#Craggy Knob

[thorsenmark]

I've Walked (Blue Ridge Parkway) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: I've Walked And walked some more I might not have stopped walking for a time But I'll stop here Take in the view And it is a very good view now that I think about it The amazing majesty of a creation Another work of short poetry or prose to complement the image captured one late morning along the Blue Ridge Parkway at Craggy Pinnacle Summit. The setting is with a view looking to the southwest. With this image, I took advantage of the high ground I was located on to capture a sweeping view looking down and then across the ridges and peaks present in this part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I felt like keeping the horizon more or less leveled-on with the image would help to create a balance with the earth-tones in the lower portion of the image with the blues of the skies above. Using the Peakbagger site, I identified the nearby peaks and ridges of the Great Craggy Mountains, while the farther away ones are of the South NC Blue Ridge Crest. I did some initial post-processing work making adjustments to contrast, brightness and saturation in NX Studio. I then exported a TIFF image to Nik Color Efex Pro 7 where I made some more adjustments with a Polarization, Foliage, and Pro Contrast filter for that last effect on the image captured.

[loominggaia]

...Tomato nodded and approached the gnarled old trunk. Notches and knobs warped its bark, protruding just enough for him to hold on to as he scaled it. Itchy stood nearby, throwing glances this way and that for prying eyes. Little did he know, the eyes were in front of him the whole time.      Tomato was about twenty heads off the ground when he grasped a hole in the tree. He let out a screech when that hole suddenly clamped down on his hand. His hooves scrambled against the bark as he tried to pull it free. “Mr. Itchy!” he cried. “The tree won’t let me go!”      Itchy stared wide-eyed, grasping his own horns. He called back, “Okay! Okay! Don’t panic! Uh…” as he felt around his person, checking every hidden pocket in the lining of his cloak.      Then he found what he was looking for—a book of matches—and struck one against his hoof. He held the lit match inches from the roots of the tree and hollered up at it, “Let him go or you’re goin’ up in flames, ya hear me?”      Tomato let out another wail when two eyes suddenly opened before him, golden and glowing. He realized his hand was stuck in no mere notch, but the mouth of an ancient rooted dryad. Sap sprayed when she spit him out, sending him flipping and flailing.      Itchy tossed the match into some wet leaves and scrambled to catch him. The impact was much harder than he expected, and both of them hit the forest floor in a heap.      Bright shapes danced before Itchy’s eyes. When they faded and the breath returned to his lungs, he saw white clouds passing above the canopy.      Then Tomato’s face entered his view, queried, “Mr. Itchy, are you okay?” The older satyr coughed as he sat up. “I hope so,” he croaked. The two of them looked back to the ancient dryad, glaring down at them with her craggy, wooden face.      “You have disturbed my slumber,” her voice droned like a swarm of hornets. Itchy grunted as he rose to his feet, brushing the pine needles from his furry legs.      He seized Tomato’s hand and held it towards the sky. Blood oozed from the boy’s palm and knuckles. “And you almost chomped the kid’s hand off, ya rotten old vermin motel! What’s your problem?”      “Only vermin climb my trunk,” the dryad said dully. “Peoples are supposed to know better.” Itchy stared her down in silence. They’d been caught red-handed—quite literally—and he had nothing non-incriminating to say to her.      “Come on,” he grumbled, dragging Tomato away by his cloak. The little satyr cradled his injured hand, throwing one last look at the dryad before she was out of sight.      The duo stopped beside a large, mossy boulder. Itchy stripped off some of the moss and wrapped Tomato’s hand with it. “Make a fist,” he told the boy, demonstrating with his own, “tight as you can ‘til the bleedin’ stops.” “Are we in trouble?” asked Tomato, eyes wide.      Itchy hesitated before he replied, “I dunno. If we are, we won’t hear about it ‘til spring anyway.” “Maybe we should listen to Flora from now on,” Tomato said with the slightest quiver in his voice.      Itchy sighed through his nostrils. He planted his hands on his hips and stared into the forest for a long moment. Then he asked, “How’s your hand?” “Um, it hurts a little. I think it’s okay though.” Tomato paused. “Let's not tell mom about it. She’ll just be worried.”      “’Atta boy! See? You’re gettin’ it! ” Itchy grinned and rustled the boy’s shaggy hair. Tomato smiled as bright as the sun, then they ventured deeper into the woods in search of less hostile trees.

-Excerpt from "Sugar and Shine"

Aww, so heartwearing to see Tomato learning shitty lessons from Itchy. <3

[turtlethon]

“Sword of Yurikawa”

Season 6, Episode 5 First US Airdate: October 10, 1992

Shredder, Splinter and exotic weapons collector Lafayette Le Drone vie for control of a mystical and powerful sword.

The sixth season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continues with “Sword of Yurikawa”. This is the first and only episode of the series credited to Marc Handler.

In the Lair, Leonardo is insistent on attempting to fix the team’s broken TV on his own, managing to electrocute himself in the process. He goes on to insist that he was doing everything right and had the correct knob. Splinter emerges and explains that he didn’t have the right attitude, nudging the antenna on top of the set to restore the picture.

April reports from the Japanese Embassy, where Ambassador Yurishima is presenting a series of historical artefacts. Among them is the Sword of Yurikawa, which Splinter is astonished to see on-screen. He explains that it used to belong to his own ninja master, and “has the amazing power of transformation – always changing, yet always the same.” Splinter orders the Turtles to guard the sword and ensure no-one tries to steal it; when they question the usefulness of this exercise, he admonishes them for not having “the true ninja spirit”. Reluctantly, the Turtles leave the Lair and head to the Embassy.

In the Technodrome, Krang goes right into the Scheme of the Day, demonstrating his Mind Bender Ray by having Rocksteady and Bebop perform a quick-fire series of basic instructions. Tomorrow, Krang explains, a truck convoy transporting a rare form of toxic waste will travel via the Tri-State Bridge. He intends to blow up the bridge and have the waste combine with the sludge of the harbour below. This will create an army of mud mutants that Krang will control using the Mind Bender.

Later, Krang insists the operation will require a “hands-on approach”, which leads to Shredder taunting the alien brain for not having any actual hands himself. Krang is flustered and whacks a control panel, causing April’s broadcast from the Japanese Embassy to appear on a view screen. Shredder is immediately smitten with the sword, forgetting about today’s villainous plot and taking a transport module to the city.

In a luxurious home, a man with a moustache and a French accent also sees April’s report. He explains to his cat that he needs the sword for his collection of rare and exotic weaponry. To obtain it, he selects a weapon from his existing arsenal: a ring that has unexpected “destructive power”, which he demonstrates by destroying a nearby bookcase.

The Turtles continue their journey to the Embassy on-foot, with Michaelangelo insisting on taking a break to get some pizza. Leonardo is adamant that they maintain their focus, but soon the whole team ends up acquiescing, chowing down as a mysterious ninja with oddly familiar eyes watches them from nearby. Later, the same ninja is seen breaking into the Embassy, taking the Sword of Yurikawa and replacing it with a dummy sword before leaving. More time passes, and another ninja in identical attire arrives, stealing one fake sword and leaving another in its place. Later still, a third ninja sneaks in and just takes the existing sword for himself.

By the time the Turtles reach the Japanese Embassy, the police are already present, with the craggy cop who we last saw as “Sergeant O’Flaherty” in “Zach and the Alien Invaders” requesting that an all-points bulletin be put out for the stolen sword. The Turtles are dismayed at having failed in the mission given to them and begin dreading the prospect of having to explain to Splinter how their pizza break led to the sword being stolen. Before they can come up with a plan to get it back, the team find themselves face to face with Ninja #1, who emerges from an alley wielding what we as viewers will recognise as the genuine Sword of Yurikawa. The blade catches fire and the mysterious ninja begins swinging it at the Turtles as the first act concludes.

Act two kicks off with the Turtles diving for cover, unable to get near the ninja and the flaming sword. The mysterious attacker eventually cuts down the awning from a nearby store, blanketing the Turtles before making his exit.

Shredder returns to the Technodrome in a ninja costume, revealing himself to be the third of the thieves that broke into the Embassy. He begins swinging his sword around in front of a disbelieving Krang and is eager to show off its powers of transformation, but the blade breaks off, flying across the room and narrowly missing Rocksteady and Bebop before crumbling. Incensed, Shreds takes his mutants to the surface to get the real sword despite the pleas of Krang, who points out that they’re running out of time to implement the original Scheme of the Day.

The Turtles arrive at Channel 6 and meet up with April, viewing CCTV footage of the break-in. They use computer records to determine that the (second) intruder was wearing The Maltese Ring, “an ancient hand-crafted weapon”. The ring is currently thought to be in the collection of Lafayette Le Drone, the moustachioed Frenchman seen earlier in the episode. The Turtles exit Channel 6 by diving out the window, lowering themselves to the ground via ropes. Watching from nearby are Shredder and his henchmen, who begin tracking their old enemies.

At the home of Lafayette Le Drone, the Turtles confront the weapons collector and demand that he gives the sword back. He responds by activating a series of booby traps including ping-pong balls and a spiked floor. Le Drone prepares to use the Sword of Yurikawa on a captive Donatello, but like Shredder finds that his blade crumbles upon use, confirming it to be a forgery. He escapes via a secret passage, re-emerging after the Turtles head off once more in search of the real sword. Shredder and The Boys then arrive to address Le Drone themselves. (The weapons collector apparently doesn’t know who Shreds is, which by this point in the series feels entirely implausible.) Through intimidation, Shredder convinces Le Drone that both parties should forge an alliance, with Shreds promising to give the collector the real sword once the Turtles have been defeated.

The Turtles are heading home once more, again attempting to figure out how to explain their failure to retrieve the sword to Splinter, when the ninja who attacked them earlier re-emerges. He uses the flaming sword to disarm the team, which is enough to convince them a different approach is needed. Leonardo asks the ninja nicely to hand over the sword. Against all odds, the mystery man does just that, before prompting Leo to attack him with it. Donatello helpfully explains that Leo must fight him, as to deny the request would “insult his ninja honour”. The sword heats up in Leonardo’s hands, forcing him to drop it, while the mystery ninja vanishes into the night.

Krang reaches Shredder to point out the trucks containing the toxic chemicals will soon be passing over the Tri-State Bridge. Shreds remains disinterested, his focus entirely on getting the sword. He soon spots the Turtles passing by with the ancient weapon, setting Rocksteady and Bebop on them. The team easily defeat the mutant duo, but things take an unexpected turn when Lafayette Le Drone emerges in a giant tank, ensnaring the green teens with a ball-and-chain. Shredder snatches the sword, before begrudgingly being reminded by Le Drone of their prior agreement.

The Turtles are tied to the Tri-State bridge by Rocksteady and Bebop as Krang again checks in. Shredder continues to crow about his sword, insistent that it will lead to world domination. By this point Krang is fed up with hearing about how terrific the sword is and only cares that the bridge will be destroyed on-cue one way or another.

Shredder turns the Sword of Yurikawa into a chainsaw and is about to use it to cut the girders that the Turtles are tied to when the weapon begins floating through the air, attempting to attack him. Le Drone picks up the sword, believing this to be a sign he was meant to wield it, but the weapon increases in size, slicing through the girders of the bridge as it chases him back to his tank. Now with only two supports holding the bridge in place, the situation has worsened for the Turtles.

Saving the day is the mystery ninja who the Turtles encountered earlier. He cuts the rope holding the team, allowing them to drop back onto the bridge. The ninja reveals himself to be Splinter – duh – who declares that while he dislikes deception, he had to go through all of this to test the “ninja spirit” of his pupils. While the Turtles chase off Rocksteady and Bebop, Shredder and Splinter do battle. Shreds soon decides to fight dirty, pulling out a laser blaster and explaining that “as our old sensei told us, in battle one must improvise”. Splinter counters by having the sword spin wildly, leaving the gun in pieces. Ultimately Shredder, too, retreats into Le Drone’s tank, but Splinter and the Turtles now face a bigger problem: the impending arrival of the trucks carrying the toxic waste, with the bridge now unable to support them. Splinter hurls the Sword of Yurikawa into the air and energy spirals encircle the bridge, restoring the supports and allowing the trucks to pass safely.

Splinter re-iterates his earlier remarks about the sword “always changing, yet always remaining the same”. When the Turtles point out that no-one else who tried was able to wield it successfully, he explains that it can only be used for good, and this is its true power. Later, in the Lair, the Turtles vow to take the sword back to the Embassy – without stopping for pizza this time.

It’s a shame that this will be Marc Handler’s only contribution to the series, as I really like the way he’s chosen to approach this story. While it initially seems like this is going to be another tale of the Turtles battling mutant slime monsters created by Krang, the same kind of thing we’ve seen countless times before, this turns out to be something of a welcome mis-direct, with Shredder’s fixation on the sword leading things down an entirely different path. What we end up with is a story with a lot of moving parts, and more complexity than we’re usually treated to. Granted, I don’t think anyone watching was under any illusions as to who the three ninjas were – they're clearly Splinter, Le Drone and Shredder, in that order – and I’m already on-record as not liking stories where Splinter messes with the Turtles by putting them through some sort of “test”, though he’s done far worse in the past than he does here. There is the small issue of the fact that he told the team it would be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands, which contradicts what we learn about it at the end; presumably Splinter thought it was worth going through all this trouble just to teach the Turtles about the importance of having “ninja spirit”.

One of the aspects of this story that I particularly appreciate is that the Turtles are, to borrow a phrase from the 2012 show’s intro, “doing ninja things” throughout, beyond the simple of act of fighting bad guys: we see them emerge from the shadows to greet April at Channel 6 before making their exit again, then infiltrate the mansion of Lafayette Le Drone from different angles. These are themes I’d like to see more of as we enter the second half of the series. (Chronologically speaking we’re past the halfway point now, though in terms of the number of episodes left we’re almost into the last quarter.) Speaking of Le Drone, he works well here as a supporting villain to Shredder, though I don’t know how tolerable he’d be as a stand-alone bad guy. As is so often the case with new characters introduced by writers outside of the usual rotation, he won’t be used again, so it’s a particular pity that he didn’t even really get a proper come-uppance before being shown the door.

“Sword of Yurikawa” is easily the stand-out episode of the season thus far: we’ll see if TMNT can build on this momentum next time, with “Return of the Turtleoid”.

[rexxdjarin]

Captain's Log: Chapter 2

Anguish

Series Summary: The galaxy is in turmoil. The Republic has fallen, giving rise to the sinister reign of the totalitarian Empire, led by the insidious Emperor Palpatine. The millions of valiant clone troopers of the former Grand Army of the Republic are now blindly sworn, against their will, to protect a regime they once sought to destroy. After being saved from a terrible fate by his former-Jedi ally and close friend, Ahsoka Tano, seasoned veteran CT-7567 Clone Captain Rex remains loyal to the pillars of Democracy, freedom and truth that shaped the former Galactic Republic. We follow him now struggling to deal with the personal aftereffects of survival and finding his place in the galaxy alongside the only person he has left. You. The love of his life.

[previous] [next] part of Captain's Log series post on ao3

Pairing: Captain Rex x Fem!Reader (she/her pronouns used) Word Count: 3.5k words Series Rating: Explicit (18+ only) Chapter Summary: Your ship arrives to Rex and Ahsoka's coordinates. Though you're happy they're alive, they are not the same as when they left. You slowly realize things will never be the same again. And the losses just keep coming... Chapter Warnings: blood, tending to wounds, angst, crying, references to Fives, references to the Umbara arc, deep emotional trauma, fluff and attempts to comfort, loss, discussions of death (let me know if there's anything else I should tag and I will update!)

