#linoleum harvest

[captoring]

Linoleum harvest

[paleodictyoptera]

Been trying to get a job in the agricultural sector so I can keep my fridge running and support my lil snowbonk (they're chillin), but the linoleum harvest is almost done and all I can find is a stable hand for extra-long horses (picture if you've never seen->)

[homeostasister]

I’m so excited for the linoleum harvest this year!

[thatesqcrush]

Reel Temptation

Rafael Barba x f!reader. P*rn star! Barba AU.

WC: 2.6K

Summary: It’s the Golden Age of P*rn, circa 1970s. Reader accompanies roommate to a casting call for an adult film. Little does she know that her life is about to change when she meets the male lead.

NSFW for language, talk about sex work and adult films, smoking (cigarettes and recreational drug use).

AN: s/o to @beccabarba for being my soundboard and never wavering encouragement.

AN2: sex work is work. Sex work will always exist - we need to make it safer for sex workers to do their jobs. Continued criminalization of sex work and sex workers is a form of violence by governments and contributes to the high level of stigma and discrimination.

The apartment in California was a relic of the 1970s, steeped in the bold, eclectic charm of the era. Low-slung, avocado-green sofas sprawled across the shag-carpeted living room, beneath the warm glow of a globe-shaped chandelier. Wood-paneled walls held abstract prints, while hanging plants in macramé holders swayed gently by the sliding glass doors. In the kitchen, harvest gold appliances hummed quietly, surrounded by dark wood cabinets and a linoleum floor with a dizzying geometric pattern. The bedroom, with its velvet curtains and paisley bedspread, whispered of cozy nights in a space reflecting the free spirited culture of the time.

“Come on!”

A pillow landed on your head. You groaned as you rolled over, facing your roommate, Sadie who was in process of flicking her hair into wings. “I don’t want to go. Three’s Company’s on and this is the episode where there is some kind of understanding.”

“So you’ve already seen it then. Please,” Sadie begged. “You can read lines with me.”

You sat up further and sat with your legs crossed. “Since when do pornos have a plot line?” you sneered.

“It’s not porn - it’s really classy. It’s legit,” your roommate continued. She turned from the vanity to look at you. “Please.”

You let out an irritated sigh as you rolled your eyes. “Fine, fine, fine,” you grumbled. “Where’s this place anyway?”

“In the Valley.”

You stretched your arms as you stood, your shirt lifting exposing your midriff as you did so. “You’re paying for the gas. And any snacks.”

***

The casting office was small and seedy, reeking of smoke and something else. There was a line of women of all shapes and sizes waiting to be called. There’s a desk where an older, bald man is flipping through photos. It’s hot and sticky, the humidity suffocating despite a ceiling fan and standing fan going off on high.

There’s another room adjacent and in there, another man stands a few paces back, fiddling with the view-finder on a film camera. You sit on a peeling linoleum chair next to Sadie as you peruse the so-called script.

“Sadie, are you sure about this?”

Sadie chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. She nodded after a bit. “Yes, totally sure.” The tone in her voice however, led you to believe she was maybe trying to convince herself.

“Look, we can just go,” you whispered. “No one’s gonna give a shit. Or notice for that matter.”

You stood and faced her, outstretching your arm. “Come on, you don’t even have to pay me for the gas.”

A man’s voice filled the room and you heard the gaggle of ladies giggle and swoon. When you turned around, your breath hitched.

“That’s him - that’s my co-star…,” Sadie replied, a large grin on her face. “Hopefully!”

“That’s your … who is he?” you questioned, dropping your arm as you drank him in. Dark hair, thick sideburns, and a full, bushy - but well groomed- mustache. He wore a collared shirt with a bold pattern and fitted flare jeans. His shirt was slightly unbuttoned, revealing a dark chest hair.

His overall appearance exuded confidence and a laid-back charm, embodying the free-spirited, adventurous spirit of the time.

He’s painfully handsome, good-looking in a way that disarms you, making you feel giddy, like a child waiting to meet Santa. He’s so handsome it is almost burning, as if you cannot look at him full on.

“His name is Rafael Barba, but on screen he goes by ‘The Judge.’

You whipped your head to the other voice, this time female and not Sadie’s.

This woman was tall and drop dead gorgeous with high cheekbones and chestnut hair. “Names Olivia. I help book the girls.”

Her gaze fell on you and Sadie and you had a feeling that she was mentally adding you both up.

“First timer?”

Olivia’s sharp gaze landed on you and you shook your head. “Not me. Her.” You jutted your thumb at Sadie.

Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Maybe,” she murmured to herself, dropping her gaze. She looked up at you once more. “Let me go speak to The Judge.”

Sadie squealed. “Oh my God, it’s happening!” She bounced in place.

You rolled your eyes and watched Olivia go over to “The Judge,” who was flirting with the gaggles of women. She tapped his shoulder and then whispered something in his ear. He gave a curt nod, before following her. The Judge is even more handsome up close and his body is thick, in a functionally fit kind of way. The way you knew the weight of him would feel oh so fucking good on top of you, crushing you. A jolt of pleasure coursed through you and as you felt your cheeks heat, but you chalked it up to the heat.

The Judge stroked his chin as was now his turn to assess. He turned to Olivia and pointed to you, whispering in hushed tones. Olivia nodded in response, and you’re only able to make out an ‘I agree.’

The Judge stalked off and Olivia turned around to face the line of still-swooning women. “Casting is over. We’ve got our girl. Come back tomorrow.”

The group of women begin to groan and complain about wasted time and it not being fair as they dispersed. Olivia made her way back to you and Sadie.

“So here’s the deal,” she began and pointed at you. “I know you’re not here for this, but The Judge wants you.”

“Me?” you exclaimed at the same time Sadie replied incredulously, “Her?”

“No no, you made a mistake. I have no interest…” your voice dies off as Olivia narrowed her eyes once more on you.

“He wants you. And he’s willing to double the pay at his cost.”

You shake your head incredulously. “This cannot be happening.”

“Wait, what about me?” Sadie chimed in.

“I didn’t forget about you sweetheart. You’ll be our fluff girl.”

“Fluff girl?” You questioned, puzzled.

“Basically your girl will give a handy or blow to keep his cock up on set. After setting up the desired angle, the director usually requests the actors to hold position, which can be a bit… deflating. The fluff makes sure the actors are fully inflated for the shot.”

“And how much does that pay?” Sadie questioned, her tone disappointed. The pay is a quarter of the original pay. Sadie huffed. “What if I don’t want to?”

“Then the door is right there,” Olivia replied sharply. She turned to you. “What do you think? You in?”

Your brain is swirling and your cunt is throbbing at the idea of being fucked by The Judge. Before you can allow for rationality to seep in, you nod. “No way, no thank you.”

Olivia cocked her head. “Shame. He thought you had it in you.”

“Me?” You squeaked. “It’s just that I— I’ve never—”

“We get it all the time. The good girls who wouldn’t ever dare, the ones who clutch their pearls. It’s just fucking. It’s not that serious. You’re telling me you’ve never fucked before?”

You shook your head. “Of course I have.”

“Okay, so how is this any different? In fact, it’s better. You get paid.”

Olivia switched her gaze from you to Sadie. She gave her a once over again. “You know what, I could use you for another film. I’ve got this other guy, Sonny - real nice on the eyes. Think you’d be perfect. What do you think? I’ll pay you to fluff and for a movie?”

Sadie brightened. “Yeah, perfect.”

Olivia grinned. “I’ll put you up at the motor lodge nearby. Be here tomorrow at noon.” She turned to you again. “What about you sweetheart? Am I wasting my time? Are you telling me that I have to call all of those women back?”

You sucked in air between your teeth and thought about how fucking sexy The Judge was. And so you decided there and then with what was in between your legs, than what was in between your ears.

“I’m in.”

***

You arrived the next afternoon with Sadie. Another assistant - a blonde woman named Amanda - was having you sign off various consent forms.

“Do you have any limits? The Judge wants to know.”

“Limits?” You questioned. “What do you—“

“Jesus Christ,” Amanda replied exasperated. “Olivia told me that you had sex before. Was that a lie?”

“No!” You replied sharply. Amanda raised a brow and you lowered your voice. “Never had any complaints from my boyfriends.”

Amanda smirked. “Limits are shit that you don’t want to do. For instance, anal, golden showers - being pissed on,” she clarified when she saw the confused look on your face. “So if you don’t want to do something, then you let us know.

You cocked a brow. “Um, I guess anything involving piss. And shit, if that’s a thing too.”

Amanda laughed before she lit a cigarette. “Believe me, there are lots of fucked up people out there who like to do all sorts of fucked up stuff - shit included. So you’re good with butt stuff?”

You nodded. “I haven’t done it much, but yeah. I’m good for it.”

Amanda gave you a lascivious, devious grin. “Perfect.”

***

You were shown to your changing room and told to get in a robe. Some test shots were needed to make sure lighting was good. There was another handsome man, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was behind the camera, adjusting the viewfinder.

“Hey,” you reply quietly. The man lifted his gaze and looked over at you. A shit-eating grin spread on his face.

“Hey princess. I’m Nick, I’m the videographer.” He snapped the gum he was chewing. “When you’re ready, just stand in front of the screen and undo your robe, just the top.”

You swallowed nervously, your heart hammering in your chest. “Okay.” You did as he said, your nipples instantly hardening due to the air.

Nick let out a whistle and nodded. “Those are some real nice tits. Real pretty.”

You blushed, feeling your cheeks heat. “Thanks.”

Before long you were doing a full nude shot. Mid-one shot where you where on all fours, looking back at the camera, Olivia walked in. She nodded. “Looking good honey. Got your friend Sadie already in a scene with Sonny. And The Judge is mid-scene.”

You blinked. “Really? Could I watch? Just to get a better idea of what it’ll be like for me?”

Nick snapped his gum and let out a little grunt. Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Nick, you’ve got enough shots, I am sure. Give her a break, she’s a newbie.”

Nick rolled his eyes. You donned your robe back on. Nick walked over your way and jutted his head. “Come on, I’ll take you.”

You followed Nick down a few hallways and soon enough, your ears picked up the sounds of someone clearly getting fucked. The room was small and tight, the crew basically taking up the entirety of the space. You squeezed your way in, the air thick with the scent of sex, lube and sweat. You watched the scene before you completely transfixed and enraptured. There before you was The Judge fucking some woman on a couch. Her legs were in the air as he gripped them tightly, fucking her without abandon.

You felt yourself grow wet as The Judge railed this woman thoroughly, dragging his cock through her slick pussy, over and over.

“Such a good slut, taking my cock so well,” The Judge grunted.

The woman wailed as she came, her tits bouncing in tandem with the pace of being fucked.

“Gonna come,” The Judge grunted. He slid his cock out and your pussy clenched in response. His cock was big and thick, an angry shade of red- almost purple, covered in the woman’s slick ready to bust. ‘Jesus Christ,’ you thought. ‘How am I going to fit that in me?’

He stroked himself over her stomach and then came with a long, low, almost guttural groan. The white ropes of his release coat her stomach, catching the obnoxious overhead lighting.

“Cut!”

The director’s voice snapped you out of your reverie.

The woman sat up and stood, before grabbing a robe to slip on, leaving it hanging open. She leaned over to grab a towel to wipe herself. The Judge slipped on his pants, foregoing underwear. He looked up and met your gaze.

"You think you can keep up, sunshine?"

You read the surprise in his eyes as you replied. "I can take anything you dish out, bub."

The Judge smirked. “Rafael Barba.” He extended his hand and you shook it in response. You relayed your name and he repeated it slowly, as if savoring it. And the way he said it was just delicious.

“Liv told me you have never done this before.”

You furrowed your brows. “Sex or porn?”

Rafael laughed and he reached into his back pocket to pull out a pack of Marlboros. He offered you one and you took it. He slid a lighter from his front pocket and flicked it open and offered it out. You take a step closer, leaning forward to dip the tip of your cigarette into the flame. It ignited and you step back, smoke mingling in the air.

“Porn. If you had been a virgin, I would be fucking your friend and not you in about an hour.”

You nodded before taking a drag. “Nope, definitely not a virgin. You blew out smoke before you continued, “So what is our scene or whatever?”

“Liv didn’t tell you?” Rafael seemed amused. “We have a whole courtroom set up. You’re gonna be the lawyer who gets called into chambers.”

Your eyes widened a little. “Oh.”

“I figure we’ll start with some oral, both of us and the I’ll fuck you from behind over the desk. I’ll finish on your ass. That work?”

You ran through it in your mind. “What about if I lay on my back on the desk and you can finish on my tits?”

Rafael ran a finger through his mustache as he eyed you. His voice was low and dark as he replied. “Yeah, that’d work sunshine. I’ll take the lead.” He was still shirtless and you eyed him appreciatively.

Rafael lifted your chin with his finger and your eyes met his. “Seriously. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” He winked and you flushed in response, already sensing the charge in the air.

Rafael eyed your robe, not completely undone but a little loose. He traced a finger over the trim by the opening. “Do you mind if I get a peek?”

Butterflies fluttered in your stomach, suddenly feeling vulnerable. Part of you was excited, thrilled by the risquéness of it all. The other part was that he was a stranger - the men who had seen you naked were boyfriends who awkwardly groped you in the backseat of cars or movie theaters.

You swallowed and nodded before undoing your robe, letting it fall to your lower back. You felt hot as Rafael immediately licked his lips. “Fuck, those are some pretty tits.”

You felt yourself blush in response.

“May I?” Rafael asked and it took you a second to realize that he meant if he could touch you. You nodded.

His hands were large, with long dexterous fingers, well manicured and patterned with veins. You watched his hand flex and you knew instantly, every movement intentional. Patterned with veins, well manicured, with unexpected strength. His skin was warm and soft. Rafael’s touch began rather innocently, along your arm up to along your shoulder. He then brought it down your clavicle to your sternum. He cupped one breast with his hand, feeling the weight of it against his palm. When his finger brushed your nipple, a bolt of pleasure shot down to your core. You couldn’t help but let out a soft moan.

“Mmmm, so responsive,” Rafael said, his voice dark and low. “We really are going to have a lot of fun,” Rafael replied once more as he took a drag of his smoke.

TBC.

*

*

[dancingtotuyo]

All Farms…

Javier Peña

Summary: Javier has to decide what to do with the ranch

Warnings/Tags: grief, loss, hurt (no comfort?), ranch/farm used interchangeably here.

Notes: I started this on Christmas after walking my grandparents farm which happens to be the same farm I lived on for the first 7 years of my life. My grandparents are getting older which has sparked a lot of conversation with what will happen to the farm when they're gone. Fast forward to now, I'm currently processing a lot of feelings this Easter weekend. I lost my step dad last year. He was a farmer too. After his cancer diagnosis, all of us kids (there are ALOT of us) came home for Easter. It was the last time I saw him look like himself and the last time we were all together before he died. In my processing, I started working on this piece again. It's one of those things I need to put out into the world for me. I hope for anyone else going through something similar, it brings you comfort or makes you feel not quite so alone.

Peep the cow picture. I took that one myself at Christmas :)

Words: 966

Author Master List

All farms have a graveyard. One of lost memories and stories. Typically along a ridge or tree line, piled-up equipment that was never sold or broken beyond repair sits in overgrown piles and sunken earth. The old family car. The beat-up sports car or pickup truck each son or sometimes daughter inevitably thought they could fix only to spend hundreds of fruitless hours with one glory ride before it went haywire. Scrap metal torn from barn roofs pile up. Every tire imaginable is half buried in the earth. No farmer dares to clean out the graveyard. The moment you do, you’ll find use or need for the items thrown out. 

The Peńa’s graveyard sits between scattered trees at the bottom of the hill. Javier rarely makes his way to that side of the farm. They don’t use that space for cattle since his dad downsized the herd. He pretends there’s no reason for it, but it’s more than just broken down cars and scrap piles to Javier. It’s a ghost town of memories. 

