#Akela Suffers

[five-rivers]

Stargazer, Moonweaver, Net

Hey, you. Yes, you. Have you ever wondered, hey, what would it look like if @five-rivers, @jackdaw-sprite, @seaglass-skies, @datawyrms, and @akela-nakamura all worked together on a fic for Phantasy Phest? No? Too specific? Well, if you had, it would look exactly like this fic here.

AO3 link

Tags: Lost Time, The portal accident, Phantasy Phest 2023, Alternate Universe - Modern Fantasy, Fairies, Blood Drinking, Moths, Clockwork has low opinions of the Fenton Parents, Transformation, Body Horror, Danny gets to say Fuck

Word Count: 11,197

Fic continues after cut.

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"Ohno. Oh, no, no no nooooooo."

The stars were bright tonight.

Danny could even see them from where he was at the edge of a large clearing, where the trees stopped to wreathe the base of a hill.

Unusually, Danny didn't care.

"Nooooo," he said again under his breath.

Danny pushed at the net again. It reeked of garlic and sage the same way his parents’ nets always did, and the cord was rough and knobbly between his fingers. They must have woven this one with something extra.

He needed to get out. But with his flashlight fallen somewhere he could barely see the net or where it might end.

His flashlight. Where was his flashlight? Danny crouched, and began to grope at the ground around him. It couldn't have rolled too far, right?

The net folded up into his face, scratchy and unexpected. Danny flinched back but kept going, moving his hands in a circle. They met dead leaves and earth, and more than once he touched slimy and wet things he hoped were slugs.

He didn't find anything that felt like a flashlight.

"Heck," said Danny.

He sat down on the ground. The damp seeped into his pants but at this point that was a distant concern.

Maybe he could just find the edge of the net. It was a net. It had an edge. And his parents weren't always great at traps.

Danny pulled the net hand over hand in one direction and stopped when he felt something thicker cross over an arm.

He groped at it. It felt like the edge. Or an edge. One side didn't have all the net stuff. With mounting relief he followed it with his fingers–and discovered that it was attached to an opening only about large enough to slip a hand through.

There wasn't a tie that he could feel.

He couldn't find any other holes in it.

The relief withered. He was caught, alone, in the dead of night, in one of his parents' stupid monster catching nets. Without a flashlight.

And his parents, at best, might find him in the morning.

"Heck," said Danny, again.

Then he remembered he was alone, deep in the woods in the middle of the night, and no one would hear him.

"Fuck."

If only, Danny thought a while later, he'd brought his pocket knife. Or literally any knife. Something sharp to cut through the ropes.

None of the rocks he could reach had worked, though that was probably a little because he still couldn't see much of anything. It was really hard to wear through rope when you were doing it with a rock, blind. And through a net.

He was cold. His butt was colder from sitting in the leaves earlier. He kind of wanted to do it again, as a measure of his suffering. He wanted to be home, dry, and warm even more.

Maybe he could just wait for morning. Maybe his parents would know the trap had gone off, and come to check it. Maybe they'd check it anyway. They were the town crackpots for a reason. They didn't just believe in fictional creatures, they did so enthusiastically and with the kind of prejudice that made them set net traps in the woods. For one of their own innocent children to get caught in when he was only trying to stargaze on a clear night before school started in a few weeks. See some constellations, spot a few meteors, maybe a handful of planets, that kind of thing.  

Never mind that he’d maybe snuck out. Because he knew they’d freak out about him going into the woods alone. Because they believed in faeries.

Gosh, he hoped this didn't get back to Dash.

At least the stars were bright tonight.

He sighed and looked up, eyes automatically picking out familiar constellations.  The Big Dipper was easiest, although finding the rest of Ursa Major was less familiar.  All seven stars of Ursa Minor were easily visible, which again highlighted how good the seeing was. Then there were the other circumpolars.  Draco, Cepheus, Cassiopeia…  He could see the V of Andromeda, where it blended with Pegasus, and he could almost convince himself that–

An owl - he thought it was an owl - hooted somewhere nearby.  He jumped, which had the side effect of reminding him that, yes, he was still in a net.  He rubbed his shoulders and neck where they’d been rammed into the net.  Straining against rope shouldn’t have felt like running into a wall, but he supposed he did have his weight on the bottom of it.  

But he soon had other things to worry about than his parents’ irrational net design.

(Seriously, why was there enough room to stand up in this net?  What were they even trying to catch?  At first, he’d thought he could just walk away, back to town, even inside the net, but it was tied to something.  Maybe one of the trees?)

Sounds started to rise up from all around the clearing.  First the high-pitched chirr of crickets, then croaking, buzzing, and chirping.  Small noises, from small things.  

But with those small noises, Danny started to notice rustling and creaking and–  Was that a dog howling or a wolf?  Were there even any wolves here?  He remembered a unit in science last year where the teacher talked about wolves going extinct in some states.

The stars were bright tonight.  The woods around him?  Not so much.  

“People spend nights outside all the time,��� he said out loud.  The word probably would have been more impactful if they weren’t whispered.  “All the time.  People go camping and hiking and stuff for fun.”  Never mind that they were usually more prepared to do so than Danny currently was.  And that most of the time, they could decide to just leave and go home or get a hotel room if camping got to be too much for them.  He continued, more loudly, “I just have to wait for morning.  They’ll find me in the morning.  And– and if they don’t, I’ll be able to see.  I’ll be able to get myself out.  I’ll be fine.”

If nothing ate him first.  

No.  No.  That was–  What out here could even eat him, anyway?  Wolves, yeah, okay, but were there wolves?  Still unclear.  Bears?  If there weren’t wolves, he doubted there were bears.  He’d never heard of any bears out here, anyway.  What else could eat a human who wasn’t, well, already dead?  Cougars?  That one school, a couple districts over, had a cougar for a mascot, didn’t they?  That didn’t really mean anything, though.  What else, what else…  Feral pigs?  Those were supposed to be invasive around here, weren’t they?  Danny had kind of laughed at the idea of it in class, but, here, now, in the dark, was a different story.   

He was pretty sure anything else was too small.  So.  Three things out of how many animals?  Thousands?  Yeah.  Yeah, the odds of those three specific animals showing up to bother him were low.  Yes.  Nothing wrong with the math there.  No siree.  

(And the stuff his parents were worried about, the stuff they’d set this trap for, that stuff didn’t exist at all, so he didn’t have to worry about it.  There were no werewolves, no chimerae, no hobgoblins, and definitely no fairies.  Wasn’t even worth thinking about.)

A branch snapped.  Then another.

He’d thought the owl was close, but this sounded closer.  And those didn’t sound like small branches.  

A deer?  There definitely were deer here.  Sam talked about deer resistant and repellent garden plants, sometimes.  Deer could get big.  Like, reindeer were huge, right?

It was dark under the trees, but by starlight alone Danny could still perceive a shadow moving among other shadows.  Something tall.  Something not shaped anything like a deer.

The shadow came closer.  

Danny held his breath and shrunk down against the nearest tree.  He couldn’t fight a bear.  Not even when he wasn’t caught in a net.

"Hello."

"Hi," said Danny back, on autopilot.

Danny continued staring at the shadow for several more tense moments before it occurred to him that it had talked.

"Wait, you can talk?" Danny asked.

"It would appear so," said the shadow, and did not move.  Now that Danny was looking and thinking rather than just freaking out, the shadow looked, well, pretty humanoid.  Tall, sure, and wearing a long coat with a hood - or maybe a dress?  And that could be long hair.  Significantly less weird in the middle of the summer than a coat - but humanoid.  

Human, he should say.  Outside of, like, parrots, there weren’t a lot of other things that could talk.  No matter what his parents said.  

"Um. I'm a little stuck," said Danny.

"Really?" The shadow did not sound surprised.

"Can you, I don't know, cut the net loose? Please?"

The shadow hummed. "I think the more interesting question is why you're stuck in the first place.  One does not frequently encounter those such as yourself in the woods so late at night."

Oh, wow.  Danny could empathize with the curiosity.  He really could.  This was a weird situation to come across, and whoever this was, they must be just as confused as Danny.  But he also really didn’t want to explain anything about this to a stranger.  And he would really rather be out while talking to what was, yet again, a complete stranger.  

… Humans were pretty dangerous themselves, come to think of it.  

“Yeah, I guess not.”  He swallowed.  “Why are you out here, anyway?”  Maybe he was being rude, but the shadow had asked first.

The shadow shifted, looking up.  Starlight limned pale skin and a sharp, straight nose in shades of gray.  “The stars.  The sun is too bright during the day.  It is easier to see them at night.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  Maybe, hopefully, not a murderer, then.  Just another person out stargazing.  A weird person but…  Danny didn’t exactly have room to talk.  “Yeah.  Me, too.  Since the moon isn’t up and all.  I just, uh, ran into this.  Trap.  Thing.”  He tugged at the net.  “And now I can’t get out.”

The shadow’s head tipped back down.  “Can’t you?”

“I really can’t.  I can’t even figure out how it’s tied on.  Do you, like, have a flashlight or something?”

“I do not.”

“Not even, like, one on your phone?”

“No.”  The shadow leaned forward, and might have held out a hand, but if they did, they didn’t touch anything that Danny could feel.  “What a curious and terrible thing,” murmured the shadow.  “What cruelty and carelessness, to leave it to trap the unwary.”

Danny winced.  Yeah.  Yeah, okay, it kind of was, and it was probably a small miracle that no one else had ever gotten trapped in one of these things.  

That Danny knew of.  

He pushed the thought of his parents absent-mindedly forgetting to check one of these traps, or only checking them once a week, out of his mind.  His parents were crazy and kind of forgetful and… well, the point was, he would have heard if something had… happened.  

They wouldn’t do that, anyway.  

“Yeah.  But, um.  Even without the flashlight, please, help?  Just, maybe if you could untie me, or if you have…”  Did he really want this guy to have a knife?  Not really.  Still.  “Something to cut with, maybe?”

“I cannot cut the net in which you find yourself.”  The shadow shifted again.  “However, I will stay with you until you are free.”

“Maybe if you tried some of the knots, you could get me out, though,” pointed out Danny.  

“I have encountered ropes like this in the past.  They do not agree with my skin.”

“What, like, you're allergic?” asked Danny.  

“Something like that.”

Just his luck.  He was found, but the person to find him was… incredibly strange.  And not very useful.  And had possibly run into his parents’ nets before and had a reaction to them.  

“Okay.  But maybe you could call for help?  I mean, I know you said you don’t have a phone, but you could go get someone who can get me out?”

“Child,” said the shadow, with a touch of amusement, “there are things in these woods that would eat you whole.  I am equipped to deal with them.  You are not.  It would be irresponsible of me to leave you while they wander.”  They settled themselves nearby.  “Besides, I can see the stars here as well as I could elsewhere in these woods.”

“Eat me?” squeaked Danny.  He'd thought about bears earlier, but not, like, out loud.  Talking about them out loud was different. He cleared his throat. “You mean like bears?”

“In some respects,” said the shadow, still amused.

"Okay, um." Danny really did not like confirmation that there were bears around. He could have gone without knowing that. Except he probably should know. Considering he was in a net.

The net.

Which the stranger somehow thought he'd be able to escape on his own?

"Hey, um. I have been trying to get out for a while," said Danny. "It hasn't been working. You're sure you can't do anything to help?"

"There is more than one kind of trap here."

Danny blinked.

Crap.  That would be just like his parents, wouldn’t it?  They couldn’t leave it at just one stupid trap in a public space, they have more.  “Where?”

“You will not be able to see it from your perspective, but I have no doubt it would close were I to attempt to free you.”  

“Great,” said Danny.  He took in a shuddering breath.  “Great.  And you, what, think I’ll be able to avoid it on my own?  When I can’t even see it?  Or is this a ‘wait until morning’ thing?”

“You will, at least, be less liable to be eaten by wild animals at that point.  And more able to untie knots with the light of day.”

Okay, yeah.  Danny had been thinking both of those things as well, but with someone here, he’d hoped… 

He rubbed his eyes, tiredly, and, to his absolute horror, his stomach rumbled.

“Are you hungry?” asked the shadow, as if Danny wasn’t already embarrassed enough.  

Danny mumbled something indistinct.  He had eaten.  Just…  The main course had…  Well, some things were better left unsaid.  The salad (courtesy of Jazz) had been okay, and so had the carrots.  He’d felt full right after dinner.  He had.  

But, yeah.  He was hungry.  Dinner had been hours and hours ago at this point. 

“I have food enough to share.”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “Okay?”

Something moved under his nose, and he flinched.  He hadn’t seen the shadow move.  

“Um, I’m not sure I can…”  He tried to wedge his fingers into one of the holes of the net.  He’d lost track of the opening.  

“They are small.  They will fit.  Hold out your hands.”

Danny, only a little skeptical, held out his hands. As promised, several round, slightly damp things, like largeish marbles, were dropped into them through the holes in the net.

“What are these?”

“Star jelly.”

“Like, from starfruit or something?” asked Danny, interested.  He squished one between his fingers.  It was springy, like a gummy.  But still.  Damp.

“Or something,” said the stranger.

“Why is it damp?”

“It hasn’t dried.”

Well. That was almost no information at all.

“But it’s edible?”

“I enjoy them regularly.”

Danny huffed slightly.  This guy was weird.  Again, that was the pot calling the kettle black, but Danny didn’t go around offering weird food to strangers.

No, he went around getting trapped in nets.

And he was hungry.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t eaten weirder things. His parents could be creative.

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to accept food from strangers, but…  This guy was his getting caught in a net buddy.  And he had to admit, he was pretty mad at his parents right now.  It’d serve them right, that Danny was eating someone else’s food.  

Did that make sense?  Maybe not.  But it wasn’t like any of the stuff Sam or Jazz did made any sense, either.

Plus, it had ‘star’ in the name.  He basically had to try out at least one.

He squished the smallest between his fingers one last time, then popped it in his mouth.  

He chewed.

There was no burst of flavor. It tasted… pretty bland, actually. All the way through. But the texture was okay.  Mostly.  It was at least better than what had happened to the chicken fated for dinner.

So.  Probably not poison.  

(Although why anyone would bother to poison him when he was quite literally trapped in a net was beyond him.)

“I also have a variety of mushrooms.”  

Who was this guy? The last hippie in Amity Park? A revolutionary war survivor?

“Do you have hardtack, too?” asked Danny, unable to help himself.

“I have biscuits.”

Oh thank goodness. Normal food.

“Can I have one?”

Something distinctly cracker-like was placed in his hand.

Danny didn’t even bother snarking, he just ate it. The texture was flaky, the flavor nutty and buttery and just salty enough to coat the whole of his tongue with flavor. He crunched into it again and the layers almost shattered between his teeth, then melted in his mouth like butter in a hot pan.

Danny swallowed. He’d never had a cracker that good.

“Can I have another?” he asked. Then, as more fell into his hands, “Where did you even get these? They’re great.”

“I baked them myself.”

Well.  That explained why he didn’t have a phone.  He was a hippie of some variety.  Danny didn’t comment aloud, though, too busy plowing his way through another cracker. He spent a little while chewing in blissful silence before he could swallow.

“They’re great,” Danny repeated, and had another one. And another.

“Ah,” said the shadow, “I believe that was the first proper shooting star of the night.” 

“What?” said Danny, looking up from his impromptu meal.  He licked his fingers, then stretched out the net, the better to see through it.  “Really?  Where?”  

“From the neighborhood of Cassiopeia, crossing her and going north.”  A pointed finger stood out in silhouette against the slightly brighter sky, tracing an imaginary line.

Danny sighed.  “I can’t believe I missed it.”  The Perseid meteor shower was, after all, one of the main reasons he risked sneaking out.  

“Many meteor showers reach their peak shortly before dawn,” said the shadow.  “As we will be here for some time yet, I believe you will have the opportunity to see many more.”

“But the first one…” Danny said, trailing off.

“The first from our perspective.  This shower has been going on for some time.  For someone to our east, perhaps it is, instead, the last.”

Danny grumbled.  

First the net and now this…  

Something golden green streaked across the sky and he perked up.  That one had been nice.  A breath later, a smaller, shorter one flashed at the edge of his vision, a tiny needle of light.  

“See?  There will be more for you to wish on.”

“That’s really not why I wanted to see them,” said Danny, wrinkling his nose.  Wishing was, well.  It was the sort of thing little kids did.  It wasn’t scientific.  It was the kind of thing his parents strictly forbade.

“It isn’t?”

“I…they’re cool. And it’s nice. Or it would be, if it weren’t for this net.”

“What would it hurt to make a wish?”

Danny sighed.  It wasn’t like they were wrong.  This situation was stupid and illogical.  So.  

