#manes exhibition center

[hauntedbystorytelling]

Zdenko Feyfar (1913-2001) :: Prague (Ducks at Mánes), 1956. Gelatin silver print on paper. On verso: copyright credit stamp, location and date in pencil. | src Zezula auctions

[angelbaby-fics]

chloe! it’s bear! 🥹❤️

i have to go on anon since i can’t ask from my side blog! 🥺

i love your stucky stories and i was wondering if i can request stucky taking their little to the zoo and their little wanting to run off and look at all the animals!

thank you and i hope it’s not too much 🥺 -🐻

Zoo Adventure

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: Hihi bear!!!! I'm so happy to see you!!! I combined this request with another in my inbox as well as an idea I've had for literally 2 years now about baby surprising daddies with pictures from a photobooth 😅 well better late than never hehe 💕 And I think this came out pretty adorable if I do say so myself so I hope you guys enjoy!! 💕

Your heart was practically pounding out of your chest as the car pulled into the zoo parking lot. You weren’t even sure if you could stand to wait the few moments it would take for Bucky to get out of his seat and unbuckle you from yours. You knew you had to be in one of your daddies’ arms as long as you were in the parking lot, but it took all of your energy not to bolt straight for the entrance gates. Steve and Bucky shared a proud grin as they each held one of your hands. 

You could hardly decide who you’d visit first. The entrance branched off into three different pathways, lions on the left, rhinos to the right, and monkeys down the middle.You stood in the center of the pathways, looking around with wide eyes until you were suddenly hoisted up into Steve’s arms. 

“Where do you wanna start, pumpkin?” He asked. 

“I dunno!” You answered. “I wanna see everything!”

“Well how about we start with the lions over here, and we make our way around?” Bucky suggested.

“You promise we’re gonna see them all?” You questioned. 

“Of course, angel,” Steve replied. 

“Don’t wanna leave anybody out.” You said softly. You were always looking out for others, whether it was your friends, your toys, or the animals at the zoo. Your daddies adored how considerate you were. 

To help you feel better, the three of you waved and blew kisses at the other animals you could see down the other paths, letting them know you’d be back to see them too as you made your way towards the lion cage. 

A big old lion with a giant mane and a grumpy face lumbered out into the grass of the habitat. He reminded you of Bucky in the mornings when he was growing out his hair. Past the lions was a hutch full of tortoises, and they reminded you of Bucky too. 

Steve and Bucky took turns carrying you in their arms, neither one of them ever getting tired of course. Sure, you could make your way on your own, but they loved to spoil you in every way. Plus, you could get the best views of all the animals this way, never having to stand on your tiptoes just to see over the fence. The only time you were ever on the ground was in the reptile house, where you had to crouch down to see some of the snakes and lizards in their little habitats. Steve prefered to stand outside for that exhibit.

You laughed as penguins raced each other across the pool, squealing every time one leapt out of the water. The elephants trumpeted just like in the movies, and the monkeys jumped around their cages, swinging from rope and vine like your best friend Peter. 

As the sun grew higher in the sky, there was no better time for a lunchtime picnic. The zoo had a plaza with a seating area, a little cafe, and a big shiny merry-go-round. Bucky chuckled to himself when he caught you staring longingly at the carousel. Steve was unpacking your lunches from the bag he’d brought, sandwiches for each of you and little baggies of vegetables and fruits. Finally he pulled out two big water bottles, and - uh oh -

“Oh, baby, I think we left your sippy cup at home!” He said, looking up at you apologetically. 

How were you supposed to eat your lunch without your milk or a juicebox? But Bucky came to the rescue with a perfect idea. 

“Why don’t you two take a turn on the carousel, I’ll go see what the cafe has for the little one. How about that?”

“Yes yes yes!” You answered, already dragging Steve towards the merry-go-round attendant before he could even reply. 

You circled the base of the carousel to find the perfect animal to ride on, ultimately deciding on a majestic zebra. Steve stood at your side, keeping his arm protectively around your waist throughout the ride to make sure you never lost your balance as your noble steed carried you up and down, around and around. When the adventure came to a stop, he picked you up off the zebra and carried you back to the table where Bucky was waiting with a carton of chocolate milk. 

You happily ate your lunch, telling your daddies between bites what your favorite animals were so far and which ones you were most excited to see next. After a while, however, Steve and Bucky started to talk about boring grown up stuff, and your mind began to wander as you finished up your lunch. 

That's when it caught your eye, something that tempted you even more than the carousel, or the animals, or even the gift shop. You grabbed your coin purse and headed off on your mission, Steve and Bucky too engrossed in their conversation to notice. 

At least for about 15 seconds, but by then it was too late. You were out of their sight, and the panic welled up in each of them like an erupting volcano. Wordlessly, they sprang into action, splitting up to look for you in the most efficient way. Steve circled the carousel, his heart dropping as he scanned each animal and found every one vacant. Bucky went back to the cafe, maybe you’d finished your chocolate milk and tried to go back for seconds, but no luck there either. You couldn’t have gone that far, and you definitely would never leave the zoo on your own, but being who they were, there was always the fear in the back of your daddies’ minds that someone would target you to get to them. 

They didn’t even want to give that notion a second thought. After clearing the cafe and the carousel, Steve and Bucky met back up at your table to make sure you hadn’t come back, before widening their search. They were about to find a zoo employee to help them when suddenly, a mechanical whirring caught their attention. Both their heads snapped over to the source of the noise, and they were just in time to see a strip of photos fall out of one of the photobooths in the zoo plaza - a strip of photos of you.

The breath they’d each been holding let out as you pulled back the curtain and stumbled back out into the daylight. You were surprised to see your daddies there waiting for you, expecting them to still be at your table

“Oh hi daddies!” You said cheerfully, reaching over to retrieve your pictures. “Looky! I got a present for you!”

You tore the photo strip in half, handing one section to Steve and the other to Bucky, but they just stood in stunned silence. 

“Baby…” Bucky whispered, crouching down to embrace you with all his strength. 

“You like your present, Baba?” You asked, your voice muffled in Bucky’s shirt. 

“We love them, angel,” Steve answered, “But please, don’t ever run off without telling us where you’re going, okay? You made Daddy and Baba very scared.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.” You said, disappointed in yourself. You hadn’t even realized you were misbehaving, too wrapped up in surprising your daddies with your special gift to realize you hadn’t thought through your plan all that well. 

Bucky let you go with a kiss on your cheek, and you kissed him back, and Steve as well. 

“Thank you for apologizing, baby,” Bucky said, “And thank you for the present. We love it, angel.”

Bucky put the photos of you smiling at the camera in the front pocket of his wallet where he could always look at your angelic face whenever he needed to. Steve put the photos in his shirt pocket, vowing to put it in his compass as soon as he got home. 

[heartfullofleeches]

look, my dear mr devil person

you cannot say rosebud has a human form

and simply not engage more

i now beg of you to make a random scenario of reader meeting human rosebud pleSe

Your first day off in days, and the first thing you do is visit the gallery. You couldn't help it- The place was like a home away from home with how much you worked, and being the cog that keeps things running made you almost as attached to it as its inhabitants were to you.

You take your time getting ready since there was no rush, leaving home around noon. You keep your badge pinned for the free admission and break the short distance between your building and the gallery. Management had helped you secure the apartment in case there was an emergency while you were away, and since it was mostly paid off by them you had no problems moving in.

The gallery was nice and peaceful today. No field trips or tourist cluttering the floor. With how hectic things get during the day, you're almost glad you got stuck with the night crew. You make quick conversation with the receptionist, grabbing a map as you leave their station. You knew the layout of the gallery better than your own apartment complex, but it made mapping out your visit much easier. Normally you explored the upper floors since doing the same at night was difficult, but to avoid any complaining from the lower floors you'd start on ground floor first.

Not much here besides a couple paintings and the garden. You saying hello to Scavenger on your way to the lot, gaining a few side eyes from fellow vistors in the process. You made it to the garden right around the time it warmed up for the day. The hot sunlight was a stark contrast to the cool moonlight surrounding you at night. The various flower brushes are in full bloom, and members of the dayshift were working on refurbishing the butterfly garden in tandem with its reopening next week.

You march up the stone path to the center piece of the garden, a statue depicting a shut rosebud nestled within a bush full of red roses. Since they weren't able to bite you, you poke around in the leaves and admire the roses vibrant colors with your hands. As you prepare to move onto the next exhibit, you can't help but wonder-

Had the statue's petals always been that open?

"Beautiful devils, aren't they?"

Swallowing a mini heart attack, you turn in the direction of the voice. The stranger looked like a work of art themselves. Forest green eyes, curly mane the same brilliant red as the rose between your fingers. Stray strands of hair braid the sides of their face like vines; a mole kissing their upper left cheek. A black corset hugs their broad waist, black gloves poking from the collar of their ruffled white sleeves. They smile down at you from the rim of the glass in hand.

"But I believe my eye has caught someone far more breathtaking right in front of me. Who might you be, dearest?"

"Y/n. Who are you?"

"Y/n." The stranger licks the wine off their thin lips. There's something familiar about way your name fits in their mouth. "A gorgeous name for a gorgeous character. My friends call me Rose, but you- may call me Ro if you please. I'm sure any name would be a godsend from a creature like you."

Ro stretches their hand towards you, arm freezing as the sleeve of their shirt pulls up their skin. They recoil, downing the glass with lightning speed. They laugh off the action, pointing at the cup.

"There is another reason I got your attention. I noticed your badge and was wondering if there were rules against this."

"I won't tell if you won't."

"Wonderful. I wanted to meet someone special today to look for something and as shameful as it is, I am in need of a little "liquid courage" to walk around in large spaces."

"Did you find whatever you were looking for?"

"Yes... and so much more." Ro's gaze loiters on you for a beat long than a stranger's normal would. They shift on their heels. "But my acquaintance has left me for now. I'd hate to trouble you, but could I ask you a few questions about some of the exhibits here? I'd like to increase my knowledge before they get back."

"Um, sure. Let me go grab another map real quick to help you out."

"That would be lovely, Rosetta."

You stop in your tracts. "What did you say?"

"I said that would be very helpful, dear."

"Right..." You quickly exit the room.

Rosebud watches you leave with a grin. They crouch beside their rose bush, walking the sleeping buds with a stroke of their stems. "Hello, dears. I'm sorry to wake you so soon- Yes, that was our darling guard, but you can't play with them right now. I need you to do me a little favor, and then we can spend as much time with them as we desire."

When you return, Ro's glass is filled to the brim in crimson.

[wilderun]

Coyotes and wolves are hostile competitors in the wild, generally, even going out of their way to kill one another's offspring.

Though I'm sure this is more learned than genetic (neophobia and competition are genetic but lupus-latrans rivalry isn't), were you ever concerned that your coydog and your wolfdog wouldn't get along for that reason?

How did they get along when you first did introductions, and what kinds of safety measures did you take when introducing them?

How do coydogs differ from wolfdogs in your experience?

Do you feel any differently about coydog ethics than you do wolfdog ethics-- ethics of owning, handling, breeding, and selling?

Have you ever encountered a coywolfdog? What do you think they're like (or what would they be like) by comparison to coydogs and wolfdogs?

