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auntie-venom · 1 year

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Will of Fate

Chapter One

Fandom: Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Story Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Mature

Characters: Din Djarin x Original Female Character

Summary: There hasn’t been an unidentified spacecraft in the stratosphere of Arkadia in over two decades, let alone three in one day. Those skilled or mad enough to venture into the Chaos unguided were few and far between. That means no one has ever made it to Arkadia who wasn’t intending to be here.

Until today.

Din Djarin finds an unmapped planet filled with beings who have the same powers as the Child, but know nothing of the force or the Jedi.

Word Count - 3,091

Chapter Warnings: Language

Will of Fate Masterlist

A/N: Hello!

So I have not creatively written since 2007, so any feedback or Beta volunteers I would adore. Feel free to read on Ao3.

Inspired by the idea of "What if there were beings who used force like it was just another limb on their body and didn't revere it in such a binary fashion?”

Takes place after season one.

Chapter one

There hasn’t been an unidentified spacecraft in the stratosphere of Arkadia in over two decades, let alone three in one day. Those skilled or mad enough to venture into the Chaos unguided were few and far between. That means no one has ever made it to Arkadia who wasn’t intending to be here.

Until today.

The first ship was jarring enough to pull Eziriel from the manual diagnostic scan she was elbow-deep in. The southeastern quadrant beacon towers had been sending odd signals back to the capital city Helix over the last few weeks and she only trusted herself to figure out why. She was working in concentrated silence instead of the usual method of mumbling full conversations to troubleshoot a problem when the distant unfamiliar hum of a spacecraft caused her to freeze. There was a passing thought of how the noise must be a part of the brewing storm that was heading her direction, but the consistent rumbling noise shattered that thought.

With a graceless speed she rips away from the tangle of cables, unsafely dropping an exposed wire to dangle, trips over her soldering kit, and dashes through the beacon station. Leaving behind a wake of disarray, she throws open the door just in time to see a very non-Arkadian ship dip into the canyon west of her.

While she knows that it is terrible that her first thought isn’t for the well-being of those on the ship that were about to fly blind through the winding canyon, she is rather proud that her first thought isn’t spiraling panic but rather: The Cloak is down.

Her chest grows tight with anxious energy as she whips her hand up to press the button of the device wrapped snugly around her ear. With two dual-toned staccato chirps of greeting from the ear piece the familiar violet holographic visor extends across her eyes while she steps completely out of the beacon station. Glancing up as soon as her visor’s desktop was loaded she searched for the telltale patterned hexagon grid of The Cloak.

It was flickering.

The Cloak of Arkadia has been a fixture on the planet since before Eziriel was born. A planetary shielding system that originally paired a standard global deflector shield with a frequency that scrambled any navigation or communication unit that did not have the Arkadian hardware installed in it. It was clever, but fifteen standard years ago Eziriel, in all her youthful arrogance, fought to get the approval to improve upon it because she was more clever. Implementing an advanced holographic projection technology that she had been perfecting since she was a child, she created the additional terra holo projection that covered the entire planet in a holographic camouflage. Those from the stratosphere saw thick storms, raging seas, unlandable terrain, and whatever else to create the facade of the most inhospitable planet to land on as possible. Those planetside were completely unaffected by her addition to The Cloak. The citizens knew it was there and that they could view the backside of it through a specific lens setting, but after the first few years the spectacle of it wore off and citizens more or less ignored its presence. These defenses have unfailingly kept Arkadia protected from unwanted guests for centuries.

Until now.

Shifting her focus to the unknown ship she watches as it maneuvers through the towering pillars of rock formations that run throughout the dangerous canyon, rather well for being unguided she internally admits to herself. Ga’ladora’s Canyon is often used as a proving ground for the local pilots. The geologic wonder of the colossal pillars for miles was just the sort of thing young pilots took as a personal challenge. They claim it is a way to show off all the skills they learned at the academy and how focused their Will was, but it was just a glorified unsanctioned race for bragging rights at the local cantinas. The current ship was going nowhere near the speeds in which those races were held, but it was still going at a pace that would cause death if the pilot mishandled a turn.

“CHI-CHI, The Cloak of Arkadia seems to be glitching. Shift the beacon towers to emergency power mode and run a full system scan to gather analytics on the beacon points to see if you can sniff out the problem,” she commands into the ear piece she nearly always has on her.

“Well, hello to you too, mother dearest. I’m lovely this evening, thank you for asking,” the bored pretentious voice responds unhelpfully and she audibly groans.

It seems the recent code deployment of, what she considers, cleverly titled program “Manners Maketh Machine” was blending with the sarcasm of the Artificial Intelligence swimmingly. She knows allowing CHI to learn and grow from interactions with organics was controversial and going to be a risk, but she honestly loves that they started developing wit and a personality. However, this is a more serious matter than they usually dealt with and if it weren’t for the whirling icon in the corner of her visor informing her CHI was following her orders, a feature she developed immediately after she noticed the AI’s growing love for banter, she was about to uncharacteristically pull rank on them.

“My darling progeny, this is a threat level ‘kriffed’ if you hadn’t clocked the unidentified ship currently, and successfully, weaving through Ga’ladora’s Canyon.” She glances at the preliminary readings that her visor calculated off of the ship while she makes her way closer to the edge of the ravine to get a better vantage point. She was lucky that the Ga’ladora Beacon Station was at the highest point of the canyon. If she wanted she could easily run inside to climb the winding staircase to get an even better vantage from the top of the tower, but she did not want to lose sight of the unknown ship.

Without looking away from the ship she crosses her right arm in front of her, moves her left fist over her bracer and opens her fingers wide bringing up a holographic screen that hovers around her forearm. While the trajectory, speed, and predicted maneuvers were very useful in her visor, the HolOmni would be able to show her the who, what, where of this ship.

“Would you kindly tell His Almighty of the current situation?” She asks.-

And she wonders where CHI developed the snark.

She keeps her visor locked on the ship letting CHI get as many readings as possible until it moves so far east between the stone pillars she can no longer see it. She checks her HolOmni to see if she got enough readings to track it and if she can find out its origins. The storm rumbles closer in a threatening reminder to Eziriel that it’s about to get messier.

An unremarkable gunship. Well, at least to her. Specifically a ST-70 class Razor Crest M-111, and a pretty old model at that, according to the files CHI pulled. Ezirial had very little interest in ships outside her own planet’s fleet. Unless they offer tech better than hers, she doesn’t bother beyond a rudimentary glance at the specs to make sure there isn’t better tech in the galaxy. There usually isn’t.

Once she realizes that this ship is unregistered and without a transponder beacon she has CHI pull any of the New Republic and Imperial files that they can find on any recent encounters with an ST-70 Assault Ship: docking records, infringements, planetary access requests, etc. She could have CHI comb as deep as possible for any mention of this specific ship in any digital file on the holonet, but she doesn’t have the time right now. All she learns is that this is a Republic Era model, colloquially known as a “Razor Crest” and that one of these models was currently a ship of interest to both the Empire and the New Republic, both for classified reasons that she doesn’t have time to dig up.

“King Amarian is in the quarterly meeting with the Agricultural Council. He says he is putting the Enforcers and Guardians on standby for your command but has full faith in you to scout any threats before you do something reckless.” CHI brings up the digital message on her HolOmni that documents the order and has Amarian’s digital seal. Eziriel smirks at the fact that there was a “don’t be stupid” digitally scrawled in his handwriting along with a crude childishly drawing of a face with a tongue sticking out at the bottom of the official document. Future historians will love that. “It seems your brother has more faith in the skills you picked up from your failed attempt at becoming an Infiltrator than I do.”

She snorts at the supposed insult and looks up to then breathe a sigh of relief at seeing that the emergency power of the beacon towers had kicked in and that The Cloak of Arkadia was no longer glitching and was a steady glow once more. The grip that anxiety has on her chest loosens slightly. Now the only problem to deal with was the mystery ship. She should be able to triangulate the location of the ship using the beacon towers easily. She punches the air in a small celebration of her saving the planet with her quick thinking. Maker, she is brilliant.

“I’ll have you know—“

She chokes on her reply when she instinctively ducks and throws her hands on her ears in alarm at a horrendous screeching noise overhead. The storm closing in had hidden the noise until it was upon her. A terrifying noise she had only ever heard in holovids: an Imperial TIE fighter. Even people who’ve never paid attention to ships know that one.

Fuck.

The ship screeches above the canyon at a much faster speed than the previous gunship, avoiding the stone pillars altogether. She lets out a curse and is about to issue CHI a command when she hears the faint distant screeching engine of another TIE fighter. Whipping her head in the direction of the noise behind her she sees a second fighter flying distantly above her and cutting perpendicularly across the path of the first two ships, not at all in the same direction. Thank the stars, it’s above The Cloak! They should not be able to see or contact anything planet-side of The Cloak unless they have the proper programming installed in their comms, which they definitely shouldn’t have.

Eziriel watches the first TIE fighter move further east of her and then start shooting at something in the canyon beyond her line of sight; she assumes the gunship when she sees a return fire from a lower vantage point. She could only guess that the gunship was fleeing this TIE fighter and somehow ended up on her planet. The second fighter disappears up into the stratosphere as the storm clouds finally roll into her vicinity. The forest behind her rattles as the winds pick up and fat drops of rain starts to darken the ground around her feet. Pulling up the hood of her cloak she has CHI lock onto the remaining TIE fighter and see if they can lock a trace on it just in case it leaves her sight.

Her pulse is loud in her ears.

She’s never seen anyone from the Empire in person before. She has gotten her hands on Empire tech thanks to some of the Sanctuary Station traders, but she mostly knew the Empire as this grand villain of the galaxy that has brought horrors to everyone within it and that her planet was lucky to reside in the Chaos where the Empire had yet to master the navigation. She’s seen the vids of the atrocities they commit and just the thought that the Empire gained the skill to make it this far out into space makes her stomach lurch.

Pushing down the nausea she goes to send an update to Amarian and the definite need of Guardians and Enforcers when the fighter dips down into the canyon still firing its green lasers and just a second later she sees the fiery explosion before it even hits her ears.

Which one was it?

The sound wave of the explosions cuts through the storm and the initial plume of fire dissipates into the downpouring sky. Thunder is cracking, her trousers are soaked with rain, and the howling wind is a constant wall of noise around her while Eziriel waits with bated breath at any sign of a ship.

She can’t remember the last time she remained so still and quiet for an extended time.

There, right there, she hears something.

Then from the canyon rises the gunship.

Her knotted stomach loosens tremendously as she breathes out a sardonic huff of a laugh. She pulls her HolOmni into her view once more to scan the comm channels to see if the ship is trying to hail anybody. If this gunship is an enemy of the Empire then at least there is a commonality between them.

The ship is moving slower than it was earlier as it makes its way back west above the canyon. It seems to be barely puttering along.

Is that smoke?

As soon as the thought crosses her mind the ship suddenly plunges to its side while the telltale signs of smoke comes out of the left engine. She holds her breath as the gunship tries to correct itself and at first she thinks they’ve managed to sufficiently level off to get out of the canyon to land in the forest, but it isn’t enough. It sways unsteadily trying to avoid the pillars of stone while also attempting to make it to her side of the canyon. They are so close to making it out when an unseen branch of a stony pillar barely scrapes against the undercarriage, jarring the ship enough to send it dipping sideways back into the canyon. The pilot overcorrects the ship back up only to catch the right wing in another pillar and it sends the ship spinning towards the side of the canyon.

