#I’m sure some of these are more obvious than others but I’m just givin em anyway

[paintedkinzy-88]

Do you have tumblrs you would recommend. I'd search undertale au but I like your style so much I kinda want to see who'd you recommend.

First off, ;-; thank youuu.

Secondly, oh gosh, a lot of the artists I follow are on Instagram, but I can see if some of them have Tumblrs as well! Though warning, I’m not tagging anyone outside of some mutuals. I don’t have that kind of confidence fbsjbdjsnd.

@inkclover is a massive recommendation. She posts a lot on Instagram (lil_Inky), but a lot of it’s on here and YouTube as well! Her SCC stuff is glorious and I just really love her style. And her animations ahhhhhh love her to death. XD

@develation is an obvious favorite. Those gorgeous designs are absolutely killer istg, and the stories to go with them ò-ó mind blowing.

@calcium-cat’s AUs are both heartwarming and heartbreaking and I love them all the same. Plus??? Idk how?? She draws so good so fast??? Sorcery?????

@aoi-kanna kills me with every post. That attention to detail and just overall style is so frikkin stunning. Щ(ಠ益ಠщ)

Yo-honne’s the one that got me into Crink and I’ve thrived here ever since. Their style is so painterly and colorful and beautiful!

I don’t think Skumhuu posts as much on tumblr as they do on Twitter, but I can’t not mention my adoration for Leviathantale?? Plus their colorful line art mah gawd.

Those are really my main ones! The blogs I frequent the most (〜￣▽￣)〜 However, as some extras: TheGrinningKitten, Muskka, TheSkeletonGames (or Poetax), nukanametag, rebelband, or zu-is-here are all more blogs I admire way too much. And if anyone wants some Instagram favorites, heckin dying for Mhso23203, bananapumpko, pushtidarlingx, and cheshire_goner rn.

djakndkwnd SORRY IF THIS GOT LENGTHY. I’m probably missing a lot of people, these are just off the top of my head, but I don’t want to make this too incredibly long ;w; Always willing to point out all the lovely artists/authors I follow, they’re all so talented ahhhh.

[the-phantom-ender]

okay okay as requested by @redwinterroses herself, i give you the story of the crawdad that ate the pearl, a folktale within the cod empire (under the cut, because. story.)

Gather around, kids, and listen good, y’hear? Now you fries know fine and well all them human stories about peril and danger and whatnot, yeah? Now listen up for just a minute as I tell you a tale from our own kind. It’s an old, old story, and I’m sure you’ve heard all yer parents mention it. But, but, let me be the first to tell ya’ the old tale proper because it’s somethin’ you small fries can learn from.

Have you ever heard yer parents say they felt like that ol’ crawdad that swallowed a pearl? You’ve said it before? Not knowing what it meant? Well stick me in a salad and call me seaweed, alright.

Well. I’ll tell ya’ that there story since you kids don’t seem to know it in and of yourselves, alright? Good, good. Settle down, all of you.

A long, long time ago, much longer ago than any of you were livin’ on this here world, the world was ruled over by animals and the like. Some were more clever than the others, the bugs were particularly stupid. But some of the bugs went on to become some of them fae folk, so they didn’t all stay stupid. Don’t go tellin’ none of them Overgrown folk I said that now, y’hear? But there were lots of sorts of folk livin’ in the world way before us.

Our folks, the cod, were well known for swimmin’ round and givin’ warnings to those that weren’t so savvy with the waters and all that. And they were real kinds of careful with them who could be on land and in water both, and them folks with shells. Freshwater pearls were all kinds a’ valuable back then, and they still are now but it was more so back then on account a’ the animals weren’t such savages and had to wait for the clams and oysters and muscles to die proper before takin’ their pearls.

Some who weren’t so savvy with the waters didn’t realize how important them freshwater pearls were, though, and would just gobble ‘em right up with the rest of the stuff in the shell.

-I said they weren’t savages, fries, not that they weren’t animals. Animals eat animals, that’s how it goes.-

And so sometimes folks who do stay in the waters won't know ‘cause the old wise cod wont tell ‘em otherhow. The cod weren’t the smartest there was but they were clever for the fish and that was well more than enough. So they warned folks plenty ‘bout how the pearls meant somethin’ and how they had to be protected and whatnot.

So once a crawdad who was a little less clever than the cod stumbled upon a muscle. And them crawdads have claws like a lobster so this little fella checked to make sure it wasn’t still livin’ and cracked it open. It went on eatin’ all the insides -no I don’t know if crawdads eat the insides of muscles, it’s an old story. Sit back down- but it went on eatin’ all the insides of the muscle not payin’ any mind at all to the shiny pearl that popped up and out, treatin’ it just like any old food.

And then a particularly old and clever cod came a’ swimming by. The cod stopped and watched the crawdad for a moment before swimmin’ up to ‘em and going,” Mind yerself ‘round that pearl, crawfish, it’s worth a lot more than your snappy little claws.”