There’s his mom’s ‘62 Ford. The one she drove his whole childhood. The vehicle that took them across town, to Sunday services, and hosted their many road trips. It’s where his Mom feels most tangible, her soft voice playing in his head singing to the radio. 

His first truck. The one he’d spent months fixing up, he kissed Sally Jones on a Saturday night and done much more with Vanessa Reyes. He’s proposed to Lorraine in that truck, driven past the church in it too. 

Chucho’s first American Harvester sits further back. His dad is so proud of that machine… or he was. 

The ache grows in Javier’s chest as he stands at the edge of the graveyard. He begged Chucho for years to clean this up. His dad always waved him off, stating that he would get to it someday. Except, Chucho didn’t make it to someday, and now it is Javier’s responsibility.  

His fingers twitch, desperate for the feel of a cigarette between them. Nicorette gum sits in his breast pocket instead. He’s working to quit again, picking the worst damn time to do it, but that’s life. 

He should probably bring the tractor down to pull everything out. It’s overwhelming with no good place to start. Digging around down there will only dig up the memories. Javier can’t deal with the memories right now, so he leaves the project for another day. He only needs to clean it up if he decides to sell the ranch. 

The house is quiet when he walks through the door. Javier is used to the subtle sounds of life- the coffee pot going, the tv running on low, Chucho’s boots on the linoleum, but it never comes. It won’t ever come again. 

Javier kicks off his boots, lining them right next to his dad’s. He hasn’t moved them. He’s not sure he will. 

He heads for the back of the house toward his room but stops at his Dad’s door. It’s shut tight as he places a hand on the wood. Javier hasn’t gone in there since picking out clothes. It’s a strange thing to pick out clothes for a dead man. How does one pick out what someone will wear for the rest of eternity? 

His hand lands on the knob, and it gives way with a squeak. The same squeak that used to echo down the hall, waking Javier up before the sun to let him know it was time for chores. Javier is flooded with the comforting scent of his father. It envelopes him, pulling tears into his eyes immediately. The bed is fixed just as Chucho had left it before he went out and started the chores just as he always did. Except that day, almost a month ago now, Chucho Peña didn’t return to the house. 

He collapsed in the field. He was already gone when Javier found him. He died alone and that hurt almost as much as the fact that he was gone. 

A thin layer of dust covers the surfaces in the room. He should clean it, but would it lose its smell then? In here, Javier feels surrounded by his father. The closest he can get to him. His room, the one he shared with Javier’s mother, is perfectly preserved. 

Javier dares to ease onto the bed and look at the world from Chucho’s perspective every day as he woke up. On the dresser, there’s a photo of his parents when they first started dating, and one from Javier’s high school graduation. On the bedside table, there’s a book with a bookmark halfway through, a picture from his parent’s wedding day, and another of Chucho on the tractor with Javier in his lap. He couldn’t have been older than two at the time. Javier traces it with his finger, wishes he could remember that moment, wishes he could go back in time and relive it all, even the bad days, and treasure it all, ask his dad more questions, called him more often.

Javier lays down on his parents' bed. Chucho’s scent is thicker here with Javier’s head on his pillow. Big, hot tears fall from the corners of his eyes dampening the pillow. He rests his hands over his chest, letting his eyes close. Javier can hear his voice now, his laughter, catches a hint of his mother’s as well. It’s Javier’s job to carry on their legacy.

All farms have a graveyard. One of lost memories and stories. No farmer dares to clean out the graveyard. When a tractor kicks the dust or that farm use pickup can only be stripped for parts, Javier follows in his father’s footsteps. He lays them to rest between scattered trees at the bottom of the hill.

[tgmsunmontue]

Season to Taste - 13/? WIP

Explicit Hangster - Celebrity Chef Bradley and Naval Aviator Jake Seresin who have a relationship spanning the globe before they realize how tightly bound they are to one another. Heading into this little world.

PROLOGUE/ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE

TEN ELEVEN TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

                “Hey Ice.”

                “Hi Bradley. Happy birthday.”

                “Thanks.”

                “How are you?”

                “Good. How are you?”

                “Can’t complain. Alive and kicking.”

                Bradley feels a little awkward talking to him now, his one remaining link to his old life. He wonders if it would be different if he was talking with Mav, or if they had something more in common than his dead father from over twenty years ago. All that though and he still makes the calls, Leandro and Silvia both giving him the stink-eye if he doesn’t and he knows at least that he doesn’t want to disappoint them. Short weekly calls when he’s at home in Italy mean they don’t expect him to spend a long time on the phone. He hasn’t called in a couple of months, not a fact he will be sharing with either Leandro or Silvia.

                “What have you been up to?”

                “Ah. Went to Spain for a couple of months. Worked in a kitchen there. Helped harvest grapes and make wine. Just… the usual.”

                “Usual for you maybe. Sounds quite idyllic.”

                “Well, butchering and curing meat isn’t idyllic at all, quite bloody and messy. So… the scenery was nice though. And I went to Barcelona for a couple of days, that was pretty cool.”

…            …            …

                He hadn’t intended to just blurt out an invitation to somehow define what they’re doing. Not to jump from casual sex to… Dating? To trying out a long-distance relationship? After only knowing each other for five days? It’s crazy. But sometimes crazy just works and god he hopes this is one of those times. So many things simply feel right about Jake and crazy has worked for him several times before.

                “I think you’re a little drunk.”

                “I’m not. Trust me, it takes more than a bottle of wine for me to get drunk.”

                “Yeah? You know that do you?”

                “Yes. Unfortunately.”

                Jake laughs and pulls into the grocery store parking lot, and Bradley’s hand is already on the seatbelt clasp, ready to go in. He’s shifted from thinking about convincing Jake to making a mental list of things he needs to get if he’s going to make the flourless chocolate cake for Maria, and some more food for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Then he notices that Jake is also putting food in the cart and he purses his lips.

                “What are you doing?”

                “Well, I might not have a fancy cookbook to my name, but I can feed us. Just burgers, but we won’t starve. Come on. You’ve been cooking non-stop, you deserve a break.”

                Bradley doesn’t even bother trying to hold back, simply moves around the cart and brackets his arms on either side of Jake and kisses him, starting soft but it quickly turns harder before he hears someone cough and he pulls away, knows his cheeks will be flaming red and Jake is looking smug, one eyebrow arched.

                “I ain’t even cooked you anything yet…”

                Bradley just shakes his head, looks away and then studies the flecks in the linoleum floor. It’s not the food, it’s the thought behind the gesture and Jake doesn’t even seem to be trying to be charming, is just naturally thoughtful and sweet as well as being a bit of a spoiled brat and cocky asshole. All things he’s finding more and more endearing and attractive the better he gets to know him.

                Crazy indeed. God he wants.

…            …            …

                Everything to gain.

                The words turn around in his head every few minutes, like they’re going past of a merry-go-round. The fact Leo had meant it seriously means Jake is taking it seriously, wonders how he’d make it work exactly when his leave is so limited, the fact that he wants to see his family when he’s on leave. He might like Leo, a lot, but he loves his family. And it’s not like any of them can just pop up to New York and visit. If that’s what Leo is even suggesting. Leo did say he travels a lot, and if he’s willing to travel to where Jake is, then maybe it could work? Hell, he hasn’t mentioned certain things, not really wanting to bring it up with just a guy he was going to have a two-week long fling with.

                Except it’s potentially not a fling anymore. He studies Leo, who is reading and frowning at the backs of several different packets of chocolate. Jake wonders what he’s planning on making, considering just how much food he’s put into the cart already. He pulls out his phone and finally lets himself check the messages that Maria no doubt sent while he was walking to his truck. As he expected, a couple of messages from Maria;

>I like him and I think you two could be really good together. Don’t be an idiot.

>If you do decide to be an idiot I’m going to be his friend anyway.

                Okay then. Pretty clear exactly what Maria thinks of Leo, and to be honest she’s one of the harder nuts to crack when it comes to his sisters. Not that he was intending to introduce a potential… anything, but maybe that had been a little naïve. God, she’s never going to let him live this down if he and Leo somehow… end up something. Lord, was this ever just sex? Leo decisively dumps three blocks of one particular brand into the cart and gives Jake a grin and Jake has to bring it up.

                “So, I gotta ask. How do you envision us having a relationship exactly?”

                “Well… long distance mostly,” Leo says and Jake rolls his eyes, hip checks him and Leo just laughs, hip checks him back.

                “Yeah, no shit. And if it doesn’t work out?”

                “Then it doesn’t work out. As I said, got to at least try right? But we both have to at least want to try.”

                Jake wants to try.

                “Grocery store is a pretty odd place for such a serious conversation…”

                Leo shrugs.

                “Well, it’s neutral and it’s bit of a… transitionary space. Like having conversations in the car when you don’t have to look at the person.”

                “So you mean like we did on the drive here?”

                “Yeah, exactly.”

                “Okay.”

                “Okay?”

                “Yeah. Okay. I guess we’re… trying this whole dating for an intense two-week period and then going long distance. Give it a shot right?”

                Leo looks lit up from inside and Jake has to remind himself that they’re in the grocery store, but he can get them back to Leo’s place in about fifteen if they hustle.

                “Yeah?”

                “Yes,” Jake says, pushing the cart toward the checkouts. “Although, can I just say, if I’d had any idea that this was on the cards I wouldn’t have introduced you to Maria so early. For the record, I wouldn’t ask any guy I was dating to meet my sisters this early. Wouldn’t want to scare him off.”

                “Well, that horse has bolted don’t you think? Also, I don’t scare easy.”

                “Lucky for me…”

                “Plus, you’ve met Vi, she is by far the scariest member of my… oh. Shit.”

                “What?”

                “Nothing. Just… remembered something I should probably do. Sorry.”

                “Okay…?” Jake asks, because Leo is looking a little frustrated.

                “I’ll tell you later maybe. If it becomes a thing.”

                “Okay. Come on. I want to take the guy I’m apparently now dating to bed…”

                “Wow. Romance is gone already…”

                “Was there ever romance?” Jake asks jokingly, but also a little worried because he’s not romantic. His sisters tell him so constantly and he hasn’t tried with Leo because… it was just sex. Oh god. He’s failing at this before he even starts.

                “Enough for me…” Leo says, and he’s biting his lip and looking fucking adorable and something inside him untwists and he wishes the checkout operator would go a little faster. Then Leo insists on paying for the food and Jake scowls, tells him he’s getting the next shop and Leo just grins, eyes mischievous and he says we’ll see, gives him a quick kiss before taking off at a run with the cart, leaving Jake to run after him.

…            …            …

                Jake’s hands don’t seem to leave his body, which makes putting the groceries away that much more challenging, but he’s also not complaining, turning in the circle of his arms and raising an eyebrow expectantly.

                “Thought you were going to cook me dinner?”

                “I am. I will… just… dinner can wait…” Jake says against his neck and Bradley lets his head fall back, breathes in the scent of Jake, his sweat and the dust from working outside, savors the warmth of his skin. He rolls his hips, has been low-level aroused since their kiss in the grocery store, and Jake responds obligingly by grinding right back, slotting a thigh between Bradley’s legs.

                “Won’t take long.”

                “Yeah? Good. We can take our time again later,” Jake mutters, his teeth nipping and he lets out a groan. Maybe it’s a good thing they’ll have time apart, give Bradley time to recover, although he wonders if they’ll always be like this when they’re together, because it will always be a novelty, time together snatched and fiercely held onto, where they both make the most of it. He lets Jake shift him, bodily moving him towards the bedroom and it quickly become a bit more frantic, hands scrambling to touch bare skin beneath clothes and he just lets himself fall.

…            …            …

                He has never wanted to order takeout more, but he also said he’d cook Leo dinner and he’s a man of his word. But lying there, roughly wiped clean, catching their breath, Leo’s fingers lazily trailing up and down his back, soft smile on his face, Jake can’t help but feel pleased with himself. He likes that look on his face. Likes the feeling of everything from the last few days and fuck it’s going to suck saying goodbye. But the idea he might get to have this again? That’s something that will keep him going. Leo’s stomach rumbles then, and Jake shifts and blows a raspberry, making Leo squirm and shift away.

                “What are you doing?”

                “Communing with your stomach. Speaking its language.”

                Leo laughs again and Jake shifts away to standing, hunting around for underwear and jeans, pulls a clean t-shirt from his bag before deciding he might as well have a quick shower. He tugs Leo out of bed, ignores his grumbles about the promise of food and turns the water on, busies himself with kissing Leo while they wait for the water to warm up. It’s a nice way to pass the time before they’re both stepping into the shower and actually rinsing themselves off and it feels alarmingly and wonderfully domestic.

                “So… I’ve been thinking.”

                Jake turns and raises an eyebrow; he’s almost finished but apparently Leo has decided to wash his hair. So much for a quick shower.

                “Yeah? When? Hopefully not while I was trying my best to make you come…”

                “No,” Leo says. “Just before, lying in bed… and I haven’t looked into it, haven’t had time obviously, but depending on where and when you have shore leave, I could potentially meet you there.”

                Jake’s hands still with the quick rub-down wash he was giving himself.

                “You’d travel to see me for thirty-six hours?”

                “You might get forty-eight.”

                “You’d travel though?”

                “Well, as I said. I haven’t looked into it, but if I could get a work gig either side of your leave, then… yeah. I would.”

                “Holy shit.”

                “I mean, no promises. But I’ve got pretty good incentive huh?”

                “My dick’s that good huh?”

                “You’re a dick…” Leo mutters, but his half-hidden smile makes the insult completely pointless.

                “Your dick,” Jake replies with a grin, and the smile Leo gives him is beautiful.

FORTEEN

[celestial-witchposter]

Home Protections: Methods and Magick that Guard a Witch's Home

Normally, I make a point not to share the exact protections I've made around my home. However, in the interest of keeping this community open and communicative, I think it's best to show how I keep my home safe from negative people and energies.

This will be focused on what I do for my *apartment*, not my altar or my person, which I may feature in a later post.

Smudging/Smoke cleansing - I feel like this is one of the most basic skills in a witch's arsenal, as it were. For smudge sticks, I recommend plants that grow in your area. For me that's garden sage, lavender, cedar, mugwort, and rose petals. You can make your own smudge sticks by binding stalks of these herbs together with pure cotton string. You can even collect and dry your own herbs for this purpose. As for incense, my favorite overall is jasmine but for smoke cleansing and protection I opt for Wild Berry Sage and Santo or Ispalla Palo Santo & Rue incense sticks. I tend to avoid buying whole palo santo sticks or white sage smudge bundles, though I do inevitably end up with them as gifts.

Protection oils - its ridiculously easy to make your own blends, though it can get expensive. My favorite at the moment is a blend of cedar, juniper, clove, mugwort, and bergamot in a base of olive oil so I can wear it as well as anoint with it. Be careful the surface you use these on - I wouldn't recommend finished hardwoods, for instance, unless you've diluted it in a spray or cleaner. Diluted vinegar is my favorite for non-porous surfaces (like linoleum, tile, or tabletops), with one part each of vinegar and water, and a few drops of oil.

Sound cleansing - whether you prefer singing bowls, a bell, singing, or playing music or chants on a speaker, sound has a powerful impact on the energy in a space. Just think of the difference music makes in the energy of a cafe versus a club. Sanctify and purify your space with sacred sound and music, or simply get your house spirits dancing while you clean! There is so much to choose from with this option.

Charms and amulets - There are. So many different ways to protect your home. A partial list of my favorites include: Witch bells, railroad spikes, hagstones, pentacles, spell bags, spell bottles, most black or white crystals (onyx, black tourmaline, obsidian, selenite, clear quartz), and of course the evil eye. More specific charms include dream catchers to catch and prevent nightmares, and horseshoes turned in the shape of a 'u' to catch the good luck entering your home.