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The ship's dashboard signaled my arrival to a small, craggy moon located just outside the inner rim. All the chaos of my home planet was lightyears away now, the lonesome silence of this moon a terrifyingly stark contrast to where I'd just left. Dropping out of hyperspace with a thud, my comm rang immediately.

“I’m here.” I answered, shutting down the hyperdrive and regenerating power to the ship’s engines, accelerating to get to their location as soon as possible.

“Hurry. We’ve gotta ditch your ship and go as soon as you find us. I’ve got a plan.” Rex explained, the distant shakiness of his tone earlier now completely replaced with a bit of determination I recognized.

“I’ll empty whatever I can from the ship and load it onto a transport. I’m sure I’ve got rations and energy medipacks on here. Thank you, Kix.” I commented, smiling weakly at the memory of our long missing friend.

Rex didn’t respond, another pang of concern hitting my chest, as I remembered the alarming change in the Senate Guard Clones I’d seen a few days ago. The legions of clones marching into the Jedi temple and mass destroying everything. My heart sank imagining all the clone boys I’d come to love so much among them.

“Rex. I have to ask…” I began, looking down nervously clutching the steering knobs as I switched off the autopilot.

He sighed deeply, like he was struggling to find any air to fill his lungs to start to answer the question looming over us. “I- I can’t. Please just hurry.” His voice was low, no hint of any emotion, drive, determination or really anything to it. Just flat and lifeless. Something happened.

Flashes of the day he’d come home to my apartment after Umbara flooded into my mind. The same chilling empty blankness in his tone. The warmth in his honey brown eyes was snuffed out like someone erased the stars from the night sky. He stood staring into the hallway, too scarred to take another step into comfort he didn’t feel he had a right to. I eventually got him to talk, explaining that a rogue Jedi turned Sith pitted the clones against each other, Rex and his company killing innocent men, their brothers. He nearly killed the former Jedi too, before Dogma did it for him. The guilt ate him alive, often waking up in a panicked sweat beside me, shouting and wailing the names of brothers who never should’ve died. This was just like before. Only now he wasn’t talking and neither was Ahsoka.

I sat listening to his slow breaths, unintelligible mutters passing every few minutes or so. Neither of them spoke much else as I raced toward their position. Finally, my ship rounded the corner of a rocky outcropping, a beat-up old spice smuggling ship tucked inside the entrance to a dark cave. Their ramp lowered, dim light bursting through the cracks and illuminating the glassy, dark surface of this moon. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for what I might see. Injuries, broken bones, death or defeat. It didn’t matter. They were both alive. I reminded myself, easing the ship forward and docking it to the surface with a thunk.

I turned on my heels, gathering up what little supplies I could find in the cargo hold. Clothes, medipacks, plenty of bacta shots, a few Republic senator quality dinners to heat up, blankets, a bag of spare tools, an old droid spike and 4 small, concealed blasters. The ship looked empty, but not raided for parts. I’m sure a few scavengers would come by and take care of this ship. I loaded them onto a transport cart, tapping a few buttons to ease it up and pushing it down the ramp. I didn’t care for these Senate ships, the red paint reminding me far too much of the Senate building halls that I never could step foot in again. Better to leave this all in the past.

I walked down the ramp, following my cart to the small, beat-up ship across from me. The thing looked like it had seen better days. Carbon scoring covered the engines and old modifications, probably added by spice stealing pirates, were clinging to the rusted, metal hull by a thread. Normally, I’d scoff at getting into something like this, but the dire circumstances called for discretion and ordinary people certainly did not fly around in fancy red senate cruisers.

I stepped foot on the ramp, shoving the cart up and locking the magnetic seal to the new ship’s interior. The cargo hold was filled with scavenger’s junk, metal pieces, droid parts, and smuggler’s trick paraphernalia. Maybe this ship was owned by pirates. I looked around, searching for the entrance to the cockpit, eventually finding the ladder leading up. On any other day, I’d expect Rex to greet me happily, embracing me and gripping me in one of his signature I missed you hugs. But the gnawing feeling in my stomach laughed at the thought. This wasn’t the time for that kind of greeting.

I tapped the metal hatch above me, locked to prevent heat from escaping or unwanted creatures outside from hopping in. Heavy, scraping footsteps slid toward the entrance, a snap signaling it open and for me to climb inside. I popped my head up gazing around the dark cabin, which was as silent as the dead space I’d just come from. Ahsoka sat curled on the ship’s dashboard, knees curled to her chest and head resting on the transparisteel. She was wearing an unfamiliar blue tunic covered in Mandalorian symbols. It was tattered and dirty, a brutal blaster shot staining her left shoulder where she’d been hit. Her eyes were closed, but the quivering to her lip and the steady stream of tears down her battle bruised orange cheeks signaled that she was very much awake.

A shuffling from behind caught my attention and I whipped my head around the other way in time to see Rex’s figure slumped in the corner next to the ladder. His head was dropped to his chest, shoulders rolled over his collapsing torso. His armor was littered with blaster residue, the blue and white he wore so proudly unrecognizably tarnished. His bent knees held his battle-weary arms up at odd angles, likely supporting bandaged injuries he was too proud to use bacta to heal. His helmet was tossed across the cockpit, his favorite pistols carelessly buried underneath it and his commlink smashed to bits all over the floor.

He lifted his head to greet me weakly, just barely allowing a crooked smile to crack the devastation written all over his face. I placed my bag behind me softly, not wanting to disturb the tension bristling in the room. I took another look at him, the lack of fight in him just demoralizing to witness in a man that vowed to battle until his last dying breath. I dropped to my knees, overwhelmed with all the grief that was afflicting him. The knot in my stomach twisted as he lurched forward, desperate palms reaching for my waist.

I nearly flew into him, wrapping protective arms around his neck and holding together the pieces of the man that survived. My chest heaved, silent tears spilling down my cheeks seeing him like this. His face buried in the crook of my neck, his unarmored bare palms pushing me so tightly into him that he could’ve cracked my spine under their weight. I held him there, soft gentle fingertips circling the blonde buzz at the nape of his neck. Anything I could to try to soothe him the only ways I knew how. He made no noise, though the broken gasps in his heaving breathing gave away the depth to his sorrow. He was bawling, wet tears pooling up on my skin.

I knew better than to talk to him right now. I could never come up with words to comfort him that would work better than just embracing him and letting him feel my skin on his, my heart pounding beside his. I rested my cheek on his head, running soothing circles along the side of his neck. He started muttering something, pushing away from me, and looking down at his hands.

“I didn’t believe him.” He whispered, balling his hands into fists on his thighs and shaking his head.

“Rex…talk to me…” I replied, placing a gentle hand on his cheek. He turned away and threw a crumbled bandage in the direction of his helmet.

“Fi-Fives.” He stammered, wiping stinging tears from his cut up cheek bones with his forearm. “He tried to tell me. And I didn’t believe him. He was right. About everything. The chips, the killing, the nightmare. He was right and I let them kill him!” He shouted, angrily kicking a corner of the cockpit wall.

I bit my lip to keep from crying too. I remembered Fives’ warning. How he frantically called me looking for help and I was too busy in a blasted senate meeting to answer. Rex carried that loss heavier in his heart than anything else, tensing up or forcing someone to change the subject whenever he was brought up. He loved Fives more than anyone, maybe even me. It tore him up inside whenever he saw someone sipping a blue spotchka or listened to one of his men sarcastically mock someone. He died in his arms and there was nothing he could do.

“Rex…” Ahsoka finally spoke from the other side of the cockpit. Her voice croaking from underuse, but still more sensible and calm than when we last spoke. “You can’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault. It wasn’t any of theirs either.” The finality and grave truth in her tone quelled his anger at least a little. “He saved us both in the end.”

Rex closed his eyes and turned to meet mine before opening them again. A searing pained grimace flooded his face as wet tear streaks cleaned the caked dirt and blood from his cheeks. “My men are dead. All of them. Order 66 activated. The chips controlled us all. I nearly killed the Commander.” His heart flooded with guilt, and he couldn’t stand to look at my face, ashamed of what he’d been forced to do without any say.

“You fought it. You showed me what I needed to save you. I removed his chip.” Ahsoka pointed, her shaking finger motioning to the freshly patched scar on the right side of his skull. “That’s why we need to run. The other clones will kill us all or report Rex as a traitor.”

“I can’t ask you to give up everything for me, mesh’la.” He murmured, grabbing my hand lovingly.

“Rex, you survived. You made it out for a reason. You’ve already lost so much.” I cupped his face in my hands, tipping his chin up to look at me again. His eyes were bloodshot, cloudy, and tired from their fight. The tension in his jaw broke at my touch, the need to be cared for, tended to, and comforted trying it’s best not to drown in the sorrow that was flooding him. He was covered in cuts and scrapes, blaster marks burning into the plastoid armor he held so dear. But the real wounds were deep. For the first time, I saw the remnants of war on him. Maybe intentionally I had brushed it aside whenever he’d come home to me, ignoring the tough calls, the brutal losses, and the death just to spend time with him.

He was a war mantle, tough as beskar and as strong-willed and proud as his Mandalorian maker. But I never stopped to think about how it affected him inside. How much he buried the harsh realities of war in order to keep moving forward. Each scratch in his armor strayed him further and further from the human man I knew him to be. The battle was everywhere around him, but it was also inside, struggling to keep him invested in something that was killing him. And killing everyone else exactly like him. He was the fiercest, most capable warrior those wretched cloners ever made. But the humanity in his heart was suffering.

The warmth in his eyes was flickering again dimly as I ran gentle fingertips along the filthy line of his cheekbone. I brushed away the tear stains, placing my forehead on his and my hand on his chest. His lungs heaved under my touch, my presence a reminder of what he needed to keep breathing for. Keep fighting for. Keep surviving for. He breathed out a shaky sigh and murmured, “I fought it for you. I kept Ahsoka and I going thinking about returning to you.” Tears welled up in the brim of my lashes, falling as I choked out a giggle in disbelief.

“And you did. You’re- you’re here.” My eyes met his in a longing and passionate gaze, his hands clinging to the sides of my rib cage. He took in a huge breath, lurching forward and connecting his lips with mine. The streaks of hyperdrive starlight in my ship before were nothing compared to the impact of him giving every last bit of strength he had to the love he poured into me. I breathed the first good scent of him I’d gotten since before he left for Mandalore into my lungs, swallowing up the essence like I was starving for him. His tongue twisted with my own, pressing me as closely to him as he could. His hands weaved into my hair as he pulled away, the color and life springing back into his handsome face.

“I love you.” He proclaimed boldly, his eyes shutting to imprint the moment he’d survived for into his memory forever. My body shook with a combination of relief, arousal, and unending compassion. I wrapped my limbs around him, every part of me touching some part of him.

“I love you too. However you need me to help you, I’m here. You know that. Always.” I replied, gripping his shoulders tightly, as if somehow he’d slip away again.

“Gonna need it.” He groaned, gesturing to a blaster hole the size of my fist in the side of his plastoid armor. He gulped, unsnapping it from his waist.

“I’ll help you. Just sit back. We need to get this armor off you. You need to heal and…this being a constant reminder right now isn’t going to help.” I hesitated, bracing myself for him to fight back against that sentiment.

“O-ok. I don’t want to look at it right now anyways.” He whispered, looking off into the distance in front of us. The blue and white served as a constant reminder of the trauma he’d just left. It will take a long time to help him cope with that. With a lot of this. He needed a human person’s emotional help, not medication from a droid and not listening to the barbaric war training he was taught. He needed my help with healing emotionally as much as physically. That much was clear now if he was willingly asking me to help put his beloved armor to the side.

I helped him unclasp the plastoid covering his chest, gently peeling it away from the second skin of his casuals underneath. The shot to his side had burned through the fabric here too, the smell of singed cloth flooding the air. The wound wasn’t too bad, thankfully, but it still throbbed underneath his clothes.

“We’re gonna need a bacta patch for this. I’ve got a few downstairs. Does it hurt anywhere else?” I asked, very nimbly grazing the red stinging welt. He winced a bit, the fact that he was reacting at all was a sign that the pain was worse than he was willing to admit. He certainly was stubborn, never wanting to let anything he was personally feeling stand in the way of his mission. That would definitely have to be unlearned now.

He grunted, lifting the pauldron off his right shoulder. “Y-yeah, this one’s not feeling great either.” He hissed, his teeth gritting as the plastoid revealed a similar shoulder wound to Ahsoka’s. The skin was welting and stinging underneath, blood caking the entire area and soaking through a makeshift bandage he probably did himself. He took one look at the worry on my face and stiffened, desperately trying to play it off.

“Rex….this one’s bad.” I whimpered, pulling the skin tight fabric away from it to assess how deep it was. “We’ve gotta take everything off you, love. And probably need to wash a lot of this off. Does this scrap heap have living quarters? A refresher? Where’d you even find this?” I rambled, hoping that talking to him would keep his mind off the still fresh injuries.

Ahsoka chuckled behind us, reminding me that she was even here still. “Let’s just say I made a few friends while I was gone.”

“They can’t be very good friends if they were willing to let you fly off in this death trap.” I sarcastically retorted, glancing around at the frayed wiring littering the walls.

“They’re a little new at this whole stealing thing.” She said, wringing her hands nervously. “I can trust them though.”

“See if they can get us some credits for my ship. We’re going to need money if we’re gonna try to…survive on our own.” I thought out loud, the drastic nature of the situation we were all in finally setting in. We were really alone out here. Ahsoka couldn’t reveal she was a Jedi to anyone, which meant she could do very little to help us get the upper hand on things that way. Rex, though having a face that millions of other men had, would have a hard time explaining why he’s on the run instead of fighting side by side for the Empire. They needed me to help them hide. No one knew my face. I could be any random unsuspecting civilian, which gave me an advantage neither of them may ever have again.

“Not a bad idea. I’ll call them and see what they can do for us. I’ve gotta do whatever I can to help you before I go.” Her voice faded, resting a hesitant hand on the pilot’s chair in front of her.

“Go? You can’t be serious.” I scoffed, wondering what would possess her to think that being yet another person to leave Rex would be helpful.

“We have to split up. If I stay with a renegade republic clone, I would be giving us both away. It isn’t safe for either of you to have me around.” She replied flatly, the logic making sense, but the sentiment coming across a lot darker than she intended.

“I can’t say I’m happy about the idea of you out there alone, Commander.” Rex chimed in, pulling the leg coverings off his thighs. “But I think you’re right and I know you can handle yourself.”

I stood motionless, puzzled as to how he was acting so ok with this. After all they’d just went though, he was willing to just let her go alone?

“Rex I- I wish it didn’t have to be this way…I’m gonna miss you.” She sighed, her eyebrows raising and emoting a devastating pang of loss. They were best friends. They survived together, only to have no other option but to part for their own continued survival. It was just another cruel circumstance added to the catastrophe we all found ourselves swallowed up by.

“I’m gonna miss you too, kid. And th-thank you.” He replied, his mouth curling into that devilishly handsome smile I loved so much. “You’ll know how to find me if you ever need to.” He chuckled, reaching for my hand and tightening his grip around it.

“Of course I will. There might be a million of you clones but, there is only one Rex.” She smiled, standing up straight to salute him. “Captain.”

His eyes crinkled as a warm beam of pride surged through him, bright enough to put any of the galaxy’s suns to shame. He gripped my hand, using my body weight as a counterbalance as he finally stood up. He brought his right arm up to his forehead and saluted her right back, standing at her attention and winking.

