#some people like taking a mountain bike down the side of a cliff and that's fine

[notdeadjack]

I highly appreciate the "happy ending" tag on angst fics, dark fics, etc. Its existence increases the probability of me reading by a significant amount

but some people are like "why even read those fics if you already know how they're gonna end?"

Well, it's kinda like going on a roller-coaster. I wanna experience the ride. The ups and the downs, the twists and turns. But I also wanna know that at the end, it'll come to a safe stop and I'll be able to get off of it completely unharmed

[almostangrything]

My little sibling had the idea for a story about evil pants. Here it is.

The Adventures of Larry and Jimbob: The Evil Pants Epidemic

      In a lab, on a cliff, far away from any cities, several scientists were busy working. "Here, hand me that uranium," a scientist says. He fuels up the reactor, and a bright flash of light fills the room. Sitting in the beaker on the counter was a dark, black liquid. "Woohoo! We did it!"

      "Daryl, this is pure evil essence."

      "I know that, Terry. But still, we got it!"

      "Yeah, yeah," Terry says exasperatedly. "Just get the beaker into the containment chamber." "Will do," Daryl responds as he carries the beaker. He walks into the containment chamber and sets the beaker down. As he sets down the beaker, a drop of the evil essence lands on his pants, right on the bottom of the leg, near Daryl's shoe. Daryl didn't notice, and goes about locking the cell appropriately.      As he clocks out of work, he walks around, unknowingly spreading the evil essence from his pants to all the other peoples' pants. Daryl goes home, unsuspecting of the danger he had accidentally unleashed.

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      As Larry MacWallace woke up, he could see the sun shining bleakly through the window in his room, which was in the attic of his house. He climbs out of bed, stretching, and walks over to his dresser to put his work clothes on. He grabs a plain, navy blue kilt and a light blue cotton shirt, and his worn-out black sneakers. He trudges down the stairs, eating some toast before going back up to brush his teeth and hair. He grabs the wool that had been spun and dyed, and places it in the basket in front of his dark green mountain bike. As he rides to his family's stall in the market square, he spots his best friend, Jimbob Johnson, in the stall next door.

      Larry hops off his bike and leans it against the side of the stall, grabbing the wool from the basket. "Hey, Jimbob!" Larry calls out to his friend. "Hiya, Larry," Jimbob replies, putting the finishing touches on the display of knives, which was what his family made. "Whatcha got today?" Larry shrugs. "Some spun wool. I've get red, blue, and green, and I think I've got some yellow somewhere..." He looks in his basket. "Aha, there you are," Larry says as he places the bright yellow wool on the counter.

      As the morning progresses, the fog that was slightly hanging over the city dissapated in the glare of the shiny sun. It was a perfect golden day. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were chirping, the clouds were light an puffy, a gentle breeze blew by, and Larry and Jimbob were both making very good sales. "Well, I had better go home to grab another stock," Larry says as he finally runs out of wool to sell. "Mind keeping an eye on the stall for me?" He looks at Jimbob, who nods eagerly. "Sure thing, buddy. Tell your parents I say hi!"

      "Got it," Larry responds, as he kicks up the kickstand of his bike and rides out to the little farm his parents owned. Ever since he was eight, he would take his bike into the town and sell the wool that his parents collected, spun, an dyed. The city was so peaceful, that he never had to worry about danger. He loads up his bike, tells his parents, who were nice people, that Jimbob said 'hello', and sped off back to the market.

      Just before he got back to his stall, he saw and heard a commotion. However, the real unusual thing about the clamor was that the people looked and sounded worried and scared, something that rarely happened in Charlestonburg. "What in the..." Larry leans his bike against his stall. "Jimbob, what's going on?" Jimbob was watching the commotion with intent. "Some guy was runnin' around with stolen goods. He looked like he was hardly in control of himself. Like his legs were carryin' him against his will." Larry looked puzzled. "Well that's odd..." "And," Jimbob continues, "The craziest part is that the police officers who were chasin' him started stealin' stuff with him. Like, anything they could get. Purses, watches, anything. They didn't want to, either, by the looks of it."

      "So, it's like their legs were carrying them..." Larry ponders. "I wanted to go after 'em myself, but I didn't want either of our stands to be robbed," Jimbob explains. "Thanks, pal," Larry smiles. "So if they weren't in control, then who was?" Larry thinks for a moment. "Maybe it was their pants," Jimbob jokes, chuckling. "Hey... You might be right!" Larry turns to face Jimbob, starting to work out the mystery. "Really? I-I was joking." Jimbob looks up at Larry, considering how plausible his joke was. "Huh, maybe..." "Yeah, that's gotta be it! We're going on another adventure, Jimbob! We've got some evil pants to stop!"

      As they were packing up their stalls, the man Jimbob had said started the stealing spree came running down the road and tripped. "Sir, are you okay?" Larry asked the man. "No!" He replied. "Something's going on. I work at a lab where we finally extracted pure evil essence. I must have spilled a little bit onto my pants when locking it away, because now they're evil! And it's spreading; fast, too, by the looks of it." Panting, the man stands up. "I'm Daryl, by the way." "Nice to meet you, Mr. Daryl," Larry resonds, nodding his head respectfully. "Now, I'm gonna go try to return all that stuff..." Daryl's voice fades away as he walks off. Larry looks at Jimbob, already forming a plan. "Let's pack. We've gotta set out as soon as possible."

      "Way ahead of you, man," Jimbob replies as he kicks up the kickstand of his bike. Larry mounts his own bike and they set off. They lived fairly close, and had been friends for as long as they could remember, so when they got to Larry's house, Larry's parents were happy to see them both. "Oh, boys! Back so soon?" Larry's mother asked. "Hey, Mom. We can't talk much, we've got a problem to stop," Larry replies, stopping briefly to hug his parents. Mrs. MacWallace twists her lips into a smile as she speaks. "Another adventure? Do tell." Jimbob grins at her words and says, "Evil pants. And they're contagious. So, no big deal." He also huge Larry's parents before following Larry upstairs to pack for their trip.

      They set down their backpacks on Larry's bed. "Alright, check list," Larry says as he goes over their adventure checklist. "Clothes, food, flashlight, self defense items, water, first aid kits, survival items." Jimbob grabs everything they would need. "Check, check, check, check, check, check, and check," he replies as he divides up the supplies. Larry puts his half in his backpack as Jimbob does the same with his half of the supplies. Larry makes sure to pack a few extra kilts, like he always did. "Got your notebook?" Larry asks. "Yep," Jimbob responds, tucking it into his backpack. "You?" "Right here," Larry replies, holding his notebook up before stowing it away in his bag as well.

      The pair rush out of the house, saying goodbye to Larry's parents. To save time, Jimbob calls his parents to say that Team Dragontoes, aka Larry and Jimbob, were going on an adventure to stop evil pants. The boys ride through the city of Charlestonburg, scoping out the damage. It was worse than they thought. People were running around everywhere, stealing, vandalizing, and wreaking havoc. A few buildings were even on fire, though there were teams of firefighters everywhere. As Larry looked behind him to see that, on the other side of the street, some firefighters were struggling with a fire hydrant that was on fire, he also noticed something worrisome. "Uh, Jimbob, we have a problem..."

      A bunch of people were chasing them, their legs carrying them while their arms flailed wildly. "Oh, fiddlesticks, we should get going!" Jimbob shouts to Larry, pedaling faster. Larry follows suit, speeding up. "Over here!" He calls out to Jimbob, making a left turn. They make twist after turn, eventually losing track of the group of people. "Whew!" Larry exclaims as he takes a look around. "Where are we?"

      "We're on the bank of Lake Burl, I think," Jimbob replies. The bank was rocky, being covered with pebbles of all shapes and sizes. The two hopped off of their bikes and leaned them against one of the many empty crates on the shoreline. Larry sits on a crate and sets down his backpack. He grabs a water bottle and tosses one to Jimbob, who gladly accepts it, sitting down on a crate nearby. "So," Larry thinks aloud in between sips of water. "What do we know? The pants are evil, contagious, and they make people do bad things." Jimbob thinks as well. "All of their pants were controlling them, it was scary." He shudders at the thought. Larry looks out at the lake, pondering a solution. The water of the lake was lapping softly against the pebbly shore, and the air smelled slightly stale, which was probably because of the slight fog that had settled over the water in the afternoon dullness. Larry could see the forest that was behind his house. His and Jimbob's families would often go hiking.

      Larry was brought out of his reminiscence by a swift kick to his back, knocking him off the crate and almost into the lake. "Oh no, I'm so sorry!" Jimbob exclaims. "I didn't mean to do that, I swear!" Larry got up and was about to retaliate when he heard Jimbob's words. "Oh boy..." He pieces the puzzle together. "Your pants! They've been infected with evil!" "First of all, they're shorts," Jimbob insists. Larry sighs irritatedly before responding, "They are, like, seven sizes too big, Jimbob! They are sold as shorts, sure, but on you, they are definitely pants!" The so-called shorts went all the way down to halfway down Jimbob's shin. The pockets were huge, and he had to wear a belt to keep them up. It looked kinda cool, but mostly ridiculous, but it wasn't like Jimbob cared.

      "How do I stop it?" Jimbob asks, a bit panicked. "I don't want to kick you again!" Just then, a stray match fell out of Jimbob's pocket and truck against the rock, sending a spark flying that caused Jimbob's pants to catch on fire. He ran around, screaming, away from the lake for some reason, and up towards a derelict building on the edge of town. "Here!" Larry shouts as he throws Jimbob one of his spare kilts. Jimbob catches it and disappears behind the building, looking for a fire extinguisher. He comes back two minutes later, wearing the kilt and looking thoroughly embarrassed about not running to the lake. "Thanks... i guess I owe you five dollars," Jimbob says. "The spare kilt finally came in handy." He reaches into his bag, but Larry stops him. "Nah, it's alright. I'm just glad you're not hurt," he says. "You don't feel evil, right?" Jimbob thinks or a second. "No, I suppose I don't. That's quite a relief." He laughs slightly before gasping. "Larry, that's it! Getting everyone to wear kilts will stop the spread of the evil pants!"

    Larry grins as well. "Excellent! Let's go up to Mr. Plink's kilt store and tell him! Team Dragontoes!" Larry starts dragging his bike up the bank. "If he's still around, that is," Jimbob reminds him as he follows. "Right... Well, we won't know unless we check!" Once they were on more level ground, they raced up through the Charlestonburg streets to the kilt shop, which was luckily still intact and open. Mr. Plink, who, like Larry, always wore a kilt, was looking quite bored, but lit up when he saw the boys. "Hello, boys!" Mr. Plink enthusiastically greeted them. "I haven't had a single customer all day, it's been quite boring." "Well, you're about to have a lot of sales," Larry replies. "The evil pants have been preading rapidly, but the evil doesn't spread to kilts!" "Wonderful!" Mr. Plink exclaims. "Well, then, let's get started!" He grabs some kilts along with Jimbob and Larry, and they rush through town, spreading the kilts to everyone.

      After a long day of work, they had finally stopped the evil pants. As Team Dragontoes lies on Larry's bedroom floor, writing about their adventure, they laugh while recounting the day's events. "I think the title should be 'The Adventures of Larry and Jimbob: The Evil Pants Epidemic'," Larry says. "Perfect," Jimbob replies, writing the story title on the page. "Another win for Team Dragontoes!" "Huzzah!" Larry adds. The two laugh before going down to grab some dinner.

PLEASE KEEP THIS ON TUMBLR. DO NOT REPOST ELSEWHERE. THANK YOU!

[bike42]

Sunday July 2, 2023

Great nights sleep. We had shades to darken the room (still quite light at 10pm) and I used earplugs to drown out the sound of people walking on the floor above us and the numerous trains just a few blocks away.

Up at 6 for a long shower, and breakfast at 7am. Breakfast sandwiches, bananas and yogurt - perfect. Then the last minute second guessing about what we had in our packs and what we could leave behind! We’re not new to this, but there is uncertainty in what the terrain, weather and camps will be like!

We arrived at the Glacier Guides office just after 8am and met our guide, Todd (originally from Madison WI). He had 7 piles of food laid out (didn’t know Gary wasn’t coming). The food was labeled “B1, D2” etc. for breakfast or dinner and which day. Ideally, you want to volunteer to carry the first night’s dinner!

We added the food to our packs and Todd had all of the cooking gear in his pack already. We spent some time asking questions and pulling things out of our packs and running them back to the cars. Then we had to watch a few videos on “Leave No Trace,” which was nothing new for us and “Bear Safety,” which was educational but a bit on the terrifying side!

Into the Glacier Guide van (the big old ones like we used to take on camp U-Nah-Li-Ya trips) for the 2.5 mile ride to the trailhead. Todd drove the van as there is a 4-day group hiking now and they’ll depart in our van in a few days and we’ll hike up to the one they used. Clever system! We drove east on Hwy 2, which allowed JT and me to relive some of our bike trip. I was surprised we drove all the way to Browning, where we turned north, but great to see the difference between the plains and the mountains again - quite drastic!!

We arrived at the trailhead, just short of the Many Glaciers Ranger Station, and ate our sack lunches, watching families head out on day hikes to a waterfall on another trail. It was a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies, but it felt a bit cooler and I kept my fleece on initially. Todd spotted a mountain goat on a cliff way above us - awesome! We set out hiking about 1:30pm, climbing right away and warming up fast! The wildflowers in the meadows were breathtaking. As usual, I tried to capture in my photos but they don’t do justice.

We hiked the Red Gap Pass Trail, nearly seven miles to Poia Lake for our first night’s campsite. The trail is part of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and of the dozen or so people we saw, nearly all were thru hikers that are just staring out - destined for Mexico! The trail also accommodates horseback riders and we saw a group of them.

There was a scale at the office and we weighed our packs before we departed. Mine was the lightest at 40 pounds even. Others were 42-45 pounds. Sure felt the extra weight today, and probably some altitude. We were all relieved to arrive at camp around 6pm (90 minutes after Todd’s estimate - guess he thought we’d be faster?).

The Glacier Park camps have a really cool design to keep bears and other critters out of the sleeping area of camp. We had to change our itinerary as Mokowanis Lake Camp is temporarily closed as a bear entered a tent there a few days ago.

When we arrived at camp, the first area was for cooking. We stopped there and took all food (dinners and snacks) out of our packs, as well as all “smellies” such as cosmetics, toothpaste, lip balm, sunscreen, etc. Walking down the path a bit, there was a trail to the vault toilet (quite nice!) then 4 campsites designed to house two tents each. We set up our tents as Todd made dinner. There are several other groups here, but they’d cleared out of the food prep area once we were eating at 7pm. By 8p, we were headed back to our tents for quiet time. A successful first day!

1732 feet elevation gain

6.93 miles

4.5 hours

[pedallingthepyrrhicpindus]

DAY 5 - TSEPOLOVO TO VIKOS GORGE AND THEN ELATI

Trails Leaving the haunted Scottish girls school we follow the side of the valley. At the top of a small hill, Alex points across the ravine to a zig-zag wall going up the steep side of the slope. He says it’s the sort of trail that covered the whole country. Hardy mountain folk would use them to travel between villages and to trade.

These trails are one of his passions. He spends much of his time maintaining those that still exist. (2% of what used to be.) In the old days people would walk with a knife in their hand and cut off any overhang - “trees have memories, they can sense the passing of people and animals and they grow away from the path.”

Then the fascists came and built roads across the whole country. “Many of them useless, but good for us!” And off we go downhill, just the right gradient, no need to use our worryingly worn brakes.

Gorgeous climb. The sun is out. At the bottom of a valley we turn to follow the river. Stop for an impressive arched stone bridge. There are other people. Tourists! In coaches! But not enough to bother us.

The big climb approaches. John senses his opportunity. And pushes for the summit coached by Toren. The landscape is different. Heavily stratified rock cliffs and columns - some either side of the road look like monumental gates.

The verges are strewn with brightly coloured spring flowers. Daisies, forget me nots, vibrant pink little flowers with five petals stretched to the fingertips, thistles with their pink furballs.  And the broom, yellow and fragrant.

A flock of sheep and goats, with shepherd - not sure which smells more. The little dog started it. Got the big one angry and it was he that bit my back tyre. The police turned up in a car and intervened using a special clicking siren.

And I was back to climbing in pastoral bliss. Keeping heart rate below 140bpm. Don’t look back.

At the top we change shoes and walk the pretty path  to the viewing point for the Vikos Gorge, the deepest gorge - relative to its width - in the world. Forget the Guinness Book of records - it’s quite a show, made all the more exciting by the lack of guardrail. Vertigo!

Back down the hill we race. Coffee and lunch. Less meat more vegetables was the order of the day.

Rain We leave the roadside taverna as another coach pulls up. And it starts to rain. Then rain heavily. We all stop to put coats on. Twenty minutes later it stops.

Climb frenzy Suddenly it goes all lord of the flies. Mark starts beating the drum for a race between me and Hamish up the next big hill. It’s all a bit cruel. “My money’s on Piers but I’m coaching Hamish”. The chatter and jabber intensifies as the hill approaches.  War cries echo across the valleys. “Hamish, Hamish…”

We start together. Matching each other’s pace. It’s going to be a long climb. The road flattens out a bit, Hamish shoots off ahead and gets a lead from his superior cornering skills. As the climb resumes, I wind him back in. “Don’t worry Hamish, I know Piers, he always goes out too hard and blows up,” Mark needles.

I pull ahead, Mark pushes past to encourage me to ’blow up’.  But I’ve been watching Mark all holiday. He’s a really impressive climber, with a super light bike and bucket loads of confidence. But… when the climb really starts to bite, when it starts to hurt me, it’s hurting him more. 

And it’s he who cracks. With still 100m to climb I pull past him and he’s left behind. Broken.

He won’t admit it, but the race was always between me and him. He’d used Hamish as a straw man. And now a shield for his pride.

Actually that’s a bit harsh. It’s all been about that special connection that comes from competion. The sheer unalloyed joy of pitting yourself against another human. The shared experience. It really is all about the taking part. Mark loves it. And we love him for it.

Of course, Toren has watched all this and is calmly up ahead enjoying the view, first to summit, as always. A racehorse travelling with donkeys. History lesson A few more km and we arrive at our hotel run by two lovely sisters. Big rooms. Lovely food. And Yannis gives the most extraordinary history of Greece - he spoke for two hours without notes starting with the first settlers and ending in the current day. Answering questions along the way.

It was striking how modern day Greece was created on the basis of an idea - about Ancient Greece, about the birthplace of civilisation. And how that idea was imposed from outside.