Runes, bindrunes, and rune staves - my personal favorite being the Elder Futhark rune Algiz ᛉ, which you can either use on its own, or combine with other runes to create a bind rune (where the different runes share a single base line and you draw each rune onto it), or what is known as a rune stave, which is a sigil of your own making consisting of multiple runes. There's no exact science to this, many different types of staves have been found that were used for many different purposes, both lingual and magickal, over the centuries. For example, I seal many of my spell bottles with a simple, even cross (like a crossroads) with the end of each line forking three ways like an Algiz. Here is a more complicated stave that protects the entrance to my home, which I drew in white candle wax on the bottom of my door mat.

In the center, I bring the focus to Jera ᛃ, the year, to represent each season and a full cycle, good harvests, restful winters, bountiful springs, etc. To protect and bring prosperity year round.

The middle cross represents the values the rune protects in my home: Algiz ᛉ, is for protection, Pertho ᛈ is for play, joy, and laughter, Othila ᛟ, for home and family, and Kenaz ᚲ, for the torch or hearth.

The outermost circle is the protective ring in envisioning around the house. I invoke Isa I, or the ice, to freeze out and make unwelcome any who would wish to do us harm. Gebo X is a symbol of giving and taking. Reciprocity is important in any relationship, whether with the earth or with friends, and any who pass through our doors and receive our generosity as hosts I want to instill with this giving spirit.

Salt - This one is the simplest. So simple in fact it ought to have been first. Salt has such rich history and folklore from all around the world, I won't even begin to touch on all of it. But its essential role in our bodies and lives is undeniable. Not only is it nutritionally necessary, and a wonderful preservative, but it is also the earth's most powerfully protective mineral. You don't need anything special, in fact it's best to just buy the cheapest you can because if you're getting into spellwork, you're going to be using a lot of it. It can be mixed with ashes from your spells and incense, herb blends, and blessings to make different witches salts. Aunt Lucinda from The Spiderwick Chronicles wasn't as crazy as she seemed for having a line of salt in each doorway and windowsill. Be careful using salt outdoors, as too much kills any plant, and too much around small children and pets simply because they'll eat anything.

Prayers, affirmations, and incantations - these will of course be extremely personal. They can be as simple as saying "I am protected" or "I am guarded" etc., as you walk your house. You can make symbols or sigils with the movement of your hands. You can pray to a deity if you choose. A personal favorite of mine is to incant as I smoke cleanse, rotating my incense or smudge stick counterclockwise (to release, dispel, or banish - clockwise to attract) and say "I release that which does not serve me. I banish that which would do me harm."

For all of these, *intention* is going to be your best friend. Visualize a white, protective light filling your home, pushing the shadows from every crevice, and let your power and the powers you trust to call on shield you from any harmful energy that may come your way. Some of these will have to be redone yearly, or monthly, some I only do when I feel the need for something particularly strong, like when an evil eye breaks or a string of ill fortune strikes, and sickness or an unwanted person has been in the house. Let your intuition guide you.

Hope you enjoyed, let me know what I should share next!

[cherrydreamer]

🎃Harringrove Harvest- Day 1- Candy Corn 🎃

It's been a few months since Starcourt. Long enough that most of the gossip and rumours have died down, but still far too soon for Billy Hargrove to be anywhere close to being released from hospital.

So that's where he is, battered and bruised and bed-bound, when Hopper comes to visit him- with El and Max in tow as usual- the police chief looking even more serious than usual when he sits down on the plastic chair beside Billy's bed and delivers the news that Neil Hargrove has skipped out of town, loading up his truck and disappearing into the middle of the night, leaving a whole stack of unpaid bills and a ton of trouble for Susan to have to deal with.

And it all hits Billy like a ton of bricks. Another punch right through a heart that's still not quite healed.

Cause, yeah, he knows that Neil Hargrove is an asshole with a cruel streak a mile wide, and he knows that he spent enough time hating his old man and wishing for something just like this to happen, but it's still not that simple. It's not black and white. Despite it all, the fear and the pain and the way Neil's voice is always in the back of Billy's mind, criticising and mocking him, despite all of that, Neil is his father. His Dad. And nothing can change the fact that he's still the guy that taught Billy how to throw a fastball and how to change the oil in his car and who told him he was proud of him when Billy made the basketball team.

He's still his Dad. And Billy still loves him.

And now he's fucked off. Without even a goodbye. Without even a word. Billy's been left behind. Forgotten about again. And it hurts.

So Billy's struggling.

As much as he's trying to stay calm, to shove all his emotion down and lock it away, he knows he's about to break. And then he catches sight of Max and El's faces, both of them with expressions that Billy can only read as pity, and it's just too much, and Billy can't stop himself from yelling at them to get out, pointing at the door when the words just catch in his throat and come out rough and raspy and barely understandable.

They get it. They leave.

But the Chief doesn't. He doesn't leave. If anything, he shuffles himself even closer, the chair squeaking against the linoleum floor, one hand hovering in the air just for a moment, before he thinks better of it and draws it back. And Billy tries his best to pull himself together, blinking back the tears he can feel gathering and swallowing down the ache in his throat and shaking his head to dislodge all those swirling, churning, painful thoughts that just won't stop coming.

He tries to deal with it. Because he needs to. He can be a man about this, he's got to be. He's on his own now and he'd better get used to it.

But then Hop's voice is softening, and this time when he reaches out, he doesn't stop until he's resting a hand on Billy's shoulder and squeezing firmly, "Hey, look Billy, I'm sorry, it's, uh, it's all kinds of messed up, what your old man did. But we'll work this out, OK, kid? You don't gotta worry. We'll help you out, whatever you need."

But Billy shakes his head, scrubbing angrily at the tears that have spilled over despite his attempts to hold them in and he says, "It's fine. I don't need...I'll be fine. I can look after myself."

Only for Hop to look at him, voice softer than Billy's ever heard it before, and say, "I know you can, Billy, but this time you don't have to."

And Billy knows that he's crumbling. He can feel it, that sudden rush of emotion all bubbling forth. But he can hold on, he can, he has to, he will. So he tears his eyes away from Hopper's face, not wanting to see any more fucking pity directed his way, but no matter where Billy looks, he can't help but see the evidence of the Chief's words.

It's there in the books on the table by his bed, a stack two feet high of sci-fi and fantasy novels, all loans from the kids, interspersed with some car magazines donated by Hopper himself. It's there in the Tupperware box beside them full of brownies made with love by Claudia Henderson, the sixth batch she's sent this month and these ones all dotted with candy corn, just because Billy made an off hand comment to her last week about how he was annoyed that he'd be stuck in hospital over Halloween. It's there in the tangle of soft blankets at the foot of his bed, the ones Joyce had brought in for him when he'd grumbled about the itchy hospital sheets, the same ones she'd tucked around him so carefully when he first started to shiver, and then untucked so swiftly when he started thrashing in his sleep.

It's there too, in the Walkman Billy always has by his side, the surprise gift from Steve, alongside a collection of tapes, even though Billy still hasn't swapped the first one out yet. How can he, when it's a mixtape that Steve made especially for him? A terrible mix, really, a culture clash of Tears for Fears and Judas Priest and The Beach Boys and Ratt and Cyndi fucking Lauper and a whole mess of others, every single one meaning something to the two of them.

It's there in so many other things too. Less obvious ones, like the nurses always knocking quietly before coming into his room because Hopper had a stern word after he saw Billy flinch away from a loud bang; and how there's a stubborn, possibly permanent, scuff mark on the floor from all the times that someone has dragged the uncomfortable visitors' chair closer to the bed, closer to Billy.

And it's there in the way that El and Max are crowding at the door, faces smushed against the glass, almost falling over themselves to come back to Billy's bedside the moment he spots them and beckons them over.

It's there. All over. Proof that, for whatever fucking reason, the people here do care about him. For him. That Hopper isn't talking out of his ass. That Billy can ask for help and know that he'll get it.

It's a lot. A lot to realise, especially all at once. So it takes Billy a moment. But then he finally looks back at Hopper and at Max and El, at the expression they all share, the one that Billy now sees for the concern that it always was. And not just concern, but something more. Something Billy hasn't seen directed his way in a long time.

Care. Affection. And love.

Billy knows he's about to break. He can't stop it. He doesn't even try. And there's only a second, if that, between the first sob catching in his throat and the three pairs of arms that wrap around him and pull him into a hug. It's awkward, really, the bed is too small for them all and Max's elbow is sharp and El's hair is tickling his cheek, and Hopper's ripe armpit is a little too close to Billy's nose to be overly pleasant. But Billy doesn't mind at all, especially not when Hop's voice rumbles out against his ear, "You'll be OK, son. You'll be OK. We've got you."

Because this time, Billy lets himself believe it.

[with-love-a-b]

We didn’t bloom together the way we should have. We never eyed each other across neat soil; both self-conscious and self-righteous as we sipped the sun and, in quiet bursts, raced to touch the sky.

We weren’t planted by gentle hands in soft plots with room to stretch our limbs and shield our eyes, nor to bud in peace and thrive and find identity in both our own bold blossoms and as a pulsing piece of the whole lavish garden.

We didn’t bloom because we erupted. We running-start-swan-dived into stale dirt and were too close from the very beginning. We didn’t sprout up straight; we snaked and lurked and left no bit of earth untouched by our vibrant, stencil weed fingers declaring ourselves alive.

By harvest we were tangled beyond repair. By harvest I didn’t know me from you, and I liked it.

To be so entwined is lovely but depends on a balance we could only begin to grasp. To expand but not uproot requires perfect synchronicity maybe not beyond our years but certainly beyond our maturity. We spread out our emotions like tarot cards on a towel in the grass, and reflected in your sunglasses I met the silent pieces of me. In colorful, grim drawings those quiet, ugly bits floated up veins and settled under ribs. They stayed silent. Until they began to scream.

And you and I — we didn’t have the words, not our own words that we earned and burned while stumbling across months and plains, tripping over potholes and finding our feet quicker each time. We had place-holder words we sang back and forth and splashed around and bathed in. The words we spoke were profound and cardboard. We were just reading lines, sharing identical scripts and an ache to be seen so deep and desperate it was sinful.

We shared the humid cling of regret, which hung heavy in stuck-air auditoriums; its beaded sweat echoed, rolling down spines and turning blood to sticky wax as we whispered in the corner about the things we could say aloud while our minds never left the things we wouldn’t dare.

We were mostly ill-equipped. We joked about hurricanes; We didn’t survive the first storm.

I want you to know you really hurt my feelings. I want you to know you’re the first guy I’ve given my feelings to hurt. I want you to know I was terrible towards the end. And I know that. But you gave up on me.

You gave up on me at the exact moment I was giving up on myself. Even as my tongue stung metallic and veins pulsed so hot and loud through my eardrums that I felt I would explode — it was clean. It was all remarkably clean and sterile. There were no explosions. No shattered plates, bloody knuckles, or blown-out voices that scratched and rose in time with the sun.

Just a quick slash of rope — an anchor cut loose and left to sink; our secrets were set free to rust over and collect algae. We were suddenly off the hook for any vulnerability we might have spilled on each other in our fits of laughter and hours of sleep. A deep sigh of relief. A deeper sigh of desolation.

The moment exists in sad yellow lighting that must have been added in retrospect. I tweaked the floor of my memory too: at that moment I was not wearing flip flops on linoleum — but sinking, slowly and barefoot, into chilly riverbed mud as it turned to ice.

I opened the door, and there you stood. You knew I had been crying, and I didn’t try to hide it; it was too exhausting — running on fumes.

And I did expect something from you, anything from you, that might dull the singed-dagger plunging stab to my chest with each breath I gulped and spat . I wanted anything that might reel me in from the cliffs edge where my thoughts had carried me on horseback.

But you had nothing. I watched your eyes glaze over my swollen lips and pinced, glassy eyes. You threw back the melted, Picasso-esque mask where my face once was, like a quick, sharp shot of warm whiskey. Careful to avoid eye contact you slipped “fuck this” under your breath and started to reach for my hand.

You started to, but then after a second suspended, you let your arm fall back to your body. Head lowered, jaw clenched and you turned and fled with a new heaviness pushing down on your posture. It looked painful and adult. It looked like you finally felt the weight of our season. And watching you go, I shrank in lighter and thicker because I felt it too.

We are not going to get a happy ending — not with each other and not right now. Maybe not ever. And that will have to do. (Though I will miss your hand in mine. I hope one day you’ll remember being tangled with me, and it will make you laugh before you cringe because I didn’t like to be alone.)

If I wanted to be alone, I would just go home.

-Kiernan Norman

[forthesanityofstorytellers]

Granola Bites

Basically I told my sister late one night that I wanted a snack and all I could remember about them was 'granola bites'

She decided that this sounded like a story about a crunchy vampire.

And then I short story about one.

____________________________________________________________

WC: 2,405

Day-In-The-Life narrative.

tw: mentions of blood (in packets)

Summary: Trevor's a pretty normal guy that's decided to live a crunchy lifestyle; home garden, vegetarian, makes his own meals, a little stall at the local outdoor market, a book that he's working on and a complimentary blog. Oh. And he's a vampire.

Sunlight. It streamed over the land and covered the garden, stretching its fingers over the small cabin-like house in the middle of the suburbs. The golden fingers slipped through the closed shutters, over the couch, and began flicking at my nose. I woke up with a thunderous sneeze that catapulted me to the floor, and found myself struggling with an oddly-confining jacket under the redwood table. After a moment of sleep-deprived panic, I won the confrontation and peeked around at the clock pressed against the wall.

Shoot. It was a bit past feeding time.

I wormed my way to a standing position, left the villainous outerwear to sulk on the floor until tomorrow morning, and made my way out to the garden.

The green plants celebrated the sun, and I joined them for a moment. The sun was warm on my skin as I stood, breathing in the morning air before going about my day. The bell peppers were finally ready, the tomatoes juicy red, and the ears of corn seemed to wave like volunteers for harvest. Gathering them into small bundles, I brought them into the kitchen to rest and went out for a second round. Going straight to the back of my garden, I took a moment to talk to my beanstalks, admired them for their growth and thanked them for their contribution. Then I knelt and began to dig them up by the roots.

Escorting the bundles back into my kitchen -- and trying to ignore the giant dirty boot prints smearing dark mud across the linoleum tile -- I set to stripping the roots from each beanstalk, cleaning all my products, and getting them ready for both farmer’s markets I was to attend later in the day. Hunger began to set in as I worked, so I grabbed a couple of spare roots I kept in the freezer and began to chow down.

Ugh, the taste wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Metallic yet smooth, with a tiny bit of sweetness as an aftertaste. I needed something to drown it with. Another trip to the fridge produced a large cup full of green chalky liquid, and I downed it in just a few gulps. Sweet, sweet chlorophyll. The smooth taste was welcome after the metallic hemoglobin, and it went down easily thanks to the coconut water mixed in. The pairing of chlorophyll and coconut water was a great substitute for blood.

Oh, right. I’ve been living with it so long, I often forget not everyone knows about us.

Hi. The name’s Trevor. I’m a chlorophyre which, at its core, is a ‘vampire’ that lives on chlorophyll instead of hemoglobin. I used to be a vampire, but ever since I found out there were other, healthier ways of living, I decided to take a more natural approach to life.

I finished cleaning the greens, packaged them in little baskets, and stacked them in brown paper bags which then made it into my Hybrid car. I took the few veggies and beans to my stall out at the local farmers market and set up shop.

The humans were nice, as usual. A good number of lookie-loos, a handful of loyal buyers, and I even managed to convince one or two new faces to buy a basket of beans. It was a long day, made even longer with the knowledge I had committed to this booth for the next two days as well. I may have technically been a member of the ‘un-dead’ but that didn’t mean I enjoyed derelict houses or used familiars to do my work for me. The weekends at the farmer’s market helped pay my bills.

When time was up, I began cleaning my booth and storing things away while my neighbors did the same. We swapped stories about harvesting, soil prep, and the latest news on governmental damage in relation to agriculture and the environment. We traded farewells, knowing we’d see each other the next morning, packed the last of our unsold wares into our cars and drove off.

