#Dad unfortunately used things like steel wool on his more than once

[msbarrows]

Oct 14 - Busy, busy day. It was Thanksgiving today, so I spent the day rotating between various turkey-dinner related tasks, doing three rounds of dishes (pre-prep, after-prep, and then after dinner), playing some more Planet Crafter, doing laundry since said game meant I didn't get it done earlier this weekend, and crocheting whenever I was giving my feet a rest.

I go into way too much detail about the meal under the cut.

The turkey wasn't too much of a problem since I was roasting it unstuffed, but it proved to be too big for our regular roasting pan so I had to dig around and find the giant aluminum roasting pan (complete with lifting rack) that my brother and I have inherited from our dad, and give it a wash before using, which delayed getting the turkey in the oven.

When our cousin was here last weekend he brought over a ziplock of wild cranberries he'd picked at his camp, so I turned those into orange spice cranberry sauce (1 lb of fresh cranberries, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon each of ground cloves and ginger, 1/2 teaspoon each of allspice and cinnamon, about 1 teaspoon or so of orange zest, bring to a boil, turn down and simmer 10-15 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool, it should form into a stiff jelly). It made enough for today plus some to have with the leftovers plus enough to throw a small jar of it into the freezer for future use.

Also cubed the slightly-less-then-a-half-loaf of cornbread I had left (good job past me on randomly deciding to bake a loaf of that last week, that was a particularly good choice for making dressing out of) spread them out on a cookie sheet and let them dry for most of the day. Then I combined it with minced onion, dried chives, coarsely chopped walnuts, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper, then stirred it while gradually adding chicken broth and some melted butter to moisten it. Lightly pressed it down in a Corningware casserole, and when it was getting close to time for the turkey to come out of the oven I microwaved it to heat it through, then after the turkey came out it went in under the broiler to crisp up and brown the top. I was VERY pleased with the end result.

Other than that the only mildly complicated thing was making gravy; the drippings from the turkey were a little salty so I grabbed some homemade chicken stock out of the freezer to dilute that with. Was tight on time (especially since I was having to thaw chicken stock at the last minute) so rather than cooking a roux first I cheated and brought the drippings & stock to a boil then whisked hard while gradually pouring in some thin flour paste, then turned it down to medium and continued whisking until it thickened.

And of course there was mashed potatoes to go with the gravy, plus some green beans and peas for the veg.

Much to my surprise there was very little actual dishes to do after the meal; the turkey is in its lidded roasting pan in the (uninsulated, unheated, and it's currently 0C/32F outside) front porch overnight for me to do something with tomorrow. The leftover dressing and veggies and gravy are in the fridge in the Corningwaer pieces they were cooked in (we have the 4 cup saucemaker piece, including the twist-on handle; it is excellent for making gravy with and I'm glad it's one of the five surviving pieces from my parents' set). Which left just the pans the potatoes and cranberry sauce were cooked in and the chicken stock was melted in, a few utensils, plus the couple of dishes and cutlery the two of us used.

I am feeling pleasantly accomplished for getting all of that done and actually getting the timing of everything more-or-less right

[volkswagonblues]

prologue to my zukka biopunk role-reversal AU

note: It’s technically a sequel to Through the Ice Darkly, but you don’t need to read it for this snippet. All that’s required to know is that it’s set in a world where the Northern Water Tribe attacked instead of the Fire Nation. Instead of ATLA’s steampunk world, the NWT and SWT developed biopunk technologies instead. Zuko, growing up in a conquered nation, is still obsessed with the Avatar. Sokka is still the son of Hakoda, chief of the SWT, though because his society isn’t ravaged by war, he has more time for his scientific interests. 

Though of course, in ATLA-verse, science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin...

They were great adapters, Sokka’s people. Clever and resourceful, they were hunters and dreamers and storytellers. Like ice, they knew how to move and reform with the seasons.

They called themselves the Southern Water Tribe, not because some among them had the power to bend water, but because they thought of themselves as water. They understood and respected the great flexibility of the world.

prologue - when Sokka meets Koh the Face Stealer - snippet under cut

The summer that Sokka was ten, Bato brought him to a hunting camp situated at the mouth of a wide bay, about two days’ journey away from Sokka’s normal home in the capital city. Sokka’s grandmother was there, along with a dozen or so families. They were there to hunt the enormous shoveller deer whose herds migrated to find food in the warmer months. Where the deer went, humans followed. And that summer, Sokka was one of them. 

The summer that Sokka was ten, Bato brought him to a hunting camp situated at the mouth of a wide bay, about two days’ journey away from Sokka’s normal home in the capital city. Sokka’s grandmother was there, along with a dozen or so families. They were there to hunt the enormous shoveller deer whose herds migrated to find food in the warmer months. Where the deer went, humans followed. And that summer, Sokka was one of them. 

He didn’t want to leave home, but that was what the adults had decided. It seemed a strange and mysterious decision to Sokka, but at ten, most things seemed strange and mysterious to him. Especially Sokka’s own dad. Sokka would have protested, but in the end he loved his dad too much to say anything that could make him sad. There was enough sadness going around already that summer.So when Bato came to take him away to join Gran-Gran and  the rest of the people in the Old Village, Sokka went quietly, like the good son he wanted to be.

They called it the Old Village, but in truth the Old Village wasn’t old or a village at all. The people of the Old Village didn’t stay in one place but moved around with the seasons. In winter they built houses out of snow and ice. In spring they traveled on long sleds made of wood boards that were lashed together, and when the temperature warmed they got off their sleds and moved into sod houses instead, or pitched skin-tents to follow animals for hunting. 

Once upon a time they would have built or sewed everything by hand or with waterbending. For instance, waterbenders would make the runners for their sleds out of ice, but if there were no waterbenders that generation, people put frozen moss or even frozen fish on the bottom instead, to make sure the sleds skimmed lightly over the terrain nonetheless. This was how it used to be done, but since then even people of the Old Village accepted a few modern conveniences, like sugar and steel Earth Kingdom knives and warm underclothes spun out of air bison wool, which kept out the cold antarctic air like nothing else.

They were great adapters, Sokka’s people. Clever and resourceful, they were hunters and dreamers and storytellers. Like ice, they knew how to move and reform with the seasons. 

They called themselves the Southern Water Tribe, not because some among them had the power to bend water, but because they thought of themselves as water. They understood and respected the great flexibility of the world.

Part of that flexibility meant that, a century or more ago, when some of them started building a great city out of snow and ice closer to the Pole, some of their friends and clansmen adapted. They moved within its great walls and started new lives there, trading and studying and putting their cleverness and resourcefulness to use inventing new contraptions and new ideas – new animals as well. Some of their friends and family did not do this, and they chose to live the way their people had always lived, adapting themselves to only the great machinery of nature. What was good for their ancestors was good enough for them. They shunned a city life for something bigger and wilder and free. 

Neither side lived a better life than the other. They were just different, that’s all. 