Ants in my bed though. 92.86km  1,837m ascent

[nerodreamblog]

My family and I went to a beachside town. A really colorful one where all the shops were different colors. The beach was full of people having fun in the sun.

I found a bike and decided to go exploring. I ended up biking up a mountain and went too fast, launching the bike onto a small cliff. I knew if I went any further, I'd have a hard time getting back down.

I had to climb down the side of the large rock, which conveniently had slabs I could put my feet on. The hard part was getting the bike down. I tried to carry it in one hand but I ended up dropping it. I was scared I would break it, thankfully it didn't. There was a guy at the bottom who was even bothered by the bike. All I had to do was climb the rest of the way down (it was about 15 feet off the ground.) I did successfully, but then I fainted.

A group of elementary school kids came to stare at me and even kicked me as they walked by and climbed into a school bus.

I woke up and the guy at the bottom was still there. I asked why he didn't do anything. He said it wasn't his place.

Then I woke up.

--

My family and I piled into my mom's SUV to go on a road trip.

We traveled to a swamp where we had to drive through tiny lakes to park. My mom said it was fine because her SUV had minor boating capabilities so it would take a lot to sink us.

We found an entrance where one of those bug alien guys from Rick and Morty was waiting for us.

He took our SUV and I had to get in the middle back seat. I seat I DESPISE but always end up sitting in because I'm always the smallest.

For some reason our cousin J was there. I considered sitting in the trunk because maybe then I'd be more comfortable, but I might get motion sick because the bug guy drove fast and swerved hard.

We ended up driving through what I can only describe as a rollercoaster for cars with loops and everything. The bug guy explained to us that we had to go through this path because we couldn't get caught. Caught by whom, I wonder? Something about the creatures in the park.

The dream switched to me breaking into a mansion to spy on the family. I was a mothman (not Nero, just a regular old mothman) spy with gadgets and sneaking capabilities. I had one gadget that let me be invisible as long as I stayed in the shadows.

In the mansion lived a mom with her three daughters, one forty, the other twenty, the youngest ten. The youngest looked like a young Mara Wilson because we were watching Mrs. Doubtfire last night.

The mom was always drunk and neglected her daughters and abused the female-only staff that worked there. The eldest daughter was also almost always drunk.

I found a shadow under the piano to hear their conversation. The middle daughter was yelling at the mom because she was mad about how the mom never paid attention to her growing up. The mom brushed her off and unfortunately for me, went to go play piano with her youngest. I had to sit there and wait and contort my body to make sure they didn't step on me and catch me.

Eventually I fell asleep in a weird angle and I had to wriggle around to stretch and readjust myself.

Finally the mom walked away from the piano and I could go find another place to spy.

I found a really large bathroom that was basically just a square room with a single toilet and sink, but the way the light shone, there were no shadows for me to hide in. I heard the door open and I found a closet, hoping it would be enough.

The forty year old opened the door and looked right at me. I looked at her with my wide, red eyes. She didn't seem scared, in fact she was quite happy to be speaking to me. She told me she'd been able to see me the whole time and just wanted me to try one some clothes. She put a couple of Slavic style headscarves on me and used that to pull me out of the closet before wrapping me in shawls, pleased with how I looked in them.

We then sat down and the daughter spoke to me about how she was expecting someone to come and spy on her mom and she welcomed it. Turns out she also had a daughter and wanted to give her a better life.

I nodded in understanding, because I couldn't produce human sounds as a mothman.

[driftwork]

entropy of erro, part one , climbing, acrophilia...

Let us begin in the middle as there are no beginnings. She put on her dark jacket, took her bag and left.  From the house in the outer suburbs she drove down the patchwork of roads,  long flat roads, downhill curves, passing through housing estates, towns, villages, that made her wish she was driving something faster. Drifting down the valley road past the fields with sheep and black cows, past advertisements for cars, food shops,  politicians, the faces of young women, Televisions and films. Familiar redbrick  housing behind service roads. It was late afternoon, not even five o’clock, on the roadsides people were sitting on benches,  old men and women sat on the chairs smoking and talking,  watching her and the world drifting past. An ambulance, paramedics collecting an injured person from the pavement, police in blue uniforms looking for crime through film and tv filled eyes. They don’t talk much as they drive. Just the occasional phrase, sentence, exchanges on driving. The low level murmur of two streams of consciousness. < My head hurts,  she tells the other> <It will stop soon...> She phoned me, i could hear the sound of the car, a window was open. Hi Jean could you do me a favour and feed Henry for me. I’ll be back late, possibly tomorrow and I left early… The entrance code is 19682012. OK, see you later.

The town reminded her of many medium sized towns, a long  wide street with a nice square, narrow streets. There were cafes and bars in old corners, cars, bikes and buses negotiating the high sided streets. Like all the towns there was a lack of parks, insufficient greenery, too much concrete. She stopped off at the gallery as arranged.   Ben Nicholson and less familiarly Kenzo Murakmi  abstract expressionist  nylon and ashes, seared and scarred  frames of wood and detritus, faint lace painted over the shadows of the body on clothes attached to the images of love…. Painted in beige on a bright red background. Plastic panels distorted with heat reminding her of Carrington's Bride laid bare.  Melancholy,  the plastic and metal hung like mutated flesh from the strangely rectangular frame. Like an hallucination. They respond to the works in the same way because there is no difference here. There is a placard on gallery wall printed in a large black font; "the space constituted by and constitutive of the drama of self consciousness and mutual recognition that lay at their hearts..." She joins the courier at the table, drinks tea and eats a peanut cookie before taking the bag from the locker and leaves through the garden exit.... < What’s in the bag?> <Its the new running bag, laundered money,  an identity and clothing in case we need to run.>  Outside the gallery the noise of crickets, insects,  a car, an hallucination, the long curve around the bottom of a hill. Which when it was flowing as well as this always made her think of Lucretius,  declination in a fluid mechanism. (In this vignette at least; she is plural, she is always two, and what was important for them was less their working together that the strange fact of working between the two of them, the two who were almost identical, but not quite...)

She would have liked to talk to you about the sky over Castaliae Fons but instead talks to herself about the bright blue sky and the quick billowing clouds driven away by the winds. <At least its not going to rain, she says.> The deserted churches on the hill as she drives along the road, across the bottom of the heath, and then deeper into the city.  She arrived in a mid-summer early evening,  parking the car some fifty metres from the doorway in st.nwigtn. She sat in the car and taped and chalked her fingers before putting on her gloves to disguise the climbing preparations.  <my favourite type of climbing has always been buildings> < better than trees...>  <We have acrophilia, I like to climb things> < for once the I is right, as I don't think I am as acrophiliac as you are, it's a pretty mad medical opinion,...> <  I like to be up in high places, buildings are best, trees, cliffs and mountains are OK but I like climbing buildings the best...> <It's odd that this is  one of the differences between us...> <I was an acrophile before this happened to us.> <i know we are, one of us has to be more internalist and its me. > All this whilst photons and waves generated by the sun poured into the mews. She wants to say, to tell you:  This is what I was like then,  when we passed through travelling towards Feramontov.   Did she like England in those days? Better than Japan or the south they would say/have said. It was like pushing aside a bead curtain hung over the door of a strange bar and walking straight into a book by an existentially miserable Mexican writer, in a New York bar in which a man was trying to leave his wife, or perhaps in her case something a little more sinister,  a woman leaving her mistress. That was the doorway into life, away from the existential moment she was living in and would be returning too sooner or later. It had the scent of literature, perhaps on a website or a slim book of stories, like reading a short story in the cafe over some tapas whilst drinking mineral water and good quality espresso.  It was an ordinary day, She wasn't the person who you might know now. She still had the aura of guilt that afflicts those who cannot quite believe they have survived,  still waiting for things to happen to them; who are trying on elements of reaction to see how they feel.  She was recovering and beginning to take risks again, occasionally writing them down in her journals, either as stories or system specifications, both of which were describing related things.  There and then she travelled further south, slightly squinting in bright sunshine even whilst wearing her green shades, imagining some lazy afternoons, with birdsong, planes and insect noise, small glasses of beer then, it would be impossible now.   She was collecting evidence for the people that she worked for, and eventually in a few hours she would report it,  and the next day there would be meetings, which she would not attend and decisions made.   <How long will this take?>    <We should get back around 11 pm , possibly earlier if  everything goes well, I’m surprised you don’t know that.>   <I don’t seem to be able to estimate how long it could take.>  [I monitored our body, evaluating the state of the muscles, removing the fatigue of the day, preparing to heighten our senses…] The day had began with a phone call she monitored between him and Aragaki, his mother. Only her words matter, his are forgotten... ("She should be dead, her body frozen in a cryogenic cell after we have extracted  the information... We  own her body. It is my responsibility. I accepted this work from the council. ")  <If we'd known about this before we could have vanished.> < I wanted to trust him>...

That early evening we leaned against the bar, sipping mineral water and espresso, listening to a French writer poet reading his dirge to an audience in a small gallery/bar.  The poet was full of tenderness talking about these long dead french men. She recognized that the poet really did love these men, the men he was reimagining in this long room, sitting or standing on the slightly raised stage.  It was an authentic love,  she thought, but she, as a  public, was disconcerted by the abuse he was committing. The poet may love what was in these men, perhaps even  what is his. What was it about European men and their false universals, universalism, she wondered. And what was the poet thinking making such a confession to the public. What is this thing he is thinking. Is poetry so unaware of the damage it is causing to the parties ? But she ate pieces of chorizo sausage  whilst musing about the entropic state the poet represents, she said to herself, too late, to late now [...]  She heard herself order some more,< Lagrimas de Pollo and some Patas Bravas...  we need the extra food.>  <Dare we tell him about us ? >  <What could we say to make him understand. It's not as if  there is anyone else like us.> <He might simply hand us over to her...>   The bar had two walls covered with cracked blackened mirrors, portraits of people and ornamental frames, strips of  shelving for pictures and books to be balanced on. The bar was built backing onto a shady courtyard, it was a lightwell, to one side of the bar was a wooden doorway high enough for a horse and cart to enter and a few well watered old trees prospering in the shade of the lightwell. It was a good place.  It was early, they had opened doors into the courtyard to create a breezeway through the cafe. There was a  group of people of the kind you find in expensive hotels sitting around and expecting to be talking late into the  night. She sat on a bench in the courtyard,   inspecting the walls and deciding on her climbing route, whilst finishing her drink and eating the last of the Patas Bravas. 

We sit listening with disinterest to the people around her.   We look at the shut door of the fire escape on the far side of the lightwell and decide  to climb up the shady side of the fire escape to the roof and turns off the  phone. She puts on her climbing boots, leaves her other shoes under the chair, leaves the scarf with the shoes.    Stretches and makes sure her muscles are warm and loose. And starts climbing up the side of the building. Of all the things she had climbed; trees, rocks, mountains, buildings remained her favorite.   <Am I OK to climb?  She asks.>   <Yes, its fine. Let's go.>   She climbs up the edge of the black painted fire escape,  avoiding touching the stair supports that are coated with anti-climb paint until around twenty feet above the ground.  She rests fifty feet off the ground,  thinking about how nice it was that she can climb up the side of buildings these days, looking at the security cameras on the fire escape wall.  Nobody sees her ascent.  < why are you climbing so slowly?> < I am climbing at the speed of a skilled climber, anything faster and people might notice> As she hangs there four floors up the side of the buildings lightwell.  She thinks that she can see the Earth which has been carrying us for tens of thousands of years reaching its limits.  Climbing carefully, unhurriedly,  slowly.  Using pipes, windowsills, cracked bricks,  the right-angle metal supports of the fire escape.  Halfway up the side of building, the sound of the people in the gallery below, the differences between the city's silences are no less marked because we are ascending the side of the building, caught in a quiet moment between the noise of traffic and the frenetic office life,  our lives are inextricably linked to the noise and derives its significance from it. But here, and so we climb another three metres. Thinking of the bowl on the side-table in Japan which contained an array of pink and red flowers, she remembers a now faceless teacher who used to say: look, this is how the world is, these irreconcilable differences  are are like these flowers, made like this flower hundreds of petals, stamens, stalks, molecules, atoms, particles, parsing from this universe to another, in an identical bowl.  Not so much differences but a divide, an unavoidable division. She can feel and hear the smile in her head. She stretches across and climbs across and up. She over stretches her left arm and can feel the muscles about to go. Whilst part of her climbs, the other part of her allows images  to emerge from the mass of her discontinuous memories, and as she pulls herself tight into the corner to avoid a window, a foot supporting her on the window sill, she looked on the petal of the rock rose and thought of the long roads passing Castaliae Fons, thinking of driving the car fast, northwards on the E1, southwards on the E9,  thinking she might return and descend into everyday life through the curtain of the tavern into a scene about Eve by Cixous, and,  but instead it was just flowers, cherry blossom, some of whom are dying, entropy,  petals falling off onto the white table surface and into the shoes she had abandoned as she ran. Fingers in cracks where the mortar has crumbled/  <How am I remembering this?>  She asks herself ninety feet up the side of the building.  <Sorry, its the Adrenalin and the need to protect our body.>    She laughs and says,  <I'm glad your talking again.>    <It seems slipperier than before.>   <It is,>  she said.  She reached the top of the wall which was about 30 to 40 Metres above the ground (she couldn't accurately judge the height)  and climbed over the low balustrade and lay down on the flat  roof on her back to rest and looked up at the sky. <vertical drifting... Give it a few minutes,  perhaps five to recover.>  She watched a peregrine pass overhead looking for an evening kill.  <It's OK,>  the voice continued,  <one of the muscles in our left arm is overstretched, otherwise we are fine. The left arm will feel warm as we repair the muscle.  We can strap it later.>  <I loved the memory of the flowers, I had forgotten about that,>  she thought.  <It's nice up here, very quiet. Can I move?>    <Yes, it's good.>   <I wonder how many memories we don't share.> <I think its no more than 5% perhaps 8% of the total, but it might be more or less.>  <Then there are the memories that we have both lost.>  <It's probably why we have never become a single subject, I'm glad though.>   She said out loud. <and why you are more acrophiliac than I am>  The sky is clear, not even a single plane, a few scattered clouds.  <We are pregnant,  do you think we should let it grow?>   <Is it a girl?>    <It can be. We can choose.>   <Will it be like me, us, two of us sharing a body and mind?>    <I think so because it exists now without the virus, without me, until we decide to let it grow.>  <Do you think you would have become sentient if I hadn't died?>  <Don't know, we don't know because I am you after all, would you like that?>    <And the baby/virus would not be us?>   <No, it would be two of itself.    Would you like that? >  <Yes, good, i like that we are like this.>   They laugh, only a solitary seagull passing overhead sees this woman lying on her back laughing to herself. She thinks, they both think it would be nice to have a child.  To not be alone. From such desires everything changes.

When she stops laughing she walks across the flat roof and jumps down onto the roof of the adjoining warehouse building. A few moments later sitting on the edge of the building roof looking down into the warehouse buildings light-well at the car she has come to find. Feet dangling over the abyss.  There were still people in the offices, or at least the lights were still on. Across the other side of the light-well she could see that the entrance to the stairs was open. She thinks she'll walk down the stairs. She restarted her phone.   "hello Ley, it's me, the car we are  looking for is hidden in the light-well at Dunbas and Brittain..."  She paused and let her ask questions.  "I'm on the roof,"  she paused.  "Thanks ley, it's not safe for me to stay here, to speak, hence... thankyou. Speak to you tomorrow. "   <We should call him for the last time> <Yes, sadly we should> She sighs and phones him. [He is in a meeting with her other boss, I should take this he says showing the screen to her. She looks amused,  he doesn't know what it is about his relationship with Erro that amuses her. Perhaps he never will.  "Hello"  He says.   "We are going to have to have a serious talk about Us and more seriously about your mother, Aragaki.” She says to him, looking at lights going on in windows in the lightwell.   Pauses, pauses.   "Because, just because.  Poor human man."  She,  who understands that she isn't really human at all. Smiles, still sitting on the roof.  The woman sitting opposite the suddenly shocked man, who still occasionally thinks she may have to kill him, finds herself smiling.  "Ï'll be back home at midnight or so, or we can talk in the morning... oh and I've told Ley already but tell her that the car we are  looking for is hidden in the lightwell at Dunbas and Brittain..."  He tells her he'll go to her house when he can. He looks across the room and says his voice shocked.  "Ërro is on the roof of Dunbas and Brittain..." ]

She left through the stair shaft, the top three floors of the building were being refurbished, there were still people working and leaving the offices. Feramontov was in his room. "You," he said. "Yes," she replied. Taking what she’d come for and leaving him and his partner on the floor behind the desk. She adjusted her clothing and joined a few of them in the lift of the fourth floor and left the building...    <Did you always intend to do that?>    <We had to, for us, not anyone else, we cannot speak to Aragaki, this may be a sufficient message.  I don't understand why that was so easy.>   She smiled, for both of them. <Feromontov was very good. He killed me in Tokyo.> <But not us.> <No not us.>  The front doors were open. Driving home and in the early morning looking at the photos she had taken from the office, they were surveillance photos of her. Inspecting the photos image by image. Investigating each square centimetre of the enlargements, an imprecise  deconstruction of the images piece by piece, then putting the images into an envelope.    A long set of tasks that really required impatience and patience by turn, cups of espresso and cappuccino drank into the night.<I enjoyed climbing the building.> <  What will we do about this?> They already both knew they would have to follow the line of flight and vanish, but how and where to?  Henry the cat is sitting on the table looking at her or at the images and demanding strokes. "Henry are you like us or are you more unified?" The cat seems to be smiling at her. She knows the sense is different from when she was standing over Ferumontov's body, the sense now is that she is faraway from the dead body on the floor of the building.  Indifferent to his death.  Now it's the prints of the south, the novels of Duras, the music of Oslo, these are the things of the person she becomes, the mutant mother of the child called Eve that probably means the end of the uniqueness of the human species; nothing but the actuality. But who is the woman who loved Castaliae Fons that she was thinking of ?

