#maybe i should start at least practicing stylized pieces again. i don’t even know if i remember how

[necessarymeanstoanend]

“she bruises, coughs, she splutters pistol shots. hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks. she’s morphine, queen of my vaccine. my love, my love, love, love.” (breezeblocks - alt-J)

told y’all i put this bitch in a psych ward

these two are technically the originals

white void and sketch

[blacknovelist]

Half-Empty, Half-Full (FE3H Fic)

hey hi what’s up lads, so I like, 100% forgot I could post my piece for the @threehouseszine Beneath The Banner (also available on Twitter under the same name) and as such I’m like ten years late. :) But the zine has been sent out, and I finally noticed like the fool I am that others have posted their pieces, and thusly, I too will post mine! Because I can. And I want to.

My focus was on the Golden Deer post-skip, specifically in some nebulous point during the war. Being part of this zine was really, really cool -- I can’t wait for all the books and merch to arrive with everyone!

(will reblog with links because we all know tumblr likes to break things.)

A beat of something nice, amid the fragments of harder times.

In the spaces between war — between scattered supply checks and ration distribution, bandit skirmishes and long watch nights — Hilda finds the time she needs to breathe.

It came easier, back in the academy. She could simply step back and let the world move around her, steadfast in her belief that it would still be standing when she returned. Nowadays she steals the air in her lungs from glances at the sky and quick delivery walks, from the chip of chisel and steel against stone and wood, from the sensation of gems and petals inlaid on clothes, chains and hooks when she can afford to lay down her axe. Infrequency makes the beats between battles all the more precious.

With the professor around she can afford more pauses still, but Hilda watches herself. She knows, all too well, just how young she is. Claude lies at one year her junior and the professor, with their five year hiatus, sits at two. It wouldn't do for her stubborn leaders to find someone they can’t believe in among their ranks, now.

She’s on the run for errands when she spots a hint of not-plant green and wood not far off the beaten path, and she wastes no time following that tried and true Deer instinct to take a peek. Ignatz is there, as expected, easel propped on a patch of flat land, what she can see of the canvas a tasteful blend of browns and golds. He leans in, fingers dabbed in the same off-white his paintbrush dusts onto his scene. 

Now, Hilda doesn’t paint, but she does understand the stress and struggle of art, different forms aside. Which is why she waits until he leans back before she steps forward and taps his shoulder. 

“Hey, Ignatz.”

Ignatz yelps, almost drops his brush and earns himself a stripe on his palm for his troubles. “Hilda! Hi. I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you there.” 

“Don't worry about it.” She clasps her hands together. “What’re you painting?"

"I wanted to capture the cathedral, while it's still under repair." He gestures to his piece — the white forms the glint of sunlight off patches of rubble, steel and glass, along with the robes of monks and priests as they shift and sweep aside what debris they can. "A lot of artists depict places in their prime, or utterly destroyed, or after they've been restored to their former glory. I thought it would be nice to show the in-between for once. People from every background imaginable, coming together to rebuild for the future. A little different from what I usually paint, but sometimes a little variety is nice." 

"And you're doing it all the way out here because…"

"I didn't want to be in anyone's way, and I come out here a lot. I've got plenty of references with me, so it's not a problem." Ignatz shifts and Hilda catches sight of a stack of sketchbooks, some more worn than others, half-spilled from a bag. The top one gets plucked up and held between them as he flips from page to page. Statue busts, the altar and rows of pews among pillars rendered in charcoal and sleek pigment lines. Sometimes, she catches glimpses of green and blue and other colors, or shapes that don't quite match the church art he focuses on, but Ignatz flips too fast for her to see. 

Or, almost. "Go back two pages," Hilda says. A grin tugs at her lips. "Was that Claude?"

"Oh! Uh, yes." Though Ignatz learned to leave embarrassment and nerves about his art behind, something in his chest still squirms, just a bit. An image of their leader in the library, face cast in candlelight and more at peace than he ever is during daylight, stares up at the duo. "It's easier when I’m with a person, but sometimes I'll do studies on my own. Practice makes perfect, after all." 

"It's beautiful." She reaches out, pauses. "May I…?"

He passes it over. "Here. You can look at the others, too. I don't mind." Then he turns back to the easel and reaches for his paint. "Anyway, I thought this was as good a spot to work as any. There's a field down that way you can see best in the spring, and I like the view of everything from here."

"You'll have to show me when it's in season." 

Her eyes flicker over thick paper. Statues. Flowers, trees, forest paths. Distance shots of people, strolling towards town. Swirls of filigree and patterns fill whole pages in patches, tiny stylized animals and the occasional dragon tucked into the empty space. Silhouettes crowd around the pews, and even if she recognizes clothes, many of these smaller figures are faceless. 

But she finds a loose sketch, hair popping blond against black ink, of Raphael and a young girl with the same square jaw and broad shoulders. Claude himself appears once more, this time in wireframe form, ordinary steel bow drawn all the way back and arrow pointed to the left. When she plucks one of his other books from the stack it follows a similar trend — renderings of the cathedral, inside and out, stuck in among horse-drawn carriages and sunlit grass patches and clothes and people, both familiar and unfamiliar, faceless and defined. A few drawings are from the past few months: Sylvain in his armor, Baltie with his open-chested shirt, Leonie and her long hair, the monastery scaffolding. 

Most of his drawings are from the academy days. 

Lindhardt, leaned against a tree, the shadow of leaves mottled on his lap. Herself and Marianne seated in the dining hall. Lysithea, with a book in one hand and a swirl of magic in the other. Claude and Lorenz mid-argument. Felix as he trains blade blurred and bent as he lunges. Dimitri and Dedue bent over a table in their classroom. Edelgard as she strides across the courtyard, Hubert one step behind. Busts of the professor and Jeralt, side by side, the faintest quirk in their lips. 

Hilda looks up and pauses. Ignatz presses so close to the canvas he’s peering over the wire frames of his glasses rather than through, brow furrowed and jaw set. She shuts an eye as the sun slips out from behind what’s left of Garreg Mach’s spires. Greyscale flowers peer up from the pages, a reflection of the few asters scattered around their feet. Mountain monastery air goes down sweet and full in her lungs.

"I gotta say, Ignatz,” she says, the edge of her thumb smudged in stray charcoal. "These are amazing. How long have you been doing art?"

"Since I was little." He leans back, considers his work, then leans in again. "My parents are merchants, so we delivered paintings and statuettes to a lot of noble houses in the Alliance. One day I found some extra supplies lying around so I just… picked it up and gave it a shot."

"Well, I'm glad you did. Even these plain sketches look much nicer than anything I could do, and don't even get me started on painting. No offense, Ignatz, but no thank you. Definitely not my wheelhouse."

Ignatz pauses. "None taken, and thank you. You draw?”

"Not much." She waves a hand. "My talents lie in accessories. I like to plan before I start working, figure out how it should come together and doodle in the margins a little sometimes, that's all."

"You're always wearing beautiful jewelry, but I didn't realize you made them yourself." A smile breaks out across his face. "That's amazing, Hilda!"

A blush rolls across her cheeks and she can't stop the tug of her lips into a matching grin. "Oh, stop it. Really?"

"Of course! The colors and shapes you use match your hair, complexion, and the clothes you tend to wear quite beautifully." His brush plunges into a cup of water by the foot of his easel and faces her fully. "When did you start?"

"A long time ago, now – I'm not even sure exactly how long, anymore. I used to make flower crowns and necklaces with my big brother, and it just spun out from there." The book lies closed in her hands now. Her finger runs up and down the paper, feels the grooves between unaligned pages. "I could make them as pretty or ugly as I wanted, so long as I was happy in the end. No one ever expected anything more or less. Not that I ever made something ugly, mind you."

Ignatz hummed. "Have you ever considered selling them?"

"Not really.” Hilda tilts her head. “Do you think it'd be a good idea?"

"Absolutely! You should consider it, once the war is over. I bet people would love them."

She taps her chin. “I’ll give it some thought. What about you, Ignatz? What do you plan on doing once this whole mess is behind us?” 

“Well… Ideally, I’ll keep painting,” he says. “Even if I have to do it between my duties as a knight. It might make it hard to find a household to serve, but I don’t want to just stop.”

“Why are you aiming to be a knight? How come you’re not just going off to be an artist or something like you want to?”

“My parents sent me to the academy since my brother’s taking over the business. They didn’t really approve of the whole artist thing.” Ignatz shrugs. “I don’t really think I’m all that cut out for it, to be honest. Fighting’s never been my strong suit.” 

“Well that’s a shame,” Hilda says. “Have you ever spoken to them about it?”

He shook his head. "Not much recently, at least."

“You should. Maybe you can convince them, after all this. And if you can’t, then just come to House Goneril, okay? I’ll let you paint as much as you want.”

“That would be nice.” He smiles, then bends to reach for his bag. “Thank you, Hilda.” 

“Any time.” She holds the sketchbook out. Ignatz takes it, tucks it gently alongside the others. Before he can put his brush away, he pauses. 

“If you have time,” he starts. "Would you like to join me out here again tomorrow? We could work on our projects together, if you have any."

Hilda smiles. "I'd love to, but I'm on stock duty tomorrow. No shuffling off the responsibility for that."

"I see. That's too bad. Maybe next time?" 

"... Sure. I'd like that."

[alexiss-fic-archive]

Crafting is good for the Heart

An Anon asked:

This is a request as well as a test for you I suppose? since I’ve personally never seen your kh work before. A request for a VentusxAqua writing. When you get the chance.

I hope you won’t get bothered if i wrote a one-sided crush instead of full on shipping. I would’ve been a bit awkward because of Ven being a child (A thousand year old child, but a child nonetheless. 

And thanks for giving me a good entry point to write good KH fics. I hope you like it.

Living in The Land of Departure is enough to drive you insane..

Aside from Aqua herself, Master Eraqus and Terra were the only two people who lived in the world with her ever since she moved in to become a master herself.

And she had lived there for at least five years with a man whose definition of an evasive manoeuvre is doing cartwheels until you can literally dodge through an explosion at point blank, and a teenager who regularly eats protein powder out of the can because he didn't read the instructions on how to prepare it beforehand.

She had past the point where she would've gone insane from the master's outlandish sternness and Terra's recklessness a while ago, though. She managed to avoid going insane by crafting stuff in her free time, much like she did before she got the keyblade and her own world fell into the darkness.

She usually bought her materials from a single Moogle who visited the world every now and then, and made small charms, figurines and toys enchanted by her keyblade's magic.

They weren't particularly useful in combat. But at least they gave her a purpose to fulfill as she endured Eraqus’ merciless training.

So, when the shadiest and most suspicious person ever alive, Master Xehanort comes to their castle and drops an amnesiac young boy under Master Eraqus care, Aqua decided to take him under her wing to shield him from the other two's strange habits, as he was likely to lack any kind of coping mechanism due to the amnesia.

♥♥♥♥

Ventus liked the land of departure.

It was a beautiful place to live, and the group of people he lived with were pretty lively.

Master Eraqus was an strict but kind man. Occasionally letting him do less training that Terra and Aqua, and wasn't as strict with him (Rolling through explosions is easier than cartwheeling into them. Not necessarily safer, but definitely easier.).

Terra was a very cool guy. He always did his best to make Ventus have a fun time, and gave him his old Wooden keyblade as forgiveness for causing him a three months Coma that one time.

However, out of all the three people in the world, Ventus liked Aqua the most.

She was the very first person he saw after waking up from his coma and was definitely the most kind out of the others. She managed to convince Eraqus to give him less demanding training regimes a few several times, bailed him out of the many shenanigans Terra got involved in, healed him whenever he failed to do a trick on his keyblade glider immediately after he learned that he could make one. Not to mention that some of the stuff in his room were books and charms given to him to him by Aqua, including an enchanted figurine that kept the plants in his bedroom watered and healthy..

Ven, having such a pure heart, also tried to reciprocate that kindness. He often gave her a blanket whenever she fell asleep while studying a magic grimoire, serve as test subject for her relatively harmless magical experiments, and partaking in her crafting hobby everytime he could.

He loved the way she smiled at him whenever he did the latter with her. Apparently, the people at her world were mostly artisans. And seeing someone sharing the passion for craftsmanship made her heart flutter with nostalgia.

So, one day, Ventus decided to make something for her. If only to see her smile.

♥♥♥♥

“So… nervous about the Mark of Mastery Exam?” Ventus asked the young woman, who was polishing small pieces of an orange crystal on her worktable. “The master said It would be in a month or so.”

“Not really, Ven.” She answered, not lifting her gaze from her current task. “Knowing the master, probably the test will be only a combat exam against something dumb like light drones.”

“And what if your opponent is Terra?” The curious boy asked as he peeked at Aqua's work.

