#I grew up with a horse neighborhood across from mine | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ginnyzero · 4 years ago

Text

The South Dakota Setting (my books)

Like I said, bikers are quintessentially American. I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve seen quite a bit of America, even if it was just traveling through it by car or train from one place to another. I’ve lived on both Coasts, went to college in the middle of America for a time and haven’t always taken a plane to get from one side to the other.

America is huge and it’s extremely varied. The Rockies, the Catskills and the Appalachians may all be mountain ranges in America, but they are so different from each other. I grew up in upstate New York in the Fingerlakes Area. It’s a beautiful place. It’s very green. Our hills are covered with trees so the further away they are the bluer they look. A lake to me isn’t this tiny thing. A lake is miles long and you have to go up to a top of the hill to look across it.

There were a couple places that I’ve visited with my family and where I’ve lived that really stood out to me. One of my favorite places in the United States is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the area bordering Lake Superior. It’s a beautiful, slightly hilly landscape that is covered in pine tree forests. The lake is huge and blue and has its own tidal system. I remember going across Mackinaw Bridge and being amazed that I could look down and see the lake floor where the lakes met and how intense the colors were. If I was to have a summer home, that’s where it would be. A lake house where I could hunt for blue agates on the beach.

I’ve talked about how I’ve went to college at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. And I know I have rose colored glasses about San Francisco because I can google earth/map it and it doesn’t look the same as it did when I lived there. What I loved about San Francisco though was the architecture, whether it was the early twentieth century buildings put up after the earthquake of 1906 or the gothic cathedral or the French art noveau inspired buildings on Market Street or even the buildings of Japan town. The weather was decent though I’ve grown to like my weather warmer than San Francisco can give me. The shopping was great even if I mostly window shopped while I was there, poor student after all. There were art galleries and open area parks. San Francisco had atmosphere when the fog rolled in at night. It also always felt extremely safe in most neighborhoods. I could walk around late and not be bothered because half the working population left over one of the two bridges each evening. The best thing about San Francisco though was the way it felt like a town and not a city. I could walk everywhere. To the grocery. To the movie theatre. To class. To my friend’s. To my favorite pizzeria on Bush and Powell. To the sushi place. To the Korean hibachi bbq. OMG, THE FOOD. Very rarely did I take a bus and when I did, Muni was an amazing bus system. I sincerely miss it when I’m waiting every half hour for a bus here in Daytona. (Unfortunately, I haven’t yet figured out a PLOT to set IN San Francisco. It’s very frustrating given how much I love this city.)

The summer after my senior year of high school and before I went to college, my family had a big out west trip planned. I’d already gone to NYC with my class for our senior trip and visited my Uncle in Texas to meet my newest cousin with my mother and grandmother. But this big out west trip was to meet some relations in South Dakota and hopefully make it to Yellowstone, before I went to Ohio. (We didn’t make it to Yellowstone.) Most of the trip out there was through the Midwest, and the Midwest is one thing, flat. And it became this sort of game to count what the fields were growing, corn, alfalfa, sunflowers, and more corn. There were bands of trees between the fields but honestly, there wasn’t much of interest.

We stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota to see the Corn Palace. It was a tribute to Elvis year. The Corn Palace is just one of those things you either know about it or you don’t and you either get it or you don’t. After the Corn Palace we went through the Badlands on our way to Wall and promptly the camper overheated and broke down. South Dakota is mostly prairie and along the highway there were ranches where they kept bison and donkeys and ostriches. In one of the national parks, the bison were allowed to roam free. And people do keep bison in New York (which is crazy to me but yes, it was once part of their natural habitat) but this was different. There weren’t any fences to protect you. Fortunately, bison are mostly placid animals.

Once we got to Wall, we stopped in Wall Drug and it was this huge indoor strip mall basically. Buffalo burgers turned out to be a bit dry. But then we were finally on our way to the Black Hills. It was the evening as we were driving down the highway through the last of the prairie and there was storm rolling in and lightning looked like it walked across the grasslands. We got closer to the hills, the white spruce really did make them look black and then the tops were pure white rock and bare of trees.

It was actually around Sturgis Bike Week when we went. So, once we got out of Rapid City and went into the Black Hills themselves, there were motorcycles everywhere. The roads in and out of these towns twisted about between the hills. The forest grows right up to the roads. It really felt like a place where something magical could happen. There is still evidence of some gold mining going on as well. We did some tourist things, Deadwood, Mount Rushmore and across the state border to Devil’s Tower. There is a lot of history in the Black Hills of the old west between it being a drop off point to sell cattle, gold mining, trains and Wild Bill Hickok. There are ghosts in the Black Hills.

What I didn’t know at the time is how important Sturgis was to Bikers, because I was much more interested in the cowboys and the gold mining and the Native Americans. Sturgis is the biggest bike week in America. (Daytona being the second biggest.) And it’s a mandatory event for a lot of biker clubs. They often induct new members and have special events that go on at Sturgis. To me, there were just a huge amount of bikers in the Black Hills which were holding up traffic and annoying my father.

Once I found out about how important Sturgis and the Black Hills were to the biker community, out of all the places I had seen and loved about America, the Black Hills were the obvious choice to make the setting for my novel. In some ways, bikers can be like the new cowboys of the modern era. Rugged individualists riding iron horses. (I am not saying it is a one for one comparison.) The Black Hills just felt appropriate.

With just these three core building blocks, there is a lot for me to explore and think about in my universe. I try not to get overwhelmed by it and approach it one bit at a time. It’s a journey and the road may be long, twisty and the engine noisy. And that’s the best way to be.

#setting #my books #werewolves #south dakota #sturgis #bikers #the black hills

4 notes · View notes

the-marx-brothers-will-live-on · 4 years ago

Text

Arthur "Harpo" Marx (born Adolph Marx; November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, mime artist, and musician, and the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers. In contrast to the mainly verbal comedy of his brothers Groucho Marx and Chico Marx, Harpo's comic style was visual, being an example of both clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish blond wig, and never spoke during performances (he blew a horn or whistled to communicate). He frequently used props such as a horn cane, made up of a pipe, tape, and a bulbhorn, and he played the harp in most of his films.

Harpo was born on November 23, 1888, in Manhattan. He grew up in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, on East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue. The turn-of-the-century tenement that Harpo later called (in his autobiography Harpo Speaks!) "the first real home I can remember" was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans—which even included a glass blower. Just across the street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people like David L. Loew and William Orth.

Harpo's parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life) and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Shean. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was from East Frisia in Germany, and his father was a native of Alsace in France and worked as a tailor.

Harpo received little formal education and left grade school at age eight (mainly due to bullying) during his second attempt to pass the second grade. He began to work, gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an errand office boy.

In January 1910, Harpo joined two of his brothers, Julius (later "Groucho") and Milton (later "Gummo"), to form "The Three Nightingales", later changed to simply "The Marx Brothers". Multiple stories—most unsubstantiated—exist to explain Harpo's evolution as the "silent" character in the brothers' act. In his memoir, Groucho wrote that Harpo simply wasn't very good at memorizing dialogue, and thus was ideal for the role of the "dunce who couldn't speak", a common character in vaudeville acts of the time.

Harpo gained his stage name during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. The dealer (Art Fisher) called him "Harpo" because he played the harp. He learned how to hold it properly from a picture of an angel playing a harp that he saw in a five-and-dime. No one in town knew how to play the harp, so Harpo tuned it as best he could, starting with one basic note and tuning it from there. Three years later he found out he had tuned it incorrectly, but he could not have tuned it properly; if he had, the strings would have broken each night. Harpo's method placed much less tension on the strings.[citation needed] Although he played this way for the rest of his life, he did try to learn how to play correctly, and he spent considerable money hiring the best teachers. They spent their time listening to him, fascinated by the way he played. The major exception was Mildred Dilling, a professional harpist who did teach Harpo the proper techniques of the instrument and collaborated with him regularly when he had difficulty with various compositions.

In the autobiography Harpo Speaks! (1961), he recounts how Chico found him jobs playing piano to accompany silent movies. Unlike Chico, Harpo could play only two songs on the piano, "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie" and "Love Me and the World Is Mine," but he adapted this small repertoire in different tempos to suit the action on the screen. He was also seen playing a portion of Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# minor" in A Day at the Races and chords on the piano in A Night at the Opera, in such a way that the piano sounded much like a harp, as a prelude to actually playing the harp in that scene.

Harpo had changed his name from Adolph to Arthur by 1911. This was due primarily to his dislike for the name Adolph (as a child, he was routinely called "Ahdie" instead). The name change may have also happened because of the similarity between Harpo's name and Adolph Marks, a prominent show business attorney in Chicago. Urban legends stating that the name change came about during World War I due to anti-German sentiment in the US, or during World War II because of the stigma that Adolf Hitler imposed on the name, are groundless.

His first screen appearance was in the film Humor Risk (1921), with his brothers, although according to Groucho, it was only screened once and then lost. Four years later, Harpo appeared without his brothers in Too Many Kisses (1925), four years before the brothers' first released film, The Cocoanuts (1929). In Too Many Kisses, Harpo spoke the only line he would ever speak on-camera in a movie: "You sure you can't move?" (said to the film's tied-up hero before punching him). Fittingly, it was a silent movie, and the audience saw only his lips move and the line on a title card.

Harpo was often cast as Chico's eccentric partner-in-crime, whom he would often help by playing charades to tell of Groucho's problem, and/or annoy by giving Chico his leg, either to give it a rest or as an alternative to a handshake.

Harpo became known for prop-laden sight gags, in particular the seemingly infinite number of odd things stored in his topcoat's oversized pockets. In the film Horse Feathers (1932), Groucho, referring to an impossible situation, tells Harpo that he cannot "burn the candle at both ends." Harpo immediately produces from within his coat pocket a lit candle burning at both ends. In the same film, a homeless man on the street asks Harpo for money for a cup of coffee, and he subsequently produces a steaming cup, complete with saucer, from inside his coat. Also in Horse Feathers, he has a fish and a sword, and when he wants to go to his speakeasy, he stabs the fish in its mouth with his sword to give the password, "Swordfish." In Duck Soup, he produces a lit blowtorch to light a cigar. As author Joe Adamson put in his book, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo, "The president of the college has been shouted down by a mute."

Harpo often used facial expressions and mime to get his point across. One of his facial expressions, which he used in every Marx Brothers film and stage play, beginning with Fun in Hi Skule, was known as "the Gookie." Harpo created it by mimicking the expression of Mr. Gehrke, a New York tobacconist who would make a similar face while concentrating on rolling cigars.

Harpo further distinguished his character by wearing a "fright wig". Early in his career it was dyed pink, as evidenced by color film posters of the time and by allusions to it in films, with character names such as "Pinky" in Duck Soup. It tended to show as blond on-screen due to the black-and-white film stock at the time. Over time, he darkened the pink to more of a reddish color, again films alluded to it with character names such as "Rusty".

His non-speaking in his early films was occasionally referred to by the other Marx Brothers, who were careful to imply that his character's not speaking was a choice rather than a disability. They would make joking reference to this part of his act. For example, in Animal Crackers his character was ironically dubbed "The Professor". In The Cocoanuts, this exchange occurred:

Groucho: "Who is this?"

Chico: "Dat's-a my partner, but he no speak."

Groucho: "Oh, that's your silent partner!"

In later films, Harpo was repeatedly put in situations where he attempted to convey a vital message by whistling and pantomime, reinforcing the idea that his character was unable to speak.

The Marxes' film At the Circus (1939) contains a unique scene where Harpo is ostensibly heard saying "A-choo!" twice, as he sneezes. It is unclear, however, whether he actually voiced the line, or if he mimed it while someone said it off-camera.

In 1933, following U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, he spent six weeks in Moscow as a performer and goodwill ambassador. His tour was a huge success. Harpo's name was transliterated into Russian, using the Cyrillic alphabet, as ХАРПО МАРКС, and was billed as such during his Soviet Union appearances. Harpo, having no knowledge of Russian, pronounced it as "Exapno Mapcase". At that time Harpo and the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov became friends and even performed a routine on stage together. During this time he served as a secret courier; delivering communiques to and from the US embassy in Moscow at the request of Ambassador William Christian Bullitt, Jr., smuggling the messages in and out of Russia by taping a sealed envelope to his leg beneath his trousers, an event described in David Fromkin's 1995 book In the Time of the Americans. In Harpo Speaks!, Marx describes his relief at making it out of the Soviet Union, recalling how "I pulled up my pants, ripped off the tape, unwound the straps, handed over the dispatches from Ambassador Bullitt, and gave my leg its first scratch in ten days."

The Russia trip was later memorialized in a bizarre science fiction novella, The Foreign Hand Tie by Randall Garrett, a tale of telepathic spies which is full of references to the Marx Brothers and their films (The title itself is a Marx-like pun on the dual ideas of a "foreign hand" and a style of neckwear known as a "four-in-hand tie.")

In 1936, he was one of a number of performers and celebrities to appear as caricatures in the Walt Disney Production of Mickey's Polo Team. Harpo was part of a team of polo-playing movie stars which included Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. His mount was an ostrich. Walt Disney would later have Harpo (with Groucho and Chico) appear as one of King Cole's "Fiddlers Three" in the Silly Symphony Mother Goose Goes Hollywood.

Harpo was also caricatured in Sock-A-Bye Baby (1934), an early episode of the Popeye cartoon series created by Fleischer Studios. Harpo is playing the harp, and wakes up Popeye's baby, and then Popeye punches and apparantly "kills" him. (After Popeye hits him, a halo appears over his head and he floats to the sky.)

Friz Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon The Coo-Coo Nut Grove featuring animal versions of assorted celebrities, caricatures Harpo as a bird with a red beak. When he first appears, he is chasing a woman, but the woman later turns out to be Groucho.

Harpo also took an interest in painting, and a few of his works can be seen in his autobiography. In the book, Marx tells a story about how he tried to paint a nude female model, but froze up because he simply did not know how to paint properly. The model took pity on him, however, showing him a few basic strokes with a brush, until finally Harpo (fully clothed) took the model's place as the subject and the naked woman painted his portrait.