When she returns home she meets her neighbor, two bodies meeting in the lift, both looking tired.  Work, he says, we had a patch release to install. I fed Henry earlier. Thank you, she said. I was climbing up the side of a building.  Did you climb down ? No, once I get to the top, my acrophilia fades and almost vanishes. so I walked down the stairs. People who don't climb cathedrals, people like me that is,  he said, miss some fine sights.  I'll take you up one later.  It's a date.  He imagines.  The surface of the images is like old skin, full of fractalized  wrinkles and scar tissue, it makes you feel sad.  Once it was alive you think but now it is simply in front of you, like dead things scarcely worthy of mass consumption. Spacetime has passed and it is lost, all that remains is a representation which is not in the original sense sense and sense.  Here though, looking at this picture of us and our neighbor in the  supermarket, a few days before before this meeting and our leaving its still like the fast drive through the tunnel beneath the alps northwards, the day after a poet abused language and his loves.  There is music playing through the wall from his loft.

By the time he arrives at the loft,  we are asleep in the bedroom, the cat sleeping beside our body. The lights are on, he locks all the outside doors. Brings glasses of water and gets into bed with her. We open our eyes and say "hello".  Beside the bed a pile of unnoticed photographs... We don't tell him about the dead men who Aragaki had sent for us, or that it's over, one of you can be happy  for a day or so.  It is the last time... 

[liusaidh-writing]

North Carolina + Outlander

A lifelong North Carolina native’s quick, thoroughly amateur tour of pieces of NC that are in the books and/or show! YAAY! (OR NOT?) I’m including what I can, though I’m sure there’s tons more I could add. Enjoy!

FRASER'S RIDGE

The Fraser Family home and the surrounding area are obviously fictional places, but they’re said to be ‘located’ in or around Blowing Rock, North Carolina. This is a beautiful mountain town with plenty of hiking and family activities to keep you busy. You can visit Blowing Rock (below), take in the views, and supposedly, if you hold a piece of paper and try to let it drop over the edge of the rocky cliff, it’ll blow back up (hence the name Blowing Rock.) I am no geologist or scientist or whatever, so please, do not ask me to explain this phenomenon.  Drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway and try to imagine Jamie, Claire, and family on horseback up in the hills! 

Grandfather Mountain

This is where Roger and Bree go to the Highland Games. Pictured below is the Mile High swinging bridge (it does swing, and it’s especially great when the fog has settled in!)  They do hold Highland Games up here from time to time, though I can’t say I’ve ever been. (I don’t know exactly WHERE - it’s obviously not held on this bridge :p). It’s a nerve-wracking drive up the mountain, but oh-so-pretty. (Side note: the Gathering at the beginning of The Fiery Cross took place in TN on Roan Mountain, but I always felt it would’ve been more fitting had it been on Grandfather Mountain, considering Roger and Bree visit in the future... but I suppose DG had some historical information I do not that caused her to put the Gathering in TN.)

Salem (now known as Winston-Salem, NC)

Old Salem is a living history museum. (Much like Colonial Williamsburg up in Virginia.) In the books, from time to time, Salem is mentioned, so I thought I’d include it because it’s a fun place to visit! 

Alamance Battleground 

This battleground is in Alamance County in central North Carolina, and there’s a visitor center and they sometimes do historic reenactments here! There’s....also a good outlet mall nearby if you’re more into that sort of thing. (LOL)

Tryon Palace (The Governor's Palace)

New Bern, NC is one of my favorite places to visit. The downtown area is wonderful (Pepsi, anyone?) and you can tour Tryon Palace and a number of other Colonial area homes and locations! It’s so interesting, and gorgeous along the waterfront. If you recall, when Claire was arrested and wound up the Governor’s scribe of sorts, this is where she is held.  Jamie and Claire have at least one dinner with Governor Tryon here, too. This palace, as far as I am aware, was abandoned as the Revolution started up, and the current Governor fled to New York (this is all from memory as I have a child crawling on top of me and I haven’t the time to Google this shit.) They also have had OUTLANDER events here in the past. 

Wilmington, NC

Hey, this is where Jamie is taking a piss and he meets his daughter for the first time!! Wilmington is a fun city to visit, though the traffic is absolutely horrible so...be prepared. There are nearby beaches and things, but I’d take a look at historic Downtown first. There’s a great riverwalk overlooking the Cape Fear River (yeah, that one that Jamie and Claire take a boat down to reach Cross Creek, and in the process lose everything they own...poor things. Also fuck Stephen Bonnet.) There’s lots of shops and restaurants, and, thankfully, a nice breeze because JHRC, North Carolina is fucking HOT in the summer.

Ocracoke Island, NC

This tiny island is featured in at least one of the books - though DG never mentions how actually difficult it is to get to, unless there was a land bridge back then??) It is part of the Outer Banks, accessible only by boat or ferry (1-800-Ferry - you fellow NC people know what I’m talking about!) Check out the wild Ponies, corralled on the island, rent a bike and go to the beach, stay at Blackbeard’s Lodge, visit the lighthouse. It’s small, but it’s amazing. If you do anything on this list, go here. It’d be my first pick, anyway! (Shameless self-promotion: go read my fic Among the Wild Ponies to see JC frolick around the island!)

So, that concludes this Outlander-ish tour of NC. Hope you enjoyed yourself! 

[indiavolowetrust]

THE OBEY ME UNDATEABLES AS CRYPTIDS

Read THE OBEY ME BOYS AS CRYPTIDS here.

SOLOMON

Mama’s always been kind of a nag. Don’t play in the park by yourself, she says. Come home before the street lights turn on, don’t use your bike on the street, and always tell her wherever you’re going. Stay away from dogs you don’t know, don’t pet the wild deer in the woods, and try not to bother your crotchety neighbor too much. Don’t wander too far into the woods, please, and definitely don’t cross the stream behind your house.

Most importantly, don’t talk to strangers.

But the white-haired man tells you his name is Mr. Solomon! You’ve told him yours! So that means you two aren’t strangers anymore, right? Right. And because you two aren’t strangers anymore, then that means Mama would be okay with you checking out his Wonderful Wizard’s Emporium in the deeper part of the woods. Mr. Solomon’s an adult and he says it’s okay, so she’ll think it’s okay, too. Just step into the circle of mushrooms and you’ll be there.

Maybe that’s why Mama cries late at night. Maybe that’s why Mama looks at you like that when she thinks you aren’t looking. Maybe that’s why you have too many fingers now, your teeth are just a little too sharp, and the eye in the middle of your forehead has sprouted into something that whispers in the middle of the night. Maybe that’s why she looks at you like you have three heads sometimes, like you don’t even belong to her.

Then again, she’s always been kind of a nag.

SIMEON

You can’t remember his face, much less his name. You can’t remember how tall he was, what the color of his skin was, or even what color his eyes were. You’re hungry, tired, and cold. You haven’t even seen Mama since this morning! Why won’t they let you see her? Why can’t they let her into the room? Why do you have to answer all these dumb questions about some adult you can’t even remember?

The policeman only continues to ask you the same questions over and over again.  You’ve been gone for months, he says. Not hours. You were ruled dead after they found your bones in a circle of mushrooms. The policeman isn’t really sure how you survived or got here, but that’s not really any of his business. He only needs to know if you’re really who you say you are.

You can only remember the beating of white wings. A hand that pulled you through a mirror and into the sky. You were falling through the clouds before he caught you, hushing your cries, and then you woke up in the woods behind your house. That’s all you know.

Of course, he doesn’t believe you.

It’s only when you bare your teeth and let your talons rip into the table that he lets you see Mama.

DIAVOLO

A blind date when you’re literally blind isn’t the best idea sometimes. You’ve had waitresses tell you that the person before you doesn’t exactly match his profile picture. You’ve had more than your fair share of them try to take advantage of you. You’ve had a few stalkers. Each and every possible disaster in the world of dating  has already happened to you.

But this one seems nice. His name is Diavolo, which is a bit of a strange name, but he seems nice enough. The waiter seems to be afraid of him, but that’s fine, too. So what if he looks a little funny? You and your blind date enjoy a nice meal, he treats you to a quiet evening by the lake, and he’s a complete gentleman the whole time.

So when he asks to walk you home, you don’t decline.

You two stand in front of your apartment. You feel him leaning in. You try to capture his lips in a kiss first, fumbling for his face – and it is only then that you realize exactly why the waiter was so afraid.

There’s a pair of massive, curved horns. Scales at the sides of his face and neck. Something curls around your leg – it feels like a tail, almost – and he draws you closer. His mouth is strangely warm, and he tastes of ash and fire. As if he were borne from it. You had registered that he was tall before, but it is only now that you notice that he truly does loom over you. What feels like a pair of leathery wings embraces you as he deepens the kiss.

So you may or may not have gone on a blind date with a demon. You don’t think you have a problem with it.

BARBATOS

They say that you see him before every calamity. That he is the harbinger of death and destruction. That he is the herald of disasters to come. That even witnessing a glimpse of him ensures some great misfortune. You’ve heard a great many things about the dark creature – none of them good – and you’d wager to say that he’s  written into almost all of your town’s folktales and urban legends. The timeless, nameless creature is all but a part of the town’s history itself, really, considering the stories passed down from generation to generation.

Yet you can’t bring yourself to believe them.

If he is truly the harbinger of death and destruction, the herald of disasters to come, the bringer of misfortune – then surely he wouldn’t have bothered to save you. If he is truly all that the townspeople say that he is, then surely there would be no reason for him to venture into the burning wreck. Surely he would not put himself in harm’s way just to ensure you didn’t die a horrible, fiery death in the mountains.

The sight of him had frightened you, of course. Spotting such a creature perched at the top of a mountain could only incite so many reactions. And then the driver had lost control of the bus, the vehicle had gone careening over the side of the cliff, and what you had thought would be your last moments were filled with screaming. The air was oddly still when you awoke, the flames of the bus somehow motionless, but maybe you were only dreaming. Hallucinating from having inhaled so much of the smoke. That would be the only logical explanation.

The other explanation – that this mysterious creature had somehow stopped time just to try to save you and the other passengers – is completely ridiculous.

LUKE

Your mother tells you that your grandmother’s gone a little over the edge. She’s senile, says your mother. That’s just what happens to people when they get too old. And so your mother warns you not to say anything about her claims that her yapping chihuahua, Luke, bakes all the pastries and cakes for the annual bake sale. Your grandmother would be upset if you said something like that, and you wouldn’t want her to be sad, would you?

So you don’t say anything when she talks to Luke as if he really were a human child. You don’t say anything when she cracks open a hefty of recipes to read to him. You don’t say anything when she laughs in some imaginary conversation with Luke, commenting on the baker’s technique, and you definitely don’t say anything when you pass by the elaborately decorated room that she’s set up for her chihuahua. Because that would make Grandmother upset, and you don’t want to see her like that.

The fact that you saw the chihuahua icing a few cupcakes on the dining room table is completely irrelevant. Not that you would even admit it. You’re pretty sure you aren’t going senile like Grandmother.

[seriouslyhooked]

When We Collide (Part 5)

Emma Swan has always known one thing: trust no one but yourself. Unfortunately she forgot her one rule and now she’s paying for it. One bad decision led her to the monstrous ‘Crocodile’ a mobster in New York who goes by the name Gold. Hope seems lost until she meets another person in this underworld, Killian Jones. Despite the place they find each other, a true love blossoms, and they manage to get away. But what will happen when Emma discovers who Killian really is? Will love prevail? Um, yeah, I’m writing this, so duh – it’s all love all the time. Fic features motorcycles, hot guys in leather cuts, and a bit of action/drama. Will end happily, and despite the first chapter, will be light on angst. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Available on FanFiction Here and AO3 Here.

A/N: Hey everybody! First and foremost, just want to thank those of you still on this journey with me. My motivation to write has been so much lower than I thought it would be, but I haven’t lost sight of what I want from this fic and I am happy to finally share a new installment. This chapter brings a last burst of road trip fluff and the build up to a big moment  – Emma’s introduction to Killian’s life in the MC. It’s going to be fun to explore these dynamics in the next few chapters, but for now I hope you will enjoy, and I can’t wait to see what you all think. Thanks so much for reading!

In the quiet, tranquil calm of a woodland morning, Killian watched the cabin bedroom fill with sunlight, bringing the softest golden glow to the rustic room where he and Emma had spent the night. Birds chirped to greet the new day’s light, and the gentle breeze among these mountains brushed branches from a nearby oak against the windowpane. The whistle of the wind and the gentle swish of leaves on glass melded together into something deeply familiar, a symphony of sound, the song of sunrise.

Sadly, this song was the last of its kind that Emma and Killian would enjoy on this journey. The final portion of their cross-country trek would come today, and when they arrived back home, a new reality would set in. Things would change drastically, Killian would have to reengage with a life he’d long ago left behind, yet despite the challenges that awaited him, Killian was astounded at the peace he could feel in this moment. Holding Emma as she still lay sleeping, he was filled with contentment, choosing to anchor himself to something that would be forever constant: his love for this incredible woman.

“You’re doing it again,” Emma murmured, stirring from sleep and already entirely aware of him before she’d so much as opened her eyes.

Killian let the sultry sound of her sleep-laced voice wash over him. It sent a similar sensation coursing through him as the soft brush of her fingertips over his chest. Strumming an unknown melody, her hands on his skin lit him up inside, and though he’d just taken her a few hours ago, he was already ready to devour her again. Strewn out like this, in the glow of early morning, Emma was a vision with gold hair and sun kissed skin. She was stunning, and through the grace of God and all good things, she was miraculously his. The thought of that gave him great comfort and his own hold on her tightened ever so slightly. In truth, he was so distracted he nearly forgot to answer her sassy statement, but the smile that appeared at her lips as her green eyes opened for the day demanded that he ask for more.

“Doing what, love?”

“You’re loving me so much that I simply can’t sleep through it.”

Another man would deny such a cheesy proclamation, or deflect from the depth of his feelings, but not Killian. No, his Swan had called him to the floor, and she was right. He was up this morning thinking only of his love for her, and while other thoughts may threaten to encroach on their time together, he had pushed them all aside. She was the best way to stay grounded and centered, and he was selfish, needing to soak up every last drop of their moments together just to keep his peace of mind.

“I’d offer some condolences, Emma, but I think we both know how you feel about my loving you.”

He murmured the words against her skin, taking advantage of her lingering drowsiness to pepper kisses on her lips, her jaw, and then the hollow of her neck. He hummed out a sound of sheer delight when he felt her shiver beneath him, and when she let out that perfect moan of hers, the one that was part gasp and part plea for more, he was lost. All conversation was behind him, and he knew the only thing left was to show her how much he loved her. Luckily for Killian, nothing had ever come so naturally.

The choice he must make this morning was between a fast and hard claiming, or a slow, steady savoring of two souls becoming one. The payoff for either was bound for greatness, but Killian was keenly aware of how everything would soon be different. Once they arrived back with his brothers, the solitude they’d cultivated would be encroached on, and though Killian had his own house, which could provide ample space and privacy, he also had a sneaking suspicion that his brother and fellow club members would be highly invested in him and his woman. After weeks of it being just the two of them, Killian knew he’d have to share Emma’s attentions, and that he too would have to interact with people other than his Swan. It would all be good in the end, but he wanted to make the most of these last truly secluded moments that they had together.

The teasing slowness of his ministrations became a torturous affair not just for Emma, but for him as well. He began by tasting her everywhere, tracing every line and curve of her, with extra attention paid to the places that made her blood sing. He hung on every breath she released, and every charged call of his name that whispered past her lips. When she came apart from his touch alone, his sense of pride surged dramatically, but the most beautiful sight was when she relaxed back into that post-climax moment, gazing at him with love in her eyes and nothing but a soul-deep contentment in her heart. It made a man feel worthy to know he had put that look on his woman’s face, and for Killian it was the closest he would ever feel to absolution. He’d done wrong in this life, made choices that veered well off the path of what was good or moral, but somehow, she still loved him, and Killian was better for that love.

By the time she was ready to be taken, Killian was so riled, his senses were frayed in all directions. Knowing that he was already worked up, Emma decided to push him further, murmuring that she loved him and asking him to make her his. The searing heat of his need for her was constant, but the feeling when he thrust inside and claimed her was the most agonizingly incredible feeling in the world. Nothing should feel this right, or this perfect, but with Emma it always did. Their rhythm was synced to perfection, their love palpable in the air around them, and though Killian did his best to savor every bit of it he could, it always felt like it was over far too soon. All it took was Emma arching her back, crying out in ecstasy, giving over to bliss, and he was right there with her, spent but saved and feeling like despite the uneasiness of this next moment, he and Emma could handle anything.

“Whatever happens today, it won’t change anything,” Emma said, her fingers running through his hair that was growing longer than he normally allowed it. She pushed it out of his face, before looking into his eyes and smiling in a way that melted his heart. “I love you, and I always will.”

“It’s the same for me, love, but rest assured, if you feel even the slightest discomfort, we will move on. We’re bound to nothing but each other.”

“Killian, this is your home -,” she began. He quieted her thought with a kiss before clarifying the truth to her.

“You are my home, Emma. Wherever you wish to be is where we will be, and I will be the happiest man alive just for being by your side.”

Emma readily accepted this promise from him, whispering that she felt the same as they continued to laze for a while more together, enjoying their connection and soaking in this last bit of privacy. Eventually, they had to get up and check out from this retreat, and they moved through the morning with a practiced precision of two people who had done this for weeks. Travelling had become second nature to them both, and the six-hour ride standing between them and his brothers would be easily managed.

For Killian, the journey honestly felt too short, though he made sure to stop and keep a steady pace for Emma’s sake. He knew she had never been to California before, and there was something magical about this place compared with every other. It was easily the most beautiful of the terrain they’d been in for weeks as well, and in Big Sur specifically, there was a natural beauty totally unique to this corner of the world. Giant forests rose impossibly high into the sky, a cross between the woods of the pacific northwest and the jungles of South America. Trees stood so tall the tops could not be seen, and even in patches where fires had blazed in seasons past, life prevailed, with green vegetation growing from ash and soot and dust. When they reached the ocean, Killian felt Emma’s hold on him tighten, an indicator of her excitement, but he still drove quite a few miles down the cliff-lined coastal highway before pulling off to stop.

“Now this is the kind of view I could get used to,” Emma murmured as he helped her off the bike, taking in the secluded patch of beach they’d driven towards where not a soul was nearby. With her hand in his, Killian immediately felt stronger, but the look on Emma’s face prompted a gentle, pleasant aching in his heart. She was happy to be here, in awe of this place, and to Killian that meant everything.

“We’re closing in on our destination now, love. We’ll be back well within the hour if we drive straight through, but there’s something I would very much like to show you, if you’re interested.”

“Lead the way, Captain.”

He led her down the pebbled path to the seaside, torn between watching her reactions and actually navigating their course. The best part of this was that Emma had no idea what was coming. They’d approached from the perfect angle, preserving a truly hidden gem from sight. Only when they rounded the corner would she see it, and as they made their move, he heard her gasp and felt her hand squeeze his tightly.

