottom of your pranic tube is your earth star chakra. These lead into your crown and root chakras (which also point straight up and down, unlike the other five, which point front and back). Your root and crown chakras are actually two ends of the same tube, and the energy running through it is changed as it passes the other 5 horizontal chakras.

The alignment of the static star tetrahedron in your aura depends on your gender. If you are male, the point of the sun tetrahedron (yellow, in the drawing) is in front of you, the flat part behind you. If you are female, the flat part of the sun tetrahedron is in front of you and the point behind you. These star tetrahedrons do not rotate. They represent your physical body and are neutral.

There are two more star tetrahedrons in your aura. (The term “merkaba” refers to all 3 of these star tetrahedrons together.) One star tetrahedron is male and electrical in energy and it rotates counter clockwise (to the left), and relates to your mental/logical thinking. The other star tetrahedron is female and magnetic and it rotates clockwise (to the right) and relates to your emotional thinking.



Meditating with the merkaba activates the left and right brain together, raising your consciousness level. It brings dualities into balance—male and female; heaven and earth; everything that is yin and that is yang. You can, with practice, use the Merkaba field to lift your consciousness to higher realms.

When you meditate and use any kind of breathing method, you should be aware of the breath and energy going in through both ends of the pranic tube and meeting in your heart. It’s almost like pumping up your heart, it gets bigger and bigger with each breath until it explodes into light from all the combined energies of earth and sky. When you visualize that happening and you’re working with the merkaba, the ball of light that surrounds you should look like a flower of life sphere in rainbow colors.

Crystal Grids and Sacred Geometry

One of the many things you can do with all these wonderful shapes is make crystal grids. This is a layout of crystals chosen for a specific purpose, placed in sacred geometry-based patterns to connect, clear, amplify, generate and re-direct energy. Crystal grids help to better formulate and ground intent, then assist to spread and manifest the sole purpose of that intent. Working with crystals and sacred geometry together can raise our vibration, clear physical and emotional blockages, expand our perception and reconnect us with Source.

You can use as the base the whole Flower of Life shape, and place a crystal on each line crossing. Or you can use a Metatron’s cube and concentrate on whichever of the Platonic Solid shapes (or the Star Tetrahedron) you feel the need to connect to. You can purchase sets of Platonic Solid crystal shapes and Star Tetrahedrons to use in the grids (or just hold the single shape you need). You can make permanent grids by gluing the crystals in place and keep them in your car or in certain places in your home, as needed. Build them with a clear intention and purpose in mind.

Star Tetrahedron grids are multipurpose. If you want to concentrate energy, and bring energy in from above and below, point the crystals toward the center. If you want to spread energy over a large area, point the crystals outward.

This is a quickie grid I put together for this lecture, using a star tetrahedron in Metatron's Cube. In the center is a large amethyst star tetrahedron (which is for sale! contact me) surrounded by long singing laser quartz crystals and small Herkimer-type quartz.

No matter what shape you use, activate the grid in the same way. Join up all the crystals in the pattern you laid, using your finger, a special crystal, or a wand. Do it 3 or 9 times, concentrating on bringing energy in from above and below, and putting the energy toward whatever purpose you built the grid. If you know Reiki or anything similar use that energy as well to program and empower the grid.

Looping animation of Metatron's Cube,

the Platonic Solids and the star merkaba:



You can build them for healing yourself or for healing someone else, for protection, or any other positive thing you can think of. You can put a piece of paper under the grid with the person’s name or photo, or with your affirmation written out (always phrased in the present time, and with gratitude).

You should recharge and empower the grid at least once a day until it has served its purpose and then take it apart, and cleanse the crystals, freeing them of the programming.

I offer for sale sets of crystal Platonic solids and loose merkaba crystals of all sizes, from $10 up. There is no page for these; contact me if you're interested.

All the fold-up Platonic Solid & star tetrahedron patterns below are (c) by Bruce Rawlins from his excellent Sacred Geometry Sourcebook, which I HIGHLY recommend. They are all PDFs requiring the free Adobe Reader.

Star Tetrahedron fold up

Tetrahedron fold up

Hexahedron fold up

Octahedron fold up

Dodecahedron fold up

Icosahedron fold up

Here is the promo video I created to loop on my tablet and advertise the talk:

All material on this site is copyright (c) by Gevera Bert Piedmont except where noted. All rights reserved. Contact me for permission to republish. Information on this site is for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy! })i({

Page created: 12.19.19.16.8 11-Yaxkin 3-Muluc (12 August 2012)

Page modified: 13.0.0.16.6 5-Cimi 4-Ceh (12 November 2013)



[trxxrpg]

Welcome, Lucent “Lucky” Lachlan to Tabula Rasa, He kind of looks a lot like Domhnall Gleeson please submit your character account within 24hrs

OUT OF CHARACTER NAME/NICKNAME/ALIAS: Slowner

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE: PST.

EXPERIENCE: Too damn long. 11-12 years. Started roughly when I was 11, writing my own stories and miniature novels. That progressed into literature based roleplays by the time I was 13.

IN CHARACTER CHARACTER NAME: Lucent “Lucky” Lachlan - His name directly translates into “Glowing”, “Radiant” and “Dauntless” in three separate languages, Spanish, Italian(Luciento) and Latin (Lucentine).

CHARACTER AGE: Roughly 26, doesn’t actually know his exact age due to being orphaned before any legal paperwork had been filed on him.

FACECLAIM: Domhnall Gleeson

GENDER: He’s a male.

SPECIES: They are a hybrid between a supernatural male being and a human female.

SUBSPECIES: Leprechaun

TRAITS: +++ Lucky, + Economically Inclined, + Efficient — Cocky, -Cheeky, -Coy (yes; those are all synonyms, no; you can’t complain.)

SKILL SETS: Lucent’s Luck is supernaturally modified by his Leprechaun heritage. Despite being a hybrid, most of Lucent’s biology and genetics were gained from his father - Resulting in a fairly potent and consistent stream of “Jackpot” style luck being present in Lucky’s life. These occurences are what ultimately earned him his monicre. Much like Domino from Marvel, Lucky’s luck is much more versatile than one would be lead to believe at surface level. In a practical sense, Lucent’s luck can provide a tangible and realistic field of awareness around him. Like a sphere of aura or energy, Lucky supernaturally and subconsciously affects reality to tilt the outcomes of events in his favor. From things as simple as rolling the right dice to something as elaborate as allowing one of his guards to be positioned in the perfect spot to cover his own blindspots. To be clear - A leprechaun’s luck affects observable reality to skew the chances of something happening or not happening. It affects people, places, things and thoughts on a nearly impossible to perceive level. Only someone who spends a lengthy and recurring amount of time in close vicinity to Lucky would begin to slowly begin to grow suspicious of how the man always seems to come out on top of any situation. Its uncanny and unsettling to some, but the ultimate ace up your sleeve to others.

Examples of “Luck” affecting outcomes: -Lucky is accosted by an aggressor, who mis-identifies him almost immediately as someone else, or said aggressor simply would trip over a crack in the pavement and fall flat on their face unconscious. -Lucky walks into a car lot and is told he is the 10,000 customer and is granted a free car. -In a fight, Luck is enough to see that Lucent dodges an attack completely or is able to misplace a normally fatal attack to a non-fatal area. A punch from Lucky, while being a punch from a biological human - Is packed with the physical manifestation of his ‘Jackpot’ - meaning if he hasn’t used his luck it becomes stronger. Since Lucent is not aware of himself being a Leprechaun, he wouldn’t be able to actively use or NOT USE his powers; Resulting in his luck averaging out to be noteably higher than other supernatural beings, but not high enough to garner Lucky any interest in most people’s eyes.

*His luck isn’t a slight tilt of the pinball machine, It turns the damn thing upside down.*

QUOTE/LYRICS: Personal: “Feelin’ lucky?” Philosophical: “Live for the moment lest you lose it forever.”

WRITING SAMPLE CHARACTER BACKGROUND: (I add bits of his background into the actual IC writing sample at the end of this app. I will mainly focus on the ideas and themes prevalent in his background in this section as we have discussed a lot about Lucky in person already.)

*Lucky was orphaned as a child. This results in him having severe trust issues, to constantly suspect people of betraying or abandoning him and generally results in his intolerant nature. If you can think of a young, impulsive irishman that is willing to headbut his way through things, that’s lucky in a nutshell. Hailing from Ireland, this is only further exasperating his short temper and spitfirey nature. He is mildly alcoholic and drinks as a coping mechanism for his depression and anxiety. He started drinking at 14. His mother left him on the steps of a wealthy businessman and politician’s estate. This decision ends up playing out amazingly in Lucent’s favor. At the age of 20 his adoptive parents pass away peacefully of old age and leave everything in their estate and portfolios to their son. Within 6 years Lucent would establish himself in the eyes of the public as a successful businessman and philanthropist. His casinos are widely considered the best around the globe and his name is often touted about in circles of celebrities and other high profile types. It stands reason that anyone with a gambling background would know of Lucky when he arrives. His opening ceremonies generate a rather large buzz, including celebrity style red carpet treatment and a “quality higher than anywhere else” guarantee. All of his employees seem happy and well paid. At least half of his success can be directly attributed to his supernatural luck, though it is worth noting that the man himself is also incredibly adept at getting what he wants from others.

CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY: Lucky is a half-leprechaun half-human hybrid. This means that he naturally retains the tenacity and adaptability of humanity as well as the deeply invested cultural beliefs and respects of an irish leprechaun. Honesty, loyalty and respect are what dictate his relationships and interactions with others. If people prove civil and abide by Lucent’s prestigious establishment’s rules then he generally is a kind and agreeable man.

