#Big Bull Trout

[warriorgentleman]

[adelaidedrubman]

one clown fifteen lines

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!

i was tagged by dears @simplegenius042 @direwombat @gwynbleidd @sofrosine @nightbloodbix @corvosattano @voidika @quickhacked to post a lil bit of oc dialogue samples! outgoing tags below cut + like here to opt in:3

1. “Yeah, ya know, they’re actually teachin’ all kindsa folk how to read an’ write these days,” she answered his second question with a sarcastic exaggeration of the natural twangs of her accent, ignoring his first entirely. “They ain’t even makin’ you go all the way to law school for it no more.”

2. “Piss off, Earl,” she spat, elbowing him out of the way. “I mean, honest to god fuckin’ piss off, alright?”

3. “Opossums are fuckin’ marsupials, Mary May!”

4. “I would fuckin’ carve out your eyes and throw them in the lake first, so that the only thing you’d ever see of me again is my fishing hook when I came back here to catch whatever trout had the bad luck of eating you.” 

5. “Familiar enough to know that if you’re calling me a ‘Delilah’ or something that’s some misogynistic bull —”

6. “Probably do a little publicity tour, once it all makes news. A few TV specials, tell-all nightly news interviews, a true crime podcast here and there. I bet I could make a good buck writing some kinda fucking memoir or something about this shit. Everyone would eat it up, you know, out of guilt, ‘cause —” she paused, raising her pitch a bit in nasally mocking, “‘cause we should really be focusing on the victims, not making the perpetrators famous,” she chimed, followed by a dismissive wave of her hand at the thought. “But you know, they’d still all be reading it to see what I said about you of course. But no skin off my ass, as long as they buy it. Figure I could spend… two, maybe three months as America’s sweetheart, then slip back into anonymity. Live off the royalties. The occasional consulting fee, anytime someone decides to make a movie about you and your fuckin’ cult.” 

7. “Head wasn’t that good,” she replied flatly. 

8. “Yeah, pretty sure they make a pill these days for when a gal realizes she’s made that kinda mistake,” she retorted with an exaggerated batting of her eyelashes as she pulled the flask from his hand. “And if you’re the baby daddy, she really would be wising up to take it.” 

9. “Oh, I’m back, baby.” She forced the smile to fall from her face, lips and brow tensing with sudden gravity. “And I’ve rigged this whole fucking mountain with explosives set to go off any second now. This thing is gonna blow sky fuckin’ high, and you and I are going to blow up with it. ’Cause I —” she feigned a gasp, brought her wrist to her brow as she threw her head back in a pantomime of being on the verge of fainting. “I can’t deny it any longer — I’m in love with you, and I want us to fucking be together forever in the fiery abyss of death.” 

10. “Tell your big bwother to make his stump speeches even scawrier next time — I’m sure it’ll make the canon fodder he sends out harder to kill, if he gravels his voice a bit more.”

11. She snorted. “You worried I’m not playing with a full set or something?”

12. “I jest,” she hissed, knocking his hand away. “You haven’t fuckin’ gotten that by now? It was a fucking joke.” 

13. “C’mon, that the fucking best miss church camp coachella can do to scare me?”

14. “For the fuckin’ record, I’m prolonging the void of nothingness when my organs stop functioning and I cease to exist in conscious form, not eternal damnation,” she finally spat. 

15. “It’s gonna be hilarious, actually,” she replied, pushing herself off from the door frame with a parting wave. “Tell your friends!” 

tagging: @cassietrn @shallow-gravy @derelictheretic @socially-awkward-skeleton @lordundying @florbelles @henbased @belorage @8bitpizzacoupons @firstaidspray @theresaruggedroad @afarcryfrommymain @clicheantagonist @v0idbuggy @orionlancasterr @strafethesesinners @deputyash @confidentandgood @strangefable @stacispratt @miyabilicious @omen-speaker @nowandthane @hctknives @wrathfulrook @fourlittleseedlings @galaxycunt @josephslittledeputy @just-another-wasteland-merc @voidika @captastra @blissfulalchemist @shellibisshe @thedeadthree and anyone who would like to share!

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

The Center for Biological Diversity today reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that puts the agency on the path to protecting imperiled fish and southern resident killer whales from toxic cyanide in Washington state’s waters.

After more than 30 years of inaction, the agency will now have to ensure that water quality standards safeguard chinook and coho salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and the endangered orcas dependent on these fish.

“For decades the EPA has approved the release of dangerous levels of cyanide into Washington’s waters, severely harming our salmon and orcas, so this is a big step,” said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Now the agency has to finally analyze those dangers and make sure Washington’s water quality standards are strong enough to protect imperiled wildlife.”

Since 1993 the EPA has repeatedly approved water quality standards for cyanide pollution set by the Washington State Department of Ecology under the Clean Water Act without analyzing how those lax standards harm endangered and threatened species.

The state allows mines, iron and steel facilities, publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities and other industries to release dangerous levels of cyanide into Washington’s waters. Today’s agreement requires the EPA to finally evaluate those standards and protect dwindling populations of native salmonids, steelhead, bull trout and southern resident killer whales.

The best available science indicates that Washington’s current cyanide pollution limits are harmful to endangered salmon and the orcas that depend on the fish as their primary food. When approving these standards, the EPA never complied with its duty under the Endangered Species Act to ensure that they do not jeopardize the species’ survival or harm their critical habitat.

[rakubalka]

What do you mean Asta is a drug dealer and Yuno’s on drugs????

Remember that Asta is licensed doctor here ?

Yeah , he specializes in herbal medication and what large amount of mana does to the body and how to deal with it

The reason for the herbal part is that he doesn't have mana of his own , he has mana in his body but he can't use it . So he had to get creative on how to heal the people he cares about .

So he started learning about different herbal medications and how to make them . As a result he knows how to make some really good drugs . He refuses to make the dangerous type but having really good painkillers always on hand is handy .

That is even the reason why the Blue Roses want him as the head doctor . Because a doctor that is immediately going to give them strong painkillers if they ask for it , when their insides are trying to kill them and they got no patience for bullshit ? They will take him in immediately .

Yuno's drugs are also medical , as Asta is his personal doctor and has been for years . While he also uses the painkillers from time to time he is mainly going for other drugs .

Like drugs to get him to sleep for example . Because as it turns out having someone with such a big amount of mana who is air elemental aka the element for sensors and even then is very sensor inclined means they will probably suffer from overstimulation on their mana sense constantly . Some of the results being constant migraines and very bad cases of insomnia .

Asta's focus on trying to make Yuno's life easier trout the use of medication means that Yuno is usually on medical drugs so he doesn't become a hermit because of overstimulation and can actually go out and interact with people.

Actually ever since Asta and Yuno got into the capital Yuno has been on more and stronger medication that he has been in literal years because of the amount of people with strong mana around him constantly .

By the time Asta and Yuno meet on their shared mission Yuno had actually run out of his medication a few days prior . The result ? A very sleep deprived with a stong case of migraine induced headache magical prodigy that has run out of love for life and humanity like 30 hours ago and wants nothing more than blood , carnage and death . Who also had to deal with Klause before he got his head out of his ass . The mere fact they survived the mission is a miracle in and on itself .

After the mission however Yuno refuses to go without medication in his system . He doesn't care if it's the end of the god damn world he will have his medication or else !

Which is the moment Yuno starts to break into the Black Bulls squad base to visit his brother .

The result :

Asta is a drug dealer and Yuno's on drugs .

If you have any other questions please ask them

[conarcoin]

Giggeli - Penis Candles & Soaps Handmade in Kallio, Helsinki, Finland

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+800 Nicknames for Penis: A Comprehensive List for Different Ways to Call a Penis

+800 Nicknames for Penis: A Comprehensive List for Different Ways to Call a Penis

GIGGELI

Dicks can be referred to in a variety of ways. A collection of more than 800 additional words for the penis in alphabetical order is provided in this article. This list includes both common slang terminology and more uncommon and obscure words that are all related to the penis.