“Good luck, Ahsoka. Take care of yourself. I’ll be in good hands.” He nodded, gesturing toward where I stood, tears pouring down my cheeks again.

“I will. May the force be with you. Both of you.” She replied, raising her chin to meet the suns now rising above the dark, glassy moon’s horizon. She took a few steps toward the cockpit’s exit, clambering down the ladder a few feet. With one final sigh, she looked up at us both and smiled, a grateful, proud, and even hopeful glimmer in her ocean blue eyes. She’d come such a long way from the teenage kid who left the Jedi in heartbreaking fashion.

If she could keep her integrity and survive everyone slandering her for something she didn’t even do…

If she could go down in a hail of gunfire with only her best friend by her side…

If she could leave the only life she ever knew to find her own path…

Then she could survive anything. I knew she could.

[winter-fox-queen]

Fire Meet Gasoline: But it's a bad bet, certain death

I think this is the second to last chapter!

Summary: Ezra is forced to do something terrible, the Sheriff comes to pay you a visit at work and tell you things that do not help Ezra’s cause.

TW: MURDER. Angst, police being jerks though to be honest I’ve been fortunate not to have a reason to be better towards the cops personally.

Ezra feels the weight, too.  The slipping.  He doesn’t want the diamonds, though the lure of money is always hard to ignore.  The idea of selling them (oh, does he know who he’d sell them to, and a decent idea of how much he could get, and the man owed him, owed him quite a bit…) and setting you up, setting you both up for life, no more desperation, no more floating and hoping to figure out a way to make a life despite his past is almost painful.  He thinks of the places he could suggest the two of you go.  He thinks of you in colorful tiny bathing suits, head tilted to the sun, the salt air tangling around you both.  Craggy castle ruins and deep, deep forests where no one could find either of you.

It’s like a drug.  Knowing he could do this.  The itch of it.  But, at best it’s not up to him.  He’s not even sure how much he should suggest to you.  Already he can see the seeds of distrust.  The path to losing you.

And that, there, is the worst bit.  You could think the money was all he wanted, when he’d fallen so completely in love with you that losing you would be like losing his ability to breathe.

You were far more precious to him than anything, but he knew he’d not had enough time to prove it.  He thought of your last question, hope you would never know how it had hurt, that idea that you love him, but you didn’t trust him. He wondered if it would be a wound he’d ever recover from.

He went to two of the large box stores, even though it cost him an extra hour, buying different brands of locks, trying to figure out a plan to make you the most secure.

A quick stop at the alley to grab some things and look around, and soon he was rambling back to your home.  He tapped on his steering wheel as he considered — wondering if he should hide his truck, walk up the drive so that perhaps, perhaps, the visitors would return.

Ezra very much liked the idea of taking care of the miscreants himself.  So he looked for the old gated farm road you told him about, grabbed his bags, and jumped the gate.  It wasn’t a bad walk, back to your house.  The air wasn’t as nice as yesterday, but a light shirt over his tee was all he needed.

Your house was so damnably quiet.  Music was a temptation but he didn’t want to mask any sounds if someone was coming up the drive.

Instead, he worked quietly, changing deadbolts and knobs, attaching little tags to the keys, not keeping the extra for himself.  Labeling everything carefully.  It was an act of love, how he changed every lock he could find.  How he cleaned up as he went, making sure the lock plates still matched up and everything worked as it should.

She’d feel safer if you weren’t the one who changed them.  That dark little voice in the back of his head said.  And he thought, in answer, You’d probably be right.  He’d die before hurting you…but how did you know that?  All you knew was that he spoke too much, that he seemed bent on seducing you every chance he got and that he was like to cheat at bowling.

He was kneeling on the back porch, checking the door one last time, when he heard something behind him.  He pushed his tools inside, kept the back door key, and shut the door, testing it to make sure it caught.  He stood there, listening.  There, again.  In the direction of the barn.

He walked softly towards it, trying to decide how best to approach.

“And what are you doing here?”  Officer Al asked.  “Hands up.”  Ezra looked over his shoulder.

“You don’t have a uniform on…I don’t have to listen to you.”  Ezra said.  “I am here because my girlfriend asked me to be.”

“Is that so?  My gun here and I don’t agree with you.”  The piece he was holding looked like it could be his service piece, but somehow Ezra doubted it.  He used the barrel to point.  “I want to show you something.  Head over that way.”

Keeping his hands up, Ezra did what he asked, his mind whirling, looking for a way out.  “So, what do you want to show me?”

“You’ll see.”

The path Al Michaels took him was through the woods.  As they got closer, Al started talking.  “So, there was a mine here, in the 1890’s…it failed, eventually, but it left this nice fissure in the woods.  And the two farm houses, well…the people who lived in them, they figured, why waste a perfectly good hole in the ground?”

Ezra felt a cool calm descend.  He knew what Al was getting at.  He knew that the plan was to kill Ezra then push his body into the crack.  No one would ever find him…no one would have any way to even begin to properly look for him.

“So, you’re taking me to see a garbage pit?”

“I am.  I really hope you like it.”

So, Ezra tripped.  Then he grabbed his knee.  “Fuck.  That…fuck!  I think I dislocated something.  Son of a …”

Al was not the smartest of the two brothers.  Ezra didn’t need to actually meet Gary to know that.  And, as he hoped, Al was a little at a loss as to what to do.

“Get up, you asshole!”

Ezra pretended to try, then prat fell dramatically back onto the ground.  “I’m telling you, I broke something.”

“I will fucking shoot you.”

“And then you’ll have to explain why you shot a man in the middle of woods you had no business to be in.”

Al lost it, waved the gun.  “Fucking get up now!”  And the broken leg miraculously healed, because Al closed the distance too much and Ezra shot out with his foot and went right for the patella.  The angle was good, dislocating the knee cap not only hurt like a bitch, but it make Al collapse.

Ezra grabbed a chunk of lime stone and rolled on top of Al.  He raised it, the wolf in him noting how well it fit into his hand as he brought it down, hard.  Again.

And again.

Ezra stared at the bloodied end of the rock, then looked at the corpse.

“Thank you for the suggestion as to where I should stow your corpse.”  He said to the dead body.  He stumbled away from him, closed his eyes and counted for a moment.  He’d never tried to kill his stepfather.  Cee thought he’d tried to poison the man, but he never did…he wanted to find a permanent solution to the problem, but not that permanent.  He’d never killed anyone, not before.

He’d been angry, a few times.  Been in fights when he made sure the man was not going to get up and start fighting right away.

He wanted to feel something.  The enormity of it.  But all he felt was numb, and the urge to get the body hidden.

**

Your day was not going any better.  You did everything you could to hide yourself from Gary, until someone told you, surprised you did not know, that he was away at a conference for the rest of the week.

“Seems long for a conference,” you comment.

“I think he decided to make a vacation out of it, since he was in Arizona already.”

You thought about this a lot.  It explained, too, why yesterday, of all days, someone came to search her house.  Was it Gary?  Was Ezra’s assumption they were looking for something true?  Or were they hiding something at her house, butting in cameras or listening devices?

What did she have to go on, to think that it was really about theft, not stalking?  The blocks had looked chipped, at the top of the wall.  Yes.  The dirt did look loose around the pavers…

Sheriff Whitmore came in, looking glum, file under his arm.  “Can we have a moment?”

“Sure.”  You go into the office, shut the door behind them.  “What can I do for you, sheriff?”

“I’ve been looking into your friend, Ezra Greene.”  The Sheriff said, as they both took their chairs.  “Turns out, there is no record of an Ezra Greene.  But, I did find an Ezra Prospect.”

He places the file on the des and opens it.  Slides a photo to you.  The photo is of a younger man, but the nose, the eyes, the plushness of his mouth — it’s the same.  He looks angry and defiant, a blonde tuff of hair making him look a little bit more disreputable.  You touch the photo lightly.

“His juvenile record has been buried, but he was a bit of a hell raiser.  Assault.  Car theft.”

“So?”  You ask.  “Juvenile records are sealed for a reason.  He righted himself — he went to college, worked his way through.”

“He did.  Then he was accused of inappropriate behavior with an underage girl.”

“Who was lying because her father asked her to — Ezra told me he was sleeping with the man’s wife, and this was a good way to get Ezra fired without tarnishing his own reputation.”

A beat.  “No man would do that.”

“And you’ve been a Sheriff for how long?”  You sigh.  “Was there a case?  Or was it just quietly swept under the rug?  If Ezra really did something awful like that, why isn’t he in jail?”

“He was arrested last summer for jewel theft.”

This struck you numb.  An interest of mine. He’d called it, when he told her that the diamonds were stolen.  “Was he?  And why isn’t he serving time?”

“Apparently he had a water tight alibi and no evidence.  Claimed it was a case of mistaken identity.”

“So…why the name change?”  You feel like you are drowning.

“I don’t know.  All I know was in August Ezra Prospect transferred all his worldly goods to one Cee Turner…he paid off the last of his student loans, gave her an undisclosed bit of money, which she apparently used to buy a truck that sounds an awful lot like the one her drives around in.  Currently Ms. Turner is going to University…and as far as I can tell has not used any loans to pay for her education.”

“That’s interesting.”  You say after a long moment.

“No explanation?”  His question betrayed his frustration with her.  “No idea where he got his money from?”

“You know so much…but you don’t know how much money.  Or where it came from?  Maybe he won the lottery.  Maybe his uncle left him more than the bowling alley.  I don’t know.”

He gives you a grim look.  “I never pegged you fro one of those women who let a pretty face make you stupid.”

You run a fingernail along the desk edging, unable to look at him.  “I get that you are protective.  Grateful, even.  But I think I would like to think about this later.”

“You’re going to talk to him. Aren’t you?  Listen to his silver lies and…”

“I can see what’s in your folder.  Notes.  All you have are notes.  I don’t see any official reports.”  He pulls the folder back, holding it almost protectively.  “I have actions.  He’s never raised a hand to me.  Where’s your protection while my boss was stalks and harasses me?  Where was your protection when I told a man I didn’t want to date him and he almost strangled me?  Where is your protection where he sends his little brother…one of your officers…to make sure I’m behaving?”  You look up at him.

“I didn’t know it was as bad as that…”

“You just know it’s easier to believe that a stranger is a monster than someone who grew up here.  Half these people here all think I’m some manipulative bitch playing hard to get.  Do you know how many friends I have here?  Most of the women think I’m just dragging poor, sweet Gary around and playing with him.  Most of the men think I’m a slut.  And someone who seems to genuinely see and like me…me!  Comes to town and you magically decide it’s time to protect me?  Why?  Why did you…what?  Start calling in favors to see what you could find.”

“I didn’t…”. He mumbled.

“Didn’t what?”  You’re openly crying now.  Everything’s ruined.  Your happiness.  Your security.  And now all your shields are down, and finally, you’re able to express things you tried to bury.  It doesn’t feel as good as you’d hoped.

“Didn’t call.  The file folder was on my desk when I got to work.  I called the detective in charge of the theft, but…”

You point at it.  “And you decide to come and ruin my life for this?  Forrumors and hearsay?”

He doesn’t have anything to say, to that.

You wash your face.  You serve your patrons.  You wonder where you can throw the diamonds.  Throw them away, hide them where they can never be found.  If the diamonds are gone, and if he still wants you, stays with you, then you know.

You’d know why he’s here.  You’d be able to go back to the fantasy that a handsome, perfect, charming man turned up to try and fix up his uncle’s old business, and just happened to fall in love with you.

You wouldn’t be thinking about how close your families always were.

You wouldn’t wonder if the uncle knew your grandmother’s secret…he would have been alive, then…young, but he could have heard something.  Seen something.

And then he could have told Ezra.  And then Ezra could have thought, maybe, maybe he could charm his way in.  Gary had just been a convenient ruse — why would Gary change his interest now?  Go from wanting to possess you to searching the house?  So Ezra Left the door unlocked, and seduced you so a friend could come in.  Or found a way to leave the house vulnerable when he took you to the pond and kept you busy all day.

“Are you alright?”  One of your students asked.  You’d been so entangled in your thoughts you hadn't even felt the books hit the counter.

“I’m fine.”  You scrounged up a smile and started checking the books out, wishing this hell of a day was over already.

But did he lie?  He’d confessed all his sins.  So much of what Whitmore told you Ezra had already addressed.  But he could have lied about that.  He could have lied about everything.  The way Ezra itself was distracting, all beautiful words twisting round and round.

The kids are leaving for the day.  You lock the door.  Turn off the lights.  Earlier you’d dumped your lunch box, leaving only the diamonds, keeping the necklace in your pocket.  Those fucking diamonds.  You went all the way into the back of the library, where the cameras did not see.  You did this every day, checking a round, sometimes you had your purse and coat like you were going right out the back door, sometimes you did not.  When you got to the cursed blank spot where you’d caught more than one teenager exploring another you kicked off your shoes and hiked the lunch bag over your shoulder.  You grabbed the shelves and shook them.  This was a less popular section, the books did not crowd the shelves so deeply.

The spaces created footholds.  You climbed the study metal and wood shelves, they shook a little under your weight, and it was awkward, climbing straight up, but you were determined.

The ceiling was a drop ceiling made up of light panels on a framework.  You used a book on calculus to push the panel back, and then threw the lunch box up in.  You pushed the tile back into place and climbed back down.  A quick check…Ezra was probably here by now, so you grabbed your remaining things and headed out the door.

He was pensive, when you saw him, staring out at the distance, leaning against the side of his truck.  He saw you and smiled, and it was like the sun had come out on a miserable day.  It felt as genuine and real as the warmth of a fire.  You smiled back, despite yourself, and he opened the truck door with a flourish and helped you in.

You watch him round the front, get in, close the door, start the truck…drinking it all in as if it might be the last time.  The way he moved, even just wrapping his hand around the gear shift, was suddenly the most fascinating and beautiful thing in the world.

“We need to talk,”  You say softly.

“I know, my pearl,” he says with equal softness.  “Something terrible has come to pass.”

“I know.”

He shoots a look at you.  “Do you?”

You nod, swallowing.  His reaction is worse than you thought, confirming everything.

“How?”  No eloquence.  Only panicked shock.

“The Sheriff came to see me a few hours ago…”

Relief crossed his face.  “Sweetheart.  Sweetheart.  I don’t think we are speaking about the same thing.”

“OK?”

He lets out a huff of air.  He starts to explain.  “I was changing your locks today.  I swear I did not make copies…I’ll hand you both sets when we get home.  But.  Al Michaels was there.  He took me out into the woods, where there’s an old mine crack…”

He stopped.

“And what?  Are you OK?”

He reaches for a cloth covered bundle on the floor and hands it to you.  You unwrap it.  A stone, with a wicked, blood covered point.

You make a panicked sound of disbelief.

“It was him or me,”  he says, putting the hand, shaking, back on the wheel.  “It was him or me.”

**

You get home and he parks, hands you the keys to the house.  Yesterday, you would have divided them in half.  Today you nod your thanks and open the house, let him follow you in.  He follows you upstairs as you start to change clothes.

“Take off your shirt.”  You say.  I want to see…I need to see if you’re hurt.”

He complies and stands there, as you run your hands over him, throw the shirt in the corner.  “We should burn the clothes,”. You say.  “Was there a car?  How did he get here?  Where’s…was he alone?”

“I didn’t see a car.  I thought someone else was here…I heard someone in the barn, but they were gone when I got back.  It could have been him, I guess, circled around behind me.”

You throw yourself into the rocking chair, staring at him.  “So we can’t be sure no one saw you.”

He shakes his head.  “I was alert, so I do not believe so.”

