#nari did tell him the story of his kits after that

[kedicatt-cotl]

3 week old sketches again narinder didn’t exactly tell baabaa a lot about his past. they discussed the latest events, including the lambs, bishops and narinder's kits being killed, but that's as far as it goes pretty much he doesn’t hold lamb accountable for what happened, nor does he live in self hatred or anything, nothing like that! he just kind of let it go as something that took place at one point, and doesn’t think about it much at all. it’s been years and it doesn’t hurt that much anymore, but he never could fully accept the fact that everyone is dead, so thinking about it makes him sad baabaa doesn’t pry, letting narinder take his time

[daydream-believin]

What About the Smaller Picture (3)

Summary: Merlin knows best. And what he feels is best for you and Douxie right now is to sit around and wait for him to come back from New Jersey, Merlin-knows-when. (3) You’ve adjusted to Arcadian life pretty well. (1) or (4)

Warnings: Swearing, sleep problems?

Word count: 2474

A/n:  sorry this wasnt out sooner I’ve had a week

The curtains were blue. They had a little pattern of navy and white flowers and curvy lines like pottery painted with indigo. You had moved one of Doux’s bookshelves to be the second wall to allow the curtain rod to even be in place. This layout effectively created a nook of sorts around your little bed. To be frank the curtains weren’t absolutely necessary. The space kinda gave you university dorm vibes with the two twin beds across from each other. But there was no way you were letting this guy you barely knew watch you sleep. Even if you were good friends, you wouldn’t let him watch you sleep. That kind of vulnerability was special, reserved for only those closest to you.

Speaking of closeness, Douxie had been very adamant about you not calling him by his full name anymore. Made him feel like you were reprimanding him, he said. You could relate to the feeling, and so you were now being careful to replace all ‘Hisirdoux’s with ‘Douxie’s in your head. Or at least a ‘Doux’. Not ‘Babe’. Who told you that. You definitely never referred to him as Babe in your mind. Nope. That Is Not Something Friends Do.

“And,” Douxie rubbed the back of his neck, “Normally when people call me Hisirdoux nowadays it’s because they want to kill me. Only strangers and enemies call me that. Or Zoe when she’s pissed. So yeah, just Douxie is fine.”

“Just Douxie?”

He chuckled, “Yeah.” You looked up at him with a smile.

“Douxie.” He flushed, nodding. “Well, Douxie, what do you want for dinner tonight.”

That little nook you’d built hadn’t stopped Douxie from trying to talk to you all night, however. You’d think the curtains would be a clear message of don’t talk to me I want to be left alone but Doux hadn’t really taken that hint. You tried your best to brush him off the first few nights, even pretending to fall asleep. It didn’t stop him. By the fourth night you spent in Arcadia, you gave in. You had trouble sleeping anyways, as it was apparent so did your roommate, so might as well indulge him. It’s not like ignoring him did any good. Instead of staring at a blue-light screen that messed with your circadian rhythm, you talked about nonsense with Doux. And it was good nonsense. He was way too funny. Or maybe it’s that thing where if you’re into someone then everything they say is hilarious. You’ll never know. But it was nice, either way.

The funny thing was that not only did you actually start to like this, but now it was becoming hard to sleep without it. He helped. Your whole life you stayed up late, and then tossed and turned all night anyways. Now your bedtime routine was talk to Douxie for a few hours, slowly falling asleep, and then you’d sleep the whole night through like a baby. No more restlessness. No more waking up over and over again. Even if you did, you could just listen to him snore for a bit and fall right back to sleep. You guessed it was the feeling of safety he provided. Like someone was watching over you, even when you were at your most vulnerable. You’d never really had that luxury before.

 You had started noticing the trouble coming back when he would stay out late sometimes. And Douxie was gone one night and you suddenly couldn’t sleep at all. This was bad. A problem, if you will. But no matter. There were more pressing things to worry about.

Like the fact that all week, Douxie had been hinting that he had something you two were going to do soon. He would not tell you what it was. In fact he was taking quite a bit of joy in dangling this “surprise” in front of your face but not telling you anything about it. It was driving you a little crazy. You hoped what he had planned was nothing too wild, though. It’s not that you weren’t down, you were just tired. But you could use a little shaking up. This bookshop existence was boring. You weren’t boring. You had enough crazy stories to last an immortal lifetime from growing up in New Jersey. Not just modern-day Urban New Jersey. Early colonial Quaker-dominated New Jersey was wild too. Especially as one of those infamous New England witches. Maybe Douxie was taking you on some magic errand. That would be great, you were dying to do something actually in your job description ever since you got here. Not that working in the bookshop wasn’t nice, it just wasn’t magic. You were craving magic.

But alas, as the sun was setting and the last patrons left the store, life moved on as mundanely usual. You flipped over the sign, scratched a sunbeam bathing Archie behind the ears, and started the process of re-shelving all the damn books that customers left strown about. The sunset turned the bookshop pink. There were fewer cars rushing by. Now that there were no customers, it was very peaceful. Just you, Archie’s snoring, and the soft lute music playing. The music was lute covers of popular songs, and at this point you were pretty sure it was Douxie himself who recorded this shit.

Speaking of Douxie, you hadn’t seen him all day. It had made working the bookshop extra extra boring. Like if he wanted you to be free labor, he could at least give you the decency of his lovely presence. But no, it was just you, all day long. All by your lonesome, with nary a cute theater-kid adjacent wizard to keep you entertained with his company. It was a travesty really. But anyways, where was he. Better not be having fun without you.

You like to think your thoughts summoned him. He came in through the back door, panting, disheveled. Singed? He frantically looked out the door’s window into the alleyway from which he had just came from, looking for something. Whatever it was, he must have seen it, since he looked panic-stricken. In a painfully obvious attempt to swallow the fear, he turned to you, trying his best to sound nonchalant.

“SO. You know that thing? The surprise? Well. It is here a little sooner than I expected it to bE—” A loud crashing noise came from the alleyway. “Oh, fuzzbuckets.”

You dropped the book in your hand. “WHAT DID YOU DO.”

There was another very loud crash, this time closer. Douxie glanced back for less than a moment before rushing over to you, taking you hand.

“I’ll just have to tell you on the way love, come on!”

You two fled out the front door of the shop like your tails were on fire. Speaking of tails on fire, once you rounded the shop to the alleyway, you found out just what Douxie had been running from that was making such loud noises. Hellheetis. Five large hellheetis. Blazing bright in the Arcadian dusk. How the neighbors haven’t already called the cops or the fire department was a mystery. The large lion-like creatures growled, stalking down the alley. It was only a matter of seconds before they smelled and or spotted you and went back into the chase. You had to make a plan and fast. Distracting you from your thoughts, Douxie nervously laughed beside you.

“hehe, uh, could you believe there was only one of these at the start?”

You slowly turned to the wizard, “Did you,, hit them, Hisirdoux?” You could call him that now because you were in fact pissed off at the moment.

“Only twice.”

“Only twice… Okay”

“I may not be the best at monster identification. Or remembering which tactic to use for which.”

“I can see that.” You tried to keep your voice as calm as you could, which got a little easier to do as the hellheetis turned down a different alleyway, putting some more distance between them and you. They were still searching though, that was apparent. Thankfully the stench of the alley trash was keeping you covered.

“Believe me, Archie gets onto me about this all the time.”

“It’s okay… just. I think I have a plan. But one of us has to be bait. And it’s going to be you.”

“That’s fair.”

You sprinted up the stairs of the bookstore and up through the ceiling hatch onto the rooftop. You first instinct was to get them to the center of the square, where you could use the fountain as a water source. The alley they had started going down opened up to the square anyhow. It would have been a straight shot. But dear Mr. Casperan made a fuss about that being too out in the open or whatever.

Next solution. The bookstore’s rooftop had a facet, Douxie told you. You’d like to imagine it was put there so some nice old lady could have had a sweet rooftop garden without too much hassle. Maybe you should start a sweet rooftop garden. You and Douxie could have a little oasis in the city up here. You could grow veggies and flowers for your table. Maybe make a cute little picnic area. Stargaze at night. The facet. You quickly found it and made work of turning it on. Or at least you tried your best. You could hear roaring, getting louder, getting closer. The scary growls and roars were punctuated by Douxie’s frantic footsteps, grunts, and gasps. Please don’t get eaten, Douxie.

The facet was so rusty, it took all of your strength to get it to budge. And then nothing came out really, the hose attached to it lifeless without so much as a trickle. You tried to unscrew it from the facet to see if there was a problem and the metal part of the hose disintegrated in your hand. Okay. No water was in fact coming out of that facet.

Imaginary sirens rang in your ears. You had to get water, fast, or your partner was gonna be kit & kadouxle. Hellheeti chow. Growl mix. Douxies. Fiery feast. The big cats were gonna eat him okay. After managing to get the facet turned as fast as you could, fueled on pure adrenaline, and still getting little to no water, you made a judgement call of fuck that. Magic time. To be completely frank here that should have been what you had done in the fucking first place, but hey, fear dulls the mind.

Gathering up as much water as you could, like, metaphorically feel in the pipe, you pulled that shit out with all your might. Aaaannddd because of this you may have not actually remembered that you would need to catch said water in order to, you know, use it. Instead of a nice bubble to be used at your discretion, a magic roof-water tidal wave washed over you and over the side of the building into the alley below. Thank your lucky fucking stars that Douxie just so happened to have gotten the fire felines to the right spot in time. The uncontrollable rain rushed down, dissipating the hellheetis, soaking Douxie darling, and flooding not only your alley but all the alleys connected to it. Holy shit, stop it! STOP IT! It took a second, but you did finally get the river to stop pouring out of your rooftop. Fingers crossed there were no basement windows open and all your neighbors had flood insurance. And that no one saw. Can’t be connected to you if no one saw right. Shhhhhh.

You peered over the ledge to see if Douxie was alright down below. He looked like a cat caught in the rain himself. You probably did too. Douxie’s soaked bangs covered his eyes. Nevertheless, he was able to see you up on the ledge and gave you a thumbs up. You awkwardly returned it.

Toweling off your hair, and now in nice dry pajamas, you walked out of the bathroom to join Douxie on the couch. His own hair towel hung around his shoulders. You took a moment to enjoy how cute he looked all ready for bed, cozy in the blankets on the couch. And that semi-wet hair was looking pretty nice too. You only allowed yourself to linger on this for that moment however, as you remembered you were supposed to be mad at him right now. You crossed your arms as you approached the wizard.

“SO, dearest Hisirdoux, may I have the decency of getting to ask the question, WHY.”

“Funny story really.”

“Really?” You raised a brow

“Really.”

Douxie fidgeted with his hands. You watched this little nervous gesture intently as you sat down next to him. He took a deep breath before beginning,

“First thing. You’ve been here for some time now, and I thought it was enough time for me to start sharing my little, er, excursions with you,” Douxie’s face flushed a little, “I like monster hunting, and now that I know that I like you, I thought I’d like it more if I brought you along with me?”

Your face was flushed a little too now. “Hey, stop it, I need to be mad at you.” Yeah well the smile you wore gave up any pretense of that. Sorry.

“I didn’t know how familiar you were with monsters or how skilled at fighting you were, so I decided to go get some test monsters from Mervin the Monster Dealer, just to make sure our first time would be safe. FIRST TIME MONSTER HUNTING TOGETHER.”

You stifled a chuckle. “And you didn’t just ask me?”

“It was supposed to be a cool surprise okay.” He buried his face in his hands.

“… Hellheetis?” Safe monster your ass.

“Yes, I mean no, I- Mervin sold me the wrong thing alright. I thought I was buying those cute little fire sprite things you can easily just put out with your boot.”

This time you did not hold back that laughter. And you laughed, and Douxie laughed, and soon both of you were uncontrollably cackling until you were out of breath. Archie came in to see what the commotion was about and then promptly turned back around to go back to his spot in the window. You clutched your chest, still cracking up despite the lack of oxygen. Douxie wiped some tears from his eyes you were sure hoping were just from laughing too hard. You rubbed a hand on his back.