“I wish I could get out of this stupid net. Before my parents find out about any of this.”

The stranger hummed in interest. “They don’t know?”

“They sure know about the net,” griped Danny.  He didn’t take his eyes off the sky, but he did tug on the ropes to make his point.  The rope was homemade, twisted with nonstandard fibers along with more common silk and hemp, rubbed with garlic and sage.  It was distinctive.  It was familiar.  It was something he'd probably tripped on a dozen times when it was left half-finished on the living-room floor.  “But it's not like I told them I was sneaking out. Like, who's going to tell their parents they're breaking rules?”  

The shadow hummed again.  "That is true."

Danny was distracted from replying or continuing by a pale, oddly oblong blur to the north.  It stayed in place, even as colorful shooting stars passed it by.  

"Is that–?" gasped Danny.  He leaned forward against the tension in the ropes and a similar, less tangible ache in his chest, as if he could get closer to the sky.  

The oblong blur widened into several similar streaks, like thumbprints on glass.  Green, pink, and purple began to seep into them.  

"There must have been a solar storm I didn't know about," said Danny as meteors shot through the undulating curtain of the Aurora. Delight was dancing in his stomach and thrumming along his limbs at the sight. "We hardly ever get the Aurora this far south." 

"It is an auspicious night for stargazing, then," said the shadow, "and one I am indeed glad to share, despite the circumstances."  

The thing was, they were right.  Despite the net, stargazing with someone who liked it as much as he did was nice.  It was really nice, despite the net.  Nice enough to wish, quite sincerely, and on a meteor that fell across the sky in that very moment, that they could do it again.  It probably would have been nice even without the Perseids and the Aurora, but with them he was practically giddy.

Briefly, Danny imagined how this meeting might have gone sans net.  

Okay.  Honestly, Danny probably would have run for it.  Weird adult in the middle of the night, after all.  He had briefly wondered if the guy was an axe murderer. 

He rolled his shoulders.  His back was starting to get sore - probably a combination of the net and how long he'd been looking up, but he didn't want to take his eyes off the light show even for a second.  

"My name's Danny, by the way."  They were kind of sort of friends now.  Stargazing buddies.  Net buddies, even.  Danny couldn't refer to the as 'the shadow' or as 'the guy who sat with me all night the time I was trapped in one of my parents' nets' forever, and he doubted the shadow wanted to keep mentally referring to him as 'that weirdo kid who got stuck in a net' for eternity, either.  

"I am honored that you would trust me with your name," said the shadow, tone strangely formal. 

"Uh, you're welcome?" Danny said.

"I go by Clockwork."

Wow. This guy really was strange, huh?  Was that his legal name?  Just a nickname?  A screen name?  Had he changed his legal name to that?

"Nice to meet you, Clockwork," said Danny, for lack of a better response.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, as well."

Pleased to make your acquaintance. Well. Danny's parents were eccentric too (see also: net. see also also: believing said net was going to catch faeries and demons.) and he was now almost eighty percent sure this guy wasn't an axe murderer.

Danny shifted under the net. He could try and shake hands, but the excitement and delight hadn't faded much at all and it was hard to focus on formalities when so much of him was full of so much energy.

Wait.

That was weird, wasn't it? Danny frowned. Should he have taken random food from a stranger? Clockwork had mushrooms, too. Had the star jelly been not just edible but an edible?

Was he high right now?

"Clockwork," Danny began, and the Aurora bloomed across the sky. The moment filled with shared murmurs of admiration, and by the time it died the thought had passed.

Even if the energy hadn't.

He flexed his fingers.  Maybe he’d run through some kind of itchy plant?  That might explain the tingle on his skin.  

There was a hollow, almost melodic popping noise from the vicinity of the shadow.  The vicinity of Clockwork, he corrected himself.  

“You should try to stay hydrated,” said Clockwork.  

A scent both floral and salty wafted up to Danny’s nose.  The green glimmer of the Aurora reflected off the glassy lip of a bottle.  “Is– Is that alcohol?” asked Danny.  “Are you offering me alcohol?  Wine?”

“I am not,” said Clockwork.  “This is far more nourishing.”

“‘This’ being what, exactly?” asked Danny, still vaguely suspicious.  

“It is mostly sugar and water.  Fruit juice, salt, nectar, among other things. As you would call them, electrolytes. You have exerted yourself.  It has not been purposefully fermented.” 

This guy and his weird food. Still, that didn’t seem…bad, exactly. Danny was thirsty, and he liked gatorade, and that was kind of similar, right? And he was curious.

The crackers had been good.  And even the star jelly had been edible.

It took some experimentation to hold the bottle firmly through the net.  The body of it was too large to fit through any of the holes.  But the mouth and neck of the bottle could go through, and Clockwork seemed content to hold it until Danny figured it out.  

The liquid inside was thicker than he had expected.  Sweeter and saltier, too.  The flavor was… interesting.  A little sour, a little bitter, a little… savory?  It definitely tasted like flowers smelled.  Only, it also tasted like something else?  A lot of something elses.  

He pulled the bottle back and licked his lips thoughtfully.  He… didn’t hate it.  It sure wasn’t something he’d just drink on his own, though.  On the other hand, taking that sip had made him realize how thirsty he actually was.  Which was very thirsty.  He must have gotten more dried out than he’d thought, first walking here and then fighting the net for who knew how long.  

He took another sip, trying to focus on the flavors he hadn’t quite been able to name.

And another.

Something in him settled as he drank. He hadn’t realized how nervous he’d been. Was it nervousness? He’d thought it was excitement. Delight. Something positive.  But now it was settling into something softer. Calmer. And yet the sky was no less compelling.

Maybe it was a different sort of happiness, now that the unexpected relief and delight of a fellow stargazer out here had calmed his nerves. Maybe he hadn’t managed to calm down until now, and the drink was finally letting him?

Regardless, his limbs weren't so tense anymore, and breaths he hadn’t realized had become so short were drawing long and even now, and that was a relief.

He alternated sips with looking up at the stars.  The Aurora undulated slowly, and was periodically pierced by meteors.  The stars behind the curtains of light were harder to see, but he could still pick out his favorites coming and going, first hidden, then not.  The motion of the lights almost made them seem as if they were moving. It was hypnotizing. 

He tilted the bottle back once more, and made a disappointed sound deep in his throat when he realized it was empty.  Huh.  He must have liked it alright after all.  That wasn’t a small bottle.  In fact, it was bigger than he’d originally thought when Clockwork had first given it to him.  

… He hoped this didn’t make him have to pee.  He was in the woods, but standing next to, um.  Well.  An impromptu bathroom.  Until dawn, at least.  Would make the net thing much worse.

“Done already?” asked Clockwork.

“I guess I was thirstier than I thought.”

“You had been exerting yourself for some time.”  Clockwork plucked the bottle out of Danny’s hands.  “But I believe that you will soon see the fruits of your exertions.”

Danny sighed and leaned more deeply against the tree he was attached to.  Subtly, he rubbed his back against the bark.  The soreness was getting worse.  “Not unless you see a rescue party.”

Clockwork hummed. “I do not. But perhaps you will not need one. The weave of the net seems looser, now. Can your hands fit through?”

Danny tested it. His hand fit through one of the holes easily. And another. It was the same with the third he tried.

“What,” he said.

“It is progress, is it not?”

“I don’t know how,” Danny said. “It’s not like Mom and Dad don’t tie these things at every connection. I didn’t think they could slide.”

“And yet your hands can fit through.”

“Yeah. I just wish I knew how that happened.”

“Dawn will come,” said Clockwork. “You will be able to see it then. Perhaps you worked them loose with your straining.”

“I guess,” said Danny, still wondering.

“And with dawn, you will be free, one way or another. For now, shall we focus on this spectacular sky?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.

He’d never seen a night sky like this before, after all. Even if he was stuck under a net, he had a …not a friend. But a fellow stargazer who was just as appreciative. And he was full, and no longer thirsty, and even the cold of the wet earth beneath him wasn’t as cutting with Clockwork’s company.

He settled in again to watch the lightshow, and worried at the cords of the net as he did. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do both, after all.

The stars flashed.  The sky spun.  Clockwork and Danny both exclaimed and pointed at particularly impressive meteors.  Clockwork noted the visible planets and occasionally pointed out asterisms Danny had never heard of before.  The Veil, the Key, the Mistletoe, the Dancing Maidens, the Hive, the Moth.  He half suspected Clockwork was just making them, and the stories that went with them, up to entertain Danny.  But, then, Danny was entertained.  He couldn’t complain.  Even when Clockwork tried to get away with calling Libra The Balance, Danny found his objections were more laughter than indignation.

The eastern horizon began to blush pale. Danny found himself almost disappointed at the sight, even if he’d be able to get out of the net soon. And really see Clockwork. After stargazing for hours together, it felt odd that he still didn’t know what the man looked like even though his voice was becoming as familiar as a friend’s.

He rubbed one of the net cords between his fingers.  Was it just him, or did it seem… scratchier?  Thicker?

He stroked the skin on his palms. Did he have rope burn, maybe? He had been pulling on the cords for hours.  And who knew what his parents had soaked the nets in after they’d been woven?  Danny sure tried not to.  

More importantly, before too much longer the sun would drown out the meteors and the Aurora both.  He wanted to press this sight into his mind to keep forever and ever.  And not just the sight, but the feeling of…  He couldn’t put a name to it, to what he felt, sitting here with Clockwork

It just felt important.

A meteor fell.  He wished it would last.  Another meteor, brighter.  He wished that even after Clockwork inevitably found out who Danny’s parents were and what they were like in person, he would still want to be ‘acquaintances.’  Friends.  Whatever.  He was weird enough.  Probably.  Like Sam and Tucker.  

He wished–

A huge fireball bloomed directly overhead, a celestial arrow angling down, north, wreathed in blinding green.  It took Danny’s breath away.  

He wished he could do this again. He wished he could cast off the shadow of his parents’ weird fae traps and property damage and hatred of creatures that didn’t even exist. He wished he could have the space and time to figure out who he was and who he could be, whether that was an astronaut, an astronomer, a screw up, whatever Jazz was trying to convince him to be that week, or, heck, even someone just as strange as his parents and Clockwork.  He wished he could be himself, could just shed the image of what they and almost everyone else seemed to see in him.  

Also, the net.  

Some of the net fell heavily around Danny’s shoulders, then slid off them.  He didn’t look down, still entranced by the after-image.  Then pain, white hot and as sharp as a knife, drove into his temples and back.  It took his breath away.

He dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for air and squeezing his eyes so tightly that tears began to slip out.  What had happened?  What was wrong with him?  He hissed out a shaky breath that was dangerously close to a sob as the pain redoubled, strengthening and strengthening again until static pulsed in the dark of his shut eyes.

It felt as though his head were splitting open.

The pain lanced down his back and he revised the thought. It felt as though he were splitting open.

And then his face came apart.

And then there were only scattered fragments. Scratching.  Growing. Stretching. The feeling of fingers on earth. The feeling fingers of earth. Unfolding. Squeezing. Balance; a knife’s edge.

A great and overwhelming sense of space.

Like a leaf before a storm, Danny trembled.

Eventually, it ebbed.

He was clinging to the ground with all his might, which wasn’t much; the whatever-it-was had left him weak. His limbs felt like jelly and seemed half as cooperative. He was gasping for air, each breath harsh enough to sting his throat. There was a blanket over him and he had the halfway-delirious thought that if Clockwork had a blanket he’d have appreciated it sooner than this.

He couldn’t feel the net.

Had Clockwork gotten him out once it got light enough out? It seemed much brighter now, even if the thought of opening his eyes made Danny wince.

There was a painful, high-pitched chirr sound in the background.  It hurt Danny’s ears and made him wonder if there was an injured animal nearby.  

Something pressed down gently on the back of his neck, where the fuzzy, fluffy edge of the blanket rested.  It removed itself, then returned at the top of his head, whereupon it slid down to the top of his back.  

Oh.  Oh.  He was being petted.  Comforted.  That must be someone’s hand.  Clockwork’s?

It felt… unusually satisfying.  Especially when they fluffed the ruff of the blanket which Danny was strangely aware of.  

Very gradually, the tension in his body began to ease, and he was able to start cataloging the parts of his body that hurt, which was all of them.  But there were a few that hurt more.  His eyes.  His ears.  His temples and the sides of his head.  His entire back.  His shoulders, neck, ears, and large parts of his spine felt like every hair on them had been individually plucked out and then sandpapered.  Speaking of his spine, that felt as if it had been stretched, pulled to bits.  And his back still felt like it had been stabbed.  Multiple times.  Especially around his shoulder blades and at the base of his spine.  

Other than that, he was just sore, everywhere.  

The quality of the chirr sound he’d been hearing started to change, morphing into a sort of purr.  One that rose and fell in time with the hand petting Danny.  

Huh.  

His hand flexed on the ground.  Something was…  There was something very off here, beyond the pain, but that was getting better, and he was starting to feel almost… comfortable.

His weight shifted again, and the ground shifted under it.

It was warm.

It was…damp? Wet. There was something wet under his hands.  Carefully, worried that it would move again, Danny took one hand off the ground and brought it to his face to sniff.   

It smelled good. It smelled wonderful, salty and hearty and just a little bit like chicken soup.

He licked it.

“There we are,” said Clockwork, softly.  “Take as much as you need.”  

Danny needed a lot, right now. His throat was raw, and he was thirsty and suddenly starving, and beyond that the pain that was still leaving echoes through his body. This was warmth and comfort and he wanted both.

He lowered his head and began to lap directly from the source, and warmth and comfort steadily filled him like the morning sun.

He pulled back, not exactly satiated, but needing something else, something different, now.  He made a soft, pleading sound, more like a chirp or a keen than anything human.  He didn’t understand what was going on, but part of him trusted he would be cared for.  Loved.  He’d already been given so much he didn’t know he needed…

Another plea escaped his throat.  It blended with the softening chirr, fitting with it far better than Danny felt it should.  

Something soft and sweet-smelling tickled his cheeks, and Danny dove in, his tongue coming out to search for what he knew was there.

Sweet.

Sweet, but not in the way of candy or even sugar. This was softer, perfumed, more reminiscent of honey but lacking that sharp note.

He wanted more.

As he pushed his face deeper into the… container… something touched his…  Touched…  What?  It was touching his… not his head, but something over it, something attached, something he could feel, and now that he could feel it, was thinking about it, whatever it was, he could feel its movements, as even the sigh-soft breeze pushed it around. 

It– No, they were something fine.  Something soft and delicate.  Something light and flexible and oh so very sensitive.  

The hand, Clockwork’s hand, stroked down his back again, and Danny realized he could feel the fluff of the blanket the same way he’d been able to feel the things on his head. And it trailed past that, to his horribly sore back, and down, all the way down, past where his back should end.

Down, to where Danny could feel something laying across a foot. Down, to where he could feel a hard object under him.

Something twitched, and the thing across his foot fell away. The hard something vanished, too, replaced with the soft ground he found himself on.

Danny chirred, confused.

Oh.  He had been the one making that sound all along.  But.  That wasn’t a sound he could make.  It wasn’t.  

He had to see what was going on. 

Opening his eyes was, perhaps, the single hardest thing he had ever done.  It wasn’t that they were stuck closed or anything, they were just so heavy, and a large part of him just didn’t want to know, wanted to stay half asleep, wanted to keep being held and petted.

Red. A deep, rich red puddled around him on the strange, soft ground. And the ground was uneven, and covered with small ridges and creases where it didn’t vanish beneath the red. Which was welling up from the ground like a spring.

Danny was wrist-deep in it.

A short distance from his face lay the biggest flower Danny had ever seen.  It was bigger than his head, its pale petals stained liberally with the red.   Handprints.  The red stains were in the shape of handprints.  Danny’s handprints.  

The red looked– Well, it looked a lot like–  Like a scene from a horror movie–  But it was coming from the ground, it couldn’t be.  It couldn’t be blood.  

Danny had been drinking this.  What had he been thinking?

“Are you feeling better?” asked Clockwork.

Danny looked around for him.  Then, he looked up.  

The very first thing he noticed was that there were still stars in the sky.  It was still dark, the Aurora was still bright.  The meteors were still falling.

Why could he see?

Why could he see so much more?  He’d only ever seen the stars like this in long-exposure photographs.  The light pollution was way too strong this close to the city.  

There were other, closer things.  The leaves on the trees were green, but they weren’t just green.  Their veins seemed to glow with soft pinks and blues.  He could see insects and birds, too, all of them strangely bright to his eyes, like they had swallowed stars.  

Then, there was Clockwork.  It had to be Clockwork.  There wasn’t anything or anyone else it could be.