However, Lucky is also a man with little to no patience for upsets to his perceived norm. People that stand out or rebel against his jurisdictions often get to meet the unpleasant side of him, a side that is fully aware of how deep the influence of his economical and societal status has. One might assume him a 'control freak’ on a surface level, but in reality Lucent simply has a plan in mind for how he wants things to go and gets frustrated when that plan is willfully ignored by others. As long as they do what is expected of their station or position, Lucent often lets his employees operate at a casual and comfortable pace - believing it instills a healthy work ethic and loyalty among his employees which shows to be effective as there have never been any scandals or secrets revealed about him or his organization.

Lucky runs a chain of Casinos with locations in popular tourist sites - His most recent endeavor has chosen Tabula Rasa as it’s destination. Lucky aims to bring the full experience of one of his casinos to the sanctioned city of Tabula Rasa. Why did he choose a city with unique political ties and perhaps abstinations due to it’s sovereignty? That much is simple - Lucky sees it as a ripe opportunity to perform two tasks simultaneously.

ONE: Open a casino in a predominantly supernatural economy, see how much money he can squeeze out of the 400-500 year old vampires with long lasting economic ties ;D or the werewolves that probably have drug money and fight ring money up the wazzooo. It’s a smart business decision.

Two: Lucky will have privatized cameras monitoring the internals of his casino. Potentially even some of the rentable rooms/suites. That’s right, Lucky may be planning to blackmail people if spicy shenanigans go down in his place of business. In addition to this, he has received contracts from several television companies wishing to get “an inside view” of the functionings of the supernatural city.

PARAGRAPH SAMPLE: Raindrops spattering against the blacktop, falling like tears from the very sky itself as a cradle lay at the foot of a door; mewling and balling - crying out into the cold, dark, unloving world. A child was orphaned that night, left alone without a mother or father by a woman weeping as she fled her shame. The shackles of guilt too much for her to bear she only hoped she could replace with the comfort of knowing she had picked a good home for her son. She didn’t look back, didn’t turn to have one last look at her child; for she knew that if she had, she would’ve ran back to him sobbing and begging for his forgiveness.

Or at least that’s how he liked to think it went. Cubes of ice stacked in fours clattered as they were swirled about in the glass clasped gingerly between his thumb, index and middle fingers. The next moment he banished the thought beneath a torrent of whiskey - hoping it was possible to drink oneself into amnesia, this was the typical Friday for the hotheaded irishman. His two-piece suit clung to his body, fitted perfectly to a pristine and refined crisp. Every crease was pressed that morning, both shoes polished independently. This man was dressed far too well to be muckraking at a bar, yet there he sat clanking his glass for another round.

“Again?” Called the bearded man from behind the bar, “That’s your twelfth in under 20. Trying to drown, buddy?”

“No ser, Just tryin’ not te’ think.” He raised his glass with as little effort as humanly possible before setting it back down. It would be then that the man did what every bartender did when serving him, They tried to cut him off. A large hand closed ontop of his glass and slid it from his hand.

“Well you’ll have to go not think somewhere else, you’re disturbing my business.”

“Disturbi- Oh… right.” The red headed male looked to his sides at the barstools full of his entourage; roughly six armed men dressed in deep black suits with verdant green ties and .45’s in their holsters. “Apologies, We’ll just make our leave then.”

And so they did, the seven irishmen stepped out from that establishment and would set out to their true destination - an establishment of their own. A right irish diamond here in the land of the affluent and esteemed. Gone would be the days of hoity toity bars with expectations and back would be the glorious days of pub crawls, brawls and throwing up in every bathroom stall from here to the piers! Though one thought kept rearing it damnable face in the recesses of his mind. And the words that haunted him were spoken in the voice he imagined for her.

“Nothing you do will ever be good enough. No matter how much you achieve, how far you go. You’ll always be undeserving of a mother’s love. Yer a right bastard ye know? Not even I wanted you.” The glass of a mirror in his suite would shatter later that night in response and within the fragments of glass he finally felt like he could see his true self; And he was a broken, bloody, mess of a man.“

[lovemesomesurveys]

I’m in love with the shape of you

Shapes Survey

First, name something that is shaped like… a circle? - Cookies. a square? - Post-It notes. a rectangle? - A piece of paper. a triangle? - Pizza. a diamond? -  Baseball fields.

a heart? - Heart shaped cookies for Valentine’s Day. an oval? -  Eggs. a star? -  Starfish. a crescent?  The moon can be. a pentagon? -  The Pentagon (a building in the US). a hexagon? -  Honeycomb. I really don’t want that image in my head ljfskfjsdk. an octagon? -  Stop signs. a trapezoid? - Some popcorn containers are. Like the classic red and white striped ones. a parallelogram? -  The United States Postal Service symbol. a semi-circle? - Slice of watermelon. a quatrefoil? -  4 leaf clovers? a ring? - Donuts and bagels. a zigzag? -  Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar. an asterisk? - Stars. an arrow? -  Uh, an arrow? an arch? -  Rainbows. a cross? - A cross and the plus/addition/positive sign. a spiral? - Snail shell.

And here you thought I would forget about the 3-D shapes…

a cube? -  A cube of cheese. a cylinder? -  Soda can. a sphere? -  A ball. a rectangular prism? -  Bricks. a cone?  Traffic cone. a pyramid?:  Some cheeses. a triangular prism?:  A tent. a hemisphere? - A watermelon cut in half.

Random Questions About Shapes/The Term “Shape”

What is your favorite shape? Do you even have one? Hearts and stars. Has anyone told you that you need to “shape up”? How about “I’ll whip you into shape”? I’ve been told “I’ll whip you into shape.” Are you in shape? Why is it important to stay in shape? Nope, not anymore. :/ I used to have great upper body strength, toned arms, and I was active. Now I’m weak and a bump on a log. Do you ever wish that you could be a shapeshifter? It would be kinda cool. Does your house look ship-shape, or is it a hot mess? It could use a little straightening up.  Have you ever felt bent out of shape before? Yeah, I find myself feeling agitated quite often. Has a creative idea ever began to take shape for you? I am severely lacking in the creative department. :/ Is your body shaped like an hourglass? No. I’m stick thin like a board. What shape face do you have? I guess kinda oval. Do you have a small or large circle of friends? I have a non-existent group of friends. Have you ever been called square before? Ha, yeah. Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that pizza is baked as a circle, cut into triangles, and delivered in a square box? Yeah. Do you prefer diamonds or pearls? Both are beautiful.  Has the teacher ever arranged your desks in a horseshoe before? Yeah, in elementary school. Have you ever used a bow and arrow before? Nope. Do you wish upon stars? I’ve never even seen a shooting star. Do you ever think about the man in the moon? No. Who has your heart at the moment? Pretty sure I do. *checks* Yep, it’s there. Have you ever told somebody to “eat their heart out?” or to “have a heart?” lol not the first one, but some variation of the second. Do you have heart-to-hearts with others? Yeah, sometimes. Have you ever bumped into a traffic cone? No. What’s your favorite kind of ice cream cone? Good ol’ waffle cone. Would you like to explore the old Egyptian pyramids? I imagine they’re not very wheelchair accessible.  Do you recycle cans, bottles, boxes, etc? Yes. Have you ever witnessed birds flying in a “V” shape? Yep.[a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse]

[ceaderblocks]

The Devil’s in the Details

Chapter One

Made alongside @thematrixmutual

The Hermits didn’t question the laws of magic and physics in the land, they just knew how it worked. Gravel and Sand fell if the supporting block was removed, TNT floated in the air until hit, and other blocks simply didn’t move at all. Most blocks could moved by pistons, and others, such as chests, couldn’t. There was a system to everything, sorted into lines and squares and cubes and chunks. 

Magic was much less predictable. It was fluid and chaotic and wild. It was circles and squiggles and spheres and wisps. Everyone benefited from some magic, like respawn, fast healing and inventories. Some magic had to be hunted down, like ender pearls or redstone. Some magic was blessed to users, and that was the most unpredictable. 

Xisuma could last longer in the Void then anyone before succumbing to its will (some say he even spoke with it, but that’s a story for another day). Doc, Mumbo and Iskall could feel the redstone under the ground, and draw it to the surface to make incredible machines the others could only dream off. Stress could control ice, False had supersonic reflexes, Tango could bathe in lava like water, and Grian floated through the air effortlessly with his Elytra. The Universe granted all of it’s patrons gifts, but some more powerful then others. 

Take the ConVex, for example. Vex magic was unstable and dangerous. The villagers that attempted to wield it became twisted and deranged. However, when two innocent pranksters caught the Vex’s eye, it desired to use them like it used the Evoker’s. It desired to turn the duo against their friends, to warp and destroy and cause chaos and bloodshed and fear and confusion. 

The Universe’s gift was not giving them the power of the Vex, it saving Scar and Cub from it. 

It took years, but eventually Cub and Scar learnt to manage the Vex. Some chaotic pranks here and there (as well as some cake) allowed them to have access to unimaginable power. Their movements were faster, their weapons sharper, and their luck was better. In moments of peril, Vex magic helped them live. It carried them when their elytra broke, saved them from lava, and gave them boosts of power and strength when fighting. It often left Scar and Cub exhausted, shaking, numb- but alive.