I may have met one at a wolf habitat, I think, but it may have just been a coywolf without the "dog" component. I forgor

I've been traditionally anti-wolfdogs for concerns about unpredictability -- thinking it best to place them in wildlife rehab centers and not to deliberately breed them -- but I've been poking around dogblr and hearing about more nuanced takes like those on your blog. I am learning ^^'

I grew up as a total wolfaboo from age 10, my oldest special interest being canines in general. Everything about them -- dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, culpeos and the "Fuegian dog," Aenocyon dirus, other woofers like maned wolves and bush dogs, domestication and evolution processes -- fascinates me and I always want to know everything about them lmao

Howdy! This is a *great* series of questions and I'll do my best to answer in depth!

In the wild, wolves and coyotes aren't always direct competitors, as they often have different prey types, but they are territorial towards eachother and interbreeding/cohabitation is uncommon unless in an area where both species are under high outside pressure (ie, hunting derbies, bounties, etc) that reduce the number of available mates within their species. But wolfdogs at least benefit from a mellowing of instincts from the 40-60 years of captive breeding behind them and aren't going to be as sharply inclined towards behaviors their wild counterparts might exhibit.

Zephyr, my wolfdog, and Basil, my coydog, come from *very* different backgrounds. Zephyr is a purposfully bred dog from many decades of selective breeding for mild and sociable nature, whereas Basil was from an oops breeding between a wild male coyote and a female farm dog. However, both were raised with a lot of interaction with other canines and developed excellent canine social skills even when there's a difference in "dialect".

Basil's owner brought him into my yard on a leash. Zephyr is not a territorial dog, and was excited to see a new friend. We had them both on leash and hung out near eachother and let them both settle and relax and observe eachother without being able to directly interact, for about an hour, as we talked and went over what his routine looked like and how we were going to approach building trust and establishing a good relationship. We then took them out on a walk together, allowing them to have short interactions on loose leashes and then redirect back to us for a treat. Basil was a little unsure at first, since most of his dog friends were small dogs, but Zephyr was happy to back off if he got tense, and her respect of his space helped him open up to eventually offering play and greeting behavior towards her.

Ending that walk on a positive note, I set Basil up in his crate and his owners left. Basil got to see how my dogs interacted with me over the coming days, and would get supervised playtime within the secure dog run with her. They had moments of disagreement but seeing how good they both were at de-escalation of conflict using body language, I eventually allowed them to spend time together loose in the house with less supervision (ie I was home but not right there) and together in the enclosure when I wasn't home.

To be honest, a lot of it is knowing your animal and how they respond. I knew that even if a fight *did* break out, Zephyr is extremely conflict avoidant and would end it by either disengaging and diffusing, or pinning him and then disengaging if he wouldn't let up. My biggest concern was him being a pediatric neutered male, if she would tolerate him being around during breeding season, but that didn't end up being an issue at all, she adored him all during winter and he was even the first dog she wanted to introduce to her puppies <3

I think coydogs benefit from being less popular than wolfdogs, since they can be particularly sensitive to poor handling, but it would be nice to see at least one breeder approaching it responsibly, especially for animal filmwork roles, rather than the handful of litters produced each year being random crosses between a pet coyote and a random dog they get along with.

I know of a couple wolfdogs who also have coyote in the mix and vice versa. They seem to not be a great blend for the most part. Quite a few of these coywolfdog crosses came from Tim Stark (recently infamous via Tiger King).

[emotionalmotionsicknessxx]

A little sneak peak of Chapter 13 for POTO Fluff Week 2022! 

Read Voltige on Ao3 here

Christine returned to her tent.

"Ah, shoot."

Her trunk was still open, her clothes strewn about the way she left them. Missing still, of course, was the glittering dress she performed in. Her father had given no indication where it was, and now, he was nowhere to be found, and neither was her dress.

Firmin had given them a week. In no universe would she be able to recreate the dress in that time, let alone a month...in a week she could maybe hem a skirt, though incredibly haphazardly. In no timeline could she possibly find a seamstress to make the dress...it had cost her father a month's wages last time, and that was with the previous circus manager's generous help. Now she was in the middle of nowhere, without a costume and without a routine.

She looked down at her trousers, crusted with dirt. She couldn't perform in anything she owned.

Tired and exhausted, covered in sweat from an unsuccessful practice, she began to cry.

And like most times when she cried, she found herself out of the tent and on her way to the stable, her only solace shoving her tear-covered face into her loyal friend's mane.

She walked the long way to the stable to avoid the crowds, taking the path that wrapped around the big tents: the arena she would soon not be performing in, the animal exhibits, the freak show. Again she wondered if she might pass through, see how Erik was faring –

No.

That was a route she would not allow her thoughts to go.

To her chagrin, the back flaps of the freak show were open to the wood she now passed through, in some attempt to quell the terrible heat of midsummer. She could hear the calls of crowds pointing, gasping in awe and pity at the folks inside. Shadows of bars, of figures in cages, could barely be made out in the haze of the dim tent. She might almost see Erik –

No, Christine.

As if he had heard her thoughts, she watched in horror as a thin figure turned around from his pedestal in the back center of the tent.

Shit.

She dove behind the flap of the tent beneath some crates and boxes, eyes squeezed tight as if that could help her hide more convincingly. Her heart beat in her ears and she wondered if she might be able to disappear totally from existence in this moment, anything to evade such mortification.

Had he seen her? She strained to hear through the canvas of the tent, but just she could only hear the din of the crowd more than anything.

She was just passing by, anyway, it wasn't like she was thinking of him...except she was, she very much was, and that only made her blush harder. She blinked hard, trying to catch her breath against the coarse tent fabric, when something caught her eye.

Between the bottom of the tent and the ground, she could see inside the tent, in the space behind the exhibit. Cords, wires, more boxes blocked most of what she could see. There, among the boxes, was a small soft...thing, a bag of some sort, a rucksack. She shimmied closer, nearer to the object that had caught her eye. She pulled at the open bag, its contents spilling from the way it must have fallen from its storage place among the clutter. Inside a worn hardback book, a glint of silver; her mind recognized the precise shade before she could articulate why she was so drawn to it, and so she pulled the book and its odd, glimmering bookmark from the bag without thinking.

There, inside the pages of the book, was a spangle from her performance gown, the silver star twinkling at the end of the torn trim that once attached it to the skirt.

She stared at it, sitting in the pages. She closed her eyes and the book, as if putting off the inevitable. Her eyes jumped to the cover.

"The Practical Horsekeeper" stared back at her, glimmering gold on the blue cover. 

The words of the bookseller sounded back at her: "No more horse books, my dear: just sold the last–" and her suspicions collided with reality.

She plucked the star from the pages and stalked into the dim, hazy tent.

The freak show ebbed and flowed with visitors, surrounding one cage and then another, as though the visitors had no mind of their own and had to wait for the herd to decide where to crowd next. The pedestal on which Erik sat was mercifully sparsely attended; no matter, Christine did not mind an audience.

"What is this?" She let her frustration and anxiety funnel into those three words with extreme force. Erik whipped around at the sound, as did some of the passersby. They quickly scattered when she glared at them.

She held the piece of costume aloft in her hand. Erik was already on his feet. His unmasked face shone a shade whiter, his eyes locked on the spangle. 

"Christine, I can explain--"

She didn't let him. "Why do you have this? What did you do, Erik?"

"What did I do? What did you -- you went in my things?" he hissed.

She didn't let the accusation hit. "I- I found this outside. How?" 

"I told you, I --"

"Do you have my costume."

"I didn't --"

"Do you have my costume, Erik?"

He ran a hand over his face. "Yes. Yes, I do, but –"

The words stung and she blinked. She had steeled herself for this betrayal, after so many others, and yet she was not ready. Her words came out garbled from fighting back the traitorous tears threatening the back of her throat. "Why?" she whispered. She could only imagine the rest of the splintered thing in even worse shape than the little silver star now cutting into the soft flesh of her palm. "Why did you take it?"

Her mind flooded with answers, each more terrible than the last. He set her up. He was mocking her, he wanted to sell the dress, wanted to trick her. This was all a ruse to end her career. He wanted to see her fail. He hated her.

Erik looked as though he had been punched, holding onto the bars, his knees landing on the pedestal. "Please, Christine."

It was all too much.

She gave a sharp, hollow laugh. "Forget it."

"No, I –"

"No," Christine interrupted. "I trusted you. Guess I made that mistake. Again."

She left the spangle in the dirt and turned out of the tent before he could see her tears.

--

She made good on her plan to press her face to her horse's mane and cry, though for a different reason than she had set out to at the outset.

How could he?

She sniffed and laughed into Raya's mane. If she had told her past self she would be standing in her stable, crying over the boy with the yellow eyes betraying her, that Christine would think her ridiculous. Yet she could not lie to herself that she had counted her friendship with Erik more dear than she could have ever imagined when he threatened her those weeks ago. 

Bleary-eyed, she slowly cut the twine that kept the bales of hay together, put a flake under each boarded horse, avoided the tiny pieces of hay stuck on her sleeve as she wiped her eyes. It was funny, really, how easily she could over come this too, could move forward, anyway, she sniffled back the last of her tears and who needed him and his stupid strong arms and the way he looked right through her to her soul and –

The sound of a horse standing at alert notified her that there was another presence in the barn and she turned.

Erik stood, eyes wide, the black mask only emphasizing the slight shadowy figure he cut in the stable. In his hands, a familiar shock of taffeta. Her dress.

"Erik."

He held it delicately at the puffed shoulders, the remainder of the bodice glimmering, and glittering, and...altogether fixed. No longer could she see the horrible blood stains and broken boning and ripped tulle.

"I'm sorry --"

"You fixed it!" she breathed, racing towards the costume, eyes on the collection of new silver stars across the torso, the seamless way the skirt was reattached to the bodice. Erik held it high over the dust, the skirts clean and perfect and glimmering, every spangle accounted for. It was perfect, it was even more beautiful than before, it was –  

Without thinking, she threw her arms around his torso and squeezed hard.

"Oh, thank you Erik," she whispered, her cheek against his chest.

"I–" from above her, Erik made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.

"Oh!" Oh no, oh no, she had upset him. Again!

She released him and immediately he took a hearty step back, the dress still in his arms, which he had held aloft as though to avoid any potential contact with her as they untangled.

"Sorry!" Christine reached for him and thought better of it, for he stepped back yet again. "I didn't mean –"

"Yes, well," Erik choked, looking down at the bodice. "I thought...well, it was presumptuous of me, I suppose..." He was pointing at something on the dress.

Christine figured it was best to direct her attention, too, to the dress before taking a tentative step closer, to see better. This seemed to be received without protest.

"I wanted...well, if we had new fabric...I suppose it would be better, but given what we had..." He pointed to the little glimmering embroidered stars.

She turned to see what he was staring at and gave a soft gasp.

"It's the night sky!" she realized. Yes, there on her bodice were the little stars that made the square – the “irregular polygon,” she remembered – of the Little Dipper, the stars of Orion's Belt, the smattering of dots of Cassiopeia. It must have taken hours, painstakingly stitching each into the satin of the gown.

"There were so many holes," Erik murmured behind her, breath rustling the loose hair on her shoulder. "I had to patch them with something. So I chose the summer sky. I hope that's alright." 

"It's better than alright," she said, taking the dress from him, examining further. "It's as if nothing happened at all, how did you –?"

"You pick things up on the road," he gave a sad little smile. "It's hard to find a tailor when you aren't in one place for long. If you need your socks darned, I'm your man."

Christine couldn't understand the sadness that crept into his voice, but she did not pry, took the dress and held it up to herself. It could not be real, he could not be so ingenious. She looked up at him with new eyes.

At her expression, Erik's mouth quirked downward, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Enjoy your dress; I'll go...finish the outside chores." He disappeared before she could ask what she had done wrong. 