Harpo recorded an album of harp music for RCA Victor (Harp by Harpo, 1952) and two for Mercury Records (Harpo in Hi-Fi, 1957; Harpo at Work, 1958).

Harpo made television appearances through the 1950s and 60s, including a 1955 episode of I Love Lucy, in which he and Lucille Ball re-enacted the famous mirror scene from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup (1933).[19] In this scene, they are both supposed to be Harpo, not Groucho; he stays the same and she is dressed as him. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's The Martha Raye Show. Harpo and Chico played a television anthology episode of General Electric Theater entitled "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery" entirely in pantomime in 1959, with a brief surprise appearance by Groucho at the end. In 1960, he appeared in an episode of The DuPont Show with June Allyson entitled "A Silent Panic", playing a deaf-mute who, as a "mechanical man" in a department store window, witnessed a gangland murder. In 1961, he made guest appearances on The Today Show, Play Your Hunch, Candid Camera, I've Got a Secret, Here's Hollywood, Art Linkletter's House Party, Groucho's quiz show You Bet Your Life, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Your Surprise Package to publicize his autobiography Harpo Speaks!.

In November 1961 he guest-starred with Carol Burnett in an installment of The DuPont Show of the Week entitled "The Wonderful World of Toys". The show was filmed in Central Park and featured Marx playing "Autumn Leaves" on the harp. Other stars appearing in the episode included Eva Gabor, Audrey Meadows, Mitch Miller and Milton Berle. A visit to the set inspired poet Robert Lowell to compose a poem about Marx.

Harpo's two final television appearances came less than a month apart in late 1962. He portrayed a guardian angel on CBS's The Red Skelton Show on September 25. He guest starred as himself on October 20 in the episode "Musicale" of ABC's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a sitcom starring Fess Parker, based on the 1939 Frank Capra film.

Harpo married actress Susan Fleming on September 28, 1936. The wedding became public knowledge after President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations the following month. Harpo's marriage, like Gummo's, was lifelong. (Groucho was divorced three times, Zeppo twice, Chico once.) The couple adopted four children: Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie. When he was asked by George Burns in 1948 how many children he planned to adopt, he answered, "I’d like to adopt as many children as I have windows in my house. So when I leave for work, I want a kid in every window, waving goodbye."

Harpo was good friends with theater critic Alexander Woollcott, and became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table. He once said his main contribution was to be the audience for the quips of other members. In their play The Man Who Came to Dinner, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based the character of "Banjo" on Harpo. Harpo later played the role in Los Angeles opposite Woollcott, who had inspired the character of Sheridan Whiteside.

In 1961 Harpo published his autobiography, Harpo Speaks!. Because he never spoke a word in character, many believed he actually was mute. In fact, radio and TV news recordings of his voice can be found on the Internet, in documentaries, and on bonus materials of Marx Brothers DVDs. A reporter who interviewed him in the early 1930s wrote that "he [Harpo] ... had a deep and distinguished voice, like a professional announcer", and like his brothers, spoke with a New York accent his entire life. According to those who personally knew him, Harpo's voice was much deeper than Groucho's, but it also sounded very similar to Chico's. His son, Bill, recalled that in private Harpo had a very deep and mature soft-spoken voice, but that he was "not verbose" like the other Marx brothers; Harpo preferred listening and learning from others.

Harpo's final public appearance came on January 19, 1963, with singer/comedian Allan Sherman. Sherman burst into tears when Harpo announced his retirement from the entertainment business. Comedian Steve Allen, who was in the audience, remembered that Harpo spoke for several minutes about his career, and how he would miss it all, and repeatedly interrupted Sherman when he tried to speak. The audience found it charmingly ironic, Allen said, that Harpo, who had never before spoken on stage or screen, "wouldn't shut up!" Harpo, an avid croquet player, was inducted into the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979.

Harpo Marx died on September 28, 1964, (his 28th wedding anniversary), at age 75 in a West Los Angeles hospital, one day after undergoing heart surgery. Harpo's death was said to have hit the surviving Marx brothers very hard. Groucho's son Arthur Marx, who attended the funeral with most of the Marx family, later said that Harpo's funeral was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father cry. In his will, Harpo Marx donated his trademark harp to the State of Israel. His remains were cremated, and his ashes were scattered at a golf course in Rancho Mirage, California.

3 notes · View notes

reasonablywittyatbest · 6 years ago

Text

Predator and Prey - A Fan Statement

Statement of Abigail Evans regarding a figure in the distance, original statement given 23rd July, 2013. Audio recording by Jonathon Sims, The Archivist.

Statement Begins.

I don’t know how long I have left. Every day it gets closer. It has been hunting me for weeks, months. Every day just that little bit closer. But it didn’t follow me in here; it is not in this building, not in this room. Maybe I will ask you if I can stay here forever. No, I’m not sure I could stand knowing it was waiting just outside the doors ready to pounce on me the second it could. I’m so tired of being hunted. I guess you won’t be able to understand unless I start from the beginning. From when it first started stalking me.

I’m, I’m from America but I’ve ended up here for [brief pause] for reasons that will be obvious in the end. It was around the end of May, I think, when I first saw it. I was waiting outside my apartment for Jim, James Brown, we carpooled to work in the morning. Public transport in Arizona isn’t quite as good as it is here, and splitting the gas saved us both the money. Anyways, there is a large open space across from my apartment, pastures I think, and as I was waiting something caught my eye, a figure. It was very far away, nearly out of sight in the grass that filled the pasture, just a black shape on the horizon really. I thought that it was probably just who ever owned the horses or maybe even a horse it was hard to tell from that distance really. But I couldn’t shake the feeling it was watching me. I grew more and more uneasy as I waited and the figure didn’t move the entire time. I was so grateful when Jim finally arrived and I was able to get in his car.

I was on edge the entire day after that, jumpy. I felt ridiculous, getting so riled up about what was probably a lazy horse or a maybe even a building I had never noticed before. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me. And it only got worse when Jim dropped me off at the end of the day. My house faces west, you see, and the setting sun silhouetted a figure on the horizon. And I don’t know how I could tell because from that distance I really shouldn’t have been able to, but it was closer. I knew it was closer. I think I knew already then it was coming for me, but it was far enough away still I could deny it. I rushed inside barely saying goodbye to Jim. I tried to go about my evening as usual, but it was difficult.

It continued like that for weeks; a figure on the horizon getting closer and closer every day. Eventually I had to put newspaper over the front windows to stop myself from staring at it. I even started making excuses to be over at my friend’s places as often as I could be. Every day I was surer I was being targeted but I figured, well it was so far away and it only seemed to be in that field so I had plenty of time to deal with it. Maybe I could move, I didn’t want to find a new apartment I liked mine and the rent was cheap but, if I needed to I would.

But no, that wouldn’t have worked. I had started walking early in the morning on the weekends with a friend of mine; anything to get away from my apartment before the sun came up, even braving the desert heat. We were walking on a path that ran behind her neighborhood. The day had already turned sunny and warm despite the early hour, and even if I still felt watched it was hard to feel frightened on a day like that.

Of course, that’s when I saw it. There, between the trees that lined the path across the hard packed earth covered in cactus and wild bushes. I saw it, and it was not on the horizon any more. And I could finally see the definition in its shape, human but far too jagged to be human. I felt faint; I think I may have cried out, I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. My friend was very concerned but I just passed it off as the heat getting to me. We hurried home after that.

At this point I didn’t know what to do. I won’t lie I panicked, I thought maybe I was possessed or a demonic entity had latched on to me or something. I’m not really a believer but something strange was happening so why not. I went to mediums, I got saged, I bought crystals of protection and purification and nothing I did mattered every day I could see it getting closer and closer and I didn’t know what to do. It got to the point where I would I could see it on the top of the building across from my work staring at me and watching me and savoring my discomfort and I think I started to go a little mad. My coworkers tried to talk to me, but what could I tell them. I lied and said I was just having some family problems.

I did move, in the end. It didn’t help. I saw it across the street from the alley behind my new apartment, when it was finally in the entrance to the alley that’s when I booked my flight here, to London I didn’t want to go anywhere I didn’t speak the language to be honest, and I wanted to put an ocean between me and it. I didn’t even tell anyone at work I was leaving I just booked a flight same day and left. I don’t have any pets and all the plants I try to take care of die anyways so it wasn’t difficult to arrange. I saw it on the runway when we were taking off, I should have gotten aisle seat.

I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t, just run away, literally, or run towards it and confront it as it got closer. Flight or fight, right? But I knew if I did that I would be dead, it would have pounced, it wanted me to do that. As long as I went about my life it wouldn’t attack, I could feel it in my bones and I did my best to not react.

It probably won’t surprise you that coming to London didn’t work, I knew right away it hadn’t. I saw it as we landed, as I took a cab to the cheapest hotel I could find on short notice, it was even in one of the windows of the hotel when I got there, staring down at me. When I was drowning my sorrows in the hotel bar I could see it through the warped glass that separated the bar from the lobby. That’s when I found out about you guys, the bar tender told me if I wanted to talk about something creepy I should go to the Magnus Institute, he didn’t want to hear any more of it. That’s fair, I didn’t want to hear any more about it either.

I’ve been here a week now, my money is running out, I don’t even have enough to get home but I don’t think it matters anymore. Yesterday it was in the hall outside my room. When I woke up this morning it was in my hotel room, standing in the corner watching me. Just watching me. Watching me unmoving waiting for me to break, and I nearly did. I nearly ran out of the room screaming, desperate to escape this predator for which I was prey. I didn’t, though I’m not ashamed to say I cried as I dressed. On the tube ride here it was stood in the crowd on the train, no one else saw it of course.

I do not even know how to describe it. I haven’t dared look at it directly since it was close enough that I could see its eyes. But it is sharp, a jagged edge in the world, made for cutting and killing and eating. It may have a human shape but it is not human.

When I left the station it was waiting at the top of the escalators, close enough when I passed it I could feel its breath on my skin. I know it is waiting just outside these doors. I wish I could stay here, I am so very tired of being hunted.

Statement ends.

At first glance it seems like it could be related to several different entities. The feeling of being watched could be the beholder, a thing that is human but not human could be the stranger. But no, I think it’s clear this is an aspect of The Hunt.

Ms Evans did not end up staying in the archives or even asking to, as far as I know. If Martin was here I would ask him… Regardless, Abigail Evans was found dead in her hotel room the day after she gave this statement. Newspaper reports at the time reported that it appeared she had died from some kind of wild animal attack, despite being in a hotel in the middle of London The only way they could identify her was from her passport found in the room. There is not much else to follow up on. Whatever was hunting her finally caught its prey, and unless I start seeing a figure in the distance hunting me I have more important things to be dealing with.

#The Magnus Archives #Magnus Archives #my writing #I wanted to try my hand at short form horror #pretty pleased with it #I wrote it months ago now lol #just got round to posting it

4 notes · View notes

pb1138 · 6 years ago

Text

Through the Window

Cable x femReader

Deadpool and Cable need to lie low for a while, so they choose rural Indiana. It just so happens that where they choose to set up shop is not too far from where you grew up, and old memories and emotions get stirred up. HELLA ANGST and then fluff. LOTS of mention of loss/death. About 2,000 words

Deadpool 2 spoilers

“Hey, guys, I have to take Mindy home. I’ll be back in, she says, like two hours. So probably more like 4.” You had poked your head through the archway into the living room, waving at Cable and Wade who were sitting on opposite ends of the room.

“I’m coming with you.”

Surprised, you raised your eyebrows at Cable who had spoken. “I mean. Ok, but we’re going to be singing loudly to a lot of weird music.”

Cable shrugged and stood, crossing the room to you. “I don’t care. I’m goin stir crazy in this dump.”

Wade gasped in mock offense, putting a hand to his chest. “How dare you. I work my ass off to make this place a shitshow. To call it a dump is just downright insulting to my efforts as a homemaker.”

Cable looked pointedly at you and you smiled, waving him along.

The three of you piled into your car, Cable in back, and you set off on your way. Due to your friend’s shitty navigation, it took you nearly two hours to get to her house despite it only having needed an hour, hour and a half tops. But you didn’t mind. You were having fun, talking to her, singing with her, making fun of Cable’s reactions to you both. You had been pointing out houses you liked along the way, as well as obligatorily pointing out every single herd of cattle or horses you saw. You had met your friend in her freshman year of college in DC, but it turns out you were both from the same small town in Indiana. You were ecstatic to have found a piece of home so far away and after so long. The two of you became close friends and eventual roommates in one of the dorms on campus before you had made friends with Dopinder, the lovable taxi driver. He had been taking you across town when DP called needing a ride. You had said it was fine, you didn’t mind sharing a taxi. As soon as Wade’s ass hit the seat, you were best friends. The two of you moved in together after Vanessa passed away so Al didn’t accidentally shoot herself trying to shoot him, and so Colossus wouldn’t lose his mind. Cable had ended up moving in after a while, too, something you very much didn’t mind. Cable was. Just. Fuck. Like. Oh my god. There just aren’t even words.

And then Wade decided to piss off one of the biggest, most widespread mafias in the entire United States and suddenly they needed to lie low. “I’ve got just the place,” you had said, and voila, rural ass Indiana. Nothing but corn and beans and cows for miles. Home.

“You missed the turnoff,” Mindy said.

You smirked and glanced at her, shaking your head. “Nope. I wanna go see my old house. I wanna see what they’ve built over it.”

Cable’s interest was mildly, very mildly, piqued, but he didn’t ask about it. He knew actually very little about you past beyond the basics—Indiana born and raised, mutant but self-trained, tense family life, come to DC for school. That’s really it. Truthfully, he was a little excited to see through this window into your life.

A few miles later, you turned onto a nicely paved road and began your tour. You started with the house of a childhood friend and crush who ended up being gay with a teenage-hood friend and crush, then moved on to the house of another friend, then the cemetery where you road your bike, and then finally your old land.