The first time it had been used was in a cave, thousands of blocks away from his main base. Scar had been mining, and fell into a double zombie spawner. Quickly overwhelmed with fear and the undead tearing at his flesh, Scar had reached out in panic to anything that could help him, that could save him. 

The Vex responded, wrapping him in cold magic that froze his blood and stopped his heart. After the cold came a flash of unbearable heart, making Scar’s heart beat faster then it ever should, shooting waves of destructive magic over the monsters, turning them and the spawners to ash. Scar couldn’t say what happened next, his vision turning white and his head filled with static. 

He woke at Cub’s, his items intact, lungs aching and his friend looking worried. Two Vex masks laid on the bedside table, pristine and glowing with power. This power wasn’t used often, it was too unpredictable and damaging to themselves and the area around them.

 Today, however, was one of the days where it was used. The End, usually quiet, was filled with the sounds of laughter and swords clanging. 

“I’ve got them!” Cub called out, crouching to pick up a few shulker shells that had dropped. “How’re you doing, Scar?” 

“I’m having a little bit of trouble,” Scar admitted with a laugh, floating upside down from the levitation effect of a nearby shulker. “When I get down, I’ll raid this place with the passion of a thousand Scar’s!” 

“Can’t do that if there’s nothing to raid!” Cub said, smiling as he aimed his bow at the last shulker of the End City they were raiding. 

“Hey! No fair!” Scar said, kicking frantically to try and dispel the effects of the shulker faster. “Cuuub!” 

“Too late!” Cub said, releasing his arrow. It met it’s target, and the shulker fell, it’s shell cracking into two pieces. 

“Oh, when I get down from here I’ll-“ Scar’s joking threat was cut off with a surprised shout as the effect lifted, making the builder fall and hit the ground with a loud thunk. 

“You’ll what?” Cub asked, offering a hand to his friend. 

“I’ll do something! I just have to think of it first.” Scar said, sitting up and rubbing his back. “That was a good tumble. Ow-chie!”

“You’ll definitely feel that in the morning.” Cub agreed. “Are you about ready to head back? I think I have enough resources.”

“Uh, yeah,” Scar said, his eyes glazing over as he shifted through his inventory, taking note of all his treasure. “I think I’m good. I forgot an Ender Chest.”

“Good thing I’m organized.” Cub said with a chuckle, placing one down. 

Scar smiled in agreement, opening the Ender Chest and pulling out some shulker boxes to organize his inventory. Enchanted weapons in one box, shulker shells in another, spare elytra, enchanted books... and finally, his diamonds. 

Scar smiled at the 48 diamonds he managed to collect with Cub. That, on top of the gear they grabbed, made them a little richer and ConCorp a little more powerful. 

“I’m heading back, are you coming?” Cub asked, taking off his gear in preparation to throw himself into the void. 

“Give me one second,” Scar said, distracted. He put all the shulker boxes in the chest except one. His treasure box sat on the ground, and Scar took off his armor, putting it in the box. “Okay, ready to go!” 

Cub gave him a thumbs up, and sprinted to the edge of the island, throwing himself off the edge with a flip. Scar laughed. 

“Show off!”

[ cubfan135 fell out of the world. ]

Scar ran to the edge, laughing, and jumped backwards, taking a final look at the view, the purple of the End City and the yellow of his treasure box glowing against the void. 

Wait-

“My shulker box!” Scar gasped, already tumbling into the void.

 All his valuables were there, loosing them meant going back to square one and that couldn’t happen, not with Sahara open! He didn’t have an elytra on either, how could he be so stupid!

“No, no no no!” Scar cried out, and in panic, reached for the only thing that could help him get back to the island- Vex magic. 

It laughed joyfully when he reached for it, eating up the panic and fear Scar had. He felt calm as it embraced him, rushing over him in waves of heat. The burning sensation was always strange, but not painful. Scar silently thanked the Vex as he felt tendrils of magic lift him up towards the island, which was growing ever closer. Only a few more blocks and-

Scar and the Vex screamed when cold cold cold c o l d burnt his leg. Looking down, vision enhanced by the magic, Scar tried to kick away the invisible hand dragging him downwards, pain seeping into his bones. He released wave after wave of magic, trying to release the iron grip. Nothing seemed to work, and panic began to overtake Scar’s mind. What was keeping him down? Why wasn’t Vex magic working?

 The Vex magic, as suddenly as it came, left. Scar fell into the arms of the void, anger flooding his vision. 

How could the Vex betray him like this?  [ GoodTimesWithScar f̻̫̘̺̟ͮ́e̦̪̼̙̣̬͝l̻͎͚̰̤͂͠l̥̬̣͍͚̆͡ ̬̳̘ͤo̟̱̬̯͆̽̃ͨu̶̝̾ͥ̎ͥt͈͚̺̣͑͒͗ ̙̠̬͎̤̖̫ͩͯͦo̻̟̓ͭ̏̿ͅf̢̼͔ͅ ͧ̒̈́ͤ͐ͮt̺̞͉͔̠ͦͤhͨe̱̘͓͖͚̩ ̜̱̭͠w̘̞ͪ̌ͦ̅ͤ̏ͥǫͩ̋͑r̤̭͊̿̂͌̃̽́ḻ͍̏̓̿̈ͪ͛ͅd̪͢ ͈̖̀]̣̰̦ͬ̃̐̔̉̑͟ He woke, and it was empty. There was no void, no respawn. Just, black. Scar wasn’t standing on anything, but he wasn’t falling either.  “Hello?” He called out, hesitant. His voice neither carried or echoed. “Is anyone there?”

Y̸̢̟̩̯̣̮̺̖ͪ̓ͧ́ǫ̦̼̲̩͈̆ͧ̐̏̕u̷̢͈ͨ̀ ̶̛̩͈̟̦ͬ͗̀ͅh̸̸̰̩̪͉͇̝̬̭͈ͩͬ̋̒̉̀̍̈ạ̵̦̬̄ͩ̋ͥ͘vͪͧ̌ͨͧ҉̗̜͈͇͓̱̮ê̒̑ͤ́҉̡̣̳͉̀ ̭̠̗ͩ̿b̵̪̲̭͛ͤ̊͟r̒͆ͪ̐ͭ͂҉̶͚̼ȯ̉̇̋̃͋͑̍ͧ͢͏̝̱̦ú̯̝̤̥̭͈͇͖ͭ̾ͥ̐̄͢͝g̤̞̼͇ͦ̐ͮ̑ͯ̎ͥ̇͟h̛͍̘̪̠̺̺͎̞ͦ͆ͪͯ͗̐͛ͯ͢͠t̶̬̩̻̖̹̋͒ͧ̔͆͐ͬ͊ ̗̬̾ͭͭ̓̚͡f͇̻͌͊ͭ͛ͦ̈́͠o̳̭̖̠̳͕̿̕͢ȑ̹̹̈̏̾̽b̄̽̿̊ͨ̚͏̴̫͎̺̘̺͇͚̪͍i̯͔̫̣̽͑̓ͮͣ̀d̅ͭͬ́̿̌ͥ҉̵̫̟̀d̨͔̣̣̼̟̅̉ͪ͆ͫ͢e̱̝̪̜͙̠̼͕̔͛ͤ̀̈̓ͦ͢͜n̨͙̪͎̘͈̏͗̕ ̧̨̪͉͖͓̰͍̼̌͆̎̚͢m̪ͩ̅̔̀́͢ḁ͖̠̭̐̽͘g̼̙͕̙ͭ̃̂̀̆͗́i̧͕͙͖̲̩̐ͮ̑c̜̼̟̥̆͌͆̈ͩ̑̓̃͠ ̶̷̯̌̌̅̀ͨ̿̚͡ṱ̴̺̘͍͈͊̀̚oͩͯ̾ͩ҉͝҉͓͔̭̯̺̯ͅ ̴̼̝̞͎̲̤̹ͫ̐̃̑̊ͯ̽ͅm̡̗̲̀ͩ̏͒͞ẙ̡̯̣̗̬̫͔̈́ͩ̾̐́́͊͘ ̨̻͍̼͗̔͗͂͠͝r̪̣͕͑̔̓ͣͨ̓͢͡ȇ̷̜̠̰̫͐̿̃͟a̴͊̏̃ͪ̈҉̻̩͎̝͍͞ļ̱̗͈̠̦ͦ͊̋͢m͕̘̩̹͎͓̩̳̉͛̍̅̀̕.ͮͤ̄̍҉̠̟̯͙͙̱ ̢̃̌̓̒̂̚̕҉̭̪̹̘

The voice was everywhere- inside his head, a thousand kilometres away, spoken from Scar’s own mouth while being nowhere at all.  “What?” Scar said, his head aching. “Forbidden magic?” 