“If that's the case, then I guess that Terra will be a great master.” She said.

“Will you let him win against you?” Ven asked.

“Nope. I'll do my best to try and beat him.” Aqua answered once again. “But it's highly probable that I might lose that fight

“How come?” He said. “You’re very strong.”

“Terra once destroyed a thousand light drones in an hour after the master took away his allowance, Ven.” The magician explained. “If he did that for a thousand munny, imagine what he could do to pass the test.”

“Wow…” Ven said in awe.

“Yeah.” She raised the piece of glass to examine it, deeming it as perfect before setting it aside. “We should be thankful he is our friend, who knows what could he do if one day he snapped.”

“Remember me to never get on his bad side.” The boy said.

“He probably doesn't even have one.” Aqua said as she took an opaque piece of green crystal. “He’s still a very kind person beneath the Hakamas and his muscly exterior.”

“Why the Hakamas?” The blond boy said confused.

“They look kind of dumb if you ask me.” She said smiling as she started to polish the crystal. “I remember that you even used all of them as a tent one night.”

“Yeah, that night was fun.” He admitted.

Then the two of them fell silent for a little while. Ven sat down on Aqua's bed while she was still polishing another part of the crystal she had.

Eventually, Ventus broke the silence.

“So, huh… Do you remember when you tried to teach me how to craft something?” He said. A faint blush appearing on his face.

“Yes.” She said. “You almost stitched your own finger into the fabric you were working on.”

“Well… I, huh…” He stuttered a bit. “ I have been practicing what you taught me and, huh… I made something?”

“Really?” The young woman said, putting aside her current project. “Can you show it to me?

“S-Sure! Let me get it for you!” The boy said excitedly before bolting out of the room of his friend, running to the other side of the castle towards his room and returning to Aqua's bedroom in less than a minute.

He entered the room with his hands behind his back, hiding the thing he made away from her gaze.

“Please close your eyes for a second.” He asked her.

“Okay.” She complied.

“Good.” He said before placing the object he was holding in front of her. “Now open them.”

And so she did, finding a smaller version of her in front of her. A Mini-Aqua made out of cloth and cotton instead of flesh and bone.

“Ta-dah!” Ven said. “I made a mini you.”

He handed the small plush toy to her, who would then see it more closely.

It resembled a cartoony version of herself, it had a large head covered by a piece of deep blue felt stylized as her hair, and had a pair of black buttons placed vaguely around where the eyes should've been.

The body meanwhile, was really small, and it showed that Ventus really tried to capture the details of her attire despite his low skill, giving the toy a pair of shoes and using gray felt to make her armor. The rest of her attire was made of cotton, and it was just a bit mismatched in certain parts, like her skirt's tails being different types of fabric and her left sleeve being shorter than the right one.

It even had a crude, miniature version of her Rainfell made out of pipe cleaners sewn into her hand.

Ventus just stared at her with puppy eyes, waiting for her validation.

“I love it, Ven!” She said happily. “You must have spent a lot of time doing it.”

“It was nothing.” He said. His blush growing redder by the second. “I’m glad you like it.”

“You should do one for Terra!.” Aqua Commented. “I’m sure that he would love it.”

“Y-You think so?” The boy said nervously.

“Of course!” She said “Terra would think it looks cool.”

“I dunno…” He said. A deep blush flaring up in his cheeks. “It took me a lot of effort to do this one.”

“Just take your time and practice Ven.” Aqua said, ruffling his short, blonde hair with the hand that wasn't holding her smaller self.

“O-Okay.” The boy said as Aqua turned back to work on her project. Placing the small gift on top of a little bookshelf above her worktable.

Suddenly, he felt very embarrassed to be in the same room as her at the moment. So, he made an excuse to get out of the situation he made.

“A-Anyways, I’m really glad you liked the mini you.” he said as sweat dripped visibly from his forehead. “And i would love to ask you for advice on crafting. But I kinda remembered that I was going to help Terra train tonight.”

“That sounds great Ven!” She said. “Just don’t go to sleep very lately.”

“I won’t!” He said nervously as he walked backwards to the door. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing!”

The blonde boy then ran as fast as he could towards Terra’s bedroom, leaving a small trail of dust in his wake.

Aqua stared a the cloud for a second before letting out a small chuckle.

“I’m really glad you’re here with us, Ven.” She said with a smile before returning to polish the crystal for his wayfinder. Maybe she could finish them before the test.

[shameninja]

Precure Retrospective- Futari Wa Episode 2

So I assume that I’m going to run out of interesting things to say about Futari wa when we reach the halfway point or so, and this commentaries will become shells of their former selves.

But! That day is not today! I have quite a few things to say about this episode; not as much as about Episode 1... (Future Me: SHE WAS HORRIBLY WRONG)

Before we dive into it, one thing I think I should note here that I forgot to last time, is that the first three episodes of the show are scripted by Ryo Kawasaki himself! So not only is he responsible for how the story looks at the end of the day-By and part- but also how the show starts out. We’ll reflect on the quality of his attempts overall later on.

That said, let’s just dive into this one.

This episode opens with a neat spotlight effect, as while girls are taking ballots out of a box, Nagisa does some necessary exposition regarding what happened last time. Yeah, yeah, we just saw this stuff a week ago, but it’s a kid’s show. Gotta run with it.

I will say that it at least makes sense for Nagisa to still be ruminating over all that happened; this doesn’t necessarily feel forced, even if it is necessary. Anyway, while Nagisa is zoning out Honoka became the representative of their class, likely surprising no one. Were there any competitors, truly?

And it’s worth correcting something that wasn’t really worded well in the subs last episode, Honoka was in a different class last year. This year, they are in the same class together. It was also a bit unclear that they were at the start of the school year in Episode 1, while the class representative election and such does make that much clearer.

Anyway, Nagisa is startled to attention as everyone begins to applaud Honoka, and gives a few polite claps to her pseudo-teammate. As you might expect, she’s a team player.

Time passes, as time is wont to do, and we’re now in English, I’d assume. Nagisa has been entrusted to read a particular passage, and it’s actually a little interesting- she didn’t fall asleep in this class, and from the reaction of the rest of the class she’s doing an okay job. Whether she’s good at school remains to be seen, but math is probably her worst subject, I’d hypothesize.

Regardless, Nagisa’s fairy starts desperately trying to get her attention in the middle of class, and as they love to do, starts fucking things up. Her concentration completely thrown off, Nagisa turns to Honoka for aid, but the poor girl is completely oblivious to what is going on.

I wonder what’s happening? Surely Mepple isn’t doing something stupid in the middle of class, is he? No, even he can’t be that annoying.

Like, I get that the show is trying to use the fairies as, kind of, comedic relief, but they are just so irritating and petty and the scenes unfunny that it just drags them down and makes you wonder why Nagisa and Honoka would care about them at all.

After a bit more embarrassment, Nagisa turns to the camera and laments her situation. How will Nagisa get out of this wacky predicament!? Turn it after the OP to find out! (SPOILERS: we never find out.)

The OP rolls on, and then it’s time for Something Completely Different! We suddenly shift to Pisard’s perspective and see him talk to the Dark King at their hidden lair, known as, rather appropriatelyl, the Dark Zone.

Looks homely.

I like the aesthetic of the Dark Zone quite a bit. It’s effectively foreboding, the lack of other characters there merely emphasizing that fact. You don’t get that as much in a lot of the follow-up seasons, though I think being able to quickly learn about the villains and helping them build up a rapport manages to be a bigger advantage. I also kind of like the chains too- they’re a little creepy, especially how they almost look like they’re attached to nothing and are stylized a little differently, but show, rather than tell, that the Dark King (yes that is his name) is probably contained in some manner, and that involves the Prism Stones somehow.

Milord interrogates Pisard on why exactly if he found the Prism Stones (whatever they are) he does not appear to have them to give to him. Pisard tries to quickly explain that Team Futari Wa got in his way, but his liege is having none of it. The King quickly explains some things I’d honestly expect Pisard to know- there’s 7 Prism Stones, they currently have 5. The fairies managed to escape with the other two, and thus Pisard must get the stones from them, alive or dead. After he does so, the King will be able to rule the entire universe with their power. Pisard seems weirdly surprised at this, but also seems to be full of determination again, and goes to prepare a plan.

The whole scene is a little clunky, but at least the stakes are a lot clearer now (the very Universe itself is in Nagisa’s hands!), we get a broad sense of why the fairies came to Earth, and why Nagisa and Honoka can’t (sadly) feed them to the wolves now that the two are Pretty Cure.

Give them a break, give them a break, just give a Pisard a piece of a Kit-Kat bar?

Presumably after-class, Nagisa quickly goes outside school and interrogates Mepple. Well Mepple had the very good reason that Pisard is attacking!!! Nah I’m just fucking with you he just did it because he’s hungry and has no self-control.

Nagisa doesn’t take well to this, and when she demands that Mepple actually address her with respect, Nagisa gets even more frustrated by Mepple seeming to mock her. This kind of joke would work at least a little better if we had any real reason to care about Mepple the way we do Nagisa. But we don’t at all. We do know some things about them now, but very broad things, and their personality has been being brattish and constantly demanding. It’d also help if this was playful repartee, and not just Mepple being a dick.

Anyway, Nagisa eventually gives in and tries to figure out how she’s supposed to feed him. Mepple explains that the cards they have, aside from the one-a-piece they use to transform, help take care of the fairies. And there is a certain card that will give Mepple food. After enough pestering and Nagisa struggling to find the right card, she correctly selects Door Card #3, and, well... this happens.

This begs so many questions.

This whole idea of having things to take care of the fairies is a... kind of interesting concept that tends to pop up in seasons a lot. It’s a reasonable conceit- I mean fairies and whatnot need to be able to eat and drink, don’t they?

It’s best when it plays into the narrative (as in Princess, Fresh, Smile, etc.), and it does do so in this series in a few episodes, but honestly my main complaint is that with all the cards the two are given only a handful ever get used. It feels like wasted potential- given the quality of filler in this season, they could have replaced a few and maybe use those episodes to really flesh out Mepple and Mipple’s characters? (The joke is they barely have them.)

Well, tangent aside. Pisard appears above a street with a fuckload of pedestrians, and then says foreshadowy things about energy and a “gift” for Mr. Dark King, and then... prepares.

The story marches on, with Honoka and Nagisa having a little together-time; Nagisa comes into the Science Club, and Honoka tries to impress her with the hard candy machine she made with SCIENCE. Sadly, not all goes as planned, the machine breaks, and she will have to work on Candymaker Version 3.0. One has to wonder if she keeps trying to make this thing for SCIENCE’S SAKE or she just likes hard candy. (It’s totally both.)

Nagisa complains about how they keep talking during class, and Honoka is like “sis don’t you know ‘bout the sleep card?” and Nagisa is like “what?” and basically it turns about to be a different card that can be used to make them go night-night. Nagisa uses the card and puts the little demon to rest. They resolve to use it more in the future. (Though not often enough.)

This just raises even more questions!

Moving forward, Nagisa had come by to talk about Precure matters. She is heavily against ever doing Precure stuff again. Surpisingly, she proves to be the practical one, whereas Honoka is less grounded, talking about how she both believes that it’ll be “interesting”, and an opportunity that Fate had given them. While she could mean interesting in something more akin to a scientific endeavor, it kind of comes across as her thinking it would be really fun.

It’s just a bit of a role-reversal, I think- not necessarily in the content (though that too), but how they argue. Nagisa makes solid rather practical arguments, whereas instead of even really engaging much with them, Honoka doesn’t actually try and engage Nagisa’s practical concerns, and goes for more emotion-based arguments- arguing that it’s fun and exciting and that she believes it’s an opportunity given by Fate. It was kind of implied last episode in their conversation about the shooting stars, but Honoka does have a bit of a romantic side, and that really comes through here and gives the discussion a spin you might not expect just from surface-knowledge of the two characters.

As Nagisa comments on how they were attacked and nearly killed, a soccer ball crashes through a window and enters the room. In a nice touch the two instantly panic, before realizing that it was just the soccer club missing the mark by miles. Nagisa grabs the ball, pretty pissed off, and charges down to give them a piece of her mind. And she encounters... Fuji-p. Fuck.

If there was a character I hated more than Mepple and Mipple...

We’ll get more into why I hate him when he is more relevant (so basically we’ll never get into it.) Regardless, Fuji-p apologizes, Nagisa gives a flustered response and then slowly walks off, and Honoka, watching, is simply rather confused.

Pisard, meanwhile, is looking for a machine to corrupt and turn to evil, as you do. He then sees what appears to be a Japanese version of a Hoover and decides this is the one. So he shows the audience how to buy items well outside your price range in this economy- just hypnotize the clerk and steal it.