+800 Different Words for Penis: A Comprehensive List

Anaconda

Antenna

Appendage

Armadillo

Arrow

Baby maker

Baguette

Bald Avenger

Bald-headed giggle stick

Bally Wacker

Banana

Banger

Baseball bat

Baton

Bayonet

Beast

Beef bayonet

Beef whistle

Bellend

Big boy

Big guy

Biscuit

Bishop

Black mamba

Blastocyst

Blood sausage

Blue-veined custard chucker

Blue-veined junket pumper

Boaby

Bobbin

Bollocks

Bologna pony

Bolt

Bone

Boner

Booboo

Boom stick

Boot

Bopper

Botswana beef bayonet

Bouncer

Bouncing Betty

Braciole

Brain

Branch

Bratwurst

Broccoli

Broccoli spear

Brown trout

Brownie

Brutus and the Twins

Bubble

Bubble gum machine

Buckaroo

Buckwheat

Buddah's belly button

Buffalo soldier

Bulge

Bull

Bull's-eye

Bully beef

Bully stick

Bum tickler

Bumper

Burrito

Buster

Butt dart

Butterbean

Button

Caber

Cabeza

Cactus

Cadbury's c

Cajones

Camel toe

Cane

Cannoli

Captain winky

Capuchin

Carrot

Cervix sentinel

Chameleon

Champignon

Cheese log

Cheesestick

Chef's special

Cherub

Chicken

Chico stick

Choad

Chode

Chopper

Chowder

Christmas goose

Chub

Chubby

Chuck Dickens

Cigar

Cinnamon roll

Clam

Classic

Clit stick

Cloak

Clock

Club

Cobra

Cock

Cod

Colossus

Commander

Cone

Conga

Conquistador

Consolation prize

Cookie

Corkscrew

Corn dog

Cornholio

Cornish game hen

Corporal

Cossack

Cougar bait

Coxcomb

Crank

Crankshaft

Creamer

Crimper

Crimson mushroom

Crinkle-cut

Crown jewels

Crunchwrap

Crème de la crème

Cucumber

Cummerbund

Custard launcher

Cylinder

D's

Dagger

Dallas Dangler

Danger noodle

Darth Vader

Deep sea diver

Dick

Dickas Hilton

Ding dong

Ding-dong

Dingaling

Dipstick

Disco stick

Dismount

Divining rod

DJ

Dog

Doggy

Dolly

Dong

Donkey

Doorknob

Dope stick

Dork

Dormouse

Double barrel

Double dragon

Downstairs department

Drainpipe

Driller

Drumstick

Dude piston

Dumb stick

Dutch courage

Dutch rudder

Excalibur

Firehose

Franks and beans

Gerald

Gherkin

Giggeli

Goldfinger

Groin

Hammer

hammer of love

Hammer of Thor

handle

hard drive

Hard-on

hardware

hatchet wound

he-man

heat-seeking missile

heat-seeking moisture missile

helmet

herbie

Hercules

high hard one

hoo-ha

hoo-hoo

hook

horn

Hose

hose

hot dog

hot rod

hot sausage

Humphrey

hymie

iceberg

Indiana Bones

Jack in the box

Jack's magic beanstalk

Jackhammer

jammy

janitor in the hallway

java

javelin

jawbreaker

Jedi

Jefferson

jelly doughnut

Jenny Craig

Jerry

jiffy stick

Jimmy

Jizz Launcher

John Henry

John Johnson

Johnson

Jorma

Joy-stick

Joystick

joystick

Judge

Juicy fruit

jumbo

Jumper

Junior

Junk

junk

justin

Justus

Kaiser

kebab

Keck

Kennedy

kielbasa

King Ding Dong

King Kong

King Richard

King size

King snake

King's scepter

King's sword

Kipper

Kitty

Knob

Knobgoblin

Knobhead

Knobkerrie

Knobstick

Kraken

Krull the Warrior King

Kulli

Kyrpä

L'Engin

L'Outil

L'Unita

Lady-pleaser

Laidy's lollypop

Lance

Lancer

Lava flow

Leader

Leaky faucet

Leatherman

Lechon

Leek

Leg

Leg of lamb

Leg of mutton

Leggy

Lemon

Lemondrop

Length

Lengthy

Leo

Leosaurus

Leper

Leroy

Leviathan

Libido

Lick

Lickety-split

Lighthouse

Lightning rod

Lil' bro

Lil' willy

Lily

Lima

Limber dick

Limber jimmy

Limbo

Limousine

Limp biscuit

Limp noodle

Limp penis

Limp-dick

Limp-jim

Limpkin

Lincoln

Lindy

Lingam

Link

Linty

Lion

Lipstick

Liquidator

Liquor stick

Lissome

Little birdie

Little bro

Little chap

Little guy

Little head

Little john

Little man

Little peter

Little soldier

Little willy

Lizard

Lizard tongue

Locomotive

Log

Lollipop

Long Dong Silver

Long dong silver

Long fellow

Long john

Long johnson

Long one

Long stick

Longfellow

Longfellow diller

Longhorn

Longie

Longjohn

Longshanks

Longstaff

Magic Mike

Magic stick

Magic Wand

Magic wand

Manhood

Meat Scepter

Meat stick

Member

Micropenis

Mini-me

Missile

Moby Dick

Mojo

Monster

Mount Vesuvius

Mr. Happy

Mr. Winky

Mule

Mushroom

Mushroom Head

Mutton

Myrtle

Nard

Nether rod

One-eye Pete

One-Eyed Monster

One-eyed monster

One-Eyed Snake

One-eyed trouser snake

One-eyed wonder weasel

Organ

Package

Packer

Packing heat

Pecker

Pee-Pee

Pee-pee

Peen

Pencil

Pencil dick

Penile appendage

Penile shaft

Penile tissue

Penile unit

Penile weapon

Penis

Pepperoncini

Peter

Phallos

Phallus

Piece

Pink Oboe

Pintle

Pipe

Pistol

Piston

Pleasure Stick

Plonker

Pocket Rocket

Pogo stick

Poker

Pole

Popcorn

Pork Sword

Prick

Private

Private part

Purple-headed yogurt slinger

Purple-helmeted trouser snake

Purple-Helmeted Warrior of Love

Purple-helmeted warrior of love

Purple-helmeted yogurt thrower

Python

Quiver bone

Ramrod

Ranger

Rascal

Red-capped mushroom

Rod

Root of Jesse

Rude boy

Sausage

Scepter

Schlong

Schwanz

Schwanzstucker

Schwetty balls

Scooby Snack

Screwdriver

Scrod

Scrotum

Sea monster

Secret weapon

Shaft

Shillelagh

Shiv

Shlong

Skin Flute

Skin flute

Skinner

Slingblade

Slug

Slugger

Smacker

Snake

Snapper

Soldier

Spam javelin

Spear

Speed Bump

Speedboat

Spigot

Spigot of love

Spitstick

Spitter

Sponge

Spongebob

Sprout

Spunk gun

Spurt gun

Squirt gun

Staff

Stallion

Stand

Stand up

Starfruit

Stick

Stiffie

Stiffy

Stinger

Stock

Stone

Stone of David

Stonehenge

Stonker

Stopper

Striker

Stud

Stump

Submarine

Sugar stick

Super soaker

Supercock

Surfboard

Swamp lizard

Swansong

Sweetmeat

Swiss Army Penis

Swizzle stick

Sword

Tabasco

Tadger

Tail

Tall tommy

tally

Tallywacker

tallywhacker

Tang

Tank

tapa

Tassle

Tasty pastry

tater

Tazmanian devil

Tea and crumpets

Tea stick

Telescoping tower

Tent peg

Testicle

Testicles

testicular tissue

testiculi

testies

testons

testosterbone

The anaconda

The baton

The big guy

the big vein

the bishop

The blue-veined custard chucker

The chopper

The cone

the conga

The cyclops

The ding dong

The Dipstick

The dong

The driver

The dude piston

the eye of the needle

the family jewels

the flagpole

The flesh flute

The flesh rocket

the fleshy tripod

the fuck stick

the fun rod

The grower

the head

The heat-seeking moisture missile

the hose

The joystick

the King

The knob

the little man in the boat

The love muscle

the magic wand

the main vein

The male member

the man in the boat

The meat whistle

the member

The middle leg

The mighty mite

the old boy

The old man

The one-eyed captain

The one-eyed monster

the one-eyed snake

The one-eyed wonder worm

The package

The peen

The peeper

the pendulum

the peter

The pink cigar

the pink oboe

The pipe

the piston

the pleasure pole

The poker

The pole

the pork sword

the prick

The purple-helmeted warrior

the purple-helmeted warrior of love

The python

The rocket

The rod

The salami

The sausage

The schlong

the scoop

The shaft

The shotgun

The skin flute

The snake

the spitter

the staff of life

the stick

The stiff one

The stinger

the stonker

the sword

The third leg

The tool

The trouser snake

The tube steak

the unit

The wang

the weasel

The wedge

the wee-wee

The weenie

The whopper

The wiener

The wiggle stick

the willy

the wingwang

The womb raider

The wonder worm

The woody

the worm

thingy

Third Leg

Third leg

Thorn

Thrill drill

Throb knob

throbber

Throbbing gristle

Thumper

Thunderbird

Thunderbolt

Thunderstick

Tic Tac

Tickle pickle

Tickler

Tiger

Tiki

Timber

Time machine

Tingler

Tinker

Tinkerbell

tip

Tip drill

Tip of the iceberg

Tipper

Tissue

Titan

Toad

toadstool

todger

Toe

Tool

tooly

tooter

Toothpick

Tootsie roll

Top gun

Torch

Tower

Tower of power

tractor beam

Trafalgar

Treasure

Tree trunk

Tri-pod

Trinket

Trombone

Trouser Snake

Trousersnake

Trumpet

Truncheon

Trunk

Tuba

tube

Tummy banana

Tuna Can

Tuna can

Tuna torpedo

Turgid Trouser Snake

Turgid turtle

turkey

Turkey baster

Turkey neck

Turnip

turtle

Turtleneck

Tusk

twanger

Twig

Twig and Berries

Twig and berries

Twinkie

twinky

Twister

Two ball cane

Two veg and meat

Two-legged Boa

Two-legged tripod

twonker

Umbrella handle

Uncircumcised wonder

Uncle

Uncle Dick

Uncle John

Unit

unmentionables

Uzi

Vainilla

Vainilla Stick

Valiant vein

Veggie

vein

Vein train

Vein train.

Vein-cutter

Vein-erect

Veined custard launcher

VeinMaster 3000

Veiny Victor

Veinzilla

Velvet sword

Vessel

Vienna Sausage

Viking horn

Viking Staff

Vindicator

Vinegar

Violin

Virility

Vixen

Vodka

Volcano

Wally

Wand

wand of light

Wang

wang dang doodle

Wanger

wangle

Wangsta

Wanker

wankie

War club

Warrior

Weapon

Weapon of ass destruction

Weapon of mass destruction

Weapon of Mass Seduction

Wedge

Wee-wee

weenie

weewee

Weiner

wenis

wet noodle

Whacker

Whammer

Whang

Whangdoodle

wheenie

Whip

Whistle

White gold

White Mamba

Whoopie Stick

whopper jr.

widget

Wiener

Wiener Schnitzel

Wiggle stick

wiggle worm

Wiggler

Wiggly

William

Willow

Willpower

Willy

Willy the one-eyed wonder worm

willy wonka

Wing wong

wing-wang

Wingman

Winkie

Winky

Winnebago

Winner

Winston

Winston Churchill

Wintermelon

Wisdom Wand

Wise man

Wishbone

wizard sleeve

Wonder Worm

Wood

Woodpecker

Woody

Worm

Wormhole

wormy

Wrecking ball

Wriggler

Wriggly

Wrinkle

wrinklepump

Wrist Rocket

Wyvern

X-factor

Xylophone

Yad

Yak

Yam

yam

Yam bag

Yams

Yang

Yankee doodle

Yard

Yardstick

Yawing Yowie

Yearling

Yellow

Yellow Belly

Yellow Dart

Yellow dragon

Yellow Peril

Yellow Sausage

Yellow submarine

Yen

Yew

Ygdrasil's staff

Yin-yang serpent

yingyang

Yippie

Yipsicle

Yo-yo

Yob

yobbo

Yoda

Yoga stick

Yoghurt Cannon

Yoghurt gun

Yoghurt pistol

Yogurt

Yogurt hose

Yogurt Slinger

Yogurt slinger

Yogurt thrower

Yolk

Yolkstick

Yolky poke

Yoni

yoni stick

Youth

Yoyo

Yuca

Yule log

Yum yum

Yum-yum

Yummy

Zapper

Zealot

Zebedee

Zebracorn horn

zebu

Zen

Zephyr

Zeppelin

Zesty Italian

Zeus

ziggurat

Zigzag

Zilla

Zinger

Zipper

Zipper Ripper

Zipper snake

Zippy

ziz

Zog

zombie

Zombie maker

Zombie stick

Zonker

Zoom Stick

Zoombini

Zoomer

Zoot stick

Zorro

Zucchini

Zygmunt Freud

Zygote poker

Zygotene

dude?

[zu-is-here]

Salomon has only one letter of difference with salmon

Does it makes salmon a wise fish?

-bulle

*wheeze* Truly an honor for a fish xd (Isn't he Solomon tho? :0)

UPD:

OH so that's it! (°▽°)☆

Heheh— and let's not forget about the trout >;D

<33

That's cheating! xp

Ha! Bold of you to assume I don't know motherload— [̲̅$̲̅(̲̅ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°̲̅)̲̅$̲̅]

We can have a big party instead!ヽ(°∀°人´ヮ´)ﾉ So you're never alone <3

Aw yeah!! ( ˵•́ᴗ•̀˵)(˵•́ᴗ•̀˵ )

[continuation]

[erik-murphy1981]

Random Polymorph

Bead of Random Polymorph

A glass marble whose swirling contents constantly change in color and pattern.

Wondrous item, rare

1 oz.

This small color-changing sphere measures ¾ of an inch in diameter and weighs an ounce. Typically, 1d4 + 4 beads are found together.

You can use an action to throw the bead up to 60 feet. The bead explodes on impact and is destroyed. Each creature within a 15-foot radius of where the bead landed must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be transformed.

To determine what each target is turned into, roll a d100 and refer to the table below.

-----

Wand of Random Polymorph

Wand, very rare (requires attunement by a spellcaster)

1 lb.

This wand has 7 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 of its charges to cast the polymorph spell (Wis save DC 15) from it.

The wand regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the wand's last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the wand crumbles into ashes and is destroyed.

To determine what the target is turned into, roll a d100 and refer to the table below.

-----

Random Polymorph d100 Table

Al Miraj

Awakened Shrub

Baboon

Badger

Bat

Cat

Commoner

Crab

Crow

Cranium Rat

Deer

Eagle

Fox

Frog

Giant Fire Beetle

Goat

Knucklehead Trout

Lizard

Peacock

Juvenile Mimic

Spider

Stomping Foot

Bandit

Blood Hawk

Camel

Dolphin

Flying Snake

Mastiff

Cultist

Flumph

Aarakocra

Awakened Elk

Axe Beak

Blink Dog

Boar

Cow

Deep Rothé

Draft Horse

Fastieth

Giant Badger

Giant Frog

Giant Owl

Panther

Pteranodon

Sled Dog

Skeleton

Rust Monster

Dire Wolf

Fire Snake

Giant Eagle

Giant Octopus

Giant Raven

Lion

Tiger

Allosaurus

Quetzalcoatlus

Rhinoceros

Black Guard Drake

Bronze Dragon Wyrmling

Four-Armed Gargoyle

Gelatinous Cube

Griffon

Mimic

Naiad

Ogre

Pegasus

Saber-Toothed Tiger

Ankylosaurus

Bristled Moorbounder

Displacer Beast

Giant Snapping Turtle

Gold Dragon Wyrmling

Hell Hound

Killer Whale

Elephant

Giant Walrus

Stegosaurus

Red Dragon Wyrmling

Winged Bull

Air Elemental

Battleforce Angel

Nightmare

Brontosaurus

Catoblepas

Hulking Crab

Triceratops

Chimera

Gloomstalker

Mammoth

Wyvern

Young Brass Dragon

Young White Dragon

Fire Elemental Myrmidon

Earth Elemental Myrmidon

Giant Ape

Horizonback Tortoise

Young Black Dragon

Sperm Whale

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Treant

_ _ _ _ _

Note that there are some kinda joke options on the random table: Commoner, Bandit, Cultist, Skeleton

If the random polymorph is used on, you know, a human, what does this mean?