I made sure my veggies were safely stored away at home before going about my day; buying new seeds, working home-made compost into my soil, looking up the latest in natural pesticides. I couldn’t take too long, as I only had a few hours between markets. My second booth was scheduled to be set up right after sundown, and by the time I finished my daily chores, the sun was starting to drop below the horizon. I had to hurry.

I gathered up all the leaves and stalks of my plants and worked them, getting out all the chlorophyll I could manage and dividing the results between green-tinted eight ounce glass bottles. Then I removed the fresh root clusters from the fridge and bundled them, the fraying hemp rope scratching at my fingers. The cabinets above the sink held generous supplies of coconut water, which I removed and mixed with half of the chlorophyll bottles. Gotta create a good example of each product, after all.

The last step was to make sure all my pamphlets were in order, each one printed on eco-friendly paper with biodegradable ink. They contained information regarding a plant-based alternative to blood, and explained it in more detail than I could manage in the short time I was at my booth. It was definitely better than it sounded, but most vampires wouldn’t understand why green was better if it wasn’t explained properly. I had my work cut out for me, to be sure, but I deeply believed in chlorophyrism and wanted to get the word out to as many as I could.

Packing up my nightly wares, I got back in my Hybrid and took off for the Night-Market, a farmer’s market for nocturnal-based creatures. Parking in my regular spot, I gathered my things and began down the secret forest trail leading to the bridge where the market was held. Apparently, even under the cover of darkness, our gatherings must be veiled in secrecy and subterfuge.

I set up shop like normal, putting out my pamphlets and products and ignoring the jokes at my expense. I’d been doing this long enough to know responding in kind got me nowhere. The other vendors knew my product and knew where I stood on the matter, and so long as they didn’t upturn my booth or break my stuff, I wouldn’t burn their coffins in the middle of the day.

Instead of sinking to their level, I waved to the werewolf across the bridge selling distilled Wolfsbane pills. Apparently she had managed to figure out a formula able to reverse the werewolf curse for a limited time. I’d never seen it work in person, but she had plenty of regulars. The she-wolf must have been doing something right.

The market opened. Night-creatures began to pour in from all sides. Blood-suckers bought packets from the vampire vendors. The she-wolf’s regulars padded in, panting for her antidote. There were bottled nightmares, brain samples, animal parts, and a couple of the booths even sold ‘deals’. I was never quite sure what ‘deals’ were sold, but I didn’t try to find out.

A couple of curious vampires stopped by my booth. “What’s up with this?” one of them asked while sucking on a sample packet. “Is this a joke?”

The other one leaned in and whispered, “Vampire-hippie. Walk away slowly.”

“It’s nothing like that,” I said with a forced smile, sliding one of the pamphlets across to them. “Vampirism has its place in the world, I guess, but have you ever wondered if there was a better way?”

One of them looked like she couldn’t care less, but the other peered at the pamphlet and seemed to be listening.

“I mean, sure: drinking the blood of others has sustained us for a good long while. I’m not saying it hasn’t. But the world was...different back then. Less chemicals in the blood, less preservatives in the food.” I gestured towards the shrinking blood sample, which was now leaking in the corner. “Do you know how much more monoxide is in human blood these days thanks to burning gasoline and oil, as opposed to 100 years ago?”

The packet-drinker shrugged. “Nope. But if that’s true, why not just drink animal blood?”

“They’re inhaling the same air, for one thing,” I stated. “But if we all switched to drinking animals, do you know how badly that would impact the environment? It would take years to breed enough animals for them to be a sustainable alternative for all of our kind...not to mention there’d be competition from all sides.” In answer to the sarcastically-quirked eyebrow, I gestured around to a few of the other booths. “Vampires aren’t the only ones that feed on animals.”

The one reading the pamphlet finally spoke up. “So how is this any different?” she asked. “What’s the catch?”

“Ah, that’s the best thing,” I said, holding up a small glass bottle. “There is no catch. Drinking from plants instead of people is a much more sustainable alternative; you can grow your own food, so you don’t have to worry about things like cameras and cell phones tracking your movements. There’s more than enough soil to use, either out in a garden or in a potted plant, and you don’t have to worry about soil erosion so long as you rotate and feed the plants properly. And best of all, you know exactly what’s going into your food: because you’re putting it there.” I gestured to the ever-shrinking blood packet. “Do you have any idea what kind of life your food was living? How much blood-poisoning might have happened?” I looked back to the other one. “Using plants, you don’t ever have to worry about it again.”

The two glanced at each other. The blood-sucker shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not like I’d catch any of their diseases. Plus, this sounds like a lot more work.”

But the other one had picked up a bottle and was looking it over. “It’s not any more work than hunting down human prey in this digital age,” I said. “Plus, the switch is easier than ever with our root bundles.”

The blood-sucker was looking away, her packet nearly empty. She was clearly debating if she wanted to go back to the vendor a few booths down and purchase a couple packs for the fridge. But the other one looked up at me. “Root bundles?”

I nodded. “Did you know that the legume plant has nodules that produce the exact same substance as blood?” She peered at the bundle of roots, fingering one of the small gnarled ends. I could see she was interested, but unsure what her companion would say. I nudged her a little more and told her that the movement I was a part of had a small online presence. If she wanted to give me her general whereabouts or territory, I could have a representative stop by and give her more information. She shrugged and wasn’t sure, so I suggested she take my card and come back the next night to take another look at the nodules. I offered her a small sample root bundle as compensation for her listening ear, and as a little something to snack on when she had the time.

She seemed grateful for the offer and accepted, slipping the small bundle into her coat along with my card before spinning around to join her companion. They loudly mocked the chlorophyre movement as they left, and I later spied the two buying a generous supply of packets from the vampire two booths down.

I didn’t mind. I may not have gotten a chance to tell them about the side-effects, how drinking chlorophyll was like drinking a natural sunscreen, how it converted sunlight into energy like the plants, but that was something I saved for customers showing a genuine interest. Vampires generally don’t believe that part of the deal, and I can’t blame them. The first chlorophyre I saw was met with equal cynicism, and I didn’t believe the movement until I tried it for myself. Anyway, it isn’t easy to make the switch from ‘acceptable’ to healthy, especially when clan pressure is involved. Said pressure is one of the reasons I now lived on my own.

A few more vampires came over during the night. A few more mocked my products openly or over their shoulders. Another couple passed by and stopped, familiar faces that wanted to purchase another bundle and learn more about growing their own. We talked while I gathered their order, and I found out that they prowled an alley a couple streets down from where I lived. With a smile, I offered them to stay at my place for a bit. They could learn more about growing their own food, and my house was definitely safer than the streets.

Soon the sun was on its way up, and all the booths were dismantled. I packed up what I had left and headed to my Hybrid, wondering if that couple had made their way to my house yet. I wondered if the two vampiresses from earlier in the night would come back. I loved talking to an open mind, something startling hard to find in the underworld. I got behind the wheel and drove, wondering once again what the she-wolf’s Wolfbane pills actually did for werewolves, or why they’d take an antidote in the first place.

I got back home and brought everything inside. I grabbed from my personal stash of chlorophyll, drinking it down as I laid out on the couch and enjoyed the slight tinge of rum added to the mix. It may not have had the same effect on me as it once did, but the flavor was still a nice addition. I stared at the ceiling, the full moon making silver tracks through the darkness, and contemplated the night. There was still some gardening I could do, but there was also online marketing to work on, a seminar on Essential Oils to watch, and more information to gather for the book I was planning on self-publishing later this year. One of the added benefits to being a healthy chlorophyre meant working in the day and the night, as my body no longer required sleep to function. I stared at the ceiling, sipped my drink, and wondered which of my projects to work on next.

[cleanearthfunfacts]

Title: A Comprehensive Guide to Creating an Eco-Friendly Home 💡🌱🌍 Entertaining Guide on Environmental Awareness, Sustainable Living, and Renewable Energy Solutions | Clean Earth Fun Facts

Introduction:

Welcome to Clean Earth Fun Facts, your go-to source for fun and entertaining facts about our planet and how to keep it clean and green. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore various strategies and tips for creating an eco-friendly home. By incorporating energy-efficient appliances, sustainable building materials, and water conservation strategies, you can reduce your environmental footprint and contribute to a sustainable future. Let's dive in!

Chapter 1: Energy-Efficient Appliances

Understanding Energy Efficiency Ratings

Look for appliances with ENERGY STAR certification

Consider energy-efficient models for refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, and more

Lighting Solutions

Switch to LED or CFL bulbs

Utilize natural light through skylights and windows

Install motion sensor or timer switches to save energy

Smart Home Technology

Invest in smart thermostats and programmable HVAC systems

Control lighting and appliances remotely to avoid unnecessary energy consumption

Use power strips to eliminate standby power

Chapter 2: Sustainable Building Materials

Choose Renewable Materials

Opt for sustainably harvested wood and bamboo

Explore alternatives like reclaimed wood or recycled materials

Consider cork or linoleum flooring instead of vinyl or carpet

Energy-Efficient Insulation

Install insulation with high R-value to reduce heat loss

Consider eco-friendly options like cellulose or wool insulation

Seal air leaks to improve overall energy efficiency

Green Roofing Options

Explore cool roofs that reflect sunlight and reduce heat absorption

Consider metal roofing, recycled shingles, or living roofs (vegetation)

Chapter 3: Water Conservation Strategies

Efficient Plumbing Fixtures

Install low-flow toilets and showerheads

Use faucet aerators to reduce water flow

Repair leaks promptly

Rainwater Harvesting

Set up rain barrels or cisterns to collect rainwater for gardening or flushing toilets

Direct downspouts to water plants and trees

Landscape Design for Water Efficiency

Choose native, drought-resistant plants

Group plants with similar water needs

Mulch garden beds to retain moisture

Conclusion:

Congratulations on taking the first step towards creating an eco-friendly home! By implementing the strategies and tips discussed in this guide, you can significantly reduce your environmental impact and contribute to a sustainable future. Remember, small changes can make a big difference. Join us at Clean Earth Fun Facts in spreading awareness and inspiring others to embrace sustainable living. Together, we can make our planet cleaner, greener, and healthier!

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[lovelessdagger]

Starlight - Chapter 36: Pandemonium

Pairing: Din Djarin x OC

Rating: Mature

Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Smut

WARNINGS: Explicit Language. Graphic Violence. Derealization. Gore.

Words: 9.4k

Summary:  There are two lessons the children of Project Harvester are taught in the beginning of their indoctrination:

Treachery is the way of the Sith, and everything, especially stars, can die.

And this star, this burst light will die.

It is the retribution she is owed.

Masterlist | Starlight Masterlist | AO3 | Prev | Next

There is a certain rare corridor within Moff Gideon’s light cruiser in which comfort is permitted. It is a place of modesty and low desire, passed by on the daily with little regard. Black linoleum tile and chrome plated paneling match the ships remainder. Ventilation crosses the ceiling, aqueduct piping carries soiled water to the recycling center five floors below. It is not, in the slightest, remarkable.

It isn’t glistening with the galaxy’s finest treasures, nor is it holding entrance to war rooms for discussions of strategy and how to best conduct the inhumane. In fact, the hallway is just that, a passage from one ships end to the other. It is perhaps, the most mundane location in the entire galaxy.

There is a single window spanning ten paces wide outlooking intergalactic space. Lightyears away from this vision, there are a multitude of collections of planets and moons and societies unknown.

It may be seen that on one of these planets, lives a family of modest or immodest means. A large family of wealth and legacy with roots implanted so deep into the planets soil the rest would rot without them. This family may be grand and expectant. With their world conquered, they depend on fame, indeed destroying themselves in the process, blind to consequence. Valuing a single orchid held high above a garden in the peak of summertime, allowing the rest to wilt.

Or, another exists. One far simpler. Where the technology of something as dull as an automatic door is foreign and of the gods. The household may contain many small generations, each doting on the next. They dress not in ornate designs and beads and pearls, but the skin of wolves and bears. They disguise themselves in the snow, the sons and daughters of an eternal winter. Fame is no concern of theirs, they do not know the meaning.

It is possible both families exist, and indeed they do. Artists and hunters, the greedy and the altruist, the summer and winter. The former destroyed themselves and the latter were overtaken by an empire of shadow. Whoever they are now, they are no longer their ancestors. In all but face they are unrecognizable. One wanting love from the loveless. One craving legacy from the unknown.  

None of it ever mattered until now.

In Lumina’s younger years, the Machine rarely spoke of his past. It was to remain as much of a mystery as she. Time divided into two eras, the Before and the After. Before, was Anakin. The Republic, the Jedi, the hero with no fear. After, was Vader. The Empire, the Sith, the villain with no mercy. There was nothing the Machine hated more than the Before. Any reminder, be it clothing, artifact, or speech sent the Machine into a dizzying spiral of rage.

She could never be present during the episodes, ordered to her quarters and locked in until new day. Only then could the Machine destroy everything in his path, call troopers to be slaughtered, disappear into his chambers and tanks. When she would emerge, the palace of Mustafar remained unchanged—save for a few new lightsaber scorch marks—and business would resume as if nothing had happened at all. Under any and all circumstance, the Before was to never be acknowledged. This was the unspoken rule.

It was quite the silly rule. She had no knowledge of the Before save for what the Machine permitted her to know. She did not know of Anakin Skywalker until their fateful day on Naboo, and had not discovered the truth of the Machine’s identity for many years past the point. And even so, she did not care until the horrid introduction of the other Skywalker into her life.

She allowed Anakin to remain dead among the countless Jedi and the Republic. The Machine, did not.

The Machine was utterly obsessed with the past. The fall of the Jedi, the death of Anakin, the birth of the Empire. Personal lectures—though a rare occurrence—told her of the many many enemies the Machine held, systemic and personal. All entities having betrayed him in one form or another and thus fallen into an unforgivable eternal damnation.

She thought herself to be the only sentient worthy of what she knew to be his affection. His time, his care, the meticulous planning of her life. He created she without the postulation of her want. She always found this to be a merciful deed, to be granted life and reason by the highest of powers.

Now it is but another curse onto the House she knows not of.

She has and indeed had suspicion of the Machine and his intention of her. Spoken he said onto she, “You are of the only whom have not betrayed me.”

She thought the idea preposterous and the Machine more like God, she his closest angel. Betrayal could never be a thought possible, and for as long as she was his, it was not.

Lumina stares out the window into the endless space and countless worlds. She believed that there existed a realm which she belonged to. With a mother and father, a beautiful home on a beautiful planet with beautiful children.

She now knows it does not.

The issue is not in the discovery of whatever truth Gideon or the troopers or Doctor Pershing may believe. So say she is a clone, what is the difference now so many years into life? It would explain much. The recognitions, the abilities, the desire to know and unending  connection. She is yet again a second being, this is not new, it does not change her.

It does however, change him.

Vader, the Machine, her father, her Maker.

If she were as intentional to him as the morning star why had he insisted on her foul treatment? Why choose the other? Should a child of his blood be more valued than of his mind? He molded her from clay with careful hands and succeeded in the creation of life. Why then entrap her in temptation and darkness? Why then abandon her? How is she not a celebration? How can she not be guaranteed her fathers love when she did not ask to live?

He is meant to love her, that is his duty. His care should be her only guarantee from the universe. He could be evil to the rest, destroy any world he saw fit, call upon the dead star dragon of his nightmares so long as he loved her. So long as her father gave her his virtue, he could destroy man and she would forgive him.

He gave her nothing but infections of sin that she can never wash clean of. Nothing but endless terror and unrest. He stripped her of childhood and benevolence before she knew the word. If all he wanted was a child to replace what had been lost, why is she the victim?

What of whom she came from? The bearer of her makeup she should hope to know as a mother. Was her choosing intentional or was she too a casualty of the Force?

Had she been bright and good and smart and kind and clever and joyous? Did she know of her built reflection? Did she care? Was she a follower of the Machine or in worse fate a friend of Anakin? Would she regard Lumina as a daughter or a monster?

