#And today Of Swamp & Sea is starting its final season

[coconut530]

It’s that time of year again ✨❤️

[visceravalentines]

fever dream

Bo Sinclair x AFAB!Reader

7.6k words. dubcon ofc. reader is absolutely mentally bankrupt. stockholm is where we live, it's where we are, it's where we'll die. sporadic smut, pnv, fingering, and oral (fem!rec). blood and sweat everywhere. Bo calls reader a bitch a couple times but like, it's out of love or some shit. somno. alcohol use. nightmares. ghosts. swamp things. the ever-looming threat of death and depersonalization.

welcome back to my youtube channel. I have been. working on this fic. since May of last year. and it's finally done(?) it is long and weird and maybe bad and meant for you to get lost in. a journey with no destination. a haunted house only you are the haunted and the haunt and the house. tbqh I'm rewatching HoW today for the first time in months and months and I had to get this out of my drafts so I can check back into the sanitarium with minimal baggage, y'know?? I hope it makes you feel some type of way.

The summer heat is in your blood and the swamp is in your lungs and he is under your skin. 

You’ve never known an August like this, like a blister. You go to bed sticky and wake up drenched in sweat. The ceiling fan is a hurricane agent that offers no respite, just blows the humidity in vicious cycles. There’s no air conditioning in the house; it’s too old. Instead you wrap ice cubes in dish towels and press them to the back of your neck. 

A storm’s been hanging on the horizon for days. Thunder rolls out of a wall of iron gray, an idle threat. The air is soupy and super-charged. No rain comes. 

The nights are delirium. You go to bed on opposite sides of the mattress, oil and water. He sleeps naked, sprawled out like a water skeeter. The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

You lie awake, listening to the cicadas and waiting. Just when you’ve started to cool down and drift off he reaches over and fumbles at your leg, grabs your arm. He pulls you on top of him, hands on your body beneath his old t-shirt. You ride him with your eyes closed and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever, the sweating, the shaking. 

You wake every morning suffocating under his arm in the center of the mattress with honey between your thighs. 

.

He drinks his coffee hot even though the steam can barely rise above the rim of the mug in the humidity. You pour yours over ice and savor the feeling as it seeps down your throat and into your stomach. You curl your toes on the linoleum and almost smile at him across the table. He’s golden from all his time in the sun. You can trace the lines of his wifebeater over his shoulders, across his chest. You stare at him across the table and think about the taste of his skin. You want to run your tongue along that tan line. 

He catches you staring. “What?” he says flatly. 

You redirect your gaze to your hands. Shake your head. Wait for him to move on so you can resume your perusal of his body.

When he looks away, out the window, the sun catches those eyes and turns them to sea glass. He needs a haircut; walnut curls crest over his ears like kudzu. When you get up to clear the table your skin peels from the vinyl seat cushion with a sting that makes you wrinkle your nose. 

“Be good,” he tells you before he leaves. You wonder what he means, what he thinks you might get up to in this house full of dust and guns and ghosts. You know better than to ask, and you nod and kiss him goodbye and feel his lips on your lips for hours afterwards. 

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

When he pulls into the driveway you’re on the front step eating a popsicle and counting the minutes. He saunters across the gravel like John Wayne, shoulders exposed, hair plastered to his neck. You meet his eyes and wrap your lips around the cherry-flavored mess dripping onto your fingers. He spits into the weeds and eyes you through his lashes. 

“What’s for supper?” 

You suck on your sticky thumb. There’s a full spread on the dining room table, ready and waiting. “Whatever you want.” 

He licks his lips. 

Supper gets cold. 

.

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry. 

“Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

You sit on the porch steps and amass a pile of wax paper wrappers beside you. It’s soft and melty, peels out of the wrapper with a sticky crackling sound. It’s salty and sour and tastes like cheap sugar. Like a memory of summer that may be real, or maybe not. Could be yours, or could be someone else’s.

You eat more than you want, until your teeth hurt and you can feel the hot spot on your tongue where a canker sore will form. You rake that spot back and forth across your incisors. You can’t help it. Sometimes it feels like things have to have a hurt to them. 

“You ever been to the fair?” you ask him over your shoulder.

He grunts from the porch swing. “Used to go when Vince ‘n me were little. Took Les a couple times when he was old enough.”

“You ever take a girl?”

“Nah.” His boot thumps on the porch, an offhand punctuation mark. “Couldn’t find one to go with me.”

You doubt that; you’ve seen his yearbook photos. But then again, maybe he was off-putting as a teenager. Spooky. Hadn’t quite learned how to camouflage yet. Came on too strong, wore too much cologne, used too many teeth.

You survey the vast swath of woods that surrounds Ambrose and try to imagine a ferris wheel, red and blue and blinking, rising from the green like the hump of a whale.  “I’d go with you.”

He snorts. “Yeah?”

You look down at the piece of taffy in your fingers. You don’t really want it. You unwrap it anyway. “Yeah.” You gnaw on the candy like a dog savoring a scrap. “Be like a date,” you say thickly.

“What, you wanna skip down the midway holdin’ hands? Makin’ out in the Tunnel of Love?”

You can picture it, sunset and a sundress. He’s laughing. You’re laughing. The crowd is made of wax. “You could win me a stuffed animal.”

He scoffs again, but then he asks you, “What kinda stuffed animal you want?”

You think for a second, unstick the taffy from your molars and push it around your mouth with your tongue. “A Louisiana crocodile.” A souvenir from your time in the South. Maybe it’ll be wearing a little trucker hat and a smile that doesn’t reach its eyes.

“Ain’t got crocodiles here, sugar. ‘S all alligators.”

“Fine, an alligator then.”

You run your hands over your shins, sticky with the humidity. The chains of the porch swing creak rhythmically behind you. The sea of trees is dark and still and endless.

“Fair don’t come ‘round here anymore,” he says finally.

You force the taffy down your throat, swallow hard, and reach for another one.

“Figures.”

.

You’re buzzed and reckless, sucked down a pair of beers too fast just because they were frosty. The shears snick like some needy, nipping thing. You found them upstairs under the bathroom sink once upon a time and you always put them back when you’re done. They’ve been there longer than you’ve been alive. You comb your fingers across his scalp and loose locks drift onto your clean floor. 

“Don’t take it too short,” he admonishes into the mouth of his beer bottle. “You butcher me, I butcher you.” 

You roll your eyes behind his back. “Have I ever?” 

He grunts in acquiescence. That’s as close to a win as you’ll get. 

The windows are open; the thunder presses against the frayed screens. A gigantic moth flings its feathery body repeatedly at the ceiling light. You run your hand through his hair slow just to feel it between your fingers, thick and soft. Your thumb glances off the scar on the left side of his skull and comes back for another pass. 

He jerks his head, puts a stop to that. “You done?” 

“Almost.” 

You’re particularly fond of the curls at the nape of his neck, always save them for last. You coil one around your finger. You want to ask him if you can keep it, but you’re afraid he’ll say no or worse, that he’ll say yes. He’ll ask for something in return. You’ll give it to him, no matter what it is. You give him anything he wants, everything he wants. It’s the least you can do, the most you can do. 

You snip them one by one, bittersweet. 

“Done.” 

He leans over in the chair to examine his reflection in the window. “Good enough.” 

He stands up and drains the dregs of his beer. His hand finds your waist and he pulls you in and you bend like a reed, peering up at him, inspecting your work. He smells like sweat and sun. You grip his shirt in your fists and move with him as he sways lazily side-to-side. 

He gives you the gift of a smile, half-cocked and handsome. “You wanna dance, mama?”

Your fingers spider-creep up the shield of his chest and lock behind his neck. His skin is hot and sticky against your wrists, clipped hairs poking and itching. Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

He tilts his head towards you and you get caught in the trap of his mouth. The thunder moans. You can feel the sweat beading on your upper lip, in the pit of your elbows. His hands are heavy on your bones. 

His jaw scrapes along your temple like a razor blade and a fever chill rolls over your skin, hot-cold. “G’on upstairs, get those clothes off.” 

Have you always been such a good listener? 

.

He comes home drunk and fucks you on the table, in the midst of supper left cold and waiting for him. You knew he’d be hungry. You are right about some things and wrong about others.

You wince every time a dish topples off the table and shatters on the faded linoleum. He doesn't look at you, not once.

Afterwards, he disappears for a while and leaves you to clean up the kitchen. You are dazed, legs unsteady, leaning on the counter like an old friend. It’s been a bad day. Dinner has soaked through the back of your shirt and so you take it off, hang it over the back of a chair for later, and set to work on the mess.

You cannot puzzle out how he managed to get blood on every dish you are trying to wash until finally you realize it is yours, seeping quietly from a slice on your palm. When he comes up behind you your spine stiffens, arching like a snake making a final stand. He puts his hands on your bare waist and his lips against the back of your head like a sweetheart, like a husband, like a different person.

“Leave it, darlin’. Come sit on the porch with me.”

You bite your lip, lift your palm so he can see it, watch the world blur with saline. “I cut myself,” you say, and only then does the sting set in, so sharp you can feel it in your teeth.

He makes a sympathetic noise and cups your hand in his. “Now why’d y’go and do that?”

You open your mouth to answer but only a moan comes out as he lifts your arm and seals his lips over the cut. He sucks, gently at first and then harder, hard enough you feel the seam of skin separate and your fingers jerk like puppets to the pain. He lets you go and you cradle your hand to your chest as he laps your blood off his lip.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, takes your arm, tugs you from the sink. “C’mon. I need a smoke.”

You follow him onto the porch, curl up in his lap with a dishrag pressed to your palm and watch smoke and moths float around the light.

Your blood dries on the dishes with the gravy.

.

The clouds boom a reminder that they are still hanging above the house, but you are already awake in the split second beforehand. You are cocooned in the sheets and panic for a moment, arms pinned to your chest, bedroom black as a coffin. When you claw free, gasping, the air is like moss draped spongey and damp across your face. 

You worm out of the bed, out of the room, stagger into the hallway and down the stairs in the dark. You are mere steps ahead of some emaciated beast, its breath muggy on your cheeks and the back of your neck. You twist your shirt off and throw it on the floor of the den before it can strangle you, wrench the front door open and slam through the screen with both hands. 