But the clever cod was just a little too late in his speakin’ because just before he spoke up, the crawdad had swallowed the thing without a care in the world. Of course, hearin’ the cod’s call of concern, the crawdad turned around, stalky eyes wide and worried.

“How much is it worth, Mr. cod?” they asked, scuttlin’ around like that’d get the pearl out of their stomach.

“Plenty more than something to just go ‘n swallow.” says the old cod, turning away from the crawdad,” On account ‘a the fact that most muscles die natural ‘cause of their shells, and most a’ the ones that die don’t have pearls. Cost you more than yer snappy claw, like I’ve told ya’.”

So the crawdad looks down all dejected-like and goes,” Well how was I s’posed to know all that?”

“You couldn’ta.” says the cod,” not less someone told ya or you asked. All you knew was that you knew ya’ could eat the stuff in a muscle and no one told ya’ that you couldn’t eat all of it.”

And that’s the story.

… Well what d’ya mean ‘what’s the moral’? I thought it was all kinds a’ obvious. Listen fingerling- yeah I know ya’ ain’t a baby I’m teasing- listen fry, the moral’s all subjective and such, yeah? But it’s simple enough to just say that sometimes you’ll come upon somethin’ that means a lot more than you figure. Maybe it’s some kinda fancy event that you came underdressed for, maybe it’s just that you passed up what ya’ thought was lapis only for it to be diamond.

It’s a story. Run along now, all you, go find your parents and bother them. Tell ‘em you got told told the story about the crawdad and promise ‘em real well that you’ll be very very careful with things that you don’t know much about. Shoo now, go on, have a good day.

[miraimisu]

33 with lonashipping? <3

[part 1] | [part 2] | [part 3] | [part 4] | [part 5]

—

Hau is sure something is going on with Gladion and Moon.

He can't quite say what it is, but there's an itch under his nose. He knows it's probably nothing, but they're together more often than ever, and while these two weeks of vacation had been spent mostly in togetherness, Hau has spent most of these two days with Lillie alone while Gladion and Moon 'trained' for 'something very important'.

Gladion is known for being lackluster with words, but Moon is just suspiciously dismissive. Something is off.

"What the hell do I know? Those two have always been close. Is this why you called me? I'm painting my nails right now."

Plumeria sounds irritated on the phone, but Hau doesn't let that deter him. Lillie fiddles with her sundress, seated right beside him on her bed. "You spend lots of time with Moon at the Battle Tree, right? I bet she's told you somethin'."

"I don't know a darn thing, kid. I bet she's got better things to do than fuss over some boy." Plumeria snickers. "Do you really think something's going on with those two?"

Hau trades looks with Lillie, who sighs. "They have been awfully busy with each other, and I'm certain Moon had a hickey on her neck yesterday."

"Yeeeeah, after the disco night. That was a weird night."

"Why? What happened?"

Hau wags his eyebrows, teasing. "Aw, so you are interested!"

"If Moon's gonna start losing battles because she's smitten, I might as well know why." Something slams shut at the other end of the line. "Fine. Tell me the details."

Hau puts her on loudspeaker. "Can you hear me?"

"Clear as day."

Lillie bites her lip. "So… they usually spend lots of time together, but it's unusual for them to go out on their own without us. I don't think they're avoiding spending time with us, right?"

Hau rubs her shoulder reassuringly. "Told ya' it wasn't that."

"Make it quick, you two. No lovey-dovey stuff allowed."

Hau gulps, laughing nervously. "Right. So we think they might have a thing going on. Lillie's right about the hickey– she had a pretty bad bruise, and when I asked, she just said she made out with some guy at the disco, but that's bullshit. She's not into that kind of stuff."

"So you think it's Gladion who's givin' her the hickeys?"

"Kinda weird to think about– no, kinda gross to think about, those two makin' out, but it's what makes the most sense."Hau grins. "Something's going on with them, and we gotta figure out what it is. They're not gonna tell us, so we should find out on our own."

Lillie fiddles with her thumbs. "But… why are we so sure they have feelings for each other, to begin with? I always thought they were just, um, very good friends."

"I mean, I'm surprised you didn't know, but the kid's always liked Moon. Like, even before she became the Champion."

Lillie gasps scandalously as Hau erupts into laughter. "I knew it!"

The blonde pulls the phone from Hau, shaking. "Really? How do you know such a thing!?"

"It was kinda obvious when you saw them together, and it's not like Gladion's that hard to read, considering he's a rock. The moment he gets soft and feelsy, it's very obvious." Plumeria laughs, half knowing, half happy. "It's weird that you didn't notice, Lillie. It's not like Moon makes herself hard to read either."

"I– I always had a hunch, but she always said he was just a friend, nothing else," Lillie says. "And Gladion… I can't say I didn't notice, but I also thought he was simply fond of her."

"Guess hickeys are his way of giving hugs now." Hau can hear the smirk in her voice. "All that aside, I doubt they'd be that dumb to get touchy with each other in a vacation. Or go on dates, having you two around. They're not that inconsiderate."

"What's up with them, then?" Hau asks, taking the phone back from Lillie. "I don't wanna be nosy, but they're hiding something from us. It's getting annoying."