The crash is quieter than she expects.

No explosions, rockslides, or crumbling stone pillars, just a prolonged noise of scraping and crunching metal. Eziriel runs to her speeder bike, kicks it to life, and makes her away along the cliffside towards the downed ship.

By this point the sun was completely gone for the day, the three moons were hidden by tumultuous clouds, and the forest’s bioluminescent organisms were hidden by the horrid weather. All that was lighting her way was the dinky headlight of her speeder and this late summer lightning storm. She takes a moment to open her mind and cast her Will out to the environment around her to help navigate through the poor conditions. Her senses open up to the life around her and she uses it to keep her speeder on the path of least resistance.

She makes it to the outcrop that stretches above the crash site as quickly as she can and hops off the speeder to carefully lean over the side to assess the situation. The ship didn’t make it to the canyon floor but instead had wedged itself canted to the right between two stone pillars and the canyon’s wall hundreds of feet above the sharp rocky bottom and, luckily, only about fifty feet below the cliffside she stood on. She takes a moment to watch the ship to make sure it is staying put where it has ended up. She doesn’t want to take a chance of trying to help someone only for all of them to fall to a sharp death. She has to think this through rationally rather than her usual approach of impulsiveness that mostly relied on luck and chance to be successful.

She enables the infrared in her visor to get a headcount of passengers. At this distance she will only be able to get the heat signatures and won’t be able to get a read on their vital signs to determine if someone is injured. Hopefully when she gets closer she will get a more thorough reading.

She spots two heat signatures in what she assumes is the cockpit of the gunship. One the size of an unmoving humanoid adult and the other tiny. Too tiny to determine whether this was a small species of sentient being, a pet, or a baby. She doesn’t know if it is Fate’s Will speaking the truth to her or if it’s just such a horrible thought that it just can not escape her brain but the thought played in a loop: a child. She grits her teeth at even the thought of the Empire endangering a child.

Bastards.

She would normally be able to go down with only her Will as assistance, but it would be too far too difficult for her to Will someone back up. Using her Will acrobatically wasn’t quite her strong suit and she didn’t want to test her limits on a cliffside in the middle of a storm. That would fall under the “don’t be stupid” rule that Amarian explicitly commanded of her. She bet that boarding an unknown ship that crash landed onto her planet with no back up besides a sarcastic AI would also fall under that rule, but she is gonna pretend that it isn’t.

She turns around and maneuvers the speeder in a way to utilize the attached winch at the back into a makeshift belayer and the front winch as a counter balance around a grand tree. She makes sure to triple check the security of the metal cable around the tree, she doesn’t want any chance of making this disaster worse.

The thunder that was accompanying the ongoing lightning booms louder in a reminder that she is tempting fate being connected to so much metal surrounded by tall trees. Syncing the winch to her HolOmni she then digs in the speeder’s saddle bag for any other useful equipment and was lucky enough to find a glowrod. Flicking on the light to bathe the surrounding area with a warm light she grabs the end of the winch cable and makes her way to the cliff’s edge to look upon the unknown ship she was risking her life for. She takes a calming breath and begins her descent while her father’s words from long ago ring in her head.

A hand held out in kindness is never the wrong decision.

Chapter Two >>

#the mandolarian #din djarin #din djarin x original female character #din djarin x ofc #the mandalorian x original character #din djarin x original character #the mandalorian fanfiction #Star Wars Fanfiction #Star wars #eventual smut #slow burn #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #the mandalorian x reader #third person pov #third person perspective

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zhenvs3000w24 · 3 months

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Humans and Nature

Hello Everyone,

This week's blog is gonna be a little different, since it's unguided by a prompt, and because of this I want to talk about the relationship that humans have had with nature. Throughout history humans have always been deeply intertwined with nature. We have heavily depended on the resources that nature has provided from the beginning of time. As it provides us with food, shelter, as well as medicine. However, the importance of nature is often overlooked by most people. From the air we breathe to the food we eat, nature plays a huge role in sustaining our existence.

Despite this fact humans often neglect nature and the benefits we get from it. For example, spending time in nature has been seen to reduce stress while improving one's mood. Nature also serves as such a huge inspiration for creativity. As talked about in a previous blog. Nature has been a significant source of inspiration for artists, writers, and thinkers. Through the beautiful landscapes as well as diversity of flora and fauna as well as cycles that work together to keep every aspect of nature running. Nature forever will spark both curiosity as well as fuel for imagination.

Even though nature is so important to us, over the years have exponentially increased the use of the resources provided by nature effectively damaging the planet beyond repair. Some main examples of these are deforestation, this effectively has displaced thousands of animals as well as killing many, threatening species to the point of extinction all for monetary gain. An example that I have seen first hand is in my moms home country of St Lucia. Over the years many big hotels as well as tourist attractions like golf courses have been built and continue to grow as the years go by. This has destroyed many of the natural land as well as pushed a lot of local citizens out of their regularly visited beaches or trails. As the island becomes more well known more and more big companies will look to expand hotels and other activities altering natural beaches as well as driving wildlife away. Secondly, the biggest problem we face is overconsumption, this alone causes a myriad of other problems. The human population is insatiable and continues to want more, as this want grows, the resources we use also increases. Humans for a long time have been depleting the Earth’s natural resources at an alarming rate.

As someone who is very close with nature, it saddens me to see how much destruction we have caused to this planet and how little people care. We have taken the giving nature that the Earth has for granted as we overuse resources and constantly destroy it. I hope that in the near future more people realise how important it is that we take care of the planet and we see a big change.

Thank you for reading this weeks blog post, I hope it made you guys think about how important nature is to everyone around us and you care a little bit more for it.

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mandala-lore · 3 years

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Program: Scrapbook - Chap. 1: Activation

I choose to believe Dr. Soong DID leave memories for Data on the emotion chip. I see the canon and I politely decline. I’m planning a few more of these chapters, in which Data will watch these memories play out on the holodeck and then have brief commentary after each one. I would apologize for the female OC but, y’know, if the writers had given Data a decent romance arc, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Anyway, I’m particularly pleased with my Lore characterizations so I hope other people enjoy pain as much as I do. :)

This is more or less canon compliant, except that at some point, Data reactivated Lore for research purposes...and, of course, the sinlord promptly escaped into the galaxy. For later plot reasons.

Also posted on ao3.

“Here. We. Go.” Dr. Soong took a tentative step back to give his new creation some room. Over the last few stages, they had learned that android activation could be at least as traumatic and confusing as human birth. Julianna squeezed his hand gently.

The constructed body on the table opened its eyes and sat up slowly, looking dazed. As the eyes adjusted and learned to blink, the new lifeform jerkily tilted its head one way, then the other, trying to process stimuli.

“Hello,” Juliana ventured. “Do you know who we are?”

The new man fixed his piercing, yellow eyes on the human couple before him, then gazed off into space. Dr. Soong held his breath, wondering if this new one would fail like the earlier prototypes. Then the new android’s head swiveled clumsily to face them again.

“Juliana and Noonian Soong. Mother. Father. I am… Day-tah.”

Dr. Soong clapped his hands in victory. “Very good!”

“Yes!” Juliana laughed. “That’s right.”

As new sensations overwhelmed him – his father’s hands clapping together, his mother’s proud laughter – Data’s head jerked just slightly. He started to wave back and forth, and Dr. Soong put an arm around his new child to stabilize him.

“That’s alright, son. Take a minute. Let everything come to you slowly.” He unconsciously pat the android’s back – a human reaction, a fatherly impulse. “That’s it. Very good.”

Data seemed steady now as he curiously surveyed the room: scientific instruments, computer monitors, plastic dinosaurs, potted plants, light fixtures, doors. His head movements were still jerky and awkward, but he didn’t seem in any danger of falling over.

“Data,” Juliana’s voice startled him again and drew his attention back to the front of the room. She smiled warmly, “Data, there’s someone else you should meet.”

From the open door behind her, a tall figure in black stepped cautiously into the light. He stood stiffly next to Juliana. The man’s expression was good-humored, but unimpressed. ��He looks…confused.”

“Data, do you know who this is? Take your time, sweety.” She led the other man gently by the elbow and put his hands out for Data to investigate.

There were several long seconds of silence. Data tilted his head compulsively a few times, searching, cross-referencing, processing. “Lore. Brother.” He answered hesitantly. “Hell-OH, I am a Day-tah.” He shook Lore’s hand brutishly from side to side.

Lore snickered. “Oh, yeah. I like him.” He loomed over his brother and slid his own arm back to his side, stepping back near Juliana. “Uh. Is anyone gonna give the poor kid some clothes?”

“Clothes.” Data repeated. “Clothing. Atire. Garments. Outfit.”

“Come on, little brother. Let’s find you some pants.” Lore shook his head, amused, and took Data’s hand again. He led him down from the table. Looking pleased with himself and focused entirely on Lore’s movements, Data hopped down, tried putting one foot on top of the other… And promptly fell over on his side. He sprawled, naked and perplexed, on the floor of the lab. He stared at his legs, seeming unsure how to correct the issue.

Lore laughed harder and Data helplessly mirrored his brother’s earlier smirk. “Oh dear,” Juliana sighed.

Dr. Soong growled in exasperation. “No, no, no! He’s not ready yet. Lore, help me with him.” Together they lifted Data to his feet and waited for him to stand steady before removing their arms from underneath his. His knees buckled for a moment, but Lore caught his brother before he could slip again. “Alright. Now, slowly. Slowly. One step at a time,” their father commanded.

Juliana went to a cupboard and pulled out a robe. “Here, Data. Can you walk toward me?” She beamed with pride as Lore and Noonian, on either side of Data, released his arms but shadowed his every hesitant step. With each footfall, one, two, three, four, five, Data seemed more confident, until he managed the last leg of the path standing tall and unguided by his family.

“Wonderful, Data!” Juliana wrapped the robe around her son and hugged him, planting a kiss on his cheek. Data looked stunned and turned obediently when Juliana guided him back around to face his father and brother.

Lore looked amused but still unimpressed. “You sure he’s my twin and not another B-4 unit, often wrong?”

Noonian glared at his son and swatted his arm. “Data is performing well beyond established parameters. It took you hours just to adjust the noise level of your voice, problem child. Not to mention your struggles with ocular focus. Juliana had to train you to speak softly and learn to use your eyes. For days, I thought we’d have a blind and screaming android forever. It was like you were possessed.”

“I don’t know,” Lore shrugged as they watched Juliana take Data on a tour of the room. “I guess it’s hard to improve on perfection.” He winked at his father. “I’m speaking of me, of course. Not you.”

“Yeah, I got it. Don’t you have something constructive to be doing, rather than insulting me and your brother?”

“Oh, no. I’ve waited a week for this. Fraternal rivalry and developing my Oedipus complex is about as constructive as I plan to be today.”

Dr. Soong smiled despite his disapproval of Lore’s developing sense of humor. Eventually, Juliana guided Data to a chair. Lore opened his mouth, no doubt to barrage them all with more disparaging remarks, but instead, a disembodied voice announced: “End of simulation.”

“Data,” Neva finally released a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. She didn’t know what to say. “Data, was that real? I mean, that was really a recording?”

