#ts pt7.

[catboii]

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[Excerpt taken from Agent 23's personal diary]

[Day ####]

Today was interesting. 

I’ve been going into the room and talking to the crow, I’ve been calling it Crowvid because it sounds cute. Like crow, corvid and david all rolled into one. Like a people name. I need to call it something other than “the anomaly”, it just sounds… out of place. And it’s almost big enough to be a person. A small person at least, like a three year old. I almost feel like it’s gotten bigger since I first saw it, but maybe it’s just because it was far away from the camera.

Anyway, I was telling Crowvid that I used to play in a chess club in school, and it tilted its head like it was trying to work something out. So I told it all the rules of chess, and it seemed very interested. I mimed out moving the pieces, and it followed my hand around the floor like a little mime-bird. I gave it a little quiz on which pieces move which way, and it did little jumps diagonally or forward! It wasn’t right most of the time, but it did get a couple right, and there was one or two where it looked like it was thinking, and started taking a step, then looked up at me questioningly. Like on the knight, it took 2 steps forward, then looked up at me, and slowly put one of its little feet out to the side, but didn’t put it down until I nodded encouragingly. When I said it was right, it jumped up and down and flapped its wings. It was so cute. 

I even went over some of the pieces again, and it got them wrong the 2nd or 3rd time. I’m not surprised though, it’s a lot to remember. It took me years to get it right!

[Day ####]

After a few days of the back and forth talking about chess, 23 decides to bring something up to her Overseer. She asks if she can bring the wildlife book in the room, as the creature has been making some major progress, and she wants to prove that it can be safe around other objects. After an apparent review to someone higher than her Overseer, she’s allowed. 

So on the day that she brings it, she shows it to ‘Crowvid’ through the first section of glass. The creature perks up, and then hops over looking excited. Once she’s in the room the animal plops itself down where they normally sit, and she sets the book down, then herself, and opens it to the last page they were on. 

“Ermines, or Stoats, are Mustelids native to Eurasia and North America. They are very brave and sometimes take on prey up to five times their own size!” 

The crow is now settled beside 23’s leg, pressed against it so she can feel it breathing. Or not… It doesn’t seem to be breathing. As she talks, she studies it, watches if its feathers are moving with the motion of breathing or not. After what must be a few minutes, she can’t see anything. Strange. She should write this in her observational notes, but she’s not sure if she wants to.

[Day ####]

On this day, 23’s Overseer had approved a request for her to take a chess set from the Archive into the chamber. 23 was honestly surprised that they had one after she had been searching through the log for over half an hour with no luck, and nothing similar in sight aside from ‘One Complete Connect 4 Set’, but she had still been hopeful. She thought possibly there could be a small plastic set that she could borrow, she didn’t have a set of her own at home, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be allowed to bring personal items into the chambers. If they even had just a little travel set, or one of those ‘5 games in 1’... 

Eventually though, she came across the listing she was hoping for. ‘One Complete Chess Set x1 Board and x34 Chess Pieces’, she wondered at first why there were 34 pieces, when you only need 32, but it was probably the chess nerd in her that was hung up on such a tiny detail. She’d found a set! 

Although, it wasn’t as easy as just grabbing it, stamping something and going on her way. First, she had to sign a lot of forms, one for every single article, each piece has its own complete form, and has a faded letter-number code scrawled on the bottom: White Pawn A-1, White Pawn A-2, etc. Upon the process of signing it out, she found out that there were actually an extra pair of Queens. There's no rule book in the set, so she decided to look up why once she got home, since she had no devices on her to look it up right now.

Once everything's finally checked out, she takes it all down to Crowvid’s chamber, and once inside, sets it up on the floor. The Anomaly even tries to help her set it up. Its awkward and keeps dropping the pieces on their sides as its too big to hover, just tries to take off from the ground and nudge the piece it has along the floor, before it flops down on the floor again, bringing it with them. But it does get them closer to her, and its just nice to interact with it. It becomes a little activity. 23 even tries to see if Crowvid can figure out where each piece goes, and it does get all the pawns in the right places, and the knights and bishops are in the right places after just a little prompt. 

