#I have mix feelings for this orca creature

[oobbbear]

AP chapter 3 save me AP chapter 3

[uncxntrxllable]

MULTIMUSE QUESTIONAIRE

RULES: Answer the questions with the Muses that would best fit the answers. Bonus if you give details why.

For funsies because I can, I'll include the new muses I haven't yet set to public on my muse list yet because why not.

1) Rank your softest Muse and your toughest Muse. (Personality-wise) - from softest to the toughest muse.... Well, the more softer muses would be: Maisie, Ellie, Delta, Lorelei, Dreamer, Juniper, Nelly.

And I feel like I'd put Jamie, Thalia, Alpha, Henry, Rex, Vesper and Mara (new) in the middle.

Whereas the tougher muses would be Charlie, Lakota, Aiden, Bailey, Nevaeh, Umbra (new) and Kalika (new).

I'd probably mark Ellie as the softest of them all, and Charlie as the toughest. Ellie has the most overall introverted personality, she doesn't want any problems, no conflict, no nothing. If you push her buttons far enough she will definitely scar you for life, but I mean, she's a werewolf with underlying anger issues, so like... What do you expect? And Charlie is just, capable of downright evil. I'd tie her with Lakota and Kalika but those two are different in that they are the way they are because of what they are by nature, whereas Charlie is simply an old fashioned bitch.

2) Which Muse would blow through $1000 quickly? - Maisie could blow $1000 so fast you'd question if she ever had $1000 in the first place. And probably on food.

3) Do any of them have nicknames? Is there a meaning behind them? - BELOW THE CUT because it gets long from here.

Charlie has often been referred as the Coyote because of Fang or by those who know of her shapeshifting ability. Friends may call her Charles (can't take credit there, @vulpuslunae did it first!) Dreamer is known as the Reaper, Little Reaper, Reaper Cat because he is exactly those things. Lakota is called many things by everyone and I'd say a staple would be monster, forest monster, or mother nature's monster. But she's also called an akhlut, which is, a vicious beast that takes the form of a wolf/orca or aquatic wolf. Friends may call her Kota! Lorelei has been known as the forest spirit or forest guardian. She is also called a certhera, which means a creature that takes the form of a leopard/stag, the name itself being a mix between the scientific names for the deer and the leopard. Friends may call her Lori. Kalika (new) would be more famously known as the demon in the woods, or called the cursed wolf, or named yutara which is the combination between the scientific name for the maned wolf and the greek word for "curse." Friends may call her Kali or Kal. Mara (new) was given the nickname Queen while she was in the military, because she is a feline shapeshifter, and "queen" is what you call a female cat. Friends may call her Mar (or her brother). Maisie is often called Little Kitty, Kitty or Kitty Cat by Charlie, but I could possibly see others calling her this as well. And of course, it is because of Fox and the fact that she can shapeshift into a cat. Umbra (new) is a species of dragon that has long-been known as the "witch's dragon" because of their strong connection to magic and also their common alliance with witches back in the day. Also called the dreadwyrm, now I'm still putting together her backstory but the idea here is that she was a war dragon at some point and the enemy nicknamed her this. Vesper was sometimes referred to as Morning Star, that is what his name means. However, this is something that was mostly used while he was in captivity. Rex was occasionally called "king" because that is what his name means by his humans when he lived in his enclosure. Ellie used to be called Eleven, but that wasn't necessarily a nickname. She was just a number in some lab. She could be called El by friends! Juniper has no special nicknames, but friends and family may call her Juni. Delta may sometimes be called Del for short. She also particularly likes "good dog." Alpha has a few things that he's been called, blue beast because he's a massive blue wolf, beast of wolf lake; where he lives and again, massive wolf. Lightning wolf because he is known and or rumored to harness lightning, and lastly, hero of wolf lake due to his history. Nelly has no particularly special nicknames, but friends might call her Nel. Jamie & Aiden, Thalia, Nevaeh, Henry, and Bailey do not have any nicknames.

4) Are any of them up-to-speed on the latest trends? Anyone more old school? - My animal muses? No, they don't really care about human or humanoid trends. They just animal. Charlie reminisces on the past sometimes, like old-school and whatnot, probably thinks there's way too many ridiculous rules nowadays, but she stays up to date for the most part. Lakota doesn't give a rat's booty about the latest trends of humans. Bailey lives in the apocalypse and probably doesn't even know what "trend" means, Henry also lives in a post-apocalyptic world. Lorelei does her best to keep up to speed with how times change with the humans. Ellie doesn't know what any of this means. Kalika probably secretly wishes things were like "back then." Thalia keeps up to speed and really enjoys technology. Maisie has no idea wtf she is doing and probably thinks the world has too many rules now. The others just kinda, keep up with the basic things to stay up to speed and don't care too much to look back on the past. They're just... So so? yeah.

5) Who has the best relationship with their siblings? - Charlie didn't have any siblings... Technically, her little group were strangely tight-knit like a family but anyway it doesn't matter because she killed everybody. You could kinda in a way say that Lakota and Lorelei are "siblings" given that they are "related" in the sense that they are each other's opposite, and they, in this current life, have a good standing relationship. Mara and Juniper definitely have the best relationship with their sibling, Mara has a sister and Juniper has a brother. Jamie has or had the worst relationship with her little brother, but that was mainly because of her parents, her brother basically copied their behavior and it just wasn't good.

6) Karaoke night! Who is likely to grab the mic first and bust out a tune? - Maisie, even if she's terrible. She wants the spotlight. She has no sense of shame.

7) Who is least likely to enter a beauty pageant/model? - Lakota. She would hate it so much and she'd also let you know how much she hates it.

8) If your Muses visited a haunted house where actors scare you, who would panic and who would be unfazed? - Panic: Maisie, Ellie. In between: Thalia, Vesper, Henry, Juniper, Delta, Bailey, Mara. Unfazed: Charlie, Lakota, Lorelei, Umbra, Kalika, Rex, Jamie & Aiden, Dreamer, Alpha, Nevaeh, Nelly.

9) Are any of your Muses particular about taking certain modes of transportation? - I have to say... Most really don't care. Except Lakota. Good luck getting her into any kind of vehicle type whatever, doesn't matter what it is, she will walk. She'll get there faster than any mode of transportation anyway. Nevaeh also isn't a fan of most cars because of her horns and wings, she usually doesn't fit comfortably. Well, and I guess Umbra and Rex cause they be dragons and no fit into no modes of transportation. They ARE a mode of transportation. Who needs the dragonmobile? They got you.

10) Share a little-known fact about any Muse. - I feel like I blab about everything regarding my muses that there is nothing left to blab about.... Well, a funny fact is because Ellie can't read, you could show her the written word "cow" and then tell her that's how "dog" looks / spells on paper and she'll probably believe you because she knows nothing about grammar or spelling or written words.

tagged by: @wexarethewalkingxdead thank you for tagging me! ♥ tagging: @sorrowsick @wolfpackmuses @vntagetee @rubiesintherough @myriadxofxmuses @innerwar @realmyths @epistrefei

[random-chaos-and-stuff]

Silly Game Time: They just installed an update to the simulation (reality) we live in, and now ... well, it's sort of an anthro-furry simulation (congratulations/condolences depending on your feelings on being forcibly turned into a furry).

Anyway, the good news is, we get to customize what our new hide appearance/texture is. We can have the fur, hair, scales, feathers, or whatever of any non-human animal we like (maned wolf or tiger or sloth; palomino horse or giraffe or black sheep; anaconda or desert tortoise or rainbow trout; peacock or ostrich; poison dart frog or walrus or orca or elephant--all are on the table)!

The choice is yours! Which are you picking?

If we can mix and match? Oh you can bet I’m mixing and matching into the coolest thing I can. But if just one creature? I would say maybe a rattle snake or something.

[sparrow-mask22]

The Umbrella Academy Story of The Mothers (3/6) sparrow edition: Carla

TW: childbirth, mentions of an orca attack, mentions of death, injuries from orca attack.

another thing to note is that this story takes place at Loro Parque and SeaWorld is mentioned as well, I do not support the abuse they inflict on their animals or the dangers they’ve put their employees in.

on another note the following quote: "Carla, art thou crazy!? These are orcas! They are not puppies; they are the ocean's most feared apex predators! What art thou doing? We command thee to come out of the water this instant!" is originally from a fanfic I read on fimfiction.net that I thought was so funny I incorporated it here, no disrespect to the original author. The fic is called "A Heart Like the Sea" for anyone interested

Also, any and all information I have on Loro Parque is from the Blackfish documentary on Netflix

October 1, 1989. Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife, Spain. 19 seconds before noon.

Carla Abasolo was a 24-year-old orca trainer at Loro Parque, a popular animal theme park in Tenerife, Spain. She had always been fascinated by marine mammals and had dreamed of working with them since she was a little girl. Today was no exception as she arrived at work, her excitement palpable. As she walked through the park, she could hear the sounds of the animals, the laughter of children, and the splashes of water from the various pools and exhibits. The air was filled with a mix of salt and chlorine, and the warmth of the sun on her skin made it feel like she was on a never-ending vacation.

(If any of you can guess the reference behind her name, I'll be quite impressed. It's not something super obvious, but it's something that means a lot to me.)

Carla had performed with the orcas several times before, but today was different. Today, she felt a special connection with the lead female, whom she had named Kailani. Kailani was a stunning creature, with a sleek black body and a distinctive white patch above her eye. She moved gracefully through the water, her powerful tail flukes propelling her forward with ease. As Carla approached the pool, she could see Kailani swimming back and forth, her eye occasionally meeting Carla's, as if she knew something was about to happen.

Carla gently placed her foot on and off Kailani's rostrum as they glided across the water, the orca's powerful muscles carrying them effortlessly. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her back and the spray of the water against her face. It was a surreal experience, being so close to such a magnificent creature. Kailani was more than just an animal to her; she was a friend, a confidante, a partner. They had spent countless hours together, training and playing, and Carla had come to understand the orca's language, her body language and vocalizations.

It was a great job. Not counting the occasional orca that had gone rogue and had to be put down, of course. But even then, the animals were still so fascinating, so awe-inspiring, that Carla couldn't help but feel a sense of reverence and respect for them. She knew that Kailani, with her intelligence and grace, was something truly special.

They continued to swim together, their movements fluid and effortless. Carla could feel Kailani's strength beneath her, and she marveled at the orca's ability to control her own body in the water. They rose and fell together, cresting the waves and plunging back down into the depths. The sun beat down on them, and the air was filled with the scent of salt and seaweed.

Carla's superior, Miguel, approached her with a worried expression. "Carla, I need to talk to you. I don't think it's safe for you to continue swimming with Kailani after what happened at SeaWorld. An orca killed one of its trainers, and I can't afford to lose another staff member."

Carla felt her heart sink. She knew that Kailani was different, that she wouldn't hurt her, but the thought of being kept away from the beautiful orca was unbearable. "But Kailani would never hurt me, Miguel. She knows I'm her friend. We've been through so much together. She wouldn't--"

Miguel cut her off, his expression unyielding. "I understand that you think you know her, but we can't take that chance. We have to put safety first. You can still work with Kailani, just not in the water. You're too important to lose." Carla felt a lump forming in her throat as she struggled to find the words to convince him.

Kailani, sensing the tension between them, swam closer to Carla, nudging her gently with her rostrum. The orca's large, intelligent eyes seemed to plead with her to intervene. Carla reached out and stroked the soft skin beneath Kailani's chin, feeling the powerful muscles beneath her hand. She knew that Kailani would never intentionally hurt her.

"You’ll have to start relying on verbal commands more, Carla," Miguel said, his voice tense but understanding. "We can't afford for anything like that to happen here." He gestured to Kailani, who was still swimming calmly beside them. "You've always had a special bond with her, but we can't take that bond for granted. Not anymore."

Carla felt the weight of his words, but she couldn't bring herself to pull away from Kailani. The orca seemed to sense her distress, and she swam closer, nudging her gently with her rostrum. The touch was reassuring, almost comforting.

"Kailani and I have been through so much together," Carla said, her voice barely above a whisper. "We understand each other. I know she would never hurt me."

Miguel sighed, his expression softening slightly. "I understand that you feel that way, but I can't take the risk. We need to prioritize safety for everyone involved." He gestured toward the pool, where Kailani continued to swim gracefully, her dorsal fin cutting through the water with ease. "You're too important to lose, Carla. You're the heart and soul of this project."

Carla felt a lump form in her throat, but she forced herself to nod in agreement. She knew that Miguel was only looking out for her, and for the well-being of the entire team. She just wished there was some other way to keep them all safe. As she watched Kailani swim away from her, a pang of loss shot through her chest.

Paloma, a senior trainer at the Sea Life Park, spoke up, her voice steady despite the weight of her words. "Carla, I know this must be hard for you. We all feel for you, but Miguel is right. We can't take any chances. We have to prioritize safety, not just for you but for Kailani too." She gestured to the orca, who was still swimming nearby, her movements fluid and graceful. "You've been through so much together, and you've built an incredible bond. But we can't forget that Kailani is a wild animal, and she has the strength and power to hurt us if she feels threatened."

Carla nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Kailani. "I know," she said softly. "But I can't help but feel like I'm losing a part of myself if I can't swim with her anymore." She sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping. "It's like being apart from my best friend."

Paloma immediately got her serious voice on. "Carla, art thou crazy!? These are orcas! They are not puppies; they are the ocean's most feared apex predators! What art thou doing? We command thee to come out of the water this instant!"

Carla sighed, feeling a mix of annoyance and amusement at Paloma's dramatic tone. "I'm just trying to understand Kailani," she explained, her voice shaky. "I know she wouldn't hurt me."

Paloma took off her boot and rolled up her pant leg, revealing her entire calf covered in a network of scars. "See this?" she asked, pointing to a particularly deep gash. "This is what happens when you get too close to one of these creatures. I was just a young trainer on my first day, and Kailani's father, Rorke, took a dislike to me. He bit me like I was nothing but a piece of fish. If it weren't for Miguel and the rest of the team, I would have bled out right there in the pool." Her voice hardened, and her eyes flashed with anger. "You think you know Kailani? You think you understand her? You're wrong. These are wild animals, and they can turn on you in an instant. You can never trust them."

(Please keep in mind, all of the orcas at Loro Parque are trained using SeaWorld's controversial behavior modification techniques, so SeaWorld is responsible for any aggressive or protective behavior they exhibit.)

Carla looked horrified at the sight of Paloma's injury, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief. "I-I'm sorry, Paloma. I didn't know..." she stammered.

"Well, now you know," Paloma said harshly, pulling her leg back and refastening her boot. "And you should remember that every time you step into that pool with Kailani." She turned away from Carla, her shoulders slumping slightly as she realized the impact of her words.

Three other trainers, Lola, Esperanza, and Yolanda, rushed forward once they caught wind of the confrontation. They were all in their mid-twenties, and they had been working with the orcas for several years. Each of them had their own stories to tell about the dangers of getting too close to these animals.

"Paloma, you shouldn't have said all that," Lola chided, placing a comforting hand on Carla's shoulder. "Carla knows the risks, and she's been trained just as well as the rest of us. We need to trust that she knows what she's doing."

Esperanza nodded in agreement. "Yes, and we can't forget that Kailani has been with Carla since she was a pup. They have a special bond, and I trust that Carla knows how to handle her." She put her arm around Carla's shoulders, offering her support. "Besides, we're all here for you, aren't we?"