[knotheaddesignstudio]

Lions, pheasants and flowers, oh my!

I have a show coming up in Wausau in September and thought that a pheasant would be a good addition to my collection for that show. Found this great pitted piece of wood that I I had my husband cut into the shape of a pheasant body.

Sorry I didn't create a lot of in process shots. I was in the zone and this project came together quickly. The tail feathers and bottom feathers were wet felted and wired and the head was needle felted. Upon first assembly, I realized that the body needed to be filled in more.

I blended wool to match the wood coloring and found small beads that mimicked the pits in the wood.

Sat with this guy for a couple of days and decided that the neck needed more texture to look more like a pheasant's feathers. I decided to build the neck up a bit and like the result much better.

Close up of the neck - I think I will name him Dimples

Lion

Once I finished the pheasant, I had a cutoff piece that looked like a lion's paw print. I felted in the missing parts to complete the print.

The paw print inspired me to make a second lion. My first lion (blog here) was sold at the Barrington art fair earlier this year. I have a couple of shots of the head in process that I can share.

This time I decided to create a mane with long locks.

And Flowers, Oh My

I also completed a branch weaving that I really love. Again, no in process shots - sorry. This one started with a metal heart that I used upside down as a flower bud. I then wet felted 2 additional flowers that had similar coloring. The weaving is inside a branch that is long and skinny so I wove it as a bouquet.

It has been a busy month! I learned that my python has been accepted for exhibit at the Confluence of Art Annual at the Pablo Center in Eau Claire, I am a finalist for the Keller Prize and I have added the Morning Glory show held in the Deer District in Milwaukee on Aug 12-13 to my docket so it looks like Aug is going to be busy too! :) Read the full article

[aava9099]

Lioness spirit animal

The lion's splendid yellow mane was a characteristic sun powered sign all through the old world. Like the Sun, the lord of the monsters blasts into your profound excursion with sheer power, trying, and hostility. Felines, then again, are nighttime. Thus, lion energy wraps your spirit in the moon force of the evening. The enormous felines are wherever yet imperceptible, bantering yet unheard, and following yet still when the other world rests.

Lioness spirit animal have been portrayed in workmanship for centuries from one side of the planet to the other. The lioness was loved as the pride's supplier, and the thought of fortune and hunting expertise stayed in one piece. The Sphinx in Egypt, for instance, includes a lion's body, which was a holy seal of the Goddess who protected the pharaohs in the afterlife. Mithras, the Sun God, was a sun based divinity normally portrayed with a lion's head.

History specialists accept the goddess of dance and security had a lioness' head as opposed to a tamed feline's in early pictures. Other Egyptian divine beings with lion similarities included Sekhmet, the savage companion of ladies and youngsters, and Bast's child, Maahes, a Conflict God.

The lion is portrayed in Center Eastern folklore and craftsmanship as an image of strong rulers. Lions habitually went with the area's Divine beings and Goddesses. Ishtar, who rides a lion-drawn chariot, and Inanna, who rides on the backs of two female lions, are two models. The lion is portrayed as an image of gigantic power and authority in the canvases. The relationship is additionally reinforced by lion entryways and figures flanking sculptures that act as watchmen at the passageways of eminent urban areas and sanctuaries.

Chinese Buddhists portray the lion as a magnificent animal. Lions are remembered to safeguard mankind from spirits and fiends. Therefore, lions protecting entranceways can be tracked down all through China's design. Tibetans hold comparative convictions, associating the Snow Lion with assurance. The key distinction is that gallant Snow Lions address the Earth component as opposed to the fire component.

The lion soul seems to have a pussycat side too. The extraordinary feline recalls benevolence displayed to it in the tale of Androcles and the lion. The lion reimburses the blessing by declining to eat up the youthful slave at the carnival Maximus subsequent to helping it in eliminating a thistle and disease. The lion then, at that point, shows its love for Androcles before the head; lion imagery incorporates commitment and benevolence for people who exhibit leniency and empathy because of this old tale.

Lion Soul Creature In the event that the lion soul creature makes you aware of its presence, the majestic feline shows you its unprecedented strength and force. An individual who sees a lion frequently needs to recapture their region and recuperate an influential position in their life. A similar soul creature respects the people who are solid and vocal and can possibly lead.

As a soul creature, the lioness respects the individuals who care for and shield the feeble. The lioness shows her offspring all that they need to be aware to make due all alone while never presenting them to risk. The female lion teaches you on caring for your pride and getting your relatives to cooperate.

Your character is a magnet for others when you have a lion creature soul close by, and individuals frequently want to imitate that something uniquely great about you. Otherworldly pioneers with a lion soul guide are inflexible about their convictions. They will battle for strict freedom and the option to track down god in one's way.

At the point when a lion is your life sidekick, you will glean tons of useful knowledge about beating dread and communicating your thoughts. Stay calm around the lion, understanding that your attitude matters. The cat can show you much about how to utilize your capacity as well as could be expected.

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

all my tubes and wires and careful notes

Fandom: Kamen Rider Ghost

Characters: Tsukimura Akari, Alia

Song: "She Blinded Me With Science," Thomas Dolby (playlist here)

Note: Thank you to @si-siw for letting me borrow your headcanon and infecting me with this ship! I hope you enjoy the story!

The skies of the Ganma World may be clear, but the ground remains in a state, and so Akari and Igor have been working non-stop for nearly five hours when they hear a quiet, polite cough and look up to see Alia standing in the laboratory doorway. When she has their attention, she says, softly, “Are you on the verge of any particular scientific breakthroughs?”

Igor seems poised to launch into an extended explanation of what they’ve been working on, but Akari cuts him off with, “Not really. Decent progress, but nothing big yet.”

“I see. Thank you.” Then, directly to Igor, “In that case, I will need to borrow Miss Akari for a short period. You should use this time to have a meal, you’ve been working for some time.”

Blinking, Akari makes sure all of her notes are in order and then follows Alia out of the room and down the hall. “What did you need me for?”

She can see the curl of Alia’s tiny smile just from the way it changes her profile, before her mouth has even really moved. “I wanted company for lunch. And,” slightly more quietly, “I thought you might like some time out of Igor’s company.”

“I—yeah, I really do, thank you. He’s not a bad research partner, he’s just…” Akari gestures vaguely as she hunts for the right words and then settles on the diplomatic, “high energy. Plus at some point I’m going to have to explain the whole ‘I’m a lesbian’ thing and I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Is he very persistent?”

“No, you know, he really isn’t, but it’s still a conversation that we’ll need to have.” They turn a corner, go through a doorway, and are unexpectedly in a small sitting room, mostly plainly decorated, although one wall holds a painting that Akari blinks at. “Wait, did Cubi paint that?”

The tiny curl of a smile comes back. “He did. It makes the room brighter. Please, sit.”

Lunch is already served, the small table set with tea and sandwiches, and when Akari sees them her stomach growls, and she blushes. “Excuse me, I guess I am hungry.”

“Then sit down, please, and eat.”

Something seems odd as they sit down to eat, but Akari’s so hungry that she doesn’t bother working out what it is at first, in favor of wolfing down sandwiches as she gives Alia a progress report on the soil research. It’s nothing to do with the food, at least. Not the tea either, although the blend is unfamiliar. Certainly it isn’t Alia’s manner, she’s listening and asking thoughtful questions as always.

It’s—

“I love your manicure,” she’s saying, “sometimes I wish I could do fun stuff with my nails, but I do so much with my—I’m sorry.” She lowers her cup, blinking. “I just realized I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hands before.”

Alia looks down at her own hands, wrapped primly around her teacup. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have.”

“I, if this is rude to ask then stop me, but do you hide them on ohh.” Akari trails off mid-sentence as a pattern of vividly pink circuitry pulses from Alia’s wrists to her manicured fingertips. “Oh, that’s beautiful.”

There’s a moment of silence as Alia stares at her in faint but obvious surprise. “Do you think so?” She lifts one hand from her cup and turns it in the air, as if she’s seeing it for the first time herself. “They’re prosthetic. My real hands were badly injured in one of the early trials of Eyecon technology. These are lifelike, but as you can see, they aren’t a perfect counterfeit.” The circuit pattern pulses down them again as she holds her hand out to Akari, a stylized eye appearing for a moment in the center of her palm. “My father preferred to address the issue as he addressed many others in his later life, by ignoring it, and so I became accustomed to keeping my hands concealed. In my Eyecon form they were whole, of course, but old habits are hard to break.”

Akari stares at Alia’s extended hand in shock and fascination. “I…wow, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject.”

“It’s all right. It was more than a hundred years ago at this point.”

“Oh, yeah, I suppose it…wait, if your hands are prosthetic then how did you manage the manicure? Are they acrylic?”

“They’re magnetic.” Suddenly smiling, Alia sets down her teacup and removes one of her pointed, painted thumbnails, revealing dull metal beneath, and then puts it back on. “Alain had several sets made for me as a gift shortly after we all returned to inhabiting our original flesh.”

“That was thoughtful of him.”

“He’s always been a thoughtful boy.”

Akari takes a sip of tea, amused by the reminder that of course Alain’s sister still thinks of him as a boy, and the meal continues in companionable silence for a few minutes until she realizes something else. “You were involved in the original Eyecon trials?”

Another one of those tiny curls of smile. “Of course. I was Edith’s research assistant for many years.”

“You were? Why didn’t he ever—of course he never mentioned, why would he give someone else credit. What parts of the project did you work on?”

“Oh, most of them, I’m primarily an engineer but I’ve dabbled in a number of scientific disciplines. And I do some design as well. Would you like to see my workshop?”

“I would love to.”

---

The first thing Akari sees are the notebooks. The heavy bookcase in Alia’s lab does hold some academic texts, but more than half of it is packed with enormous ledgers bound in dark leather, so many that she’s shocked the shelves don’t groan under their weight. Two more lie open on an enormous rolltop desk, their unlined pages filled with with notes and sketches in a tiny, precise hand. On the walls hang several large, heavy parchment sheets, on which are hand-drawn diagrams of machinery, hibernation capsules, an exploded Eyecon, and—

“Is that…Alain’s suit?”

“Yes.” Alia reaches up and trails a fond hand down the edge of the diagram, which is labeled Necrom—for Adel? Alain. “I designed it.”

“Oh.”

“And here is Makoto’s.” The next diagram, Makoto’s name written at the top in ink much less faded than the rest. “And the next one is an early draft of what eventually became Takeru’s, although Edith did some further work with it that he didn’t inform me about. He designed and built the transformation devices, but the suits are my work.”

“Oh, I…” Akari stares up at the diagrammed suits, the close-up sketches of tiny components, more of Alia’s perfect handwriting in notes that she can only partially read. Some are in Japanese, but others are in Latin, and more are in a language that she doesn’t recognize. There are more diagrams, too, rolled up in a wooden bin, each one neatly labeled. Specter 1.0, Necrom (Alternates), Wraith, Manes and Lemures, Eyecon (Prototype), Hands. And the tables—once she can tear her eyes away from the wall she sees that there’s a blank Eyecon disassembled on one table, and on another is an Ulorder with a panel open lying on top of yet another diagram, this one in different handwriting and weighed down at the corners with books. “This is the most beautiful room I’ve ever been in.”

“I am very glad that you think so.”

“I, I just.” A bit of futile gesturing as Akari struggles for words, and then, “Look, can I. Can I buy you dinner?”

Alia…blinks. “Pardon me?”

“I would, um, love to take you to dinner sometime, so we can. Talk. More. Because I really like talking to you. And, and maybe a concert or a movie or something, or there’s a History of Engineering exhibit at a museum near the temple, I know you haven’t gotten to visit the human world much and I could…show you around.”