“Eight fucking years and they still haven’t built anything? What a load of shit.” You scoffed, pulling into the overgrown driveway. Cable narrowed his eyes in confusion, looking out the window at…well nothing. There were two garages, an old barn attached to a silo, and a storage barn, but other than that?

“What do you mean?” Mindy has asked.

“So. Eight years ago. I fucked up. And accidentally burnt my house down.”

“Fucking what?”

“It’s a long story but basically I tried to smoke a cigarette and fucked up and now my house is no more, aight? The people who bought it said they were going to build a new house for their kids. Eight years ago. And there’s still nothing. I mean, it’s kind of touching in a way because it still feels like mine, but jesus what’s the hold up?” You drove them through the rest of the driveway, telling them some stories about your childhood before you continued on your way to the town about a mile away. As you drove down the main street, you slowed down at a candle store and stared at it for a long minute before Cable watched you wipe a tear from your eyes.

“Was that your dad’s store?” Mindy asked. You nodded in response, and suddenly Cable understood. He knew your dad had passed away not long after your house burnt down. ‘The year of hell’ you call it. And he remembered you telling him that your father had owned a computer store, some dinky little place, but you loved it. He looked out the window at the candle store again before he silently reached out and touched your shoulder. You smiled slightly in your rearview at him and set off again. Mindy’s house wasn’t even 2 minutes away. You said your goodbyes and Cable moved up to the passenger seat and the two of you set off again. After learning about what all you’ve lost, Cable felt a little closer to you, not that he didn’t feel close before. In fact, if he were totally honest with himself, he downright liked you. Perhaps a little too much.

You took a different way out of town, more direct to get home, but you had pointed out a few more landmarks (the water tower, a park that “hasn’t changed one goddamn bit,” your gay crush’s old house, some train tracks you said the cops had yelled at you for walking on.) And after a while, you had begun to cry. Not blatantly, but Cable heard the cracking in your voice, saw you trying to hide your eye wipes. Quietly, he asked, “Are you alright?”

Your lip trembled and you gripped the wheel tightly, but nodded. “Yeah. It’s just. A lot of memories.” He nodded silently and looked ahead. After a few minutes of silence, you quietly admitted, “I miss my dad.”

He looked at you and his heart shattered. You had tears blatantly falling down your face now, one hand holding your head, the other gripping your wheel with all your strength. “I’m sure wherever he is, if he’s somewhere, he’s proud of you.”

You were silent another moment before you shook your head slightly. “I’m not so sure. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last eight years.”

Cable frowned. “But did you learn from them?”

You nodded slightly. “I like to think so.”

He looked forward, hands resting on his knees. “Then he’s proud.”

You pulled into the parking lot of a factory and got out of the car. The sun was setting ahead of you, and you pulled yourself onto the hood of your car, staring at it. Cable got out, too, and stood next to you. “It’s not just what I’ve done since… It’s what I did before.”

Cable looked at you, took in the orange light making your skin glow, lighting the trails of your tears, softening your hair. “What are you talking about?”

“My dad. Um. My dad died thinking I didn’t love him.” You sniffed hard, your voice quivering. “And, before you say he knew, really he didn’t.”

“Go on.”

“So. The night before he died. He asked if I wanted to go into the city to do laundry. I was 14. In my emo phase where parents suck all kinds of shitdick. I told him no. A few minutes later, he comes in and yells at me, which should have tipped me off because my dad never yelled.” You took your sunglasses off and wiped your eyes hard. “So I went, and I was pissed and being petulant. We went and threw our clothes in and then went and got Taco Bell, so I was like cool, Taco Bell. But still annoyed.” Cable pulled himself up on the hood to sit beside you. “And then we started driving around my old neighborhood, where I was born. And he was telling me stories, just random tidbits from my youth. Which was also weird. And then we went and got our clothes and started home.” You swallowed hard and your voice started shaking hard, holding back sobs. “He and my mom were getting a divorce. A while before they asked who I wanted to live with, and I had said my mom. So we’re leaving town that night and he goes, ‘When your mom and I get divorced, will you come see me?’” You choked out a sob and turned your hands into fists, teeth digging into her lip. Cable reached over and put his hand on your shoulder again. It took you a minute to calm down enough to continue. “And I didn’t fucking say anything. Not a goddamn fucking thing. So then he goes, ‘I bet you won’t.’ And I. Didn’t. Fucking. Say. Anything.” You were sobbing now, blatantly, choking your words out one by one. “I went to bed really late that night, but when I did he was still snoring in bed. We hadn’t talked since we left town. And then I woke up to my mom calling an ambulance and he was gone.”

Cable couldn’t handle it anymore. He reached over and wrapped his arm around you, pulling you into him. You turned and buried your head in his shoulder, arms wrapping tightly around his waist. He held you close, rocking ever so slightly, waiting for you to calm down. It took a while, the sun almost completely set over the horizon, but you whispered a small, “Thank you for listening,” into his shoulder, your grip around his waist slackened significantly.

He put his cheek on your head and rubbed your arm gently. “Doll, I would listen to you read the dictionary word by word, shit letter by letter if I thought it would help you feel better.”

You shook with a small laugh and you pulled back, smiling slightly up at him, eyes puffy and red. He smiled gently at you and brushed a bit of hair behind your ear and you turned your cheek into his palm, your hands moving to his wrist. Before you realized what you were doing, you had turned and pressed a kiss against his palm, and once you did realize, you slipped off the car, moving to head to the passenger side. Cable hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second before he slid off after you and gently caught your wrist. You turned towards him and let him pull you into him, your hands going to his chest, his to your shoulders. You both looked at each other for a moment, eyes flicking back and forth before you stretched up and ever so softly put your lips to his, ghosting your skin just barely against his. He moved to cup the back of your neck and leaned down into it, warmth and love radiating from his core. He pulled back after a moment and you smiled up at him. “Turns out I don’t need to read the dictionary after all.”

His smile widened and he kissed you again, this one long and passionate, almost leaving you breathless. You were interrupted by the ringing of a phone and you sighed, knowing it was probably Wade, being annoying. You stepped back from Cable and smiled, tossing the keys at him. “I’m too tired to drive.” He chuckled and stepped around to the driver’s side and you set off for home, holding hands the entire way.

#cable #cable x reader #nathan summers #nathan summers x reader #x reader #marvel x reader #deadpool x reader #death mention #loss mention #angst #fluff #x reader fluff #cable fanfic #cable fanfiction #fuck #i love cable #ugh

47 notes · View notes

johnboothus · 4 years ago

Text

We Asked 14 Bartenders: Whats the Best Spring Cocktail?

With the arrival of spring, things begin to stir: The bright blooming of tulips and daffodils; the festive atmosphere of farmers’ markets; the exposure of bare skin to the elements. A specific kind of progress can be felt with the return of warmer weather. It raises the spirit, reawakening a confident hopefulness that hibernates all winter.

Spring also welcomes a roster of dependably refreshing drinks that express the season’s sprightliness. They are lighter and brighter tasting, and make the most of fresh ingredients, seeking to capture and celebrate the moment’s flavors. (Spring does have its fair share of cold days, though, and thus some creations will be sturdier and warming, incorporating components prevalent in winter cocktails.)

To ensure we imbibe appropriately through the season, we turned to the experts and asked 14 bartenders across the country to spotlight their favorite seasonal tipples that say, “Spring is here!”

From inventive takes on the spritz to classic tiki cocktails like the Mai Tai, here’s what the experts picked. Drink up!

The Best Spring Cocktails Recommended By Bartenders:

Fiero Spritz

Mai Tai

Bamboo

Pimm’s Cup

Suffering Bastard

Bee’s Knees

Rock, Salt & Nails

Tom Collins

The Horse’s Neck

Mango Collins

Esteban’s Sangria

Skeleton Key

St-Germain Spritz

Siesta

Keep reading for details about all of the recommended drinks!

“My current favorite spring drink is definitely the spritz. I love being able to sip on several of these refreshing, low-alcohol beverages as the weather warms up and we can finally spend some time outside. This cocktail is so dynamic in that you can make it with many different ingredients. The classic Aperol spritz is a wonderful option, but I also like to get creative with it, subbing in different aperitifs and sparkling wines. My current favorite patio crusher is Martini & Rossi Fiero with a splash of blood-orange juice and some Mionetto Prosecco. Adding to the list of benefits for this drink is that it’s easily built in the glass. Bring your ingredients outside to the table and mix away at your leisure — no need to head back inside to make another round!” —Miranda Breedlove, National Director of Bars, Hyatt Lifestyle, Chicago

“By the time spring rolls around each year, I find myself extremely eager to move away from the cold and darkness of winter. I look for a cocktail that, in my mind, seems to jumpstart the warm weather, and helps me cruise into spring with an eye on plans for summer. A well-made Mai Tai is one of the most transportive cocktails I know. When I taste one for the first time each year I know I’m on my way to sunnier days. The complexities of that strong, refreshing, and nutty rum sour (probably chewing on some good pebble ice as well) embody spring in a glass to me. It’s probably my favorite way to follow up my first lawn-mowing of the year.“ —Mattias Hagglund, Owner and Bartender, The Jasper, Richmond, Va.

“One of my favorite spring cocktails is the Bamboo. It was created in the 1890s by a bartender named Louis Eppinger. He was a German working at the Royal Hotel in Japan. It’s a very simple combination of vermouth and sherry, along with bitters. The opportunities for variations are nearly endless because of the diverse styles and types of sherry and vermouth one can employ. A nutty oloroso or amontillado sherry works for me in the cooler months. But as the weather warms, I prefer a more dry sherry like a fino or manzanilla. The bracing salinity that switch gives makes for a very crisp cocktail that still has great depth and nuance. The other half of the cocktail is vermouth. I use Dolin dry but supplement it with a small bit of blanc vermouth as well. The sweetness this adds is subtle but effective. Rounds out the drink and makes it feel more full. Gives it a little dramatic tension. The first Bamboo I tried was made for me by the amazing Abigail Gullo at the Beagle, a wonderful bar that used to be in the East Village. Was immediately smitten! I’d love to batch them on nice days and stroll around our old neighborhood — Red Hook in Brooklyn — with my wife and friends, sipping them from coffee cups.” —Evan Bulchoz, Owner, Brix & Rye, Greenport, N.Y.

“One of my favorite drinks whenever the weather turns warmer is a Pimm’s Cup. I’m a fan of bitter and earthy spirits, and the herbaceous notes of Pimm’s makes for a refreshingly delicious lower-ABV cocktail. I grew up right outside of New Orleans and before moving to Portland, lived in the city for 16 years. A favorite destination for drinks was always the Napoleon House. In fact, my wedding was held at the Pharmacy Museum right by the Napoleon House. We had people running over to bring us Pimm’s Cups during the reception, so they definitely have a special place in my heart!” —Sierra Kirk-Luebke, Co-owner, Cliff’s PDX, Portland, Ore.

“Springtime in Mississippi is short and sudden, so it’s like flipping a light switch from off to on but then somehow the switch breaks on the on position and then comes intense humidity and heat, otherwise known as summer. Since it’s so short, I treat spring almost like a holiday, so that means shorts, sandals, Hawaiian shirts, and tiki drinks. Lots of tiki drinks. My go-to is an easy one that has its roots at the Shepheard Hotel in Cairo, way back during the Second World War. The Suffering Bastard, created by Joe Scialom, calls for brandy and gin, but I typically have more bourbon laying around so the recipe I use is: 1 ounce bourbon, 1 ounce gin, 1/2 ounce lime juice, 1/4 ounce simple syrup, 4 dashes of Angostura bitters, and then topped off with a nice ginger ale, like Boylan’s. To make: Shake everything but the ginger ale in a shaker with ice. Then strain into a Collins glass, add ice, top with ginger ale, and garnish with a mint sprig.“ —Derek Baker, Bartender, Snackbar, Oxford, Miss.

“A classic Bee’s Knees is the perfect blueprint for a spring cocktail. The honey syrup is a great backdrop for cycling in seasonal ingredients (strawberry and rhubarb-infused honey, anyone?), and swapping out the base spirit, gin, for rum or whiskey is a pretty simple way to jazz it up. Now, on colder spring days, there’s nothing like a reposado tequila (I love Teremana for this) with hibiscus, honey, and lemon; the vanilla and caramel notes are just cozy enough, but the hibiscus and citrus hint at warmer days to come. Last, when you get one of those warm sundress days, a navy-strength gin in the classic build is the perfect way to celebrate the season!” —Resa Mueller, Bartender, R&D, Philadelphia

“As a lover of all things vegetal, stirred, and boozy, the new springtime Martini by Stuart Jensen of Brass Tacks, my favorite bar in Denver, really blew my socks off. It’s like a 50/50 Martini amplified with manzanilla sherry, herbal wine and celery-root liqueur. I truly can’t get enough. It’s called Rock, Salt & Nails and features: 1 1/2 ounces of Botanist Gin, 3/4 ounce of both manzanilla sherry and Absentroux, 1/2 ounce of Apologue celery root liqueur, a dash saline, and two dashes Strongwater floral bitters. Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a Martini glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.” —Alex Jump, Head Bartender, Death & Co., Denver

“Tom Collins! It’s my partner’s favorite cocktail, and I’m addicted to sparkling water, so we almost always have gin and soda laying around. She prefers them as is, but sometimes I’ll add a dash of Angostura bitters or absinthe to mine to spice things up a bit. Or if I’m feeling lazy, gin and soda with a squeeze of citrus does the trick just fine, too. It’s a template that allows for easy tinkering, depending on your mood. Spring and gin go hand in hand as far as I’m concerned. Here’s how we make Tom Collins’ at the bar: 2 ounces of gin — preferably London Dry but Old Tom is great, too — and 3/4 ounce of both lemon juice and simple syrup. Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake briefly but firmly. Double strain into a chilled Collins glass and top with 2 ounces of soda water. Fill with ice. Garnish with a cherry and orange twist.” —Carlo Caroscio, Bar Manager, Backbar, Somerville, Mass.