If this were something like Skyrim then you might replace their whole character model with something else, but in the context of D&D I think it's funnier if these are either a costume change accompanied with a change in stats and abilities (like the wizard goes POOF! and when the smoke clears is still standing there, just in different clothing and may no longer be able to do magic)(kind of obvious what this means for a skeleton, just still wearing the same clothes)

or the smoke clears and nothing visibly changes, but something about their identity has changed. Like:

You're fighting a knight, throw the bead, POOF!, the smoke clears and... they're still standing there, apparently unfazed. But then a messenger arrives and announces that the knight has been stripped of all titles and is now a commoner (though their stats do still change, but the players can't immediately see that).

The town guards are after you because of all the stealing you've been doing, they've got you cornered, you pull out your wand and point it at one of the guards, POOF! …still standing there, but now they have a sinister secret (cultist)

The sorcerer is charging up a big spell to blast you, you throw the bead, POOF! The sorcerer coughs slightly, their hands now notably free of ominous glowing energies, and right next to them on what you'd swear was previously a bare wall is a wanted poster with a picture of the former sorcerer in the exact same pose

Like this (Bandit)

And it's up to you how Option 2. would apply to Skeleton. Option 1 would mean their skin poofs off, but Option 2 suggests that they are visibly unchanged, but their identity is now a skeleton wearing a meat suit. Or the players are now fighting both the sorcerer and the sorcerer's skeleton, who act individually I dunno, get weird with it

[tackledaddy]

Tackledaddy: Get gear, get your fish on- Tackling Big Bull Trout through the ice.

[emmagoldman42]

After Tribe's century-long fight, WA river dam removal helps nature

The Elwha Dam was built in 1910 to provide electricity to attract new settlers, in flagrant violation of a Washington state law that said dams must allow for fish passage. At the time, no one consulted the Lower Elwha Klallam people, whose culture rests on the salmon that would be blocked by the dams. "We had a few of the elders that even stood in the areas of the lower dam where they were starting to build to protest," says Frances Charles, the tribal chairwoman for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

But the dam construction proceeded, and afterward, hatcheries were put in as a sort of life support to keep salmon populations afloat. Every year, the fish born in the hatcheries would try to return to the spawning grounds of their ancestors, banging their heads on the dam in a desperate attempt to get upstream.....Macias describes one of the first big changes she noticed on the drained landscape back in 2016: "The entire lake bed at Lake Mills was just covered in lupine, and lupine is so good for so many reasons. It's just beautiful. And it's native," she says. "Now, [in 2021, the landscape] is so incredibly dense with willows and alders. At this point, there are a bunch of conifers growing up among those different trees as well. And so we're seeing plant succession," she says, referring to the healthy process of how plant communities change over time after a disturbance.

That recovery applies to the salmon too: According to McHenry, the chinook, steelhead, and bull trout are all recolonizing well. Coho have been a bit slower, and the tribe is still waiting for chum and pink salmon to come back in good numbers

[randomencounters]

Table of Were-Creatures

“Even one who is pure in heart / and says their prayers by night / may become a ___ when the night-flower blooms and the silver moon is bright.”

I’m not sure if I recommend using this with the Table of Races from a previous post (https://randomencounters.tumblr.com/post/631073167702687744/okay-fine-a-d100-table-of-races). I was trying this table out and, sure, a Drow Were-Styracosaur, a Succubus that turns into a Hyena when the moon is full, sure, but I’m not sure even I could handle a Mi-Go Were-Baleen-Whale.

Wolf

Bear (type appropriate to character’s native land)

Boar

Jackal

Hyena

Bat

Wild dudes with horns and hooves (d8: Deer, Moose, Ibex, Antelope, Gazelle, Fanged Muntjac, Saiga Antelope, Mountain Goat)

Big Cat (d4: Lion, Tiger, Panther, Jaguar)

Housecat

Domesticated Dog (d20: Chihuahua, Tibetan Mastiff, Great Dane, French Bulldog, Pug, Italian Greyhound, Golden Retriever, Black Lab, Basset Hound, Shih Tzu, Pit Bull, Husky, Beagle, Bichon Frise, Yorkshire Terrier, Corgi, Pomeranian, Boston Terrier, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Schnauzer)

Rodent (d10: Field Mouse, Rat, Naked Mole Rat, Guinea Pig, Jerboa, Squirrel, Sugar-Glider, Chipmunk, Capybara, Anti-Magic Field Mouse)

Beaver

Skunk

Possum

Fox

Hedgehog

Star-Nosed Mole

Ferret

Otter

Snake (d6: Cobra, Rattle, Ball Python, Puff Adder, Gliding, Winged, Hoop)

Frilled Lizard

Snapping Turtle

Horned Lizard

Suchian (d4: Alligator, Crocodile, Gharial, Caiman)

Plesiosaur

Deinonychus

Herbivorous Dinosaur (d4: Stegosaur, Styracosaur, Brachiosaur, Ankylosaur)

Pterodactyl

Amphibian (d8: Bullfrog, Tropical Poison Frog, Spring Peeper, Surinam Toad, Chinese Mustache Toad, Axolotl, Salamander, one of those weird extinct hammerhead dudes)

Cow

Giraffe

Goat

Sheep

Horse

Llama or Alpaca

Armadillo

Sloth

Kangaroo

Platypus

Koala

Panda

Anteater

Aye-Aye

Ape (d4: Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Orangutan, Proboscis)

Elephant

Rhinoceros

Hippo

Tapir

Fowl (d4: Chicken, Duck, Goose, Peacock)

Wild bird (d10: Crow, Woodpecker, Hummingbird, Eagle, Hawk, Pelican, Vulture, Owl, Penguin, Dodo)

Freshwater Fish (d6 Catfish, Salmon, Sturgeon, Gar, Fancy Koi, Fur-Bearing Trout)

Saltwater Fish (d20: Lionfish, Puffer, Stingray, Remora, Swordfish, Coelacanth, Anglerfish, Stoplight Loosejaw, Gulper Eel, Blobfish, Hagfish, Mola-Mola, Electric Eel, Sarcastic Fringehead, Hammerhead Shark, Sawfish, Megamouth Shark, Goblin Shark, Wobbegong, Great White Shark)

Cetacean (d6: Orca, Walrus, Baleen Whale, Dolphin, Barking Seal, Narwhal)

Marine Mollusk (d10: Dumbo Octopus, Blue Ring Octopus, Mimic Octopus, Humboldt Squid, Vampire Squid, Magnapinna Squid, Colossal Squid, Cuttlefish, Clam/Oyster/Mussel, Spiny Conch)

Crustacean (d6: Blue Crab, Snow Crab, Hermit Crab, Lobster, Mantis Shrimp, Pillbug)

Other marine invertebrate (d10: Starfish, Jellyfish, Sea Urchin, Sea Cucumber, Bobbit Worm, Anemone, Anomalocaris, Opabinia, Barnacle, Glaucus)

Arachnid (d8: Tarantula, Spiny Orb Weaver, Cartwheel, Black Widow, Regular Scorpion, Vinegaroon, Tick, Horseshoe Crabs which are apparently Arachnids)

Centipede

Insect (d10: Stag Beetle, Mayfly, Stick Bug, Wasp, Moth, Camel Cricket, Junebug, Earwig, Bullet Ant, Orchid Mantis)

Snail (d10: 1-6 garden, 7-9 venomous, 10 Flail)

Ooze (d4: Banana Slug, Gelatinous Cube, Green Slime, Black Pudding)

Lurker or Trapper

Roper or Darkmantle

Bag of Devouring

Rust Monster

Owlbear

Dragonet (roll d10: Red, Green, White, Black, Blue, Gold, Silver, Brass, Bronze, Copper)

Duckbunny

Bullette

Flumph

Mimic

Displacer-Beast

Blink Dog

Elemental/Paraelemental (d8: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lava, Ice, Lightning, Void)

Wyvern

Bonnacon

Basilisk/Cockatrice

Pegasus

Unicorn

Phoenix

Mongolian Death Worm

Fresno Nightcrawler

Cryptoleporidae (d4: Jackalope, Skvader, Rasselbock, Wolpertinger)

Elwetrisch

Dungavenhooter

Squonk

Sidehill Gouger (aka Prock, Hunkus, Gyascutus)

Avalerion

Rhinogradentia

Fiji Mermaid

Pokemon of choice

Pixie

Giant

Worm-on-a-string

Venus Fly Trap

Car

Chimaera (traditional Lion-Goat-Snake)

Chimaera (reroll this table three times for the three animals to combine)

Randomitemdrop.tumblr.com/random 

Randomencounters.tumblr.com/random

[the-art-block]

Hi, looking at your Atena:ti artwork, who is five trout? Also why does John's grandad hate him so? I hope Atena:ti not too easy to upset, he seems so nice. But also intimidating- like a bear really. Cuddly but inclined to beat you up if you f*** up.

Five Trout Is another pre-colonial Kindred! A Gangrel! He was Embraced during the time before Atena:ti went into Big Torpor, but Atena:ti is just a squeak older than him by a few centuries. He and Atena:ti have fundamentally different beliefs on how Kindred ought to live. Atena:ti believed they belonged with the people, as teachers, tribal elders, and of course warriors. Five Trout believed in a more segregated way of life. He believed it was the responsibility of Kindred to separate themselves as much as possible from humankind, which included feeding exclusively on animal blood and living in the open wilderness. Five Trout didn't dislike humans, however. This was explicitly his way of protecting them from exploitation and abuse by Kindred, who are inherently exploitative and abusive creatures - even when they love their human vessels very genuinely. Five Trout would, and regularly did, aid humans he found lost in his neck of the woods, and would only feed from sick animals in his territory to keep the rate of disease down.

Atena:ti and Five Trout weren't overt enemies, but it was very much like two bros slap-fighting in a bar about whose lacrosse team should have gone to nationals. Every few months they'd run into each other in the borderlands between their territories and they'd quite literally butt heads. (In the forms of two giant bull elks.)

Y'know, just some men socializing. Atena:ti and John Atena:ti doesn't hate John; he's just very recently woken from a several hundred year nap. It takes him many years, and several psychotic breaks, to adjust to everything- he's already not very emotionally vulnerable as a man, so this period is very hard on his ability to form emotional bonds, even though he wants to, with John.

When he went down, the indigenous Americans were going to war over familial slights and just-then figuring out how to mine decent metals for weapon-making. Now, the world is filled with modern buildings, pollution, every piece of modern technology you can think of. There's White People everywhere.

His people, who he loved with every ferocious moment of his unlife, have been reduced to dregs, his culture nearly destroyed, his language driven to the brink of extinction. His Clan- formerly considered coveted counselors, healers, warlords, now huddle together in dingy underground burrows, pressed under the heel of whatever the fuck "Princes" and "Barons" are.

The world is dying, there's so few trees, the water's poisoned, the seasons are fucked.... and, where are all the animals? The only thing anyone wants to talk about is money. What happened?