The night is wet in your nose. One hundred million insects scream to God. In the back of your mind you think about joining them. Your toes scuff to a stop on the precipice of the porch and you peer into the darkness with round eyes, bare chest heaving for more air than you can hold. You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world. 

Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You wrap your arms around yourself and sink to the ground, sit perched on the top stair in your panties and sweat-drenched skin. The nail of your index finger rips apart the cuticle of your thumb. Mosquitos float open-armed to your legs like swamp angels. It’s too hot to cry. 

The yellow porchlight struggles to life. The screen door bangs flatly behind you. He can’t ever pick up his feet, scuffing through the dust you haven’t swept. 

His fingers brush the bone of your shoulder. You don’t flinch nowadays, usually. “Y’alright?”

You don’t have to answer that. Let him wrap his hand around your throat and fishhook his fingers into your mouth to pull your jaw open, you don’t have to answer that. You grit your teeth and dig crescent moons into your thighs with all ten fingernails.

Your silence doesn’t bother him. He leans on the railing to your left, curling his toes on the concrete, looking out into the night. Sleep has mussed his hair to one side and left imprints of the sheet fanning across his chest. There’s a hickey in the shape of your mouth in the curve of his neck. Lightning flutters shy among the clouds and the thunder reprimands it. There’s something stuck in your throat, something you can’t swallow down no matter how hard you try. Moths flock to the porchlight. If anyone was alive in the town to look up the hill, they’d see you haloed, and him too. 

“‘S late. Come back to bed.”

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

“You listenin’ to me? Let’s go.”

You can’t go back inside. You can’t go back inside. Something in you doesn’t line up right. Someone is holding a pillow over your face.

“No,” you think you say out loud. The word flutters off into the night. You watch a mosquito drift beyond the reach of the porchlight and disappear. The stars bow gracefully into the arms of the clouds. 

After a beat, he shuffles out of your periphery. The screen door slams. Maybe this time. When you least expect it. Maybe he's sick of you at last. You pick at a scab on your knee until it comes loose and flakes off, and then you pinch the skin around the wound and squeeze until a bead of blood, scarlet-black, mounds and breaks and gets all over your fingers. You raise them to your mouth and suck them clean and it tastes familiar. Safe. 

He doesn’t come back with a knife, or a gun. He comes back with the quilt and sheet from the bed, a pillow stuffed under his arm. He unfurls the quilt on the porch. The pillow flops to the ground like something hunted to extinction. He follows suit. 

“C’mere.” He wrestles with the sheet, props himself up on an elbow and punches the pillow into place. “C’mon.” 

You breathe, just for a minute, watching him. You want to hate him so bad it hurts. You want him to hit you so you’d have a reason to hit back. You want to fight for your life because you can feel it slipping away, waning, evaporating in the heat. Already you’ve found shreds of yourself under the couch, covered in dust. You are drowning. You are thirsty. He is water, cold and brackish. 

You rise from the stairs and come to him because you need him, because he is all you have. 

“Get the light,” he says. 

You go and come back and his hand finds your calf in the dark, slides up the back of your knee, guides you to the ground. The quilt is a mockery of softness, the porch unyielding beneath. You curl up with him at your back and he folds his arm around you, thumb worrying aimlessly at your nipple. His breath is hot on the nape of your neck. 

The air roils in your lungs. The night surges in. You are alone, so alone, aching with loneliness, now and always. You close your fingers around his wrist and guide his hand between your legs. He rubs the cotton of your panties with something like pity and you let a moan seep from your throat. 

Your face lolls into the pillow and it smells like fever dreams and cold-sweat nightmares. The fabric of your underwear catches on your clit and you gasp, arching against his chest.

“Easy,” he murmurs as his fingers drag back and forth. He hooks his foot around your ankle, forces your legs open. You asked for this. You’ll take it and thank him. 

Lightning silhouettes the world beyond the porch in black and purple. When you close your eyes, you see the rooftops of the town in the colors of heaven. You rock against his hand and pretend you’re someone else somewhere else. You feel the thunder in your teeth and wish with all your heart the rain would fall. 

He puts an abrupt end to the friction and cups you in his palm, wide and warm. You make a plaintive sound and wiggle your hips, push your ass against him. You need to feel something. You need him to help you. Otherwise, you might disappear beneath the horrible blanket of the night. 

“Please,” you moan. 

He presses his lips to the back of your neck, whispers into the shell of your ear like a lover. “You love me?” 

You squeeze your eyes shut. “Yes.” 

His teeth graze your skin as he slips his fingers past the waistband of your panties. 

“Good.” 

You wonder if he knows he keeps saving your life. 

.

The house is a midden of family misery. There’s barely space for you between heaps of clothing and glassware and mass market paperbacks. You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away. No matter how much you sweep and dust and tidy, the clutter seems to crawl right back across the carpet like morning glory. 

Late morning finds you in the master bedroom. It’s sweltering up here. The air sticks to your face like tattered gauze. The junk in here is of a particular breed, more meaningful—photo albums, baby clothes. Much of it has been stacked high just inside the door like a battlement. A fortification between this room and the rest of the house. You’re not allowed in here. 

Neither is he. 

Beyond the wall, everything sits untouched. A layer of dust rests primly on the bedside tables, the vanity, the yellow quilt still neatly made up on the bed. The art on the wall is sun-bleached in evenly spaced lines from the half-open blinds. The silence crowds your ears. It feels like standing in a tomb, the family crypt. 

With courage paper-thin, you've decided you'd like to confront the heart of the horror. Like shoving your fingers down the throat of the beast trying to bite you. Like making a home in its mouth, a bed in its bed. You want to eat me so bad, you’ll have to savor every scrap. 

It’s eerie in here. This room is brighter than the rest of the house by far. You can feel that parasitic presence all around you, cajoling you with hands that are soft and dry. There is a faint, floating smell of faded flowers. You breathe slowly to keep yourself from sprinting back downstairs.

You gaze at yourself in the vanity mirror. The dust almost erases you from sight, almost. You reach a finger out and draw a single streak across the silvery surface. You’re in there, somewhere. Sometimes you forget. 

The front of the vanity holds a trio of slim drawers with tiny gold handles. You catch one with the tips of your fingers and tug, just slightly. It creeps open without resistance. The inside is lined with green velvet. You pull it open all the way and search through the contents with your eyes. Blush, lipstick. Eyeshadow in seven shades of blue. You slide the drawer closed and move on to the next one, the widest one in the middle. 

This one holds a treasure trove of golden baubles:  a jumble of earrings, half a dozen hairpins, a long, thin cigarette holder. A string of pearls that look too chipped and dull to be real. And a locket, oval-shaped and decorated with a halo of tiny vines. You pick it up and the chain slips over your fingers like a thin, shining snake. 

You dig your nail into the seam and pop it open. To your muted disappointment, it is empty. No husband. No children. 

It’s yours, you decide suddenly. You want it. You've earned it. A prize, a consolation for the hell you’ve been through. For the fact that you have survived him, and she has not. You wonder if he’ll recognize it. Part of you hopes that he does. You imagine the look on his face and his hands on you afterwards. Your mouth is wet. 

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that. 

In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

You hear the rumble of his truck out front and the thrill of fear that shoots down your spine is so cold it’s almost welcome in the stuffy room. You shove the locket into the pocket of your shorts and fling the drawer shut. It closes with a soft, complicit thunk. 

You pick your way back through the boxes and slip through the door like a reptile into water; smooth, silent. You make sure it latches behind you before you hurry to the top of the stairs. 

Out of the corner of your eye, just before you dip out of sight below the banister, you see something bend the light that reaches through the crack beneath the door. You freeze, turn your head only slightly. You see nothing. Only sunlight. Certainly no feet, dainty and bare, padding across the carpet with red-lacquered toenails. 

Panic, delayed, breaks loose. You gallop down the stairs so quickly you forget to skip the ones that creak. 

By the time he comes inside, slamming the door fit to shake the frame of the house, you are hunched over the dishes in the sink like you’ve been there all morning. If you are unduly quiet, he doesn’t seem to notice, and if he notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

.

“I think I love you.”

You say it half-casual, half-pronouncement, the way you might tell your mom you’re dropping out of college. Tell your boyfriend you’re over him. Tell your boss you’re moving to Louisiana. “I mean it this time.”

Bo snorts, lifts his beer to his lips. “That so?”

You shoo a bee from the rim of your glass and suck down the last of your drink. You just might be drunk. “Yup.”

“Think that’s the bourbon talkin’.”

You roll your eyes, shimmy a little in an effort to make the busted lawn chair more comfortable. You thought he’d be more excited. “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

He smacks his lips like he’s considering his answer. The sunlight shifts through the trees and you close your eyes, blissful. “Lemme ask you this. You ever set a snare, baby?”

You can feel it in your blood:  the sun, the breeze, the brook bubbling over your toes. It’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Hey.” He leans over in his chair and snaps his fingers, splintering your peace. “I asked you a question.”

“Nah. Never set a snare. Some of us were normal kids.”

He ignores this and you feel like you’ve gotten away with something. “Well, sometimes you catch a critter, but it don’t strangle to death like it’s s’posed to.” 

You frown. 

“So you gotta do somethin’ about it, right? But you gotta be real careful. Can’t get caught up by the sufferin’. Gotta keep your head about you, y’know?” He’s not looking at you, but you can picture his lips, twisted in something like a smile. “‘Cause it don’t matter what it is…raccoon, possum, bunny rabbit…that sucker’ll take your hand off if y’let it.”

Your throat is sensitive all of the sudden, feels closed off. Maybe you swallowed a bee. “What are you even talking about?”

His head lolls lazy to the left and he stares at you for a second in a way that makes your hair stand on end. Then he chuckles, winks at you, turns away and leans back in his chair. 

“Nothin’, sugar. You’re awful cute.”

.

The heat wreaks havoc on the lifeless inhabitants of the town. You trail behind him like a listless kite as he makes the rounds, checking for damage, hauling the worst afflicted home to Vincent. It baffles you how much he seems to care about them. How much investment he has in keeping the rot contained beneath a pristine cosmetic veneer. For what? For who?