“So, I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day. How bout movie night?”

Douxie’s tired eyes smiled at you, “Yeah, I think that would be lovely.”

“Hey, I had a good first monster hunt, Douxie. Thank you,” You pulled your cold feet up under your legs, “But could you stop hogging the blankets!”

[fantasy2739]

Hi! Fic request for Douxie and his parents? Is he orphan? Was he abandoned? What do you think? (It could be based in the 21 century as a memory or in the 12, your choice) I read the others, they’re very good!

Sorry this took a while, but I’ve written it. You got flashback! Thank you for reading the others I’m glad you like them.

I went with abandoned Douxie because I think it’s more. Angst.

Here it is, a bit long:

After everything that had happened, Douxie wasn’t allowed to just take Nari and fly away. Claire insisted that at the very least he rest and pack for the journey. Douxie had tried to argue but was shot down by everyone reminding him he had technically just died and could barely walk five feet. Ha agreed, only to stop their pestering. They went to the Lake house, Krel steering the ship, while Steve had to help Douxie walk. Jim took a deep breath before knocking. Strickler answered, looking ready to stab anything that moved. Douxie could understand that, given the recent alien invasion and even more recent ship falling from the sky. Strickler stares at the now re-fleshed Jim in shock.

“Barbara!” He called, before sweepings his gaze over the rest of them. “You’d better come in.” They stumbled into the house. A loud crash told Douxie that Krel had found somewhere to park. The blue boy came hurrying in.

“Sorry I’m still trying to get the hang of it.” He said sheepishly. Steve lowered Douxie onto the sofa, where he flopped uselessly, while Nari hopped around to sniff everything.

“Oh Jim.” Barbara said weakly, having just arrived at the foot of the stairs. She pulled Jim into a tight hug and Jim was hugging her back just as hard. She pulled away and stroked her son’s face. “It’s good to see you.”

“And no longer troll either.” Jim said. Barbara smiled but shook her head.

“I wouldn’t care what form you came in.” She said. “I’m just happy to see you.”

“I’ve been calling and texting.” Jim defended.

“It’s not the same.” Barbara said, finally seeming to notice everyone else. “Walt, call the other parents. You can tell us everything when they arrive. I’ll look you all over.” She greeted Toby and Claire with a hug and Blinky and Aaargh got smiles. “Who’s the worst?” Several eyes fell on Douxie, making him duck his head. Barbara day next to him after grabbing the first aid kit.

“Good to see you again, Dr. Lake.” Douxie greeted, flashing his most charming smile.

“Douxie right? From the cafe?” She asked and he nodded, trying not to jostle his injuries too much. She was frowning as she checked him over. “You’re badly injured.”

“He fell.” Tony answered the unasked question for him. Claire rolled her eyes.

“Yeah only a few thousand feet.”

“From that height you should be...” Barbara trailed off.

“Dead.” Douxie supplied. “Decided I didn’t like it so I came back. Wizard.” He added.

“A wizard? Like Merlin?” Barbara said coldly. Everyone cringed while Douxie tried not to sob.

“Sort of. I’m no where near as powerful.” Douxie managed.

“I dunno Teach. You manage okay.” Claire said with a warm smile. Archie cleared his throat.

“Douxie was Merlin’s apprentice, now he’s a master wizard in his own right.” Archie nuzzled Douxie. “Merlin died recently to protect us.” Barbara blinked at the talking cat but gripped Douxie’s hands.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” She said, letting them lap into silence.

When the other parents arrived, Nana, Claire’s parents and Coach Lawrence, the kids launched into the story. Douxie didn’t say much except for his fight with Bellroc and Skrael, which he tried to downplay. The adults were hugging their children, leaving Douxie feeling... lonely. He felt a pang of longing. They were all so close and he was just an intruder. No one noticed him slipping into the back garden. Everything hurt. Not just physically. The toll of losing his mentor, his keepsakes. Of dying. It was hitting him hard. He wanted so badly for someone to hold him. At 919 he shouldn’t need parental comfort but he did. And Merlin had been the closest thing to a parent he’d ever known. He wasn’t the best but he’d at least tried. He’d been a scrawny ten when his magic had shown up properly, leaving his parents to only look at him with distaste.

Douxie didn’t want to keep carrying his father’s cloths. He wanted to go and play.

“On the bench Hisirdoux.” His father told him absently, trying to find a dropped stitch. “There’s more by the door.”

“Can I go play after?” He asked.

“No. There’s more work to do.” Douxie tried not to pout. He wanted to go and explore. He’d felt something the last time he’d been out exploring. Something different. Exciting. Freeing. Not that he’d tell anyone. He wasn’t stupid, different was bad. Douxie scrunched up his nose at the next batch of cloth. He wished it would just fly to wherever. That would be quicker. He didn’t expect it to actually start floating, encased in a lovely sky blue.

“What the!” His father yelled, startled by the sudden floating cloths. “Stop that. You... you... stop that right now.” Douxie didn’t know how to. He didn’t understand why his father was so angry. The floating cloths weren’t hurting anyone. His mother came in.

“Is everything...” She trailed off at the sight of levitating clothing. “He... he has magic?” Douxie blinked at his mother, trying to see if she was angry. She didn’t seem angry. Just cold.

“What are we going to do with him?” His father asked, low and panicked. His mother seemed to mull it over, giving her son the coldest look he’d ever seen.

“He’ll have to go.” She said eventually. Douxie’s eyes widened.

“Mother?” He asked uncertainly.

“Don’t!” She snapped. “You... you have magic. You’re dangerous. You’ll put us in danger.”

“No I won’t!” Douxie exclaimed. “I won’t Mother.” She shook her head, muttering.

“Abomination of my flesh. Evil sullying my own blood. We’ll be killed for harbouring a mage.”

“Leave.” His father said. “Pack up and leave or we’ll call the guards.” At that Douxie squeaked. He knew what the guards were like. They got mad if you played in the wrong part of town. He’d be thrown in some dark dungeon. He ran to his room and grabbed what little he could fit in a bag. His mother shoved him out the back door.

“Don’t come back.” She warned, ignoring the tears in her only sons eyes. “You are no longer my child.”

“Douxie?” Jim called, waving a hand in front of his face. Douxie jumped back.

“Sorry mate. A million miles away.” He said, flopping onto a rock. “Something wrong?”

“I could ask you the same question.” Jim said, sitting next to him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Douxie insisted. Jim raised an eyebrow and damn those blue eyes. “Just thinking about my parents.” Jim frowned before looking back to his house with dawning realisation.

“I’m sure they’d be proud of you.” He said. Douxie managed not to snort.

“Doubt it.” He muttered. Jim’s frown deepened and Douxie knew he’d have to explain. “When my magic turned up. Well you saw Camelot. People aren’t fond of it. So they sent me away.” Sent away sounded so much better than kicked out.

“They didn’t have magic?” Jim asked. He must have thought it was hereditary. “Maybe they just wanted you to be with someone who knew about magic.” Douxie didn’t reply, staring at the night sky intently.

“Go back inside Jim.” Douxie said, managing to sound his 900 years. “Your mother has missed you.” Jim stood up, giving Douxie a squeeze on the shoulder before heading in. Douxie felt a tear fall. He tried not to hate that there would be no more pats from Merlin. No hugs, pride, telling him how well he’d done. In the dark, Douxie wept.

[elizabethemerald]

Home Again

AO3

“So what now?” Toby asked. 

Douxie had just departed, taking Nari with him. The Arcane Order was defeated, for now. None of them truly believed they were gone for good. They stood near the ruins of Camelot, Jim and Claire still holding each other. 

Jim looked around at the ruins for a moment. 

“Well first of all we need to check the remains of camelot to make sure there’s nothing here that could hurt someone. Then we need a plan for how to help Douxie defeat the Arcane Order.”

He took one step toward the wreckage and immediately fell to his knees. Claire tried to catch him and almost collapsed herself. Toby ran up to them to support both of them before they hurt themselves further. 

“Perhaps it is best if we leave that for another time.” Blinky said. “We are all tired and hurt. Maybe we should reconvene this discussion at home.”

“Home.” Jim said, his eyes distant. “Mom…”

Claire put out her hands and for a moment her eyes glowed with a purple light. Then they flickered and returned to her usual brown. She dropped her arms in defeat. 

“I can’t even make a portal right now. It looks like we’re walking back. But I can barely move.”

“Apparently all that magic is exhausting. But luckily for you, your Duke Toby is here to help.” 

Toby switched his grip, then lifted Jim into a bridal carry. Jim blushed as he grabbed at Toby’s sweater. 

“I’ve been working out with Steve, Aaarrrgghh and Aja while you were away.” Toby said with a small smile. “And I guess I’m strong enough to lift you!”

“Oh come on Buttsnack, don’t play dumb.” Steve said rolling his eyes. “Every time we worked out, you would talk about lifting them.”

It was Toby’s turn to blush. 

“Well I don’t need you to tell all my secrets.” Then he turned to where Claire was sitting with a sad look on his face. “I’m sorry Claire, I don’t think I can carry both of you.”

Claire smiled at him, and tried to stand. She tottered for a moment before Aaarrrgghh picked her up and set her on his back. Then he grabbed Jim out of Toby’s arms and then Toby himself and put them both on his back next to her. Toby hugged them both. 

“Thanks Wingman.” 

Aaarrrgghh and Blinky started to walk through the woods to the Lake house, when Toby turned and saw Steve and Krel standing there awkwardly, unsure what to do. 

“Come on you two!” Toby called to them. “You’re on Team Trollhunters now so you can come with us to Jim’s house.”

They both hurried to follow, relieved smiles on their faces. 

“I think technically its you three who are now honorary Creep Slayerz!” Steve said as he caught up with the two trolls. 

“What was it Merlin said? That we were the defenders of Arcadia? How about we all go with that?” Claire said. She was resting her head on Toby’s shoulder as she spoke, her arms around Jim’s torso. 

“I’m sure the debate for what you will call yourselves will be as fascinating to watch as a larvox on the hunt, but what in Seklos’ name happened to you three?” Krel interrupted, before the argument could get fully under way. 

Jim nodded to Steve. “How about you take this explanation Sir Steve.”

Steve’s face broke into a huge, toothy grin, before he began a very colorful retelling of the adventure from his perspective, and his journey to be a good knight. Claire and Jim started dozing as they went, safe in Toby’s arms. 

Steve was only just getting to his rapping to the Knights of the Roundtable when they came with in sight of the Lake house. Claire, Jim and Toby slid off Aaarrrgghh’s back, Toby immediately moving to support them both so they wouldn’t fall. 

“We’ll go in through the front. Wingman, Blinky, you go around the back.” Toby said. 

“I don’t have my key any more.” Jim said softly, his hand searching his pockets without luck. 

“Don’t worry I have my own.” Toby took his key out and passed it to Claire to unlock and open the door. As the three of them stepped into the house, arm in arm in arm he called out, “Dr. L! Mr. S! We’re here!”

“Tobias Domzalski!” Strickler’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “Am I to presume you were involved with whatever that floating skull was?”

Strickler stepped out of the kitchen, a rapier in his hand. He was wearing an armored chest plate, and had what looked like several magical implements hanging from his belt. He stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth falling open. 

“Yeah we were involved some what with that.” 

Strickler didn’t respond, his eyes locked on Jim. He flapped his mouth a little before, he called out in a strangled voice. 

“Ba-Barbara!”

After only a moment they could hear Dr Lake descending the stairs. 

“Walt, do you think-” Her voice died in her throat the moment she caught sight of Jim. “Jim?”

Jim stood, leaning heavily on Toby’s shoulder and gave her a tired half smile. 

“Hey mom.”

Barbara was down the stairs before anyone else could even breathe. She wrapped all three kids in a tight hug, tears were already pouring down her face. 