"Of course we are," Yolanda added. "We've got your back, no matter what. But we also need to make sure that everyone is safe, especially when it comes to working with these animals. They can be unpredictable, even with their trainers who they trust the most."

Hearing Esperanza defend Kailani and her bond with Carla, Paloma's expression softened slightly. She knew that Esperanza had lost her fiancé, Pedro, just a month ago in an orca attack. The whole park was still reeling from the tragedy. The accident had happened during a performance when one of the older males, Ragnarok, had suddenly turned on Pedro, dragging him under the water and drowning him before anyone could intervene.

"Look, I'm not trying to scare Carla off or anything," Paloma said, her voice gentler now. "I just want her to be safe. We've all seen what these animals are capable of, and we can't forget that." She gestured to the scar on her leg. "I know firsthand how quickly they can strike, and how deep those wounds can go."

Lola nodded in understanding. "Of course we want Carla to be safe, but we also need to trust in her abilities. Kailani trusts Carla, and that's why they work so well together. Carla knows when Kailani is feeling playful or protective, and she knows how to respond to those emotions. It's a delicate balance, but they have it down pat."

Suddenly, Carla's hand flew to her stomach and she gasped in pain. Her face contorted with agony as she doubled over, clutching her midsection. The other trainers, Esperanza and Yolanda, rushed to her side, their eyes wide with concern. "Carla! What's wrong?" they cried.

As they tried to support her, Carla stumbled forward, her legs giving way beneath her. She collapsed to the ground, still clutching her stomach in agony. "I...I don't know...It could be cramps or something...But it feels so real..." she gasped, tears streaming down her face.

Esperanza and Yolanda exchanged worried glances. They knew that Carla wasn't prone to cramps, especially not this severe. Something was definitely wrong. "Carla, sweetie," Esperanza said gently, her voice trembling with concern. "Do you think you might be pregnant?"

Carla's eyes widened in shock. "Pregnant? No...I don't think so..." she managed to stammer. "I’m on the pill...I would know, right?" But even as she said the words, a sliver of doubt crept into her mind. Maybe she had missed a dose or something. She didn't want to believe it, but the possibility that she could be pregnant sent a wave of panic through her.

"Carla, sweetie, you need to get checked out," Esperanza insisted, her voice firm but gentle. "Just to be safe. We can't take any chances with your health, or with the baby's."

Lola and Paloma exchanged glances, their faces pale. They knew that if Carla was pregnant, it would be a huge scandal for the park. And if she was giving birth right there, in the middle of the orca exhibit, it would be a disaster.

Kailani, who had previously been swimming casually in the pool, immediately sensed the change in the atmosphere. She began wailing loudly, her voice echoing through the water and filling the air with a haunting melody. The other orcas in the pool reacted instinctively, gathering around Carla in a protective semicircle. Their massive bodies pressed against her, creating a barrier between her and the onlookers. The trainers, frozen in shock, watched as Carla's pants grew sodden with amniotic fluid.

Paloma, who was already a proud single mom of eight (and wouldn’t let anyone forget it), started to assess the situation. "Esperanza, go get the medical kit from the supply room. Hurry!" she ordered, her voice authoritative. "The rest of you, stay with Carla and keep her calm. Lola, help me support her legs."

"What about Kailani?" Yolanda asked, her voice trembling. "She could be in danger too." It was true; Kailani was the largest orca in the park, and her bond with Carla was unmistakable. If anything happened to Carla, there was a chance that Kailani might react violently.

"Take the chain off Tonga's gate," Paloma ordered, her voice firm but gentle. "She's more dominant than Kailani, and if she sees her coming in, it'll give Kailani the precursor that Tonga's here. It might help calm her down a bit." Yolanda nodded, hurrying to obey, her movements graceful despite the urgency of the situation.

The situation with Carla was growing more dire by the second. Esperanza returned with the medical kit, and they quickly set about trying to stabilize Carla. Paloma knelt beside her, carefully inspecting her for any signs of distress. "Carla, sweetie, can you hear me?" she asked, her voice soft and reassuring. "You're doing great, just try to stay calm and focus on your breathing."

Tonga, the park's most dominant and largest orca, resided in a separate pool. As Yolanda unlocked the gate and removed the chain from Tonga's gate, she glanced back at Carla and the others. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was really a good idea to release Tonga into the same pool as Kailani. But Paloma reassured her with a nod, and Yolanda knew she had to trust her judgment.

With a deep breath, Yolanda opened the gate, revealing Tonga's massive form in the adjacent pool. Kailani, who had been swimming restlessly, immediately sensed the presence of her elder. Her posture relaxed, and her movements became more fluid. She glided toward Tonga, her massive tail splashing softly against the water's surface.

As Tonga swam closer, Kailani moved to meet her, their bodies pressing against each other in a display of affection and respect. The other orcas in the pool watched intently, their expressions shifting from fear to curiosity as they observed the interaction between the two matriarchs.

Meanwhile, as the other trainers continued to assess Carla's condition and comfort her, they could not help but marvel at the miracle that was taking place right before their eyes. The amniotic fluid that had been pooling around Carla's pants now shimmered in the sunlight, and the unmistakable shape of a tiny, wriggling form could be seen beneath the surface. It was a baby boy, and he was alive and healthy.

"That’s your baby, Carla," Esperanza whispered, her voice filled with awe as she cradled the newborn in her arms. The baby boy, still connected to his mother by the umbilical cord, let out a tiny cry. The sound was barely audible above the rushing water and the excited chatter of the orcas surrounding them.

Kailani, still pressed against Tonga, turned her head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the new arrival. Her eyes widened in wonder, and she let out a low, throaty grunt that seemed to echo throughout the pool. The other orcas followed suit, their attention shifting from Tonga and Kailani to the tiny figure in Esperanza's arms.

The ambulance arrived within minutes, its siren wailing as it raced through the park. Paloma and Esperanza helped Carla out of the pool, wrapping her in a warm towel as she shivered from the cold. Yolanda, meanwhile, remained at Carla's side, watching anxiously as the paramedics checked her vitals and tended to the newborn. The baby boy, still connected to his mother by the umbilical cord, was handed over to the paramedics for examination.

At the hospital, the staff was amazed by Carla's miraculous story. They had never seen anything like it: a woman giving birth to a healthy baby boy, fully formed and alive, while swimming with killer whales. The neonatal unit was abuzz with activity as they checked the baby's vitals and ran tests. The baby's APGAR scores were through the roof, indicating excellent health.

Paloma and Yolanda went to visit Carla and her baby in the hospital the next day. The baby was doing well, and the doctors were amazed by his resilience. Carla was recovering quickly as well, thanks to the quick thinking of the Loro Parque staff. As they sat in the waiting room, Paloma couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and awe.

"It's incredible, Carla," she said, her voice filled with wonder. "You and your baby are both doing great. I can't believe you made it through that ordeal."

The nurse glanced over her shoulder, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "There's someone here to see you, Carla. They've been waiting for hours. They wanted to be the first to see you and your little one."

A dapper rich old man, his salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed back, his eyes sparkling with excitement and tears, hurried into the room. He was dressed impeccably in a tailored suit, his cane clicking against the floor as he made his way over to Carla's bedside. Paloma and Yolanda exchanged puzzled glances as the old man skidded to a halt, his hands trembling visibly.

"Hello Miss Abasolo," the old man said, taking her hand gently in his. "My name is Reginald Hargreeves, and I am here to adopt your precious little boy."

Reginald nodded eagerly, "Of course. Whatever needs to be done, I'm more than willing." He glanced back at Carla, his eyes filled with genuine care and compassion. "You've given this little one a wonderful gift, you know. And I promise to give him the best life possible. He'll never want for anything."

Paloma and Yolanda exchanged a look of relief. They knew how hard it must have been for Carla to make this decision, and they were grateful that someone as kind and loving as Reginald had stepped forward.

Reginald nodded understandingly. "Oh, I assure you, Miss Abasolo. Your son will never want for anything. I have a large family myself, and we'd all be delighted to welcome him with open arms. He'll have a loving mother (Are you referring to Grace when you mean that?) and a loving father, siblings to play with, and a talking monkey named Reggie who can't seem to stay out of trouble." He chuckled softly, his eyes never leaving Carla's face. "He'll have everything he needs."

Carla bit her lip, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "That sounds perfect. More than perfect, really." She swallowed hard, trying to find the right words. "I just want him to know that I did the best I could. That I loved him with all my heart, and I never gave up on him."

Reginald nodded solemnly, his expression sympathetic. "Oh, I'm sure he'll understand that, Miss Abasolo. And you can rest assured that I'll make sure he knows the truth about his birth parents. He'll grow up with the knowledge that he was loved, even if he couldn't be with you."

Carla bit her lip, her eyes welling up with tears again. "Thank you, Mr. Reginald. That means so much to me." She swallowed hard, trying to regain her composure. "I just want him to have a good life. To be happy, and to know that he's loved."

Reginald’s tone shifted slightly as he looked Carla in the eye, his expression serious. "Now, Miss Abasolo, I want you to know that I understand how hard this must be for you. But it's important that you don't try to contact your son or talk about him to anyone. You'll only get in trouble, and we don't want that. Do you understand?"

Yolanda and Paloma listened to Reginald and Carla's exchange with bated breath. “Well that sounds mildly threatening, Mr. Reginald, but I suppose we should be grateful that you're being honest with Carla about the situation," Paloma said, her tone lightening the mood somewhat. "I mean, we wouldn't want her to have any false hopes or anything."

Reginald smiled sympathetically at the young woman. "No, of course not. I just want to make sure that Carla understands the gravity of the situation. It's not my intention to be threatening, but I need to make sure that she knows what she's getting into."

Carla nodded, her eyes red from tears. "I understand. I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I just want to know that he's okay."

Reginald patted her shoulder gently. "I promise you, Miss Abasolo, that your son will be well taken care of. He'll grow up in a loving home with people who will cherish him as their own. And as he gets older, I'll make sure he knows the truth about his parents. You'll always be a part of his life, even if it's from a distance."

And with that, Carla's heart broke a little more. As she nodded in understanding, she felt a strange mixture of relief and despair wash over her. Relief that at least someone cared enough about her son to protect him, and despair that she would never be able to see him, hold him, or know how he was faring in this world. The weight of Reginald's words settled heavily on her shoulders, and she struggled to maintain her composure.

Yolanda and Paloma exchanged glances, their expressions mirroring the confusion and sadness that Carla was feeling. They knew that what Reginald had said was true, but hearing it out loud made it all the more real. They wanted to offer some sort of comfort, but didn't know how.

[starredforlife]

okay but i get it (the orca thing) i love orcas! and would looove to observe them in the wild.. but i am not going into a pool with an orca.. that would be like going into a room full of murderers who has been in a high acoustic room with their worst enemies who constantly sings, with fences between them.. and they do not speak the same language, so even if they wanted to make friends, they couldn't.. i ain't going in there...

There has been no confirmed cases of orcas deliberately killing humans in the wild.. Orcas in captivity though? there has been countless cases of them deliberately try to maim, drown or otherwise kill their trainers.. .. i get it tho.. i would also get a bit murderous if i was extremely sound sensitive (which i am, but not near the level of a creature whose skull is literally build to echolocate) and put in a concrete and glass box surrounded by a semicircular theatre filled with a cheering (and cry-screaming) audience of mixed ages, making sounds bounce all around for hours on end every day of my chlorine filled life.. yeah I might also kill the hand that "feeds" me..

Oh I feel deeply for them in captivity I think it’s so fucking unethical to have them in aquariums. And I love that they have different languages. Thank you for the orca facts

[neremite-blog]

Revealing the Hawk & the Dove

I love poetry, especially poetry that takes me by surprise: a made-up word, a word used in an unusual way, unexpected metaphors and similes. I love language that snaps me to attention, wakes me up. The Revelation to John is termed as Apocalyptic Literature but it is also poetry. It does exactly what good poetry does to me: startles me to feeling fully alive. Eugene Peterson in his book “Reversed Thunder”, states that Revelation is not about more information but rather about immersing us so that we experience the truths we have already been taught. John plunges us into cinematic scenes that explode the senses. I think that’s part of why we find it an overwhelming book - we are on sensory overload. It is also a frightening book. My takeaway picture of God is a God that is fierce, dangerous, angry, vengeful, judging, destructive. I also see God as powerful, creative, and restorative.

There’s a book by Gary Paulsen called “Voyage of the Frog”, about a boy blown out to sea and his fight to survive and find land again. One morning he wakes and finds himself in the midst of an Orca pod. His boat is sailing along and the whales are swimming astride. The boy is awed, afraid, humbled, respectful. He knows these creatures have the strength and ability to crush him and his boat. Yet it is a tranquil moment. The boy is face to face with great power and he is reverential.

“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” according to Proverbs 1:7. This picture of the Orcas captures well what sort of fear we should have of God. A true sense of God’s presence, God’s holiness, God’s power should humble us but also make us quake. God has the power to squash us. Yet God chooses to love us.

It’s this mixed-bag that we get in Revelation. The Orcas swim peacefully by the boat. God crashes into the boat and smashes it all to pieces. It’s terrifying. Revelation 6 shows the Lamb opening the 7 seals on the scroll, unleashing bizarre creatures who steal peace and conquer and turn humans against one another. Verse 8, “I looked; and behold there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades accompanied him. Together they were granted authority over one-fourth of the earth to kill with weapons, with famine, with disease, and with wild animals that roamed the earth.” (The Voice translation) All this is loosed by God! By God! It just gets worse and worse.

Then I read an excerpt by Virginia Stem Owens:

“There is a dove in heaven, we know, that descends/ when the skies open, sometimes in fire. But perhaps/ there is also a hawk in heaven that swoops down on/ us with the gift of death to deliver us from our used-/ up past, the past we have neither the courage nor the/ imagination to walk away from.”

In “The Selfish Gene”, Richard Dawkins writes about the hawk and dove theory. Hawks are fighters every time, unto death. Doves avoid harm, to themselves and others. You would think the hawks would pervade, but hawks being hawks would kill one another off, extincting themselves. Dawkins comes to the conclusion that a balance of hawks and doves is necessary, a “stable ratio”.

Revelation shows us that God is hawk and dove. And for good reason. I like Virginia Stem Owens’ take on it: death as gift - purging, cleansing, refining, purifying. Delivering us from what we can’t let go of ourselves.

I don’t know if Revelation was a code-book for John’s time only. Or perhaps a book of basic principles such as worship and overcoming. Or a predictive book, revealing visions of things to come. I don’t know.

How many times have many of us struggled to reconcile the angry God of the Old Testament with the God-is-love of the New Testament. If Revelation is not adding new information but rather plunging us into the experience of what has already been conveyed to us, God is both Testaments at once: terrifying and loving; destructive and restorative; dangerous and creative.

A new Heaven, a new earth. No more tears or sorrow. No more evil. It takes the rather hawkish God to get us back to the dove God. God is hawk and dove. Prying us loose of all that is less than God. 

This poetry book, Revelation, is visceral. Most people who read it come away from it shaken, scared, hopeful, triumphant. It provokes. It prods. It demands. It startles. It enlivens.

“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14 (New International Version)

[secret-engima]

Since I’m on a Mer!AU kick- everyone pls imagine Cor and Titus as mermen. Specifically, pls imagine Cor as a Fitey Beta fish mer, because I known Lionfish goes with the pun and are cool, but Beta are very Pretty and Smol and Fitey and it fits him.