“Oh my God… I don’t even have words for how beautiful this is.”

Killian completely understood the feeling, though his own sensation of being struck speechless by something truly stunning often came directly from Emma. In this case, the beauty in question was an old, yet faithfully enduring shore house. It was painted white, weathered from storms, but still well-kept and largely preserved against the passage of time. The nearby community saw to it, since the owners of the home had long since gone. This shoreline was all public lands now, but the house remained, a testament to the man who once lived there, a gifted artist, and a natural born storyteller.

The remnants of his decades old art were painted, drawn, and constructed into the very foundation of this home and the mediums of expression were all treasures from the sea. Sea glass especially was plentiful here, drawing dizzying swirls of color along the house, the wood working and more. The glass had been cemented there for decades, but it shone with the same fervor and sparkle as ever. Shells of all shades, some whole and some not, were also used. Iridescent golden hued pieces, hewn from the mix of cold ocean water and warmer kelp garden pools were the stars of the show. They were each a small treasure uniquely found along these rocky coasts, often collected by the sea otters who called this sea shore home. This collection of the rare shells was astounding, and made all the more beautiful by being mixed in with others that were delicate shades of white and ivory and some that were a cooler oyster blue. They hung from wind chimes in the beach trees and off the lanterns, while some darker shells had been ground down to a painted stain that had been used in part to tattoo larger rocks that were too big for the sea to claim. Wherever the eye looked it was drawn to spiraling shapes and stories, never running out of objects to admire.

“How have I never heard of this? And how are we possibly the only ones here?” Emma asked, moving closer and looking at the intricate designs of shells and stones that had been added to the sands and earth more recently. A local commission of artists was in charge of these added displays of beauty, updating them occasionally, but usually waiting for nature to clear the slate. After a big storm where rainwater washed it all away, or higher tides than normal where the sea came just to the house’s front steps, new designs were created and enacted. But it was clear that there had only been sun for some time, and they were fresh on the heels of an exceptionally well-done redesign.

“Very few people know of this place, love. It’s a secret that is guarded by the people of this town so tightly you’ll find no books or blogs or trace of it anywhere. Liam and I are two very rare exceptions, outsiders with the good fortune to know it’s here.”

“How did that happen?” Emma asked, leaning into him and eager for the story from his past.

“My brother and I needed escape when we were here with our father, but we had little means of finding it,” he admitted, bracing himself for talk of that past life, and knowing he should get used to it now that they were nearly home. “The sea was the only thing of comfort for both of us, and we came to it as often as we could. We scoured every last bit of the coast, and I mean every bit. One day we landed here, and happened upon this house as we were searching the coastline for unknown coves. It was easily the best find we ever made. Of course, we nearly scared the life out of the woman who was crafting the shellscape that day, and once she alerted the other town’s people there was a big to do. We were sworn to secrecy and all the like. We never did tell a soul. It remained our secret – one idyllic hideaway from the world we lived in.”

“But now you’ve broken your oath,” Emma said, looking at him curiously, though she was clearly glad for his breach of that old promise.

“Some may believe that.”

“But you don’t?”

“No, love. I believe the promises I have made and will make to you supersede any others. Besides, I am fairly certain that the promise is null when it comes to my wife.”

“Funny, I don’t remember getting married,” Emma said, though her teasing was a front for the rush of emotions she was feeling. “In fact, I don’t even remember you proposing.”

Let’s change that, he thought to himself knowing he had the ring in his pocket right now, but reason won out in the end, and he remembered his plan. He wanted to get Emma totally settled into their new life first, and to make sure she was ready in all ways. He knew she loved him and that she would be his forever, but it was only right to ensure that he do things properly.

“Soon enough, love. You have my word on that.”

Emma grinned at his affirmation, pulling him down by the collar of his leather jacket and kissing him passionately. When they broke apart, she asked him to promise they’d come back here and he did, and after a bit more time in this private oasis, they headed back to the road, driving towards their destination once more.

The ride along the coast was quick, far quicker than he remembered, and when they pulled off the coastal highway and to the discrete exit leading to the town he’d once grown up in, Killian could sense Emma’s surprise. They didn’t need to share a conversation for him to gauge her apprehension and excitement. She was no doubt wondering if they were really going to be living amongst this dense and beautiful forest. It would be a big change from her life in the cities she’d always known.

Soon enough they made it to the town line, reading the hunter green placard that announced their arrival. Unsure of what he expected, Killian was surprised to see just how much improvement had been made in his time away. Their town had always been quaint, but it could easily be described as ‘down on its luck’ when he was a boy. He knew it was his brother’s hope to not only remove the stain of his father’s shady dealings, but to help revitalize this community in a way that had been lacking for decades. But when Killian departed to seek his revenge on Gold, those ideas were mere figments of a would-be dream.

Liam has truly made good, he thought to himself as they cruised down the main street. Here along the town’s center there were new businesses and old ones that had been repaired and shaped for competing in the world today. Things were still classic and beachy, but the energy around it all gave away two important facts: the first was that this town was being tended to and cared for by its tenants, the second was that it was also being protected, and that anything that may threaten this currently peaceful ecosystem would not be allowed.

In this stretch of the ride, Killian could see some familiar faces in the mix, people from his old life in this town who were going about their day to day none the wiser about his return. There were also quite a few new faces as well, but Killian could spot the tourists right away. Their biggest tell was their fixation on his bike. People who lived in this region regularly would be densensitized, and since Liam had imposed a safety parameter for the town from other gangs, they wouldn’t bat an eye, even at a biker without his cut.  

Not far beyond the center of town was the Den, the once large warehouse that had been reconfigured to fit the Land Pirate members and families when need be. When he was here last, the place was little more than a dump, with tell-tale signs of partying strewn about both outside and within. There was also a crappy, rusted gate around the perimeter that did the job of securing the place on some level, but had always been a huge eyesore. Gone was all of that, and in its stead was higher tech, better quality fencing. The Den was now fortified, and Killian could see the precautions put in place that passersby may not realize were installed. He also took note of the probie standing guard at the entrance.

Well this should be interesting, Killian thought as he drove up. He had no idea who this probationary member of the club was. Killian would have to explain who he was and that could get awkward. But before he had the chance the unknown man was speaking.

“Well I’ll be damned. Pres was right. Hook’s come home again.”

“Pres?” Emma whispered and Killian replied quietly.

“That’s Liam’s title here, love.”

“And Hook?”

“My road name.” Emma nodded, taking it all in stride as Killian turned his attention back to the probie. “So, he’s expecting me then?”

“Has been for weeks. You sure took your time getting out here, Hook.”

He looked at the probationary patch on the man’s Land Pirates leather cut and saw the stitched name ‘Mouse.’ Had to be a story behind that name. Didn’t exactly blend with the others who were patched in when Killian was here. “How do you even know who I am?”

“You kidding? You’re a legend, man, and so is she.”

For a minute Killian tensed up, thinking that Mouse was talking about Emma. He was feeling protective, and didn’t like the idea of other men looking her way unless they were going to show the proper respect. Only when Emma let out a laugh did he realize his mistake.

“Oh my God, you mean the bike! That’s classic. Please tell me it has a name.” Emma’s joking was incredibly apparent, and Killian was surprised at how nonplussed she was by their being on unknown turf.

“She,” Mouse stressed and Emma bit back her laugh, but her body still shook with it. “And yeah, bikes get names.”

“Wait don’t tell me. This will be way more fun if I can guess. Hmm, Harley? No that’s kind of obvious. Uh, I mean what do you call a gendered bike? Kind of a tall order… Oh I know, Lady. Kind of on the nose with the whole ‘it’s a she’ thing, but it works, right?”

Killian chuckled at the way Emma was enjoying herself, and he noticed the look of shock on the probie’s face. Clearly he didn’t understand the situation. This was no ordinary woman on the back of his ride giving him shit for having named his bike. This was the most important person in his world, and no one, club member or not, was going to question that.

“Look, kid, my woman and I have been on the road for awhile. We could use the rest, and it’s probably best not to keep my brother waiting anymore.” The overt use of the label for Emma created a total mood shift in Mouse. He had taken the hint.

“Absolutely, Hook. Ma’am.”

The change in tone as he nodded at them and buzzed them through to the compound was pronounced, so much so that Emma mentioned it when they parked and she stepped off the motorcycle.

“Is the somewhat caveman ‘me man, she my woman’ thing baked into this whole MC life?” Emma asked, her brow arched even as a smile teased at her lips. “I’m not complaining, per se. Just curious if I’ll have to announce my belonging to you everywhere I go.”

“Probies are probies for a reason, love, and the reason is they’ve got a whole lot to learn and more than one thing to prove. The men in this club with a patch, my brothers, they know better than to disrespect a woman, Old Lady or not.”

“Ah right, I forgot about that charming title. I don’t know who possibly came up with that one. ‘Old Lady.’ It’s so… unflattering. Had to be a man.”

“In this world, you can blame nearly everything on a man, love,” Killian quipped and Emma grinned at his assessment before continuing to lament the biker term for a man’s significant other.

“I honestly thought I’d have a few years before getting called ‘old lady’ and even then it would be by bratty neighborhood kids, not hot guys in leather who name their motorcycles.” Killian growled at the mention of men being hot and Emma teased him with a nip against his lips that was designed to have him wanting more but was only meant in jest. “But don’t worry, I’ll make up for all of this somehow. I’m gonna find you the perfect partner nickname that undercuts how irresistibly sexy I find you in all your leather. I just need a little time.”

“You can call me any damn thing you want, Emma. As long as you call me yours.”

The words were honest and immediately shifted the sass of Emma’s commentary to something softer. Instinctively, she placed a gentle and loving kiss on his lips before they both turned to the warehouse. Together they walked hand in hand towards the door, and when they entered, Killian held his breath. Would this place look like the nightmare of his youth? The place he’d have fought through anything to get away from? It took only the briefest moment to see those worries were unfounded.

Killian was utterly relieved at how normal the Den looked, and how the relic of old had been completely rehabilitated. The general concept was the same, starting with a vastness in the entrance that made it seem like this place went on forever. The entryway blended into a great room where club members and guests spent a lot of time, and in the back there’d surely be more changes to go along with these ones. Killian knew the kitchen and living quarters, the war room and Liam’s office all would have been revamped if this part of the warehouse was. But this communal space in particular held a lot of painful memories. The ghosts of this place had haunted him for some time, but they were nearly all cast away by the warmth and modern makings of this renovation. It made Killian want to see more, something he never truly believed was possible, but as curious as Killian was, there simply wasn’t time. Soon the renovation was forgotten, and instead he was faced with the all important figure standing there, waiting for him after years of no contact. 

“Liam.” 

…

Post-Note: So I know I have stopped it right at the start of a hugely important reunion, but I fully intend to make up for it in the next chapter. Introducing the actual MC is going to be such fun for me, but, as with this chapter, it may take some time before I have a next installment out. My muse has been tricky, but I am hoping to get a bigger chunk of my story, ‘Feels Like This’ written by the end of the year so I can hopefully finish it up. Anyway, I would love to hear what you all thought of this chapter, and as always, I really appreciate you all reading and thank you so much for the support! Until next time!

[stardew-saloon]

perhaps,,, some sambastian...? idk maybe like seb takes sam on a bike ride? brain smooth i just like sambastian

Hi thanks this is the cutest idea ever ! This is all I’m gonna think about for the next twenty years. <3

I decided to do like. How it turns out in Seb’s ten heart event, where he smooches the Farmer for the first time!

This one is kind of long because I got carried away whoops !! Please enjoy uvu

Sambastian Bike Ride

Sam and Sebastian were hanging out in the basement, their perferred hangout spot as Jodi liked to come in unannounced quite often. They were watching whatever was on Sebasitan’s laptop, but neither were paying attention, too focused on how close they were to each other.

They weren’t ever very touchy. Lately, though, the two would gravitate towards each other. Their hands were graze each other when they walked and Sam could feel how warm Seb was when he would reach over him and try to teach him how to play pool properly.

Out of nowhere, Sebastian asks if Sam wants to go take a ride on his bike. He’d only mentioned wanting to ride it once or twice. Seb suspected he was scared of it, but he never said that.

Sam agrees almost immediately, his eyes lighting up in a way that Sebastian had grown to love. He thought Sam was annoying when he first moved in. They were both very young, with Sam’s father going off to war and Sebastian’s recently dying. They bonded over that after a couple months of Sebastian being angry at everything.

Now, though, their relationship was much better. Feelings had started to blossom years ago. Neither wanted to admit it, especially not Sebastian.

They get up from his bed, untangling themselves from the pile of blankets. Sebastian threw on one of his sweaters (which was really Sam’s, but he had stolen it), walking upstairs with Sam trailing behind.

They wave goodbye to Robin, barely getting out without an interrogation from Demetrius about where they were going and when they would come back.

Sebastian gets the bike out, taking out one of his extra helmets for Sam.

“You, uh. Might wanna do something about your hair.” Sebastian has to hold in his laughs when Sam looks confused. He makes a motion to show what Sam’s hair looks like, making them both break out in laughter. Sam pulls his hair back, tying it into a ponytail. Seb has to look away because his face is so red.

Once the helmets are on, Sebastian gets on first, followed by Sam. “If you don’t want to fall off, I suggest holding onto me.” Slowly, Sam’s arms wrap around his thin waist, holding onto it like his life depended on it. Seb doesn’t say anything, but he gives his hand a pat, giving him the reassurance it needs.

Seb starts up the bike, making his way to the top of the mountains, where he liked to hang out when he needed to clear his mind. Sam clings to him, tucking his head against his back. He can barely focus on driving, too distracted by how Sam was holding him.

Eventually, when they arrived to the summit of the mountain, they both take off the helmets. Sam is still pressed against his back, his arms wound around his waist.

Sebastian is still for a moment before he moves to get up, tugging Sam with him. “What is this place?” Sam asks. He’d never seen it before, and he lived here much longer than Sebastian did. Sebastian did always have the best hiding places when they played hide and seek as kids. Maybe this was one of them.

“It’s just the top of the mountain. Nothing special,” Sebastian says, pulling Sam towards the cliff side. There wasn’t much, like he implied, just a few trees scattered around and a broken down bench. Behind one of the trees was a ratty blanket, one he had brought up when he was younger and expertly hidden.

Seb sets it up, sitting down and patting the spot next to him. The sun had already set, leaving a sky full of stars. The stars were much clearer here than in Zuzu city. That was one thing he appreciated from living here, aside from the person sitting next to him.

Speaking of, Sam plopped down next to him, his arms behind him. “It’s nice up here. How come I’ve never seen it before?” He says it like a whine, gently shoving Sebastian.

Sebastian laughs, shoving him back. That’s how things always are between them, joking around. Like friends. That’s all they’ll ever be. The thought strikes a bit of sadness in his heart, but he ignores it. “It’s for special people.”

Sam pouts, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Aw, am I not special enough?” Seb pauses a beat, turning his face towards him. He’s just.. joking, right? It doesn’t feel like a joke.

Like a fool, Sebastian takes the bait. “No, you.. you are. You’re the most special person in my life, I think.” Sebastian has a soft smile on his face as he gazes up at Sam, their faces inches apart.

Their eyes meet for a moment, blue gazing into brown. Sebastian isn’t sure what happens next, but his eyes are closed and he feels Sam’s lips pressing against his gently. He returns the actions by wrapping his arms around his neck, his fingers tangling into his hair.

Sam’s arms coil around his waist, pulling Sebastian closer to him and leaning back to lay down with him, Sebastian on top. They pull away to smile at each other, followed by Sebastian’s head tucking in between his neck and his shoulder.

Sam laughs, squeezing the much shorter male close. “I didn’t know you thought so fondly of me, Sebby.” He laughs even more when he feels Sebastian bumps his nose against his cheek, huffing at him.

“I think more fondly of you when you don’t talk, Sammy.” He presses a kiss to his cheek, but that’s only met with another kiss from Sam. They’ll definitely need to have a talk about this later, but for now, they basked in each other presence, barely able to keep their hands off of each other.

It’s safe to say that Sebastian got a mouthful from Demetrius the next day when they come home at nearly 2 a.m, blushes on their faces and their hair messy.

They’re both happy, which is all that matters.

They start dating a few days later, telling Abby when it’s been a few weeks. They just wanted to be sure about everything, even though they’ve been sure about this since they were kids.

Robin gets told a month after, followed by Maru. She had always suspected there was something going on with them, but never wanted to make assumptions. Robin is incredibly supportive and starts treating Sam like another son. She swears to not tell Jodi until Sam and Seb say it’s okay, though.

Demetrius doesn’t ever get told. He has to figure it out when he sees Sam resting his hand in Sebastian’s back pocket. They were told to keep the touching to a minimum, but they didn’t listen to that very well.

Holy WOW I loved writing that. I don’t even care if that’s not what The People wanted, I had so much fun writing that and I literally wanna turn it into a fic now smh.

[kingangelrose]

RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 4 Recap

“Fault”

----------

Back at the cell, Robyn tells stories to Qrow and Jacques about Joanna and the Happy Huntresses, but there was no reaction from either of them, she then jokingly says that Ironwood should’ve pay for better cell block entertainment, which made Qrow smile a bit. 

Robyn apologizes to Qrow about what happened to Clover, saying that it wasn’t his fault, but Qrow says that it was, he goes on to say he made a deal with the darkness, and Clover payed the price for it, that it was happening so fast, but Clover wouldn’t let up, saying that he and him could’ve worked together against Tyrian. Qrow says that what stings the most is that for the first time in a while, he thought maybe he could be around anybody without Qrow’s semblance making it complicated for him to, now it just feels like a childish dream. “Gone....like everybody else....” - Qrow Branwen 

Robyn says that she knows what that feels like. “When people are worried you’re gonna sniff out there secrets, they tend to push you away, it makes a real connection....difficult...” - Robyn Hill Qrow says he never thought of it that way.

Just then, the guards, with the other Ace Ops, throw Watts back into his cell, Harriett goes over to Qrow’s cell, saying that he can’t be Clover’s pendent, Qrow says that he didn’t kill him, but Harriett says that it was his weapon that had Clover’s blood on it, Robyn, who called Harriett “Mohawk”. suggests to her that if she really wants to know what happened, she could open her cell and take her hand, Harriett says that if she does, it won’t be for a hand shake, Robyn says to her that she doesn’t care about the truth, only wanting someone to be mad at, saying that its easier than taking an honest look of what side she’s on, Harriett was about to open it, but Marrow stopped her, asking what she was doing, saying to him nothing, Marrow walked away, Robyn lay back down on her cell bed, saying that that was almost exciting.