Lillie hums in thought. "They might be genuinely busy with battles, even if we went on vacation so Moon would take her mind off that. Clair and Lance didn't help last week, and Gladion likes battling her a bit too much."

"You can always ask them right away, y'know– that way you wouldn't have to call me while I do my nails."

Hau ignores her in favor of an idea. "We can always, um, follow them around a bit? And keep an eye on' em. If they see us, we can say we're walkin' around."

At the other end of the line, Plumeria sighs. "That's an awful idea, kid."

But Lillie disagrees, "It might not be. I'm also curious, and come to think of it, we have done very little sight-seeing this week. We can make up for that."

Hau and Lillie exchange pleased sly grins, giggling to themselves. Plumeria groans. "Now that you two are scheming, can I hang up? My battery's running low."

"Sure, but…" Lillie fishes the phone from Hau's hand. "One last thing… can I see your nails, please? I want to buy some nail polish and I need ideas."

"Sure."

—

Hau and Lillie decide to bide their time and wait patiently.

He's tasked with looking out for Gladion, whereas Lillie does the same for Moon. They're not exactly meddling, but they're trying to wiggle their way into the situation as subtly as possible.

As much as they're trying, it doesn't seem like they're doing much. They talk and act as they always have– sans the few moments Hau notices Glaidon's touch lingers more on Moon than usual, that he looks at her very often and always does so with a little smile.

Plumeria already confirmed he's probably head over heels for her, but Hau is only noticing it now, so he does what he does best: tease him about it.

As they walk to their bedrooms after a day out at the beach, having left the girls at the bar, Hau grins. "So… what's up with you and Moon?"

Gladion jolts. Barely. But he does. "What do you mean?"

"You two are looking very cute lately. Like, really cute." He doesn't miss how Gladion's key nearly falls off his shaky fist, and his cheeks grow rosy. "Woah. I knew you had a thing for her, but not that badly."

The blond grunts and spins towards Hau, frowning as menacingly as Hau knows he can muster. "Absolutely nothing is going on between us. Nothing. I'm just helping her build a new team before she goes back to the League."

Hau arches an eyebrow. Moon has never asked anyone for help with training her Pokémon. Sounds like bullshit. "Uh-huh. Why, though?"

"Um, she's been out of it for more than a week and she's feeling a little antsy about it. She doesn't want to get rusty."

"Dude, Moon's been out of the League for weeks before. Remember Unova? She's never wanted any help with-"

Gladion squares his jaw and jams his key into the lock, opening it with force. "That– That's none of my business. Ask her if you're so curious, damn it!"

And the door swings shut again.

So that was something.

—

The following day, Moon explains that she'd be out with Glaidon training in a new Kanto-style gym that's opened in Heahea City. Hau and Lillie take that as their cue to follow them, so clad in pamelas and sunglasses they went, trailing after the pair.

They don't immediately head to the gym, and that rings alarms in Hau's head. As they spy on the two from a corner to the street, he gasps. "He wants to hold her hand. He's moving it a lot."

Lillie sighs. "The port is crowded. I'm losing sight of them. Where are they going, really?"

Hau grins. "Only one way to find out!"

With wide grins, they tiptoe across the street and further into the crowd. Hau can still see Gladion's baseball cap and Moon's oversized pamela, walking into an ice cream parlor that Hau loves with all his heart.

A few minutes later, they happily walk out of the parlor. Moon is laughing at something Gladion just said, and he looks as bothered as ever. Nothing is out of the ordinary here, making Hau question why they'd go out on their own if they're not on a date or battling.

They sit down on a bench near the sandline. Gladion looks upset. Genuinely so.

"Do you think they had an argument and are trying to make up?"

Hau turns to Lillie. "Did they look angry at each other this morning? Because they didn't to me."

The duo watch Moon and Gladion for a few minutes. Nothing happens, and after a while, Hau gets bored and distracted. They should have tagged along– it would surely be more fun than watching them have fun.

Lillie gasps. She points forward and leans closer to Hau. "Look, they're very close! Are they going to kiss?"

"No way," Hau squints as Moon scoots closer, and he can see a smirk, he thinks, but-

Someone crashes with Hau and makes him fall to the ground face first. The man runs past him and Lillie, shouting an apology. Lillie hurries to help Hau off the ground with a concerned frown. "Goodness, are you okay?"

Hau groans, rubbing his arm. "Just a scratch. People are always in a hurry here."

Lillie offers him a hand and helps him get up. Her touch lingers a second more than necessary, rubbing his knuckles with her thumb before letting go.

He rolls his shoulder and turns back to the bench, only to find it's absolutely empty.

He gets up from his hiding spot, gaping in indignation. "Dude, they're gone! Where did those two run off to?"

Lillie gasps and rushes past Hau to the bench, looking all around the port. They're nowhere to be seen– not at the juice bar, the shops at the other side of the road or anywhere nearby. She sighs, playing with the hems of her shirt. "Do you think they saw us and ran off somewhere?"