Lumina turns the mask in her hand, cracked from impact, supposing she is the latter. She adjusts the communication on a stolen radio, the frequency landing on a bypass channel.

“Block all entry way to the hangar for the Grand Inquisitor,” says Officer Kane.

So that’s where her dear so called sister hides, planning an escape no doubt. Lumina arrived to her private quarters, hopeful for a quick confrontation. Results were nil, though not useless. She retrieved her saber, pistol, and dagger, each safely tucked away.

“Should you see the girl, kill her.”

Lumina snorts at the instruction. Who did Kane believe to speak to? Her forces are all but dead if not by Lumina’s hand than the Mandalorian’s. Thinking they stand any chance against her is ridiculous. As a matter of fact, the whole situation is so ridiculous she forgets of her existentialism completely. Let them fear her and let her derive enjoyment. It should not matter anymore. At the end of her thoughts, Lumina laughs placing the mask over her face, not caring if she were the monster at all.

---

As the cell opens Din cannot help but remark a surprised muttering. The code cylinder placed in his pocket by Gideon’s guard, secure in the control panel had actually worked. Finding Cara Dune and Koska dazed inside the bridge had been its own debacle, neither remembering the specifics of their arrival. The explanation and trade of Gideon was brief, Din’s intentions misplaced. Distracted.

“Bo-Katan, Fennec, what happened?” His investigation quickly lost to a certain green and incredibly small sentient, waddling with sunbeam screams. 

The Child wastes no time, neither does Din but a Force induced jump across the room is quicker than either can walk. Grogu lands in the Mandalorians arms and babbles of nothing but delight. 

“Hey,” Din whispers. His voice breaks and he does not care to comment. “Hey, I missed you too.” He pulls away, inspecting every inch of green wrinkled and whiskered skin. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Grogu rattles his typical nonsense speech, expecting his father to catch every meaning. Din senses a fluttering inside himself, a rattling chain beginning to fall. “Good,” he says in agreement. “I’m glad you’re safe.“ He catches Fennecs stare. “We should talk.”

“We should,” she agrees. “However now may not be suitable. With this Inquisitor going rampant we’re running out of time.”

“The Inquisitor is the last our problems. Moff Gideon has a guard out on a murder spree.”

“The Inquisitor?”

“No. Someone else. I’ve faced the Inquisitor, this one is different. She’s trained the same like Jedi but… she’s stronger. Much stronger.” Exchanging looks, Fennec whispers an obvious fuck. “The Inquisitor she—when we fought she struggled. She was desperate, manic, uncontrolled. This one could have killed me in her sleep. She’s destroying the ship, the entire east wing of the second floor is demolished. Hyperdrives could be next, the engine, who knows.” 

“Why would she do that?” Din notes a strangeness in Fennec’s tone, less quizzical more concerned. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Bo asks. “She serves Moff Gideon. Abandon your hope.”

“Gideon wouldn’t instruct his own men to wreck his ship.”

“He would if knows he can’t leave this without a fight, never mind alive. If he’s certain he won’t survive, why allow the rest of us? This leaves us distracted while he escapes. Again. We should reroute to the hangar. With luck we’ll catch him, if we don’t we’ll make it out before she strips us dead.“

“We can’t leave,” Fennec argues. “We assured Boba we would bring Lumina no matter what.”

“Right now we don’t have a choice,” Bo says. “My priority is Gideon. I’ve gone too long without what is rightfully mine. I will have my victory.”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” Din interrupts. He presents Bo-Katan with the Darksaber, slipped off the loop of his belt. “I believe this is yours.”

Her intake is sharp, she flinches. “You defeated Moff Gideon?”

“I haven’t killed him, but yes. I have.” 

“Have you lost your mind?” Bo accuses, anger quick to rise. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I made it clear Gideon was mine. No one else was to engage.”

“He attacked me, what was I supposed to do?”

“Evade. Die. I don’t care. You were not meant to grab the Darksaber.”

“It’s just a sword.”

“It is not!” Bo snaps. “It is not, ‘just a sword’. It is a relic of a world—a people you know nothing of. It is the one thing that can unite Mandalorians once and for all. It is the sword that killed my only sister—” She cuts in a shaking sigh. “You are not worthy. You know nothing of leadership, unity.”   

“So take it.”

“I cannot take it,” Bo-Katan hisses. “The Darksaber must be won in combat just as you have done to Moff Gideon. It cannot be gifted.”

“Why?”

“Because it was once gifted to me! And tragedy fell onto Mandalore, the item is cursed. It lives somehow, it knows and has memory.”

“You don’t honestly believe that,” Din scoffs. “If we must fight then I yield. It is yours.” He displays the hilt, flat edge comfortably nestled in his palm. “Take it.”

“Where is Moff Gideon now?” 

“Detained at the bridge with Cara.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

Bo-Katan’s helmet weighs heavy with placement. She shoves past Din. “The burden is yours. Gideon is mine.”

---

The hangar of Moff Gideon’s light-cruiser sits still and lined with vehicle—TIEs, cargo transporters, and the sweet lambda class shuttle taken by the Mandalorian and his gang of misfits, lodged into the launch bay like a too big to swallow chunk of food.

There is one balcony, above the main entrance which stretches the wall, and crates of various weaponry and repair parts rest scattered along. Emergency lights coding evacuation flash red and a steady hummed buzzing signals as a siren.

Lumina walks into the soon to be arena, her arms stretched with warm invitation. “I know you’re here!” She shouts, modulation echoing. “You have no where to run. Gideon has been captured, your troopers are dead, your army is not present, and now they are known to the entire galaxy. I am here,” she says. “I stand alone.”

Her senses tune, movement coming from the balcony, mouse like footsteps. She does not move. “Perhaps I will kill Gideon myself,” she taunts. “I’ve taken a hand… what’s a head? Or, I could rip his tongue, strip him of speech. Better yet, I’ll make it so he forgets all about you. Then you will truly be no one. A forgotten bug that slipped extermination. Someone my father would kill before ever bestowing the title of Grand Inquisitor to. A true Sith would never hide from confrontation, she would initiate. Even a Jedi would not be so cowardice.”

In a swooping strike, Ghost leaps off the balcony. She dives on Lumina with a fiery ignited saber, screaming. The effort, while commendable, is a futile one. In an instant she is frozen in the air, muscle and bone locked. Lumina turns, her head tilted, right hand lazily raised to chest level.

“There you are.”

She takes three steps back, dropping her arm. With the loss of momentum, Ghost crashes onto the tile, her lightsaber skids away. “It’s such a shame Grand Admiral Thrawn remains lost. I would have listened to him.”

Her counterpart growls, rising. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lumina retracts the Inquisitor’s lightsaber, hilt soaring into her grip. Callous, she throws the weapon to Ghost’s feet, igniting her own. The thought had entered to finish it all now, before it began. But Ghost had spent so long and worked so hard for this very moment—and Lumina’s father had, of course, taught her manners—letting her try felt like the noble thing to do.

Ghost rushes Lumina head on, leaping into the air yet again.

Red blades clash, and the gates of hell open.

---

Bo-Katan enters the bridge with a storm of fire. Din and Fennec follow at a slower pace, the former holding the Child. Gideon is worse for wear, mutilation inflicted by Din spilling blood and making him blue. She growls, “You.”

“Lady Kryze,” Gideon greets. “How kind of you to join us.”

“You son of a—”

Cara steps in-between. “You can’t touch him,” she warns.

“Like hell I can. Do you have any idea what he’s done? To die by my hand is the least of what he deserves.”

“He is under New Republic custody. If you intervene with his arrest, I have the jurisdiction and duty to throw you into a cell next. Then you can yell at him all you want when you’re both in prison.”

Her brow quirks. “I’m only in trouble if you tell.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

“I never pictured a dropper to be a bootlicker too, thought it went against your M.O.”

“Keep talking and it’ll be my boot kicking your ass.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Trust me your highness, we can arrange that.”

“Knock it off,” Din interjects. “Both of you. Gideon holds no threat, he’s not the enemy anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” Cara scoffs. “You have any idea who is?”

“No.” He nods to Gideon. “But he might.”

“Me?” The Imperial questions, feigning innocence. “What would I possibly know?”

“You could start with telling us about this Inquisitor you have running rampant,” Fennec says. “And how we stop her.”

“Which one?”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Oh Ms. Shand, I would never think of it. I detest cuteness.”

“Half your ship is destroyed and you’re making jokes?” Din asks. “Your illusionist. Where is she?”

“Why should you care? You can’t stop what’s happening out there.”

“Answer the question.”

Gideon shrugs. “If she’s smart, she’s made a break for the hangar.”

“Check the cameras, I want her found.” Din instructs Koska. He hands the Child to Bo-Katan. “If anything happens, promise me you’ll watch over him.”

Her eyes flicker. “Why would I need to do that?”

“Just swear to me. Bound yourself by Creed.”

“What exactly do you plan to do?”

“I’m going to face her.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’ve done it before.”

“You hardly survived that,” Fennec says. “She’ll tear you apart.”

“This time is different. I know her tricks, and besides,” he pats the Darksaber on his hip, “I have this.”

“You have no idea how to use it.”

“I’ve used a sword before, it can’t be that different.”

“How many times must I tell you?” Bo hisses. “This is more than a sword, and you are unprepared for it.” 

“If it’s so important to you, when this is over you can teach me.”

“Let us find Lumina,” Fennec begs. “She is still somewhere aboard. If you insist on fighting, you’ll stand better chance to take her with you.”

“I can’t do that,” Din says. “I have to go alone.”

“I know you have your issues with her, given… everything. And I know you think you’re doing the brave thing here, but you’re not. What you are is being incredibly stupid.”

“Fennec, you don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t understand. The only person who can make certain you survive is her. She’s out there somewhere, I’m sure just as scared as you are. Let’s find her and then deal with the rest.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to snap out of this Mando. A week ago you were going to propose, you were adamant on it. No amount of dark magic can change how you feel that intensely. Find her.”

“I can’t,” he repeats, gritted. “Now drop it.”

“Why?”

“Because Lumina is dead,” Din snaps.

The bridge confronts ear shattering silence.

“She’s dead,” he says again, breath heavy. “She’s dead and it’s my fault. And that—that thing—” he points to the door “—out there pretended to be her.” His voice drops dangerously low. “I’m not asking permission. I didn’t kill Gideon, I’m taking her.”

“Mando,” Fennec says, soft. “I need you to listen to me. Lumina is alive. I promise you.”

“Stop lying to yourself,” Bo-Katan says, a perpetual tiredness in her voice. “Let her be dead, it’ll be easier for everyone this way.“

“You’re not serious?”

“I’ve said from the beginning that she should never exist. Look what’s come since. Now gods know what is happening outside these doors, but I don’t look to find out. No one is going anywhere and no one else is dying. We wait here until its resolved itself. I’m not having anyone risk their lives for a clone.”

Gideon’s lips peel off his teeth into a sharp smile. Like a snake, he hisses with venom, “You know. How?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Why haven’t you told Din Djarin the truth? He’ll find out sooner than later.”

To Cara, Bo asks, “Isn’t there a way to shut him up?”

Din interrupts, “Tell me what?”

“Nothing,” Bo says.

“Tell him, Lady Kryze,” Gideon taunts. “Tell your Mand’alor who he should really fear.”

“Quiet!’ Bo snaps. “Everyone be quiet.”

And they are.

For a total of ten seconds.

“I hate to interrupt this truly thrilling interaction,” Koska says. She moves to the main computer terminal in the rooms center. “But you all should see this.”

A blue holoprojection appears of a live CC capture recording of the cruiser’s hangar. The footage is grainy, but the intention clear. Chaos has erupted. TIES on the ground, equipment thrown out of boxes. Two masked figures leaping across the room, lightsabers crashing.

---

The heat of battle bears witness to many inescapable truths which linger the galaxy. While the girl may hold five of importance, the phantom carries seven. The first of which being that no amount of gluttony for darkness can equalize eighteen years of intensive training compared to thirteen lackluster ones.

While Ghost is skilled in her saber, she is not wise. Her strikes are chaotic and imprecise with aim only to mutilate and maul. She has no study of those before her, no detailed holos of the fallen Republic, no artifacts of taste.

Her use of the dual ended lightsaber, a standard of the Inquisitor, is amateur at best. Her fight lousy. Lumina plays her like a game, standing still while the other bounces to strike. She side steps once, dodges with an uncommitted turn.

She may even yawn.

The fact of the matter is Ghost is not Sith, and perhaps may never be. She is only angry.

It isn’t good enough.

She had grown to believe a truce of sisterhood, concept forced upon by the highers. Those of their breeding, being so limited and so desired, were meant to forge bonds. In fighting would only cause downfall and any alleviation of the matter was best implemented at indoctrination. For so long, years of her childhoods lost innocence she believed a foe so close could never form. She’d see betrayal eons away. But she’d grown lazy and complacent, figuring coincidences as nothing more. And still, some part of her believes she’s capable of the upper hand, of surprising the enemy.

Even now, she’s yet to learn.

Ghost would have made a decent apprentice to the Machine, Lumina figures. The Inquisitor chases her around the hangar, striking at every opening she sees. She’s slow, but in time realizes a need for something more in their spat. A driver greater than to simply kill.

A reason.

Despite her own denial, Ghost does care. It is the root of her downfall, her caring. Not of love or kindness or joy, but for the seduction of the dark. The story loops on itself at every intersection of her life. Her determination is strong but ill placed. Her presentation to the darkness, the idea of the Machine, the figment of his Maker, holds no self respect. She’s given everything for little return and continues to beg for mercy.

Lumina can’t focus on this for too long.

She can’t afford to give pity.

Both to Lumina’s relief and reluctance, Ghost would never accept the condolence. She finds it an accomplishment, and the former cannot fault her. She had believed the same once not so long ago. Should Lumina sit with her thoughts for too long, she’d believe it again as if nothing changed. They each carry pride, it’s sickening and feeds on insecurity. It grows in every victory. Lumina is only now learning to starve. Ghost continues to indulge.

The event grows precarious on the scale of victory. As more destruction rains, the Inquisitor wants something greater than a kill. She wants proof of power, the identifier of title. She craves to be holder of the story Lumina never wanted. Should she succeed, she will take the place of the unworthy. She will rewrite history. She will become it.

This is all of course, impossible.

She cannot win, not now.

The writings were never meant to be this way.

She is not the child of greed, nor the child of that child. Sin runs deep but it is not her bloodline. She is not the daughter of evil’s face nor its desire.

CF-313 is the daughter of the easily slain and holds no inheritance. She is the product of a man, his wife, and neighboring tribes. She has not a notice of death or birth. She never bore thought to all who came before, they have always been reminders of human fragility. Her existence is not the outcome of fate. Her collection was not due to a balancing force, reparations or twisted promises. Her keeper did not gaze upon her and see a protégé or an object of desire. Only a child.

Her life, the anomaly and blackhole portal it is, is defined by this exquisite lack of third party interest. Every action is taken to capture allure and yet she is given no more than passive acknowledgment.

CF-313 has not always been this way. There had been a point long long ago where she lived with compassion and grace. A life where her mother would make a doll out of straw and hide. She would care for livestock, join her father on hunt, build angels in the snow. Her legs no longer than her torso ran through fresh powder and mittened hands pulled hats tight. 

Her entry into Project Harvester occurred later than most, well past nursing age. The day coming after she completed three and a half standard rotations.

Her blue sky became shadowed with capital ships entering orbit, machines then thought of as monsters of folklore descending from the sky. Her father and his father sprinted outside with spears and shouts and never returned. Clones, those spared from the Empire’s forced retirement, stormed her home. Her grandmother tried to protect their hut. Her mother tried to protect her.

In truth they never had a chance.

There was blood upon the snow, seeping onto her covered feet.

Drifa, as she had then been known, suddenly was alone. She would remain alone forever.