“The Horse’s Neck is a thing of beauty for its simplicity, but as with all things simple it’s easy to spoil if the ingredients aren’t selected wisely and the drink is executed carelessly. Born in the late 19th century and often forgotten, this drink is essentially a basic Highball whose name refers to the long, curly strip of lemon peel twisting between ice and glass. In theory, it simply calls for bourbon or brandy and ginger ale with bitters, which no doubt makes for a refreshing spring cocktail. But employing some of that aforementioned care with a few tweaks can make it even more appropriate for the season. Namely, splitting its base with equal parts brandy and bourbon to give more complexity, while subbing a spicy ginger beer for the often-too-sweet ginger ale to make it both a great cooler for warmer days and a more comforting sipper during the season’s chillier times.” —Guiseppe Santochirico, Head Bartender, Halftone Spirits, Brooklyn

“I tend to crave anything sparkling during springtime. Therefore, the mixed drink I find myself enjoying the most this season is a classic Tom Collins made with Absolut Mango Vodka in place of gin. You can also easily swap out the mango vodka for any other flavor you prefer. This drink was introduced to me by one of my respected mentors, Andrew Willett, who taught me to keep an open mind and helped me realize there is a place for flavored vodka. My preferred recipe is: 2 ounces of Absolut Mango Vodka, an ounce of lemon juice, and 3/4 ounce of simple syrup. Shake with ice, strain into a Collins glass with ice, and top with about 2 ounces of soda water.” —Harry Chin, Lead Bartender, MW Restaurant, Honolulu

“My go-to spring fling patio-pounder is called Esteban’s Sangria. It’s inspired by a tremendously talented artist named Esteban Ramon Perez, who is going to blow up for his work with the medium of textiles. A refreshing Provence rosé sangria made with blanco tequila, pamplemousse liqueur, and freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice. Sangria is a punch, so I use a pink grapefruit oleo-saccharum as a secret weapon so the citrus really pops. The layers of refreshing flavor flow effortlessly like the waves of fabric or leather in his pieces. Artistically speaking, the two mediums are intertwined as there’s more depth to the final products than meets the eye.” —Roger Gross, Bar Curator, Sherkaan, New Haven, Conn.

“If you’re a cocktail aficionado and have spent any amount of time in and out of the fine drinking establishments around Detroit over the past 10 years, then you will have likely heard of or enjoyed a Skeleton Key. I would say this cocktail is a modern classic, but one that is regionally specific to Detroit. It was created by local bartender Brian Vollmer sometime between 2008 and 2010 while he was working at Roast, a Michael Symon steakhouse in the city’s downtown. I was hired into the bar in the fall of 2011 and immediately became very familiar with this drink; I would go on to make thousands of these during my tenure there. My specs are different from the original, which features bourbon, Fever Tree ginger beer, elderflower liqueur, lemon juice, and Angostura bitters. Instead of ginger beer, I rely on ginger syrup and Topo Chico. And I use a slightly smaller portion of elderflower liqueur. Add 1 1/2 ounces of bourbon, 1/2 ounce of both ginger syrup and elderflower liqueur, and 3/4 ounce of lemon juice to a cocktail shaker with a few ice cubes, and shake well. Strain it into a Collins glass with ice, add Topo Chico, and top with bitters. No doubt, the Skeleton Key is a drink that tells the story of transition. It embraces winter flavors like cinnamon, clove, and ginger — and, of course, whiskey — and brightens them up with spring ingredients like lemon juice and floral liqueur. The initial look and aroma of the drink captures the vestiges of a fading winter but the flavor ignites the palate with a fresh, floral, zippy, and refreshing note, bringing life to the drink and completing the transition of the seasons. It also draws from the foundation of a Kentucky Mule, which is a cocktail I always enjoy during the onset of spring.” —Drew Pompa, Beverage Director, Takoi, Detroit

“Call me basic but I love a good spritz in the shade, with that cool spring breeze hitting with every sip. A beautiful liqueur, sparkling wine, and soda is so simple yet so decadent and refreshing. Aperol spritz is the famous one, and I do prefer a Campari spritz. But a St-Germain spritz has had my attention the last couple years. That combo of elderflower and sparkling wine is the earthy sweetness we all deserve. I’ll gladly have the bubble guts (see what I did there?) after crushing three or four.” —Teddy Martinez, Bartender, Mezcalero LBC, Long Beach, Calif.

“It’s Siesta season for me as soon as the weather warms up. Katie Stipe’s modern classic from Flatiron Lounge is delightfully bright, and I love the touch of bitter. For my personal serve, I love to put it on crushed ice and add a pinch of salt. I’ll build 1/2 ounce of lime, grapefruit juice, simple syrup, and Campari, and 1 1/2 ounces of blanco tequila (I believe the original is up and has 2 ounces of tequila). Give a quick shake with some crushed ice, serve in a rocks glass filled with crushed ice, and garnish with grapefruit slice.” —Meaghan Dorman, Bar Director, Raines Law Room and Dear Irving, New York

The article We Asked 14 Bartenders: What’s the Best Spring Cocktail? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/wa-best-spring-cocktails-2021/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/we-asked-14-bartenders-whats-the-best-spring-cocktail

0 notes

wineanddinosaur · 4 years ago

Text

We Asked 14 Bartenders: What’s the Best Spring Cocktail?

To ensure we imbibe appropriately through the season, we turned to the experts and asked 14 bartenders across the country to spotlight their favorite seasonal tipples that say, “Spring is here!”

From inventive takes on the spritz to classic tiki cocktails like the Mai Tai, here’s what the experts picked. Drink up!

The Best Spring Cocktails Recommended By Bartenders:

Fiero Spritz

Mai Tai

Bamboo

Pimm’s Cup

Suffering Bastard

Bee’s Knees

Rock, Salt & Nails

Tom Collins

The Horse’s Neck

Mango Collins

Esteban’s Sangria

Skeleton Key

St-Germain Spritz

Siesta

Keep reading for details about all of the recommended drinks!

The article We Asked 14 Bartenders: What’s the Best Spring Cocktail? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/wa-best-spring-cocktails-2021/

0 notes

unicornmagic · 7 years ago

Text

What’s New Pussycat

A Gradence thing for Kinktober days 20 (Pet Play) and 22 (Collaring), on the principle that there’s never enough kitty Credence. Unduly pure-hearted, as usual. Whether pure-hearted smut will follow is TBD.

"Nicely done," said Graves, with warmth in his voice, to the black cat seated by his feet. "Guess you didn't need any pointers."

The cat looked up at him with large, luminous eyes. It, or rather he, blinked once, then ducked his head to nudge it softly against Graves' shin. Black hairs plastered themselves to Graves' trouser leg. Graves' mouth pulled to one side.

"I'm not miffed. I'm proud of you. It's not an easy spell to pull off."

Setting his glass of whiskey aside, he reached down to stroke the sleek black head. A purr thrummed. Graves drew back his hand. He draped an arm along the top of the sofa and let his legs stretch, then patted the cushion in invitation.

After a beat, Credence sprang onto the sofa. He made a fine-looking feline (to no one's surprise): elegant, long-legged, with suggestions of Siamese about the face. His black tail swayed like the pendulum of a happy metronome. The line of his jaw was uncannily familiar. Graves crooked a finger underneath it and scratched the furry chin.

"Handsome boy," he said.

The yellow eyes slitted in bliss. When minutes of purring passed, and Credence showed no sign of transforming back, Graves withdrew his finger and tilted an eyebrow. "You're not stuck, are you?"

Credence's eyes opened, then narrowed. He lifted his head and brought his forepaws together with prim dignity. Graves reached for the whiskey glass to hide his grin.

"Just checking. My Transfiguration teacher at Ilvermorny used to tell us stories about a kid who got stuck as a weasel. Cautionary tales. In my case they didn't take." One of the black ears flickered. Then Credence crouched and studied the expanse of Graves' outstretched legs.

Graves watched in amusement. "Looking for a comfy spot?"

He was teasing, mostly, but Credence gave an indelible blink. Slowly, paw by tentative paw, he began to creep onto Graves' lap.

Graves sat still, not quite breathing, as the small, warm weight circled and settled onto his thighs, assuming a small, rounded loaf shape. Like those pumpernickel rounds from Kowalski's. At last Credence stopped moving, and Graves let himself exhale.

It wasn't that having Credence on his lap was new. It wasn't old, mind you, not enough to feel like old hat (though Graves, for all his worldly experience, couldn't figure how it ever would), but the situation had arisen enough times that you'd think he might manage not to get winded when it did. Especially when Credence was technically a cat.

Graves abandoned his whiskey, afraid it might inflame the bubble of lightness rising in his chest. He laid a hand on Credence's furry head, and the purring resumed, fit to rattle the old townhouse on its foundations.

"Disappointed?" echoed Graves, with a forkful of prime rib halfway to his mouth. "How so?"

"I never thought I'd be a panther, or anything like that," said Credence. His spoon clinked on the edge of his dinner plate. "I just...would've liked to be a bird, I think. To be able to fly."

"You can still fly. That's what brooms are for. Or winged horses." Graves wondered if they were due for another trip to the Hudson Valley, where flying of all forms was more easily done.

"It'd be different, though," said Credence, eyes downcast. "Having your own wings."

"I suppose it would." Leaning in his chair, Graves swiped the napkin over his mouth. "Birds are handy for surveillance. We've got a couple on the force. But they're not so great at getting into buildings. Neither are panthers, frankly. A panther in Manhattan?" He shook his head with self-directed rue. "A regular housecat has the run of the city. Long as you're careful about it, you can go wherever you want."

Credence's face began to clear. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Only thing stealthier would be a mouse or a rat, and who wants to turn into vermin?" Graves forbore to mention that they had a couple of those on the force, too. "Anyway. You look handsome as a cat."

"You said that before," murmured Credence, pushing mashed potatoes with his spoon. He seemed to be fighting a smile.

"And I'll say it again."

Credence scooped a heaping bite of the potatoes. "I'm glad I'm not a rat," he said.

They were passing a pet shop--not a magical familiar shop; a regular No-Maj affair--when Credence stopped in his tracks, arrested by something in the window. Graves turned and blinked at the rhinestone-studded collar behind the glass. His eyebrows climbed of their own accord.

"Not really your style," he said.

"Not this one. But..." Credence's hand rose to the glass. He stared at the collar intently. "I should wear one. If I'm going to go out. As a cat." He spoke slowly, in the same tone he used when working out the principles of a convoluted spell. He didn't quite look at Graves. "So people won't think I'm a stray."

Graves' eyebrows stayed raised, but he said only, "Good idea," and gestured for Credence to precede him through the door.

Inside the shop, Credence ignored the rhinestones. He found a trim collar of patent leather, plain black, with a silvery clasp. Its inner side was padded, soft to the touch. Credence fingered it for a moment, then glanced sidelong at Graves.

Graves took it gently from his hand and made for the counter.

There were metal ID tags in various shapes: hearts, stars, doggy bones, the state of New York. Credence chose a plain silver circle, round as the moon.

"And how would you like it engraved?" asked the clerk.

When Credence stood tongue-tied, Graves said to the clerk, "Go ahead and wrap it up."

The shop's bell jingled behind them as they returned to the street. Credence clutched the narrow box close to his chest. The hint of a smile ghosted around his mouth.

"Thank you," he said to Graves.

"Can't have people thinking you're homeless," said Graves. He felt inflated, puffed with the usual foolish satisfaction of having supplied something Credence wanted, and in danger of succumbing to a strut. Like a damned pigeon. "What do you want on the tag?" An Inscription Charm would do the trick. He could cast it when they got home. "Initials?"

Credence nodded. His cheeks colored, but that might've been the blustery wind. "Not mine," he mumbled. "Yours."

For all his talk of going out, Credence didn't do much marauding on four paws, at least not as far as Graves could tell. There was a window that opened to the rooftop terrace, and Graves had modified the wards, but more often of an evening Graves would find Credence perched by the windows in the sitting room, tail a-twitch, observing sparrows on their daily commute beyond the glass. Or else he might be curled up by the fireplace--curled at first, and later sprawled in a pose of wilder abandon than Credence ever struck, even in their shared bed, when he didn't have fur.

They made a joint outing down the street to the park, where Credence stalked among the hedges, whiskers quivering as if he'd never seen or smelled juniper before. One of the neighborhood ladies caught them at it: a well-to-do witch named Mrs. Byers, out for her afternoon stroll. Her eyes glinted at the sight of the cat.

"New familiar, Mr. Graves?" She paused. "Or is that your apprentice?"

Graves turned on the charm and laid a finger to his lips. "Afraid that's classified, Mrs. B."

"Oh, you and your classifieds." She bent toward Credence, whose ears and tail lifted as he looked up. The set of her mouth grew stern. "No stalking the birds, please. My husband likes to feed them."

Credence blinked, then slunk between Graves' legs and crouched there, sheltered by his coattails, to stare at the witch.

"Not to worry," said Graves. "He's well fed."

He bent, scooped up Credence, and carried him across the park to a more secluded green space, a triangle of lawn where cats could explore unchastened. Credence nestled as they went, paws kneading, and purred against his chest.

Graves shouldn't have been taken aback, maybe, the day he came home from work to find Credence--standard version--wearing the collar, Transfigured to fit his human neck. But Credence was forever surprising him.

Besides the collar, Credence wore a dark sweater that showed a hint of collarbone, and black trousers and black socks. All quality materials; Graves had seen to that. The silvery tag with its monogrammed PG kept glimmering at Credence's throat. Graves had seen to that, too: when he'd cast the spell to inscribe it, he'd put a touch of extra glimmer in. Just a tad. It had seemed a harmless whimsy at the time.

Shedding his coat and loosening his tie, Graves nodded at the collar. "You want to talk about it?"

Credence shook his head.

"All right. Later." Graves poured himself two fingers of Firewhiskey--the additional burn seemed called for--and eased onto the sofa, leaving plenty of room. When Credence stood uncertainly, touching the collar's leather edge, Graves took a sip of whiskey and gave him a look.