Sokka’s grandmother liked her life outside the cities; her son-in-law – Sokka’s dad – was content inside one. He was a very important man, and he was responsible for a lot of people, so he and his wife brought up their children inside the capital, where he was busy trying to carve out a future for all of his people. He was very concerned about their future, and because all things were connected that meant he was also concerned about his past. He often sent his children to visit his mother-in-law. He wanted them to sleep in sod houses and learn to cut deer hides and listen to old stories, so they wouldn’t forget the old ways. Where they came from. 

When Sokka becomes a young man, the past will become an interesting topic for him too.  But the summer that he was ten, he wasn’t thinking about any of this. He was too busy doing two things: the first was avoiding the other boys, and the second was watching the otter-penguins.

There was a colony of them a mile away from the hunting camp. They were all the company Sokka required that summer.

A mile’s walk there and a mile back wasn’t much distance for a ten-year-old boy with a lot of energy, and a few weeks after he and Bato arrived there, Sokka began sneaking away every morning to visit the rocky beach where the rookery gathered. No one accompanied him, and he found that he liked it that away. The otter-penguins were amazingly social creatures with one another, and they accepted their strange featherless visitor with a cool indifference. Sokka had arrived just before their eggs were ready to hatch, and the penguins were more concerned about diving for food than about him. 

So he spent those weeks observing them, sometimes mimicking their waddling walk for his own amusement, sometimes working on projects that he designed for himself. He built a little roofless house right by the rookery, and he built it by piling up driftwood and pebbles he found on the beach. Some days he sat there for hours, just watching the flock. He learned a lot about them very quickly. For instance, the male otter-penguins had excellent balance. Even an injured male could hold a round egg against his stomach, gracefully tumble over small precipices and trip across rocky slopes – and never drop it. And after the eggs hatched, the female otter-penguins took care of the pups in the water and held them close by wrapping them with strands of seaweed. And they each had their own names, just like humans did. The mothers and father made distinct noises to call their own pups back to them when it was time for feeding.

They did all of this, and Sokka watched. He listened. He observed.

At ten, Sokka should be doing chores around the camp: fetching and carrying, sharpening knives and harpoons, scraping the hair off hides, helping to repair and maintain the skin-canoes – that sort of thing. But he was no good at doing any of that. He was ten and going through that unfortunate phase where none of his limbs were the right length, and everything he did that summer he seemed to do wrong. He kept dropping knives and ripping up fishing nets by accident. The worse part was that the other boys didn’t even laugh at him; they gave him looks of pity instead.

Before long, he gave up on the chores and the camp altogether. He avoided the other boys, and after a while they avoided him right back, which suited Sokka fine. He’d found something more interesting to think about anyways. 

That summer he was ten was a time of sunlight, rocks, penguin calls, and the rushing tides. It was the first and last time he ever applied himself to anything with such purity of purpose. He was acquiring knowledge the same way that the otter-penguins dived for fish or hatched their eggs: instinctively, without questioning why.

The little otter-penguins were cute, with their soft fuzzy heads and their wobbling walk. Sokka liked them, and though he winced when some of them were eaten by the leopard seals who prowled the dark, frigid sea, he never interfered. The fish were food to the otter-penguins, just as they were food to the seals, just as the seals might one day be food for Sokka himself. His father called it the miraculous interchange that made the universe work, and Sokka believed him. But still, he felt sad. The poor parents that had worked so hard through the winter were left with nothing to show for it. It seemed unfair..

It was sad, but Sokka could bear it. He did bear it, until one day, when Sokka himself was busy repairing one wall of his driftwood house – the colony started yipping and fussing like nothing he’d ever heard before. 

Sokka ran to see what was the matter, expecting a seal or maybe even a particularly bold black whale. But when he got to the source of the commotion he nearly stumbled from the shock. 

One of the penguins was missing a face.

There were no smears of blood, no telltale signs of shredded feathers. This was no ordinary injury from a preying seal. Somehow, the dark eyes and the nubby beak was gone. There was nothing but a smooth patch of feather, like someone had wiped their sleeve across a patch of snow. It was a female penguin, and she was waddling sightlessly, trying to find its way back to its hungry pups.

Sokka looked around him wildly; the mother had left her two pups a bit farther up, on a great flat rock shelf. The pups whined, but the rest of the otter-penguins were calming down now,  returning to their placid business, diving and feeding and caring for their own young. He looked back at the faceless penguin, still waddling around in circles, unable to sense the hungry cries of her own children.  

What happened? Sokka had never seen anything like this before, but one thing was clear: the mother was ill, and she would not get better. He examined the pups: without a mother to teach them how to swim and feed, they would both die before the season was over. 

The world was very cruel to children without mothers.

“No!” Sokka screamed out loud. “No, no, no!”

All his grief and loneliness surged up at once from a small dark space inside his heart. All the sadness he’d been carrying exploded through him, and it was such an enormous feeling that, had Sokka been a waterbender, the tides next to him would have crested and crashed with powerful roars of foam.

But he wasn’t a bender, and something else that was stranger and wilder happened instead. The world shimmered; the air itself cracked down the middle, and everything that Sokka had been so calmly and so happily observing a moment ago became strange. 

Mist rolled by, even though it was a sunny day. Flying, glowing creatures zoomed around Sokka, and everything became brighter and richer in colour, even through the mist. Sokka stopped screaming, fascinated by the changes in the landscape. He wanted to chase one the flying creatures, but then something scuttled by him and left a chill running down his spine.

It was a massive being, many-legged like an insect, coal-black and plated with hard shells. It looked like a bug but it had the head of a human woman – a disconcertingly pretty one with sad grey eyes. 

“Hello there,” said the bug-thing in a rasp. Its face flickered, changed in rapid succession from the young woman to an old man to some sort of animal Sokka had never seen before.

Sokka stumbled backwards, fell, and cried out again when his palms scraped against the rocks. The thing changed its faces like a dancer putting on masks for a ceremony, except it when a dancer took off their mask at the end of the ceremony, the whale or seabird went away and the dancer became human again. 

Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t human.

It’s been a long time since I came this south, said the creature. But the Avatar has a powerful pull on all of us.

Sokka screamed. He tried to get up and he tried to run, but he couldn’t. One sharp pincer edged towards him. It came closer, closer–

And then a distant mountain peak, one that Sokka had seen a million times before, leaned down. It crossed the hundreds of miles between them like it was a single step, and the mountain bent its great heft over the creature, all its crag and weight bearing down with unbearable pressure, and then the mountain too spoke:

Not yet, Koh. We still need him. 

The creature hissed, about to object, but then the ocean, all salt and tumbling motion, also rose up and added its presence to the mountain’s. 

Leave him, said the ocean, and this command was echoed by the unseen moon and the distant aurora and the ancient rock under their feet.

“First it was the moon girl, now it’s this boy,” Koh said. “Mark my words: we’re intervening too much in human affairs, and you all know it.”