There’s a long moment where Alia’s just staring at her and Akari considers the very serious possibility that she just messed up big time.

“I,” she starts again, “that is, if you want—”

“I would enjoy that.” Alia takes one of Akari’s hands in both of hers. Akari can feel how cool they are, the odd smoothness of the skin as pink circuits pulse down them, and normally she’d want to know more about that but right now there’s so much other stuff happening even if really it’s only one other thing. “A concert, if you know of one coming up, I think I get enough of engineering in the normal course of my day that maybe the museum might be better saved for a second visit.”

Akari’s ears are ringing. “There’s, um, a performance from a popular violinist coming up next Thursday night? Takeru gave me two tickets, he knows the performer…somehow…”

The curl of smile, small and warm and directly entirely at her. “I enjoy violin music. And we can discuss our work over dinner.”

If she nods any harder she’s going to get dizzy. “That. That sounds wonderful. I’ll, uh, I’ll pick you up at five!”

[feathers-and-fisticuffs]

Surprise Visit...

[chapter list here]

Basil held Rose’s hand under the table, good leg bouncing nervously as he tried to keep up with the conversation.  Everyone was talking so quickly, and there were so many numbers, and terms, he couldn’t keep track of them all.  He hoped Rose wouldn’t try to ask him to add to the conversation, he was completely lost.

Rose gave him a quick smile and squeezed his hand as someone else started to talk, reassuring him that it was going well, and he was doing a good job.

“Yes, I agree.  I think that if we were to--”

Rose’s thought was cut short as the door slammed open.  “Chairman Rose, Sir, I -- “  Bede stepped inside confidently, until he realized he was interrupting, and his shoulders hunched.  “I’m sorry, Chairman, I didn’t realize...”

Roses’s smile never faltered, but the look in his eyes quickly changed.  “Young Bede... You’re interrupting.  Where are your manners?”

“I’m sorry sir.”  He stared at the floor, sulking over at Rose’s beckon and taking a seat on his other side silently.  Basil watched him hide his face in the collar of his coat, the eyes of the board members all on him.  He straightened up his posture and looked back towards the group at the table.  If he wasn’t on his best behavior, Oleana would punish both of them for this...

Bede held the letter in his shaking hands, severe eyes barely making it past the first line before he was overcome with the urge to rip the letter into a million pieces and never look back.  But he knew he wouldn’t do that.  He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He took a deep breath, and started the letter over.

Dearest Bede,

I hope this letter finds you well.  I know must not mean much coming from me right now, but it is the truth.  You have been at the forethought of my mind since our argument at Stow-on-Side, and I will be eternally grateful to Opal for opening her home to you, and seeing to it that you’ve been safe in my absence.  It warms my heart to have seen how far you’ve come as a trainer, and now a gym leader.  I always knew you’d find your place in the world.

I know It’s hard to understand, but believe me when I say, things are better this way.  For you, and for Basil.  I want you to remember me as someone who did everything I could to keep you safe.  Everything I did, I did for you.  For Galar.  Sometimes in life, we have to do the right thing, even if that makes us the villain.

I’m not asking you to forgive me.  I’m not asking for your pity.  I only wish that you know how much love I have, for you and your brother.  From the bottom of my heart, truly, I am sorry.

Your loving father,

Rose

Bede was gripping the fancy paper so hard it was starting to crumple in his grip, anger coursing through him like boiling water.  How dare he?  The nerve!  He abandoned them!  He can’t just drop them like they were nothing, only to come back when he wanted something!  He scanned the letter again, searching for a clue of what possible motive could be behind the sudden letter.  Why now..?  Why...?

He was brought back to the present by a sharp stab to his chest.  He looked down, smiling slightly as his Rapidash nudged his chest again with her horn, looking concerned.

“I’m alright.  There’s no pain there you’ll be able to heal...”  He pet her mane gently, though he didn’t think the healing energy his Rapidash tried so often to use could heal a heartbreak, the act of trying was healing enough.  He leaned back against her and shoved the letter in his pocket.  “I know, I know.  You’re worried.  You’re always worried about me, sweet thing...” 

He laid his head back against her flank and looked up at the stars, listening to the sounds of his team running and playing as they camped in the deep, dark center of the Glimwood Tangle.  Sylveon hopped up into his lap and curled up, licking his hand.  

“You’re worried too, huh?  Is it that obvious?”  He chuckled.  “Well don’t worry about me.  I’ll be okay.  If you’re gonna worry about someone, worry about... Basil.”  He sighed.  “Arceus, don’t send him a letter Rose... Don’t do this to him...”

************

“KABU!”  Basil kept an arm up, trying to shield his face from the whirlwind of sand making it impossible to see a thing.

“It’s okay, keep going!”  Kabu called through the swirling debris.  “Keep going!  Trust in your pokemon!”

A maniacal laugh tore through the blinding storm, and Basil turned towards it.  “There!  Go!”  He pointed, and Scorbunny and Nickit dissapeared into the storm too.

There was a quiet sound of confusion, but he didn’t hear the sound of an attack being made,  Suddenly, it was quiet.  Too quiet.

“Scorbunny?!  Nickit come back!”  He called, and in the same breath let out a cry as two claws grabbed him under his arms and lifted him into the air.  “HELP! NO!”

The storm began to clear, revealing two very confused looking Pokemon looking dazed and lost.  On the other side of the gym stood the Dragon Tamer himself, hands on his hips, laughing at Basil who was now dangling in the air, being held up by Raihan’s Duraludon.

“Close!  You almost had me that time kiddo!”  He teased, stepping up in front of him and poking his stomach with a grin.

Basil kicked at Raihan’s hand.  “Stohop!  Tell him to put me down!”  He pouted.  “Kabuuuu tell him to put me dooown!”

Kabu laughed from the sidelines.  “You didn’t trust your Pokemon enough!”  He called, which made Raihan laugh again. 

 “Okay, you’ve had your fun you can put him down now.”  He ruffled Basil’s hair, laughing as a dust cloud poofed up from him.  “You’re gonna need a bath after today!” he teased.

“Ugh...”  He dusted himself off.  “I’m never going to be able to do this...”

“Sure you will buddy!  Just keep practicing!”  Raihan encouraged.  “You’re a strong trainer, you just need to trust yourself more.  Don’t second guess yourself!”

Kabu pat his back.  “Head for the showers, kid.  You did good today.”  

Basil smiled at the praise and grabbed his cane.  “Thanks Mr. Raihan...”

“Any time kiddo!  Always up for a good spar!”

Basil waved shyly before rushing out of the gym with his Pokemon following close behind.  He was in an exceptionally good mood today, the excitement of the exibition matches happening over the weekend were already getting to him, the chance to meet the rest of the gym leaders was exciting enough as it is, but knowing that Bede would be in town, and that they’d get to see each other in a few days?  That was what excited him most.

The doorbell rang, and he detoured to the front door, trying to brush himself off enough that he was looking presentable if someone was calling for Kabu.  He opened the door and prepared to give his overly polite, generic greeting when he was almost knocked over by someone rushing him at the door and wrapping him in a big bear hug.

“Oof--!  Bede?!”

He hugged back immediately, melting into Bede’s hug.

“I missed you little brother...”  He squeezed tight.  “How have you gotten even shorter than the last time I saw you?”

Basil giggled.  “I didn’t get shorter you got taller you big jerk!  What are you doing here?”

“Bede has decided to come stay with us for a few days, until the exhibition is over.”  Kabu explained over his shoulder.  “Won’t you help him up to the spare room with his bags, Basil?” 

Basil already had an armload of stuff, hurrying  down the hall.  “Come on Bede!  I’ll show you where your room is!”  He limped, leaving his cane at the door.

“Hey!  You know you’re not supposed to be walking without your cane!”  Kabu called.

“It doesn’t hurt!  It’s okay!”

Kabu sighed.  “Basil, you know what the doctor said, I’m not going to tell you again.”

“I don’t need it!”

Bede grabbed the cane from the floor and followed Basil with his other bag.

“This is great!  I was worried I wasn’t gonna see you at all!”  Basil bounced all over happily, and Bede grabbed his shoulders and sat him down on the edge of the bed.  “I know.  That’s why I’m staying.  Also... Opal thought it would be good for me to spend a little time here with you and Kabu.  She thinks I’ve been spending too much time alone.”  He smirked, and there was a twinkle in his eye.  Basil couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Bede look this happy.

“So what’s she like?  What’s it like being a gym leader?  Tell me all about it!”

Bede flopped down beside him and told him all about life in Ballonlea, and about Opal, and all the hell she’d been putting him through.

Basil listened intently with wide eyes.  “She sounds awful!”

He giggled at that and nodded.  “Oh, she’s the absolute worst.”  Bede agreed.  “But... I have to admit.  It’s done me so much good.  And... sometimes I think she really does care about me.  And she wants me to be better.”

Basil hugged him again.  “I’m so happy for you Bede... I’ve been so worried about you... I’ve missed you so much...”

“Enough about me, tell me about you!”  Bede hugged back.  “I want to know everything!”

Basil gave him a tour, running around with excitement while pulling Bede along, telling him about all of the interesting new people he had met, and his new pokemon, and how nice Kabu had been to him.  Bede laughed at his stories and tried to keep up with him, and pretty soon he, Basil, and Kabu were in the living room having tea and snacks.  Bede and Kabu were talking cordially to each other, albeit a little coldly, Bede still hadn’t forgotten about the humiliation he had suffered at Kabu’s hands, and though Kabu knew the boy couldn’t have known, he hadn’t forgotten the humiliation that Rose had put him through later in payment.

Neither one of them noticed when Basil snuck out of the room and back upstairs.

“We normally don’t eat fast food, but I think tonight is a good night to order some delivery.  What do you think, Basil?”  Kabu glanced over finally and noticed he was gone.  “Basil?  Where’d he go?”

Bede frowned and shrugged.  “Maybe he went to take a nap.  He did just burn off a lot of energy...”

Kabu nodded.  Of course.  That made sense.

“Why don’t you go get settled, Bede?  I’ll order some food, and come get you when it gets here.”

He nodded in agreement, keeping his eyes narrowed and his shoulders tense as he stood, trying to look as mature and menacing as possible.

Kabu only smiled, sheepishly, wishing he could go back and fix things.  “Uh.  Sorry.”  He muttered.  “I know I... I mean.  You know.  I’m sorry.”

“Don’t mention it.”  There was a bite to Bede’s tone.  “Ever.”  He turned on his heel and marched to his room then, and once he was out of sight Kabu exhaled.  That was awkward.

***********

Kabu set the table, humming to himself, before stepping out into the hallway.  “Boys, food is here!  Dinner is ready!”

He washed his hands and sat down at the table, waiting patiently.

Bede looked as if he had just woken up from a nap, hair sticking up in more odd places than usual and clothes wrinkled on one side.  “Where’s Basil?”

“He should be down soon.  Basil!  Dinner!”

They sat in silence a few beats, before Kabu frowned and stood.  “Don’t wait on us, go ahead.  Eat up.  I’m sure you’re hungry.”  He gave him a friendly but forced smile before excusing himself to Basil’s room.

The door was closed, and Kabu made sure to knock this time.  “Basil?  Is everything alright in there?  Dinner’s ready...”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Bede is waiting for you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Can I come in?”

Silence.  Kabu opened the door to find Basil curled up on his bed, holding his leg.  His face was red from crying, and one look told him he was fighting not to start again.