Meanwhile, Team Yang, on the hoverbikes, chased down the flying Hound that had Oscar in his clutches, Jaune says that the Hound is going to lose them in the mountains and that they can’t keep up, Ren says that he’s not sure how long that the hover bikes can handle the cold, Yang then says she wishes one of them could fly, that gave Jaune an idea, he backs up his hoverbike to Ren and says to him that he’s going to get him up there to the Hound, knowing what he meant, Ren hopped off his bike, onto Jaune’s shield and Jaune used his shield’s gravity power to launch Ren in the air, giving Ren a chance to hook his weapon onto the Hound’s leg, hanging on by his weapon’s steel string while it’s flying. 

Jaune told Ren to hold on, Ren replied by saying he doesn’t have much of a choice, Ren uses his weapon on the other hand to hook onto a rock, that was pulled and flew along with him, but The Hound flew up higher, unhooking it, Yang then rode her hoverbike on an upper level mountain platform, getting to an even shooting distance with the Hound, shooting at it, but then The Hound let out a huge roar, calling for backup him that was underground and in the air.

Jaune struck some of the underground Grimm, but one of them spewed acid at his hoverbike thruster, shutting it down, seeing Yang on higher ground, Jaune hopped off his bike and a Grimm using his shield’s power and go on higher ground, getting on and riding with Yang, attacking the ground Grimm and trying to catch up, a flying Grimm blocked their path, but Jaune activated and threw his hard light shield device to a nearby rock, using the shield as a ramp for him and Yang to jump over the Grimm, they continued to dodged the Grimm, but after dodging the last one, they were headed for a cliff, Yang stopped the hoverbike, but it tilted, causing them both to tumble fast and fall off the cliff, while it seemed like they were falling to their doom, Ren uses his weapons to Jaune’s sword tip on the cliff and onto Jaune’s leg, catching both Jaune and Yang before they fell, a flying Grimm was headed towards them, but then Ren used his semblance to masked his, Jaune and Yang’s auras as the flying Grimm flew passed them, but they could only look on as the Hound flew away with Oscar to Salem.

Ruby’s Team arrived at the Schnee Manor where Whitley opened the door after Weiss’ hard knocking, Whitley was trying to say that she picked a fine time to arrive, but Weiss pointed her sword at him and walked into the manor with Ruby’s Team and a still unconscious Nora,  Whitley says to Weiss that things are already bad enough after what she did to their father, Jacques, but now she wants to harbor “fugitives” too, saying that their family has a reputation, Blake asks Whitley if that’s all he cares about, Whitley says that at the manor, they’ve already lost most of the house staff, and their mother, Willow Schnee, locked herself in her room, Weiss says that they are trying to save Atlas, then Ruby says to Whitley that Nora is hurt, and they just need a place to lay low while she rests and then they’ll be out of his way, Whitley then agreed, letting them stay and asked what do they want him to do, and Weiss tells him to go to his room, which he did, Weiss led May, carrying Nora, to a  room where Nora could rest, Ruby says that she hopes Team Yang is okay, Blake says to Ruby that if she’s worried, she could call Yang, Ruby then said she did as she shows Blake her outgoing call to Yang. Jaune tries to get a signal, asking for a transport to Mantle, but there wasn’t any.

The three walked across a snowy tundra, with their aura slowly depleting from the cold, Yang asked Ren how close is the nearest outpost, but he didn’t answer, and when she asked again, he said he didn’t know, Yang walked up to him and said she thought he saw on earlier, Ren said that he did before he had to cut himself loose to help Yang and Jaune, Yang says that he brought that up a few times and asked if there’s something he wanted to say, he says he doesn’t and he wouldn’t want to waste anymore time, ahead of her, Yang, got a bit angry and asked Ren what was his deal, Ren said to not worry about it, Yang says that she’s sorry thing haven’t gone smoothly for him, Ren says that things haven’t gotten smoothly at all, turning into an argument, Yang tells him that’s part of being a huntsman, Ren says that they don’t know the first thing about being a huntsman and that they weren’t ready, Jaune tries to tell them to stop, but they don’t listen. 

Yang asked Ren were they not ready when they saved Haven or took down the Leviathan, and that they brought the lamp relic to Atlas, Ren cuts her off, saying that then they lost it, then afterwards when they had to make real decisions, they have gotten every single one wrong, Yang tells Ren that even though they haven’t done everything perfectly, but if they had done nothing, things would be a lot worse, Ren asks how could they be worse, saying that they are stuck in the snowy tundra while Salem has the lamp and Oscar, saying they have no plan or an army, Yang says that they have Penny as the Maiden, Ren yells at Yang, saying that by keeping Penny from opening the vault for Ironwood, they’re trapping the whole city of Atlas and Mantle for Salem, saying people are going to die because of them, Yang asks him if they should just give Ironwood what he wants and abandon Mantle, asking if he thinks Atlas is gonna float to safety, he snaps back and says he doesn’t know, then saying that these aren’t the kinds of decisions that they should make if they have no idea what they’re doing, he says that he’s saying what no one else wants to, saying that they are way over their heads, Ruby is barely more than a kid, he is just a orphan from the middle of nowhere, and when Jaune tried to calm him down, Ren snapped at Jaune saying that he cheated his way into Beacon Academy, leaving them all silent for a moment.

“....You don’t think we should be huntsmen, fine.....but I’m getting out of the cold...we still gotta job to do....” - Jaune Arc As Jaune walks ahead with the hoverbike, Yang looks at Ren angrily as asks him is his goal just to push everyone away, as she walks ahead of him, leaving Ren speechless.

Meanwhile, in Salem’s base, Ozpin wakes up Oscar who didn’t know where he was, saying that they’re going to be okay, Oscar then looks up and from the shadows was Salem herself. “My long lost Ozma...found at last~” - Salem Oscar was hanging by the jaws of the Hound, trying to escape, but it was no use, Salem says that this new host of Ozma is small, saying that it was a wonder that her Hound didn’t break him, walking up to him, asking how long as it been since they seen each other face to face and with nothing to say, pretending to be Ozpin, Oscar says that he is sorry the reunion isn’t living up to her expectations, Salem then suddenly grabs Oscar’s face and says that he can pretend, but he is not yet fully Ozpin, she lets go and says that they can have a working relationship if she tells her where the Beacon Relic is, saying that Ozpin has used some means of deception to hide it’s location differently from the other relics, Oscar says that’s not something he himself knows about, Salem walk away from Oscar saying that Ozpin would keep that well guarded as long as possible, Salem then asks Oscar the password to the lamp relic, and Oscar replied by saying that the lamp was out of questions, knowing this to be a lie, she struck Oscar with a powerful blast of energy to the chest, causing Oscar to scream in pain, she stops then walks towards a wounded Oscar saying that lies come from out of Oscar so easily, saying that he was a like minded soul while feeling on his wounded face, she walks away from him again, saying that she doesn’t care if it’s Oscar or Ozpin to tell her the answer, either way she will have the relic, Oscar says that he won’t tell her anything, but then, Hazel arrives and then strikes down Oscar, then kicking him while he was down, saying that the two strikes he delivered was for Haven Academy and everything that follows, will be for his sister.

Salem walks into Cinder and Neo in the hallway, Cinder bows to the Salem, but then sees the Hound for the first time and asked what it was, Salem says that it is an experiment she has been working on, so far being pleased with the results, then asking Cinder what she wanted, Cinder pleads with Salem saying that she wants to search for the Winter Maiden, Salem says to the Hound that Cinder thinks and wants, saying as if she has done something that warrants her caring for either, Cinder says that they’re just sitting and waiting, saying without the Maiden’s power, the gate means nothing, asking to let her claim the power for her, Salem tells Cinder that she will tell her when and where she is needed, before Cinder could plead with Salem again, the Hound roared at Cinder, silencing her, Salem then says that  she has gained many patience walking Remnant, but she hates repeating herself, and that she will remain at there, Cinder then bows to her again and then agrees, once again saying without her she is nothing, as Salem walks off, Cinder has an eager expression on her face.

Walking to where the airship is, Cinder says to Neo that she just wants to check something and that they’ll be back before anyone notices they’re gone, Cinder says that she just wants to see if anything is still going on in Amity Colosseum, saying that Salem doesn’t know the heroes like she does, saying that they wouldn’t just abandon their misguided attempt to save the world. Emerald walks towards Cinder and says if Neo doesn’t want to go with her, she will, saying that she’s been working on her semblance and that she can help, also saying she won’t tell anybody, Cinder sighs and asked Emerald how much did she overhear.

Meanwhile, Team Yang arrived to the outpost where they had shelter, while Jaune used a fire dust crystal for the furnace, he admits to Ren that he was right about him cheating his way into Beacon, saying that he’s glad he has people around him to help him see that he was bigger than that mistake, he says to Ren that he too has people around him, he doesn’t have to force himself to be strong, saying that the more he hides what he feels, the more along he’ll feel, Ren doesn’t responded and walks away, outside, Yang then comes inside and says that she found a part to fix the hoverbike, she then goes on to say to Jaune for what its worth, she’s sorry that Ren said that to him, saying that she knows he worked hard to get where he is now, Jaune says that everyone is just under a lot of stress right now, saying he used to push people away too, while fixing the part for the hover bike, Yang asks Jaune if Ruby thinks less of her for not helping out with Amity, Jaune says that Ruby is her sister and that she’ll always love Yang, even if they disagree, walking over and laying on the bottom bunk of the bed, Jaune says he wants to get some sleep, but he can’t stop thinking about Oscar, Yang says to Jaune that he can go ahead and sleep, and she’ll make her Ren doesn’t brewed herself to death in the cold, Jaune thanks Yang and then says that he has a bad feeling that things always seem to get worse before they get better.

Unknown to any of them, from afar there was something coming from the icy underground, leaving huge cracks, what could this be? Will anyone survive? Will Cinder be able to leave Salem’s grasp? Will the heroes save Oscar before it’s too late?

[real-jaune-isms]

RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 4 Review/Remix

A pretty good episode this time, and only 30% pain and despair so things are looking up! But when it goes mean it goes real strong with the mean. Lots to think about here, and boy oh boy do I wonder what we’ll see next week!

For a nice touch of levity, we open on Robyn telling a funny story about a time Joanna lost a fight to try and pass the time. Maybe she’s trying to cheer Qrow up too, but as someone who gets very bored at work pretty often I get the appeal of talking just to keep sane. She sees Qrow is too lost in his brooding about Clover’s pin to listen to the story, and Jacques is too busy fussing over a fly buzzing around his head (the Pence jokes write themselves). Tough crowd indeed, though her joke about Ironwood needing to pay for cell block entertainment does get a smile and a chuckle from the sad old bird. She takes this chance to apologize, possibly again and we’re just seeing this conversation now, for what happened with Clover. Many would argue it is really her fault for getting trigger happy back in the airship when Qrow was the one under arrest, but that’s an argument not worth having because the blame soup was being stirred by way too many cooks to make a clear verdict. Qrow, however, blames himself for deciding to team up with Tyrian, which was certainly a bad move. It was a heat of the moment thing, and he makes it clear he really would have preferred working with Clover to re-detain Tyrian again, but Clover just wouldn’t let up on his arrest orders. The real pain though, he admits, is that he had really started to let his guard down around this guy and thought her could actually make a partnership work again without his Semblance tossing 1,000 monkey wrenches into the mix. Feels like a fairy tale dream, vanishing like a rose petal on the wind, like every other friend. I of course added the part about rose petals, because you know he meant Summer and the unity of STRQ she probably represents in his mind. Robyn knows a thing or two about having a Semblance that impairs your relationships. Not many people like being around someone they can’t keep anything private from, and she can call out and mistruthing with a touch of the hand. Qrow has to admit he hadn’t considered someone else having that kind of personal trouble like he does, but their conversation is ended by Harriet coming in to toss Watts back in his cell. She’s pissy at Qrow and says he shouldn’t have Clover’s pin, but he retorts he has no reason not to have it since he’s not Clover’s killer. She still has a hard time believing that since Harbinger was the murder weapon, but Robyn finally raises a very good point. Miss Hill is a literal walking polygraph and all they would need to do to prove Qrow’s innocence is let her out of her cell and take her hand. But they won’t do that because they don’t want to prove what’s really true here, they want to cling to a convenient story so they don’t have to admit what really happened. Cuz if they put those glasses back on and face the facts, that means reevaluating what side their on if Clover died because he refused to help detain a serial killer before arresting a former colleague and that’s the real problem. Hare had already threatened that if she was gonna open the cell she wouldn’t use her hands for a friendly shake, and the dig at her allegiances and her ignorance towards Ironwood’s sins almost riles her up to the point of taking Robyn’s bait. But Marrow calls her back down to sensibility and she leaves in a huff. Robyn lays back and sighs at how there was almost something exciting happening.

Cutting to an actually exciting scene, Yang Jaune and Ren are outside the city chasing the Hound through a mountainous canyon on their bikes. It can fly while they have to navigate the rocks, and their bikes aren’t handling the cold terribly well. Yang laments that none of them can fly, but that inspires Jaune to pull out his shield and get closer to Ren. He’s gonna get his teammate up there, and Ren immediately understands how. Leaping off his bike and onto Jaune’s shield, he’s launched through the air by the burst of Gravity Dust in the crest and uses his grapple line blade to wrap around the Hound’s leg... and get dragged through the air like Curious George at the end of a bunch of balloons. Still, he’s weighing it down some and can climb up the line to get in close... when he’s not getting swung around against the cliffside. To further slow it down, he shoots his other line around a big rock that gets dragged behind them for about 5 seconds before the Hound flies higher up and the line comes loose. Ren gets knocked around even more while Yang finds an inclined path that gives her enough height to start shooting at the Grimm. It handles this fairly well, by dropping Oscar from its mouth into its hands and flying ahead of her with a loud roar. Apparently one of its Grimm for all Seasons abilities is to call for backup, because dozens of Centinels suddenly burrow up out of the rocks and ground around them and several Teryx swoop in above. Navigating becomes that much more difficult for the blondes, especially when one Centinel spits acid and hits the thruster of Jaune’s bike. He thinks fast and leaps off his bike to launch off another Grimm in front of him and flip onto a rocky overpass where he almost loses his balance and falls back down. Luckily Yang instead zooms by and pulls him onto her bike where they continue their pursuit. She does a great job of bobbing and weaving around the insects, but a Teryx lands in their path. Jaune tosses his shield grenade in front of a large rock and they drive onto it to tilt it into a ramp, launching over the avian foe into a spin between two more big bugs. They bump on a rock, but the Grimm cannot touch them with Yang’s driving. Unfortunately, they have a far more dangerous problem: They’re heading towards the edge of a massive cliff. Yang tries to make a quick turn but instead flips the bike over and launches both of them off to go tumbling off the precipice. Jaune tries to plant his sword in the ground as an anchor, but he doesn’t keep hold of it with their momentum and they both fall with a very believable scream. Big props to Miles and Barbara for this and the dramatic performances soon to come. Ren comes swooping in for a massive save and grapples Jaune’s sword with one weapon and the poor guy’s leg with the other. Jaune grabbed Yang by the hand so she’s fine too, but an incoming Teryx might soon negate it all. Luckily, Ren instead negates all their emotions with his Semblance and the Teryx passes them by. Less lucky, Ren being here means he’s not hanging from the Hound. He let it get away with Oscar to save his friends, and you know he’s kicking himself for it.

Shifting scenes from that tense gloom, we see Weiss decided the safest place to take Nora for the time being is her own damn mansion. Whitley answers the door and is about to try and berate Weiss for this but she is having none of it. She holds him at swordpoint and insists that they are coming inside. Whitley is very against the idea of harboring fugitives after the hit the Schnee family’s reputation has taken in the wake of its patriarch’s arrest for war crimes, and Blake is quite frustrated that this is what he chooses to complain about. The staff is all gone, Willow has retreated to her room and assumable to the bottle, you gotta admit Whitley probably feels more alone now than ever and is... coping in less than ideal ways. Weiss still seemingly carries a chip on her shoulder of wanting to prove that she is doing something actually important and she made the right move by leaving home to be a Huntress, so she insists that Whitley has no right to nag them because they are saving the Kingdom here. At least, that’s what my 2 semesters of psychology classes would tell me. Ruby plays intermediary between the Schneeblings and lays down their very minimal terms. Let them stay here a little while so Nora can rest and recover, and then they will leave him to his sulking and riches. Whitley begrudgingly accepts and asks what he has to do, and Weiss seems to relish this chance to tell him to go to his room. Finally flexing her big sister authority without Papa around to veto her in favor of his adoring son. But like Willow said last Volume, Whitley has been stuck in this house just like Weiss and Winter, and they could certainly try to treat him with a bit more fairness and sympathy. I’m sure it hurt him a little inside to have yet another authority figure bossing him around without a care for his desires. Still, he’s not giving much reason to make us sympathize so I say wait a little bit to see if he’s got any softer moments to come. Weiss directs May on where to carry Nora, and Blake checks on Ruby while they have this quieter moment. Possibly because she wants the chance to talk to her too, Blake suggests Ruby should try calling Yang to make sure things are okay, both between the sisters and in general. But that’s just it. She did it 35 minutes ago. Okay not really, but I wanted to toss a Watchmen joke in. Still, as much as Ruby worries how that half of the team is doing, she’s already trying to call them and it’s not going through.