"In my experience, cats aren't big on orders," he said. "They do what they want. Granted, some are more forward than others." And some were more timid, largely due to lifetimes of poor treatment from humans. So-called humans. Humans unworthy of the term. Relenting, Graves patted the cushion by his side. "C'mere."

With a hurried exhalation Credence padded to the couch and folded onto it. Graves reached to cup his cheek, the line of his jaw, with an appreciative hand.

"My handsome boy," he murmured. Credence's eyes fluttered shut. He looked as if a purr would be welling in his throat, were he in a more conducive shape for purring. Graves rubbed under his chin, just as he did when Credence really was a cat, before his fingers strayed to the glossy black band around Credence's neck.

"Nice Enlargement Charm on this," he said, observing. He slipped a fingertip between leather and skin, testing the fit. "Looks like it was made to order."

He traced the leather's sleekness lightly with his thumb. Watched Credence's throat work on a swallow, or a false start at one, as Graves touched the side of his neck, where the pulse flickered under skin.

"Tell you what," Graves said at last. "I'll make a suggestion. You can take it or leave it, as cats do."

Eyes opening, Credence gazed at him, then nodded. Graves gave him a sideways smile.

"You want to sit on my lap?"

Credence let out a breath and nodded again.

Graves set his Firewhiskey on the table. He let his thighs cant further apart. Credence had an inch on him, vertically speaking, and a pair of legs that seemed to go on for miles--but it was remarkable how compact he could become when he put his mind to it. He put his mind to it now, and curled himself across Graves' lap, with his feet against the arm of the sofa and his tailbone tucked by Graves' inner thigh.

A sigh escaped him, reedy, as his weight settled. His face nudged into the side of Graves' neck. Graves waited for his shoulders to sink, then laid a hand on his back, over the dark gray sweater, and stroked the long curve of his spine. He wasn't prepared to go much further, not until they had a chat, but this much he could do.

"There's my sweetheart," he murmured. "That's my boy."

Credence made a tiny sound, mh, soft in his throat. It might've served as a stand-in for a purr, except it streaked down Graves' spine to parts south in a way that genuine feline purring didn't. Graves supposed he should be grateful for that, and for the fact that Credence hadn't turned up wearing only the collar, and nothing else. It'd be a sight to see, but the heart could only take so much.

"I feel different," Credence said later, as he sat holding the collar between his hands. They were still on the sofa: Credence with legs folded on the cushion, Graves slouching sideways with one arm propped. "When I'm transformed. Like everything that's not here is...not unreal, but distant. Far away."

Graves knew what he meant. Any Animagus would, and big cats were a lot like small ones. He hadn't spent much time as a panther lately, other than to demonstrate the spell, but he remembered, if dimly, the exhilaration of his first few prowls through the woods of Massachusetts: the heady immediacy of sound and scent. Wind in his whiskers, every movement in the undergrowth or grass.

"Like it can't really touch you," he said.

Credence nodded. "I don't think about...things that happened before. Or things that might happen. There's just--here, now." He made a furtive, pale-handed gesture. "I thought maybe I could hold onto that. Even without doing the spell."

"And did you?"

Fiddling with the collar, Credence looked down. "I was afraid you'd think I was being silly. Then I thought, I might as well just transform."

"It's not silly," said Graves. "Not if it does you some good." He eyed Credence, and the diffuse flush that lingered in his face. "That's not all there is to it."

"No. It's--" Credence faltered, then said in a low plaintive rush, "I like being yours."

The hairs on the back of Graves' neck stood on end, bristling with primitive thrill. He told his follicles to take it easy, and laid his palm over Credence's wrist.

"Feeling's mutual. You know that, right?" He gave a careful squeeze. "I like being yours, too."

The furrow on Credence's brow suggested not denial, exactly, but a view too complicated for easy assent. "It's not the same."

"What's not the same?"

"It's not just being yours. It's--knowing I'm yours, and you're here, and it's safe and I don't have to figure out what to do, or, or worry about anything."

By the end of this outpouring Credence looked faintly ragged. Graves took both of his hands and clasped them to reassure.

"All right. I get the gist." It was tough to argue when he wanted those things for Credence, too, by and large. He wanted, selfish as it was, to be the one to give them. "You are safe," he said. "You don't have to worry. I just want you to understand--" He wavered, then laid it out flat. "You're not a pet, Credence. I'm not your owner."

"I wouldn't mind," said Credence, in a voice gone nearly hollow. "As long as I was yours."

The admission surprised Graves not at all. "Not at first, maybe. Sooner or later I think you would. Might take a while, but it'd start to chafe."

Credence looked doubtful, but didn't contest the point.

"I'm not saying you can't wear this, if you want to wear it." Graves clasped Credence's fingers around the collar, folding them with his own. "If you want to play pussycat, spell or no spell, it's okay by me."

"Just sometimes," mumbled Credence.

"All right, sometimes." Letting go of his hands, Graves sank back against the arm of the sofa. "You want me to behave in any particular way during those times?"

The question gave Credence pause. He considered it, then shook his head minutely. "How you always do."

"So it's all right if I touch you?" A nod. "In a licentious sort of way?" When Credence started blinking rapid-fire, Graves added, "You can say no. You can say yes now, and change your mind later."

The blinking subsided. Credence mustered another nod, wobbly but clear. "If you want. And like you said. You could...suggest things. Maybe I won't do them, if I don't want to. But I probably will." He licked his lips. "Want to."

Graves wasn't dense; he knew Credence liked to please him. That feeling was mutual, too, if somewhat varied in mode.

"'Cause you're my good boy," he murmured, reaching to cup Credence's nape and draw him nearer, close enough that their foreheads almost bumped. He ruffled the curling ends of Credence's hair and watched pleasure suffuse his face. "Not like those other cats. Rascals that shred the curtains and pee on the furniture."

Credence's lips pursed like they were trying not to twist. His eyes went bright and dark, the way they did when his mind tilted to irreverence. "I shredded your furniture once."

"Wasn't your fault. Nasty case of fleas." Graves nodded to the collar where it lay on Credence's lap. "Want me to put it back on you?"

Credence stilled. His mouth opened on a silent oh, and then: "Please."

#gradence #fbawtft #kinktober #my fic #ugh finally some words

141 notes · View notes

feelingdylano · 7 years ago

Text

The Other Side (Stiles Romance Sequel) ~Chapter 6~

My brows furrowed as I continued to slumber, my head nestled neatly over my arms as I kept my seated position over my desk. Somehow, I had managed to fall asleep in the middle of my English class during our studying of film over the decades. We had just reached the 80’s when I had started to drift off. My fingers twitched underneath me as my dreams took a turn for the usual. A vision.

I stood in midst of an abandoned town, a shiver ran down my spine as I looked around. The place must have become a Ghost City. Stepping forward, my heeled booties clanked along the pavement as I became drawn further in. I gasped and jump to a halt as I caught onto a sudden movement coming from my peripheral vision. Quickly spinning over, my eyes locked onto the countless of people moving about, walking and continuing with their daily lives. From a nearby boom box, Duran Duran began blaring through the streets in a festive sort of manner. Looking up, I caught onto the banner hanging in between buildings. 35th Annual Canaan Day. The city had come to life.

Brows furrowing, my eyes flickered over to a rather familiar man. My head cocked slightly as I took in his appearance. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, but his features showed no signs of aging. They were prominent, and still handsomely sculpted. He could have passed for someone younger if it weren’t for the streaks of grey at the side of his hair and patches over his stubble beard. His eyes were a deep grey color, but they displayed no emotion, in fact, his whole demeanor seemed almost bored.

There was a sudden scream as a woman began running through the crowd. From above the grey clouds of thunder came rolling in. I whipped around, my panic setting in as more screaming joined in, coming from every direction. The commotion ensued and everybody began running around frantically. I huffed out as a woman shoved my shoulder in attempt to get past me, and although I probably should have starting running as well, I kept my place as I looked down for a second, taking in what was going on.

Instinctively, my eyes flickered back to the man from before, his expression lifting only slightly in what seemed to be relief. He looked back at me for a split second. I squinted my gaze as I could have sworn he nodded for me to follow. Without a second thought, I felt my legs take over and oblige.

I began to pick up my pace, running and pushing past the rushing crowd, trying to keep up with the man. He turned forward, keeping his eyes focused as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, walking calmly through the crowds of panicking people. I came to a jolting stop as a woman stumbled over him, clutching at his arms and looking helpless and pleadingly. This didn’t seem to faze the man as he looked down to her with the same tired and bored expression.

“Please,” she whimpered. “Help me!” My eyes grew wide as I caught sight of a familiar silver blade protruding from under his coat sleeve.

“You’re a sinner,” he muttered. “The ultimate price must be paid.”

“No! Please!”

I gasped in horror as he managed to stab right through the woman’s torso. Her teary eyes grew wide as she looked down to the penetrating weapon for a moment before her body burst into a cloud of green smoke and vanishing all together. There was a loud bray before my gaze flickered over to the galloping horses as the infamous Ghost Riders made their appearance at the man’s side, almost as if standing by for orders.

“Take them,” he stated. “Take all of them. Man, woman, and child, alike. They’re all sinners and must be punished. Canaan shall be no more!”

The Ghost Riders raised their horses as they neighed and kicked up before galloping after the scattered runners. Their gunshots echoed about as one by one, they began taking their victims.

His lips curved into a devious smirk as he slowly turned back, his grey eyes illuminating into a familiar silver glow as he set his sights on me.

“Meanwhile, I have to take care of our little spy,” he stated almost ominously. My eyes only grew wider as I began stepping back in horror. How had he noticed my presence?

As he reached for me, I quickly turned on my heel and began running at once. However, I had barely managed to take a few steps forward before he somehow appeared before me. He was fast.

“Who are you?” He asked, cocking his head as he clutched the sword.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” I panted. His eyes flickered down to my outfit as pursed his lips through his smirk.

“You don’t seem to be from here,” he deduced, his slight German accent becoming obvious by now. “Your clothing is far too… advanced for this time.”

“Why are you with them?” I asked, my eyes squinting into a slight glare. “Why are you with the Wild Hunt?”

His brows raised in slight amusement.

“So, you know of die wilde jagd (the Wild Hunt)?”

I simply nodded.

“Who are you?”

“I am as I am named. I am Augustus Engel,” he smirked, raising his hands with a slight shrug, keeping his weapon tightly clutched. “The Great Angel.”

“You’re a nephilim,” I breathed out, taking in his silver glow before his eyes returned to their deep grey.

“The one and only in existence,” he nodded. “Only born every one hundred years or so. Born and raised in time of war and mayhem. Before World War II, I was conceived by my father, Azrael, who predicted Germany’s downfall. He wanted to prevent the destruction of his home and the place he guarded with his life, so he found a suitable woman and created me, to aid him in battle.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I shook my head. “Why are you with the Wild Hunt? Why are you helping them?”

“My dear girl, I am not helping them,” he almost laughed. “They obey me. I am their ruthless leader.”

My brows merged even further as he continued.

“They are my army,” he glowered his gaze, his expression suddenly becoming ominous. “I’m simply taking what is rightfully mine in exchange for what that war did to me during my time of greatness. Had I not lost myself in that war, Germany would have been victorious.” He paused briefly as he stepped forward. “You are all sinners. And the ultimate price must be paid.”

“By taking everyone and erasing them completely? That’s your solution?” I retorted, stepping back.

“I’m not just taking them,” he smirked. “I’m creating soldiers of my own. I’ll be unstoppable.”

“World War II was years ago, why still hold a grudge about it?”

“It wasn’t just about losing the war,” he shook his head. “It was much more than that.”

“So, then what?” I asked, standing my ground.

“Power,” he breathed out, his ominous glow returning as he finally lowered his weapon and prepared himself for the plunge. However, before he could take a stab at me, I gasped and jumped away from my desk. Looking around, I hoped with everything that nobody took notice. However, before I could, the school bell rang, signaling the end of class for the day.

Sighing heavily, I stepped out and kept my eyes glued to the floor as I ran a hand through my hair. What the hell had that vision been all about?

“Hey,” a voice called out, causing me to snap out of my own thoughts as I looked up to notice Scott standing in front of me, clutching his backpack strap. “I think we should talk to Stilinski.”

I simply nodded and followed after him.

“Right, you heard a voice coming through the radio and now you’re convinced that it’s the voice of—”

“Stiles,” Scott finished off for him.

“Your son,” I added for the alpha.

“Uh huh,” he nodded apprehensively. “And maybe it’s just a random signal cross.”

I pursed my lips together as I pulled out the jeep keys and slammed them down on his table across from him.

“Peter gave us the keys to the jeep,” I stated.

“And it started right up,” Scott added with a nod.

“Claudia’s jeep,” I sighed.

“Oh, wait a minute!” His face scrunched up in slight anger as he crossed his arms. “Now I’m supposed to trust Peter Hale?”

“No, we want you to trust us,” Scott shook his head as he motioned between the two of us. “I heard Stiles on that radio, I’m sure of it.”

“We all heard it,” I continued, crossing my own arms.

“If you had heard it too—”

“Well, I didn’t,” Mr. Stilinski shook his head.

“But if you had—”

“ENOUGH, SCOTT!” The sheriff suddenly cried out, cutting Scott off. “Enough.”

We both jumped back slightly as he took the keys and shoved them toward us. I quickly took them in hand, biting my tongue, and holding back my tears as I took the hint and marched out of the station.

“Adelyn, wait!” Scott called out, causing me to clench my grip on the keys before turning to him.

“What?”

“We’ll get him to listen, but maybe right now he just needs time,” he said, holding out his hands before him.

“Give him time?” I repeated, my brows merging slightly. “Scott, that’s the last thing we have! It’s one of the many things that isn’t on our side. And the longer he goes without remembering… the longer we have to live without Stiles.”

Right as I turned away from the alpha, I paused as I heard Scott’s phone ringing.

“Hello?”

“Get to the school,” Malia’s voice almost demanded. “Lydia needs to talk to us. All of us.”