“You hurt your leg, didn’t you?”

Basil’s shoulders jumped with stiffled sobs and he nodded.

“Let me see.”  Kabu helped sit him up and straighten his leg, being gentle, careful not to do anything that might hurt him or make it worse.  “Tell me if this hurts...”  He started pressing around with his fingers, looking for out of place bones or other alarming issues.  Basil winced when Kabu’s fingers dug into the muscle, but that was all.

“I warned you, Basil.  You’re lucky, you’ve just knotted up some muscles, but if you aren’t careful your leg might not heal.  The doctor said as long as you give it time, you can make a full recovery.  But you have to be careful.  And use your cane.”

“I hate it!”  He cried.  “I hate it it isn’t fair!”

Kabu sat down beside him then and rubbed his back.  “I know it isn’t fair.  But it isn’t a punishment.  You want to get better, right?  It’s no different than using a cast for a broken bone, or medicine for a fever.  It’s to help you heal.”

Basil hiccuped.

“You understand don’t you?”

“I don’t want Bede to see.  He’s doing so much better now, I want to be better too.”

“You are!  Are you kidding?  You’re doing great!  You caught your own Pokemon!  And you learned how to fold laundry really fast!  You’ve made new friends, and you don’t have to use crutches anymore!”

Basil looked up at him then.  He hadn’t really thought of it that way.

“Where’s your cane?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll find it later.”  He put his arm around Basil and lifted him up a bit.  “Hold on to me, let’s go get some food.  Food fixes everything.”  He smiled.

Basil wrapped an arm around him to keep himself upright and limped along beside him, trying to keep his weight off of it with Kabu’s support.

“I think Bede’s still mad at you.”  He whispered once they got out into the hallway.

“That’s alright.”  Kabu soothed.  “He’s allowed to be mad.”

Bede was sitting at the table when they got back, and though he hid it well enough from Basil, Kabu could tell that his eyes looked red, like he had been crying.  He didn’t bring attention to it.  Bede would let them know if something was wrong, pressing would only upset someone.

Their meal was peaceful, and delicious.  Bede held Basil’s hand under the table when he wasn’t using it, and Basil didn’t fight it.  He squeezed tight, thankful for the comfort.

************

Kabu tucked Basil into bed, giving him some medicine to help soothe the pain in his leg and making sure he was set up for the night.  “You need anything else?”

“Another blanket?”  He asked shyly.  “It’s kind of cold tonight.”  

“Of course.  The warmest blanket I can find.”  He smiled and left the door open a crack as he left.  Basil relaxed and closed his eyes, not opening them when he heard the door open again. 

“Thanks, Kabu.” 

He didnt’ hear a response, which was weird, so he opened his eyes and turned to look at what he was doing.  The door was open, but no one was there. 

“Kabu?”

“BOO!”  Bede pounced on him, startling him with a cry.

“BEDE?!  Don’t do that!”  He shoved his brother hard, trying to avoid his hug.  “Youre a jerk!”

“Oh come on it was funny!  Don’t be such a stick in the mud!”  He moved around his arms and hugged him.

“What do you want!”

Bede’s smile fell a bit.  “I dunno.  Couldn’t sleep.”

Basil scooted over then, giving him room to crawl up further and sit.

Kabu returned with blankets, and two mugs of warm milk and honey.  “Hm.  I had a hunch you were gonna need these.”  He handed each of them a mug and distributed blankets to them.  “I’m going to bed, if you need me, wake me up.”  He ruffled Basil’s hair and kissed his forehead gently.  “You too, kiddo.”  He looked over at Bede, who looked only slightly jealous of the attention.

“I’m not a kid.”  Was all he could think to respond.

“Goodnight.”  He smiled and closed the door then, leaving the two alone, sipping their warm drinks and talking about the past.

“Remember the last time we had a sleepover like this?”  Basil yawned.  “You were afraid Oleana was gonna punish you for interrupting a meeting, and I told you that I was gonna protect you and I stayed awake all night waiting for her.”

Bede laughed.  “No you didn’t!  You fell asleep before I did!”

“Well i tried to stay awake all night!”

They both laughed then, lapsing into comfortable silence.

“Do you... ever miss Rose?”  Bede asked after he had sat his mug aside and curled up under the blankets.

“No.  I hate him.”  Basil said seriously.  “I never want to see him again.”

Bede nodded.  “Yeah.”  He thought about the letter in his pocket again.  

“Do you?”  Basil asked cautiously.

“I... Don’t know.”  Bede admit.  “I’m still so angry... but part of me wants an answer for what happened.  But I know that no answer could ever be good enough for me.”

“He used us.  That’s your answer.”

Bede sighed and closed his eyes.  “Yeah.  I know.”

“We don’t need him.”

***********

Kabu cleared the last dish at the table, still rubbing the beginnings of sleep from his eyes.  It had been a long day, it was past his bed time, and all he wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sleep.  Something about this state he was in had him feeling venerable, so when there was a loud knock at the door, he practically jumped out of his skin.  

“Heavens!  At this hour?  I swear..!”

He stormed to the door and threw it open dramatically, putting on his fiercest scowl he could muster in his state.

There was no one there, he scanned the horizon looking for tricksters, but if they were out there, they were hidden well.  He glanced down before shutting the door, almost missing the bouquet of flowers on the doorstep.  He grabbed it, scanned the horizon one last time, and closed the door.

The flowers were beautiful, orange and red and yellow like a raging fire, with a note attached.

I’m sorry.  I was wrong.  Give me one more chance to make things right.  I won’t let you down.

Nanu

Kabu rolled his eyes and chucked the note into the trash.  Until he could talk to him face to face like an adult without getting defensive, he could stay sorry.

The flowers were beautiful, though.

[andrea-lyn]

In case you're still taking prompts: Malex rekindling their friendship as the group goes to some UFO convention in Vegas, where they end up getting drunk married

They’re turning thirty-one and it’s Michael’s turn to pick.

“I hate this birthday,” Isobel says, staring as people in alien costumes mill past their group. For all that she and Max might not be twins, there’s dual horror on their faces as they stare at the convention center, though Liz and Kyle look vaguely amused. “Why does he always pick the worst birthdays?”

“Is it better than the time he made us go stalk the air force training base to see if he could get a glimpse of Alex?” Max wonders.

Alex leans forward to stare at Michael in horror from across their group. “When did that happen?”

Michael dismisses it with a hand wave. “Not important,” he insists, grinning as he hands out lanyards. “Welcome to the UFO Convention,” he says, a manic look in his eyes. “Iz, don’t go in anyone’s head. Max,” he drawls, draping the lanyard over his neck, “try not to look like a resurrected alien so no one gets suspicious of you. Liz, please do find the one legit scientist buried in this place.” He hands a lanyard to Maria, gesturing to the ‘psychics amidst aliens’ booth, which clearly gets her excited, and Kyle follows after grabbing his lanyard from Michael and a look that says he’d better look out for her.

“With a few exceptions, you have terrible taste,” Kyle says in parting.

With that, they scatter until Alex is the only one left, pointing to the lanyard. “Don’t I get one?”

Michael has a very special surprise for Alex, though. He drapes the lanyard over his neck and winds their hands together (he’ll never get over how his healed hand fits in Alex’s so easily, the way they could have held hands like this at seventeen and missed the chance). “I got us a very special surprise,” he says, leading Alex to where he’d coordinated to get one of the exhibits shut down for them.

He ducks behind the curtain and leads Alex inside to where they’ve set up a projection of their galaxy on a dark ceiling, casting galaxies into their view.

Waiting expectantly, he tries to calm his rapidly beating heart, running his tongue over his lower lip as he presses a hand to the small of Alex’s back to walk him right to the center of it. It’ll never compare to sitting in the desert and stargazing, but for where they are, it’s not so bad. Besides, maybe later, he’ll kidnap Alex and they’ll go out there for real.

“This is incredible,” Alex breathes, staring up at it.

Even though the view above them is cosmically gorgeous, Michael can’t take his eyes off Alex for a second. “Yeah,” he agrees. “You are.”

Alex doesn’t bother to give him a glare, but his cheeks flush a little.

”Let’s get out of here,” Alex insists, pushing at Michael. “Because I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re not supposed to be here.”

Michael makes a face and he’s not sure why he ever bothers, because it’s not like Alex will ever believe it.

”Fine, you win.” He leads them out and to the bar, where Alex insists on buying them the first round. They have plans to wait for the others, but one round turns into a second and then a third when everyone is off having their own fun. “Which one of them do you think is making out?” Alex asks, prodding at Michael’s shoulder. “Isobel and Maria? Or Max and Liz? Or…Kyle and…”

Michael leans in for a kiss because if they’re talking about making out, then he wants it to be him and Alex. Besides, it’s his birthday and it’s his choice for how he wants to spend it.

Sitting in a booth at the bar and making out with Alex is right up there on the top of his list. They haven’t really spent much time at all at the convention, which is fine by him. He’s not in the mood to argue with conspiracy theorists about why their spaceship designs are shitty and would never work.

It’s much better to sit here and drink with Alex, rounds two and three making him feel invincible and so good. The fourth round is where things start to go off the rails, because all those light kisses are starting to get a touch more aggressive. There’s still hope to reel it back, but only if they stop drinking.

They don’t, though.

Fourth round turns into fifth and the romantic mood from earlier has transitioned into a touchy one, their hands all over one another. “Hey,” Alex exhales, tugging on Michael’s collar with both hands, yanking him in a few times. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Michael laughs, giddy and drunk and a little wobbly.

“Let’s do something stupid.”

“I’m something stupid, you could do me.”

Alex smacks his palm against Michael’s chest a few times. “Yeah. Yeah! Later,” he insists. “Let’s do something really stupid.” His eyes are as bright as the stars and he’s so excited, but for all the money in the world, Michael never would’ve counted on what happens next. “Let’s get married.”

“Is that the tequila speaking, or can you please send Alex Manes back to speak to me, thank you,” Michael mumbles drunkenly, but it’s not the worst idea. Is it? Shit, he’s too drunk.

“Alex Manes,” he replies, “and yeah, let’s get married. We’ve been dating for a year, but we’ve been together forever. Are you telling me you see a future where we don’t do this?”

“You know I don’t have that power,” Michael mumbles, but he’s starting to come around to the idea.

Alex is right. After everything they’ve gone through, neither of them is about to decide that they don’t want this, which means that it’s probably one of the smartest ideas he’s ever heard in his life.

They drink round seven and get out of there to find the nearest chapel, where they do something extremely stupid, and then Alex makes Michael so proud, yanking him towards their newly upgraded honeymoon suite.

”Now, what was that about me doing something stupid…?”

Oh yeah, thinks Michael. Best birthday ever.

*

The next morning, they meet the rest of the group in the lobby of the hotel. Everyone is wearing sunglasses, which means that it’s a group hangover kind of day, though Michael already has a beer in hand and is heavily believing in the power of ‘hair of the dog’.

Alex seems fairly put together even though Michael knows he’d been drinking shot for shot with him, but maybe he has some secret human stubborn powers when it comes to processing his alcohol.

Whatever it is, it’s both charming and annoying.

It’s not as annoying as Valenti yanking Michael’s good hand into his. “What the fuck,” he snaps. “You had a quickie Vegas wedding?” he demands, gaping at the ring. “Please tell me it wasn’t…”

“Hey,” Alex interrupts, holding up an envelope as he returns to a group gaping at him. “They gave us the pictures from last night. Do you remember the giant green man standing up as our witness?”