“I will interpret that as a yes,” said Clockwork, smiling down at him with love clear in all six eyes.

He had the nose Danny had seen before, yes, and long, silk-white hair, but everything else was so far beyond what Danny had imagined that it was hard to even comprehend.  

And yet it suited him perfectly.

His skin was blue, like summer twilight, warm and rich.

His face glowed in the same soft, steady way as the birds, and set in it, his eyes were a kindly red. There were four on his right side but his left had only two; a deep black scar tore its way down most of his face and left two empty sockets in its wake. It was interrupted only by his primary eye on that side, and Danny felt tender relief that the old wound hadn’t taken that one, too.

White filaments made up a thick ruff around the collar of his– No, that wasn't a cloak, those were wings.  Huge, dramatic, moth-like wings, layered over one another.  There had to be dozens of them, all the way down his back.  They were as dark and starry as the sky on the outside, but some were turned towards Danny to show the luminous, moon-pale undersides.

Below that–below that, Danny couldn’t see. The ground he was on was too high, and Clockwork too large. The ground–

He wasn’t on the ground.

Finally, like disjointed pieces of a puzzle, the details became whole. The uneven place where he lay, with its softness and whorls of ridges and creases. The warmth of it, and the placement.

The–the blood.

He was on Clockwork’s upturned hand.

Forget the rest of it.  When, and how, did Clockwork get so big?  

Danny chirred a question. Wordless, overwhelmed and wondering.

(And why was Clockwork bleeding?)

“You are safe, little one. My little one.”

Danny chirred again, a little cross. That didn’t answer anything.

Clockwork only smiled, and then there was a gentle rocking motion as they moved. Like clouds, the trees in the distance slid sideways with deceptive speed. 

Danny settled, feeling sleepy, slow, and stupid, but still safe.  Like he should be able to make this all make sense, like this should make sense, if he was just a little more awake and aware, but that it didn’t matter if he couldn’t, because he would be protected.

And then, Clockwork tilted, and his hand jostled, and though he didn’t become more visible, they were suddenly surrounded by great spikes of grass and flowers, stories tall. Some of them drooped, heavy with seeds or droplets of dew. They hung huge and heavy from the stalks, like fruit ripe to bursting.

Danny blinked. Frowned. Blinked again.

There was something, an idea, that made sense. But it hung just out of reach, blurry, and every time he reached for it, the thought passed through his mental fingers like the morning mist.

It was, it should have been, obvious.

Clockwork would know. Danny chirred his question again.

“It will come to you,” Clockwork said. ”Give it time.”

Clockwork cleaned him off gently with a huge, damp cloth, taking special care with his ruff, antennae, and wings. He mopped up the blood pooling beneath Danny as well, with a reassurance that Danny was welcome to more if he needed it. With another hand, he laid another huge flower down next to him. The stem where Clockwork had held it glowed briefly, before it faded into the relative dark of early morning, leaving the flower with the same odd coloration as the tree leaves earlier.

Dawn was still hours off. He wasn’t in the net.

Danny looked up.

He’d wondered what it would be like to stargaze with Clockwork without the net.  Apparently, the answer was wonderful.

The stars were still so beautiful. More beautiful, now. There was such an incredible array of color and brightness in the sky, like a living painting. There was scarcely any black left in it.

Danny blinked, slow.  He rubbed his face with his hands, lingering over his ears - which felt long and soft, like a cat’s or a rabbit’s, he must really be sleepy - and the long fluffy things that had sprouted from his head.  They twitched under his fingers.  

He looked up at Clockwork, still hoping for an answer and… Clockwork had things growing from his head, too, now that he looked.  He’d mistaken them for hair, before, but while Clockwork certainly had plenty of that, braided, beaded, and beribboned, that wasn’t all he had.  

They were antennae.  Four of them.  White, fluffy, and softly glowing.  They were much longer, compared to Clockwork’s body, than Danny’s were compared to his.  Danny raised his hands to feel his again.  He had two.  And, maybe, behind each, a ticklish little nub.

It felt…right, that they should both have antennae, though. Satisfying. Comforting, like a hug. Like the stroking had been, and the blood.

What else did Danny and Clockwork share, now?

Danny’s eyes trailed carefully over Clockwork’s face.

Danny was pretty sure he only had two eyes, but he touched his face again, just to make sure.  Then his ears…  Clockwork had big, long ears, too, the edges of them soft with white fur. Just like his ruff.  Danny’s ruff was black shot with silver and… it was growing from his skin.  It wasn’t part of a blanket, which meant…

He twisted his head to check.

There was no blanket.  Danny had wings.  They were wrinkled and slightly damp, but they were wings, just like Clockwork’s, although he didn’t have nearly as many.  Two sets, to Clockwork’s uncountably many.  

He also had a tail. And only two arms, to Clockwork’s four. Somehow, in the moment, this seemed less important than the wings.

His eyes kept returning to his wings.

The outsides looked just like the darker parts of the sky did now, streaked with meteor silver and edged with Auroral green.  The insides were the same vivid colors as the Aurora itself.  Pinks, purples, blues, and greens all dancing together.

They were beautiful.  He definitely, definitely should not have them.

He wanted them.

He shouldn’t want them.  

He did.  

He drew them close to his body and looked up.

There was a huff of fond laughter. “Remember to fan them out, my little fledgeling. We want them to dry well.”

Oh. Right. Danny unfolded his wings again, a little embarrassed he’d forgotten.  

And then he returned his attention to the stars. He was determined to enjoy this for however much longer this might last.  Maybe this would all make sense in the morning.  Maybe all of this would be taken away from him.  Either way, neither was true now.

Now, Danny was here with Clockwork, looking up.

Now, the sky was vast and beautiful.  

Later, his eyes started to feel heavy again.  He pulled the flower close, and began to absent-mindedly chew on the petals in an attempt to stay awake.  He didn’t want to miss anything else.

Despite his efforts, his eyes began to droop. His head kept falling into his neck fluff, and the flower tumbled from his hands.

Clockwork plucked it from where it fell, and replaced it with a blanket, just Danny’s size.

“Some inevitabilities we must fight,” said Clockwork, “but this isn’t one of them, my dear child.”

For another few moments, he kept his eyes stubbornly on the sky.  Another pair of meteors fell, and he wished, perhaps selfishly, that this could last forever.  

But, he admitted to himself with a sigh, he was very tired.  

Danny curled up in Clockwork’s hand, tucking his head under the wings he was careful to keep fanned, and his tail around his head.

“Rest, my little one,” said Clockwork’s voice, already distant. “We can talk more when you are rested.”

And Danny did.

Dawn.

The kiss of the sun on the horizon.  The beginning of a new day.  The banishment of all things of the night.  

Danny jackknifed straight up as if its fire had been poured directly into his veins, heart pounding.  He woke just in time to see his new wings, his beautiful, terrible, fully spread wings evaporate like the morning dew.  

The antennae, the tail, and the fur that had grown around his neck and shoulders and down his spine stayed.  

More concerningly from Danny’s perspective, his perspective didn’t change.  He stayed small, just the right size to fit snugly in the palm of Clockwork’s hand.  

Clockwork’s wings stayed.  So did his extra eyes, his antennae, his skin color, and everything.  

This wasn’t a dream.  

Or there really had been drugs in the food Clockwork gave him. 

Why, oh why, was that the best case scenario right now?  Why was the best possible answer to the question of what was happening that he was just really really high?  

Because if he was just drugged, that meant he was only normal human stupid.  People took stupid drugs accidentally and on purpose all the time.  But if it wasn’t drugs, if this was real… That meant he’d somehow wandered into a world where his parents were right, had always been right, and he was probably about to get eaten.  

“I would not, and will not, eat you,” said Clockwork.  “I never would.”

“I don’t know what you would or wouldn’t do!” hissed Danny, pulling on his hair. “You turned me into some kind of– of moth boy.”  

“You would have turned regardless, trapped so thoroughly and so long on a faerie door on a night like that. I simply made sure that it was kinder.”

“Kinder than what?”

“Any number of things. Any number of fates. They do not give much more mind to cruelty than your parents.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It was their trap you fell into, dear one.  Without their actions, you could be human, still; safe and warm at home.  Though,” and here Clockwork smiled so gently that Danny couldn’t help but be comforted despite himself. “You are safe, and you are warm. And you could be home as well.”

Danny hunched his shoulders.  “What,” he squeaked, “is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that as you are, you would be in danger with those who made the net that trapped you. I mean that you would be welcome in my home, and cared for, and safe. You are not the first lost and lonely child I have found. Nor the first with parents who should have protected them, and did not.”

“You’ve kidnapped other kids?”

“I have adopted other children. Other children, who were not cared for as they should have been, not loved as they deserved. As you deserve.”

“My parents love me just fine,” Danny snapped.

“I see,” said Clockwork, and he seemed sad. “And your presence here in the night? Alone, without even a light to see by?”

“I snuck out. And I brought a flashlight with me.”

“Alone,” said Clockwork.

“I thought the woods were safe.”

“Why? Did your parents tell you they were?” asked Clockwork, eyes narrowed and nose flaring.

“No! No, they said they were full of monsters.”

“So they didn’t teach you we could be dangerous?”

“No, I–I didn’t believe them.”

“My child, humans can be dangerous. Even to other humans. Surely, you know–”

“I know that,” interrupted Danny. “I didn’t think you existed.”

Clockwork frowned. “Your parents set cruel traps for the unwary.”

“Because they are crazy. Were crazy?” Danny moaned, burying his head in his hands.  He resisted the urge to start preening his antennae and fluff. “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Their cruelty is the same,” said Clockwork, “Regardless of whether you believed the target existed. And they let you go hungry.”

“That wasn’t their fault.  They made dinner.  It just… didn’t work out.”

“Then whose fault was it?” asked Clockwork.  “Yours?  Your sister’s?  As parents, they should provide for you, not leave you to fend for yourself.”

“They didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves,” scoffed Danny, crossing his arms.  

“What do you call them leaving to go test what was left of that chicken?”

“That was– Okay, but what happened to the chicken was really weird–”

“It was not the first time, or the only time, that they abandoned you in favor of crafting their weapons and traps.”

Danny shook his head.  “They love us.  They love me.”

“Sometimes, that is not enough.”

“Sometimes it is.  Of course it is. They love me. They love me enough to–” Danny swallowed, fighting down grief and horror. “I’m not leaving them.  Or Jazz.”

Swallowing hadn’t helped. It had only shoved the churning knot of emotion down into his chest where it could reach awful vines around his heart and squeeze.

His hands were shaking.

God, what would Jazz do if he randomly disappeared?  They annoyed the heck out of each other, and Jazz definitely held some of the things she did for him over his head for guilt trips, but he didn’t doubt she loved him. He didn’t doubt she would be frantic if he vanished.

He chirred again, mournfully, and only looked up again at Clockwork’s light touch.

“If love is enough,” said Clockwork, softly, ”then shouldn’t it be enough that I love you?”

“I–I don’t know,” said Danny.

Because the thing was, he didn’t doubt that Clockwork loved him. Nor that Clockwork would nurture and protect him, as he already had. It was easy, terribly easy, to imagine snuggling under Clockwork’s wings or into his ruff and trusting that he would be safe.

Danny pinched his eyes shut. “I’m going back.”

“As you are?  Knowing how they would treat those they consider monsters?”

“Yes.  They’re my parents.  They love me.”

“Through this forest, and all of its dangers?”

“Yes.”

“Through all the hazards of that human city?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing I can do will dissuade you?”

“No.”  Although, Danny reflected, Clockwork could certainly stop him physically.  All he would have to do was hold him.  But Danny would fight him.  He’d fight, and he’d never stop fighting, and trying to get back home, no matter what.  No matter how much Clockwork seemed to care for him, or how gentle and kind he was.  

Clockwork sighed.  “Then I have no choice.  I will let you return.”

“You– You will?” asked Danny, suspiciously.  It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Yes.  But I would not have you killed out of hand, my child, as would certainly happen if you were to return as you are now.  First, let me show you how to change.”

“I don’t want to change anymore,” said Danny.  “I don’t.  I don’t.” The fear was a beating heart inside of him, the idea of more change, unknown and untraveled. 

“Perhaps I should say, change back.”

“I can be human again?” A needle of hope lanced through his chest. But would he ever see Clockwork again? 

“Not precisely,” said Clockwork, before Danny could dwell.  “No more than you are now.  But it was the doorway that changed you, and doorways are of the between rather than here or there.  Thus, you are of both sides of the door, not just one.  You are still half human.”

Danny sat down.  “I am?” he asked, voice wavering.  He wasn’t going to cry.  Not now.

“Yes,” said Clockwork.  “You are half human… and half faerie.  Half of their house, and half of mine, tied by blood, if not birth.”

Danny remembered.  He remembered drinking Clockwork’s blood (again, what had he been thinking?) and how good it had tasted.  

He hoped that wasn’t going to be, like, a recurring thing.  

“So, what do I do?” he asked.  

“First,” said Clockwork, “you ought to take off your clothing, so it doesn’t tear.”

“So it doesn’t…?”  Danny looked down at himself.  Maybe he should have realized earlier, but he wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d put on yesterday.  Which made sense.  At his current size, they would have been far too big.  Instead, he was wearing simple white layered robes that had openings in the back for his wings and tail.  

“I will have to get you something enchanted to change sizes, or to come when you transform, should you choose to remain and change often,” continued Clockwork.  “But I was able to make these on short notice, and they were suitable for the night.”

“You made these?” asked Danny, oddly touched.  He was supposed to be mad at Clockwork.  He was supposed to be afraid of him.  But both of those feelings just ran out of his hands like water out of a fist.  

“I did,” said Clockwork.  

“What happened to my clothes?”

Clockwork shifted one of his wings, showing what was beneath it.  Silver buckles and pocket watches shone brightly against dark silk and leather.  Other things, like bottles, herbs, and what looked like a small spyglass hung from belts or were secreted in pockets.  Danny’s ratty jeans and t-shirt stood out like a sore thumb.  

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Okay.  Um.”  His hands curled around the edge of the tunic-like top portion of the robes.  “Don’t look.”

Clockwork closed his eyes. 

“Now what?” asked Danny, who very much was not enjoying being naked in the open like this.  

“We are creatures of the night sky,” said Clockwork, eyes still shut.  “We are of the Stars and the Moon.”

“The moon is up during the day, too.  It’s up right now.”

“So it is,” agreed Clockwork.  “But so is the Sun that drowns out the Stars.”

“The sun is also a star.”

“So it is.  But it is not like other Stars.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It is not like other stars to us, or to humans.  It is the light by which so many see.  It is what divides day from night.  It is, you see, what has clipped your wings.” Danny shifted slightly, the missing weight of his wings both foreign and familiar. 

(There was so much to unpack.  He hadn’t any time.)

“Why is it different?”

“Its proximity, perhaps. We can discuss it at a later time, if you wish. I would enjoy such a conversation.”

Danny hadn’t really thought about there being a ‘later’ with Clockwork, but…  The thought of never seeing Clockwork again made his heart squeeze painfully, so he shoved it away.  

“In any case,” continued Clockwork, “for those like yourself to change, you reach for one or the other.  For the day or the night.  The light or the dark.  The Moon or the Sun.  However you would like to think about it.  You give precedence within yourself to one or the other.”

“Is it harder when they’re close to one another in the sky, like now?” Danny asked.

Clockwork smiled, though he kept his eyes shut. “As I do not transform that way, I do not know myself. My other children may have more comparable experiences, and we all are more comfortable under the phase we were born under.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be running into your children any time soon,” said Danny.  Seeing them would, after all, mean that Clockwork had succeeded in kidnapping Danny, too.  Even if it meant that he’d see Clockwork again…

“Even so.  You will be able to see for yourself before long.  Reach out, now.  Can you feel them?”

Clockwork had a lot of confidence in Danny being able to figure this out quickly, huh.  

(Despite still being mad at Clockwork - he was mad, he was - Danny didn’t want to disappoint him.)

Reach out… to something inside himself.  Which was also outside himself?  He wasn’t entirely clear on how literal the connection to the moon and sun was.  But…  Right.  Okay.  He could do this.  He didn’t want to be a little gremlin moth thing that Clockwork - or, heck, an average bird - could carry off at a moment’s notice.  

He closed his eyes.  

Day and night.  Light and Dark.  Moon and sun.  This was the kind of Yin and Yang stuff Sam sometimes got into.  Balance and changing balance.  

If he was reaching for the sun - for the Sun, the idea of the Sun - he should reach for heat, shouldn’t he?  Heat and life and truth.  

He could feel it, on his skin, warming him, cutting through the coolness of the morning.  He imagined that warmth sinking through him, filling him up.  