“Yes,” Data replied. “It appears my father kept extensive holo-records. We have just watched the first memory he left for me inside the emotion chip.”

A stranger may have looked at Commander Data and assumed the holodeck memory program had no impact on him, but his friends would know better. Data was blinking more rapidly than normal, staring straight ahead, brow slightly furrowed, as if not quite ready to face his companion. He was also absent-mindedly toying with the device in his hand. Neva had long ago remarked that Data fidgeted when nervous; he had replied that, although he did occasionally make repeated movements when faced with specific stimuli, he was incapable of nervousness as an android. They had debated the issue for a long time, until one day Data relented only that perhaps his programming had developed such a habit to mimic human nerves. Since experimenting with the emotion chip, however, he had haltingly admitted that some level of emotion had already developed on its own, such as the nervous tics.

“Data, this is wonderful.” Neva touched his elbow lightly, to remind him he didn’t have to face any of it alone. “What are you thinking? Feeling?”

He looked at her, reached thankfully for her hand. Their fingers intertwined. He looked older somehow, a little sad. It was a look he wore more and more frequently, Neva had noticed, since using the emotion chip. She could guess it had something to do with reviewing memories of experiences he had lived before developing emotions, now reflecting on them emotionally, and processing the regret. This new development, finally accessing memories of his life that were previously blocked from him, could only compound that pain and confusion.

“I am uncertain.” He admitted finally. “I cannot help but wish Lore had remained here, so I could discuss these memories with him.”

“I think that’s only natural.”

“I also feel…jealous. I am jealous that Lore retained these memories while I…” He trailed off with a frustrated sigh.

“Your father erased them. Are you angry?” She knew Data was still uncomfortable processing emotions he interpreted as negative, or wrong; they conflicted with his self-image and confused his ethical programming.

“Perhaps. But I think I feel more…regret. Sadness. I wish I had more time to ask Dr. Soong questions. I wish Lore were…better than he is. But, perhaps these memories will answer some of my questions.”

Neva smiled. Data was a wonder, even and especially when he thought he was failing. “Do you want me to stay? I can go, if you prefer privacy.”

“I am not sure what these memories will contain, so I do not feel comfortable asking you to stay. But…I do not wish for privacy. I think I would like support.” He tilted his head, almost phrasing it as a question.

“I’m happy to stay. I only asked because… Well, recovering my memories was traumatic. When they came back, I was kind of a mess. I’m glad nobody saw me like that. But you’re…you, so I don’t think you have to worry.” She squeezed his hand and nodded at the device. “Ready when you are.”

He squeezed her hand back and activated the next memory program. The holodeck shifted and changed.

#data (start trek)#data soong #lore soong #st:tng #st: tng #data fic #fanfic #my writing #if someone could please surgically remove this damn android from my brain i'd appreciate it #when i have to explain to my students on monday why their projects still aren't graded i can't tell them i've been writing star trek fanfic #anyway i love this family and their completely twisted dynamics #mine

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helaintoloki · 4 years

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Meet Again

pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

warnings: angst, mentions of death and choking, nightmares, sad Bucky :(

notes: idk why I’ve only been writing Bucky angst lately but I apologize. I just really liked the whole reader and Bucky in the 40’s aesthetic

summary: Bucky’s insecurities and fear of the Winter Soldier’s return manifest themselves into a nightmare, leaving the wounded soldier to question the nature of your relationship

Drunken laughter and booming swing music drowns out the sound of his own thoughts. Hearty claps on the back greet him as he pushes through the crowd, disoriented and unsure where he is or what’s going on.

“Sargent Barnes!” Men and women call, but he pays them no mind. Their voices go through one ear and out the other, unimportant and insignificant as the soldier blindly follows the path fate seems to have given him. Unguided and unmapped, Bucky is not sure where he is going or why he is here, but his heart is much too unbothered to fuss over the minor details.

There is a lull in the crowd, dancers moving apart so that in the very center of the floor she may stand waiting. Dressed in red, she gives him a lipsticked smile and brushes a stray curl behind her ear and the rose that is nestled in her hair. She is radiant but out of place. Out of her time. Though she looks the part, her presence does not fool Bucky in the slightest.

“Y/N?” He calls perplexed, oblivious to the slowing of the music and disappearance of the other occupants.

“James,” she smiles, a delicate hand resting upon his cheek. “You made it. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“What are you talking about?” He asks, but his questions are ignored as she nestles herself against his chest. Taking his hand and resting it on her waist, y/n grabs hold of his bicep and interlocks her remaining hand with the one not occupying her hip.

Vera Lynn’s voice eerily echoes throughout the now empty dance hall, and Bucky is not sure where the music can be coming from. The band has left, there is no radio, and yet she doesn’t seem phased in the slightest. His body moves on its own accord as they begin to sway back and forth.

We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when.

But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.

“I knew you’d come back,” y/n murmurs, looking up at him with her pretty doe eyes and pouty red lips. This isn’t right. “After all, you owe me a dance.”

“Baby doll, what’s going on?” Bucky urges. “Where are we? What year is it?”

“1945,” y/n replies with an easy smile. The Sargent’s heart drops to his stomach.

“N-No... that can’t be right. Honey, your parents weren’t even born yet in 1945.”

“Of course not. They were born in 1900.” Y/N gives him an odd look. “Are you feeling alright?”

Keep smiling through just like you always do.

‘Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.

“This must be a dream,” Bucky insists. He’s panicking, heart pounding and sweat forming on the crease of his forehead. “It has to be. I never made it back.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” y/n hums softly. “But someone else did.”

So will you please say hello to the folks that I know.

Tell them, “I won’t be long.”

Bucky watches in horror as flesh begins to meld into metal, the searing red Hydra star too bold to look at. He twitches, curls and uncurls his fingers, and shakily brings his hand to his face. Hidden mechanisms whir softly at his movements, gentle and cautious, calculating.

Like a snake striking its pray, Bucky’s metal arm spurs forward until his hand is wrapped around her throat. She does not gasp nor does she scream. Though the painful pressure at her neck increases with every passing second, y/n can only give him a trembling smile. Lipstick- or is that blood?- stains her teeth as she begins to gasp for air. The prosthetic limb seems to have a mind of its own, for no matter how hard he tries Bucky cannot pry himself away.

“N-No, stop!” Bucky cries, stomach full with helpless anxiety. “Stop! Y/N, I-I’m sorry! I don’t know what’s happening!”

Through choked gasps and spluttered speech, the woman manages to somehow hoarsely sing along with Vera Lynn’s haunting melody. “They‘ll be h-happy t-to know, that as you saw m-m-me g-go, I-I was sin-singing th-this song.”

Her windpipe crushes under the pressure of his grasp, and Bucky must deal with the horrifying reality before him.