Anyone would be a little cranky if they woke up to find this mess around them. For this big monster, John is a singular lifeline to the modern world, and he does end up clinging to his Grandchilde for guidance in the modern world in the end~

[rusteddreamsstories]

Hunter

[IMAGE ID: A painting on paper of a robotic elk. It has silver-colored casings over gaps with green light and wires. Weeds hang from its antlers. / END IMAGE ID]  In the same universe as Valley.  An encounter in the deep woods.  Hunter  The shadows of trees filtered through the fine blue mesh of the tent-fabric.  Ryn squinted back the too-bright light of the leaf-dapples as they danced, beckoning her to awaken along with the noise of songbirds.  Cute little things, but far too annoying first thing in the morning.   The smell of bacon and wood-smoke told her that her father was up.  A familiar ache and pinch told her that she needed to find a bush.  Ryn peeled herself out of her sleeping-bag to do just that.  She was thirsty, as well, and sought a bottle of purified water after the most pressing matter of the morning was addressed.  The creek that she and her father were camped beside ran and babbled, but it just wouldn’t do to drink directly from it.  Who knew what kinds of parasites were in there? “Morin’ kiddo,” her father greeted as she sat down on a stump near the campfire.  He was hunched over the edge, his hand in a quilted mitt, holding the handle of a cast-iron skillet.  Bacon popped and sizzled on its black, greasy surface – a gift from their neighbors.  They’d bothered to raise a hog this year.   “Mornin’, Dad,” Ryn replied as she handed him a pair of eggs from the cooler.  It was stocked with snow gathered from one of the shadier parts of the forest and was a bit dirty with rocks and pine needles, but it did its job. Before breakfast was even done, Ryn knew her duty.  She began setting up the smoking-box that would, hopefully, be laden with trout by that afternoon.  She looked up at the satchel that they’d hoisted up into the branches of a tree yesterday as an anti-bear measure.  There weren’t supposed to be a lot of bear around here, but one could never be too safe. The camp was lined in crushed chili peppers based on an old camping-myth to serve as a bear-ward.  Ryn listened to her father on these matters, for they were a matter of survival for the family.  At age sixteen, she supposedly had a lot of years of surviving to do.   The eggs from their yard-hens started to get solid.  “Solid whites, runny yolks,” Ryn reminded her father as he set a slice of bread by the embers at the fire’s edge on a toasting-fork.  It’s not like she wouldn’t eat them a bit runny or overcooked, but she definitely had an optimal condition for her eggs.   A sound echoed through the forest, setting the hairs on the back of her neck upright.  It started deep and low and ended in a high-pitched whistle.  Both the girl and her father raised their heads. “Elk!” Ryn cried.   “They sound like they might be off in the meadow.  We can try to take a look after breakfa – Ryn, wait!”   Ryn got up and took off running toward the pure, wild sound.  She was glad that she’d remembered to pull her boots on.  Crunching over pine-needles and little sticks and rocks would have been murder on bare or merely stocking-feet and she knew that she wouldn’t have hesitated to bolt up even if she hadn’t been properly shod.  She heard her father lumber up behind her and she stopped, trying to keep hidden among the trees and underbrush.  She could feel the wind on her cheek telling her that they were downwind.   In the morning fog and tall grass, great beasts lumbered.  None of them bore the magnificent racks of summer days, but one young bull was sporting the velvet-coated beginnings of what would become antlers.  It was most unusual that he was there at all, since the rest of the animals appeared to be cows – without the scars of shed antlers, nor the buds of new ones, and by size and subtleties in their body-shapes.  Maybe the young bull was a son still attached to his mother?  One that had yet to run off to a bachelor-herd? Ryn steadied her breath and stared in awe. It was a sizeable herd, full of big ears flicking and big eyes scanning the horizon.  Stories were told to her of how these and many other animals were less fearful of humans than they had been in the past, but she knew that a single sound or scent could set them all running.   Beyond the meadow and the deep green of trees on the other side of it the Ridge could be seen.  Skyscrapers shined in the distance, touched by the many-colored sunrise above the mist.  James had told his daughter the reasons why the people of their town never ventured too near the Ridge.  Ryn was curious about it, anyway.   “Is that the mountain-kingdom?” she asked, taking her eyes off the elk for a moment.   “Yes,” he answered.  “We need to stay on this side of things.  We’re still well in the Valley.  We ought to be fine.”   “I’ve never seen it from this angle before,” Ryn said breathlessly.  “It’s pretty.”   “Yeah, it is, but it is not for us.  We are closer in kind to the elk than we are to the people living there.”   Ryn was smiling as she gently smoothed a bit of hair out of her eyes and over her ear.  “You should have brought your elk-call and we should have brought the bows” “Nah.  Not the right time for it.  We’re here for fish, not for meat.  Too much of a bother to field-dress when we don’t have a way to haul it back and we aren’t set up at home right now to deal with it, either.  There are reasons why we do everything by season.  Gotta prep.  Let’s get the trout-run done first.  Red meat comes later.  Though…seeing them all gather…so easy, so close… it’s tempting.”   “And us without our bows.”   Ryn left with her father back to their camp feeling privileged.  Elk and other cervids tended to be out at dawn and dusk.  If she and her father were lucky, they’d get to watch them again this evening.  As it was, there was breakfast to be eaten, lines to be set and hooks to be baited.  It was early spring and the colder-weather fish were running.   According to the stories she’d grown up on, seasons were just starting to settle back into a regular rhythm again, after having been altered unintentionally by everyone’s ancestors.  There were still effects – “winter-months” that were too warm followed by inexplicable cold that swept in from the poles, sometimes into the spring when the weather was supposed to be warming up.  What survived of nature was adjusting.  What was left of humanity, as well.  Ryn took one look back toward the Ridge. The city beyond the Ridge was where Immortals lived.  As the tales went, they used to be human, but there was a great divide in the species. It had started centuries ago – no one knew when anymore, at least in the Valleys.  The records had been lost.  Better records were likely kept in the “mountain-kingdoms,” as they were sometimes called – the big cities.   The people there found many ways to extend their life-spans.  There were many medical procedures that the people relegated to the outside could scarcely imagine.  Ultimately, it was said; “Their minds ride on light.”  Eventually, even the best-kept organic bodies failed.  When that started to happen or even long before, a Citizen of any of the high-cities could transfer their minds into non-physical forms. Supposedly, they did this often for games, commerce and a variety of other reasons even when they were conventionally alive, shunting back and forth between types of existence.   Immortals often piloted robots with their new minds, coming out into the swaths of nature and areas of erstwhile human civilization that was reclaimed by such to explore.   And to hunt.   In just the last couple of decades, mechanical beasts had been appearing in the foothills and in the Valleys, driven by liberated Immortal minds.  They would hunt down mortals as a kind of game.  It was said that they’d started hunting animals at first, but quickly turned to stalking humans.  It was not like they were the same species anymore. In other words, it was very dangerous for people like Ryn and James to even approach the Ridge.  They lived in a world where they were as much prey as the animals that they hunted.   After breakfast, Ryn found herself cutting bait with a pocketknife.  Earthworms were easy enough to hunt up if one knew where to dig.  She hated stuffing them onto the hooks.  It was not only a slimy endeavor, but she always feared that they felt it.  She’d dissected worms in science class and knew that they had the simplest of brains. She told herself that they ran on impulse and probably didn’t feel much or anything at, but she still worried that they felt it.  They wouldn’t have the brain-power to contemplate their plight like a  human would, but the sheer idea of having a sharp hook speared through one’s guts had Ryn cutting the worms’ ends off as well as the simple half-division just to make sure that the squirming bodies that she was using for bait were divorced from their brains.   Her preferred bait, anyway, as long as it lasted, was bits of firm cheese.  The hooks had to be pulled up and checked every now and again because of its tendency to melt off in water, but fish really seemed to go for it. Ryn found it puzzling, since cheese didn’t occur in nature, being a carefully-fermented manmade food.  She figured that it must be the smell of it that attracted fish and, perhaps, the crude fats and proteins.  She sent several lines into the creek, strung on poles set into the earth and mud.  She then proceeded to prepare her fly-rod for the kind of active-fishing that she actually enjoyed.   The name of the game on this trip was volume.  The more fish they could catch, by any means, the better.  She and her father were preparing stores.  If they were lucky, their stock would last through the summer, the fall and the winter, along with other foods.  Ryn’s town had factories that could scavenge and recycle and generally produce things like monofilament fishing-line and weatherproof tents, but most of the food-production was up to individual families.   Funny that. Her parents and her history classes characterized their existence as a “scavenger-world,” but some parts of culture before had survived.  That’s how it had ever-been throughout history.  Even after social-upheavals and the so-called “dark ages,” small, strange things always remained to bleed into the future.   The “mountain-kingdom” high-cities might have been inscrutable, but human towns and cities and their associated flotsam still existed.  Ryn’s family just happened to live in a rural-setting, and one juxtaposed against the local Ridge, one of the Valleys more heavily affected by the human-divide. The morning came with good fishing.  Ryn asked her father to help her in braining trout with the tip of a knife to make sure that she was doing it correctly. Her family had always sought to end the lives of their catches as mercifully and quickly as possible.  Many people scaled fish and filleted them as they were flopping, unmindful of what the animal might be experiencing in its own inner world.  That wasn’t something that either Ryn or her father could stand.   As she sat on a rock and rested, wiping fish-slime and blood off her hands on a towel, Ryn let herself relax.  Her father addressed her.   “Did I ever tell you the story behind that time I came back from an elk-hunt empty-handed?”   Ryn looked over at him, wrinkling her nose. Wow, they both stank! They’d have to take a dip in the creek later, after all of their hard work.   “We were lucky that year.  We’d scrounged up enough nuts and the Pattersons shared some of their beef.  Mom’s garden had gone well, but she was still worried.  That’s what I remember. It had been several years ago and, by fortune, a year that they wouldn’t starve over the winter when James had had a bad run of luck hunting.   “I would have been more ruthless if I didn’t know we’d be in decent shape,” he confessed.  This earned a “Huh?” from Ryn.   “When I was out,” James began, scratching his chin, “I came upon a cow-elk. She was big and beautiful, healthy, a lot of meat. It was kind of a-ways off from your Uncle Billy and Shannon was working on the truck.”   “Mm, hmm?” “Had a clear shot on her – just perfect. Right when I was getting her in sight and drawing back, I saw something bounding behind her in the tall grass. She had a calf – a small one.” “None of us hunt in calving-season.”   “I know.  She’d apparently bred late.  The calf was little and I knew that it wouldn’t make it on its own if I took the mother.  I lowered my bow and moved on.  I hoped to find another adult elk or come upon a herd of whitetails, but I had no such luck.”   “You did good, Dad.”   “Only because we had good stores.  If we were in dire need, I would have killed them both.”   The father and daughter continued to fish and prepare their catches.  Gutted fish and filets were hung up in the smoking-box, trying to get it reasonably dried and cured – as much as they could in a matter of hours.  Some of the catch was simply packed in salt.  The two rested through the afternoon, letting the fish smoke and keeping watch for dangerous wildlife like bears and boars. They had a dinner of fresh fish broiled on the skillet, seasoned simply.  After securing their food – the last parcel of prepared fish for the trip, they decided to walk back through the woods to the meadow.   “I wonder if we’re too late,” Ryn said. “The herd may have moved onto some other area.”   “No, look!” James pointed to the treeline opposite of them. Shapes stepped out into the blue evening.  Ryn and her father could barely make them out in the gloom.      Ryn smiled as she watched a few cow-elk mill about. “What?” James asked suddenly.   Ryn squinted her eyes.  “Moonlight, maybe?” There was a glow in the center of the field. It was bright green.  Ryn was trying to figure out if it was moonlight on the grass or something else entirely.   A pair of long, proud antlers rose from the bright patch.  A long nose and a long neck dripping with fur and moss emerged from the lit fog.  Green light was laced through the figure and shined off of metallic casings.  The armored bull-elk raised its head and bellowed.  The air was filled with the eerie whistle.   “Is that one of…them?”  Ryn gasped.   James held her shoulder and tugged.   “Kathryn, run.”   The girl stayed still.  “Won’t that draw its attention?”   “Trust me, it already knows that we are here.” The steel elk turned his head.  A green concentric lens of an eye flashed and the creature started running their way. “I love you, Ryn.  Don’t look back.”   Ryn’s father shoved her.  She took off in a dead run. She heard him shift in the needle-litter behind her.  She looked ahead, nearly running into trees, trying to dodge them and keep up the pace. She looked back and saw the ominous green glow lighting the rocks and pine needles from behind the dips and hills of the forest.  Ryn lost sight of her father, who had veered off to try to divide their pursuer’s attention. She got winded and stopped for a moment to catch her breath.   The sound of an elk’s bellow laced with a tinny undertone sent the hairs on her skin upward.  She whipped her head around, trying to find both the artificial animal and her father.   The glow disappeared.  She was left in the darkness.   Moment’s later, Ryn heard her father’s voice. He was screaming.   “Dad!” she yelled as she ran toward the horrific sound.  She thundered over hills and rocks, almost slipping on mud, leaf-litter and pine needles. “Dad! Dad!”   More screams.  Tearing and squelching noises.  Gasping.  Another scream.  After that, there was silence for several minutes, after which she heard a bark and a call.  Oh, it was long and low, chilling her through her soul again!   Green light appeared through the trees. Ryn took off running in the opposite direction.  She could not draw in her breath quickly enough.  She could feel the thud of her heart and hear her own blood rushing. Fear sped her on.   She saw a large form threading through the trees.  She took one look back and launched herself onto one of the sturdier pines.  She clambered, scraping her hands on the bark. Her fingers and her clothes became smeared with sticky, odiferous pitch.  She hugged tight to the trunk, finding partial purchase on a large branch and looked down.   The mechanical elk came into clear view.  Light from its wires and artificial muscles illuminated the segments of its steel chassis and the dark color splashed upon sections of it.   Ryn saw red upon his hooves.  She panted, heart sinking.  “Dad?” she choked out. A bit of deep crimson stained the foremost points of the creature’s smooth, sharp-pointed metal antlers. Plant-matter hung off some of the other points.  A coating of artificial fur dripped from its neck.  There were stains there, too.  Ryn was speechless, watching the Immortal-inhabited false-animal’s pacing.   She’d always lived in a world of life and death intertwined, but she and her father were not even meat to these beings. A small amount of her fear gave way to rage.  Before she could process it, she fell out of the tree.  Pain lanced through her arms as she braced herself and fell hard and through her side it failed to save her.  She looked up, feeling the blood drain from her face.  The elk stood before her with its bloody legs.   Ryn picked herself up to perch upon her knees, shivering.   The robotic elk simply gazed at her.  Its optics dilated and spun before returning to a default-setting.  Its ears swiveled and it stomped one foot.  Ryn was transfixed.  She couldn’t run.  She was too exhausted and was stunned from her fall.  She knew that if she tried, she wouldn’t get far.   “I…I’m ready,” she stuttered. The elk dipped its head in a nod.   “You killed my father!” she choked out. She put her hands out before her in surrender.  “You won the hunt.  I’m not running anymore!”   The elk turned and began walking away.   “Why don’t you finish it?!” Ryn screamed at its retreating form.  It paid her no need.  After several minutes, she was left alone with the night.   She never knew why the Immortal chose to spare her.   