Hau shakes his head. "I doubt they saw us, but where did they even go? I can't see them anywhere."

The blonde turns to Hau, shaking her head. "Let's forget about this. I think we lost them, and it's been enough stalking for today."

Hau is still irritated, though. Where had those two ran off to? They looked like they were about to kiss. Had that been just his imagination?

He turns to Lillie, who is just as confused as he is, and grabs her wrist, leading her across the road. "C'mon, let's get ice cream. My treat."

—

The next day, the four of them have breakfast. They plan their day, which they'll spend together for once. Moon offers heading to Lush Jungle to watch the Pikipek and maybe play with the Comfey, an idea that Lillie finds cute– so much so they start gushing about it.

Only Hau notices how fondly Gladion is watching Moon, sitting very close to her. He clears his throat.

"Oh, forgot to tell you two!" Hau grins, one corner higher than the other. "We saw you the other day."

Moon chokes with her lemonade and Gladion tenses up. Lillie's eyes widen, just as troubled, and the Kahuna is sure he's hit a juicy spot. Gladion grabs Moon's lemonade and takes a generous chug while Moon laughs. "Oh, you did?"

"We were takin' a walk around the port zone and we saw you there. Did you like that gym you went to? You gotta take us there sometime!"

Hau expects Moon to panic, because she sucks at lying and he doesn't expect them to have gone to the gym. Moon and Gladion trade looks, and she smiles sweetly. "It was lots of fun. A few trainers there nearly beat me, and Gladion-"

He slaps a hand on her mouth with a shaky smirk. "No need to tell them about how I did to brag about your victories, Champion."

Moon removes his hand and they start bickering like they always do, and the only thing Hau finds suspicious in the situation is that everything is as normal as can be. They're arguing about the smallest of things at the loudest of voices, and he's sure a battle will ensue within the next 5 minutes.

Lillie scoots closer, whispering, "I suppose it was nothing, then? Could we have assumed wrong?"

Hau hums. He hasn't seen much suspicious activity he can prove, and the image of them almost kissing at that bench could have been a mirage. Maybe they're just on very friendly and affectionate terms now, and that hickey on Moon's neck that day might have come from some other dude.

He doesn't want to think Moon is hooking up with other dudes when Gladion is head over heels for her, though– but it's her life.

Hau takes a sip of his Tapu Cocoa. "We might have, yeah."

—

The following day is the day they go back to their usual busy lives. Moon is due at the League, Hau has Kahuna duties to look after, Gladion as a company to run and Lillie has a thousand things to do at the Aether Conservation area.

They must catch their ferry back to Melemele at ten o'clock, they've agreed to meet at the lobby in five minutes and Gladion and Moon are nowhere to be seen.

Lillie looks at her watch with a grimace. "They're usually the first ones to be here. What could be holding them up?"

Hau sighs. "Moon texted me saying her shower wasn't working properly so she's using Glaidon's while he packs his stuff."

The blonde smiles nervously. "They're taking a little too long, though. Silvally must be chewing on Glaidon's clothes again."

Hau groans. "Man, I woke up early to be here on time and I bet they're gonna be late. Let's go check on them. I got Gladion's key with me."

They leave their suitcases at the lobby and head to Gladion's bedroom. They speculate on the ways they'll have to peel Silvally off Gladion's suitcase, how Moon might have her own clothes destroyed by the beast and how irritated Gladion will be about going shopping with Moon in compensation for the damage.

Hau slides the key and the door clicks open.

And their hearts leap out their throats as Moon and Gladion gasp, stopping their activities to look at the intruders with blatant shame.

Moon is lying under Gladion, hair wet and shirt ridden up her stomach. Gladion's hands are in her hair and waist, and Moon is bunching the front of Gladion's half-undone button up dress shirt.

Lillie gasps.

Moon laughs nervously as Gladion groans in defeat and buries his face in Moon's neck. "Um, I can explain. We were, um…"

Words fail her. Gladion mumbles a curse against Moon's shoulder and Hau's mind finally catches up with what's going on.

"Dude, what in the world did we miss here?"

[hysterialevi]

His Name Was Isaac - Ch. 12

Fanfic summary: During a mission to avenge his mother’s death, Isaac hunts down the men responsible for her murder and kills them off one-by-one, only to discover that his last target is taking refuge among the Van der Linde gang. In an attempt to kill them, Isaac attacks the gang and unknowingly becomes enemies with his own father, who is in the process of fighting his own battle for redemption.

Point of view: third-person

Previous chapter | Next chapter

This story is also on AO3

THAT EVENING

NEAR OWANJILA LAKE

“What do you mean Joe’s dead?” Dutch asked, his tone sounding more feral with every word.

“I mean Arthur killed him!” Bill reiterated. “Shot him right in the face when no one was looking.”

The other man glanced at Micah, watching as the man rested on a nearby bedroll.

“And Micah?” He asked.

“Isaac attacked him as soon as Joe was shot.” Bill explained. “Cut him straight through the eye. Micah nearly killed the boy after that. Almost drowned him in the river, but Arthur managed to pull him off. Gave him one hell of a beating. Then, he sent me back here.”