“Oh Jim! I’ve missed you so much. And you’re...again. How?��

“I know you have missed Jim, but maybe it would be best to let them sit. Our trollhunter has had quite the day.” Blinky said from the kitchen, Aaarrrgghh behind him pushing his way into the house. 

“Quite the year.” Jim corrected with a small grunt of pain. 

Barbara immediately pulled back and looked over Jim’s face. Her skill as a doctor showed as she quickly catalogued his scars, bruises and burns on his face, as well as the exhaustion under his eyes. She took his other arm and helped Toby get him and Claire to the couch. 

“Who else is injured?” She asked as the kids settled on the couch, Steve and Krel following her to sit on the couch as well. Barbara raised her eye brow at Krel’s Akiridion form, but didn’t comment. 

“We’re not injured too badly. Just...exhausted.” Claire said, dragging a hand down her face. 

Strickler handed the first aid kit to Barbara and she did a thorough check of each of the kids to make sure there weren’t any life threatening injuries. While she did the kids and trolls took their turns telling their stories. By the time she was finished, Claire and Jim were hardly keeping their eyes open, and Toby was watching them with growing concern. Finally it was Jim who spoke up. 

“Do you mind if we sleep here tonight, mom?” He asked. 

“Of course Jim! This is still your home!” Barbara said. “Uh, we had to change your bedroom into a nursery, but you three can sleep in my bed today.”

“Thanks mom.” Jim exhaustion weighed on his voice and on his limbs as he, Toby and Claire helped each other up the stairs to the master bedroom. 

“Uh, Dr. Mom Lake, can I stay here too? I’m not ready to go home just yet.” Steve asked, a little nervously. 

“Of course you two can stay here. We will make up the couch to sleep on.”

Barbara stood to grab some spare blankets while Steve and Krel stretched out on different parts of the couch. 

And soon enough sleep came for each of the Champions of Arcadia. 

[ebelwrites]

Muse and Rev: A Future Rainy Day

So, here’s a story about my two shipkids, Reverie and Muse. This is actually a story that happens several years in the future from the references I posted; they’re about 14 in those and much older in this, probably 19-21. Don’t have much preface for this; I wrote this quickly just for fun. There might be a couple more Muse and Reverie stories in the short future.

Muse sighed as she opened the door to her small dorm room. She could still hear the rain beating against the building as she stripped off her raincoat and hung it up to dry. It had been a long week; pressure was gathering between her sockets in the beginnings of a headache. As she removed her shoes, placing them neatly next to the door, she heard a loud thumping coming from her window. A pounding that was distinctly different from the rain, more force and more concentrated; someone was knocking on her window.

Instantly, her hand flew to her hip, curling around the handle of her rapier. In a moment, the blade was drawn from its sheath and held at the ready as she turned to face the unknown. As she caught sight of who was knocking, however, she lowered it slowly before sheathing it again with a grumble of annoyance. Remarkably unconcerned with how close he came to the pointy end of a sword, her brother pushed his face against the window. He wore what she believed he thought was a cute look, and knocked again.

"Sis?" Reverie's voice was muffled by the pounding rain. "Can you open the window, please?" She pretended not to hear him, preferring instead to get her things in order. She could hear him knocking with increased fervour as she hung up her satchel and her coat.

"Sis? Earth to Muse? Please let me in, Sis! It's cold out here! SIS?"

She paid no acknowledgement to his cries as she went down the hall to her linen cupboard, grabbing her spare towels and returning with them to the front room. She spread the majority on the floor in front of her window and then lifted her hands to the latch. He was giving her sad eyes through the pane; he looked remarkably like a soaked puppy. She unlocked the window and Reverie came tumbling through in his usual fanfare of incoordination. She shut the window quickly behind him.

"What on Earth are you doing here?" She asked, turning to look at him. His clothes were completely soaked through. His wings were full of water, weighing them down; she was sure if she squeezed them, they'd release his body weight in water. "How did you even fly in this weather?"

"With a lot of effort." A quick glare from her stopped him from shaking himself out like a dog, and he shamefully accepted the towels she handed him. "You had to get a room on the fourth floor?"

"And if I had gotten a room on the ground floor, you would have complained every time it was sunny." She gave a huff of amusement and playfully chucked at towel at his face. He shrugged it off with a grin, taking the towel and beginning to dry himself. She started to kneel when she caught sight of something that made her pause.

"What is that?" Despite her not specifying, Reverie seemed to know instantly what she was talking about. His hand flew up to his cheek where a sloppy bandage was plastered, if it could even be called a bandage; it was literally a cotton ball taped to his face.

"Nothing much. Stray cat came in covered in mats. We had to get them off but she didn't take kindly to the shaver. She caught me in the face." Muse sighed and went to fetch her first aid kit from her bathroom. She gently peeled off the tape and inspected the wound. It wasn't big, certainly not as big as some others he'd previously had, but she cleaned and dressed it anyway. Besides, she could practically guarantee that, in the heat of the moment, her brother would have forgotten to disinfect the wound.

"Take your gloves off." He looked at her, puzzled, and she shook her head. "I know you, Rev, and I know that, for every wound on your face, there are at least ten on your hands. So take them off." He obeyed, and her suspicions were confirmed; his hands were covered in scratches and bite marks. Some were merely indents, others had drawn marrow. She began to clean these too.

"So, what brings you here in this weather?" She asked again, eyes firmly on his hands as she worked.

"I have something to tell you."

"And it couldn't be said over a phone call?"

"It could have. It's not really anything big. But..." He fidgeted, though she held his hands still. "It's been...a while, since we've seen each other. The thought of hearing you, but not seeing you, it..." He trailed off, but she understood what he was trying to say. They had been together every day for their entire lives, and now they were suddenly very separated. She didn't regret it and she doubted he did either; their separate interests had required separate schools. He needed a place that focused on animals and their care, and she needed a place that focused on psychology and the mind's workings. But that didn't mean there weren't times that the separation got to her. Twice now, she had woken up in the middle of the night and walked down the hall, intending to see her brother, only to be sharply reminded that she was no longer at JR castle and her brother wasn't right next door.

"What is your news?"

"I'm going to minor in business." She looked at him in surprise. She was almost done with his hands and hurried to finish.

"Are you sure that is wise? Will you be able to handle that workload?" He tugged his hands away from her, slipping the gloves back on.

"You have a minor in business." He sounded almost petulant and she couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"Yes, but I have an interest in business. You never have." She looked quizzically at him, trying to discern what had caused this change. "Besides, I'm not doing volunteer work on top of my major. I doubt you'd be willing to give up working at the shelter for studying business." He was quiet now, still and without his ever-present smile. She blinked; he was serious.

"I know. I know all of that. But I've been thinking about what I want to do, after all this. There are so many things needed to care for all creatures. Vets, shelters, zoos; breeding programs, conservation programs, re-homing programs. I want to do as much good as I can, so I want to do something kinda like Pops has done for people. Bring as many things together as possible under one roof, one organisation. And if I want it to work, then I'm going to have to know how to run it right." There was a fire in his eyes and Muse watched him, fascinated. It was so rare to see her flighty and fidgety brother so still and serious. "I know this changes a bunch of things, I already know I'm going to be studying for longer than I thought I was, but I've thought about this for a long while and I'm set on this."

"Have you told Father yet? Or-" She stopped as he shook his head.

"No, not yet. I'll tell them soon but, I wanted to tell you first. I wanted to see you first." She smiled and brought her brother into a hug. Her clothes dampened, but she paid little mind to them.

"I'm glad you told me first." They sat in silence for a bit before Muse spoke again. "Don't you have class tomorrow morning? How do you plan on getting back?" She felt him stiffen and could almost smell the panic that emanated off him. She rolled her eyes with amusement; typical Reverie, always running off without thinking ahead. Her smile turned into a grin as an idea came to her.

"Well, since you have to go back, I guess you’re just going to have to fly there." She felt him slacken in surprise, not immediately understanding what she was saying, and that was easily enough time for her to scoop him up under her arms and start lugging him towards the window. She felt him start struggling as he realised what was going to happen.

"Wait, wait, wait! Let's not be hasty here!" The rain had lessened but not gone away, and it was still undoubtedly cold out there. "Can't I at least use the door?"

"Nope." Admittedly, she was enjoying this perhaps too much. "You arrived through the window, you can leave by it." She felt him struggling but it did little to help him. He'd only started training with a weapon last year, while she had picked up her sword as soon as their parents would let her; she had over five years of building strength on him, and it certainly showed now. She opened the window and, with a great heave, forced him out. She wasn't completely heartless; she held onto him long enough for him to get his wings open and flapping before dropping him. She looked at him with great amusement when he rose to face her. Most of his feathers were ruffled and he was clearly not happy about getting wet again, even though the rain was now only a light drizzle. Meanwhile, she had nary a thread out of place, aside from a couple damp patches; for all the world, it seemed as though she'd done nothing more strenuous than lifting a pen.

"You're mean!" He whined. She laughed; it was a phrase in a tone of voice that she'd heard countless times throughout their childhood. It surprised her just how much she had missed it.

"Let me know when you tell Father and Papa!" Was all she said to him before closing the window again. She watched him huff and then fly away, heading back to his own home. And so, she bent down to pick up the towels and took them to the laundry. She had homework to do, after all.

[gehayi]

Fandom Snowflake Challenge--Day 3

Day 3 In your own space, post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create. For this, I thought I would rec all the stories that I have bookmarked that I thought need more love. All of them are complete (no WIPs, though I do wish some would continue). I made notes on some when I bookmarked them, so where those occur, they're included.

Also, this is LONG. You have been warned.