But there was warmth inside him, too.  It built in his chest and left his lungs with every breath. It churned in his heart and coursed through his veins like the blood that helped to carry it.  It was easy to take that, and imagine light to accompany it, centered at his heart.  To imagine it reaching out as the sunlight reached in.  He imagined it growing, brightening, pushing out against the inside of his skin, chasing away the dark, chasing away the moonlight and starlight and Aurora.  Gold, chasing out black and silver.

Except… not entirely.

The sun was also a star, and all moonlight had once been sunlight.  They mixed at the edges, blending comfortably, linked inexorably.  

(There was magic he would be able to touch through this link that few others could.  He understood this instinctively - but he was not yet ready for it, and the feeling was pushed away, put aside for a later, more appropriate day.)

This was the Sun, a tiny spark of it held within himself.  

(There was the Moon, dark but no less itself, no less present and pulling for its invisibility during the day.)

And… the balance shifted.  

He wouldn’t be able to explain what it felt like, to fall back into his skin.  Not now.  Not today.

Maybe not even if he lived a hundred years.

(Maybe he would, something whispered in his ear. Who knew how long moth-things lived?)

But he found himself at his proper human teenager size, cradled in Clockwork’s arms, no fluff or tail in sight.  

Still naked, though.  

He snatched his clothes from Clockwork, and, blushing furiously, ran behind a tree to change.  

It was strange, walking next to Clockwork.  The… Danny wasn’t actually sure what Clockwork was.  Mothman?  Moth monster?  Anyway, Clockwork was still way taller than him, and the way his ruff and wings made him seem bulkier made Danny feel a little bit better about initially mistaking him for a bear.  

The walk itself was still weird and awkward.  Danny kept drifting closer to Clockwork, and then when Clockwork’s wings ruffled out towards him, as if to part or turn back to let him shelter under them, he flinched away, walking as far apart as the trees would allow.  

Danny wondered if one of the things Clockwork had given him to eat had been some kind of… family love potion, and if it would ever wear off.  Despite no longer having any fur, his skin still itched for Clockwork to touch him, pet him, hold him.  

Although, for that to be perfect, he’d need to change back.  Shrink back down until Clockwork could hold him securely in one hand and pet him, head to tail, with the other.  

Which– No.  No.  He was never going to turn back into a moth.  He wasn’t going to think about it.  He wasn’t ever going to have antennae, or wings, or a tail ever again.  

… Clockwork had a tail.  A long one, longer than Danny’s had been, compared to his body.  It trailed on the ground like the train of a dress, and both the left and right side of it was completely lined with moth wings, as opposed to Danny’s where there were only wings next to the little bulb at the end.  Which Clockwork also had.  It flickered with light, like a lightning-bug’s tail.

Danny wondered if his tail would do that, too, under the right circumstances.  

Not that it mattered.  Again, weird fairy door magic or whatever, he was going to be human from now on.  Yep.  

(Wow, the more he thought that, the less convincing he got.  That was sad, actually.)

They reached the edge of the forest.  Amity Park seemed to sparkle in the light.  Too bright.  Too artificial.  Unreal, after the events of the night.

“Here is where we part, for now,” said Clockwork.  “If you need me, you will be able to find me.” Could he say anything that didn’t sound ominous and weighty?

“Right,” said Danny.  He hesitated, then, impulsively, hugged Clockwork.  He shouldn’t have.  Clockwork was exactly the kind of monster his parents had always warned him about, and was an admitted serial kidnapper who had spied on his family and turned him into a moth.  

But he couldn’t imagine leaving without hugging Clockwork.  Just once.  

Clockwork hugged him back, with all four arms and what had to be a dozen wings.  It was the best hug he’d ever had - even if it was also the most terrifying.  

Then, Clockwork leaned down so that his lips were next to Danny’s ear.  He whispered to him a simple handful of words.  Most of them were familiar.  His name.  His full name, the one on his birth certificate, the one his parents and sister used when they were really upset with him.  But… one of them he hadn’t heard before.  Not once.  Not ever.  

It was still his name.  

He knew this with the same surety as he knew the rest of his name.  He also knew it hadn’t been his name before last night.  

It was his name… because it was Clockwork’s.  It was a family name, belonging to him as indelibly and as truly as the name ‘Fenton,’ one that bound him not only to Clockwork, but to the rest of Clockwork’s kin.  

It did more than that, too.  When Clockwork spoke his name, his true, full name, it was as if every molecule in his body had been magnetized and his name was a magnet.  He was held still by it, at perfect attention.  Whatever Clockwork wanted to say, whatever he wanted to do, Danny had no choice but compliance.  

Not that, in the moment, he wanted another choice.  

“Follow your conscience, my dear, sweet child,” said Clockwork.  “I want that for you, always.  But when you do, please…  Have a care for yourself, too.  Do not needlessly throw yourself into deadly danger.”

Danny, pinned to Clockwork’s chest, nodded.  

Clockwork, with palpable reluctance, released him, hands tracing along his cheeks before falling away.  “Be safe, Danny.”

Danny nodded again, and stepped backwards, out of the trees and into the sunlight.  He didn’t know why he felt so sad, all of a sudden.  He was going home.  He’d avoided being permanently kidnapped or eaten.  He was fine.  

He turned away.  

He was going home. 

Stay tuned for the sequel. :)

[hopefulkidshark]

Chal akela, chal akela, chal akela with English Translation Film : Sambandh Singer : Mukesh Category : Romantic

चल अकेला, चल अकेला, चल अकेला, तेरा मेला पीछे छूटा, राही, चल अकेला चल अकेला...

Walk Alone, Walk Alone, Walk Alone, All Your Nears And Dears Are Left Behind, Traveler Walk Alone.

हज़ारों मील लंबे रास्ते तुझको बुलाते, यहाँ दुखड़े सहने के वास्ते तुझको बुलाते, है कौन सा वो इंसान यहाँ पर, जिसने दुख ना झेला? तेरा मेला पीछे छूटा, राही, चल अकेला... Thousand Miles Long Paths Are Calling You, To Go There And Suffer From All Sadness, Who Is The One Who Has Not Suffered From Pain In This Life

तेरा कोई साथ ना दे तो तू ख़ुद से प्रीत जोड़ ले, बिछौना धरती को करके, अरे, आकाश ओढ़ ले, यहाँ पूरा खेल अभी जीवन का, तूने कहाँ है खेला, तेरा मेला पीछे छूटा, राही, चल अकेला..

If Nobody Supports You, Become Support Of Yourself, Make Earth Your Bed And Sky Your Blanket, You Still Have Not Yet Played The Whole Game Of Life…walk Alone

“I will spend more time with myself in this lifetime than anyone else. Let me learn to be the kind of person I would like to have as a friend.”

— Courage to Change: One Day at a Time (Al-Anon.)

[akela-nakamura]

They stop at Mars. There’s no reason not too. Xan’Toch wants this relationship to work, it’s been many years since there was a major intergalactic failing. Xan’Toch is not keen to repeat last time and the humans’ request to stop at world that is devoid of life is not the weirdest request Xan’Toch has received. 

The human is young and goes by the name Carrie. Xan’Toch has been informed that she is a female or a “woman” as she prefers. She carries with her a bag filled with old transmitters and outdated equipment. Her space suit is clearly higher tech, almost laughably so. She stands at a viewing port, intense in a way Xan’Toch cannot understand. What could be on this planet that is worth stopping for?

They land not far from the coordinates Carrie gave them. Curious and wanting to take notes on this strange new species, Xan’Toch asks to accompany Carrie on her mission. She agrees but seems more focused on getting out fo the airlock.

The bag seems to be heavy, and though Xan’Toch offers, Carrie says she will carry it herself. Xan’Toch makes a note--Humans are either possessive of things they deem theirs or stubborn. Either one could become an issue if they are pressed in the wrong way. Xan’Toch has been smoothing inter-species relationship for far too long to let details like that slip by. Though humans, by and large, are confusing and seem...disinclined in fitting into the categories Xan’Toch has organized most species into, every bit of information is important. 

Xan’Toch remains silent on their journey. They are heading for a ridge, and for the life of them, Xan’Toch cannot tell what the difference between this ridge and every other ridge on the planet is. But they keep their mouth shut, in fear of insulting Carrie. This species is one of many with confusing religions and Xan’Toch does not wish to insult a human god of some sort. 

She seems to know where she’s going, though how Xan’Toch doesn’t know how. Humanity has said they’ve never sent people past their moon. Carrie slows, struggling up the steeper terrain. Xan’Toch, of a hearty species, helps where they can. 

“There!” Carrie cries, sliding down a rock face. Xan’Toch winces--surely they know the dangers of damaging their space suit? Carrie doesn’t seem to care and is very busy dusting off--something. Xan’Toch approaches, confused. They cannot figure out what Carrie is cleaning off. They catch a reflection and suddenly the thing Carrie has found no longer seems to be a rock. 

It’s mechanical and old. Xan’Toch cannot name some of the parts that make it up but Carrie seems to know what to do. Which doesn’t make sense. Humans, as primitive as they are, have some very interesting and impressive bit of engineering. Whatever Carrie has found is outdated even to humans. 

“What is this?” Xan’Toch asks, hoping they haven’t crossed some invisible line.

“Opportunity,” Carrie replies, fixing hoses and replaces what looks like old solar panels. 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Xan’Toch says, after several moments. 

Carries laughs, and shoots Xan’Toch what they know now to be a ‘grin.’ Something indicative of human happiness. “This is Opportunity,” She says, gesturing to the old machine, almost obscured by the dust and sand. “She was an exploratory Rover back in the early 2000s, gathering information on Mars. She was lost after a major dust storm came through, it knocked her solar panels and communications out. Her last broadcast....” Carrie looks back at the machine, apparently called ‘Opportunity.’ “She reported that her batteries were low....and that is was cold. After fifteen years, Opportunity finally stopped. She finally rested among the stars.”

Xan’Toch has lost the thread of this conversation. Carrie sounds...fond, sad even. Like this machine meant something more than exploration and science. Like it had been a friend, lost to a planet unknown. It doesn’t make sense. It is simply a tool. 

“You look confused,” Carrie comments but doesn’t seem surprised. “It’s...silly, but I grew up listening about Oppy’s adventures. Seeing her discoveries and getting excited when she found something new. When we lost contact...I cried. I wasn’t alone. Losing Oppy felt like losing a friend. She took thousands and thousands of pictures and took so many samples--she-she was here when we couldn’t be. We left a mark on Mars before we could stand on it. And now I’m here and...” Carrie swipes a hand across what looks to be an optical device. 

Xan’Toch has no words. Has to previous experience with this. from the sounds of it, humanity....bonded with this machine. Sent it off into space, followed its discoveries and mourned its final malfunction. 

“I can bring her back. Whether it’s just back online or back to Earth I don’t know yet. But...I had to stop. I had to see her, to let her know we hadn’t forgotten.”

What Carrie’s saying doesn’t make any sense to Xan’Toch. But what she’s saying is genuine, full of feeling. They do not know what to say or how to articulate it back to their superiors. So Xan’Toch does the only thing they can. 

They walk over and start digging Opportunity out of...her grave. 

The smile Carrie gives them is worth it. 

[sirowsky]

The Lost Island

Chapter 10 - Divided

Summary: Once again, Marcus is pinned in between you and Nani, after something happens that drives a giant wedge between you. Forcing him to chose between the safety and community of the tribe, or staying by your side, risking everything to try and find a way home.

Author's Note: Bigger chapter this time, because there's a lot happening now. The next installment is going to see some major developments, so please stay tuned!

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: dead bodies, character deaths, angst, cursing, scary goo. Word Count: 6700 Masterlist (this story) Author’s Masterlist

When you got back to the village, everything was quiet. Much too quiet. You stopped by the edge of the first houses, only just rebuilt, and looked around, seeing no movement at all and suddenly the terrifying notion that maybe no one had made it, crept into your mind and you felt a chill go through you.

Marcus would’ve protected Nani, you were sure of that, but how many others had he managed to get to before the damage had already been made? Also, you didn’t know if your stunt might have been draining enough on his energy that he’d been forced to let someone else go to keep reaching you. If so, those people’s lives would be on your conscience, not his. It wouldn’t be the first time you’d been forced to weigh risk against reward and suffering losses because of it, and while it was always terrible, you’d learned to live with it. Learned to focus on those saved by your actions, whom otherwise would’ve been lost too. Walking into the village was like stepping into a warzone after all the cannons had gone quiet, and every rifle was emptied. There were bodies strewn around the ground, and distant or perhaps muffled sounds of crying, which, as gut-wrenching as it was to hear, meant that there were some survivors at least. You walked slowly from one body to the next, looking for life-signs, but finding none. And then you spotted Akela’s mother, Koa. You’d known that it was her that had sent you and Nani the message on the wind, just like your words had reached Marcus when she’d somehow lent you her power. And you’d known even as you listened to the screams of the villagers, that the message had been her dying act. But that didn’t make it any easier to see her lifeless body on the ground, in the dirt, with pain still visible in the set of her brows.

“Pita…”

A weak and breathless Marcus came staggering towards you, and you drew a sigh of relief just to see someone that was still alive, but especially him.

“You made it; I wasn’t sure… I couldn’t tell.”

He kind of crashed into you as he spoke, possibly intending to hug you but leaning so heavily on you that you had to hold on to him just to keep him upright.

“It worked. I don’t know how many died, I ran out of air so I couldn’t stay to find out, but it was lots of them.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just… shaken. I think I met their leader, or king or queen. It was a lot bigger than the rest of them, and it survived.”

“I think they call him something like Ixo, and I think that means ‘lord’. Not that it helps us to know that.”

“I guess not. Although we can’t know for sure what information might turn out to be useful in the end, so if you can think of anything else, please let me know.”

He nodded a few times, before his eyes fell closed against what seemed like a bout of dizziness, and you felt a pang of guilt.

“Did I… did I take it too far? Did I make you drop someone?”

“No, I managed to hold on. There was someone there with you… big and strong enough that I could borrow their energy. Who was it?”

“Whelma. I’ll tell you about her later. Where’s Nani and Akela?”

His face went from sad and exhausted to grim, and you suddenly wondered if maybe you didn’t wanna know.

“Come with me.”

He led you across the common area to the buildings on the other side and you saw Nani sitting on the ground with her father’s head in her lap, in front of a house that wasn’t theirs, but more likely just the spot where he’d fallen. He’d probably been trying to help his people, not giving much thought to his own safety. At first glance he looked dead, but then you saw a small movement in his chest. He was halfway on his side to make it easier to cough up the fluids, but he was unlikely to survive, and his daughter knew it. She was singing to him, a song that one of the women had told you was a farewell hymn sung to loved ones. The lyrics were a mixture of grief over what was lost, and gratitude for what had been, as well as prayers for their spirit to remain strong in the afterlife. You approached them slowly, carefully reaching for his hand, giving her time to stop you if she didn’t want you to touch him, but she didn’t seem to object, so you took it and held it in both of your hands. He felt warm but limp and he gave no reaction to your touch. You wanted to ask Nani to do the same thing for him that she’d done for you, but that was just the pain talking. You knew that it had taken all the tribe’s women to accomplish that level of healing, whether it really had been done through prayer, or because someone in the tribe had some healing ability. Either way, most of those women were gone now. But you all needed the Chief, especially now when everything had been turned on its head. You needed his calm and wisdom, his knowledge and intuition. You wished that you could somehow transfer whatever gift had been given you, to spare him this horrendous death, dealt to him with such cowardice and insult to his strength. And then a tiny jolt of electricity passed between your hands and his, making you drop it in surprise, interrupting Nani’s song with the sudden movements, and she glared at you and started saying something in Hawaiian. But then Akela’s chest stopped moving, and he grew still and quiet in that final way that only death presented.

“What did you do?”

Nani’s voice was a broken whisper, her hands starting to tremble with anger as she looked at you with tear-filled and accusatory eyes, but all you could do was stare back through your own filter of moisture. Because you had no idea what had happened.

“What did you do!?”

You just shook your head in utter confusion. Had you actually done something? You didn’t have any powers, so how could you have? And if you’d tried to do something, it wouldn’t have been an attempt to take what little life was left in him, it would’ve been the opposite. But whatever that discharge had been, you were sure that you hadn’t caused it. There was no real reason to think that it had been anything more than a coincidence that he’d died just after it happened, not that you could possibly make Nani believe that right now. All she knew was that you’d touched her father, and then he’d died. She threw one arm out after you, trying to either hit you or just get rid of you, or maybe both, so you got up and backed away, while Marcus tried to calm her down by hugging her, first against her will, but then she just crumbled and cried into his embrace. There was nothing you could do for her now, so you left them there and went further along through the village, looking for someone you could help.