We fade back to our three battered teens as Yang collects what scattered pieces she can from her bike, the only one they still have. But like I said, it crashed into a rock after they tumbled off and it’s in no condition to run anymore. So Jaune is trying to call for help and transport back to Mantle, but either Ironwood shut down all communication in the lower districts or they’re just so far out in the tundra that a signal just won’t reach. The latter would make sense, and explain why Ruby couldn’t reach Yang. Giving up on the call, the three instead trudge through the snow in the light of the setting sun back more or less the way they came. Jaune is dragging the bike along while Ren leads the way to an outpost he saw while getting dragged by the Hound. Yang notes how low their auras have been drained due to protecting them from the cold this long, and like a kid on a car trip asks how much longer it will be. Ren has no immediate answer so she asks again and he gives a snippy “I don’t know”. She can tell there’s something more bugging him and tries to coax it out of him after sensing the hostility in his explanation that he only got a glimpse of their intended destination before he had to abandon Oscar in favor of saving them. He refuses to discuss his deeper feelings because he thinks it’ll just waste time. This riles Yang up and she demands to know what his deal is, to which he insists she not worry about it. The argument keeps escalating from there. Things aren’t going smoothly enough for Ren? No, they’re not going smoothly at all, but boohoo Ren, that’s part of the job as a Huntsman. He doesn’t think it’s a job they should have at all, they weren’t ready for it or to make the incredibly damming decisions they’ve had to since taking that position. Sure, they had a few lucky breaks and near miss successes, but then they entered this losing streak that they can’t seem to recover from because the losses are too drastic and every choice they’ve made has been the wrong one. Yang refuses to accept such pessimism and insists that even if they haven’t done everything perfectly they still had to do something because inaction would have made things worse. But how could they be worse than they are now, Ren demands to know as they freeze to death out here. Salem has the Lamp and Oscar, and they have nothing but the cold winds. They may not have an army but they have the Maiden, Yang tries to counter, but because they haven’t let her to open the vault for Ironwood all of Atlas is just a buffet waiting to be chowed down on and it will all be their fault when that happens. Yang rightfully asks him if he seriously thinks letting Ironwood try and float Atlas away to safety will work out for him or for the people of Mantle he’s abandoning, but he argues that they shouldn’t even be the ones asked to make that call. He’s trying to spit the hard truths no one else wanted to face, but this is way too harsh and mean, especially for Ren. What are these hard truths, you ask? That Ruby is still too young to be a leader, that he himself is an orphan from a town that doesn’t exist anymore (which I guess shows how unimportant he is for someone thrust into this decision making role), and that Jaune, who by the way has been trying in vain to get the two to cut the shit and quiet down this whole time, cheated his way into Beacon. A damn low blow there, bro. Bringing back the deep wound from Volume 1. And you can tell he regrets it immediately, but to say that would mean backing down from his point. Jaune doesn’t even address the personal callout and just says alright, you don’t think we should have the job, good for you. I’m still gonna keep walking and get out of the cold because like it or not we were given a goddamn job to do. Maybe not in those words, but the meaning was there. Ren and Yang silently let him take the lead, probably feeling the hot wash of shame distracting them from the arctic chill. Yang still takes one last dig at Ren though by asking if it’s his goal to push everyone away, implying he’s being an asshole and not even Nora is sticking by him. Well... in so many words anyway.

We get another change of scenery with a dramatic violin stroke like something out of a murder mystery movie. Oscar is regaining consciousness, and he hears Ozpin try to reassure him to stay calm and that it’s gonna be okay. When he looks up, however, he sees Salem leaning in a shadowy doorframe staring at a smoky apparition in her hand and welcoming back her long lost Ozma. Judging by the childlike laughter and general shape of her smoke display, I think she was manifesting a memory of her and Oz’s dead daughters to try and reminisce about the days when they were still lovers. Oscar realizes he’s being held in the air from the Hound’s mouth and tries to struggle free as Salem notes how young and weak this new vessel is. She’s not even acknowledging Oscar, just talking through him to Ozma. It’s been what may have truly been centuries or even a millennium since they’ve last met, and dear Oz has nothing to say to his wife? Oscar does his best Ozpin impression to try and fake it till he makes it, but Salem knows her man better than anyone and sees through it to grab him by the face and call his bluff. But he really is still a separate person from Oz, so maybe he can be more cooperative to her requests than that old wizard. She still wants to know where the Relic of Choice is, since Oz clearly must have used an extra layer of deception to hide it opposed to the others, and she wants Oscar to reveal the trick. But that’s not a memory he has access to, and he tells her plainly that he doesn’t know. She believes him, knows Oz would hold that one close to the chest longest of all, so she asks an easier question. How does she go about asking the Lamp questions? She gets the standard coverup answer, the Lamp is out of questions so it’s futile to even try, but she refuses to believe that one. Instead she blasts the poor kid with an evil magic rainbow laser and lets him scream himself hoarse for a bit. His chest has scorch marks, or at least his clothes do, and he fearfully tries to pull away from her “loving” touch. Lying so easily about these things, he truly was reincarnated into a like-minded soul... but sooner or later one of the two in this battered body will break and Salem will learn what she wishes to know. He tries to insist he won’t tell her anything, but that’s why she has backup. Hazel comes in to literally gut punch this 14 year old until he coughs up his guts or the truth, whichever comes first. And he justifies it all by saying this is revenge for his defeat at Haven and from the still unforgiven death of his sister.

Salem doesn’t stay to watch the savage beating, instead walking the halls of Monstra with her lovely new pet. Cinder has been waiting in this hallway for a chance to speak with her Mistress, but is distracted by her immediate discomfort in the face of the Hound. Salem claims it is an experiment that she is quite happy with the results of thus far, and wants Cinder to get on with whatever point she had so she can get out of the way. Cinder wants to search for Penny, she thinks she can make up for the past blunder and claim the Winter powers for herself. But Salem just laughs at this. “She thinks, she wants!” It’s like hearing a cockroach tell you about its hopes and dreams. Mommy Salami does not give a fuck what Cinder wants to do, she has done nothing to earn Salem caring about that. Cinder, to her credit, does not take this dismissal lying down and tries to argue that they are doing nothing to further their plans when Cinder could be achieving a great victory for her Mistress by securing their way into the Atlas vault. Salem does not slow her pace, and says when it is time to act she will tell Miss Fall what she needs her to do. Cinder tries to argue, and is met by the snarling maw of the Hound turning on its heels to send her shrinking back. Salem has been pretty damn patient with this bratty girl, but she will not repeat herself again. You are not going the the ball, Cinderella, you are staying here and doing what your godmother tells you to because if you don’t you will learn just how easily you can be replaced and forgotten. Cinder gives up her case and assumes the position of submission, which is to say taking a knee and repeating her self-depreciating mantra that without Salem she is nothing. This satisfies Salem and she walks away with her dog in tow, leaving Neo to glare at Cinder as if wondering who is really the domesticated little pet in this place. 

Cut to Cinder immediately rebelling against her given orders and heading for the airship insisting she just wants to go check on something and then they’ll come right back before anyone knows they left. Neo just floats along behind her because like hell she’s staying in the Satan whale when it’s this bitch’s fault she’s here at all. We get the last unseen shot from the trailer as Cinder looks out over Atlas and rationalizes that Salem doesn’t know Team RWBY like she does, she wouldn’t understand how determined they would be to try and save the world, and so it falls to her to check out Amity Colosseum again and see if they’re up to something. Neo seems annoyed and disinterested at Cinder’s petty little scheme, but they’re both caught off guard by Emerald arriving behind them and offering to tag along to help. She’s been getting better with her Semblance and asserts that she would be very useful. Poor misguided lass, searching so desperately for acknowledgement and praise you’re never gonna get... Cinder seems pissed that she was eavesdropping, but she’s not gonna turn down the assist. Time for an evil girls’ night out~

Back on the ground, night has fallen as JRY have found the outpost at last. Jaune hits a heater to get it running and prevent their freezing to death as Ren broods out the window and Yang is outside working on her bike. The leader takes this time to address the tension with his teammate. Yes, he did make a bad decision and cheat his way into the Academy. But when he found himself in that bad situation he realized he needed help and he asked for it. He turned his situation around and got better, became the strong person he is now. Holding onto this ideal that being strong means doing everything on your own? That was literally the issue Jaune faced in his mini character arc back in Volume 1, and he came out of it humbled and ready to accept support from his team. From Pyrrha. But she’s not here anymore, and Jaune is. Nora is, team RWBY is here for Ren. So Ren needs to understand that he can let them in, because the more he hides from how he feels the worse it’s gonna feel and hurt him inside. Ren goes outside to sulk under a streetlight, but Yang has come inside now to say that she’s found the part she needs to fix the bike so with a little more tinkering they can get it working and ride back into the city once they’ve got some R&R. Yang does take the time to say she’s sorry Ren said what he did because of her argument with him, but Jaune dismisses it for the time being as all three of them being under a hellish amount of stress. He’s been where Ren was before, he knows how much it hurts. Yang turns back to the tool bench to work on the thruster, but she’s got some inner turmoil of her own to vent about. She wants to know if Jaune thinks “She” thinks less of Yang for making the choice she did and staying to help Mantle instead of going to help fix Amity. Playing the pronoun game like this can be tricky, and Jaune fairly assumes she means Ruby since the two of them did have the verbal disagreement before splitting off, and Yang did question her leader’s decision making and leadership. He assures Yang that her sister will always love and believe in her even if they have squabbles like this. But it would seem Vomit Boy lost the pronoun game, and Yang was not actually asking about Ruby. Judging by the purple cannister she’s wrenching into the battered thruster, she was asking if Blake would think less of her because of these recent actions. 

A lot of people seem rather torn about this choice in priorities for Yang, but allow me to explain why I think it’s not that bad of a writing decision. If there is one thing that has been consistent in this Volume it has been the confidence of other characters that Yang and Ruby will endure this clash of ideals and remain loving sisters. Usually these sentiments have been given by characters who are siblings themselves and know the strength of that bond, like Weiss and now Jaune. We’ve never actually heard either sister personally express any anguish or regrets over that argument, but we can assume they’re both still a little sour about it. But they have been there for each other to a depth that few siblings have, as evident by Yang’s story in Volume 2 about how she had to step up in raising Ruby in a lot of ways after Tai went into grieving for Summer. They’ve been each other’s best friend and closest confidant for so long, I truly believe their bond is clad in iron and they know it too. Meanwhile, a lot of Yang’s recovery arc in Volumes 4 and 5 was dealing with being abandoned by Blake in a time of need and it continued into 6 as learning to accept her back into her life and find a way to make their partnership work again. Shipping or not, they do have a strong bond that has been renewed by dealing with their combined trauma and killing Adam. And when that happened they both promised they would stick together and back each other up, but now Yang has been the one to decide she wants to split paths and do something else. She has good reason to worry this might have upset Blake, and we the audience know Blake is worried about how she’s doing. So, when faced with a color that reminds her of her partner, it makes some sense that Yang would try and get an outside perspective of if she’s fractured their bond. And if you ship them, that more magnifies the interpersonal concerns than really changes the problems.

Regardless, Jaune realizes this is a problem he’s not quite equipped to deal with and decides he’s going to get some rest in one of the beds in the outpost. He gets the strong feeling he’s gonna need it cuz it feels like things will only get worse before they get any better. As we pan out past Ren, whom Yang promises she won’t let brood himself to death out in the snow, we see cracks start to form out on the ice. That can only bode poorly for these poor kids. Many folks think this is a frozen over lake with some scary aquatic Grimm waiting in the depths like a megalodon Grimm shark or the sulfur fish Grimm that apparently were the winners of a fan design contest this past year. Personally, I’m taking a note from the opening and saying it might be a cloister of Apathy since their gross grabby hands wrapped around Team RWBY when they fell through the ice at the end of the intro. But we will have to wait and see. Thanks for reading, hope to see you and your notes soon!~

Edit: this came out a week late and we did indeed see what it really was. Boy were we not ready for the truth...

[lostinthewiind]

Can I get Malarkey taking reader on a motorcycle ride and they have a picnic?

You sure can! Gonna combine this request with the prompt “since when do you drive a motorcycle?” that @junojelli sent in. ENJOY :)

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Champagne Surprises 

“Where on earth are we going?!” you took another blind step forward, hyperaware of your footing. “You know I don’t like surprises.”

“Just keep walking.” Malarkey continued to hold his hands over your eyes as he carefully coaxed you forward, one reluctant step at a time. “We’re almost there.”

You exhaled and slumped your shoulders. “Fine, but if you lead me off of a cliff or some shit, I swear . . .”

“You are such a drama queen.” Malarkey held you by your arms to stop you before walking around to your front and pressing a quick kiss to your lips. “We’re here,” he whispered, his lips brushing against yours.

You kissed him again and smiled into it as Malarkey finally lifted his palms from over your eyes, revealing an old motorcycle with a blanket covering the sidecar. You looked from the vehicle to Malarkey, eyebrows raised. “A motorcycle?” you chuckled. 

“Yeah!” he gestured to it with his arms like a magician at a magic show. He noticed you still looked confused. “Well, this isn’t the whole surprise, obviously. This is going to take us to the rest of the surprise.”

Dropping one hip, you placed your hands on your sides. “Since when do you drive a motorcycle?”

Malarkey looked almost offended. “Ugh, since always! God, woman, do you even know me at all? Should I go find someone else to take on this incredibly romantic picnic with me?” he ripped the blanket off of the sidecar to reveal a picnic basket.

“Oh!” you smiled wide. “Why didn’t you lead with the damn basket?”

“Because I was trying to be spontaneous!”

Walking over to the kind redhead, you placed your hands on his cheeks and shook your head, laughing. “Oh, honey, no. I’ve had enough surprises for one lifetime.”

He furrowed his brows as you squished his freckled cheeks more. “Are you going to get on the bike or not?”

“Yes.” you agreed as he pulled two helmets out of the sidecar. “Yes, I will get on the bike.”

“Good.” he handed you a helmet. “Now just try and pretend to have some fun.”

As Malarkey got onto the bike, you climbed on behind him, wrapped your arms around his waist, and rested your chin on his shoulder. “I’m ready.” you had to shout over the sound of the revving engine. 

Once the bike lurched forward and Malarkey began speeding off down the dirt road, you tightened your grip around him and enjoyed the scenery as it passed by. 

As the two of you got further and further away from civilization, you felt yourself relax and enjoy the trip more. After about fifteen or so minutes on the same dirt road, he pulled off onto a small path that no full-size vehicle could ever fit through.

The path was surrounded by trees on either side and because the sun was about to start setting, it was a little dark, which added an eerie but exciting element to the final leg of the journey. A few minutes later, Malarkey slowed the bike as he pulled into a clearing. 

“We are officially here,” he announced as he parked the bike and shut the engine off, allowing you to hear the wind blowing through the trees and the birds chirping. There wasn’t another person in sight and the only sounds you could hear were the sounds of nature; no vehicles, or people talking, or explosions. Just nature. 

After grabbing the basket from the sidecar, Malarkey led you up a tall hill in the clearing, and from the very top of it, you were able to look out over all the trees you had just driven through, as well as the mountains on the horizon and the beautiful colours in the sky from the setting sun.

“Oh, Don, it’s breathtaking.” you turned to him as he pulled a blanket out of the basket and began laying it down on the grass. “I feel bad now about being so against surprises.”

Malarkey smirked, cheekily. “Yeah, you should.” he chuckled as he pulled a bottle of champagne out of the basket. “But don’t feel too bad, because I only brought you up here to get you drunk, so . . .” he joked.

“What does it say about me that I’m perfectly okay with that?” you sat down on the blanket and started pulling out the sandwiches and other snacks that Malarkey had packed. 

“It confirms that you are, indeed, my dream woman.”

“Well, you’re not very picky, are you?”

“Nope.” he popped the ‘P’. 

Laughing, you started unwrapping the food. You were starving, so you wasted no time in digging in. Despite Malarkey’s expert planning thus far, he had forgotten to pack cups for the champagne, so the two of you ended up just drinking the alcohol straight from the bottle. This meant, however, that by the time the food was polished off, so was almost all of the champagne. 

After cleaning up, Malarkey downed the last of the bottle’s contents before coming up behind you, settling his legs on either side of you, wrapping his arms around you, and resting his chin on your shoulder, much like you had done to him on the motorcycle. 

“I know you don’t like surprises.” he pressed a kiss to your ear. “But was this okay?”

“This was more than okay.” you turned your head so you could kiss him properly, on the lips. “Thank you.”

He smiled; a smile that you could stare at every day, all day for the rest of your life. “I love you,” he said, causing your heart to skip a beat. This was the first time he had ever said those three little words.

You had known you loved Donald Malarkey for months now, and he knew the same thing about you, but now that the sentiment was out in the open, it made it real and raw and exciting. 

“I love you, too,” you told him. “And I love this. I love every moment of this.”

“I’m glad.”

As silence fell over the two of you, you stared out at the setting sun and took in the bright reds and oranges and yellows that were blended in the sky. You had seen many sunsets in your life, but this one was by far the best. 

Only a few minutes later, the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, allowing the stars to come out for the night and twinkle above. Falling onto his back, Malarkey brought you down with him so the two of you could stargaze.

“I think we have a problem,” he confessed after a little while, catching you off guard.

Craning your neck to look up at him, you cocked a brow. “What?”

“I’m a little too drunk to drive that motorcycle back to base camp.” he laughed. “I did not think this part out well enough, I will admit.”

“This is what you get for taking me up here and getting me drunk.” you jabbed your finger lightly into his chest. 

“I don’t regret it for a minute.” he grabbed your finger and stuck it into his mouth, biting down ever-so-slightly. 

You inhaled sharply and yanked your hand back. “What is wrong with you?!” you giggled.

“I have no idea!” he engulfed you in his arms and rolled you over so he was laying on top of you. “I must be crazy! Crazy in love!”

“Well, you’ve certainly got the ‘crazy’ part right.” you shrieked when he attacked your neck with his mouth, leaving kisses and little nips on the sensitive skin. “You are a complete and utter loon, Donald Malarkey!”

“Yes, I am. And you love it!” he captured your lips in his, smiling into the kiss. “We really did drink too much champagne, didn’t we?” he chuckled. 

You nodded. “We’re gonna hurt in the morning.”

“Well, then, better enjoy it while we can,” he stated, pressing another kiss to your lips, this time soft and slow, his hands moving up your body to cup your cheeks as he did so. “I don’t think it’s just the alcohol. I think I’m a little drunk on you, too. When I said I loved you before, I meant it one-hundred percent. I’m so in love with you, Y/N. I’ve never loved anyone more than I love you and I’ve never been this happy before in my entire life . . . I’m just not sure what to do with all of this joy.”

You felt tears begin to well in your eyes, both from Malarkey’s kind words and the fact that you were an emotional drunk. “You should just kiss me some more,” you suggested, your eyes drifting down to look at his lips as you ran the pad of your thumb over them. “That’s what you should do.”

“Gladly.” he dipped his head down once more, and even though you might not have been able to remember every aspect of that evening the next morning, you would never forget that kiss for as long as you lived. 

[starlightsoulwriting]

L’appel du Vide

Cliff Unger x Reader

L'appel du Vide (n.) The unexplainable desire to jump when on the edge of a cliff Call of The Void AO3 Link

Porters are going missing. You and Fragile are at each other’s throats, and you’re still reeling from your incident ten months ago. And, on top of all your shit, life decides to drop a Cliff on you.