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 29 Part II

“You want me to what?” Nelly said, laughing. “I’m just about to wash my hair. I can’t.”

“Wash your hair?” said Buster, as though he’d never heard such a preposterous thing. 

“Yes, wash my hair. I told you before, I do it every Saturday.”

It wasn’t just the disruption in her toilette that made her hesitate. If staying at Buster’s bungalow was risky, stepping across the threshold of the Villa door when he was supposedly alone was downright dangerous. She didn’t trust that an important item hadn’t been left behind and that Natalie wouldn’t pop back in at any moment to retrieve it. She could also picture a sudden return due to illness, perhaps indigestion or the heat of the May sun.

“Poppycock,” said Buster, when she aired these fears. 

“How so?”

“They left for the train station at six this morning. Won’t be back for a whole week.”

“Yes, but …”

Buster told her all the ways in which her misgivings were foolish. “You can spend the night,” he added, in a teasing, tempting tone.

“I can’t,” she said. She ignored the instant flash of heat between her legs at his words.  

“Don’t you wanna see where I sleep?” 

The heat prickled. She did. “Do you think I’m that easy?” she said, not ready to quite surrender.

Buster laughed. “I do. Anyway, you can wash your hair here. I have a bathtub, you know. And a shower.”

Nelly gave it some consideration. “You promise everyone is gone?” she said at last. She wanted to add Your children, your wife, and your servants? but trusted he knew what she meant.

“Not a soul except you and me, sweetheart.”

“Okay, I give in,” she said. “Don’t think I think it’s a good idea, though, because I don’t.”

Buster showed up forty-five minutes later, parking a few houses down on Genesee Avenue. He had tipped her off that he was coming in a black Gardner car. It was rather ordinary-looking, his butler’s personal vehicle he’d said, and she understood why he’d chosen it. In the bright morning light, one of his luxury cars would have been more conspicuous than it was in the late evenings when he usually came around. He sat in the driver’s seat almost completely concealed behind a newspaper as she approached, carrying her handbag and a small satchel with some clothing.

“Good morning,” she said, after opening the passenger door and settling herself inside. She couldn’t help herself grinning ear from ear at the sight of him. It was only the third time she’d seen him since he’d returned from New York. 

“Morning,” he said, answering her smile. He folded the paper and tossed it in the backseat. “You ready to be queen of a castle for a day?”

“I will be a guest of the castle,” she said, raising an eyebrow. Joke or not, the idea of her somehow taking Natalie Talmadge’s place at the Villa made her uneasy. Thoughts of Mistress Nell Gwyn, which she’d long since finished reading, flashed through her mind. 

“Alright, guest then.” He turned the key in the ignition and then swung the car onto the road. 

After he had shifted the car up to a comfortable traveling speed, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. She knew him well enough already to know that he wasn't the type to say things like ‘I missed you’ out loud, it just wasn’t him. The kiss said it all the same.

Truth be told, as much as Nelly was glad to see him, she was nervous to be even a guest at the Villa and not simply because Natalie could return at any moment. She could forget that Buster occupied a different world when they were at her apartment or the modest bungalow outside the M-G-M gates; she could not forget it amidst the splendor and sumptuousness of the Villa. Moreover, the Villa was Natalie’s territory, built with her in mind as Buster had once told her. It didn’t feel right sneaking around her house while she was gone. 

When Buster shifted down a gear again, he kept her hand in his so that her hand was also on the stick. He drove that way for several minutes, whistling, caressing her hand beneath his. Nelly was occupied enough without conversation, half fretting about setting foot inside the Villa, half wondering at the mansions of Beverly Hills, sprawling cream chateaus in the French and Mediterranean styles, most with red roofs. They all seemed to be variations of the Villa, or vice versa. 

Her stomach grew jittery as the meticulous, manicured hills of the Villa came into view. Buster went up the drive, still whistling cheerfully, oblivious to her discomfort. He pulled the car through the circle drive with the fountain, shifted down, and turned it off. 

“M’lady,” he said gravely when he opened her door. She handed him her satchel and he took her hand with his free one and helped her down. The fountain burbled pleasantly as she looked up at Buster’s palace. She should have been bright with anticipation, but all that she felt was a gnawing dread. 

“Sure they’re gone?” she said. 

“Sure as anything,” Buster said, burying his face in the side of her neck and kissing it abundantly. For once, it failed to distract her. 

“Alright.”

He took her hand again and pulled her up the steps and to the mahogany door with its interlocking diamond-patterned metalwork. Electric light burned in the large black iron sconces by the door even though it was day. Still holding her hand, Buster turned the door handle and pushed inside. Nelly was now back in the dimly lit vestibule with the red-brick floor. The house was cool and had a distinctive smell, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, which announced that a particular family lived there. It was larger and more sober than she remembered without its gay partygoers. She followed Buster into the foyer. With the great stone staircase and wrap-around stone balcony encompassing the upstairs, the house really did feel like a castle. 

“Loosen up,” Buster said, setting down her satchel and giving her shoulder a squeeze. 

She attempted a smile. “I’m sorry.”

“I wanna show you around,” said Buster. Nelly bent to get her satchel and he tugged her away. “Leave it. We’ll get it later. You can hang up your bag, too.”

Reluctantly, she looped the strap of her bag around the hook of an opulent hall tree. It too appeared to be made of mahogany. Their feet echoed on the marble checkerboard floor. 

“This is the breakfast room,” Buster was saying as they went up some steps and into a smallish room with a simple white wicker table and matching chairs. Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows. He paused to let her gaze around her for several moments before leading her down another set of steps and into a room with a tiled floor, a trickling marble fountain topped with a cherub, and numerous palms and ferns. “And this here’s the conservatory on account of all the plants.” Nelly could only stare, marveling that there was an entire room just for plants. “The kids like playing behind ‘em, the plants, but I don’t much see the purpose of a conservatory,” Buster said, almost to himself. “That’s what it is though, and this next room’s the dining room.”

They ascended another small set of steps. Only one leaf was in the table and only four chairs were gathered around it though additional chairs sat against the walls. It was a table, in other words, for a family of four. It more than anything else she’d seen so far reminded Nelly of Buster’s other life, his real life, the part that she was shut off from. Clearly excited to be showing her around, he still hadn’t noticed her uneasiness, so she smiled and praised the pretty painted ceiling beams and the large, expensive oriental rug that the dining set was placed on.

“Servants are on this side, too, and so’s the kitchen. I’ll show you the kitchen later if you want.”

Next he took her back to the foyer and they went left into the living room. Nelly remembered from the party and said so. It was more cavernous than she’d recollected. There was the great stone fireplace, the sofa, some chairs and a side table with a fresh arrangement of flowers. She noticed another palace-sized oriental rug, a mirror, and a coal box. There were so many expensive items to catch her eye. Before she had time to adjust, Buster was pulling her in another direction. 

“I call this my playroom.” 

The playroom contained a big billiards table, a bar, and a small table the precise size for four card players. The ceiling was wood-paneled and beamed. A phonograph player and armchair sat off to one side.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, and added in a moment of honesty, “It’s a lot.”

Buster came up and put his arms around her waist, resting his head on her chin. He smelled like cigarettes and Brilliantine. She could tell he was feeling amorous, but she was too tightly wound to relax into his arms. “Why don’t you show me the grounds?” she said, to head him off. 

He withdrew his arms, seeming to catch on that she wasn’t in the mood. “Why, sure.”

They went out of a loggia off of the living room and Buster let her explore the grounds at her pace. For some reason, even though she was more exposed outdoors to anyone who might be around, she felt more secure. Buster’s sense of opulence was not restricted to the interior. Nelly saw the tennis court and push-button trout stream, and walked down to the extravagant pool, which looked tempting and refreshing as it glinted in the sun. She sat sideways in a pool chair and rubbed her ankle absently. “It’s a lot of space, isn’t it?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Buster agreed. He pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lit it. He stood smoking and looking into the pool. 

“I’m afraid I find it all a little overwhelming,” she said. 

“Oh, I can tell,” said Buster, redirecting his gaze to her. “There ain’t no need to feel that way, you know. It’s a house, is all.”

“It’s a palace, Buster. It’s marvelously beautiful, it’s just …” She looked around her.

“Hmm.” Buster closed the space between them and sat next to her.

Nelly touched his knee. “I just forget sometimes that you’re King Charles and I’m Nell the orange-seller.”

“Bull,” said Buster. 