Koh gave one last look at Sokka, and then disappeared, scuttling back into the mists. Sokka was too terrified to speak, too terrified to move. All the spirits were focusing their attention on him now. He knew this instinctively,  the same way that he knew up from down, light from dark, the smell of burning deer fat from seal. 

The mountain shifted; the enormous and distant rock became a heavy weight hovering over Sokka's chest. It prodded him there, like a finger.

Hello, Sokka, said the mountain, and the greeting was echoed a hundred times. A million.

Hello Sokka. Hello. Hello. Hello.

Sokka didn’t remember running the distance back to the camp, but he must have, because the next lucid thing he remembered was throwing his arms around Bato, not caring that he was leaving blood and dirt over Bato’s clothes. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Bato, his brows creased with concern. “Sokka, what happened?”

Sokka shook his head. He was born and raised a city kid; he would always be one at heart. He could not describe how terrifying it was to discover that, the whole time he was looking at the world, the world was looking back. 

“Bato, please,” he sobbed. “Please. I want my mother. Where is she? Where’s Mom?” 

Bato patted his head and held him close. “Oh, Sokka,” he said – and nothing else.

Sokka’s grandmother was nearby too, running over from some task with her grisly knife still in hand. She clucked her tongue; wiped the blade off with a brisk motion. “Tell the boy to stop wailing and get him inside somewhere, I’ll bring him something to eat. Something warm will snap him out of it.”

Sokka raised his head from where it was buried in the material of Bato’s sealskin parka; he shook it. He wanted to stop too, but his body had other ideas. Water was running down his face: a mix of tears and snot, blood from where he had bitten his own tongue. The taste of it all was frightful, all coppery and salty, slick from the mucus building up in the back of his throat, which was too wet and too dry all at once. 

“Dad?” It was someone else who came to see what was going on: Ayaliq, Bato’s own daughter. She trotted over and cuddled Sokka from his side, wrapping her little arms around him and Bato at the same time. “Don’t be upset,” she said. “It’s okay, Sokka.”

One of Bato’s hands cupped the back of Sokka’s head, a warm protective weight. “Leave him be,” he said to Sokka’s grandmother. “This is the first time he’s cried since the day itself. It’s only been three months.”

“You think I don’t remember how long ago my only child died?” 

Sokka let out another howl. His vision was swimming; the force of his gasps made him light-headed. Gran-Gran gave him a sharp tap on the back of his head. The sudden jolt of pain stunned him, but it also grounded him back in reality. 

“You shouldn’t have brought him here alone,” Gran-Gran said in the silence. “He needs his sister and his father with him.”

“What could I do, Kanna? The Northern Water Tribe is here making threats again; Hakoda wouldn’t leave the capital. Katara wouldn’t leave her father, not even for her brother. And I had to take him here, Kanna – at least out here Sokka’s taking an interest in something. You didn’t see him in those first few days. We could barely get him to get out of bed. He grieves hard for someone so young.”

Gran-Gran sighed. “I grieve for my daughter too,” she said. “Every day. Every minute. But death is a part of life. My grandson will learn this in time.”

Sokka wanted to say that he had already learned plenty, but instead he spat weakly on the ground and watched the string of drool stretch, then snap in mid-air. It was disgusting. He felt disgusting. He had also wet his pants, he realized, and he was so embarrassed to be like a little kid again in front of Ayaliq, that he shoved his face back into Bato’s parka. Ayaliq was a year younger than him, but she had probably never wetted her pants.

“Be kind to your cousin, Ayaliq,” Bato was saying. “And give him some time, Kanna. Let him cry for now. Just let him cry. He needs it.”

--------

Later, as a young man, when Sokka’s sister would breathlessly tell him about meeting the Avatar, the bridge between their world and the Spirit World, Sokka would scowl. He would turn away with his heart pounding.

“I prefer things that exist in the real world,” he would say, and it would come out much harsher than he’d meant it to. Katara would take it as a sign that he was judging her somehow, that he thought she was a silly girl for believing in the extraordinary. She would react badly to Sokka’s disapproval of the Avatar.

And Sokka did disapprove, though not for those reasons. He disapproved because he was afraid.

He wasn’t good at explaining it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the world of spirits was not necessarily friendly towards the human one. That his brief glimpse – hallucination? – of the Spirit World told him that it was brisk and insensate, that it was filled with impossible angles and geometric paradoxes. That its inhabitants were ancient and careless beings whose intelligence was beyond human, and obeyed rules set not by morality but by order and chaos. Those beings were sometimes benign, sometimes malicious, always incomprehensible. Sokka wasn’t sure he wanted to meet a person who bridged that world to theirs. 

He wasn’t like Katara, always with her eye fixed on some higher purpose. The everyday world with its speechless mountains and rolling seas, its everyday interchange of energies and motion: this was enough for him. Sokka didn’t need to meet Tui and La to appreciate the wonder of the tides and the moon. What spirits that existed in this world already were vast and incomprehensible enough. 

Sokka would prefer to keep the two worlds un-bridged.

He couldn’t explain this to Katara, and they would grow even further apart because of this. Piercing through to the Spirit World would be easier than crossing the chasm between them. It was as if Kya’s death had split some fundamental building block of the world as Sokka had known it: On one side, Sokka went with Bato; on the other, Katara stayed with their father. 

On one side, the radiance of discovery. On the other, the terror of what he might find. And then, much later, the horror of what Sokka’s discoveries would be used for.

By the Avatar.

[jaa1682-27]

Violent Delights

Summary: Mando and Kia return the Asset, learn something new, and then well...

Chapter 7

“I'm hooked on a feeling, I'm high on believing, That you're in love with me…” I sang as I listened to the song through my music player, a smaller version of a datapad. Since it would be a while until we got to Navarro, I busied myself by taking a quick power nap, finishing up my scans, and then, listening to some music while I tinkered with a spare fuel cell. After a while, my mind drifted to the necklace that was still in my pocket. I pulled it out and began studying it intently.

Like the silent shadow he is, Mando quickly appeared behind me without me noticing, and I yelped, dropping the necklace on the table.

“Maker, Mando! Give a girl some warning next time!” I said annoyed.

Ignoring me, Mando said, “We’re approaching Navarro. Karga wants us to deliver the bounty to the client as soon as we land.”

He went to walk away, but then he paused. His helmet was looking down, and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew that they were looking at the necklace.

“Where…Where did you get that?” he asked.

I grasped it in my hand, shielding it from him. “I…found it, back on Arvala-7. One of the mercs had it, thought that maybe I could sell it, y’know, to help me get my ship,” I lied, trying not to let my face slip.

I realized that Mando’s stance was slightly…tense. Did he know I was lying or was it some other reason?

“You’re lying,” he said, and I slumped at the fact that he had already figured it out. He continued, “Look, it doesn’t matter how you got it, just make sure to get rid of it as quickly as possible.”

Mando went to the ladder to climb up to the cockpit and I added, “Just like you and the Child?”

Mando replied, “That’s different. He’s a bounty. That…” he pointed to the necklace in my hand, “is just gonna bring you bad luck.”