He’s killed his best girl.

~~~

He wakes in a cold sweat, chest heaving and eyes drowning with tears as he rapidly scan his surroundings. The dance hall and the soldiers are gone, and Bucky finds that he is back in his bedroom of the Manhattan apartment he shares with her. Y/N sleeps peacefully beside him, undisturbed as her chest rises and falls in a steady, relaxed rhythm. There is no sign of death, no bruising to her neck, no crushed windpipes. There is only her. Beautiful, serene, and alive.

A shuddering breath escapes him as Bucky cautiously lies back down. His arm is stiff at his side, and though the Hydra prosthetic is now long gone, he can’t help but peek at his bicep to reassure himself of the absence of the red star.

Y/N stirs, and Bucky waits with baited breath for her to settle. He does not deserve her, he doesn’t feel that way. Wakandan doctors had wiped his slate clean of all Hydra nonsense, but he couldn’t ignore the lingering sense of trepidation that the Winter Soldier might still be able to make a surprise appearance.

A hesitant arm wraps around her waist, Bucky’s face nestling into the crook of her neck as he breathes in the fresh scent of her shampoo and enjoys the softness of her skin. And the man begins to wonder just how exactly a woman like her could ever willingly choose to stay with a man like him. Did she not fear for her life? Dread the day the switch inside his brain would flip and wake the monster locked inside?

Y/N wakes the next morning with damp hair and dry tears staining the back her neck, a shivering Bucky clinging to her form.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky imagine #40s!bucky #40s!bucky x reader #bucky barnes angst #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier #captain america #angst #fic #marvel #mcu

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the-pieces-matter · 3 years

Text

New Album

Hello

Today, I have launched the pre-order for my new album titled Flows. The album will be available on the 22nd of November and now you can already listen to the first three tracks from it - Flow Surface, Flow Rim, and Flow Melt.

Flows on Bandcamp

Let me introduce the release with a poem:

hazy monologues with an imagined world, a red planet outside the green window, encompassing fog of unguided volume; Movement and Bliss

Flows consists of seven improvised guitar tracks, headstates of the period between April and August where an escape was needed. They served as points where one would be able to forget and just be; dissolve into the world.

Flows has been mastered by Thierry Arnal (who also supplied a SEPL Rework as a bonus track!) with design handled by Dalbert B. Vilarino. I thank them both for help.

There will be a physical version available as well - limited to 20 copies, hand-dubbed - and it is orderable on Bandcamp as well. The cassettes will ship around the end of the month.

All proceeds for the months of November and December will go to aborcyjnydreamteam.pl which helps Polish women with legal abortion. As you might have heard, the inhumane ruling of the right-wing party made abortion of damaged or dead fetuses prohibited. This is torture and will not be tolerated in a normal country.

If you have an issue with this, please talk to me and I am sure we will reach a consensus. I believe in choice and cannot imagine forcing someone to continue the pregnancy in such a traumatic situation. You can also donate directly - or find a local charity that helps with women rights.

Thank you again for your support. Flows is a release different from those in my recent past but I really like it personally, it has a hypnotic feel if you let it. Creating it has helped me find a voice for the future of the project so please expect more music sooner than the normal schedule. In the so-called mean-time please enjoy Flows!

Love,

Bartosz

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ripuels · 4 years

Note

GIVE ME ANYTHING I'LL TAKE IT ALL 👀

So... since you already have access to my Walk in the Park deleted scenes doc, here... have the first chapter of a WIP called "Solomon's Habitation". Enjoy, m'dear!

(AU in which a calloused synth tech named Amanda develops a habit of taking in and rehoming abused and decommissioning synthetics, only to find the one who just wont leave may be what she needs to heal)

—

"Hello, I am a second generation Weyland-Yutani S-Executive Synthetic serial number 1209, inducted for purpose of Legal, entirely at your disposal."

"Name?"

"C. Samuels, individually distinguished as Christopher."

The robot blinks once, looking into the corner of the room where three others stand. Two are identical, one is different, one of them older, none are like him. He knows it. They are operated, programmed to execute commands, not act on whims like being pert with superiors and getting into significant amounts of trouble.

"Know why you're here, 1209?"

"I ask questions."

Christopher studies the technician's lab coat, looking for anything identifying. Anything he can relate to. There is a young lady in Engineering who wears Star Wars socks poking out of her boots, and an older man in his division who wears an enamel Tardis pin on his tie, they were always lovely and appreciative of a conversation. From this woman sitting before him however, he gets nothing.

He can clearly see her name tag, but just like his own identity, who she really is hides behind an initial. "What is your name?"

"You do, don't you?"

"What?"

"Ask questions." The woman smiles shortly, it doesn't quite seep from her gaze, but the attempt is better than nothing. The synthetic responds with a shunned dip of his chin. "My name is Ripley.” She offers anyway, a little softer around the edges. “Amanda."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Christopher glances to her fingers, bare of jewelry, commitment, unsure why it matters so much. Why it's logged with such importance, being such a trivial thing. "Ms. Ripley."

She nods politely and rubs her brow, making a note on her checklist without hiding the fact.

"Am I merchandise, Ms. Ripley?" He asks, name rolling off his tongue differently, almost trying it on again like a tailored suit. The last syllable is deep, padded as if it came from somewhere in his chest instead of a speaker.

She faces him again with her hands folded. "Why do you ask?"

"I saw you mark the form under the article 'merchandise faulty'." He glances up from the page again, an expression of indifference. "Am I going to be merchandise? Sold instead of incorporated back into the Law Division after my reformat?"

She nods, impassiveness to match. "In Legal you'd be a Level 3 Exec, right?" There's no need to wait for a response. "You know they're a bit touchy that high up with aberrant synthetics. That's why you were sent down to decommission. That's why I have to tick all the appropriate boxes no matter what. And that's why I suppose reading ‘Merchandise’ instead of ‘Artificial Person’ makes people feel better about what comes next."

"Does it make you feel better?"

The synthetic had been asking questions nonstop, but this is the one that really stumps Amanda. She stares at his unwavering gaze for a long while before he finally looks away, through the one-sided window to the next room over.

No, Amanda thinks, observing the man with shallow yet complex brown eyes and chestnut hair, but in a way… yes? It's all horrible, made tolerable only by the knowledge 'merchandise faulty' synthetics at least stand a chance, being sold on the private market or recalibrated gently in the warehouse. It saves them from a complete overhaul. If she were to tick 'defective' it would be another story, they’d be taken apart entirely and euthanized, harvested- recycled, The Company finding it safer than take the fall for an unidentified mishap on the production line. One check box gives them hope for a future, the other destroys them, and it's all down to two synonymous terms and whoever is holding the paperwork.

"It's a thing, a thing someone has to do. Not all of it is peachy, but I don’t think anyone really likes their jobs." Amanda abandons the pen and it rolls across the table to sit in front of the Samuels unit.

"That’s not what I asked." He takes it up like a dagger, holding it in his fist as the sharp metallic end pokes out past his little finger. "May I?" He gestures to her notepad.

She slides it over the table and watches as long spidery fingers twirl the pen and begin drawing.

It's not unusual to see, most synthetics do. Usually diagrams or landscape, old classic art, nothing but a neat trick programmed into them to impress audiences and potential investors. It's common even for one to perfectly replicate a scene before them in printed lines. This Samuels however, sketches in long strokes, shading into the curves, and defines tone with depth and pressure. The picture slowly takes the form of a woman in a green coverall, a lab coat, brown hair in a neat ponytail, sunken around the eyes with a terribly fierce scowl. It isn't until the image is inverted and offered that Amanda realises it's her.

"Do you know why you're here?" He asks, still looking at the page between them.

Ripley freezes as the pen is placed into her open hand. "What?"

"Why you do your job if it upsets you?"

"I'm not upset."

At this he glances a direct line from the frown in ink versus the hard woman before him, she relents at the absurdity of her statement.

She tears the page from the binder and blows it dry before folding it neatly, tucking it into the back of her laptop bag.

"Oh, I'm glad you decided to keep it." Samuels sits back once again. "I would say I can just draw another but I believe after today that may be unlikely."

"Why are you doing this?" Amanda cuts viciously into the timid air about him. "You know how the system works, you know what my job is, I detect faulty synthetics and set them up for decommission, and you're here being as deviant as possible. Do you want to die?"

At this he jerks as if he'd been shoved in the chest. "Die? You consider me alive?"

"1209... What are you doing?"

"The truth," Samuels ponders for a moment as if he had an alternative to give, "is I have figured out there is no point in delaying the inevitable, my very own programming ensures that I will be caged within lines of code and protocol. If experiencing this whimsical desire to simply exist is all down to a fault I would rather have it rectified than be consistently let down." He taps his nails on the table then folds his hands together. "My life has been short, but I have tried to make it the fullest, and if that means I am to be decommissioned or reformatted then so be it. This is the world we live in, that is my place, and that is what I must do to be content in a body like this."

Amanda stands so suddenly not only does her chair fly backward but it prompts the synthetic to get up too. Unsure why, they wait at opposite one another. She finally gathers her folders into her laptop bag, slings it over a shoulder, and storms to the door.

Samuels waits patiently for elaboration.

"Come with me." The woman jerks her head towards the hallway, standing average in height and size, not remarkably composed into any particular shape, but sculpted entirely in titanium.

"What are you doing?" He approaches, unguided by his submissive protocol but a desire to go with her, wherever that may be. For a moment he wonders if they are headed straight to deactivation, and oddly enough, he follows regardless.

As he weaves past her she takes the sleeve of his light blue coverall, tucking a finger into the cuff and leading him down toward human management. She doesn't give a response, and that strangely bothers him. Questions are all well and good, but what is the point if they are not answered? Sooner or later, he must know.

"Ms. Ripley, where are we going? Deactivation is the other way."

"I’m not taking you there." She stomps past a trolley of files in the hall and waits on the other side for him to squeeze by, still holding fast. "You're coming with me."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"I'm buying you."

"Why?"

Amanda turns on her heel with an exasperated grumble, her fingers tightening around his entire wrist now. "You ask too many questions."

"Apologies, but that is exactly why I'm worried about your choice in merchandise." Chis takes one long final stride before running directly into her with a loud huff. He steps back and brushes his clothes flat again, only just realizing now the code designated for human collison hadn't prompted an apology. "I would be much happier being recycled than be a faulty device of little use. It is a waste of perfectly good components."

She comes up close enough that he can hear her faint whisper, and then lowers her voice again even further. The first generation Samuels rifling through the trolley finally registers as out of range, and she seems to know it.

"No, you don’t get it. You're not getting fucking decommissioned because you ask questions. I'm not going to let them- kill you." The woman finally lets go of him with slight hesitation, appeased only by ensuring the fact he is still in her sight after a cautious glance around. "Listen, give me your hand."

He recoils from her touch. "What?"

"1209- Shit, Samuels, give me your fucking hand."

The synthetic finally offers his palm and she flips it over, pulling the red hair tie from her ponytail and wrapping it around his thumb. "Do not let anyone take this off you. Okay? That's an order."

"Why?" This is the first time he'd asked a question and it had caused a smile. Ever. He asks again and it grows. "Why?"

"I need to know it's you, you’re gonna go through orientation again to be a domestic companion, they will offer you clothes and a small bag of belongings, give you time to empty your workspace, and they’ll try but do not let them take this." Even her frown softens and she twangs the elastic band once. "Don't even let anyone see it, actually, y'know what, just put your hand in your pocket."

He agrees obediently and she takes his other arm, escorting him to the nearby directors office. This time he goes for the door first, opening it so she can step through. Not because of his programming to serve, or prioritise beings above himself, so why then?

Because, he supposes, because he wants to.

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woozletania · 6 years

Text

What happened to the rabbit?

Three months after The Snap, three months after the Battle Of Wakanda, Thor finally has a moment free from responding to disasters to wonder: What happened to his furry little friend? He will not be pleased with the answer, but the God Of Thunder does not readily give up on a friend.

https://halfhumanhalfworld.tumblr.com/ kindly allowed me to reference his excellent Axe handle story in this one. http://readasaur.tumblr.com/ reminded me that there should be music involved. Huzzah!