The polysemy of her new name is insulting. She is see through, translucent. The falsified images she spent a lifetime perfecting are nothing more than an artificial phantom. She is an all encompassing ghost and reminder of death. 

The past six years of her exile have seen nothing but a dedication to perfection. Her strength, her determination, her power. She is an undefeated duelist, a remarkable strategist, and a legendary illusionist. In another life she would have made a great Jedi, in this life she makes a greater Sith apprentice. 

She is among the best there has ever been, displaced only by the idols of her worship. In present, her status is threatened by a fixed obsession. A calculated reunion thirteen years in the making. A nonhuman test tube creation given a seat at the table while she fed at scraps. And this… abomination, this creature, it is the true cause of her misery. 

Ghost herself is a creature of habit, she is human, it is natural. She has grown many many habits over the course of her lifetime. Habits of hate, greed, pride, intolerance, envy. 

Hatred for those who learned quicker. Greed for extra rations, attention. Pride when others would be sent into solitary, terminated. Intolerance for the aliens whose inhuman abilities aid in combat. Envy dedicated to the runt of their litter. A girl her opposite. By far the youngest of their class, smallest by correlation. A girl who ran laps on obstacle courses, snuck off in the midnight hours for private tutoring, who could lift blocks with her mind before knowing how to tie her shoes. Envy for a girl who was—and in fact grew up to be— inconceivably perfect. Who honestly and carelessly believed Ghost could have any positive intention for her wellbeing.

There are two lessons the children of Project Harvester are taught in the beginning of their indoctrination:

Treachery is the way of the Sith, and everything, especially stars, can die.

And this star, this burst light will die.

It is the retribution she is owed.

---

“I want to give you a chance,” Lumina says. Ill timed maybe, but she’s only learning. Five yards separate their bodies, Ghost’s more ravaged than her own. “We both know we’re wasting energy. You know how this will end.”

“Yes,” the other agrees. “It ends with your heart in my hands.”

“ Ghost,” Lumina stresses. “You’re weak. You’re being eaten alive. It’s hell. I know it’s hell. Everything you feel. Every fire inside, I know it. I feel it the same, I feel it stronger than you ever will. It’s never going to stop Ghost. You’re going to live every day wishing it was your last and you’ll never do anything about it because deep down you like it. And it’ll only get worse. And everything you think you want won’t matter. Power, the Empire, becoming whatever it is you’re trying to be. It won’t matter. You won’t care.”

“You’re wrong. Everything has been handed to you. Killing you will prove I have earned everything you have. I deserve what you own.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s not worth finding out,” Lumina says. “Listen to me. I was given a chance. A choice. To change, to leave what we know behind.” She steps forward. “A Jedi showed me compassion even after all I had done. I begged her to kill me and she did not. Now, I am this. This is not what you want.”

“You’re proposing to show me mercy?” Ghost mocks. “How touching.”

“No. You won’t change, I know that. You will continue to fight until you can’t recognize your own madness. I’m offering you what I was denied. An easy escape. My father knew the only way he could have peace was in death. He denied it until he couldn’t. I continue to be denied it. You want to be better? Accept it. Leave with dignity knowing it was by your own control.”

“You’re right,” Ghost says, stoic. “I don’t care for the Empire. I’m going to create a new order. The first of its kind.” Out of the corner of Lumina’s vision a steel crate rises in the air. It’s contents spill with the power of the Force and spew in Lumina’s direction. A TIE exhaust pipe beats her chest, slamming her to the wall. Every word Ghost says is punctuated in wrath. “And abominations like you will never exist again.”

---

Lumina stays pinned behind a pillar, catching her breath. Ghost is relentless, an unshakable force. A speeder engine flies and crashes at the wall against her head. She can hear the Inquisitor’s taunts from across the way.

Don’t get scared now, we’ve only just started!

I thought you wanted a fight!

And the worst: Is this all Vader could raise?

Needless to say, Lumina is getting seriously pissed off. But she can’t move when the ships entire storage is getting blasted for her own decapitation. Especially not with her saber caught under Ghost’s regulation shined boot.

So much for an easy match.

Shit.

“C’mon dad,” Lumina whispers. “Give me a sign here.”

To her surprise, he does. Her skin prickles in anticipation, fleeting vision captured on a control panel.

That works.

She breaks for it, sprinting and prying the box open with her knife. It’s a mess of wires twisting over and around another, plugged into nonspecific outlets. She tears a glove off with her teeth and, with only minimal regret, plunges her hand inside the electrics.

---

Throughout the heat of battle the Mandalorian holds his breath. He watches the live holocast with such an intensity and such a grip to the rim of the central terminal, were he any kind of superhuman it would snap. Their grouping, whatever they may be called, remains silent. Moff Gideon himself does not dare to speak, his jaw locked. The Child sits alone. Fennec averts her attention whenever possible while Bo-Katan is as glued as he is.

Maybe more.

Of course there is no time to wonder, nor is there necessarily a want—Din has already come so far in his life shrouded in mystery (and it was only until they began to be uncovered did the downward spiral begin), he could go longer without complaint—but the mechanics of the ships bridge enter a freak seizure of a sort. All systems flash uncontrolled in and out of power. The holo, cuts. They end in darkness.

Arguments ensue, as is to be expected. Cara announces a shut down of the ships mechanics, Koska struggles to find and activate the backup generator.

Gideon enjoys the chaos far too greatly.

When the ship powers on not a minute later Koska announces, “We’re back online. Everything looks standard. Hyperdrive, engines, boosters, landing gear. All operational.”

“What about the hangar?” Din asks. “Get the holo back up.”

“I’m trying. I can’t get a hold of cameras and read outs suggest a total blackout.”

“Can’t you reboot the system again?” Fennec asks.

“I could if there was anything to reboot. It’s more than the connection being down, the connection doesn’t exist. It’s as if the electrics were totally removed.”

“How can that happen?”

“It can’t. Not that fast. Whatever happened must have damaged the central generator there, making it blow out.”

“So that’s it? Those two things are just…” Cara waves out. “And we have no idea where they are or what they’re doing?”

“Looks like it.”

“Great. So what now? Sit here until they get bored of each other and come for us?”

“Right now? Yeah. That’s our best option.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Will everyone calm down?” Bo interjects. “As of now there is no threat to us. We continue what we have been doing and stay here. Live feed or not, they’re out for each other, not us. All other cameras are operational. If either of them emerges we will know. If none come out within a suitable amount of time we assume they’ve left or better yet are dead. Only then do we exit. Is that clear?”

No one answers, but Koska does swear, hurrying about the controls. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. No!”

“What is it?”

“The reset? Looks like it reset everything.”

“Meaning?”

“The Dark Troopers are beginning activation.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to cancel the start up but nothing’s working.” Attention snaps to Gideon. “How do you turn these off?”

He says, “You can’t.”

“Bantha,” Koska counters. “Every good program has a kill. If you don’t want a blaster beam in your head, I suggest you tell me.”

“You can’t touch him—” Cara attempts.

“Prison won’t matter if those droids kill us. What’s the off?”

“There is none,” Moff Gideon says. “The Dark Troopers are only activated when absolutely necessary. They are the last resort. And by now… they’ve sensed the distress signal coming from my suit. They will not stop. All of you are in grave danger and will die. And there is nothing, and certainly no one, that can stop it.”

“Bo, what do we do?” Koska asks. “It’s your call.”

“I—” she hesitates, “We should…”

“Bo?”

“I’m thinking,” she says. “Give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute,” Fennec argues. “We have now. Right now. Either you have a plan or you don’t. The call is yours. What do we do?”

“…I don’t know.”

Din takes the Child, who begins his nonsense speech, in his arms. “We do nothing,” he says. “We stay here. We wait. We fight if we have to.”

“We fight we die,” Koska says. “There’s no way out of this.”

“What do you think?” He asks Grogu, quiet. “Think we’ll make it?”

His babbled response comes with a nodding head.

And for some inexplainable reason, Din believes it.

“See? We’ll be fine.”

---

In the future Lumina plans on actually learning whatever the hell is going on with her abilities. For now, knowing she is in fact not dying will do the job. After her unintentional light-show, the power ultimately decided not to stay on, submitting them to both a figurative and literal darkness.

Begrudgingly, Lumina slides her glove back on. Negative, she has no idea what to do now. Positive, Ghost either ran out of projectiles or is just as confused. She can work with that.

Probably.

She hears, you little freak, before the disturbing power up of a saber and sees the hues of red light. Lumina sinks to the floor, crawling to another cover. Mentally, she chastises herself. She’s being careless, reckless. She’s not thinking. Not like how she should be. Years, decades of excruciatingly detailed combat training thrown out window and into hyperspace.

She wasn’t trained for this. The pseudo torture sessions and body breaking workouts never included anything close to the current situation. Too much is happening. She’s distracted, overly anxious, it’s affecting her call to the Force. She takes off her mask, head resting on her knees.

What would the Machine do?

Kill everyone on board then himself. Not exactly helpful… Ahsoka, she’s sure, would step out with some gods awful speech about forgiveness and love. Hard pass. The Mandalorian, despite his streak of bad luck, would never be in this position in the first place, and Boba…

Boba.

With expert speed, Lumina unwraps the fabric from her arm and ties the red cloth tight over her eyes. Her hand runs across the ground, senses tracking footsteps. Ghost is thirty feet away, her lightsaber with both blades ignited. She walks in a clockwise circle, ten feet in diameter.

Vibroblade close to her chest, Lumina sneaks along the space crouched. She climbs over tipped storage and thrown gear. Her movement like a snake, hurried and precise with one prey in mind. She’s faster than she’s ever been, trusting her enhancements to guide the way.

Ghost shouts for her, voice covered in gravel. “You can’t hide forever! I will find you! I will always find you!” Her statements sound more like a promise than a mere threat.

Lumina thinks, selfishly; Good.

In a single bound Lumina leaps the remaining distance between them. She clears the top of Ghost’s lightsaber, movements tracked only by the faint blue light of her dagger. She slashes the Inquisitor’s back, shoulder, and plummets the blade into her side. Ghost cries out in searing agony but cuts are no match adrenaline and the dark side. Lumina jumps in front and cuts across Ghost’s stomach, impact signaled a warmth of blood sliding down the knife.

Lumina then swings around right as Ghost’s saber whizzes to her location. She kicks the Inquisitor in the back of her legs, bringing her to her knees. Her leg kicks out, slamming against her spine. Ghost’s lightsaber drops and powers off, leaving the two in pure black air.

The fight carries to the floor in an utterly barbaric way. They punch and kick, grabbing hair and throats. Lumina gains the upper hand and straddles Ghost. She rips off the Inquisitor’s mask and uses the disguise as a weapon, smashing it against her face.

In that moment Ghost becomes more than an Inquisitor, more than a thought to be friend, more than what Lumina had seen in her ever since their reunion—a victim just as she is, a mess of delusions and aspirations. In Lumina’s blinded vision, Ghost becomes everything she hates. Arkanis for her lost childhood, Neri Kelli and Relena for their claimed ownership of her, the Empire for the rules of her beliefs, the Emperor for the scars on her back, Skywalker for taking the love she deserves.

Herself.

For everything.

Lumina’s attacks turn sloppy, weak. The wrapping around her eyes slides down her face, she struggles to adjust to the enveloping ink. Ghost’s mask is thrown aside, she crawls off the Imperial’s torso, gagging.

Damn this, she thought it would be over.

Why isn’t it over?

Sounds grow muffled, Lumina’s heart pounding in her head. The dark shadow of her torment comes through stronger than ever. He isn’t satisfied in guiding her motions or tempting her thoughts. The devil wants to devour. On her knees Lumina bends to rest her head on the cool floor. She screams until her throat breaks raw. She stands on shaking limbs, wiping her face to clear sweat and smear blood.

Ghost stays on the floor, moved some feet away from where Lumina left her. The second marches on, grip in the Force controlling the first to kneel.

“You can’t kill me,” Ghost gasps, desperate. “Remember, darkness dominates our destiny. You’re still Sith in your blood whether you like it or not. I feel your hatred. Your anger, it blooms. If you kill me now, you give in to everything you tried to escape. But if you let me live, you prove you’re nothing but a Jedi. Weak to your emotions, your compassion, your love. Face it, no matter how this falls, I win.”

Ghost’s lightsaber shoots into Lumina’s hand, she breaks it in half. “Let’s clear some things up,” she says. “First, I am the child of the Lord Vader. Not Skywalker, not some princess, not you. Me. Second, you will never compare to me.” Twin blades cross at Ghost’s throat, each hovering above opposite shoulders. “Third,” she breathes. “I am not a fucking Jedi.” The blades snap together, cutting the trachea of the Inquisitor with horrifying care.

And…

And nothing happens.

No head rolls on the floor, no profuse bleeding, no murdered and murderer staring beyond the realm of the living as had occurred with Anakin Skywalker and Count Dooku.

None of it happens.

Ghost continues to stare up at Lumina with large ice blue eyes and a never-ending eldritch grin. Her presence fades away, never having existed at all.

Across the arena, the engine of the Mandalorian’s lambda class shuttle powers on, energy boosts blasting flaming heat. Lumina rushes across the bay, her hand grasping the invisible air. The ship struggles to rise, rattling in the launch tube. Her feet step back and dig into the ground.

A surge of energy floods her body, shocking every active nerve ending. She mutters, what the hell? And connects to the Force and the circuits of the ship. She finds the holding bay of the Dark Troopers, leaving their charging stations.

The choices are clear. Bring back the lambda and Ghost, waste more time on another battle, and inevitably win. In turn, lose the Mandalorian, the Child, and everyone else to the Dark Troopers and Gideon.

Or… not.

There is really, only one choice.

Lumina lets go.

---

Were there a word to define the blaring silence within the light cruiser’s bridge, a new word would still need creation for the description of it in tenfold. No body moves but Gideon’s, lungs heavy in his unconscious state—a new development of circumstance and built anger from Bo-Katan.

They all watch with baited breath as one figure emerges from the hangar, face covered, hooded cloak flowing behind. One by one Dark Troopers are destroyed. Sliced and punctured by a lightsaber, crushed by the Force. The figure doesn’t stop or take pause to commit, they continue without thought. Like they themselves were a mindless droid working on another’s command.

The last of the troopers she takes with passive attention, the final having sparks fly from an imploded chest cavity.

She stops at the door. 

They all suspect, in deep naivety, the destroyer will believe life does not exist inside the bridge and spare their lives. Each watches the monitors scattered, their plan may work after all. The assailant does not attempt entry, a feat entirely possible despite the sealed blast doors. Instead, she takes pause, turns her weapon off, and walks away.

Grogu whines from his new seat adjacent from the monitor overlooking the hall. He reaches out, ears drooping.

Now, despite a many recent occurrences which prove otherwise, Din considers himself to be a smart man. He is logical, perceptive, objective, and when need be totally impassive and controlled. He understands what needs to be done and why, he understands their consequence and impacts. He is the last to argue when it comes to doing something right, he knows his role, the part he has perfected.

For the longest time, he could swear his knowledge of the Mandalorian Creed to his soul. The tenants of his faith, the obstructions placed upon with no doubt or argument. And Din Djarin is a Mandalorian, one should have no doubt of it. Beskar molds to his body so close it the metal carries in his blood. His existence without the Creed is nil, he is nothing.

He believes this, gods he doesn’t believe much at all but he believes the value of his spirit lays in beskar. He carries his missteps everyday since they have been committed. He remembers the rain, the feelings of droplets on his face, the chill of a passing smoky wind. When he is alone with his thoughts he remembers the sensation of a warm touch. First on Canto, a light exploratory dance. Then his ship in a desperate clash. How he tempted revelation on Arkanis, Naboo, Daro, Corvus, hyperspace where worlds to not yet exist, in the dark where he can forget they do. He feeds the urge like a drug, he can’t stop.

He knows nothing. Not anymore.