“Why? It’s just a necklace. No harm ever came from having a necklace. Let’s just focus on getting the child to the Client,” I said and Mando sighed. I put the necklace on, the pendant dangling right above my stomach.

He didn’t respond and just climbed the ladder without another word. I looked back down at the necklace. I thought about Mando’s words. I realized that he knew something about the necklace. The fact that he paused when he saw it and warned me about it was very telling.

I didn’t have time to ask him about it further since we arrived on Navarro quickly after. I felt my stomach twist in knots as the child’s pod followed us through the main throughway and the markets. Even though the child was our bounty, it just didn’t feel…right giving him up. But then, I thought, maybe he would be better off to whomever he was going to than where he was before.

I followed Mando and soon found myself down a grimy alleyway. The client’s hideout, I thought. It was a ways away from the main path. Mando banged on the door, and when a surveillance droid poked out of a hole, Mando showed him the chit. The child looked over at the two us, his tiny face scrunched into worry. He blinked up at me, but I turned my face away.

My throat dropped into my stomach as two stormtroopers walked out. Fire stirred in my chest and I clenched my fists.

We were working for IMPERIALS? The same people who killed my mother?

And why didn’t Mando tell me?

I gritted my teeth but kept my mouth shut. The child’s ears drooped and Mando’s head quickly glanced in his direction. I followed him, the fire simmering in my chest. I was angry, very angry.

One of the Stormtroopers gripped the child’s pod and Mando warned, “Easy with that.”

“You take it easy,” the Stormtrooper shot back.

Imperial scum, I thought.

The door to the main room opened before us, revealing the Client, an elderly man dressed in Imperial robes. He walked before us, holding a tracking fob.

“Yes!” he chimed.

The child’s pod settled before him and the tracking fob beeped frantically, indicating his bounty. Another man walked up and scanned the child. The Child whimpered, clearly uncomfortable. I instantly stepped forward, but Mando’s hand shot out, grabbing my arm to stop me.

“Very healthy. Yes,” the man, who I presumed was a doctor of some sort, nodded at the Client.

The Client addressed Mando, “Your reputation was not unwarranted.”

“How many fobs did you give out?” Mando asked.

“This asset was of extreme importance to me. I had to ensure its delivery. But to the winners…”

The Client went back to his desk in the middle of the room and pulled out a large, white casing. “Go to the spoils,” the client added.

The Client opened the casing and Mando slowly walked forward. Oh, the Beskar, I remembered. There were more Beskar inside of the casing than I would probably come across in my lifetime; that’s how rare it was.

Mando picked up a piece and the Client mused, “Such a large bounty for such a small package.”

As the Child was dragged away, he let out a cry, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him before he slipped out of the room with the Doctor. I clenched my jaw in irritation. I also felt guilty at the fact that we had given the child over to Imperials, of all people. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mando’s helmet turned towards the doors where the Child had been taken.

“What are your plans for it?” Mando asked suddenly. I looked at him, confused.

“How uncharacteristic of one of your reputation,” the Client replied. “You have taken both commission and payment. Is it not the Code of the Guild that these events are now forgotten?”

A few more Stormtroopers came in from where the Child had been taken. My hand instinctively flinched towards my blaster. “That Beskar is enough to make a handsome replacement for your armor. Unfortunately, finding a Mandalorian in these trying times is more difficult than finding steel,” The Client added.

Mando shut the case closed, and we went to walk away, but then the Client motioned to my necklace.

“What an interesting necklace you have there.”

I turned back towards him and noticed that his eyes were staring right at the necklace. “Um, yes, it is,” I agreed.

“May I…have the pleasure of indulging for a bit?” he asked.

I stepped forward and the Client instantly reached for it. I gasped as I never expected such an old man to have fast reflexes. Tension quickly eased into the room as I saw Mando reach for his blaster and the Stormtroopers move into defensive stances. The client’s eyes roamed over the faded gold as his thumb rubbed the symbol eagerly.

“This quite a unique piece of jewelry that you have, and the emblem is quite rare. How fitting, a beautiful piece for a beautiful young woman,” The Client mused aloud, his eyes never looking up.

I gulped, and replied, “Ah, y-yes thank you, sir. However, I’m sure that my father is expecting me.”

The Client finally looked up at me and released the necklace. I straightened up and Mando relaxed, but kept his free hand on his blaster.

“Ah yes. You must be eager to rest after such a long journey. Enjoy your spoils, Mandalorian,” the Client told us, and Mando and I quickly left the hideout.

What was that about?, I wondered.

Once we were outside, Mando handed me a piece of Beskar. “It’s your cut. Take it, you’ve earned it,” he told me.

I was slightly touched at the gesture, since we originally agreed that I wouldn’t even be getting paid for this job, but accepting it went against everything I believed in.

I shook my head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I will not…cannot accept that, Mando,” I spat.

“Why?” he asked.

“Like my many others, I…have a bad history with the Empire,” I explained, gritting my teeth.

Mando nodded in understanding, and placed the Beskar in his pocket.  After a beat of tense silence, he said, “Take care of yourself, Kia,” before he turned and walked into the opposite direction.

“You too, Mando,” I said before I began the short walk home.

Once I got home, I set my bag down and took a quick shower, itching to rid myself of the dirt and grime. Plus, being in the presence of all of those Imperials made me feel…dirty. But in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Child.

What were their plans for him?

What were they gonna do with him once they used him for whatever purpose he was needed for?

Was he safe?

Once I left the refresher, I knew the answer to last question: he wasn’t.

Even though we had only had the child for a few days, I felt this responsibility for it. In a way, I felt that I had betrayed my mom.

However, there was nothing I could possible do about it. So, I took to repacking my bag with fresh clothes in case I got another job, cleaning my blaster, and restocking my taser probs.

After a few hours, I found myself bored, and unsure of what to do with myself next. As I debated possibly going to the Guild to ask my father for a job, once it was nightfall, I heard several footsteps run past my window outside.  My window was too dirty and grimy to see anything so I walked out into the common room of my house just as Tee-ho used his code to come in.

“Tee-ho, what are you doing here?”

“Great, you’re still here, Thank Maker. Things are getting crazy out there.”

“What’s going on?”

Tee-ho looked at me confused, “You haven’t heard? You know, The Mandalorian, the one that always hires you? Well, Brill and Jo told me that he stole back an asset, the very one he brought to the Imps. The whole Guild, plus your dad, is going after him to get it back.”

Wait, he…he went back for the kid?  

I knew that I looked foolish with my mouth hanging open, but for Mando to go back for a bounty…it seemed very unlike him. Maybe he actually had a heart after all, I thought, as a slow smile spread across my face.

I immediately ran to my room and changed out of my lounge clothes and into my black traveling clothes, the ones I wore when I went out on jobs. I grabbed my bag, datapad, weapons, quickly packed a small bag of food, and met Tee-ho out in the common area. I grab my mother’s old wool cloak, and put it on, pulling the hood up over my head.