You don’t tell him it’s all rot, all of it, the people, the buildings. The trees. The air. Him. You. 

Some days, most days, you can’t quite look them in their faces. It’s guilt, you suppose. Guilt and acknowledgement of a fear so pervasive you no longer notice the way it clings like a second skin. You’ve convinced yourself if you meet their eyes you’ll find them glaring at you, envious and accusatory. Or worse–you’ll see the future, suspended in the flat, glass pupils of a dead game animal.

Occasionally you punish yourself by looking too closely. You note the receding hairlines, where the skin beneath the wax has dried and pulled taut and shifted the scalp along with it. You observe the way the light shines through plump round fingertips that are only hollow shells of wax, all that soft flesh desiccated and shriveled to a skeletal wedge underneath. You wonder, sometimes, whether Vincent smoothed over any flaws–scars, moles, asymmetrical lips. You touch your face subconsciously and think about the things he might fix for you.

It makes you feel like you are tiptoeing on the precipice of sanity, arms wide, just waiting to topple.

You take a particular interest in their clothing, wonder whether it belonged to them or to someone from the town. You never ask Bo, although you know he could tell you. You ignore the obvious parallels like a badly stitched seam. None of the clothes you wear belong to you either.

There are more residents than you ever imagined, half the houses not as empty as you assumed. Ten years, three brothers, three hundred and forty-nine holes to fill. You were decent at math in a past life, but nowadays, you try your hardest not to solve problems, no matter how they howl and scratch at the door. You’ve become adept at avoidance of the obvious in favor of learning how to assimilate into the cobwebs and shadows. No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

You believe it so hard that when you find it, on a girl in a house on a street you’ve only been down once or twice, you can’t make sense of it for several long seconds, staring dumbstruck and stupid while the static subsumes your brain.

“Let’s go,” he barks from the sitting room. The couches are pink and floral and faded.

You cannot move. You are made of wax.

“You deaf? Come on.”

She’s wearing cutoff jeans and the t-shirt you bought on a trip two years ago, or maybe three. There’s blood, brown and faded from half-hearted washing, streaking the collar and left sleeve.

Her hair is lighter than yours, and shorter. Her feet are smaller. Her nose is bigger. But the shirt is yours, and so is the blood, and for a second, you know you are a ghost.

“Hey.” He grabs your arm and turns you around. You think maybe she’ll move, now that you’re not looking. “You got a problem?”

You cannot answer him, because you do not have a voice. Because your lips have been glued together and painted the perfect pink. His gaze flicks from you to the girl and back and you wonder if he kissed her the way he kisses you. You hope he can see it, the way you are withering under the wax. You hope he will pick you up, cradle you in his arms, take you home and take care of you, make you whole, make you human.

Isn’t that all you’ve ever asked for?

He snaps his fingers in front of your face and you flinch, because you are real after all.

“Let’s go.”

You let him push you towards the door, hear him close it behind you, feel the floorboards shiver as he follows you down the hall. He puts his hand on the small of your back and ushers you out of the house, down the sidewalk cracked and stuffed with weeds keeling over in the heat. You can feel your feet melting to the concrete, skin crawling, sagging. You try not to stumble. You don’t want him to leave you behind.

“She ain’t you,” he mutters at the end of the street, so low you barely hear him over the buzz of the cicadas.

You aren’t sure if he’s lying, now or ever. You don’t ask him where her clothes are and he doesn’t offer. She might not be you, but you might be her. And you both might be someone else.

Either way, the shape of her is burned into your vision in blue and green, and she shakes her head at you when you close your eyes.

.

You wake to the sound of rain on the roof and it pulls you immediately from bed, stumbling sightless over your feet to get to the window. You yank on the mangled cord to raise the blinds and sure enough, the dust of summer is melting down the window in waves.

“Bo,” you say hoarsely. “Bo, look.”

It is then that the silence of the room seeps into your brain, the conspicuous lack of snoring. Your heart sinks into your wringing stomach. 

In a perfect world, he’d be taking a leak. He’d stumble back to bed and wrap you in his arms, press a kiss to your temple, and you’d drift back to sleep in the bliss of air conditioning. 

Your world is a few dirt road miles south of perfect.

You have to go find him. Find him and haul him out of whatever dark place he’s waded into, before he comes back worse than he went in.

The hall is a throat you have to fight against to get to the stairs, black and humid with walls that breathe. You feel cobwebs on your face and slap them away only to realize it’s your own hair caught on your lashes. The glow of the TV laps at the bottom step like floodwater, makes the carpet undulate like something just sank below the surface. You hesitate, for just a second, before you step down and feel solid ground beneath your feet.

He sits slouched on the couch in front of a screen full of static, deadeyed, jaw clenched. He doesn’t seem to notice you, quiet, creeping thing that you are. The static sounds like rushing water. Mangroves rise from the shadows in the corner of your eye. Lilypads part around your feet. If you turn your head just right, his eyes flash red in the light.

You stop halfway between the stairs and the couch, unsure what kind of animal you’re approaching. Your hands float up like a shield, like a bridge. “Bo,” you say softly, and it echoes in the night. “Are you okay?” 

He blinks, like a person. You notice a bite mark, a purple half moon in the meat of his forearm. Your skin is well acquainted with the shape of his teeth. 

“Bo,” you whisper. You don’t want to get closer. “Come back to bed.”

You hear a splash in the kitchen. The carpet squishes between your toes. Something brushes your ankle and wriggles away. You need to get out of here. You can’t leave without him. 

“Baby…please.” You step towards him and freeze as he lurches forward, sits up straight. His hands dangle between his knees, his gaze still locked on the fuzz of the television. 

“I killed my mama, y’know.” 

His voice is pitched, low and dull. A sheen of sweat glistens on his upper lip and cheekbones. The color is gone from his face and here, in this place, he looks almost green.

You fight to form breath into words. “I…I know.”

He’s speaking again as though he didn’t hear you. You can see in his eyes he is far, far away. “I watched her die. Took a real long time. But I stayed…waited. Had to make sure.”

The water is rising, cold and slick, over your ankles and up your calves. Panic rises with it, packs into your throat like silt. “You were real brave, baby. You did it. You made sure.” Your voice is thin as a reed. 

A terrible, empty grin cracks his face and then vanishes without a ripple, and now he looks at you for the first time and his eyes are hollow and blue as marbles and he whispers, “Then why ain’t she dead?”

The water surges to your knees like it’s been displaced by something large, something prowling. You teeter forward, heart hammering, splashing as you regain your balance. Too loud, too loud. Do alligators eat each other?

“She’s dead, Bo. She is.”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” He rises to his feet so fast you lose your balance again, flinching back from him. “She ain’t and you know it. You’ve seen her, she’s here! In this fuckin’ house!”

You shake your head quickly and in your periphery something ducks beneath the surface of the water. “No. She’s not.” Convince him, convince yourself, make it true.

His chest is heaving, his gaze darting around the room, searching. You can picture a shadow in shadow, curled up and waiting in the corner of the ceiling like a fat black spider, fingers splayed wide and tipped sharp and red. 

Bo grips the back of his head and moans and it echoes off the trees, too loud, too loud. “Fuckin’...everywhere.”

Faded flowers. Blush, lipstick. A trick of the light. A locket wrapped in vines. Something hunting, just below the surface. If you let it rip him apart, would it come for you next?

“She’s everywhere…in my goddamn head….” He sways on his feet like he might fall and if he does, if the swamp swallows him, you’ll die here in this place.

“Hey.” You close the distance, push through the muck, brush his elbow. “Hey!”

He smacks you away, snaps his jaws closed. “Don’t touch me!”

You cringe and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Something groans in the dark. Something moves near the ceiling. 

His eyes on you are predatory, cold and empty, and his brow furrows. “Who are you?” he demands.

Wide-eyed, you open your mouth to answer him, but there is nothing on your tongue but moss. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

He leans toward you. “Who the fuck are you?”

You hold your hands up in front of you, backing away, mud between your toes. Your fingers are skeletal. Your nails are painted red. “I don’t know!”

A terribly low, vibrating sound is rising from the water, sending ripples in all directions, freezing your heart in your chest. He moves towards you and the swamp parts around him, allows him to pass like he is a part of it.

“You ain’t leavin’, baby.”

His teeth are sharp.

He lunges.

You scream.

The sound gets caught in your throat like a wad of feathers and bones and you choke, twisting, coming to in your bed. In his bed. Disoriented, you gasp for breath and release the death grip you have on the sheet. Your brow is so sweat-soaked your eyes are beginning to sting. The air is dry on your skin; the blanket is gone. The lower half of your body is tingling.

His head lifts from between your thighs and he looks at you with eyebrows raised. “Easy, sugar. Ain’t done with you yet.”

“Wh…what?” You rub at your eyes, trying to shake the sensation of water closing over your face. Somewhere, some version of you is bleeding in the silt.

His tongue makes another pass and you whimper, arms shaking with the effort of holding yourself up, of treading water, of fighting the maw of a monster. “Relax, baby. Go back to sleep.”

It’s all so insurmountable, the weight of it on your chest, and you sink back into the mattress without a ripple. His mouth is wet and warm. His dark hair is disheveled and you wonder absently if he misses it, that lock you stole. The room is silent save for the sound of your drowning.

“Is it raining?” you whisper, and hate yourself for the hope behind it.

He pauses, meets your gaze over the watery surface of your body. All you can see are his eyes and you could swear, for a second, they reflect neon red. “No.”

You let your head drop back onto the pillow, let him devour you, feel a tear slip over the brim of your lashes and disappear into your hair.

.

The storm breaks on a Wednesday. 

At first, you don’t register the rain on the roof. You don’t even take note of the thunder anymore, after weeks of torment. It’s become a fixture like the dust, like the pervasive smell of decay.

It starts slow, cautious, rolling into town like a tourist with a busted GPS. You mistake the patter for the familiar buzz of TV static even though that makes no sense, even though you’re the only one in the house, even though the TV is off in the next room. All you can hear is the rough swish of the scrub brush on the hardwood floor, coaxing flecks of blood from the gaps between the boards. It’s already beginning to reek in the heat.