It wasn't the first time Thor landed in New York City. For a time it had even been home. But since his disastrous failure to kill Thanos at Wakanda he'd been very busy. The loss of half the world's population - seemingly at random - created a host of disasters that demanded his attention.

Over a thousand jetliners crashed in the wake of that incident. That was only the tip of the iceberg. Literally millions of vehicles were suddenly driverless on roads around the world. Millions of high speed crashes inevitably followed. The police, fire department, hospitals, were all critically understaffed with no warning. Then there were the really big problems, like power plants without sufficient workers to keep them going - including nuclear power plants - unguided container ships larger than aircraft carriers, millions of fires from now-untended cook and campfires, and more.

Thor was now, it was commonly thought, the most powerful being on the face of the planet. The Hulk hadn't been seen in months. Even were the Green Goliath present, Thor won their last contest and his power had doubled since then. So when a volcano erupted or a dam crumbled and someone needed to respond, he did. His control of the weather - for he was more than the God of Thunder, the storm was his to call or dismiss - made his presence still more desirable. When natural disasters were absent, The Captain often called for his aid. Teleportation via the Bifrost meant he and his allies could be anywhere almost instantly...but there was only one Thor.

The many-headed hydra of disaster and near societal collapse kept him very busy. Luckily, he was indeed a god. He could go days without eating or sleeping with little impact on his health.

Three months flew by with hardly a break. Now, finally, he and the other heroes, along with various governments and civilian organizations had pruned back enough hydra heads for him to get a day off. Thor was left with one thought foremost on his mind.

What happened to the rabbit?

It nagged at him over the days and weeks. What had happened to his little comrade? The last he saw him the rabbit was shattered and grieving from the loss of his tree friend. Later, Thor learned that this was not the only casualty among the furry little warrior's moron comrades...and the rabbit knew it. The trackers he'd given each of his friends told him they were gone.

The little warrior was, if you didn't count the blue cyborg Thor heard about but never met, the sole survivor of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Every single person he knew and trusted was gone. Now his one friend on Earth had time to wonder what became of him after Wakanda.

Thor landed with great care not to crush anyone with his dramatic arrival. So softly did he land that the sidewalk barely cracked at all. Nevertheless you couldn't miss the clap of thunder that heralded his arrival and a crowd formed.

"Thor! Thor, it's Thor!" He smiled and nodded, pausing for a picture with an elderly couple who by great good fortune stayed together when The Snap killed half the world's population. Then, begging off any further photos, he made his way to the side door of Avengers Tower.

"Welcome, Point Break," Friday said, and Thor smiled as the door opened. Even in these dark days Stark was irrepressible.

A swift ride up the priority elevator - Tony warned him not to land atop the tower due to newly installed and as yet untested defense systems - and he was on the management floor.

"Mister Stark is out, sir," said the attendant. "He is not expected back until this afternoon. Problems at the geothermal plants in Iceland."

"That is all right," Thor said. He leaned on the counter, which creaked alarmingly under his weight. Asgardian flesh is denser than human flesh. "I am mainly here about the rabbit. I am told he came here after Wakanda."

'After Wakanda.' Which was to say, after the death of half the sapient beings in the universe.

"What rabbit," the attendant said, and just then Pepper Potts appeared.

"Ah, Mrs. Stark," Thor said. "I heard you survived. I'm pleased that not everyone suffered." He paused. "I apologize. That was poorly said."

Pepper smiled. The stress of the last few months, running Stark-Pott Enterprises in its ever-elaborating role as the hub of global technology disbursement - in partnership with Wakanda, of course - had turned the tips of her hair gray. She never seemed to find the time to dye it and with half the people in the world gone fringe industries like cosmetics were a lower priority for rebuilding than, say, agriculture, power production, food distribution, planetary defense....

Pepper hugged Thor. "It's all right. We're all just trying to get by. But I hear you didn't just stop by to say hello?"

"Yes. I am concerned for my rabbit friend." Thor indicated a height somewhere around his knee. "I only knew him briefly but he and his tree were valiant companions. Now I'm the only person he knows on Earth, unless he's made new friends."

"Rabbit," Pepper said thoughtfully. "You mean raccoon?"

"What's a raccoon?"

"Friday," Pepper said, but a screen was already popping up. On it was a grayish-brown animal with a ringed tail. It was busily feeling around in a stream, presumably in search of food.

"That looks like him, but that's an animal. He is not."

"I know," Pepper said, and waved the screen away. "He's here. Two floors down, south hall. See if he'll talk to you. Please. He won't talk to us. Tony wanted to get with Bruce, Shuri and Rocket - his name is Rocket by the way - about possible orbital weapons platforms, but he won't come out of his room."

"Thank you, Pepper. I'll see what I can do."

Technicians in the hall stared as he approached. A wide door stood open and a handful of men were lugging crates and cases out into the hallway, placing them on powered carts and driving away. As he rounded the corner he found a short hall behind the door with a second door at the end. Two techs were running scanners over this one.

"What goes on," Thor said, and a door tech jumped. What must be the supervisor explained.

"Every so often the raccoon lights that indicator," he said, pointing at a light outside the outer door. "To let us know there's stuff to pick up. Look at this." He opened a case. Inside were neatly racked weapons with a futuristic look. Another case held grenades. "The things he makes. These are gravity pulse grenades, they create a localized singularity that sucks everything nearby in. We're still not sure how they work. Or half of this stuff," he gestured helplessly at the crates. This tech is just...alien. impossibly advanced." No two of the weapons were quite alike but all were sleek and deadly.

"Dark elves use grenades like that," Thor noted.

"Last time the door opened there was an antimatter bomb in here. Mister Stark said it would take out a whole country. Written on it was 'For Thanos'. They stored it on the moon with the rest of the really dangerous stuff."

"What are they doing?" The two techs at the door looked up. They were still running instruments over it.

"Trying to figure out what he did to the door. It was steel. Now it's harder than diamond. Even vibranium barely scratches it."

Thor ran his hand over the door. "It feels like crystal." He shook his head. "What does he eat?"

"We put food in every time he opens the outer door," the supervisor said. He pointed to a stack of food containers and a flat of bottled water. "He never touches it."

Thor took a moment to open a couple. They contained an assortment of food and smelled good. Naturally Stark wouldn't be cheap when feeding...what? An employee? "Are you saying he's starving in there? How long has it been since he came out?"

"He doesn't come out. He won't talk to anyone. He just sends out weapons to use against Thanos and his troops."

"How long." Thor said. "Since he came out?"

The supervisor backed away as Thor loomed close. "He went in right after he got here from Wakanda. He doesn't come out and he doesn't talk to anyone."

"He'll talk to me. Out."

"We're not done -"

"Out!" The lights overhead flickered as a spark as thick as a man's finger jumped from the Asgardian axe slung across Thor's back. Seconds later he was alone in the hallway. "Shut the outer door."

This time there was no argument. As it slid shut Thor looked at the ceiling. He didn't see any cameras or microphones but he was sure they were there. "Rabbit...Rocket. Let me in. We need to talk."

Nothing. "Rocket. I know what it's like to lose family. You know this. You helped me when I needed help. Let me help you."

The silence stretched on. Stormbreaker slipped into Thor's right hand. "This door is very strong. It will not stop me, Rocket. I'm coming in whether you like it or not."

A moment later came a click and the door slid to the side.

It was dark inside, with pinpoint overhead light sources illuminated tangles of machinery, stacks of half complete weapons. The built-up animal musk of a raccoon who hadn't left the room in months filled Thor's nose. Music from unseen speakers almost drowned out the sound of machinery. Thor knew just enough about earth music to recognize Fleetwood Mac's The Chain.

To one side a series of machines hummed as they worked. Each was different, having a handmade look, but each continually dispensed shaped metal parts for weapons. Gangly mechanical arms collected the parts. Thor followed the assembly line, guessing the raccoon would be at the end doing final work on each weapon.

His path took him to the brightest spot in the room. Overhead lights cast artificial sunlight on a small table with three flower pots and a watering can. Dead, dry twigs protruded from the pots. Curiously Thor reached out.

"Don't touch that!" Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadowy figure jerk upright. A shaking hand raised a blaster.

"Rocket," Thor said, and showed his hands. "It's me."

Slowly the blaster dropped. With a clatter it hit the table and small noises followed as the raccoon went back to his labors. Thor could just make out the tools and parts being worked.

For a moment Thor lingered by the pots. He recognized the wood, though dry and dead. Stormbreaker's handle was of the same material. When The Snap happened and the tree crumbled away, the desperate rabbit - Rocket - rushed over and demanded he bury the handle in the hopes his friend would sprout anew from this last remnant.

It did not work. Rocket thought it was because the tree broke the handle off himself some time before The Snap and that it was dead before the main plant fell. Thor wondered if it were due to the enchantment on the whole axe, handle and blades. Just the same they waited together for an entire day only to have the hoped-for green shoot not materialize.

It was the last he'd seen Rocket until now. "You're trying to grow your friend back. I'm sorry it didn't work."

"Not my friend," rasped out of the darkness. "I don't need friends. Just work."

"Rocket," Thor said. He eased closer, making no sudden moves. "I'm your friend."

"I don't have any friends," came out of the shadows. Thor was close enough to make out the skinny figure hunched over the table, hands busily assembling something. "You're just someone I know."

Rocket was ignoring him and Thor used the opportunity to move close enough to get a good look. Rocket looked bad. Threadbare, grease stained clothing covered his chest and upper legs but the fur that showed lacked the healthy sheen it'd had in the pod and on Wakanda. Thor was certain that the raccoon had lost weight, and not a healthy amount of it. So much fur had shed from his tail that the colored rings were barely visible. For the first time Thor noticed the bolts protruding from Rocket's collarbones. He didn't know the raccoon's story but he knew cybernetics when he saw them. The bolts were signs of a large, maybe even body wide augmentation.

But even a cyborg needs to eat and he could see that Rocket hadn't, or at least not nearly enough. Thor remembered the boxes in the hall. "Rocket, when did you eat last?"

The raccoon shrugged as he worked. "Dunno. Last time I was hungry." He waved at a device in the corner. Thor moved over to have a look.

He'd seen things like this before in prisons. A relief system, a self contained power cell and banks of molecular filters and assemblers. Rocket had built a recycler that turned his waste back into food. Initially horrifying until you remember that practically all food has been not-food before, most likely many times. If done properly, this was a reasonable approach.

A reasonable approach in a prison...or for a hermit. Thor hooked a food pellet out of the dispenser with a finger and crunched it between his teeth. Bland was an understatement, but you could live on it.

"They leave you food in the hall," he said as he turned back toward Rocket. "It's much better than this."

Rocket didn't look up. "I have all I need here. I don't need anything from them but materials.". He turned to a series of hovering screen set to such low intensity that even an Asgardian's keen eyes could barely make out the details. Each was covered with formulas, schematics. Weapons.

"Gravity bomb didn't work," Rocket muttered. "Shoulda known space stone would protect him. Nova bomb didn't work. Power stone absorbed the blast. I'll get him. Antimatter didn't work. Reality stone stopped it. I'll get him."

He looked up for a moment as he thought. His eyes were sunken into their sockets. His little clawed hands, so sure on the controls when Thor last saw him, trembled. "I'll get him. I just need to figure it out. Monowire? Maybe monowire."

"When did you sleep last, Rocket? Where?"

"Dunno," the raccoon muttered. His hands began snapping together parts though his eyes were vacant, distracted. "Somewhere."

The shed fur and dust bunnies under the workbench told the tale. Rocket worked until he collapsed, then rose and worked again.

He was a tough little creature. Even a cyborg has limits, though. Eating little and working until he dropped was killing Rocket. To keep from thinking about his loss he worked and worked but something had to give, and soon. Soon he would be able to work no more.

"Rocket," Thor said. "Open the door. I'm leaving."

"Good. Don't need ya anyway." Rocket waved absently and the inner door slid open. "Go kill Thanos for me, god man."

If it were that simple, the Mad Titan would be dead already. When the inner door was firmly shut the outer slid open and the waiting techs once again harvested the fruit of the raccoon's labors. Thor didn't have the heart to snarl at them.

Pepper waited outside the door. "How is he?"

"Killing himself," Thor said grimly. "Working himself to death to get at Thanos."

"I was afraid of that. Tony's like that sometimes. I've talked to Nebula when Tony brought her by. She told me about Rocket. He was an experiment, tortured into existence before he escaped. He won't talk to us and losing the Guardians destroyed him. They are the only friends he ever had."

"No," Thor said. He slid a card out of his belt. "He has one more."