“Whoa, whoa, where are you going?” he asked.

“Where do you think? I’m going to help him.”

“What, no! No, you’re not!”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because Rhonona sent me here to get you. If the rumors are true, that Imps are hiding out here, then you know that Primora and I can’t stay here. If they find out who I am…look all I know is that Rhonona found us a ride. And she begged me to find you and take you with us.”

I huffed, “Well, I’m not leaving without the kid.”

“Kia…” Tee-ho whined, but I shook my head.

“No, Tee-ho, I’m not leaving him. He’s an innocent child, and the Empire wants him for, Maker knows what. What if he was your child, and the Empire wanted him, wouldn’t you fight to get him back?”

Tee-ho looked at me for a while and then, his face softened. “You’re right, you’re right. Maker, Rhonona is gonna kill me. But, I’ll help you.”

“Thank you, Tee-ho,” I smiled as I reached for my blaster.

Tee-ho nodded as I followed him outside. Then, we turned down a nearby alleyway. In the distance, I could hear blaster fire. “Last I saw, they were headed towards the entrance of the city!” Tee-ho yelled back to me as we ran.

When we got there, our mouths fell open in astonishment as several dozen Mandalorians appeared out of the sky, firing upon the Guild members below. Tee-ho pulled me behind a building just as a blaster shot whizzed past my head.

With the Mandalorians helping, no doubt Mando would head for the Razor Crest to get himself and the kid off planet as quickly as possible. “I need to get the Razor Crest!” I yelled to Tee-ho over all of the commotion.

He nodded, “Follow me, I know a shortcut!”

I followed him as we weaved in and out of the alleyways, careful to avoid any Guild members or Mandalorians. When we finally make it out to the shipyard, we spot Mando running straight for his ship, his arm holding a small covered bundle.

When we got closer, Mando spotted us, and pulled out his blaster. Tee-ho held his hands up, and I did the same.

“What are you doing here?” Mando asked. The child in his arms instantly cooed when he saw me.

“She…I-“ Tee-ho sputted out, but I spoke up, “I’m coming with you.”

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Mando argued, but I stood my ground.

“I don’t care. I can handle myself.”

“Besides, I care about him, too,” I added, and the child cooed again as if he was in agreement with me.

“And you?” Mando turned to Tee-ho.

“No, it’s all her. She asked me to bring her to you,” Tee-ho explained.

“Fine,” Mando huffed and motioned for me to follow him to the ship.

“I’ll keep watch,” Tee-ho said as he pulled out two of his blasters.

“Thank you,” Mando said before he began quickly walking up the ramp.

“Thank you, friend,” I said to Tee-ho.

“Until our paths cross,” he spoke quickly.

“Until our paths cross,” I replied as I followed Mando up the ramp.

However, before we can make it much farther into the ship, we heard the click of a blaster.

“Hold it, Mando!” my father’s voice called out.

We slowly turned and I pulled the hood off of my head. My father blinked at me in surprise. “Kia? Kia, darling, what are you doing here? Don’t you know what he’s done?”

“Yes, I know, and I don’t care. I just want the child to be safe, and we all know he’s not safe in the hands of the Empire. And, I think out of everyone, you should understand that the most,” I said to him.

“Kia,” my father sighed, exasperated, “I didn’t want it to come to this. But then he broke the code. We all know there are consequences to this, and I can’t risk you being involved. Rhonona and I have arranged for you and your friends to get off-planet as soon as possible.  Now, come with me and I’ll handle Mando.”

I turned to look at Mando and then down at the child, his wide, innocent eyes staring at me. I looked up at Mando and then reached out for his wrist. I gave it a squeeze and he nodded.

I walked up to my father, who lowered his blaster. He said to me, “Thank you for seeing reason-“ and then, I kicked him hard in the chest, launching him off of the ramp.

Tee-ho went to my father’s aide as I pushed the button from the control pad nearby, closing the ramp. I fought back the tears that were beginning to surface as I rejoined Mando and the child.

Mando said nothing and I reached out for the kid. Mando handed him to me. I discarded my cloak and bags before we joined Mando in the cockpit just as the ship began to take off.

Once we ascended high above the clouds, a Mandalorian with bulky blue armor and a jetpack strapped to him, saluted us. Mando nodded at him and the Mandalorian disappeared under the clouds.

“I gotta get one of those,” Mando murmured.

“Agreed,” I said in agreement.

As we made our way father into the atmosphere, the child slipped out of my lap and waddled over to the pilot’s seat. As the child reached for the lever, Mando’s fingers unscrewed the circular sphere, and he dropped it into the child’s outstretched hand.

I smiled at the two of them as Mando plunged the ship into hyperspace.

[ghosthunthq]

Call of the Moor (Part 2/2)

For: @vzyfny

By: @csakuras

Prompt: Friendship, Adventure, Supernatural.  Theme: roadtrip, hitchhiking, autumn.

Noll trudged through the fog as quickly as he could.  Unfortunately, the vegetation underfoot was thick and difficult to walk in; shrubs of heather, ferns, and tall grass.  Not only that, there were rocks scattered about that he could easily trip over if he wasn’t careful.  But after a few minutes, Gene’s form became visible at last.

“Gene!  Where do you think you’re going?!”

“Noll?”  Gene looked back and blinked, as if just realizing where he was.  “…I was just following this spirit…”

“I thought you knew better than to go chasing strange spirits.”

“I couldn’t help it!  I’ve never seen one like this before!  And he doesn’t seem dangerous…I think he just wants to show us something.”

Noll sighed.  “What is he like?”

“He looks like an old man.  He’s wearing a white robe, and has a long beard that he’s got in braids.  He feels ancient, Noll!  Like prehistoric!”  Gene’s eyes shone in excitement.  “Maybe he’s a druid!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I can’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but it sounds Celtic!  Isn’t this brilliant?  It’s like getting a private tour by a local, only from thousands of years ago!”

“I don’t see the point.  His knowledge is thousands of years outdated.”

“But what if he leads us to an archeological treasure?  We could become famous!”

“We’re already famous,” Noll sighed.  “How much more fame do you need?”

“You wouldn’t be so grumpy about it if we had a camera capturing the whole thing.”  Gene stuck his tongue at out him.

True.  If he could get any decent data out of it, it might be a different story.  But unfortunately, neither of them had cameras, and that wasn’t the real issue here anyway.

“I still don’t understand what made you think this was a good idea.”

“I wasn’t thinking, okay?  Anyway, I’m curious where he’s taking us.  Just a bit farther…”

Noll sighed.  He knew it would be hard to discourage him at this point.

He didn’t know how much farther they walked, but it felt like far too long.  By now, Noll was slightly out of breath, and the cold mist chilled him.  Shivering, he stuck his hands further in his jacket pockets.

Suddenly, he heard something rustle in the grass nearby, coming from his right.

“Gene?”  But no, Gene was walking ahead; it couldn’t be him.

The rustling grew closer.

“What’s wrong?”  Gene turned to look at him.

“Something’s coming this way.”