I̞̪̙̲̻͔͓ͧ̈́ͤͧ͌ ̴̻̺͕͇͎͚͂ͨ͋̓ͪ̑̚m̅ͩ͂̅ͤͣȃ͚͕͎͕d̫̮̠͙̎̇ͫ̿́̂͘ė̵̥̲̪͇̘̪ͧ̂ͅ ̹͔͖̃ͭͪ͆̐ͯa̬̓ͨ̊ͧ͂̽͠ ̩͖̫̯̉͝d̩̼͓͎̿̊̉͐͗ͫ̚ė̵̤̼͇̳̖̖̊ͫ̉ͪa̎̀͑l̬͙̩ ̬̦̈́̂̎͆͑̚w̮͉̼ͭ̐̄̒̍ͨ̌́i̤͚͓̤͖͈t̬̲̪̊̀ͅĥ̺̉ͥ ̳t̻̤h̼͇̰̙̩͚̞ͮ̀ͦ̍̎ë͓̺͑ ̨͍̩͕͚̰V̊͗̒ͦ̂ͥ̓́e̶ͨͩ̒̾xͯ̄̑ͩ͂̔̓͢.͕̼̬̰͓͕͋̌̉ ̖ͯͤ̎̽̀͒ ͮ̈́ ͚͔͉ͯ̅͛ͨ̃̉͌́Y̛̥̺̜̜̟͋̔̈͗̆o͕̦̯̓͋ͣͪũ҉͎͓ ̦̆̇͟ẘ̆ͭͤ̌̿̑ẹ͔̪̽̎͒͊͘rͫ̀̂̍ͥ͞e̡͉͕̻ ̢̏̒ͭ̎ͫͬt̥͇̺͚̮͈̎o̙̯̝͎̘̞̓̑̓ ̢̣̘͌̍̿b͇̜̋̽̏̋̊̒e͙͔̫̻̘͖̞ͣ ͙̪͒t̘͙ͦ̇̋ͭͨͪh̬̖̿͂́̎̇̌̌ẽ̥̪̖͙͊ͥ̑̆̿͢ͅị̜̳̥̱͆̒r̲͎̊̀ͧ͜ ̸͖͎̲̻̾̏̎ͥp̠̝̣̣͖̳͛̍ḫ̸ͣ̐̾̓ͣͥy̖̯̥̪̔̅͆ͩ͂͝s͇i̟̝͕̰̬̿ċ̜̤̭͙̻̾̃͘a̪̬̜̱͚̯͛ͨ̿̃̽ͭ́l͓̥̼̅͂̎̏͌ ͕̩̻̣͆͆͆͂ͪ̏f̙͚̘̋̍̃̀o̪̪̼̩ͦ͂̓͊̾̍͘r͉̮͕̭̜̮̰̆͛͋̔ͨ͆m̌̍͋ͧͬ͗͝,̋́ ̶̥̥̩͂̑͋̒̚b̷͇̞͛́u̫͚̞̦̻̮̗ͥ̂t̎͛͒ ̬̟̣̝̐̔͋ͪ̊̄̋t̻̪̮͋ͭ̔h̀͆ͫ̽͐͋ȇ̽̅͐҉̭̰̜̺y̨̾ͯ̚ ̤̳̙͓͍ͣͭ̂̌ͭc̠͚̺̞̟̦͗̑̑ͪ̉͛ͪ̕ö̘̗̼́ͬͪ͊ͬ͑u̗̬͈͆̉ͨ̿̋l͚̘͈̼̂̒̊̓ͫd̙͈̟̃́ ͇̞̖̲͇͚ͨ͑͘ņ̗̲̩̱͍ͦ͂̉͑̇͂ȯ̅̽ͦ҉̥̦̯̥͈t̟̝͎̝̦̱̰ͧ͒ ̳̦̹̲̲̱ì̓̑ͦ̈́̇̓͏̬nͩ̀ͥ̃̓̂ͮ҉̙͓͇tͥ̋͒͌̆̓̓e̪̣͔̘̖̘r̠̣̖̜̭̮̱ͫͤͣͩ͒̚a̝̟̳͚͓̰͋̆̓̄͟c̈̍͌͆̄͋̍͝t̂̿̓̎̆͌͝ ͈̤̩̰̅̎ͣ̀ͧ̌w̗̝̗̠̱̋͛ͧi̩̫̲̞ṯ̫̬͕̜͓͉h̜̓ͪ̆͆ ̂̓̇ͬ̑̈̐̀m̴̱ȇ̥͎̝̖͍͙ͦͦͪ̃͊̂.̥̣̩̻͑ͯ̄ͦͨ ̙̞͓̺͙͛ͩ̽̅͐ ̴̜̟̮̻̿̐ ̶̈T͈̺̫͕͖̞ͭ̑ͫ̐̋͂̇h̠̭̰̹̃ͩͪ̎͟ȩ̱̠͈͖͛y̩͖̥̺͕͈ ̰̮͈̓̔̒̎ͮh̬͎̱̜͆̎͒̅̅̈́͆a͈̜͔ͫ͆ͤ̍̉̾̚v͙̤̍ͬͬ̈̓e̢͓̼̯̖̲͈̤̊͋ͦ̔̓ ̻͖̳̜̮͒͆̀ͅb̤̯̯̫̾r̩̤̘̯͈̀͆̒̊͘o̎̆̐̎ͫͣ̇k̍̃e̡̙̗̲̳̝̭̥ň̳̠͒͛̿͆̂͝ ̼͍̏tͭ̅̓͒̋ͩḧ͔͔̪͍͉̚i̘ͥs̿̃̉ͭ͗͂ ̯̘̺̉̔̾̾c̙̥̙̗̩̦̔ͧ͝o̢̳ṉt̘͔̞͍͈̘̞͗̽̈͗ͤ̒r̵͕͉ͪ̽͋͒ͦa̧͇͕̪͖͌ͧ́͐́c̜̱͚͐͆̔̚͡t̬̩̭͕̆ͯ̾,̢̠̥ ͈̖̤͈̼̃̅̒̌a͇̮͍͛̽n̋̈ͮ̆̌̕ḏ̴̦͑̓̓̅ͪ ̮̕a͔ͣ͒̒s̋ͯ̾ͯͬ̎͋ ͓͔̣̜̪͛̓̉͊a̡̪̤̋ͥ̈́ͬ̐ ̘͉͈̠ͬ́r͍̞̫̫̰͕͐ͭ͋̄͗͆͡e͔̬̙͚͗͆̚͝s̙̟̘̔̈̂͌̕u̫̙̱͇̖̪ͣ̓ͅl̖̭̟ͣ̎͆̍ͤ͌̇͜t̯͙̰̮̙͡,͇ͯͨͮ ̄̽̑̈͛͜y̗͇̞̩͎̿ͨͤ̏̍̿͌o͇͎͕̭͈͉̩̔̊͐ͨu̷̥̝̬͇̤ ̻̺͚̮h̶̬ͨ̍̓ͨa̷̩̲̙̗̔͗v̤͕̓͊ͬ̿ͧẹ̦̻̝͓̼ͬ̂͛̒̆̌̓ ̪̭͎̱̺ͩͣͤ̌́̕b̩̣̻̰̿r̤̙̱̫͙͉̓̽o͏̰̖͈̲̖̮̮ķ͛ͣͥͧ̿͆ȇ͍͓̘̳͚͉nͬ̏ ̑̽the ͔̟̿̌̊̍͗ͤc̴̩͎̼͈̞̣͆̅͑̀o̢̟͍̹͐̀̓͗ͮn̶̟t̅̆͂ͩṟ̜̳̰̙̤͒ͦa̜̾̊ͯ͆̕c̥̓ͪ͛ͨ͌̑͂̀t̮ͤ̃̊ͬ.͇̺̤̹̙̖̏ ̜̳͍̬̺̗̂ͮ “Who are you?” Scar gasped, the piercing pain in his head only getting worse.  T͉͈͔̳̞̳he̥͕̮̻̯͟ ̛̰̮V̰̗͖̬̗̮ͅo͏̯̟iḍ̲̲̱̮͈.͟ ̟͉̗͟T̳̱́h̛̫͎e͙͚̤̬͙͈͡ ͖̬̻̼̥E͚͉ͅn̘̫d͏̝͙͍̣͓.͡ ̳̪T̜̪͖͕̻̫h̵̝͚̦̥͇͚ͅḙ̼̺̹͢ͅ ̹̫͇͓̺̯U͈̦̫̫̻̭͠n̶̖͔͓̯͈į̹̱̪͕͇v̰̹̼͍̲͎ę̭rs̱͉͉̘͕e̷͎͉̰̮ͅ. ̳̪́G̘͉̕o̦͍̪͚̬̠̳d͓̤̦̝͝.̕ ̭͉̬I̲͕̯̱͡ ̖͕͙́a͏̠̱m m̫͚̜̹a̖̱̰̼͡n̷̖y̬̰̮̦͖ͅ,̠͔̀ a̹͎n̘̫͎̳͞d̫̫̜̀ ̷̱̞I̙̬͈̣ ̮̭̜̥͖ͅa̮͖̞̟m͍̮ ͏͉n̯̲̰̩͙̫ͅo̡̥̩͔͙͇̫ͅt͏̟̠̤̖̰̤̪h͇̺͖̩̪͈͕i̢̘̮n̨͈̣̯̫͈͔g͎͎̗̼̹͙ͅ.͙ ̳̪͉̩̼̜̟ “Please,” Scar begged, clutching his head. The voice made the headache unbearable. “You’re hurting me. Please, stop speaking.”

“Is this better for your human form to comprehend?” 

Scar squinted through the pain, trying to see the voice that spoke. He was met with his face, identical to his own. Well, almost identical. This version of him had cyan eyes instead of green, and their hair was longer. They also had more scars across his face. The pain in Scar’s head was beginning to subside as the void no longer broadcasted itself into his atoms. 

“What is going on?” Scar asked, panic rising as he tried to figure out the scenario. “Why am I here? Where is here? Who are you?”

“The Vex broke a contract.” The other Scar said impassively. “You are here to repair that contract. Here is nowhere, and I am you.”

“That made even less sense.” Scar said, running a hand through his hair. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”

“You don’t get much of a choice of what you control here, Oscar.”