You wanted to clean it up last night when it was fresh but he wouldn’t let you, strongarmed you up the stairs and pinned you to the mattress. You’d never admit it to him, to God, or to yourself—and really, is there a difference in Ambrose—but he fucks so good when he’s riled up like that, when it feels like he can’t get enough of the killing so he’s going to take it out on you, take everything you have to offer him plus a little bit more.

The cut on your palm is half-healed and hurts when you put your weight on it. There’s something about that—familiar, comfortable, not grounding, not really, but like static. Stable. Buoyant. Like the bruises on your knees. A constant that cradles you and takes you up and out of here, not too high, just above the trees.

A stair creaks behind you and you freeze like a hare in the shadow of a hawk. It could be Vincent, but he’s busy with last night’s batch. It’s not Bo.

You ease yourself up onto your knees, rock back, stand up, and creep to the foot of the stairs. They are empty. You are alone with the sense that someone has just disappeared out of sight, retreating up into the aching cranium of the house, skirt swishing.

You are never alone, not really.

It’s only then that the sound of the rain seeps into your brain, soothes the hair standing up on the back of your neck. A weight you have been holding on your shoulders since the end of July dissolves like sugar and your spine lengthens by inches. You drop the brush, forget the ghost, walk barefoot through the bloodstain on your way to fling open the front door.

It rains.

It rains even though the clouds are thin, the sun forcing its way through in places like it just can’t bear to admit defeat. It rains and pools in the potholes of the driveway that have been waiting open-mouthed to be filled. It rains and the grass and weeds release a sigh of bliss, stop begging for mercy.

You step down from the porch in a trance, palms up and open, trailing pink-tinged footprints that melt across the concrete like raspberry taffy. You walk across the lawn, scuff your feet in the grass, wonder if maybe you’re dreaming and decide you don’t care.

You sink to the ground, sprawl on your back, feel the damp soak into your clothes and your skin and it makes you whole, makes you new, makes its apologies for taking so long. You are floating, only eyes above the water, surrounded by salvinia and duckweed.

You hear his footsteps just before he calls to you. “The fuck you doin’, girl?” he shouts, but when you open your eyes, he’s losing a fight with a grin, picking his way up the slippery hill.

You sit up halfway. “It’s raining.”

“Y’don’t say.” He drops to his knees beside you, slumped with relief.

His wifebeater is splattered with blood and water but you grab it with both fists and pull him to you, catch his mouth and coax him to the ground.

“Crazy bitch,” he mutters, but he guides your hands to his belt and grips your ass with both hands as you fuss with the buckle, even rolls onto his back to ease your way and lifts his hips so you can tug down his jeans. “Right here, huh?”

“Yes.”

“In the front goddamn yard.”

“Yes!”

“It’s fuckin’ rainin’!”

“I know!”

He laughs and the heavens giftwrap it with a roll of thunder. You're giddy, beaming at him, and he traces your smile with the pad of his finger and something akin to admiration.

You're brand-new, him too, and both of you together. Like it's the first time, a better first, another universe. His hands are on your thighs and his shirt rides up above his stomach. Water drips off your nose and onto his lips and he licks it off like it might save him and maybe it just might. Maybe it’ll save you both.

Exhausted, exalted, you wash the sweat and grime off each other with filthy hands and thirsty mouths. You wrap your fingers around his bare shoulders and ride him with your eyes open and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever breaking, the panting, the shaking.

The locket taps against your chest, the lock of his hair tucked inside it. He cups your face, slips his thumb in your mouth, and there’s blood beneath his fingernail. You suck it clean with greed and obedience, savor it, turn your face to the sky and let the crocodile tears run down your cheeks.

“That’s my girl,” he growls, and you bask in the rare and wondrous glow of his approval.

You come apart in splashes like raindrops, small, staccato swells in your core while he kisses the rain off your skin. His hands find the bruises they’ve left on your hips and squeeze and it’s all you could ever ask for, to be held. To be hurt. To be his.

Maybe it’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Y'know, girl, maybe you're right,” he says. "Just this once."

You’re confused until you realize you’ve spoken out loud. You look down at him, cold skin, wet curls, a smudge on his jaw that could be mud or blood, his or yours or someone else’s. He looks back like he sees you.

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops.

The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

You don’t smile, don’t sigh, just push the hair off his brow and sink slow and gentle beneath the surface and into the green, not a ripple made in your wake.

“Good.”

[frogsmulder]

Maybe There’s Hope: chpt 3 All The Colours Cannot Brighten

Starting from the final events of 09x20 The Truth, Mulder and Scully tackle their new reality as fugitives. When they  finally settle into things, Scully finds out she is pregnant again. A canon divergent AU where I thought, what if Scully got pregnant whilst on the run instead of at the end of season 11?

2.1k words; rated t; tagging @today-in-fic; read on ao3

Scully shuffled awkwardly, walking into the department store, having foregone underwear. Currently, it was at the top of her mental list as she tried to discreetly pull her slacks down to stop the seam irritating her. Mulder's hand was at home on her back, to make matters worse, the usually comforting gesture making it more difficult to shift her pants.

Mulder chuckled quietly, seeing her fidget. She elbowed him to remind him he was in the exact same situation and it wouldn't be hard to exacerbate it if she wanted to. He squeezed her hip in apology, but she could still feel him laughing.

Leaning up, Scully whispered in his ear, "This needs to be quick. There are security cameras everywhere; we don't want to increase our chances of being recognised." Her pulse quickened at the prospect. "So, a set of clothes, toiletries, and we get out."

He nodded. "We should split up to save time."

"Agreed."

They parted without a single word more, Scully heading up the stairs to the women's and children's section and Mulder staying in the men's. She watched him, as she climbed the stairs, grow smaller and out of sight, feeling that gnawing in her stomach swell in his absence. Sucking in a breath, she focused her mind and steeled herself for the rest of the operation.

On the second floor, Scully was greeted with a bombardment of bright colours. Keeping her head low, she ignored gaiety and headed straight to the lingerie section, picking up the first packet of black briefs she found in her size. Practicality over style reminded her of her childhood, her father's strict orders, how she both embraced, and rebelled. She was conscious of that storm brewing in her again. With her plain clothes, she could hide from the world and its prying eyes. Yet a niggling thought told her that no-one would notice if she picked out some lace, no-one would see beneath her exterior armour: she could have something for herself again. She brushed her fingers over the delicate material, daring to imagine the power she could have. A small piece of control regained. Perhaps she could banish her contrition from the bedroom. Take control.

Ultimately, she left the lace behind, opting to match her plain briefs with a couple of plain t-shirt bras; the peril of public exposure was starting to take its toll. Every tick of the clock marked a drip of anxiety pooling in her lungs and the water levels steadily rising. Time was marching on.

Just socks, t-shirts, jeans, a coat, and maybe a jumper. She wondered if it looked suspicious buying a whole wardrobe in one, but was too drained already to consider changing tactics.

She grabbed a pack of socks whilst hunting for some t-shirts and jeans.

Two t-shirts: checked.

One pair of jeans: checked.

Coat.

Scully wandered surreptitiously through the floor, doubtful it would have a waterproof, when she stumbled upon tiny hats and boots.

Her insides crumbled.

It had been so long since she'd set foot in this section, buying small clothes to wrap her small child snuggly in. He would be a year old now, she reminded herself, learning to walk, starting to babble. Walking slowly, as if in a dreamlike state, she found herself subconsciously heading for the 12-18 months; no control over the path her feet chose. She was surrounded by a sea of cotton soft baby clothing: yellow cardigans, baby blue t-shirts, miniature dungarees... She imagined his ginger hair in a red sunhat. He'd be a year old now, Scully reminded herself as she picked up a white whale soft toy. It was something that she could have bought for his birthday and watch him chew the tail off when he was teething; tuck him into bed with and read bedtime stories.

----------

Mulder went upstairs to find Scully, having got all he needed. Not finding her anywhere obvious, he started to panic.

"Sc–" he called, but his mouth closed around her name, stopping himself, aware of the crowd of other shoppers who would easily hear him. Forced into silence, he picked up the pace, scanning all the rows of clothes for his familiar sign of red hair.

 They are coming for you, son...

The sound of his pounding feet was mimicked by the rush of blood in his ears.

 If you want my advice... leave your pretty, little partner...

He felt dizzy and disoriented, not knowing where to look or which way to turn.

 get out of there while you still can...

He heard the giggle of a child cut through his mind with clarity but he dismissed it. After all, this was a department store, not a house haunted by unexplained phenomena; he had left those behind in his past. Yet he heard it again, closer, and he could have sworn it was from inside his head.

He stopped and turned around slowly.

Mulder saw that familiar red hair, peeking out from behind a rail, only it was more of a strawberry blonde and just above knee height. He crouched down to see her properly, but she moved away, only her blue eyes fixing sharply on his through the clothing.

"Em?" he whispered.

She made no response but turned away around the corner.

When Mulder rounded the corner himself, she was already at the other end, turning another, her bob of hair only there for a flash before she disappeared. He followed her winding trail, curious where she was leading him, until she stopped, standing next to someone, trying to tug at her shirt.

"Sc– Dana," he smiled, using her given name under some perceptive veil that it was safer. Emily nodded shyly. "You found her."

Scully turned around, still clutching the white whale. "What? Mulder? What are you doing here?"

"E–" He looked to Scully's side where Emily had just been but now was nowhere to be seen. "... I came to find you," he said, which was true, he just didn't want to unravel the traumatised inner workings of his brain in the middle of the baby section.

Then he realised where they were; where Scully had been; what Scully was holding in her hand.

"Dana," he whispered, a lump of worry caught in his throat, distorting his voice.

Scully looked down at the stuffed toy in her hands like she had her hand caught in the cookie jar. "We didn't buy him anything for his first birthday..." she tried to explain.

He wordlessly took the whale from her grasp and put it in the basket with the rest of his clothes like it already belonged.