Dutch looked at him with bewilderment. “And you just left?”

Bill threw his hands in the air. “Well, what else was I supposed to do, Dutch? You know Arthur. That man’s a beast. You raised him, after all. As for his son, let’s just say the apple don’t fall far from the tree. He ain’t nearly as strong as his pa, but he’s goddamn crazy. I’d have been killed if I stuck around.”

Dutch sighed in frustration and turned away from Bill, annoyed at the dead-end he suddenly found himself facing.

He knew Arthur wouldn’t be easy to take down -- that was no surprise -- but the fact that he killed one of his men and nearly beat another to death sent Dutch into a state of panic.

If Micah, Bill, and Joe couldn’t bring Arthur back by themselves, what the hell were they supposed to do now? Their gang was short one man, and Micah was in no condition to be going after anybody at the moment.

Dutch would have to find Arthur himself. He may have been sick, and he may have been dying, but he knew that man better than any of these fools. He knew how Arthur thought.

It was going to take more work than he initially anticipated to bring that man down, but Dutch was sure he could do it.

He just needed more time.

“So?” Bill questioned. “Where do we go from here, Dutch?”

Dutch brought his focus back to Williamson, his cold eyes seemingly gazing straight through him.

“We wait. Now that the three of you have alerted Arthur, he and the boy are gonna have their guard up. So we’ll give ‘em some space to breathe for now. Let them think that we ain’t a threat no more. In the meantime, we’ll allow Micah to recover from his wounds, and think of a plan. We’re gonna need it. Men like Arthur don’t just give up.”

Bill offered no objections. “Yeah, well... neither do you, Dutch.”

The man nodded at that, patting Bill on the shoulder. “You’re goddamn right about that, son. I ain’t givin’ up anytime soon. And Arthur’s gonna learn what it means to betray our family. I just need you and Micah to be with me, and I need no more mistakes. Are we clear on that, Williamson?”

Bill was clearly still hesitant to go against someone like Arthur, but complied nonetheless.

“We’re clear, Dutch.”