Nelly traced patterns on his knee and didn’t answer. The water in the pool lapped in a soothing way and smoke from his cigarette drifted into her face.

“So what’s your castle in the air, then?” said Buster, waving away the smoke.

“Me?” She looked into his eyes. “You know, silly. A Shakespeare talkie. What comes after, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.”

“No, I mean when it comes to real castles. What would you do different?” He inclined his head at the Villa.

“Oh, well … I’d shrink it down, naturally,” she said. “Maybe just one story or maybe a bungalow with a little room or two upstairs.” She’d never thought of what her ideal home might look like, but warmed to the idea at once. “It would have plenty of bookshelves and lots of books. Floor to ceiling. I’d have a collection of plays. Maybe I’d have a collection of records, too. There would be space to dance.”

“Even if you were a star?”

“I suppose. I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine having so much money.”

“Easiest thing in the world to spend money if you’ve got it. Everyone does when they do.” Buster flicked the spent cigarette to the marble flagstones and crushed it with his heel. 

Nelly placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be cross with me. You just have to let me get used to it. It all makes me so nervous.”

“I should have figured it would, the way you were acting at my party,” he said, in a somewhat sullen tone of voice. “Guess it’s my fault for asking you over.”

She kissed his cheek. “Give me a chance to get used to it. You know, maybe a drink would help.” She hadn’t shared a drink with him since his party, but figured it was the fastest path to getting more comfortable.

“You want a drink?” Buster said, brightening. 

“Yes. Make me a drink,” she said, squeezing his hand.

They went up the white marble steps past the impeccably trimmed topiaries that lined it and decorated its center and back through the loggia and into the living room. Buster led her into the playroom. “What’ll it be?” he said.

“Something that isn’t whiskey, please,” she said, taking a seat in the armchair. 

“Gin Rickey?” he said.

“That’s fine,” she said, not quite knowing what a Gin Rickey was but happy to find out. 

She stole long glances of the room as Buster stood with his back to her and mixed the drink. She could grow to like this room, she decided. Of all the places in the house she’d seen so far, it seemed the most like the man that she knew, always eager for a game of some kind, in love with his comforts. 

“Here you are,” said Buster, appearing at her side to hand her the drink.

It was clear and bubbly, garnished with a wedge of lime. She took a cautious sip and tasted pine and lime. “It’s delicious,” she said, smiling at him.

Buster returned the smile. “Good.” He went back to the bar to pour himself a glass of whiskey. “Game of billiards?” he said, standing before her again.

Nelly took a generous swallow of the cocktail and although he was sure to have an insurmountable advantage over her said, “Sure.”

She went over to the billiards table and Buster walked over to the wall to push a button. To her marvel, a long, lavish metal light decorated with scrolls descended from the ceiling. He pushed another button and light was cast over the red-velvet billiards table. Buster smiled at her astonishment and flipped open a built-in cabinet, from which he selected a couple of cue sticks. He handed one to her. 

“Ready to get whupped?” he said. “Your turn first.”

“No, you,” she said firmly. “You need all the advantages you can get.”

Buster laughed. “You’re pretty confident, kid.”

It was a lie, of course. She’d never played the game well but didn’t want to show how green she was. She could at least try to mimic his form if he went first. He lifted the triangle away from the balls and went to the south end of the table holding the cue ball. She watched him place it in the left corner of the table and chalk the tip of his stick. Not missing a beat, he laid his left arm on the table and threaded the cue through his forefinger, then pulled his right arm back. It seemed as though he barely tapped the cue ball, but the pyramid of balls went scattering. “I call stripes,” he said, after watching to see where all the balls went.

Nelly took a large gulp of her drink and set it on a nearby table. She was remembering Buster shooting billiards in a film whose name escaped her. Each shot had been impossible. “How did you do those trick shots in that one picture of yours?” she said, grasping her cue stick. 

“Sherlock, Jr.?”

“I think that was the one.”

“What’ll I get for telling?” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

“I’ll let you win, perhaps,” she said. 

That made him laugh. “It was practice. Four god damn months of practice. I had a teacher, one of the best players there is, and it still took us five days to get all the shots. Quit stalling, though. It’s your turn.”

Nelly stuck out her tongue and leaned over the table as she’d seen Buster do.

“No, no, no, you didn’t chalk your stick.” He took it out of her hands and wiped the piece of chalk around the tip. “Here.”

Rolling her eyes, she took the stick back and again set up her shot. She aimed at a solid green six-ball and shot. Instead, she hit a striped eleven-ball and didn’t get anywhere near any of the pockets.

“Oh Nelly,” said Buster, laughing. 

She didn’t mind that she was going to lose to him. It was worth it to see the way his grin lit up his face. “I’m deliberately putting you at your ease,” she said, narrowing her eyes and lifting her nose. She wandered over to her glass of Gin Rickey and finished it. 

“Want another?” said Buster, gesturing. 

She nodded.

They went on like that for the next half-hour, taking turns at the table. Buster beat her handily in three out of three games. “You can’t play at all,” he said with mild incredulity, after all of his balls were in their pockets at the end of round three.

Nelly set her drink (it was her third) on the table and hopped up onto the edge of the table. She was feeling happy and free and relaxed now. “So I told a fib,” she said, smiling and swinging her legs. “So what?”

Buster couldn’t hold back his laughter. “You’re awful bold.” He positioned himself between her legs and tilted his head up for a kiss. She pressed her mouth to his, tasting whiskey. “Want a lesson on form?” he offered. She shook her head, stroking her finger across his lower lip. “Well, what do you want?”

“You tell me,” she said. She traced a finger across his cheekbone and his eyelids grew heavy. His lips parted.

“It involve a bed?” he said, sounding dreamy.

“Maybe.” She grabbed the rest of her drink and finished it. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Second floor. C’mon.” Buster helped her down from the billiards table and took her hand again. She followed him up the grand stone staircase and onto the landing. He paused a few moments to unlatch a heavy wrought-iron gate. He led her through it and down a short hall, then took a right into a small circular vestibule with an intercom and dumbwaiter. Before Nelly had a chance to ask where they were, he pulled her through the next doorway.

She knew at once that the bedroom wasn’t his. There were too many feminine tells: a mint-green screen decorated with flowers, a lamp with a pink shade, French perfume bottles on a bureau. Buster was nibbling her throat, but Nelly was looking over his head at the photographs of his children hanging on the walls. He steered her over to the edge of the king-sized bed and pushed her to a seated position. It sat atop a platform and was the biggest bed she’d ever seen. He sat beside her and started working on the dress buttons at the back of her neck.

“Oh, we can’t,” she said, pushing his hands away. 

“Huh?” said Buster, looking affronted. “Why not? Thought you wanted to.”

“I do, but not on your wife’s bed. Buster, it would be wrong.” She stood up.

“Look, I never once made love to her on this bed.” He appeared confused. “No one’s made love on this bed. She don’t do that. Not with me, not with anyone.”

“It’s not just that. It’s—I don’t want to take her place anywhere. I don’t want to be in her room,” she said. Her head was fizzy with Gin Rickeys, but she was never more sure of herself. She turned on her heel and walked back to the vestibule. 

Buster’s footsteps followed her. He caught her arm. “Don’t be like that, I didn’t mean to upset you.” His face was so soft and pleading that she couldn’t stay angry with him. 

“I know you didn’t,” she said, though ignorance didn’t excuse his mistake. She stood dumbly as Buster ran a hand up and down her arm. 

“Want me to take you home?” he said, voice remorseful. 

“No. No, I don’t.” She smiled at his doubt and put her arms around him, softening further. “Let’s just stick to other parts of your house, alright?”

“Alright. Well, can I take you to my bedroom?”

She had to bite back another smile at his persistence. “Sure.”

A similar round vestibule preceded Buster’s bedroom. This led to a small hall which led into the main bedchamber. Both his room and his bed were half the size of Natalie’s. The curtains were drawn, making the room dark and cool. Nelly tried not to look too hard at the photographs. There was one of his sons in front of a large dressing mirror that connected his two bureaus. 

“I built that,” he said, thinking she was admiring the mirror and dressers. “Designed it myself. Gabe helped me build it at my old studio.”

She was surprised at this bit of trivia. There were very few areas into which Buster’s talents didn’t extend, it seemed. “It’s a handsome piece of furniture,” she said. She noticed that the picture opposite his sons’ had been turned onto its face and attempted to give it no more thought. 

“Sorry the bed’s not made, but the servants are gone for the weekend.”

“You can’t make your own bed?” said Nelly, turning to him and giving him a playful pinch. Her nervousness had begun to melt away again now that they were out of Natalie’s territory. 

“What’s the point? It’s just going to get mussed up if I make it.” He returned to kissing her neck and this time Nelly tried to force her nerves away. His lips were soft, his breath was warm, and that was all that mattered. 

In no time, they’d gotten onto the bed. Buster bent over her, his leg threaded between hers, kissing her fiercely and clutching one of her breasts. She ran her hands up and down his back as his tongue entered her mouth. The bed smelled like him and she imagined, vaguely, what it would be like to wake up next to him in it, tumbled in these expensive blankets and sheets; to watch him dress and get ready for the studio; to see him off with a kiss and spend the rest of the day in idleness and frivolity, waiting for him to return home so they could go to dinner or attend a party at Pickfair. She couldn’t make up her mind whether that sort of life would be the meaning of happiness or unbearably stifling. Realizing that her thoughts had wandered again, she brought herself back to the present by sliding her finger into the seam of Buster’s button-up shirt and easing one of the mother-of-pearl buttons from its hole. Buster withdrew his hand from her breast and knit his arms behind her back so he could do her the same courtesy, plucking open buttons as they kissed. When all buttons had been accounted for, Buster sat up and pulled his arms out of his sleeves, while she stepped off of the bed and out of her dress. 

“Now,” said Buster, when she was back on the bed. “Where were we?”

“You tell me,” she said, looking down at his lap. He was still wearing his dark grey trousers. 

He grasped her by her bare shoulders and steered her onto her back. As he crouched on top of her, caging her in with his hands and knees, she reached down to undo his trousers. Her fingers brushed against his erection and he moaned, appreciative of the contact. She let her lower instincts drive her when the buttons were undone. It was natural to stroke him just so, to lick at his ear, to tell him how hot he was making her, but these actions, done of intuition, left energy for her mind to resume its peregrinations. It took so little to make Buster happy, and was no great chore to content him in bed. He liked all the usual things that men did. None of the deviations that she’d heard whispered about Charlie Chaplin during his divorce seemed to hold any interest for Buster. He never desired sex to such a degree that it was burdensome. Admittedly, she felt just as passionate for him as he did for her, but she tried to consider what it would be like if she didn’t. She still didn’t see what the harm would be in indulging him, in keeping his bed warm. Too little payment for so great a debt. 

She clung to his neck and kissed it while he inched her knickers down. He entered her with a sigh a few moments later. He hadn’t mentioned a prophylactic and she hadn’t asked. It was easy to forget sense when he made love to her. She forgot, too, what time it was and that they were at the Villa. Instead, her mind coasted along currents of pleasure, following each one to its length until she encountered the next. 

“Flip over,” said Buster, pulling her out of the reverie she’d sunk into. 

“Hmm?” she said.

He withdrew from her body and sat up on his haunches. “Right here.” He patted a portion of the bed to indicate. “But with your head toward the mirror and your feet sorta pointed at the pillows.” He tugged off his undershirt.

Her heart pounded. They’d only ever made love on their sides or with Buster on top. She unhooked her brassiere, wriggled onto her stomach, and stretched out, her head facing the mirror. 

“Now, I’d like it if you…” He sucked in breath as he dragged a finger from the top of her neck to the slight swell above her bottom. “Get up on your hands and knees.”

Her pulse throbbed. To obey him would be downright wicked, not respectable, not ladylike, but the moment Buster made the request she perceived what a superb idea it was. She rose to the position that he wanted her in and arched her back. 