Scar flinched at the mention of his full name. “I don’t- what? How did you-?”

“Oscar,” the other Scar was suddenly in close front of him, grasping Scar’s face between his rough hands. “I am the Void. You belong to me. I know all, and I know off the anger and greed that plagues your essence.”

There was a pause. Scar couldn’t breathe. 

“You have many sins to atone for. You must prove your place, or I will replace you.”

Scar's vision went dark, glowing cyan eyes the last thing he saw.

[ G̡̡̲͖̱̮͕̝ͪ̇͐ͨ̂̀͛́ͅo̸̳̹ͣ͐ͪ̾̃ô̰̼̰̟͎̮̺̈́̀̅ͩ̀͡d̵͈̯̜ͮ̌T͔͓͙̏͠͡ì̶̳͕̖͚̝̰͕ͥ͋̑̉ͬͅm̨͕̥͚̣͆͊͐e̵͎͍̖̹̞̻͐ͧ͋̂s̷̝͈̗̼̖͇̭̬̗ͨͫ͛̓̋ͯ͜Ẉ̻̻̭̱̬ͯ͛ï͇͈̃̃͒͌ͯ͐͐ͭ͞t̳͉̣̥̼̖̳̲͑ͧ̎͛̐ͅh̢̡̳͎̙̾̂ͩͬS̸̨̬͚͉͌̑̊̄̽ͅͅc̢̞̟̹̩ͯͪ̂̂ͪ̏ͬa̧̠̺͇ͩ͑̑ͩ͑ͩrͤ͒̀̈́̏҉̬̬̟͢ ̩̮̙̥̣̳̾͐̎ͦ͛̓͐͠h̜̘̘͓͍̅̇ͅͅa̦̩̻͎̥̟̹̫͉͂̾́̿s̡̙͙̘̭͓̬͇̪̽́ ͍̬̳͕̦͇̤ͪ̆d̨̻̮͖͕̠̟̗̥̈́̈̿ͫ̿ͧͫͣi͕̤̱̯̳͐̈́̊̑ͪ̏͑e̢̼͎̠̠̮̲͙͉̓̅͐̄̒̎̀͝d̡̘̙͒͑̂̍ͯͣ͒́.̙͕̜̤̣̲͕͖͑͌ͪ̀ͧ̽͠] [ B̡̡͔͉̗̘̣̭̲͖̖̬̻̺̟̭̿̆͋̍ͨ͢͟a̯̬̭̤̮̬̖͔̖ͯ̃̀͒̈ͨͮͫ̀͞͝d̛͇̗̟̖̱̳̗͇̝̼̞̰͉̝̰̭̥̒͆ͪ̿̿ͩT̴͍̺̼̳̘̤͎̝̩̬̱͖͈̃͆͗ͣ̓̓͢͝i̛̺͓̖͚̖̠͉̯͎̳̜͎̞͕͊͆̆̈́͒͑̏͑͞m̸̨̖͇̝̰̹̀ͤ̃̄ͯ̈́ͫ̎͊̚e̶̙̯͎̼̲̤̭͓̜̝̜͖̗̰͚̦͈̯ͦ̐ͩͥͦ́̏̉̎́ͦ̒̓̕͟͜͠ş̴͙̪̩͖͍̺̭ͧ́ͥ̓ͣ̑͒̔̐̀͡Ẁ̴̴̶̧̱̻̹̺͎̩͔͇̙̳͔̯̹̳͖̞̙͖ͤ͂ͦ̍̎̂ͪͣ͌ͮ͐̋͑ͬ͐̎̂͝ͅi̢̢͎̞͕̟͙̣̙̱̪̘̼͚̐ͬ̌̒̈́̆̅̂̽́̐͞ͅt̸̡͈͙͓̪̰͆͒ͤ̇͌͂͡h̄ͥ͗̆̈́ͬͮͣ̚͟͢͏̡̖̥̦S̡̜̤͓̩͈̜̝̼̬̻̼ͦͮ͆c̸̷̡̺̟̤͙͖̱̰̼̎̓̑͛̾ͭͩ͘a̾ͪ̔̒̓̌͝҉̀͏̲̫̦̥̣̤̣̦͈̲̭̠̬̪͚̘͓͢r̴̙͕̞̹͚̟̦͕̪̖͂̑ͣ́͘̕͝ ̶̵̰̪͍͕̘̘̮͎͇̟̔̑͒̎͑͒̊̑̆͐̿ͯ͘͘͠j̵̴̰̙̱͍̗̮̪̟̏̽̓͊ͣ̈́̐́̔͆̑̐͋ơ̪̬͓̱̮͖̹͙̝̮͚̳͙̯̗̣͎̤̽̑͑̏ͥ͆ͤ͐ͪ̍͛͌̄̍ͭͪ̀́͢ͅi̷̛ͫ͗̾́͋͐̏ͬ͛̓ͫͣ͂ͩ҉̵͔͓̞͠n̷̷̡̯͚̤̻̤̘̪̦̱͕̪͚̹͙̪̭̼͕̏̎́̒̆̀ͅe̴̡̽̎ͩ͆ͦ́͠͏͖̱̖͇̩̥̤̤̘̟̞͇͎ͅd̸̐͛̾͂̑̎́ͩ̋̿́͏͚͚͇͇̜̯͕͓̜̰̻͍̩̹ ̢̘̘̟̲͖͍̤̯̹͉̫̣̰̰̣̩̈̈́̄ͮ̏ͭ̉ͮͩͪ̂̎ͪ̐ͪͣͫ͘t̵̠͔̭̣̰̰͖̪̣͇̮͕͗ͣͩ̄ͮ̓ͬ̃̄ͯ̇ͧ̀̂͑̽́͒̕h̵̋̓̍͗͛ͨ̈̏ͮ͛̈̉̑͒̑̏ͭͯ҉͍̣̙̥̀͢͡e̖͓͇͚̥̗̤̻͔̦͓͎ͧ̔͌͌͆̓̄͆̚̕ ̵̝͚͚̩̟̣̺͖ͣ͆ͮ̃̆͋͑̔͌̂g̈́̇ͬ͒͐̿ͫͨ̅͊̓ͬ͛ͣ̓ͬ͏̵̻͓̼̩̘͓̝̻̦̙̭̠̠̳̭̻̹̭͜ͅa̲̺̖̹͔̗̻̟̩̠̻̒ͧͧ̃̐̅ͤ̕͡ͅͅm͋̀͌̃ͨͩͪ́̆̽̇̀̕͘͡҉̞̼̙̹̩͖̺͕ͅę̷̡̪͉͖̪̺̓ͯ̓̂̇͋̓̄͞͠ ̶̪͕̤͚̰̟̙̗͖̭̩̪̺̠̲̖̰̹ͥ̊ͪ̎͐̌̍ͫ̃͒͗͛̓̈́͑̾̕͠͝]̋̀̄ͦ̾̋͆ͤ̆ͮ҉͈̣̦͔͎̻̹̙͕͕̥

[benjaminba1bcontextsandconcepts]

Designing my mythical creature

In aiding my design process I looked at a couple of sources into designing characters. 

One of which was called Character design by Cohen and Sherm. The book discusses the use of shapes and how they can all be broken down into a circle, a Square and a triangle or in the 3d environment a Sphere, a Cube and a Cone.

My design is made up of multiple shape, the head being two cones back to back making a soft diamond shape. The body is an arched tear drop shape that leads into the tail. The feet are webbed like sea gull feet making them big triangles and the legs are also tear drop shaped. I also have a distinct fin from a seahorse on the back of the creature holding a soft trapezium shape. Over all the shapes give the character a very distinct silhouette. The character however is rather symmetrical so I had to introduce asymmetry through its posing, another important factor in character design. As the book suggested incorporating the line of action I decided to shift the feet so one was in the air. There is two lines of action with my character due to the way it is balanced, most of the line follows from the head to the tail and the other line resides in the legs as these are all indicators on how the character is balanced. 

 Over all these tips helped me to ensure that the characters silhouette was clear and unique, it also helped me to simplify and not over complicate my character with detail as this often ruins the design.

I then looked at Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet for inspiration and guidance of how creatures have adapted to live in the ocean and monover in the ocean. Over all it didn't give me too much as there is no creature like my mythical creature so I had to look at small details in sea animals to see if I couldn't apply them to my own creature. 

I mainly noted down some of the things the smaller fish do for survival, for instance some fish feed of the left overs left on sharks after they eat. Other fish stick to corral and aim on blending in and not being seen by bigger fish, and other fish survive through filter feeding. The most common theme for the fish is that they tend to travel in large flocks/ schools and they all seem to try and blend into their surroundings in one way or another. Due to my fish having webbed feet it is quite likely that my character can walk on land and there for would reside in shallow waters, this means the fish would have smaller eyes to cope with the sunlight as well as having thinner perhaps more scally skin. It would also mean that the colours would be more vibrant due to the verity of colours above water.