“Good. Then if you’ll excuse me...” Dutch began strolling away, “...I have got some thinking to do.”

~~~~~~~~~~

MEANWHILE

DAKOTA RIVER, NORTH OF DIABLO RIDGE

Trudging along the rocky path, Arthur and Isaac rode side-by-side as they followed the current of the river, slowly making their way up to the Grizzlies West.

By now, the sky had transformed into a soft shade of purple and was highlighted with wispy streaks of orange clouds, painting a beautiful contrast above them.

There were no other silhouettes dotting the dark horizon or distant gunshots to fill the air, and so far, everything had gone smoothly ever since their violent encounter with the Van der Linde gang.

Unfortunately though, they still had one other problem to deal with.

And this one wasn’t so easily ignored.

Throwing a silent glance at his father, Isaac felt a tight sense of worry clutching his chest as he watched the man let out another chain of coughs, his breath growing more ragged with every outburst.

Arthur kept insisting that he was fine for the moment and showed no signs of deviating from their plan to head up north, but Isaac wasn’t sure that wandering into the cold was the best idea right now.

Every fiber in his being hated to admit it, but Isaac knew his father was dying. He recalled Micah mentioning something about Dutch being sick not too long ago, and Arthur’s symptoms didn’t seem that different from the old man’s.

Isaac really had no idea where else he could’ve gotten it from or what the illness could’ve been, but one thing was clear to the boy. 

Sooner or later... he was going to lose Arthur. 

The outlaw was going to disappear from his life faster than he jumped back into it, and it made Isaac want to scream at the world for taking yet another one of his parents.

He had just started the process of finally moving on from Eliza’s death, and now, it was as if things had been reset.

Isaac was witnessing the death of his father now -- same as before -- only this time, it was going to be far more painful, and far more drawn out.

 Why was the world doing this to him?

“...It ain’t polite to stare, boy.” Arthur remarked gruffly, causing Isaac to avert his eyes.

“...Sorry.” He replied, his tone firm with anger. “I just... well, never mind.”

The kid didn’t even have to explain what was on his mind. Arthur could already tell.

“Don’t you go givin’ up on me yet, Isaac.” He reminded. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon. It’ll take more than a cough to scare me away.”

Isaac gazed at the lively river beside them, his eyes downcast in sorrow.

“I know you’re tough, Dad. You made that pretty clear when you beat Micah to a pulp...” the boy rubbed his neck in remembrance. “But will that be enough?”

Arthur sighed, not wanting to dwell on the subject any longer. “It’ll have to be.”

Falling into an uncomfortable silence, the two of them decided to leave the matter alone for now and trotted quietly down the road as the sky continued to darken above them, instilling a sense of fatigue in them.

Before either of them could go nodding off however, Arthur suddenly felt the need to bring up another topic that had been bothering him and turned to Isaac, hoping to comfort the boy somewhat.

“Hey, Isaac,” he called out, “about what happened earlier with Micah...”

The young man raised a brow. “Yeah?”

Arthur’s face sank with regret. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that. I know we was in a tough spot back there, and we didn’t really have much choice, but still... I shouldn’t have lost myself like that. Not in front of you. That ain’t the kinda man I want you to be.”

Isaac didn’t appear to share the man’s remorse. “Bastard had it comin’ to him. He betrayed your gang and nearly strangled me right after interrogating me. S’far as I’m concerned, Micah’s lucky he only got away with a wounded eye after all the shit he’s pulled.”

“Isaac!” Arthur scolded. “Look, I know that man’s rotten to the core. He’s always been a rat since he first joined our gang, but we’re better than that. You’re better than that.”

The boy scoffed. “Am I? I’ve robbed people. Killed ‘em. I poisoned an innocent man just so I could get revenge on some sorry fool who had already forgotten me by the time I found him again. From where I’m standing, I’m no more of a saint than any of the people we’ve fought.”

“Now you know that ain’t true.” Arthur replied. “We’ve all done bad things. Myself included. But you’ve got a kind heart, Isaac. That much is clear.”

Contrary to what the older man expected, that only seemed to annoy Isaac more.

“What good is a kind heart if it just gets everyone around you killed in the end? Micah may be rotten, but at least he knows how to survive. He knows it ain’t worth it tryin’ to get close with people. I wish I knew better.”

The other man blinked in confusion. “What’re you talkin’ about? Survival’s fine and dandy, but there’s more to it, Isaac. You gotta have a reason to survive. And if you don’t have anyone to care about, well then, frankly I don’t see a reason.”

Isaac scowled at that. “Yeah, you wouldn’t.”

Arthur found himself at a loss for words. “What’s gotten into you? One minute you’re askin’ me if we should kill Micah for everything he’s done, and the next, you’re sayin’ you wish you were more like him? That ain’t like you.”

Isaac shook his head in irritation. “How would you even know what ‘I ain’t like?’ We were practically strangers when I was a kid. You was always runnin’ off with some gang, or doing a job that was more important than us. You don’t know the first thing about me. I’ve had horses in my life longer than I’ve had you.”

The older man stopped in his tracks at that and lowered his voice, glaring directly at Isaac.

“...Watch your mouth, boy.” He warned sternly. “Now listen, I don’t know what the hell’s goin’ on with you today, Isaac, but you better shape up. I know we’re both still stressed from the fight this morning, but we are tryin’ to survive out here, and the last thing I need is for you to be pushin’ against me like this. So get your head straight or I’ll straighten it for you. You hear me?”

Isaac hardly seemed fazed by Arthur’s words and simply tapped his horse’s reins, walking ahead of the other man.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Watching Isaac solemnly trot further down the trail, Arthur decided to put some space between them for now and followed the young man from behind, confused as to why he was acting like this all of the sudden.

It was obvious Isaac was upset about something, but what? He seemed perfectly fine this morning, even after their fight with the Van der Lindes, and Arthur knew it took more than a beating to get Isaac’s spirits down. So what was going on with him?

Perhaps all the memories of his childhood were just starting to come back? Because as annoyed as Arthur was with the boy right now, he couldn’t deny that Isaac had a point. 

He was hardly ever around when that man was still a child. He made an effort to be near him every few months or so, but Isaac never had a reliable father figure growing up. Hell, the closest thing to a father he had back then was Shay... and he hated him.

Maybe Isaac still hadn’t quite forgiven Arthur for being absent all those years. He could act tough all he wanted, but the older man knew how much that boy really cared about his family. So it was no surprise to him that Isaac would be standoffish about losing him. Arthur just didn’t understand why these feelings were coming up now.

He supposed Isaac would tell him when he was ready. If that kid was anything like his father, then Arthur assumed he wouldn’t appreciate being pushed to open up about certain things.

Still, Arthur couldn’t deny that he was worried. This was the only chance he had to do right by his son, and so far, it seemed like everything was going wrong.

He just hoped he wasn’t pushing the kid away. Being a father was turning out to be much more daunting than he expected, and the last thing Arthur wanted to do was guide his son down the same path that he took.

Isaac had the potential to be more than that. He just couldn’t see it.

~~~~~~~~~~

ONE HOUR LATER

WEST OF WALLACE STATION

Sitting on a short stump, Arthur gazed out at the sea of trees dominating the horizon as a bundle of stars began to light up above them, giving the sky a soft, pale glow.

At the moment, he was drawing in a new journal that he had purchased at Wallace Station and was working on a sketch of the landscape, hoping to escape his worries for the time being.

Meanwhile, Isaac got some rest next to the campfire and slept on a bedroll, allowing his incessant dreams to carry him away as Aldo stood protectively nearby.

The two of them hadn’t said a word to each other ever since their little spat earlier, and were taking some time apart from one another. The boy appeared to be just as irritated as before, and Arthur -- being the inquisitive man that he was -- couldn’t stop wondering what it was that he did to make Isaac so upset.