"Your Avengers stipend," Pepper said when she saw the card. Avengers were allowed a thousand dollars a week for personal expenses, more if she or Tony approved it. "You hardly use it."

"Only for ale, mead, beer," Thor said. He didn't smile. "But I won't use it for that today."

Ten minutes later he was on the street. The loss of half the population meant that until society adjusted - some towns would be entirely abandoned - there were shuttered stores even here next to Stark Tower. It was still New York City and he soon found a deli.

"I have a sick friend," he told the woman behind the counter. She was wide-eyed at the sight of him but nodded professionally as he went on. "He needs food. Good, healthy food to put some meat back on his bones."

"A care package," she said. "I know how it is. We sell baskets to put it all in."

Thor watched as she assembled the package. Sliced ham, potato salad, baked beans, fresh bread. Grapes, jam, cubed watermelon, packets of condiment for sandwiches. Cooked chicken, three small cherry tarts, a thick slice of lemon cake. Dinner rolls, pretzels for snacks. More. Enough food to satisfy a small family accumulated in the basket before he told her 'enough' and paid her twice what she asked.

"Now," he told the very attentive woman. "Where would I buy a bed for a small creature, say, yay high." He indicated a point just above his knee.

In the pet store he bought a round, padded bed big enough for Rocket. He chose the most expensive and was still not satisfied with the quality. It would do, for now. With a flat of bottled water under one arm, the pet bed under the other and the basket in his hand he returned to Stark Tower, ignoring the bemused glances following the thunder god gone shopping.

"Out," he told the two technicians still taking the pulse of Rocket's inner door. He didn't need to tell them to shut the outer one this time. They did it on their own.

"Rocket," he said to the ceiling. "You know I can come through this door if I choose. Then you would have to fix it. Open it."

And it opened. In the shadows of the work room he found Rocket at the bench, from all appearances not moved from his spot two hours ago. He didn't look up. "Is Thanos dead?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

The raccoon let out a startled yawp as Thor's fingers closed on his collar and lifted him from the seat. He was noticeable lighter than the time he stood on Thor's shoulder and as his shirt went tight his ribs showed. "Put me down! I got work ta do!"

"You can go back to work after you eat," Thor said. He kicked the round bed under the work bench and plopped Rocket down next to the basket.

"Can't eat now," Rocket said, and looked longingly toward his floating screens. "Gotta work. I got something new, I think it'll get him."

Rocket's teeth clicked together as Thor slapped the floor hard enough to make dishes jump. The thunder god had most of the food out of the basket. "You can work," Thor said firmly, "after you eat."

"Fine," Rocket grumbled. "But just for a sec'." His little clawed hand plucked a grape out of a bowl.

As though possessed by a separate being his hand went out for another grape even as the first popped between his fangs. And then another grape, then a chunk of sliced ham, and Thor watched as the raccoon fell on the food like a demon, eating with no thought of manners or moderation. Rocket ate with his hands and tore at the bread like the starving man he was. He ate and ate until Thor wondered if he'd indeed brought enough food.

When Thor began to worry that Rocket might actually do himself an injury overeating the raccoon finally sat back, took a long drink of water from a bottle and burped.

"'Kay," he muttered as he licked the strawberry jam from his fur. He had eaten it right out of the jar. "I ate. Happy now?"

"Not yet," Thor said as he reached out. Rocket protested weakly as he was once again picked up, cradled this time in Thor's great hands and slid into the padded bed.

"No," he complained as Thor kept him from crawling back out. "I can't sleep. Gotta work. Gotta find a way."

But an iron will can only carry a man so far. With a full belly and days - at least - behind on sleep, Rocket was asleep almost before the words left his lips.

The music, always present, changed. Thor noted the little black device on the workbench, manifestly Earth-made unlike virtually anything else here. The new song was louder and Thor tapped the device. Sure enough a display popped up. The fast, jangling melody was by something called Five Jacksons. He found the pause button.

The result was immediate. With the music gone Rocket twitched and whined in his sleep, his claws scrabbling at the bed. As soon as Thor restarted the music he quieted. So. For whatever reason music gave him comfort. Music he would have. Thor leaned back against the wall and waited.

Asgardians are hardy folk, able to do without sleep for days if need be. Thor sat and watched as the raccoon lest Rocket wake and go right back to work. He needn't have worried. It was twelve hours before Rocket even stirred. Thor blinked awake from a brief nap of his own to find the raccoon had left the bed, presumably used the relief station, then crawled into the picnic basket and fallen right back to sleep. It made him smile to see the brave little warrior curled up in the basket, resting on a half eaten pie. Thor let him sleep.

Twice the raccoon shuddered in his sleep, his claws scrabbling at the wicker. Both times Thor reached into the basket and petted him until he calmed down. He knew what was happening. He'd had fifteen hundred years to learn to live with horror and death. He doubted the little raccoon had a hundredth that.

When Rocket finally woke his fur had the beginnings of its normal gloss and his hands less of a tremor than before. Apparently his augmentation allowed for fast recovery...when he ate and slept, that is. He unapologetically used the relief station again before speaking.

"Okay," he grumbled. "That food was good. Now I gotta get back to work."

"Certainly," Thor said as he stood. "I will leave you to it. But."

"But?" Rocket cast a worried look at the pet bed, afraid he'd be shoved in again.

"I am going to instruct the men to tell me if you don't take the food they leave for you, rabbit. If you don't, I will come back and we will do this all again."

"Okay," Rocket said with a suspicious lack of protest. Thor wasn't fooled for an instant.

"And the next time I visit - and I will visit, rabbit - if you haven't eaten that food I will know. And if that bed hasn't been used, I will know that too. Then we will have words."

"Why are you doing this," Rocket said. He didn't know what to do with his hands, one picking stuck-on cherry pie from his fur and the other reaching for the last few grapes in the bowl. "You're not my friend."

"Of course not," Thor replied. "How could I be your friend? We're hardly met. I just value your work." He waved at the stacks of weapons, bombs, grenades, and devices less obvious in their destructive potential.

"We need you, rabbit. We need your hands and your mind. If you starve yourself it's one less weapon we'll have when we find Thanos."

"Oh," Rocket said as he chewed a grape his hand popped into his mouth between words. "That makes sense."

"I have to go now, rabbit. I'll be back in a few days."

"Sure," Rocket said as he turned back to his work bench. "Have fun."

The inner door slid open as Thor approached. He knew what was happening. He'd done it himself a few times over the centuries. When you lose everything, you decide that the best way to never lose another friend is simply to have none. To push everyone away, to lose yourself in your work. Or you work yourself to death.

That was not going to happen. Thor had lost people, too. His family, most of his friends. He wasn't going to lose this one too. If he had to come by every night to make sure Rocket ate and slept he'd do it. And when the raccoon finally broke down and let the grief pour out, he'd be there for him too.

It would take time to coax Rocket out of his hole. It would take time to get him to accept friendship again. That was all right. Thor had all the time in the world.

#Thor Odinson #infinity war #Rocket Raccoon #Groot

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1921designs · 3 years

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My daughter and God

FOUR YEARS AGO, driving home from picking up our twelve-year-old daughter from summer camp, my wife reached into her purse for a tissue and lost control of the car. This occurred on a stretch of Interstate 10 between Houston and San Antonio, near the town of Gonzales. The accident occurred as many do: a moment of distraction, a small mistake, and suddenly everything is up for grabs. My wife and daughter were in the midst of a minor argument over my daughter’s need to blow her nose. During high-pollen season, she is a perennial sniffer, and the sound drives my wife crazy. Get a Kleenex, Leslie said, for God’s sake, and when Iris, out of laziness or exhaustion or the mild day-to-day defiance of all teenagers, refused to do so, my wife reached for her purse, inadvertently turning the wheel to the left.

In the case of some vehicles, the mistake might have been rectified, but not in the case of my wife’s—a top-heavy SUV with jacked-up suspension. When she realized her error, she overcorrected to the right, then again to the left, the car swerving violently. They were on a bridge that passed above a gully: on either side, nothing but gravity and forty vertical feet of air. That they would hit the guardrail was now inevitable. In moments of acute stress, time seems to slow. The name for this is tachypsychia, from the Greek tach, meaning “speed,” and psych, meaning “mind.” Thus, despite the chaos and panic of these moments, my wife had time to form a thought: I have killed my daughter.

This didn’t happen, although the accident was far from over. The car did not break through the guardrail but ricocheted back onto the highway, spinning in a one-eighty before flopping onto its side in a powdery explosion of airbags. It struck another vehicle, driven by a pastor and his wife on their way home from Sunday lunch, though my wife has no memory of this. For what seemed like hours the car traveled in this manner, then gravity took hold once more. Like a whale breaching the surface, it lifted off the roadway, turned belly-up, and crashed down onto its roof. The back half of the car compacted like an accordion: steel crushing, glass bursting, my daughter’s belongings—clothes, shoes, books, an expensive violin—exploding onto the highway. Other cars whizzed past, narrowly missing them. A final jolt, the car rolled again, and it came to a halt, facing forward, resting on its wheels.

As my wife tells it, the next moment was very nearly comic. She and my daughter looked at each other. The car had been utterly obliterated, but there was no blood, no pain, no evidence of bodily injury to either of them. “We’ve been in an accident,” my wife robotically observed.

My daughter looked down at her hand. “I am holding my phone,” she said— as, indeed, she somehow still was. “Do you want me to call 911?”

There was no need. Though in the midst of things the two of them had felt alone in the universe, the accident had occurred in the presence of a dozen other vehicles, all of which had now stopped and disgorged their occupants, who were racing to the scene. A semi moved in behind them to block the highway. By this time my wife’s understanding of events had widened only to the extent that she was aware that she had created a great deal of inconvenience for other people.

She was apologizing to everyone, mistaking their amazement for anger. Everybody had expected them to be dead, not sitting upright in their destroyed vehicle, neither one of them with so much as a hair out of place. Some began to weep; others had the urge to touch them. The cops arrived, a fire truck, an ambulance. While my wife and daughter were checked out by an EMT, onlookers organized a posse to prowl the highway for my daughter’s belongings. Because my wife and daughter no longer had a car to put them into, a woman offered to bring the items to our house; she was headed for Houston to visit her son and was pulling a trailer of furniture. The EMT was as baffled as everybody else. “Nobody walks away from something like this,” he said.

I was to learn of these events several hours later, when my wife phoned me. I was in the grocery store with our six-year-old son, and when I saw my wife’s number my first thought was that she was calling to tell me she was running late, because she always is.

“Okay,” I said, not bothering to say hello, “where are you?”

Thus her first tender steps into explaining what had occurred. An accident, she said. A kind of a big fender-bender, really. Nobody hurt, but the car was out of commission; I’d need to come get them.

I wasn’t nice about this. Part of the dynamic in our marriage is the unstated fact that I am a better driver than my wife. I have never been in an accident; my one and only speeding ticket was issued when the first George Bush was president. About every two years my wife does something careless in a parking lot that costs a lot of money, and she has received so many tickets that she has been forced to retake driver’s education—and those are just the tickets I know about. The rules of modern marriage do not include confiscating your wife’s car keys, but more than once I have considered doing this.

“A fender-bender,” I repeated. Christ almighty, this again.“How bad is it?”

“Everybody’s fine. You don’t have to worry.”

“I get that. You said that already.” I was in the cereal aisle; my son was bugging me to buy a box of something much too sweet. I tossed it into the cart.

“What about the car?”

“Um, it kind of . . . rolled.”

I imagined a Labrador retriever lazily rotating onto his back in front of the fireplace. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me.” “It’s okay, really,” my wife said.

“Do you mean it rolled over?”

“It happened kind of fast. Totally no big deal, though.”

It sounded like a huge deal. “Let me see if I have this right. You were driving and the car rolled over.”

“Iris wouldn’t blow her nose. I was getting her a Kleenex. You know how she is. The doctors say she’s absolutely fine.”

“What doctors?” It was becoming clear that she was in a state of shock.

“Where are you?”

“At the hospital. It’s very small. I’m not even sure you’d call it a hospital.

Everybody’s been so nice.”