“What?”

“Listen.”

They both paused.  It sounded louder now.  Rustle rustle.  Snap.  Rustle.  Faster now.  He saw a large figure approaching in the mist and steeled himself.  It was getting closer—

A black face jumped up at him.

“MEEEEH!” it cried.

Noll stumbled backwards in surprise, nearly falling over.  But then he saw the fluffy white wool.

It was only a sheep.

The next moment, Gene was laughing hysterically, clutching his stomach.  The sheep pranced away, unconcerned.

“The look on your face!”

“Shut up,” Noll muttered darkly.  “What happened to that spirit, anyway?  Did you lose sight of him?”

Gene looked back up ahead.  “Actually, he’s…waiting for us.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.  Though Noll didn’t believe in such things as fairies or pixies, legends usually had some kernel of truth in them, and Dartmoor had more than its share of stories of people being led astray by pixies.

“Gene, that’s enough.  If we go any further, we won’t be able to find our way back.”  Actually, they had probably long crossed that point already.

But Gene took no heed.  “Noll, look!”  He pointed up ahead.

Something seemed to be sticking out of the ground.  Many somethings, in fact.

Looking closer, he saw it was a stone row— a line of upright stones marking a path through the moor, placed there by ancient hands.

“I think we’re almost there!”  Gene sped up, walking alongside the stones.  “This place…it feels sacred.”

“Like Stonehenge?”

“Yeah, just like Stonehenge!”

Hm.  This might be interesting after all.

The stone row eventually led to a stone circle.  And in the middle of the ring of stones, they found a kistvaen; an ancient Celtic burial tomb built out of large slabs of granite.  It resembled a four-sided stone chest, about three feet long and two feet wide, built into the ground so that the top edges were flush with the surface.

From the looks of it, the grave had been desecrated ages ago, the moss and lichen-covered capstone pushed aside to reveal the shallow cist within.  Noll had to admit, this lent support to Gene’s theory that the spirit was of Celtic origin.  Was this where he had been put to rest?  Or was it only a coincidence that he had led them here?  After all, Dartmoor had many such burials…

He was just about to ask what the spirit was currently doing, but Gene seemed distracted again.  He looked around, frowning.

“Do you hear that?”

Noll strained his ears.  Actually, he did hear something.

“Is that someone crying?”

“So you hear it too?  It’s not just me?”

It sounded like a young child.  The two of them exchanged looks and hurried in the direction of the voice.

It didn’t take them long to find the source.  A little girl sat atop a rock, crying and clutching a stuffed rabbit in her arms.  She looked to be about five or six years old, with red hair tied up in pigtails.

Gene approached at once.

“Hey, there.”

The girl gasped in surprise and looked up.  Then gaped at them in wonder.  “Wow…you look the same.”

Gene smiled.  “That’s right.  We’re twins.  I’m Eugene.  And this is my brother Oliver.  Can I ask your name?”

“…Cathy.”

“What’re you doing out here, Cathy?  Are you alone?”

The girl nodded.  “I was with my Mum and Dad.  But then I followed some ponies and got lost.”

“How long has it been since then?” Noll asked her.

“A long time.”

“How many hours?”

She gave him a blank look.

He sighed.  “Has it been longer than half a day?”

The girl shook her head slowly.

“Was it foggy like this when you got lost?” Gene asked.  “Or did the fog come in long after?”

“It got foggy right after I followed the ponies…”

“So it probably hasn’t been that long, huh.”

“Almost as long as we’ve been lost, you mean,” Noll said bitterly.

“But that’s good.  It means her family is probably still on the moor, looking for her.”  Gene gazed into the mist.  “Hopefully they haven’t gotten lost themselves…”

Cathy grasped Gene’s sleeve.

“Are you going away?” she sniffed.

“No, of course not.”

“Cause there was an old man here, but he went away.”

“You saw him?!”

She nodded.

Gene hissed in Noll’s ear.  “See, I told you he wasn’t dangerous!  He didn’t lead us astray.  He led us to her.”

Noll gave him a dubious look.  “Sure, whatever.”

Cathy’s eyes welled up again.  “…I wanna go home.”

Gene smiled gently down at her.  “Don’t worry.  We’ll get you back home.”  He turned toward Noll expectantly.

Noll sighed.  He looked the girl over, and immediately took note of the stuffed rabbit in her arms.

It looked handmade, not store bought.  Made out of pastel pink cloth, it was slightly worn, with red buttons for eyes.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

The girl blinked.  “Mr. Cuddles?”

“Did someone make it for you?”

She nodded.  “My Mum made it out of my old blankie.”

Perfect.

He held his hand out.  “Let me have it.”

She held it protectively to her chest.  “Why?”

“I just need it for a moment.”

“No!  You’ll steal it!”

Noll rolled his eyes.  As if he’d want that ragged old thing.  And he was just about to say so, when Gene cut in.

“Hey, can I tell you a secret?  My brother actually has a magic ability that lets him find lost people!”

Her mouth dropped open.  “Magic?”

“Yup!  But he’s going to need Mr. Cuddles’ help to use it.  Do you think you could let him hold him for a bit, so he could find your parents?”

“Well…okay.”  She handed it over.

Noll held the stuffed toy in his hands and closed his eyes.

It would be only too easy to fall into the girl’s memories, but that’s not what he was looking for.  Instead, he zeroed in on the mother, who had left a strong emotional imprint of her own.  The blanket had been in their possession since the day the girl was born.  He couldn’t ask for better material.

He saw the mother standing on a tor, frantically calling her daughter’s name along with her husband.  The tor overlooked the surrounding moor, but the ground below was shrouded in fog.  The woman sounded desperate, panicked.  She was a terrible mother.  She should have never taken her eyes off of her.  Her little girl must be so scared.  Oh, Lord, please protect her.  She would give anything…

Noll opened his eyes.

“Well?” Gene asked.

“I have a landmark.  They’re on a large tor.  Hopefully they will stay there for a while, so we can drive around and find it.”  He sighed.  “That is, assuming we can even find our own way back.”

“Well, I think Lin is tracking us, so I’m not too worried about that.”

“What?”

“I saw one of his shiki floating around earlier.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that sooner?” Noll scowled.

“Well, for now, we could just follow the stone rows back.  That ought to point us in the right direction, at least.”

The three of them set off.  They had been walking for several minutes, leaving the last of the stones behind them, when Noll heard a rustling in the grass again.

“Oh, what now–”

It came out of nowhere.  The next thing he knew, a fluffy white blur had launched itself at him with a resounding “MEEEEEEH!”

This time, he did fall over, feet tangled in the heather.

“Noll!  Are you okay?!”

He grunted.  A sharp pain shot through his left foot.

The sheep let out a triumphant “Meeeh!” and bounded off again.  Noll didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this treatment.

Cathy giggled.  “I don’t think that sheep likes you.”

Noll glared at her.  He sat up and tried to climb to his feet…but then immediately crumpled back to his knees, gasping in pain.