[Prologue][x][2]

Part One

Eight Months Later

It started with one.

One porter going missing on his way back to Mountain Knot Waystation.

It wasn’t uncommon - bad things happened to people out on the mountains. Even a small injury could turn deadly out there. What was strange, however, was that GPS and communications went dark in the middle of a call. He’d been cut off mid-sentence with a scream. A search call had been issued as soon as his team lost contact - there’d been no time to waste. Whether he was alive or dead, they were on a clock.

They searched for a week and a half.

There was no Voidout, no BTs, no crater - no porter. Bridges had even swept through with whole teams of people to make sure the MULEs weren’t up to something more shady than usual. There was nothing there either.

He had just vanished.

You couldn’t find him, either - and you’d tried. Even with all the Bridges cameras you hacked into borrowed and every facial recognition software the world had salvaged. The last trace of him was at his delivery. As soon as he stepped out sight, he was a ghost.

Then came the next two.

A small-town medicine runner in Capital Knot vanished a month later, and then only a week later it was a civilian. No-one had heard from any of them since they vanished. Some were theorizing it was something new - some new DOOMS phobia, or even theories of BTs that wouldn’t cause Void-outs. Others thought they had been taken by some psycho group like the now disbanded Homo Demens. There were lots of bad people out there.

But then a boy from your town went missing, and you were faced with the task of joining a search party.

Rami was a teenager with dreams of saving the world by making sure everyone had what they needed; he practically idolized Sam, and asked for an autograph every time he saw you. You didn’t have any, of course, but you could tell him what an amazing job he was doing, and that people like him were the backbone of the UCA.

He’d liked it when you told him that.

You hated the thought of him being stranded somewhere alone, with the threat of timefall and BTs still looming, no matter how rare. Even without that it would be hard - it was a long way from a Bridges medical center from here. Everyone in town had emergency medical training - but there was only so far that would go without more equipment - equipment Bridges hasn’t let you print because you’re independent, and only UCA gets high-level printing privileges.

The team of doctors was a few days out, minimum.

So if Rami was hurt, he would be dead soon, terrified and alone. Winter was closing in fast. Nighttime would bring hypothermia, and with it a trip to the beach. And if he was already dead? It was a sure thing Voidout - one that would catch you and your family. Either way, bad news.

It wasn’t often you poked your head out of the shelter for anything but your greenhouse, but you scrambled into your timefall gear and strapped on your (fav color) Odradek nonetheless. Anxiety writhed in your chest, a pit gnawing its way through to your stomach. He was such a nice kid. You wanted desperately to find him, but were also all too aware that you probably wouldn’t - twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. He was probably just as disappeared as the others. You went out hoping you were wrong.

Others in your group scattered, too. There were only about twenty of you out there - one person missing was a huge deal.

You tried not to think of how lonely he must be out there. Your hands shook in your gloves, warmth beginning to flood your system. Your eyes watered as you remembered yourself growing cold on the back of Sam’s bike. Almost dying.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that.

At the edge of your sensor line you paused and stared at the thin holographic strip that separated you and the rest of the world. It kept you safe - kept out intruders. Outside, all you had was yourself and your Odradek. This would be the first time in three months you stepped outside the comforting watch of your security system.

You were terrified.

But you had checked the security feeds this morning. There was nothing out here but your home group, a few MULE Camps and some BTs. Nothing that you hadn’t dealt with before. You’d been wandering like a porter by the time you were ten. But outside… was not looking very friendly at the moment. Not with people going missing. Not with Higgs still alive.

Cool wind on your face. Fall mountain air. The plastic crinkle of your suit. The soft ping of your Odradek. You focused on these things instead of your thoughts. He couldn’t get you out here. He had no reason to.

You stepped over the line.

Now for the hard part. You were out of shape, but the terrain was the same you’ve been scrambling on since you were young. You knew which ridges were steeper than they looked, or which caves made the best shelter from the rain. You knew which ones led to cliffs, or which were best treated like a slide on the way down. Your breath came out as puffs of mist and your lungs were cold but you felt home for the first time in months. If only it would last for more than just the day. But as soon as you found Rami reality would settle back in and you would hide again, this much you knew for certain.

Sometimes you could see people searching in the distance, but a quick ping said they were just other members of the search team. Even the MULEs were looking for him - you saw a few wandering - they knew just as well as anyone they were fucked if he necrotized. You wondered idly if your old friend Gurao was out searching with his band of gremlins. Probably. He was a thief but he kept his people safe.

Although maybe he would just want to jack the cargo Rami was carrying. Who knows. Probably both.

Either way, more people was a good thing.

You huffed up over a particularly annoying ridge - one you’d broken your leg on when you were twelve - and you paused, straightening.

Something was wrong here. Like someone had just repatriated - DOOMS wriggled around your senses, like a bunch of worms made home in your stomach and then took LSD.

This particular type of warning wasn’t like the one for BTs. No, this felt like the rippling waves that ran through the beach when Sam died and forced his way back. A pit opened up in your chest, and you started pinging your Odradek faster than was useful. It wasn’t picking up anything, but someone was out here! You could feel it. It wasn’t Rami - he wasn’t a repatriate - but it was still somebody who’d just died. Someone confused and hurt.

Well, if your Dek couldn’t cut it, then you would just have to find them yourself.

You sat down, closing your eyes. There was no sign of anyone, at least that you could see. But you could find them, you knew it. You just had to be fast before you lost the thread. It was like knowing where someone was speaking from, even with a blindfold on - except much fainter, harder to discern. You made a face, eyebrows furrowing, trying to find where it was the strongest…

There!

You shot to your feet, almost toppling over, and jogged-stumbled down the slope, catching yourself on rocks as you let gravity do the work for you. But it didn’t matter, you were running as fast as was safe. Repatriation was a horror show on a good day and literal, actual hell on a bad one.

You hoped today was a good day.

You turned a corner and into a shallow cave, heart racing. There he was, in mismatched protective gear, with no Odradek to be seen. He had containers of food and medicine with him, ID chips torn off the side.

You knew of these types. Desperate souls not in association with anyone - MULEs or Bridges. No permanent shelter, always moving. The type of people that ended up either dead or a villain with a tragic backstory, taking what lost cargo they could find and surviving. Of course he wouldn’t have an ID ping on your Dek, he didn’t have an ID to begin with.

He was still unconscious when you got close to him. He had obviously been here a while. There was blood puddled on the floor. His hood was up and he was just soaked in blood. So… so much blood. Blood on your hands, on the floor, it was everywhere…

You swallowed and pushed those thoughts away. That wasn’t helpful now. You could have a nervous breakdown later. (You also ignored your thoughts of the stories you’d heard about repatriates getting caught in death loops.)

You knelt next to him, pulling a med scanner from your belt with shaking hands. It wasn’t as accurate or comprehensive as the Bridges kit, but it would do. There was obviously a lot of blood loss, which you looked steadfastly away from - but it was in survivable range now. The magic of repatriation, you supposed. There were no open wounds or internal bleeding. Bones were fine.

It was when you lowered his hood that you had the shock of the year.

It was Cliff!

How the fuck had that happened? He’d been dead for forty years!

Was there a time limit on repatriation? You didn’t know. Shit, you needed to call Heartman and ask.

You hesitated to touch his face to see if he had any lingering scalp damage - a lot of the blood had come from his head. Your awkwardness got the best of you and you went back to the scanner, mind going about a hundred thousand miles an hour, and your heart going about three times that. Who would you call first? Sam or Heartman? Sam deserved to know - but wouldn’t it be better to talk to Heartman first and get a grip on the situation before involving Sam and risk upsetting him if this was just some cosmic “fuck you”?

You stood up and walked out of the cave, taking a deep breath of the crisp, foggy, miserable fresh air. This was so fucked up. You pressed your hands to your face and forced yourself to calm down. Fucked up afterlife shenanigans or not, you would help him get back to wherever he set up his camp. You could do that. You helped randos out every once in a while, why would this be any different?

You ignored the voices that told you all the reasons this was stupidly, horribly different.

So you sat down opposite Cliff in the cave, fiddling with your comm after you had made a call to the search captain. You tried to push down your nerves and guilt. You really hoped they found Rami okay.

You tried to call Heartman, but it fell through. After waiting four minutes, you tried again. Still no dice. So, then you went to Sam’s contact… You hovered your thumb over the call button for a good five minutes, of two minds over calling him.

In the end, Cliff woke up violently before you made a decision, rolling onto his hands and vomiting slimy, black beach sludge everywhere. Euch. Smelled like rotting seaweed. Now this cave was double-gross.

You backed up from him, just to give him space, but as soon as you shifted and made a noise, you were met with a pistol in your face. You shrieked and recoiled, falling clumsily onto your ass.

He was in perfect shooting posture, still as a statue.

You didn’t move, heartbeat pounding in your ears and drowning out the wind outside. You blinked hard to keep yourself from seeing a mask instead of a bloody, confused face. There was a long, tense pause, before recognition bloomed in his eyes and he slowly lowered the gun to his side.

He didn’t let it go, though.

And you were crying.

“What are you doing here?” He rasped, disbelief coloring his voice. You weren’t sure if he was quiet because his throat was sore or if he didn’t want anyone to hear the two of you. You found you didn’t really care one way or another, you felt like were were going to shake yourself apart.

You swallowed, still eyeing the gun and not answering. He finally holstered it after ejecting a round from the chamber. Had it been racked the whole time? You hadn’t even noticed it on his belt! You were such an idiot!

“I’m sorry for the gun. I thought you were the thieves that shot me.” He held out his hands in a placating manner. “Are you alright?”

Yes, you were safe and you should be the one asking him if he was alright.

No, you were on the verge of a massive fucking panic attack.

You were both okay and not okay.

But you nod anyway, wiping the tears from your cheeks. “Never. Do that. Again.” You said in the most authoritative voice you could muster. It was still pathetic and shaky, but the point got through nonetheless. You were freaking the fuck out.

He looked sorry, though, he really did. And when he spoke, his voice was soft. “I would never dream of it.” He held out a hand to help you up. You took it. “I don’t make a habit of pointing guns at friends.”

“Good,” You gave him a wobbly smile. “‘Cause then I would have to kick your ass.”

That got a laugh from him, at least. “So, what are you doing here? I didn’t think you’re the type to steal from random, unconscious men.” If he noticed his legs were wracked with tremors, he didn’t act like it. He’d lost a lot of blood - not everything was back to normal yet. You didn’t like the thought of leaving him alone like this.

“I was looking for a lost porter when I found you. Made sure you weren’t bleeding out or something.” You said, trying to keep your voice light.

It was funny, that was how you’d met on the beach, too.

“I thought I had hidden myself rather well, but I guess blood loss will do that.” He looked down.

There was an awkward moment.

“You’re lucky it was me that found you and not someone else,” You look outside again, anything else but his face. “Anyone else would have stolen your cargo.” You licked your lips awkwardly. “Do you have a base camp set up or do you need to crash somewhere?”

He started gathering his things. “No thank you, I really have to be moving on,” He glances at you for a moment with a sad smile. “Thank you for caring, though.”

Oh no, he wasn’t. You had to stop him from leaving. You knew to the core of your soul that if you let him go now, you would never see him again.

“I’m a friend of Sam’s.” You blurt out, before immediately flushing. You’d sounded a lot more panicked than you meant to.

It worked, though, stopping him in his tracks. He turned around with a heartbreakingly soft look on his face, like he was afraid to get his hopes up. You could feel the relief come off him all at once from where you stood. “You know my son?”

God, that sappy look on his face was going to kill you. You nodded and looked away, hugging yourself. You felt like someone else was ten times more qualified to tell him all this, like you were intruding on something private. But you were the one there.

“He lives out by Mountain Knot City with Louise.” You looked back at him for a moment before looking away again. “His daughter he adopted in spring.”

He broke out into a grin, entire face lighting up. “Really?”

This was too much, seriously. If he started crying then you would start crying and there were more important things you had to do than cry.

You were already blinking back tears when you answered him. But that smile was contagious, and you started smiling, too. You felt like you couldn’t help yourself. “Yeah, really. She was his BB. Saved his life, too. And he saved her right back. He’s been keeping a low profile, though.” You double checked no one was listening, and turned off your comm just to be safe. “He disobeyed an executive order to do it, too. Die-Hardman has ignored it for now, but if other people knew and started asking questions…” You shook your head and sighed. You didn’t need to elaborate on bad PR forcing Sam to be arrested or something. Can’t show preferential treatment to people committing treason or whatever. “I can call him, if you want.”

Cliff nodded and looked out at the landscape, looking somewhere between wistful and upset. “Yes, please.” Both of you ignored the way his voice broke.

He levels you with a calculating gaze suddenly, as if just now thinking of something. “You’re not with Bridges, are you?”

“No, I’m not. I try to stay away from them, actually.” You shrugged, acting more relaxed than you were. “They have a bad habit of listening in on conversations.”

It seemed like that was the answer he wanted. “Can you call Sam, then?”

You nodded and pulled up the call.

And it went straight to voicemail. Were he and Heartman messing with you?

Damnit.

You sigh and put your hands on your hips. “Listen, Cliff. Sam doesn’t answer unregistered IDs. I can leave him a message and try calling him back later, but if you try to call him yourself he probably won’t answer.”

“I don’t have a comm, anyway. But I can go find him now. And meet my grand-daughter. Thank you.” He rested a hand on your shoulder for a moment, before turning away.

Was he seriously trying to leave again?

“Are you seriously just going to leave and walk there all by yourself?” You speed-walked after him - he was way ahead of you already. You cursed his long legs. “You don’t have and Odradek! Or supplies, or even a tent!”

“I’ve been fine so far, y/n.” His tone was dismissive, like he was a teenager waving of his mom’s concerns. The nerve of him! You weren’t going to be waved off! There were easier and faster ways across the continent than walking off by yourself with almost no supplies.

You planted your feet and crossed your arms. He wasn’t going to be this stupid, was he? You knew he knew better than this. “Can you tell where BTs are? Do you know where to hide and how to avoid them? Have a weather map? Know the locals and how to negotiate with MULE camps - which ones even can be negotiated with? Do you know the mountains like you know yourself? Because I do. And going out alone without GPS and comms is just stupid.”

“No,” He stopped, turning to you. He didn’t even look insulted! Did this guy fancy himself invincible just because he’s a repatriate? “But it doesn’t matter; I’m going to see my son. I’m not stopping now that I finally know where my family is.”

“I’m not trying to stop you,” You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I’m suggesting that you could stay for a few hours. I can call Sam as many times as I need to to get through to him. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been looking for so long, but if you rush into this you could cause a Voidout, even if you repatriate, and people will end up dead because you were impatient. So either you cool your jets and wait while I make dinner, or I follow you across the damn Rockies and be a general nuisance.” . You really didn’t want to follow through with that threat, but whatever. You would do it. “Besides, there’s a friend of mine that can take us there almost instantly, if she has the time to visit. Then you wouldn’t even have to risk the trip.”

It only took a moment’s hesitation before he looked away, seeming miffed, but he relented anyway. “How could I say no to a warm meal.” He said, as if the food was what convinced him to stay and not the possibility that the month-long trip through the mountains could be completely skipped.

It took the rest of the hike back home to work up your nerve and speak. “Look, Cliff…” You sigh as you approach your shelter. “Do you like. Need to crash on my couch for a few days? I have plenty of food, you can use my shower, I can get some clothes that aren’t, like. Super bloody. I keep supplies on hand for wanderers that might need them.”

You focused or unlocking your crazy number of locks instead of looking at him, a flush taking over your face and ears. You tried not to make assumptions, and it would be really embarrassing if he took your offer as an insult, but Cliff looked… rough. Judging by how Sam handles things, he would refuse you out of politeness alone. Something about not wanting to be a burden. You looked back at him, your lips pursed in thought.

You opened the door, speaking up again. “You’re definitely changing your clothes, actually. I traded a lot of good shit for my furniture and I don’t need blood on it.” There was no room for argument here.

At least now he was laughing. “You’re too kind, thank you. I promise I’ll be just the one night, really, I’d hate to impose.”

Called it.

You showed him the bathroom and pulled out some simple, soft, black clothes for him. You were paranoid, yes, but you always made a point to keep extra everything in case anyone nearby was injured or needed help. You hadn’t used them since you made your new shelter, though. “It’s no imposition, really. My nickname with porters is the Innkeeper,” You rolled your eyes at the nickname. “Stiched up a good number of folks in my time and sat through blizzards with a few more.” You smiled at him, hoping to make him feel welcome. “Besides, Sam would kill me if he got here and you were already gone.”

You would have pat him on the shoulder on your way out, but he was still covered in an obscene amount of blood, and you didn’t need that on you. Especially not on your hands. Ich. So instead you settled for a simple “Don’t use all the hot water,” as you left.

In the hallway back to the main room, Rocky came up to you, chirruping impatiently. You scooped him up and held on to him for a minute, letting him calm you down. His soft fur and rhythmic purring grounded you. You knew you were being silly, but you were a rubber band ball of anxiety, threatening to snap. Cliff was a good man. You knew that. Sam had told you about his memories when you had brought gifts for Lou. You knew this. He had died saving him. He was a goofy dancer who loved christmas and space and sang lullabies.

Didn’t stop your hands from shaking, though.

You didn’t let people in your shelter anymore, not even your parents.

But for Sam, you would deal with your shitty mind for the night.

So you sat down at your computer, opening up your usual programs. There was only way you would calm down anytime soon and you knew it.

You checked your own video feeds first. No-one outside your local shelter group was in the area. Everyone’s phone pinged back with the normal list of IDs. Your perimeter was fine - It had only seen you for the past week, and then Cliff this afternoon.

Next was the Bridges security feeds. You tapped into the full network of cameras and ran a facial recognition search for about the hundred millionth time in eight months. Higgs, last time the cameras had seen him, was still just hanging out past the tar belt with a bunch of MULEs two weeks ago. Yukking it up with a bunch of thieves.

He didn’t look miserable, which made your blood boil. But he wasn’t anywhere near you and that’s the important part. You were safe for now. There was no way he could make it across the tar belt and all the way out here in that time, right? And besides, his beef wouldn’t be with you. He had no reason to ever come back here.

But your gut churned even in the presence of cold hard facts. You felt like you were gonna puke.

Trauma was a real son of a bitch.

Still, the probably-unhealthy surveillance had reassured your safety. That was what mattered. Your trembling hand hovered over your scar for a moment, not daring to touch it.

Making dinner would be a welcome distraction. Guests always were.