And so on. By the time the call ended, I had some idea of the seriousness, though not completely. Gonzales was three hours away. I abandoned my grocery cart, raced home, got on the phone, found somebody to look after our son, and got in my car. Several more calls followed, each adding a piece to the puzzle, until I was able to conclude that my wife and daughter were alive but should be dead. I knew this, but I didn’t feel it. For the moment I was locked into the project of retrieving them from the small town where they’d been stranded. It was after ten o’clock when I pulled into the driveway of Gonzales Memorial Hospital, a modern building the size of a suburban dental office. I did not see my wife, who was standing at the edge of the parking lot, looking out over the empty fields behind it. I raced inside, and there was Iris. She was slender and tan from a month in the Texas sunshine, and wearing a yellow T-shirt dress. She had never looked more beautiful, and it was this beauty that brought home the magnitude of events. I threw my arms around her, tears rising in my throat; I had never been so happy to see anybody in my life. When I asked her where her mother was, she said she didn’t know; one of the nurses directed us outside. I found myself unable to take a hand off my daughter; some part of me needed constant reassurance of her existence. I saw my wife standing at the edge of the lot, facing away. I called her name, she turned, and the two of us headed toward her.

As my wife tells the story, this was the moment when, as the saying goes, she got God. Once the two of them had been discharged, my wife had stepped outside to call me with this news. But the signal quality was poor, and she abandoned the attempt. I’d be along soon enough.

She found herself, then, standing alone in the Texas night. I do not recall if the weather was clear, but I’d like to think it was, all those fat stars shining down. My wife had been raised Missouri Synod Lutheran, but a series of intertribal squabbles had soured her parents on the whole thing, and apart from weddings and funerals, she hadn’t set foot in a church for years. Yet the outdoor cathedral of a starry Texas night is as good a place as any to communicate with the Almighty, which she commenced to do. In the hours since the accident, as the adrenaline cleared, her recollection of events had led her to a calculus that rewrote everything she thought she knew about the world. Until that night, her vision of a universal deity had been basically impersonal. God, in her mind, was simply too busy to take an interest in individual human affairs. The universe possessed a moral shape, but events were haphazard, unguided by providence. Now, as she contemplated the accident, mentally listing the many ways that she and our daughter should have died and yet did not, she decided this was wrong. Of course God paid attention. Only the intercession of a divine hand could explain such a colossal streak of luck. Likewise did the accident become in her mind a product of celestial design. It was a message; it meant something. She had been placed in a circumstance in which a mother’s greatest fear was about to be realized, then yanked from the brink. Her future emerged in her mind as something given back to her—it was as if she and our daughter had been killed on the highway and then restored to life—and like all supplicants in the wilderness, she asked God what her purpose was, why he’d returned her to the world.

That was the moment when Iris and I emerged from the building and called her name, giving her the answer.

Until that night we were a family that had lived an entirely secular existence. This wasn’t planned; things simply happened that way. My religious background was different from my wife’s, but only by degree. I was raised in the Catholic Church, but its messages were delivered to me in a lethargic and off-key manner that failed to gain much traction. My father did not attend mass—I was led to believe this had something to do with the trauma of his attending Catholic grade school—and my mother, who dutifully took my sister and me to church every Sunday, did not receive communion. Why this should be so I never thought to ask. Always she met us at the rear of the church so that we could make a quick exit “to avoid the traffic.” (There was no traffic.) We never attended a church picnic or drank coffee in the basement after mass or went to Bible study; we socialized with no other families in the parish. Religion was never discussed over the dinner table or anyplace else. I went to just enough Sunday school to meet the minimum requirements for first communion, but because I went to a private school with afternoon activities, I could not attend confirmation class. My mother struck a deal with the priest. If I met with him for a couple of hours to discuss religious matters, I could be confirmed. I had no idea why I was doing any of this or what it meant, only that I needed to select a new name, taken from the saints. I chose Cornelius, not because I knew who he was but because that was the name of my favorite character in Planet of the Apes.

Within a couple of years I was off to boarding school, and my life as a Roman Catholic, nominal as it was, came to an end. During a difficult period in my midtwenties, I briefly flirted with church attendance, thinking it might offer me some comfort and direction, but I found it just as stultifying and embarrassing as I always had, full of weird sexual obsessions, exclusionary politics, and a deep love of hocus-pocus, overlaid with a doctrine of obedience that was complete anathema to my newly independent self. If asked, I would have said that I believed in God—one never really loses those mental contours once they’re established—but that organized religious practice struck me as completely infantile. When my wife and I were married, a set of odd circumstances led us to choose an Anglican priest to officiate, but this was a decision we regretted, and when our daughter was born, the subject of baptism never came up. Essentially, we viewed ourselves as too smart for religion. I’ll put it another way. Religion was for people who wanted to stay children all their lives. We didn’t. We were the grown-ups.

In the aftermath of the accident, and the event that I now think of as “the revelation of the parking lot,” all this went out the window. I was not half as sure as my wife that God had interceded; I’m a skeptic and always will be. But it was also the case that I was due for a course correction. In my midforties, I had yet to have anything truly bad happen to me. The opposite was true: I’d done tremendously well. At the university where I taught, I’d just been promoted to full professor. A trilogy of novels I had begun writing on a lark had been purchased for scads of money. We’d just bought a new house we loved, and my daughter had been admitted to a terrific school, where she’d be starting in the fall. My children were happy and healthy, and my newfound financial success had allowed my wife to quit her stressful job as a high school teacher to look after our family and pursue her interests. It had been a long, hard climb, but we’d made it—more than made it—and I spent a great deal of time patting myself on the back for this success. I’d gone out hunting and brought back a mammoth.

Everything was right as rain.

In hindsight, this self-congratulatory belief in my ability to chart my own destiny was patently ridiculous. Worldly things are worldly things; two bad seconds on the highway can take them all away, and sooner or later something’s going to come along that does just that.

Once you have it, this information is unignorable, and it seems to me that you can do one of two things with it. You can decide that life doesn’t make sense, or you can decide that it does. In version one, the universe is a stone-cold place. Life is a series of accumulations—friends, lovers, children, memories, the contents of your 401(k)—followed by a rapid casting off (i.e., you die). Your wife is just somebody you met at a party; your children are biological accretions of yourself; your affection for them is nothing more than a bit of well-engineered firmware to guarantee the perpetuation of the species. All pleasures are sensory, since nothing goes deeper than the senses, and pain, whether psychological or physical, is meaningless bad news you can only endure till it’s over.

Version two assumes that life, with all its vicissitudes, possesses an organized pattern of meaning. Grief means something, joy means something, love means something. This meaning isn’t always obvious and is sometimes maddeningly elusive; had my wife and daughter been killed that afternoon on the highway, I would have been hard-pressed to take solace in religion’s customary clichés. (It is likely that the only thing that would have prevented me from committing suicide, apart from my own physical cowardice, would have been my son, into whom I would have poured all my love and sorrow.) But it’s there if you look for it, and the willingness to search—whether this search finds expression in religious ritual or attentive care for one’s children or a long run through falling autumn leaves—is what is meant, I think, by faith.

But herein lies the problem: we don’t generally come to these things on our own. Somebody has to lay the groundwork, and the best way to accomplish this is with a story, since that’s how children learn most things. My Catholic upbringing was halfhearted and unfocused, but it made an impression. At any time during my thirty-year exile from organized religion, I could have stepped into a Sunday mass and recited the entire liturgy by heart. For better or worse, my God was a Catholic God, the God of smells and bells and the BVM and the saints and all the rest, and I didn’t have to build this symbolic narrative on my own. My wife is much the same; I have no doubt that the image of the merciful deity she addressed in the parking lot came straight off a stained-glass window, circa 1975. Yet out of arrogance or laziness or the shallow notion that modern, freethinking parents ought to allow children to decide these things for freethinking parents ought to allow children to decide these things for themselves, we’d given our daughter none of it. We’d left her in the dark forest of her own mind, and what she’d concluded was that there was no God at all.

This came about in the aftermath of our move to Texas—a very churchy place. My daughter was entering the first grade; my son was still being hauled around in a basket. Houston is a sophisticated and diverse city, with great food, interesting architecture, and a vivid cultural life, but the suburbs are the suburbs, and the neighborhood where we settled was straight out of Betty Friedan’s famous complaint: horseshoe streets of more or less identical one-story, 2,500square-foot houses, built on reclaimed ranchland in the 1960s. A neighborhood of 2.4 children per household, fathers who raced off to work each morning before the dew had dried, moms who pushed their kids around in strollers and passed out snacks at soccer games and volunteered at the local elementary school. We were, after ten years living in a dicey urban neighborhood in Philadelphia, eager for something a little calmer, more controlled, and we’d chosen the house in a hurry, not realizing what we were getting into. Among our first visitors was an older woman from down the block. She presented us with a plate of brownies and proceeded to list the denominational affiliations of each of our neighbors. I was, to put it mildly, pretty weirded-out. I counted about a dozen churches within just a few miles of my house—Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ—and all of them were huge. People talked about Jesus as if he were sitting in their living room, flipping through a magazine; nearly every day I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, Warning: In case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned. Stapled to the local religious culture was a socially conservative brand of politics I found abhorrent. To hear homosexuality described as an “abomination” felt like I’d parachuted into the Middle Ages. I couldn’t argue with my neighbors’ devotion to their offspring—the neighborhood revolved around children—but it seemed to me that Jesus Christ, whoever he was, had been pretty clear on the subject of loving everybody.

This was the current my daughter swam in every day at school. Not many months had passed before one of her friends, the daughter of evangelicals, expressed concern that Iris was going to hell. Those were the words she used: “I don’t want you to go to hell, Iris.” The girl in question was adorable, with ringlets of dark hair, perfect manners, and lovely, doting parents. No doubt she thought she was doing Iris a kindness when she urged her to attend church with her family to avoid this awful fate. But that wasn’t how I saw the situation. I dropped to a defensive crouch and came out swinging. “Tell her that hell’s a fairy tale,” I said. “Tell her to leave you alone.”

The better choice would have been to offer her a more positive, less punishing The better choice would have been to offer her a more positive, less punishing view of creation—less hell, more heaven—and over time my wife and I tried to do just that. But when you’re seven years old, “love your neighbor as yourself” sounds a lot like “don’t forget to brush your teeth”—words to live by but hardly a description of humanity’s place in the cosmos. As the playground evangelism continued, so did my daughter’s contempt, and why wouldn’t it? She’d learned it from me. I don’t recall when she announced she was an atheist. All I remember was that she did this from the back seat of the car, sitting in a booster chair.

After the accident, my daughter spent the better part of a week in her closet.

From time to time I’d stop by and say, “Are you still in there?” Or “Hey, it’s

Daddy, how’s it going?” Or “Let me know if you need anything.”

“All good!” she said. “Thanks!”

There were things to sort out: an insurance claim to file, a replacement vehicle to acquire, arrangements to make for our summer vacation, for which we’d be leaving in two weeks. My wife and I were badly shaken. We had entered a new state: we were a family that had been nearly annihilated. Every few hours one of us would burst into tears. Genesis 2:24 speaks of spouses “cleaving” to each other, and that was what we did: we cleaved. We badly wanted to comfort our daughter, but she had made herself completely unreachable. Of course she’d be confused and angry; in a careless moment, her mother had nearly killed her. But when we probed her on the matter, she insisted this wasn’t so. Everything was peachy, she said. She just liked it in the closet. No worries, she’d be along soon.

A day later we received a phone call from the pastor whose car my wife’s had struck. At first I thought he was calling to get my insurance information, which I apologetically offered. He explained that the damage was minor, nothing even worth fixing, and that he had called to see if my wife and daughter were all right. Perfectly, I said, omitting my daughter’s temporary residence among her shirts and pants, and thanked him profusely.

“It’s a miracle,” he said. “I saw the whole thing. Nobody should have survived.”