Yup. That’s about when all hell breaks loose and they descend on Alex for the pictures, leaving Michael alone with his smug grin, a wedding ring on his finger, and the knowledge that he had a wedding presided over by Elvis while two little green men from the convention witnessed it.

Vegas, baby.

[ashesandhalefire]

we had it (almost)

michael guerin x alex manes canon compliant pre-1.09

---

As a rule, Michael tries to avoid injecting himself into the business of the town beyond the property limits of Sander’s Auto, the Wild Pony, or Foster Ranch. If he can’t earn himself a paycheck, get a stiff drink, or find somewhere quiet to hide out during the long hours of insufferably lonely nights, he figures he shouldn’t let the problems of Roswell weigh on his shoulders.

 That’s been his policy for over a decade, so when he notices a strange light in the window of a closed storefront on his way home, he has every intention of minding his own business. The town’s rising larceny rate is only partially his fault, and he has no responsibility to look after the vagrants he comes across at two in the morning. Leave that to Max and his badge and his hero complex. Michael has a mattress and a pillow and a second bottle of acetone calling his name.

 The traffic light turns red at the end of the block, and he drums his fingers as he waits at the empty intersection. Glancing back towards the window is mostly an accident. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise him to find the old members of Wyatt Long’s high school posse breaking and entering. They have enough money to buy their ways out of whatever trouble they land in, and they’ve been fidgety since Long took a bullet to the leg. They rove like hyenas, slobbering and mangey and stupid. Destruction of property would be very on-brand for them. But when he looks, he doesn’t see anyone in the shadows. It’s a cool, clear night, but the only thing illuminated by the large swaths of moonlight is the marque on the building.

 Roswell’s UFO Emporium.

Grant Green’s perpetual construction project has sat untouched in the center of town for just under six years. Town supervisors had been livid when construction began just before the height of tourist season, but Grant had assured them everything would be settled in a few months. Bigger and better, he had promised. At the time, Michael had bitterly hoped an electrical mishap might burn the place to the ground, so he’s more than a little confused when he instinctively pulls into a quick U-turn the second the traffic light turns green again. He parks at the curb and takes a deep breath.

 The museum was defunct by the time Grant got his hand on it. Even on its best days, it hadn’t turned much of a profit. It was the kind of place people wandered into when they were looking for a way to escape the triple-digit temperatures, but it hardly received glowing reviews. No doubt Grant planned on using it more as a recruitment center for his delusional followers than anything else. Now, it’s only a matter of time before the town claims the property rights from his estate.

 In a few months, after fresh paint goes up over a new layer of drywall and somebody replaces the old incandescent lightbulbs, the museum will open, lazily refurbished as a more lucrative tourist trap. Any damage done by a few trespassers will be patched and forgotten.

 Still, Michael idles his truck at the curb.

 With a scowl, he reminds himself that sentimentality has gotten him nowhere lately. It got him a couple of decent kisses and a few nights of sex that didn’t end with bloodshed or an acetone binge, but the net gain at the end was heartache and disappointment. He should go home.

 He looks over at the building, twisting his hands mercilessly around the steering wheel. The stupid sign still hanging in the window of the ticket booth says “I’ve been abducted! Back in 5.” One of the chains that should be holding the front doors closed dangles uselessly from the metal handle.

 Michael swears, ripping the keys out of the ignition, and shoves his way out of the car.

 The UFO museum never inspired warm and fuzzy feelings. Most of the exhibits were grossly inaccurate, and the display descriptions all took on alarmist tones that made planet-wide invasions sound inevitable. He still gets a particularly troubling feeling in his stomach when he thinks about the room with the interactive dissection display. The dummy was six feet long and bright neon-green with three fingers on each hand and a head shaped like a spade, but the way its foam flesh had been peeled away from its chest cavity still sends shivers down his spine when he thinks about it. Children, two at a time, had been allowed to reach inside and squeeze the fake organs, coating their hands with green blood the consistency of papier-mâché paste. The first time he saw it, on a middle school field trip, he had run to the bathroom to throw up. Isobel told everyone it was because he ate too many chicken fingers at lunch, and one of Kyle Valenti’s friends joked that foster kids always got too excited about free meals.

 But there was one day—one hour—when it was his favorite place in the world.

 Tucked away in the back room with hands on his face and his shoulders and his back, he had felt potential stretch out infinitely in every direction. There was a whole summer to plan, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine sitting in the alleyway behind the building to share sandwiches on lunch breaks or loitering in the empty exhibits on slow days or riding out into the desert after closing and taking time to pick out fake constellations in the real stars. For the first time, his future wasn’t about escape.

 The room is probably an empty shell of damaged drywall and scratched floors now, all the exhibits taken out and moved to Grant’s warehouse, and the energy of that afternoon had burned out and died by nightfall of the same day. Potential scattered in the breeze like ash. Everything changed. Still, the idea of Wyatt Long’s drunken friends littering the place with beer cans and pissing in the corners to cure their boredom makes his jaw twitch. The museum doesn’t belong to them.

 When he slips inside, everything is darker and quieter than he expected. There’s no sign of anybody having been in the deconstructed lobby, and an eerie silence seems to inhabit the rest of the building. Drunken vandals wouldn’t be nearly so stealthy, and that should be enough to satisfy him, give him leave to turn around and go home, but the curiosity wins out. Somebody wanted to get inside badly enough to risk standing on the street to pick the chain lock. The only thing Michael thinks might be worth stealing in here is the copper wiring, which would require breaking open the walls, and that wouldn’t be this quiet either.

 Listening for any signs of movement, Michael creeps forward, working his way between the forgotten sawhorses, and checks the room on the right that used to be the gift shop. A faint bit of moonlight streams through the front corner of the window where the newspaper has peeled back with age, and he runs a fingertip over the dusty glass countertop. It used to be filled with poorly-designed plush and cheap plastic necklaces with almond-shaped heads on them. Now, it’s just empty glass cabinetry waiting to be demolished.

 He should be glad to see the kitsch go, but he isn’t. It leaves him feeling unsettled.

 The old manager’s office on the other side of the foyer is undisturbed in its abandonment, and Michael drums his fingers lightly against the wall as he makes his way deeper into the building. The first exhibit room is completely empty, and it’s swallowed in shadows without the light from the front windows. He presses forward, gently nudging obstacles out of the way with a jerk of his chin. The second and third rooms are crammed tight with piles of garbage that was never removed, and he tries to ignore the way that gnaws at him. He works his way past the broken drywall and splintered two-by-fours, careful to avoid the exposed nails and razor-sharp remnants of display cases, and then a soft click echoes from through a doorway on the left. A soft glow from inside guides him the rest of the way across the room.

 When he peers around the corner, two thoughts occur simultaneously: it isn’t who he was expecting, and it never would have been anyone else.

 “Remind me again which one of us is supposed to be the criminal,” Michael says after a deep breath, and it’s a little satisfying to watch Alex startle. His crutch hits the side of an overturned spackle bucket, sending it skittering loudly across the floor, and he winces at how the sound echoes in the empty room. Alex has his own phone sitting face-down on a crate, and the flashlight splashes a dull circle of light onto the ceiling.

 When the stillness settles over them again, Michael cross his arms and leans against the wall. The acetone he slipped into his drinks at the bar has officially worn off, which means the ache in his hand will return soon. It’s a constant, dull pain. With enough acetone in his system, it fades to the background like the hum of the electric wires or Grant Green’s alien podcasts, Roswell’s special brand of white noise. Eyes raking over Alex’s rumpled sweatpants and half-zipped hoodie, he thinks he feels the beginnings of twinges radiating from his wrist down into his pinky.

 Finally, Alex licks his lips and asks, “What are you doing here?”

 “Really?” Michael raises an eyebrow. “I’m the one who just caught you breaking and entering.”

 Lifting his chin defiantly, Alex squares his shoulders. “Well, unless somebody gave you a key, you’re breaking and entering, too.”

 “You did all the breaking,” Michael says with a shrug. “I just entered.”

 “That’s still trespassing.” Cocking his head, Alex says, “You do know that criminal records aren’t bingo cards, right? There’s no prize for filling in all the rows.”

 Alex’s new mean streak is a delicious twist on his high school sarcasm, and Michael leans into it without meaning to. He likes when Alex pulls his hair, too. “Actually,” he says, “I’m in the process of executing a citizen’s arrest, so I think the sheriff’s department will let this one slide.”

 “Doubtful.”

 Michael clicks his tongue. “I have an in with one of the deputies.”

 “I hope you don’t mean Max.”

 “God, no,” Michael scoffs. “He’d be first in line with the handcuffs.”  

 That earns him a small lift at the corner of Alex’s mouth, and some of the stiffness in his spine eases away. Michael feels his own shoulders relax. Every interaction with Alex has been wrought with tension, and he wants desperately for this night to not end in a fight.

 “Aren’t you staying out of town these days?”

 Shuffling around an overfilled trash can, Alex works his way forward.

 “I couldn’t sleep,” he admits with a shrug. He flexes his grip around the handle on his crutch and averts his eyes. The shadows on his face sit heavily beneath his eyes, and Michael frowns.

 “Most people would try warm milk first,” he says. “Or Ambien. Trespassing doesn’t usually make the list of top five insomnia remedies.”

 “Then consider it my last resort.”

 With an indelicate hop, Alex hefts himself up onto the crate in the middle of the room and settles his crutch between his knees. His cell phone sits behind him, plunging him into pure silhouette, and Michael steps farther into the room. Purple Heart Airman Alex Manes is not the kind of man to drive across town in the middle of the night in order to break into a construction site. But this isn’t just any construction site.

 “Why would you want to come here?” Michael asks. Alex stares silently at his hands, and Michael taps the toe of his boot against a stack of two-by-fours. “It’s not exactly—”

 “Don’t play dumb,” Alex interrupts, looking up sharply. “I’m not in the mood. You know why I would come here.”

 It hangs heavily between them.

 Alex had been swift and decisive when he ended things at the drive-in, leaving no room for interpretation. But it also hadn’t been the first time he walked away, so Michael can’t be entirely surprised to be stumbling into the middle of his late-night backslide. The pattern repeats again, a twisted version of an unhappy ending that hurts more than never having him in the first place.

 With a huff, he hops up onto the crate beside Alex. It groans beneath their combined weights but holds firm, and he claps his hands down on his knees.

“Look around, Alex. Everything that made this place what it was? It’s long gone,” Michael says. The wall to the left is where the model UFO hung, backlit by a wall of twinkling little lights. It’s half-torn out sheetrock now. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’s not here. Not anymore.”

 Alex shakes his head. “That’s not how it works. This place doesn’t just stop being important—” He breaks off, tapping his crutch against the ground. Michael watches him swallow. “Never mind. You obviously don’t— forget it.”

 Scoffing, Michael leans back and looks at the ceiling. The only reason he even walked through the front door was because of some desperate need to protect the memories living in the walls. But he never loved the cheesy UFO museum. In the years since Alex left town, he never felt himself drawn back to the building itself. Even before Grant took the exhibits out, Michael never felt there was anything inside for him. It’s strange that now, when Alex is finally on the same continent—in the same town, in the same room—he felt drawn to it. Or maybe it isn’t strange at all.

 “I try not to think about that day,” Michael says. It’s a truth and a lie at the same time, and it’s much bigger than a secret kiss or a shattered hand. At first, everything had bled together for him. He couldn’t think about the cave without thinking about the toolshed without thinking about the museum. When he closed his eyes, he saw burning cars and the curve of Alex’s naked hip and his own blood all at the same time. But his mind has worked miracles compartmentalizing that day. Certain parts have never left him. Others are best forgotten.