“I think it may be a clue to what Stiles was trying to tell us about Canaan,” Lydia began as we all sat around the library table.

“What did you see?” I asked, my eyes landing on my best friend. “Because if we had the same vision then I’m going to flip.”

“No, I was in this neighborhood and I saw a carrousel—”

“You saw a carrousel?” Malia repeated, raising a brow.

“Yes, along with a big sign that said Canaan, and people disappearing in clouds of smoke,” Lydia sighed.

“So, you saw the festivities too?” I breathed out, my eyes widening slightly. “Creepy.”

“Do you guys ever have nice dreams?” Malia asked, her brows furrowing as she looked to the both of us.

“Occasionally,” I shrugged as I turned to her.

“We need to go to Canaan,” Lydia spoke up.

“It would be helpful if we knew anything about the place,” Malia sighed as she shut her laptop.

“Malia’s right,” Scott agreed. “We tried calling the number for city hall and no one answered.”

“And the only map that I can find it on is thirty years old,” Malia continued, pulling out a map and showing it to us.

“But we at least know where it’s located then?” I asked, looking up to the werecoyote.

“Yeah and that’s it,” she nodded.

“Then that’s all we need,” I shrugged.

“Okay, so when do we leave?” Malia asked, turning her attention to Scott.

“Now,” he nodded, taking the map up and making his way out of the library. We all gathered our stuff and followed after the alpha.

I kept my grip on the steering wheel as I finally pulled into the familiar town. A shiver ran down my spine as I breathed out and turned to Lydia, her expression mirroring my own.

“You have arrived,” the GPS announced.

“We should probably wake him up,” I muttered, turning back and noticing Scott had managed to fall asleep in the backseat. Malia nodded before shaking him awake. His eyes slowly fluttered open as he sat himself up.

“Where are we?”

“According to the GPS, this is it,” Malia responded.

We all opened our doors and stepped out at once into the abandoned city, taking in the rundown buildings and empty cars parked at the side.

“This is it,” Lydia muttered. “Canaan is a ghost town.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” I sighed out, being the first to take the lead.

We all made our way into a nearby neighborhood, searching each house for any signs of any living being.

“I don’t hear a single heart beat,” Scott shook his head at my side.

“I’m not catching any scents,” Malia agreed.

“I’m really not getting a good feeling about this place,” Lydia mumbled.

“I wonder why Stiles would send us here,” Scott sighed.

“For a reason,” I muttered, my eyes flickering over to the nearby lamppost as it flickered the minute I passed by it.

We all came to a sudden stop as Lydia’s eyes focused on a torn down banner hanging between some trees.

“This is the place I saw in the mirror,” she shivered.

Both Scott and Malia made their way over to a nearby table, taking hold of some articles and looking through the items that still laid in place, seeming untouched in what seemed to be years. I hugged myself as I looked around, not knowing where to even start. There was a small creak as the wind continued to blow and Lydia instantly became drawn to a nearby carrousel. Everybody else followed

“This is what you saw?” I asked as we all crowded around it. She simply nodded. Scott took in a deep breath before attempting to step into it before being pushed back the minute it the thing started up. We all stepped back as it began spinning around on its own.

“What the hell was that?” I breathed out as we all turned to one another.

Malia was the first to step away and start making her way toward a house. My brows furrowed as I watched her kneel down on the lawn.

“What is she doing?” I asked, making my way toward her. She grunted before falling onto her back. “Malia?”

She suddenly gasped as she sat up and looked around, seemingly confused as I helped her up.

“What happened?”

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.

“Scott?” Lydia called out as we both turned to watch her follow after the alpha. He disappeared inside one of the many houses. Malia and I turned to one another for a second before running up to Lydia.

“Hey!” Scott suddenly cried out as he ran back out. We stepped back as he glued his gaze onto something. “Mom?”

Lydia reached out for his shoulder before he gasped and spun around in time to see the rest of us.

“It’s okay, your mom’s not here,” she breathed out. “You’re okay.”

“I saw her,” he panted. “And her head—it looked like someone took a bite out of her skull.”

“It wasn’t real,” Lydia shook her head.

“Yeah, but it felt real,” he gulped.

“The energy here is causing hallucinations,” I muttered, looking to everyone.

“But why isn’t affecting you and Lydia?” Malia asked.

“I don’t know,” I sighed.

“We need to get out of here,” Lydia shook her head as she began taking the lead.

“No, we can’t leave,” I protested as we all began following after her.

“Not at least until we figure out why Stiles sent us here,” Scott agreed.

“Who are we going to ask? There’s no one here,” Lydia rolled her eyes.

“We can ask him,” Malia pointed as we all came to a stop. My brows furrowed as we all caught sight of a young boy standing in the middle of a sidewalk, his back turned to us.

“Hey!” Scott called out. However, the blonde boy turned to us in fear before taking off in the opposite direction.

“What do we do?” Lydia asked.

“GO!” I said, my legs taking over as I began chasing after the little boy. “C’mon!”

We all slowed our pace as we looked around each house, wondering which one he had managed to hide himself in. I jumped as I barely managed to catch sight of the drapes moving in a nearby house.

“That one,” Malia pointed out as we all turned to one another and mutually agreed to follow.

As we approached the front porch, Scott was the first to reach out for the door as he pushed it open without a struggle.

“It’s unlocked,” he whispered as we all began stepping in. Lydia reached and knocked.

“Hello?” she called out.

“Anybody here?” I joined in as we all looked around the empty living room. My eyes roamed around the place before I caught sight of a woman standing at a far end, causing me to jump with a light squeal.

“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered as everyone jumped as well.

“Visitors?” The woman seemed to gasp in delight. “I can’t believe we have visitors!”

My brows furrowed as we all turned to face her, noticing her wide grin as she began making her way toward us.

“Caleb will be so happy to see you,” she continued. “It’s been such a long time since he’s had anyone to play with.” The woman paused as her smile faded. “Oh, you must be thirsty. Come on in and have a seat while I get you something to drink!”

“Seriously?” Malia huffed as we all began making our way into her dining room. “What is with her?”

“She’s the one I saw in the mirror,” Lydia whispered.

One by one we each took a seat around the table as the woman finally returned with a tray full of glasses of what seemed to be lemonade.

“This was my mother’s lemonade recipe,” she began with a smile as she set the tray down on the table. “At least as much as I can remember. We always served this when we had friends to visit.”

We each took a glass, our brows furrowing slightly as we took notice of the grime and buildup at the top of the lemonade. There was quick gulping and we all instantly looked up to watch Malia chug her glass down like nothing.

“We didn’t come to visit, we’re looking for someone,” she finally said the minute she pulled away.

“A friend of ours,” Scott added. “Maybe you’ve seen him. His name is Stiles.”

“It’s been a while since anyone came through Canaan,” she took in a deep breath and shrugged.

“How long?” I asked. The woman looked away, her eyes setting on the window pensively as she tried to remember.

“Since April 8th, 1987?” Malia asked, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a receipt.

The woman’s face drained of color as she looked down to the small piece of paper, her expression falling into that of displeasure.

“Why would you disturb those things? They don’t belong to you,” she stated somberly as she looked up to Malia.

“We need to know what happened,” Lydia interceded.

“There was a picnic,” the woman began. “A community party.”

“Seems like everyone left in a hurry,” Malia muttered, stuffing her hands inside her jacket pockets.

“People have been leaving Canaan for a long time,” the woman shrugged. “That’s the day the last of them left.”

“All at once?” Scott asked, his expression hardening. “They all just disappeared?”

“I didn’t say they disappeared,” the woman shot back, her brows merging in slight anger as she turned to Scott. “I said they left!”

I pulled back as the table shook.

“Did they leave in a cloud of green smoke?” Malia asked. The woman grimaced as she stood herself up and slammed both hands onto the table.

“THEY JUST LEFT!” She shouted, causing the whole room to shake with her booming voice.

“We didn’t mean to upset you,” Lydia quickly began, looking up to the woman before trying to stand up. “We’ll go now.”

“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” I apologized as I nodded toward the rest of the group, who began standing up and making their way for the door. However, before we could even step out, our only exit slammed shut.

“No one is leaving,” the woman panted as we all turned back to her. “No one is leaving Canaan ever again.”

Scott quickly pushed his body as he tried to fumble around with the door knob.

“Scott, open the door, you’re a werewolf,” Malia breathed out in slight panic as she kept her gaze glued on the woman.

“I’m trying,” he grunted, still struggling. Malia shook her head as she rushed her way over to the nearest window and tried punching through it, but the more she tried the harder it became.

“What the hell is wrong with this place?” she grumbled as she finally pulled back and turned to the rest of us.

“Lenore, could you unlock the door please?” Lydia pleaded as she turned back to the woman.

“Now that you’re here, you need to stay,” she breathed out, suddenly seeming drained. “Caleb likes you.”

“And we like him,” Lydia nodded as she stepped toward the woman. “But we need to help our town.”

“People are disappearing—” I cut myself off as Lenore turned sharply toward me. “I—I meant leaving. They’re leaving just like they left Canaan. And we need your help if we want them to stay.”

“No one can help you,” she muttered as she shook her head. “If they want to leave, they’re going to leave. They’ll go and they’ll go. And there won’t be anything you can do about it.”

I huffed out as Lenore, turned away from me and began picking up the glasses of lemonade. Turning back, I watched as the small blonde headed boy made his appearance once again. His blue eyes landed on both Scott and Malia.

“Come with me,” he stated almost ominously. They turned back to us, almost as if asking what to do before Lydia and I nodded.

“Go.”

I took in a deep breath as I stepped toward my best friend, keeping our eyes on the woman before one of us decided to talk again.

“Why didn’t you leave too?” Lydia asked.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Lenore asked, her body suddenly tensing as she stood up straighter. “Is that an accusation? Are you accusing me of something?”

“No, that’s not the case at all,” I spoke up for her as I held out a hand in attempt to keep her calm. “We’re just wondering why you’re the only one left in Canaan.”

“Did you hide?” Lydia asked, stepping forward. “Did you fight them?”

“Lydia—”

“Fight who?!” Lenore asked, her brows merging. “Who are you talking about?”

“They’re called the Ghost Riders,” Lydia pressed on, ignoring my protests. “They took everyone from Canaan. Why did they leave you?”

“I don’t know,” Lenore shook her head as tears formed at her eyes. “They took everyone! But they didn’t take MEEE!”

I gasped and attempted to shield myself as both Lydia and I flew back with a sudden burst of amplification.

“She’s a banshee,” I panted as we both looked up from the floor.

“It’s not my fault they didn’t take me,” Lenore almost sobbed as we both picked ourselves up.

“I know why they didn’t,” Lydia panted.

“You think I helped them because they brought back my dead son,” Lenore shook her head. My brows furrowed.

“What are you talking about?”

Lenore took in a deep breath before raising her hands and trying to amplify her voice once again in attempt to push us back, however, I raised my hands as I created a barrier in time to shield us.

“Lydia,” I called out as I struggled against the banshee, feeling my own feet sliding against the floor.

“What?”

“I need you to scream!”

“What?! No! I—what if I hurt her?” She stammered nervously, her eyes landing on the woman.

“You know how. You’ve done it before,” I grunted as my body was being pushed back by Lenore’s amplified scream. “You can do this! When I let go, I need you to scream!”

“But—”

“Lydia!” I cut her off, turning to her as I felt my own eyes begin their glow. “Do it! DO IT NOW!”

She took in a deep breath as she turned to the woman, raising her hands as if physically forcing herself to push out her own amplified scream. I squinted and struggled before I dropped the shield and allowed my body to fall over to the side, in attempt to steer clear and away from the two. Both banshee’s screamed, pushing one another with their amplified screams as I felt my own body begin to tremble, my eyes keeping their silver glow.

I fell back along with Lydia into the same vision, both of our expressions hardening as we looked to one another.

“What’s going on?” I panted.

“We’re in my vision,” she breathed out.

I gasped as my eyes flickered up to the sky, noticing the clouds of thunder rolling their way into town.

“Wait,” Lydia gasped as her eyes landed on the familiar man. “He wasn’t a part of my vision the first time.”

“Augustus,” I muttered, as my glare landed on the man that began taking men and children with his sword.

“What’s he doing?” Lydia asked, her brows furrowing.

“He’s taking them, just like the Ghost Riders,” I breathed out. Gun shots echoed as one by one the Ghost Riders appeared at his side, taking down even more people. A loud bray sounded out as others appeared, chasing after the scattering crowd.

“I WANT YOU TO TAKE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!” Augustus shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice booming with power as his silver eyes continued to glow.

The Ghost Riders all seemed to stop as they reached a younger Lenore. They encircled her, but not once did they touch her. Augustus huffed as he grabbed hold of a horse of his own and leaped on, his boredom returning as Lenore was the only one left.

“Leave her. There’s no need for a wailing woman,” he muttered. “She’ll only be useless among the dead.”

I stayed back as Lydia made her way over to her, reaching for her shoulder as they both stared at one another. My hands flew up to my ears as both banshees began screaming once again, sending us back into reality once more.

“You didn’t know what was happening, did you?” Lydia huffed as we both stood before Lenore in the present time. I huffed as I reached for her couch and picked myself off the floor.

“You only saw them at the very end,” I muttered.

“They were all around me, but they didn’t take me,” she whimpered, tears falling from her eyes. “He didn’t want me.”

“It’s because you’re a banshee,” Lydia lowered her voice. “Like me.”

I watched as the woman made her way over a nearby mirror, her hand wiping away at the dust before she turned back to us.

“How long has it been?” she asked.

“Almost thirty years,” I muttered.

“You won’t be taken,” Lenore shook her head as she smiled toward me. “You have his eyes. He won’t take you.” Her eyes flickered over to Lydia. “At least you’ll be left with someone. You’ll both be safe.”

“It’s not about that,” I shook my head, my brows furrowing slightly as I stepped toward her. “I don’t want to be safe. I want to bring Stiles back. He’s the one I want to save.”

Lydia reached out for Lenore.

