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echoalyssa · 4 years ago

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Phantom | Dick Grayson

Authors Note: There’s some light language in this, but thats about all!

“Phantom to Nightwing, entering dead zone now. Start the clock and come in if I’m late. I love you.”

You now had an hour inside the base, unable to contact anyone. You were collecting intel and because you were the stealthiest and smallest, (Damian was too young for this particular mission) Bruce had sent you in.

Your boyfriend, Dick Grayson had wanted to come with you but Bruce had rejected the idea because two people was more risky than one.

Dick had been livid, it was more risky for your life for you to go alone. He was your partner even though you were all a team. Ever since childhood, the two of you fought together and somewhat seemed to share the same mind.

You push a vine our of your dace. Your black masks shows the digital map of the quietest places to step. Your hood is pulled up to disguise your features and skin tone that obviously didn't fit in with the darkness of the air around you.

You had left your mottled cloak behind, opting to only have to worry about your body and where you place it.

Joker was extremely active underground lately, he’d evolved and Bruce had only your mission as a lead.

Your mask displays your one hour timer on the left hand side of your vision. Fifty minutes to get into the compound and back to safety.

The compound comes into view, a flat stone building that just didn’t fit in with the forest that surrounded it. You creep forward, staying in the shadows and hugging the walls of the building until you reach the only vent.

The stone was practically flat but years of training allowed you to look your gloved fingers into a crevice and wedge a booted foot into the building.

You begin climbing, scaling upwards twenty feet. The screws of the vent are all different and you have to pull away from the wall, your body straining so you can unscrew the bottom two.

You’re small enough that you can pry the vent open enough that you can squeeze yourself in. Forty minutes your clock reads. You were going too slow. You crawl forward on your elbows, you trek forward, you should have asked for two hours. Shit.

You hit the record button on your wrist panel and pull the microphone out.

It’s a tiny one but the quality is amazing. You’re peering through a small vent above a research lab now and you thread the microphone and it’s wire through the vent. The audio feeds into your ear piece and also saves to the hard drive in your panel.

You’re holding your breath, only breathing when you have to to minimize any chance of getting caught.

“We need to move in now! He’s only getting more recruits and it’s only a matter of time before they find us again.” Says a voice.

“If they haven’t already! I say we try the new weapon on some unsuspecting crowd of bystanders now. Then they’ll be too busy trying to save those silly citizens to deal with us.”

“Yes but is it ready..?”

“It needs to be tested again and we need to find a more powerful energy source eventually.”

And then the joker walks into view of the vent. He’s holding a blueprint and he spreads it on one of the tables. It’s the paint schematic for the weapon because of course, the joker being the joker meant that everything needed to be green, purple, and white.

You raise a hand to your mask and tap twice. It takes a screenshot of your view of the blueprint and sends it to the bat hard drive.

“Did you have any luck with batons inner circle? Would anyone snitch?”

“A couple...” the speaker listens. It’s valuable intel and now Bruce would be able to feed false information to the rats.

You begin to tap their names away into the panel and then attempt to wirelessly hack into the mainframes. The firewall were strong and plentiful but eventually they all fall victim to you. Sixteen minutes your timer reads. Shit. The data downloading from their computers and into your drive is only halfway done.

It won’t be very detailed. Just minuscule bits of information because you couldn't connect physically to the computers. It’s a line of script here and there that didn't make much sense to you because you weren't super tech-y. Though every line counted and that you knew. Several addresses also pop up.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, your panel signals that the download is complete. Seven minutes reads the timer. Double shit.

You scramble backwards knowing that you’ve done all that you can. Somehow managing to turn yourself around in the small space. You’re almost at the vent when you foot clangs against the side of the vent.

You freeze, no alarms go off, but then again why would they? The timer is still ticking and you continue on, sliding out of the vent. You fumble with the screws, attempting to get them back in in case your cover hadn't already been blown. You then plant your feet, push off and flip down to the ground. You land nimbly in a rolling crouch and then pop to your feet and take off, sprinting for the tree line.

They come from the shadows. Dozens of them. All focused in on you.

You suck in a breath and draw your longswords.

“Bring it on Goonies!” You call and they surge forward all at once. Some with guns, electric batons, and swords.

You stalk forward, meeting them in the middle. You begin slashing immediately at arms, legs, torsos, anywhere that wasn’t too lethal. You weren't a killer.

Except there were just so many, the sword in your left hand falls from your grip and you pull out a disc, throwing it into the incomers. It explodes, blinding some and wounding others.

You yank s taser out from your belt and stab it into an attackers neck while blocking an attack with your sword. And then it happens. A baton smacks into the back of your head and you stumble forward, dizzy. A blade slashes your thigh, splitting skin and muscle. A cry comes fro, your lips and you lash out desperately with your one remaining longsword. You're able to down the foe who had slashed you.

Two more take his place and then a dagger rips through your abdomen from behind. You scream, falling to your knees. Just as it gets put through your thigh, followed by your shoulder. You land in the grass face first and the world goes dark, sound fading out.

‘Dick.’ Is your last thought.

~~~

Dick is staring at the timer that is displayed by his make. 00:00:05. 00:00:04. 00:00:03. 00:00:02. 00:00:01. And the dreaded number... 00:00:00. It blares red and he stares at the forest, fists clenched. Where was she?

Tim steps forward and places a hand on his shoulder. “Give her five minutes okay? She’s smart. You know how these missions sometimes go overtime. She’s got this.”

“We never should have sent her in alone. It was too risky. Damn it!”

His fist rockets into a tree. He considers going after Bruce, giving him a piece of his mind. Then decides that it isn’t worth it and begins to prepare to go in after his love.

He makes sure to grab the miniature cauterizer and some other emergency medical supplies, stuffing them into the pouches on his belt.

“Wait, Nightwing, we’ll go together. We need a plan!” Damian calls.

His heart is pounding out of his chest and he can’t breathe. ‘What if he was too late? What if she was already gone?’

He doesn’t want to wait for a plan, time was ticking. He pushes past his adoptive brother.

“Dick wait!” Jason calls trying to grab his arm. But he keeps going, breaking for the trees to find her.

Jason and Tim look at each other, then they both look at Damian. “Stay here.” They say simultaneously/

“No way!” He yells back at his brothers.

The three of them take them off after Nightwing. And Bruce, having watched all his children run into danger, follows them in.

Nightwing is pushing through vines and branches, not caring if he makes noise or not. He knows the rest of his family will follow him, but quietly.

His mail enhances his vision in the darkness. He draws a thumb over his own panel and it activates the heat censor on his mask. Dick Grayson pushes forward quickly, scanning frantically for her heat signature.

And then he sees it. She’s always run cold. Her fingers and limbs always frozen. A small prone figure, running colder than the other surrounding bodies. He kicks up his pace, heading for her because he just knows.

“Phantom!” he yells, followed by, “Robin! I think I found her!”

He skids to a halt and falls to his knees, he can see the stab wounds. The way her blood has soared into the ground beneath her.

Nightwing rolls her over, jamming his fingers under her neck to find a pulse. It’s there. But weak.

He rips the cauterizer out of his belt and drapes her body over him just as Jason appears.

“Is she..?”

“Alive.” He grunts, “Not for much longer I need to..”

Jason helps him rip the uniform away enough so Dick has enough room to maneuver.

“Hold her down!”

Jason does as he’s told and Dick places the cauterizer to her skin.

“Only do what you have to, we need to get out of here. And soon.”

He pushes the two flaps of skin together and places the sparking tool to it. The heat melds the skin together. She’d need to be pumped full of antibiotics in case any of the blades were dirty and risked infection.

She only stirs slightly, too disoriented from her loss of blood. He talks to her the whole time he works on her.

He only does her abdomen, knowing that it’s her most serious injury. It might not even hold from the jolting and jostling that would occur in the journey back. Dick stabs a painkiller into her thigh, just in case she were to awaken.

He motions to Tim and Damian, who had been standing guard, to take up the rear. Grayson then scoops up his girlfriend, cradling her to his chest.

“Jason. Take point. Let’s get her home.”

~~~

He sits by her bedside. His hands are covered in her dry blood, along with his suit. He hadn’t bothered to change.

Y/N had needed a blood transfusion and he had offered immediately, hence why there was a needle in his arm funneling blood into girlfriend. Alfred had stitched do her wounds and hooked her up to an IV for hydration and anti-infection purposes.

She’d been changed out of her uniform after she was stable for cleanliness reasons and was now wearing one of his black shirts.

He’s holding her hand, his thumb tracing over the pulse point of her wrist occasionally.

It would be a long road to recovery for her though they all knew that she would bounce back and attempt to get back in to the field as soon as she could walk.

It’s days later when she finally wakes, her eyelids fluttering.

“Dick.” She whispers.

He’s right there, just like he had been, he’d only left briefly to shower but he ate and slept at her side. Jason had covered both of your patrols, with Bruce helping out.

“I’m okay. You’re okay, babygirl.” He places a hand on her face and she leans her head into his touch.

#nightwing #dick grayson #Tim drake #jason todd #Damian wayne #batfam #bat fam #bat family #dick Grayson x reader #nightwing x reader

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cuuno-moved · 4 years ago

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hermitbur chapter 1 is complete!!

tw: panic attack

Wilbur had been dead for ten years before he opened his eyes to sunlight.

He stood there for a bit, hands still raised from where he’d been about to place a couple cards, his mouth still opened a bit.

What the hell.

He spun around, eyes wide, searching for anything he could recognize. Anything that could explain where he was.

He was in the middle of an unfamiliar street, with impossibly tall buildings lining the pavement, and the smell of the sea floating on the breeze.

He took a deep breath, feeling his sternum click, feeling his lungs burn from years of smoking, feeling his throat dry out in the cool air. It felt real, not like the death nightmares he had sometimes, that ended with Phil refusing to kill him, instead watching in horror as he slaughtered everyone he cared for.

No, he was awake.

How?

He was having trouble breathing, having trouble getting enough oxygen to his brain. He took in another shaky shuddering breath, trying to calm himself, but it wasn’t working.

He could feel a breeze on his face, could smell the ocean, could hear someone laugh far away, could taste tears, could see so much light. His senses were overwhelmed, the void had been empty of stimuli, empty of anything.

He let out a muffled sob.

There was so much, too much what the hell was going on wh at could he d o what what aws he supposed to do

“Hey, man, are you alright?”

He twisted, swinging his arm out. His fist connected with something soft, which seemed to crunch. He blinked at the sound of a scream and watched the man reel back, clutching at his nose.

Wilbur hesitated, then spun, sprinting away, his torn leather shoes slapping the pavement.

His trench coat was heavy, now that he could feel it, now that gravity applied, and he wondered how he could stand it in life. He considered taking it off, but as he fingered the collar, he decided against it.

It still smelled a bit like L’Manburg.

He didn’t stop running until he was out of the city, standing on a beach, staring at the water. There was nowhere else to go.

He turned, eyeing the skyline. He would have to go back through the city, unless he wanted to swim, which he really didn’t.

He was still panicking, his heart pounding in his heart, his hands shaking.

Unfortunately, three figures rose from the city streets, wings spread wide.

He froze, fingers twitching at his side. He had no sword, no weapon. If they wanted to kill him, they could. He stepped back, feeling the water soak into his shoes, and he crouched a bit, making himself small.

It didn’t matter, the figures swooped towards him, smoothly slicing the air.

The one in the lead was tall, and familiar. The man who he’d punched, he realised. He wore a neat brown suit, splattered with blood from his obviously broken nose. His legs were covered in braces that let out a burst of steam as he landed. A breathing tube ran from a pack on his back, that apparently was where his wings came from, large metalic bat-like wings that folded into nothing as he stepped forward carefully.

The other two were shorter. One was well built, but couldn’t be more than 5’6”, with fluffy brown hair, held back by a red headband, and wide eyes that shifted between their leader and Wilbur. A pair of sturdy mechanical wings sprouted from his back.

The last one was the smallest, and thinnest. He wore a baggy red sweater that was bunched up around his elbows. His eyes glittered with a certain sharp look that Wilbur couldn’t help but recognize from the mirror. He was apparently the only one with organic wings, what Wilbur recognized as parrot wings sprouting from his back, flapping lightly as he landed.

The leader took another step forward, and Wilbur moved back, eyes darting between the men. All three of them wore at least a little armor, and all of them had swords at their belts, he was unamred and defenseless. This would be a quick fight. He wondered if Schlatt would wake up to greet him, when he returned. Did they even noticed he was gone?

Wilbur felt his wings twitch beneath his coat, begging for escape, but… he hadn’t flown in over a decade, since the Disc War. Even if he could remember how to fly, these men would catch up in a heart beat. He couldn’t swim, couldn’t fight, could run…

He could talk.