Two words. “Oh, Christ.” She had never heard his voice sound like that, dark and worshipful, like he was a pauper and had been handed a sack full of gold objects. 

He lined himself up behind her, and there was a quick mutual adjustment of legs and feet before he entered her. Following instinct again, she pushed back to meet him. She closed her eyes to savor the new pleasure. As a consequence, it took her a couple minutes to realize Buster’s reasoning behind the position. When she blinked her lids open, in such a daze that it felt like she’d drunk ten Gin Rickeys, she saw them in the mirror together, Buster rising above her backside with abs standing out in stark relief, one arm stretched along her back and anchored on her shoulder. His eyes met hers and she pushed back. Not breaking her gaze, he pushed forward. She’d never seen herself in such a way before, her arms splayed, her hair starting to fall out of its chignon, her breasts swinging with every push by Buster. His breath was fast and hard. He was muttering sweet things to her through his moans, Oh darling and You’re so good. For her part, she’d never been so excited. 

He wouldn’t last like this, but she sensed that he wasn’t meant to. She gave another push back and he broke against her with a choked cry. “I can’t, Nelly, oh I can’t …!” He doubled over her and clutched her breasts, gasping as he came in her. She met his uneven thrusts, grinding herself against him for all she was worth, craving those last frissons of euphoria before he withdrew. She lifted her eyes to the mirror and watched him pull out and collapse on his back against the mound of his pillows, his chest heaving. Her arms were sore as she drew alongside him, but the pain was distant. 

Only when she met his eyes did she realize what had just happened. Buster’s groggy look of pleasure was changing to fear. “I was trying to say, ‘I can’t stop,’ ” he said, feeling for her hand and squeezing her fingers when he found it. 

Impossibly, she’d forgotten that there was no barrier between them. She dipped a hand between her legs and encountered the excess wetness there. 

“I’m so sorry,” said Buster. She’d never seen such an expression of worry on his face.

She propped herself on her elbows, still half in a daze from their love-making. “Do you have a—where are your pants? Your handkerchief.” She had trouble commanding the words. 

Buster slipped off the bed and picked up his trousers, feeling in the pocket. Wordless, he handed her the white square of cloth. She wiped away as much of the wetness as she could. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, after she’d bunched up the cloth and thrown it clear of the bed. She was now beginning to feel worried, but only because he seemed so worried. “The chances are very, very small.”

He was standing at the foot of the bed running a hand through his disheveled hair. “If it comes to that,” he said, in a halting way that told her he was still arranging his thoughts. “If it does, I’ll help you sort it out no matter what. Okay?”

“I’m sure it’s fine. Come here.” When he was close enough, she pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed it. “Don’t worry.” In her head, she was counting up the days since her monthlies had appeared last week. She came up to eleven, not quite the midpoint. The midpoint was when most women conceived. She looked up at Buster. The furrow beneath his brows was deep. “Please. Stop worrying.”

He sat next to her and knit his hands together and stared ahead. She thought she detected a peculiar luster to his eyes. 

“Darling, it’s as much my fault as it is yours. I forgot too.” She reached out and brushed the hair back from his forehead. “There’s no point in worrying unless I’m late.”

“I won’t go without a thin from now on,” said Buster, as though he hadn’t heard her. 

Her head began to ache. The Gin Rickeys had worn off. “Please. Please stop worrying.”

Without any warning, Buster threw his arms around her and clasped her tight, so much that he took some of the breath out of her. He held her like that for several long moments, not saying a thing, before releasing her. “Alright, I will,” he said. 

“Good.” She held his cheek in her hand until he looked her in the eyes and she was satisfied at what she saw in his. “Now I’m the one who’s hungry this time. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Buster seemed to cheer up a fraction. His voice sounded a bit sunnier as he said, “What would you like?”

“Oh, anything. Whatever you want. I’m sure I’ll like it.”

Nelly thought they dressed more somberly than usual this time, collecting articles of clothing from the bed and floor and pulling them on without saying a word. Despite her reassurances to Buster, the weight of her predicament was beginning to settle on her. All the canteen lunches on the set of Steamboat and at United Artists had taught her that there were two choices for girls whose famous lovers had put them into a condition. They could go away for a period of confinement and give up the child when it was born. Or they were put in touch with a doctor who could take care of their situation. 

Buster disappeared as she was buttoning up her dress and she heard the faint sound of his voice from down the hall. He was speaking to someone. She froze. Natalie must be back. She looked around in horror and spotted a doorway to the left of the bureau. She hastened through it and found herself in a bathroom. Hiding in the shower would be absurd, but it was the best place to conceal herself. She decided to wait to hear if footsteps approached first. The seconds dragged on. Her pulse thudded and her head throbbed in an angry way. At long last, she heard someone enter the room, but there was just one set of footsteps. “Nelly?” Buster called. 

She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and made her way to the doorway. “Are you alone?” she said in undertones. 

Buster, who was standing at the foot of his bed, looked toward her in bafflement. 

“ ‘Course I’m alone. What do you mean?” 

Relief descended and she came back into the bedroom. “Who were you talking to?”

Buster gave her an odd look. “Caruthers. Ordering food.”

Although she was comforted to hear that Natalie had not made an unexpected return, she was dismayed to hear that someone else was in the house with them. “I thought you said everyone was gone?”

“They are,” he said. “I can’t go without Caruthers, though. He does all the cooking. And I need someone to fetch things if I need ‘em. I can’t just go out like you.”

“Oh,” said Nelly, somehow not feeling satisfied with this explanation. 

Buster gave her shoulder a squeeze. “He knows about us, anyway. And before you go worrying, he’ll never breathe a word. I trust him with my life.”

She wasn’t happy to hear that Buster had given away their secret. Though the butler had been friendly the night he had driven her home, she knew that servants gossiped. Perhaps male servants didn’t do it to the extent that female ones did, but she didn’t think it was worth chancing. “If you think so,” she said, not able to keep the skepticism from her voice. 

“Buck up,” said Buster. “Anyway, how else was I supposed to get you a nice dinner tonight?”

Tonight. The Gin Rickeys, the dark room, and the torrid love-making made her forget it was still daylight out, but of course it couldn’t be past two or two-thirty. She stepped toward the mirror and took in her disarrayed hair. “If he knows I’m here, I ought to fix my hair before I go back downstairs.”

Buster smiled and looked self-satisfied. “Ain’t no need for you to go anywhere. Go on and fix your hair, and I’ll call you when the grub’s here.” He took a silver brush from his bureau and handed it to her. 

She stayed in the bathroom until Buster yelled for her, not wanting to be caught in the room when the butler wheeled in a cart of food. It would be too uncomfortable. She stepped into the bedroom but didn’t see Buster. “Where are you?”

“In here.”

She followed the sound of his voice and, feeling cautious, went down the hall and into the vestibule where she saw Buster holding a silver tray with both hands. It held two or three covered dishes. He cocked his head at a dumbwaiter she had not noticed earlier where there was a smaller tray holding glasses and soda pop bottles.

“You grab those there,” he said.

She did as she was told and they went through another door of the vestibule and onto a balcony, where there was a small table and a few bistro chairs. “Oh my,” she said, as she caught sight of the view. The balcony was directly over the east portion of the house, which stretched out at an angle beneath them. That was not what had taken her breath away, however. From here, there was a perfect view of the marble steps, swimming pool, and tennis court, and sloping away from them, the estate wandered down to the great flower bed beside the winding drive that they had come up. It wandered farther still, past the palms and shrubs, and then there were mansions as far as the eye could see in every direction, beautiful mansions so well-arranged on the hills that they looked the very picture of an Italian town. That was where all of Hollywood lived, Marion Davis, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and here she was among them dining with Buster Keaton. For a minute, she felt far removed from her previous life in Evanston and her current one as a humble extra and prop manager, tasting what it must be like to be a movie star. 

“Like it?” said Buster, setting the tray on the table. 

Nelly nudged her tray next to his, considered the warm sun on her shoulders and the breeze, smelling earthy and almost living, and nodded. Maybe it was the view, maybe it was laughing and eating fresh strawberries and cream with Buster after they’d finished purée of potato soup and veal cutlets, but from that hour forward she took a better liking to the Villa and began to see it as he did. Her worries were, for the remainder of the evening at least, set aside.

Notes: Are you surprised by this chapter? I was. What I had in mind was just a nice rendezvous for Nelly with Buster at the Villa, but there was much more tension and conflict and unexpected directions than I’d thought. The length also got away from me, but I hope you won’t mind that.  It’s hard to explain, but when you’re writing--when you’re immersed in your characters--sometimes they just act on their own and you just follow. Did I intend for Buster and Nelly to have unprotected sex that resulted in Buster accidentally finishing in her? No. Did I intend for Nelly to be so resistant to Buster’s home, help, and all the rest? No. I just wrote and the characters’ natural actions suggested themselves without a single thought on my part.  I think I will wrap this chapter up for now and just call the next one Chapter 30, even though it takes place the same day and same place.  And yeah, that’s a photo of Buster in his bedroom. Dreamy, huh?

[brelione]

Field Trip With A Rich Bitch ll (Rafe Cameron X Reader)

Warnings:Ward Cameron,Mentions of Arsenic Poisoning,Mentions of heavy drugs,mentions of bipolar disorder,mentions of death,Rafe being too tall for every day life

He raised his eyebrows. “Where?”He asked.You rolled your eyes,wishing you had a bottle of wine to take a swig from in that moment. “What?You scared you’re gonna get mud on your shoes?”You asked.He sighed,scratching the back of his neck. “How far away is it?”He asked. “Nevermind,rich bitch,clearly you don't want to know the truth about your father.”You went to turn around but his hand grabbed your wrist quickly. “No,no it's not like that...I just wanna know where we’re going.”He mumbled.You pulled your hand from his grasp,staring down at him. “Come on,then.”You told him,beginning your walk outside the garage.His bike was nearly done,scratches holes and dents gone.The last thing to fix was the seat which wouldn't take long at all.He grabbed his phone,sliding it in his pocket.

He followed you out of the garage,waiting with his hands in his pockets as you pulled the garage door shut,bending over to place a lock on it.You could feel him staring at you. “Stop being a perv.”You grumbled,clicking the lock shut and stood back up.You could see the red blush on his cheek,spreading down his neck and ears.He was so easy to fluster.It was hilarious.Rafe had beat the living hell out of multiple teenagers,made some children cry with a glance and came from one of the most powerful families.But here you were,bossing him around,making him blush and causing him to stutter out apologies.You had that power over most people.Some kooks called you a demon and you embraced it.Most people didn't know it but you had the word tattooed on your thigh with two devil horns hovering over it.You were manipulative,assertive and strong.

You had the charm and the looks to get people to like you without knowing you and you had the glare that made the hair on the back of people’s necks stick up straight.You hadnt always been like that,only becoming this emotionless ball of rage after Ward Cameron had destroyed everything that made your life worth living.The beautiful thing was you had Ward Cameron’s one and only son wrapped around your finger and there was nothing he could do about it.Rafe was deprived of attention.Not only was Ward a terrible person but a terrible father as well.Rafe was desperate for attention now and if you gave him the attention he wanted he was all yours.You knew that and deep down he knew it too. “We’ll take the woods,I can't risk being seen with you.”You walked around the back of the garage.It was a steep hill full of rocks and some poison ivy.You knew where not to step and Rafe did his best to step the same places you did.You were pretty far ahead of him,around ten feet.Down the hill was a narrow pavement trail,cracks and holes all over it. “Anyone ever told you that you walk slow for a tall person?”You asked.