“Help us, please,” she pleaded. The woman stared at us sympathetically before she waved a hand and opened the door.

“Go,” she muttered.

I took hold of Lydia’s hand as we both stepped outside, her green eyes glued onto the woman. Scott and Malia quickly rushed out of the house.

“Let’s get out of here,” the alpha stated hurriedly.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Malia agreed.

Lydia came to an abrupt stop as she turned back to Lenore, who made her way out accompanied by her son, Caleb.

“You know, you can still come with us,” she offered.

“I think Beacon Hills will suit you,” I smiled.

“I couldn’t leave Caleb,” the woman smiled faintly.

“Lenore, you know he’s not real,” Lydia shook her head.

The woman looked down to the image of her son as he looked back up at her. They exchanged smiles before she turned back to us.

“I couldn’t leave, Caleb,” she repeated. I pursed my lips and nodded before turning away from them and heading out.

“You guys think Stiles sent us here to warn us?” Scott asked as I continued to drive back to town. “Maybe Beacon Hills is going to be the next ghost town?”

“If we don’t stop it, yes,” Malia sighed. “We need to get them to leave. Now.”

“We can’t,” Lydia shook her head.

“Not yet,” I sighed, gripping at the steering wheel a little tighter.

“Why can’t we get rid of them?” Scott asked.

“Because we saw what happens to the people they’ve taken when they leave,” Lydia continued for me.

“Do they all die?” Malia asked.

“No, it’s something worse than that,” I shook my head.

“I felt it in Lenore’s memory,” Lydia lowered her gaze. “It’s like their souls hollowed out. They became something else. I think they became Ghost Riders.”

“They did,” I nodded. “Augustus Engel confirmed that.”

“Who’s Augustus?” Malia asked, her expression scrunching up.

“The nephilim before me,” I sighed.

The minute we reached Scott’s house, my brows furrowed as I watched his body tense up and his fists clench.

“You know all about the Ghost Riders?” Hayden’s voice echoed in as we quietly stepped through the front door. “How do we get Stiles and the others back?”

“You can’t,” a familiar voice sighed. “The Wild Hunt comes and the Wild Hunt goes. That’s how it works.”

“But they’re still here and they’re still taking people,” Liam spoke up.

“That’s not possible,” the familiar voice almost gasped. “They’re the Wild Hunt, they don’t actually stick around, unless…”

“Unless what?” Hayden asked.

“Unless they’re stuck,” he finished off.

“You’re gonna help us,” Liam continued.

“I don’t know what to do,” the voice scoffed.

“But you remember Stiles, so clearly you know more than we do,” Hayden said.

“You’re going to help us, or you’re going back,” Liam threatened.

“Let me guess,” the voice chuckled. “Scott wasn’t a part of this plan, was he?”

My whole body tensed as I made my way into Scott’s kitchen, my sights gluing onto an all too familiar face. At my side, Scott held himself back as everybody turned to face us.

“Somehow, I don’t think we’re gonna hug this out,” Theo tried to force a smile.

“I hope you realize it’s taking all my strength to not tear you in half right now,” Scott shook with anger.

“Yeah well that’s not the case for me,” I muttered as my eyes started up their usual glow. Taking a single step forward, I somehow managed to appear in front of Theo within seconds, my hand quickly gripping at his throat as I forced him up against the wall.

“It’s like a family reunion,” he forced a laugh.

“What are you doing here, Theo?” I grumbled, forcing him back as he grunted through my grip. “I thought we sent you back to hell where you belong.”

“He’s the only one who can help!” Liam raised his voice, attempting to reach for me as I turned to him sharply.

“Stay out of it before you get some of this too!”

He quickly backed away as I turned my sights back to Theo.

“I know all about the Wild Hunt,” Theo struggled as I squeezed his throat. I raised a knee and managed to use all force into his torso. He grunted in pain as he doubled over and fell onto the ground. “It makes sense now that you’re here! I know now!” He struggled to continue as he held onto his torso. I gripped at his jacket and turned him around, as I hovered over him.

“You’re lying,” I grumbled as I picked him up and punched him in the jaw, sending his body flying back into a wall.

As I quickly appeared before him again, I gripped at his shirt and pulled him back up.

“I know why they’re stuck,” he panted. “By the way, did I mention how amazingly good you’re looking today, Adelyn. You’ve gotten stronger.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled as I pulled back a fist. However, before I could connect with the boy’s face, Scott stopped me.

“Why are they stuck?” Scott asked as I kept my glowing glare on the boy.

“Because they’re looking for their leader,” Theo huffed, gripping at his side as his lips began to curve into their usual half-smirk. My expression fell as I looked to him nervously.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked dropping my hold on him.

There was a sudden growl at the back door as we all turned to face the newcomer. Theo tensed the minute he turned to face Malia.

“Hey, Malia,” he chuckled. “You aren’t still upset about the whole shooting thing, are you?”

Her eyes lit up with blue rage as she bared her fangs and growled at the boy. I instantly backed away as she tackled him down. Now it was her turn.

Chapter 5 / Chapter 7

(A/N: Omg this one took me forever just to post because shitty wifi made posting a simple chapter such a big hassle. But I added another original character of my own. What do you guys think so far? Anyways! I had decided to post this chapter in celebration to the new Season 6B trailer, which definitely confirmed a few things for me. I’m so hyped y’all, like you don’t even know how hyped I am right now. My birthday is in three days and I got to LIVE through that Teen Wolf trailer. Makes my heart warm that so many of the fans are returning to be united once more and bid farewell to our beloved show. I’m happy, but sad. It’s a bittersweet moment guys. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I’m sorry for any overlooked mistakes, and best of all happy reading!)

28 notes · View notes

winchesterandpie · 8 years ago

Text

I was tagged by @ilovethings-somuch - Thank you for this!! Sorry it took me so long to get this done!

Rules: 1. Always post the rules. 2. Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. Write 11 questions of your own. 4. Tag 11 people.

1. What’s the craziest, or most exciting thing you’ve ever done?

Ummmm.... nothing exciting really ever happens? Iowa is pretty boring. Closest thing to any of these is gonna be the time I hid in my closet and scared the crap out of my roommate.

2. What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

Oh goodness, that’s hard. If we’re talking physical features, I’m gonna go with my eyes. Maybe it’s the artist in me talking, but eyes in general are fascinating, and mine are this weird mix of green and brown. Like, the outside ring is a dark, dark greenish brown. Then there’s a green bit, but right around the pupil is definitely brown.

If we’re talking just anything, I’d have to go with either my ability to make people laugh or the one to have a snappy, witty comeback when someone pisses me off. It’s just fun to make people smile! Admittedly, the comeback one is more smiling for spectators, but I get defensive fairly quickly (more so than I should, but oh well...)

3. What did you want to be when you were a kid?

I wanted to be a veterinarian (still do, tbh - actually going to school for my bachelor’s in bio right now). It started when I watched Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and my obsession grew from there. But I saw it pretty young

4. Favorite song and why?

Knee Deep by Zac Brown Band (with Jimmy Buffett). I dunno why, really. It’s just a song that I can go back to and always be in the mood for. It relaxes me, even though I can’t quite hit all the notes when I sing along, haha. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just like it, I guess.

5. Do you have any reoccurring dreams? or if not, what’s the wildest dream you’ve ever had?

In all honesty, I don’t really ever remember my good dreams. The only reoccurring one I can think of is a nightmare I’ve been having since I was a kid. I mean it’s reoccurring, but I won’t subject y’all to that. Wildest dream... also a nightmare, but it’s slightly less terrifying. Basic gist (read as: filtered for consumption) is that I’m going for a walk in my neighborhood when some squirrel runs across the sidewalk in front of me. The squirrel proceeds to turn into this giant porcupine-esque monster, and suddenly I’m running for my life alongside most of my friends.

6. Who’s the most important person in your life right now?

Laura, the person who has been my best friend since junior high. She’s pretty great. We’ve written an entire book together (trust me when I say it needs some major reworking complete overhauling) and hung out, and we have so many inside jokes it’s not even funny.

7. If money was no object, what would you do in life?

I’d travel the world. Cliche as it sounds, I really really want to. And I’d learn all the languages I could fit in my brain. And learn to play the guitar and just about any instrument I could get my hands on. And write books. And ride horses more (like, have my own, actually go to competitions, etc.)... I guess I have a bunch of things

8. What’s your most prized possession (excluding electronic devices)

My horse, but I don’t really own her (yes, I’m pulling a Chris Evans here, though I really mean it - she technically isn’t mine).

As far as things I actually own, I’d go with my flute.

9. What’s your favorite way to spend a rainy day?

Curled up under a blanket with a book, for sure.

10. Are you superstitious?

Nope.

11. What are some small things that make you happy?

When something reminds someone of me (fingers crossed it’s a good thing); warm sun on my back; days when my hair/makeup actually cooperate; walking in the rain; days mum doesn’t yell; getting a new book and it having new book smell; a clean stall after I’ve just mucked it out; just cruising along in the car...

My 11 Questions

1. What would you ask a genie for if you got only one wish? (no asking for more wishes, rules from Aladdin apply)

2. Favorite season and why? (For those confused, this means like winter, fall, spring, summer. Not seasons of a show)

3. What do you want in life, more than anything else?

4. Coolest thing you’ve ever learned?

5. If the Doctor came and offered you one trip in the TARDIS, where and when would you go and why?

6. Are you a pillow or a book and why? (My roommate had a game where we would come up with two things, and you had to decide which you were and why, so this is slightly less random than it looks)

7. What fictional character do you wish would show up on your doorstep?

8. Paper books or e-books?

9. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

10. One thing you’d like to change about the world?

11. What are some small things that make you happy?

Alrighty, now I’m gonna tag some people. Feel free to not do it, or if I didn’t tag you but you want to then go for it!

@buckybarnesismypreciousplum @kboogie09 @roobiecube94 @riddikulus-obsessions @peppermint--teas @pie-not-cake-you-assbutt @theassetseyeliner @buckys-fossil @slightlynerdyavocado @sebastianstanaddictsanonymous @ly--canthrope

1 note · View note

shampooshortage-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Do you speak Cantonese?

In response to Iris Wong’s ‘Indians?Hong Kong people? What if they mix? Who are they?’, like Iris I had similar assumptions on what makes a person a Hongkonger. To me, I thought the ability to communicate in Cantonese was the most important criteria to meet when it comes to titling oneself as a Hongkonger. Being born and raised in Hong Kong, I grew up seeing a fair amount of non-Chinese in my neighborhood, and often assumed that the South Asians and Black men that I saw were incapable of speaking Cantonese. They were simply people that my nanny warned me about, and blank faces that I came across in the street at night. Lives that never seemed to intersect with mine nor other Chinese Hongkongers, and nobody seemed to pay attention to them either, other than quickly walking past them.

However as I grew older and my social circle broadens, I met quite a lot of South Asians, especially Indonesians and Indians through different occasions. It puzzled me that even though some of them grew up in Hong Kong, they managed to get by without learning a word of Cantonese, other than ‘Ng gou’. While getting acquainted with them, I began to wonder my own perceptions of my non-Chinese Asian friends. Do I see them as my fellow Hongkonger friends, or are they merely just ‘foreigner’ friends that speaks English?

I do believe that it wasn’t a piece of cake to grow up and study as a non-Chinese who speaks no Cantonese in Hong Kong, even though English is the second language of Hong Kong. In the past I would harshly make snap judgments on non-Chinese locals who didn’t understand Cantonese, simply disregarding them as people who didn’t bother to learn the language and unlike Hongkongers like myself, even though Cantonese is our native language, we’ve always been pressured to speak standard English, at least semi-fluently. So naturally I came to a conclusion that it was only fair that South Asians who live here should learn Cantonese too.

However, has there ever been enough support for those 44,744 and more South Asians living in Hong Kong? Before we continue to sit comfortably on our high horses, let us face the truth that rarely have there ever been policies or support set up and given to these immigrants, for instance as simply as Cantonese classes. Why can’t there subsidies given to immigrants for them to learn at institutions that specializes in teaching Cantonese to foreigners? Being away from home, perhaps in hopes of a better future or even a new life, it isn’t difficult to imagine what a hardship it must be, to live in a Cantonese-speaking society. Certainly, it must have come across the minds of the immigrants that learning the language would provide them better job opportunities, but are there enough opportunities to learn the language to begin with?

Written by Lorraine

#lifeainteasy #hongkong #immigrants #language #language barrier #hongkonger #cantonese

1 note · View note

staticdecay-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Post 5 - Abandonment Issues

I have been asked before of why I am infatuated with, and enjoy being in abandoned buildings. I can speak at length of the parallels between those spaces and my own self and my emotional space, about the comfort I find in the affinity with them. They stand in their neighborhoods, overlooked or hated by most, neglected, becoming ruins and testaments to the nature of decay......but for the few that take the risk to their health, their freedom, and rise to the fears of being labelled a weirdo or outcast...they find a beauty there, they find story after story after story told on and in the walls, in the furniture left behind, in the documents, pictures, and relics that are scattered among the floors.

To find the history of a building, and how it became abandoned is usually a not overly complicated affair. Sometimes it can be found simply by looking at it, such as when a fire claims it and leaves a large chunk collapsing and charred. Other times it is not so obvious but usually boils down to economic failures in general. The actual details can be so completely varied...some are failed business ventures, some suffer from gentrification, some have slumlords, some have histories of drugs......they are like us in so many ways...a thousand faces a thousand stories...there will be similar circumstances among many of us but rarely the exact same.

I have been asked not nearly as much, how I came to have abandonment issues. For years I thought on this...I would trace scar after scar that is etched in my flesh and ruminate on it. The first answer was "because I am BPD." This is, however, a very common and dangerous answer/dynamic because it shuts down really finding out WHY?

Then I began to think back over my life. I thought of the numerous people in my teens and adult years who said they would "be there" and then cut out as soon as things got remotely tough, or even remotely not tough. Girlfriends...friends....mentors......it was a pattern that I saw and experienced in my life but even those instances...those were not the causes, those were symptoms.