“Don’t kill me,” He choked out. “Please, don’t kill me, I- I’ll do anything.”

The men froze, glancing at each other, and the one in red opened his mouth to say something, but he cut him off.

“Look, I just- I don’t want to die, please,” He was crying, for some reason, although that couldn’t hurt the whole pitiable lost man thing he was trying to pull. “Don’t kill me.”

The leader stepped forward again, and Wilbur flinched, falling back into the water.

“Scar-!” One of the men said, and the leader faltered.

Wilbur took advantage of the hesitation to stand up and sprint, trying desperately to get away, but a second later, the red one dropped down from the sky, multicolor wings spread in a wall, and Wilbur cursed, backpedaling fast enough that he stumbled, his hands clawing for something, anything.

He fell with an audible thud, his breath coming out in a huff, and he curled into himself, once again trying to level his breathing.

A hand settled on his shoulder and he quickly shot his legs out, trying to shove himself away, but all it did was dig into the sand.

Someone was shouting. He couldn't hear what they were saying.

"Get Stress!"

He curled up a little tighter. Whatever was happening here… he wasn't sure he was going to survive.

The last thing he saw as his eyes slipped shut were a girl, with huge, worried eyes and flowers in her hair.

"Niki?" He whispered, and then he was out.

#toby writes shit #dream smp #hermitcraft #hermitbur #wilbur soot #goodtimeswithscar #grian #bdubs #stressmonster

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local-paranoid-cryptid · 4 years ago

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SBI ft reader part 1

ya’ll didnt think I was gonna post the entire thing right? anyway, the reader is based off of mother nature and in this techno is gonna be a family friend (so no cannon family)

tw: none that I can remember :)

word count in this chapter:1661

status: unedited

It was a warm spring day, Phil scouted the area around the castle. He was the best at spotting and hunting people down, after all he was hand picked by the king himself out of almost 300 men and women.

Phil was a young man, around his early 20s, with sharp eyes and massive wings. He earned himself the nickname "Angel of Death" because of his scarily amazing combat skills and his ability to attack without a sound, but unsuprisingly he had little to no friends or mutuals due to his intimidating reputation and apperence.

Thats when he met a boy, about 9, maybe 10, stealing bread from the local bakery. Phil caught him, of corse, but when he saw the state of the boy, clearly malnourished and tired, he didn't make him return the food, instead Phil paid for it and watched the boy scamper away into alley. He later learned that the boys name was Wilbur and it wasn’t uncommon to see the boy stealing or getting into large street fights for money. Phil had offered him food, and of course he didn’t pass up an offer for food, but by the time Phil opened his mouth to ask him something he was gone.

One day Phil runs into the boy again, but not in a way you’d expect. Phil had finished doing his usual patrols around the castle when he feels something tug at his sleeve. Looking down he sees a small boy in a large dirtied shirt with holes, bright blue eyes, and blonde hair with bits of mud stuck in it. He must have been about 5 or 6 because he spoke in a fast and nervous voice, too fast for Phil to process. Next thing he knew though was that he was being dragged by the sleeve by a dirt swearing child, to see Wilbur thrashing against police hold. “Is there a problem here?” He asks the police, they explain that Wilbur was under arrest for assault and theft. The kid grunts, seeing the blonde boy behind Phil, “Tommy what the fuck?! I told you to run!!” He yells, seeming less angry and more frustrated. “These kids are with me, unless you have a problem with that, mate.” He spreads his wings threateningly, the police knew who he was and let Wilbur off with a warning. And that was how Phil adopted two kids off the street.

3 years had passed, Wilbur was now 12 while Tommy was 8. Phil was happy with the way things were, but eventually there were rumors of a new, powerful material deep in the hellscape they called the nether. The material was said to be a dark ashy black, and so powerful that it doesn’t burn in even the hottest of fires of the nether. That was the reason for its name, Netherite. Phil wanted to set out and look for the metal but we was worried for his kids so he found a babysitter that also happened to be his only friend from work, Captain “Sparkles” Jordan.

“Are you sure there gonna be fine mate?” Phil asks nervously with a backpack of supplies slung over his shoulder. Jordan assured his friend that the children would be fine, and with that Phil headed off to the nether.

To say the nether was hot was an understatement, it was a raging, blistering feeling when entering. The sudden change in temperature causes your head to spin and your body to feel a wave of overwhelming amounts of nausea.

Phil stared out in the horizon of at a group of striders, aww-ing at the babies and how they rode of the parents back. His eye caught on to a large black monument, a bastion.

He flew over the colossal lava ocean and landed softly on the ground. Phil’s eyes scan for any danger, but seeing nothing, and although he was grateful he was also uneasy about the situation. He looks through each chest and managed to find a lodestone, some iron and golden nuggets, and a golden pair of boots. Nothing too interesting, though he did find a disc in one of the chest. Phil decided to take this items and go on his way to find netherite.

A few hours of mining had passed and phil had manage to find 3 scraps. It was a bit disappointing in his opinion, he’s running low on water and his wings began drooping down to maintain coolness. Phil almost heads back to the portal when he sees something pink and black. He decided to take a look around the surrounding blue forest. After a few minutes of looking he spots what looks like a child with matted curly dusty pink hair, blood-red eyes, tusks pointing out the corners of his mouth, pink floppy ears atop his head, a thin build, pink bipedal legs, hooved feet, and a pink boar tail twitching lowly. not to mention the boy was soaked in blood, yet no visible signs of any injuries. Phil hears the boy clicking his teeth, a common warning amongst both piglins and domestic pigs.

There was something about the kid that tells him that the kid was dangerous, but nevertheless he pursued. He takes a step, slowly reaching into his bag. He pulls out a baked potato, one of the many he brought for this expedition. Phil slowly reached his hand out, beckoning the hybrid to take it. It didn’t, and instead left. Phil leaves the vegetable on the floor and walks away, sitting cross legged about 15 feet away. He watched as the hybrid peaked around a blue tree, cautiously sneaking to the vegetable. He picked it up and scurried back to the trees.

This exchange continued for about a week, Phil enters the nether, puts a baked potato on the floor for the boy, sat and watched him from a distance as he grew more and more comfortable with Phil. So Phil was allowed to sit closer and closer, but the hybrid always scurried behind the same blue tree. Phil began talking to him, nothing specific, just what ever was on his mind, and the boy listened.

One day Phil brought the boy a carrot instead of a potato, the boy didn’t eat it or even touch the root. That’s when Phil grew more and more curious about him. He brought a variety of foods for the kid to try, a golden carrot, an apple, and three types of stew.

“He seemed to favor the suspicious soup and the golden carrots.” He spoke out loud as he wrote in his leather-bound journal. His back was turned to the boy as he ate. The boy tilted his head and walked to the man, glancing over his shoulder at what he was writing. There he was a drawn picture of himself. Phil froze as he sees the boys shadow peer over him, but he continued writing, “likes apple, did not like rabbit or mushroom stew.”

Eventully Phil was allowed to sit next to the boy as he ate, giving him paper to write and doodle. that's how Phil found out his name, "technoblade".

One day, the boy just wasn't there, so phil left. after a week, the boy still hadn't turned up. He assumed that he'd left to his family, and left it at that.

Years past and the memories of the boy faded but were never completely gone. It was the first day of SMP earth, so Phil had a lot on his mind, but out of the corner of his eye he sees a man, about Phils height, but more muscular. He had an unreadable expression, peony pink hair, blood-red eyes, tusks poking out the corner of his mouth, scared floppy ears atop his head, bipedal legs, and a pink boar tail twitching lowly. His outfit was plain, a white button up top, black pants, and knee length gray boots. He looked familiar, but now Phil was too distracted by him and his sons parting ways to their own expeditions in conquest.

Technoblade watches the man hug his family, he recognizes him as soon as he saw the green and white striped bucket hat and those massive gray wings.

Techno turned his attention to someone else though, a girl whom he knew little about. There was just something about her that radiates both happiness and fear into people, not him of corse. He was the blood gods vessel! Feared by many, both powerful and powerless! yea..

When techno arrives onto Africa for resources he didn’t expect to see the girl. He’d managed to get a good view of her as she reached out to a trees branch, the tree leaned into their touch, miraculously bearing fruit for them.

The girl wore a long brown corduroy coat, a green knit turtleneck tucked into a long black skirt, several tattered green fabrics layered over her skirt, and a black belt tied around her waist to keep it all in place, and oddly enough, no shoes. she had messy hair with an array of sticks and flowers crafted into some sort of crown. She tucked the fruit away gently into her bag and went on her way. Techno watched her leave into the woods and left without a sound to the volcano.

When Phil stepped out of his boat onto the crunchy snow he assumed there was no one there, until he sees footprints. When his blue eyes followed to trail of foot prints it led to the pink haired man he spotted in the entrance, and a girl he didn’t recognize. Phil flew to a level edge of the mountain, but techno hears the flapping of wings and moves in front of the girl protectively, sword in hand. Their defensive stances were tense until techno lowers his sword and his eyes soften, “Phil..?” Said man looked confused until he realized that he was standing in front of the same hybrid Piglin from years ago. “Technoblade?”

#my writing #my post #sbi fanfic #x reader #but not really #reader insert #philza #philza minecraft #Technoblade #Technoblade fic #Wilbur soot #Tommyinnit #fanfic #dream smp #dream smp au #sbi+reader fic

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trade-hut-direct-diy-store · 15 days ago

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justawordwright · 4 years ago

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hm, think I’m happy with the roughs for viking!Lyf’s outfits. Even if it needed three versions! A lot of fun given he’s New Midguardian, and I don’t have to worry about pesky details like not mixing and matching items which are either very geographic or temporally specific. There’s some explanations of what everything is in the image description under the cut (its gonna be long...)

Now the tricky bits of drawing heads/hands/feet! And colouring!

Image ID: Three line art costume designs for a viking inspired Lyfrassir Edda.

First: Figure wearing a Kieven Rus inspired kaftan. This is a collared thigh length coat with toggle closure and appliqued, geometric patterned byzantine silk over the torso in a large rectangle, and a circle on the outer shoulders. The same silk is on the standing ‘grandfather’ collar, and there is a band around each cuff. Over the kaftan is an eastern style Viking belt, wrapped twice around the torso and covered in square brass plates with a stamped design, The belt end hangs loose, with a rectangular strap end. His trousers are mid-calf length and flare out, like bell bottoms. Underneath, his legs are bare. As a hat, he has a version of the Dublin cap. This is a coif-like hat, with a pointed top corner, the ear flaps are folded back, making it look like a traditional Dutch bonnet.

Second: Figure wearing a Viborg shirt and Viking baggy trousers. The Viborg shirt is a formfitting t-tunic with split sides that overlap at the front. It has a decorative stitching pattern across the front, a pair of lines along the shoulder/hip diagonals with a central square. It has a square neck hole and offset neck slit. The trousers are baggy, and gathered at the knee to form a harem pant like silhouette. On the lower legs are leg wraps or puttees. The belt is plain, with a figure of eight shaped strap end. The hat is conical and has a conical fitting at the point.

Third: Figure in wrap-coat and cloak. The wrap coat comes to mid thigh and is similar in style to a short dressing gown. It is edged in fur, and pinned at the bottom corner with a long pin with a disc head. There is a plain belt over the coat with a pointed strap end. The cloak is fringed along its bottom edge, and is pinned at the left shoulder with a Hiberno-Norse thistle broach. This is a penannular broach with a long pin which attaches to the ring with a large sphere shaped like a thistle head. The trousers are loose but not baggy, and are covered by leg wraps below the knee. He has an Aalsom hat, which is a cylindrical hat which extends down lower over the back of the head.

#lyfrassir edda #my art #not yet finished

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grindingwheels-blog · 4 years ago

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Applications of Grinding Wheels

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#abrasives #abrasive wheel #grinding #grinding wheel #metal cutting #polishing #sharpening #tools #weld

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nightingalefeminist · 5 years ago

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Scars

Dean barely recognized himself. His body was twisted and wrecked, unrecognizable even from just a few years ago. Hell, even a year ago Dean’s knuckles weren’t so scared up he couldn’t flex his hand without feeling the knots between the bones. His bathroom mirror needed to be cleaned, it was smudged with toothpaste and flimy water but it reflected his new self perfectly well.

His face was surprisingly intact although if Bobby or Charlie saw him they might do a double take. There were small lines of white criss crossing his throat; rivers of muddy pinks, and whites, and browns. His left nostril never grew back quite right after being flayed open by a werewolf’s claw and his right eye didn’t open a hundred percent of the way anymore, but besides that there was only one other visible scar above his neckline. The piece de resistance. A puckered canyon that ran from his left ear all the way to the corner of his mouth. Cas always said it was a miracle the hell hound didn’t rip off his beautifully bowed lips.