“But we can’t be sure.”  You stress, and he shakes his head.  He leans against the wall, studying you.  Unsure.  Vulnerable.

“The Sheriff tells me that you were arrested for jewel theft last summer?”

“I was.”

“But you didn’t do it, right?”

He sighs.  “When I was younger, I…I had a hard time when I was growing up.  I was angry all the time.  I did some things that got my smiling mug placed in databases, and databases can be searched, even by those who might not be legally permitted access to such things.  So…a man who looks a great deal like me, who styles himself as the world’s greatest thief…he approached me with a task, which I took on willingly.”

You felt hopeful.  “So…you were his alibi?  While he broke in?”

He shook his head slightly.  “He had everything set up.  He distracted, I…well, I went in and did the actual deed.”

You blink at him.

“It was an awful lot of money.  Got me out of some bad straights, got Cee onto a good path.  I’d do it again.”

You stare out the window, trying to think.  You feel his hand tentatively, gently take yours.  Press it against his face.  You look up and he’s staring at you.  “I know you can’t believe me.  But I didn’t know about the diamonds.  I can connect you to the thief from last summer…he could buy them off you, and you could walk away and never see me again.”

You look away so he won’t see the tears prickling in your eyes, play with the curtain.

You can feel the suppressed emotion in him, in the way he shakes a little, the wetness in your palm when he presses it to his face from tears clinging to nthe soft sweep of his eyelashes, then the hot press of his lips to your skin.  He lets go and backs into the other chair.

“What can I do to prove my love to you?” He asks at last.

You look at him, everything raw and hurting.  “Say it.”

He takes a deep breath.  “I love you.  I love you more than breathing.  I love you more than words.  If I have to live my life without seeing you again I will, but it won’t be living.”

“Would you ever harm me?”

He shakes his head softly, and when the word comes out, it is both very gentle and very pained.  “No.”

“God help me,” you say, closing your eyes because looking at him is just too much.  Because part of you is scared that you are a fool for a pretty face and kind eyes and a clever tounge.  “God help me, I believe you.”

Thank you to you lovely people for being on my tag list, if you want added or dropped just let me know.  <3.@grogusmum @mishasminion360 @hnt-escape @littlemisspascal @pedro4ever @writteninthestars18 @fromthedeskoftheraven @sharkbait77 @quica-quica-quica @eri16 @the-blind-assassin @ayoungpascallover-readings @songsformonkeys @sherala007 @evyiione @kirsteng42

[doccywhomst]

What if Mestor was the real timeless child? Sorry I couldn’t help it. I’ve spoken about the twin dilemma before. It’s like a bad pantomime on acid where everyone’s trying to kill each other. “THOU CRAGGY KNOB!”

i actually fucking loved the twin dilemma - like, i KNOW it's bad, but that actually increased my enjoyment of it?? i love basically every single classic who serial unconditionally, except Talons for obvious reasons. i think the only ones im really iffy on are the depressing ones from six's first series, but the twin dilemma was fine!

[lady-o-ren]

Hunger of My Heart

//PROLOGUE//  //PART ONE//

A/N:The new chapter for this fic is uploaded on ao3 but its not showing up on the main page. I have no idea why. But you can read it HERE for easier reading.

PART TWO

On that nameless street, in what was once an empty, rundown lot, appeared gates draped in ivy from nowhere - elsewhere, before Jamie's very eyes.

"Must be magic," Claire had grinned, and tugged him past the gates that opened without a touch, gracing him in silvery birdsong as they stepped into a world from centuries long forgotten.

Jamie spoke not a word, too dumbstruck and tongue-tied, as they walked down a dirt cobbled path that cut through a grove of root twisted trees. Ahead in a clearing, he saw a large cottage fit for the Queen's Hamlet in Versailles, patched with ivy and honeysuckle and puffing smoke from its chimney. But they veered off to traverse further into the forest where the trees grew more and more monstrous, towering high to meet the clouds, chase the birds, while their red and green leaves and bright budding flowers scattered below on the sweetest perfumed breeze.

Claire called this wild wood her garden.

But how could this all be?

"We're still in London - though not exactly," she explained to his awed upturned face. "Best not to dwell on it though we're almost where we need to be - Watch your step, lad!"

At her warning, Jamie stumbled and hopped over a bushel of pink muhly grass groping at his legs, only to step on a skittering, nameless thing hidden beneath the bracken that hissed at his heavy-footed clumsiness.

"I'm beginning to feel more and more like Hansel being led to the slaughter," he said, blue eyes darting around his surroundings more carefully though still bright with curiosity.

Claire caught the laughter on her lips between her teeth.

"I'm a healer not a witch. You'll see none of that cauldron nonsense from me," she said, just when a patch of roving sunlight ignited her eyes like a candle wick's flame and gilded her curls like a cloud of burnished gold, hypnotising Jamie like a lovesick moth.

"Besides, my house of sweets is back that way."

"So ye say," Jamie murmured warmly, ears heating pink, when she threaded her arm through his, bringing him close like a dear old friend as they continued on their trek, while he felt something entirely more intimate, steadily growing, enveloping him whole like a tidal wave.

He grasped for even breath. She wondered if he had swallowed a bug. "But where exactly are we headed then in the middle of the forest primeval?"

She patted his arm. "A place where the fresh air along the way will do you some good. You look like a man born to the sun and earth. Am I wrong?"

"No," said Jamie, wondering if she could indeed see the generations of highland farmers and Laird's stamped on his face, flowing proudly in his blood. "Are ye ever?"

The question was left to drift like dustlight in the air when they come upon a grand old yew tree. It's craggy bruised trunk was knobbed with gem colored toadstools and had been hollowed out to fit a rounded bench carved deep into its heartwood, glinting eerily with faint sparks of light.

"I did say I would take you to a bench."

"One made for the faerie folk?" His mouth twitched and she laughed in quickly growing fondness and wrapped her fingers around his pulling the red man inside.

Together, they sat in the arched hollow with their knees bent towards one another, making the old wood seat creak and groan in protest, while above them fireflies dotted the inner wood, twinkling like stars, the source of the eerie glow, Jamie noted, breathing in the quiet serenity.

Then the small hand in his, warm as the blood that pumped life to his veins, gave a gentle squeeze.

"Now start from the beginning, Jamie, if you can. . ."

So he told her. Told her everything. Of the chorus that had once been a lullaby as a child, that grew maddening as he got older. Had him living a heartbeat from squalor as he followed it's command, it's every damnable whim, until finally he found Her, the only one to silence it.

Then with cheeks blooming a shade of deep adoration, he said with halting breath,

"I think it was you calling for me all these years somehow. . . .Like magic," he finished with a crooked awkward smile, one that compelled Claire to raise a tender hand to cradle the dearness of the lads face and thumb the lines of haunted nights that bruised the skin around his eyes.

"I told you before that I'm a healer. People come to me when they can no longer bear their emotions. Their grief and pain, their love. . ." She uttered the last with little reverence, entirely of indifference. "And I do my best to tend to them, to ease their torment. But it's them that come to me, I never beckon anyone to do so yet you. . ."

She trailed off, losing herself in contemplation even though the answer was staring back at her in the most beautiful shade of blue she had ever seen.

If only she were capable to see, to know, the face of his heart.

"Maybe we're meant to do some good for one another," said Claire, making Jamie's heart leap higher than the boughs of the forest trees.

"I am in dire need of friends, at least that's what my Elias tells me."

Then it plummeted like a corbie, an arrow pierced through his breast.

"Who is he, may I ask?" He choked, eyes rooted to the leafy ground.

"My apprentice, but he's dear to me as blood. You should meet him, Jamie. "

"Now?"

"Of course," she grinned, and brushed a wandering ginger lock back behind his ear. " Fate has brought me a gift and I plan to spoil him with whatever Elias has roasting."

She then softly bopped his nose, a tad too long, and ushered him out from the blissful shadows of the old yew tree.

They walked back to the dirt cobbled path beneath the dwindling evening light sparked now with dancing fireflies, and Claire twined her arm once more with his, as if she had done so for a thousand lifetimes.

At least it felt that way to Jamie and may she do so always, he prayed.

For he could feel this woman engraved in the blood and marrow of his bones, kindle something fragile and marvelous and everlasting in his soul.

It wasn't just destiny that brought him to her.

Jamie knew it was love.

[dovakhiindrabbles]

“Please don’t tell them I’m here.” 

Ma’vani’s first impressions aren’t always his best -- this was probably the worst time and place for him to meet his future wife 

Story Underneath! 

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Indeela worked away restlessly at her latest sketch work of armor, each intricate line and twirl a little more different than the last. Frustration began to spill from her fingertips, the design never quite connecting in the exact way she wanted.  

She’d reached one of those points where the world beyond the paper becomes that much more enticing – every little sound of tapping feet or muffled ramblings of voices urged her that much more to give up this chore and hurry out.  

Yet soon enough, she found the option wasn’t even hers.  

The door slammed open to reveal a scrambling Khajit, fur puffed out and pupils thinner than a shard of glass. His white fur melded into pools of deep, warm brown that held amber eyes – nothing short of terrified.  

Indeela shot up, her expression muddling with confusion. “C-Can I help you? If my sister sent you here for a custom design you’ll have to-”  

“Shut up, shut up!” He scrambled after her and whatever sounds he made afterwards became muddled together. He clasped her shoulders, the ends of his claws snagging into her clothes – she could’ve done without it.  

“Y-You – you've got to hide me! Please! They can’t catch me!”  

“Who-”  

The crumbs and dainty little things began to rattle as pounding, heavy boots trampled along the cobblestone – enraged shouts spiteful with venom tore through the curtains and glass with such fervor one would fear they’d shatter.  

“Capture the rogue cat! He has betrayed the Empire and is dangerous! Remain on alert for any suspicious Khajit!”  

Indeela glanced back at the stranger as the voices of the high elves continued to demand for imprisonment. Their accusations and punishments growing worse and worse by the second. What few puzzle pieces she’d had begun to connect in an instant.  

“Just -- What... the fuck... did you do?”  

He kept glancing nervously between her and the windows, his breath quick, shallow, and unsteady. He laughed, attempting to smooth down his fur that was practically bursting from his collar.

“C-Can this wait for another day?”  

“If you didn’t want to get asked any questions you shouldn’t have stormed in my study! Now answer me or-”  

The criminal on-the-run snapped a horrified curse and grappled at her arms before stumbling backwards, sending the two collapsing behind the desk full of craggy old boxes and dust bunnies Indeela never quite cared enough to clean – if she were being honest.  

However, out of all things – that was far from what bothered her. What did happen to bother her was the fact that was currently on top of a stranger – a stranger who happened to be a fugitive.  

The aforementioned fugitive stared with eyes as wide as saucers, the skin beneath his fur becoming a bright red akin to a strawberry. He opened his mouth to speak but could barely figure a single coherent sentence to make up for the strife he’d caused Indeela. Instead, he sputtered the first thing that came to mind.  

“I wouldn’t kill someone.” He managed through exasperated breaths. “I’m in this mess because I refused to kill someone.”  

Indeela soaked in his words, her shoulders rising and falling and a death grip on her desk to keep her from collapsing entirely upon the Khajit. She could scramble to the door right then and call to the guards – surely, they’d laud her a hero and ideal citizen. It’d be easy, so, so much easier than anything else.  

But Indeela was never one to take the easy way out. And a part of her couldn’t convince herself that it was the right thing to do.  

“A good someone?” She asked, folding her lips nervously.

He paused, and wrinkled his snout, if only for a moment. “I hope so.”  

That was good enough for her. She nodded. “That’ll do.” She pressed a finger to her lips, and he understood. Indeela then rose to her feet, stepping forward to the window and peering forward. The Thalmor’s thin figures remained a way ahead of the shop, but their voices had become only a faint call. It would be risky, but just maybe she could sneak him in.  

She rushed back to the stranger and reached out to his arms, helping him to his feet. His ears twitched at the slightest sounds and he held onto her a tad bit too tight, his nerves getting the best of him.  

“What’re we doing?” He asked, swallowing hard.  

“Instead of you just breaking into my shop – I'm sneaking you into my house,” Indeela paused. “Which is fine because it’s my house... mostly.”  

His brows furrowed. “Mostly?”  

“I have a big family.”  

“How can you sneak me in if you have a huge fucking family?” The Khajit’s fur puffed outwards, and his tail even fluffed up twice in size.  

Indeela huffed, tapping her index finger against her lips once again. “I can’t if you don’t keep your mouth shut!”  

He puffed his cheeks out, wanting to protest but with nowhere else to go, he couldn’t exactly argue. He relented and allowed Indeela to guide him to the back door that’d lead into the storage room. From there... well Indeela hadn’t planned that far.  

As she turned the knob leading into the back of her home, the Khajit stopped her. His tail swung easily from side to side and he fidgeted meekly. “Wait.”  

“What is it?” Immediately she glanced back at the window, assuming one of the Thalmor were surely gawking at them. Except when she looked, she saw nothing.  

“No, no it’s just-” He cleared his throat. “My name – it's Ma’vani -- I’m Ma’vani. And thank you.”  

Ma’vani. The name repeated itself in Indeela’s head. It was a gentle name, softly spoken and yet full of life all the same. She liked it.  

“I’m Indeela,” She responded quietly, offering him a smile. “And you’re welcome.” 

She brought him inside, and no matter how confident Indeela was that’d they’d be safe and secluded, all hopes were shattered at the sight of Aisha standing just at the open door. Two glasses were clasped in her hands, and they nearly slipped from her grasp at the sight of the pair.  

“Aisha!” Indeela’s heart nearly burst from her chest. A sudden onslaught of embarrassment searing through her. “What’re you doing?”  

“I live here...?” Aisha raised the glasses. “I also brought you juniper juice!” She turned her attention to Ma’vani and laughed. “Sorry to miss you! We weren’t expecting guests! You must be the felon those Thalmor are looking for? They’re being ridiculously loud about it.”  

Ma’vani froze. “Please don’t call them on me.”  

“I wouldn’t breathe if the Thalmor asked, so don’t worry! You came to the right place.” Aisha eased back, allowing room for the two to come in. “I wouldn’t let Dad see him though; he’s already got enough grey hairs, don’t you think?”  

Indeela cursed beneath her breath. “Do you think Dad will notice if we sneak him up to the attic?”

A grin tugged at the ends of Aisha’s lips, snorting. “I’ll go get Mom.”  

Indeela tried to grapple after her sister but Aisha managed to dodge her sister’s desperate hands just so. “That is so clearly not what I asked!”  

“Nothing happens in mom’s house without mom knowing~.”

Indeela hated how right Aisha could be. Truthfully, halfway through whatever patchwork plan they’d come up with, Ehsan would probably find out. Most likely seeking them out to tell a ridiculous joke she’d just learned. That’d be Indeela’s luck.  

“Is your mom going to be uh – okay with me?” Ma’vani wondered aloud. “Or do I need to run?”

“Mom wouldn’t hurt a fly if it personally insulted her – just don’t talk bad about Dad.”  

“I don’t even know him.”  

“Then I think you’ll be safe.”  

Ma’vani huffed something like a chuckle.  

Aisha already returned with her hands ribboned with their mother’s. Ehsan’s tawny gaze widening like dinner plates at the sight of Ma’vani. She was a tall, slender woman, and age graced her features in the form of crow’s feet and the faintest wrinkles. Her youthful beauty never quite faded.  

Ehsan slipped away from her daughter to instead approach Ma’vani, noting his stray, ragged fur with sorrow. “You poor thing. You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”  

Ma’vani froze at the kindness. His ears perked up and a weight fell from his shoulders. He nodded weakly, and a pang of pity struck at Indeela.  