The headaches, the migraines, they turn into an itch. A rash. He burns. His head, his chest, his hands, his lungs. Something awful has taken over, this unwanted desire to finally know again. To seek and be sought, to regain peace and yet chase it forever. To leave and never come back, to stay and never think of leaving. To discover and remain lost. Alive in his grave, dead above the soil.

The Child whines again.

“Open the doors.”

“Are you crazy?” Cara asks.

“I said open the doors.” He approaches the controls, blocked by Bo-Katan. “Move.”

“Let go,” she says. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“I don’t care. Open the doors or get out of my way.”

“You’ll thank me for this. We can find help, get you fixed. But you can’t go out there.”

“I don’t want that.”

“You don’t know what you want, you can’t think straight.”

“Let him go,” Fennec says. “He’d find out eventually. Let them have this.”

Bo’s eyes dart between them, a settling sigh. “Okay,” she whispers. “Okay. Have it your way, Mand’alor.”

What remains of the light cruiser is a haunted mansion, phantoms creaking the floor, guiding Din’s feet to be blamed for the noise. He follows the trail of remaining Dark Trooper parts, overstepping detached light receptors and ion charging ports. He’s near to slide in spilt blood, broken glass.

The pathway ends in a corridor. Completely untouched by war it becomes a place of low modesty and high desire. It is safe. It is peaceful. It is remarkable.

A window spanning ten paces wide outlooks intergalactic space and all its glory. All its truths and lies and stars and moons and suns. Where lightyears away families live and thrive and die because of dictations from powers greater than any man can conceive.

Because that is how the story goes. Life and death. Light and dark. Creation and destruction. The sun, the moon, and their stars. They are all as inevitable as the meeting of dawn and dusk, even if requiring patience and time.

The window is beautiful.

The current effect of his desires, the other, the unknown, her, she stands across the way growing their separation in every step. She doesn’t listen to his pleads to hear, to wait.

“Thank you!” Din calls, a last resort.

She stops.

“I want to thank you. And… not just for saving us but—you held no reason to protect me, to disobey your order. Yet you did. I am indebted to you.”

“You are not,” she responds, quick and modulated.

“I am. I want to be. You saved my son, in my culture it is the highest honor.”

“I don’t care. Leave.”

“Moff Gideon is alive and in our custody. He will be turned over to the New Republic to face trial. I know you battled one of your kind, the one who stole my son and… Where is she?”

“She escaped,” the woman says, hollow. “I could not defeat her.”

“In any case, I give you my word none will speak of you. Gideon will not speak of you. You’ll be free to leave this behind.” He steps forward.

“Don’t,” she warns.

His fist raises over his heart. “Vor entye. If there is any way I can repay my gratitude for your service. I beg you to place it upon me.”

A sharp flighty gasp illicits from the other, shoulders shaking.

“You’re injured,” Din says.

“I’m fine.”

“Let me help you.”

“No need. It will pass.”

He steps again. “Please. The Child possess abilities to heal—” another step, “—it would only take a moment.”

“Mandalorian,” she snaps. The rest clicks in place. “Leave. Now. Please, just leave. Let me be.”

“I can’t do that.”

She turns. “Why?”

Another step.

“You know why,” he whispers. 

“Mandalorian—”

“Don’t do that. You can’t start doing that again. Not now.”

She’s silent. He steps again.

And again.

And again and again until they are met five paces in the middle.

The Child coos.

With careful hands, the Mandalorian reaches forward. He hooks two fingers on either side of the mask, and lifts. The vision is rare yet golden and dulled. Tanned skin, pouted lips, gray eyes. Hair far shorter than last known, dark circles set deep, a growing bruise on the apple of her cheek.

Din takes hold of the zipper at the top of her collar, slow to drag it down to the center of her chest before exposure. He pulls down the cloth of her right shoulder, revealing a lightning tree of white scars. He redresses her without a word.

They stare. The light above flickers.

“How do you do that?” Din asks, looking up.

Lumina says, “I don’t know.”

He looks down again, nodding. “This whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re… what exactly?”

She shrugs, half hearted. “Good question. I’m not sure.”

“Were you ever gonna tell me?”

“What part?”

He shrugs. “Any of it?”

“Yeah,” she answers, soft. Her eyes grow wet, a slow seeping flood. “Yeah. Before.”

The Child reaches for her, not letting up until he’s pet.

“Grogu’s known of this for a long time now. Since we met really.”

“The hangar?”

“The cantina,” Lumina corrects. “The only reason you were able to win was because he walked in. We sensed another. No matter how I hid, he always knew. I started training him after Ryndellia. Don’t worry, he won’t be anything like me.” He wraps his hand around her finger, shaking. “You have a very special kid,” she mumbles. “I’m so glad to have known him. He’ll grow up to be wonderful, I just know it.” She sniffles, shaking her head. “Now… I want you to remember what I said,” she tells the Child, caressing his face. “Do as you’re told, don’t give your dad too much trouble okay? I need you to be strong and brave and sweet. And know that—that I…” She stops, nodding with pursed lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “And I love you. I love you so much Bug. And I hope you never forgive me.”

Grogu responds in the only he knows how, a forward lean, his forehead against hers.

Seeming to say, I love you too.

Love, as Din Djarin decided what now feels like eons ago, comes in ten stages until admittance. Realization of the lack of knowledge of the ever changing galaxy, realization that knowledge will never come, and the acceptance of it. This comes a second time in seeing Lumina. The migraine, the pull of something greater than him, the anger, the hate, it disappears from inside. The glass case shatters and vulnerability escapes.

He should find comfort in helplessness. To know without knowing. And he does. He did then, he does now. It’s macabre and unnecessary and something he’s sure to regret. He wants to give into the growing warmth. He wants warmth again.

Lumina and Grogu pull from another, a tear runs down her cheek which she is quick to wipe away. Her cheeks puff up and blows air out, shaking her head. She’s broken and upset and fragile and bruised and beaten and a liar and angry and hateful and… and kind. And smart. And thoughtful and sweet and selfless and gray and beautiful. Still. Somehow.

He’ll never forget the sight.

The worst already passed, what else could come?

He could humiliate himself, take the opportunity. Take her in his arms. Say he does or doesn’t forgive her. Say he wants to try again, he wants to keep trying. Make new promises, wreck old ones. Tell her everything, make her tell him everything. Forget the betrayal, remember it until scars run so deep they never recover.

He can make sacrifices. Stars know he’s made plenty already. He—she, they are built from it. He’s done it before. He can do it again. He knows this. He wants this.

He shouldn’t.

The last step in his all conclusive deciphering of love is the most obvious. Doing it. Saying it. Telling her, telling himself. Easier in theory. Easier without history or baggage or arrogance. Three little words. Four if he adds her name.

He can’t.

Instead Din asks, “So, what now?”

Lumina answers, “Whatever you want.”

---

Decisions are made quickly with as much rational as they can all muster. Cara agreed to Din’s promise of conveniently leaving Lumina out of any reports. The issue of Gideon is handled by Lumina herself. Din can’t say what exactly she did, placing her hand on his head, meditating. She assured Cara he would remain alive, and he did. No one else asked questions.

Cara would wait aboard with Bo-Katan and Koska—not so proud owners of the almost defunct ship—until the New Republic forces arrive. In the mean time, Fennec took to the laboratory, holding cell, and what Lumina claimed to be her private quarters, destroying everything inside. Din completed the majority of the efforts in Doctor Pershing’s lab in his battle with Gideon.

 During this, Lumina stays with Din and the Child. No words are exchanged, though Din can’t be sure if she and Grogu speak on some subconscious Jedi level. Or, not Jedi level. Either way, there’s no physical contact involving her. She goes as far as to offer placing herself in binders to ease Din’s anxiety.

He denied this request. Comfort would make itself a foreign friend sooner or later, no use in prolonging the inevitable.

Now, after all is said and done, five wait in the ruined hangar, waiting for Boba Fett. Koska discovered an old generator and made quick work of rewiring the energy source.

Personally, Din preferred the dark. He could ignore the blood on the floor this way, and her. The scorch marks on the wall, the tattered and thrown goods and debris.

He can’t help selfishness. He may deserve it after all this time.

Lumina leans against Fennec, now acting as a separation between them. They try to play coy to her weakness, but Fennec has to keep her upright with one hand on her arm and another on her waist. Lumina doesn’t help her case either, wobbling and dizzy.

Bo steps besides Fennec, hands to herself but gaze always cautious.

“It’s a small fucking galaxy,” Bo mutters. Probably to Fennec. Usually to Fennec, but Din couldn’t agree more.

“Have a plan yet?” Fennec asks.

“Not one.”

“Well, if you think of it. You know where to find us.”

“Sure.”

Lumina’s head drops on Fennec’s shoulder, her eyes shut.

“Are you going to tell her?” Bo asks.

“It’s not my place.”

“But you want to.”

“It’s her right. She’ll never find out on her own, you know.”

“I know. Just… keep it that way.”

“For how long?”

“Until you can’t.”

On Boba Fett’s arrival, Lumina falls into him. She becomes boneless. He cradles her like an infant, whispering nothings into the top of her head. He looks to Bo-Katan. They share a nod, silent yet speaking over a thousand words no one quite seems to understand. A thank you. A debt owed is now paid. A debt paid is now owed. It doesn’t really matter. Taking her aboard, Din watches them fade into shadow.

Fennec steps onto the plank next, rifle swung over her shoulder. Pausing at the ships entrance she turns on her heel, looking at Din. Stretching her hand out, she asks:

“Are you coming?”

---

Translations:

Vor entye - Thank you (lit. I accept a debt)

---

CHAPTER 37: Where it Began

TAGLIST: Taglist: @lexloon​ @jay-bel​ @xsadderdazeforeverx​ @spideysimpossiblegirl​ @sarahjkl82-blog​ @annoyinglythoughtfuldestiny​ @hello-th3r3​

[paleodictyoptera]

I want linoleum harvest to be a meme

[barriebasementreno]

Eco-Friendly Kitchen Renovation: Sustainable Choices for Your Home

Renovating your kitchen is a fantastic opportunity to not only refresh your space but also to make it more sustainable. An eco-friendly kitchen renovation involves selecting materials, appliances, and practices that minimize environmental impact and promote energy efficiency. Here’s how you can make sustainable choices for your kitchen renovation and contribute to a greener future while enhancing the functionality and style of your home.

1. Sustainable Materials

a. Eco-Friendly Countertops

Recycled Materials: Consider countertops made from recycled materials such as glass, concrete, or paper. These options often have unique designs and contribute to waste reduction.

Bamboo: Bamboo is a rapidly renewable resource and a durable choice for countertops. It’s also available in a variety of styles and finishes.

b. Sustainable Cabinets

Certified Wood: Choose cabinets made from wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). This certification ensures that the wood is sourced sustainably and responsibly.

Reclaimed Wood: Reclaimed wood from old barns, factories, or other structures can be repurposed for cabinetry, adding character and reducing the demand for new timber.

c. Environmentally Friendly Flooring

Cork: Cork is a renewable resource harvested from the bark of cork oak trees. It’s comfortable underfoot, naturally resistant to mold and mildew, and has excellent insulation properties.

Linoleum: Made from natural materials like linseed oil, cork dust, and wood flour, linoleum is a biodegradable and durable flooring option.

2. Energy-Efficient Appliances

a. Energy Star Ratings

Refrigerators and Dishwashers: Look for Energy Star-rated appliances, which are designed to use less energy and water compared to standard models. These appliances can significantly reduce your utility bills.

Ovens and Cooktops: Choose energy-efficient ovens and cooktops that use less energy to achieve the same results. Induction cooktops, for example, heat up quickly and use less energy than traditional electric or gas stoves.

b. Smart Technology

Smart Appliances: Consider appliances with smart technology that allows you to monitor and control their energy use remotely. This can help you optimize their performance and reduce energy waste.

Water-Saving Features: Install faucets and dishwashers with water-saving features, such as aerators and low-flow settings, to reduce water consumption in your kitchen.

3. Efficient Lighting

a. LED Lighting

Bright and Energy-Efficient: Replace traditional incandescent bulbs with LED lighting. LEDs use up to 75% less energy and have a longer lifespan, making them a cost-effective and eco-friendly choice.

Dimmer Switches: Install dimmer switches to adjust the lighting intensity based on your needs. This can further reduce energy use and create a more versatile lighting environment.

b. Natural Light

Skylights and Windows: Incorporate skylights or additional windows to maximize natural light in your kitchen. Natural light reduces the need for artificial lighting during the day and creates a bright, inviting space.

Light-Reflecting Surfaces: Use light-colored and reflective surfaces for countertops and walls to enhance the natural light and make your kitchen feel more open and airy.

4. Water Conservation

a. Low-Flow Fixtures

Faucets and Showers: Install low-flow faucets and showerheads to reduce water usage without sacrificing performance. These fixtures can cut your water consumption by up to 50%.

Dual-Flush Toilets: If your kitchen has a restroom, consider a dual-flush toilet that allows you to choose between a full flush and a reduced flush, conserving water.

b. Efficient Dishwashing

Dishwasher Use: Use your dishwasher only when it’s full to maximize efficiency and save water. Modern dishwashers are designed to use less water than washing dishes by hand.

Eco-Friendly Detergents: Choose environmentally friendly dishwashing detergents that are free of harsh chemicals and biodegradable.

5. Waste Reduction

a. Recycling and Composting

Recycling Stations: Set up designated areas for recycling in your kitchen to make it easy to separate and dispose of recyclable materials.

Composting: Start a composting system for food scraps and organic waste. Composting reduces landfill waste and provides nutrient-rich material for gardening.

b. Minimal Waste Design

Modular Designs: Opt for modular cabinetry and fixtures that can be easily updated or replaced without a complete renovation, reducing waste over time.

Durable Materials: Choose high-quality, durable materials that are built to last and resist wear and tear. This reduces the need for frequent replacements and minimizes waste.

6. Green Renovation Practices

a. Responsible Disposal

Recycling Construction Waste: Ensure that any construction waste from your renovation is recycled or properly disposed of. Many materials, such as metals, wood, and glass, can be recycled.

Eco-Friendly Paints and Finishes: Use paints and finishes that are low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to improve indoor air quality and reduce environmental impact.

b. Hiring Green Contractors

Certified Professionals: Work with contractors who have experience in eco-friendly renovations and are familiar with sustainable practices. Look for certifications such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) to ensure their commitment to green building standards.

7. Conclusion: Creating a Sustainable Kitchen

An eco-friendly kitchen renovation is a rewarding investment that benefits both the environment and your home’s value. By choosing sustainable materials, energy-efficient appliances, and green renovation practices, you can create a stylish and functional kitchen that aligns with your commitment to environmental responsibility.

Embrace these sustainable choices to enhance your kitchen and make a positive impact on the planet. A well-executed eco-friendly renovation not only improves your home’s efficiency but also sets an example for a greener lifestyle.

[bobelblogger]

Premature Writing Up For Grabs

Futareich 1,2,3 Continuation

Elizabeth Albright felt a kick in her bulging belly as she sat in a Maternal Ward in Esden, about to be seen by a specialist, her status as baby breeder first class included full coverage of medicine and childcare, rights to own property and provisions for offspring, not so long ago she was a Colonel in the Albion Army of the Alliance, turned coat and willingly bred by the master sex, her ripened peach was bursting with seed.

The tap of heeled shoes on linoleum rhythmically was soothing as it stopped just short of her sight.

"Doctor Fokker will see you now." The orderly wheeled a chair over and Elizabeth scooted her rump into it, pushed along the sterile long white hall passed rooms of women doing their womanly duty as she was taken to the exam office numbered six nine, her breath grew shallow as indeed a futa stood in a pale lab coat with a clipboard and pen while the inclined table waited for an occupier, she was helped up by the orderly who part walked part hefted her onto it, removed her socks and panties then guided her feet into the stirrups.

"frau you are seventeen weeks along since the last exam, I'll make a rummage of your futa factory and be done."