Dean couldn’t help but smirk as he ran a thumb over the peaks in his upper lip. “Those lips and lashes of yours,” Cas said once, “they keep your face frustratingly dainty.” He’d been pissed at the time because Cas said it in front of Sam and Rowena but later, when they were lying in bed, Cas kissed his eyelids and lips so softly it made his ache. Even with the tenderness the angel’s hands were never afraid to grip and scratch his scarred skin when rough is what Dean craved.

Leaving the bathroom with a freshly washed face Dean padded back to his empty room and tried to psych himself up for getting undressed. Every year it got harder and harder to move in certain ways, one of them being lifting his arms over his head to take shirts off. His largest scar, a mass of gnarled white webbing that branched out from a disc of smooth hard skin, sat just beneath his right shoulder blade. It made it hard to lift that arm above his head without the feeling of skin unzipping. He had to bend over at the waist as much as he could, without falling over, to shimmy out of the shirt, which was also hard because there was a newer scar on his lower back that pinched when he did.

They never seemed to hurt in the moment, with claws and bullets and god only knows what else coming at you, the adrenaline took care of the pain, but afterward… Dean shuddered and finally slipped the shirt off. He fell with a whump onto the bed behind him. If Cas was with them on the case he would just heal them, but there was always times when they were away from each other for too long, like if guilt-ridden idiots were doing stints in purgatory or something, and angel mojo didn’t heal scars.

Dean rubbed the divot in his upper thigh through his jeans and winced when phantom pain shot through his groin. He was sure a scar couldn’t hurt after this much time had passed but every once in a while he get a flash of pain. His second biggest scar, from purgatory, which he got right before meeting Benny. A Leviathan had sliced a good chunk out of him, exposing the shiny muscle underneath. A few days later, when Benny saved him, he felt fine, but a few days after that and the vampire noticed Dean was lagging behind. When they opened the flap in his pants they saw a severely infected wound. So, with Dean biting down on a piece of tree bark, Benny cut away as much bad skin as he could before sewing everything shut using thread from their clothes and a needle made from a plant thorn. The parts that couldn’t be closed were wrapped in large fronds and secured as tightly as possible with stips of Dean’s flannel. He honestly didn’t know how that wound hadn’t killed him. He was delirious with a fever for days after the patch job and at time they had to sit for hours on end, Benny keeping watch, while Dean hallucinated Cas, mumbling his name over and over.

After a few months it finally started scarring over, having spent countless hours dressing and redressing it, peeling leaves and bark off sticky skin. The skin remained bright red for a long time and his inner thigh muscle dipped sharply inward. Like he needed more bow to his legs, which is what Benny said before taking the last dressing off. It had made Dean laugh so when Benny did what he did next he was at ease despite the surprise of it. Many times during the redressings, a few weeks after the initial wound of course, Dean became hard while Beny worked on him. For a vampire in purgatory his finger oddly gently and soft. By the end of each session all he’d wanted was for Benny to put his hands on him. He got his wish when Benny took the last dressing off, after making his joke about Dean’s legs, when his fingers probed the almost fully-healed wound and then continued to caress up his thigh until they hovered over his crotch. Benny hesitated there and looked Dean in the eyes, asking a silent question. Dean remembered being scared of his own arousal but sure he wanted the handsome vampire to do something about it. The pain in his thigh was nothing to the feel of Benny’s hands and mouth around him. But even in those moments his mind wouldn’t let go of Cas.

Dean stood again, not very easily, and undid his belt, dropping his pants to the floor and stepping out of them. At least that part was easy. He sat and looked down at that chunk of leg missing and marveled at how he was still alive, how Cas and him were able to reconcile afterward. When they found Cas and he confessed to fleeing Dean had been utterly hollowed out. In order to feel something, anything, again he turned to anger and the anger bloomed grotesquely into resentment. The reason he could no longer run as fast or move as swiftly, the reason he almost died, had willingly abandoned him. When Cas saw the scar for the first time, while Dean attempted to wash the tattered remains of his clothes, he was overcome with shame and tears poured from his eyes. An angel sobbing was unheard of, but Cas stood there in front of him with his face twisted up painfully and tears cascading down his cheeks and it only enraged Dean more. Dean didn’t speak to him for weeks after spitting all the nastiest things he could think of at the weeping angel. Most nights, when Cas kept watch close by, him and Benny would fuck, neither of them trying to stay quiet.

Even now those memories made Dean’s gut get so cold it burned. It was guilt and regret that rotted inside him and if he thought about it too long he’d start to spin out. The angel did what he thought was the best thing to keep Dean safe and when the angel saw that he was wrong Dean took that raw, quivering vulnerability and cut it to pieces; intentionally doing as much damage as he could. Of course Cas didn’t come back with them then they found the portal. Why would he? All the angel knew of being vulnerable in front of Dean was being punished for it.

“Being in purgatory was easier than being around you,” he told Dean after miraculously turning back up. Some months later Cas told Dean it wasn’t true anymore, that he couldn’t imagine being without his closest friend. That time, when tears fell from Cas’ eyes, Dean held him and told him he was right there and always would be.

Dean stretched out his legs and started counting the scars in front of him. He stopped after a dozen. Too many times he’d been without Cas to heal him. Too often they were too far apart. His body was ravaged with thick, uneven tissue because of it and his soul was something even demons shied away from, not able to distinguish one piece of it from another, so knotted and ufsed together it must’ve been. Cas didn’t look away though. He rebuilt it back when he pulled Dean from hell and he knew what the true shape of it was under the scar tissue.

He lay down onto the bed and with a groan swung his legs up. He flexed his toes and noted that he still felt the pinky on his left foot even though it was gone. Dean sat up and looked at the foot and then once more at the map that was his skin. It reminded him of those bumpy topographic maps they used to play with in school, the mountain ranges rising like messy Braille to meet their fingers. His forearms and hands were the worst. His left palm was even etched with scars to the point where he couldn’t lay his hand out flat without a lot of discomfort. Why they always cut their palms he never bothered to question in the moment. Guess it was easier to squeeze blood into cauldrons that way. Man, if he had a penny for every time he’d bled over a cast iron pot or an open grave…

Dean huffed and found the Mark of Cain lightly outlined among a nest of more prominent scars. If anyone saw all these twisting veins of white they’d probably assume he self-harmed, which wasn’t very far from the truth. Most of the scars on his forearms were self-inflicted in the name of provins his humanity or giving up blood for a spell. Some, like the one that ran down the back of his right hand and ended in what would have been two missing fingers, were from pure stupidity. Luckily they’d gotten out of that goblin quickly, cutting into the stomach of the asty fucker that had bit them off, and hightailed it to the nearest hospital to get them reattached. Cas had been called but at that point he didn’t have a working set of wings and had to drive. Some of the scaring did go away and he ended up getting full control of his fingers back when the angel finally showed up to work his magic. Thank god for that at least. He wouldn't have cared so much as far as monster hunting went, if he could still pull a trigger or grip a knife he was fine, but being able to have all his fingers working when he fucked Cas was something he’d never take for granted.

The air in the bunker was still but it wasn’t stuffy. Dean held his breath and listened for a while but it was dead quiet which meant Sam was already asleep. EIther that or he was in bed reading all the news articles he could get his hands on. It was a good thing the kid was good at hacking into things or half of their fake credit card debt would be online subscriptions to newspapers.

He sighed and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. Anything to drown out the silence. How had they gotten here? How had he ever convinced Sam to leave his life in college to do this shit? If anyone had more scars than Dean it was Sammy. Most of them weren’t visible, which was saying something because his overly stretched body was riddled with the ones you could see. Plus Sam was actually missing two fingers on his left hand for cryin out loud. Another stroke of luck that it hadn't been his right considering it was his trigger and middle fingers. Dean would never get tired of making hang loose jokes whenever Sam started talking with his hands. Too bad he hadn’t lost the ring finger as well.

Utter stillness hung in the air. A small shiver went up Dean’s spin. He detested the silence. Slipping under the covers he reached for his headphones but not before checking the bottles on the nightstand to see if any still had beer. No luck. He settled for the old iPod Sam had loaded up with his favorite music. As soon as the first note was struck his nerves settled back down. Hell is For Children. He reflexively reached for his favorite but most faded scar.

Dean didn’t know why the handprint was almost completely gone now when at first it was so raised and knotted pink, like a fresh burn. Maybe as hell faded into the background the handprint did too. Cas used to say it wasn’t really a scar because it was made by angelic grace, which was, at its core, a benevolent energy. But Dean knew that wasn’t entirely true. He’d seen some of the worst things imaginable done with angel mojo.

He placed his hand over it and felt the slightly different texture under his fingertips. On most days he couldn’t see it unless the sun hit it just right and the shiny layer of skin would reflect briefly, like a silver coin at the bottom of a brook, winking as cool water flowed over it. When Cas gripped him there it put him into a kind of trance. Awareness would blue and warm around the edges; loose and floating just out of his reach.

Cas had done it in the middle of sex once on accident, grabbing Dean’s shouldn’t for stability has he moved hard above him. Dean can only remember the feeling. A non-memory of the euphoric release of pressure as everything he ever felt came rushing to the surface.

Dean touched that place on his shoulder with the tips of his fingers. It was hot but when he wrapped his hand around it, not nearly as big as Cas’ faded print, it was almost clammy.

Sometimes, if he closed his eyes tight, he could think on Cas so intensely that he could swear he materialized in the room. The cross between a half-dream and a hallucination; it paralyzed him with longing and for a few moments he might even feel the pressure of Cas’ arms around him. Every once in a while he’d curl up and bring on the fevered visions just so he could fall asleep. Tonight, with the music blaring in his headphones, he thought of the last time Cas held him and fell, barely, into fitful sleep.

From somewhere deep within his nightmares he felt the warmth pressed against the entire length of him and knew Cas was there--finally there-- before he even fully surfaced. The angel’s hands were cold and Dean gasped when they slipped under the blankets to find the scar on his thigh. He’d push them away, to be officially offended and all, but they felt so good on the hot skin there. Instead he receded in his angel’s arms as much as physically possible, to the sound of Cas chuckling in his ear. Those deep, mirthful notes were almost too much for Dean to handle. Almost. He slipped back into sleep and didn’t dream again until he woke.

#destiel #fan fic #there's also an A03 post for this if you don't like reading fics on tumblr #but yeah #I'm going to sleep now

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thaisibir · 5 years ago

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La Vie en Rose (Bede and young!Opal time travel fic)

Here’s the fic I’d been promising to write about Opal’s past, based on my prior headcanon posts. Though this fic will explore Opal’s life, it’s all from Bede’s POV. Enjoy!

La Vie en Rose (Life in Pink) Rating: T (for character deaths and language) Chapter 1/10 - Fairy Tale (length: ~4k words) Summary: Bede doesn't get why that loony old bat Opal wants him to be the next Fairy-type Gym Leader. To help him understand, Opal has Celebi take Bede back to the time of her youth.

(For other chapters, look up the tag “pokemon la vie en rose” or go to my profile)

For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, Bede thought about making a break from Opal, that loony old bat. Nothing could stop him. She wasn't gripping and pulling him along by the arm, like a parent dragging an upset child through the grocery store. In fact, he fought a hard battle with impatience to match her stride. The oldest Gym Leader in Galar walked at the pace of a Chewtle on a cold day. It wasn't like she could chase him down if he took off. Her heart would probably give out first if she tried.

Before they had set off from the sprawling castle-city of Hammerlocke, Opal had insisted on walking, turning down chances to take the train and the Flying Taxi. The train made sense, since there were no railways leading through the dense Glimwood Tangle and into Ballonlea. But not taking the Flying Taxi perplexed Bede.

"We'll get there much faster if we take a taxi," he told her.

"I'm not hopping on that bloody death trap," she replied with a snort.

"So you want to get blisters on your feet instead?"

"I very much prefer that to crashing and dying."

Bede rolled his eyes. "We won't crash and die. Those taxis are very safe."

"Rubbish. My boy, you have no idea."

Bede gawked at her. More like she didn't have any idea. There had never been reports of Flying Taxi accidents on the telly. Not that Bede expected an ancient fossil like Opal to keep up with news on the telly, anyway. Did she even own a telly?

Opal wouldn't budge on her decision, so they ended up walking all the way from Hammerlocke to Ballonlea. They had walked side by side, making no physical contact at all, yet what Bede felt between them was the alluring, arresting air of her authority and of course, her very strange, out-of-the-blue offer.

He wasn't a Gym Challenger anymore, so could Opal really pick him to be the next Gym Leader? Was that allowed? Opal seemed like the kind of woman to turn her big nose up at the rules and do whatever the bloody hell she wanted, anyway.