It took days to prepare and bury all the dead. The elderly couple that had died when Marcus had been coerced into sending the deadly roots on the village, had left the tribe standing at fifty-one, of which some had been permanently wounded by the acid. Now, only eight remained. Ten, counting you and Marcus. You’d managed to significantly reduce their numbers too, but this was so much worse than you’d feared. Aside from the fact that there was a much better chance to protect each other in a larger group, this tribe was one big family, meaning that everyone who remained had lost nearly everything they cared about. When the funerals were all over, the remnants of the tribe gathered around the common fire. Nani, two women you recognised from the cooking-group, three men of varying ages that you hadn’t spent much time with, but still knew from the common dinners and working to help rebuild together, and two little girls, neither more than ten years old, but both now orphans. Without any music to set the rhythm, they seemed to spontaneously fall into a ceremonial hula dance, without any song gracing their lips. They quietly moved together, in honour of their loved ones and with the hopes that their spirits would find their way to their gods, while you and Marcus stood to the side and watched in respectful silence.

An uncomfortable pressure hung over the village in the next few days, and since Nani had assumed the mantle of the new Chief, the remaining tribe clung to her. She kept them close together at all times, and they did their best to ease each other’s suffering. But where you would’ve previously been invited to remain a part of the family, you were no longer welcome among them. She hadn’t really had a choice but to let you help with the bodies, but once they were all cared for, she’d refused to speak to you or even look at you, and that meant that no one else in the tribe did either. You didn’t hold it against her, though. She was in more pain than she’d ever felt before, pain you couldn’t really understand since you’d never lived like her, so if this was how she kept herself afloat, you’d respect her wishes and stay away. Also, it wouldn’t help you to defy her, since you had no one in your corner. Marcus was still in her good graces, and he obviously cared too much about her to leave her when she was so vulnerable, meaning you were now more or less on your own. He’d throw you a nod and an encouraging smile now and then, but that was as much interaction as you had with any of them, and it quickly got disheartening. You spent your days patrolling the beach and wandering back and forth in between it and the village, mostly just trying to keep busy, but also thinking that it couldn’t hurt to stay alert to any changes in the environment. You were in hostile territory after all. Before long, sitting by yourself like the bullied kid in school at every meal began to get to you, and you stopped going back there at all, instead building your own fireplace and making your own food. It was a strange thing, feeling lonelier among others than when you were all alone, but you’d lived your entire adult life like that, so it actually felt more or less normal to you. Being around the tribe had given you a taste of what it was like to not feel alone all the time, and it hurt more to lose that feeling than it did to have a friend turn her back on you. Marcus finally came looking for you when you hadn’t set foot in the village for two whole days, and he was back to looking torn and addled. Still, you couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt that he hadn’t seen fit to come and talk to you in almost a week.

“The great Moreno, come to slum it with the outcast, my, my. What will the patricians think?”

That only added sadness to his already grim appearance.

“I’m sorry. Nani really can’t stand you right now.”

“You don’t think I know that… Look at me.”

You gestured to your general situation, and he sighed and sat down on the ground across from you.

“She didn’t want me to come here.”

“Then you shouldn’t have.”

Hearing that annoyed him, for some reason.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, let’s see: Nani has decided that I killed her father and that no one is allowed to interact with me. Which, provided you care about me at all, means she’s making you chose sides, and given that you haven’t even tried to speak to me in a week, you’ve made it quite clear which side you picked. So, if your Chief told you to stay away from me, then that’s what you should do.”

He suddenly looked so confused.

“I’m not taking any sides… She’s gonna come around, she’s just hurt and scared, this is all temporary.”

You laughed, but without any real joy, dropping your gaze into the fire and poking at it while you tried to think of a way to explain your current predicament to him.

“Did you know that when wild horses get separated from their herd and come across a different one, that herd won’t just let them in, but they don’t chase them away either. They allow the outsiders to follow the herd while they assess them, and if the outsiders don’t misbehave, they’re gradually allowed to come closer, until they’re finally absorbed into the herd. Usually takes about three or four days.”

“What’s your point? We’re already a part of the herd.”

You lifted your gaze back up to meet his eyes.

“Sure. But when a stallion challenges another, only one of them can claim the breeding rights. And just for clarification, you’re the breeding-mare in this particular analogy, and I’m the outsider stallion challenging the reigning champion.”

He stared at you, but he no longer looked confused, just lost.

“She didn’t want you to come here because she doesn’t want to risk me stealing you from her, and with the emotional state she’s in, it doesn’t matter that she knows that can never happen. She’s desperate and terrified and she will do anything to keep her family alive now.”

“I have no intention of being anyone’s breeding-mare, and terrified or not, now is not the time to be divided, there’s too few of us as it is.”

You did agree with him on that, but the two of you would never be able to convince Nani. She would either come to that insight herself, or she wouldn’t. And you were done with the drama.

“You should get back there.”

“No. I just got here.”

You snuffed out the fire with some dirt and got to your feet.

“Marcus, do me a favour. When you get back there, tell her I’m not gonna be a problem. Tell her I’m going to the west side of the mountain, and I’m staying there until I find some answers.”

“What? No… No, you can’t do that, you know what the Chief said about that place, there’s nothing but danger there.”

“There’s nothing but foreboding silence here.”

“Pita, don’t do this. We need to stick together.”

You stepped closer to him, putting a hand on his cheek, just in case this was the last time you saw him, and you were a bit surprised that he let you touch him in such an intimate way.

“Stay safe. And find a way back. Use your powers to fly home if you have to, don’t worry about me or anyone else, just go home. Missy’s the only girl that deserves you.”

Pain filled his eyes until it spilled into tears, and he held your hand to his cheek for another few moments. You knew that there were things he wanted to say, in case he’d never see you again. Apologies he still wanted to make, questions he still had, unresolved arguments he wanted to clear up. But doing that would also acknowledge that you might be saying goodbye for good, and he seemed as unwilling to go there as you were. So, you pulled your hand back, unsurprised that he let you, and then you walked away. And each step made you wish that he’d never saved you after the crash. Each step somehow seemed to double the pain that ravaged your chest and you had to stop every now and then, just so you could curl in on yourself when it got to be too much.

<><><><><>

As soon as Marcus got back to the village, he located Nani and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away from the others, and he didn’t stop until they were well out of eaves-dropping range.

“Do you enjoy it?”

He threw the question at her just before he let her go, and then whirled around to face her.

“Enjoy what? What’s gotten into you?”

“Being the Chief. The almighty leader, the one who gets to preside over the fates of others, tell me you don’t fucking love it! Tell me it doesn’t make you feel powerful and justified and righteous!”

Her anger flared in sync with the rising volume of his voice.

“So, what!? I can’t create shields with my hands, Kahele! I have seven of my people left, and no means of protecting them, so don’t tell me that I don’t have the right to look for any power I can find!”

He caught her deflection, and he wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

“That’s not what I asked you. Tell me; do you enjoy it?”

She scowled at him, anger making her heart race and her breath quicken, but she couldn’t answer, because she never lied but she knew that this truth was wrong. In her heart she knew that, and he was too angry and hurting too badly to be gentle with her. He was tired of this place and of fighting and of not even being able to trust himself to know what was real anymore. He needed to at least know that he could trust the few humans around, and right now, he didn’t.

“Then you’re as much of a monster as they are.”

She shuddered where she stood, visibly disgusted with the comparison and too stunned to retort.

“You’re willing to leave one of your own to be killed by this place, just because you can’t punish the things that are actually responsible for your father’s murder. And you think that’s power? You think that because it makes you feel superior, you’re somehow the stronger of the two of you?”

“She is not one of my people!”

“Then neither am I. Are you gonna banish me too?”

She swallowed hard and glared at him, shaking her head in what seemed like an effort to convince herself that he was the one being unreasonable.

“Pita’s gone, Nani.”

He stepped closer to her as he continued.

“She chose to walk away from the protection of a group, the comfort of other people… the kind eyes of a friend, just so you wouldn’t have to suffer any more pain because of her.”

Less than a foot of air separated them now.

“She can’t create shields with her hands either, but she still fought for you. She’s the only reason you still have seven of your people. Pita is the strongest human being that either of us have ever met, and now you’ve all but condemned her to death. That doesn’t make you powerful. From a purely tactical standpoint, it makes you stupid, and from an emotional one, it makes you cruel. Is that really how you think your father earned the respect he had?”

“Don’t you dare use him against me!”

She spat in his face with the force of her outburst, but he ignored it.

“Someone has to! Because you really are losing it!”

Apparently, that was her limit. She turned and started walking back towards the village, and Marcus felt himself reach the end of his own rope. It had been two weeks since the drownings, and while that wasn’t a lot of time to grieve in the rest of the world, here, it was dangerous to be distracted for that long. If this was how things were going to be under Nani’s rule, then he wasn’t gonna help her anymore.

“Give me a reason to stay. Or I won’t.”

She stopped walking but didn’t turn back. He could see the conflict in her frame, the desire to keep him there, and the realization that she’d have to acknowledge the truth of his accusations to make it so. Something she just wasn’t prepared, or perhaps even capable, of doing.

“Then go.”

<><><><><>

It took you most of the afternoon to cross the base of the mountain, even though it did eventually get easier to move when the pain in your chest got less acute, reshaping into something hard and miserable that just made you feel generally awful instead. The sun had begun to set when you found yourself staring out over the most alien-looking part of the island. It was almost as though the landmass was divided into four sections. The northern part was the largest, stretching from the east to west coast, taking up almost the entire northern half of the island. It was an assorted mess of vertical cliffs and impassably thick jungle, filled with hallucinogenic or deadly plants and vampire trees. To the east was the more normal jungle, stretching from the side of the mountain to the eastern coast, and the village was in the northern half of that section, far enough from the ocean to be safe from the Kaiaka, (or so they’d thought) but at a safe distance from the worst of the least trustworthy vegetation. And to the south was the beach, although it stretched all the way over into the west as well, which was why you got those lovely sunsets. Other than that, the south mainly just housed the base of the mountain, which stood slightly more within the western part of the island and was thankfully also covered in the more familiar types of vegetation. But the palm-trees and ferns and even the grass just kinda stopped growing, as if there was some hidden line, when you reached the western section. You were still technically on the mountain, but now it was just bedrock before you, and since you were still a few hundred feet high, that meant you could look out over the barren landscape ahead. And it looked anything but inviting. There was nothing green in sight, just sharp black rocks until your gaze reached the ocean. But even the rocks looked strange. Like giant triangular crystals, angled against the ground so that they looked a bit like the cannons on a warship, elongated and almost reaching towards a distant sky, probably in another world.

In your solitude, you’d thought a lot about the Kaiaka and what the Ixo had said. There were enough inexplicable things about this island to support a theory that it had somehow been brought here, the only real question was how, and from where? If they really had come here from some alien planet or different dimension, then it was possible that some clue to how they might be able to go back, could be found in some dark corner, or hidden cave of this inhospitable landscape. The tribe had lost a lot of people while exploring the different areas, and while the jungle had claimed most of them, these strange rocks had given Akela such a repelling feeling that he'd forbidden his people from setting foot here at all. He’d explained it as a crippling conviction that if he got too close to the black stones, his body would be ripped apart from the inside, and while he recognised that it was an irrational fear, he still couldn’t stave off the impulse to run away. You intended to spend your exile finding out as much as you could about your enemy, if not to get rid of them, then at least to better understand how to kill them, so you walked on into the dark land, leaving all living things behind as you crossed from the jungle to the stone.

<><><><><>

Like you, Marcus had heard Akela’s stories about the western stone-land, and the effect it had had on him. Many of the tribe had described a similar feeling, but the Chief’s superior sensitivity to energies had meant that he’d gotten a much more concentrated experience, resulting in an absolute fear of the place. And that was where you’d chosen to go? Of course, you had. Because that was your nature. For as long as he’d known you, your responses had always been to act, no matter what situation you were faced with. You rarely ever froze, and when you did, it passed quickly. Your instinct was always to better understand your situation, and you’d put yourself in unspeakable danger to find the information you needed, he’d seen it more times than he cared to count. But for some reason, he’d never been able to see that you’d always been that willing to sacrifice yourself because you didn’t think that anyone would miss you. Because you genuinely believed that other people mattered more than you. He’d seen it in your eyes before you’d taken off for the vampire tree. You’d been scared, but not for yourself. For the tribe, for Nani… for him. You’d been so scared for him, and that was the first time it had really dawned on him that Akela might’ve been right all along. That you really might care for him a lot more than he’d allowed himself to see. He’d wanted to ask you about it, but there hadn’t really been space for such a conversation since the drowning, at least not enough that he’d dared to broach the subject with you, since it wasn’t something one just mentioned in casual conversation. He was still terrified that he might not be safe to trust his own thoughts, and he still struggled to differentiate between how much of what he felt was guilt and how much might be real affection, and the one thing he couldn’t do was hurt you again. But now you were once more running into danger, looking for answers, and all he could think about was not losing you. He still cared about Nani too, and for a while he’d even managed to convince himself that she might be someone he could lean on for comfort and stability, but he’d been lying to himself. If anything, she’d been another shield, this one against himself and the fears he had concerning what he might be capable of. She’d simply made him feel better, but only in a superficial way. Despite the argument, he knew that she was still the kind person he’d gotten to know before this latest tragedy, and he was certain that she’d remember that with time. But in arguing with her, he’d also looked closer at himself, and discovered that what truly made him feel better, was you. Where she had succumbed to despair and suspicion and fear, you had remained steadfast. Your hope and determination to keep moving, keep trying, keep fighting no matter what, had become such a comfort to him, where previously it had only been a source of agitation. Seeing you take charge and make things happen, even though it was a risk to you and even though there were no guarantees, made him feel like maybe things really could be okay somehow.

All this was why he now chased after you. All this pain and destruction and death had finally made him see how much he needed you. So, he ran through the jungle as fast as his body could carry him, hoping to reach you before dark, but when he got to the dividing line between the green of the mountain, and the black of the dead stones, you were nowhere to be seen. And the sun had just dropped under the horizon. He was out of time. He only stopped for a minute, just to let his eyes sweep over the landscape in the hopes of catching a glimpse of you in the dying light. But when he couldn’t, he kept going, trying to think like you, to figure out what direction you’d taken, what might’ve drawn your attention. But he was only a few hundred yards in when he felt it. And it really was crippling. Out of nowhere, he was suddenly convinced that if he took another step, he’d be torn to pieces, and it was so potent, so unbearably real in his mind, that he practically threw himself backwards and started crawling back the way he’d come. He knew that it was just in his head, but it was utterly impossible to ignore all the same, as if he was being pushed from this land by some unseen hand. However, that thought made him instinctively want to shield himself, and his power responded, wrapping around him like a thin comforting blanket, and just like that, the feeling was gone. He got back up and stood there, still trembling slightly with the overwhelming force of his reaction. His heart was pounding like crazy as he leaned forwards, resting his hands against his knees while he tried to catch his breath. What the fuck was this place? Clearly, it had to be important to warrant such an effective deterrent against visitors, which would suggest that there was something here that the Kaiaka wanted to keep well hidden. He wondered why he was surprised, though. You seldom did anything at random, and you were rarely wrong about your hunches. But you couldn’t have gotten far if you’d been hit by the same defence-system, so he set off again, jogging along while he scanned the terrain for you, which was made easier by some sort of bioluminescence that appeared to be seeping out of every crack in the ground. It wasn’t enough to be visible from afar, but it was enough that he could see where he set his feet down. And soon enough, a familiar sound reached him, and he ran towards it. In the dark, he could only just make out the towering black rocks where they hung overhead, as if just waiting for him to stop underneath one of them so they could fall and crash over him. He felt exposed and vulnerable around them and their alienness, and he was still under a protective shield, so it was no wonder that he found you on your hands and knees, vomiting and shaking, covered in cold sweat. He quickly slung another shield around you and was instantly amazed at how strong you still felt, even when you’d been brought to your knees.

“How the hell did you make it this far against that much influence? I turned back after less than a minute…”

You were panting hard and still shaking bad enough that you chose to sit down rather than try and stand up, and he kneeled next to you.

“I… have nothing to lose… Might as well try.”

Just sheer willpower. Somehow, you’d managed to push past the irrational fear, to keep going, proving to your own brain that you could survive even though it was being made to believe that you couldn’t. Christ, you were impressive.

“That’s not true. You have me.”

You hung your head hearing that, as if you assumed he was just trying to keep your spirits up, so he returned your soft touch from earlier, by placing a hand on your cheek and gently urging you to look at him.

“I didn’t know it before, but you’ve always had me, Pita.”

A light scoff fell from your lips, but there was only sadness in your voice.