Nagisa ponders her reaction to Fuji-p for a moment, but after Mepple barges into the conversation we get to the far better topic of Nagisa needing to be a Pretty Cure, with her insisting that it isn’t Mepple’s choice to make for her, which is completely true. Mepple suddenly wants to talk about his home world, and while Nagisa first claims disinterest, she basically immediately caves when Mepple breaks out the puppy dog eyes, as is typical.

Basically, Mepple is from a place called the Field of Light, where everything was great. And then it all changed when the Dark Zone attacked. They basically wrecked the place and fearing that all would be lost, the King and Queen entrusted Mepple (the Guardian of the Field of Light) and Mipple (The Princess of Hope) with the Prism Stones and helped them escape. I don’t recall if those titles end up meaning much, but I don’t believe they do.

We then cut to Honoka and Mipple helps fill in the gaps. She explains that the stones are super important and valuable, but when Honoka starts to ask what the Prism Stones actually do, her grandmother interrupts the conversation, opening the screen door to her room and asks who Honoka is talking to. Honoka badly bluffs, and Grandma clearly thinks she’s full of shit but doesn’t press the matter. She then asks if Honoka has been in the storeroom recently for some reason; Honoka clearly lies again, and again, Grandma doesn’t press the issue and just leaves. Somehow I think something is up with her.

Sadly, if Honoka then asks for Mipple to explain what the Prism Stones do again, we don’t get to see it, because ENTER PISARD. He uses the vacuum he got at that handy Zakennas ‘R Us, and makes his next FEROCIOUS ABOMINATION. BEHOLD

idk I think this one is kinda cute too.

Like, I’m not sure if these things are supposed to genuinely be threatening, or if it’s intentional that honestly the Zakenna thus far are kinda adorable, in my opinion. I might buy plushies of them I don’t know. But maybe it is I who is weird.

Anyway, Pisard demands that the Zakenna suck up all the “energy” in the nearby area. Which actually appears to be electrical power; the streetlights go out, there’s power outages, etc.

As he did last time, Mepple senses Dark Zone Bad Times, but Nagisa shuts him down. She’s being consistent: she risked her life for this shit, someone else can handle it.

It’s not the Precure way to just abandon duties, but Nagisa doesn’t even want to be one right now. She just wants to be a girl with friends who lives a happy life and isn’t tasked with saving the world, and that’s totally reasonable; Nagisa’s reaction makes total sense and I’d be curious how they’re going to develop their character as a result of it.

On the other hand, you could also argue that Nagisa doesn’t think that she’s up to the task, that this is all too much for her- she has a line that explicitly states that they shouldn’t have “chosen an ordinary girl like her to do something so important”. I think this maybe fits Nagisa’s outward and perceived character a little less, but I think that the underlying fear that plays into my preferred take works here too- she’s scared and she didn’t sign up for this and she just can’t do it.

The way that the writing actually opens up a couple interpretations of what’s going on in Nagisa’s head is actually pretty well done. I think both these takes are really interesting, and one (or neither) may be more better supported by the rest of the series, but if it’s either it gives you some interesting launching pads for development.

Back to the show. Mepple pleads with Nagisa, and our heroine looks out the window and sees some rather strange electrical developments on her end of the woods too. A reporter on TV describes how the city is now in a panic, and then her television too becomes a victim of the Dark Zone and nefariously shuts off.

Mepple pushes her a little more and notes that Mipple (and thus Honoka) is likely to already be there, and Nagisa appears to, when told that on top of everything else, finally cave and runs out of her house to SAVE THE DAY... but is intercepted by her little brother.

I kind of like how, for the moment, her little brother is an actual character in the show? That does things???

It’s a short appearance, however, as she manages to her brother to concede, and then heads off to fulfill her duty. We then get a shot of a really huge fucking mall.

Like does that look unreasonably tall to anyone else?

However the Zakenna is fulfilling its DARK MISSION and sapping the mall of its electricity, and thus... an elevator being rode by several people is stopped mid-climb. And when Nagisa arrives she notices, to her dismay, that the people on it include Shiho and Rina!

I kind of like their inclusion in this subplot. Not only does it keep them relevant, but it kind of forces Nagisa’s hand. Nagisa cares about people and is a team player already, but these are her friends. People she cares deeply about, and that’s going to massively override her reservations. She has no choice but to put them completely aside for now and go give Pisard and the Zakenna a hardy “FUCK YOU!”

The two attempt to dash in and help everyone, but immediately bump into Pisard, who says he was expecting them. The Cures try to ignore him and continue forth, but Pisard blocks their attempt through having the Adorable Vacuum of Death strike at them; a blow that appears to miss but ALSO knocks both Cures off their feet and rolling into a nearby wall... so I don’t know what they were trying to depict there. A burst of air maybe?

At this point Nagisa is simply infuriated, and quickly teams up with Honoka to transform. Pisard simply watches, and confirms to himself that these two are the “legendary duo” from the Field of Light touched on earlier. I do like how so far, we kind of have a more-or-less stated excuse for him not attacking during the transformation sequence for both episodes.

He then orders Zakenna to essentially go all-out against them, and a battle commences. Both magical girls initially put all their efforts into dodging the attacks (which as you might guess, involve sucking in or blowing out air/wind) but when White is falling after getting caught in the Zakenna’s pull, she moves her hands in a circle for... unclear reasons. Honestly I feel the choreography for this fight isn’t really that great.

Black saves her and then storms into action, but the vacuum is ready for her, and through manipulating the direction of air flow, makes it so she ends up barely avoiding being thrown into Cute Vacuum Zakenna’s maw.

Clearly it’s just grumpy because it’s hungry. The true villain here is undernourishment. Feed your Zakenna at least twice a day, kids.

So anyway, Black is kind of in a seriously bad spot. Pisard says to destroy her and to do so the Zakenna... doesn’t try to eat her but instead flings Black forward, through a door, and out of the fight? Like I get why they DID this, but as I’ll get into later, it’s a bit of a plothole.

It’s also annoying because the first good moment of the fight is the genuinely tense situation Black is in here, and it feels like instead of having Black or White come up with a creative way to get her out of the situation she gets through it via writer fiat.

Regardless, the Zakenna then pulls White toward it, ties her up with cords, and then flings her through the same door- or the hole where the door was, rather. You would think the Zakenna would have done that earlier, since it’s such a nifty trick. But anyway.

The two end up tumbling down an elevator shaft, and they end up looking up at an incredibly amused Pisard. He then decides to teach them an important lesson about gravity by cutting the elevator cables with his magic and... send them falling to their deaths, as well as everyone in the elevator? ..Holy shit? Things just got really real?

As the elevator rapidly falls downward, the people in the elevator scream hysterically, as is appropriate. Black also begins panicking, not sure how to handle this situation, but White quickly composes herself and improvises, tying the two to the elevator with a ribbon, and having Nagisa hold her hands to connect the two of them, and then using the friction from their boots to attempt to slow the speed of the fall. It’s a good plan and though it almost looks like it isn’t going to work... the plan proves fruitful at the final hour, as the elevator touches the ground floor, and they all live!

Okay it’s Doctor Who but you can’t deny it’s appropriate.

It’s actually a really effective and tense sequence, both because you initially don’t have any idea how they’re going to get out of the situation, and even after protagonist comes up with a creative and potentially workable idea, it could easily fail, and seems to fail until the elevator hits the bottom. It’s a genuinely inspired scene.

It’s also worth noting that this is another bit where the two help one of them by working together. It’s Nagisa’s friends that are in danger specifically, but it’s through both of them combining their efforts that they’re saved, just as it saves the lives of the Cures. I think this is another example really showing that they can work fantastically as a team, whether Nagisa wants to or not.

Black and White are hardly amused by this attempt at mass murder, and move back up the elevator shaft to get some sweet revenge. Pisard, seeing that his attempt failed, tries to sic his Zakenna on them in a last ditch effort. Zakenna shoots... something from it’s mouth (I’m not sure what it is help), but the two unconsciously grip hands, and suddenly a shield surrounds the two, protecting them from this (probably?) very dangerous attack. The two then use Marble Screw, and after a kick from Black... that’s all she wrote for Adorable Vacuum-kun.

Now, to back up a second because I consider this important. The shield may feel like a deus ex machina, and it kinda is, but assuming that the Pretty Cure are strengthened by friendship and personal bonds, and this is something that gets established (And is fundamental to seasons like Suite), it totally makes sense that the Pretty Cure would get a boost when they get in danger.

The falling elevator was a situation where Nagisa had to rely on Honoka to survive and save her friends, and she did. She put her trust in Honoka, voicing no doubts, and through working together they saved the lives of several people, including Nagisa’s own friends. When all the chips were down she believed Honoka could come through. I think there clearly is starting to be growth in their relationship there, and the fact that the two held their hands together instinctively at the next moment of crisis really supports that imo.

To wrap things up, Pisard admits he underestimated them, and ponders if their power is the ‘”Power of Light”, whatever that means. We then bid him adieu for the episode.

The next day Nagisa’s friends are telling her about their experience on the elevator, and Nagisa rather understandably feels a little awkward. Things get a little more awkward when Shiho and Rini say they heard a voice above the elevator, aaaand Nagisa decides this is a good time to divert attention as quickly as possible, noting that they’ll probably be late to school- and all goes as Nagisa planned, as the other two immediately begin to panic and dash to school together, Nagisa pushing them along. The gang passes Honoka, but she just looks on, seemingly amused.

We suddenly shift perspectives for our final scene, which takes place at the shopping district where Pisard engaged in Grand Theft Vacuum. And we see that one of the vacuums being sold appears to have Cure Black’s bootprint! Dun.. dun... dun? (They also talk about the authorities looking into what happened yesterday, but I don’t remember anything coming of that so let’s just ignore it.)

So one thing I really liked about this episode is that between Pisard wanting to do something extra to help the bossman, heavily suspecting that the Pretty Cure were legendary heroes, creating a Zakenna who immediately is ordered to do something that is certain to get the Cures attention but does little to accomplish their primary goal, which also happens to be a hard counter to most of the Cures attacks, and which also can throw them through a door that leads to an elevator shaft that Pisard can easily drop and create a certain death they can’t Marble Screw out of, most of the plot of this episode was Pisard’s plan to murder the Pretty Cure in cold blood.

Which is really neat! You rarely see villains in this sort of anime jump to taking the heroes as a serious threat right off the bat, and it is genuinely a pretty good plan, really only foiled by Honoka’s amazing improv skills, and quite a bit of luck. It’s a great, intense sequence that works so well. I’m actually genuinely curious what Pisard’s next move will be.

The whole thing is slightly spoiled by the fact that I have no idea how he got Zakenna in on this plan, since otherwise Zakenna would have no reason to throw them through that door. So that hurts the whole deal for me, but far from ruins it.

And like... I feel like the first 10 minutes or so of the episode is pretty weak. I get we needed the exposition, but it largely feels like it drags since it’s mostly sitting and listening to people talk, with some tedious fairy bullshit thrown in. The story really picks up in the second half, but even then the battle choreography is weak, and the Zakenna fight is rather dull, largely one-sided, and does end in a deus ex machina. And between Mepple being terrible (when is Mipple going to get any character?) and the introduction of Fuji-P, a lot of it all adds up to irritation.  

But the character stuff in this episode is so good. There is just so much going on in this episode with Honoka and Nagisa and their relationship and Nagisa’s reticence to be a Pretty Cure. So much of it is cute and charming and fun and thoughtfully crafted. The way the minor characters play into the narrative is really interesting and well done too; it really felt like everyone got included and I like that. And so much of the second half, despite its short-comings, is really well done.

The episode has its weaknesses, but it has so many strengths to balance those out. It outshines Episode 1 by a long-shot, and if far more of the episodes were like this than I recall, I’ll end up thinking the season is far better than I thought.

God that was a lot of words. But anyway, I’m done here at Episode 2 Land, Episode 3 coming to a Tumblr Account Near You soon.

But for now, good night my friends, and may any elevators you ride in be in proper working order.

[grovestep]

Skate Into My  Heart [LucioxJR Ch.1]

Author’s Notes: I have recently discovered the amazing ship that is BoomBox, and I can't get enough. They definitely don't have enough fics around. So I decided to remedy that in my own way. I introduce to you: Skate Into My Heart Setting: A modern AU. In which Junkrat and Roadhog run an auto repair shop, and Lucio is still a renowned musician and DJ.  Chapter Summary: A dashing young man skates into Jamison Fawkes' life. Jamison, eccentric, messy, and manic is a stark juxtaposition to Lucio's calm, cool demeanor. Jamie doesn't know how to deal with it. Chapter warnings: Language, mentions/hints at sex 

Chapter 1: The Mechanic and the Frog

Jamison Fawkes stared at the underbelly of an over-stylized '59 Cadillac, mulling over the inner workings of the vehicle as he wiped his hands with a dingy cloth. Footsteps broke his train of thought as someone approached the front of the vehicle, dropping something heavy on the concrete floor of the shop. Jamison finished messing with the oil pan before sliding out from the underbelly on his mechanic's creeper. "What do ya want now, ya big bloke?" Jamison asked, expecting to be greeted by the giant stomach of his boss, Mako Rutledge. Instead, Jamison stared up at the toned calves and dark thighs of a man in shorts. A style that Mako failed to pull off. The man above him let out an awkward laugh, stepping back so Jamison wasn't staring directly up at his crotch. Jamie played it cool, sliding back under the car only to appear on the other side. He walked around the Cadillac back to his original position in front of the stranger.