No, the Lionfish is Titus, who is not a traitor and has never been since Niflheim feels no need to recruit “animals” to their cause. Titus does have scars from being a Niflheim captive though, and was possibly even kept in an Imperial exhibit for a while before escaping?

Anyway, Mer scales don’t need to match the scale colors of their fish counterparts, so Titus is a bright red lionfish with liquid silver stripes.

He may or may not still end up the unofficial Captain of Nyx’s ship somehow, but not at first. More likely he starts following Ardyn around after discovering these two disaster Mer who don’t know how to Mer and are covered in scars (he very probably thinks they’re mer who were raised in Nif captivity for the Emperor’s private aquariums) and because Nox and Ardyn are always hanging around Nyx’s ship, Titus is hanging out by extension and he eventually goes “I know I’m supposed to stay hidden from humans but LEVIATHAN’S TEETH these morons are going to get themselves killed without proper guidance” and that’s how the crew gets an angry growly lionfish merman clawing his way up the ship onto the deck to Yell At Nyx and Tredd for Doing The Dumb. Luche, under his mild hysteria that OH LOOK ANOTHER MYTHICAL CREATURE JUST CLIMBED ONTO HIS DECK, approves of what is clearly a safety lecture in another language. Maybe when it’s a mythical deadly sea creature doing the yelling they’ll actually LISTEN. (spoilers: they don’t)

Also on the roster of Mer in this AU are going to be Weskham (octopus mer, totally), the Amicitias (I’m honestly thinking shark mer? Maybe orca), and possibly Cid.

Cid is either a cranky mer who lives out in the marine trenches aka badlands of the mer kingdom OR he’s an equally cranky human shipwright who discovered that merfolk were not mythical or extinct and their royal prince of the time was an IDIOT and clearly needed someone to follow him around making sure he didn’t get his fool self killed by sharks or pirates of Nifs something.

Leaning toward human shipwright Cid tbh.

LC Mer tend to be long-finned (is that the term?) Koi fish, though sometimes they do look more like Betas. Ardyn 100% takes after the Beta fish vibes.

Insomnia is the Atlantis of this AU, but instead of sinking as an accident or a punishment, it was intentionally sunk by one of the ancient Kings of Lucii long, long ago with the help of Leviathan, who also turned the entire population into Merfolk thereafter, which is why all merfolk have some form of magic, but LC magic is still special. Their magic originally came from Bahamut, not Leviathan.

Also also Oracles are also merfolk and Tenebrae was a kingdom of mixed humans and mer before the Nifs Happened and now all the Tenebraen Mer have been displaced to Insomnia.

Aulea lives in this AU Because I Said So.

Okay I think I’m done rambling for now.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

The Red Well (Part 1) Putting God to the Test

More Ruri Action served up hot and fresh @rurifangirl

The Red Well is an immense hole in the ground where much of the water you’d seen flow through the vast Iron Dome hidden under Genji Heavy Industries was siphoned away from the City of Tokyo into the mountains near the Tama River. It was one of many of such wells. Each one of these storage tanks was actually an underground lake that was a kilometer across. The hole was just an access port. The hole was normally covered by a huge retractable lid, but it was pulled back. Along the walls of the hole, layers of scaffolding shored it up against earth movement and large lift elevators big enough to transport heavy machinery were installed on its sides.

You stood on the cross beam at the very top. The water of this well was far, far below you, looking like a round red eye. Far nearer to you was a circular maintenance floor where hundreds of members of the Devil Clan feverishly worked on this massive project that was finally coming to fruition after decades of planning. Between you and the water below were flow control gates.

Hydra had started this whole mess by drilling horizontally from the Red Well until they reached the Well of Bones: An underground crimson colored river that had mixed with magma and filled with nutrients to harbor the White King and its legions of minions. The river was diverted into the tunnel, that led to this well and thousands of dragonkin came with it. The pumps on the side of the well dumped a huge load of mercury poison into the water to weaken and kill the beasts. Then they dropped thermite bombs into the water to destroy what was left.

But Hydra had underestimated the so-called “God” as well as the Devil Clan. God survived and was swimming among the mercury and all the corpses.

While you had been happily standing on the bridge, getting married to Chime Gen, Herzog had prepared his own wedding gift. He replaced the mercury flow with a flow of deadpool fetal blood - and other nourishing chemicals - and dumped them into the well just as you were saying your words on the bridge of the Takamagahara Night Club.

The ‘God’ awakened and brought disaster to Tokyo by setting off a Mount Fuji eruption and massive earthquakes that sent a deadly tsunami right at you.

Still, you managed to survive, thanks to your newly wedded husband Ruri Kazama. Herzog summoned Ruri with the clapper and put Chime Gen to sleep. You had tried to awake Chime, but you were not enough. Ruri had carried you all the way here, because you were dying, turning into Deadpool. He pierced you with his bones, and gave you his blood that could restrain the raging dragonblood in you. But even he had to admit that only the fetal blood of this so-called God could save you. 

But Herzog would never willingly share that divine fetal blood. Ruri would have to kill him for it.

On Herzog’s command, Ruri slit his wrist and dropped his blood into the water far far below. It wasn’t enough to fill a teaspoon but the God detected it and now rushed to the surface hungrily circling. The water below was stirred up by that frantic circling and formed a huge kilometer wide whirlpool.

Herzog had since moved to one of the engineering platforms to get a better view. "It can't wait! Let's give it some challenge and see how strong God really is!" The king general shouted, "Turn on the water turbine!''

The first test began with turning on the giant water turbine in the bottom of the well. It could spin up a powerful vortex which would drag everything swimming in the water towards the bottom of the well, but the huge target swam leisurely, completely undisturbed.

"Great! Bravo! See, now!  That is something that can change the rules, and the current cannot bind it!" The King General exclaimed. "Let's give it more of a challenge!"

You lean your lips close to Ruri Kazama’s ear. “Ruri? Can I ask you? Does Herzog know all these people by name?”

Ruri Kazama didn’t move or look at you, but he did answer. “Yes. They are all Devil Clan Elites. Survivors of the purge. The best and the strongest are all that are left of the Devil Clan who aren’t rotting in the black prisons.”

You turn and look at all the people gathered and working the equipment. Some was scarcely older than you. Some looked younger.

The second test began immediately as the head of the engineering team pressed a remote control and a violent explosion set off in the water, sending thousands of tons of water and mercury rushing upward. The Devil Clan had put 12 plastic explosives in the water, mixed with tens of thousands of steel balls. The explosion, combined with the ball bearings, was no less than hundreds of military shotguns firing in unison.

But on the sonar screen, the whale-sized target once again ignored this test as it swam unaffected through the flames of the blast.

“That was beautiful! Beautiful! That's the kind of power that can change the world!" King General Herzog was so excited that his voice trembled.

“Ruri? Did they know Herzog all their lives?” You asked, resting your chin on his shoulder.

Ruri didn’t answer immediately. He just glanced at you.

For the third test, the gates at the bottom of the well opened. These gates were covered with metal mesh, designed to filter dirt. The gates were so strong and the mesh so flexible that the mesh could be compared to the toughest fishing nets in the world. A whale going at full speed would be entangled.

But the target broke through gate after gate with the ease of a heated knife slicing through butter. 

You flinch as Ruri slides you off the spines sticking out of his body. As he settles you on the beam, your wounds immediately close up within seconds. “I think I know what you’re getting at.” Ruri said.

You nod silently looking down. Your heart is heavy. Some things never change in people. This was really Black Swan Bay, all over again. You feel something touch your arm. When you turn your eyes widen. “Where did you get that?”

Ruri smiled slyly, handing you your claw dagger. “I know where you’re staying.”

Your jaw drops. But then you shut it and snatch the dagger. “Rude!”

“You were stuck to me for an entire night. Your blood should be completely replaced at this point.” He said. The bones of his body snapped like someone popping the joints of their neck. The bone spines retract back into his chest. You shudder involuntarily.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven..." The engineering team leader counted the remaining gates as the target broke through the layers of obstruction and was about to reach the surface.

The operators at the bottom of the well were ducking into safety pods. They looked like the kind made of alloys, nanofibers and high-density polymers that could even block the shock waves of a nuclear blast so long as they weren’t at ground zero. You hum to yourself and make a note. 

The thing in the lake was still swimming in the water, but its roar thundered through the underground lake. The vibrations were so violent that the storage well was on the verge of collapse. Cracks crawled up the metal sheathing of the well walls. People pressed their ears even over noise cancelling headphones. It was the kind of roar that seemed to cut through one's skull and pierce directly into the depths of one's mind. It was a kind of funeral dirge - yet joyful - roar, like the god of death cursing the world in hell.

Only you, King General and Ruri Kazama remained calm. King General stood on the platform in the middle of the well wall, looking down without turning away, like he was sitting in a VIP box enjoying a master's performance, while Ruri Kazama still stood in the rain like a lonely soul, rainwater flowing down along his long hair. You just felt sad for all these people, like a doomsday prophet on a street holding a sign that read ‘the end is near’, knowing that you were right and no one would listen.

The surface of the water burst. Grayish-white stagnant water mixed with mercury rushed up to the sky. Thousands of lung snails were driven up violently like bullets and ricocheted, hitting the wall of the well with a popping sound, their hard shells completely shattered, their bodies turned into a goo-like substance stuck to the wall of the well. A plain white shadow cloaked in grayish-white water rose up to the sky with the speed of a cannonball. But gravity quickly reduced its speed. It found support before it fell, by grabbing the layers of iron scaffolding on the wall of the well, and climbed upward at high speed. It was about the size of an orca, with an estimated weight of over ten tons, and those iron frames simply could not support its weight, crumbling in layers below it.

The King applauds vigorously, shifting from looking down to looking up, watching the large creatures devastating advance

    Snowy lights came on with sharp thudding noises, and the beast was finally presented to all eyes. It was wrapped in white filaments, looking like a giant cocoon, but with a hideously long tail trailing below.

Its movements were so fast that no one could see how such a cocoon-like thing with a tail was climbing. The long, bony tail lashed against the wall of the well, sloughing off the metal plates on the wall in rows, and the metal fragments mixed with the bodies of the lung snails as they rained down.

The four Vulcan cannons set up on the maintenance platform roared to life, pouring streams of steel into the well that exploded in gray-green smoke. 

“More mercury?” You ask.

“No. Anesthesia.” Ruri said.

“Uh…” You glance at him uncertainly. If Ruri Kazama’s rampage through the Takamagahara nightclub taught you anything, it was that dragons were something beyond any other life form. How could you knock out something like this with laughing gas?

 The cocoon coat made of white filaments was torn by the bullet rain, and the pale white hatchling experienced pain for the first time and let out a shrill hiss into the sky.

Your heart starts beating wildly and you’re suddenly filled with dread. You remembered how fast Ruri Kazama was, how deadly. How helpless everyone was before him. And he wasn’t even a full blooded dragon! Up until now, you’d only faced lowly deadpool and were barely above deadpool yourself. But deadpool were always the toughest and most dangerous compared to humans, powerfully strong and near bullet proof. Only by specific strategy, proper weapons, speed and stamina could you hope to escape with your lives against lowly deadpool.

You’d never seen a real dragon before. This was a real dragon!

The Vulcan cannons predictably failed to slow the thing down and it broke away with an unstoppable tenacity. A few Devil Clan members below you shouldered massive rocket launchers and fired. These were not aimed at the god itself, but at the stairs it used to ascend, the iron construction scaffolding, all of which crumbled in the explosion from top to bottom. The god fell with the debris of the iron frame, and the Vulcan cannons were still raining down on it.

Something clicks in your head. If you stop this thing from climbing out, that means no one else could climb out either. Your eyes roll back to Herzog who waves at you from the engineering platform.

He’s aware. The bastard.

The dragon was furious. This time it let out a roar of rage instead of a scream of pain. Pale white tentacles burst the last of its cocoon coat and violently grabbed the smooth well wall.

"Yamata-no-Orochi!" The head of the engineering team said in a groaning voice.

The myth became a reality before his eyes. Instead of tentacles, what grabbed the well wall was eight curved dragon necks. The beast with eight heads and sharp teeth bit into the well wall. Its lower limbs are deformed and short, so it uses the eight heads as feet, climbing with movements like an eight-legged spider. Those long, slender snake-like necks curled and stretched. Eight pairs of golden eyes were like candles that flooded the well with their light. It is clearly climbing up, but in the eyes of everyone it is the devil from the sky.

Only Herzog saluted with a hand over the heart, excitedly exclaiming: "What a specimen!”

Although it had  a huge body, because it is still in its infancy, that body looks withered. However, it is athletic and swift. As it crawled through cracks in the metal panels, rocks shattered, and red lwarning lights lit up layer by layer. Step by step it approached success, Vulcan cannons and rocket launchers kept blowing dazzling fire on it. Blood oozed from the god's pale scales, and part of its dorsal ridges were torn apart by the explosion, revealing the ghastly white spine. But it still climbed upwards without slowing down. It had just detached itself from the cocoon, and once it left this place, it only needed a moment's respite to regain more strength, and then it could easily destroy these tiny creatures.

“And this is a baby…?” You breathed. “God damn…”

“You understand now?” Ruri said. “You remember the history of the Light King. The Dark King took great pains to destroy her.”

“How could we ever do it? Yeah… I get it.” You answer. “Humans… can’t kill dragons.” You look down at the dagger in your hand. “Only… dragons can kill dragons.” You turn your eyes up at him. “Right? That’s why you’re here?”

Ruri’s eyes were fixed below. “We’re here…”

“But I’m not strong enough to…” You blink.

“Get ready, regardless.”

"Go! Go! Let me see how far the inquisitive creature can go!'' The king pumps his fist in admiration, his tone filled with divine wonder while also cheering like he’s at a sporting event.

A single missile exploded where the god was clinging to the wall, destroying part of the well wall. The impact caused the god to slump uncontrollably as it was unable to hold onto it. But the sharp teeth caused marks several feet deep in the wall, and it held on.

 "Awesome! That's how it should be! How can a mundane weapon hurt a god's body?" The king high-fives the engineers around him, as if he had not formulated the plan to stop the god, and he sincerely expected the thing to escape from here.

White ropes bounced off the wall of the well and wrapped around the god. The ropes were no wider than a finger but the fibers weaving them were nanofibers. Each nano-rope can lift the Trieste and countless nano-ropes form a huge net strong enough to stop a navy destroyer. The god tried to break through several times, but failed, and a single missile focused on its abdomen and exploded, blowing it into a fountain of blood. The god could no longer rise even one meter. It was still struggling though and the more it struggled, the tighter the net became around it.

"It's working! It's captured!" The cheers of the engineering team came to your ears from below where you stood on the upper cross beam with Ruri.

"Captured it? Is capturing God so easy? Wrong, so wrong!" You whisper. 

A floating arc of light flashed, brighter even than the floodlights illuminating the cavern, like the arc of a supreme sword. A second later, a neat slice severed the superstrong material and God was freed from his bondage.

Suddenly, the King started screaming in Japanese. It sounded like a rush of syllables you didn’t understand.

“In the legend, Susanoo killed Yamata No Orochi and pulled a sword from its tail. That sword was called Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven… roughly.” Ruri said.

“That’s what that thing is?” You asked.

“It’s how humans chose to understand it.”

“I get the feeling I should be going to school with you and not Cassell.” You mutter.