He let out a sigh and began scribbling some words next to his drawing, trying to get his thoughts in order.

“Oh, Hosea... I certainly wish you was here right now. You wouldn’t believe what’s happened in the past few days. You remember Eliza? That waitress I used to be with all them years ago? Well, I found our son again. I found Isaac. Turns out he’s still alive, and he seems to be doing okay, if a bit troubled. I think you’d like him.”

“Problem is, I don’t know the first thing about being a parent. That’s why I wish you was still around. You and Dutch -- the two of you always seemed to know what to do with me. It felt like you always had the answers.”

“But me... it seems like with every attempt I make to protect the boy, the worse things get. We got Pinkertons chasing us down, the Van der Lindes trying to kill us around every corner, and I’ve started to develop this cough that won’t go away. I think I’m getting sick, just like Dutch.”

Arthur set his pencil down and dragged a hand down his face, taking a breath before continuing to write.

“What the hell am I going to do? I love Isaac more than life itself, but... things are getting heated between us. I think the boy’s angry at me. He’s started pushing me away all of the sudden, and the worst part is, I can’t even say he’s fully unjustified. I know I didn’t do right by him as a kid. I was always too occupied with our gang that I left Isaac alone. I wasn’t there when he needed me.”

“But I don’t plan on making the same mistake twice. Even if Isaac comes out of this hating me, I still want to be the father he deserves. I want to be the father that you were to me, Hosea.”

“I just wish I knew where to begin.”

Shutting his journal closed, Arthur decided to call it a day and stood up from the stump, rolling his shoulders as he strolled back to the campfire.

It looked like Isaac was out cold for the night and didn’t even twitch when Arthur stepped near him, but even then, the older man could see the grip of a revolver poking out from underneath his hand.

Part of him wanted to wake the young man up and set things straight between them, but Arthur knew he’d probably just end up aggravating Isaac even more if he did that.

So, instead, he simply made his way over to his own bedroll and tried to get some shut-eye, preparing himself for the long road ahead.

Tomorrow would be the start of the toughest part of their journey, and if things went according to schedule, Arthur expected they’d be wandering into the colder regions of Ambarino before long.

He wasn’t eager to go back into the snowy mountains that killed Jenny and Davy, but if they could cross the border, then they’d finally be free men.

The goal of their journey was drawing near, and now more than ever, Arthur was fervent in protecting Isaac. He may not’ve had much time left in this world, but he was going to see to it that the boy made it out okay.

If anything happened to Isaac, well... Arthur didn’t know what he’d do.

That kid was everything to him now, and he suspected he wouldn’t be able to bear it if he lost him a second time.

He’d never forgive himself, and neither would Eliza.

[devilreno]

@sixba​ said: 🕯️ - your muse and mine tell each other scary stories @greatxgospel​ said:  “Tell me the scariest story you have.” @justapeskyninja​ said: "Tell me your scariesttttt story." feat. @stingslikeabee​ based on >this ask< // Halloween starters  +  Autumn / Halloween starters

      Darkness comes like the thick velvet curtains of a theatre once the lights in the room are turned off. The aroma of scented candles infuse the air as source of light. In the center of the room are pillows neatly placed around into a circle for everyone to get comfortable on. Reno brings a flashlight to make this experience more thrilling.

      “A’ight, sit down and buckle up ‘cause it’s gonna be a ride,” Reno makes his way to one of the pillows and waits until the rest are seated. Aerith to his right and Yuffie to his left with Melissa being in front, creating the perfect ‘x’. Reno picks up Simba and places him on top of his lap, giving a light pat between his ears while using his free hand to turn the flashlight on and positions it so it’s illuminating his face with its effulgence.

      “Once upon a— not long ago, Mel an’ I decided to visit the train graveyard for funsies. Place looks straight outta a horror movie. Freaky-deaky, whate’ves, we carry on. First thing I see a train wit’ the lights on, no one’s there. But there’s somethin’ under the train car so I approach it an’ I can’t freakin’ believe it’s Fire Materia. Right under a rusty, hunk of junk in a creepy ghost party zone,” he pauses to add, “An’ if some of ya,” Yuffie, “wonder if there’s more of it there— Dunno. But best believe the ghosts are playin’ baseball wit’ ‘em when no one’s lookin’.”

      Reno releases Simba so he can go about wherever he likes. He proceeds to tell the story.

      “Anyway. We reach an abandoned train facility. I lose my shit for a sec— on the wall deadass reads ‘come play’ in glowy, ectoplasmic text. An arrow points inside the facility. We go in, same second we ‘ear a kid gigglin’. Sounds real but we don’t know where it’s comin’ from. I look to the left an’ there’s a pile of boxes. I take out my rod an’ smash ‘em. Let’s hope all that ruckus is worth it ‘cause I really don’t want any more gigglin’ kids comin’ this way. An’ I kid ya not,” Reno snorts within taking a small breather, “I find a bracelet wit’ Materia slots on it. What on Shiva’s frost titties are the chances? I insert the Fire Materia in one of the slots.” There’s a light amused look on his face.