She shook her head, searching his eyes for some understanding. "No, we can't... The money... We can't afford–"

"Yes we can," he interrupted her. Everybody grieved in their own way; maybe it could soothe him too. "Toiletries and then we're out of here," he reminded her.

"I haven't got a coat yet. Though, I think we're better off getting blankets for the car."

"You find the toiletries, I'll get the blankets. Meet back... by the stairs?"

Scully sighed.

Mulder stepped closer, wishing he could vanquish her hurt. "You sure you're okay, S–?"

"Yes, I'm fine. It's nothing." She brushed off his fussing, feeling like a small, incapable child herself under all the attention.

Mulder held her cheek in his palm and dried a stray tear.

"I'll be fine," she amended.

Trusting her, he gave Scully the basket and watched as she left him, walking quickly like she was running away. Her stiff gait so un-Scully-like and alien it was a physical embodiment of her grief. Himself feeling like cement, stayed, weighed down, swamped by a tide from slowly opening floodgates. Mulder looked at the row of white whales lined up on the shelf, each flopping with individual personality in the way that stuffing could make it appear so.

"Do you think he would like it?"

The bob of strawberry blonde hair nodded out of the corner of his eye before vanishing, leaving him to navigate the labyrinth alone.

----------

Scully was vaguely aware of what she's putting into the basket: deodorant, soap, razors, tampons– she hadn't even thought about those until she saw them. Her hand briefly hesitated over a box of condoms but she clenched it back into a fist. It would just be a reminder, an admittance, an avoidance.

At the checkout, she remained stoic and silent, resisting Mulder's touch at the small of her back. Ignoring the numbers as they flew by on the till, she handed over the money, too much to be paid in cash without raising eyebrows. If the cashier said something, she didn't notice. It wasn't until they were back on the dust-roads, alone, dressed comfortably in their new, plain clothes that Scully lowered her guard. By then, the day was long behind them, Selene cresting twilight in her silver, moon chariot. Night darkened their paths heading south, the chill creeping to tuck them in.

Curled up in the seat, Scully wrapped herself in the scratchy woolen blanket, it in no way kept the cold at bay. The white whale they had bought was tucked under her chin, squished closely to her chest as she held it tightly. She gazed out of the window, turned away from him, watching the last of the colours blur. At first, Mulder thought she was shivering from the cool air, so he rubbed her arm, but when he did so, she gasped and sniffed, retaking air like she would drown.

Mulder clenched his jaw and his fist on the steering wheel, angry with himself for not noticing sooner. They used to trek over the country all the time; long car rides filled with easy talking and comfortable quiet. Times were different, but their silence was a symptom of something more fatal. He wondered how it was so simple to forget that they had changed. He pulled to the side of the road and turned the key on the ignition.

"What... are you doing?" Scully whispered, choking on the sound of her broken voice.

He tried to reach for her hand. "Scully, please..." His plead faded into the stillness.

She remained looking out the window, focusing on the darkness. "I'm fine."

It was a knee-jerk reaction, taken from a box of samples she'd collected over the years. Scully cringed when she heard the old habit spill from her lips. It was an obvious lie– she knew it– risking exposure, especially to Mulder, who knew her so well. Feeling she had to was worse. Did she want Mulder to tell her she was wrong or was she only trying to kid herself?

She expected his words to follow swiftly, felt them on her tongue as he was going to say them. Yet they never came; his hand settled still on her elbow, the silence growing louder.

He continued to give her his undivided attention until she crumbled under the weight of his worry.

"I just..." She paused, licking her lips, trying to find the words to explain when her head was an empty void. She turned around to face him, yet she bowed her head, failing to hold his gaze. Huffing, Scully collected her feelings and imagined holding them in her chest. They trickled through the cracks in her hands, slipping as she struggled to understand them. What she had left in her palms was the guilt that tainted everything she touched. She tried again. "... Want to be happy... I'm not sure I can do that again. Not when there's so much missing."

Mulder gulped, running out of words to comfort her. I'm here, he wanted to say, You have me. But deep down he knew it was pointless saying it; it wasn't enough for her, even if it was for him. He couldn't deny that they were different people– very different people– despite all that they shared.

"It's going to come back for us," she stated simply and braved a glimpse at him. "We shouldn't have gone to the store. We shouldn't have stayed in the motel, Mulder."

He melted in her gaze, hating to see her burn herself in penance for all the things she couldn't control. Only that morning had he put a smile upon her face; things seeming hopeful. The way she had giggled wrapped in his arms now a distant dream.

You know she's right, Mulder. How do you save her now? the grizzled man chuckled, but Mulder ignored the voice.

"You said it yourself, Scully, we needed those things: 'practically speaking'." He felt cruel for using her own words against her, but they were the only ones he had.

She didn't turn away like he was expecting her to. Instead, she trained her eyes on his in the darkness. It wasn't a cold, hard stare but it wasn't filled with warmth either. She reached for his hand, locking their fingers together: a last act of hope. Mulder held onto the feeling, closing his eyes to the darkness.

"Maybe I was wrong."

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Revolution Theme, Part 2: War of 1812

READ PART 1 HERE

Wow! Thanks @wdway! Love all this!

You’re right that that the Crossing of the Delaware painting makes a lot more sense, now. It also made me think of the more recent pilgrim paintings we’ve seen the past few years. I think we can work those in as well. The pilgrims were somewhat revolutionary in their actions. Not so much in a massive war or battle sort of way, but they left England (yes, Britain) to find freedoms their mother country wasn’t willing to give them. Which is revolutionary in its way.

But more to the point, that was the first step that would eventually lead to a war for freedom between Britain and the American colonies. So, you could see them as the precursor to the revolution. So, it makes sense to use that painting for TF and TWD right now, because what’s been happening the last season or 2 is the precursor to the final, big revolution.

When you got into talking about 2 revolutions, that makes tons of sense as well, and I totally agree.

When you talked about the white house and library of congress being burnt in 1812, about six things came to mind, lol.

When Eugene was at the Sanctuary (which I 100% believe foreshadows the final revolution, Beth, and what Eugene’s role will be in it) he played the 1812 Overture when he did the science experiment for Negan’s wives. (Including Amber, who looked like Beth and Tanya, who had a lot of Beth’s dialogue with Eugene). I’ve kind of low-key obsessed over that song and why they used it, but other than foreshadowing a final battle with Eugene as I’ve already said, it was hard to connect anything more specific.

The 1812 Overture was not actually written about the War of 1812. It was written in celebration of Napoleon’s retreat from Russia. Basically, he tried to invade Moscow early in 1812 but failed miserably and eventually had to retreat. Not so much because of being out-fought, but more because of weather, illness, lack of supplies for the army, etc.

Now, that’s not the same thing you mentioned in the British fighting Napoleon before turning their attention to the American colonists, but the link is still there. Napoleon/Russia>1812 Overture>Napolean/Britain>Britain/American Colonies. See what I mean? So, the idea of two wars or a war on two fronts really makes sense.

I’ve been trying to find out if the 1812 Overture has a d.c. al coda in it. I don’t think it does, but I’m having a hard time finding the sheet music online. You can find it, of course, but often it’s blurry or watermarked in such a way that it’s hard to read, and that’s because they want you to buy it to remove the watermark. I’ll keep looking.

But I do know it has a coda. Maybe not a d.c. al coda, but a coda of some kind. In fact, while I’m still not sure until I can clearly see the sheet music, from what I’ve read others saying, the final, super-loud, exuberant part of the song that’s often used in U.S. Independence Day celebrations IS the coda. And it represents Russia winning the war over Napoleon. Coincidence?

So, Napoleon fought many wars on many fronts. There’s that. But as you said, the British first fought Napoleon (perhaps that will be the Commonwealth) and then turned to the American colonists. And given what was said in 5x09 about a rebel group fighting against the “republic” using what amounts to guerilla tactics, that does line up with how the American colonists fought the British during the revolution. So clearly that’s the one that will involve Beth and TF (though of course they will probably be involved, at least to some extent, in the Commonwealth bit as well).

Also, also. You talked about the LIBRARY of congress being burned. I’m not sure how, but suddenly I feel sure all the books and librarian stuff must be connected to this. To the revolution theme. I still remember watching the beginning of 6x16 and thinking it was SO significant, but I had no idea why. It’s where we see Carl lock Enid in the closet to keep her safe, and she’s yelling at him things like, “what if you don’t come back?” And he tells her, “just survive somehow.”

Meanwhile, that scene is intercut with Negan’s guys chasing the librarian they end up hanging over the bridge with an X spray painted on his chest. And then he gets…burned?

I remember thinking that just FELT like a big war that was coming, but back then, I really didn’t know how to interpret it. Of course, AOW started soon after, but the librarian group wasn’t a big part of that. If we’re honest, they really were just random side characters, which was odd because that sequence FELT so important. So, I’m betting we ought to be connecting them to this as well.

The Native American Symbols

For the record, a couple of things I’ve been trying to look into and haven’t found much (mostly because I haven’t had much time to do so yet) include what role Native American tribes played in the American revolution. Some were loyal to the British, others to colonists. As I said, I need to do more research, but little tidbits like this one are interesting:

“Their biggest contribution was as spies going to Canada and returning with news of the English plans, and attacking English coastal shipping. The Indians played a leading role in preventing an English attack on Machias by sea from being successful. “

(AL’s voice coming out of the radio in 5x09: “At least 68 citizens of the Republic have been killed in four deadly attacks along the main coastal district. The group has continued their campaign of random violence, moving across the countryside unfettered, with the Republic’s military forces in disarray.” Just saying.)

The other thing I’ve looked into is Francis Marion’s (Swamp Fox’s) connection to Native Americans of the time. During the revolution itself, I’m not finding much. But we do know that he learned a lot of his battle prowess from fighting the Cherokee Indians as a young man.

What he learned there is what made him so effective against the British. So, I’m wondering if that will translate with Beth in that she’ll fight the CRM or perhaps even in battles with the Commonwealth early on and that will give her what she needs to triumph much later in bigger battles. Or maybe they’ll connect it even earlier back to early battles with TF and what Daryl taught her. The possibilities are endless. ;D

@wdway:

If you do a search, it's quite fascinating and well worth the time to do two searches. One on the burning of the White House and then the other one on Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans.