She had declared that he had the "right amount of pink." What did that mean? That was the first question he popped just after she had swooped in on him at Hammerlocke, but she refused to tell him, only that "pink isn't a color easily explained." Bollocks, you couldn't explain color. Blue is blue. Green is green. Red is red. And so on. Bede couldn't make heads or tails out of this lady clearly off her rocker.

Chairman Rose had disqualified Bede from the Gym Challenge at Stow-on-Side, so Bede had never reached Ballonlea to challenge the Fairy-type Gym. Though he tried to keep his face impassive, his first visit to the town enchanted him.

A spectrum of colors from glowing mushrooms abound under the shade of towering trees. Some mushrooms were so big that they loomed over the cottages. Bede didn't know that they could get that tall. Burbles of a brook winding through the leafy floor filled his ears. From their perches on the Pokemon Center, a pair of Hattrem tittered at Opal and Bede. Farther away, Chinchou bobbed their angler lights overhead. A little girl sitting on a large boulder played with two bobbing Inkays, and as Opal and Bede climbed the stairs, she waved at them.

"Hello, Ms. Opal. Welcome, Trainer."

Opal smiled at the girl and gestured to her young traveling companion. "This is Bede. He's going to be the town's next Gym Leader."

The girl's eyes lit up and she fidgeted in her spot on the boulder. "Oh, that's so exciting! This will be the talk of the town for sure. Good luck, Bede."

"Er, thanks," he stammered, then as they walked away, he muttered to Opal, "You have an awful lot of confidence to say that."

"I am rarely wrong in the choices I make," she replied. An impish glance peeked from the brim of her hat. "Don't prove me wrong, child."

Though she had a jovial tone, his stomach twisted in nervousness as if she had said it ominously. Why was he nervous? Why did he care? He didn't really want to be a Gym Leader. He hoped to just glean whatever information Opal had on the Wishing Stars, then be on his way. If there was a second chance to redeem himself in the Chairman's eyes, then he would seize that chance by the throat.

Opal led him down a winding path away from the Gym. Bede frowned. "Wait, where are we going?"

She quirked a white eyebrow at him. "You're not living at the Gym. Don't you want to see where you'll be living?"

Bede nearly stopped in his tracks. She was taking him to her house. It looked like the other cottages in town, timber-framed and dotted with cascading plants. A wooden armbench occupied the tiny front yard. A door flap took up a third of the whole door.

Suddenly a Mightyena bounded through the door flap with ferocious barks. Bede couldn't help jumping back in alarm. An Obstagoon opened up the wooden door to occupy almost the entire threshold and crossed its arms. It leered at Bede with bared fangs and through red eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Opal waved a placating hand at the pair of Dark type Pokemon. "Oh, hush now, my dears. The boy's all right. He's with me."

Bede's hand flitted to the Poke balls on his belt, not to send them out, but to protect them. He had a team of Psychic types, after all. "What are they doing here? Aren't you a Fairy type Trainer, Ms. Opal?" He hated how his voice got high and cracking when he gets scared.

Opal patted Obstagoon's arm with one hand, then ruffled Mightyena's mane with the other. "These are my husband's Pokemon. Descendants of them, anyway. They keep good company. Sometimes good protection." At her touch, the two Pokemon relaxed and looked to her with undisguised affection.

Bede tried to relax, too. "You have a husband?"

"Had."

"Oh, so he's—"

"Not around." She gestured to another path with the tip of her umbrella. "If you want to meet him, take the trail to the Ballonlea Cemetary."

Bede rubbed the back of his head. What should he say? "Er, I'm sorry."

Opal gave him a toothy grin. "No need to be. He left me ages ago. Now come inside and have some tea."

"Yes, ma'am." Bede stepped inside the house after her, followed closely behind by the vigilant Mightyena and Obstagoon. He was not surprised in the least to find the interior painted in cheerful pastel colors, shades of purple, pink, and light blue. He felt like walking into a child's dollhouse. Every piece of furniture—the sofa, the dining table, the armchair, the nightstand—looked like it was made for one. Excluding the company of Pokemon, clearly Opal had been living alone for a long time.

As Opal went straight to brewing tea in the kitchen, her following remark confirmed his suspicions. "It's been a while since I've had visitors in here. Mostly because this place has been a righteous mess."

"I...I can see that," Stacks of papers, discs, and tapes were piled halfway to the ceiling, on the verge of toppling over if Bede carelessly bumped an elbow or his hip against them.

Opal set two steaming teacups on the table, then turned to pull a book from the nearby shelf. The thick weight of it bent Opal over and nearly made her drop it, but she managed to heave it over the table and place it with a solid thump before Bede.

"Here, a crash course on the care and training of Fairy type Pokemon. Written by my own mum."

Bede peered at the cover. "By Ruby Roy," it said. He looked up at her with a frown. "You want me to read all of it, Ms. Opal?"

"From front to back until you have it memorized," she said firmly. "Mum made me do that, so I'm passing down the same regimen."

Bede bit back a groan. He wasn't one to sit still and hunched over a book for a long time. As he sipped at his tea, he found her unblinking gaze of intense scrutiny on him unnerving, so he tried to avoid staring back at her by leafing through the Fairy Pokemon training manual.

The pages were Butterfree wing-thin, aged from lengthy ownership but evidently cared for since there were no holes or stains. Bede kept the teacup a fair distance from the book. Somehow he didn't want to risk pissing off an old lady like Opal.

"I notice that you favor Psychic types," She remarked as she sipped from her own teacup. "The jump from using Psychic to Fairy types isn't a terribly big one. I know many Pokemon that are Psychic-Fairy, like Gardevoir, Hatterene, and Galarian Rapidash. You would do well to start using them."

"I already have a Galarian Ponyta and a Hattrem," Bede said.

"Splendid. You'll still have to make some switches to your team, though. Go for a few runs through Glimwood Tangle to catch and train your new Pokemon. But first, before any battles, hit the books." She seemed to notice his dismay, and the corners of her puckered lips twitched upward, though not apologetically. "I'm an old-fashioned gal."

Opal had Bede read through one chapter for the day, then asked him to help her tidy up the house. "We'll need to get the clutter cleared so you can have your own space," she said. "I only have one bedroom, so you'll have to make do with the sofa."

Bede shrugged. "That's fine. I'm used to sleeping in chairs."

She thrust a feather duster into his hands. "You're a tall boy for your age," she remarked as she looked him up and down. "You can dust the shelves that have been out of my reach since my back got bad." She grinned. "How handy."

Bede resisted heaving a sigh, otherwise he'd get dust up his nose. He pulled up the sleeves of his pink oversized coat and got to work. The stacks of papers, discs, and tapes turned out to be years worth of audition material, records of thousands of candidates Opal had been considering to be her successor. She had kept them around for reference, or in case she had to contact anyone she changed her mind about. Now that Bede was chosen, she had no more use for them. Her Mawile proved to be a big help in shredding up the paper and chomping the discs and tapes into pieces in its big jaws. Bede noticed that Opal kept her Pokemon team, along with Mightyena and Obstagoon, out of their Poke balls while she was at home. Weezing floated and puffed in content around the front yard, while Togekiss nestled in the sofa, and Alcremie, due to its creamy body and high-maintenance care, was kept away from the furniture and could be in the kitchen where messes were more tolerable.

"I use the Poke balls only during battles," Opal said. "Just for show, like a stage prop. This may boggle your young mind, but back in the day, I grew up in a time before Poke balls were invented."

Bede paused in collecting scrap from Mawile to stare at her in disbelief. "No Poke balls at all? How did that work?"

"Oh, we simply kept our Pokemon around. Sometimes people kept them on leashes, though I'd rather not do that to my own. Imagine having a full party of six Pokemon and each went its own way!"

"That's crazy," Bede agreed. Weren't Poke balls invented fifty years ago? The remark slipped out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "Wow, you really have been around forever." She squinted at him and he quickly added, "Forever sixteen, I mean."

She leaned back in her armchair and giggled. "That's the correct answer."

Bede resumed his chores with relief. That peppy little brother of the Champion's annoyed him to no end, but he had Hop to thank for the warning: "When the Gym Leader Opal asks you how old she is, whatever you do, don't ever say that she's really bloody old!"

Once Bede threw out the clutter, Opal's house became much more manageable to navigate through. Bede had to fetch his own blankets from the attic himself, since Opal was no longer in good shape to climb up and down the ladder. His feet hung over the edge of the sofa whenever he stretched out to sleep on it. At first he was embarrassed when Opal made him borrow her purple fuzzy slippers, but he got over it because they kept him warm at night.

Bede learned over the next few days that Opal followed a rigid routine. At seven in the morning, she got up to have scones or oatmeal with a cup of hot tea. At eight, she went for a walk around town with Mightyena. Because the trees gave protection from the rising sun and kept the place cool and fresh, Ballonlea was the perfect place for a morning walk. Those who didn't know Opal well, like visitors and foreigners, would be surprised to see her, a Fairy type specialist, strolling through town with a Dark type Pokemon. The locals didn't bat an eye at this. If Opal wasn't seen with Mightyena on the trails around eight, that was worrying. By around eleven, she returned home to break for an early lunch of salad sandwiches prepared by Obstagoon. In the afternoon, she would take a nap, go outside to smoke a pipe on the armbench, or read the local newspaper Mightyena would fetch for her. Otherwise, on days that the Ballonlea Theatre was preparing a play, Opal would be over there from afternoon to late evening to manage the stage and cast.

Her current project, however, was Bede. So she stayed at home to make sure that he got situated, and kept the Gym closed to challenges in the mean time. While training in Glimwood Tangle, he evolved his Ponyta into Rapidash, his Hattrem into Hatterene, and acquired a Ralts. As for his fourth Pokemon, Opal gave him her Mawile.

"Though I haven't handed the title over to you officially, I still consider myself retired," she told him. "My battling days are over. You and Mawile seem to take a liking to each other well enough. She's yours now."

Mawile chirped happily at Bede's side. "Y-You don't have to do that," he stammered. "I can go catch another Pokemon..."

Opal waved a dainty hand. "Why go through that trouble when I can simply give you one? Like I said, I'm done battling. But not Mawile. You've seen how she has been chewing away at that audition scrap. She's still itching for battle. She's better off with you, my boy."

Bede had no choice but to reluctantly accept Mawile as a gift. This wasn't supposed to happen. He only trained in Glimwood Tangle to get stronger, and lived with Opal to cozy up with her so she could spill whatever she knew about Wishing Stars. Now he'd feel like scum if he hightailed out of Ballonlea with her Mawile in tow. And something about leaving an old lady alone again stirred up guilt he didn't expect. Besides, he didn't even have time to stop and ask about the Wishing Stars. Opal kept him busy.

It took Bede several days living with Opal and cleaning her house to realize that she had no photos whatsoever. No photos hanging on the walls, or sitting around on stands. Any hints of a past and a family were nonexistent. That baffled him, but he remembered the brief mention of her husband earlier, and he hesitated on bringing that up again with her.

Bede was getting used to the temperature in the cottage. He didn't need the extra blankets, so one day, while Opal went for her morning walk with Mightyena, he climbed up the attic to stow them away. But he forgot which chest held the blankets. He batted away cobwebs as he rummaged through the many boxes and chests that littered the floor of the attic. In his search for the right place, he fumbled in the dim light and bumped into a cabinet. Something flat and hard toppled off to fall straight on his head. He stumbled back and swore, clutching his throbbing scalp. A large oval portrait clattered to his feet face down. Still rubbing his head, he turned the portrait face up with his other hand.

Bede blinked in surprise. It was a woman, a young and beautiful one. Short dark curls framed her face. She wore a white blouse with a large frilly collar about her neck. She seemed to exude a cheeky, almost flirty air, with a hand propped on her hip and a wide grin as her gaze was directed just off to her left, probably at the artist who did the portrait.

"Who's this?" Bede muttered.

A relative of Opal's? A daughter, or a granddaughter? Or could that be Opal herself? Curiosity overwhelmed him and made him put aside his initial quest for the chest of blankets. He had a new quest. He opened up lids and dug into the confines of whatever he opened, hoping to scrounge up more hints of the old woman's past. He didn't know how much time passed. The attic had no windows. Bede got pulled into his new quest like an Electric type Pokemon drawn to a magnet.

After some effort to open up trunks at the deepest part of the attic, he managed to find stacks of photos with the same young woman. This time she posed with other people, mostly with an older, bearded, yet handsome gentleman and a boy with the same dark, curly hair that she had. In almost every photo, the man and boy had an arm around her. The young woman smiled widely, radiantly, through the sepia-toned dimness of old pictures. None of the photos were compiled into albums, for some reason. Bede spread them evenly and carefully on the attic floor, contemplating over his discovery.

"Bede?"

Hearing his name made him jump. Opal was home? He hadn't heard the door swing shut. How long had she been inside?

"Where are you, boy?"