14th CENTURY CE RPF Hallowmas, Or Shortest Of Day by skazka Isabella, future girl-queen of England, receives a visit from a predecessor. Commentary: Melancholy and sweet, with wee Isabella as an adorable seven-year-old who's very much at sea and Anne of Bohemia as the gentlest and kindest of ghosts. It's A Terrible Reign by angevin2 A dying John of Gaunt, with the aid of his long-dead brother, walks the road not taken. Commentary: Wickedly deflates the "It's a Wonderful Life" premise simply by having John of Gaunt be himself--confident, convinced that what he wants is surely for the best, and blunt enough to point out that most of the awful stuff that could have happened DID happen anyway. Also, Gaunt and the Black Prince are both believable and hysterical as brothers. Jesu dulcis memoria by angevin2 Master Ladislaus's only regret is that his greatest masterpiece--the Wilton Diptych--is one born of grief. Commentary: Brief, sorrowful and stunningly beautiful. I had a lump in my throat when I finished reading it. Remembrance of a Weeping Queen by angevin2 Anne of Bohemia contemplates her purpose in life. Commentary: It’s not easy dealing with public crises while coping with private grief. If you like royal ladies who make a difference in their world and who smile sweetly and gently despite heartbreak, this is for you. *** A STUDY IN EMERALD - NEIL GAIMAN: R'Iyeh Is Not An Empty House by Trobadora It all began because of the woman. *** ARTHURIAN MYTHOLOGY Wheels Within Wheels by Philipa_Moss “Have you heard?” Linet asked. “She’s back.” *** AUSTIN & MURRY-O'KEEFE FAMILIES - MADELEINE L'ENGLE Galois Theory by primeideal Five times everything fell into place. That Unexpected Fateful Hour, Once Again at Hand by ElegantPi Charles Wallace is assigned two new classmates and a task, just before his winter holiday. Wordless by CG (NYCScribbler) Three times Calvin O'Keefe hasn't known what to say. *** BENJAMIN JANUARY MYSTERIES - BARBARA HAMBLY Escargots by Nary Rose was not one to offer platitudes for a man she hadn't known, to a man who hadn't cared about him. "What killed him?" she asked instead, for she couldn't think of any reason why Shaw would be telling her about this if it had been a natural death. "Poison's our best guess." He paused, as if considering how to most gently say what was coming next. "He took his final meal at the Hotel Iberville last night. So as you might imagine, I got a pressin' need to speak with your nephew, Gabriel Corbier." Commentary: This story belongs to the women, and deservedly so. Rose January/Janvier is brilliant and shrewd and a fantastic scientific detective in 1830s New Orleans, while her sister-in-law Olympe Corbier solves half the mystery by deducing what posion was used. It's sharp, smoothly written and as thoroughly researched as any of the books. Honestly, you could drop this into Barbara Hambly's Good Man Friday (the book in which Benjamin January goes off to Washington DC, a trip which Rose mentions in passing) and it would fit in seamlessly. I'm honestly not sure that the person who wrote this for me isn't Barbara Hambly. If you love historical mysteries, stories featuring characters of color, or both, then read this story. Five moments in the life of Augustus Mayerling by sevenofspade Becoming Augustus Mayerling is a process. Commentary: The details of how Augustus Mayerling became Augustus Mayerling. Detailed, sharp and utterly right. Headcanon accepted. Magnificat in New Orleans by Taabe On the eve of Benjamin and Rose Vitrac January's first Christmas in their new home, at the end of a Reveillón, Ben and Hannibal have a run-in with a less peaceful holiday tradition, and they and Rose take a in young stranger in more need of help than even they realize. Commentary: Dazzlingly beautiful, brilliantly researched, and powerful enough to make your heart ache. A magnificent Magnificat. *** BISCLAVRET - MARIE DE FRANCE J'ai Vu le Loup by Gileonnen The hunt collapses the distance between man and beast. Commentary: A canonical medieval gay werewolf. I love it. *** CADFAEL CHRONICLES - ELLIS PETERS A Flourish of Gold by thelittlestbird When a murder disrupts the peace conference that might end the Anarchy, Brother Cadfael must solve one last mystery. Fortunately, he has some very competent people to help him. *** CANTERBURY TALES - GEOFFREY CHAUCER Mordre, She Wroot by sistermagpie At least one pilgrim will not make it to Canterbury. *** CHRONICLES OF NARNIA - C.S.LEWIS Clipsie the Mariner by Transposable_Element The episode of the Dufflepuds and the Magician's book, from the point of view of the Chief's daughter, Clipsie. Dark and Deep by the_rck Tumnus delivers Lucy to the White Witch, and Aslan never comes. All four children end up in Jadis's hands, and she decides to see what she can mold them into. *** CROSSOVERS Chronicles of Narnia/Harry Potter And Bide the Danger by MiraMira Susan Pevensie: former Unspeakable, legendary beauty, possible Dark witch. A young Amelia Bones, eager to make her mark on MLE, has just been assigned to track her down. But the further Amelia proceeds with her investigation, the more questions she uncovers - especially once she meets Susan herself. Dark Tower/The Stand On the Plains of the Crimson King by magistera Eight years after Randall Flagg was defeated, life goes on in the much-reduced circumstances of post-Trips America. But when Fran and Stu's son begins to have disturbing (and all-too-familiar) dreams, it's a sign of change to come. Commentary: This ties together the stories of The Stand and The Dark Tower, blending the worlds and explaining why Flagg saw Fran Goldsmith's baby as so much of a threat. The tone and the characterization are spot-on, and there's one action scene early on that chilled me. And despite all the supernatural occurrences, which are handled beautifully, this world is solidly grounded. It feels real. Honest to God, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Stephen King fanficced himself. Doctor Who/Mrs. Pollifax - Dorothy Gilman Mrs. Pollifax and the Christmas Party by Emiline “Since you mention it, there was something else,” she admitted. “I’d like you both to come to my Christmas party this year.” With gate-crashing by the unstoppable Jack Harkness. Doctor Who/Wicked Voice - Vernon Lee The Sapphire of Rassilon by zopyrus All Grace Holloway wanted was an ordinary night at the San Francisco Opera. But when the Doctor shows up unexpectedly (again), Grace finds herself travelling back to 18th-century Venice—with a stop along the way to pick up the forgotten Victorian author, Vernon Lee. Murdered composers, lesbian drama, opera singers, and more! Commentary: A gorgeous crossover with the Eighth Doctor and a canon called A Wicked Voice, set mostly in Venice of the 1700s and 1800s. It's a gorgeous story--vivid and colorful, and capable of making you see the Venice of both time periods. This is a story to get lost it. Read it. You'll be glad that you did. Dresden Files - Jim Butcher/Tale of the Five Series - Diane Duane Fire Working by melannen Herewiss goes through a Door that is probably not the Door into Starlight, and meets a man who uses the Fire. Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare/Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare/Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. by fresne Perhaps, the story went this way. Perhaps, it went that way. Perhaps. *** DRESDEN FILES - JIM BUTCHER Johnny's Little Secret by shiplizard A mafia errand boy worries about his junior partner. Slash implied, friendship explicit. Rated Teen for language. *** EAGLES ARE TURNING PEOPLE INTO HORSES: THE MOVIE (2009) Eagles are Turning People Into Horses: The Movie: II: The Horses That Used To Be People But Were Turned Into Horses By Eagles Strike Back: The Revengening by KiaraSayre "This is real life, Brian. There's no ignoring the fact that eagles are turning people into horses. We just have to learn to live with it." Commentary: Glorious crackfic. Every line made me smile, grin or laugh. Quintessentially Yuletide. *** ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN THEATRE & LITERATURE RPF Sad Stories of the Death of Kings by angevin It's 1593, and Kit Marlowe is trying out a new genre. Commentary: If you're intimidated by the canon's title, don't be. Kit Marlowe and Will Shakespeare are playwrights and rivals, each criticizing each other's work while writing plays that are strongly influenced by the same. Marlowe is gloriously OTT, as he was in real life, and Shakespeare is the ultimate fanboy who can't quite tell if his idol is flirting or not. This made me smile. A lot. *** EVERY HEART A DOORWAY - SEANAN McGUIRE The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side by Amazing_E_Ko Nancy has left her old life behind, but when Jack comes tumbling through a portal bearing news of an apocalypse, her sister speaking prophecy from beyond death, Nancy is pulled back into the world of living, breathing things. With the help of Kade and Christopher they must unravel the mystery of the disappearing worlds, and uncover the truth behind all their journeys. Post-canon. Commentary: Absolute magic. I am not entirely certain that the writer isn't really Seanan McGuire. And I am so very grateful that I found this story. *** FAIRY TALES AND FOLKLORE Der Rattenfänger von Hameln | The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Fairy Tale) If I Miss You Call the Tune by lalalalalawhy It is 100 light years since our children left. Commentary: A fairy tale retelling in space. Heartwrenching and so, so good. Sneedronningen | The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen The Enchanted Hawk by Alona In which the robber girl encounters a dysfunctional royal family and makes the most of it. Commentary: The robber girl--no longer so little--is beautifully sly, cunning and practical, defying conventions both in her world and in ours. She doesn't assume that enchanted animals are necessarily truthful, she takes the time to scout out a situation, and she knows what she wants and goes after it cheerfully and unashamedly. I'd love to read more about her and her adventures. *** FALLEN LONDON (FORMERLY ECHO BAZAAR) Fortune, Fate, Freedom by escritoireazul Are we the sum of our choices, or are we our fate? Commentary: A Choose Your Own Adventure tale about the Cheesemonger, the finest of all spies. Hard To Find by Kastaka As if the Comtessa would let a little thing like social ostracism stand in her way. Commentary: When this was first published, it was the first Echo Bazaar fic I'd ever seen, and it continues the story of the subject character--the Missing Comtessa--smashingly, not to mention capturing the atmosphere of the twisted world of Fallen London so well. If you know the game of Echo Bazaar, you'll love it. If you don't know the game, you'll STILL love it, plus the story may inspire interest in the game. Either way, you win! or leave it by anstaar A tough shares their story. *** FIREFLY Can’t Take The Sky by Glinda Serenity does not understand grief; Serenity understands grief all too well. Inundation by lilacsigil When knowledge is power, it's important to keep knowledge controlled. Shepherd Book is here to help. *** GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY Medusa's Tale by Area51Fugitive Ah. You've come. I knew you would. Commentary: The very best retelling of the Medusa myth I've ever read, and the only one that ever made me cry. *** HARRY POTTER - J.K. ROWLING Poseidon's Prisoner by esteoflorien Young Cassiopeia Black sets off in search of her brother - and receives assistance from an unlikely person, making her reconsider the way she previously viewed her world. *** HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES Mnemosyne by Medie Wounds of the flesh heal easily for Immortals, the ones of the soul, less so. Commentary: A sympathetic and angry Cassandra, after the Horsemen Arc. *** HIS DARK MATERIALS - PHILIP PULLMAN Valleys of the Shadows by finch (afinch) This is not a happy story. This is the story of three girls who find themselves in the middle of a new African war. There are witches' revolts, daring escapes, the killing of the bears, echoes of freedom, the lack of mercy of the pirates, chains stronger than any steel, and three deaths, one by one by one. This is not a happy story, there are no happy endings, no miracles, no subtle knife, and no angels. This is the story of three girls, a slave, an unwilling pawn, and a refugee. This is story of three girls and three dæmons. *** INVISIBLE LIBRARY: FANWORKS BASED ON IMAGINARY WORKS MENTIONED IN FICTION Miserable Les, Les Misérables - All Media Types, Discworld - Terry Pratchett Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably-priced love! And a black coffee! by greenet Wherein everybody is protesting, drinking a whole lot of coffee, and falling in and out of love. Nina Lightfingers learns to appreciate the elegance of a lady’s fan wielded with murderous intent, Petiterre is over-caffeinated, Evgeni is banned from reading self-help books, and Brusher is over-protective. Among other things. Commentary: If Terry Pratchett had written an in-universe musical about the events of Night Watch, it would have been this story. That is to say, it would have been perfect. P.S. Miserable Les is mentioned as a possible opera in Maskerade. *** JOHN LEWIS CHRISTMAS ADVERTS Please, please, please... by AdaptationDecay Lewis knows exactly what he wants for Christmas. Commentary: This is a stealth crossover, but I'm not going to mention what it's crossed with. That would spoil the impact of the reveal. *** MARY POPPINS (1964) Pictures in the Pavement and Magic in the Rain by El Staplador (elstaplador) Time moves on, and when the wind changes, things happen. Usually Mary Poppins is there, somewhere. *** NCIS No Such Thing by circ_bamboo There's no such thing as zombies. (Or: People should have realized that, sooner or later, pouring the liquefied remnants of corpses in the municipal water supply was going to lead to zombies.) Commentary: Absolutely the best and the funniest zombie story I've ever read! The NCIS team is spot-on as a bad situation snowballs gloriously. Also, I will never think of cedar shavings, sodium intake or tiki torches the same way again! P.S. Here are more sources about resomation: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-14114555 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis_(body_disposal) https://funeralbooker.com/blog/everything-need-know-resomation/ *** ONCE UPON A TIME (TV) Staying Found by misscam “I will always find you,” they say. And they did. Now they just have to get used to having been found again, together again, a relationship again, all the little things again. [Snow/Charming + minor Emma, Henry, Belle] *** PETER PAN - J.M. BARRIE The Art of Becoming by LostWendy1 “Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.” (Peter Pan, Barrie) Commentary: The story of Mr. Darling--and the origins of Captain Hook. *** PRINCELESS There's No Such Thing As Elegators by psocoptera Sparky, Adrienne, and Bedelia have an encounter in the grasslands. Commentary: You don't often hear stories from the dragon's point of view. *** REBECCA - DAPHNE DU MAURIER A Thousand Words, Or Simply Three by Skogkatt Danny, faced with a new mistress of vastly inferior rank, ruminates on the past. *** RUBYQUEST Rubyquest II: The Island by AdaptationDecay In your inventory, you have two walkie-talkies and an empty champagne bottle. Time to save the world... *** SHAKESPEARE King Lear - Shakespeare 'Tis Strange by lorata Lear Enterprises' CEO prepares to divide his company's controlling shares between his daughters and their subsidiaries. Edmund, non-powered and disaffected son in a superhero family, plots to turn villain. Regan and Goneril abandon their father to the zombies after he endangers their safehouses one too many times. Gloucester scours open space for the former commander of the star system, set adrift in a malfunctioning lifepod. Cordelia and her dragon prepare to take on her sisters with the help of the French aerial dragon corps. Some stories aren't just universal, they're multiversal. The tale of King Lear, from eleven different worlds. When She Was Bad by lorata LEAR: Then let them anatomize Regan. See what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts? Act 3, Scene 6 SERVANT: If she live long, And in the end meet the old course of death, Women will all turn monsters. Act 3, Scene 7 Even the sweetest pup will bite if handled roughly, and Regan is no innocent. The making of a girl who embraced her demons and turned them to her purpose. Richard II - Shakespeare A Signet On Thine Arm by skazka Kisse he me with the cos of his mouth. For thi tetis ben betere than wyn, and yyuen odour with beste oynementis. Richard and Anne make out in the bath. Privilege by angevin2 Richard kissed a girl and he liked it. And then things got really complicated. Six Variations on Loyalty by angevin2 The King's party (for it is, in fact, still the King's party) has not even left Flint Castle for London before Henry of Hereford, now styling himself Henry of Lancaster, begins trying to seduce Edward of Aumerle. Thy Rebuke Hath Broken His Heart by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD) Soulbonds between men and women are the most romantic form of marriage in the known world. Soulbonds between men and men make bards and poets salivate with the prospect of terrible, epic tragedy. Richard and Henry think that bards and poets are assholes. Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare Starling by loathlylady Rosaline in the hot sun. *** STORIES BASED ON ARTWORKS La fiancée hésitante | The Hesitant Betrothed - Auguste Toulmouche Les Femmes Acharnées by Violsva Blanche has a plan, Céleste has a plan - really, everyone has a plan. Commentary: An excellent story of marriage, murder and female friendship. *** SWAN LAKE (BALLET) Juno's Swans by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire) And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans, / Still we went coupled and inseparable. *** THE GOBLIN EMPEROR - KATHERINE ADDISON Passage by bigsunglasses Released from his role as Prince by the birth of a son to the Emperor and Empress, Idra is allowed to attend university. But he can't escape his past so easily, or perhaps at all, particularly not when he meets someone who walks under a similar shadow ... Three years post-canon. *** THE SANDMAN The First Conversation with Death by evilhippo What happens when someone is no longer an aspect of the Endless? (An imagined epilogue to The Wake.) *** THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK (PLAY) like brambles to the cedars by angevin2 Queen Anne isn't used to English customs. It doesn't help that her husband and his uncles can't agree on what they are. Commentary: This is the story of a gentle young woman adjusting to life far from home and adjusting to political currents she doesn’t quite understand. If you like sweet and feminine Sansa Stark singing songs or sewing expertly, you’ll love this. *** THURSDAY'S CHILDREN - RUMER GODDEN A Bitter God to Follow by Bakcheia In which everybody is in love with ballet dancer Yuri Koszorz, including Yuri. Commentary: A story of seductive charm and self-absorption. Yuri is a likable young man, even as he heedlessly captivates everyone around him, not caring whether anyone gets hurt. *** WATERSHIP DOWN - RICHARD ADAMS The Story of Hrayatha and the Rabbit Who Left No Tracks by Luzula Pipkin listens to a story. Post-canon. *** WENDY TRILOGY - S.J. TUCKER (SONG CYCLE) Always keep your head by LeaperSonata So Wendy'd got herself a crew of ruthless men and brave and they'd terrorize the Lost Boys each and every Saturday. One day Wendy says to Peter, "I'd like more girls on my crew." So Peter goes a-hunting Lost Girls and brings back Green-eyed Sue. Commentary: You don't have to know S.J. Tucker's songs--specifically, the Wendy Trilogy--to understand this story about the time when Wendy Darling became a pirate called Red-Handed Jill. This story is about Green-Eyed Sue, Jill's first mate, but more than that, it's about finding the place where you belong. Most of all, it's about identity and love and being honest with yourself. Highly recommended. Journey's End by eris_kyrall (kereia) The decision to go back home had not come easily to Wendy Darling, and the hardest part of it was saying goodbye. Commentary: This story deals with Wendy's departure from Neverland, but it treats her decision to leave as right and natural, as if Wendy were a potted plant that had outgrown its container. At the same time, it shows that those who didn't follow Wendy home were also right. Also, I love the female friendship in this story. Bittersweet.