Ruri suddenly moves as though a switch had turned on. The god had revealed its greatest weapon and was rapidly making its way up without obstruction.  Nothing can stop the god's escape any longer. Above it is the mouth of the well and once it reaches that mouth, it is free. It dances its sword tail and continues to climb. Its scales audibly clatter like chainmail, sealing its body to resist the power of a missile blasts. It traversed the flames of the explosions, and its eight heads danced wildly, only yards away from you. Staring into those golden eyes you felt a confusing mix of joy, challenge, rage and hunger.

You had fought with Chisei Gen in awe of his great strength and brute unstoppable force, but Ruri Kazama was otherworldly, hardly human at all. It was a state of mind that you never really entered, like someone who ran through blood like a child splashing through rain puddles. You weren’t sure you wanted to go there.

But Ruri Kazama granted you no choice, shoving you forcefully into the well. The wind whipped by you and you descended uncontrollably toward a gaping maw.

A chant in an ancient and mysterious language descends behind you and passes you in a roaring white shadow. 

Ruri Kazama had jumped from the steel crossbeam and landed straight towards that same gaping maw. Both of your bodies put together are only one percent of this god’s, and such tiny targets should have been ignored by the god or sliced away with a casual swing of that heavenly sword tail, but from the moment the chanting began, the narrow snake-like glowing eyes widened with awe.

Ruri Kazama’s blade spun in a horizontal arc and the pale white head that threatened to eat you a second ago rose to the sky with a gushing, spinning fountain of blood. He’d chopped that head clean off! He caught you on the crook of his arm and tossed you again.

 In excruciating pain, the god released all the heads attached to the wall of the well and surrounded Ruri Kazama who landed on one, but Ruri Kazama swung his long sword and knocked back those hardened dragon heads towards you. You immediately understand and plunge your dagger into the beast’s glowing eyes. The hooked claw catches on the orbital bone. The beast drops its head, intending to throw you into the well, but you release and go sailing to the other side. A head is chasing you to devour you but Ruri Kazama’s blade makes a dazzling crimson flash in the dark and that head's eyes wink out like an extinguished candle. 

The Deadpool’s claw is enough to dig into the armored scales. You gather courage and fearlessly score long bleeding lines as you slide down the limp neck towards the body and stab again and again and again! Both of you and the monster rolled together and descended, leaving large splashes of blood on the wall of the well. Ruri’s sword is sending blinding sparks on the scales. The god is roaring and wailing and Ruri Kazama is letting out a roar more terrible than the god every time it so much as snapped at you.

It wasn’t that Ruri needed your help necessarily. He needed an outlet for a feeling that he couldn’t understand. It was the feeling of having something and then a great hand coming to take it away from you. It was that sharp, offended feeling that brought out the greatest ferocity in the heart of every breathing thing. 

To keep what one has, every living creature will draw blood!

It wasn't a dragon slaying at all. It was monsters entangled in a mutual slaughter to tear and chew each other up. It only took ten seconds to fall from the wellhead to the bottom of the well, but it was those ten seconds of roaring and wailing that no one dared to listen to, the sound of a lifetime of nightmares, like evil spirits feasting on muscles and tendons and bleeding between their grinding teeth.

Perhaps it was a greater mistake to allow something like Ruri Kazama to live in this world than to awaken a god.

The heavy body of the god fell into the water, splashing a giant wave more than ten meters high, and Ruri Kazama hung unflinchingly on the wall of the well, his long clothes dangling, like a ghost that had hung there years ago. You were back in his arms like nothing had happened, breathing hard, your head spinning with the thrill of it all. 

But then your heart falls.

The battle ended with a tragic victory for Ruri Kazama. The god was already badly wounded before reaching the top of the well, and Ruri Kazama cut off four of its heads. But he himself paid a heavy price. His back muscles looked like they were plowed by iron, and his abdomen was left with a huge wound, but he did not show any expression of pain. He just hung there, looking up at the sky.

“He’s coming.” He said quietly. He turned to you. “You should hide.”

[ask-sincerely-sea]

A rundown of the Mermaid AU

Here’s a bullet list of my Mermaid AU and most of the content I have imagined for it! These are taken from three different posts on my main blog, but for simplicity, I compiled them all here! It is long, but feel free to read and get a feel for this universe!

All the Murphys are sharks, but they’re all different types of sharks.

Science doesn’t exist in my world so don’t expect genetics and aquatic ancestry to be something that is strict. Most families tend to stay within the same family and/or genus.

Connor is a Shortfin Mako Shark.

Zoe is a Blue Shark (Fun fact: Blue Sharks are a species of Requiem Sharks).

Cynthia is a Whale Shark.

Larry is an Oceanic Whitetip Shark.

Evan and Heidi are both octopus.

Evan is a Coconut Octopus.

Heidi is a Mimic Octopus.

Alana is a Pacific White Sided Dolphin.

Jared is a White Spotted Pufferfish.

Although intelligent like humans, mermaids will exhibit behaviors akin to their aquatic ancestry.

Evan being a Coconut Octopus will hide within ocean debris as a form of camouflage. This is often triggered by spikes in anxiety, but he also uses it to avoid interaction.

Jared absolutely puffs up. It’s usually caused by elevated emotion. Sometimes he’ll puff up because he’s upset, other times he’ll accidentally cause himself to puff up just from laughing too hard.

The Murphy family is a family a predators. They all have an acute and accurate sense of smell. Larry, Connor, and Zoe are active hunters, and when they are in hunting mode it’s hard to break them out of it until they are satiated.

Merpeople do form societies and interact with each other. They don’t hunt each other and unlike their aquatic ancestors, they don’t all follow migration paths. Some merfamilies will migrate.

Now I’ll give you all the cute and fun and interesting stuff…

Connor loves to explore any wreckage he can find. He’s super fascinated by human life and loves finding shipwrecks, plane wrecks, and even leftover skeletons.

He frequents the wrecks of military vessels most often and collects dog tags from fallen soldiers. He refurbishes them as much as he can because he likes to see the names of the men and women lost.

He often spies on humans who are boating as well. Be it a wedding boat, fishermen, or just vacationers, he just loves watching them from afar. However, the moment they spot him (usually only his dorsal fin on his tail), he dives away

.Hes accidentally becomes and ocean cryptid when a group of divers got a photo of him, albeit it fuzzy/blurry.

He’s obviously not aware of human cryptid culture.

Redditors think his viral photo is photoshopped.

Zoe isn’t as curious about humans. She is curious of the sky above and loves to watch birds as they fly around and feed on fish.

She goes stargazing a lot against her parents wishes. It’s dangerous at night and her parents (and most merpeople) fear poachers.

Zoe collects starfish on her tailfins. Since they are living creatures, she always communicates with them and makes sure they are okay with it.

Connor will leave jewelry and funky human artifacts he finds in Zoe’s room. She doesn’t know Connor is the one that leaves her random items and just assumes it’s Cynthia.

Cynthia is fascinated with human artifacts and frequents a lot of merpeople who are traders for human trinkets.

However, she is terrified of humans and doesn’t dare go near them. When she was younger, she got tangled up I’m a fishing net that belonged to poachers.

Larry is also fascinated with human trinkets, but not as much as Cynthia. Being an Oceanic Whitetip, he loves the tale of the USS Indianapolis.

He and Connor used to search shipwrecks together, but they’ve since grown apart and haven’t hunted or scavenged together in a long time.

I already said a bit of this in my last post, but being a Coconut Octopus, Evan uses physical objects to hide in and behind as a form of camouflage.

Though camouflage isn’t really necessary for merpeople being that they are able to fend for themselves and create/use tools, weapons, utensils, etcetera.

Evan’s camo is more of a reflex with his anxiety. If he’s nervous, anxious, or embarrassed, he’ll find the nearest Evan-sized object and fold himself up to fit. His tentacles can fold together tightly, he just has to account for his upper body not being as flexible.

Heidi is a Mimic Octopus as uses her camo as more of a fun party tricks. Mimic Octopus are able to disguise with many backgrounds, but are also able to contort and arrange their tentacles to resemble other species.

When Evan was little, they would travel to shallow banks along islands where the sun shone through the water really brightly. She’d contort her tentacles and do little shadow puppets of other species for him on the sand.

So, Jared is a pufferfish and not a porcupine fish. He has spines, but they’re very small and thin. They usually only show up when he’s inflated.

He HATES being inflated but it’s happens a lot.

Basically any elevated emotion inflates him. He’s angry? Puff! He’s playful? Puff! He’s excited? Puff! He’s sad? Puff! He’s [redacted]? PUFF!

He doesn’t care too much about human culture, but he is aware of this cursed video. He was hanging around a boat with a bunch of spring breakers and slipped a phone for a few minutes, stumbling across Youtube. Connor thinks it’s the funniest thing ever.

Oh, yeah, so merpeople don’t have any sort of electronic technology, but some of the most curious ones will snatch devices from boats. They are aware they don’t work underwater, so it’s usually like a dramatic spy scene of mermaids hanging out by boats with phones and tablets and messing around as much as they can for five to ten minutes.

Alana is super social and during vacations from school she’ll travel with merpeople and regular aquatic life and migrate around the world.

She’s traveled literally everywhere and has been doing it since she was a child. Her whole family used to go, but now it’s just her. Her parents trust her to be alone.

Alana has come across Sea World and other marine parks with Orcas and it makes her incredibly angry. There have been a few instances where animals in captivity have… Mysteriously escaped back into the wild…

She does have a super playful side and is very curious of humans despite often having a negative judgement/attitude towards them. When she just wants to have fun or relax, she goes bow riding along the wake of boats. She’s clever enough to not be seen.

Yes, there is merpeople high school because why not.

Again, science doesn’t exist and this au honestly doesn’t have rules.So just go ham and make mermaids, y'all!

I’m still deciding on how I want to portray Miguel, but right now I’m thinking Red Lionfish or Pacific Seahorse.That boy is something very colorful and proud!

So previously I mentioned there being an education system for merpeople as they do form societies.

So all the teens (minus Miguel) go to school together.

Their school, as well as most of the buildings in their particular society, is made up of scrapped parts from shipwrecks and other human debris. There are also some buildings and landmarks carved out of the landscape, but they gotta keep it fresh, keep it interesting. They’re still discovering and learning technology, but in their own unique ways.

(Okay, you probably didn’t even care about that fact but as an enthusiast for a “rebuild from the remains” aesthetic, I have to sprinkle in my little funky twists.)

The particular “town” of merpeople they live in isn’t very large and is constantly changing size and population due to some mers moving in and out.

Evan broke his arm over summer break in a coastal accident.

Seeing that merpeople don’t fully abide by the living standards of their aquatic ancestors, they tend to mix, mingle, and migrate without too much structure. Obviously certain families with stay together and there are some pockets of merpeople who live by more strict cultural rules. But for the sake of au, Evan and the gang live in a more relaxed mer civilization.

So, over the summer Evan was working with a group of mers that focus on coastal wildlife. Evan in particular focused on coral health and how it was being affected by human activity.

But our boy is depressed and lonely, so one day he strays from his usual group of coworkers and ventured toward a cluster of fishing boats. The general rule is don’t go near humans, especially when on the job.

He noticed that some of the boats were anchored, so he grabbed one of them from the seabed, hoisted it up the surface, and launched it above water for his to come crashing down with force behind it.

His arm got pinned under the anchor, thus breaking it.

Now, the rest of the AU at the moment is more freeform and doesn’t follow the plot of the musical, but I did want to included how Evan broke his arm.

Connor is not dead in this particular version of the AU, but feel free to craft multiple storylines and arcs with different outcomes!

Connor does paint his nails!

As previously mentioned, he is very fascinated by human society and like to get a little too close.

So, one day he came across some spring breakers and watched as they went about their activities sunbathing and painting their nails. As soon as they looked away, he stole several bottles.

It’s rare for him to find nail polish, especially since he ruined his first bottle by opening it up under water and losing the contents. But whenever a party boat or a boat of spring breakers rolls by, especially with a bunch of girls, he always has to check.

He quickly learned that whenever he wants to do his nails he has to make a whole thing about hauling himself up to surface and propping on a rock or a beach for some time.

He’s collected his signature black as well as a metallic purple, glittery pink, and bright turquoise. He wears the black and purple the most. He loves the other two colors, but poor baby is insecure and wearing nail polish as a mer is already enough to cause stares.

Jared also thinks that human legs are hot.

When Jared is puffed up, other mers will bop him around like a volleyball. It’s an unfortunate thing for any and all puffers.

Evan’s dad is a Barracuda mer, which for a Barracuda and an Octopus to mate is incredibly rare. It’s a wonder that Evan didn’t come out a totally wack and new sea monster.

But like I said, science doesn’t really exist here! Anything goes! Be whatever mer you wanna be! Love whatever mer you wanna love!

[wide-eyedscottishlass]

Scarlett and the Professor

[continued from]

8pm sharp.  Well, at least I’m not tardy.

Without a further moment’s hesitation, Scarlett rang the bell, knowing that now there would be no turning back.  Though the sun was nearly set, the evening air was humid, as if portending a storm coming off the Caribbean after full dark.  Although Scarlett had taken a long bath before dressing, her exposed skin already felt sticky.  As if in answer to that thought, a light breeze suddenly whispered against her bare flesh, stirring the few wispy tendrils of hair that had fallen from her loose chignon.  How cooling it felt against her shoulders and arms, her back and her calves, rippling her hemline.

She had chosen a dress meant to please her lover, an Egyptian blue, rayon and silk trapeze silhouette, which loosely draped her form and fell into a high-low hemline that complimented her legs.  The color flattered her pale skin tone and dark hair, and matched the pure, bright ocean waters that surrounded this island—waters which she knew Professor Hennessy loved.  Silver and rhinestone embellishments adorned the spaghetti straps and low v-neckline, with celestial symbols of the sun and moon stitched in silver thread scattered upon the blue background.  As she donned it, Scarlett had been thinking of how she had unwittingly become the moon to his sun, locked in an unwavering orbit around him, pursuing his blazing heat, and seeming to come to fullest light only when she reflected his light.

Hyper aware of the growing night sounds around her, the nervous rasp of her own respiration, and the thundering beat of her heart, Scarlett still didn’t miss the click of the latch inside the door being released.  Warm, tawny light spilled out from behind him as Hennessy opened the door, and his classic, masculine beauty, the peerless angles and planes of his face, stole the breath from her lungs as it did each time she saw him anew.  His eyes held hers in stasis for several moments, taking her measure, raking across her form, coolly appraising her as though he saw not only right through her clothing, but down to her soul.  The first blush of the evening crept into her cheeks.

He had changed his clothes too, into a deep blue silk dress shirt, so snug across his chest that the buttons seemed to be straining not to pop off.   He had his sleeves rolled up again, and his waistcoat—in a shade lighter than his shirt—hung open.  Scarlett dared look no lower, not wishing him to catch her eyeing what lay below his belt—although she knew without needing a glance, that his bespoke trousers matched his vest, and fit him as snugly as his shirt.

Hennessy’s smile was warm and disarming, his clear blue eyes dancing with mirth.  “Well now, aren’t you the tastiest treat to grace my doorstep in about a month of Sundays!”  He backed up a little to allow her to pass, “But please do come in, Miss Scarlett--and welcome to my home.”  Though she hadn’t even tried to imagine what to expect, the place already felt to her as though it had been raised from it’s foundations to house the life force of this enigmatic, powerful, all too charming, yet dangerous, man.