"Sorry, mate, though ya were m'boss," he said, holding out one hand for a shake. He looked down at his palm, which was covered in grease despite his efforts with the cloth, and gave a lopsided grin. "Er, maybe hold off on the shake for now, yea?" he wiped his hand down his bare chest before shoving it in his pocket. The man's eyes creased at the sides as he smiled, something that Jamie found subtly charming. He wrinkled his nose at the intrusive thought. "What can I do ya for?" The man picked up a pair of roller skates off the floor, "Think you can repair my skates? I had a bad wipe-out earlier playing street hockey," he said. Jamison paused. He stared at the man through squinted eyes, sizing him up. The man didn't look daft. A little posh, maybe, but that didn't always mean missing a few marbles. "Mate...you know you're at a car repair shop, right?" he asked and pointed to the sign that read "Rutledge Repair and Body". Skate-Man let out a laugh. It was melodic, almost like music. It echoed through the repair shop's garage, carrying on even after he was done. "I know very well where I'm at. These aren't just any skates. They're more car than anything," he said with a wink. Jamison blinked, his brow creasing. "Wot?" "They're motorized and have a special function that helps you keep your balance. Something about centrifugal force..." Jamison tuned out of his explanation of the car-skates. His short attention span resented lengthy explanations of things he could figure out himself by taking something apart. He stared at the man, his eyes flicking across his features. Something was familiar about him. He reeked of posh life, even if he was covered in sweat and slumming it in a repair shop. Jamie clicked his tongue as he tried to place him. "AH-HAH!" he exclaimed, interrupting the man's tirade and making his eyes widen in surprise. "You're that Brazilian froggy bloke who does the music!" "Oh, uh. That," the man said. Jamie watched him withdraw, seeming to fold in on himself. He gave Jamie a shrug. This was the opposite of the pumped up DJ he sometimes saw on TV. "Lucio. Um, none of the 'froggy bloke' thing, please." Jamie straightened his back, regaining a professional composure. At least, as professional as he could manage. "Well, Lucio, I'm not so sure--" "Rat!" Jamie jumped, whipping around as the hulking shape of his boss appeared out of the back office. Mako's piercing blue eyes leveled Jamie with a hardened stare over the gas mask he wore for paint jobs. Jamie looked at his boss with saucer-wide eyes. Mako motioned to Lucio before disappearing back into his office to do god knows what. Jamison gulped. "Right-o. What I meant to say was, we'd be happy to take a look at your, uhm, more-car-than-skates." Lucio seemed to perk up at that, handing the skates over to Jamie. Their fingers met for a moment, sending a jolt all the way from Jamie's fingertips, through his spine, and to the tips of his toes. He managed a smile, exposing one of the gold caps on his canines. If Lucio felt the same surge of electricity, he didn't let on. Jamie shrugged it off as nerves from having an actual celebrity in his shop, wanting his assistance. "When can I expect them done?" Lucio asked, shoving his hands in his pockets before leaning against the wall with one shoulder, his legs crossed at the ankle. It was then Jamison realized he was barefoot. Each toenail was panted a different color of the rainbow and, somehow, Jamie wasn't surprised. Lucio cleared his throat, startling the mechanic out of his trance. "Oi, sorry, mate. Got a lot on me mind today. Big order, this," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand as he jerked his chin toward the '59 Caddy. "If you come by tomorrow, though, I should have them fixed right up. Do you have a number I, er, we can contact when these are done?" Jamie expected Lucio to pull out a business card, but instead he pulled out a small pen from one of his many pants pockets. It was lime green and topped with a frog. Jamie snorted. "Do ya have a piece of paper?" he asked, twirling and weaving the pen through his fingers with ease. "'Fraid we're all out," Jamie said, "And me brain ain't the best at keepin' things like that in the ol' memory." "That's fine, uh, do you mind then?" Lucio asked, motioning to Jamie's bare arm and mimicking the act of writing with the pen. Jamie shook his head, extending his arm for the DJ to scrawl his number. Lucio looped his fingers around Jamie's wrist, keeping his arm still as he wrote. The mechanic had to stifle raucous giggles as the pen pressed and tickled at the flesh of his arm. He practically vibrated with the effort. Lucio's tongue poked out from between his lips as he wrote, a quirk that Jamie's brain didn't fail to commit to memory. When he was done, Lucio ran a finger over the carefully inked number, making sure it didn't smear. He was oblivious to the mechanic's elevated heartbeat, which was inevitably noticeable through the coursing of his veins and pulse point on his wrist. Jamie looked at the number on his arm, which was in handwriting that just embodied the DJ. He bit back the urge to tell him he wrote like a sheila. At the end of the number looked like a signature, but stylized into the shape of...a frog? "I didn't give ya permission to go drawin' amphibians on me arm now," Jamie said. Lucio stammered, starting to apologize before noticing the manic grin on the mechanics face. Ah, a joke. He returned the grin with his own easy smile. "Well, thanks for helpin' me out, ah..." Lucio said, leaving his mouth agape and brow knit together in thought as he fished for the man's name. His cheeks darkened a bit as he didn't come up with one. "Don't worry, I didn't tell ya m'name. It's Jamison. Was never one for a posh name like that, so you can call me Jamie," he said, "I'll contact you tomorrow 'bout your skates. Fix 'em right up, good as when ya bought 'em at the mart." "Thanks again, then, Jamie," Lucio said, turning on his heel to leave the auto shop. He looked over his shoulder at the mechanic, giving him an open-palmed wave goodbye and a smile. Jamie stood in place for a moment, listening to the gentle pap-pap-pap of Lucio's bare feet against the sidewalk as he disappeared. He collapsed against a wall, dropping the skates and running a hand through his dirty blonde hair. "Fuck, what is wrong with me?" he muttered, scrubbing both hands over his face. Acting like a damn sheila over a barefooted, posh, froggy bloke. He stared at the skates with distaste. They were probably just regular old skates the bastard was too lazy to take to a skate shop. Jamie decided he'd deal with them immediately. Maybe he'd "accidentally" drop a glob of his lunch into the skates and conveniently forget about it. He picked them back up and trudged to his office, slamming the door behind him. --Much to Jamison's distaste, the skates were more car than anything else. Taking the damn things apart without ruining the whole pair was exhausting and tedious work. He used his long and deft fingers to poke and prod at the various mechanisms, trying to figure out what each of them did. As much as he hated to admit it, he was enjoying tinkering with the skates. They were unlike anything he'd ever seen before. He sat back in his chair and stared at them as he stretched his arms above his head. His shoulders creaked and cracked like gravel. Jamie stifled a yawn, looking at the digital clock on the wall. 1:30AM. Shit, he was not pulling an all-nighter for this bloke. He'd have to continue the work tomorrow at home if he wanted to get it done in time. He grabbed a duffel from the corner, scooping the skates and his tools into the bag. He hauled the bag over his shoulder, hurrying out of the shop and locking up before hoofing it down to the block to his flat. Once he was inside the messy apartment, he cast the duffel-bag aside, collapsing on his bed and falling into a deep sleep. He awoke a few hours later refreshed and ready to work. He dumped the contents of the bag out onto his kitchen table, taking a seat on his dilapidated chair. He worked well into the afternoon, damn near taking the skates entirely apart and putting them back together again. His eyes happened to glance down at his arm where Lucio's number was smudged from sweat. He panicked for a moment, realizing that the man might show up at the shop looking for his finished skates. If Jamison wasn't there, he might complain to Mako, and if he complained to Mako... Jamie gulped, not wanting to think about that. He dug in his pocket, pulling out his phone. He dialed the number, pressing the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he continued to work on the skates. The phone rang once, twice... "Olá?" The man's melodic voice answered. Jamie paused for a moment. He had expected the number to route him to the celebrity's agent, butler, voicemail...anything but the man himself. "Uh, hello, mate, it's Jamie from the shop," he said, muttering a curse under his breath as he dropped his screwdriver. "Oh, yea! I've been waitin' for a call from you. How're my skates coming? They ready?" "Uh, not quite. They're givin' me a little trouble, nothin' too big. I wasn't 'suppose to work today, so when I didn't finish them yesterday I, uh, brought them home with me to finish the job. I hope ya don't mind," he said. There was a pause on the other end, and Jamie's heart raced. The bugger was probably racing over to tell his boss. "That's no problem! So long as they're getting fixed. Do you want me to pick them up at your place, then?" Lucio said, and Jamie's shoulders slouched in relief. Dodged a bullet there. And then he tensed again, his mind registering Lucio's question. "Oh, uh, I mean if you want to. I won't make you go outta yer way or anythin'. It's uh, not company policy," Jamie said as he prodded at what he assumed was the centrifugal whatsit Lucio was on about yesterday. "No, no, it's fine. I don't mind, really. You're fixin' up my babies, it's the least I can do in return besides, you know, pay you," Lucio said, and Jamie could hear the smile in his voice. The way he was about to laugh. He closed his eyes and pressed the heel of his palm against the space between his brows. Actin' like a bloody sheila, again. "Right-o, I'll try to have 'em done by the time ya get here. M'flat is just down the block from the shop. Shimada Apartments. Just tell the bloke at the front desk you wanna see Junkrat, he'll know what you mean," Jamie said. He heard the man on the other end say the nickname under his breath. "Oh-kay, I'll be there soon," Lucio said. Jamie could hear the questioning tone in his voice, but knew he was too polite to ask about it. Jamie decided he wouldn't supply answers to unspoken questions. He exchanged goodbyes with Lucio before hanging up the phone. He stood up from his chair, looking around his apartment. It was...a mess. The embodiment of his nickname. Old food boxes were strewn across the counters. His vintage Playboy mags were stacked in one corner, leaning precariously to one side. He knew he shouldn't care, but apart of him was embarrassed to no end thinking that the pretty froggy bloke would see what a mess he lived in. Of course, he could just stick his head out and hand over the skates. But what if they weren't done? He couldn't make the lad stay out in the hallway. He didn't live with the best of people, and Lucio reeked of social status and money. It would be like making him hold a sign that said, "Mug me!" So, Jamie set to work cleaning to the best of his ability. He swept the trash off the counter and into the bin. He shoved as much laundry as he could into the washing machine, and kicked the rest into the hamper. The dishes in the sink that were growing alien colonies he threw in the trash, too embarrassed and disgusted with himself to clean them. His eyes landed on the Playboy magazines, and he thrummed his fingers against his chin in thought. He grabbed one of the blankets covering the couch and threw it over the stack. He stood back and looked at his handiwork. Now it looked like a disorganized person lived there, and not a lazy hoarder. It wasn't long after he sat back down to finish the skates that a knock came on the door. Jamie was startled out of his work trance, his head swinging up to the door. "Just a secoooond!" he said as he tightened one of the screws on the skates. He hurried over to the door before any potential muggers descended upon his guest. He opened the door was was greeted with a sweat drenched Lucio, bare chested and his dreads pulled back off his face by a bandanna. Jamie felt his breath catch in his throat. "Hey there," Lucio said, and Jamie damned his ever-cool attitude. Of course, he wasn't staring directly at a glistening set of abs and biceps. In fact, he was staring at a sleep deprived slob of an Australian. Jamie shuffled to the side, opening the door wider so Lucio could come in. The shorter man slipped into the doorway, and to Jamie's relief, didn't seem to pay attention to the surroundings. The man's eyes were trained on the skates. "Just about got 'em finished. Ya weren't lying when ya said they were more car than skates. Took me 'alf the night and most of the day jus' to put 'em back together," Jamie said as he closed to door and came up behind Lucio. He dwarfed the man in size, but Jamie had a feeling the shorter man could still kick his arse if he felt like it. He skirted around Lucio to reclaim his seat. "Sorry about that, I know it's probably not something you're used to," Lucio said, rubbing the back of his neck and offering Jamie an apologetic smile. "No sweat off my back. I like takin' things apart, seein' what makes 'em tick," Jamie said, using that fact to distract himself from Lucio's abs. He resumed prodding at the skates, set on fixing the centrifugal doo-dad once and for all. "You seem to be that sort of guy," Lucio said as he watched Jamie, "You have a...calculating gaze." "That so?" Jamie asked, quirking a brow but not looking up from the skates. His cheeks flushed a light pink. He hoped the shitty lighting in his apartment would cover it up. "Yea, it's like..." Lucio took a seat across from him at the table, splaying his hands on the wood, "When I came into the shop, your stare felt like you were picking me apart from the inside. It was kinda unnerving," he said. "Oh, sorry 'bout that, uh, I..." Jamie floundered for an answer, feeling like he was caught in the act of stealing. He didn't look up from the skates to see Lucio's expression. He could see it in his head. Accusatory. Angry. "Then when you opened the door, that look was there again. Picking me apart..." Was that a hitch in his voice that Jamie heard? He dared a glance up from the skates. Lucio was watching him, his eyes half-lidded and that damned easy smile on his face. The flush on Jamie's cheeks strengthened, and he averted his eyes again. "It's almost like you can see right into my soul. You know, not many people look at me like that. They only see DJ Lucio, the celebrity. I was afraid it was like that when you figured out who I was," Lucio said, letting out a chuckle. There was a creak as he leaned back in the chair, "But the way you looked at me. I knew that wasn't so." Jamie worked faster, and, dammit, why were his hands shaking? He reached for his screwdriver, but his palms were too sweaty and hands too shaky to keep a grip on it. It fell from the table, spiraling to the floor. He startled from his seat to catch it, and before he knew it, Lucio was right there, leaning down to catch it, too. The DJ's reflexes were faster than his own, and he caught it in his palm. They were so close it was driving Jamie mad. He could smell Lucio's citrus cologne and the tangy scent of his sweat. He could feel Lucio's breath by his ear, the heat radiating off his body. He stifled a whine, biting his lip. Lucio pressed the screwdriver into his open palm, clasping his hand to stop Jamie's shaking. "Easy, easy, lindo," he said, and a shiver ran through Jamie's spine at how close those words were breathed right up against his ear, and his head was swimming with too many racing thoughts to ask what lindo meant. Probably idiot, stupid, or a million other insults, but Jamie didn't care. This man could call him the worst names in the book and it would still sound like music. "Th-th-thank you," Jamie stammered, and when he looked at Lucio the man had already withdrawn, leaning back in his chair with that easy grin on those plump kissable lips, and, fuck, what was he thinking? Lucio just gave him a wink, acting as though nothing happened. Had anything happened? Had he imagined it? A droplet of sweat ran down his forehead, and he wiped it off with the back of his arm, leaving a smear of ink from the number Lucio had written on it. "Hey, now, you might need that later," Lucio said, motioning to the number. Jamie boggled at him with wide eyes. "You know, in case I have another skate emergency," he explained as though it were obvious, but there was something in his voice that made Jamie's stomach heavy and his pants tighten. This man was toying with him. "Oh, right. Well, I have it in me phone already. I'll keep in there, then, if ya like," Jamie said, finishing up the skates and trying with all his might to keep the quiver out of his voice. "Mm, yea, keep it there. You never know when I'll go flying ass over elbows and break a skate," Lucio said as he took the finished skates as Jamie pushed them across the table. Or head over heels, Jamie thought, mentally berating himself for being such a fuckin' sheila as of late. Reading into this man's actions like he meant something to him. "Well, thank you again. I really appreciate it. I'll head down to the shop to make the payment. I wish there were more I could do to show my gratitude," Lucio said as he got up from his seat. I'll tell you what you can do, you sexy piece of--, "Uh-ha, it's no problem. Don't worry about it, mate," Jamie said, following Lucio to the door. The man was almost out into the hallway when he turned around again. "Oh, and Jamie?" "Whazzat, mate?" "You have something on your forehead." Jamie had only time to blink before Lucio brushed his bangs off his forehead, rubbing the heel of his palm across the ink mark from earlier. Jamie's amber eyes stared into Lucio's chocolate brown ones, their noses brushing tips. Jamie swore he could feel Lucio's lips against his own, feather light, chaste. But just like that, Lucio was gone, walking down the hallway, his melodic chuckle trailing behind him. Jamie stared after him, his fingers going to brush against his lips. What the fuck just happened?