[imagine-korea]

Healing touch - Lay

I guess this is angsty fluff? I’m not even sure? Am I some kind of Aussie making everything into a question? Because I’m too unsure to actually make a statement? That was kind of racist?

Seriously though I have no idea what this actually is so let me just give you the general gist here. There was an accident at the concert hall where EXO was performing. Lay and Y/N got trapped for hours while Lay was in dire need of medical care. Basically lots of serious ass situations.

Trigger warning: Mention of being trapped, pain, blood, ... Stupidity warning: I probably went way off character but yea, story of my sad author life tbh

word count: 2420

Chaos reigned over the concert hall. Fans running left and right to get back to the outside world. They couldn't care less about the people that they claimed to do so much for, even just to see them, yet now these people seemed to have been forgotten under the rubble. Because of a terrible storm, part of the ceiling of the concert hall had fallen down and onto the stage. A rescue team had already arrived and their main focus now was to get all capable people out as fast as possible so they could reach those who were more severely injured or stuck. Two doctors were urged towards the stage area as the rest stayed outside, safety vests tightened and helmets secured as the building wasn't stabilised yet. "Do we know how many people are approximately still here?" Y/N asked as she arrived at the rescuers that were already inside. "They did a headcount and there are about 30 people still missing, Including the performers. Team one is already trying to get some out from under the rubble on the left side but we don't know how many of them are there. We think the stage might have dropped and some of the performers might be under there." One of the men informed. Nari, The other doctor, joined the team on the left side of the stage and Y/N joined the team on the right. They went in as soon as the rest of the medics, that were supposed to be there, arrived. After a long while, only 3 more people were missing, 1 performer and 2 staff members, so the search continued after the doctors had done what they needed before getting the injured out to the other medical team. "We can't get trough here, the passageway is too small." The head of the team said. "But there is obviously more open space on the other side, what if there's someone there." Y/N reasoned. "Then we'll find them when we take away the rubble." He deadpanned "No! That's too dangerous! It might kill them." She argued against his statement but his face stayed stern. "None of my men fit trough that gap."

She saw that there was no reasoning with this man, but she had that same aspect to her. "Then I'm going alone." She said matter of faculty causing a low grumble to emit from his chest. "Fine but once the order is given, we're not waiting for you to get out." "Fine." She said before crawling trough the narrow space. When she got trough, it was possible for her to walk, back hunched down slightly. She heard a groan echo trough the narrow hall, coming from up ahead, and she started walking faster. When she saw someone laying there, she rushed to him. She immediately dropped her kit next to her so she could examine him.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Are you hurt?" She started taking his pulse and examined him for any visible injuries. "My leg hurts" He groaned "Can you tall me your name?" She asked checking for any head trauma. "Lay" "Full name sweetheart." She said in a seemingly sarcastic tone but that was just her way of speech. "Zhang Yixing" He said sounding slightly more hesitant this time, showing that he might have a slight concussion but nothing severe. "How long have I been down here?" He wondered. "Almost 3 hours now." she answered before examining his leg.

"The last performer has been found under the rubble." She said trough the walkie talkie."He's injured but conscious."  She got a sign of conformation from the other end and attached the talkie to her waist band again.

"Can you move your leg?" She asked. "Barely." She lightly brushed over it and he winced in pain. "I'm worried you might have compartment syndrome" She said, rummaging trough her kit for something that might help him in any way while he was still down here. "What does that mean?" "It means there's a bleeding inside the muscle of your leg, causing pressure to build up. It also means we need to get you out of here fast." Her explanation still went over his head however. "Why? Is it that bad?" "You want me to be frank about this?" Her face was unreadable but her eyebrows raised, telling him he might not want to hear this. "That'd be nice, yes." He answered none the less. "If we don't do something fast, it might cause severe damage to your leg. If we don't do something within the next few hours, It'll get extremely painful and it might have worse consequences." "More painful than now, man I'm in for a party." He let out a pained chuckle and leaned his head back. "Here take these, They will help ease the pain a bit." She handed him a few painkillers and a bottle of water. "I'm going to go back up, I'll be back as fast as I can okay?" She said walking back to where she came from, ducked down more than before making her worried everything above them was easing down. "Don't leave me here alone for to long ... please." He said in agony, his leg aching more and more by the minute. "I'll be righ- eyk." She turned around to face him again giving him a reassuring smile but as she did, an echoing bang could be heard from outside the rubble and part of it caved in. rubble fell onto her helmet and her left side but she didn't mind it much attention as she rushed back to Lay. "Are you okay? Did anything hit you?" She asked inspecting him again, more rushed this time. "No I'm fine." She gave him a nod and went to see if there was another way out but all she saw were passageways that were too small for either of them. "Bastard. What on earth are they doing up there." She grumbled trying to hold in her frustration. She reached for her walkie talkie but it had broken when the rubble fell on top of it. "We'll need to wait for help from outside, there's no way out from here." She said sitting next to him. "Will they find us though?" "I found you didn't I? Besides, We're probably the last ones still down here so all efforts will go in finding us. The down side is though that their efforts might make this thing collapse." She said, partly to herself. "You're a real ball of optimism aren't you?" He chuckled making him wince slightly. "I like to think of myself as a realist. But, I do know I'm not exactly the most comforting person to be around. Sorry." "No, it's fine. It's better than being alone down here. How is this thing able to collapse anyway?" "Some of the mechanisms of the stage can weaken the structure. We're right beside a main wall, so we should be good for a while." She said slapping the wall behind her. "You know everything don't you?" He joked, attempting to forget the pain in his leg trough jokes and small talk. "Not everything." She chuckled.

"How's your leg?" She asked a while later. She was getting more and more anxious as almost an hour had passed since she got there and the pain was obviously getting worse. "Close to unbearable. But hey, there's nothing we can do right?" His hands had a tight grip around his thigh as he wanted nothing less than to cut off his leg at this point. "Actually, there is." She immediately regretted saying that but if they waited a lot longer there might not be anything left to do. "I'm not going to like this am I?" He said, noticing the look on her face. "I'd need to make an incision in your leg to release the pressure, BUT I only have anaesthetics with me here and there are quite a few risks if we perform surgery in this environment." She said, worried she might have to perform the surgery there anyway. The risk of him going into shock was getting too high for her liking. "Have you done it before?" He asked breaking the momentary silence. She nodded in response. "A few times yes, the others I was assist." "Will it get better if you do it now?" He asked, speaking trough gritted teeth as the pain was getting too much. His breathing had gotten faster and uneven. "Yes, but I told you, there are still risks." "Take the risks." He said quickly. She sighed, before checking his vitals again. She was praying to whatever god that someone would make themselves heard in the next few minutes but to no avail. She had to do it. "Okay." She said before getting everything ready. She tried to make the area as sterile as possible and injected the anaesthetics.

"The anaesthetics are not strong enough to numb the pain of both the injury and the surgery so you will still feel some pain. It's going to hurt most when I make the incisions and the pressure is released. If you feel like you're going to faint, don't fight it, it's a normal reaction." She explained carefully. "Are you ready?" He simply nodded holding onto whatever was closest  "I would like for you to answer properly." "Yes I am, just please." He pleaded and looked away as she took her scalpel in hand. He almost screamed in pain as he felt pressure in his leg release, he could feel the pain die down but the happenings and shock caused him to faint. She cleaned the area of blood and patched the wound with a special tape so pressure couldn't build again. She made sure to sanitise the wound again and wrapped it up with bandages before sitting back down next to him, waiting for him to wake up, checking his pulse and blood pressure ever so often.