Scarlett had seen some of Europe’s most opulent mansions and palaces during her gap year travels, and though Hennessy’s home paled by those standards, she was impressed enough to have to remind herself not to gawk.  The marble-floored foyer led into a two-story hall that housed a ten-foot wide, cobalt coloured, carpeted staircase, which swept upwards to an eight foot tall, stained glass window above the main landing.  A short run of stairs branched off on either side of the landing, presumably to bedrooms and bathrooms, and likely much more.  But it was the window that really grabbed her attention.

A large silver moon dominated a star strewn, indigo sky, riding above stylized waves fresh with white seafoam.  Several shades of blue-greens and blues marked the descending depths, which towards the bottom became nearly as black as true night.  A myriad of bright fish swam in the upper levels, along with several grey seals and tortoises; just beneath them dwelt jellyfish, porpoises, a few species of sharks, and a pod of orcas.  In the darker regions below cruised manta rays and bright red octopi and freakishly long eels.  Lurking the bottom was an ominous black sea serpent, outlined in the same silver that coloured the moon, so as to be visible.  It’s eyes were large and cat-like—and possessed the monster’s only other color besides black and silver.  Blue.  A bright blue that felt impossible to belong to such a menacing creature.  Why, even it’s deadly fangs and claws were silver.

Scarlett shivered at the sight, as though a goose had walked over her grave.  For several heartbeats she was overcome with deja vu—for it put her in mind of her nightmares of unseen, but too oft-dreamt, foul beasties populating the Deep, laying in wait to steal her away if she ever tread too far from shore.  Those terrors of her youth, which had only fully disappeared when she had tarried on the shores of the Aegean Sea during her Greek holiday.  And had just recently returned to plague her briefly throughout those weeks that Hennessy had left her languishing for his attention.  Still unaware that it was her ancient Selkie blood raising the alarm, she turned away—vowing that if…or when…she had cause to mount those stairs, she would avert her eyes from the troubling portion of the image, and focus solely on the moon and waves, the fish and sleek grey seals.

Hennessy looked back over his shoulder to make sure she hadn’t fallen behind, casually asking her, “Have you eaten?”

“Um…yes,” she replied quietly, not adding that she’d barely had an appetite in nervous anticipation of their evening together, “I assumed you didn’t invite me here for dinner…”

“That I did not,” he chuckled, stopping just outside a wide, open doorway to the left of the sprawling staircase, “But I think we could both use a bit of refreshment before the evening’s revelries begin.” He sketched a little bow, his handsome face become mischief personified, and motioned for Scarlett to proceed him into the room.

From the preponderance of leather and wood, she guessed this was his study.  The room had a decidedly masculine air about it, with dark wood paneling all around and full bookcases lining two walls.  With a quick glance, Scarlett noted a book of poetry by Dylan Thomas (which she would later discover was a first edition), well-weathered editions by Samuel Beckett and William Blake, and even a collection of works by her beloved Pablo Neruda.  That was a surprise: she never would have imagined Hennessy reading any sort of romantic poetry, let alone the works that she knew populated that title.  It certainly didn’t fit the image he presented to the world, let alone in the private moments they had shared thus far.

The wonderful smell of old, cherished books dominated the air and hints of cigar smoke lingered in the room.  Scarlett also detected traces of Hennessy’s cologne underlying it all.  A scent with notes of bright, clean citrus, mixed with amber and something that reminded her of an old cedarwood cabinet in her cottage back home, all tinged with a  salty tang. Taken altogether, scents that evoked sure thoughts of the sea.  Fittingly, a painting above the fireplace reinforced the aquatic feel---it depicted a ship with tattered sails wrecked upon a harsh outcropping of rocks, set against a backdrop of rough whitecaps and forked lightening.  Several sirens, creatures out of myths and sea dreams, beckoned with outstretched arms to the unlucky sailors, trapping the unfortunate men between the treacherous waters and the beautiful peril of supernatural beings seeking to wreck their immortal souls.

Other smaller paintings hung throughout the room, all celebrating various aspects of the sea, including one that would easily become Scarlett’s favorite: silvery moonlight adorning the ripples and waves that washed up onto a white sand beach—which put her in mind of the warm, lovely waters of the Aegean, when she’d vacationed in Mykonos a few years ago.

A bar cart sat beside a leather divan adjacent to one of the bookcases, topped with cut crystal old fashioned glasses, a gleaming, sterling silver ice bucket, and a sealed bottle of Glenlivet 18 YO. Hennessy dropped several ice cubes into one of the rocks glasses, then cracked open the bottle of fine, Scottish-distilled whiskey, pouring first onto the rocks, and then straight up into a second glass.  He turned to Scarlett, holding out the iced drink to her, “Care for a taste of home?

She stepped forward and silently took his offering, giving a small start at the brush of his cool fingertips against her skin at the transfer.  A sudden rush of anticipation—and damned desire—bolted through her, betraying her resolve to appear aloof to his wicked charms for as long as she could manage. And of course he noticed, the Man never missed a trick; her quick intake of breath, the dilation of her pupils, enough to give her away.

Hennessy greeted her response with a satisfied half-smile and a knowing lift of his brow, clearly pleased with her quiet but visceral reaction.  “It’s meant to take the edge of, darlin’…to help you relax a bit,” he winked, raising his glass, “Slainte mhath.”  He took a long swallow, while never taking his eyes off her.

She hesitated in meeting the familiar toast, instead swirling the ice a bit, so that notes of rich cream and caramelized vanilla wafted up from the heady ramber fluid, while she wondered if there might have been something in the bottom of the glass, or even in the ice itself, before he’d poured the whiskey in.  Closely considering if Hennessy would actually sink that low.

“Oh, Scarlett…my dear girl,” he t’sked, practically reading her mind, “Do you honestly think I’d want to dose you?”  He feigned a look of hurt that soon melted into an indulgent smile, “We both know why you’re here tonight, and I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of fully experiencing the…festivities…”  he bit his lower lip, daring her to answer.

“No,” she replied, almost to herself, letting her small overnight bag slip the floor, “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”  And then, wanting to prove herself up to whatever he had planned for them in the hours ahead, Scarlett lifted her glass and thickened her brogue for maximum effect, “Gu gaothan arda agus maighdeannan-mara!” fearlessly throwing back the full portion of whiskey he had given her.  Unaccustomed to hard liquor, she had to give a little shake of her head to keep from gagging as the bite hit the back of her throat---but soon enough, she felt the velvet burn go down, and even better, the liquid courage radiating out from the pit of her stomach to even the tips of her fingers and toes.

Her boldness appeared to please him, which left Scarlett pleased as well---until she gave a wee, ladylike burp.  He did a double take as she quietly excused herself, before he laughed heartily.  “Good god, Scarlett, but you never fail to entertain!”  To that, she could only shrug sheepishly, then give him a sweet, honest smile.

Hennessy downed the remainder of his own drink and set his glass down on the bar, before drawing his closest to her yet, so that she had to look up to maintain eye contact.  Unconsciously, she parted her lips, readying herself for his kiss, but that was not his intention.  Instead, he retrieved her tumbler and reached for her overnight bag, taking it to deposit on the divan, before he moved to refill both their glasses.  Scarlett started to decline when he held it out to her, but he shook his head.  “Take it, my dear,” he insisted, sounding kindly, but clearly expecting her to come to him at once, “’Twould be a cardinal sin to waste such good whiskey.”

Close up this way, his magnetism took over, reminding Scarlett there was very little chance she could withstand anything he would ask of her this night.  She sipped at her whiskey, allowing herself to enjoy its woody-spiced flavor and slight taste of vanilla, it’s mounting warmth spreading relaxation through her veins.  Hennessy was watching her keenly, biding his time as he polished off his portion.

When satisfied she had drunk enough, he put both their glasses aside, and turned to her with a soft smile, the request that followed completely unexpected.  “Scarlett, would you take down your hair for me?”  She blinked several times in surprise, so that he added gently, “Please, my dear.  You don’t wear it down nearly enough.”

“As...as you wish...Professor.”  His gaze felt like a slow, painless dissection, as though he was reckoning even her most secret details, thoughts, and desires.  Scarlett inclined her head a bit, and pulled out the silver comb that secured her updo, along with several bobby pins, then shook her hair loose, fluffing the length out with her free hand.  

She looked back up when Hennessy drew a whistling breath, to find he’d closed what little space had been left between them.  “There you go, my good little lamb.  Pretty as a picture.”  He took her hand between his two, relieving her of the comb and pins, softly stroking the back of her hand with the fingertips of his free hand, then sliding them up to her elbow in a slow, deliberate tease.  She closed her eyes, knowing that the seduction had truly begun.

Hennessy deposited her ornaments in his pocket, another trophy in his conquest, and with his hand still on her elbow, drew Scarlett to him.  She raised her face, waiting for his kiss---though he delayed, threading the fingers of his other hand through her hair, then tracing the shell of her ear.  Just kiss me, dammit, her mind cried out, kiss me please!  She parted her lips once more, in anticipation.

“Prettier than any picture that I’ve seen in a very...long...time,” he murmured, then finally laid his lips on hers.

Of all the kisses he had yet bestowed upon her, this was the most patient.  The most thorough too, for he knew he had all the time in the world.  Scarlett’s instinct insisted that this was as much for his own sake as for hers---for though he certainly knew what this evening meant to her, and that what lovers she took for the rest of her life would ever be compared to him, he was actually about the entire experience, and not just the consummation that had been her promise to him from before they had shared a single touch.  Hennessy savored her lips patiently, precisely because he knew she was already his---and surely because he had nothing to prove or anything further to gain.

When they broke the first time to catch a gasp of air, he leaned his forehead against hers, breathing just as hard as she was.  It felt like forever to her as she waited for him to begin again, yet before he did, he cleared his throat, asking huskily, “Before we truly commence, little lamb, satisfy my curiosity please…”

“Anything,” she whispered.  Anything for you, dearest man.

He puffed against her lips, amused, “Just what in God’s good English did you mean by that toast you made?”

Scarlett couldn’t help but smile, marveling that for once she had stumped him.  “Man of the world…Master of all you survey…surely you can guess…”

“I haven’t a clue, Scarlett,” he practically growled, “And I’ll have all your secrets this night, one way or another.”

Of course you will, she thought, and brushed her lips to his, delivering the translation.  “To high winds…and mermaids! Like a blessing—for an auspicious new endeavor.”  

She felt the smile that graced his fulsome lips, as he told her, “My oh my…you are a true wonder, Scarlett.”  Then he silenced any reply she might give by searing his mouth to hers.                        🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Now these were, by far, the most alluring, the most delicious, most prized kisses of her young life, and Scarlett gave way most willingly, moment by moment, feeling as though Hennessy was slowly consuming her.  He held her face in his hands when they started, and she had pressed hers to his chest, dependent on his strength to keep her knees from buckling.  She panted for air when he withdrew his lips, and then heard the small, hungry sounds she made when he dipped his tongue back into her willing mouth.

When he noticed that one of her straps had slipped off her shoulder, his kissed his way down her throat and onto her bare skin.  Scarlett hadn’t bothered to try and conceal the love bruises he’d given her that afternoon—she had only worn a lightweight scarf to cover them while in the taxi that had brought her here—and now Hennessy softly revisited those marks, as though in deference to their tenderness.

That was exactly the sort of thing that always set her off kilter.  Scarlett was already well acquainted with how lustfully he pursued fulfillment of his appetites.  And she’d discovered that such reckless, heedless behaviors made her want him all the more.  Hennessy’s wicked proclivities were legion, ever waiting to surge up from his depths, and though she knew he had only shown her a fraction of those tendencies, what she had experienced thus far made her want to play his wanton.  But when he was gentle, solicitous of her needs, mindful of her inexperience, it was her heart that became more deeply entangled in the spell her body had all but fully succumbed to.  Scarlett had fallen hard, imperiling her tender heart beyond anything that Hennessy might visit upon her young, oh-so-willing body.  Or so she still believed.

There was no resisting his pull upon her, nor the confidence and skill of his elegant hands as they slid across the fabric of her dress, cupping her breasts and later her bottom with the fervor that had her wishing he would just strip her bare already. Pressed tightly to him, Scarlett could feel his erection growing more swollen and was imagining what it would feel like to have him finally buried deep inside her.

Hennessy was kissing her throat, occasionally grazing her skin with his teeth, each time a surprise enough to make her gasp.  With the latest, he brought his mouth to her ear, issuing a smooth command, “Come sit with me, little lamb.”  Not giving her a moment to consider disobeying, he dragged her along to one of the leather wingback chairs that sat before the unlit hearth.  “I’ve fancied sitting you on my lap for some time now, Scarlett,” he told her, and pulled her down onto him with enough force to elicit a breathy, surprised giggle from her.  “Does this amuse you, my dear?”

She shrugged, bit her lip, and then averted her eyes coyly, “Oh, Professor...everything you do...is...is like nothing I’ve experienced before.”  His silence bade her continue, so that she turned her widened eyes back his way, “You astonish me...again and again.  And sometimes...sometimes you frighten me.”  Scarlett felt her color rise once more, but would not flinch from her confession.  “But most of all, you fascinate me, Sir...and make me want to drown in your desires.”  She breathed out slowly, hanging upon his response.

He studied her closely, searching her truth--and finding not a speck of artifice in her admission, nodded, “You understand, sweet lambkin, that there is danger as much in my undertow as in my deep waters?”  Scarlett nodded solemnly.  “And that your innocence is no protection against this?”

“Oh yes,” she sighed, her skin atingle where he had spread one hand between her shoulder blades.  “I’ve spent my life shirking risk and danger at every turn--but I want yours now more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”  With that she leaned in to kiss him, sealing her lips to his as fearlessly as she sealed her fate...

(to be continued)

tagging: @strangelock221b @letterstosherlock @ben-c-group-therapy @tsukuyomi011 @ravencatart @emilyinnj4real @humanbornarchangel @aziracraw @aeterna-auroral-avenger @adragonscloset @naughtynecromancer  and @cinderella1181 so you can see a sample of what I’ve been working on lately 

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of September 11th, 1019

Best of this Week: Gotham City Monsters #1 - Steve Orlando, Amancay Nahuelpan, Trish Mulvihill and Tom Napolitano

Who wanted this?

Serious, this is a strange team of characters to put together for a story, but it’s so jarring in a way that it makes me really interested to see what their team dynamic is like. This book carries so much of a Universal Monster movie vibe while mixed in with the superheroics of comic books in a manner that it’s already caught my eye.

The book begins with several haunting establishing shots of Monstertown, one of the few neighborhoods in Gotham that is doing well under the control of Bane. These shots set the tone for what the story will be; a grimy, dark outing where the only light to be found is in the darkness. Naheulpan does such an amazing job capturing the essence of Gotham, while at the same time making things feel so...40s and 80s right before we’re introduced to our first hero, Andrew Bennett aka. I, Vampire.

Bennett, having been hunting down vampires that choose to spill the blood of innocents, dispatches a large group of evil vampires and learns of a new vampire king that’s soon to be restored to life. Bennett tears out the lead vampires heart and tries to drink his blood to kill him, but finds that his blood is poisonous to him. He then vows to kill their new leader no matter what. Within only a few pages Bennett is established as a noble vampire unlike some of his kin and those who were previously unaware of him are given all that they need to know about the man. His scene also feels very reminiscent of The Crow or Queen of the Damned in terms of style and color palette.