Bede scrambled to gather the photos back into stacks. There were a lot of them. He wasn't fast enough to gather them all. Heavy stamps up the ladder made him freeze and whirl around. Obstagoon had climbed up the attic carrying Opal in its strong arms.

"Bede, thank goodness you're all right," she cried out in relief. "You didn't answer when I came home, so I thought something terrible had happened to you, and I—What are you doing with those?"

Her question cut through the air and made Bede cringe.

"Bede, where did you find the pictures?"

Opal's voice had always been soft and thin. The uncharacteristic sharpness to it now startled him.

"I-I was just coming up here to put back the blankets," he stuttered. "I-I found these by accident."

Opal tapped on Obstagoon's arm so the Pokemon could gently set her down. She closed the distance between herself and Bede with the same unusual quickness back at Hammerlocke, and snatched the photos from his hands. "I forgot where I had these. Now I remember where I've put them away, and I did that so I could forget."

Bede had never seen Opal so upset, and that terrified him. "I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I'm really, really sorry, Ms. Opal."

Not only did she look upset, she looked like she was in pain. A few photos slipped from her grasp and back onto the floor. Opal looked down at them, then her eyes scrunched shut and her lips drew into a thin, hard line.

Obstagoon let out a growl of concern and reached out with both paws to steady her. Bede tried to approach her, but the Pokemon bared its fangs at him. For a split second of dread, Bede wondered if she was having a heart attack. At her advanced age, that guess wasn't unreasonable.

Opal sucked in a long, shuddering breath, then let it out in a gusty sigh as she looked up back at Bede.

"You want to know, don't you?" She said softly, the angry light out of her eyes now. "I can hear you asking that question even if you're not asking it out loud." She beckoned at Bede to come closer, and pointed at the topmost picture of the stack in her hands. "That woman here...that's me."

"That's you?" Bede exclaimed.

She nodded. "That man is Roger, my husband. And that boy is Jasper, my son."

Bede's head spun from the weight of the revelation. He noticed that there were no pictures of Jasper beyond the time he was a boy. No pictures of Jasper in his teens, or older. "What happened?" He whispered. He feared that she would snap at him again.

Instead her shoulders sagged. "Where do I start? There's so much to tell." She buried her face into the crook of her thin arm to cough into it. "Blimey, this attic is so dusty. I'd much rather carry on the conversation over tea and better air. Bring the pictures down."

Bede blinked at her in surprise. "I thought you didn't want to see them, Ms. Opal."

"I didn't want to see them for almost sixty years," she murmured. "Times have changed. Now you are going to be the next Gym Leader." She rested a withered hand over Bede's. "Not only that, but you are practically under my care, like family. And since you're like family, I owe you my story, because soon it will be yours."

Opal, with Obstagoon's help down the attic, left him with that. Finally, Bede shook out of his stupor to gather up the photos of Opal and her family. For the first time in many, many years, he brought them downstairs.

Notes: On Mightyena and Obstagoon being descendants of Pokemon belonging to Opal's late husband: There's no canon on Pokemon lifespans, so I thought that relying on lifespans of real-life animals would suffice. At least, for the Pokemon whose designs are inspired by real-life animals. I used the average lifespans of dogs and badgers for Mightyena and Obstagoon. 70 years seems like too long for the original Mightyena and Obstagoon to stick with Opal. Same goes for her own Pokemon.

Musical inspiration for this chapter was "Concerning Hobbits" from The Lord of the Rings.

For voices, I imagine Bede to sound like Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy in the 1st and 2nd Harry Potter movies, and old Opal sounds like Maggie Smith as Lady Violet from Downton Abbey.

#pokemon sword and shield #pokemon swsh #opal pokemon #bede pokemon #pokemon fanfiction #pokemon fic #pokemon headcanon #swsh opal #swsh bede #pokemon opal #pokemon bede #pokemon la vie en rose

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brokehorrorfan · 5 years ago

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Blu-ray Review: Hell Comes to Frogtown

Despite lighting up the screen during his wrestling promos throughout the ‘80s, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper didn't fully transition to film until 1988's Hell Comes to Frogtown. While the low-budget B-movie didn't exactly advance Piper's career outside the ring, it opened the door for him to secure the lead role in John Carpenter's They Live, which opened at #1 at the box office in 1988. Hell Comes to Frogtown may not have the same notoriety, but, warts and all, it’s a fun one - wars and all.

The film is set a decade after a nuclear war has left most of the United States a desolate wasteland. Male survivors are rare, and rarer still are those who remain potent for re-population. Enter Sam Hell (Piper), a scavenger with a high sperm count. The provisional government offers to wipe his lengthy record clean if he rescues and impregnates fertile women held captive in a ghetto of the wasteland dubbed Frogtown, so named for its humanoid-amphibian mutant inhabitants. Piper's loyalty is ensured by an electric chastity belt of sorts that has a "flap" that allows him to perform when duty calls.

The outlandish concept was conceived by director Donald G. Jackson and writer Randall Frakes, who came up together under Roger Corman and previously collaborated on 1986’s Roller Blade. Jackson had a connection with the wrestling world, having made the documentary I Like to Hurt People, but when New World Pictures opted to give Frogtown a bigger budget, they paired him with the more experienced R.J. Kizer (who helmed the new footage for Godzilla 1985's American release) as co-director.

The creature effects sometimes look like low-rent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knock-offs, particularly under the scrutiny of high definition, but Steve Wang's (Predator, The Monster Squad) admirable work on the frog people - particularly Commander Toty, the leader with an animatronic head - elevates the production beyond its low budget. The post-nuke setting also helps to bolster the production value.

As a wrestling personality, Piper was used to playing for the cheap seats, so his take on Sam Hell is big and broad. He improved as an actor tenfold in the short time between Frogtown and They Live, with the latter performance far more grounded, but Frogtown's absurd material allows him to chew the scenery like he would in his wrestling promos. There's nothing to rival his legendary fight scene in They Live, but Piper does duke it out with a few frog-men, including outsmarting one with a Three Stooges gag.

Sandahl Bergman (Conan the Barbarian) co-stars as Spangle, Sam Hell's handler who is "trained in seduction techniques." Although she occasionally gets the upper hand on Hell, as you might imagine, she is largely relegated to the damsel in distress at best and eye candy at worst. The cast also includes William Smith (Maniac Cop), Rory Calhoun (Motel Hell), Nicholas Worth (Darkman), and Lee Garlington (Cobra).

Hell Comes to Frogtown has been newly restored in 4K from its 35mm interpositive for Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. It looks clearer than a movie called with such a ridiculous title has any right to, with a 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix to match. It features reversible cover art with two different archival posters. Vinegar Syndrome also offers an exclusive, V-shaped splitcover designed by Earl Kessler Jr., which is limited to 3,000 units.

The disc features a new, 55-minute interview with Frakes, who provides an exhaustive history of the film. It's filled with interesting anecdotes, like the fact that he and Jackson initially wanted Tim Thomerson for the role of Sam Hell, while New World originally pushed for Daniel Stern. If that's not enough, the audio commentary with Jackson and Frakes from Anchor Bay's 2001 DVD release features additional insight, and the filmmakers were not afraid to air their grievances.

Beyond that, the special features from Arrow Video's Region B release of the film in 2013 are ported over. They include interviews with Piper, who is open about his lack of acting experience and how his perspective on the movie has changed over the years; actor Brian Fran, who discusses the challenges of working in a heavy suit topped by an animatronic head; and Wang, who reveals how he created the frog-men on a budget, accompanied by behind-the-scenes photos.

Hell Comes to Frogtown is as ludicrous in tone as it is in title. It largely functions as a post-apocalyptic action flick, but it also dabbles in the creature feature, sex comedy, and exploitation realms. The result is an amalgam of Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, and Porky's, as if directed by Russ Meyer. It mostly works, thanks to a healthy helping of campy charm to hold it all together.

Hell Comes to Frogtown is available now on Blu-ray/DVD via Vinegar Syndrome.

#hell comes to frogtown #roddy piper #rowdy roddy piper #sandahl bergman #vinegar syndrome #article #review #dvd #gift #roger corman #rory calhoun #william smith #earl kessler jr.#80s horror #1980s horror

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theflyingpimphat · 6 years ago

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A to Z Episode 2

Handling illegal goods

It was weird waking up in complete darkness. Arqeez fumbled for the fastening of the safety belts with his smaller pair of hands while a bigger arm was searching for the light switch on the wall. The lamps flickered to life and made finding the fasteners a lot easier. The moment they opened, the belts retracted into the wall, releasing the large exoskeletal from his position on the mattress lying in the corner.

Sleeping while tied up was uncomfortable but necessary, especially considering who steered the ship. Speaking of the pilot...

Arqeez walked in the direction of the bridge, grabbing himself several food ration packages from a box nearby on the way. They tasted like sponge soaked in broth, but were surprisingly filling for something so small. One block between his teeth and several more in hand, Arqeez pushed the panel that opened the door.

Loud noise was the first thing that greeted him. Arqeez could recognize it as some kind of Kun Esh folk music, which meant it had a heavy beat and a lot of low frequency notes that made different parts of the ship rattle in resonance. Arqeez walked up to the pilot seat, paying attention not to step on the brown and white patterned tail sticking out of a section sawed out of the seat's backside and coiled up on the ground.

“Morning, Arq,” came from the seat's front side, barely audible in between the loud music.

Arqeez gave his companion a look. “You look like you really need a break yourself now,” he said with the food ration still in his mouth. Zekra all but hung in the safety belts, both arms slung onto the steering module more as support rather than for controlling the ship. Ge had told once that Serkanians had a pretty high tolerance for extended waking periods, but they still had their limits.

“As much as I want to, I can't.” Zekra leant forward to push a button on the console and the music went quiet. “Hear for yourself.”

Arqeez needed a few moments to listen himself through the various humming and rattling noises that made out the soundscape of the Sciara.

“You mean the knocking?”

“Exactly. Some shit is loose in this bucket again and I have no clue which. That's why I have to be present, to keep tabs on it, hear if it changes or if it influences anything about the controls or the life support until I can land it for a repair. Well, at least I don't have to hang here for long.” Ge gestured at the window.

Only then Arqeez paid attention to what was going on outside. The sight was confusing: there was a weird object slowly growing in the view. It looked like a large city had been rolled up into a ravel, parts sticking out at random angles.

Zekra gave ger companion a look like ge caught him trying to drink the water from the alga farm. “It's a space station. Aun 74 Et, to be precise, also known as the garbage heap of the Tolemut quadrant. I wanted to avoid it, but with the ship dicking around, I have no other choice.”

Arqeez kept looking out of the window while opening another food ration package, examining the odd object called a space station. He could see a number of small ships swarming around it, entering and exiting ports or landing on marked platforms. Sometimes even parts of the space station itself detached and moved to different places to dock.

“But if you need to land there, why are you going around it? There are landing marks all over it.”

Zekra took a few seconds to answer. “There is a very specific repair station I'm approaching. Run by Skiamus. As unpleasant as this station is, that is one of its better elements.”

“Greetings, customer! How can I help you and your ship?”

There was a screen in the middle displaying a stylized face of a grinning Tolemo to interact with, yet Zekra couldn't help shifting ger gaze between the three cameras surrounding it. The jovial electronic voice came from a synthetic entity, a three-metre-long streamlined machine floating at eye height. They were inside a spacious hangar, the last airlock gate that let the Sciara into the space station still closing. Several identically-looking synthetic entities were already examining and scanning the aged spaceship's exterior while other ships were being worked on on different platforms.

“A system check, there is a knocking sound when it is running. Aside from that, a sealing of the airlock. The leaks have been taped shut and allow its use in an atmosphere, but not in a vacuum.”

The Skiamu clicked its tools mounted to multiple arms attached at the bottom. “Understood. The estimated time for full restoration of the requested functions will take 17 tertiary Universal Time Units. Please return in an adequate time frame.”

“How much will it cost?”

“The estimated costs for the requested repairs are between 500 and 10000 Gams. Unfortunately, with the current lack of knowledge of the state of components to repair, a narrower frame cannot be given.”

“Well, let's hope it will be in the lower end. Have fun with the repairs.” The Skiamu's antigravity pads that held it in the air turned, made it swerve sideways and away. Zekra turned towards ger larger companion, who was watching the Skiamu floating away. “Arqeez, let's go, we have 17 terts to spend.”

“They are machines,” Arqeez stated while they walked towards one of the smaller gates leading out of the hangar and deeper into the station.

“Yes, so what? Skiamu repair stations have the best cost-performance ratio you will find in the known galaxy, because they only charge for material expenses with an additional charge that goes towards maintaining themselves, their tools and their station. They have no needs for having a living place, entertainment, families and all those other money sinks us organic lifeforms tend to have. Repairing machines is their only desire. That's why I can also leave them alone with the Sciara and not expect anything to be stolen or anyone taking a dump in the ventilation system for fun.”