After a while she heard him groan next to her. "I really thought I wasn't going to faint." He mumbled. "It's normal, I'm just glad you didn't go into shock." She deadpanned. "How long was I out for?" "About half an hour." She sighed, adjusted her helmet on her head. That's when he noticed the patch of dried blood at the side of her head. "Are you okay? There's blood." He pointed, eyes wide. "I'm fine, I have a helmet." She said patting the thing, ignoring the headache. "How's your leg feeling?" "Better." He sighed "Still hurt but it's a lot better than before." She nodded, content with her previous decision. "So," He started "You know my name, and I've allowed you to cut into my flesh, I guess we're pretty close by now, so I think it might be nice to know your name as well." He said making her chuckle. "It's L/N Y/N." "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Y/N." He smiled cockily. "Well aren't you the charmer." She giggled, laying her head back down against the wall behind her. They continued talking about whatever they could as time passed by slowly. They had gotten rather comfortable around each other seeing the circumstances weren't getting much better anyway. Suddenly, a rumble could be felt trough the floor and walls. "Shit." Y/N mumbled as she made him duck down. She put his head under her chest as she attempted to shield him with her body, her being the only one with protective gear. rocks and rubble landed on her back, legs and helmet. She made sure to protect his leg and head as much as possible but it was getting hard for her. Until they saw light. "Stop!" They heard someone yell. "I think I see them!" Y/N looked up and saw the rescue team getting ready to get them out of there. She made sure Lay was okay before helping him up so they could get out. "Be careful with his leg." She yelled to them as she let Lay be hoisted up first. When they were both out, they were transported to the main hospital.

"You hurt your head." Nari said worried, as she notice the blood when Y/N removed her helmet. They were sat next to each other in the rescue team's van. "A lot more than my head if you ask me." She groaned, stretching out her back and neck. "I'll clean myself up when we get to the hospital."

After she did so, she went to the top floor to check up on the patients from the concert hall. "So how is everyone?" She asked one of the interns. "Most people have been sent home, 24 people still need to be checked again and 19 people are admitted to the hospital for a few days but they are all stable." The intern stated, bowing to her. She nodded for him to continue his work as Nari came up beside her. "You did a great job with that surgery you know. The wound will heal perfectly and there weren't any kidney problems or inflammations." She stated. "That's good to hear." She smiled "Now I'm going to do some examinations before taking a loooong nap." She said walking away. She held her head as her headache reached another peak. A thud could be heard trough the hall as she made contact with the cold tiled floor. "Sunbea!" Both Nari and her intern ran to her side to help her.

She woke up in a large well lit room, a monitor next the her very comfortable bed. She was in one of the VIP rooms. "Ugh, why am I in here." She groaned, cursing her father. "Probably because you're in the newspaper for heroic acts." Lay smiled, as he stood in the doorframe, or shall I say sat. He wheeled over in his wheelchair, showing her his phone. *Heroic local doctor did everything in her power to save every life at recent crash site* "Well, aren't you a pain in my ass." She smiled, laying her head back down. " Well, this pain in your ass would actually like to get to know you better." He smiled. "You know like, on a date." "This isn't some kind of hero worship crap, is it?" She asked, her face jokingly sceptic. "No, I don't think so." He chuckled. "Okay then." she nodded, not able to repress her smile. "But let's wait until we're both up and out of here." She laughed and they talked the days away until the time finally came.

♥ Thanks for reading!  ♥

masterlist

[axolotiels]

That’s Not How the Story Goes

Once upon a time when I was a wee little writer who had recently finished ASOUE, I was displeased that Lemony Snicket neither met the Baudelaires nor adopted them. I fixed that, and uncovered it recently, only to have to fix it again because little me wrote like a gremlin. You’ll see that not much has changed.

Enjoy!

It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that Lemony Snicket, a man thought to be dead many times over and with great penchant for writing utterly dismal stories about three ingenious orphans and their many escaped perils, has stepped out for a moment. I do not use the term 'step-out' to give another insinuation that he stepped out either in front of a moving car or off of a cliff to add another false death to his growing list; I merely mean that Mr. Snicket now has other obligations that are far more important than chronicling his dismay, delight, and other words that start with the letter 'd'.

'Delight' is not a word that many would associate with someone as melancholic as Mr. Snicket, and with good reason. Not only is his life an ongoing disaster, he also took the liberty of chronicling the equally disastrous lives of the Baudelaire orphans following their parent's demise.

Like it was my duty to inform you that Mr. Snicket has stepped out, it is also my duty to inform you that something most unimaginable has occurred following the end of his series following the Baudelaire orphans.

For those of you uninitiated in the final book written in his series of increasingly unfortunate coincidences, he stopped writing about his findings about the Baudelaires. Or rather, he stopped publishing his findings, because after that final book (Entitled 'The End') he had a very difficult time finding and following the Baudelaires.

He has entrusted the manuscripts that he has written to me, and I can safely assure you that there is little to no substance to them other than his signature writing style and Mr. Snicket bemoaning things as he is often prone to doing.

The Baudelaires, who had been through just about as much as a group of children could possibly go through, were staggering into a seaside town. It was a quiet place, and thusfar, nobody had noticed them. I wish, dear reader, that I could tell you how the Baudelaires managed to acquire new clothes, food, and medical treatment in such a short amount of time with nary a penny in their pockets (But with many pennies in the bank, which in retrospect, probably explains quite a lot.). I wish that I had been there to see it to pen it down with such accuracy as Mr. Snicket had before me, but alas... I would if I could, but I can't, so I shan't.

The Baudelaires were hardly lucky in anything that had thusfar happened to them, but in this tiny, dreary, seaside town that was riddled with caves and people who did not ask too many questions, they were relatively well off. Both Violet and Klaus were able to acquire jobs, though they didn't pay enough to allow them much extra beyond paying rent and eating food. It was almost a ritual that the Baudelaires had whenever either Klaus or Violet received a paycheck that they made some remark or other about 'it's better than being paid in gum and coupons'. Nobody laughed but it was in good enough humor.

They didn't see that many people, and were quite reclusive, as children who had been through so much were prone to being. In truth, they did not need the jobs they had. Violet, the eldest, had inherited the Baudelaire fortune on her eighteenth birthday; the fortune was one of the things that caused their many problems, but they would be quite foolish not to use it. Besides that, Violet and Klaus enjoyed having something to do, including forgetting that they had quite a lot of money as they tried to subsist off their wages, panicking, remembered their savings account, and starting the cycle again.

It just so happened that the 'something to do' on this fateful cloudy day was going out for a stroll while they went to the nearest supermarket in the midst of the town.

Klaus Baudelaire was the one who was walking along in the middle, Violet was tailing behind him and reading a list of whatever it was that they needed to procure, and Sunny was walking resolutely ahead of them. An old man was sweeping up the barber shop that stayed open despite seemingly only having three customers, and when they passed, they waved.

It is my gathering and the gathering of a fellow agent by the name of Kingsleigh that the Baudelaires largely enjoyed their home in the town by the sea because it was so close to water. It was not a beach, like the place from whence they had come, although there was certainly a gray and pebbly beach nearby, but it was a town that was so nearby water that it made them feel the littlest bit safer. After all, when everything you had kept going up in smoke, literally and figuratively, you'd take measures to counteract such things.

After disappearing into the supermarket that was hidden beneath a dull gray sky, they reappeared with a few bags of groceries and other assorted items. Klaus had picked up writing materials and common-place books, which he seemed to have an awful lot of, Sunny had purchased a few extra-strong teething rings for herself, and Violet had purchased a few random screws, nails, gears, and whatever it was that the market had in its tiny hardware section. Klaus was a reader, but he had taken quite a shine to writing as well. He remembered everything he had ever read, from the Baudelaire library, to the dismal secrets of VFD, even recipes to make foods which he was sure did not exist. Sunny was still working on special skills that could apply in a much calmer setting, but since she was a small baby (Which was not that very long ago, really) she had four very sharp teeth that could sever the toughest wires and even be used to climb large elevator shafts that happened to be empty. Violet was an inventor, and though her inventions now were mostly alarms, detection rackets, and ways to keep track of things that did not need keeping track of, she had proved quite adept at pulling inventions out of thin air when hurtling down a mountain backwards at high speed.

These skills were, for the most part, useless in their quiet life in the quiet town next to the quiet sea where scarcely anything happened. This was quite fine by them.

As they walked down the main street of the town, each of them thinking their own thoughts as most are prone to doing, Klaus suddenly looked at his elder sister and said, “Do you think we could stop for some tea?”

Violet looked up, surprised. “I don't see why not, but it does look close to raining.”

Sunny, who had overheard their conversation, responded with, “It always looks like it's going to rain.” But she said it in a merry way, like she was daydreaming, which the young Baudelaire was most certainly not.

Violet considered this and motioned for them to turn a corner a bit earlier than usual. Down the street was the town's only tea-shop, a store for tourists that sold the usual sand in bottles and colored seashells, a paint store that helped to paint said seashells, and a library that had been abandoned long ago and was now hollow of its books.

They stopped at the tea shop that only had outside seating beneath two weather worn umbrellas, and the Baudelaires sat down outside at a table and rung the service bell. Now that nothing was happening to them, they had a lot less to talk about, so they sat there in silence and watched whatever bird dared to flit across the sky above the town.

I impart something else upon you, for those initiated: the Baudelaires had previously acquired an infant. This child was someone they often thought about in their silent gray town, wondering where she was and how she was doing and whether or not she had been carried away by some large sea bird. The Snicket whose place I now take once had two siblings: a brother named Jacques, who was rather unfortunately murdered at the Village of Fowl Devotees, and a sister named Kit, who also perished but due to something that I am not allowed to talk about, despite Mr. Snicket having written at least 3 separate books containing information about what I am not allowed to talk about. (Which is a deadly fungus named Medusoid Mycelium). This sister, Kit, had accompanied the Baudelaires to their previous home (Here to mentioned in book 13; honestly, if you don't know all of this please go read this abysmal series for yourself.) and had the baby that the Baudelaires now thought an awful lot about. Beatrice, named after their mother, was quite ingenious and could read after only a few months, which is not something that babies are often inclined to do. The Baudelaires and Beatrice had been separated on their journey from their island home to the dreary mainland at which they found themselves now.

One can imagine that, though the Baudelaires tried their hardest to be happy and were happy for the most part, that such things like thinking about a lost infant that had become a part of a family that you no longer had would bring down your mood considerably. The saddened thoughts spread from sibling to sibling sometimes, as if they were all telepathically linked, which is a phenomenon that has not yet been taken as fact but may explain an awful lot.

The owner of the tea-shop stuck his head out of the door, took their order (Which, like the weather, was much too drab to remember properly, especially with only Mr. Snicket's rather hazy eyewitness account) and went back inside.

The Baudelaires, as you may have gathered, had become very suspicious people. They had not set out to become suspicious people, just as you never set out to become a strawberry-crazed maniac with a large stick or an associate and I to become ghost writers for one of our organization's last standing agents. It was merely the circumstances with which they found themselves that forced them from becoming three nice young kids to three nice young kids that would jump at the drop of a hat. Agent Kingsleigh has relayed to me that there was scarcely a day when they did not jump at shadows or unexplained noises in the night. So as you can imagine, the sight of a man in a gray suit staggering toward you with a suitcase in one hand and a look that was an amalgamate of several other emotions would most definitely arouse suspicion, even in a town as small and as nameless as the one that they lived in.

Violet looked up and eyed him down fiercely, sitting as straight up as she could. Before the man could speak, she held out one hand in a 'stop before I throw this screw-driver at you' gesture. “Can we help you?”

The man stopped, and the Baudelaires finally were able to get a good look at his face. His hair was black and neatly combed but still looked as all hair looks when its owner is under tremendous stress. His suitcase looked to barely be holding itself together, watermarks and scratches ripping their way through the dusty brown leather. Klaus held back a grimace; perhaps the most disconcerting thing about this shambling man was his face, and by extension, his eyes.