The set is quite big, larger than any board she's played on before, and the pieces are quite heavy, so it can walk over the middle of the board without knocking too much over. She asks it to move one of its pieces first, and it uses a clawed foot to pull a White pawn forward, without even being told which colour to choose. Although the fact that the black pieces are in front of Agent 23 could give that away, if it’s clever enough to take that hint. They make a few moves each, nudging the pawns around, then it hesitates at a non-pawn piece. She reminds it what moves it can make, but forgets to make any hand motions, but it tries to move the piece. It turns out that the piece is too closed in by pawns and it’ll knock them over, so after trying to reach through with a clawed foot, 23 moves the piece for it, and hovers the piece over the possible moves it can make, moving over one space, then the other. The Anomaly nods its head lightly when it’s hovering over a space, and 23 is surprised at the motion, but puts the piece down.

They keep doing this, the Anomaly moving the piece if it can reach, 23 moving for it otherwise. The Agent wins of course, she didn’t want to pull any punches, she just wanted to show it what moves you can make and how to win. The Anomaly seems excited. It jumps up onto her shoulder and she jumps, making a small gasping noise at the sudden contact. The creature jumps too and flies over to the far wall.

A faint alarm goes off with a rotating red light flashing above them. Another Agent enters the first interlock and 23 realises, no; remembers is more accurate, that they’ve been watching the whole time. The new Agent stays in the first interlock but asks Agent 23 if she’s alright. 23 asks them to turn off the alarm and leave… The Agent hesitates for a moment, but looks at the Anomaly, which steps further back, ducking its head with its feathers fluffed up, and they leave. The Alarm turns off. 

23 sits in silence for a while, then puts her hand out to the Anomaly. It doesn’t move. 

Eventually it’s time to end the observation.

[max-the-d0g]

Can you recommend some fics olease

ok.. okay, alright. im gonna do a few of them now. there are too many writers that are very talented on here, so I can’t name every single one. But I will put a few of them below and a few fics I think you might like/ recommendations. 

Everything on this masterlist - @lourdsbitch

a couple of my favourites that are truly amazing !!

- I Know You’re Thinking About It (the series is amazing) 

- Beautiful 

- Insecurities 

- Myrtle’s Plan

This masterlist is truly fucking fabulous !! @lucyintheskywithxanax

a couple of favourites 

- “Lionheart”

- “My Silver Screen, My Misery, My Love, My Defeat”

- “Red Roses”

- “Strawberry Blond & Fiery Red”

This masterlist  by @minaslittleone is phenomenal !! 

a couple of favourites 

- Unabridged and Overwhelmed

- All along 

- with golden string 

THIS masterlist by @stayevildarling 

The series are the BEST! They are so good. I don’t know how she does it, but they are amazing. 

- Sick

- Craving

- A little help (this series!!)  Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3, Pt 4, Pt 5, Pt 6, Pt7, Pt 8

This master piece of a masterlist - @supremeinlilac

a couple of favourites 

- Loving blind

- What a year

- Three’s not a crowd, especially when it’s us | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

This masterlist  by @twistedpoeticjustice needs more recognition and more love. She deserves it !!!

a couple of favourites 

-  Found The Place To Rest My Head - despite Ally not being my favourite I loved this one so much. it made me like her a little more. 

- I Saw An Angel Of That I’m Sure

Masterlist + prefection - @commanderspeach

- its always been you

- Slow Dancing For The Last Time - absolutely sad and heartbreaking, but beautifully written 

This wonderful masterlist is phenomenal, fucking AMAZING !! @grilledcheeseandguavajelly

- “It Was Hard To Breathe, And She Called To Me”

- “All The Echoes In My Mind Cry, There’s Blood On Your Lies” - one of the first ficS I read on this app and I still LOVE it! 

- “No” Is A Four Letter Word 

This one <-- prefect ! @in-cordelias-coven

-  In life & beyond - so sweet and soft. 

-  ‘Our little one’

I’m just collecting a few to reblog tonight. so yes... I would also recommend giving them a read. <33

[thoughtsonpoldark]

ONE DAY TOO LATE!

‘I can't come here again, she thought. After all this time, and now it's too late.’ (Elizabeth Poldark)