Soon after, we cut to a newly freed Waylon Jones who’s very excited to leave his past life as a criminal behind to carve out a new life in Monstertown, but sadly he knows that people will still only ever see him as Killer Croc. I can see that his arc will be all about redemption as he tries to make things in his life right after all of the turmoil he’s been forced to go through. Part of me wonders if he’ll ever learn about Roy Harper and his death at Sanctuary, given that he acted as Roy’s sponsor when the archer was getting off of heroin. He’s not seen again after his two pages which does suck quite a bit as I thought he would have a larger role starting out.

Things start to heat up as we run into the actual lead character of the story, Frankenstein, former Agent of SHADE. It has been quite some time since Frankenstein has been seen in any book, I think the last one he was in was a Valentine’s Day special from 2018. Before he is even shown, we see patrons of a local bar running in fear of the chaos that the undead one has wreaked in search of one of the last open cases SHADE had before Leviathan destroyed them. Frankenstein is not here to play games, holding the throat of a man infected with a disease that turns him into a bull-man.

Naheulpan draws this scene with the dourness that Frankenstein is often known for as Orlando scripts him to say that “in a far world you would live, but now more than ever… the world is not fair.” Napolitano’s letting also helps to make this scene even more saddening with Frankenstein’s shaky word balloons even if Frank himself is anything but. He lights the man on fire after smacking him upside the head with a bottle of ”Damn Fine Whiskey”, totally not Jack Daniels’, and watches as the creature tries to crawl away in fear and pain, terror in his burning eyes.

After this short excursion, we are introduced to our last few cast members in The Orca and Lady Clay, the latter of whom I had no clue existed. While I have limited experience with Orca as a character, mostly from Nightwing: Rebirth and the Injustice 2 tie-in comic, I know her story (and have an attraction, don’t judge me) and it’ll be interesting to see if Steve Orlando plays into the romance angle from the latter comic to give Croc the strong beau that he’s been missing since Enchantress was taken from him. Lady Clay, however, is new and exciting to me because she doesn’t know who she is anymore and finds solace in taking on the appearances of others like a Faceless Person. I’m very interested in whether or not she’ll betray the team for a sense of understanding from the main villain.

Throughout the book there had been murmurings of an opera going on in the city. This plays as the hook that will cause all of the plot to go full steam ahead in the next issue. While the crowd thinks they’re watching an amazing show, they are soon sacrificed to bring back Melmoth, an immortal whose blood was used to help in Frankenstein’s creation. Melmoth’s entire motivation is to continue being what he considers the “Last King.” He wants to subjugate all beneath his feet and will kill as many as he needs to do so, yet his followers see him as some sort of savior.

Gotham City Monsters succeeds as a story in the vein of the cheesy horror movies I liked to watch at a younger age. The stories and motivations given for each individual hero are simple, much like to protagonists of those old movies and gives this comic a nice monster movie team up feel. Naheulpan’s art is grim and made even better by Mulvihill’s gritty coloring and great use of dark inks for the moments that need shadows. For a first issue, this one was a blast and I absolutely cannot wait for the next one!

---------------------------------------------------

Runner Up: Wonder Woman #78 - G. Willow Wilson, Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott, Norm Rapmund, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and Pat Brosseau

Love is dead. Cheetah has killed her.

The fallout from Cheetah’s actions continue as Wonder Woman has lost her will to fight and is easily overpowered by her most deadly foe. Things begin in the most bleak way possible as illustrated by Tom Derenick. We cut back and forth from the immediate past to the current present as Cheetah wrests or destroys Wonder Woman’s armaments. 

Her sword is cut in half and her shield is demolished after swipes from Cheetah’s new Godkiller sword. Her tiara is broken and sent flying after a solid punch. The Lasso of Truth is snatched away as Cheetah mocks her, asking who is truly worthy. Even the Gauntlets of Submission are absolutely destroyed after being hit with the sword. 

Cheetah smiles with absolute glee as Diana is driven before her, helpless and unable to defeat her with her new and powerful weapon. She manages to escape into a nearby river and calls Atlantiades to help her. The demigoddess hears her call and with the help of Steve Trevor, they find Wonder Woman, broken and defeated without love.

Superman is commonly thought of as being the main hope in DC and there is a lot of merit to that, but at the same time, Wonder Woman is just as much of an inspiration to some if not more. She has almost never given up hope, even after killing Maxwell Lord in the past or losing her ability to see, hell even after fighting the Amazons after they invaded Man’s World she wasn’t at all fazed. Losing to Cheetah and feeling the crushing weight of the world on her shoulders now that she doesn’t have the hope of love to keep her head up high. It’s even worse when Steve Trevor is also suffering from this lack of love. Even while giving Diana a soothing bath for her injuries and trying to console her, his eyes are empty of the love they had and she can tell. 

Not only is love gone, but so is compassion as we see in a short scene shortly after the bath. A mail carrier on a bike accident hits a car and no one does anything to help him. It's telling that people just either drive around him or stand idly by seeing no reason to try to walk through traffic. We see even later on that people are far more willing to commit crime, especially after Lex has been offering people gifts and changing how they think, bringing out the darkness inside.

Eventually Wonder Woman is left with no other choice than to ask Veronica Cale for help. Veronica Cale, who has nothing but enmity for Wonder Woman, decides to help her as she doesn't even remember the feeling of dread that she had when her daughter was trapped in Themyscira and see this as an opportunity to show the Gods that mortals can see what they cannot.

In a way, Cale and Cheetah are similar in that regard. They have nothing but hate for the Gods and Wonder Woman and will do everything they can to tear them down, Cale with wit and guile and Cheetah with pure rage. 

G. Willow Wilson is absolute bringing out the bloodlust from Cheetah that we haven't seen in some time and is making her a pretty credible threat. If her trajectory continues the way that it jas, then there's no doubt in my mind that this entire run of Wonder Woman will end in one of their deaths and that is exciting.

[deejayers]

Peaceful

Warning: it’s just fluff. Straight up cutesy fluff because I live for that shit.

Pairing: established 1x2x1 

Inspired by a prompt I found by @merprompts (Mer Prompt #6) which is as follows: 

Mer A will braid Mer B’s hair while they’re sunbathing on the rocks. Everything is calm with the gentle push of the waves on the rocks, the air is warm and there’s a light breeze.

All the hugs and thanks to @janaverse and @robo-rad for their encouragement and help figuring out what kind of sea creatures the boys should be based on! <3 <3 <3

The gentle burble and crash of the waves breaking on his sunbathing rock was easily one of his favorite sounds. He had been there, delightfully warm, for the past several hours while he waited for his mane of auburn hair to dry enough to rebraid and replace his jewelry. Duo really didn’t like having to go through all the trouble sometimes but after the storms last night that whipped his braid into a mess of hair, jewelry, and varying kinds of sea debris he just didn’t have a choice. Before he had painstakingly untangled it all, pieces of it had been folded up and pinned against itself in ways even he was surprised by.

With a small huff, he readjusted himself and let his tail dip into the water. The fins of his long black and white tail lazily rocked with the waves and he was unsurprised to feel them brush gently against the smooth skin to rough scales of another mer. He cracked one eye open and glanced off to his left in time to see the darkly striped dorsal fin of Heero break the surface of the water just a moment before his head. Dark chocolate hair plastered itself to his face as the water trailed back down into the ocean.

“Everything is back in order,” he said by way of greeting, propping himself up on the edge of Duo’s large rock. “And everyone is fine. You hair appears to have been the only casualty… As expected since you decided it would be fun to roll in the undercurrent.” That earned a grin from Duo as he rolled onto his belly and dropped his head onto his arms.

“C'mon, Heero, you had fun too! Don’t try to lie to me. I saw it on your face!” Duo snickered, grin cheeky. Heero simply rolled his eyes and pulled himself out of the water to sit beside Duo, careful to not fling too much water on him and his mostly dry hair. Not that Duo would have really minded, distracted as he was by water trickling over Heero’s muscled form. He liked watching it roll over the olive skin and darker stripes that crawled across Heero’s back and shoulders.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t fun. Just that your hair being as it is now is your fault.” Replied Heero. After shaking off as much of the water on his hand he could, he reached over to run his fingers through the meticulously brushed locks. “It’s dried well. Do you want it totally dry before I braid it?” His hand continued the slow, easy motion as they talked.

Duo glanced up at him with a pleasantly surprised smile and shifted so he could press his cheek into Heero’s side. “I figured I’d wait until it was totally dry but if you’re going to do it for me, well, I won’t complain about whether you braid it damp or dry. Thanks, Heero.” He rubbed his cheek against him again and asked, “Do you want me to sit today or is lying down okay?”

Heero looked at him for a moment then around the large rock they were on. Surely there was plenty enough room for the both of them on it. “Laying down is fine. I’ll just sit next to you. Scoot over.” With that statement, he lightly poked Duo in the direction he wanted him to move and waited while the Orca mer get settled again.

When Duo was finally settled on his stomach with his head on his arms Heero pulled himself up beside him and gathered the several feet worth of hair across his lap. He brushed his fingers through the length of it to get rid of any tangles trying to take hold and then began parting it all into three sections. Duo let out a pleased hum and relaxed further into the rock.

Hair evenly separated, Heero started the over-under process of twining the locks around itself. With each successful plait he straightened out the rest of the separated pieces in order to keep the braid smooth. Over, under, over, under, over, under. Again and again, Heero wound the silky strands around itself into Duo’s customary braid. As he worked he admired the way the strands glowed in the full sunlight, hints of red and blonde mixed in with the brown to make the gorgeous auburn that was Duo’s hair. 

A couple times he had to pick up the braid and set it farther on Duo’s back so he could continue braiding it without it bunching up and each time he set it down he would stroke a hand down the soft skin of Duo’s back for a moment. With each caress, Duo let out another quiet, pleased hum. Occasionally, he would mumble out a sleepy, “Mmm, thanks ‘Ro.” and Heero would smile just a little. 

By the time Heero had all of Duo’s hair braided and had grabbed the small woven bag holding all of his jewelry, Duo was fully asleep and looked so peaceful it made Heero want to curl up beside him and do the same. He refrained because while this was a generally safe area for merfolk, sometimes humans were stupid and sometimes larger merfolk would come by and decide they wanted the spot. He couldn’t defend them if he was asleep. 

So instead he dug around Duo’s bag for the latest bit of ribbon he had acquired from a human for tying off the braid and wound it around the end with a solid knot. It wouldn’t be coming loose anytime soon. He glanced into the bag of jewelry again, briefly debating setting them in their places within Duo’s braid, but decided against it in favor for gently running the braid through his hands over and over. 

He readjusted himself so that he was pressed up against Duo’s side with just the very tips of his tail fins in the water and pulled Duo’s braid back across his lap. Gently, so as not to pull any of the hairs out of place by accident, he wrapped and unwrapped the braid around his hand, turned it this way and that in the light, and used the short bit that he couldn’t braid to lightly brush Duo’s back to pass the time. No way was he going to wake Duo when he was sleeping so peacefully, especially after the storms last night. 

Because while yes, it had been Duo’s idea to go out during it and he had wanted to have fun in the end, the main reason had been because he wanted to make sure none of their smaller friends had been caught unawares in it. Luckily none of their friends had been caught in it but they did manage to catch some debris from a shipwreck nearby and prevent it from crashing into the coral reef, in the process getting rolled into a mess that had caused most of the problem with Duo’s hair. After getting rid of the debris they had returned to the open sandy area to let the undercurrent roll them around for a little while before heading back home to their cave in slightly darker waters to curl up and sleep. Heero had gone to check on all their friends earlier in the morning while Duo had set off to untangle the mess that was his hair.

A low hum alerted him to Duo waking slightly and he released the braid in favor of setting a hand on Duo’s back, next to his dark dorsal fin. His fingers gently massaged the skin, always careful of the sharp claws on his fingers. The sleepy Orca mer cracked his eyes open to look over at Heero and mumbled, “Done already, ‘Ro?” before letting out a wide yawn. Heero nodded slightly, shifting again so he was facing Duo better. 

“I didn’t put any of your jewelry back in today. I just wanted to play with your hair.” He said, holding up the closed bag for Duo to see before carefully setting it down on Duo’s other side so it didn’t get rolled on and crushed. Duo chuckled, smiling as he stretched his arms and tail as far as he could before letting everything drop unceremoniously back down. His tail fins hitting the water splashed both of them, making Duo snicker and Heero roll his eyes. “Do you want to stay here for a while longer or go back home?” Heero asked, setting his hand back down on Duo’s side once the mer stopped moving. Duo hummed and looked to the sky, clearly thinking, before a wicked grin split his face and he abruptly tackled Heero into the water surrounding them with a whoop of glee. 

Heero let out a brief shout of surprise as he suddenly hit the water but quickly recovered, wrapping his arms around Duo and dragging him deeper into the water only to pin him down against the sandy floor. Duo face was split in his trademark mischievous grin and Heero had to chuckle a little at him. This was his Duo after all and he usually expected nothing less from the mer. 

With a small grin on his face, Heero nuzzled his face against Duo’s briefly before pressing a kiss to his lips and quietly saying, “Race you home. Loser has to help Trowa with his pets next time.” He had shoved off of Duo and was swimming as fast as he could in the direction of their home when he heard Duo shout, “No fair, Yuy! You left my bag on the sun rock on purpose!”

The last thing Duo heard from Heero was his laughter traveling through the water as he raced away.

@thisweekingundamwing

[monstergalsbeingpals]

Hey, I'm an introvert pan girl, who love to learn new things, watch movie, draw and play games. I love all sea creatures, but orcas are my ultimate fav. I like when my partner is taller than me :3 The ideal date could be either stay at home or go out, as long as we having fun I don't mind. The ocean is beautiful for it's scenery. Sunrise or sunset, the colors mixed together so beautiful! The infinite horizon and the serenity it provides. -aghostwholovemonsters

Neato! Glad you’re dropping in! mermaids are pretty gosh darn tall with those tails and all

Ha, I have to stop making these intros so long probably lol but here we go!

And just a ps to others, sorry if I don’t turn these around super fast. I guess I tend to be pretty wordy and I’m not the best writer. I’m also trying to do these cute little sketches because I thought they might add a nice little touch:

You don’t know how this happened. You don’t know why this happened.

You somehow ended up on a boat trip, four days out on the sea to enjoy the air, watch for animals, and fish. It’s not that it isn’t fun and the scenery is beautiful, it’s just a bit jarring. You had brought a sketchbook and a few games with you just to help you pass some downtime and recharge. On the second day, the water had been rough, which meant no fishing and more company below deck. Of course with most of your fellows below meant there was more room open on the deck. You watched the water’s surface for a while sketching passing gulls and rough waves. You were hoping to spot whales still but you knew it wasn’t likely. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glint of something and ran over to look over the railing. Hopes rose for a moment but nothing, but you could feel something out there.

That night after most everyone else went to bed you stayed awake. Usually, the rocking motion was actually quite soothing but tonight it was just too much and you couldn’t fall asleep so easily. You headed above to breathe in some night air and look out watching as a sky full of stars meshed with the shine off the waves. You brought a game above with you, just as a distraction but again, you catch something, just a glint, faster this time you barely can make out a long form just below the surface. You lean out trying to get a closer look, maybe if you just gave yourself a slight boost…slip

You expected your fall to be longer, to feel a slap of cold water and to be engulfed. But someone caught you “hey, hey! Be careful!” you were going to turn and thank them when you realized you didn’t recognize the voice. Back on your feet firmly on deck, you pull your arm from their grasp and to your chest it feels slimy. You come face to face with a lithe figure a good foot taller than you, truthfully kind of androgynous. Their skin was almost a pale lime color and a long deep green mohawk was plastered down covering part of their face.