These are subtle changes to my design however these are details that help sell my mythical creature being real.

colour themes/ ideas

[ohsh1t2wksl8]

All About Shapes

First, name something that is shaped like… a circle?  a square?  a rectangle?  a triangle?  a diamond?  a heart? an oval?  a star? a crescent?  a pentagon? a hexagon?  an octagon? a trapezoid?  a parallelogram?  a semi-circle? a quatrefoil?  a ring?  a zigzag?  an asterisk?  an arrow?  an arch?  a cross?  a spiral? And here you thought I would forget about the 3-D shapes… a cube?  a cylinder?  a sphere?  a rectangular prism?  a cone? a pyramid?: a triangular prism?: a hemisphere?  Random Questions About Shapes/The Term “Shape” What is your favorite shape? Do you even have one? Has anyone told you that you need to “shape up”? How about “I’ll whip you into shape”? Are you in shape? Why is it important to stay in shape? Do you ever wish that you could be a shapeshifter? Does your house look ship-shape, or is it a hot mess? Have you ever felt bent out of shape before? Has a creative idea ever began to take shape for you? Is your body shaped like an hourglass? What shape face do you have? Do you have a small or large circle of friends? Have you ever been called square before? Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that pizza is baked as a circle, cut into triangles, and delivered in a square box? Do you prefer diamonds or pearls? Has the teacher ever arranged your desks in a horseshoe before? Have you ever used a bow and arrow before? Do you wish upon stars? Do you ever think about the man in the moon? Who has your heart at the moment? Have you ever told somebody to “eat their heart out?” or to “have a heart?” Do you have heart-to-hearts with others? Have you ever bumped into a traffic cone? What’s your favorite kind of ice cream cone? Would you like to explore the old Egyptian pyramids? Do you recycle cans, bottles, boxes, etc? Have you ever witnessed birds flying in a “V” shape? [a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse]

[jeremystrele]

51 Brutalist House Exteriors That Will Make You Love Concrete Architecture

Brutalist architecture has come a long way since its original peak back in the late 1950s to 60s. Back then, institutional buildings and social housing projects projected a cold and austere nature that became associated with totalitarianism by the late 1970s, and so fell out of favour. Now we’re seeing an exciting comeback of reinforced concrete and steel exteriors, cast in modular volumes to build great hulking triumphs and unique private residences. Brutalism (coined from a play on the French ‘béton brut’, meaning ‘raw concrete’) is graphic, geometric, and toys with the negative space, all of which make it incredibly appealing to the minimalist mindset of today.

Architect: RP Arquitectos   Frame the setting. The negative space created at the centre of this inspiring brutalist structure takes on the appearance of a serene blue skyscape, as though it were an art piece mounted on a raw concrete gallery wall.

Visualizer: Anna Życka   Cut through with vivid colour. A stunning red support column and coordinating red window frames electrify this cold concrete mass with hot bolts of creativity.

Architect: Stemmer Rodrigues Arquitetura   Utilise elements of natural landscape. A massive concrete volume weighs heavy on the upper floor of this brutalist home design, with one corner perfectly propped on natural rock. Exterior uplighters have been positioned around its base to exaggerate its effect.

Architect: Andramatin   Concrete canopies. This Indonesian home design incorporates great concrete eaves that stretch as much as six metres wide. They have been designed in response to the high rain precipitation in Bandung, and as shelter from direct sunlight.

Architect: REIMS 502   The majesty of monolithic slabs. Solid stone slabs stacked one atop the other build a sense of impressive immoveable scale.

Architect: RP Arquitectos   Jenga! Perpendicular blocks build the rising stories of this mesmerizing home. skillfully toying with the weighty aesthetic.

Architect: Steimle Architekten   Solid and succinct. This modern home exterior can’t easily be remodeled or changed, and so will remain the way the architect intended. The feeling of permanence that Brutalism brings is particularly attractive in our fast paced, quick changing and disposable modern culture.

Architect: Alter Studio   Forge a fortress. The front entrance of this house looks like an impenetrable force. All windows are tucked around to the side elevations to maintain a solid face.

Visualizer: Luisö Ramos   Carve out a cleft. A dominating tower has been sliced through from top to bottom to release a beam of warm light to the exterior. The cleft exaggerates the linear nature of the architecture, and creates a magnetising draw to the facade.

Visualizer: Luisö Ramos   One for the art lover. Cutaways in this concrete facade create a sculptural effect. The entire piece reads like a series of giant art pieces, and even incorporates a huge plinth between the driveway and entry ramp.

Architect: Sanjay Puri Architects   Break down the overall mass with smaller pieces. These modular elements disguise a modern mansion in built-up Lucknow city, Decorative screens based on traditional ‘chikan’ embroidery shade the interior from the sun, whilst allowing cross-ventilation. Read more about this design here.

Architect: Giuseppe Perugini   Photographer: Oliver Astrologo   Lofted geometrics. Cubes and spheres are elevated on a great concrete framework, like a hulking treehouse.

Architect: Robertson Design   Regain natural balance. This brutalist home limits concrete to the lower floor of the exterior only. Up on top, walls are fully clad with natural timber to bring balance between cold and warmth, man-made and natural.

Architect: Robertson Design   Can’t leave out cantilevered. There is something so very dangerously thrilling about seeing a gigantic block of concrete suspended over mid air.

Visualizer: Oscar Pastor   Anyone for a dip? The linear nature of the brutalist house aesthetic lends itself perfectly to the accompaniment of a long sparkling swimming pool.

Architect: Ludwig Godefroy   The perfect prop. A somewhat slender support leg props up one end of this home’s huge concrete mass. A rounded cutout makes the enduring strength of the piece seem even less likely, and even more wondrous.

Softened by nature. Despite the imposing scale of Casa Entreparotas, the two story concrete structure is effectively feathered around its edges by soft natural vegetation. Find more snaps here.

Architect: Querkopf Architekten   The power of invisibility. The ground floor of this amazing building is made entirely of glass walls, which makes it disappear beneath its concrete crowning piece. See the interiors of this home here.

Visualizer: Sergey Makhno Architects   Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This terraced Japanese garden house, located in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, looks toward a garden view through a giant eye cut into its facade. More snaps in the original post: A Terraced Japanese Garden House Filled With Sculptural Art.

Visualizer: Amey Kandalgaonkar   Reinterpret tradition. Traditional Chinese house characteristics, such as distinctive curved sloping rooflines, multiple courtyards, and an opaque wraparound wall were reimagined to form this unique modernist house.

Visualizer: Amey Kandalgaonkar   On the rocks. This breathtaking architectural concept house on a rockface is the stuff brutalist architect dreams are built of.

Architect: FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects   Step it up. The roofline of this formidable structure ascends on either side, like a giant’s imperial staircase.

Architect: Architectural Studio Chado   Visualizer: Valentin Shkuro   Bricks make a solid addition to brutalist architecture. In this design, grey brickwork builds chunky columns under an extended canopy / first floor terrace.

Photographer: Shoot2Sell   Carry on with the curves. A love of Brutalist architecture doesn’t mean that you have to forgo curvaceous outlines. Rounded ‘turrets’ give this home a castle-like appearance. A winding pathway compliments the look.

Visualizer: New Millennium Design   Clear balance. Glass volumes are set diagonally across from each other in the upper and lower stories here, creating a visual balance of negative space around a concrete core.

Architect: Spasm Design   Ribbed wall panels and slatted room dividers are all the rage in interiors. In this design, a similar texture trend is translated to the exterior using Dhrangadhra sand stone.

Visualizer: Phạm Minh Quang   Another textured concept, this time with matching boundary walls and garden fences.

Visualizer: Rafael Biasus   Once thought to be undesirably utilitarian, Brutalism now transcends cool minimalism.

Architect: Pitsou Kedem   Brutalism ahoy! Portholes are cut out along the elongated face of this unique house exterior, as though it were a beached boat.

Architect: IDMM Architects   Got a penchant for pegboard walls? Well then this hole punched place might pique your interest. Massive perforations bore through dense concrete walls to lighten their look, as well as to let natural sunlight enter the volumes behind.

Straighten out the landscape. You almost don’t notice the severe slope of the natural landscape here, thanks to the unrelenting determination of the linear architectural design.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   This time, a design by Adam Spychała works along with the natural slope of the landscape rather than against it. Great sloping sides pull up from a dropped driveway to pause at the main floor, before continuing all the way into the roofline. Let’s take a look at some of the most whimsical of Spychała’s stunning concepts…

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   … Brutalism has landed, and it looks like a spaceship.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   This one could be alien life, or it could be the home of a steam punk fan.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   This build definitely smacks of interplanetary colonisation. Round windows look out upon the wild landscape.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   The lookout tower. Round windows gather around the top of this leggy structure, like a cubist meets Brutalist interpretation of a spiders head.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Geometric love. Circle cutouts and zigzagging V-beams form bold geo designs.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Lording over the landscape. This spectacular angular modern house appears to push straight out of the forest floor, growing toward the sun with the rest of the lush canopy.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Jagged rocks meets jagged architecture.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Concrete concertinas. These linked diamond supports portray the illusion that the house can rise and fall at will– with the imagined sound effect of a massive accordian!

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Blowing out the boundaries. The walls around this house design are blown outward, as though a gift box has burst open to reveal the gifts inside.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Another skillfully executed sloping concept, this time with added to greenery to meld even further with the environment.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Mysterious and immovable, this modern masterpiece is tailored with precision. Mirror image double layered walls mark a boundary at either end of the linear form, and support a sharp roof terrace design. A car port is richly lined with wood panels to contrast with the austere precast concrete.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Make easy transitions to outdoor staircases. Concrete is an easy choice when it comes to the fabrication of outdoor staircases. So, when your house is made of raw concrete as well, it’s smooth sailing to uniting the two.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   If we had a build site on an abandoned beach, then this blueprint would be high on our list.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Another seaside stunner.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   A cutaway terrace makes this a sun worshippers paradise…

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   … And this one too.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Like a beached mighty whale, the mouth of this building gapes open, with no windows to be seen.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Cool and cropped. Cold concrete draws low lines into this flat plot, with interest added via a geometric and sloping side silhouette.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Car lovers Brutalist house exterior. When your concrete house looks like a futuristic car, complete with four hexagonal ‘wheels’ then you know you’ve hit top fan status. We would have added in a Tesla Cybertruck to complete the look.