Just as the obvious answers of why those buildings are empty and falling apart can be found but lack the details...so too can it be pretty easy to see the pattern of my own abandonment issues. However, the details may require some digging beyond the daily newspaper archives or beyond the archives etched in my skin.......

The year is something I cannot recall beyond a rough guess, but based on certain things such as the vehicle we drove and the fact we often went to the playground, I would guess it was between 1990 and 1992. I know for certain it was before the years of hell I would face in Fredonia middle and high school. It happened in early summer and I would have been between 9 and 11 years old.

The playground at Fredonia Central School was a sprawling fortress back in those days. It would later be torn down as a safety hazard but in its time it was called the creative playground. It was entirely made of wood with everything interconnecting. A lot of hidden passages, bridges, towers that would give way to tire tunnels, various monkey bars, slides, poles, and no shortage of things to climb, jump on or off from, run across, and potentially break your neck on.

Remember all those old NES games? It was extremely easy to take yourself to those scenarios on this playground. It was NOT a playground it was a haunted castle, or a fortress held by the evil ninjas or soldiers. There is a reason it was called the creative playground...because it was ripe to create various fantasies to act out in our solitude when we were not star athletes or cool kids.

It was also an extremely good spot to play hide and seek or capture the flag if you had friends or random playmates that happened to be at the playground at the same time.

My father had gotten home from work and after dinner he somehow found the energy after 8 or more hours of grinding steel in a sweltering mill to take me to the playground. The sun was just beginning to set as we were pulling up to the playground. This meant we would get about 45 minutes or so.

The frogs could be heard from the small forest patch that contained a little pond, and the sounds of the night started to fall as I opened up to the playground. It did not take long to ask my dad to play hide and seek with me. There were no other people at the playground that evening, and my father was a good father, despite the fatigue he surely felt he would stand up and he would do something I find myself incapable of as an adult...he could get very in to this childs life and escape the real world with him.

I hid first.

I thought I was clever and I found myself a spot in some hidden crevice. As I would also do as an adult, I would overlook some very obvious setbacks in the plan and soon after I would be crushed to find I was not nearly as clever as I thought.

I do not know how my father found me but he was good at finding things. He grew up in the country and was decent at tracking and noticing things. He probably saw my footprints or made himself invisible and would stealthily wait for me to move a bit and he would see it and then slowly move in to tag me.

Sometimes I would get frustrated with it and the fact that he never let me win. As good a man as my father was, and as good a father as he was, he still had some short comings, as we all do or will. One thing he did not always see was when enough was enough. There was a time we were playing HORSE in our backyard, and every time I would shoot the ball, he would say in an announcers voice "Barkey shoots...and he puts up a brick" and I would get sooooo mad. In that incident I ended up in tears and crying to my mother....

The sun was falling further towards the horizon and the temperature was cooling with it, and I had to find my dad as I was "it" now. I had reached the mandatory count which was probably 50, but I can't recall for certain.

I started up high near the big wizard tower structure. I felt I could see the most ground from there. After climbing up the tower and coming out I crossed the bridge and kept my eyes out both below me, and to the left where the rest of the playground was after crossing a balance beam. There was no sign of my father.

After the bridge I started looking in the hidden areas below the bridge before going to the area that connected to the hard, one board balance beam that I could not get across without stepping off a couple of times. This area had more hidden areas within it and I started clearing them. Numerous people had been there, as was evidenced by the simple and young graffiti displaying things like "Jenny <3's Tim" or a statement of dislike against one teacher or another.

None of the people that had been there though were not there now, nor was my father.

Temperature drop. Losing light. I clear the playground with no sight of my father. Panic rising.

My mind went to the place it went every time my parents would leave: "what if they dont come back?" If they ran late I would become very panicked inside of myself and think they were dead or that something happened to them. They always came back though.

My mind was racing because I could not find my father. It was racing faster than the speed of horizon swallowing the sun, faster and louder than the frogs who were screaming at me.

I combed through the wooden corridors, towers, bridges and nooks looking for him again.

I came to sit at the foot of the widest slide in the playground. I watched the sun disappear over Lake Erie in the distance, creating intense shadow figures of nearby trees and houses. I was crying hysterically at this point with full rivers being developed from what were first gently moving streams down my cheeks.

I was left alone. It happened.

Through misted, glassy, blurred eyes I made my way back to the van. I opened the passenger door and climbed in to the seat. I was hoping that my dad was in the van but that was dispelled as soon as that door opened.

My head slumped down, staring at my feet...this is a position I would come to know well a few years later for numerous reasons. I would occasionally find the hope and will to look out the window to see if my dad had magically reappeared. He didn't.

The sun was all but gone but my tears certainly were not. My breathe was dwindling from the sobs and crying. No hope was felt so I aimlessly looked back at the window.

A shadowy figure moved and I realized it was not a backlit tree. This figure moved closer and closer until it could be recognized as my father..........

Parents have the best of intentions a lot of times. Mine certainly did. My father never considered the consequences of not "letting me win." He, nor I could have ever predicted that twenty years later I would sit within the walls of, or on the roof of some decrepit abandoned building self portrait, watching that same sun disappear, taking the light with it....and contemplating HOW I came to relate more with that spot than any person I have ever met.

3 notes · View notes

ericpoptone · 8 years ago

Text

The San Gabriel River is one of three major rivers which drains and flows through the Los Angeles Basin. The river drains a watershed of roughly 1,850 square kilometers and is bounded by the watersheds of the Los Angeles River to the west and the Santa Ana River watershed to the southeast. For most of its length, it’s paralleled by a paved trail, which I decided to ride the length of on my bicycle, named Cream Soda.

The headwaters of the San Gabriel River are located above the San Gabriel Valley in the San Gabriel Mountains, at the confluence of the North, West, and East forks. For most of the river’s existence, it flowed freely through forests, grasslands, and marshes as it made its way from the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In hot summers and autumns, the river would practically run dry. In wet winters and springs, the river would flood, and when the waters confronted sufficient debris, carve an entirely new course.

The Spanish founded the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel along the river’s bank in September of 1771. September comes toward the protracted end of the long, dry season and on average receives only six millimeters of rainfall. I have to wonder whether or not any of the Tongva (who had an extra 3,500 years or so of experience upon which to draw) were consulted about the wisdom of building a church in a floodplain in which several waterways converge. When winter came, sure enough, the San Gabriel River obliterated the structure. More floods were recorded, including serious ones in 1862 and 1938, by which the US Army Corps of Engineers had begun building dams and channelizing the river. Today, dams, dikes, and concrete channels tightly control the river’s course and flow rate.

As luck would have it, the week before my ride along the river, I’d been hiking on Iron Mountain, near the confluence of the San Gabriel River and Iron Fork, in the vicinity of the Bridge to Nowhere. High above the dams, the river still feels quite natural, and you’re reminded that it’s not just a flood control channel, but home to endemic species like the coastal rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus), mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), Santa Ana sucker (Catostomus santaanae), and Santa Ana speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus ssp.).

Northern terminus of the Azusa BikeTrail

A week later I returned to the river, via Metro’s Gold Line train. I disembarked at Irwindale Station and began by ascending to the top of the Azusa BikeTrail Head, a short extension of the San Gabriel River Trail which terminates in the San Gabriel Canyon. There, the riparian wilderness ends as it meets suburban encroachment in the form of a sleepy, gated residential community wistfully named Mountain Cove.

Northern entrance to the San Gabriel River Trail

At the entrance to the San Gabriel River Trail, I began to encounter both more walkers and garishly colored, wrap-around sunglasses-wearing roadies. This stretch of the path passes through empty pits and mines — and landfills where pits and mines used to be. It always brings to my mind thoughts of the plains of Isengard.

Santa Fe Dam Nature Trail

After briefly stopping to walk around the Santa Fe Dam Nature Center and Nature Trail (where a man walking a dog asked me whether or not I was “having fun yet”), I hopped back on Cream Soda and rode across the Santa Fe Dam, a large barrier which impounds the Santa Fe Control Basin. The strange landscape seems like the natural home for the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, which moved to the Santa Fe Dam Recreational Area in 2005.

South of the dam the river flows parallel to the 605 Freeway, also known as the San Gabriel River Freeway. There the river bottom was muddy and marshy, dotted with scummy ponds and greasy puddles and — to continue the Middle Earth allusions, not a little like the Dead Marshes, albeit populated by coots and geese in place of the Battle of Dagorlad’s fallen.

Looking south from the dam

I stopped on near the edge of another gravel pit, partially filled with water. I couldn’t help but wonder what could be done with the platform in the middle, given a bit of imaginative adaptive reuse. Imagine what an exciting home the industrial landscape would make with a bit of fixing up. Perhaps a mixed use complex named The Bartertown Shops at Irwindale or something like that.

As I rode past a couple of parks, schools, country clubs, and neighborhoods separated from the river by freeways, chain link and barbed wire fences, and cinder block and corrugated metal barriers. I began to dream about a river in which those amenities were more connected to the waterway. Surely chain link and barbed wire don’t hold back flood waters and serve merely as ugly annoyances.

In 2005, the Amigos de los Rios introduced what they called the Emerald Necklace Vision Plan, a vision for the region which would connect parks and riparian greenways along the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel River. The idea of hundreds of hectares of interconnected parks is something I’d love to see come to fruition.

Trees strewn with trash

As I continued south, landfills and mines increasingly gave way to nurseries and stables. Whittier Narrows is the name given to the water gap between the Repetto and Montebello hills to the west and the Puente Hills to the east; as such it marks the gateway between the San Gabriel Valley and Southeast Los Angeles.

Whittier Narrows Dam

At the southern edge is the Whittier Narrows Dam, a flood control device which began operation in 1957. The river sufficiently tamed, suburban tracts sprang up in the previously flood-prone vicinity from the 1930s to the 1970s, but especially in the 1940s and ‘50s.

After I passed the dam, I noticed how much more lush and cleaner the riparian landscape was. The trees north of the dam were mostly denuded by rushing water which replaced foliage with plastic garbage. The contrast south of the dam was startling. I stared at the muddy water for a bit and things got a bit Tarkovksyesque when a riderless horse appeared, running around between the banks of the river.

A short time after I realized I’d traversed two-thirds of the trail’s length, I stopped to rest. In a tree-lined stretch, I drank a bit of wine from my flask and watched a monarch butterfly float on the breeze. In the distance, automobiles idled on the 605, occasionally approaching a snail’s pace. I had the idea of playing Style Council’s “Down by the Seine” but my charge was getting low and I settled for listening to it in my head, as it had been for much of the ride by that point.

Nice, shady spot for a break

Next to Rio San Gabriel Park, between Downey and Norwalk, the concrete channelization of the river begins. I suppose an argument could be made for its industrial, unromanticized, Neue Sachlichkeit appeal — but it doesn’t take long for its lifeless monotony to grow wearisome — or maybe it’s just the steady increase in the strength of the headwinds which make this stretch feel like a bit of a grind. Of course, the proliferation of parking lots do nothing to increase the area’s appeal and I noticed that the lycra set have given way to younger cyclists who seem to be aimlessly riding in circles instead of training for some grueling multiple stage bicycle race.

The channelization begins

Around the time I reached Cerritos‘s Liberty Park I began to encounters runners who seemed to be participating in some sort of riverside marathon. As I got closer to the beach, the modes of transportation grew more varied and often less practical. There were people on skateboards, scooters, inline roller skates, and recumbent bicycles. It started to get chilly and I put back on my track jacket.

Near the northern edge of Long Beach is a shopping center Long Beach Towne Center. The spelling of its name of is inconsistently archaic. Why is isn’t it “Longe Beach Towne Centre?” Why is it so named when it lies at the northeastern corner of the city — far from Long Beach’s center? Why go the quaint route at all, when naming an unremarkable Wal-mart-anchored strip mall that’s not even twenty years old? There’s time to contemplate this and more when riding past more than 50 hectares of barren asphalt parking.

Just south of the complex is Long Beach’s largest park, El Dorado Park. The park was never developed with homes due to its location within the San Gabriel River’s flood zone. The land was sold to Long Beach by the Bixby family, whose charming ranch house is located not far from the river and currently operates as Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch and Gardens.

Confluence of Coyote Creek and the San Gabriel River

Near the confluence of the San Gabriel River and Coyote Creek, the San Gabriel River’s channelization once again ends, and a measured degree of wildness returns. At that point, the San Gabriel River flows fairly closely to the border between Los Angeles and Orange counties, briefly crossing entirely into the latter as it passes between Seal Beach’s College Estates Park and Edison Park.

End of the channelized section

Further south, the river flows between two generating stations, Alamitos and Haynes. To me their industrial landscapes and architecture are surely as beautiful as celebrated structures like Richard Rogers’s bowellist Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris or the Lloyd’s Building in London. Separated from the river by the Haynes station is the world’s best-named retirement community, Leisure World.

Alamitos Generating Station

Aesthetics aside, the two power plants have wrought considerable environmental devastation on the brackish marshlands on which they’re situated, Los Cerritos Wetlands. Today, only a third of the once vast wetlands remains, albeit in a degraded state. Thanks to Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority, efforts are underway to purchase the remaining 314 hectares and restore the habitat which supports many species of flora and fauna, including several endangered species.

Oil extraction where once were wetlands

The river finally ends at Alamitos Bay, where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. The air was cool and the sky overcast. Unlike the Long Beach Towne Center, River’s End Cafe is located conveniently where its name suggests. Although a bit saddle sore, I didn’t feel that much worse for wear but found that I had worked up a sufficient appetite to convince me that everything that I ate and drank was the best example of its kind. Afterward, I was frankly ready for a nap, but I still had to get home.

Approaching Alamitos Bay

A ten kilometer ride to the Downtown Long Beach Blue Line Station was followed by an hour ride back to 7th Street/Metro Center, a transfer to Union Station, another transfer to the Gold Line, and then another eight kilometer ride home. I suppose I could’ve just bicycled up the Los Angeles River, but then I plan to do that this weekend.

End of the trail

_____