He grinned to himself,trying not to fall while also trying not to hit his head on any branches. “How long do you think we’ll be out for?”He asked.You shrugged. “Maybe an hour.”You replied,walking along the narrow pavement.Rafe wasn't used to being in the woods,at least not this deep in the woods,he was jumping at every noise. “Do you think that was a wolf?” “No.” “Did you hear that?” “No.” “Oh my god-what if there's a dead body out here?” “Rafe.We’re going to a cemetery,if there are no dead bodies then that would be a problem.” “I hate cemeteries.” “Well that sucks for you.” As you were coming to the end of the narrow pavement into the grass Rafe jumped from the crunch of a twig,grabbing onto you and pulling you to his chest.You stood stiff,his arms tightening around your waist as he listened for more sounds. “Are you going to let go of me or will I have to drag you?”You asked.He let go of you with a huff. “Do you think we should head back?”He asked.You sighed.

This was what you got from bringing a kook into the woods. “You're such a pussy.”You sighed,continuing your walk.He kept kicking the back of your heel by accident because he was so close behind you.You two walked onto the grass,looking across the field at the gravestones,benches and statues.He had come here a few times for late night drug deals and drinking with Kelce and Topper.It was a creepy old place that always made him shiver.Beer cans and red solo cups littered the ground from his previous trips here.You sighed as you looked across the graveyard to one corner,the one furthest away.He watched as you began your walk across the field.Most of the graves were covered in pollen and dirt splotches,the grass almost as tall as the stones themselves.It was gross and unkept and smelled like weed and cheap beer from gas stations.His feet were sinking into the mud,causing him to grumble something about how annoying it would be to clean them.He dragged his feet as he followed you to one large stone with vines growing up the sides.There were muddy streaks across the names like someone had tried to wipe it clean with a dirty hand.

 “Rafe,meet my parents.Mom,Dad meet the rich bitch.”You sighed,standing in front of the grave.Rafe’s eyes widened,his chest tightening.You grinned at his reaction. “What?”You asked.He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out.What was he even supposed to say?Sorry your parents are dead and ended up in this shitty cemetery.Sorry I dealt cocaine by your parents grave.Sorry half those beer cans are mine. “Close your mouth Rafe,you look like a trout.”You smirked.He closed his mouth,gulping and tapping his leg nervously. “I bet you’re wondering what your dad has to do with this.”You spoke,observing his expression.He nodded,looking at the date on the grave.They had both died on the same day of 2004 which meant you were only two years old at the time. “You ever wonder how your father got all that money in the first place?Cause I can tell you it's definitely not whatever bull shit story he’s been telling everyone.”You used the sleeve of your yellow shirt to wipe the dirt off your parents’ names.He bit the inside of his cheek,waiting for you to continue. 

“Your dad was a dealer.He was my parents dealer.Im not talking about weed either,I mean the heavy shit.Heroin,crack,xanax.What kind of asshole deals xanax?Anyways,he sold to my parents and when they tried to get off the stuff he convinced them to keep buying from him.When they found my ma’s body they found that same heavy shit in her system.But here’s where the story gets really interesting.Not only did they find the heroin but guess what they found.Guess.”You ordered him.He blinked,glancing between you and the grave. “I-I dont know.”He mumbled.You nodded. “Arsenic.Your shitty father poisoned the drugs he gave my parents.WHo does that?”You sighed,flicking a bug off of the grave stone.He bit his lip as he took in this new information. “And he didnt get arrested or charged or anything?”He asked.

You laughed. “What do you think?You think Sarah Cameron would exist?You think you’d live in that big house with all of that nice stuff and your fancy ass gold plated spoons?No.None of that would be possible if your father got what he deserved.You know what your father got?A nice house,millions of dollars,a handsome son and multiple yachts.Thats what he got after killing my parents.You know what I had to grow up with?A one bedroom house with three cousins and a bipolar aunt.Thats what I got.”You ranted,tears stinging in your eyes as you got louder and louder.He didn't say anything,scared that only squeaks would come out.You bit your lip to hold back to the tears,the water leaking from your eyes and down your cheeks as you laughed. “And now my aunt and my baby cousin are dead too!”You gestured to the grave next to you. “And you know what else?I've had to work for 12 years of my life and you know where I live?In a shitty house thats falling apart and all I do is work on cars and bikes every single day and I cant even feel my hands anymore and I have fucking broken toes from kneeling all day and I cant even afford to go to a fucking hospital.And the only person that I can blame is your dad.”You wiped the tears from your face with your sleeves,smearing dirt across your cheekbone.

His bottom lip quivered,fingertips going numb as he listened to you.Something compelled him to step forward,grabbing your waist gently and pulling you into a hug.You did not fight him.If it were under any other circumstances then telling him that his father had been a drug lord,killed your parents,ruined your life and caused you to work every day of your life then maybe you wouldn't have accepted the hug.You never thought you’d be hugging Rafe Cameron,or any kook for that matter. “I can um...I can bring you to the hospital to get your toes fixed.”He offered.You laughed into his chest,getting tears on his shirt. “Wow,thanks.”You whispered,laughing again.He gulped,resting his chin on your head.It seemed that you had both needed a hug.You were holding onto him so tightly,holding fistfulls of his shirt in your hands.He hadnt hugged anyone in years and it seemed that you hadnt either. “Do yourself a favor and don't turn into your father.And if you keep going down the path you’re going down now then you’ll end up just like my parents.”You sighed.He frowned.

You sounded like one of those commercials of people staring at the camera with crocodile tears running down their faces as they talked about some loved one who had died and how drugs weren't the answer.You probably didn't know though,it wasn't like you could afford cable.He just nodded,knowing you did not need his attitude right now. “(Y/N).”He mumbled.You hummed,closing your eyes.You didnt cry often and never in front of people but when you did cry it stung like hell.You couldn't exactly rub your eyes with your fingers either because they had traces of oil and chemicals. “What if we piss my father off and get him to confess to the murders?”He asked.You sniffled,looking up at him with puffy eyes. “How?”You asked.

Part Three will be up this weekend!

@gabbismith​

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the Missoulian:

Breaking a permitting process into small steps backfired for Hecla Mining Company last week, when a federal judge ruled the government couldn’t grant permits for the exploration phase of a copper mine on the edge of the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.

U.S. District Judge Don Molloy wrote that what might happen to grizzly bears, bull trout and other environmental resources when the full project got underway must be considered.

On Wednesday, Molloy vacated decisions by the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowing Hecla to move ahead on the Rock Creek Mine between Noxon and Libby. At the start of his ruling on Ksanka Kupaqa Xaʾⱡȼin vs. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he observed the project had been in court for two decades.

Hecla has two mining projects on the edge of the Cabinets, both facing legal challenges. The miners propose digging under the boundary of the federal wilderness area to reach big veins of copper and silver. While gathering minerals underneath a wilderness area does not violate the Wilderness Act, miners must show their activity won’t disturb surface resources such as wildlife and water.

In the case of Idaho-based Hecla, both its Rock Creek and nearby Montanore projects appear at risk. The company lost several previous bids in court because it and FWS couldn’t show all the road-building and human activity wouldn't risk killing too many of the estimated 50 grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak Recovery Area. The mines’ potential to dewater Cabinet lakes and streams also put at risk threatened bull trout, as well as the whole ecosystem dependent on that water.

[alphaternal]

* The Childhood

As a boy and well into his youth, Owen had always been physically big, the tallest kid in every class he had between daycare and high school. He was that teenager who was often mistaken to be in his early twenties, hit puberty quick and barreled through it like a bull into adulthood, thick facial hair and broad shoulders. It made him seem intimidating, in appearance. He had a neutral expression that seemed to rest with furrowed brows and a frowning mouth. Occasionally, he got shit for being a bastard, but as he grew older most people had the sense not to challenge the 6 foot tall teenager who carried 50-pound hay bales for a living.

He had difficulty socializing; he had no siblings, raised by a solitary old man with a strong work ethic and no social life. He was considered too smart for his own good. During his freshman year of high school, he joined the wrestling team and became incredibly proficient in the sport, with a strong reach. It improved his social life considerably. 

Owen’s grandfather took him hunting for Chukar when he was 10,  with the Kansas Creek Gamebird in Concordia. Owen used a Browning shotgun, with a short-barreled open choke. The first time he shot a bird was the last time; it was still half-alive when he went to retrieve it, and the look of it, mangled by shotgun pellets and blood-choked, made him cry. 

His grandfather tried again in autumn, to uphold a thanksgiving tradition hunting whitetail deer; only one, to make a meal out of the meat. Nothing is wasted. Draw a line from tear-duct to tear-duct, and aim 1.5 inches above its head, were the instructions. He was better at shooting empty pop bottles from a distance of one-hundred feet, but not animals. He always missed. Hunting clearly didn’t take. This would be the first time, but not the last, Owen displayed an inherent empathy and compassion for living things. Not just people. Realizing this, Martin changed tactics and began taking Owen fishing. 

Owen enjoyed fly fishing much more than hunting. Every other week, they would go to various creeks and rivers. Sometimes, they would take some trout or bass home for dinner. Martin Grady did not quite understand his grandson’s sensitivity. Owen’s mother had loved hunting; it was the only thing he and his daughter really had in common. Martin was the silent type as far as father figures went, emotionally clumsy and sometimes intimidated by Owen’s intellect. Martin was just a rancher, just an old man who kept the world at arms’ length because it was cruel and worthless. He took care of himself and his family, and no one else. But he did his best with Owen and offered compassion, in his own way. 

Everything changed when Owen killed his grandfather. 

1998. He was just a boy. Four months shy of sixteen. People tell him it’s not his fault, it was never his fault, but they do not tell him how to believe the platitudes, how to stop feeling like it is, it is, it is. 

That year, Martin tells him to quit the wrestling team, does not ask. Owen needs to focus on the ranch, because the coldest months are always the hardest. It is always about the ranch. That’s okay. Owen makes sacrifices, because he wants to make his family proud. Compartmentalizes. But he has been wondering, lately, if this is what he wants, the acres, the cattle, the dirt, the small town and small-minded people. He wants to enlist in the Navy—  when he brought it up over dinner, Martin had been quiet and noncommittal, and Owen knew at once that the notion made his grandfather angry, so he did not broach the subject again. 

His teammates feel bad for him. He resents them.

It was cold that morning, when the sun is just a sliver along the hills and the sunlight is blue. Owen has had three hours of sleep. He is tired of this town, tired of the ignorance that the suburbs tend to breed. A miserable echo-chamber. He wonders why nothing in Junction City is ever scripted and righteous and fair, like the movies he would sneak into the theater to watch. 

It is snowing. Cattle escaped through a faulty fence—-  this was Owen’s fault, he had not repaired the wires and wood properly. Martin was overcritical, goes on and on about how Owen can not do anything right, and Owen is angry. For the first time, he is really angry, and lets himself be angry. Feels underappreciated, feels trapped. Screams, FIX THIS SHIT YOURSELF!  And he leaves in a huff, to cool down, to compose himself, wiping the hot, furious tears from his eyes.

Owen returns home three hours later. Someone had found him, and told him something terrible had happened. Owen needs to go home. When he gets there, the first person he sees is the town’s local veterinarian; she sits on a bench on their porch. A family friend. She tells him how Martin had died, where she had found him. A stroke. Overexertion. He’d been trying to fix the fences and gather the escaped cattle by himself.

Owen hated funerals ever since. Doesn’t remember the process, only that his biological mother had came, as if out of nowhere; years estranged and then she is just there, handling everything. He refused to speak to her. People wonder why he never cried, or assumed he was being very strong, keeping so composed. His grief was beyond tears.

He graduates high school early, at sixteen. He enlists in the Navy. There was nothing left in Kansas to make him stay, in that small town, in the past. He never mentions living in Kansas. He makes himself at home in the sun-tans and beaches and palm trees, the urban sprawl of San Diego, where the Navy’s Naval Amphibious Base is located. Like so many others, he joined the Navy for all the wrong reasons… most of it were lies. 

Years later, he’ll tell himself he has made peace with it. Years later, he still has not returned to Kansas. Years later, no one knows where he’s really from. People assume he is from San Diego. He only ever tells his therapist about it. That is how the story ends.