Recommended Reading:  50 Stunning Modern Home Exterior Designs

Related Posts:

Modern Classic Chairs

40 Stylish Living Rooms That Use Concrete To Stand Out

IKEA 2012 Catalog

Two Sophisticated Luxury Apartments In NY (Includes Floor Plans)

Space saving furniture

Angry Birds Inspired Accessories For Your Home

[drewebowden66]

51 Brutalist House Exteriors That Will Make You Love Concrete Architecture

Brutalist architecture has come a long way since its original peak back in the late 1950s to 60s. Back then, institutional buildings and social housing projects projected a cold and austere nature that became associated with totalitarianism by the late 1970s, and so fell out of favour. Now we’re seeing an exciting comeback of reinforced concrete and steel exteriors, cast in modular volumes to build great hulking triumphs and unique private residences. Brutalism (coined from a play on the French ‘béton brut’, meaning ‘raw concrete’) is graphic, geometric, and toys with the negative space, all of which make it incredibly appealing to the minimalist mindset of today.

Architect: RP Arquitectos   Frame the setting. The negative space created at the centre of this inspiring brutalist structure takes on the appearance of a serene blue skyscape, as though it were an art piece mounted on a raw concrete gallery wall.

Visualizer: Anna Życka   Cut through with vivid colour. A stunning red support column and coordinating red window frames electrify this cold concrete mass with hot bolts of creativity.

Architect: Stemmer Rodrigues Arquitetura   Utilise elements of natural landscape. A massive concrete volume weighs heavy on the upper floor of this brutalist home design, with one corner perfectly propped on natural rock. Exterior uplighters have been positioned around its base to exaggerate its effect.

Architect: Andramatin   Concrete canopies. This Indonesian home design incorporates great concrete eaves that stretch as much as six metres wide. They have been designed in response to the high rain precipitation in Bandung, and as shelter from direct sunlight.

Architect: REIMS 502   The majesty of monolithic slabs. Solid stone slabs stacked one atop the other build a sense of impressive immoveable scale.

Architect: RP Arquitectos   Jenga! Perpendicular blocks build the rising stories of this mesmerizing home. skillfully toying with the weighty aesthetic.

Architect: Steimle Architekten   Solid and succinct. This modern home exterior can’t easily be remodeled or changed, and so will remain the way the architect intended. The feeling of permanence that Brutalism brings is particularly attractive in our fast paced, quick changing and disposable modern culture.

Architect: Alter Studio   Forge a fortress. The front entrance of this house looks like an impenetrable force. All windows are tucked around to the side elevations to maintain a solid face.

Visualizer: Luisö Ramos   Carve out a cleft. A dominating tower has been sliced through from top to bottom to release a beam of warm light to the exterior. The cleft exaggerates the linear nature of the architecture, and creates a magnetising draw to the facade.

Visualizer: Luisö Ramos   One for the art lover. Cutaways in this concrete facade create a sculptural effect. The entire piece reads like a series of giant art pieces, and even incorporates a huge plinth between the driveway and entry ramp.

Architect: Sanjay Puri Architects   Break down the overall mass with smaller pieces. These modular elements disguise a modern mansion in built-up Lucknow city, Decorative screens based on traditional ‘chikan’ embroidery shade the interior from the sun, whilst allowing cross-ventilation. Read more about this design here.

Architect: Giuseppe Perugini   Photographer: Oliver Astrologo   Lofted geometrics. Cubes and spheres are elevated on a great concrete framework, like a hulking treehouse.

Architect: Robertson Design   Regain natural balance. This brutalist home limits concrete to the lower floor of the exterior only. Up on top, walls are fully clad with natural timber to bring balance between cold and warmth, man-made and natural.

Architect: Robertson Design   Can’t leave out cantilevered. There is something so very dangerously thrilling about seeing a gigantic block of concrete suspended over mid air.

Visualizer: Oscar Pastor   Anyone for a dip? The linear nature of the brutalist house aesthetic lends itself perfectly to the accompaniment of a long sparkling swimming pool.

Architect: Ludwig Godefroy   The perfect prop. A somewhat slender support leg props up one end of this home’s huge concrete mass. A rounded cutout makes the enduring strength of the piece seem even less likely, and even more wondrous.

Softened by nature. Despite the imposing scale of Casa Entreparotas, the two story concrete structure is effectively feathered around its edges by soft natural vegetation. Find more snaps here.

Architect: Querkopf Architekten   The power of invisibility. The ground floor of this amazing building is made entirely of glass walls, which makes it disappear beneath its concrete crowning piece. See the interiors of this home here.

Visualizer: Sergey Makhno Architects   Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This terraced Japanese garden house, located in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, looks toward a garden view through a giant eye cut into its facade. More snaps in the original post: A Terraced Japanese Garden House Filled With Sculptural Art.

Visualizer: Amey Kandalgaonkar   Reinterpret tradition. Traditional Chinese house characteristics, such as distinctive curved sloping rooflines, multiple courtyards, and an opaque wraparound wall were reimagined to form this unique modernist house.

Visualizer: Amey Kandalgaonkar   On the rocks. This breathtaking architectural concept house on a rockface is the stuff brutalist architect dreams are built of.

Architect: FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects   Step it up. The roofline of this formidable structure ascends on either side, like a giant’s imperial staircase.

Architect: Architectural Studio Chado   Visualizer: Valentin Shkuro   Bricks make a solid addition to brutalist architecture. In this design, grey brickwork builds chunky columns under an extended canopy / first floor terrace.

Photographer: Shoot2Sell   Carry on with the curves. A love of Brutalist architecture doesn’t mean that you have to forgo curvaceous outlines. Rounded ‘turrets’ give this home a castle-like appearance. A winding pathway compliments the look.

Visualizer: New Millennium Design   Clear balance. Glass volumes are set diagonally across from each other in the upper and lower stories here, creating a visual balance of negative space around a concrete core.

Architect: Spasm Design   Ribbed wall panels and slatted room dividers are all the rage in interiors. In this design, a similar texture trend is translated to the exterior using Dhrangadhra sand stone.

Visualizer: Phạm Minh Quang   Another textured concept, this time with matching boundary walls and garden fences.

Visualizer: Rafael Biasus   Once thought to be undesirably utilitarian, Brutalism now transcends cool minimalism.

Architect: Pitsou Kedem   Brutalism ahoy! Portholes are cut out along the elongated face of this unique house exterior, as though it were a beached boat.

Architect: IDMM Architects   Got a penchant for pegboard walls? Well then this hole punched place might pique your interest. Massive perforations bore through dense concrete walls to lighten their look, as well as to let natural sunlight enter the volumes behind.

Straighten out the landscape. You almost don’t notice the severe slope of the natural landscape here, thanks to the unrelenting determination of the linear architectural design.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   This time, a design by Adam Spychała works along with the natural slope of the landscape rather than against it. Great sloping sides pull up from a dropped driveway to pause at the main floor, before continuing all the way into the roofline. Let’s take a look at some of the most whimsical of Spychała’s stunning concepts…

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   … Brutalism has landed, and it looks like a spaceship.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   This one could be alien life, or it could be the home of a steam punk fan.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   This build definitely smacks of interplanetary colonisation. Round windows look out upon the wild landscape.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   The lookout tower. Round windows gather around the top of this leggy structure, like a cubist meets Brutalist interpretation of a spiders head.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Geometric love. Circle cutouts and zigzagging V-beams form bold geo designs.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Lording over the landscape. This spectacular angular modern house appears to push straight out of the forest floor, growing toward the sun with the rest of the lush canopy.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Jagged rocks meets jagged architecture.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Concrete concertinas. These linked diamond supports portray the illusion that the house can rise and fall at will– with the imagined sound effect of a massive accordian!

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Blowing out the boundaries. The walls around this house design are blown outward, as though a gift box has burst open to reveal the gifts inside.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Another skillfully executed sloping concept, this time with added to greenery to meld even further with the environment.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Mysterious and immovable, this modern masterpiece is tailored with precision. Mirror image double layered walls mark a boundary at either end of the linear form, and support a sharp roof terrace design. A car port is richly lined with wood panels to contrast with the austere precast concrete.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Make easy transitions to outdoor staircases. Concrete is an easy choice when it comes to the fabrication of outdoor staircases. So, when your house is made of raw concrete as well, it’s smooth sailing to uniting the two.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   If we had a build site on an abandoned beach, then this blueprint would be high on our list.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Another seaside stunner.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   A cutaway terrace makes this a sun worshippers paradise…

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   … And this one too.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Like a beached mighty whale, the mouth of this building gapes open, with no windows to be seen.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Cool and cropped. Cold concrete draws low lines into this flat plot, with interest added via a geometric and sloping side silhouette.

Visualizer: Adam Spychała   Car lovers Brutalist house exterior. When your concrete house looks like a futuristic car, complete with four hexagonal ‘wheels’ then you know you’ve hit top fan status. We would have added in a Tesla Cybertruck to complete the look.