“Ok, like, don’t freak out” They held up their hands trying to keep you calm.

But like, you freaked out. Quitely, mostly internally, but a freak out nonetheless. You opened your mouth but nothing came out for a moment. You stared more, examining this person with a strange skin color and, would you look at that, a long smooth tail coiled beneath them. You took a deep breath

“Right. What are you?” You were surprisingly calm.

“It’s not obvious?” Judging by their tone they feigned hurt

“Some sort of snake-person?”

They dropped their shoulders and shook their head with a sigh they said: “yeah,yeah..no I’m not a snake…” They looked back up and forced the biggest grin they could and shouted “I’m a mermaid!” and spread their arms in a ta-da like fashion

“Don’t shout! You’ll wake everyone up! Aren’t you supposed to be like a fish then?”

“Hey, there’s more than one kind of mer. I’m more of an eel myself” This was an energetic person, to say the least, they don’t stay feeling down for long it seems.

“Right…uh, I’m (y/n)”

“Oh! OH! I’m sorry! Wow, I spaced on that! I’m Moray! Get it?” They laughed at their own joke. “It’s nice to meet you” Moray extended a hand to you which you grabbed, it wasn’t as slimy as you thought it might be, cold but nice.

“Soo…what brings an eel-maid like you onto a boat?” You asked

“I just thought it was interesting, what brings you out to sea?”

“I thought it would be interesting” You smiled at each other and at the same time realized you were still holding hands. You both pulled away blushing and looked down awkwardly.

“So um, what’cha got there?” Moray asked shyly gesturing to your handheld which had been almost forgotten.

“Oh! Um, just a game, do you want to play?”

The mermaid’s eyes lit up mesmerized by the glow of the colors “yes please” she whispered.

Before you knew it you were both curled up on the deck, you almost in the mermaid’s lap, as you showed Moray how to play. You stayed up most of the night laughing and grumbling over more challenging levels. When Moray lost their last life they sighed and handed the game back and you’re most certainly in their lap at this point. “Looks like the sun will be up in a couple of hours and I think your other friends may freak out, won’t they?” Moray smiled but seemed a bit sad.

“Probably” You lightly laughed “but um, this was fun, and this trip still has a couple of days left, if you want to come back, maybe?”

Moray broke out into a smile that could be barely contained on her face “Yes! I would love that! Date number two! You’re on! Oh! And I have a great idea”

“What do you mean? What idea? Date?” you asked surprised.

The energetic mermaid climbed up onto the side of the boat and dropped most of her long tail into the water and turned back to you. “You’ll see, you should probably get some sleep in” With that Moray gave you some finger guns and dropped herself into the water. You decided to take the advice, more tired than you realized. Of course later that day you were woken by a friend “Hey, (y/n) get up here! Quickly!” They sounded excited, and for good reason! A whole pod of whales surrounded you and you had the feeling a certain mermaid had something to do with it. You grabbed a sketchbook and enjoyed the show, looking forward to your next date.

[isabelinrussia]

Москвариум/Moskvarium

Within ВДНХ, you will find Москвариум, Moscow’s main aquarium, and the largest aquarium in Europe. Filled with lots of visitors and children, I really enjoyed my visit here and exploring all the different exhibits. There were many fish of course, but the aquarium is also a host to creatures such as sting rays, eels, seals - but more controversially - dolphins and orca whales. I knew nothing about this aquarium when I entered its doors, and so each step through the building was a complete surprise. I was also surprised to learn that it is the largest aquarium in Europe, since the interior did not feel extremely large to me. For reference, I have been to the aquarium in Lisbon, Portugal, and that aquarium felt much larger than this one. It might’ve been how they utilized the layout of the building. You go through the entrance and immediately have a small gift shop on your right, and the main ticket booths directly in front of you. Then you go down a small escalator to the koi fish and around a corner into a dark corridor containing different fish tanks. This small dark path, opening up into more medium sized rooms, made the aquarium feel not as big as it looked on the outside. I enjoyed seeing the different fish, but I was definitely not expecting the orca whale tank or the dolphins. My honest opinion is that the orca whale tank was quite sad. It was just a single panel window, with visitors crowding the room trying to peek into the murky water, and the orcas rarely made an appearance by the window except for a brief moment where you might one’s face peek at you and then vanish. Opposite the orca whale tank was the dolphin tank, where it was a similar situation - one big paneled window peeking into the tank where you would occasionally see the dolphins swim past in the distance of the tank. The energy of this part of the aquarium was depressing to me. The fact that these large animals were kept in these small tanks, with just a single panel window for people to crowd around and look into, made me want to leave. However, if this part of the aquarium was depressing, I did find one treasure here, which was the seal enclosure. I did not find out what specific types of seals the ones kept in this exhibit were, but they were quite possibly the roundest and fattest seals I have ever seen. And there were a lot of them. I could not stop smiling while watching them, and they were definitely one of my favorite things I have seen so far in Moscow. So with that said, I have very mixed feelings about Москвариум, and I am unsure if I would visit a second time. I would say if you really want to see these seals then take a peek, but don’t feel bad about skipping this aquarium either. 

[ftlolbyexe]

ok the frostmaw is done (i think)

now lemme get more data

Classification: Titanus Frostmaw

Monarch Designation: Frostmaw

Monarch Designation: Frostmaw

Behaviour: Further Research Required

Body Height: 130m/426ft

Body Weight: ~93,000 metric tons

Wingspan: 254.5m/835ft

We found this thing buried in the ice. Gave someone a huge scare. This.... Creature for lack of a better word had 2 heads, 4 wings, 1 tail, and 4 legs. The mix of genetic similarities is very confusing. Frostmaw has skulls that mildly resemble those of penguins, crests that resemble that of Tapejara Imperator, and avian-like legs. Frostmaw greatly resembles European dragons, with the exception being she has 2 heads. It also seems that the right head has more plates than the left. Frostmaw was awakened by Titanus Ghidorah's alpha call in 2019, and left antarctica, bringing ice and chaos with her as she began decimating New Zealand cities, but was later pacified when the ORCA was activated in Fenway Park, Boston. Years later, she encountered Titanus Gojira, and the 2 started to fight in New York. She most likely would have won if it weren't for Titanus Asutorogojira interrupting the fight. Frostmaw is also cold blooded and has no thermal signals. She possesses thermal vision and a freezing mist breath ability. This ability does not have much range, but if it gets down a victim's throat, they will most likely die. (Possible exceptions: Titanus Rodan) She is known for the large snowstorms and blizzards that usually follow her around. Paintings suggest this creature did once fight Ghidorah millenia ago, and lost due to the ice-shattering effects of their gravity beams.

Status: Alive

------------

OH MY GOD IT IS SO LONG

Also, I live in NZ. RIP half the South Island in this universe. I'm on mobile and I don't know how to add a "Keep Reading" cut, so sorry for smacking you with a whole biography if it didn't work. Them people at Monarch don't know too much about her, they only discovered her recently. They don't know that she has an intense regeneration ability, but only in short bursts. Skadi and Yuki don't mind humans. They don't love them, but they don't hate them either. I have a feeling her behaviour would either be Protector or Neutral. Most likely Protector.

[michaelmyersmalewife]

LEVIATHAN | 5. Communion | MASTERLIST

words: 4k+

warning(s): we’re getting into classic godzilla weirdness territory folks

A/N: it looks like there’s gonna be bi-weekly updates for the foreseeable future so look forward to updates on monday & friday !!

you can also support this fic on wattpad & ao3

After the briefing, it took all of Jodie's self control not to sprint to the facility's living quarters.

Gill had been cleared to leave the infirmary shortly before their arrival, and she'd be damned if she didn't get to at least say hello before they left for wherever the ORCA's signal took them.

Finally arriving at their apartment (if you could even call it that, it was more of an abnormally large dorm than anything), she knocked. On the other side, through the thick steel door, she heard a feeble "Who is it?" Smiling, she placed a hand on its surface.

"Who else could it be?"

After a quick succession of feet pattering against the floor, the door slid open. It was Gill in her usual get-up - a plain tank tucked into palazzo pants. Her hair was messier than usual, and although she seemed happy to see her, there was something in her eyes that made her look like she was on the verge of crying. Jodie had never pulled her in for a hug so fast in her life.

Gill's hands wrapped around her, gripping her blazer as if she were an apparition that could disappear at any second. She drew in a shaky breath. Jodie stroked her hair, hands trailing down to cup her cheeks. Wordlessly, they entered the room.

There, Gill pulled away, rubbing the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes away with the palm of her hand. The two collapsed on the small sofa in the center of the room, sitting about as close to each other as they could.

"Sorry I couldn't be here sooner, I was -"

"You don't have to apologize for anything," she said with a sad smile. "I'm just glad you're here."

Leaning in for a kiss, Jodie happily obliged. Even beneath meters and meters of cold ocean water, she never felt warmer when she was with Gill.

Drawing herself back, there was a shift in her expression, something serious.

"What's wrong?"

The pause made Jodie's stomach drop. She opened her mouth, then quickly shut it. Jodie could practically see her mind trying to connect the right words to each other. She prodded her arm.

"What's wrong."

"I'm...Dr. Ling and I are leaving for China."

"Audrey -"

Gill shot her a look. Jodie only used her first name when she was really distraught, and she hadn't used it in a long time. Jodie sighed, hands pushing back the stray curls that fell in front of her forehead.

"When do you leave?"

"In about an hour or two...I'll be fine, really." she took Jodie's hands in hers, their eyes staring deeply into each other's. "What happened..I don't think I'll ever get over it. I mean, I'm scared. But that larva's still there, and I can't say why or how I know but..it feels important. Like I need to be there."

For the first time that day, Jodie was speechless. Gill was always the more idealistic of the two, always following her heart rather her head. But if there was anything they had in common, it was their stubbornness. Once she made up her mind, there was no turning back. Jodie sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Just stay safe, okay?" she leaned forward, kissing her forehead. "And call me as soon as you get there."

Gill giggled. "Alright, mom."

"I mean it," she said jokingly. "And give updates!" Jodie added, her laugh mixing with Gill's.

Out of nowhere, the room - no - the whole base shook. They tensed.

"All personnel report to battle stations," Colonel Foster's voice blared from the loudspeakers as an alarm rang throughout the facility. "Code red. This is not a drill. Code red, I repeat, code red."

By the time the announcement was finished, Jodie and Gill were already out the door.

_____

When they reached the command center, all of Castle Bravo was on complete lockdown.

What used to be a breathtaking undersea view was now hidden behind thick, metal blast doors. Were those ecoterrorists attacking the base? Jodie prayed to god they weren't.

Walking into complete chaos, Jodie saw that everyone from the meeting was there - G-Team, Chen, Stanton. And Mark. Jodie and Gill headed to Dr. Chen's station.

"What's happening?" Jodie asked, trying not to sound frantic.

"Something's wrong," she replied moving from one monitor to the next. "He's never been this close before."

"Who's he?" Mark demanded.

"Who do you think?" Chen snapped.

"He's taking out our observation drones." Graham said, pointing to a series of screens that were quickly showing nothing but static. In one, Jodie saw a sudden flurry of motion. Something large and moving faster than any sub passed by, and shortly after the screen cut to static. Shit. It was him.

Mark wasn't going to be too happy about this.

"Trajectory?" Serizawa said.

"Straight at us," Stanton informed him as he sat at his desk. "Twelve hundred meters and closing."

"G-Team!" Foster called. "Barnes, Martinez, Hendricks - I want you on those CROWS now!"

"You heard the boss, let's move!"

As G-Team scrambled into the turrets, massive cannons sprang up all over the base and began adjusting their range.

"Dr. Stanton, do you have his bioacoustics?" Serizawa asked.

In response, Stanton fiddled with his equipment, and in that moment a deep thudding sound filled the room - Godzilla's heartbeat.

"Acoustics coming up," Stanton said. "Okay, he's closing. We're at eight hundred meters."

"His movements are erratic," Graham noted, eyes scanning the screen before her. "Heart and breathing elevated -"

"He's definitely not happy about something." Stanton replied.

"How are they getting all this?"

Jodie flinched, not expecting to hear Mark's voice. Let alone so close. She rolled her shoulders.

"Emma isolated Godzilla's bioacoustics while working on the ORCA. It allows us to track him, even to get his vitals." she said.

Another low rumble shook the base.

"Circling now," Stanton said. "Closing in. Two hundred meters."

One of the few monitors still working began to brighten with a bright blue light. Godzilla was so close he was nearly blinding.

"Colonel?" Serizawa said.

"All teams in position." she commanded. "Weapons hot, ready to engage on my command."

The sound of the creature's heartbeat increased in volume.

"Hold your fire," Serizawa said. "We don't know if he'll attack."

"Well he will if you keep those guns on him." Mark said.

Jodie raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"I want that thing dead more than anybody but unless this is a fight you know you can win, for god's sake stand down."

As much as she was loathe to admit it, he was right.

But something about all this felt off. This base had been here for years, why was Godzilla just now attacking it?

Unless he wasn't. Unless...

"He's right, we have to -!" Jodie screamed, nearly falling on Gill had she not caught her.

The floor buckled beneath everyone's feet. Although the base was anchored in bedrock, it shuddered like a hut in a hurricane.

"We need to stand down." she continued.

Mark turned to her. Considering her words, Serizawa nodded.

"You can't be serious." Foster replied.

Serizawa faced the colonel. "I am. Stand down."

Foster paused, frowning. Slowly, she reached for her earpiece.

"Stand down. Save your weapons, do not engage."

As the machines whirred back into silence, so did the titan's thudding heartbeat.

"Listen," Chen said. "His heart rate - it's slowing."

Maybe Mark had been onto something. What if Godzilla wasn't trying to attack them? What if he was trying to warn them? The base going on the defensive certainly hadn't helped though. Hopefully, if Jodie had been right in saying that he was more than a monster, Godzilla would recognize their passive act as he had their active one.

"Open the shields." Mark said.

Everyone in the room stared.

"Oh yeah, sure, let's bring him in for a beer - are you out of your goddamn mind?" Stanton said frantically.

Bold words coming from someone that's done nothing but run and hide, she thought. But as dangerous - and, admittedly stupid - the idea was, Jodie couldn't help but agree.

"He has to see us." she started. She could see Gill staring at her out of the corner of her eye.

"Jodie -" Gill whispered.

"Let him know we're not a threat." she said.

Mark and Jodie shared a look of understanding. Maybe, in some way, he really did take what she said to heart.

"Open the shields." he insisted.

Serizawa's brow creased, eyes darting between Jodie, Mark and the team sitting at the command controls.

"Do it." he finally decided.

Dr. Stanton hadn't liked that answer any more than Gill had, but he begrudgingly complied. Flicking a switch, the blast doors began to rumble, slowly revealing the vast sea beyond.

Gill reached for Jodie's hand, their fingers laced together.

The more they opened, the less she could see. They were only halfway but all that reached her eyes was a bright light. The room was hushed, bated breath watching the doors open and revealing the source of the light that bathed the room with a blindingly bright blue.

Through the shadowy murk of the ocean, she could make out a shape. Looks like Godzilla had grown back those dorsal spines.