There are things that I just did not go into like the connection with Napoleon that we've seen hints of in the past couple of seasons and didn't know why. The Cherokee Rose, which has been a symbol for so long and I do not think it was their intention in the beginning but what most people do not understand is that the Cherokee Rose has a strong connection to Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson had a singular focus on driving the Native Americans (mostly the Cherokee Nation) to the West. Lightbulb moment here, but maybe that might be same of the meaning of Indian symbolism.

Jackson had a major part in the Trail of Tears, which is basically the story that Daryl tells Carol after walker Sophia was discovered. Jackson was a brilliant military soldier, but he was not known as a compassionate person. His nickname was Old Hickory (a tree reference) because the hickory tree's wood is known for its hardness.

A few years back, tptb did a promotion showing nuts that had a hard outer shell. People didn't understand what that was, but I knew because it was a hickory nut. A very hard outer shell and then inside is the actual nut. Hickory wood was the favored source for making baseball bats back in the day because they would not easily break.

The other interesting fact about Andrew Jackson was his love for his wife, Rachel. It was a legendary love. He might have been an asshole to the entire world, but Rachel was the love of his life. When she died, he did not simply bury her. He entombed her in her own little Mausoleum at his home, The Hermitage, just outside of Nashville.

Jackson fought both in the Revolutionary War and the 1812 war, in the Battle of New Orleans. He apparently had been imprisoned by the British for a time during the Revolutionary War, which fired his hatred for them.

Am I the only one thinking about the connections between him and Negan? I'm thinking of the two wars, the Commonwealth and the war against the CRM. I want to think that the Commonwealth conflict is represented by the War of 1812. The larger, more overall important conflict with a CRM will be the American Revolutionary War, with Rick replacing Washington as the leader.

I was freaking out when you mentioned the Overture of 1812. I don't care if it was written for the war led by Napoleon with Russia. If anything, that makes it even as stronger clue that we're on the right track because of the Russian satellite and Russian dictionary that little Judith got from (wait for it) the library, for Eugene.

One other thing, @twdmusicboxmystery. I thought about this earlier today when I was reading about the 1812 Overture, but I wanted to do a check before I mentioned it to you. 

Two very famous pieces of music came out of the 1812 wars. The 1812 Overture about Napoleon and Russia, and The Star-Spangled Banner, our U.S. national anthem written by Francis Scott Key about The Battle of Fort Henry. Both Fort Henry and The Battle of New Orleans were fought in 1814 but were known as being part of the War of 1812.

Can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

Definitely very interesting! Thanks for all this research @wdway! 

[kaytebeans]

The Seasons of Woods Chpt. 1

Stardew Valley fanfic

Ships: Harvey x Female Farmer

Angst, past abuse, OC has a secret, slow burn, friends to lovers, main character with depression.

Please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in the future.

Summary: Chloe Woods is running from a past life that's far darker than she lets on.  While it is only spring in Stardew Valley, Chloe is facing the winter of her life.  Chloe faces challenges of farm life during the year's seasons.  All the while, she meets new people and becomes close to the town's doctor. You don’t have to have played Stardew Valley to read, but you should man.  It’s a good game.

Welcome to Stardew

The smell of earth surrounded Chloe Woods and she could only partially listen in on Lewis and Robin’s conversation.  It would have been a peaceful moment if she couldn’t smell those damn wild onions. Her belly rumbled and she salivated at the aroma.  She would give anything for access to an all-you-can-eat buffet, instead, she chewed on her lip and planned her next meal.

Robin’s laughter snapped Chloe back to reality and she smiled half-heartedly at the woman.  If they could see where she used to call home, they wouldn’t be joking about the condition of the cabin.  A cabin that was Chloe’s salvation.

It was surreal gazing upon her grandfather’s old home.  Woods’ Farm was carved into ornate letters above the door’s frame.  The wooden porch still looked fairly sturdy, with firewood resting at the side of the cabin. Old, rotten, and useless probably.  Thankfully it was spring and she’d have plenty of time to worry about managing the fireplace. The cabin’s red door was in need of a fresh coat of paint, but Chloe hardly cared how pretty the door was as long as it could shut behind her and shield her from the rest of the world. 

She thanked the two before starting up the steps with her suitcase in hand.

“Oh- let me help ya there, Miss Chloe.”  Lewis chimed in.

Before Chloe could even think to protest, the bag was gently taken from her hands.  The old Mayor opened her door then nodded. Chloe supposed that meant, ‘ladies first.’  Not really a concept she’d ever been privy to in the city.

“Thank you, Lewis.”  Chloe smiled and raked dull, oily brown hair out of her face.  She chewed on the raw skin of her bottom lip and took in her surroundings.

“Pierre’s is open today- well every day except Wednesdays.  Ya might visit if you need anything before the rest of your stuff gets in.”  Lewis eyed the single bag and looked back at her with a friendly grin.

“That’d be good.  Thank you,” Chloe lied.  The bag was it. All of it.  The only belongings she had in the world.  That and whatever was inside of the old house.  She was certain that included critters if tiny droppings by the rusty fridge were to indicate anything.

Chloe gave another rigid smile as Lewis made his way to the exit.  When the door opened, there was that smell again, crashing into her and bringing with it another reminder of her stomach’s emptiness.  

Before Chloe could say ‘goodbye’, Lewis turned back to her, snapping his finger.  “Shoot, almost forgot.” He pulled a crumpled envelope from his pocket. “Here’s something to help get you started.  Parsnips. They’re pretty easy to grow from what I understand.”

Chloe’s brow furrowed for a moment before she realized he was handing her seeds, and she was, supposedly, a farmer.  “Oh- oh! Yes, uh- thank you. I appreciate it.” She extended her hand and took the seeds from him.

After saying their goodbyes, Chloe watched out the window as Lewis’ form got smaller and smaller.  When she was sure he wouldn’t return, she took a deep breath and sighed. Throwing the parsnip seeds on the kitchen counter, she hurried to the sink and turned on the water.  The faucet gurgled until brown water finally gushed into the sink and down the drain.

“Shit.”  Chloe hissed.  Should have known.

She left the water running while she searched the contents of her suitcase.  Chloe shuffled through her clothing until she found it, an envelope stuffed full of cash.  She stared hard at the money, hating herself for how she’d acquired it. It didn’t matter now though.  It was there. It was there and she was hungry. No, she was starving.

Chloe’s eyes wandered back to the running water.  It was clearer now. Not perfect, but it didn’t look like swamp water anymore at least.  Her tired sea green eyes turned back to the dirty money, much dirtier than the water running in her kitchen sink.  For a moment she felt a vice grip tighten, pinching her chest so hard she couldn’t breathe.

Suck it up, you dumbass.  

She shook her head, grabbed the money, and turned the water off all before going back outside again.  And there was that damned smell.

-

Joja Mart, at its best, was a place of convenience.  Food was affordable and it had about anything you could think to buy.  At its worst? Well, Chloe was a testament to Joja Mart at its worst.

Until the day before traveling to Stardew Valley, Chloe had been a hard-working employee.  She always at work on time, and always doing as she was told. In return, Joja Mart provided her barely enough money for shelter and food.  Emergencies were off the table, and living paycheck to paycheck wasn’t exactly living.

That’s why stepping into the damned store for food was like a slap in the face.  But she was sure there was no way she could afford anything from Pierre's. Local shops weren’t exactly ‘poor friendly’.  

Chloe maneuvered her buggy through the aisles, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and belly growling.  Cereal, bread, milk…  Her mental checklist was cut short when her cart crashed into something.  When she snapped her head forward she was mortified to see she’d run straight into a Joja Mart worker.  He gave her an irritated look, and she couldn’t say she blamed him.

“I’m so, so sorry.”  Chloe shrunk in on herself.

The worker, ‘Shane’ according to his name tag, simply huffed and turned back to his work stocking the shelf.  

The rest of her grocery shopping was done in haste.  

-

The walk back to her new home was the longest she’d ever made.  Her hunger was now more than just an annoying ache, but a sharp pain.  She longed for her stomach to be sufficiently filled, and let her hand rest on her belly.  The way she’d taken was supposedly a short-cut, but now she was beginning to wonder. It didn’t help that she was expending all of her energy walking up a steep hill.  

Her quiet walk came to a halt as she came face to face with an old man who looked as though he’d come from the wild.  The man was foraging berries, stuffing the ripened fruit into an old tattered Joja Mart bag, one of those cloth bags from when it was trendy to bring your own bag to the store.  Trendy, but not quite convenient enough for shoppers who soon abandoned the fad.

Chloe’s eyes darted away from him before she realized it was rude.  Slowly looking back, she nodded at the white haired man and made her way on up the hill.  His home finally came into view. A tent. Chloe sighed, at least he has berries.  

She grit her teeth and walked on, not daring to look back his way.  If she looked back, she’d give up her only food.

-

Finally, back in the security of her home, Chloe didn’t even wait to put up the food before opening up a package of hotdogs and scarfing a couple down.  After at least something was in her belly, she put away the rest of her food, rinsed off a dusty plate and pulled out a couple more hotdogs.  Chloe inspected the brown microwave, truly a blast from the past. She turned its knobs and held her breath. By some miracle, the ancient device worked. Chloe placed the hotdogs on grandpa’s apple print plate to heat up the rest of her meal.  

She turned back to the kitchen sink and let the water run yet again.  Still not crystal clear, but it would have to do. Her lips touched the stream of water and she gulped as hard as she could.  Chloe’s throat thanked her, finally feeling soothed. Her chapped lips, on the other hand, stung at first contact. She drank without a thought and only pulled up when she heard a dissonant buzzing that indicated her hotdogs were sufficiently nuked.  

Chloe stood up and liquid sloshed in her full belly.  She felt the rolling in her stomach and groaned. “I’m such an idiot.”  She felt as though she actually needed to hear the words, or else she might repeat such a mistake.   Not that it’d been her first mistake, and it certainly wouldn’t be her last.