Arqeez looked back at the ship. “Speaking of leaving the ship, why not going back and sleep there? You are about to fall over.”

“That is one of the things not to do in a Skiamu repair station. As amiable as they are, they have no consideration for anything not connected to their work. It will be loud and if they have to dismantle the wall with the pallet on it, they will screw it off with you still on it.” Ge sighed. “Well, off to find some shitty cheap dosshouse where the mattresses have formed their own ecosystems sourced from half the quadrant's planets.”

The inside of the space station proper corrobated Arqeez' comparison to a rolled-up city. Everything was either metal, plastic or ceramic, seemingly clobbered together with little regards what fitted to which. One moment they walked over solid metal plates clanking and bending under their feet, the next moment it were grids, allowing the view on tubes underneath, one of them leaking steam. Overhead, cables of various thickness and colour were tied to the ceiling in thick bundles. It was dark, noisy, stifling and cramped, stuffed to the brim with people and the wares they wanted to sell and buy.

Small stores and stands lined the narrow alleys, their owners loudly trying to get the attention of passerbys, mostly in Unicomlang, sometimes in one of the many other languages spoken in the quadrant. Similarly, the people present came from all over the place. Where on planets there was usually one or several species being dominant, Aun 74 Et harboured a wild mixture. Im Kpaz scurried between their feet, a Gthuor was praising his wares with inflated horns and a loud honking voice. A Sharkaz pushed herself through the crowd, proudly carrying a tiny male in a cage with one of her head tentacles while her diminutive nonsapient soon-to-be partner was chittering and flapping his wings behind the bars.

“This one looks promising,” Zekra muttered and vanished behind a door wedged between two stands. Arqeez had to duck to be able to follow.

The low, narrow door led into a room that was barely bigger, containing only a counter with a yellow-furred, bored-looking individual of unknown origin behind it. The moment they saw their visitors, the four piercing green eyes narrowed and the upper mouthparts rose straight up.

“Aah, new customers, come in, come in,” the individual said with a heavy accent.

“How much for one room for four to seven tert-UTUs?” Zekra asked, leaning on the counter.

“40 Gams, paid upfront.” The individual ducked under the counter and retrieved a reader, placing it on top. Zekra pulled a currency storage module from a pocket of the bag harness, unlocked it and shoved it into a port on the reader. Satisfied, the receptionist vanished behind the door in the wall behind the counter and came back with a roll of fabric and ropes soon after.

“Room 4 it is,” they said, placing the roll and two disc-shaped electronic keys on the counter.

“But don't be... too loud,” they added with with a slow blink and a quiver in the middle mouthparts which Arqeez figured was an equivalent of a dirty grin. He gave the receptionist a wary look and followed Zekra into the corridor to the rooms, which was as low and narrow as everything else in this establishment; he had to lower his head and even then his antennae brushed over the ceiling.

Calling the room's interior 'bare necessities' was already a stretch. A dim, flickering ceiling light revealed a toilet and a tap in one corner, a small, rickety table against a wall and two pairs of robust hooks on opposite tiled walls.

“Well, at least it is a way from preventing the spread of disease,” Zekra commented while unrolling the bundle. It was a hammock to be hung onto the hooks.

“Okay, Arqeez, this will take some time and will be really boring for you, but try not to move away from this inn too far,” ge said while hooking the hammock up. “Stay in sight of the entrance when you go out. I will leave a module for you. There is barely any money on it left so you can empty it out to get yourself some food and entertainment for the time being. 'Entertainment' excludes beating people up or breaking stuff, for the record. Sure, I will not forbid you self-defense, but for fuck's sake, don't start anything.”

Zekra took off the bag harness and slung it over one of the hammock's ropes, removed the currency module in question and threw it over to Arqeez. Then ge clumsily got onto the hammock and a bit of shifting later, both shoes dropped out.

“But what if there are no places to get food while still staying in sight?” Arqeez wondered, turning the module and the electronic key in one pair of hands each. “I also wonder what sort of entertainment here is. Zekra, what about fighting rings? Are those fine?”

The only answer was silence.

At first, Arqeez wanted to stay in the room and wait, but after about two hours, it pulled him outside. Making sure the door was closed and secured, he walked the low corridor into the entry area. The four eyes of the receptionist were fixating him on his way.

“Time well spent, I presume?”

Arqeez paid him a brief glance. “No, just waiting. Tired of waiting.” He then stopped, facing the yellow individual and their staring eyes. “If you go in there and take Zekra's stuff or do any harm to ger, I will find you and tear your limbs off.”

The individual's eyes narrowed and the upper mouthparts rose. “I wouldn't think of that in my dreams. We value the discretion of our customers here.”

Arqeez gave the receptionist a last look before he pushed the panel that opened the door to the outside.

Behind the door of the inn he was met with a cacophony of smells. The dominant one was that of the various metals and plastics the space station was composed of, but it was unable to hide the smells of the various nuances of unwashed bodies from a multitude of planets, the distinctive acridity of rust and fuel, the faint notes of decay. And of course, the alluring scent of food.

Following the strongest note of the more interesting food smells, Arqeez' feet carried him to a stand not far away from the inn. Looking back, he could see the door, so he was doing everything right. The stand in question was hissing with the sizzling of hot oil where a spindly exoskeletal was using all their four arms to dump, remove and turn around small orb-shaped things in several pans.

The exoskeletal turned one of his two iridescent stilted eyes into Arqeez' direction, the other one still jerking from pan to pan.

“Oh, hello, dear customer. Here to have some kunus, I presume?” Despite the cook being a completely different species than the receptionist, their voice was dripping with the same greedy sliminess.

“You mean those balls?”

“Of course I mean those balls.” The exoskeletal emitted an amused raspy chitter. “Judging by your size, you will likely want to have an extra large portion. That would be 12 Gams.”

Arqeez showed the cook the currency storage module to have him evaluate the red line that indicated how much was left. “Will this be enough?”

“More than enough.” One of the hands briefly interrupted its work to pull up a reader and tap some buttons while two others were shovelling finished kunus into a large one-use bucket. Arqeez did what he has seen his companion do many times and put the module into the reader's port after opening its protective cap, watching the red line on the module's screen shrink a bit, then removed it when the line started to blink.

With the module back in the pocket strapped around the base of his postabdomen and the bucket in a hand, Arqeez decided to spend his time eating the kunus while checking out the other stands in the vicinity of the inn. A lot of them didn't interest him, like the ones selling machine parts, souvenirs or cloth pieces. There was another food stand in the vicinity, but whatever was being cooked there smelled so unappealing Arqeez assumed it would be inedible to him. Zekra had told him to check if the food he ate was compatible with his biochemical profile or whatever ge had called it. But it was a complex array of letters and numbers he usually forgot right after hearing it, hence he preferred trusting his sense of smell, which hadn't failed him so far.

Speaking of smell, there was one entering between the metal and the weird stuff being cooked that grabbed his interest. It reminded him of the plants he had smelled several planets ago, mixed with cleaning powder and the wall paint used in the last planet's space terminal, yet it was different. It piqued his curiosity and made him follow the scent rail.

The scent carried him to a stand set in a niche in the wall, in a place of the space station that was not frequented much and poorly lit. The stand itself was partially overhung with dark, heavy cloth and manned by a rotund being with tiny eyes, head fans with complex folds and two movable tubes poking out of the tip of the upper jaw, apparently holding nostrils at their tips. On the table in front of the trader there were a number of round flat jars, which looked identical save for the differently-coloured stickers on their lids. The smells seemed to come from said jars.

“What are those supposed to be?” Arqeez asked the trader, pointing at the jars. “They smell strange.”

“Ooh, a connoisseur of arts I hear, welcome to my stand,” the trader piped. Unlike the receptionist and the food seller, this one's feelings seemed to actually match his words. “These are umi'qui boxes, an art form practised by us Varufoi. I will show you.”

The Varufoi took one of the jars and opened it, then put their tubes over the substance inside and took a slow, deep breath. “Ooun wood and Damelian algae with a hint of holom. The wood’s natural balsamic smell gets a note of spice from the algae and the holom rounds it off into a symphony of scent, I tell you. Try for yourself,” they said and handed the jar to Arqeez. Since his olfactory organs were not connected to his spiracles, he brought the jar up to his forehead and waved his feathered antennae above it. It was indeed an interesting smell. Usually, scents were separate elements for him, easy to pick apart and follow to their source. But this mixture made them... fit together surprisingly well? As if they were parts of one single olfactory construct, meant to be together.

The Varufoi seemed to notice Arqeez' confused expression. “You probably have seen drawings or paintings to be enjoyed by those with good vision or music and ranthouls for those with good hearing. Umi'qui boxes are like that, but for those with good sense of smell. It takes skill and talent to find smells that accentuate each other well and then to mix them together in their best amounts. Some other cultures use a primitive form of that to spray or smear the smells onto their bodies to cover their own odour, what a waste! Like burning a painting to warm yourself at the fire!” The Varufoi shook his head, folded and unfolded the head fans. “But I trail off. Here is one which I enjoy in particular. Hmm, can you guess what scent was used as the base?”

Arqeez put down the jar he had been given first and took the new one. The smell that came from it was surprisingly familiar.

“Machine oil?”

“Indeed!” the Varufoi clasped their chubby hands together with elation. “Such a simple everyday substance, yet I could turn it into a piece of art with Limarian herbs and Garmatian brine midge secretions! Now, let me smell you this one, my most recent creation!”

After a time that felt like several terts, Arqeez had smelled himself through the whole collection of the Varufoi's stand. He wanted to go back to the inn to check on Zekra, but as he turned around, there was no door of the inn in sight. Not a single part of the sight had any resemblance to the part where it was located, in fact.

Crap.

Arqeez took the branch-off that smelled most like the area with the inn, crumpling up and dropping the long-empty kunu bucket into a trash disposal. There were more people in the alley he had taken, walking in both directions without stopping. Arqeez followed the flow, checking the smell of the side alleys if it was more or less similar from what he remembered being close to the inn.

Where was it?

Zekra awoke to the sound of the flickering ceiling light.

Uncurling, ge looked around. As expected, Arqeez was not present, so ge didn't bother staying in the room longer than needed.

“Six terts,” ge muttered while taking a look at the wrist computer. “Well, let's hope the big lug didn't get himself into trouble during that time.”

After ger stretching routine, Zekra put ger shoes and bag harness back on and rolled up the hammock, which ge put onto the receptionist's counter while leaving.

“Your friend has left about four and a half tert-UTUs ago, I presume,” the green-eyed individual said after being asked about Arqeez' whereabouts. I haven't seen them after that.”

“Well, thanks. I'm off, then.”

“Grace this establishment with your presence again soon,” the receptionist said with narrowed eyes and raised upper mouthparts.

Outside, the alleys of Aun 74 Et were as busy as usual. Some stands were erected, others dismantled, people walked from place to place, stopped at the stands, vanished and emerged from barely-visible doors. There was probably a member from every intelligent species of the entire quadrant present and there was rarely more than one of each species being visible, but none of those were an Idrath.

Zekra stood at the entrance for a few moments, checking the passerbys and the stands, but it seems Arqeez had indeed wandered out of the dosshouse's proximity.

“You fucking idiot,” the Serkanian groaned. Finding Arqeez in a regular city when he got lost was bad enough, but space stations were worse in every aspect. Zekra sought out the next food stand and asked the trader if he had seen the large, dark grey exoskeletal with orange marks and feathered antennae.

“Nnnot that I know, no,” the trader answered with a nasal, high-pitched voice. “I have opened the stand two terts ago, maybe he had left before I arrived?”

“Must have been that way, thanks.”

Two food stands later, Zekra had found a witness, a Zambularian who was selling kunus which he prepared right at the stand. “Yes, I saw an individual who would match the description. Bought a large bucket of kunus here. Do you want to buy a bucket yourself?”

“Not before I find him,” Zekra replied. “Did you see where he went afterwards?”

“This direction,” the Zambularian pointed with a tong. “Can't tell more, there were kunus to fry. I'm willing to give you a discount, considering a friend has brought you here, even if it wasn't by recommendation.”

“Not before I find him, as said.”

Zekra turned into the direction the Zambularian had pointed, but didn't get far. There was a six-legged machine standing in ger way, two additional manipulative limbs clicking. The top of it was mostly taken up by a glass dome that allowed a view inside, which was filled with water and contained either a Doburen or Xunnm; a skeleton-less, flattened aquatic with two large, mobile eyes and twelve tentacles, each on a separate lever in their mobile aquarium. The broad flat back, starting out with a greenish-brown colour, rapidly began to flash in a variety of colours and patterns.