Ehsan smiled weakly. “Well take a deep breath. You’re safe now.”  

Ehsan turned back around and peeked the door to the parlor just a crack so that the few lanterns lit poured in with their light. Ehsan called out. “Makna~? Darling, could you come here?”  

“Why does Makna need to know?” Indeela groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.  

“This is a family affair Indeela!” Ehsan exclaimed. “Except your father, because I think he’d have a heart attack.”  

Ma’vani frowned. “Is your father a... tense man?”  

Ehsan tipped her head from side to side in consideration, a fondness to her voice as she referred to her husband. “Hanee is sensitive. It hasn’t been easy raising four kids after all!”  

“There’s a fourth?”  

Indeela swatted her hand in the air indifferently. “He lives in the mountains; don’t worry we won’t be that cramped in here.”  

“Why does he-” Ma’vani stopped himself while he was ahead. “Never mind.”  

Makna soon appeared at the door, towering over her mother and even a few inches above Ma’vani. Her eyes were only slightly warmer than Ehsan’s, and her expression was cool, stilled, even when spotting Ma’vani. In spite of everything else cluttering and clamoring at Ma’vani, Makna was oddly calming.  

“So, this is what we’re doing today.” She muttered. “And I suppose I’ll be the one distracting Dad?”  

Ehsan squeezed Makna’s arm tenderly, beaming. “Thank you darling.”  

Makna failed to hide her tiny grin, sighing with a mock amount of exasperation. “Of course, Mom.” She pointed at her sisters. “You two try not to get our guest killed?”  

Aisha scoffed, sticking out her tongue. “There’s only a small chance!”  

“If anything had happens, Aisha did it.”  

Makna laughed at that. She disappeared a few moments later, and only when Ehsan, pressed against the parlor’s door, heard the chattering voices of her husband and daughter, did she lead the rest forward.  

The home itself was wide and spacious, large enough even for a family like theirs's to breathe in peace. A warmth spread through the house like sunlight on a bare meadow – there was love here; a great deal of it.  

Ehsan was leading the group up the stairs where the faintest step creaked, slow and lingering. One could only imagine the countless feet that ‘pitter pattered’ each step – perhaps at some point a mother cradling her child and another being that very same child racing down the stairs.  

“You have a very nice home.” Ma’vani whispered, taking care to watch his heavy metal. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he scuffed the weathered wood.  

“Thank you. We try to keep it nice for guests.” Indeela hummed. “I guess that includes impromptu ones now too.”  

“I really appreciate this – I hope you know.”

Indeela raised her brows, musing. “I suspected as much. But it’s not problem, I hope you know.”  

Ma’vani fiddled anxiously with his fingers. “Does your family do this often? Will I have roommates?”  

“No, you have the honor of being the first. I hope you like dust and cobwebs.”  

Ma’vani let out a deep laugh. “Oh! My favorite!”  

It was then Indeela thought he had a nice laugh. It was a thought she quickly shoved into the deepest depths of her brain, but it had existed, nonetheless.  

They approached the attic’s door where a string dangled in the air. Aisha snagged this string and swung it back so that the ladder could topple out onto the wooden floor with a ‘thump’.  

“Well, I hope you like your new room!” Aisha chimed. “It uh... it can use some work.”  

Ma’vani chuckled softly. It’s not as if he was going to be picky. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”  

He climbed up the ladder and understood just what the others meant. Dust and age clung to the attic’s corners, and plenty of ornate heirlooms – or simply old forgotten knick knacks. However, by the end of the wall there was a bed with a thick, heavy quilt and lantern set comfortably against a desk. Books were stacked atop one another on that desk, and Ma’vani could tell it hadn’t been touched in a long time. It was left just the way it was when the last person left.  

Indeela was the one to follow him up, her fingers trailing along the room wistfully. “This was my brother’s room before he left. We can fix it up for you if you want, but Adnan had all sorts of interests, so there’s a little bit of everything.”  

“What do you think I’m interested in?”  

“How to get in dangerous situations?”  

Ma’vani contemplated. “Unfortunately, you’re not too far off.”  

Indeela smirked. “Maybe try to avoid that while you’re here?”

“I’ll do my best.”  

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Hanee finds out approximately five minutes later 

I’ve had this sitting on my computer for awhile now but I hadn’t finished the prompt until now! I really wanted to expand upon their first meeting

Ma’vani

Indeela & Family

[weedle-testaburger]

Yeah. Twin Dilemma has some good moments but the rest of it is ghastly. With Azmael and his cardboard wedding dress, the terrible creepy twins, some GHASTLY dialogue (Thou craggy knob!), though I did find the bit where the Doctor tried to kill the giant slug Mestor to be VERY funny. It’s like watching a pantomime during the world’s worst acid trip! That’s the best way to put it. But NONE of that was Colin Baker’s fault!

Yeah, it's such a mess. The kindest thing I can say is I do at least find Mestor's costume a bit creepy :p

[scapegrace74-blog]

Saorsa, Chapter 2

A/N  Thanks to all of you who read, reblogged and liked Chapter 1 of my Outlander AU novel, Saorsa.  Here is Chapter 2, in which we meet this story’s version of Claire.

For those too impatient to wait for me to remember to post the next chapter, the entirety of Saorsa is available on my AO3 page!

The running of an estate such as Lallybroch was a never-ending series of menial tasks.  From sun-up to sundown, Claire was expected to make countless decisions, each more alien than the last.  Were the pair of Clydesdales that drew the plow to be shod next week?  Was the late summer harvest to be threshed by hand, or sent to a neighbouring farmer who owned a thresher, in exchange for a tenth of the resulting grain?   Who would see to the kitchen when Cook attended her uncle’s funeral in Aberdeen?   Would she write a letter to the local council asking for an extension to the traditional season for the stag hunt on common lands, to compensate for the meagre war rations?

It had sounded immensely romantic, when she and Frank first met.   An ancestral farm deep in the Scottish Highlands, handed down through generations of Randalls since the eighteenth century.  Frank spoke with fondness of its timeworn buildings, quaint occupants and how its isolation made it feel like a portal to a long-ago way of life.  She distracted herself with images of its craggy majesty while she hunkered in a Tube station, the air raid sirens wailing above.  

She could scarcely believe her good fortune when, one October afternoon in 1941 while on furlough from officer’s training, Frank proposed.  Her nearest relatives were all dead, and Frank’s mother lived with her sister in Dorset, so they settled for a simple ceremony at the Registrar’s office in Paddington before spending a blissful weekend abed in a cottage near Oxford, on loan from a university chum of Frank’s.

She still remembered their conversation, her riot of dark brown curls resting on her new husband’s pale shoulder.

“I want you to leave London, while travel is still possible,” Frank said, his fingers tracing the knobs of her spine.

“Whatever for?  I’m almost finished my nurses’ training, and then they’ll send me to the front.”  She pivoted to look into his eyes.  They were dark brown, and usually placid like a friendly hound.

“It’s not safe, Claire.  You need to go north, to Lallybroch.   I’ll rest easier knowing that you’re away from danger, far from the bombing.  I’ll visit you there, whenever I’m on leave.  You can always finish your schooling once the war is over, if it still interests you.”  There was a finality to this pronouncement that reminded her that she barely knew this man to whom her life was now indelibly bound.

And that was how she came to be the lady of an estate she’d never laid eyes upon until the chill winter’s afternoon when she first walked into the courtyard and gazed up at its thick grey walls, spare windows staring at her like suspicious eyes.

Eight months later, and she was still hopelessly adrift.   Most of the staff had worked for the family for decades and were self-sufficient and capable.   Still, as the Lady of Lallybroch she was expected to have an opinion on everything, and to provide guidance in her husband’s absence.

Which did nothing to explain why she was still abed, long after the cocks in the stable yard were done crowing and breakfast served to the day labourers in the great hall.   She could hear the bustle of activity far below the window she kept open to capture the cool night air, yet she tarried in the immense four poster bed, hidden from the world behind thick, moth-eaten damask curtains.

If she had her way, she would never leave this room again.

[thorsenmark]

I'd Rather Have a Time Out for Behavior Along the Blue Ridge Parkway by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While taking in views around the Craggy Pinnacle Summit with a view looking to the northeast to ridges and peaks of the Great Craggy Mountains with Craggy Dome and Bullhead Mountain. This is along the Blue Ridge Parkway. My thought in composing this image was to use a wide angle for focal length and capture the full breath of the setting in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I wanted the viewer to not just look down the mountainside in wide-eye wonder and take in the ridges and peaks present, but also to see the Blue Ridge Parkway as it weaved throughout the mountains and gaps, heading off to the distant horizon.

[3lc3lc3lc]

JOSHUA TREE

An excerpt from my short story collection NOWHERE FAST, out now.

“so what i’m gonna do is i’m gonna get a moped and i’m gonna ride it around the desert. and i’ll have my shotgun for if i see a rattlesnake. you think i could shoot a rattlesnake from a moped?”

“sure, prolly.”

“i’ll shoot the fuck out of a rattlesnake. fuck a rattlesnake.”

“yea fuck em.”

“anyway, you can visit me if you want.”

“hmmmmm….. maybe.”

“hey can i call you? i can’t type so good. i got fat thumbs. plus i’m on ecstasy.”

Anna was in Los Angeles, where Ray lived, two weeks later on business. The business was a magazine interview with an R&B singer whose manager stopped returning Anna’s phone calls immediately upon her arrival. The business was a free vacation. “Guess where I’m at,” she texted Ray from the hotel. They’d been messaging each other for a month, friends of friends. Ray seemed psychotic, but that was no problem. 

“You should come over and help me pack. I’ve got some soju,” he replied. Ray was moving to Joshua Tree in two days to make sad synthesizer music in the desert. “Oh. One thing I have to tell you. My teeth are all fucked up. I don’t smile in pictures. Thought you should know.”

An inflatable duck the size of a Subaru was drifting across the pool next to Ray’s apartment building on Sunset. The Elliott Smith mural from the one album cover used to be around the corner, he told Anna in the lobby, but they recently turned it into a brunch restaurant. “Oh and I’ve got a present for you.” They took the elevator to his studio, which was carpeted and offered roughly nothing in the way of furniture. The teeth were as advertised, a double row of craggy gray shards that made his mouth look like abstract expressionism. She sat on a cardboard box while Ray poured little cups of soju and retrieved a bag of mushrooms from a drawer. They ate a handful of caps each. “This isn’t your present. Come on.”

She followed him to the back of the apartment building, where three of Ray’s neighbors were smoking around a fire pit. Mary was in her fifties and blessed with the virtue of persistence, as demonstrated by the portable respirator she carted around in her non-smoking hand. Jeff with the blonde ponytail and Dickies had recently come back from Afghanistan. “Jeff’s better at Jeopardy than anyone on earth,” said Ray. “Other than me.” “Thanks, man,” said Jeff. In the corner, a large bearded man was lost in the act of twisting up some sort of balloon animal. “This is Balloonski,” said Ray. “Don’t look yet!” said Balloonski, his hands swooping and squeaking like ridiculous birds. Anna turned the other way and smoked a cigarette. By the time she’d finished, the balloon was in the shape of a man playing the saxophone. “Surprise!” said Ray. She promised to keep it always. “Balloonski,” she said, “you’re going places. The world will know your balloons. You’re headed straight to the top, kid. Did you know I’m a journalist?”

They went back to Ray’s apartment and fucked on the carpet to Elliott Smith, the popcorn ceiling rippling like lava. “Yeah so I think I’m in love with you,” Ray said. “Let’s go to your hotel and see what’s in the mini bar.” Anna swaddled the balloon jazz man in her jacket, their beautiful baby boy. “Sup, chumps?” she found herself barking at the nice people drinking wine in the hotel lobby, for no special reason beside the fact that she was untouchable and would never die.

They got to work on the mini bar, starting with the Wild Turkeys, then the Bombay Sapphires, then the Titos. Ray poured the last couple bottles on the floor and hurled them at the wall. “It ain’t on our dime, baby!” he crowed. “This is on Corporate America’s tab!” She couldn’t be sure if the room charges were, in fact, on Corporate America’s tab, nor if she would continue to have a job when all was said and done, but she could admit the sentiment was rousing. Give the guy ten minutes and suddenly you’re voting him for alderman. Ray called up room service, sprawled on the bed like some sort of Ottoman aristocrat. “Good morning. My wife would like to order steak and eggs please.”

It was May when she arrived in Joshua Tree. Or it was April. In any case, Prince had died and the desert was colder than she had imagined. It was an hour drive from the Palm Springs airport in a cab softly playing the greatest hits of Third Eye Blind, the windmills off the highway waving palely in the dark like great irrelevant gods. She should check out that place, the cab driver offered as some nameless saloon slipped past, if she wanted to meet a nice Marine. That sounded good, Anna said. She could swear the mountains were flashing with faraway wet yellow eyes.

The headlights caught Ray in front of a little house made of corrugated sheet metal that looked to be held together with staples, doing what could generously be described as karate. There were no neighbors to be seen for half a mile. “Darling, we haven’t any food!” Ray greeted her. The closest store was a two hour walk along the side of the highway, and it was closed. “But Loretta left a handle of Seagram’s, so we’ll be straight.” Who this Loretta was supposed to be she hadn’t a clue, but she would take a drink. Inside Ray’s Siamese cat hunted moths around the place, which was surprisingly well appointed, decorated with woven Navajo rugs and rattan furniture and a beaded curtain that clacked when you went from the kitchen to the bedroom. They drank gin and water and Ray told her the stories of his collection of scars, this one from being smashed over the head with a beer bottle, this one from falling through a skylight. By the time the sun was coming up she was drunk enough to ask: “Who’s Loretta?”

“Oh. Loretta’s my roommate.”

“There’s only one room.”

“We trade off. Anyway she’s not here right now.”

“Well where is she?”

“Couldn’t really tell you.”

Ray went and got the gin, refilled both their glasses to the top, and put on a movie about a dog who gets terribly abused by all numbers of people. Within twenty minutes he was sobbing uncontrollably, not even trying to be quiet about it. That was her favorite thing about Ray, probably. He cried at all the dog movies.

In the daytime Ray would hunch shirtless over his keyboard, chainsmoking spliffs and endlessly writing the same wordless song. Anna lay on a towel in the baked dirt of the yard, mindlessly scrolling through apps on her phone and seeing white when she stood up. Sometimes she watched Ray work, dragging colorful little chunks of minutiae back and forth across his computer screen and fiddling with knobs doing who knows what, the room quiet but for the bass in his headphones. This kind of boredom she had always liked, the kind that reminded her of sinking into decrepit couches to watch boys shoot at Nazis or whatever with their Playstation controllers. The wonderful kind of dullness that ferried you safely from one hour to the next. In any case, she’d lost her job. What else was there to do. She had two weeks left in the desert.

They were out front watching for jackrabbits when a bandaid-colored Volvo scraped up on wings of dust. A lady got out. She looked to be in her mid-sixties, with long gray hair and a tired face, dressed in the linens of some kind of cult, maybe. And she’d brought luggage. “I stopped at the Walmart and got hamburgers and beer,” she said, hauling out shopping bags from the back seat. 

“Hi mom,” Ray said. 

Ray’s mother turned to Anna. “Who’s this? Are you going to help me with the groceries?”

“Sorry... Ray didn’t tell me, uh...”