Her first night at Woods’ Farm wasn’t a red letter one, but she was full, and she was warm, and she had a door.  It was enough.

[mephistophelianmusingsxo]

Deliverance

Do you know the beautiful thing about life? It occurs amidst chaos, it is the force with the gentlest of touch, filling your lungs with the very essence until you fill the air with your very first cries, that is when life becomes precious. A miracle in its simplest form. A natural occurrence so great it is almost impossible to measure the intensity, it is what we as women are afforded to do on this earth. To bear and raise children, to wipe away and squander all fears; to humble and comfort when your child is awoken from a nightmare, chasing the demons away. But what of I? Now a woman deemed unwanted, tarnished and without purity. What happens to the women like me? Society has branded us no better than a common whore. And as these women stare up at me, I can’t help but become desperate. No one knows, no one will ever know what he did to me, I have been forbidden to say. For I fear if I tell a soul I will surely speak the true evil of that night. The man is dead and I was the reigning power that gave authority to his demise… It all comes down to that one word ‘life’ and I am not speaking about the type of life one lives, I am talking about life itself. It is of course one of the wealthiest inheritances one could get, waking up every morning with rays of sun streaking through your window, like fingers lacing with your own and kick-starting your body in to motion. Seeping through your skin and delivering warmth to your soul. Yet, no amount of sun could ever warm my soul now, I have become what I thought I never would; a killer, a monster. As I stand here with my feet dangling off the window ledge, I have no mother to chase my demons away, no comforting embrace to soothe a mind so full of misery, weary eyes found the ground below me. The ache that had begun inside me that night had finally come to consume me. In this moment, my cries replace the howls of beasts, for I sing a melody of grief playing right in to the hearts of the towns people. Whilst I had fought for normality, my every waking moment was spent reliving that moment; many a night I would demand the servants leave me be to bathe but no amount of scrubbing would rid his filth from me. It taunted me, no, no, he taunted me, he was the demon inside me, reminding me of how easy it would be for me to end this. No longer would I walk around pretending I was happy, no longer would my nights be filled with unheard cries. I wanted to jump, to float upon the air like I was truly free before my body hit the ground with a sickening thud. Granting myself the release I truly wanted, I have not slept for weeks, I’ve barely eaten. He is the victor in all this. I take no gratitude in knowing that I murdered him, however, I do take esteem that he can never hurt another. My death would be tragic. A tragedy to the Medici family, flowers would arrive from near and far, providing a whole new life as my family would now be absent of one of their own. Slowly, I edged closer to the very end of the ledge, the shuffling of guards in armour just left of the courtyard proved oddly comforting, I wasn’t the only one alone in the dead of night. The wind whipped my hair around my face, momentarily distracting me from the thoughts that swamped my mind. I wanted to forget, gripping at the frame of the window, my gaze cast downwards once again. Hard and unforgiving there would be no coming back, once I step from this ledge I can never return home, I can never and will never see the faces of my loved ones, or my saviour. The patron with golden hair.

“Catalina, my lady, there has to be another way, come down from the ledge.” There was a voice, but whose? Craning my neck to get a glimpse, there he was -  Aristide. Stood tall, smug and mocking. I barely registered his words before his hands were around my throat, running a hand through my hair. No, please. Leave me! A small but noticeable lour made its way on to my tear stained face. What gave him the right to tease me so? Wasn’t it enough that he took the only thing that was positively mine? He too had to come and haunt my waking moments. Rage came to replace the numbness I had been feeling before. Who gave him the right to control me like this? Most importantly why? It would seem I was to find out as he spoke once more. “I watched you, Catalina. I watched you for weeks, so quick to dismiss any advancements made on you. Too priggish and upright. You got what you deserved, if only it had lasted longer…” Go away! Bastard. How dare he! Shaking free from his hold, the danger of the situation left me completely I wanted him to go. Either way, I would rid him forever. Whether it was because I slipped from the ledge or whether I denied his control further, I did not know. Sunsets used to be my favoured sequence of the day, though now as I stared out at the rising sun, the tears returned to my eyes, still I was transfixed and fascinated by their beauty, however, I could not let myself look upon them freely as I once had, they were no longer a siren of a new beginning, instead a constant ripple of angst. I didn’t want to be saved, I did not deserve to be. Dispelling the image of him from my mind completely, one thought remained steadfast. Would it hurt to die? Or will the impact kill me instantly? One would think that such a thought would have the power to upset, to cripple and squeeze a scream from the confines of my chest because no one deserved to die like this, peace would be absent; or would it? Perhaps, taking a hold of my emotions like this will trigger the release I need. The release I want. It would only take a second, a simple step forward no thought was needed. Just let my feet guide me. A single moment, a single fleeting moment of regret that would stay with me forever, with whispered apologies and a promise that I would forever remain in their hearts, I stepped from the ledge and began to plummet to the courtyard below. Time was limitless, there are limitless ways to live a life, I have lived mine and now it is time for me to expand with one as the universe. Souls do not drown here, the sea of self-freedom is boundless, seductive and absolutely serendipitous. Liberating was what it was, there was something about all of this that made it somewhat bearable, a strange comfort to be had. No matter what happens today, the sun will always rise again in the morning. I only hoped that someone would feel their beauty as I did. Amidst the chaos of my death, life will prevail and it shall never lose its natural splendour. As it is just that. Something that will always remain an unveiling miracle.    

Strange, I thought death would bring me the peace that I sought, carefree and allowing me to play amongst the sun – not living and breathing in the darkness and ice that I call my soul. You see, I chose to ran, never did I think I had the strength to control but as I fall, suspended in a cocoon of endless time. Time paused, I think and I regret. I did little to fight my madness, instead I accepted it and to accept insanity is the most foolish one can be. Cheerlessly, there are many that do not wake from their fears, whose hearts fail them and hereafter they suffer for an eternity. Nightmares follow you forever, they are the shadow that cast shade over your heart. Jerking awake suddenly, I gasp for air; greedily gulping in what my lungs may take at the excessive rate I pulled breaths in. There is little logic to be had from my nightmare, and as I glance around my chambers, my heart is then only buttered with pain. Lords knows I should not be ashamed of my tears, but it is not the tears that you see, it is the withering and wilt of a scarred identity. I will never be the same again. I am entwined, broken and thoroughly destroyed from the wrong that has corrupted me. Pulling my knees to my chest, my head bows to rest upon them; I am not what has been done to me, I am not the tears that I shed, but I am empty. A season that can only bloom once a year, never a field of flowers and light breeze in spring. The falling of leaves and desertion of colour as winter comes to take hold. I am deserted, utterly lost to this assiduous torture. Back to that one thing ‘life’, even life had come to forsake me. Could this be the punishment I deserved? To smoulder and cinder with burnt desire from the silence I keep in tow, is perhaps the greatest punishment of all.

[anycontentposter]

Rolex and Sports: A History and Overview

An unrelenting quest for perfection. Incredible dedication. Success and failure measured in fractions of a second: it’s no wonder the worlds of professional sports and high end mechanical watchmaking are so intertwined.

Rolex is among the first brands to recognize the promotional opportunities of associating their name with the best sportsmen and women of the age, thanks to the genius marketing acumen of founder Hans Wilsdorf. As early as 1927, he was to sponsor Mercedes Gleitze as she became the first British woman to swim the English Channel, and Wilsdorf seized on the opportunity to prove the efficacy of his new Oyster case, released the previous year. The Rolex watch Gleitze wore on a chain around her neck still worked perfectly after 10-hours in the water, and she went on to become the very first Rolex ambassador, giving rise to the Testimonee concept.

Since then, the company has worked hard to gain recognition in a carefully selected range of events and sports, ones that buoy up its reputation as the ultimate lifestyle brand. They are patron and official timekeeper for everything from tennis, golf, sailing, equestrian, and motor racing, and they are represented by some of the most famous athletes in the world. Below, we take a look at Rolex’s link with the sporting elite.

The Deepsea Sea-Dweller D-Blue was created to commemorate James Cameron’s historic dive.

Rolex and Tennis 

Wimbledon just wouldn’t be Wimbledon without Rolex’s iconic coronet logo and green and gold branding swamping the All England Club. They have been the sponsors of the oldest competition in tennis since 1978, and the mix of formal tradition and sublime performance on those famous grass courts are a perfect match for the iconic watchmaker. They even released their venerable Datejust with a ‘Wimbledon Dial’ – a slate grey background with black and green Roman numerals evoking the spirit of the tournament. 

Clearly enjoying their involvement with the sport, Rolex added the Australian Open to their roster in 2008, the U.S. Open in 2017, and the French Open last year. Alongside that Grand Slam, they also hold sponsorship deals with the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters and the Shanghai Rolex Masters, together with the women’s BNP Paribas WTA finals. =

As well as the events, many of the top names in tennis are official brand Testimonees, including Juan Martin del Potro, Caroline Wozniacki, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and perhaps the greatest ever: Roger Federer.

The ‘Wimbledon Dial’ Rolex Datejust features green accents on its Roman Numeral markers.

Rolex and Golf

A connection that goes back even further than their relationship with tennis, Rolex’s patronage of golf first started in the 1960s. Now the sanctioned timekeeper of three of the four Majors (the British Open, U.S Open, and Masters), with only the PGA Championship holding out, they are a well established convention at each tournament. They have also been heavily involved in the women’s game as well for more than 40 years, serving as official sponsor for the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), including at the five women’s Majors competitions and the team event, the Solheim Cup.

Some of today’s biggest competitors have become ambassadors for Rolex, with the likes of Tiger Woods, Brooke Koepka, Jordan Spieth, and Anna Nordqvist all lending their names to the roster. But as far as legendary representatives go,  it will always be the ‘big three’ from the golden age of the sport – Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Arnold Palmer – who will hold a special place in the hearts of most fans.

Many of Rolex’s very first golf ambassadors wore Day-Date President watches.

Rolex and Motor Racing

It’s no surprise to find Rolex front and center in the high octane and impossibly-glamorous environs of the race track. From the famed land speed record attempts of Sir Malcolm Campbell in the 1930s, to the opening of the Daytona International Speedway in 1959, Rolex has become global partners for everything from Formula 1 to the FIA World Endurance Championships, and their name is synonymous with the sport’s greatest spectacles.