“Hello, I have seen the individual you are searching,” a monotonous, robotic voice translated the flashes into Unicomlang. “They were walking around seaweed shortjaw-” the aquatic's flashes briefly stopped, then repeated at a slower pace. “They were walking around Hor 39 Alley, which you can reach by going left to the Jounur stand that mutilates... commonplace... sells the stitched kerchiefs. Excuse me, this new visual to auditory communication translator model is recently-installed and ellipsoid... cathode screen... concrete... rape and desiccate this fucking useless piece of electronic trash!” The individual's tentacles curled up in frustration and their flashes became red-tinted. “May the company that stuck it together get infested with worms and shit their own bowels out!”

“Thanks for the information, I think that is enough to find him but I need to hurry,” Zekra told the still swearing aquatic and sped off into the mentioned direction while trying to hide ger amusement at how the translator was able to give out the stream of profanities without a single fault.

The given directions led ger to a narrow alley, past several intersections and then up a metal ramp that connected with the space station layer above. This part was where the proper stores were located. Instead of small stands, inns and pubs that were focused on serving the newly-arrived, these were the parts where those staying for extended time spans or permanent residents of Aun 74 Et would find what they needed. It was not nearly as crammed as the exterior parts, not as stifling and cleaner. But while it was easier to scan the place for the lost companion, he was still nowhere to be seen. Not that he was easy to confuse with a different individual; as far as Zekra knew, he was the only Idrath native who was off-planet and hardly any other type of exoskeletal reached his size and mass.

After wandering the alleys for some time and asking various store owners if they had seen the Idrath with no results, Zekra decided it was time to take matters into ger own hands. Finding gerself a remote dead end where a few crates were stored and no one would disturb ger, ge crouched down, put both ger hands on the ground and closed ger eyes. A few slow breaths to calm ger hearts and clear ger mind, ge extended the antennae forwards.

Telekinesis was a skill that was understood as a means to move objects in space relative to the user. For this, the moved object had to be felt, otherwise it was impossible to give it directions or to even hold it in place. What many were not aware of was the possibility to use this telekinetic sensing as a way of perceiving the environment. Rather than focusing all energy on a single object to move around, it was spread out, used for nothing more than to touch the objects, to perceive where they were and how they moved relative to the user on their own. Focusing on moving objects was easier than on stationary ones, which allowed Zekra to check through a multitude of walking, gesturing people all around ger.

Yet, out of the schemes ge was perceiving not a single one had the shape of a four-armed, large exoskeletal.

Ge spread the perception further apart, stretched it so thin only the schemes of moving objects were visible. It was crucial to remain motionless while doing this, since every motion of gerself would mean the entire space station moving relative to ger, breaking ger concentration completely. Checking the new schemes that entered ger telekinetic perception, Zekra sensed a thin form that could only be a Bolourn run in and out just at the edge, a fight between a Gthuor and an equally large, unidentifiable species and... there he was!

Ger eyes shot open and the antennae flicked back into their usual position. Arqeez was deeper inside and two layers below. Having pinpointed his position and actually finding him were two different things, though – now it was to take the right alleys, find the right ramps or staircases and maybe even climb the right ventilation shafts.

“...And this is how we ended up here.” Arqeez nodded to his conversational partner. She just wanted to open her mouth again and continue when a familiar voice cut in.

“You brain-amputated imbecile! How the fuck did you manage to get so far away from the inn when I have clearly told you to stay in visible range to its door?”

“Hello, Zekra!” Arqeez' face lit up at seeing his companion run over, who looked rather displeased in return.

“You moron could have gone lost here completely! Maybe even wound up dead by bumbling into an area with an environment lethal for you or because someone decided to harvest your organs and dry them to sell as some quackery that enhances performance in the marital arts and other such shit!”

Arqeez shrugged. “But I'm alive and my organs are where they should be.” A brief look down. “Or at least I think so.”

“Arqeez, don't you want to introduce me to your friend?”

The two interplanetary travellers looked at the third person present. It was a female Tolemo standing at the display of a small store that sold various gadgets, both complete as well as in parts. Arqeez had outdone himself in winding up at the strangest places whenever he was unsupervised, as female Tolemos were a rarity outside Tolemut or its exclaves. Society expected them to stay home and they were travel-lazy by nature, preferring to run everything on their home planets and major settlements ranging from politics to home construction, while the males were those travelling around and seeking work off-planet, sending their earnings home to support their families from afar. Appropriately, the individual was shorter than a male but much bulkier, her advanced age and cushy life having only added to her mass, which her robes had a hard time hiding.

“This is Zekra, the one I'm travelling with. We share a spaceship together, breathe the same air, eat the same food, use the same-” Zekra reached up and put a hand over the Idrath's left spiracle to make him stop before he could share more irrelevant and probably more embarrassing details of how they mostly lived inside a glorified vacuum container.

“And we work together,” ge finished for him.

“That much has been told by Arqeez, yes,” the Tolemo snickered with her colouration turning yellow, then looked around. “In fact, we have been talking to each other about a little transport job I'm willing to pay for well. It is your personal possession, that spaceship you travel in, am I right?”

Zekra passed an annoyed side glance to ger partner. Just how much had he been prattling on to the trader? “Yes. It's in a repair station at the moment and still needs a few tert-UTUs before I can go and check on it. It's also nothing big and the storage room is half-filled already.”

Ooh, good, good,” the Tolemo beamed. “What I'm asking for isn't big, and the smaller the ship carrying it, the better. Your friend did tell me you are willing to turn a blind eye on transporting not quite legal goods when the price is right. Let's come inside, where we can talk about the details.”

“Bloody. Fucking. Shit.”

Zekra was looking at the wares to transport in utter disbelief. There were electric stunners as used by security forces on many planets, small projectile arms, hand-mounted plasma generators and many more weapons filling the crate. Ge faced the Tolemo without changing ger expression in the slightest.

“Excuse me, Elem, but I'm not crazy. This crate is more illegal than me taking a crap in this station's water reserves and even if it weren't, I certainly don't want to contribute to the trade of weapons, even if I could buy half the space station from the payment.”

“Do not worry, these aren’t real, just elaborate decoys,” the Tolemo said, still jolly. “Arqeez, if you may pull the trigger?”

The Idrath, who had taken out a pistol to examine it closer, did as he was told. But rather than discharging a projectile, the weapon opened up along its length. It was hollow inside, stuffed to the brim with transparent packages containing a yellow powder.

“Drug smuggling,” Zekra stated, taking the pistol-shaped container from ger companion to examine the contents closer. “But why disguised as weapons? Why not as something less suspicious?”

“Well, we have used less suspicious containers before, but our couriers tended to be sloppy when they thought the container shape alone was good enough to hide the contents. Hence we switched to weapon-shaped containers to maintain safety measures by the smugglers and since then, interceptions of the transports have gone down significantly. Drugs or weapons, the payment for the transport still stands and I'm willing to put something extra on top. As I said, this is important.”

“Fine.”

Elem's skin changed to a purplish pink and her brow tendrils went up. “Refusing to transport weapons but no discussion on drugs?”

“If someone wants to kill themselves, that's their choice and responsibility,” Zekra shrugged. “But I do take issue if someone wants to kill someone else. Where should the packages go, anyway?”

Elem handed over a piece of paper, having a planet name and address noted on it with a clean, small-lettered Unicomlang handwriting. Lyorimut-3. Being unfamiliar with the planet, Zekra looked it up on the wrist computer while continuing to listen to the Tolemo.

“It is a mining colony that focuses mostly on gemstones, to a lesser degree on ores and minerals. It's not densely populated and not close to any major flight routes or colonized planets. Accordingly, the security measures are lousy, but they are still present, so don't be lax. Aside from the payment, I'm also willing in aiding you with tools to help you getting past, if you don't already have them. Is there anything you need?”

“Yes, a part of the payment being up-front to cover ship maintenance expenses, several supply crates like that one containing food rations and a protective breathing mask fitted for Arqeez,” Zekra told while ger eyes were still on the wrist computer screen. “I see the planet's atmosphere has a pretty high carbon dioxide content. Still liveable by a variety of species, but I prefer not to take any risks and having one made for him is overdue.”

“Well, if that's all...” Elem clasped her hands together.

Fitting the mask took about one and a half hours, in which Elem made casts of Arqeez' spiracle surroundings and parts of his head, had them translated into soft, form-fitting rubber through a matter printer, then put them together with a glass screen, filter ports, straps and everything else needed for a mask that would allow both to control air intake as well as cover any exposed mucous membranes like on the eyes. She spent the time talking about her husband working on the planet the delivery was meant to go and how an infectious disease had him sick more often than working.

Arqeez was getting antsy from having to sit still during the process, but in the end, he had a mask in his possession that allowed him to leave the ship on a planet with an unbreathable atmosphere.

He was dangling the bag containing the mask in his bigger arm while the two were taking the way to the Sciara.

“How will the box get to the ship?” Arqeez wondered. “It’s big and if I understood it right, it should not be seen outside.”

“The contents shouldn’t,” Zekra corrected him. “The exterior is fine, there are hundreds of said crates being transported through this station every sec.” Ge pointed at a worker robot rolling by, carrying two such crates.

“That's what the other supply crates are for. That and a longer flight to our destination. Well, let's hope the Skiamus are finished.”

Some time later, they had arrived at the gate to the repair station. The Sciara was neither dismantled nor being worked on, so Zekra assumed the repairs on it were finished. The crates from Elem had arrived before them and were stacked neatly next to the ship's right hind leg. Ger presence in the proximity of the ship attracted one of the Skiamus that were flying around in the repair station.

“Greetings, customer! We are happy to inform you that the requested functions of your ship have been restored.” The grinning face on the display between the three cameras turned from happy to sad. “Unfortunately, we also discovered several more compromised or failed functions we could not leave unfixed.”

“Well, thanks for the additional efforts,” Zekra replied flatly. “How much does the repair cost?”

“The expenses for the requested functions and the additional repairs are 12053 Gams.”

“Slightly overshot the estimation, it seems. Well, I hope it will be worth it and the bucket is going to fly for a long time before something breaks again,” ge commented while taking out two currency modules and handed them over to the Skiamu. As the synthetic entity floated away to the next reader, Zekra faced ger companion.

“I hate to say it, but your little wandering trip came at the right time and brought you to the right place. The upfront payment for our special delivery brought in enough money to afford all those extra repairs, I think a thank you is appropriate,” ge said with a genuine smile that had the tooth plates hidden.

“Hmm, I do have one or two ideas once we're inside the ship,” Arqeez snickered, his antennae standing straight up and quivering.

Zekra rolled ger eyes, ger tail raised in threat. “I could have expected you to bring up that shit again. Seriously, do you have to be so damn horny the whole fucking time?”

“Can I wish you were more horny instead?”

“Arq, I will test the airlock by dumping you on the next asteroid if you don't shut up about it.”

“The transaction has been completed and your expenses have been paid in full. We thank you for using our services and wish you to return soon,” the Skiamu announced as it returned. The two modules were hanging off one of its grasping limbs.

“Highly unlikely, but thanks.” Zekra took the modules. One was empty and the other half down. Ge put them away and replaced them with the remote control for the Sciara's door. “Arqeez, time to get our freight inside.”

Once the crates had been brought in and secured in the storage room department, ge signalled the repair station’s operators to get the ship out. The platform set itself into motion slowly while the inner gate opened. About fifteen minutes later, the Sciara was standing outside the station, more than enough time for the two to have taken their seats. As the turbines sprung to life for the little push that was required for the ship to take off, Zekra listened to its sounds – not only was the knocking gone, but it flew quieter than even at the day ge had it acquired. If everything went right, the Sciara wouldn't have to see a repair station from the inside again for quite some time.

The flight to the planet their freight was destined to go took them about four weeks. Zekra was dozing in the pilot seat, legs resting on the console and chewing on a stonewood stick when a beeping notified ger of the planet's proximity.

Ge slowed the ship down and left the cockpit. The ship would require ger attention in about half an hour again, enough time to prepare for leaving.

Arqeez was playing around with a small rubber ball in the living area. His antennae went up the moment he heard the door open.

“Are we there yet?”

“Yes, time to gear up,” Zekra replied while walking past him, to the wardrobe in the ship's right wall. Ge quickly put a tunic over the dark grey one-parter, then took out two breathing masks together with several belts, tubes and three air tanks. “You won't be prancing around naked this time.”

The Idrath set his antennae askew. “How do you put those things on?”

“I will show you. Sit down.”

Arqeez did as he was told while Zekra put the mask from the space station over his head and attached the lower portion to his spiracles. The thing felt weird, his eyes were looking through a wide visor that obstructed parts of his view and breathing through it created an odd hissing sound.