“You may call me Loretta. Here.” She handed Anna a case of Miller Lite. Anna carried it inside, shoving the underwear she’d left on the floor in her backpack before coming back for the next one. She caught Ray’s eye as he grabbed a box of frozen beef patties. “It’s cool,” he said. “We’ll sleep in the living room.” He turned to Loretta. “The drive was okay?”

“Left Tucson at four this morning,” Loretta said. “I feel like hell. Where did I put my…..?” She rummaged around in the glove compartment, retrieved five or six pill bottles, and went inside. Ray followed.

The sky was going pink and orange as Loretta unpacked her things and Ray heated up the charcoal grill. Anna made slow figure eights around the yard, listening to lizards scuttle around in the rocks. There were a few things she knew about Ray’s mother. She knew Loretta had been married five times. She knew Loretta had been a teacher, and that she wasn’t one anymore. She knew Ray hadn’t seen his mother in ten years, or at least that’s what he’d said, that Loretta’s boyfriend wouldn’t let him set foot in their house.

Loretta appeared in the doorway, her white linens dyed peach with twilight. “Would you like to play a game of Clue?” she asked Anna. They went inside and Loretta set the game board out on the floor, shuffling up the billiard rooms and candlesticks and slipping three cards into the little case file envelope. “I’m always Mrs. Peacock,” Loretta said. “Hope that’s not a problem.” They drank beer and waited for Ray to come and be the third player, Loretta’s left eye twitching gently as the sun went down.

“Are you Ray’s girlfriend?” Loretta asked.

“Sort of,” said Anna. “I don’t know. Something like that.”

“For the record,” said Loretta, “you shouldn’t trust half of what he tells you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I know Ray, that’s all. Known him all his life.” 

Ray walked inside with a tray of burgers. “You’re Professor Plum,” Loretta said, handing him the purple pawn. She turned her beer upside down, crumpled up the can and rolled the dice.

Loretta was holding Anna’s hair while she hugged the toilet, hurling. “Hey, we’ve all been there, hun,” Loretta said. “Mushrooms will do that sometimes.” Ray had brought his stash to the desert. It wasn’t sitting right. Anna choked out the rest, flushed, and staggered to her feet, sweating and mortified. “I should probably lie down for a minute,” she told Loretta, weaving her way to the living room. “Why don’t you take the bed tonight,” Loretta said, digging one hand in her giant purse. “I’ll send Ray in to join you. It’s no problem.” Anna slurred a thanks and goodnight and stumbled through the beaded curtain to the bedroom, wondering how long Ray’d been gone on his endless cigarette break. Or had he only stepped out five minutes ago? It was hard to be sure at the moment, considering that everywhere she looked, her surroundings kept turning to hamburger meat. She closed her eyes and tried to will away the kaleidoscope of tentacles churning inside her eyelids. When she woke up, Anna could hear Ray and Loretta’s voices softly from the other side of the curtain. The desert was dark still, a choir of crickets like distant static.

“I don’t have five hundred dollars, Ray. If I did, I’d give it to you. But I don’t.”

“Right. You’ve just got enough to make sure Gary can sit on his fat ass all day watching Matlock. But your only son can go fuck himself. Got it.”

“Let’s leave Gary out of it.”

“I would’ve liked to leave Gary out of it the day he broke my nose and kicked me out of the house, but I suppose we can’t have it all, can we.”

“Ray…... It’s complicated.”

“Yeah, being a mother sounds pretty fucking complicated. It’s not for everyone, I guess.”

Loretta was quiet for a minute.

“You know I don’t feel good about how everything played out. If I could do things differently…”

“I was thirteen years old living on the street because you chose fucking Gary over me, mom. I’ll say you could’ve done things differently. Jesus Christ.”

“That’s why I’m here every weekend, isn’t it? To see if we can’t be friends again?”

“You barely qualify as my mother, and you’re certainly not my friend. But I will take some fucking money, if Gary can manage to spare it from his Hot Pocket fund.” Anna heard shuffling and the crunch of cans being tossed in the trash. “And by the way, those pills are making you crazy. You shouldn’t be mixing all that shit at once. Your shrink ought to be in fucking prison. Anyway. Sleep well.” Anna lay very still with her eyes shut as Ray jangled through the beaded curtain and collapsed beside her in the dark, hitting the bed with a thud like he’d dropped from the sky.

In the morning Loretta was gone, and so was her car. On the kitchen counter were two notes, one labeled ANNA, the other MY SON RAY. Anna studied Ray’s face as he read, but it didn’t change, though he did slip a handful of twenties that had been tucked inside the letter into his pocket. Anna opened hers. In bold looping cursive it said, “Dear Anna, it was nice to meet you. He’ll take advantage of your weakness if you let him. Take care of yourself. Loretta.” Ray finished reading, folded the letter back up, and walked shirtless into the desert. He didn’t ask what her note said, and she didn’t either.

She remembered she had saved Loretta’s phone number a year later, after everything—after Ray had pawned most of her belongings and disappeared to Seoul with his secret girlfriend, that is, but before the whole Korean prison incident—and decided to ask. “What did you mean back in Joshua Tree, when you said he’d take advantage of my weakness?” she typed slowly. “How did you know?” She waited hours and hours until finally her phone buzzed. “I would never say that about my son,” read the text from Loretta. “What do you want from me?”

[unlockthelore]

Experience the Unknown

A mother-to-be asks for the wisdom of a mother fully realized and finds that experience is the best teacher. From the series Affections Touching Across Time on Ao3, and part of the Talking To The Moon fic. For more updates, follow the affections touching across time tag on this blog. For more of this fic, follow the talking to the moon tag.

To Rin’s relief, Inukimi had enough foresight to have another plate delivered outside of the study. Pretense cast aside in favor of near ravenous hunger pinking Rin’s ears when she noticed the demoness staring at her amusedly. She was vaguely aware of the sight she made. Cheeks stuffed with food, a dribble slipping down her chin wiped away with the crook of a finger, and wide-eyed at being caught. Inukimi’s laughter was quiet but loud in the study’s silence and Rin’s face burned as she pawed at her mouth in an effort to hide the mess, swallowing a mouthful thickly.

“So,” Inukimi began. A short, light chuckle hidden behind the drape of her sleeve when Rin glanced in her direction. One claw tapped at the corner of her lips and Rin swiped at her own. “Tell me what you’ve been feeling.”

For a brief, almost painfully long moment, Rin considered a half-truth but Inukimi’s knowledge was invaluable and for all her aloofness — the demoness proved to be family thoroughly. Wracking her brain for the last few weeks of sickness swallowed with mint leaves and spring water, hunger tempered by requesting to cook her own food to the cooks’ confusion, and constant glimpses into mirrors at her body’s shape. Hands resting against the flat of her stomach to her navel’s dip in wonder of what it would be when she showed. Excitement joined with fear distracting her from the presence at her back.

Silver hair slipping over her shoulder as lips pecked at the back of her neck, sending shivers down her spine just as a yelp rose up her throat. Golden eyes met her own in the mirror’s reflection and the fear is assuaged temporarily. Sesshomaru asked her what was wrong every time he caught her standing before the mirror undressed. Misunderstanding her half-hearted excuses for a lack of confidence in her body, and far too eager to show how he disagreed.

“Perhaps you can keep the thoughts of your moments together for another time, little bird.”

Rin lurched out of her thoughts to find Inukimi staring at her amusedly, one brow raised and her hands resting in her lap all too politely for the smugness radiating from her.

“H—“ Rin started, then clamped her mouth shut. If she asked her how she knew then that would be acceptance but if she said nothing, that wouldn’t be a firm denial. Groaning inwardly, she shoved thoughts of Sesshomaru aside and hoped they wouldn’t find home with the guiltier ones. After a short while of scanning her fingertips, counting and mulling it over, Rin murmured. “Hunger…”

Inukimi set the empty plate aside the others and tapped her claws against one of the scroll’s knobs. “In appetite or…” Her voice trailed off, gaze flicked to the doorway and Rin bristled.

“Mother!”

“I only tease, little bird. Now go on. Tell me something I’m not entirely aware of.”

Rin wanted to protest there was little she didn’t know of but cheekiness wouldn’t help her in this situation. Thinking back to a strategy meeting some few nights ago, her brows furrowed. “Perhaps a little aggression…”

“Little?” Inukimi scoffed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “That isn’t what General Harikawa would say.”

Rin breathed heavily, scrunching her nose and turning her head aside to glare out the window. Even the mention of the craggy-faced inu yōkai was enough to make her skin want to crawl.

“He would object to the sun rising in the east if it would spite me.” She flicked her hair behind her shoulder with a sharp twist of her head, glancing out the corner of her eye to Inukimi.

The demoness seemed not only amused but curious. She studied her for a moment with narrowed golden eyes. Then, she smiled. “You are starting to behave like Sesshomaru.”

Before Rin could respond, Inukimi reached out to cup her jaw and tip her head one way then the other. The touch was gentle but her eyes were calculating in their depths as if she was searching for something Rin could not yet see.

“Perhaps it’s the prolonged explosure,” she murmured thoughtfully, seeming to speak more to herself than Rin much to her chagrin. “He has been kinder since you both wed. Mm, no. Even before then. He would never have greeted me in my palace with such kindness.”

She drew her hand away and Rin lowered her head. Thoughts turning back to the day she’d first met the demoness, Sesshomaru’s reaction to her didn’t seem warm in the slightest. At least now how Rin would have greeted her own mother if she were still living. But she was aware of the difference in their relationship and their stilted ways of showing affection. That Sesshomaru recognized her as his mother spoke volumes in itself. Had he not before? Was there a period in their relationship where they were so at odds that he distanced himself from her? Could it have been her doing or his own? A misunderstanding?

“Breathe, Rin.”

A muted touch, warm and grounding, dragged Rin back into her body. Someone was breathing — short and uneven — and it took her a painfully long moment to realize that it was her. Evening her breaths to the slow counts of Kaede’s voice within the reaches of her mind, she sighed longingly and tucked herself closer to Inukimi’s side. Head pillowed against the demoness’ shoulder, fur soft against her cheek, Rin felt much younger than what she was especially when Inukimi’s fingers glided through her hair.

“I’ve read almost every account of a hanyō’s birth, which isn’t much, but…”

“You have no clue of what it will be to experience your own.”

Rin sighed, nuzzling her face against the fur lining of Inukimi’s cloak, her eyes shutting tight. “Or what mother I will be.”

They both lapsed into silence. Slender fingers slipped through Rin’s hair with ease, patting down the mused strands with each stride then returning to the top of her head to begin anew. Upset began to even out. Rin couldn’t tell if Inukimi thought little of her for being this concerned, or if she simply was allowing her to vent her frustrations. Her mother-in-law was incredibly difficult to gather a reading on, and wonderfully adept at dodging questions with relative ease. Her displeasure was felt in small potent doses and Rin hardly wanted to experience it, especially now when she needed her most. Although her thoughts were admittedly furtherest from Inukimi, and even the few souls wandering about the palace. Her mind lingering to the east near a quiet village that’d grown into an outpost in the recent years.

“When I lived with Lady Kaede, I helped with so many births. Some mothers took to their children quickly but others grew to hate or despise them…”

She could still see the faces, young as her own, but weary and despondent. Their souls aged beyond their body’s youth. It hurt her heart to see their child’s cries cause them to shiver. And when their husbands came to bring them home, they begged her and Kaede to allow them to stay for a few days longer. Some of the girls returned home, but others disappeared off into the night, with only the belongings brought to them for their comfort.

“Too many girls whispered to me that they felt they weren’t ready. They couldn’t mother a child, they had barely lived, and yet… it was expected….”

Something bitter touched her lips at the thought. Kaede’s reassurances that she would never have to marry unless she wanted held true, but the priestess kept her busy, kept her curious, kept her thinking. An unwed woman — beautiful, opinionated, and strong — would be the envy of her peers and a target for men. Whether Rin believed the world to be better than that or not, her experiences showed that a person’s nature had a duality, and not all sides were benevolent. Kaede wanted her to stand on her own two feet, live proudly the way she chose, but also safely.

And Rin couldn’t thank her enough for the lessons she taught.

Rin sighed. “I was fortunate to have a different life, to live as I wanted, but I’ve always had a desire for adventure and to see the world with my own eyes. Will that change once they’re born or will I—”

She cut off abruptly, the unspoken words hovering in the air where they evaporated into vapors, choking her with their essence. Laying her hand on her stomach, Rin curled her fingers in her obi and bid the children within her to forgive her for what she might have said. She clutched her obi tightly, twisting it until the fabric was fit to tear. Clawed fingers brushing against her knuckles then settling over the back of her hand, delicately easing it from her obi.

“That you can’t bring yourself to say it conveys more than you know.”

Rin pursed her lips and lowered her eyes to the stack of bowls. She knew being unable to say the words she’d been holding back was one thing. Guilt at having thought them were another. No one deserved to be thought of that way and no amount of fear would justify it.

“Regardless of what anyone may claim, Sesshomaru was not born for the sake of an heir.”

The sudden confession drew Rin from her hiding place. She looked up at Inukimi confused at the abrupt display of honesty but the demoness was as unfazed as ever.

“I loved Tōga with all that I am,” she said wistfully, glancing toward the scrolls. “And Sesshomaru was not what either of us planned, but when I sent a missive telling him I was with child — he was at my side by the next moon.”

She chuckled softly and Rin couldn’t help but smile. Her readings of the late daiyōkai painted him as quite the character. He reminded her of Inuyasha with Sesshomaru’s grace, but there were moments where he was as stately as he could be childish. And he loved Inukimi. His glowing accounts of her from her ruthlessness to her quiet affections were in detail, and Rin couldn’t bare to read it all if she wanted to look her mother-in-law in the eye.

She began to gather the scrolls, setting them inside of the polished lacquered box adorned with the Inu no Taishō’s symbol. Inukimi handing her few when she couldn’t hold them all within her arms.

“Conquests took him from me so often, but he returned time and time again, laid with me as if we were first wed and spoke to our son so he would always remember his father’s voice.”

WIth rapt attention, Rin tried to summon the image but no painting or tale spun from Myoga and Totōsai’s ramblings could do Tōga justice. Instead, she thought fondly on Sesshomaru. She hardly expected him to be the doting type but to speak to his daughters before they were born. Let them hear their father’s voice and know they were loved. She blinked away her awe and smiled at Inukimi, who stared wistfully out the opened window.

“When Sesshomaru was born, I expected the love Tōga felt to fade, yet it only grew stronger…”

Rin’s smile faltered slowly. Inu yōkai were difficult in regards to kin. Territory, pride, strength, duty, loyalty — it was all so important to them that it seemed seemed into their very being. That Tōga loved Sesshomaru so fiercely was strange in itself by their standards. Few of the journals she read depicted an inu yōkai increasingly hostile toward its young, especially the men toward their sons. If a son were to grow and overthrow their father then allowing them to reach adulthood would be foolish. No matter the need for an heir, to dwindle and die by one’s emotion was a fool’s death.

“I expected to find myself weary of being tethered to this helpless and needy being, eventually finding him to be a burden, and kill him when it suited my needs.”

Rin stiffened at the admittance, and Inukimi turned almost lazily in response. She raised a brow as if asking her to question it but Rin couldn’t find it in herself to. Those feelings, while not as profound, were the same in a human woman. It was ugly. Unkind, and terrible to a child who was blameless but the world could be cruel.

After a lengthy silence where they did little but keep one another’s gaze while the winds called, rattling the tiles on the roofs and shivering the trees, Inukimi sighed.

“And yet he still breathes,” she murmured, a touch of awe in her voice as if confused by it herself. “Not all mothers are the same, Rin. We are not always good, and we are not always just, we may think ill of our children but they are ours, we must remember that. If not, we may live to regret it.”