[ibblescribbles-archive]

Your art is so aesthetically pleasing! I was wondering if you could tell how you draw folds? I mean, how to understand them, I'm terrible at them and look super stiff and unnatural ... if you don't want to, I understand, and I hope I didnt bother you! have an amazing day

Thank you so much! I’m sorry this took me approximately 10 years to answer, you’ve probably mastered clothing folds by now and dont need advice from a pleb like me but!! here i am anyway! The usual disclaimer: I haven’t done a proper study of folds in a loong time, now that I’ve left art school I mainly have been focusing on my own stylized art so I’m pretty rusty. That being said, observation and practicing from life is the best way to learn! It doesnt even have to be clothes (though fashion studies are the best and i realize now I should have done some for this tutorial and I am a fool) but just placing cloths over random objects and drawing them can help you learn how cloth works with different shapes. And since the body is essentially made up of a bunch of geometric shapes, this will translate over to clothing!But yeah, this tutorial is pretty hypocritical since I dont always pay attention to fleshing out folds in my art hehe 

Let’s start by introducing Blank Slate-chan or Blank-chan for short uwuI’ve given her a Tshirt, and it looks okay but its a little flat. It looks more drawn on then anything.

Right off the bat, before we even begin to cover folds, we can add some details that make the shirt pop off the character. For instance seams on the collar, shoulders and bottom (though I didnt add any on the bottom in the example) and rolled up sleeves/like those fake rolled up cuffs that are sews on to tshirts can already add depth. Furthermore I’ve added some cast shadow from the oversized sleeves onto the arm, and the shirt separated from her skin at the top so its resting on it rather than looking like it’s part of her body.Seams can be especially important when indicating what kind of fabric or style of a piece of clothing your character is wearing. I find them especially helpful in separating jeans from say dress pants, as well as formal clothes. It helps to observe and thing about how a piece of apparel is sewn together to determine where you want to draw the seams. 

Okay this mess of arrows is my fault but bear with me ;v; In this portion I’ve now moved on to folds. Before we get into the details of the image, there are 3 forces that affect folds, and you should keep them in mind when drawing. Those forces are gravity, compression, and stretch. I’ve color coded each of these forces, though stretch is not shown in this image.So first off the purple arrows represent the force of gravity. This is always going to be a force on earth and cause folds from handing fabric like in between the chest or at the looser areas of the shirt.Then the blue is compression. I don’t have a good example of it here since I’m drawing mostly lose fabric, but its where the cloth bunches up because its met with two forces moving towards each other. In this (poor) example, the clothes are slightly compressed because Blank-chan’s arms are down, preventing the fabric from extending all the way down. I drew up arrows but its not so much as a force moving up as it is the fabric being caught. A better example of this would be tighter fabric gathered around a joint like jeans around a knee when its bending. If you can visualize that you’ve pretty much got the idea.Honestly, don’t let all this force stuff confuse you! I know I didn’t explain it amazingly, but you kind of get used to was looks more natural as you draw more fabric.And lastly the red arrows are just to point out that you need more than just suggestions of folds. Like the collar of the shirt sitting on the skin, the shirt will bend if there are folds so make sure you draw it sticking out rather than just being flat.

For the sake of an example let’s give Blank-chan a slightly bigger chest and some tighter clothes. The shirt is a little more formfitting and so it stretches over the chest. Cloth that is stretches usually has folds that are more horizontal or vertical depending on the points of tension. With tighter clothes, more of the anatomy shows through which is why you should always consider what the body is doing underneath. Though this still applies to looser clothing and you should be considering the body, you can get away with anatomical errors more easily which, confession, I do a lot.I prefer wearing and drawing looser clothes, so I’m not an expert on tight shirts and folds. Even this shirt I’ve drawn in this example is pretty loose but you can always change it as you see fit.

Here’s a comparison of the two without the messy arrows and with some additional shading. Shading can really help define even more shapes and bring depth to the folds, but that falls more under a coloring tutorial so I won’t go into that too much.You can of course exaggerate either of the two examples, either making the clothes a lot looser and adding way more folds or making the fabric tighter and adding more compression folds and showing the form through the clothes. Be careful with adding too many folds though, as it will either looks too crowded or like your character is soaked, unless you’re going for that. 

And then last few tips that I wasn’t sure where to put. If you’ve notice, a lot of the fabrics I draw tend to look heavier, like sweaters. In this super messy example you can see that adding tons of compression folds and making the fold rounder makes the fabric look heavier. Like wise using maybe more gravity folds and sharper/thinner edges may make the fabric look lighter!When drawing folds I like to use triangles to represent them. I think those shapes tend to look the most natural. Again, you can round those off or sharpen them depending, its all up to you! 

mm, this is a pretty basic tutorial, and there’s lots more information that I could talk about like materials, different styles of clothing, etc etc but I think this is enough to start out with? I hope I helped at least a little and remember that fashion studies are your friend!

[butterflydm]

stars gleam - poets dream (Sheith Quote Week Day 3)

Also posted on AO3 - stars gleam - poets dream

   Day 0  

Keith breathed into the hug, Shiro's hand tight in his and Shiro's arm warm around his shoulders.

"When I get back, I expect you to have broken the rest of my records," Shiro said, with mock-firmness.

"Sir, yes, sir," Keith replied, amusement lurking under the words. Shiro's chest rumbled with an answering laugh, and he pulled out of their embrace, his hand shifting to keep hold of Keith's shoulder.

He gave Keith a long, searching look but only said, "See you in a year."

Keith nodded, words escaping him. Shiro cupped his cheek for a moment that hung in the air between them. Then he pulled away and turned to meet up with his crew for the mission. Keith stood and watched until Shiro was gone, heart in his throat, then raced towards the site where he was supposed to watch lift-off.

It would only be a year and, what with tests and flying and training, it would feel a lot shorter. Keith shored up his determination.

He'd make Shiro proud.

   Day 32  

Keith's fingers thrummed against his datapad impatiently. It would be another ten minutes before he'd be able to leave the class - maybe longer if that kid in the back kept acting up. Didn't he realize that the rest of them were here to learn?

His pad vibrated under his fingertips and Keith snuck a peek, slumping down in disappointment afterwards. Just some scores from the recent flight tests.

Four more minutes passed, and the teacher was wrapping up. Another buzz under his hand and-

Keith grinned.

 Kerberos mission confirmed to have passed through Jupiter's orbit.

He'd rather get the news straight from Shiro but if that wasn't possible, this was something at least. He shifted restlessly in his seat, eager to head back to his dorm and shift his marker of the mission's progress over to the next section of the wall.

   Day 59  

"-coffee or maybe dinner? Keith? Keith... are you even listening?"

Keith looked up from his homework - there was a tall blonde girl smiling down at him. He searched through his memory for her name but came up empty. He thought he could remember seeing her in Biochem. Maybe?

"Sorry," he said. "I was-" He held up the pad to show her the half-plotted course on the screen. "-you know. For Mathison."

"Oh." She kept smiling, though it had wilted a little around the edges. "I was just... um..." She leaned down slightly. She smelled like some kind of flower that he didn't know the name of. "I was just thinking that we could go out. Together. On a date." Her words had gotten softer and softer as he waited for her to finish, until she was almost whispering by the time she got to the end.

Keith placed his homework down and then said, politely, "I don't really have time for anything like that."

"But even ace pilots need to eat sometime, right? It would just be... with me. Instead of alone."

Keith stared up at her blankly and, not able to come up with another polite excuse, just went with honesty. "I'm not interested in dating." Her face started turning red, so he added, "Anyone, I mean. Not before I graduate." Her eyes were starting to look suspiciously shiny. "Um. I'm sorry? I'm sure lots of people want to date you?"

He picked up his pad and fled before she could say anything else.

   Day 142  

Keith looked again at the latest news on Kerberos - final approach locked in; ETA 2 hours. It was six days old now, so why hadn't they gotten an update yet? The actual landing should have shown up for the Garrison long before now.

Keith's pad buzzed, reminding him about the essay due for Kilborne's class, but it was hard to concentrate on quantum theory when all he wanted to do was march over to Iverson's office to ask him for news about the Kerberos mission.

"Patience yields focus," he muttered, looking over at his wall, where the marker for the shuttle hovered just out of reach of Kerberos. He took a few deep breaths, in and out, finally finding his center again. Maybe the Holts had found something truly mind-blowing on Kerberos and the Garrison just didn't want to let the news out yet. No news didn't have to mean bad news. There could be a thousand reasons why they hadn't updated the school yet.

Keith just had to be patient.

   Day 148  

Keith dropped his pad.