Snapping on a glove gently parted her lips, labia and clitoral hood as its bratwurst sized digits ventured inward through the spacious birth canal and thumbed her uterine entrance, shivers of anticipation tingled through Elizabeth's spine as the simulation of her vulva caused a involuntary erotic utterance, head tossed back and cooed.

"Oh fuck the baby is coming." A gushing Elizabeth voiced with relief and excitement.

"Now now it's normal to prematurely feel contractions but your not due yet, futas come earlier than boys or girls."

Elizabeth felt more kicks and kicked out with surprising quickness reflexively lamped the orderly in the head who fell back in a heap on the floor.

"Oh beg pardon I did not mean it, please---aaarrggh!" Elizabeth moaned apologetically while her back arched.

Dr. Fokker kept calm as she picked up the orderly and sat her against the wall then retrieved a sedative mask.

Lowered onto her face breathed a dose of gas and quietly lay as it took effect.

Even after that a haze of being told to push and possibly cumming onto the doctors coat she found in her hands a newborn with blond wispy hair and deep blue eyes, undoubtedly Berdina's child.

The orderly reawakening stood and held her face in slight anger but upon seeing the baby smiled, Dr. Fokker spoke.

"Hail the Futareich, a glorious show and your first contribution to our race, have you picked a name for her?"

Looking around, high on gas with numbed pain of giving birth, she briefly thought, Elizadina, Berdizabeth, Albeth. "Hail the Futareich, I've got some in mind."

After which she was taken to natal screening and tests were run as she felt the rush of motherhood flood her. The certificate of birth was signed and dated, twentieth of april, nineteen forty, name Adory Ave Albright.

Wheeled from the ward into a waiting ambulance near evening still buzzed and her baby swaddled and drifting off allowed herself a long gaze out the window at her new country, it's grid towered cities, bountiful fields of harvest, virile futas, fertile women and adequate boys, all built upon citizens and subjects, Futa Is Der Future.

Gently rocked Adory while up prosing about her college days joining FAP, it was a small social club for young women on campus to debate issues, her studies done for the day accompanied her roommate Priscilla Hussy to a meeting.

Drinking wine smuggled in teapots, a few began making out and kissing boobs, she personally suckled four pairs before joining a three way tonguing and amidst this someone brought out two phalluses sculpted of clay, it was Priscilla who had one strapped to her hips and handed Elizabeth the other, drunken and blushing seized it and took the ripe cherries of a half dozen sorority sisters only to wake the next dawn upon a table with lipstick prints all over her skin and numerous tally marks on her sore rear.  

Except someone talked and an explosive disciplinary meeting with the college dean lead to expulsion and her family disowning her, half a year juggling odd work and following politics rejoined her sisters at a FAP rally, party ring number 669, helping run under the table ballots until the party was outlawed and half a year later she joined the military just as the Futareich invaded its neighbors, she was shipped out with increasingly eager support for the purported enemy's goals.

"We are at your destination Sub-Lady Albright, mind the drop." Both hoisted her down as she held her newborn while taking in the renewed sight of her home, a minor castle with grounds and private wood.

She designed the new coat of arms Berdina had ordered chiseled above the doors, two cock tips touching on open lips.

Abel Adamson stood at attention head down as his once commanding officer now Sub-Lady wheeled through the hall with her baby in hand he was greeted with a curt nod, he hardly looked like his old self since being sock puppeted, but such is life as a fluffer and subject third class, he could be worked to the bone in a factory or mine, matter of factly Elizabeth remembered him saying as much through her post climax bliss to avoid his fate, not that it worked.

Her first task a nice soak, nurse and settle Adory and tell Mistress Berdina the news, if she came from her duties.

"Sub-Abel, run a bath and fetch my bathing accessories, get a fire going and bring the good wine from the cellar."

Abel bowed, plodded off to do her orders, with a slight gait change since his reforming. "Yes M'Sub-Lady." He said.

A person of huge stature covered in black plate and chainmail face behind a helm topped with purple gold and black plumage stamped into the room, in one gloved fist a sack, the other hung idly as Elizabeth stood up to greet this stranger bare assed but for a wool nude shawl and silk pink slippers.

From the sack came two silver tiaras, the mystery knight raised a hand to remove their face guard, blond tresses fell and deep blue eyes glittered, her liberator smiled a lascivious smile, a smile Elizabeth returned and knelt in fealty, Mistress Berdina Albright was home and with her a few trips to plowtown were on the table, good news.

"My journey to find the right props from the antiques shope proved fruitful, as I hope did your medicinal trip?"

"My duty to the realm was fulfilled, your child by my labor was delivered and sleeps in it's crib soundly." She gushed.

"Very good, after I see the little tike we shall imbibe and make a reel with Abel and yourself in the dungeon."

Her heart beat could match the speed of Cupids arrow, let her shawl sag as the hand of her leige rested on her neck squeezed and rubbed her left shoulder a forecast of what was to come, Berdina left to see the newest little Albright.

Causally she took one tiara and placed it on her head then tied the shawl tight before retrieving the camera, reels and heading to the dungeon.

Setting up the camera near the only window in the cellar, near some dusty liquor casks where they kept the bondage equipment, crops, paddles, chains, ropes, cuffs, clamps, spreader bars, weights, ball gags and stud masks.

Most of it they hadn't used before, the sex was too intoxicating to dilute with outside objects, atleast for Elizabeth, Abel on the other hand mostly did his job as warm up and seldom was made to perform, it was her show as such they had done it with every possible position and angle so the vanilla stage was nearing its end, more salacious acts were about to be filmed, after the first trimester mark she had to cease sex, now free to film fabulous fuckfests after giving birth.

In her mouth Elizabeth lit a cigarette for the first time in eight months, a filthy habit she took up for tasks of a  strenuous nature, kiss my ashtray.

"A barefoot ball to welcome the birth, a few futas but mainly pregnant women and a trio of jester boys for fun."

The theme of

Isobine Blauge

Ren Orishii

Gertraudl Junt,

Judd Punard Clancy

In her apartment Rebecca gathered a breakfast of Mistress Lena's liking and joined her at the table, reading the paper with a grin that grew as she gleaned more of the story, paradrops had landed in Eire's capital of Doblan, taking it but the country still fought on, a front page photograph of women dancing nude in the street as the futa's raised their burgundy banner over the city in triumph, along the border with Caledonia and at sea daily blockade breakouts for the Atlantic were intercepted.

"Mistress Lena, please enjoy my labor of love, is there any further task you want me to fulfil?" Rebecca proffered.

"Clear out the former spouses' things and discard them, then come as you are to the roof for a special occasion."

Bare chested and footed save an apron Rebecca placed the meal onto the table at which Lena sat with fork and knife, a fine spread of sausage, porridge, coffee, croissants and lemon curd, boiled eggs, frankish toast and pudding. A lovingly crafted feast showing her loyalty and feverish desire to be invaded by her liberator again, yet a slight nagging twinge for the promised meeting on the roof filled her stomach as she left to do her bidding.

Up the stairs lightly stained with her drippings and to the consummated bedroom with a rubbish bin began removing his clothes and pictures without regret, remembering his passive lovemaking and the incomparable mindblown lusty sex her new beloved had bestowed twice, watching him nurse on dick fresh with her seed and that of the futa like a little bitch made her opinion of him diminish to a speck, all the years of him wooing her and dating to the marital vows made evaporated in a instant and a hunger to make new years and fill them with rearing master sex offspring and getting her holes stuffed filled her, maybe some traveling and if at all possible conversion.

Once the bedroom was cleared made her way to the office and into the adjoining lavatory, she took his towels and cologne and shaving kit, scents lingered here she would have to purge, like the night she was bathing and he needed to crap so badly he did so as she muttered complaints under her breath and sank into her foamy fortress.

The spare room she'd been making him turn into a nursery for progeny, the bassinet he bought for her, she tore the blue drapery off, deciding to re-upholster it in burgundy once she was sure the baby was Lena's.

Back in the office eyeing his selves of models and carpentry plans she trashed every single one, even things she'd wanted made like a rolling rocking chair and twin stools that could become a bench when locked together, all trash now.

His simple hemlock desk held mostly files and contracts but a golden pen caught her gaze, she remembered cleaning in here just as he had come out the shower in a robe sat here when for some reason or another the shiny pen dropped and rolled under it, she knelt to retrieve it and saw his then seemingly prodigious genitals like a stage curtain being drawn, in a almost trance crawled to and reached for it with a sultry grin as he shuddered within her grasp, tossing him like milking a cow, after thirty two tugs he came like a garden hose she allowed it to coat her nose and chin, wordlessly finished cleaning then left.

Finding herself under the desk with a hand in her panties realized how worked up she'd gotten herself so stood.

Rebecca ceased her lollygaging as she put all of it in a pile using sheets and boxes, from below heard the front door opening and voices, deep and commanding yet feminine and soft, among them Lena's as they greeted eachother.

Mistress has guests and it is none of my affair, complete my task and meet her on the roof, sans top and shoes.

Her steps landed with a soft tap in comparison to the thump noises her liberators made like dinosaurs.

As ordered threw it off the balcony into the ally for pickup, heading downstairs again she walked the room where her life was irrevocably altered, through the kitchen where all the food was completely gone, not a crumb or drop.

Should she do the washing up or have a boy made to now that the roles were reversed,

Looking upon the threshold from whence her liberator first appeared on that glorious morn, a little boque and red lacy scarf with a note hung on the hat hook, she almost gilded on tip toe to it and retrieved her gifts while her nethers ached for relief, unfolded and read the note.

'tear your marriage certificate up and drape the fabric upon your brow, your reward awaits.'

She remembered hanging it above the fireplace mantle in the living room, plodded to and rent it in twain while placing the scarf turned veil over her head and took the boque tits out and barefoot climbed the building stairs to the rooftop with a resurgent eagerness in her sodden oyster, doors hung by a hinge or lay in the hall into the apartments on the floors above as she made the ascent and by the final flight a few beads traveled from forehead to neck to breasts to navel and joined the drippings from her crotch.

At the roof door waited an older futa dressed in a robe without a collar or hood, like a raincoat and a dish like hat with writing on the brim, held open the door as she walked head veiled and flowers at her blossom into the light of the new day, the grimey surface felt rough on her soles but kept her pace looking forward as a harmonica started playing the march behind her, Lena and six other Futas bootless as they stood on a Frankian flag, on getting closer looked to the city horizon and saw flying in the morning sun warmed wind the banner of the futas on the Leffie Tower, the former flag was the past trod under foot, so deftly wiped both of hers on it and stood smiling as her mistress dressed in uniform but without her helmet admired her platinum blond twin brains down her shoulders, her gray green eyes brightly shone with a ravenous hunger and also disciplined model of superiority.

"Rebecca Remalia Abrams, subject second class, kneel."

"Once upon a war in the west, a little valley known as Crack Gulch, two armies met and had a big tussle, the forces of futahood and forces of inadequacy personified vied over an old fort and the town near it, as we brought up our big armaments the town fell and we surrounded the place and dug in, willing to wait it out until they begged for it."

Lena stopped and saw her sub-bride's eyes dilate with focus and apprehension as the realisation sank in.

Tiffany Mitarbeit wearily put on her robe and stepped out of the shower, legs shaking and rubbery fresh from being plowed for the first time and yearnfully not the last by her rightful ruler.

Hair wound in a messy mop made her way to the parlor down the hall where mum was already making tea while Mistress Greta listened to the radio.

"This is the FBC with the news at nine o clock, diplomatic talks at the Italolian consulate today with Futareich minister Joaclym reached a new accord with Italolia Ducess Plara Cetacci signing a pact of non aggression. The  Frank State was recognized as the so called Free Frankian Fleet has fled port for the high seas and April twentieth is now an orgyday, Hail the Futareich!"

"You know what would be great?" Elenore asked as the kettle hissed "Me and Tiffany blowing you on our knees."

Elenore took her daughter by the hand and pulled her into the fray with Greta coming over as both dropped to their knees to perform the deed each made out with the other around and over her girthy cockhead while she gingerly massaged their scalps with dexterity, brunette and hazel hair, wet and dry, young and old tongues danced over her wand of lust like before brains fogging over with utter desire to feed from the third teat of their liberator, conquerer and deity.

The phone rang and both females jumped as the towering hybrid of manly muscle and feminine curves roared and filled the sullied matron and maidens mouths with a gallon of jizz, tapered it off on their hair and walked over to the telephone with a side grin and steps that shook the cottage,

She was one day along in her pregnancy, but these babies were of a different breed, grew quicker and came sooner than a normal birth, and it was her first, so she had no comparative experiences other than her mother Elenore's stories.

[extremeifc]

Eco-Friendly Flooring Options for Sustainable Commercial Kitchens in Tennessee

In today's environmentally conscious world, businesses across various industries are increasingly prioritizing sustainability, and commercial kitchens are no exception. From reducing carbon footprint to minimizing waste, restaurant owners in Tennessee are seeking eco-friendly solutions to make their operations more sustainable. One crucial aspect of sustainability in commercial kitchens is the choice of flooring. In this blog, we'll explore eco-friendly flooring options that are suitable for sustainable commercial kitchens in Tennessee.

1. Cork Flooring:

Cork flooring is an eco-friendly option that is derived from the renewable bark of cork oak trees. Harvesting cork does not harm the trees, as only the outer bark is removed, allowing the trees to regenerate. Cork flooring offers excellent thermal insulation, sound absorption, and resilience, making it a comfortable and sustainable choice for commercial kitchens in Tennessee. Additionally, cork is naturally resistant to mold, mildew, and pests, enhancing indoor air quality and promoting a healthier environment.

2. Bamboo Flooring:

Bamboo flooring is gaining popularity as a sustainable alternative to traditional hardwood flooring. Bamboo is a fast-growing grass that reaches maturity within five to seven years, making it a rapidly renewable resource. Bamboo flooring is durable, versatile, and available in a variety of styles and finishes, making it suitable for commercial kitchens in Tennessee seeking a sustainable flooring option. Moreover, bamboo flooring is naturally resistant to moisture and pests, making it ideal for kitchen environments.

3. Reclaimed Wood Flooring:

Reclaimed wood flooring is sourced from salvaged wood materials, such as old barns, factories, or warehouses, that would otherwise be destined for the landfill. By repurposing reclaimed wood, commercial kitchens in Tennessee can reduce environmental impact and add character and charm to their space. Reclaimed wood flooring offers unique textures, colors, and grain patterns that cannot be replicated with new wood, providing a distinctive and sustainable flooring solution.

4. Recycled Glass Tile Flooring:

Recycled glass tile flooring is made from post-consumer or post-industrial glass materials that are melted down and formed into tiles. This eco-friendly flooring option offers durability, versatility, and aesthetic appeal, making it suitable for commercial kitchens in Tennessee seeking sustainable design solutions. Recycled glass tile flooring is available in a wide range of colors, sizes, and patterns, allowing for creative and customizable installations that contribute to a greener environment.

5. Linoleum Flooring:

Linoleum flooring is made from natural materials such as linseed oil, cork dust, wood flour, and rosin, making it a sustainable and environmentally friendly flooring option. Linoleum is biodegradable, renewable, and free from harmful chemicals, making it an excellent choice for eco-conscious commercial kitchens in Tennessee. Additionally, linoleum flooring is durable, water-resistant, and easy to maintain, making it suitable for high-traffic areas such as commercial kitchens.

Conclusion:

Eco-friendly flooring options for sustainable commercial kitchens in Tennessee are plentiful, offering restaurant owners the opportunity to make environmentally conscious choices without compromising on performance or aesthetics. Whether opting for cork, bamboo, reclaimed wood, recycled glass tile, or linoleum flooring, Tennessee restaurant owners can create sustainable kitchens that minimize environmental impact and promote a healthier planet. By investing in eco-friendly flooring options, restaurant owners can demonstrate their commitment to sustainability while creating a welcoming and environmentally responsible dining environment.