-

Cliff was hesitant to accept your offer, at first.

He knew this was the smart way to go about things. Getting to Sam was his priority, even if he had to risk trusting you. Which was hard, even if he considered you a friend.

Friends had stabbed him in the back before.

He hadn’t trusted anybody since he woke up next to the lake, freezing in the early spring winds, with nothing, not even clothes on his back.

Going to Bridges had been out of the picture - it didn’t matter who was in charge now. He had no idea what to expect of them - if they were just as untrustworthy as before. He wasn’t willing to stake his life on the chance that the company had changed. He wasn’t trusting them a second time.

So he stayed alone, chasing rumors of his legendary son and where he had disappeared off to. But he was a ghost. As soon as he came across someone who knew him, they just as quickly told him they had no idea where he was. With the UCA you would think these people would know how to find each other, but apparently the public didn’t have access to location records, and Sam had kept himself off the map.

He had been close to caving and finding John when you had found him, roughed up and shot at by MULEs after his measly supplies. He was a good soldier and knew how to pick his battles, but they’d had a truck and a seemingly endless amount of bullets.

He’d only had a handgun.

So he would stay with you, for now, and find is son, and then everything would be okay. You didn’t seem the type to betray him. (But then again, neither had Bridget, until she had.)

But he had enjoyed your visits when he was trapped on the beach. He had been so desperately lonely and then you were there, with soft smiles and corny jokes and you let him tell you about the stars. You kept him sane in purgatory.

And here you were again, saving him, and he was still just trying to find his son.

And he was still horribly, terribly alone.

A/N:

Cliff’s Alive! Yay! Get ready for a wild ride guys, cause I’m just getting started! Who knew a Kojima game would end up being my muse, huh? I sure didn’t.   This was my first week of the new semester so I didn’t get to write as much as I wanted but I’ve gotten at least some more stuff on the master doc. I hope you guys enjoyed it, don’t forget to R&R!

Edit:Removed mention of M/C’s parents.

@paanchu786

[itcogutah]

Ski Mountaineering Classics of the Wasatch – ITCOG

When I started thinking about writing this article I decided I first need to define a few terms. What is ski mountaineering?  What makes something “Classic”?  And what are the Wasatch?

I took the Ski mountaineering definition from my website.

Ski Mountaineering: the discipline of climbing and descending mountains with the use of skis. Often, using the methods and tools of more traditional mountain climbing. Some of these tools include Crampons, Ice Axe, Harness and rope. Some of the methods include repelling and belaying as well as technical alpine climbing techniques. But ski mountaineering also includes technical descents. Technical descents include Belayed skiing, rappels (with and without skis), and definitely Steep and often exposed skiing.

The definition of “Classic” from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. 

Classic: serving as a standard of excellence: of recognized value

Wikipedia came up with a good description of the “Wasatch”

The Wasatch is a mountain range in Utah which forms the western end of the Rocky Mountains and runs 160 miles from the Utah-Idaho border to central Utah.  All the major ski areas: Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude, Park City, and even Snow Basin and Powder mountain are in the Wasatch mountains.

Now that we are all clear about what we are talking about, let’s talk about what you actually want to know.  What are the classic ski mountaineering objectives of the Wasatch? Here in the Wasatch, we have some very classic ski descents, including four entries into Chris Davenports coffee table best seller “Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America”, and made more famous by the documentary “The Fifty” staring Cody Townsend. These four classics: Mount Superior’s South Face, Thunder Ridge’s Hypodermic Needle, Mount Timpanogos’s Cold Fusion, and Mount Tukuhnikivatz in the La Sals, are the Utah four to make the cut.

Andrew Mclean’s “the Chuting Gallery” is another well-known tic list of Wasatch ski mountaineering. His book includes some of our favorites like The Pfifferhorns NW couloir, The East couloir on Kessler, and Monte Cristo’s Edge of the World to Directissimo.

These are great lists, but I will be covering the 5 that I believe are the most “Classic” Ski Mountaineering objectives in the Wasatch.

Mount Superior, South Face:

This is probably the most iconic mountain in all of the Wasatch.  Directly across the road from Alta and Snowbird, the south face of this beauty is in full view from both ski areas.  This visibility contributes to the allure of the mountain as well as its accessibility.

The south face is on just about everyone’s tic list once they see it.  That’s a lot of people considering its prominence in the views from two major ski resorts.  It is a worthy line, that deserves a lot more respect than one might suspect given the number of tracks that can be seen on the face almost every single day.  Don’t be one of the many that think skinning or booting directly up the face is ok.  There are way too many people for that silliness!    

From the Our Lady of the Snow church in the town of Alta start skinning due north to Cardiff Pass (also known as Pole Line Pass due to the power line that leads you directly to this pass).  This first section is well-traveled and should take most parties 1 to 2 hours and gains 1400’.  From the Pass head west following the undulating, and at times difficult east ridge to the summit of Superior.  This ridgeline gains an additional 1000’, but that doesn’t include the ups and downs as you follow the ridge line.  Most parties will take between 2-4 hours on this ridge.

Once on the summit, there are a number of different ways down.  All routes are exposed and their difficulty changes depending on snow coverage.  When properly filled in, directly off the summit is the classic line.  Scope it out from the road before heading up as you can get cliffed out if you pick the wrong line

The Pfifferhorn, North West Couloir:

In some ways, skiing the North West Couloir of the Pfifferhorn is the most technical of the classics I list in this article.  The technical aspect is due to the fact that you are skiing above a cliff, which requires a rappel to overcome it. The skiing is exposed and should only be attempted by solid skiers with good technical rope skills.

The trail starts at the White Pine parking lot.  Follow the summer trail, crossing the bridge where the trail meets the creek and continuing up and around Pink Pine ridge into Red Pine. Make your way to the top of Red Pine, where you gain the ridge by ascending the headwall.  Traverse around No Name Baldy to the south, and then follow the sometimes narrow ridge to where it meets the broad east ridge/face of the Pfifferhorn.  Ascend this ridge/face to the summit.

Once on the Summit, you will be able to look down the Northwest Couloir.  The top is often narrow and requires down climbing or even a rappel.  At first narrow, the soon couloir opens up and is at it’s widest just before the pinch.

At the pinch, there is a bolted anchor on the skier’s right wall.  Clip-in, remove your skis and set up the rappel.  From the bottom of the rappel, the skiing is slightly less steep and fairly open.  The final apron is often amazing skiing in wide-open terrain.

Thunder Ridge, Hypodermic Needle:

The Hypodermic is one of the most striking lines in the Wasatch and is visible from both Alta and Snowbird.  This obvious couloir is 1000’ long and has a sustained steepness of 45 degrees or greater.  You will want to ski it as soon as you see it, but many don’t because it takes a fair amount of work to get there.  There is more than one way to get there, but most culminate with a 1000’ booter directly up the couloir.

My preferred approach is from the White Pine parking lot.  Following the summer trail into White Pine, across the bridge, and around Pink Pine ridge into Red Pine, is the first part of this long journey.  Once in Red Pine head up the drainage to what is known locally as the Red Pine trees.  The top of Red Pine trees flattens out and as you traverse west, you will find yourself in Mambird Gulch.  From Maybird ascend the obvious ridge up Hogum Hogback, followed by an enjoyable ski down Hogum 200 into Hogum fork. 

It is obvious where to go from here, the couloir will be in its full glory above you.  Skin until it becomes too steep and then boot to the top.

From the top of the couloir to the road is nearly 5000’ of great skiing.  Exiting Hogum fork is doable if you stay left of the creek where it becomes a waterfall.  Pick your way to the road and thumb your way back to your vehicle.

Thunder Mt. North Peak, Coalpit Headwall:

The Coalpit Headwall is a remote and steep north face which can be viewed from the road and many vistas on the north side of Little Cottonwood canyon.  This exposed face often has the greatest danger from an avalanche perspective, than any of the “Classics” I describe here.  Even a small avalanche could be fatal, so choose your timing wisely.

To approach you can follow the same approach described for the Hypodermic Needle, or try something different.  I will describe approaching via the Y couloir.  Look for a pull out on the south side of the road 2.7 miles from the mouth of the canyon.  From the parking it should be obvious following a trail, taking the initial right dog leg in the couloir and then left all the way to the top.  The traverse into Coalpit is steep and often exposed, but it is fairly direct.  Once in Coalpit gulch continue to a saddle in the southwest corner of the upper headwall, with will give you access to your booter up the Hypodermic needle.

From the top pick your way down the exposed face taking caution not to get knocked off your feet with your own sluff.  This is nearly 2000’ of technical skiing mellowing slightly as you descend.  You can exit by continuing down the gulch, as long as you have your rope to get around the waterfall.

Mount Timpanogos, Cold Fusion: 

From the suburbs of Provo the North summit of Timpanogos towers, providing stunning views of this spectacular ski line.  This line does’t get nearly as much traffic or attention as the other classics I wrote about here.  Most people opt to ski this line in the spring and use a bike or sneakers for the 14mile round trip ski.  However, when the snow pack is stable this is an absolute five star power run.

From I-15 take exit 287 East toward American Fork Canyon and the Alpine loop road.  After only a mile on the Alpine Loop road you’ll reach the Mutual Dell campground.  Park here and find the trail heading toward Bear Canyon trail.  The initial climb out of the campground is steep and a fairly narrow trail when covered with snow.  Before this section got too miserable we reached the Bear Canyon road and followed that pretty much right to the base of the couloir.

I have done this route a few times, each time a bit different.  The best way I have found to access the couloir is by an short narrow gully obscured by trees near the eastern side of the main chute.  But that might be the crux of the route finding.  Once you exit this gully you are in the main chute and the route is generally straight up.  I have often found better skinning in the trees to the west of the main gut.  But eventually you need to get in it and just keep going up.

There is a sub peak or false summit around 11,300, that you will pass on it’s right.  This puts you into another drainage, know as the forked tongue couloir, which takes you to the North Summit of Timp.  FYI this puts you only a few hundred yards from the entrance to another great, but more challenging couloir known as the Grunge couloir.

Enjoy 3000’ of great <40 degree skiing to the base of the couloir, give your partners a high five and retrace you steps back to the car.

These descriptions are not meant as a guide per se, I am more trying to give you a general feel of what one of these adventures might entail.  If you want more info about Utah Mountaineering, reach out, I am happy to give you more beta. I would also love to take you and show you all the specifics you need to know.

The Content has been taken from: https://bit.ly/3szin1s

[testifytime]

hi ardent!!! im here to be government kin assigned. you pretty much know most things about me by now, but i really love music and art! i also really like sports n science!! so, uh, a pretty wide variety of interests ghjklgh. i try hard to stay kind and optimistic, and i really care about my friends!!! ty for doin these, they seem so fun!!

-Cracks my knuckles- You didn’t specify so I’ll do all.

- A Pokemon team/type theme (+ fun facts abt your team!)

You’re a fairy-type user! Your main pokemon is Sylveon, though you also have a lil Togepi, Florges, Alcremie, Marill, and Ribombee!

Fun facts!

Your Sylveon evolved without you meaning it to! You were going to evolve it into a Vaporeon, but you befriended it so quickly that it evolved before you got the water stone!

Your Togepi likes to ride around in a little backpack you made specifically for it. It’s a huge sweetie, but it also a bit of a baby; it knows Fake Tears, so it often cries whenever it wants some attention. 

Your Florges and Ribombee help you in your garden! Ribombee makes sure that all of the flowers are pollinated, and likes to help with watering them! Florges helped you plant all the flowers and how to place them beautifully, and now keeps a close eye on them for any signs of stress or illness - which, luckily, have never happened!

Your Alcremie was a gift from someone! It adores you with its whole heart, which can sometimes be a little messy; more than once it’s tried to jump into your arms, and you’ve ended up covered in sticky cream. Its sweet is a Heart, and its flavour is Mint!

Your Marill is a little different from the others. It’s a lot shyer, and tends to cling to your legs a little more. But it’s really good with kids!! It loves to go swimming with you in fresh water lakes. 

- Bloodcaste/lusus/chumhandle as if you were a Homestuck troll (+lore)

You’re a bronzeblood with a Paradise Flycatcher lusus! Your chumhandle is amiableGaitey.

You live in a small house in a meadow far away from society, living a fairly simple - albeit hard - life. There’s a stream that you get most of your water from, and a clothesline that you dry your clothes from, and as soon as the sun sets, you lose all power. It’s... a bit of a pain, honestly, but you kind of like it! You eat the berries and fruits that grow in the orchard and bushes that surround your home, and sometimes you go foraging for nuts and mushrooms, but only if your lusus gives the go-ahead. You’re pretty sure a bunch of the plants near your home are deadly. You might have even made poison once? It’s kind of weird.

You spend a lot of your time outside, going for walks and picking flowers to put into scrapbooks. Sometimes you’ll take your camera with you, and take pics of all the cool plants that you have around your home! It’s fun to show your friends later, when they’re all online, and it encourages you to go out every day just a little further to see what new things you can find. You’ve even turned it into a bit of a game! So far, you’ve managed to follow your river all the way down to the cliff that it drops from, have climbed up it, and have gone racing through the woods above. The exercise is great! You love it maybe more than anything else, and you couldn’t imagine giving it up for anything in the world. 

When you’re at home, you like to spend most of your time talking to your friends online. Your husktop is solar-powered, so you settle down in a nice sunny spot just outside your home and curl up against a big beancushion for hours until that itch to get going hits you again. Sometimes you draw - they’ve gotten you into drawing more and more frivolous things, things for you, things you might not have indulged in if they hadn’t encouraged you to - and sometimes you play games. Most of the time it’s just talking and having fun, though, and you love it! You’re pretty sure you’re all going to be friends for a very long time. You hope so, anyway. 

Your lusus is pretty small. They’re kind of fae-like, if you’re honest, and they often warn you against going in mushroom circles or going too deep into the woods. They’re a supersticious little thing, really! But they make a great navigator when you’re out and about, and they warn you of oncoming trouble pretty quick, so you don’t mind having to do weird things like hop on the stepping stones of a river after saying a little thank you.

- Symbol/guardian/chumhandle as if you were a Homestuck kid (+lore)

Your symbol is a styalised bass clef that looks like a heart, and you live with your auntie! Your chumhandle is appreciativeGuitarist.

You and your auntie live in a tiny cottage at the foot of a mountain surrounded on all sides by a field of wildflowers. The kitchen doubles as a dining room, and your livingroom really only fits a small, old-fashioned tv and a sofa that’s a little too worn for wear at this point. But you have your own room! And you’ve got all your things in there, including your bike, which is kind of a pain to get in and out all the time, but you make it work. You have a small desk for your drawingpad and laptop, and a tiny bed you just about fit on, and it’s maybe a little small? But it’s also filled to the brim with clothes you love and stuffed toys you’ve collected over the years, so it’s pretty good, all things considered. Homey, more than anything.

You love to draw! You’ve really improved in the last few years, you think, and you’re getting more confident about posting your art again - so you draw, and draw, and you think maybe you’re starting to see what your friends have been telling you! You like to draw fantasy things, of yourself in different scenarios or just spending time with your friends, all of which you do on your drawing pad. It’s a pretty neat little thing to have, admittedly, though you don’t always get to save your art in the process unless you send it to yourself and save it on your phone - but it means that you’re more inclined to send your art to your friends, and you’re pretty sure they love seeing what you’ve made. 

You love to go out and about, and your little space in nature gives you the perfect place to release all that pent up energy. There’s planty of beaten paths for you to follow, and a whole moutain for you to trek up if you want! You’ve gotten lost a few times, but that’s okay; the wifi signal is weirdly good up there, and it’s easy enough to figure out a way back down again before nightfall. It makes for a pretty good bike track, too, with plenty of dips and bumps that make your stomach flip whenever you go over them too fast.

You have a bunch of friends online! Actually, you have a bunch of people who just kind of flock to you for guidance and leadership, too? It’s a little weird, and it can be a bit intimidating, but you really like being able to help people, even if it means overwhelming yourself sometimes to be good at it. Your friends make it worth it, anyway. They make you laugh and make you feel better when you’re down - which doesn’t happen often, but sometimes it’s hard to keep smiling, and they remind you that that’s okay - and they make such wonderful things with you!! You love being able to talk to them, love spending time with them, and even love getting teased by them (which, you tease them back, of course). 

You like to sit out in the field of flowers just as the sun starts to set, and the sky slowly turns from blue to orange. The wind rustles the flowers around you and curls your hair around your cheeks, and sometimes, you wonder if maybe you’re not alone.

- A FNAF animatronic design and name

You’re a sweet, pink and white boardercollie with lots of hearts in your design! Your eartips are curled over, your pupils and nose heart-shaped, and you have cute little toebeans on each paw. Your chest fur, paws, belly, and the underside of your tail are white, along with your muzzle and a stripe up to your forehead, but every other part of you is a beautiful pastel pink!

You’re designed to be a friend to any child who seems upset or let out at a party, to make them feel special and to bring them back into the fun or even just to spend the whole day with them! 

You have a designated name - Collie - but you like to let the kids decide what to name you, too. It’s fun! And it helps to make them feel like you’re a Special Friend, so you often get trusted with their secrets - like if another kid is a bully, or if they’re maybe not too happy at home. You do your best to make their time at the pizzaria as fun and happy as possible to make up for all the bad things they have to deal with - and honestly, they love going to Freddy’s just to see you! It’s their favourite place in the whole wide world because they know you’re there. 

(You also tend to send information back to the owners about anything worrying you’ve heard while out on the floor. This has saved a lot of kids. They’ve often come back in smiling brighter than you’ve ever seen them, and they haven’t needed you after that, but that’s okay. You know that’s for the best.)

- A BNHA Quirk and hero title

Your quirk is Uplift, which allows you to raise the spirits of any person who hears your voice! It doesn’t matter how down they are or how villainous they may be; as soon as they hear you, their hearts are filled with brightness and warmth. The downside to your quirk, unfortunately, is that it can be draining on you: sometimes you Uplift others so much, that your own mood starts to drop, and you start to get emotionally tired. When this happens, you just need a little company, warmth, and love to get you back to normal. Cuddlepuddles with blankets and hot chocolate ARE common after training.

Your hero title is The Inspiring Hero: Restoraise! You’re more of a support hero than a daylight one, and not very high on the charts, but that’s not what matters to you. What matters is keeping people calm and full of hope whenever you’re on the scene - be that upset civillains, trapped victims, or even hopeless villains. You refuse to let anyone down if there’s even a slim chance that everyone can be saved or redeemed!