She squinted, feeling Gill's grasp on her strengthen. Glancing over at her, she saw that was far from afraid - captivated was more like it. But what was he doing? He was still about 100 meters out, waiting, watching. All he did was float in place, his scutes brightening and going dark like a strobe light.

It was beautiful.

In that moment, everyone in the room was too stunned to say anything, too wrapped up in awe and trepidation. Save for Hendricks, who spoke up from the back of the room.

"What's with the light show?"

"It's an intimidation display," Vivienne said, looking ready to flinch at any given moment. "Like a gorilla pounding its chest."

"Consider us very intimidated." Coleman said.

"I don't think it's for us." Chen said.

Jodie didn't think so either. If this was a warning, it must've been about something serious. If whatever was out there made Godzilla nervous, it was definitely something to be worried about.

Could there even be something else out there? Something bigger? Mothra was in her cocoon, and as a pupa she was hardly a threat. Was there a new titan reawakening and Monarch had somehow missed it?

Mark stepped forward, almost as if he were hypnotized by that mesmerizing bioluminescence.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He ignored her, walking right up to the glass. To Godzilla.

Maybe whatever she had said worked a little too well.

Then, Godzilla's spines flickered and faded to black, and nothing could be seen beyond the window. Nothing could be heard either. A collective sigh of relief filled the command center.

"Well that was interesting -" Coleman breathed before he was interrupted by an ear-shattering growl.

Godzilla was suddenly there, charging at the window at a speed too fast to register. In seconds he filled their view. There was a collective yelp in the room, the rush from the titan's generated current shaking the base and knocking nearly everyone to their feet. Jodie recoiled, hiding in Gill's grasp as they curled into each other, preparing for impact.

Until Godzilla swam right past them, disappearing into the deep once more.

As the lights in the base flickered back on, Jodie could see on one of the tracking monitors that this time, he was gone for real. Jodie let out a sigh of relief. Godzilla didn't seem to appreciate having all those guns on him, but luckily for them he seemed to have a sense of humor about it. A terrifyingly volatile, reptilian sense of humor.

Stanton peeked up from behind his desk. "Can we maybe close the shields now?"

Mark darted for the controls. "Show me his territorial routes."

"What - why?" Stanton asked.

"'Cause I wanna start a boat tour - just show me!"

"Okay, comin' up."

On one of the room's larger screens, a map of the earth appeared with Godzilla's recorded paths highlighted. Jodie was puzzled for a minute before looking at it, really looking at it. They weren't random.

"Care to tell us what you're looking for?" Foster said.

"When an animal leaves its hunting ground it's usually because it's threatened by something." Mark said.

Walking closer to the screen, she could see what he meant. On one of the more recently recorded pathways, Godzilla had deviated significantly from his usual routine. Suddenly, something in Jodie's mind clicked.

"What if it's not another titan that spooked him.." she said, absentmindedly biting her nails. "What if it's something that sounded like one?"

"Run a course projection." Vivienne said urgently.

"We gotta go after him," Mark said. "He's looking for something out there - could be the ORCA."

There was another bout of nervous silence before Serizawa spoke up.

"Dr. Stanton?"

"All paths have him landing in the same place," something in his expression dropped. "Antarctica."

Jodie caught a sudden chill, feeling a pit form in the center of her stomach.

"Good!" Mark began. "Let's go! Let's go find them! Let's -"

He stopped, suddenly seeing the anxious expressions on everyone's faces.

"Wait....what's in Antarctica?"

"Barnes, contact the Argo." Foster said slowly.

"Yes, ma'am."

This was going to be a long, long day.

_____

"Is everything ready?"

The Controller's voice snapped Elena out of her daze.

"All set. Just needs its Proxies." The Regulator replied, glancing over at Elena and Madison. The look lingered before wrenching herself away, leaving Elena more puzzled than ever.

"Good. Our time is limited so let's make the most of it."

Since stepping foot on the cold Antarctic ground she had been a bundle of latent anxiety ready to explode at any moment. But she had to keep her composure, especially when there was a child that was surely feeling the same as her - if not worse.

That poor kid.

Since the minute these strangers had spirited her - of all people - away, she knew there could only have been one thing they wanted. And a part of her knew that no matter how much she tried to avoid it, something like this was inevitable.

When they took her by the arm, throwing her in a freezing metal chair and tightening its straps around her arms and legs, she didn't fight. There was no need, not when they could easily point every gun in the room at her and force her into compliance or strike her down like all the other innocent people in the facility. It was then that they moved toward the child, trying desperately to make herself seem smaller as she hid behind Emma. The girl - Madison - she was a fighter. She could see it in her eyes the moment they met. She had come to recognize that people like her always seemed to be that way.

"Mom? Mom!" Madison cried, struggling against the mercenary's grasp.

There was a pained look in the woman's eyes as her grip on her child slipped through her fingers. Elena couldn't bear to watch. Madison had nearly kicked the man in the groin with how much she flailed against his tugging. But after being joined by another, they easily held her down, strapping her into another metal chair right next to Elena. Her breathing was speeding up, growing more erratic by the second as she tried to keep her cool. Emma approached them, leaning down as she tried to stay calm for the both of them.

"It's going to be fine - you're gonna be alright, Maddie." Emma's voice pierced her ears as they carefully placed that flimsy-looking headpiece on their heads. It was unnerving how much it resembled the one they had once used on her decades ago.

"This won't hurt at all, okay?"

Elena's eye twitched. Something felt off.

The Controller stepped toward them, sidling up to Emma with an unreadable expression. Elena didn't like anything about this. He outstretched his hands in the same manner he did on the ship.

"I can't begin to express how delighted I am to finally get to see this." he spoke, what sounded like joy barely reaching his tone.

Emma's hands clenched and unclenched into fists as she turned her head to the side, frowning. "No time to waste. Remember."

The Controller turned to face her, but the woman kept her eyes firmly planted on the ground. Her jaw tightened.

"Mom..?" Madison whimpered, confused.

The Controller carried on as though nothing had happened. "I'm sure there are at least a hundred questions running through your minds at the moment, but rather than wasting time explaining it to you both I believe we should begin. Shall we?"

Emma turned away, fiddling with the ORCA as it blared to life, a low thrumming echoing throughout the base.

"I think only one of them would need explaining." The Regulator chimed in.

"Ah," he said, an amused smile appearing on his face. "Right. Forgive me for my lapse in memory, Madison. You may be new at this, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."

Something in Elena's mind clicked. She was wondering why they were hooking the two of them up to the ORCA at the same time, but maybe she just didn't want to see it. It was like the time when she was 19 and had to use her brother's car to jumpstart her own after the piece of junk had broken down. Same principle.

But it was risky, too risky. If one of them messed up, the other could be lost within their own mind. Potentially forever. She had seen it happen, and she'd be damned if she let it happen to Madison.

"Whatever you're planning, it's not going to work. It didn't then, and it sure as hell won't now." Elena said through gritted teeth.

The Controller's grin smoothed back down to a thin-pressed line devoid of any emotion. "Circumstances have changed, dear, I'm sure you've noticed that by now." he said, condescension laced through every word.

"Besides, we're only here to claim what's rightfully ours after all."

Elena let out a laugh, shaky and disbelieving. "You think you can control that thing?" She shook her head. "Pendejos..all of you."

Beneath her facade, Elena's heart sank. This was worse, so much worse than the tests she had been coerced into performing in her youth. Back then was merely child's play, talking with these monsters as if they were her friends. All so Monarch could further their studies that hadn't seemed to help anyone in the time since then. And now? Now she was being asked to do something she had tried - and failed miserably - to do all those years ago. If it didn't work then, what could possibly be so special about the ORCA that would make it work now? Was it really as easy as having a human conduit? Turning her head as far as she could, she whispered.

"Madison,"

The girl looked over, eyes wide with fear.

"Just follow my lead, okay? I won't let anything happen to you, I promise."

Without saying a word, she nodded.

"It's ready," Emma spoke, voice low and holding an anger just beneath her collected demeanor. "Beginning the connection process."

The ORCA's thrumming grew in intensity, the sound becoming so loud it encompassed all of Elena's senses. She slammed her eyes shut, trying her best to concentrate on literally anything else. It was an impossible feat with the frequency the device was producing. It was like a heartbeat dialed up to 100, and at some point she could hardly discern it from her own. Her nails dug into the chair, scraping against its metal as her consciousness began to sink. The last thing she saw was Madison going limp in the chair beside her as she too succumbed to the pulsing sound wave.

_____

It was dark, and cold - so cold.

Looking around, Elena saw nothing but an infinite expanse of nothing, a mind-void that was so hauntingly familiar she felt like throwing up. Everything that she had tried to suppress was suddenly rushing back to her, but she couldn't deal with that. Not yet. She had a job to do.

Madison? Elena called, trying her best to hide the panic in her voice.

Madison! she yelled again, voice endlessly bouncing off nonexistent walls. Something wasn't right. C'mon kid, fight it

Suddenly, something in the void jolted through her nerves, like the rumble of a transformer after being overloaded with electricity. In the back of her throat she could taste bile and a faint hint of batteries.

Well -

        - Well -

                  - Well,

It's been a long time, Speaker

Shit.

_____

It felt like she was drowning.

Everything was fuzzy, like she was suspended in the middle of a bottomless pool of water but at the same time laying flat on the ground. She got up? At least she was sure she did. She couldn't tell what was up or down or anywhere. It was like she had her eyes shut, but it was different. When she closed her eyes long enough she could see those weird flashes and starry things your brain made you see, but here, there was nothing.

Hello? she said. At least she could still talk somehow.

The silence was deafening, but if she concentrated hard enough she thought she could make out a muffled sound. But it was so far and so faint that it barely registered as a voice. Waiting for an answer, she waded through the void's heavy atmosphere.

Hello? she called again. She couldn't tell if she was screaming or not. Mom? E-Elena?

She wanted to sob. This place was suffocating, never in her entire life had she felt so alone, so cut off from everything around her. It was like her deepest fears come to life. Before she could cry out from frustration, a rolling wave of sound traveled through the void, vibrating through her form and nearly knocking her off the balance she had assumed she found.

Whatever it was felt far, but it was coming ever closer with each breath she took. It frightened her, but not in the way the Controller and his men did. It was like staring at a tornado or a tsunami and knowing there was nothing you could do but watch it pass, leaving destruction in its wake. Although she wasn't sure if she could even escape, Madison ran.

_____

Gathered around a set of digital displays, Jodie and the Monarch team prepared for another briefing.

"The specimen at this site has been kept entirely off-book," Vivienne began. "And since it's a fairly recent discovery our data is limited, but it seems to be another apex predator."

"Emma called it Monster Zero." Serizawa added.

An x-ray of the creature flashed across the screen. Jodie's brows furrowed. It was all horns, claws and teeth, tangled together in its snake-like necks. She couldn't begin to imagine what it looked like alive. Now she was pretty tolerant of most titans, all things considered, but even this looked like a bad one.

"It may have been a rival alpha to Godzilla, battling for dominance over the other titans." Vivienne said.

"Dr. Chen?" Serizawa asked.

"I've been scouring through thousands of years' worth of myths and legends," she said, opening a file on the screen that showed at least dozens of photos and documents of possible evidence of the creature. "But it's almost as if people were scared to even write about it.

"As if it was meant to be forgotten." Serizawa mused.

The group turned to Stanton as he entered the room, head hung low.

"So, I hate to crash the party but I got some bad news."

"You can just say 'news' it's always bad." Barnes groaned.

"We lost Godzilla. Dropped off the scan near Venezuela."

"What?" Mark asked, already on edge.

Despite the anxious energy building in the room, Stanton almost seemed excited.

"I'm tellin' you," he said. "Dr. Brooks was right - it's the hollow earth."

Chen sighed, tiredly doubling over the screen.

"That's how he moves so fast, using these underwater tunnels like wormholes - just like, zippin' around -" he punctuated with jerky hand movements through the air.

Jodie rolled her eyes. All the supposed 'evidence' she and Gill found of that conspiracy back in their podcast days always ended in dead ends or hoaxes. But Stanton had always firmly believed it after Dr. Houston Brooks' reports from Skull Island had gotten around. He hadn't even found solid evidence, as it was all based on those seismic charges that Monarch expedition dropped back in the 70s - they were wild guesses at best. She could believe a number of things, but at some point she had to draw a line.

"Everyone look sharp," Foster interrupted. "We're approaching the base."

_____

Elena screamed as a ribbon of lightning struck too close for her comfort.

Though she couldn't be harmed within the headspace, this was not a good sign. Manifestations like that were only a sign of the connection process, and it was getting worse by the minute.

Shrill cackling filled the void as she was knocked off her feet, landing on nothing. It was the most terrible sound she had ever heard, a sound she would only hear in her worst nightmares.

Not long enough in my opinion, she grunted, righting herself.

You -

       - wound -

                     - us

Is that any way to treat an old friend?

Old friend my ass

Another bout of that incessant laughter.

Took you long enough -

                                    - To come crawling back -

                                                                            - To us

As if I wanted to, she was quickly growing tired of this banter. If she could just find a way to snap herself back to reality -

This has always been your reality, Speaker -

                                                                     - We're connected, you and I -

                                                                     - We're going to have so much fun together

Not if I have anything to say about it

_____

Madison hadn't made it far before the presence caught up to her, knocking her off of her imagined pace and disorienting her even further.

The headspace rumbled, as if thunder surrounded her on all sides. No matter what she tried she couldn't lessen its volume, but that wasn't what shook her bones.

Whatever was producing the rumbling felt big. Not in the sense that it was hundreds of feet taller than herself, exactly. Big in the same way Mothra felt when she touched her. In a strange way, it was almost comforting. Then she felt the push.

Again, it was similar to the feeling back at the temple. Words, vague imagery being pushed to the front of her mind. But this time, the thoughts - or, thought, rather - spilled forth.

You shouldn't be here, little Speaker, the voice boomed.

Madison shuddered. The voice hadn't had a specific sound, but it felt loud. Strong. And most of all, eerily familiar.

But as quickly as the feeling came, it left like waves disappearing into foam on a shore, and Madison felt herself being swept away.

She couldn't control it, this strange feeling.

It was like waking up from a nap but still feeling like you're in a dream as the world around you slowly became clearer and clearer. In seconds she could discern shapes - mom? The Controller? She cursed to herself, willing her eyes to focus. Blinking, she felt a throbbing migraine pound against her skull like a caged animal begging to be set free.

The shapes were becoming more recognizable by the second, and they were moving. Frantically, it seemed. She groaned, head lolling to the side in an attempt to dispel the headache.

"Maddie? Maddie!" Hands shook her shoulders as the pressure around her arms and legs went away. She was free.

"Mom?" she said in a groggy voice.

"Oh thank god." Her mother pulled her into a hug, squeezing the wind out of her lungs.

Pulling away she looked into her eyes, searching for any sign of harm. "You did so well, hon but right now we need to go, okay?"

"Wh-What?" her head whipped around, looking over at Elena.

She was still way out of it, and it didn't look like she was coming back to them any time soon.

"What about -"

"Don't worry about her." The Regulator unclasped Elena from the chair, scooping her up in her arms. "We've run out of time. They're already on their way."

Looking around, she could see the mercenaries placing strange objects within the holes drilled into the ice. Explosives?

"Who?" Madison didn't receive an answer as the Regulator led them through the ice tunnels. "Who's here?"

If it was who she thought, maybe this nightmare would finally be over after all.