It hit the floor hard on an edge and bounced, a small crack spider-webbing along the left side. There was complete silence in the cafeteria as the news hit them all like a shockwave. It lasted maybe half a minute, then quiet murmuring started up at the tables, growing louder as the news sunk in.

Numbly, Keith leaned over to read the update again.

 Kerberos shuttle crashed due to pilot error, all hands lost.

He left, lunch forgotten, and went straight back to his room. There was the little magnetic shuttle, right next to a paper Kerberos.

He stared at it for a long, long time.

   Day 173  

"We need to talk about your recent test scores," Iverson said to the top of Keith's head. Keith couldn't think of a response, so he stayed quiet. He didn't have to look up to know that Iverson would be crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against his desk. It was the fifth time that Iverson had done this since... anyway, Keith knew the rough shape of how the conversation would go and he was getting tired of it. "Look, son, if you need to talk to someone, we'll arrange it. You're our best pilot, but even you won't be able to pull out of this nosedive if you don't start pulling up soon."

"Shiro is your best pilot," Keith corrected, softly, not able to stop himself.

There was a loud sigh. "Yeah, Shirogane was a hell of a pilot. Is that what this is all about? Are you worried that his failure means you might make the same mistakes?"

Keith pressed his lips together and started counting down from one-hundred.

"You don't have to worry about that," Iverson said and the kindness in his voice just made everything twist around harder in Keith's guts. "Shirogane was one of our greatest, but you have an instinct for flying that I've never seen before."

 Ninety-two. Ninety-one.

"You won't make the same mistakes he made. Especially not if you buckle down and-"

 Eighty-seven. Eighty-six.

"-put everything you've got into making sure you bring your crew home safely. Don't let Shirogane scare you away from flying. Don't let his failures affect your choices. You're smart, son, and you're a natural."

 Seventy-five. Seventy-four.

"He was good - you're the best. And we're here to support you-"

Keith turned his face up for the first time since Iverson had started talking and Iverson blinked, sentence stopping cold.

"Support me?" Keith wet his lips. "Like how you supported Shiro by throwing him - his name, his reputation - into the dirt for the media to tear to pieces? I don't need that kind of support. Sir."

"Look, son, I didn't-"

"Stop calling me that," Keith said flatly. "You don't know me and you don't know Shiro. He didn't- he would never-" Keith got to his feet and glared up at Iverson. "Whatever happened out there - it wasn't Shiro's fault. He didn't take chances with people's lives."

"Cadet, anyone can make a mistake," Iverson said, all that patient understanding gone from his voice as it sharpened. "I suggest that you avoid making one here today. Shirogane was a hero to a lot of the students but, frankly, he was never as good as his-"

Then Iverson was clutching at his nose and Keith's knuckles were burning and... oh, I just punched the head of the Garrison floated dizzily through Keith's brain.

"What the hell, kid!" Iverson flailed a hand at the phone on his desk, blood seeping from his nose. "Jeffery, I'm heading to the Infirmary." He released the button, cutting off Jeffery's response, and said to Keith, "You have two options. Apologize right now and start getting your act together, or grab your things and get the hell out of this school before the end of the day. Understood?"

Keith stood there for a moment, body swaying, and then he turned and walked out.

   Day 243  

Keith sketched the outline of the stylized lion onto a blank sheet of paper and frowned at it. Why lions? His radio buzzed and hummed with the latest space chatter. He clipped the sketch up next to the set of maps.

Shiro was dead. He'd accepted that, a long time ago, but something about the Kerberos mission - about the Garrison's reaction - it still felt all kinds of wrong. And he was sure it had to be connected to those figures in the cave. There was a message there.

He just had to figure out what it meant.

   Day 316  

It had been a bad night.

Keith rubbed at his eyes, trying to wipe away the nightmare.

The Garrison had never released the full details about what went wrong on the Kerberos mission, so Keith would never know if Shiro had died instantly or if he'd gotten exposed to space first. Keith's dream last night had featured the latter scenario, in vivid color. Shiro was dead. He'd been dead for months. Why couldn't he stay out of Keith's head?

Keith forcibly yanked his thoughts back to focus on the cave. There was... he was starting to pick apart the meanings.

And he had to focus on what was right in front of him, not get distracted by what was floating alone in space, far beyond his reach.

   Day 464  

He was running low on food again. Keith stared at his shelves and debated between hunting or going to town. He didn't really feel like being around people - he was definitely out of practice - but his hover bike's fan blades could stand to be replaced. Maybe it would be worth it.

He dug through his money and made a face at how low that was getting, too. He might need to do a couple of races in the next month to fill his stash back up. There was always the risk that he'd get caught, but it wasn't like it would matter if he got locked up for a few days. There wasn't anyone around to miss him.

   Day 512  

Keith tapped his fingers against the paper. He was sure of it now. Something was coming - tomorrow, if he was reading these signs correctly.

Okay, so he should get the hover bike fueled up, get some supplies - whatever was coming might be dangerous. He should bring more than just his knife along.

Keith patted his hand against the lion sketch.

"Tomorrow," he promised it. "By tomorrow night, I'll have you all figured out."

Space had taken enough away from him, after all.

It owed him something in return.

   Day 513 Day 0  

Keith sat on the unyielding wood of his table. Behind him, the three Garrison kids chattered and argued, but Keith barely heard them. Keith hadn't realized it at the time, but everything had become a little fuzzy over the last year. He'd been drifting along, more alone than he'd ever been before in his life.

Now... now...

Shiro was overflowing the sofa, breathing steadily as he slept - real sleep, from what Keith could tell. He would whisper from time to time, his forehead creasing with panic, and Keith would reach out and rest his hand against Shiro's bare forearm until he settled back down again. Whatever had happened out there had hurt Shiro deeply - scarred him physically, mentally, emotionally. He wasn't the same as he had been and probably never would be.

He was Shiro, though, and that was what mattered. He was Shiro and he was finally here again.

All Keith's life, he'd lost things - places - people.

And in all his life, this was the first time anything had come back.

[xtreme-icecream]

graffiti artist au youriko, ~900 words

Yō pauses from deepening the blue of the sky. “Y’know, you really are one in a million, come to think of it.”

Riko pulls out one in a dozen retorts she has ready, not even lifting her finger from the nozzle. “Flattery’s not very original, Yō-chan,” she says in a flippant singsong.

“I wasn’t trying to flatter you that time,” Yō said. “Come on, what were the chances the one city kid we’d have in our class would know about this kind of stuff, huh?”

“This isn’t exactly the best kind of stuff to be into.”

“Those ridiculous gradient skills you’re showing off tell me you don’t actually care.” Yō stands back from the wall and tugs down her mask. “My part’s done. You?”

“Same here, I think.”

Riko pulls her can of orange paint away and backs away from the wall to examine her and Yō’s handiwork.

There aren’t quite so many technicalities in play for her to consider it worth much study, but it’s plenty expressive. Today, their canvas is the pristine white wall at the back of a lonely, Ohara-owned storehouse that sits atop a hill. Riko tells herself it’s a bit of a shame despite knowing in her heart that a paint job like that was just asking for it. She doesn’t blame herself, either--Tokyo made her that way--but she sees that Yō is at least thoughtful about it, using the white to help frame her work in an arc of soft, stretching clouds. 

The clouds happen to be Riko’s personal favorite part of the piece. Sure, using the environment cleverly is a trademark of the medium, but a style more like a painting than your usual piece of graffiti gets across how Numazu raises its artists so differently from a metropolis like the one Riko came from.

Or maybe it’s just Yō. Riko knows from looking at sketches that Yō’s style is characterized by strong, sharp edges where edges are needed and colors in soft, almost watery blends. Here, it’s the classic color scheme of vibrant orange on calm, cool blue--a symbol of the terrible tandem that is Chika and Yō, though only they and Riko would catch that--and for the point of focus, the English word “SUNRISE” is emblazoned across the spray-paint sky in wide, crisp, heavily stylized letters.

Definitely not quite something for study, but she gets engrossed in it all the same.

Yō approaches the sun that Riko had just finished and gestures at it with the open hand and puffed chest of pride. “What did I say? Perfect. Gradients. I could never pull off a yellow-to-orange like that.”

“Thank you,” Riko says, smiling under her mask. “I’m glad practice paid off. If only Chika-chan could see it, though.”

“I’ve gotcha covered.” Yō pulls her phone out and takes some quick shots of the piece. One to the left, to the right, front and center. “Nice, it’s really early, but the actual sunrise is doing a pretty good job lighting this up for me. Now I can gloat.”

Sunrise. Riko pulls her sleeve back and checks her watch. “6:20? Yō-chan, we should start heading back soon, before we get caught.”

“Serious? Okay, okay, one last thing,” Yō tucks her phone back into the pocket of her hoodie and points in the center of their sun. “Can you stand over there?”

Riko complies easily, but not without giving Yō a curious look. “You can’t take a picture of me with this, you know.”

“I know, geez, what do you think I am, new?”

“Honestly, you come off that way sometimes.”

“Shuuuush, listen to me.” Yō walks to Riko’s side and points in a direction generally forward. “See, check out the view here, right? The sun’s not right in your face but it’s still in front of you and not as harsh, and you can see all these trees and the ocean... and the weather’s perfect, just as predicted.”

“Yeah... yeah I’m seeing it,” Riko says, her voice trailing off as her eyes follow Yō’s description. “Well, Yō-chan, you’ve got a knack for strategic positioning, that’s for sure.”

There’s a soft thudding noise next to her head, and when Riko blinks and opens her eyes she’s just plain caught between Yō and the wall they just spray-painted. Her stupid heartbeat picks up and warmth climbs up her neck to her face, which is, unlike Yō’s, lit by soft sunlight, especially after Yō pulls her mask down and lets her hand linger. For a drawn moment neither of them seem to know what to do.

“Y-Yeah,” Yō finally says, wearing a nervous little smile. “Guess I do have a knack for it.”

As would only be appropriate by now, Yō leans in slowly, giving Riko ample time to move away or voice any disapproval, but Riko stays silent until their lips quietly connect. Kissing Yō feels a little like how her piece looks--warmth from her lips and the sun and a little chill from the wall and morning air, and it’s all together and pleasant and again it’s entrancing. Riko’s heart still drums too quickly to keep track of, so maybe several dozen heartbearts pass before Yō pulls away.

But not nearly enough.

“S-S-S-Sorry,” Yō mutters, staring at the ground, “if that was sudden, or anything. But uh, it was just us, and it seemed like such a good moment--”

“And you’re blowing it.”

Now Yō looks up. Her eyes are blue and catch just a little of the sun in them. “What?”

Riko frowns and grabs the collar of Yō’s hood. “You were doing fine and it was a good moment. Don’t get scared and end it like this. Again.”

"Again?” Yō said. “But didn’t you say we should leave or we’d risk getting caught?”

“Yō-chan, risk is kind of what we do. So?”

For moment Yō is speechless, but soon she nods. Riko pulls her in and the second time is far more than the piece could ever be.

They end up smudging Riko’s perfect gradient, but neither really care.

a/n: remember kids vandalism is illegal and aerosol sprays are bad for the environment. be cool and write fanfiction instead

[linssikeittomies]

VR Chapter 3 - 17 hours

Masterpost <-Chapter 2 Chapter 4->

--

The next morning I woke up at 7. Not because I wanted to, but because some arse wouldn’t stop banging on the door.

Of course it was that grumbling tailor from last night. Accompanied by the overly gleeful servant beaming at me like I was his sole reason for living. Jesus.

“Emahem”, they said, and I mumbled back something resembling “morning”, but I’m not too sure how it turned out.

Anyway, that tailor had with him a high stool and the most exquisite dress my bleary eyes had ever seen, even in pictures of renaissance royalty. The base was turquoise silk, like, imagine the smoothest kind you possibly can, and then make it even smoother, really go overboard with the smoothness and it won’t even come close. Okay, well, maybe close, but what I’m saying is “baby butt smooth” did not do right by this cloth. Just that base alone would have made the most wonderful dress, but it was also embroidered all over, with the tiniest damn stitches of the finest thread in existence. The whole piece from the high collar to floor-dragging hem was decorated in flowers and songbirds. Well, at least there weren’t gemstones. The thing must have cost a year’s worth of salary as it was. I can admit liking nice clothes, but this thing could have fed a family in Africa for God knows how long.

Oh, right, they probably wanted me to put it on, that’s why he was pushing it towards me. Right. So I took it. The men didn’t turn around. So I glared at them and shooed them out. They didn’t get why, but at least didn’t try to come back in. I ran the fabric through my fingers, it was heavy but slippery, like trying to hold water. The thing must drape like a dream. Not that there much to drape, it was a figure hugging piece, thanks probably to extraterrestrial price. Wonder where you could even get fabric like this. Bet you have to order it straight from the spiders and have it blessed by a priestess of the moon or something. I’d like a pillow case made from this. So soft…

Oh, right, put it on. Had they been taking the measures for this? Obviously it was pre-made, stuff like this doesn’t get made overnight even in fictional 24/7 tailor shops. They probably meant to fine-tune it to fit me. Why was beyond me, but – oh damnit, again I just stared at it instead of dressing. God, I need more sleep.