“Noll?!”

“It’s my ankle,” he winced.  “I think I’ve twisted it…”

Gene swore.

Just what he needed.  Could this day get any worse?

But just then, a familiar voice called.  “Oliver?  Eugene?  Is that you?”

“Lin!” Eugene called back.  “We need help!”

They heard quickened footsteps and saw his tall figure looming in the distance.  “What happened?  Are you both all right?”

“We’re okay, except Noll twisted his ankle…”

“Who’s that?” Cathy asked.

“Um…a family friend, I guess?”

Lin stepped out of the fog.  He blinked down at them.

“…Oh.  There are more of you now.”

———

Shortly after, the twins explained what had happened and introduced him to the girl, Cathy.

Having now heard the whole story, Lin could only sigh.  “That was highly irresponsible of you two.  Do you have any idea how much you’ve worried your father?”

“But we found Cathy!” Eugene protested.

“Don’t lump me in with him,” Oliver grumbled.  “I was making sure he wouldn’t get himself killed.”

“And yet you are the one with the injury,” Lin deadpanned.

Oliver looked away.

The boy looked paler than usual, and there was sweat running down his temple.  He seemed to be in quite a bit of pain.

“I don’t suppose you will be able to walk in that condition.”

Oliver kept his eyes carefully averted.  “…I can manage.”

“Really, Noll?”  Eugene gave him a doubtful look.  “You could barely stand a minute ago.”

“Look, just find me a big stick, and I’ll walk.”

“In this terrain, that wouldn’t be wise,” Lin said.  “You could easily injure yourself again.”

Oliver frowned.

“I will have to carry you.”

Now his head snapped up.  “What?  No!”

Eugene nodded in agreement.  “That’ll be the quickest way.  We have to find Cathy’s parents too, so we can’t dawdle.”

“I said I can walk.”  Gritting his teeth, Oliver got to his feet again, but immediately stumbled.  He landed back on the ground with a grunt of pain.

Lin was getting annoyed.  He’d thought the boy was sensible for his age, but when it came to his pride, it seemed stubbornness overtook his common sense.

“Oliver, I am trying to help you.  It will take us twice as long to get there if you are limping the whole way.  You must realize that?”

“I don’t care!”

Lin reached down to pick him up.

Oliver flinched away.  “No!”

And now his patience snapped.  “Lest you forget, you are a child!  I am the adult here!  You must listen to what I say!”

“But—“

“No but’s!”

“Hey, hey…” Eugene interceded.  “Let’s all just calm down, okay?  Shouting won’t get us anywhere.  And you’re scaring Cathy.”

Now that he mentioned it, the little girl was staring at them, eyes wide.

Eugene turned to his brother.  “Noll, what’s the problem?  Lin wouldn’t hurt us.  You know that.”

“Obviously.”  Oliver shuddered, looking down at his shoes.  “…Just can’t help it, that’s all.”

Then it clicked.  Yes, he knew that feeling well.  And now he recognized the look in the boy’s eyes.  Fear.

A small smile came to Lin’s lips.  “…Perhaps we can find another way.”

He scanned the area, looking for anything that might help.  Then he spotted several large figures moving their way.

“Something is coming…”

Oliver groaned.  “It better not be that sheep again.”

“No, they seem larger.”

“It’s the spirit!  He’s leading them here!” Eugene exclaimed.

“Leading what?”

“PONIES!” Cathy squealed.

Sure enough, a string of wild Dartmoor ponies appeared.  They came in different colors— black, white, gray, and brown, with long, shaggy manes and tails.  There seemed to be a dozen of them at least.  And rather conveniently, they stopped right in front them.

Before Lin could stop her, Cathy ran excitedly up to one of the foals and began petting it.  At the same time, the largest of the ponies walked up to Oliver, and stood next to him expectantly.

Oliver stared up at it.  “…Wait.  This doesn’t mean…”

“I think it wants you to ride it, Noll,” Eugene grinned.

“No way…”

“It seems we’ve found our solution,” Lin smiled.

“But…”

The pony whinnied and nudged Oliver’s head with its nose.

In the end, Oliver relented.  He managed to climb shakily on a rock to hoist himself onto the pony’s back, where he scrabbled to hold on.  But finally, with his knees hugging the pony, and hands gripping its mane, he found the right balance.  Only then did the pony begin to move.

“Over here!” Lin called, and led the way towards the direction his shiki indicated.  He wasn’t sure the ponies would listen.  But the pony that Oliver was riding followed after him, and the other ponies followed suit.

“No fair!  I wanna ride a pony!” Cathy whined.

“No.  That is too dangerous,” Lin said, point blank.

“But he gets to!”

“They’re pretty big, Cathy,” Eugene explained, taking her hand.  “It’d be bad if you fell off of one.  What would we say to your parents then?”

Cathy continued complaining.  Eugene continued placating.  Oliver, meanwhile, stayed silent, face screwed up in concentration as he focused on maintaining his balance, and wincing every so often.

Lin looked back over his entourage; twins, ponies, little girl and all.  The Professor would sure be in for a surprise when they returned.

———

How’re you holding up, Noll?

Noll glanced at his brother.

How do you think?

Gene smiled sheepishly.  Sorry about everything.  I should’ve have run off like that.  It’s just…

He looked pensive.  Noll frowned.

What’s wrong?

I was thinking about that spirit.  I think I know why he feels different now.  It’s not just that he’s old, but he’s almost completely lacking in ego.  But he’s not hollow like Lin’s shiki.  It’s more like…like he’s become a part of the moor itself.  Even if I could talk to him, I get the feeling he wouldn’t even remember his reason for lingering.

Gene looked back regretfully.

At least he doesn’t seem to be suffering.  And I guess, if you’re going to be stuck anyway, that’s not a bad way to spend your time.  Helping people, I mean.

Noll looked back as well.  It was probably just his imagination, but he thought he could make out a faint, human-shaped figure in the mist.

A spirit that had been there for millennia, as unchanging as the moor.  Would he ever find peace?  Or was he destined to wander forever?

Well, there was no use in thinking about it.  Noll faced forward again.  It didn’t concern him anyway.

———

Author’s Note:

As you can see, I tried to fit all the themes in the prompt at once, and this is the result!  XD  (I’ve even got hitchhiking in there, in a way, if hitching a ride on a pony counts.)  I’ve always wanted to write a Ghost Hunt story set in Dartmoor, so when I was thinking of where to send the characters on a road trip, it immediately sprung to mind.  So I decided to give the twins a mini adventure, with some added fluff and Naru+Lin friendship (or at least, the beginnings of it).  And then I got quite self-indulgent, throwing in some headcanons and my love for folklore, history, and archeology.  >.>;  Alas, I had to cut some ideas, so I feel like I haven’t done all that I could with the setting.  But still, I hope you enjoyed it, @vzyfny!  You are one of my favorite writers for this fandom, so writing for you has been an honor.  :)

[tinylivinginmaine-blog]

The renovations

So at this point I've paid my dad back for the camper and we pay his mom 300 a month to help with what we use, we also put the cable and internet in Trav's name since he wanted better internet and we pay that. Other then that it's really just our phones, food and propane. Our first winter here we were going through a 40lb tank of propane about every 4 days as it warmed up that became every 2 weeks and eventually we got to about a month. So we decide it's time to start saving. Hahaha!