All at once despite the youthfulness of her features, Inukimi seemed to age before her eyes. She held out an arm and Rin settled against her. Nimble fingers stroked her hair, a strange yet comforting sensation reminding her of a woman long dead and buried but still fond in her memories. Her own mother had been rather stern and if she had lived to see this day, she might have grown to like Inukimi and perhaps Sesshomaru. Tears welled in her eyes and she pressed her face to Inukimi’s fur, hoping to lose the overwhelming sadness. Never would her parents lay eyes on their grandchildren or her brother become a man full grown and spoil them as he did her with songs, games, stories, and sweets.

“Does he know… how you felt about him…?”

“When he was of age,” Inukimi said resignedly. “His heart had grown colder and his eyes blind to that which was around him. To watch him walk this Earth was a corpse masquerading as my child.”

Rin considered it to be her love for Sesshomaru that incited embers of discontent at those words but they were doused in a frigid realization as she leant back, finding Inukimi’s eyes. “… Was this after his father…”

She nodded.

“Why?” Rin hissed in abject horror, leaning further out of the demoness’ grip.

Inukimi released her with little fight. “I wanted to remind him that we choose who we are — what we wish to do — who we wish to love,” she said crisply. “Sesshomaru had grown into what some would call a monster. To me, he was my beloved son. No matter the atrocities he committed.”

Cracks showed in her impassive visage. A slight furrow in her brow bespoke of contempt while the barest downward flick of her eyes was shame. Rin’s anger slipped aside. She’d seen those very same emotions on another face, one that she’d held cupped in her hands often to bid him to look at her. She was no stranger to Sesshomaru’s nature. It would’ve done not only him but her a disservice if she brushed it aside. And yet, she loved him fiercely. Aware, and accepting.

Inukimi had been known to be an observer. Watching over not only him but Inuyasha, or so she said.

“I saw his rouse using the Mu-on’na, and when Inuyasha cut him down, I wept for him.”

There was a harshness to her words and a cold look in her eyes. Rin suppressed a shiver, her stomach knotting as she recalled the story Kagome told her.

“You didn’t save him…” Rin whispered, disbelieving and sick with understanding.

“I can’t deny I felt some satisfaction. His behavior was unruly... though I know where it was born from — to see her memory tarnished in such a way was nothing short of repulsive.”

Inukimi stared at her longingly, and Rin knew she wasn’t asking for forgiveness or understanding. As a mother, she couldn’t fathom the choice. As a lover, she could. If someone were to come to her in Sesshomaru’s form while her heart yearned for him, she would have struck them down. Without hesitation. Rin closed her eyes for a moment, and they sat in a respectful silence.

“I watched him fall, and in that moment, I saw you.”

Rin slowly opened her eyes, lifting her gaze to Inukimi’s face. Lost was the frigid chill and its accompanying expressionless mask. Her stiffened frown bending into a sweet smile, appreciative and kind.

“A foolish and stubborn little girl… brave enough to pour water over the head of one of the most dangerous daiyōkai of this age.” Inukimi laughed, and Rin’s cheeks burned at the memory. She couldn’t help but laugh as well remembering the drowned almost stricken look on Sesshomaru’s face then.

As they sobered from laughter, Inukimi sighed longingly. “You returned life to my son’s eyes, and coaxed his heart to thaw.” She patted Rin’s hand gently, curving her fingers in the crook of her thumb, holding it tenderly. “Just as he sought to return you to life, and now, you both have created life.”

Rin swallowed thickly, laying her hand over her stomach.

“That is no small feat, Rin…” Inukimi squeezed her hand then glanced aside, quick and intent, her gaze lingering on the door for a split second. Rin looked back, her eyes softened, lidded as she looked down at her lap. “A mother’s love is not a fragile thing when it’s true.”

Rin was quiet for a moment, allowing seconds to pass before she asked in a quiet voice. “How long was he outside the door?”

“You’ve spent much of the night here,” Inukimi pointed out, and Rin wilted, lowering her head. “Did you not think he would come looking for you?”

A part of her had hoped. Though she knew if she saw him, she would have put this off for another day, assured herself she needed a bit more time. That she had more time. But the time had come and she would need to rise to meet it. With a squeeze to Inukimi’s hand, Rin slowly stood, and let her fingers slip from the demoness’ grasp.

She was shooed away from trying to gather the bowls and plates, nodding graciously as she walked to the door. Her hands curled close to her stomach as she stood before it, thinking to herself.

“Thank you.”

Inukimi looked up from one of the scrolls she’d begun to undo, then rolled her gaze down to its tie. “You seemed to need the reassurance,” she said loftily. “And I don’t mind. It’s rare when you show hesitance.”

Rin smiled to herself at the backhanded compliment. “Not that…” She lifted her head, looking over her shoulder. “Thank you for bringing him into the world.”

It was Inukimi’s turn to be silent but unlike her, Rin didn’t want or wait for an answer. Sliding open the door and shutting it softly behind her before following the trail of her restless husband.

[askthecustodes]

A Little Eagle

A short drabble for @40kartweek‘s 40k Home Week. Set in @templarhalo and I’s AU where after ten thousand years, Constantin Valdor has returned to the Legio. The current Captain General, Trajann Valoris, receives some good news from the Custodian who had raised and trained him.

---

The Imperial Palace was a continent city that never slept. Brazier fires burned endlessly over the toils of hundreds of thousands of mortal adepts, menials and serfs. So too the Ten Thousand were tireless. The Captain General stood in the center of a data stream- screens hung suspended around him in a bubble, hundreds of points of data tumbling down. His transhuman eye drank it all in. Occasionally he would gesture, changing the flow as he needed. 

A gentle knock came at the door. He raised his eyes from the data in front of him to the heavy timber; the tumble paused without his attention. The knob turned and in entered a custodian wearing sunset colored robes.

“Mother...” The tension in his features melted into surprise as his eyes moved from her belly to her face. His voice was soft, almost an oath to himself than to the ancient Custodian before him. It was rare that she made an unbidden appearance these days- work kept both of them after endless duties. Rarer still that she came unarmored and without the pretense of secrecy. The sound of her- the movement of air in her lungs, the pulse of her twin hearts- was familiar to him since his youth. But something was amiss- there was a third pulsing, independent of her hearts, low in her belly. He approached her, towering over her in his resplendent auramite armor, and accepted her open arms in a tight embrace. Arturia laughed as he lifted her from her feet.

“Congratulations. Who is the sire?” He asked as he set her down.

“Constantin.”

He grinned, reminded suddenly of the look on her face as she had told him stories of the first Captain General as a little boy. Her love for him had not faded in the thousands of years he had been gone. While Constantin Valdor’s return had been met with surprise and some suspicion, Arturia had welcomed him back without qualms. “Will you raise a clutch with him?”

Her smile spread. “We have not decided- I’ve only just told him. But I expect so.” She set a hand on his cheek, her thumb rubbing small circles over his weathered skin. Trajann leaned into her gentle touch. “I will need to transition from some of my more physically demanding duties.”

“Of course.” He nodded, his expression turning serious again. “You will finish your tour in the Apothecarion. Prepare for the next generation. Nathaniel will rotate out and take over your wall duties.”

“Thank you, Trajann.”

He set a kiss on her forehead. “For you, anything.”

“As He wills it.”

“Of course.” 

Arturia relaxed her grip on him. “The whole Legio will know soon I expect.”

“It is a rare thing; there will be insistence on some celebration.” His eyes wandered over her braids and beads. “I have already heard mutterings of a desire to meet the mythic Lord Valdor.”

“He doesn’t mean to be reclusive, only to respect your authority while his efforts with Isha progress. It would be good to have something to celebrate these days.” Arturia nodded. “That is, if you will approve it.”

A smile bloomed on his craggy features. “Of course.”

[animation-recaps-by-sean]

Gravity Falls Beyond the Woods Chapter Two

Here it is, chapter two! 

Wendy and Dipper are excited for summer, while things start happening at Gravity Falls again. 

Warning this chapter is rated T for mild sexual content/ Blood and Violence 

<-prev next-> 

The fire roared around her as Wendy looked for the family. Her fellow firefighters where outside, hosing down the fire. With a swing of her ax, she broke down a burning door. There she saw the trapped family, a father and three children, helpless in the corner. He was unconscious and the kids were scared. Lifting the unconscious man on her shoulders and leading the rest out of the inferno, Wendy saved the family.

As the paramedics checked on the shaken family, Wendy removed her mask. Her long hair fell down her back. After making sure the fire was contained, Wendy returned to the firehouse. She sripped off the uniform and into the shower. Her physical career had given her a muscular physique. Her arms had some nice definition. Not to mention her abs. Her wedding ring, a simple gold band, was next to her engagement ring, silver with emerald to match her eyes, Dipper gave her on her ring finger. She could feel the grim and soot on her. Wendy turned the knob. The hot water ran down her body, washing the ash away. God, it felt amazing. The redhead made sure to scrub the soap into her skin. She shut off the shower and grabbed a towel.

As she was drying her hair, she got an idea. Grinning, she grabbed her phone and took a quick pic of herself in the buff; sending it out to her husband.

The camera steaded on Dipper as he spoke to the family. “Okay, the first step in investigating the cause of a haunting is figuring out what isn’t.” He pulled out a small white device. “This is a carbon monoxide detector. You’ll be surprised how similar the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning is to poltergeist activity. Just in case, we’re gonna hook you guys up with a hotel while we wait for the tests. I’m also check commercial flight patterns and see if any fly over your house. While there is no concrete proof that that airplanes vibrations, I want to see if it as any connection too...”

“Oooo. Oooo.” The lights flickered on and off. A cross look appeared on Dipper’s face.

“Guys, we talked about this. You can do whatever you want in post, but when we’re on the ground, I can do my research.”

One of the producers answered, “We’re not doing this.”

“I can see Steve flipping the switch.” The camera turned to the left, following Dipper’s finger point. A man with quickly flipping a switch. Dipper looked at the ceiling. “That’s just a recording. These people came to us for help! And I do not appreciate you making a mockery of this investigation!” Dipper climbed up the bed post to better reach the ceiling fan. “This is a serious investigation! A serious investigation!” As Dipper reached over to the fan, to get the phone the “ooos” were emitting from, he fell down onto the bed, breaking the frame. Sending the mattress crashing to the floor.

The video paused among the students’ laughter.  An older Dipper stood in front of the class.

“And that was the end of my reality television career. Yes it’s okay, you can laugh.” The male Pines twin, in addition to marrying his favorite redhead and fathering two wonderful children, had grown up to become a professor of paranormal studies and history at Backupsmore University; his great uncle’s old stomping ground. “In out profession, they’ll always be people who don’t take us seriously. And some of that is on us. Flat earthers, anti-vaxxers and worse makes us all look like idiots. The thing is, is to keep your head up, question everyone, especially yourself. We are still discovering new species every year. There is so much more is discov…” His phone went off. He looked at the photo his wife texted him. “Yes!” Dipper did that little arm pump thing. “Sorry, something personal. Where was I?” The bell rang. The student rose to leave. “Alright, enjoy your summer. Apologizes to those who thought this was a blow off class and thanks for sticking with it.”

Once the last students left, so did Dipper. Walking into the staff room, he was greeted by several other professors. “Mason.” Most people he met as an adult called him Mason, but to his family, he’ll always be Dipper. “So, any plans with Bigfoot this summer? How close are you guys?”

“I’ve never met Bigfoot. Mothman owes me 250 dollars though.” This elicited a laugh from everyone. “But seriously, never lend money to Mothman.”

The forest was quiet. God, Rich was so frustrated. A top of the line government agent, stuck hunting freaking bigfoot and ufos in the middle of nowhere Oregon.

“This is a waste of my talents.” Sweat was running down his brow. Pale blonde hair a mess. He was dressed in the traditional black suit and tie, complete with sunglasses.

“You have talents?” Agent Mitch was spot on for Agent Rich, expect he was a brunette and was a bit more put together.

“Yes. And they don’t involve finding Bigfoot.”

“We’re not looking for Bigfoot, we’re looking for…”

“Yeah, yeah yeah. A statue of a Dorito with a Mr. Peanut hat. Real important.” Rich kicked over some mushrooms that had grown in a circle.

Mitch went to the ground and grabbed a handful of dirt as it held the answers. He spoke as he let the dirt fall through his fingers. “The statue of ‘The Cipher’. The thing that gets me is that no one is saying anything about it. Normally, you find numerous eye witness reports from the locals. But here, we got nothing.”

“Probably because there’s nothing to-” A series of giggles cut him off. “What was that?”

Mitch sprang to his feet. The area was suddenly filled with fireflies. No, they were people. Little people. Some were the size of flies, while others were the size of barbie dolls. The creatures came in a variety of colors, green, orange, blue, and others. Some wore clothes that looked like they were made of plants, such as leaves or flower petals. Others wore silk wrapped around their bodies, sparkling and completely see through. Most hadn’t bothered with clothes at all. Their laughter was childlike but unsettling. Both agents had pulled their guns out. Rich was swearing under his breath.  

“Greetings humans.” The speaker was six inches tall, lavender skin with deep plum hair; which was worn short. Standing on a mushroom, wiggling their toes. Slender fingers They were dressed lightly. The shortest of shorts and tube top, a slightly darker shade of their skin, was all the creature wore. Both were incredibly tight, hiding very little. Their face was pointed, chin, nose, and teeth. Eyes were purple with no pupils.Wings of a dragonfly sat on their back, sparkling. The body was slim, with the barest of hints that there was a bust. To further confuse the agents, there was a slight bulge in their shorts. Voice was raspy, making it hard to deterement gender.  “I am Puck, the most humble servant of Titania, Heiress of the Tuatha De Danann, Keeper of Tir na nOg, and Queen of the Fair Folk. You have disrespected our land.” The fairy Puck gestured over to the mushrooms.

Mitch was the one to speak first. “Please, we meant no disrespect. We are looking for a statue. It’s like a rock that’s shaped-”

“I know what a statue is. And I know what you seek is no statue, but the remains of Bill.”

“You mean The Cipher?”

“His name is Bill, but okay.” Puck touched their fingertips together before spreading their arms way. “But enough about Billy. Let’s talk about the desecration of our sacred ring.”

“The mushrooms?” Rich sneered when he regained his composure.

“Yes, the mushrooms. And punishment for such disrespect is death.” Puck dramatically pointed at the two men.  

The fairies had started flying around them, keeping themselves low, around Rich and Mitch’s ankles.

Rich laughed and simply stepped over them.

“Ah, Rich?”

“Am I supposed to be afraid of a bunch of little men?”

He stomped down on the fairy hard. Puck raised their hand, nails extending, piercing the soles of the shoe, emerging out the other side. Rich fell over screaming.

At this Puck laughed. Their laugh was as light as the chirp of the grasshopper and as cold as arctic wind. “Little men? LITTLE MEN!” And Puck began to recite.

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl’s feather!

The others joined them. The fairies landed on the ground, and began matching toward the men. Meanwhile, Puck grew in size, muscle bulging out, wings receding. Hands turning into claws, teeth grew not only in length, but in number. By the end of the poem, Puck was eight feet tall.

Down along the rocky shore Some make their home, They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow tide-foam; Some in the reeds Of the black mountain-lake, With frogs for their watchdogs, All night awake.