“And yet, you still call me that.”

He couldn’t help the small smile that spread across his lips, in response.

“I stopped thinking of it as that acronym a long time ago. It’s just a name to me now. You’re still a damn big pain in my ass at times, especially when you do these incredibly stupid things, but that’s not why I call you that anymore.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s important. There are answers here, I know it.”

“And I know better than to doubt you. I’m not here to bring you back, I’m here to help.”

That made you pause for a moment.

“What did Nani have to say about that?”

He drew a deep sigh that was filled with disappointment, but not regret.

“She didn’t give me any reason to stick around.”

He hesitated, not sure how much he should tell you about his recent conjectures, given that you had more important concerns at the minute, but he still wanted you to know that things had changed.

“You were right, she was trying to make me pick a side, but… I chose you.”

A softness he’d never seen in you before, seemed to melt your eyes from the inside. You gave him a brief and awkward little smile and a nod, and then started getting to your feet. He beat you to it and automatically held a hand out for you to take if you wanted, but he was still surprised when you did, letting him help you up. He was even more surprised when you didn’t let go of his hand, despite not needing it anymore.

“Thank you, Marcus.”

Something in your tone told him that you really hadn’t expected anyone to ever take your side, and it broke his heart to realize that you wouldn’t have come to believe that unless it had been true on numerous occasions before. He squeezed your hand tighter and stepped a little closer.

“Reach for me, and I’ll always be here. I promise. And not because I owe you, which I do, more than I can hope to make up for, but because I don’t want you to be alone. Because I don’t want to see you so sad anymore. And… because I need you. You keep me levelled, grounded and honest, and for all the bad blood between us, I’ve always been able to count on you to tell me the truth. No matter how hard it might be to hear, and I need that now more than ever. But I also just… miss you.”

There were tears brimming in your eyes by the time he fell silent, but then you let go of his hand and he thought that maybe he’d said too much. That maybe he’d been wrong about what you felt for him and that you wouldn’t welcome hearing that he cared about you. Until you slowly closed the distance between you, and tentatively wrapped your arms around his waist, letting your forehead fall against his shoulder. His heart swelled to feel you allow yourself some comfort, for once, and he draped his arms over your back, tugging you closer and holding you tight, so you’d know that he was solid. That he meant every word. But he also selfishly loved having you that close. Getting to be that emotionally intimate with you. A mere six weeks earlier, he wouldn’t have believed it possible that he would ever come to crave that with you, but now that he had you in his arms, he only wanted more. How the hell had you been bitter enemies for two fucking years? An unfamiliar and quite alarming sound suddenly came from the stone closest to you, and you pulled apart and stared up at it, trying to figure out what was going on. A small black… thing, was detaching itself from the rock, as if it was a parasite that had had its fill of one victim and was moving on to the next. Unfortunately, though, he got the feeling that the two of you were those next. He repositioned your shields, turning them into larger domes encircling each of you, just in time to catch the thing as it launched at you. You would’ve been safe either way, but getting it up and personal, crawling all over you would still have been seriously panic-inducing. It was more liquid than creature, but definitely moved with clear purpose, whatever the hell that might be.

“We should move, before more of these things wake up.”

You nodded and started running due northwest, deeper into the barren landscape, on surprisingly steady legs. He followed your lead, perplexed at how you seemed to have a predetermined path in mind, moving in a bit of a bow, or perhaps more like a hook, where northwest gradually became west and then south and then swung back to head east. And suddenly he found himself running into what had to be the heart of this dead land. There were no stones here, just a perfectly flat black surface, about the size of a football field, but not that manicured.

“How’d you know where to go?”

“I’m not sure. I just followed my instincts.”

“Will you ever stop being increasingly impressive?”

“Why? Are you feeling threatened?”

“Oh, no. Quite the opposite.”

A tiny laugh escaped you, but this was a real one, a happy one, and he was unbelievably pleased to hear it, just like he was glad to hear you verbally jousting with him again.

“The only problem is, I have no idea what we’re supposed to look for here.”

Marcus suddenly had an idea about that. Something about the perfectly smooth surface underneath their feet made him think that it had been put there on purpose.

“Let me try something.”

He used his threads of energy to slip through the stone and explore what was below them. He couldn’t actually see it, but through the threads he could sort of feel it, almost like a blind person using their fingers to map faces. And the map he generated left him quite stunned.

“Pita, there’s a whole other world underneath us. I can feel waterfalls and plants and… are those birds?”

“Seriously? That’s… not what I expected. Even though I have no idea what I did expect. But it must be significant, why else would they hide it under all this frightening shit?”

Just as you said that all the closest stones started giving off that same strange sound that had awoken the parasitic things, meaning there’d be a small army of them coming your way any second.

“That impressive intuition of yours have any idea how we get down there, cariño?”

He was trying to see how many of the gooey things were on their way, but when you didn’t respond, he turned his gaze back to you, and was instantly concerned. You were staring wide-eyed at something right in front of you, but there was nothing there.

“Pita? What is it?”

You looked more and more sad, clearly seeing something, but there was still nothing there. Then you suddenly grabbed his hand, nodded sharply at whatever it was you were listening to, before he heard you whisper goodbye.

“What’s going on, who are you talking to?”

“Drop the shields, Marcus.”

There was no doubt in your voice, but he still thought you’d lost your mind. The creepy liquid-stone-goo was coming at you from all sides and moving fast, and he really didn’t wanna get up close and personal with them.

“No fucking way. I don’t know what you just saw, but you’re being manipulated.”

You shifted yourself so that you were standing right in front of him, staring into his eyes, and he saw only confidence in yours.

“Trust me. This is me reaching for you.”

They were climbing the shields now, looking for weaknesses, and he could feel how strong each of them was.

“They’re not gonna hurt us.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

A kind of joy that he associated with an understanding of some sort, filled your frame.

“Because I am Mana. I don’t have spiritual power; I am spiritual power. Please, trust me.”

He did trust you. In his own way, he always had. It went against every instinct he possessed, and he actually had to fight his own reflexive response, but he did as you asked. And when the domes fell away, cold black liquid engulfed you both and suddenly he couldn’t feel you anymore. Not you, or the ground, or even the air around him. As though he’d suddenly seized to exist.

—————

Link to Chapter 11

Thank you for reading, and I’d love to know what you thought :) My tag list is always open. Have a wonderful day/night!

@deadhumourist @idreamofboobear @bison-writes @dornish-queen @ladyphantom96 @sarahjkl82-blog @shsoba05 @cannedsoupsucks @toomanystoriessolittletime @tintinn16 @nolanell @prostitute-robot-from-the-future @myfavpedrothings @generalfoolish

Picture Credit: Alien Landscape - Andree Wallin

[rosayounan]

You Will Be My Better Half- Part 2

Ram wasn’t sure what it was exactly that has woken him. He took in the sounds around him before opening his eyes. 

The fire was still roaring with a crackle, the crickets still chirping their songs to one another. Another sound took his attention though. A gasp or moan perhaps? Ram opened his eyes and looked over at his brother who seemed to be sleeping. But something didn’t sit right with the officer and he knew to always listen to his gut. 

He turned closer to the sleeping man and upon closer inspection, noticed something was wrong. Bheem’s face was twisted in distress and sweat poured on his forehead. He kept twitching and moving as if in pain. His breath had quickened and was coming out in sharp gasps.

“Bheem?” Ram whispered leaning over and touching his shoulder gently, “Bheem?”

The man showed no signs of waking up and began thrashing.

“Rukana!” He moaned head turning from side to side, “Mujhe akela chhod do!” 

“Bheem, come on wake up,” Ram held his face in his hands hoping to calm him down.

Bheem yelled out, “Mainne kuchh nahin kiya!”

“Bheem!” Ram shook him by the shoulders roughly.

With an abrupt shout, Bheem jumped awake. 

“Bheem?” Ram held the man’s collar with both hands, wondering if the worst was over. 

Bheem stared at him with wide eyes, shining in the firelight. His breath was coming in sharp gasps. Ram hated the fear that he saw in his brother’s eyes.“

Bheem?” He whispered softly caressing his face, hoping some recognition would spark in his eyes. 

“Where?” Bheem gasped holding Ram’s arm tight enough to bruise. 

“It’s alright,” Ram reassured gently, “We’re camping out away from the city. It’s okay, we’re safe.”

Bheem looked around them frantically before connecting his gaze back on Ram, “Mainne kuchh nahin kiya, anna,” He repeated close to tears.

“I know, I know,” Ram stroked his hair calmly, “It’s okay. Their gone.”

A deep shudder ran through Bheem and Ram pulled his head to it was resting on his chest. He rubbed his hand up and down Bheem’s back as he felt the shakes overtake him. 

“What happened?” He whispered in his ear and leaned close when Bheem did not answer, “Hm?”

“They were hurting Mali,” Bheem spoke softly, “I stopped them but they grabbed me. They had whips.”

Ram swallowed closing his eyes as tears burned his eyes. He rested his head in Bheem’s hair hiding the emotion deep in his heart. He silently cursed Governor Scott and what they had forced him to do to his brother. He wished that dog was alive so Ram could kill him and his monster of a wife again. But now was not the time for anger.

Ram sat up straighter and leaned against a tree, pulling Bheem onto his lap with him. Bheem kept a hold of his arm but Ram kept his other free hand in his hair. He understood that his brother may not sleep tonight. Many a time, Ram himself had suffered a sleepless night due to visions of bloodshed in his mind. Those demons threatened to swallow him alive in his dreams. 

Ram reached over and took the water skin they had along with the blanket. He handed the skin to Bheem with a light order, “Drink.”

Bheem did not argue and sat up a bit to drink. Ram draped the blanket over them both. 

Once Bheem had filled his thirst he handed the skin back. Ram in turn poured some of the cool water onto his hand and mopped his brother’s face, dousing some of the heat radiating from him. Bheem allowed him to clean his face and simply rested back onto his anna’s lap. 

Ram was unsure of what to do to help his brother. He knew that nothing he said could remove the images of the hell they had endured. Yet, somehow Bheem was always able to help pull Ram out of the trenches of his own mind. Often just Bheem’s presence was enough to comfort him. 

Ram held him closer and rubbed his back.  “I’m here.” He whispered, “I’m here.”

Bheem relaxed somewhat and rested with his back against Ram’s chest. Hearing the rhythmic thud of his Ram’s heart soothed him, along with the sounds of the forest in the night. He closed his eyes. Bheem felt a hand in his hair soothing him and calming his own racing heart. The distinct sound of humming filled his ears and Bheem couldn’t hold back the smile. 

“Sydney nagaram chese neeram, innalu ninnu dhachunchindhi.” Ram’s voice carried the tune softly and Bheem could feel the rumble in his chest and he sang softly. 

Bheem found himself signing along with the tune quietly as he lay in his brother’s arms, “Sigga paduthu thappe thelisi ee rojaina chupinchindhi.”

 Both men found themselves singing and humming the song for a while. It seemed to relax them both and Bheem found his eyes feeling heavy as sleep pulled at him. Ram kept a hand on his back rubbing up and down warmly. He relaxed fully against the tree staring at the embers of the fire that glowed a deep orange. 

Neither man remembered when they fell asleep, but soon both had drifted off close to each other. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  Apologies if the Hindi translations are not correct. Feel free to share any corrections, I love to learn. 

Rukana= Stop Mujhe akela chhod do = Leave me alone Mainne kuchh nahin kiya= I didn’t do anything  Well, there’s part 2 for you guys. Sorry that it wasn’t longer but I was struggling with where I should end it. Really wanted an emotional piece with Ram being a good brother! Please share you thoughts in the comments and if you think I should continue this, please let me know.  OR if you have some other good brother plots, please feel free to message me and share! I LOVE new ideas! I will again tag some of my followers, authors I’ve seen and more. Sorry if I forgot you, I’m new to Tumblr!

Happy Friday!

[milasartblog]

Dark green Spiderman: Friend or Foe (part 2)

For couple of seconds they were silent. Allister kept looking at Yoshi with concern as his friend kept looking down, angry. Only his fist was clenched. The only good thing for Allister was that Yoshi doesn't know that Spiderman is Allister himself. Or was it bad? It didn't really care him that much, most important thing for him was Yoshi's state.

Allister: Yoshi?

Yoshi: And where was this "loved by everyone" hero at that moment?...I bet somewhere in more "important" place, minding his own business...While such people like this family suffer from a bunch of idiots!

He punched the table with his fist, making Allister jump from a sudden. It was new to him, Yoshi usually is calm and humble. The anger didn't go away yet and Allister tried to come up with a plan. But nothing was coming to his mind. He knew well that Yoshi was definitely blaming him for this. But could he know about it? He is not capable to safe everyone, right? Still, it didn't cancel anything. The only thing he could try is to reach to him.

Allister: Pal?

Yoshi noticed that Allister's hand was reaching to his and quickly changed the expression, moving his hand away.

Yoshi: Sorry for my reaction. It's just....i rarely watch news, so it got me a bit.

Allister: Are you sure?

Yoshi nodded as took another sip. Suddenly Allister remembered that Yoshi's parents got into almost the same accident. Probably that caused his reaction: a memory. And yet, what does Spiderman have to do with this accident?

Allister: Did it remind you about.....

Yoshi: No no no, it's not like that. I'm fine, really. Plus, it's in the past.

But Allister didn't believe him. He knew that such wounds never heal just like that, even through thousands of years. And yet, to not make things worse, he didn't go far with it and took another sip. Yoshi looked at the clock.

Yoshi: Well, it was nice to meet you again, Al, but i have to come back to work.

Allister: It's okay, pal, i still have stuff at uni and...other stuff.

Yoshi: Hehe, true. Want me to accompany you?

Allister: Only to my bike, the rest i will do myself.

Yoshi nodded as they both went to garage and Allister got onto his motorbike. He looked at Yoshi again, who was already preparing instruments for work.

Allister: Yoshi.

Yoshi: Hm?

Allister: I....If something happens...Just call me or Kim, okay?

Yoshi: Don't worry, I'm strong guy. Still, thank you

He smiled as waved to Allister, who did the same with little concern about Yoshi's words. Unfortunately, he couldn't influence on the situation, only try to fix it. As he put the helmet on, he started the bike and drove back home. As he was driving, he thought to himself.

Allister: Damn it, and why it always happens when i'm not around. Of course, i'm now an everyday hero for everyone, no calm life, no fun with friends, no time for your beloved one. And that's the price for power, that i didn't even ask for it....Gotta go and see what i can still fix in this situation.

And he drove faster back home. Meanwhile, Yoshi was almost ready for work. But his mind wasn't. He kept thinking about today's incident, about his past, and...Spiderman.

Yoshi: This freak is no better than politicians, who keep promising to make better life for us, citizens. Of course he has powers and fame. Everyone likes him, he is so equitable. But people don't understand that no matter how much bad people spend time in prison, they will never change, neither their personality nor their actions. Even cruel killers won't! It never happened! And never will!

He slammed the table with his fist, angrily, gritting his teeth.

Yoshi: They deserve much more punishment, than prison. They have to feel what their victims felt. Agony. Hopeless. Pain. Everything.

As he talked to himself, something was moving in his house. Only a little whine could be heard. A dog whine. But Yoshi didn't turn his head around, he knew who was it.

Yoshi: I'm glad that at least someone shares the same thought. Am i right....Akela?

The creature walked out of the shadow, taking its dark and red furr dog form. Or better, hound form. Yoshi turned around as Akela walked to him. As he was closer to him, Yoshi hugged Akela, who was whinning and nuzzling him, trying to cheer him up.

Yoshi: I know, Akela. Those people will never change. And if Spiderman doesn't want to give a proper punishment to them.....we will do it. Are you with me?

Akela looked at Yoshi with little hesitation about such idea, but nodded in agreement with his owner.

Yoshi: Good. Then, be ready for tonight, buddy.

A night hunt will begin soon.

----------------------

And that's the next part of Spiderman story ^^ Sorry for taking it a bit longer, couldn't find motivation to continue it ^^" Still hope you will like it^^

Yoshi and Akela belong to @jenniesart and @jenny626

Allister belongs to @wildstarfan and @milasartblog (both me)

Spiderman belongs to Marvel and Sony (?)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 25 Mar 2020 (National Emergency Library, Kaiser threatens nurses, no more O'Reilly events, White House pastor's coronavirus funnies, automatic bill-relief notices, Mat Ricardo's lockdown TV, Xi's internal enemies, coronavirus meets immigration detention, doctors hoard choloroquine, toilet paper separator, Conzealand goes virtual, the Postal Plan, Volante's masks, and more!)

Today's links

Internet Archive lifts lending restrictions on ebooks: They're calling it the "National Emergency Library."