 Alex spins his crutch in his hands and says, “I think about that day all the time.”

 “I’ll bet. I hear PTSD is a bitch.”

 “Actually, it was one of the best days of my life.”

 Michael scoffs. “Shit, Alex. That’s not saying much for your life.”

 “Don’t do that.” Alex frowns.

 “Do what?”

 “Don’t minimize it.” Wringing his hands, Alex keeps his eyes fixed on his lap. “I’m not stupid, alright? We only had a few hours, and I’m not delusional enough to think— I know what it was. But you have no idea what it meant to me.” His voice wavers, and Michael feels frozen on the spot. The ten lost years have reduced them to unfamiliar strangers, and sometimes it feels like they don’t even speak the same language anymore. They hadn’t needed to say much to each other for things to things to fall into place the first time. It hasn’t been nearly as easy on their second—third, fourth, fifth, he loses count—try.

 Alex takes a deep breath and turns away, offering the rest of his confession to the empty room.

 “You were mine when I didn’t have anything else. And I know— I know how it ended. I know what it cost you. But you’ll never understand what it meant to me to have you for as long as I did.”

 Heart in his throat, Michael stares at the darkened silhouette of Alex’s profile.

 A few weeks ago, he stood in front of Alex and laid himself bare entirely by accident. I never look away. Not really. Alex had seemed surprised and then pleasantly flustered, but Michael had assumed it was because of how much time had passed. Ten years is a long time for a heart to stay alone someplace, just waiting to carry on, but Alex had admitted to it first. Alex had reopened the door.

 But he doesn’t sound like a man who understands how pathetically Michael has wanted him.

 With Max’s voice still whispering in his ear, Michael bites back, You still have me.

 It isn’t the sort of promise that can be a comfort to Alex now. Michael isn’t really what he wants anymore, isn’t what he remembers having. He isn’t that boy from the back of the truck that just wanted a safe place to sleep. Or maybe, somewhere deep down, he still has it in him to be that soft, but he’s built up a layer of callous and scar tissue on the outside that makes him unrecognizable.

 I can’t be with a criminal, Alex had said, and he hadn’t even known the half of it.

 Max was right when he said that they couldn’t be with the people they love. And still, he’s angry at Alex for the way he’s been hurt, and it makes him feel like an idiot. He hates that the two contradictory truths can live inside him so easily. Like a trap getting angry at a bear for being wary, he resents Alex for running away while hating himself for being undeserving of keeping him.

 It says a lot about Michael that his greatest regret is not letting Alex kiss him the first time he tried.

 Alex takes a shuddering breath suddenly, head ducked low, and rubs a hand against the back of his neck. He seems embarrassed, curling in on himself like it can erase his admission. Leaning closer, Michael bumps their shoulders together to stop his retreat.

 “You know,” he says, “you and me getting together was kind of, like, the most romantic thing that’s ever happened in this town.”

 “Fuck off.”

 “I’m serious,” Michael insists when he catches the bitterness in Alex’s tone. He isn’t trying to tease him, and he doesn’t want Alex to think he doesn’t appreciate the weight of what happened between them. “It was like a movie.”

 “Are you incapable of sincerity, or do you just enjoy being an asshole?”

 “I don’t know. Do you enjoy expecting the worst of me?”

 Alex kicks his heels against the side of the crate. “We made out under the UFOs for ten minutes, and then you went to wait at The Crashdown until my shift ended. If that’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened in this town, the population should be dwindling. People should be fleeing.”

 “I wanted to wait with you,” Michael reminds him. “You wouldn’t let me into the booth.”

 “I was trying to be subtle.”

 Michael rolls his eyes. “There was nothing subtle about that eyeliner. Or the nose ring.”

 “You didn’t mind.”

 “No,” Michael says. “I didn’t.”

 Alex turns towards him, still mostly a silhouette, and licks his lips.

 “No,” he breathes. “You didn’t.”

 A beat passes between them, and Michael’s breath catches in his chest as the realization settles over his shoulders like a heavy blanket. Alex loves him. He’s suddenly surer of it than anything else in his life, and heat rushes to his cheeks. It should be a pleased flush from his racing heart, but his stomach twists with misery as he stares at Alex’s shadowed face. Alex loves him. Alex has always loved him, maybe, for reasons neither of them can fully explain. They could have been happy. If things had just been a little different, they could have been happy.

 The light disappears suddenly as Alex’s phone dies.

 Michael stares out into the dark to where he knows Alex is, and then he lets his eyes drift shut just long enough to steel himself.

 “I guess that’s our cue,” Alex sighs.

 “Yeah, I think I’m parked next to a hydrant,” Michael says, clearing his throat as he slips off the crate. He rolls his shoulders, trying to settle the rippling tension radiating down his back, and then holds out a hand to help Alex back to his feet. “Can’t afford another ticket.”

 “I thought you had an in with the deputies.” Alex dusts off the back of his jeans and then returns his hand to the crook of Michael’s arm as he adjusts his crutch. Michael figures it’s the steadiest influence he’s has ever had on Alex.

 “We both know that was bullshit. Come on. Let’s try to get out of here without killing ourselves.”

 Alex fists a hand into the back of Michael’s shirt as they pick their way through the dark, and Michael adjusts himself to the task of subtly moving obstacles out of their way without being able to see what he’s moving. They make it to the first exhibit room, less than a hundred feet from freedom, and then Alex loops his fingers loosely around Michael’s wrist.

 “Guerin.”

 The word is a whisper against the back of his neck, and the hand slips off his wrist and finds his hip instead. Alex curls his arm around Michael’s waist, and he presses himself forward until the lines of their bodies curve together seamlessly.

 This part always comes so easily to them. It’s the rest that gets messy.

 Alex nudges his nose against the knob at the base of Michael’s neck, and he splays his hand wide across the middle of Michael’s chest. Body flushing, Michael lets his eyes drift shut as he relaxes against Alex’s warmth. Alex inspires stillness in him that he imagines total peace is meant to feel like, but he knows it’s only the eye of a hurricane. The rest of the storm still rages around them.

 “We can’t,” Michael exhales.

 Pressing his mouth to the curve of Michael’s shoulder, Alex hums. “Why not?”

 There are so many answers, all of them true.

 He can imagine the seductive tilt of Alex’s head as he leans forward, and he can imagine the anxious hunch of his shoulders in the morning light as he slinks out of the Airstream before anyone notices where he spent the night. If Michael closes his eyes, he sees sweaty strands of Alex’s hair sticking to his forehead and spread out on a pillowcase as easily as he sees the angry sneer of disgust that will follow Michael laying his secrets bare.

 The truth is that Michael is a coward. He won’t survive having and losing Alex again.

 “Because I love you.”

 Without the light from Alex’s phone, all they are to each other is shapes in the dark.

 It’s fitting, considering how lost Michael feels navigating the foreign terrain of an emotion this elusive. Anger is easy. He’s seen enough anger manifested in front of him to know exactly what it is. It’s curled fists and free-flying hands and bared teeth and acidic vitriol that seeks out a person’s soft spots and eats away at the tender flesh until he’s crippled by it. It’s ugly and familiar. But Michael has never been loved. He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to look like. All he knows is that being with Alex makes him feel still. It changes the energy in the air, slows the vibrating chaos inside him, and splits him at his loosely-patched seams when it’s over.

 He’s never said those words before.

 “I love you,” Michael repeats into the dark, and he reaches down to cover Alex’s hand with his own. His scarred fingers ache as they twine. The bones don’t bend like they should, and most of the strength is gone, but this feels like the last chance he’ll get to hold Alex’s hand. Distantly, it occurs to him that this is also the first time he’s ever held Alex’s hand. “And it’s too easy to think it can still be like it was.”

 Alex shuffles forward. “Guerin—”  

 When Alex finds out, he’ll hate Michael like he deserves.

 Michael has never given a damn about the people of Roswell because they never gave a damn about him. A decade in foster care taught him that humans can’t be depended on for anything more than consistent disappointment. He survived just long enough to get himself out, and he did it without help from anybody. Then things went sideways, and then then things turned upside down, and then everything got blown to hell.

 He spent the summer after senior year telling himself new truths. He repeated them like a mantra until they were fully incorporated into him. Katie Long was an asshole, just like her brother, and so was Jasmine. Rosa Ortecho was an on-and-off crackhead on a long road to nowhere. If not them on a slab in the morgue, then Isobel, Max, and himself on gurneys in a secret government facility, locked away somewhere nobody would hear them scream.

 Reality is too terrible to bear if those aren’t his truths. That day, what he is became inextricably linked to what he did, and it can never be undone. There are no apologies to offer. Besides, it spiraled out towards disaster more horribly than any of them could have ever imagined, so even their apologies wouldn’t have mattered. There’s no forgiveness, no absolution, and he would do it again in a heartbeat, if given the choice. Sometimes that feels like the worst part.

 Still, knowing that the people of Roswell would hate him for what he is and what he’s done doesn’t mean much. He’s had years to practice turning his own guilt inside out, and he doubts that public opinion would weigh too heavily on him. The more pressing concern has always been discovery, capture, and the inevitability of experimentation. Fear of being strapped to a table, of hearing Max and Isobel scream through a vivisection, the worst word he ever learned, is a more persuasive motivator than anything else.

 But when Alex finds out, he’ll hate Michael like he deserves, and Michael will feel every ounce of it.

 That, in itself, is all the evidence he needs to know that he isn’t a good man.

 It’s unlikely that their DNA has corrupted them or that they carried murderous instincts halfway across the galaxy, but their hands are soaked in blood from what they did and they will leave fingerprints on everything they touch. Max may have found his way to that conclusion in a heap of self-pitying misery, but Michael hasn’t been able to find a flaw in his logic. Always terrified of being unloved, they have made themselves unlovable.

 Alex has suffered plenty at the hands of people pretending to be good men. Michael can’t stomach being just another in a long line of betrayals. If the best Michael can do now is stay away, it should be enough to redeem some small part of him that remembers an Alex who just wanted to be safe.

 “It doesn’t have to be what it was,” Alex finally says, voice unbearably soft. “It can be new.”

 Michael pulls their hands up to his mouth and presses a kiss to the center of Alex’s palm.

 One day, Alex will have to ask himself what it means to be loved by a monster. He will think back on every time that Michael touched him with softness and reverence and wonder what it means that someone so drenched in horror could look at him and want so desperately. If he asked, Michael would tell him that it means he embodies the best of what lesser men want for themselves: bravery, integrity, and an unyielding capacity for kindness. But Alex won’t ask. Instead, he’ll consider every time he walked away and wonder why he came back. He’ll scrub himself raw trying to get rid of an invisible stain. He’ll thank saints he barely believes in for the narrow miss of almost that Michael will cherish for the rest of his life.

 “We can’t.”

 “Guerin—”

 Alex isn’t the type to beg, so Michael is entirely unprepared to feel the grip around his waist tighten in protest. He holds himself shock-still, terrified to hear what Alex will say to change his mind and what he’ll need to say to protect himself from it. But Alex doesn’t say anything else. He just squeezes his fingers around Michael’s gnarled hand and draws a long inhale through his nose.

 Then, Alex lets go, and, for the first time, Michael is the one who runs.