Recommended Reading:  50 Stunning Modern Home Exterior Designs

Related Posts:

Modern Classic Chairs

40 Stylish Living Rooms That Use Concrete To Stand Out

IKEA 2012 Catalog

Two Sophisticated Luxury Apartments In NY (Includes Floor Plans)

Space saving furniture

Angry Birds Inspired Accessories For Your Home

[readbookywooks]

Its head passed in front of her and she looked directly into an eye big enough to float all the fleets in the world. She had heard it said that if you could look far enough into the direction that Great A'Tuin was staring, you would see the end of the universe. Maybe it was just the set of its beak, but Great A'Tuin looked vaguely hopeful, even optimistic. Perhaps the end of everything wasn't as bad as all that. Dreamlike, she reached out and tried to Borrow the biggest mind in the universe. She stopped herself just in time, like a child with a toy toboggan who expected a little gentle slope and suddenly looks out of the magnificent mountains, snow-covered, stretching into the icefields of infinity. No one would ever Borrow that mind, it would be like trying to drink all the sea. The thoughts that moved through it were as big and as slow as glaciers. Beyond the Disc were the stars, and there was something wrong with them. They were swirling like snowflakes. Every now and again they would settle down and look as immobile as they always did, and then they'd suddenly take it into their heads to dance. Real stars shouldn't do that, Esk decided. Which meant she wasn't looking at real stars. Which meant she wasn't exactly in a real place. But a chittering close at hand reminded her that she could almost certainly really die if she once lost track of those noises. She turned and pursued the sounds through the stellar snowstorm. And the stars jumped, and settled, jumped, and settled .... As she swooped upward Esk tried to concentrate on everyday things, because if she let her mind dwell on precisely what it was she was following then she knew she would turn back, and she wasn't sure she knew the way. She tried to remember the eighteen herbs that cured ear-ache, which kept her occupied for a while because she could never recall the last four. A star swooped past, and then was violently jerked away; it was about twenty feet across. When she ran out of herbs she started on the diseases of goats, which took quite a long time because goats can catch a lot of things that cows can catch plus a lot of things plus that sheep plus catch plus a complete range of horrible ailments of their very own. When she had finished listing wooden udder, ear wilt and the octarine garget she tried to recall the complex code of dots and lines that they used to cut in the trees around Bad Ass, so that lost villagers could find their way home on snowy nights. She was only as far as dot dot dot dash dot dash (Hub-byTurnwise, one mile from the village) when the universe around her vanished with a faint pop. She fell forward, hit something hard and gritty and rolled to a halt. The grittiness was sand. Fine, dry, cold sand. You could tell that even if you dug down several feet it would be just as cold and just as dry. Esk lay with her face in it for a moment, summoning the courage to look up. She could just see, a few feet away from her, the hem of someone's dress: Something's dress, she corrected herself. Unless it was a wing. It could be a wing, a particularly tatty and leathery one. Her eyes followed it up until she found a face, higher than a house, outlined against the starry sky. Its owner was obviously trying to look nightmarish, but had tried too hard. The basic appearance was that of a chicken that had been dead for about two months, but the unpleasant effect was rather spoiled by warthog tusks, moth antennae, wolf ears and a unicorn spike. The whole thing had a selfassembled look, as if the owner had heard about anatomy but couldn't quite get to grips with the idea. It was staring, but not at her. Something behind her occupied all its interest. Esk turned her head very slowly. Simon was sitting cross-legged in the centre of a circle of Things. There were hundreds of them, as still and silent as statues, watching him with reptilian patience. There was something small and angular held in his cupped hands. It gave off a fuzzy blue light that made his face look strange. Other shapes lay on the ground beside him, each in its little soft glow. They were the regular sort of shapes that Granny dismissed airily as jommetry-cubes, many-sided diamonds, cones, even a globe. Each one was transparent and inside was .... Esk edged closer. No one was taking any notice of her. Inside a crystal sphere that had been tossed aside on to the sand floated a blue-green ball, crisscrossed with tiny white cloud patterns and what could almost have been continents if anyone was silly enough to try to live on a ball. It might have been a sort of model, except something about its glow told Esk that it was quite real and probably very big and not - in every sense - totally inside the sphere. She put it down very gently and sidled over to a ten-sided block in which floated a much more acceptable world. It was properly discshaped, but instead of the Rimfall there was a wall of ice and instead of the Hub there was a gigantic tree, so big that its roots merged into mountain ranges. A prism beside it held another slowly-turning disc, surrounded by little stars. But there were no ice walls around this one, just a red-gold thread that turned out on closer inspection to be a snake - a snake big enough to encircle a world. For reasons best known to itself it was biting its own tail. Esk turned the prism over and over curiously, noticing how the little disc inside stayed resolutely upright. Simon giggled softly. Esk replaced the snake-disc and peered carefully over his shoulder. He was holding a small glass pyramid. There were stars in it, and occasionally he would give it a little shake so that the stars swirled up like snow in the wind, and then settled back in their places. Then he would giggle. And beyond the stars .... It was the Discworld. A Great A'Tuin no bigger than a small saucer toiled along under a world that looked like the work of an obsessive jeweller. Jiggle, swirl. Jiggle, swirl, giggle. There were already hairline cracks in the glass. Esk looked at Simon's blank eyes and then up into the hungry faces of the nearest Things, and then she reached across and pulled the pyramid out of his hands and turned and ran. The Things didn't stir as she scurried towards them, bent almost double, with the pyramid clasped tightly to her chest. But suddenly her feet were no longer running over the sand and she was being lifted into the frigid air, and a Thing with a face like a drowned rabbit turned slowly towards her and extended a talon. You're not really here, Esk told herself. It's only a sort of dream, what Granny calls an annaloggy. You can't really be hurt, it's all imagination. There's absolutely no harm that can come to you, it's all really inside your mind. I wonder if it knows that? The talon picked her out of the air and the rabbit face split like a banana skin. There was no mouth, just a dark hole, as if the Thing was itself an opening to an even worse dimension, a place by comparison with which freezing sand and moonless moonlight would be a jolly afternoon at the seaside. Esk held the Disc-pyramid and flailed with her free hand at the claw around her. It had no effect. The darkness loomed over her, a gateway to total oblivion. She kicked it as hard as she could. Which was not, given the circumstances, very hard. But where her foot struck there was an explosion of white sparks and a pop -which would have been a much more satisfying bang if the thin air here didn't suck the sound away. The Thing screeched like a chainsaw encountering, deep inside an unsuspecting sapling, a lurking and long-forgotten nail. The others around it set up a sympathetic buzzing. Esk kicked again and the Thing shrieked and dropped her to the sand. She was bright enough to roll, with the tiny world hugged protectively to her, because even in a dream a broken ankle can be painful. The Thing lurched uncertainly above her. Esk's eyes narrowed. She put the world down very carefully, hit the Thing very hard around the point where its shins would be, if there were shins under that cloak, and picked up the world again in one neat movement. The creature howled, bent double, and then toppled slowly, like a sackful of coathangers. When it hit the ground it collapsed into a mass of disjointed limbs; the head rolled away and rocked to a standstill. Is that all? thought Esk. They can hardly walk, even! When you hit them they just fall over? The nearest Things chittered and tried to back away as she marched determinedly towards them, but since their bodies seemed to be held together more or less by wishful thinking they weren't very good at it. She hit one, which had a face like a small family of squid, and it deflated into a pile of twitching bones and bits of fur and odd ends of tentacle, very much like a Greek meal. Another was slightly more successful and had begun to shamble uncertainly away before Esk caught it a crack on one of its five shins. It flailed desperately as it fell and brought down another two. By then the others had managed to lurch out of her way and stood watching from a distance. Esk took a few steps towards the nearest one. It tried to move away, and fell over. They may have been ugly. They may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a deck-chair. Esk glared at them, and took a look at the Disc in its glass pyramid. All the excitement didn't seem to have disturbed it a bit. She'd been able to get out, if this indeed was out and if the Disc could be said to be in. But how was one supposed to get back? Somebody laughed. It was the sort of laugh Basically, it was p'ch'zarni'chiwkov. This epiglottis-throttling word is seldom used on the Disc except by highly-paid stunt linguists and, of course, the tiny tribe of the K'turni, who invented it. It has no direct synonym, although the Cumhoolie word “squemt” ('the feeling upon finding that the previous occupant of the privy has used all the paper') begins to approach it in general depth of feeling. The closest translation is as follows: The nasty little sound of a sword being unsheathed right behind one at just the point when one thought one had disposed of one's enemies. Although K'tumi speakers say that this does not convey the cold sweating, heart-stopping, gut-freezing sense of the original. It was that kind of laugh. Esk turned around slowly. Simon drifted towards her across the sand, with his hands cupped in front of him. His eyes were tight shut. “Did you really think it would be as easy as that? ” he said. Or something said; it didn't sound like Simon's voice, but like dozens of voices speaking'at once. “Simon?” she said, uncertainly. “He is of no further use to us,” said the Thing with Simon's shape. “He has shown us the way, child. Now give us our property.” Esk backed away. “I don't think it belongs to you,” she said, “whoever you are.” The face in front of her opened its eyes. There was nothing there but blackness - not a colour, just holes into some other space. “We could say that if you gave it to us we would be merciful. We could say we would let you go from here in your own shape. But there wouldn't really be much point in us saying that, would there?” “I wouldn't believe you,” said Esk. “Well, then.” The Simon-thing grinned. “You're only putting off the inevitable,” it said. “Suits me.” “We could take it anyway.” “Take it, then. But I don't think you can. You can't take anything unless it's given to you, can you?” They circled round. “You'll give it to us,” said the Simon-thing. Some of the other Things were approaching now, striding back across the desert with horrible jerky motions.