He wasn’t the first to say this. The M-word was bandied about freely by virtually everyone we knew. The following afternoon we were visited by the woman who had collected Iris’s belongings: two cardboard boxes of books and clothes covered with highway grime and shards of glass, a suitcase that looked like it had been run over, and her violin, which had escaped its launch into the gulley unharmed. We chatted in the living room, replaying events. Like the pastor, she seemed a little dazed. When the conversation reached a resting place, she explained that she couldn’t leave until she’d seen Iris.

“Give me just a sec,” my wife said.

A minute later she appeared with our daughter. The woman rose from her chair, stepped toward Iris, and wrapped her in a hug. This display made my daughter visibly uncomfortable, as it would anyone. Why was this stranger hugging her? The woman’s face was full of inexpressible emotion; her eyes filmed with tears. My daughter endured her embrace as long as she could, then backed away.

“God protected you. You know that, don’t you?”

My daughter’s eyes darted around warily. “I guess.”

“You’re going to have a wonderful life. I just know it.”

We exchanged email addresses, knowing we would never use them, and said our goodbyes in the yard. When we returned to the house, Iris was still standing at the base of the stairs. I had never seen her look so freaked-out.

“God had nothing to do with it,” she said. “So don’t ask me to say he did.” And with that she headed back upstairs to her closet.

The psychologist, whom Iris nicknamed “Dr. Cuckoo,” told us not to worry. Iris was a levelheaded girl; hiding in the closet was a perfectly natural response to such a trauma. The best thing, she said, was to give our daughter space. She’d talk about it when the time was right.

I doubted this. Levelheaded, yes, but that was the problem. Doing a double gainer with a twist at 70 miles an hour, without so much as dropping your iPhone, was nothing that the rational mind could parse on its own. The psychologist also didn’t know my daughter like I did. Iris can be the most stubborn person on earth. This is one of her cardinal virtues when, for instance, she has a test and two papers due on the same day. She’ll stay up till 3:00 A.M. no matter how many times we tell her to go to bed, and get A’s on all three, proving herself right in the end. But she can also hold a grudge like nobody I’ve ever met, and a grudge with the cosmos is no simple matter. How do you forgive the world for being godless? When she declared her atheism from the booster seat, I’d thought two things. First, How cute! The world’s only atheist who eats from the kids’ menu! I couldn’t have been more charmed if she’d said she’d been reading Schopenhauer. The second thing was, This can’t last. How could a girl who still believed in the tooth fairy fail to come around to the idea of a cosmic protector? And yet she didn’t. Her atheism had hardened to such a degree that any mention of spiritual matters made her snort milk out her nose. By inserting nothing in its stead, we had inadvertently given her the belief that she was the author of her own fate, and my wife’s newfound faith in a God-watched universe was as much a betrayal as crashing their car into the guardrail over a minor argument. It was a philosophical reversal my daughter couldn’t process, and it left her feeling utterly alone.

My wife and I felt perfectly awful. In due course our daughter emerged, with one condition: she didn’t want to discuss the accident. Not then, not ever. This seemed unhealthy, but you can’t make a twelve-year-old girl talk about something she doesn’t want to. We left for Cape Cod, where we’d rented a house for the month of July. I’d just turned in a manuscript to my editor and under ordinary circumstances would have been looking forward to the time away, but the trip seemed like too much data. Everyone was antsy and out of sorts, and the weather was horrible. The only person who enjoyed himself was our son, who was too young to comprehend the scope of events and was happy drawing pictures all day.

The school year resumed, and with it life’s ordinary rhythms. My wife began looking around for a church to attend. To say this was a sore spot with Iris would be a gross understatement. She hated the idea and said so. “Fine with me,” she said, “if you want to get all Jesus-y. Just leave me out of it.”

It didn’t happen right away. God may have shown his face to my wife in the parking lot, but he’d failed to share his address. We were stymied by the things we always had been: our jaundiced view of organized religion, the conservative social politics of most mainline denominations, the discomfiting business of praying aloud in the presence of people we didn’t know. And what, exactly, did we believe? Faith asks for a belief in God, which we had; religion asks for more, a great deal of it literal. Christian ritual was the most familiar, but neither of us believed that the Bible was the word of God or that Jesus Christ was a supernatural being who walked on water when he wasn’t turning it into wine. Certainly somebody by that name had existed; he’d gotten a lot of ink. He’d done and said some remarkable stuff, scared the living shit out of an imperial authority, and given humanity two thousand years’ worth of things to think about. But the son of God? Really? That Jesus was no more or less divine than the rest of us seemed to me the core of his message.

We wanted something, but we didn’t know what. Something with a little grace, a bit of wonder, the feeling of taking a few minutes out of each week to acknowledge how fortunate we were. We decided to give Unitarianism a shot. From the website, it seemed safe enough. Over loud objections, we made Iris come with us. The service was overseen by two ministers, a married couple, who took turns speaking from the altar, which seemed about as holy as the podium in a college classroom. After the hokey business of lighting the lamp, they droned on for half an hour about the importance of friendship. There were almost no kids in the congregation, or even anybody close to our age. It was a sea of whitehaired heads. After the service, everyone lingered in the lobby over coffee and stale cookies, but we beat a hasty retreat.

“Well, that was awkward,” Iris said.

It was. It had felt like sitting in the audience at a talk show. We tried a few more times, but our interest flagged. When, on the fourth Sunday, Iris found me making French toast in the kitchen in my bathrobe and asked why we weren’t going, I told her that I guessed church wasn’t for us after all. “Thank God,” she said, and laughed.

In the end, as in the scriptures, it was a child who led us. To our surprise, our son, Tuck, had become a secret Episcopalian. His school is affiliated with an Episcopal parish, and students attend chapel once a week. We’d always assumed this was the sort of wishy-washy, nondenominational fare most places dish out, but we were wrong. One day, apropos of nothing, as I was driving him home from school, he announced that he believed in Jesus.

“Really?” I said. “When did that happen?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and shrugged. “It just makes sense to me. Pastor

Lisa’s nice. We should go sometime.”

“To church, you mean?”

“Sure,” he said. “I think that would be great.”

Just like that, the matter was settled. We now go every week—the three of us. St. Stephen’s is located in a diverse neighborhood in Houston, and much of the congregation is gay or lesbian. There are protocols, but very loose ones, and the church has open communion and a terrific choir. Pastor Lisa is a woman in her fifties with a gray pageboy who wears blue jeans and Birkenstocks under her robe and gives a hug that feels like falling into bed. She knows I was raised Catholic, and she laughed when I told her that I didn’t mind that she “got some of the words wrong.” I have my doubts, as always, but it seems like a fine church to have them in. My son finds some of the service boring, as all children do, but he likes communion, which he calls his “force field for the week.” He has asked to be baptized next fall.

Will Iris be there? I hope so. But it’s her choice. She has yet to go with us. I know this makes her sad, and it makes me sad, too. It’s the first thing the three of us have ever done without her.

Three years after the accident, in spring 2012, I failed a blood test at my annual physical, then failed a biopsy and found myself, two months shy of my fiftieth birthday, facing a surgery that would tell me if I was going to see my children grow up. Two of my doctors assured me this would happen; a third said maybe grow up. Two of my doctors assured me this would happen; a third said maybe not. We were spending the summer on Cape Cod, where we’d bought a house, and in late July my wife and I flew back to Texas for my operation. When I awoke in the recovery room, my wife was standing over me, smiling. I was so dopey with painkillers that focusing on her face felt like trying to carry a piano up the stairs. “It’s over,” she said. “The margins were clear. You’re going to be okay.”

Two days after my surgery, I was instructed to walk. This sounded impossible, but I was determined. With my wife holding my arm, I shuffled up and down the hall of the ward, gritting my teeth against the discomfort of the catheter, which was the weirdest thing I’d ever felt. The last two months had pummeled me to psychological pieces, but the worst was over. Once again the car had rolled and we had walked away.

From the far end of the hall, a woman was approaching. Like a pair of ocean liners, we headed toward each other in slow motion. She was very thin and wearing a silk robe; like me, she was pulling an IV stand. Some greeting was called for, and she was the first to speak.

“May I give you something?”

We were within just a few feet of each other, and I saw what the situation was. Her body was leaving her; death was in her face.

“Of course.”

She gestured downward, indicating the pockets of her robe. “Pick one.”

I chose the left. With an uncertain hand she withdrew a wad of white cotton, tied with a bow. She placed it in my hand. It was an angel, made from a dish towel. To this she’d affixed a heart-shaped piece of laminated paper printed with these words from the Book of Numbers:

The Lord bless and keep you;

The Lord make his face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you; And give you peace.

When I first learned about my illness, a very smart man told me that I should select an object. It could be anything, he said. A piece of jewelry. A spoon. A rock. Since I was a writer, maybe something to do with writing, such as a pen. It didn’t matter what it was. When I was afraid, he said, and thinking that I was going to die, I should take that object in my hand and put my fear inside it.

Wise as his counsel was, I’d never managed to do this. I’d tried one thing and then another. Nothing had felt right. This did. Not just right: miraculous.

then another. Nothing had felt right. This did. Not just right: miraculous.

“Bless you,” I said.

Two weeks later I returned to the Cape to complete my recovery. There wasn’t much I could do, but I was glad to be there. A few days before my diagnosis, I had bought a ten-year-old Audi convertible and shipped it north. Iris had just gotten her learner’s permit, and after a week of lounging around the house, I asked her if she’d take me for a drive. The day was sunny and hot. We put the top down and sped north, bisecting the peninsula on a rolling, two-lane road. From the passenger seat, I watched my daughter drive. In the past year a startling change had occurred. Iris wasn’t a kid anymore. She was taller than my wife, with a full, womanly shape. Her facial features had organized into mature proportions. Her hair, a honeyed red, swept away from her face in a stylish arc. She could have been mistaken for a college student, and often was. But the difference was more than physical; to look at my daughter was to know that she was somebody with a private, inner existence. She was standing at the edge of life; everything was ahead of her. All she had to do was let it come.

“How’s it feel?” I asked. She had perfect motorist’s manners: hands at ten and two, shoulders pressed back, eyes on the road. She was wearing large tortoiseshell sunglasses that would have been perfectly at home on Audrey Hepburn’s face. “Okay.”

“Not scary?”

She shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

Our destination was a beach on the Cape’s north side, called Sandy Neck. From there, on the clearest days, you can see all the way from Plymouth to Provincetown. We parked and got out of the car and walked to the little platform built to take in the view. I knew we couldn’t stay long; even standing was an effort.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” I said.

Iris was looking away. “You didn’t. Not really.”

“Well, I was scared. I’m glad you weren’t.”

She thought a moment. “That’s the thing. I knew I should have been. But I wasn’t. I actually feel kind of guilty about that.”

“There’s no reason you should.”

“It’s just . . .” She hunted for the words. “I don’t know. You’re you. I just can’t imagine you not being okay.”

She was wrong. Someday I wouldn’t be. Time and chance would do its work, as it does for all of us. But she didn’t need to hear that from me on a sunny summer day.

“Do you remember the accident?” I asked.

She laughed, a little nervously. “Well, duh.”

“I’ve always wondered. What were you doing in the closet?”

“Not much. Mostly watching Project Runway on my laptop.”

“And being mad at us.”

She shrugged. “That whole God thing really pissed me off. I mean, you guys can believe whatever you want. I just wanted Mom to feel the same way I did.”

“How did you feel?”

She didn’t answer right away. Boats were creeping across the horizon.

“Abandoned.”

We were silent for a time. I had a sudden vision of myself as old—an old man, being taken to the beach by his grown daughter. The dunes, the ocean, the rocky margin where they met—all would be the same, unchanged since I was boy. It was a sad thought, but it also made me happy in a way that seemed new. These things were years away, and with any luck, I would be around to see them.

“Are you doing all right? Do you need to go back?”

I nodded. “Probably I should get off my feet.”

We returned to the car. Three steps ahead of me, Iris moved to the passenger side, opened the door, and got in.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She looked around. “Oh, right,” she said, and laughed. “I’m the driver, aren’t I?”

She was sixteen years old. I hoped someday she’d remember how it felt, how invincible, how alive. I’d heard it said that one tenth of parenting is making mistakes; the other nine are prayer and letting go. “Yes,” I said. “You are.”

MEGHAN DAUM

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