[upennmanuscripts]

Before Breakfast?? Instructions for Weekday Prayers in a Venetian Dialect

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 22/52

Book of Hours for the Use of Rome, University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 688, fol. 13r

The Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project did not formally include manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania, which had already been digitized and made available on the OPenn repository several years ago. However, these manuscripts will soon be integrated within the BiblioPhilly browsing interface in an effort to produce a comprehensive digital resource for pre-modern manuscripts in the region. Preparations for the upcoming “Making the Renaissance Manuscript: Discoveries from Philadelphia Libraries” exhibition I am curating at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts (February–May 2020) have provided an additional reason for looking more closely at some of Penn’s European manuscripts, which still have plenty of secrets to reveal. As many of us know, mere digitization does not equal discovery!

The compact Book of Hours that is our subject today, UPenn Ms. Codex 688, has perhaps evaded attention because it contains no secondary decoration, apart from a large initial D and some vinework on folio 13r which may well be later in date. The textual content of Italian Books of Hours – as distinct from their decoration – has received relatively little scholarly attention, though the situation is changing.1

Ms. Codex 688 is written in a fine humanist hand. It is a late example of a format and genre popular in Central and Northern Italy earlier in the fifteenth century. The text of the Calendar and the principal offices is in Latin, as is the case in the overwhelming majority of Books of Hours from all regions of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe. The Calendar contains saints venerated in Northern Italy generally, including Ambrose of Milan (7 December), Secundus of Asti (1 June), and Prosdocimus of Padua (7 November). Reflecting the increasing prevalence of vernacular prayer in the fifteenth century, towards the end of the book, after the Hours of the Holy Spirit (fols. 86r–128v), there are weekday prayers in Italian. This particularity had been noted without further elaboration in the the existing catalog record for the manuscript, and is not altogether surprising.

But what do these prayers actually consist of? They are in fact a set of devotions intended to be performed in front of a crucifix. This is a rather precise and unusual series of prayers for a Book of Hours, perhaps related to the fact that the book contains no illuminations.2 The prayers are also a reminder of how Books of Hours were often intended to be employed in concert with works in other media, in this case a sculpture. There is one prayer for each day of the week plus another for Palm Sunday, and each is prefaced by detailed instructions about the specific gestures to be made by the devotee while reciting the text.

Reading these instructions, we notice some distinct spellings and words that are not of the mainstream, Tuscan variant of Italian. For example, we read “Zuoba” and “Domenega” for Thursday and Sunday respectively instead of the habitual “giovedì” and “domenica”; “zonte le mane” instead of “giunte le mani” for joined hands; “quindexe” instead of “quindici” for the number fifteen, and so on. These unusual orthographies point to a Venetian dialect (here truly a regionally inflected variant of Italian as opposed to the more distinct Venetian language) as recorded in dictionaries such as Giuseppe Boerio’s Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano.3 A few words seem closer to variants attested in the Milanese vernacular, in particular “morzada” for “extinguished,” which is an unusual spelling close to the “smorzada” recorded in Milan.4 On balance, though, it seems likely that the Book of Hours was produced in the Veneto, especially considering the presence of the first Bishop of Padua, Prodocimus, in the calendar, much rarer and more geographically specific than Saint Ambrose.

Equally fascinating is the attitude that the supplicant should take when pronouncing each prayer. On Palm Sunday, the prayers are to be said while looking up with joined hands:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 129r

On Mondays, with hands crossed over the knees in memory of the flagellation:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 129v

On Tuesdays, at the foot of the cross in the manner of Mary Magdalene:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 130r

On Wednesdays, prostrate and face to the ground:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 130v

On Thursdays, kneeling:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 131r

On Fridays, the devotee is to recite the Pater Noster (Our Father) and Ave Maria (Hail Mary) five times, kissing each of Christ’s wounds once, in memory of the Crucifixion:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 130r

On Saturday, prayers must be said while holding an extinguished candle (“candela morzada”) in memory of Christ’s death:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 130r

On Sunday (“domenega”), the candle is to be lit as a symbol of his resurrection:

Ms. Codex 688, fol. 130r

For each day of the week, the prayers are to be said before breakfast (“avanti che tu manzi ne bevi”).  This unusual guide to prayer shows the extent to which such compact prayer books were intended to be used in concert with devotional images, especially when not otherwise illustrated. They also allow us to nuance and enrich the corpus of Italian Books of Hours, which is often considered as a monolithic block.

  from WordPress http://bibliophilly.pacscl.org/before-breakfast-instructions-for-weekday-prayers-in-a-venetian-dialect/

[knotheaddesignstudio]

Punk Rock Pony

My punk rock pony came about as a revamp of an existing piece. Those of you that follow my work may recognize Bisou the draft horse. This piece received many likes and was favorited quite often but I felt like it could be something more.

First, I lengthened the bridge of her nose, darkened her muzzle and increased the size of her eyes. Then I decided that I didn't like her as taxidermy hanging against the wall. I pulled her off the plaque and lengthened the neck so she could be a sculpture. Sorry - I forgot to take pictures in process! Around the time that I converted her to a sculpture, I read an article by Daniel Swanick that highlighted the work of Jeffro Uitto. Jeffro creates amazing sculptures from driftwood.

His horse busts inspired me to kick Bisou's look up a few notches and go punk rock. I created a series of wool ropes that I felted aggressively so they would hold their shape when they dried. Using a Joomchi process similar to felting, I also created paper rods. I flipped Bisou's mane all to one side and then attached the rods and ropes. As a final step, I also added some light, random swirls on the nose and cheek. It gives a marbled effect and makes it look like my girl has tattoos to go with the righteous haircut. Here are some photos of the final product.

This girl is one of my most favorite all time! My punk rock pony was accepted into the GALEX 56 Exhibition at the Galesburg Community Arts Center. The exhibition opens April 1 and was juried by world renowned artist Claire Ashley so I am humbled to be included and excited to see the other pieces in the exhibit. Read the full article

[airxn]

LURI’S GUIDE TO THE FELICIDAE.

Disclaimer: not everything written here is strictly about Airin. He’s the only one of his kind and has adapted from his own history and surroundings. This is for the species as a whole. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Etymology. The word felicidae is derived from the scientific terms felidae, the class of fauna felines fall under, and canidae, the class of fauna canines fall under. Combined together they create felicidae, but is shortened to felicid ( ˈfelə–kid ). 

General Morphology. Felicid are generally smaller in stature. They stand 54–62 cm ( 21–24 in ) at the shoulder and weigh 9–18 kg ( 20–40 lb ), yet their tails can be a third of their body’s length. Their features include a slender, yet squared head with tall ears with thicker bases, a mane which is thicker on males than on females, and a feline tail which is semi-prehensile. Their spine is flexible and more rounded when at an idle stance, and their claws are also retractable. A felicid’s eyes are feline and have excellent night vision.

Pelage. Felicid adorn a coat ranging from rich gold to flaxen to blend in with their arid climates. Most of their body is a shorter, softer fur which offers decent protection from most temperatures. Their manes are thicker and hold an undercoat which has the potential to grow fungus is subjected to damp conditions. These manes, along with the fur along their spine, flare when threatened or to impress. Fur is also thick between their toe pads to protect them from extreme temperatures, and their fur is absent from the interior of their ears. 

Acceleration. With their flexible spine, deep chest, and powerful legs the felicid are capable of reaching 80 km ( 50 mph ) within short bursts. With their long tails they can switch directions rapidly. Their power is centered at their haunches. Giving their initial burst of speed dependent on their first bound. Felicid are capable of leaping 2 m ( 6 ft 7 in ) high, and are skilled climbers due to their retractable claws. 

Dentition. The felicid are unique in having three sets of canines. The largest set being in the primary carnassial pairs accompanied by two smaller sets behind it. These smaller sets are made for hooking into prey in order to lock them in place. The felicid has a bite pressure of 1200 psi.

Vocalisations. Felicid has a wide range of vocal capability. Their primary vocals include chirping and purring. Chirping, or stuttered-barking, is often high-pitched and given rapidly when excited. Purrs are when the felicid is highly content or pleased. Other vocals include whirring, growling, and even roaring. Simple mewing or meowing is rare due to the quiet nature of a felicid. They only vocalize when they’re comfortable with their surroundings.

Behavior. Primarily solitary fauna the felicid only exhibit pack behaviors when they’re first leaving their mothers. They keep to a primary territory which can range from 13 – 2,400 mi², but will coexist with other predators. 

When presented with a threat or the need to protect something, their manes will flare and their tails will raise to appear larger. They will hit their tails repeatedly against the ground to create loud noises. Felicid’s final display warnings are pacing and spatting. Once their display warnings are not heeded they’ll engage. They’re are close range fighters. Using their canines and claws they aim for weak points such as the throat, heel, haunches, stomach and eyes. Other behaviors exhibited during fights include them using their tails and limbs to strangle their victims. Felicid also show little fear when it comes to what is engaging them. Taking on species much larger than themselves.

They’re primarily active during dawn and dusk to patrol territory, but will sleep during the night and hunt during daylight hours. Sleeping consists of them curling inwards to protect their bellies and are subconsciously drawn to higher concentrations of heat.

Felicid are highly adaptable to almost all climates, yet prefer arid temperatures. They’ll bask in the sun hour long periods of time, and when presented with colder temperatures they’ll burrow beneath soft dirt or sand, or if unable they’ll curl their body close together. When cooling off their heat exits their ears, tongue, and toe pads. They don’t do well in colder climates and will strictly stay closer to heat since their bodies struggle to maintain it.

Their strides consist of their head being level with their spine. Only when they’re comfortable or looking above flora for prey does their head remain upright. Felicid also don’t have a collar bone, so they’re able to squeeze into any space their chest can fit into. 

Their temperaments are fairly lax. Being a solitary species they can be aggressive to strangers, but will often coexist with most species. They’re a playful fauna once they’re in a comfortable environment. Often becoming mischievous and scaring off prey or fellow predator for the fun of it. They also exhibit the behavior of growing attached to singular fauna or human. This behavior consists of bringing prey, frequent visits, and being affectionate.

Displaying their state of emotion is done through their ears and tails. Felicid ears are the most expressive of their body and highly flexible. When upright they’re alert or happy. When slightly parted they’re content, often rotating one ear to stay aware of their surroundings. When uncomfortable or threatened their ears will lay back against their neck or level with their scalp. If they’re dominate in the situation their ears will remain upright. Due to the flexibility of their ears they’ll change positions swiftly and often to display their mood. Felicid tails content position is low to the ground and is used for balance. Their tails will level with their spine when they’re climbing, and will become erect when dominate or confident. When they’re with a mate or specimen they’re comfortable with their tail will curl around a limb to hold onto them. During stand offs a felicid will repeatedly smack their tail against the ground as a warning display.

Hunting. Felicid are omnivores with a heavier preference towards meat. Rarely do they choose to feed off of berries or other plants unless necessary. Being solitary hunters their primary source of prey are voles, hares, and mice. Their keen sense of smell and hearing allow them to detect smaller, quiet prey with ease. Depending on the environment they’ll attack from above by descending from trees, or they’ll engage from the ground. On the ground they’ll stalk from the shadows until they’re close enough to give chase. If applicable the felicid will raise their tail to flick to distract their prey. 

Diets of felicid also include avians and cervidae. Avians are frequented less as behaviors exhibited their lack of interest of prying away feathers. Cervidae are a rarer case due to their larger size. Singular felicid are capable of taking them down and often tear away one limb and leave the rest of the carcass. Corvid share a mutually benefited relationship with a felicid when they hunt larger prey. Felicid have shown feeding with corvid, but will defend their carcasses from other predators.

The felicid don’t have a large appetite and will often go a few days without a proper meal. With their lax nature they’ll coexist with prey. Never engaging with them unless they’re hunting or if they’re looking to be playful.