Kaiser threatens to fire Oakland nurses who wear their own masks: They're treating positive patients from a cruise ship with insufficient PPE.

No more O'Reilly events: We've been here before, kinda.

Trump's Bible study teacher thinks coronavirus is God's wrath: For homosexuality, China, environmentalism, Catholics, and women in the workforce.

A chatbot that petitions companies for financial relief during the crisis: Donotpay's robot lawyer is here for you.

East London showman Mat Ricardo's Youtube playlists: Lockdown TV for "comedy, variety, circus, magic, dance, music."

Xi's enemies sense weakness: Autocracies are only as good as their last crisis-response.

Locked down in a lockup: Coronavirus meets immigration detention.

Doctors hoard choloroquine: MDs to lupus sufferers, "Drop dead."

Toilet paper separator: Covid crafting for household essentials.

Conzealand goes virtual: The first time a Worldcon isn't in person since WWII.

Posties are key to America's emergency response: The only agency that could deliver covid meds to every US household in a single day.

Volante's masks for covid responders: Streetwear for Superheroes.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, current reading

Internet Archive lifts lending restrictions on ebooks (permalink)

The amazing people at the Internet Archive maintain a digital lending library: they buy and scan one copy of every book (pretty much every book, ever) and lend it out to one person at a time.

They've just announced that during the crisis, they are lifting the one-borrower-at-a-time restriction and allowing unlimited borrowing, "to meet the needs of a global community of displaced learners". They call it the "National Emergency Library."

https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/

It's got more than a million titles.

https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary

They're calling on all who can afford it to buy books to support authors and booksellers during the crisis, Authors can also request to have their titles removed:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QjErbouWG7pUlzcxPcRk4YEtbYs8ItlVTgLa1DfGh68/edit

It's a bold move, but it's got widespread support. Here's a list of endorsers. I signed on too.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vkl3RX4CzpRTQsoG1tsdHC0foYiU7A8U_Vt1UyVboP8/edit

Kaiser threatens to fire Oakland nurses who wear their own masks (permalink)

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland are treating patients from the Grand Princess cruise ship, at least 21 of whom have tested positive for covid-19. The nurses are working without adequate PPE, thanks to a national shortage (and asshole hoarders).

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/21/oakland-coronavirus-hospital-kaiser/

Nurses who report for work wearing their own N95 masks have been threatened with immediate dismissal for "insubordination."

Akela Lacy from The Intercept asked Kaiser's Marc Brown about it, but he ducked the question.

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/kaiser-permanente-nurses-coronavirus/

The nurses say that their supply cupboards are locked down, and they're being asked to treat potentially infected patients whether or not they can find someone to unlock the supply cupboard.

No more O'Reilly events (permalink)

I attended my first O'Reilly conference in, I think, 1997? And I sponsored my first O'Reilly con, the first P2P con, in 2001 (?). I spent years on the committee for the Emerging Tech conference, and I've keynoted more O'Reilly cons than I can recall.

These events have been some of the most important gatherings I've ever attended: places where I made lifelong friends and collaborators (I first met my wife at an Etech con), and learned so much.

This is (obviously) not a good time to be in the event business. For perfectly good – and nevertheless so, so sad – reasons, O'Reilly has just exited the in-person conference business.

Forever.

https://www.oreilly.com/conferences/from-laura-baldwin.html

"Without understanding when this global health emergency may come to an end, we can't plan for or execute on a business that will be forever changed as a result of this crisis. With large technology vendors moving their events completely on-line, we believe the stage is set for a new normal moving forward when it comes to in-person events."

The covid collapse feels a lot like the post-911/dotcom crash moment. That was when we lost the Etech conference, whose focus had always been "what are the most speculative things the weirdest nerds are doing?" No one had a budget for that kind of thing after the crash.

The dotcom crash and the loss of Etech were hugely traumatic, but there WERE silver linings. Etech's crash begat FOO Camp, consistently the best events I've ever attended – small gatherings of smart weirdos who programmed their own conference in realtime.

It also created a brief moment of breathing space in tech, which had its origins in driven tech enthusiasts but had been steadily colonized by buck-chasers who upped sticks and quit when the money disappeared from the sector. For a brief moment, mid-decade, people who wanted to build meaningful technologies for users – not investors – could hire engineering talent and find office space. That was ended by the finance bubble that shattered in 2008, but for a while there, it was good.

It's brutal to think that I'll never go to another O'Reilly con, but my hopeful inner voice tells me that there might be something as wonderful on the horizon as FOO Camp. I'm so sorry for all the O'Reilly conference staff, who are amazing and have done so much good work.

As O'Reilly CEO Laura Baldwin writes, "No offense to 'Netflix and chill' but how about we move toward 'Code and conquer' as our new mantra during these trying times?"

Trump's Bible study teacher thinks coronavirus is God's wrath (permalink)

Wanna hear about an extreme religious far-right bigot who thinks that coronavirus is God's punishment for Chinese excess, American tolerance for homosexuality, and environmentalism?

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/trump-cabinet-bible-studies-coronavirus/

Ralph Drollinger is an evangelical pastor. He says Catholicism is "the world's largest false religion." He says women working outside the workplace is against scripture. He runs Capitol Ministries, whose goal is to have 200 ministries in 200 world capitals.

Drollinger may sound like a garden variety Christian Taliban, but he's awfully distinguished.

For one thing, he runs regular Bible study classes…at the White House.

His scriptural lessons: God would approve of kids in cages. God also wants lower taxes on rich people.

His twice-weekly Capital Hill Bible classes are regularly attended by 52 GOP lawmakers, sponsored by Kevin McCarthy [R-CA] and John Thune [R-SD].

His Wednesday White House Bible study classes are attended by Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Alex Azar, and Mike Pompeo. Pence, too!

His organization has received official endorsements from Joni Ernst, James Lankford and other GOP senators.

This anti-Catholic, homophobic, sinophobic, anti-enviromentalist, lunatic is squarely in the mainstream of Republican thought.

A chatbot that petitions companies for financial relief during the crisis (permalink)

The $3/month DoNotPay service has added a new covid-19 service: automatically petitioning the companies that bill you for mercy based on the coronavirus econopocalypse.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21192765/donotpay-rent-bill-delay-chatbot-coronavirus-extension-laws-pandemic

Using a chatbot, you determine which of your bills are eligible for relief. Then it generates a "compassionate and polite request" seeking help. If the company does not comply, it follows up with a firmer letter citing relevant state/federal laws.

https://donotpay.com/

East London showman Mat Ricardo's Youtube playlists (permalink)

Under normal circumstances, showman MatRicardo is either traveling around doing his juggling and conjuring act, or hosting amazing variety show nights in east London. Neither of those are an option, now, obvious.

Instead, Ricardo is curating playlists of "comedy, variety, circus, magic, dance, music and other kinds of culture and entertainment to distract and amuse."

https://www.matricardo.com/blog/2020/3/17/lockdown-tv

https://www.matricardo.com/blog/2020/3/24/lockdown-tv-week-2

Highlights:

Kids in the Hall: "I speak no English"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vgoEhsJORU

Gene Kelly: "Summer Stock"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFJrV3pI5Zs

"The Knife-Throwing Mother & her Children (1950s)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxodb2uUhQ

Mat Ricardo: "How to charm a German audience"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ECcHLvRYA

Xi's enemies sense weakness (permalink)

Autocracies are intrinsically unstable because their have-nots (who tend to be numerous) believe that they have no path to becoming haves, and see no legitimate purpose to preserve the social order.

China has stabilized its autocracy by simultaneously lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and by using internet surveillance to both neutralize dissidents and spot its most corrupt and dangerous politicians.

But under Xi, internet surveillance has primarily become a weapon for spotting and neutralizing dissidents, and less so a way of spotting self-dealing technocrats and shutting them down. This created "authoritarian blindness," which meant Xi didn't spot or respond to Wuhan in good time.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/24/pluralist-your-daily-link-dose-24-feb-2020/#thatswhatxisaid

This failure ruptured Chinese public confidence in Xi, and emboldened his critics. Ren Zhiqiang (a party "princeling" whose father was a top Mao official, who made a fortune in real-estate and has been an outspoke Xi critic) issued a "viral" jeremiad against Xi this month.

Ren's post, "An official call to arms against Xi: The clown who insists on wearing the emperor's new clothes," spread on Twitter and other foreign services (he has been banned from Wechat for years).

https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/as-virus-recedes-in-china-anti-xi-revolt-spreads/

Ren disappeared shortly thereafter and is said to have been sentenced to 15 years in a secret prison near Beijing where his interrogators have been ordered to mete out "harsh treatment" to the 70-year-old.

Ren is a bellwether for other Chinese power-brokers, many of whom resent Xi and his power-consolidation techniques, such as his 2018 corruption purge that preferentially targeted corrupt officials who supported Xi's rivals.

https://web.archive.org/web/20181222163946/http://peterlorentzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lorentzen-Lu-Crackdown-Nov-2018-Posted-Version.pdf

These grandees have been sharpening their knives for Xi for years, and coronavirus has made him vulnerable. Ren was the first to turn on him publicly, but I'm sure he won't be the last.

Locked down in a lockup (permalink)

You know what's more terrifying and frustrating than being locked down at home during a coronavirus pandemic? Being imprisoned during a coronavirus pandemic, crammed in with others, deprived of soap and supplies.

It's very bad in regular jails and prisons, but if anything, it's even worse in ICE's gulags, where thousands of law-abiding long-term US residents – and asylum seekers – have been detained by the Trump administration in order to please his sadistic base.

For example, Ian has lived in the US for 20 years. His wife and children are US citizens. He was detained while awaiting a decision on his spousal visa. His wife is a nurse treating covid patients. His children miss their father.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/03/24/everybody-s-scared-panic-at-immigrant-detention-center-after-positive-coronavirus-test

Ian has a heart condition that puts him at severe risk if he contracts coronavirus. He's in a 40-person dormitory with a recent arrival from China who is exhibiting symptoms.

He's in NJ's Essex detention facility, which is serviced by Corecivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, a notorious human rights abuser with a long history of beltway banditry while running private prisons. Some detainees there are on hunger strike.

One of the medical staffers there was confirmed by ICE to have contracted coronavirus. The next day, ICE denied that he was medical staff. ICE would not comment on the contradiction.

(Image: Fibonacci Blue, CC BY)

Doctors hoard choloroquine (permalink)

After Trump made misleading statements about the safety and efficacy of treating covid-19 with chloroquine, members of his cult began dropping dead of overdoses on the antimalarial drug.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/arizona-coronavirus-chloroquine-death/index.html

But it wasn't just low-information Trumpers who took the advice to heart. Pharmacists are seeing surges in massive orders of chloroquine from doctors and even dentists who are self-prescribing in order to hoard, and then lying about it when the pharmacists ask for explanations.

https://www.propublica.org/article/doctors-are-hoarding-unproven-coronavirus-medicine-by-writing-prescriptions-for-themselves-and-their-families

This hoarding behavior deprives people who rely on chloroquine for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus of their medication during a pandemic emergency.

"People are losing their minds about this product. We're selling so much of this stuff and people are just stockpiling it prophylactically if anybody in their family gets sick — they're just holding on to it." -Brian Brito, Miami pharmacy owner.

"Currently, both nationally and in West Virginia, some prescribers have begun writing prescriptions for these drugs for family, friends, and coworkers in anticipation of Covid-19 related illness." -West Virginia Board of Pharmacy

Toilet paper separator (permalink)

The Toilet Paper Splitter: a DIY project to separate a single two-ply roll into two single-ply rolls. Requires two paint rollers, a couple bolts, a rubber band, and some stiff metal for a handle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JEfCAFHcPk

Conzealand goes virtual (permalink)

The World Science Fiction Convention began in 1939, when 200 sf fans who'd come to New York for the World's Fair gathered together (while explicitly excluding the leftist "Futurian" writers, who held their own counter-convention).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_World_Science_Fiction_Convention

Since then, there have been 77 Worldcons in total, one per year, excluding 1942/3/4/5, during which WWII intervened.

This year's Worldcon is Conzealand, the first Worldcon in New Zealand. Except it won't be. The organizers have wisely decided to move to a virtual event.

The hotels are allowing for cancellations, though there's some work to be done to allow the organizers to do mass cancellations for their group block. Different airlines have different rules regarding cancellations.

https://conzealand.nz/hotels?utm_source=CoNZealand

They're expecting to offer limited refunds to participants who don't want to a virtual con experience. They'll be offering a new online rate by April 15, and kids memberships are refundable now (but they ask you to forebear as their own personal funds are on the line).

Potential panelists are requested to put some thought into how they might help a virtual con with its programming.

This is incredibly disappointing, of course.I know the organizers and visited Wellington and the venue, both of which are incredible.

https://conzealand.nz/blog/2020/03/25/conzealand-special-announcement

I've been looking forward to attending for years. But it was the right call to make. it won't be the last such disappointment, either.

Please consider supporting the organizers by buying an online membership once they're offered and attending the con from wherever you are.

Posties are key to America's emergency response (permalink)

The USPS is amazing. A fully self-supporting federal agency that provides universal service as well as good, well-paid jobs with benefits and pensions. It's also a vital lifeline during crises.

https://www.wired.com/story/us-postal-plan-coronavirus-vaccine-doomsday/

Since the Cold War, posties have been integral to America's crisis plans. They were once deputized to catalog the dead and the living after a nuclear holocaust, distributing Safety Notification Cards (POD Form 810). Mail trucks would have been repurposed as ambulances.

Both Obama and GWB integrated posties into their plans for biological attacks, planning to have masked and gowned letter carriers deliver Cipro door to door (the "Postal Plan").

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-medical-countermeasures-following-a-biological-attack

As the DHS noted in its prep documents, the USPS is the only federal agency that could knock on every door in America in a single day.

When (if?) effective covid meds are available, it's likely a postal worker will deliver them to you.

Now is a good time to remember that the GOP have been trying to dismantle the universal, self-funding, vital USPS for decades, so that private carriers like UPS and Fedex can cream off the most profitable parts of its business and leave rural Americans in the cold.

Volante's masks for covid responders (permalink)

I've long admired (and worn) clothing from Volante Design, whose "streetwear for superheroes" is made by well-paid, onshore workers and is cosplay-adjascent — the kind of thing you can wear out and about, but also to a con.

Now, they're making masks for covid responders.

The masks are made from cloth and can protect N95 masks from contamination as they are reused (they have a pocket for this purpose). They can also prevent you from touching your face, and partially contain coughs when medical masks are not available

https://www.volantedesign.us/

They're seeking donations to cover the cost of making these and shipping them to orgs that have requested cloth masks:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1txEanDkIrJ5GNfSk-zlXkTlB-bQPNRN_Y69qEwmdme8/htmlview

A $105.50 donation lets them make 50 masks. They're also selling them on a sliding scale to those in need.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Matrix online game hires real actors to play in-game characters http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-matrix-online/598441p1.html

#15yrsago Fox is advertising on Grokster, also suing to put Grokster out of business https://web.archive.org/web/20051018083600/http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=28535&Nid=12722&p=244505

#15yrsago US sabotaging efforts to create humanitarian copyright and patent policies https://web.archive.org/web/20050916104840/http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/03/25/united_states_v_wipos_development_agenda.php

#15yrsago Ex-coder's account of life as a bike courier https://web.archive.org/web/20050323071902/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/19/133129/548

#10yrsago Profit-sharing arrangements among Somali pirates https://web.archive.org/web/20100323020702/https://www.undispatch.com/somali-pirates-buisiness-model

#1yrago Peak Indifference: are we reaching climate's denial/nihilism tipping point? https://www.wired.com/story/we-might-be-reaching-peak-indifference-on-climate-change/

#1yrago London developer makes last-minute changes to lock poor kids out of "communal" playground https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground

#1yrago Chinese censors incinerate entire run of a kickstarted Call of Cthulhu RPG sourcebook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Urosc-JEY

#1yrago The Vessel: a perfect symbol for the grifter capitalism of New York City's privatized Hudson Yards "neighborhood" https://thebaffler.com/latest/fuck-the-vessel-wagner

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Wendy Hanamura (https://twitter.com/whanamura), Geekologie (https://geekologie.com/), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing: I'm getting geared up to start work my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Data – the new oil, or potential for a toxic oil spill? https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/23/data-the-new-oil-or-potential-for-a-toxic-oil-spill/

Upcoming appearances:

Quarantine Book Club, April 1, 3PM Pacific https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quarantine-book-club-cory-doctorow-tickets-100931360416

Museums and the Web, April 2, 12PM-3PM Pacific https://mw20.museweb.net/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

[seesbetterfromadistance]

What was it like the day you found out Akela died in the Vanchat raid all those years ago? What was it like finding out she was alive? How does it feel knowing she was suffering all those years alone and no one knew?