Eyes, like being suspicious, were also something that the Baudelaires were exceedingly familiar with. The man did not have eyes that resembled the insignia of VFD, but they knew those eyes. They were scarily similar to their own, weathered and gray beneath their actual color. The eyes of a person who had seen everything, lost it, worked hard to regain it and had it ripped out from under them like a poorly-woven rug. The man was not old but looked to be aged by stress, much like his hair.

Having met Mr. Snicket on a few occasions, though most of these were as he was on the run from quite a few rather rude men and women who wanted to tie him to the front of a boat and sail into the sunset or things of a similar ilk, I can say that Mr. Snicket exudes a very depressing aura. He is melancholy by nature, and with good reason to be. A melancholic aura was not the aura that the Baudelaires gathered about him that day. Agent Kingsleigh has reported that the aura that Lemony Snicket projected was that of horrifically happy disbelief, which is an amalgamate of 3 separate emotions.

He stood there with his mouth agape and the hand that held his suitcase shaking.

“I...” The man tried to speak and found himself unable, taking another step forward before being stopped again.

“Can we help you?” Violet said again, not in the mood for any more nonsense for the rest of her life.

The man in the gray suit cleared his throat and straightened himself up, but still looked windblown and disheveled. “I... you do not know me, Baudelaires,” He said, his voice a deep and saddened baritone that sounded like it was trying its best to be both nonthreatening and to keep its owner from coming to tears. “But I know... I know you.”

This is a very alarming thing to hear when one has led a completely normal life and has not been chased across the country and over the seas by a man with a unibrow and a bad habit of setting important things on fire while blaming other people. The Baudelaires had in fact spent quite a few years of their lives fighting away this man with a unibrow and every bad habit imaginable, so hearing a man who looked as though he'd been dragged through a hurricane over a particularly angry lake say that 'he knew them' was a rather frightening thing to hear.

“No. No, no, no, we have had more than enough of people following us and giving us trouble.” It was Klaus who spoke up this time, a defiantly cautious glint in his eye.

The man looked mildly disappointed for a second, but his expression remained mostly unchanged. “I-I know, Baudelaires. Forgive me for surprising you but-”

Violet stood at the table as the pleasant smell of blueberry pastries and sugary tea contrasted sharply with the less-sweet attitude with which the Baudelaires had surrounded themselves. “Unless you have come bearing news about anyone named Beatrice Snicket, we would appreciate it if you let us alone. Good day sir.” She said this like a man who was attempting to throw a small child from a chocolate factory. I do not know why she mentioned Beatrice, but bless her for doing so.

At the sound of the two names, both 'Beatrice' and 'Snicket' respectively, the man froze again. Even his shaking stopped, and for a few moments, he looked as though he were on the brink of collapse. His eyes flashed and he faltered again, but this time he asked a question. “Beatrice... Beatrice Snicket? There is no Beatrice Snicket.”

A cold wind blew through the street and shifted him a bit in place, hiding the shiver that racked him. With every passing second, his eyes seemed to grow bigger and the Baudelaires said no more, waiting.

“Beatrice married Bertrand.” The man in the gray suit said slowly.

“Beatrice didn't marry our father.” Klaus said, and saw Sunny give the man the most suspicious once-over he'd ever seen. “She never even knew out father.”

The man in the suit looked bewildered, running his hand through his dull black hair. “Who is... Baudelaires, I...” For someone who made his existence entirely on words, he found himself at a remarkable lack of any.

“We would greatly appreciate it,” Violet said in a calm but utterly venomous voice. “If you would leave my siblings and I alone.”

Once again, the man only stared, and the Baudelaires were left to wonder what was taking their tea so long. He straightened himself but still did not move in the quiet street of the quiet town. After he appeared to be lost in thought even among all of the other emotions that his face betrayed him of feeling, he said in a hushed voice, “My niece. Beatrice Snicket is... is my niece.”

It had taken quite a bit of time for Mr. Snicket to gather this information despite all of the evidence pointing at it in the most obvious way. When one has been through as much grief and gross disbelief as much as Mr. Snicket and the Baudelaires both had, it can be quite hard to articulate speech. This was precisely what was happening to Mr. Snicket at that moment in time. He actually managed to take a deep breath and exhale it slowly enough to speak in a more understandable and less chopped up manner.

“Baudelaires, I am sorry to intrude on your personal space but please allow me to introduce myself. I am Lemony Snicket. I'm the last...” He faltered, and spoke up again. “the last living Snicket. Unless my... my niece Beatrice is still alive.”

The Baudelaires said nothing, stunned but still not quite as stunned as they once would have been. They collectively wondered where their tea was.

“I.... Baudelaires,  I've been trying to find you since the fire. The-the fire I was framed for.” He was allowed to take a few flat steps forward as another gust of wind funneled down from the sky.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny exchanged judgmental glances. “The Snicket file?” It was Sunny who spoke up this time. Despite not even being a fully-fledged child, she was remarkably articulate, especially when things such as this came into the equation.

For a second, Snicket looked relieved. “Yes, that's... that's the one.” He became serious again quickly. “I'm very sure that you're well aware that Count Olaf started a great many of those fires, including yours.”

“What do you know about Count Olaf?” Klaus asked, trying to funnel away the almost mocking tone he had acquired. They were less threatened and more annoyed by now, but they were also curious.

A clatter came from inside the tea-shop's kitchen, and everyone jumped. 'Clatter' is a word which means a loud crashing of plates, or in this case, 'agent Kingsleigh finally realizes that Lemony Snicket is standing outside and rushes to contact our supervisor'. I am sorry to inform you that this clatter overshadowed the conversation. What you are about to experience is what is known as a chronological jump, in which I am forced to skip a few details which, fortunately enough for me, are not absolutely instrumental in the retelling of this account.

By the time the tea-shop completed the Baudelaire's order, Lemony Snicket was seated across from them at a table. The siblings had crowded close to each other like birds in a storm, listening and talking whilst trying to make some amount of sense. They could tell that this man who now sat across from them and who was trying to keep from bursting into tears at any given moment, had been through a lot.

They had told him about their endeavors on the island, which he had not been able to follow, and were about halfway through when the shop owner passed them their tea and blueberry turnovers before going back inside and tending to the telegram he'd received from me.

“So, Baudelaires please allow me to attempt to digest this,” They did and waited for his response. “Kit is in fact deceased, she had a baby whom you named Beatrice, and on your way back you somehow lost her and you have ended up... here.” He sounded as though he were about to cry, which was not a new development but a distressing one nonetheless.

Violet nodded. “We're sorry about your siblings, Mr. Snicket.”

“I can't imagine what it would be like to lose Violet or Sunny, especially after all we've been through.” Added Klaus, suddenly feeling very ill at ease, though he couldn't figure out exactly what made him feel that way besides everything.

Snicket gave them a weak smile. “I don't expect you to, Baudelaires. With all that's happened, I'd hoped that you wouldn't have to.”

There was something both oddly comforting and oddly unnerving about the things the man called Lemony Snicket said. I am to believe that at that point, he had told them that he'd been chronicling their misfortunes, and they had understood that it had something to do with VFD. There was also something else that Mr. Snicket was hiding, and this they knew well, despite having seen him for all of about twenty minutes.

“What are you going to do now, Mr. Snicket?” Violet asked while taking a tentative sip from her tea. She didn't think the tea would harm her in any way, but she was very put off by whatever was occurring, even if it was harmless and terribly sad rather than harmful and terribly sad.

He thought for a moment, penning down details that he had observed from the Baudelaires and their tellings of their time on the island whilst attempting to keep the wind from blowing them away. “I don't know. I never do. But,” he looked up with his eyes flashing, if only a little, “I'm not running from anyone anymore, not at the moment anyway. I suppose I have you three extraordinary children to thank for that.”

They looked at him a bit stunned. He was correct, of course, but it was still an odd thing to hear. What he said was 'thank you'; what he meant was 'thank you for killing Count Olaf or otherwise letting him die, as it now puts me further away from danger as well as you further away from danger'.

Lemony Snicket went back to his papers for a moment, his pen scratching furiously.

The Baudelaires were faced with a dilemma, a word which here means 'should we turn away this incredibly sad man with a tip of the hat once we leave' or 'should we further our interactions with this sad man though we are not obligated to do as such'.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny all excused themselves for a moment and walked far enough away that the gusting wind disguised their hushed voices.

Again, I wish I could tell you what transpired, but neither I nor the agent working there that day was able to write down what it was that they were saying. Snicket was busy writing down thoughts of his own and glancing balefully up at the Baudelaires, appearing to almost believe that they would disappear like spirits or those who had been framed of murder if he did not keep looking to see if they were there.

Suddenly, Lemony Snicket had most of his work go up in smoke, a phrase which here means 'his papers did not spontaneously combust but a great few of them were scattered into the empty street by a rather rude gust of wind.' He clamped his suitcase shut and sprinted into the street, which is remarkable when one knows how many bone fractures he's had in the past.

The Baudelaires all rushed back to try and swat down the flutter of parchment, and with four people all hunting paper like cats, it was easily accomplished enough. Violet was given a perfunctory nod by each of her siblings while delivering a stack back to Snicket, and as she handed him the papers, she looked him in the eye.

“Mr. Snicket... do you have a place do stay?”

He furrowed his eyebrows, as if unable to comprehend the question, and then responded, “No, no, but I'll manage.”

“We know it isn't much, but we do have a couch.” Klaus spoke up from behind Violet; he'd taken his seat again alongside Sunny.

For a second, Snicket looked horrified. “No, no, Baudelaires, I couldn't accept that offer.”

Violet, who still held her cautious demeanor, was also struck with something akin to pity. “Please, Mr. Snicket you won't be any trouble.”

“Not to mention, it's getting a bit more blustery than this later tonight. Your papers won't survive a storm like this outside.” Klaus looked calmly at the man in the gray suit.

Snicket pursed his lips, deep in thought, as he often was. “I believe I've put you in enough danger already, Baudelaires. You never know who's following you when you're someone like me.”

Violet straightened up and looked him in the eye, an act that can be quite frightening, especially when one is a young woman who was ready to fight tooth and nail at any given time, should something go awry. “Even if you are being followed, Mr. Snicket, even you should know that we are more than capable of defending ourselves.”

Sunny glanced slyly at her sister and the now startled-looking man she was talking to. “She's right, you know. I still have my teeth.”

“I still have my inventing skills.” added Violet, crossing her arms.

“And I still have my memory and my books. More of the former than the latter.” Klaus crossed his arms as well, as did Sunny, and soon three fourths of the table was sitting resolutely with their arms crossed and their hair being mussed by the cantankerous winds.

“You've been through quite enough.” Snicket muttered, averting his eyes in favor of his scrambled parchments. It was not that he lacked empathy, but the fact that he thought he didn't deserve to be among their good graces. “If I were faster, perhaps I could have stopped some of those... those atrocious acts, but I was not. I don't want to be too slow for you again... it's best if I leave you be.”

The Baudelaires shared a thoughtful glance in the gusty afternoon in front of the tea shop. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny made a silent agreement without so much as a flick of the head. They ignored their forced cautious nature for the first time in a very long while.

Snicket had begun packing up his things when Sunny got up and placed one tiny hand on his forearm, and said in a strangely adult voice for someone so young, “We forgive you, L.” She said it with the implication that there was nothing to be forgiven, but all three of the easily startled siblings knew that he needed to hear it.

He looked up, and his expression of alarm seemed to melt into melancholic relief that only people like Mr. Snicket can manage. Once again, he looked as though he were about to cry, but once again again, this was not very new.

It took a moment for Snicket to respond while he made sure all of his papers and pens were in the right order and had not been rigged to explode. Once he was done, he was met by the three faces of the children it had taken him so, so long to find. He sighed and put one hand to his forehead. “I'm not going to change your minds, am I?”

“No.” They all responded in unison.

He quickly looked away with a soft grin playing on his lips as he wiped nonchalantly at one of his eyes, as if hiding tears was something he had to do often.