Okay, so this was why they had stayed in the room. The buttons were in the back. I could only do the three lowest on my own. Why not put the damn things on the side, like in qipaos? It already looked qipao enough, this one little change would let you get dressed by yourself and not feel like a baby.

“Okay guys, you can come in now”, I called. They did, and the servant was again overjoyed from seeing me. The tailor was less than impressed and grumbled again, circled behind me to get the rest of the buttons and then gesturing me to climb on the stool. A struggle in and of itself in this dress. There was barely room to walk! Yeah, it saved a fortune to use as little fabric as possible, but a fat lot of good that would do if I ripped it! I couldn’t even hike it up properly so I had to perform some very awkward moves the get up there. I looked ridiculous.

The hem was a bit long, but it also wasn’t heavily embroidered so it shouldn’t be too difficult to shorten. The top was more of a problem, as my boobs were a little too big. They pondered for a long time, and finally decided to just pop open some of the top buttons, get some string in there to hold it together and cover the back with a vest held closed with a wide sash. What it couldn’t hide was the fact that my hips were too wide and stretched the fabric dangerously. The tailor pondered about this even longer, grumbling to himself and tapping his feet. He did come to some kind of solution at long last, as he gestured for me to come down and opened my buttons. Again I had to shoo them out. Once dressed, I got out the door and saw Ritideea talking animatedly with the tailor. She, too, said “Emahem”, and I tried mimicking her. I doubt I was very successful, but she smiled and clapped anyway. Her servant was with her today, too, I guess they worked around the clock. So they lived somewhere in the manor? Wonder where their quarters were. Could be in the locked wing? That was the only place I hadn’t gotten a look at yesterday.

I didn’t even know their names. I turned to my servant, ever smiling, pointed at myself and said “Mimi. Name Mimi”, then pointed at him and asked “Name?”.

His face lit up like I had just gifted him a million pounds.

“Asahana!” he shout-whispered and bowed deep. I bowed too, to be polite, and I swear he almost started crying. What was up with these people? Would the girl servant be better?

She was. She smiled widely too, and bowed, but nowhere near as deep and didn’t get teary-eyed. Her name was Keeka. They separated from us again to go do their work.

When Ritideea finished her talk with the tailor, we all went down for breakfast. Just as much greens as in the evening, but more bread. There was also omelette and something that resembled the gross cabbage soup they serve in Chinese restaurants. I didn’t taste it to make sure. I stuffed myself with bread and fruit juice.

Breakfast was much less noisy than dinner, possibly because of whatever decision had been made last evening. Everyone looked either worried or determined. Ritideea was among the determined ones, and talked with me. Well, at me, mostly. She talked slower than yesterday, maybe she thought I would be staying long enough to learn her language.

...would I be staying long enough to learn it? I had no way of returning home. Humans hadn’t made it to Mars, they wouldn’t make it to Jupiter during my lifetime. And where was I? Somewhere astronomically far away from the Milky way, possibly. At least one would assume so. Was I even in space? Maybe this was a different dimension altogether. I’d read enough sci-fi and fantasy to consider that a possibility. Could I get back the way I came? How had I come here? I had just walked into town, and then the forest was gone. There had been no portal, or star gate. Just air. How would I even explain that? Was it a common occurrence here? Hopefully not unheard of. But in that case wouldn’t the man from yesterday have considered that when he tried to find out where I was from? He was a mage, right, he should be the expert in these things. A rich family like this wouldn’t hire a third-rate mage who didn’t know his stuff.

What did this family deal in, anyway? Jewels? That should generate enough money for a super fancy manor like this. And all these paintings and murals. Last night I had concentrated on the table because I had been hungry, but now that my belly was full I took a closer look at the walls. They were absolutely filled to the brim with portraits of several sizes. There were an equal amount of women and men and indeterminates. Skin colours of every imaginable hue – white, yellow, brown, black, pink, green, blue, violet, rainbow – but everyone’s features were Caucasian. Except in the more stylized or abstract ones, of course. Who were all these people? And who were the ones dominating the ceiling? The paper-white woman with white hair in a clear blue dress, the faintly yellow fat woman with long curls and the pitch-black ladyboy?

Ritideea noticed my stare and smiled brightly. She started pointing at each figure.

“Alimagotsat”, the white woman, “Umube”, the fat woman, “Sibaja”, the black man. Didn’t tell me anything. Then she got up and started pointing out the portraits. “Kao, Sooi, Ailum, Kiolo, Linten, Suginak, Daslej, Kanun, Heliko, Tunuhe, Naumuok, Reksee, Anesan, Kahokisa...” she just went on and on and on and on and on, for an eternity. Frankly, I was impressed that she could remember them all by heart. There had to be well more than a hundred in all.

And then she pointed to the floor. I hadn’t even noticed that was painted, too. The green-blue woman with a mermaid dress taking up most of the floor was Klipikt(try saying that fast three times in a row), the boring, tan brunette was Bellekrig, and the brown woman with green hair was Malisale. Then Ritideea went back to the wall to tell more about “Mede”, of inditerminate gender. It didn’t matter to her I didn’t catch a word of it, she just liked talking about them. The rest of the family made themselves scarce about five minutes into the speech, and one of the maids reminded Ritideea that she had some things to do as well. The two of us went back to the third floor, where Ritideea dragged me into her room, the one next to the guest room I was staying in. Keeka and Asahana were already waiting for us in the big room, and they came in, too.

Ritideea was a painter. There was an easel with an unfinished work on it next to the window, a shelf filled with pencils, paints and brushes, and a stained apron hanging on the dresser door. Her walls were almost as crammed with artwork as the dining room, but at least their subjects were more varied. Only a few portraits(one of her mother, and two others of the same unknown young lady), mostly landscapes(one of a night sky with the moon shining behind a deer of some sort, it was very pretty), some still-lifes(flowers and fruit were as popular in this place as they were on Earth). She was good, I had to admit, she had probably started painting at a very young age. I was never a creative person, I only liked camping. I really envied the people who could pour untold hours into drawing something lifelike. Dancers, too, they can make movement look so easy and light. I don’t have the patience to endure practice.

But Ritideea hadn’t brought me there to show her paintings, she pulled out something from her dresser. A bright yellow gown, like the one her favourite painting subject was wearing. Loose and billowing, probably made from super fine tulle. She started talking excitedly, then suddenly soured and turned serious. Without any warning she started pulling her clothes off, and appeared just as confused by my reaction as the two men. I think she asked if I was okay. So I said yeah, turned a bit to reassure her, and noticed she had been wearing a tight, black top under her cream tunic. Her trousers came up almost to her armpits and were secured with laces. She didn’t shy in the least, evidenced by how she pulled them off with me standing right there, revealing black boxer briefs. She slipped on the yellow gown, and nearly drowned in it. If it hadn’t been tulle, I would have wagered the dress weighed more than the girl. She just looked so funny! I was sorry I offended her, but she looked so much like a little kid playing with her mum’s clothes! Just throw some oversized shoes in there while you’re at it!

She started on some lecture where the name Mede was repeated often. Again, I don’t speak your language, girl. I don’t know, maybe she just wanted me to get used to it. She at least was expecting me to stay a long time. In any case, I could respect her ability to keep up a lengthy conversation by herself.

While she talked, I checked out her bookshelf. Everything was in an alphabet I had never run into before, of course. They used letters, the characters repeated often. Mostly curved lines, every now and then a straight one. I picked out one book at random, and it turned out to be art history or something. At least there were a lot of pictures of paintings and a bunch of text in tiny font. Looked a little advanced for a 14-year-old. Then again, she was nearly a professional artist already. Ritideea smiled wide and shoved another book in my hands. That one was about a single artist, it looked like. Their style was very… airy, I suppose would describe it pretty well. Mostly watercolours and light hues, impressionistic. Not like Ritideea’s, who did realistic oils. She had bookmarked several pages with colourful paperclips. Good to see some inventions made it to other dimensions, would make adapting a lot easier.

What the hell was I talking about? I wasn’t staying! No need to adapt when I’m just going to leave soon.

Asahana suddenly piped up, and the atmosphere in the room turned nervous. Both looked at me with pitying eyes as Asahana guided me to the bathroom. For some reason the guestroom shared its bathroom with Ritideea. At least it looked fairly normal – a modest bath against the wall, faucet, toilet paper… although the toilet itself was the traditional hole-in-the-floor model. What kind of manor doesn’t have toilet seats? Was I supposed to throw the toilet paper in the hole or the bin? How was it flushed? Asahana fiddled with the bath’s faucets, then called me to come look how to work them. He left me in peace, to figure out the mysteries of plumbing by myself. I took a quick bath, using most of the toiletries I found in the rack on the wall, not knowing which of them was shampoo and which was soap. Then I realized I had no clothes to change in to. Hopefully the dresser would have something. I looked for a towel, but could only find a large square cloth that wasn’t terrycloth or cotton. At least it absorbed water well, despite being pretty coarse. Wrapping that around me I walked out to -

“GODDAMN, get out!”

Asahana and the grumbling tailor were standing there like they belonged! What the hell!? And they had the guts to look confused! I had to practically push them out! The one thing that lifted my spirits somewhat was getting new underwear – this would have been the third day with these panties. The only option was the same type of black boxer briefs as Ritideea’s but I wasn’t about to complain. I did opt to leave my own bra on rather than brave the t-shirt without underwires. As for clothes, pickings were slim – one dark green bathrobe dress, one cream tunic, one pair of cream pants. Ritideea’s outfit from earlier. Well, better than my sweaty button-up and jeans. And I could go without socks inside the house. No one else was wearing anything on their feet, after all.

I opened the door to glare at the two men, who still couldn’t understand why I was mad. Hopeless! They came back in and showed the gorgeous dress from this morning. I had to shoo them out again to put it on. I don’t know what kind of magic the tailor had worked on it, because it fit almost perfectly on the hips now. He had also substituted the vest with another, deep green one with some basic embroidery running along the neckline, must have been to match it better with the elaborate and extensive decoration of the dress. But the sash was still the same solid, banana peel yellow piece as earlier. What was it with these people and bright yellow? Ritideea looked like a huge ball of cheese in her dress. Who in their right mind makes a whole dress from bright yellow tulle? It might work as a detail, but jeez, no one looks good in banana.

And the dress wasn’t even enough. After they made me throw it on Asahana braided my hair around my head, like that one Russian politician lady, can’t remember her name right now. Except of course he had to make it a French version, since my hair was nowhere near long enough. Once he was done, he led me all the way downstairs to the front door, where he gave me white sandals to wear, and creaked the huge double doors open to let us out.

At the gate there was a horse buggy looking carriage, but without the horses. Three people were standing in front of it – Ritideea, a young woman with two braids carrying a long metal bar, and a tall man in his mid-thirties with a long ponytail. Long hair was most apparently in fashion. Both the woman and the man bowed to me, and Ritideea introduced them. The woman, Famfarrah, looked like she wouldn’t recognize a joke if it slipped on a banana peel right in front of her.

Again with the bananas, I swear. Must have been Ritideea’s dress, it was just so in-your-face-yellow.

The man, Yotiry, was a bit more laid back. He even smiled a little. We all got in the buggy(me with considerable difficulty, thank to that gods-damned tight dress), and somehow it started moving. The buggy had windows, but they were covered with curtains, and Ritideea drew me back when I tried to peek out. I wondered why we had to keep this a secret, but I wasn’t about to anger her. Wouldn’t do to get kicked out on the street before learning how to say “alms for the poor”.

The new faces whispered nervously with each other while Ritideea tried to meditate, I think. She was doing those breathing exercise thingies, in the mouth out the nose, and mumbled to herself. Bit by bit her back straightened further and her chin lifted. She started looking scarily much like her mother. Impressive how such a gleeful and innocent-looking little girl can turn so regal. I just wondered why she needed to steel herself like that. Was she really that nervous about wherever we were going? The other two sure were. The longer we rode the more fidgety they got. When Ritideea drew back the curtain on her side, they didn’t calm down at all.

We were outside the city, on the countryside. Fields almost far as the eye could see, a grand forest in the distance, and mountains in the horizon. Such a pretty view, but Yotirry in particular avoided looking at it. Though as we went further, his worry was replaced with anger. Ritideea tried to calm him, first with reason, then with sympathy, and finally with authority. That last one worked the best, surprisingly. That little girl could really demand respect when she wanted to.