MUSE IS UNDER TRUTH SERUM FOR ONE HOUR. ASK ME ANYTHING. NOTHING IS OFF LIMITS AND EVERYTHING MUST BE ANSWERED. GO!

Over the years Shield had changed in the most drastic fashion possible, it was a new shield now and with that came that fact that many of the people that bore the title of Agent didn’t know him when he was just a recruit and that with that came the fact that he and Akela were in the same class. So naturally the question catches him off guard and it results in him being quiet, a rarity in truth as he regards the question. He remembers the day, remembers how his heart seemed to drop into his stomach at the news, remembers how he’d locked his jaw and dugs his nails into the palms of his hands as he made fist far too tight at his side when Coulson had told him.

He finds himself doing just that now, digging his nails into the palms of his hands, despite the fact that he knows she is in fact alive it doesn’t erase that day, erase what he felt, or erase his fury about what truly happened. Clint inhales, it’s deep as he begins, “It was chaos at first, everyone trying to figure out what happened, what broke down, but then it was just pain, it was that empty feeling you get that hits at the very heart of your soul. I lost a friend that day, one that meant more to me than I had ever told her, one that understood me when most people don’t. That day was hell, I remember being so out of line when he told me that I actually pushed Coulson backwards.” He’s shook his head.

“But then years pass, too many years and we find out she’s alive… alive but not the same Akela, alive but tortured, alive but stripped of everything that made her herself. They’d taken everything from her and Gael her nothing but pain in return.” His response is deep now as if it possesses somewhat of an understanding. Though their situations are drastically different he knows what it’s like to be controlled, he knows what it’s like to be commanded, to be stripped of your own willpower and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. He knows what’s left behind when it’s over.

For once he’s not joking, he’s not throwing his humor into the mix, no instead he’s responding with a seriousness about him that is rare.

“It makes me angry, makes me feel guilty, it makes me want to protect her from everything.” He shook his head.

[missingstarter]

@189time​: 🚹 - How would your muse react to losing their father? How would they cope? 🚺 - How would your muse react to losing their mother? How would they cope? :) [ACCEPTING]

[going for my throat i see.

...it’s complicated when it comes to Giovanni. he occasionally talks about how, if he was dead, the world would be a far better place. Rockets can say they handled the years of his disappearence perfectly, but the truth was that the Team was in shambles. 

no Giovanni, no Rockets. No more intrusive thoughts about his father, no more him messing with him and his sister. It would be so much better, right?

   aaand yet, he knows that he would still suffer. Silver doesn’t really want him dead, despite everything, and by now he doesn’t even know if it’s because of his thanatophobia or because of that lingering hint of hope that his father actually cared for him. That there’s the good dad who tucked him in bed and read him stories the few times he was around. It’s wishful thinking. It’s naive, it’s stupid, but... it’s still a lingering feeling that he can’t get rid of, despite all the times Giovanni hurt him.

as for Akela, well!! Personally, he wouldn’t care. It’s sad to say, maybe, especially since from the little he heard she isn’t even that much of a bad person, but as far as he knows his mother is still a complete stranger to him.

he’d focus completely on Streli. 100%. Wouldn’t leave her side for a single second if anything happened to Akela.]

[tenebres-champ-moved]

ℍ𝔼𝔸𝔻ℂ𝔸ℕ𝕆ℕ ℙ𝕆𝕊𝕋 – 𝓸𝓲𝓴𝓸𝓹𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓲𝓪

► linked to 𝓬𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓵 𝓫𝓵𝓸𝓸𝓭 𝓹𝓾𝓶𝓹𝓲𝓷 𝓲𝓷 𝓪 𝓶𝓪𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓷'𝓼 𝓬𝓸𝓻𝓮 || it’s basically parents trap AU

Strelitzia has never felt really at home. Wherever she goes, sometimes feels off and abnormal, and this must be a reason for why she travels so much. She tends to feel out of place, as if something, or someone was missing.

She has always been a very bright and intelligent child, and always seemed to be able to understand her surroundings better than any other kid her age. 

That is why she would sometimes notice being followed, but never really thought too much about it.

She did overhear once a conversation her parents had, but does not remember the details. However – she wasn’t that surprised to find out that Gabriel Nikolai was not her real father.

She did feel surprise, she did feel remorse, she did feel sadness and definitely anger, but all of them were quickly short lived. She loves Gabriel, and considers him her father – but had always felt a missing link.

She had found a photography years earlier. Cliché – but it worked. While the face of Rocket’s very own boss was out of the picture, she did see another child in her mother’s arms.

𝕊𝕀𝕃𝕍𝔼ℝ 𝔽𝔼𝔼𝕃𝕊 𝕃𝕀𝕂𝔼 ℍ𝕆𝕄𝔼. She might have hated him at first, but he was one of the first she did not really try to push away, or, at least, less than any other. For once in her life, she did want to get closer to someone, and that was her own brother.

𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐓. God forbid she makes Akela suffer any more than she already has over this. The woman had worked her ass off for her daughter and made sure she would live the safest, most comfortable life she could, and succeeded at it pretty well.

► ► ► While Akela did love Sakaki, she did not approve of his lineage and the kind of business he was running, and decided to cut short to their very quick romance.

Strelitzia would love to know more about her birth father, and would even want to actually spend time with him to get to know him. However, she is too proud to admit any of it, and, most of all, way too scared of him.

A small part – very selfish part – of her is even slightly jealous of Silver, as he was raised by him and got to know who he was. She knows it’s an awful thought, as she’s the one that got it better from the two.

Strelitzia’s abandonment, trust, and oikophobia issues directly stream from these events, as she was lost and confused from an early age by an adult world that thought of her as a deaf and oblivious child.

[akela-nakamura]

I’m literally sitting here, crying over a Rover on Mars. 

Phone home, Oppy!!!

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

What I was getting at with Akela, was that which death do you think sounds more emotional and impactful? For context, in my fanfic "The Jungle Book: Origins", Akela is getting old, and starts to suffer from heart problems, but sees Mowgli as a potential leader, and he tries to bring the best out of her. Also, does Kerchak actually die that way? I mean, he charges, Clayton shoots, and then he dies. I really struggled to care about him anyway, I found him to be unlikeable. - Sapphire One

I appreciate the context; if it’s thematically important to the story that Akela is getting old and frailer then it might fit better for Akela to die of heart failure rather than a gunshot wound.

Kerchak’s death plays out as follows:

After the poacher attack on the gorillas is mostly thwarted, Clayton aims his gun at Tarzan, who has his back turned checking on the recently-freed gorillas.

Kerchak sees this and charges Clayton, roaring.

Clayton switches targets, mostly because he was startled I think, and shoots Kerchak instead.

Tarzan attacks Clayton and they move away from the rest of the cast for their Final Confrontation. Tarzan steals the gun but ultimately decides not to shoot Clayton, breaking the gun instead. (“Go ahead, shoot me. Be a man.” “Not a man like you!”) Clayton gets caught in some vines, tries to cut himself free with his machete, somehow doesn’t notice the vines around his neck, and accidentally hangs himself. There’s a shot of the vine going taut, then a lightning-cast shadow of Clayton’s limp body. It’s very creepy and dramatic.

Tarzan returns to where everyone else is. Kerchak is dying of the bullet wound. (We don’t actually see the injury because it’s Disney, although I’m pretty sure we do see Tarzan’s bio-parents’ corpses in the treehouse when Kala finds him and we definitely saw bloody pawprints on the floor.)

Kerchak finally acknowledges Tarzan as his son and names him as the gorillas’ next leader. (“Forgive me, for not seeing that you have always been one of us. The family will look to you now. Take care of them, my son.”) Then he dies.

[werindialive]

Singer Composer Bhupendra Singh passes away at the age of 82

Singer-composer Bhupinder Singh who would stir emotions in even a heartless soul passed away in a Mumbai hospital on Monday. He was known for his melodious voice and hundreds and thousands of ghazals and songs that he composed and sang during his years in the industry. Bhupendra was 82.

Bhupendra’s Bangladesh-born wife and fellow ghazal singer Mitali Mukherjee (Singh) told PTI that "He was suffering from colon cancer and diagnosed with Covid just a week ago."

Bhupendra was born and brought up in Amritsar and had a knack for ghazals which made him a superstar among the fan base. His voice and Gulzar’s poetry were a concoction that would make anybody fell in love with music. 'Dil dhoondta hai phir wohi' (Mausam), 'Ek akela iss sheher mein' (Gharaonda) and Karoge Yaad Toh were some of his finest gems. He worked with Madan Mohan, Jaidev, Khayyam and RD Burman and gave some amazing songs and ghazals to the world.

"He was a singer with an original, smoky voice. He was the favorite singer of RD Burman and Gulzar," ghazal singer Anoop Jalota said.

He grew up in Delhi and was discovered by Madan Mohan who took him to Bombay with him. He was born to a music teacher and had worked with singing legends like Mohd Rafi, Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood.

Initially, after singing a lot of superhit songs for Bollywood, Bhupendra took venture in Ghazal singing with wife Mitali Singh and the two were instant hit rest being the history.

For more Bollywood news and gossips, subscribe to our newsletter.

[inadeeptrance]

Dare I say it?

From Kishore Kumar to Asha Bhosle to a little bit of Mumtaz and Kajol - this is a Sunday Rangoli show in my head. I am teeing off a three-minute conversation with Raju and Aftab. We did a collective sigh of the micro nuances Kishore Kumar brought to his songs. We marveled at the lines

'Thoda hai, thodae ki zaroorath hai'

He has sung for one brother (in the movie Khatta Meeta), romanticizing his future with his girlfriend. The same lines are sung by KK for another brother thinking about his white whale, a van he is trying to fix. With Raju singing those lines and mentioning KK's 'gayaki' genius, it got embedded in my immediate consciousness waiting to resurface. Here is a little insight into how my mind maps songs to situs. Suppose Chandra asks me what uppuma should we have. I typically go 'saboodhaana doondtha hai, saboodhaana doondtha hai' in a poor offkey imitation of Bhupinder Singh's

'Ek akela is sheher mein... aabodhana doondtha hai'.

I know. She suffers a lot. When she quizzed me about certain 'surprise' birthday parties that may or may not occur this week, I did the blasphemy of singing a KK song.  

'Keh dhoon thumhein? Ya chup rahoon? Dil mein mere aaj kya hai... jo bolo tho janoon, Guru thumko maanoon, Chalo ye bhi waadha hai'

This song quickly became the earworm for the week. I am tying it back to the gayaki discussion and KK's clear as sunlight genius. The possible brief for the song from Yash Chopra to RDB, poet Ludhianvi, singers KK, and Asha Bhosle - 'this is a Salim-Javed show that I have to direct. One brother is intensity personified, and his story arc is one of escalating personal tragedy. We need this song for the other brother as a pressure valve. This brother is a happy person with a future to look forward to with a girl who guarantees normalcy. What have you got?' RDB comes up with a beautiful tune set in a conversational style with dips and pauses and a banter space. Through the poet, Neetu Singh's character throws situations at the Shashi Kapoor character with some pre-conceived innocent outcomes. He squashes them with more thrill-seeking alternatives that she probably wants to come from him. The opening line itself is challenging to reproduce, even if it is for an audience of one. KK starts with a ballast - Keh dhoon thumhein - the slightest of pauses - ya chup rahoon - more questions in three short words, but the rahoon also has his freakish yodeling. Any hopes of doing anything other than just listening goes out of the window. The quintessential Asha surfaces in her 'are na na' and then 'nahin re, nahin re, nahin re'. You can capture an era with those lines and how Asha renders them. The second set of 'nahin re' has the slightest of changes compared to the first as Shashi Kapoor gets that more demanding and Neetu Singh has to be a bit more decisive with her 'no's. This Asha note was the point when I made the jump to Mumtaz and

'Jai Jai shiva shankar'

from aap ki kasam. Lata sang that number where Mumtaz excels with the 'gir jaaoongi, mar jaaongi' down the steps taken to an art form for drunken trance. I let my mind wander to a what-if - why not Asha instead of Lata in this number. The Asha notes and gayaki would have made an already intoxicating song giddier. While it would just be impossible to dance like you don't know how to dance while being drunk, the way Mumtaz does, Kajol comes mighty close. The closest we have is Kajol's

'Zara sa jhoom loon mein'

And it is now the male singer forced to say no with 'na re baba na.' It felt like a complete circle in my head, forcing me to stop branching any further. It's raining outside. It is a Sunday. Holidays are looming. Time again to hit this playlist a few more times and see where the mind wanders.

There I said it.

[liveindiatimes]

Sushant Singh Rajput’s friend Sandip says he’s shocked: ‘Got messages saying we’re powerful people, you didn’t invite us for funeral’ - bollywood

https://liveindiatimes.com/sushant-singh-rajputs-friend-sandip-says-hes-shocked-got-messages-saying-were-powerful-people-you-didnt-invite-us-for-funeral-bollywood/

Producer Sandip Ssingh, who lost his close friend and actor Sushant Singh Rajput earlier this month, has revealed ugly details of how people reacted after his death. A shocked Sandip said that he got messages from “powerful people” asking him why he did not “invite” them for the funeral. Sushant died by suicide on June 14 and cops have confirmed he was suffering from depression.

Speaking with BollywoodHungama in an interview, Sandip said, “People created a drama out of his death, he did not like such things. I was about to go for a bath after I cam home from the last rites and I got a few phone calls and messaging asking me why I did not invite them to the funeral! I got messages ‘we are powerful people, you have not invited us’. I mean, what goes on in the minds of these people? Shocking!”

“Ekta Kapoor had been dragged into a controversy but she was there on her own. Shraddha Kapoor, Randeep Hooda, ye saare log waha aa ke baarish me khade the , ro rahe the (All of them came despite the rains and cried right there, they did not need invitation for a funeral)…More than his death, I am hurt by the things people are doing,” Sandip added.

 Also Watch | Sushant Singh Rajput’s ashes immersed in Ganga, family bids tearful adieu

Sandip, who will soon release his debut film starring Sushant, also said he was hurt with the way media and Sushant’s fans have resorted to blame game post the actor’s death. People are not angry, it is their emotion but it is being channelised in the wrong manner. The media defined it as anger. A few people are also playing blame game, no one is thinking what family is going through,” he said.

He also dismissed speculation about Sushant’s career as ‘our assumptions’. “People are saying he lost seven films, blaming his relationship status, even claiming he did not have money..But Sushant did not specify the reasons for his decision, these are all our assumptions. He was an outsider and he worked with Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions, he also did two films for Abhishek Kapoor. He worked with Neeraj Pandey and was to work with Ramesh Taurani and Rumi Jafry,” he said.

Also read: ‘Dil Bechara is Sushant Singh Rajput’s last film, heartbreaking to not see it in theatres’: Vikas Guppta

He urged people to pray for the peace of Sushant’s soul. “Uski family ko thoda akela chor do, samjho uski family ko thoda.Kya pain hoga ki uske jaisa successful insan ye step le liya, Many people have messaged me that we are not sending our kids to Mumbai for acting. People are scared, we need to inspire them,” he said.

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[feelingbluepolitics]

Yet another disaster of for-profit health care: hiding not just the ravages of inadequate public health and covid, but also, generally, negligence and profiteering.

"In April, when the first surge of the pandemic decimated New York City, a nurse at Lincoln Hospital shared video footage of herself and other staff describing the difficulty of treating Covid-19 patients without adequate protective gear or lifesaving supplies. The video was published by The Intercept, and shortly afterward, the nurse, Lillian Udel, was informed by the hospital that she was being investigated for HIPAA violations. That prompted another nurse at the hospital, Kelley Cabrera, to speak out. 'HIPAA is kind of being used to gag people,' she told The Intercept’s Akela Lacy. 'We’re all experiencing the most difficult working conditions we’ve ever faced. And everybody who is speaking out is doing so to advocate for patients, ultimately. It looks like hospital administrations tend to run to HIPAA for their protection, not so much patient protection.'

"May, the psychiatry resident, noted how some hospitals, even in a pandemic, are reluctant to show what happens behind their doors.

"'Hospitals, as businesses, as profit-driven entities, do not want to be associated with death and suffering — it is very off-brand for them, I think,' said May. 'So emerges an unfortunate dovetailing of HIPAA as a safeguard for civil rights and HIPAA as a vehicle for hiding off-brand aspects of medicine. … As a psychiatrist, I find myself thinking about shame and what role institutional shame has to play in the hiding of death and suffering.'"

Twisting laws to favor corporate interests has the same effect as always: a free pass from both shame and crucial accountability.