“Now spread your arms.” After the mask was attached, Zekra wrapped some of the belts around his upper body and he felt first one, then another of the tanks being attached to his back. “I figured you would need two, considering your oxygen uptake.” There was some more fumbling behind him; as Arqeez wanted to turn his head to take a look, one of the tubes was attached to the right side of his mask, then another to the left.

“Done, you can get up now. Try to get used to the gear for the time being, I will go land the ship.”

Curious on what sort of planet they were heading to that he had to wear this odd, uncomfortable contraption, Arqeez followed his companion to the cockpit. The tanks pushed against his back when he sat down.

The planet seemed to consist of a single, yellowish-brown landmass in a blue ocean. It didn’t appear extraordinary, not even close to the odd appearance of the space station and there he hadn’t needed the mask.

“What is wrong with it? Why the mask?”

“It has an atmosphere not everyone can breathe,” came the reply. “I for example definitely can’t. There is a gas in it at such a high concentration that it can make one faint in a few sec-UTUs if inhaled by a species not adapted to it. But before that happens, you will feel like you are breathing acid. But outside of that, you will probably like it. It’s a young planet, just one supercontinent with most of it being dry like a corpse in a boiler room. There is some simple multicellular life in the ocean, but the landmass is barren save for a few microorganisms. Beside the mines, there is little infrastructure, so it’s probably just land, deliver, leave.”

“Hmm.” After spending so much time in the ship, Arqeez would have liked to be a bit longer outside.

“Makes me wonder,” Zekra continued, “if intelligent life evolves there in hundreds of millions of revs, what will they say when discovering the fossilized remains of some mine worker's discarded junk in rock from a time their ancestors were just learning to swim?”

“Ship with the identification tag SC1-26B-AI25, please respond,” came from the speakers.

“Oh, fuck me sideways”, Zekra leaned back and sighed.

“This was a figure of speech, Arq,” ge quickly added when ge noticed the Idrath's bewildered posture. Leaning forward again, ge activated the intercom.

“Ship with the identification tag SC1-26B-AI25 responding.”

“You seem to be new here. Please land on the Temple Arch station for a security check. Coordinates of the station are being sent.”

“On my way.” The connection was broken off. “Great. Bad security that isn't bad enough for us. Chances are, we are screwed.”

The box containing their special freight was in between identical-looking crates containing food rations as well as dried consumables for variety, where it had been put when it was loaded on the ship. There was not enough time to find a better hiding spot – Zekra had to steer the ship, Arqeez would likely mess it up and if they were to search for a better hiding spot after landing, it would just make them more suspicious. Their best chance was to pretend the load had been slipped into their supplies by accident, which in turn might result in a bigger investigation and would still have them detained for the time being. What was left was to expect the worst but hope for the best.

Temple Arch Station was ridiculously small. Aside from the Sciara, there were just a few even smaller intra-atmospheric ships standing next to nearby buildings, and with that the station was at full capacity. The ship's door opened with a hiss and extended its ramp to the concrete ground.

“Just act like you do on other stations, be quiet and let me do the talking” Zekra said, ger voice distorted by the breathing mask covering ger face. “And if you feel dizzy or short of breath, tell me immediately. I'm not joking about that.”

At the bottom of the ramp there were three security workers already waiting for them. A Hrrau stood in the middle, the only one of the three not equipped with a breathing mask, flanked by a Tolemo with a heavy-looking bag slung around the shoulders and a Ronoumun holding a pen and pad.

“Welcome to Lyorimut-3. What is the reason for the visit?” the Hrrau asked. The Ronoumun remained behind her, tapping the pad with his pen while the Tolemo walked up to the ship, examining the exterior.

“We are visiting a friend in Hatorix Quarry 14.”

“Anyone could say that. Any friend in particular?”

“Yes, his name is Louno,” Zekra told, trying to remember as much about Elem's husband as ge could. “He's a mine worker, but doesn't handle the work very well. He was in the adjacent hospital last time I heard from him.”

The Hrrau's eyes passed over the Sciara. “And what sort of freight do you transport?”

“Aside from the necessities, not much. Some minor mechanical parts and dried herbs for the most part.”

“What a piece of junk.”

As Ledvejet was questioning the two-person crew outside, Hisnar was tasked to examine the ship itself. It had already looked like an exhibit in a run-down museum from the exterior. The inside wasn't any better, the smell alone made him wonder if the ship had been used as an interstellar hearse. He was surprised the chemtracer wasn't getting a short circuit from the smell, but the device meant to detect traces of a wide selection of drugs and explosives functioned normally, showing nothing of concern.

After Hisnar had walked the entire ship with the chemtracer in his hands remaining silent, it was time to check the freight. It was in the hindmost room, behind two compartments that contained respectively a toilet and an apparently nonfunctional shower that was abused as an additional storage room mostly occupied by an EVA suit. There were several compartments behind wire doors, stacked with tied-down crates.

Hisnar went to work, pushing up the door of the leftmost compartment, taking out a crate and opening it. What he saw were optical lenses, thrown into the crate without any care and seemingly taken out of discarded devices. The second crate contained copper scraps, The third one was something else: packages of dried plant material. Hisnar held the chemtracer over them, but it showed no reaction. Apparently those were just spices. The fourth crate was full of mostly unidentifiable mechanic parts, with a damaged cybernetic arm on top.

Every new crate made Hisnar doubt the chance the two were smuggling anything illegal more and more. He had been working at security stations for a good part of his life and had checked countless ships in that time, even before he had been demoted to work on this forsaken, barely-habitable dump. From what he had seen on this particular ship, everything pointed towards it being owned by small-scale scrap dealers. Drug smugglers using such a small and old ship were usually addicts themselves, but the two talking with Ledvejet outside seemed to be normal and the chemtracer would have gone haywire once Hisnar would have left the airlock. And weapon smugglers were usually parts of crime organisations that would for sure not use anything that wasn't pristine and screaming 'law-abiding citizen'. Of course, there were always new types of explosives being developed the chemtracer wouldn't react to. Some type of exotic drug meant for a species with an uncommon biochemical profile and an active group that wasn't part of the chemtracer's detection range. But these sorts of illegal goods were smuggled either by bigger, newer ships or in public shuttles, as no one developing those would give their expensive creations over to a flying scrap heap.

Having worked himself through crate after crate of junk and herb packages, Hisnar opened the last door. It was stacked with crates which, according to the tag stickers, were packed with food rations and purchased on Deurem. One of them was already open, showing the typical packages. He leaned further in, to see if there was something else besides those crates, as an infernal screech and a blue-green flash lunging at his face with wide-open jaws full of black teeth made him jump back with a surprised yelp and slam the wire door shut.

The beast continued to screech and sputter, digging its black teeth into the wire as Hisnar ran for the airlock.

“That... is the weirdest story I have ever heard about anyone coming into the possession of a ship,” the Hrrau said with tilted nose flags, “but let's assume it's true.”

“I have the papers to back it up,” Zekra said with a shrug. The Hrrau wasn't really paying attention, as she saw the Tolemo emerge from the ship and hurriedly run down the ramp.

“Have you found anything suspicious, Hisnar?”

“No, but there is an infestation in there! No clearance!”

“Was the 'infestation' of a blue-green colour, had pink jaws and six legs?” Zekra asked. “Because that would be Mourin, our karucat. She's there to prevent infestations from happening. Is she okay?”

“By the spirits, why would anyone want to keep such a beast?” the Tolemo addressed as Hisnar said, the fear still evident in his voice and colouration. “But yes, she is okay and tearing apart the storage room right now probably.”

Mourin had been in an exceptionally foul mood in the latest time and must have given the security worker quite some shock when he had intruded her territory, Zekra noted with some degree of satisfaction.

“Aside from the karucat, what have you found in there?”

“Dried plants and mechanical junk. Chemtracer remained silent everywhere. I think you can clear them, these are scrap dealers.”

“That's what they have told me, too,” the Hrrau said to her Tolemo colleague, then faced Zekra. “Well, I guess we are done. Enjoy your stay on Lyorimut-3.”

The Sciara was gliding over a span of rocky desert with no sign of civilisation in sight. “Fucking waste of fuel,” Zekra grumbled, ger voice nearly drowned out by the howling of the ship's turbines.

“Hopefully there will be an opportunity to get fuel nearby, otherwise the tank is spent after the next landing. Some extra food for Mourin, too, the little bastard made us get through the security check unscathed. Still, makes me wonder what stuff we have loaded, if the chemtracer didn't detect it.”

Arqeez was in the copilot seat again, having taken the mask off and hung it around his neck. The view from the window was oddly familiar, so similar to his home planet he almost expected one of its enormous predators to saunter out from behind a rock formation.

The flight continued in silence, until buildings appeared on the horizon. There were not many, just the necessities of the mining operation itself and its workers. Zekra steered the ship to land in front of the building that was noted on Elem's instructions, but ge couldn't quite believe what sort of building it was. “A fucking hospital?”

As the two stepped out of the ship, one of the hospital workers was already running up to them. Zekra expected him to chew them out for landing on what ge assumed to be the landing strip for intra-atmospheric vessels.

Instead, the worker said: “The sky has a beautiful shade of blue today.”

Zekra's left antenna twitched. This was the code phrase for the delivery. “It will be prettier tomorrow,” ge replied in a bewildered tone.

The worker's posture changed with relief and his elation could be clearly heard through the breathing mask. “Finally! Fuck, I had thought Elem would never find someone for the bloody transport!”

“Excuse me, but seriously? Drug smuggling for a hospital?” The Serkanian was still baffled by this turn of events.

“Well, not quite,” the hospital worker said, stepping from one leg to another. “The delivery didn't contain drugs in the 'substances that get you high and possibly addicted' sense, but a type of experimental Torouvian flu medication that hasn't been approved yet. It was considered a failure in the beginning, but recently, new tests performed in a high-carbon dioxide atmosphere showed it to be effective against those damn spironates that thrive in this planet’s atmosphere and have become pathogenic. We can't wait the revs for the tests to be wrapped up, because the mine workers are bloody suffering now.”

“But... why? Why let it be delivered through drug smugglers if you could have flown it in through a regular medicine transport? It would have been quicker, too!”

“Maybe it would, but this hospital is not approved for research functions. If we were to transport substances unapproved as medicine, everyone involved in the transport would face punishment and the hospital would risk closing down. Detainment for the contribution in the administration of unapproved substances to patients is up to five quints, but smuggling drugs onto Tolemut-controlled planets and bases? Fucking three quints at most, and the security checks are a joke compared to official medical traffic. Hence we had to rely on illegal ways to have this medication brought here. It’s not always easy, because hardly anyone would bother with the long flight to Lyorimut-3, but it’s the best we could do.”

“That’s quite the revelation,” Zekra commented. Hospitals having to cooperate with drug smugglers... Ge wondered what killed more, the diseases or bureaucracy. “Arq, time to get the crate out.”

A few minutes later, they returned with the crate, while the hospital worker called for a few colleagues that brought a barrow with them. The crate was exchanged for several full red lines on their currency modules, but unfortunately, there was no possibility to refuel. The hospital's fuel stations were only suitable for intra-atmospheric vessels and the next station for spaceships would require another flight that would empty the Sciara's tanks, which still left the question of the type of fuel being used for the shuttles being compatible with the Sciara unanswered. Hence, the ship left the atmosphere, where it could switch to the antigravity drive that didn't use turbine fuel.

“Finally, the mask is off.” Despite the ship having left Lyorimut-3 behind and it being highly unlikely any of Zekra's mad flying was to happen in the near future, Arqeez remained in the copilot seat.

“I will see if the next planet has a breathable atmosphere.”

“What planet do you aim for?”

“Haven't looked for one yet. The flight to the next one will take some time, especially now we are low on fuel and have to skimp on the maneuvering.” Zekra undid the safety belts and got out of the pilot seat. “Since you are so comfortable here, will you stay here for a few secs and alert me if something happens? There are a few favours I have to return.”

Ge went straight from the cockpit to the storage room in the back. “Hello, Mourin.”

There was a special crate among the scrap department that contained meat conserves made from Fenaharian cell cultures specifically for such occasions. Ge took one out and opened it, spreading the foul smell of its contents in the small room. A quiet hissing and chittering told of the other living being in the room noticing the smell as well.

The karucat stood on the highest crate in the food department but wound itself out of the first gap when the door was raised. Mourin scuttled from side to side, looking up expectantly. As she was handed the opened conserve, she started to gobble down its contents, dropping half of it on the floor.

Zekra crouched down to watch the karucat eat with mild amusement. The mess she left was no issue – she would lick it up to the last bit when the conserve was cleaned out and even is she didn't, it was a fair price for her to allow the Sciara to pass through the security check despite their rotten luck.

#a to z stuff #text with images #story #science fiction #aliens #spaceship #planetary travel #space station #drug smuggling #olfactory art #alien culture #inspection

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