Joined together by an astonishing level of engineering excellence, along with the commitment and drive that is crucial for success, it is difficult to think of two more fitting companions than Rolex and motor sport. You will see Rolex branding on the Le Mans 24-hour’s Circuit de la Sarthe, through to the crowning glory of the F1 season at the Grand Prix de Monaco and everywhere in-between. As for their ambassadors, Rolex can count on giants of the track such as Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, and the legendary ‘Flying Scot’ Jackie Stewart. 

The Rolex Daytona is the quintessential racing watch.

Rolex and Equestrianism

Rolex has been heavily involved with the different disciplines of elite equestrianism for more than 60 years, and they are responsible for some of the richest prizes in the sport. Stars such as show jumpers Scott Brash, Kent Farrington, and Rodrigo Pessoa, and number-one dressage rider Isabel Werth, all enjoy backing from the brand, along with eventer Zara Tindall. 

Additionally, Rolex sponsors both the Grand Slam of Eventing (the Kentucky Three-Day Event, the Badminton Horse Trials, and the Burghley Horse Trials), along with the Grand Slam of Showjumping, made up of the four Majors and now recognized as the most coveted of all trophies. As always, wherever top athletes perform at the pinnacle of their sport, you will find Rolex.

Some Rolex Daytona watches were given as awards for automotive races.

Rolex and Sailing

With the Yacht-Master and Yacht-Master II watches in the portfolio, Rolex’s relationship with the ultra demanding world of professional sailing is well-known. First starting in the 50s when the brand forged a partnership with the New York Yacht Club, they have gone on to develop ties with the sport’s greatest competitions, such as the Sydney to Hobart Race, the 605-nautical-mile Rolex Fastnet around the British Isles, and the week-long Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup held in Sardinia’s Porto Cervo and hosted by the Aga Khan.

Like motor racing, yachting is a sport that requires the utmost devotion to precision, faultless teamwork, and a crew of daring experts. Dynamic and awash with time-honored traditions, Rolex and competitive sailing make impeccable partners.

The Rolex Yacht-Master II is a professional regatta chronograph.

The post Rolex and Sports: A History and Overview appeared first on Bob's Watches.

Read more about this at bobswatches.com

https://bestwatchpicks.com/rolex-and-sports-a-history-and-overview/

[hellogreenergrass]

Singy Island - Week Nine

8th Feb – The Foca Hut, West Coast of Signy

Iain and I set off at 10:30am to catch the low tide that reveals a causeway in a lagoon in front of the Orwell glacier. This allows us to route to the other side of the island without having to cross the ice cap. Which today was not visible, a sure sign that you don’t want to be up there. The wind is gusting in petulant little bursts, the gaps between them lulling you into a false sense of stability as you teeter across rock pools and stepping stones that are too far apart for your diminished leg length. We may have jumped the gun a bit with the tide, it could have been lower. And I could have ended up drier. Ive been paying with wet boots and socks all day as a result. Over the crossing we stopped at Waterpipe Hut, an in case of fog/high tide hut, changed socks and dropped off some gin supplies before heading up the Limestone Valley: a steep gorge between the mountain mass that is home to the ice cap and the radiating ridge of that gives us the peaks of Jane and Robin. The valley was more dramatic than the view from base suggests and has shielded its entrance with a short but steep snow wall that hides the valley from view as you stand beneath it.

At the top on Jane Col we dropped our bags in a small saddle of rocks and ascended the adjacent Jane Peak. Some great views back to base and around the whole East Coast. This was the highest point of the crossing and it was a steady walk down to the West Coast from here. The Foca Hut is newer and larger than Cummings, more of your typical wooden shed type hut. Its got four beds in a good sized room with separate living/cooking area and Perspex windows looking out to sea on two sides. After a break, new socks and cup of tea, I set out to finish the sampling that I had been doing all the way from the tidal crossing and put out ion-exchange membranes amongst a Giant Petrel colony up on a ridge. Im putting these out around the island to get an idea of the nutrients the different wildlife groups contribute to the terrestrial ecosystem, so that when I get the data back from the contribution of my bug, I have something local to compare it too.

Back to the hut for a freeze-dried pasta dinner, and then we headed out again for a jolly to Amos Lake a few miles away along the coast. With no work to do I got wildly distracted by everything from feathers in streams to capturing my favourite combination of Signy residents: Giant Petrels and Icebergs. The light was great, oranges and golds seeping throught he gaps in the clouds. Now in bed, wrapped in a zipless downfilled sleeping bag with another Buffalo fleece lined sleeping bag opened up to be a blanket on top, I am slowly warming up. And my feet are dry for the first time today. Im writing by candle and Tilley lamp and the wind is just loud enough to make me cosier without alarming me into thinking the roof will leave us. Walking North tomorrow before heading back to Waterpipe hut via a different route.

9th Feb – Waterpipe Hut

Good nights sleep last night. Eventually got warm, then toasty, then cosy as hell. Was a drag to leave my sleeping bag nest this morning. Iain made me tea in bed which helped though…

We got up and packed, a slack three hours after waking up. Thankfully there was no rush, but still. No Alpine starts here. The winds were reasonably high as we set off and the air was full off mizzle and clag. The ice cap was still under cloud, which was now rolling down the mountains towards us. We walked along the coast, following coves so I could sample for a mite called Alaskozetes along the way (it likes to live just up from the shore). By lunch we had got to North Point where I had some more work to do putting out membranes to assess a penguin colonies contribution to the Islands nutrient content, collecting soil cores and some more mites. I set Iain loose to roam about checking out what we could see of the view and birds. I was working in the Adelie colony I had helped count a few weeks ago, but now it was desolate. Just a few fledgling chicks around, everyone else had left. There were quite a lot of dead penguins, and happy Skuas as a result. Im not sure if this is usual, but I couldn’t take many strides before finding another carcass. Im guessing they were the remains of fledglings that couldn’t fend for themselves once their parents left for sea.

From North Point we waded, literally, across Moss Braes, sampling as we went. Moss Braes is the most intact green bit of the island, a sweep of mire enriched with peat and moss that can be meters deep. After a mile or so of filtering swamp through my socks, we started uphill to a thankfully dry and stony fellfield ramp that leads up to today’s highpoint, Spindrift Col. Once here I was back in new territory having never been down into the Paternoster and Three Lakes Valleys that take up this portion of the Island. We found debris from an old scientific or engineering installation near a lake up in a hanging valley. No idea what it was for, maybe pumping freshwater down to the hut as this was done in the area in the past, although from a different lake I thought?

Arriving at Waterpipe Hut later that afternoon, I was pleased to see that it had a proper stove for actual heat, meaning I could be warm through means other than my own metabolism for the first time in 24 hours. And could dry my socks and rather sorry looking boots. I brought my old hiking boots along to Antarctica for two reasons: 1) they’ve been my loved and comfy companions over many thousands of miles and several field seasons. They’ve been around the world and I didn’t want to leave them out of this adventure. 2) Whilst BAS provide you with perfectly good Meindl boots, these are brand new and I didn’t pick them, so didn’t want to rely on them in case they didn’t fit nicely. Which they don’t. They wilfully try to remove circulation to the majority of the parts of my feet that are most useful. Last time I wore them they did a good job of turning my toes from pink to red and then onto a lasting shade of off-white, regardless of how they were laced, or how much I shouted at them to stop it. So my trusty back up Scarpa boots have been in use more than intended. As I look at them hanging by their feathered shoelaces from the beam above the fire, splitting at several seams, no longer waterproof, oozing with patches of glue from repairs gone by, I am giving in to the fact that they need to be put into full time retirement. And maybe even sent off to the hiking trails in the sky. Or the incinerator on the Shackleton. End of an era. Now I have to battle it out with the, urgh, Meindls *spits to the side in disgust*.

We took advantage of a brightening evening and headed out to collect a few more samples from a local cove and take in the panorama of the East Coast and Coronation Island that a few small hills and knolls allowed us. This part of the Island is strewn with whale bones. Not insignificant ones either. Blue whales. Vertebrae the size of small cars, and rib bones the length of roof beams. Before science came to Signy, this was an old Norwegian whaling station, the large tidal beaches made for good places to butcher a whale it seems. Even the beach outside base has a suspicious amount of white pebbles, which on closer inspection you realise are eroded and rounded bones of whales no longer destined to roam the Southern Oceans. It’s a reminder that most of the knowledge we have of Antarctica has been built over time upon the shoulders of fisherman and whalers who knew this place long before the likes of Amundsen and Scott. Like it or not, the evidence is here in front of me. And its not pretty. Im just thankful that its science that prevails in Antarctica now, and not resource hunting.

10th Feb - Waterpipe Hut

Two big thumps this morning made me look out of the hut window suspiciously. Nope, nothing but a serene view over sea and snow-capped mountains. A larger rumble and crash 30 minutes later sent Iain out the door to investigate. The front of the Orwell glacier was collapsing in on itself. After we packed up and got back to the tidal crossing, we saw that the glacier had lost 30-40m of itself to the increasingly warm winds and sea waters that have been knocking it back year after year. This latest collapse saw the majority of the cave at the front of the glacier, disappear. Now there was new blue ice scarring the outline of what was formerly a deep river tunnel. The Orwell is an interesting glacier in that it spill over the edge of a steep cliff face in a suspended waterfall. At its steepest it is near vertical. The crevasses that form here give the impression that this wall is held on by threads of ice and would collapse at any moment, but in reality even with this level of retreat those vertical walls may take years to peel away from the cliff underneath. Ice really does move very very slowly. What a noise that would make though when it finally does go. A lot of ice to fall a long way down.

After another drenching tidal crossing, we got back to base around lunch, and I promptly took the rest of the day off, enjoying a long shower, central heating, and hanging up my boots from what may well have been their last trip out. At least it was a multi-day hike in Antarctica. Not a bad way to go! I spent the rest of the day spending too much time on photos, and as a result may well have over-edited them all. I’ll let you be the judge of that though!