As it was my unfortunate duty to inform you that Mister Snicket stepped out, it is my much more pleasant duty to tell you that he did accept the offer to sleep on their couch. An even more pleasant bit of news is that this is the first time in at least ten years that he has not left the same post after three days of staying their. He has asked me to stop the recount here, and I shall respect his wishes. One more parting bit of information, but you did not hear it from me, and I did not hear it from Kingsleigh: The Baudelaires are quite enjoying having an uncle again.

[seniorbrief]

This Climber Was Stuck in a Crevice for 22 Hours—Here’s How He Survived

This article originally appeared in the May 2016 issue of the International Edition of Reader’s Digest.

Alexander Mazurkevich/Shutterstock

The crevice is little more than a crack in the rough terrain, barely 50 centimetres wide. Curious, Seth Rowe stands at its edge, poised to go in. It is just before noon on June 20, 2015. The sun peeks out but it is still chilly in the Nottawasaga Bluffs, a rugged area in a snow belt about 140 kilometres northeast of Toronto, Canada.

Seth knows the temperature inside the crevice will hover around minus two degrees Celsius. But he loves the challenge of exploring caves and crevices and he figures that his jeans, T-shirt and the sturdy jacket he carries should be protection enough. I won’t be in long, he thinks.

At heart Seth, now 31, a plumber and pipefitter, is still a daredevil kid—an avid hiker and hunter, charming and sometimes irresponsible. He knows that after a night of partying with his buddies, he should be at home. But his wife, Jamie, also understands that he has to get away every once in a while. It is as much a part of him as his love for her and their two children.

“You’re a bad boy,” Jamie, 25, always says. “It’s part of why I love you.” Then again, he thinks, maybe this time I went too far. In his mind, he replays a conversation—okay, a fight—they had barely an hour earlier. “Where are you?” Jamie had asked on her cell phone, her tone clipped and angry.

“In the forest,” he said.

“Come home now! Remember we’re all going to a movie later—and I need some help around here,” she replied, a pointed reference to Joella, four, and 15-month-old Wyatt.

“OK, I’ll be home in an hour.” he replied. He thinks: But not while you’re mad at me.

Now, bracing his arms on the edge of the crevice to control his descent, he breathes in deeply and exhales to relax his muscles and make his 183-centimetre-tall, 70-kilogram body as small as possible—a trick he learned in his early 20s caving around here. Down, down he goes, between the ice-covered walls while his feet, in sturdy hiking shoes, cast about for purchase.

It does not matter that he has neither a rope nor survival kit for he has done this countless times before, in and out with nary a problem. Coming to a stop on a ledge, he opens his cell phone and uses it to illuminate his surroundings. The crevice walls come into glittering focus and his breath hovers in front of him. The smell is a mix of mould and earth, damp, heavy and dark.

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After a few minutes Seth realizes if he goes any further, he won’t be able to climb out. He steps onto a rock ready to hoist himself up and out of the crevice. OK. One, two… Oh God! The rock gives way and Seth slides into the black void, through that tiny opening, like a finger donning a too-small ring.

There is no time to cry out.

There would be no one to hear him if he did.

Once he comes to a stop, Seth takes a few minutes to catch his breath. The sheer force of the fall has left him wedged like a cork in a bottle, with the tip of his nose squashed against one jagged wall and his back flush and raw against the one behind him.

He has no idea where he is. How long did I slide for? It felt like forever. It wasn’t a straight drop, either, for he knows crevices follow the whim of nature and erosion.

Stay calm, he tells himself.

He looks up and sees a crack of light about 20 metres above him. Phone for help, he thinks. But when he reaches for his cell phone he realizes, with a chill, that there would be no service that far underground. He tries to move upwards but the crevice holds him fast: a prison—maybe even a tomb.

Stop thinking like that! He tells himself sharply. One hour passes, then maybe two or three, but in the dark Seth loses track of time. He wonders what everyone at home is doing. Every once in a while, he calls out: “Help! Is anyone there?”

There is no answer.

Jamie will find me. She’ll find the truck and bring a rope. It becomes his mantra. Even though he parked his truck in an unploughed field about half a kilometre beyond where he usually leaves it, he has to believe his wife will find it.

He notices his hands and feet are numb from the damp and the fact that he has not moved for hours. He wishes he could put on the jacket he was carrying but there isn’t room. His knees are killing him.

So might the crevice.

That is when he begins to pray out loud.

“Dear God, I got myself in here, I know,” he said. “But could You help me out? Tomorrow is Father’s Day. I want to spend tomorrow with my family.”

It’s totally dark, and the close space feels as big as a cathedral. Then he hears snuffling and growls from above. What is it? There is a glint from a pair of eyes, golden and feral, staring through the opening: It’s a coyote, and Seth realizes it can smell his blood.

(Don’t miss the survival story of the man who was stranded at sea for 438 days.)

Patsy Michaud/Shutterstock

Frightened, he cries out, “Please, someone, help me!”

Then he hears a voice, or thinks he does: He’s been calling out all day.

I’m hallucinating.

But the voice repeats the question: “Where are you?” It is real. Relief floods through his body for he has been found and his icy ordeal will soon be over—or so he thinks.

At 8:05 p.m., Jamie’s cell phone goes off in the movie theatre in Collingwood, 23 kilometres away. She was about to settle into seats with the kids, fuming at her husband’s absence. She had gone to look for him earlier that afternoon but there was no sign of his truck—and he wasn’t answering his phone.

As she listens to the hiker who found him, Jamie begins to run, somehow managing to hold Wyatt close while dragging a protesting Joella behind her.

It is about 45 minutes before Jamie gets to the field because she calls a friend who agrees to meet her and take the kids.

At the clearing where the hiker heard her husband, she kneels by the crevice and calls out: “Seth! I’m here. I love you. We want you to come home.”

Fire Chief Colin Sewell and other members of the nearby Clear-view Fire Department are already on the scene when firefighters from the city of Barrie, a city 59 kilometres to the east, arrive. The team is prepared to rescue a man trapped in a crevice. It happens every year in this area. But Bill Boyes, then Barrie’s deputy fire chief, soon realizes this is going to be more difficult than originally thought. There was no obvious opening to get at Seth, and the team thinks he must have slid at an angle for at least six metres from the entry point and gone down approximately 20 metres. “We’ve got a call in to an off-duty guy on our force who is experienced in crevice-diving,” Boyes continues. “Right now, he’s our best hope.”

By 10 p.m., the site is lit up like an airport landing strip. David Dunt, the rescue expert, arrives. “Let me go down to get an overview,” he says. Thinking he will be in the crevice for 20 minutes or so, Dunt, 178 centimetres tall and 91 kilograms of pure muscle, puts a full-body harness on over his light clothing, claps on a hardhat with a lantern and headset. His colleagues lower him eight metres into the black.

Landing on a narrow shelf, he trains his flashlights downwards. The beams catch a tiny figure about 12 metres below him off at an angle more than 10 metres away. In between is the opening that Seth has been staring at for more than 10 hours, no more than 20 centimetres across, barely enough room for skinny legs to pass through, never mind a full torso.

“Seth?” Dunt calls. “I’m here to get you out.” Unspoken is the thought, Dead or alive. “Have you been into crevices before?”

“Yeah, lots of times,” Seth replies, his voice thick and slow from cold and lack of food.

Although Seth is woefully under-equipped, Dunt is relieved to learn that he understands the principles of caving, such as of muscle relaxation and diaphragm compression, and how to use a seat harness. But Dunt knows he is also probably hypothermic.

“We’re racing against him freezing to death,” he reports urgently into his headset. “We have to get him food—energy—and water. Because we can’t get him out without his help.”

The firefighter stays down, talking with Seth about life, his wife and kids—anything to keep the trapped man awake. At 10:37 p.m., he helps thread a weighted rope more than 12 metres into the dark, which Seth catches and somehow manages to secure. A rudimentary ferrying system ensures that at least Seth has water and energy bars and a thermal blanket.

(You won’t want to miss how these pilots survived a crash landing in the Alaskan wilderness.)

Shane Miller/Shutterstock

Next, firefighters send in a rescue harness, which Dunt talks Seth through putting on. It takes half an hour, with each minute, each second, filled with scrapes, grunts and searing pain.

“I can’t move my legs!” Seth cries.

“Yes, you can, Seth,” Dunt says, his voice steady.

Finally, around 11:15 p.m., after nearly 12 hours in the crevice, Seth is on the move. Firefighters pull him slowly, less than a millimetre at a time, but within minutes the screaming starts. It echoes through the crevice, wordless and panicked.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dunt yells into the headset. “Drop him back! Talk to me, Seth!” Is his shoulder dislocated? His hip? If it is, we’re finished.

Although the screams stop, Seth, caught up in a haze of pain and fatigue, doesn’t respond. The firefighters start again, reeling him in like a big fish, centimetres forward and then back again. One hour runs into two, then three and four. Finally, Seth is shifted over the six metres so that now he is directly under Dunt and warming up a bit from a heater blasting into the crevice. But he still needs to get through that impossibly small gap. At that point Dunt hears rhythmic knocking, like a woodpecker. He realizes it is his helmet hitting the wall behind him; he can’t stop shivering. I have to get out before I become useless, he thinks. Hauled up, he is wrapped in thermal blankets. Another firefighter goes down to keep Seth talking.

Meanwhile, Boyes meets with Shewell again. It is nearing 3:30 a.m. They need more expertise. Shewell calls the Ontario Provincial Emergency Operations Centre, which dispatches the Toronto Fire Services to the scene. At 5:30 a.m., firefighters from the city arrive. Dunt is happy to see his old friend Chris Rowland among them. A stocky rescue specialist with a loud, commanding voice, Rowland soon takes charge.

“Quiet!” he yells as he kneels at the edge of the crevice. By now, there are about 50 firefighters and paramedics on the site. Seth has been in the crevice for 17 ½ hours.

Rowland outlines a plan: First, Toronto firefighters chip away at the narrow entrance to open the crevice up. Then, three of them in hardhats and protective glasses get into harness and pivot themselves to upside-down positions so they can use electric chisels to further enlarge that tiny gap by about eight centimetres.

“It should be enough for Seth to squeeze through,” Rowland says.

The last-ditch rescue operation begins at 6:14 a.m. For nearly three hours, the chisels whine and echo, punctuated by Seth’s cries as shards of rock fall on his head. The upside-down firefighters take turns coming up for breaks.

As the clock ticks towards 9:30am, the opening is wide enough to use ropes to carefully haul the still harnessed Seth up from the depths. But first Dunt goes back into the crevice to give his lifeline to Seth.

At 9:41 a.m.—nearly 22 hours after Seth went in—he rises slowly out of the ground, dirty, with shredded clothes, a body scraped raw and red and a bleeding gash on his head. It is as if the earth is giving birth to him.

Jamie takes his hand. He wants to tell her something. “I want a Big Mac and fries.”

Laughing out loud, Jamie turns to the paramedics and says, “He’s fine.”

She’s right, too. Miraculously, Seth spends only one night in hospital, where he is treated for hypothermia and abrasions to his chest and back.

At a celebration in Barrie on June 30 – Seth’s birthday – he and his family showed their appreciation of the legion of people who gave his story a happy ending. He spoke of how grateful he was for the chance to be more present as a father and husband. Now he and Jamie go out together as a couple, solid and loving.

“[It] would be absolutely horrendous to every year have Father’s Day be the day your dad didn’t come back,” he said.

To highlight that sentiment, Joella, now five, presented a daisy to Chief Shewell of the Clearview Fire Department.

“Thank you,” she said, “for saving my daddy.”

Next, find out how to save your own life in 12 scary emergencies.

Original Source -> This Climber Was Stuck in a Crevice for 22 Hours—Here’s How He Survived

source https://www.seniorbrief.com/this-climber-was-stuck-in-a-crevice-for-22-hours-heres-how-he-survived/