First our battery just died on us and we didn't understand why. My mom and stepdad who are full time RVers were around and so I asked for a ride and some help picking out the right 1 and so step-dad to the rescue not only did he help me he bought the battery for us. Said it was a gift.

But 3 days later the lights go really dim and then they just shut off now we have none of the things that run off the 12 volt batter. Every one is originally stumped. So Trav asks his boss "Any way we could borrow that battery charger at shop?" He brought it right out to us and told us to just keep it.

Then my Dad says maybe it's the power converter. So we look it up on Amazon. One of my favorite inventions of all time by the way. And we found one the same size and everything and we order it. A few days later it comes in only when we hook it up it starts blowing fuses. Now we are obviously thinking ok we got a defected one. So we sent it back and had they sent us a new one. This time I'm not screwing this up, I had my dad come over and he hooked it up and still it blew every fuse he tried in it. His suggestion is maybe we needed the next size up so again we sent it back and ordered the bigger one this time. Still when it came in it had the same problems happened. We sent it back for a full refund and that battery charger is still hooked up.

Next we got mice. I really don't like rodents so this was a huge problem for me. After killing a few that were just chilling on my counter my step-mom gave us some steel wool to block them out and then we just had to get the rest of them. It took us a few days but we eventually got them all

Now we were seriously talking about turning this from a camper to a tiny home. We had decided that the roof was not worth fixing without ripping it off and starting over. We also had found that there was quite a bit of water damage throughout the walls as well. We started designing our new home. We used a design tool on the computer and started making different layouts. This was a process since we have very specific wants and needs.

So just before Thanksgiving our fridge stopped working. Nothing was cold and we lost a lot of food. We decided right away we wanted to do away with the gas fridge and go completely electric. We tried looking at our local home depot but they just didn't have one with the dimensions we needed. So next we hit Amazon and they not only had 1 that would fit in the hole that was left from removing the old one, but they 1 that was affordable. The fridge took a few weeks to get here so being November in Maine we put our food into coolers and stuck them in the little bit of snow we had, we even stuck the snow inside as the ice.

Now most people this would have discouraged them from cooking a thanksgiving dinner, but not this girl! We had to use his mom's fridge for a few things, but we planned on sharing with them too. I made a chicken since we couldn't fit a turkey in our camper oven. The little man even helped make dinner, he mashed the potatoes and squash. He also made the chocolate pie. One of Travis brothers came out and ate our dinner with us. This is when we realized how small the dinette table actually was. We ended with all of us bringing the rest of the dinner inside and waited for them to eat then it was pie time. Little man was so excited to share his pie he even served each person telling them "I made it I hope you like it!"

The new fridge got here a few weeks later. Travis had already covered the hole where the gas line came in, so all he needed to do was slide it in place. When they removed the old fridge he had to ask a friend to help him it was so heavy, but the new one he carried from the delivery truck into our house by himself. I had to help guide him into the hole but he did all the heavy lifting. It was a few inches shorter than the old one so he took a piece of board, that we had kept from demo in the boy's room, and cover the hole so it looks better.

It was about this time that his dad sent him some computer parts so he built me my own mini gaming computer. He built a shelf on the wall at the end of the bed, and that was my desk. Sure the parts were the older ones but I don't game as much as them, and his dad even got me the Mini case.

At this point we were trying to find ways to save some money so we bought 2 little space heaters so we wouldn't have to run the propane furnace so much. Only we quickly realized our room had no space to put a heater and so it was hard to keep it warm.

So after some major discussions we decided we didn't really need the wall between our room and the living space. Little man has a door on his room so if we need privacy while he's with us we can always shut his door. But, this caused a whole other problem for us. How do we both get a desk in this tiny space? We took a ton of measurements and settled on the dinette set was going. But now what do we do for a table? Neither of us want little man eating at the desk with the computers. That just seemed like a recipie for disaster. The solution was Amazon. We found a table the perfect size for what we needed and had space for all we had to do was get that wall out and it will go over the furnace.

As for the desk there was no buying a typical desk. We have specific wants and needs that most people just don't. So we decided to build it. We knew two things building this: 1 it needed to fit in the space we already have, and 2 it was going to be the first piece of furniture for our new home. For a tiny home our desk is HUGE. We decided to fill the space we had and to rearrange our plans around our new desk. I sketched up some plans for the desk. We took out the dinette table to get the exact measurements.

We figured out what we were gonna make it out of and priced it all out. I then asked my dad for a hand since he's our truck guy. And after telling him and showing him the plan he says I got the 2×2's you need. And some 2×4's too so while I was over with my kids we loaded up his truck and after picking up Travis we headed to home depot. We got the hard plywood with a smooth finish for the top and had them cut the dimension we needed right there. We took the extra wood home with us too but we knew that cut would be a bit more difficult. The top of the desk was cut to 74"×30". It's smaller than 2 desks but it is a huge desk for a tiny home. We also were able to get a battery operated drill and skill saw set that were on sale. So now we had our first set of power tools. Yes all our other projects have been done with hand tools and a borrowed drill.

When we got back home my dad helped us take the wall down since I really can't do it. And we moved the cabinet that was on that wall to the outside wall because we can't afford to loose storage. The next morning we started on the desk I designed it so we would have a shelf underneath on 1 side for extra shoe space. And so I got to measuring and marking all the spots to cut and he started cutting. Now this is where we found out something I never knew before. 2×2's like to warp so we had to be careful to use the straightest parts but once we had them all cut out it was assembly time. We even used up most of the board we had bought. I grabbed some sandpaper and started sanding down the edges and even rounded off the corners just a bit. I mean we do have a very active 5 year old boy here so sharp corners seems a bit dangerous. Unfortunately it being winter we have to wait to stain it but with my birthday coming up we used some of my birthday money to buy me an oversized mouse pad and so now we have 2 of them side by side protecting most of the surface.

We also decided to get a bigger better heater so we wouldn't have to use the furnace at all. And it's a real good thing we did. We found an awesome woodstove looking electric heater on Amazon that was rated for much more space then the other ones we had. 2 days before it got here though the electrical really screwed up and we lost our thermostat. The hardest part of living in here has been the electrical slowly going. But this heater heats the whole camper no problem. And now we are just waiting on our new table to get here tomorrow.

We have redone our design for the new tiny home to fit around our new furniture and with the removal of the wall we have decided we are gonna keep the open concept in the new home. With the little man in the loft over our bed we are thinking a curtain is way better than a wall. And it will leave our home feeling so much bigger.

Oh man, I can't wait! I'll be adding pictures of the camper from the beginning up to the newest changes very soon just need to put them all together some are on different devices.