Eventually the road turned towards the forest, and the fields were only things visible. It must have been spring or early summer, since everything was still green. I only saw a few cows, or maybe horses, difficult to say from this far away. Too big to be sheep, in any case. Very few trees. Five in total could be seen on my side, and Ritideea’s side had even fewer. You could easily see the undulation of the ground, plus really far. There wasn’t much even ground, mostly slight hills.

I hadn’t taken my watch, so I couldn’t say how long we rode. It felt like it had been an hour, give or take some, when we got off the road and maybe half an hour after that. The only thing I could say for sure was that my butt was numb. This dress wasn’t exactly helping my circulation, and I was scared it would rip if I tried to fix my position. The first thing I did after getting out of the buggy was wiggle my toes vigorously, as if that would have helped. Famfarrah got a large, decorated wooden chest from a compartment on the back of the buggy. The chest itself must have weighed over 5 kilos, but whatever was inside was light since she carried it like it was nothing, then set it down on the ground by the treeline. Yotiry laid a blanket behind it, and Ritideea kneeled down on it. I wasn’t going to follow her, but Yotiry set his hand on my shoulder and firmly guided me next to her. Booooring. First sitting on my arse in the buggy, and now sitting in the ground? I needed to stretch my legs. Famfarrah and Yotiry got to stand, why not me? I looked over at Ritideea, and she could have been mistaken for a statue. She was so majestic and still, with her hands folded on her lap and looking proudly straight ahead. So damn regal. Even in that ludicrous dress.

For a while I did try to copy her, but got bored quickly. The fields weren’t very interesting, so I looked at the forest instead. It wasn’t that much more interesting… although, the more I looked at it, the more it felt like something was off about it. It was difficult to see what exactly, since it was so dark in there – oooh, well that for starters, it was too dark in there. It was a sunny day outside the forest, and the inside of the forest was like twilight. The foliage was so thick very little light could come through. And the reason the foliage was so thick was because every single tree was an ancient giant with a trunk as thick a small house, with an unbelievable amount of beard moss hanging from the branches. There wasn’t one sapling or youngling. There wasn’t any fallen down trees, either… How did this forest renew? Where were the animals? You’d think you’d see one bird or hear a little rustle now and then, but it was silent. Yeah, you read that right, silent, not quiet. Was this one of those cursed forests the fantasy genre loved? It didn’t feel cursed, a bit foreboding maybe now that I thought about it, but cursed? Hmm, maybe a tiny bit cursed, just subtly, like you wouldn’t die if you set foot in there, but get hurt a little, or be struck by minor bad luck. Were we here to see a witch? Was that what everyone was so worried about? Was this the decision no one had liked? Ask help from a witch since they couldn’t figure me out by themselves? What kind of an idiot makes deals with witches, those never turn out well! We’d all be lucky if we walked out of here with all our organs and firstborns intact. What do witches even do with all those firstborns? Eat them? Take them as apprentices? Or do you become a witch solely by selling your soul to the Devil? In this world, was the Devil real? Were we here to meet Devil? Who makes deals with the Devil? White people! Who were we? White people! We were so here to make a deal with the Devil. Well, not if I had anything do with it.

The Devil let us wait a good while. Still, Ritideea never made a move. If anything, she only looked more aloof. She barely stirred when a figure slowly emerged from the shadows and made a beeline for us. She only got up to bow once the two-meter figure was stood in front of right behind the foremost trees.

I… didn’t really know what to make of the figure. I would definitely call it a person, and male, but he had hyena ears on his head, furry paws for feet, and a long, fluffy tale. The others were scared shitless of him, but all I saw was anime cat person. Even his eyes fit the bill. Bloody huge hazel eyes, way too big for a real human, even bigger than Anne Hathaway’s. I wanted to shake my head at the display, even though he didn’t how he looked, anime probably didn’t even exist in this world. He couldn’t help how cringe-worthy he looked.

His voice was higher than his height had led me to believe, and had an odd growling quality to it despite the high pitch. Every word came out slow and forced. Sounded like talking was difficult for him. Still, he was laid-back and joking, leaned against a tree, as a total opposite to my companions, who all sat ramrod straight and kept their faces perfectly neutral. Ritideea considered her every word carefully and kept her voice even and respectful. It then hit me that the furry man hadn’t so much as acknowledged anyone else in the company. As far as he was concerned, Ritideea and him were the only ones here. Can you believe this guy?! How rude can you get?

Unfortunately I’m not the type to explode with righteous fury. Ritideea and the man talked for a while, then Ritideea asked Famfarrah to push the chest forward so the man could reach, and at that point he stopped pretending to care even about Ritideea. He opened the chest with glee and dug in. For the most part he didn’t care about the contents – he set the bundle of geometrically patterned fabric to the side, took one whiff of the perfume before flicking it over his shoulder, only looked at the musical instruments for a moment, but he did like the hairbrush. A real piece of work, that one, seemed to be made of red amber. He wasted no time in opening his thigh-length braid and trying it out, and was not disappointed. He kept lazily brushing his mane the whole time we stayed there.

So now that the bribe was out of the way, Ritideea brought me up. Finally, finally, the rude cat boy turned his goddamn eyes at someo

Oh, sorry, it just felt like the whole world stopped for a while, not in a good way. The instant his eyes met mine it was like being dunked into ice water. The shock made my heart skip several beats and breathing feel painful. The afterwaves of the hit still had me trembling.

I suddenly understood why everyone had been so reluctant to do this. He might have seemed harmless, but he damn near killed me with just a careless look. Wouldn’t have regretted it, either. The bastard smirked, supposedly subtly, but everyone could see he was howling with laughter. I was the weakest thing he had ever encountered.

He exchanged a few words with Ritideea again, letting me catch my breath. Dear God how I hated this guy! What a dickhead!

I would have given almost anything to never have him look at me again, but something Ritideea said raised his interest. He stared at me hard in disbelief, so hard it almost felt physical. Then he barked a laugh and called out to the forest, pointing at me and even forgetting about his stupid hair for a while. He was looking deeper into the forest, the darkness, like someone was there and he wanted them to come stare at the freak, too.

I didn’t want to die for disrespecting this douchebag so I stayed put.

There was someone in the forest. Almost noiseless rustles and cracks of branches breaking under feet started coming closer, until I could see some kind of black hyena. The man’s pet? Even for an animal with no facial expressions it managed to look annoyed. Its long tail twitched like a disturbed cat’s. It’s bright emerald eyes shone brilliantly against its coal black, sleek fur. A beautiful specimen, really… Such intelligent eyes, it was clearly no run of the mill beast. It sat down next to the dickhead, quickly glanced at the other humans and then set its gaze on me. Its nose twitched, it was sniffing me from the distance. As though reluctantly its head twisted sideways, like a confused dog’s, and it quickly acted like I was nothing special and turned its nose up. I couldn’t help the snort. The man barked to the hyena, actually sounding like a real animal, and made some other animal noises too – and he got a similar response. Like they were actually conversing. Just how intelligent was this animal? Was it magic?

I really shouldn’t be this surprised by magical animals, I had already met a wizard and an anime cat person. Fantasy is full of magic animals. Though they’re usually more horse-like. Sometimes big cats. Don’t think I ever ran into a magic hyena. Associated too heavily with carrion, not glamorous enough.

Jesus Christ, another one of those ice-water dunks! Cool it with the torture already! I’d rather not have a heart attack at sixteen! He didn’t care, yeah, but I did! I did my best to glare at him, but I… sort of got lost in his eyes, to my great shame. They were so pretty… Earlier I said they were hazel, but looking closer, it was more like maple syrup with fine gold glitter swirling in the mix…

He laughed, and I snapped out of it. My head was such a mess the only thing he could figure out was that I liked what I saw. What? Bullshit! Why would I even think that?

So there I sat, mortified, while Ritideea and the vile man talked some more. I’d look at anywhere but them, examine my nails, study the forest, twist around the check the expressions on Famfarrah and Yotiry(suspicious and containedly angry, respectively), fiddle with the edge of the blanket, shift my weight from one knee to the other… The hyena would shoot glances at me and then turn up his nose at me when I answered the look. So cute.

What was I doing here? Just playing with the hyena, it was like a proud cat, so cute. I wanted to pet it, but I guessed it would just run. Or maybe bite my hand off. How did I come here? What a weird question to answer myself, where did that come from? I knew how I came here. And I’m not one of those philosopher types who uses that question as a metaphor for something bigger. I’m a pretty literal gal. I was hopeless.

The vile man was looking at me again, aloof amusement all over his smug face. He was no help when I took zero interest in him. Hell yeah I took zero interest in him! I took negative interest in him! Maybe Marsohu would have better luck.

...the hell? Who was Marsohu? I don’t typically just come up with random names in my thoughts. Also I was way past imaginary friends.

There was a lull in the negotiations, Ritideea looking pleading, the man looking bored, and the hyena looking cautiously interested. Don’t ask me how an animal looks cautiously interested, there was very little in the situation that I understood. The man and the hyena  had another one of those animal conversations, and it ended with the hyena obviously grumbling to himself. It looked me straight in the eye, making me wax poetic about gemstones and crap. They were so pure green, you couldn’t get that kind of green with even photoshop. There was almost an inner glow to them. That’s not what I was here for, why was I here? What, again with the philosophy? Okay, brain, I came here by that buggy thing. Satisfied? I came because the family decided to ask help from a witch. Who turned out to be a dickhead anime cat person.

I swear the hyena snickered and said something catty to the dickhead. He responded with a faintly amused smirk. Where was my home?

What was with these thoughts? Usually they followed some kind of logic, but today they just transfer, ever heard of it?

What the heeeeellll. Now my thoughts were interrupting themselves. No, it was me. No wonder I was a mess.

…

Where was my home? Sheffield, of course, I knew that. Nether Edge Road. Not the nicest house on the road, but not the smallest, either. Just enough to fit me, Marie, mum and dad. More about Sheffield. Well, it was a big city, pretty far from London, uhh…  Yorkshire, middle England. England. A country in Europe. Great Britain here, France under there, all the other countries. Connected to Asia, cross the pacific and there’s North America, South America, keep going and you get to Africa. Oh And Australia’s in there somewhere, too. There, to be exact. My mental world map might have been less than spectacular, but I think I got most of it right. At least it showed enough to confirm that I wasn’t from around here. Uh-huh, it did – hold on a minute, I already knew I wasn’t from around here. There was nothing I needed to confirm to myself. That’s because I wasn’t confirming to myself, idiot.

Was someone screwing with my brain? A certain black hyena, mayhaps?

“Hey, you! Are you doing this?”

The hyena nodded.

Welp, that settled that. It was a telepathic magic animal. What an unorthodox kind of telepathy, just putting thoughts into my head like that. It could’ve at least made it sound like speech, like a normal telepath. This way was just too confusing.

Wait! Now that I knew it was telepathic, I could ask it to help me home! That was why the family had brought me here! They knew that the animal, and possibly the dickhead, were telepaths and could get around the language barrier by communicating directly by thought.

“Can you help me get home?”

Can you help me get home can you help me get home can you help me get home can you help me get home can you help me get home. That’s beyond me, even beyond Joyjaa. The dickhead is Joyjaa.

The hyena snickered again.

“So you’re Marsohu, I’m thinking?”

The hyena nodded, although my pronunciation fucking sucked.

“Sorry, I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to practice”, I complained. Seemed like I would have nothing but time to practice from here on out. If humans couldn’t help me home, and these people couldn’t help me home, I was stuck here for good.

“Can you at least contact my family? I need to tell them I’m fine.” How would I do that, I can barely talk with me.

Or would that be “How would I, Marsohu, do that, when I can barely communicate with you, Mimi”?

“Oh. That makes sense.”

My family would never know what had happened to me. Went for a walk, never came back, never answered her phone. Survived the woods as a baby but not as a teen. Couldn’t have been a bear, those tend to be pretty rare close to highways. No ravines, either. They’d think I had just walked out of their lives. Mum would be heartbroken. She was a self-blamer, she would be convinced she had done something wrong and I hated her for that. Nothing could be further from the truth, my mum was basically the greatest living person on the planet. Poor mum, first her sister and now her daughter. Seems our branch just kept abandoning her. Dad might suspect murder, but I had wandered off in the middle of the day in a place where not a lot of people congregated, no murderer would be searching for victims in there. Marie, I suspect, would fluctuate between feeling betrayed and hopeful. She was bratty enough to believe it was all about her, that I had walked out on her specifically, but also optimistic enough to believe I’d return regretful some day.

Ritideea called the meeting to an end, Yotiry bundled up the blanket, and we boarded the buggy. As it turned around, I took one last glance at the forest – the dickhead was nowhere to be seen, but the hyena was still sat on the ground before the treeline, looking intently at our buggy. As we headed back towards the road, the numbness wore off and I started crying.