High on the hill-top The old King sits; He is now so old and grey He’s nigh lost his wits. With a bridge of white mist Columbkill he crosses, On his stately journeys From Slieveleague to Rosses; Or going up with the music On cold starry nights, To sup with the Queen Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget For seven years long; When she came down again Her friends were all gone. They took her lightly back, Between the night and morrow, They thought that she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow. They have kept her ever since Deep within the lake, On a bed of fig-leaves, Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hillside, Through the mosses bare, They have planted thorn trees For my pleasure, here and there. Is any man so daring As dig them up in spite, He shall find their sharpest thorns In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men!

And with that last line, Puck picked up Mitch. The man started screaming and did so as Puck put half of him into their mouth and took a bite. Blood sprayed all over Rich’s face, getting in his eyes, as he screamed too. As Puck continued eating his partner, Rich got up, stumbling, and ran off; the other fairies swarming and cutting him. He ran, will tried too as he was limping, to a hill and fell down rolling.

When he hit the bottom, he felt around the ground. “Help! HELP!”

He felt a hand grasp his. It was metal.

[mellicose]

Anon request: tenth doctor, hands, fluff ❤😍

This is something that’s been brewing in my head for a while - a tender moment between Ten and Wilf before the fall.

The TARDIS hummed melodically in the background. She was showing off for Donna’s grandpa, and the Doctor was a bit irritated at her.

He had told her so many times the reasons why he did what he did, but she gave him her usual green-hued disapproval. Still, what’s done is done, and there was nothing else to be done about it-

“Ey, boy,” Wilf said quietly. 

The Doctor was lost in thought. Dread pressed into his skull like a vise, and no amount of Time Lord logic seemed to diffuse it. Something was coming. Something big. Huge. His hearts fluttered in his chest. He resented the battery acid tang of fear in his mouth. Lately, it’s all he tasted. He hadn’t eaten in days.

“Boy,” he said, patting his shoulder. The Doctor jumped, and gave the old man a fierce look that made him stumble back.

“Doctor,” he said tersely, and kept fiddling with his hyperdimensional defibrillator – it was acting tetchy at the moment. There was something jamming it, but he couldn’t imagine anything so huge as to jam it. At least, not in Earth space.

“Alright. Doctor,” he said, nodding. The Doctor instantly felt guilty for being so harsh. And immediately after, irritated for being guilty. The old man was basically an interloper in a tense battle between him and the Master, and…

...he didn’t know whether he could protect him, properly. It made him vibrate with despair to think that something might happen to Donna’s grandfather. He had already caused enough havoc in her family.

The man pulled off his red cap to expose a shock of white hair. He cleared his throat. The Doctor saw the echo of Donna’s eyes in his, and it made his throat tight.

“So … the TARDIS. The time and relative-

“-Dimension in space, yeah, mate. You got it,” he said impatiently. He was on the metal grating floor near the center column. His coat spread around him on the floor like a sheet. A sheet that Wilf stood on with his dusty oxfords.

“Ye said before this thing has many dimensions folded into it-”

“Infinite dimensions,” the Doctor corrected, and hit a metal pipe with a wrench. The TARDIS hiccuped with disapproval. Wilf’s eyes widened.

“She really is alive, ain’t she?” he said excitedly, looking around. He didn’t dare leave the Doctor’s side for fear he might get lost, and he didn’t want to bother the tall, mysterious alien, but biology forced his hand. “Ahem, er, d’you reckon there’s a toilet for ... em ...?”

The Doctor froze and looked up at him, his face serious. Again, Wilf took a step back, but the Doctor’s intensity came from guilt, not anger. Of course he needed a bathroom. And how long has it been since they’ve been together? At least two days, and he also hadn’t taken a bite.

“The bathroom is over there,” he said, pointing to a dark portico just beyond the heart of the TARDIS. And I’ll take to the kitchen when you get back.”

His eyes followed as the old man nearly ran to the facilities. He felt so … thoughtless. It was Donna who insisted the TARDIS have a toilet available nearby, and not 5 right turns, 2 left turns, and a stairwell away. The edges of his mouth twitched.

“You say you’ve been around humans for ages, but you act like you have no idea about their little foibles, do you?” she said, hands on her hips. “The kitchen’s a hour’s walk away! I hardly want to go on a bloody hike to get my morning cuppa.”

He smiled. Her voice echoed in his brain, brassy and beautiful.

“It’s an adventure. You can discover all the hidden rooms along the way,” the Doctor whispered, and remembered Donna’s rolling eyes.

“A hike. An adventure. Imagine all that nonsense just to get some beans on toast,” she said, and stomped off, to his delight.

He missed her. And having Wilf around was only pricking the old wound.

Wilf came out, his face relaxed. “Thanks, Doctor. I thought I’d have to ask whether there was a rest stop in the Milky Way,” he said, smiling.

“Are you hungry?” the Doctor said, wiping his hands on the end of his coat and standing up.

“I could do with a proper tea,” he said, nodding. “A bit of beans on toast.”

His hearts hurt.

“Follow me,” the Doctor said, and went down the stairs and into a wide hallway.

“I swear I’ve been poking around the control room for hours, and I didn’t see,” Wilf said, looking around in wonder.

“She knows where I want to go, so she makes the crooked ways straight,” the Doctor said, walking fast in front of him. He took a sudden left turn, and his coat snapped smartly behind him. Wilf had to jog to keep up, but he didn’t mind. He was in an alien spaceship, about to eat in an alien kitchen. He wondered whether they called it something else. Did they have those crazy machines that made food out of thin air, like in the sci-fi shows on telly? Was it gonna be exotic, or weird and wonderful-

They turned again, and the Doctor stopped.

“Blimey,” Wilf said, scratching his head. The Doctor smiled. It wasn’t a weird and exotic room. In fact, it looked exactly like their kitchen back home.

“Donna set it up like she wanted,” the Doctor said, and plopped down in an overstuffed chair with green polka dots.

“Did she just?” Wilf said. “I wonder-” he walked to the cabinet by the refrigerator and opened it. He laughed. “Ha! Baked beans!” It was exactly where they kept their canned goods at home. He looked around at the spacious counters, and spied the bread box. There was a bag of bread in, and not the horrible whole wheat dross his daughter usually bought. It was the plain ol’ white pan bread that he and Donna preferred.

The Doctor watched him navigate the kitchen familiarly, getting a pot to warm the beans, and fetching the cheese from the icebox. He stared in it, and grabbed a packet of raspberries, Donna’s favorite.

“When’s the last time you stocked the icebox?” Wilf said. The raspberries were in perfect condition, although Donna had been back for ages.

“I assure you, they’re perfectly good, as is everything else in there,” the Doctor said, standing and popping one in his mouth. He loved them too. What a funky little fruit – both tender and crunchy with seeds.

“But, how?” Wilf said, closing the icebox and turning on the stove.

“Time stops in the icebox,” the Doctor said simply, as if it wasn’t the strangest concept Wilf had ever heard until that moment.

“What did you say?”

“When you put something in the icebox, it’s as if you’re suspending it in time. It’s a great way to preserve leftovers, I’ll tell you that,” he said, eating another raspberry.

“So … those berries could’ve been in there since...”

“I think they were here since before my regeneration,” the Doctor said, grabbing the whole packet and sitting back down. “They taste like the 80’s.”

Wilf looked at the bag of bread. “And this?”

The Doctor furrowed his brow. “No, that’s all Donna. She loved her buttered toast.”

The beans bubbled on the fob as he popped two slices of bread in the toaster.

“And what do you eat?” Wilf said.

“My metabolism’s different, so I don’t need to eat like you,” he said, his mouth still pink with raspberry juice. “But I could eat like you. I love a good English breakfast. Eggs and bacon and a cheeky sausage? It’s the best,” he said, patting his flat belly. “Especially after a good sleep.”

“But I suppose you don’t do much of that either,” Wilf said, looking at him curiously. It had been two days, and the alien had not stopped.

“Nah,” the Doctor said, tipping his head to the side. “But it’s lovely sometimes. Helps pass the time,” he said, and polished off the last raspberry. He bounded up and stared into the pot. “Tea up soon?”

“You’d like some? I’ll toast more bread,” Wilf said, smiling.

“Might as well,” the Doctor said, giving him his first smile. “It’s dreadful eating alone.”

Wilf burst into laughter. “You know it! So does my Donna!”

The Doctor took off his coat and hung it up in the hook by the door. He wore his usual dusty brown suit. He sat at the table as Wilf buttered toast at the counter. He loved the sound of buttering toast – that  delicious bready grindgrindgrind as you work the butter deep into the bread, and way it melts and gleams temptingly on the uneven brown surface, softening it just slightly. He especially loved dipping it in a milky tea, and seeing the butter form glass bubbles on the surface…

Tea!

“I’m make us a cuppa,” the Doctor said, jogging to the cupboard where Donna kept the teabags. “It’s a miraculous thing, tea. Real brain food.”

“I agree. Morning’s not the same without one – or a couple,” Wilf said, spooning the steaming beans on a piece of toast with a couple thick slices of cheddar on them. “D’you take cheese?”

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “Just butter. Loads of butter,” he said, looking over the old man’s shoulder as the kettle started to boil on the fob. Wilf spread a generous knob on a piece of toast, and the Doctor’s left eyebrow rose as he was about to put down the knife.

“You want more?” Wilf said, refraining from a chuckle.

“Yes! It should be butter on toast, not toast with butter,” the Doctor said, rolling back on his heels. “Don’t be shy, man. I’ll work it off.”

“That you will, boy,” Wilf said, and buttered until creamy pools of the stuff formed on the craggy surface of the bread. The kettle screamed, and the Doctor jumped into action, grabbing cups and teabags and milk and sugar and cream and lemon-

Did he take lemon in his tea? He couldn’t remember. It was nice to have, just in case.

He put it all at the table and waited for Wilf to bring them their banquet. Wilf placed a steaming plate in front of him.

“There ye go, boy-er, Doctor. Tuck in,” he said, and sat opposite him.

“I’ll do the tea,” the Doctor said, pouring the steaming water into the large, apple-red cups. They waited a few beats as the water swirled amber around the teabags, then began to prepare it how they like. The Doctor added everything at the table. He hadn’t eaten in ages, and he was suddenly ravenous. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a cuppa. Perhaps a few days. Maybe 3000 years. Who knew.

Wilf watched him manically pour and squeeze and stir in silence as he ate. He was so young. A looker, to be honest. He wondered whether Donna ever thought so too. There was no way to ask now, anyway. The Doctor slurped loudly at his ridiculous cuppa, then started in on the toast. He ate like a teenager, barely chewing. He inhaled the plate, and looked hopefully at Wilf’s.

Wilf pushed the half eaten plate across the table.

“Ta,” the Doctor said, and ate. Wilf waited patiently, and kept his face neutral as the Doctor finished every bit, then licked both plates.

“Hit the spot, did it?” the old man said.

“Didn’t think I liked cheese,” the Doctor said frowning pensively. “But I think I do. Good stuff.”

Wilf sipped the warm tea. “Now that me belly’s not rumbling, it got me to thinking,” Wilf said.

“What about?” the Doctor said, slinging his long legs over the arm of his chair.

“This place – all the stories – you are extraordinary. It’s like a dream, but it’s real. A ship with endless dimensions, and fully fitted kitchen-”

“You should see the bathing pools,” the Doctor interrupted. “One of them has tiny, carnivorous fennic fish – they eat dead skin, so when you get in they tickle you, and you come out gleaming,” he said with a grin. Martha thought it was a laugh-” the light suddenly went out from his eyes, and he seemed to deflate into the chair.

“Doctor,” Wilf said. He waited for him to come back into himself.

“Yes?” the alien said.

“How could Donna forget the unforgettable? I could live a thousand years and not forget even this. Sitting with you here, in this magic box, eating beans on toast. Not in a million years.”

The Doctor’s jaw muscles tightened, and his brown eyes twitched with emotion. He leaned forward and fiddled with the teacup. Then, surprisingly, he reached over and pressed his fingertips into Wilf’s temples. His touch was gentle, and his fingertips were still hot from holding the cup.

Wilf remained still. His long, pale fingers looked so human. Masculine. He wondered whether it was just a façade, like some of the sci-fi shows. Maybe he looked strange and wonderful, and his spiky hair and long, lean form was just an image he projected into his brain-

“It’s not a projected image,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. He withdrew, and stared at his hands. “I really look this way. Now. It might be a thousand years or a day, and I will look different.”

Wilf’s heart was going triple time. “You can read minds?” he said, stuffing his knit cap onto his head, seemingly for protection. The Doctor chuckled.

“A little. Well, yes. But I haven’t been able to read psyonic waves through thin air for a number of regenerations, so you don’t won’t be needing the hat,” he said, pulling it off and handing it to him.

“Oh. Right then,” he said, flushing.

“Psyonic waves?” Wilf said.

“For human beings and many, many other species, consciousness isn’t quite what it feels like. In its essence, your thoughts are electrical impulses shooting off in your brain. And not only that. Emotions. Memories. It’s all stored in your biological computer, and sadly, can be manipulated.”

Wilf nodded slowly. “Biological computer. It makes sense,” he said.

“I don’t mean to diminish the vast and wonderful twists and turns of human consciousness and their capacity for being absolutely brilliant, but … it is what it is.”

“Yeh,” the old man said.

“When I realized Donna was in danger, I simply … deleted certain things from her biological computer. For her safety ... as well as her sanity,” he said haltingly. He felt like he was confessing a crime. He didn’t mention certain protection protocols he might’ve added to her DNA, but the old man didn’t need to know everything.

“Deleted?” he repeated, nodding. “Did it hurt?”

“Only for a nanosecond. A bright burst, and she was safe,” he said, swallowing hard. He missed her sarcastic mouth and her endlessly kind heart. He was so dreadfully, tragically lonely. He had nothing but the beans and toast in his belly and a grim outlook of his immediate future. She would make him feel better by teasing him about his moping. She would poke at him and laugh her laugh and convince him to go on a visit to M’adelixis 7, where they had the best cream floats in the galaxy, and all would be well for a while.

But he didn’t have it. He didn’t have her. And he was tired, no, absolutely exhausted of losing.

“You’re shaking, Doctor,” Wilf said, putting his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” the Doctor said abruptly, and shook his hand off. He wouldn’t be able to hold it together if this man, with the echo of Donna’s cornflower blue eyes, kept giving him a sympathetic look.

“So, just a quick touch and everything’s gone,” Wilf said as he tidied up. He gave the Doctor a sidelong glance. “You didn’t mess about with anything earlier?” He nearly dropped a teacup. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but-

“No,” the Doctor said. “And I didn’t see much. Just that thought about the aliens on television,” he said, giving him a crooked grin. Wilf walked up to him and took his hand in his.

“Lookit that,” he said, studying the Doctor’s large hands. “Just a touch is all it took.”

The Doctor gently stepped back and put his hands in his pocket. Wilf went back to washing up.

“Doctor?” he said softly.

“Yes?” he replied.

“Donna trusted you, so I trust you. But I don’t need to forget any more than I already have,” he said. “I’m old, and and I live on memories.” He wiped his hands with a tea towel and slung it over his shoulder. “You felt Donna needed to forget, and she has. She’s happy now, and I’m grateful to you. But I don’t wanna forget. Don’t make me forget,” Wilf said, and his eyes gleamed with tears.

“Don’t you worry, old man,” he said, patting his shoulder. “If Donna trusted you, I do too. You won’t say a word about all you’ve seen, will you?”

“Now’t,” Wilf said, shaking his head vigorously. “But what a story I won’t tell. An alien in a box that travels through time! What a yarn.”

“Good,” the Doctor said, kicking the floor with his scuffed sneakers and smiling wistfully. “Good man.”