      The Turk shifts his position and abruptly changes his expression, eyebrows arching downward into a frown. He evens out his tone, a little less eccentric than before as he reaches the serious point of the story.

      “But, just when I’m vibin’ wit’ what I found, the cursed gigglin’ turns into cryin’. I reach for Mel an’ we stand close. The weepin’ becomes more obvious from behind a door at the farthest end of the room. Glowin’ goo leaks from ‘round the doorframe. It feels chilly, I’m catchin’ goosebumps. The atmosphere becomes thicker wit’ every passin’ second.”

      Just as he’s stalling a little to form suspense, he is as still as possible prior to making a sudden, sharp movement while exclaiming loudly, “BOOM—!” He lifts his free hand positioned with his fingers akin to claws.

      “Ghost bursts out. Mel an’ I are freakin’ out. An’ not only ‘cause t’was lookin’ pretty sparkly. I make sure Melissa is at a safe distance before I go full-on Ghostbusters on that thing. It looks like old rag wit’ a ghost face on but I buy it as real anyway. Hit it few times but that bitch ain’t givin’ up. So, I use the Fire Materia an’ t’works as good as a match on gasoline. It’s ghost barbecue by the time I’m done wit’ it. Scared the ectoplasm outta it, ghost runs away behind the door where it came from an’ shuts it sealed.”       Reno lowers the flashlight to his lap, notably to relax his arm, and finishes the story.

      “I go back to Mel an’ we return safely to Wall Market. The end.”

[nerdsies]

A Fifth Avenue Kinda Guy

Requested: yes Ship: JoJo x Fem!Reader Era: canon Warnings: none, just fluff Word Count: 1014

"Romeo!!" JoJo ran into the lodgehouse, slamming the door behind him. "Romeo, I really need your advice and I have about five minutes to get it." "My advice?" Romeo asked. "His advice?" Finch echoed. "Yeah, his advice." JoJo collapsed onto his bunk beside Romeo's. "It's about (y/n)." "Tell me everything." Romeo grinned in anticipation. "Wait, hold up." Finch raised his hand in a stop-everything gesture. "What about (y/n)?" "He's madly in love with her," said Romeo lilke it was obvious, "duh." "Whadya mean, 'duh'?" JoJo demanded. "Oh, please. You're not the most subtle newsie in the square." Finch nodded. "Romeo has a point." "Then how come you never noticed?" "Finch isn't the most observant newsie in the square," said Romeo as Finch punched his arm. "Ow! I’m kinda in a session here, Finch. JoJo, what didja need advice on?" JoJo removed his cap, running a hand through his hair. "I wanna tell (y/n) how I feel, but I don't know how." "Ooh, quite the conundrum," said Romeo, rubbing his chin theatrically. "Is that your word of the day?" Finch teased. "Shut up." "Guys." JoJo hit them both on the head with his cap. "Focus." "Okay, okay." Romeo gestured for JoJo to go ahead. "Well, I was with (y/n) on Fifth Avenue, right? We's hawkin' papes like always, her on one side of the street and me on the other. All these rich folk are walkin' by, most not givin' us the time of day, some of 'em giving pitiful looks, a few stoppin' to buy a pape. She sells more papes than I do, 'cause she's pretty." "Sure," Romeo agreed. "So we's finally done and I'm headin' over to meet her to go get lunch or somethin', and as I cross the street, this guy starts goin' over to her." "What kinda guy?" Finch asked. "Some Fifth-Avenue guy," said JoJo vaguely, standing and pacing in front of the bunk. "Y'know. Suit 'n' tie, nice hat, shiny shoes. No older than us — his dad's probably one of them guys who works with stocks. Anyways, he goes over and starts sweet-talkin' her, and she doesn't really notice 'cause she sees the best in everyone and she thinks he's just bein' nice. And finally he says some corny thing about how beautiful she is, and she actually believes him! She smiles so wide and laughs a little and says somethin' kinda flirty back...I don't remember what it was." "And then what?" Buttons piped up, apparently having listened in on the whole thing from his bunk above. "And then I ran here," JoJo admitted defeatedly. "I didn't know what to do. I just...I hated seein' her flirtin' with some well-off guy, y'know? Well-off guys are never good people. We're good people." "So you want advice on how to flirt with (y/n)," Romeo concluded. JoJo nodded. "Yeah. Please." "It's easy. You just gotta pick your favourite parts of her and compliment 'em, like her smile or how she smells or somethin'." "Yeah, and do nice things for her," Finch added. "And show off a little," Buttons suggested. "So what do ya love about (y/n)?" Romeo asked. JoJo leaned against the wall. What didn't he love about (y/n)? "She smells nice." "Aw, c'mon." Romeo kicked him. "You gotta be more romantic than that." JoJo stuck out his tongue. "Okay, uh...her eyes sparkle, I guess? And her laugh makes me laugh, and her smile makes me smile...and everytime she touches me I forget how to breathe for a second...and sometimes I do flips in the square when it's empty if I know she's watching." He looked down at his shoes. "I love how her voice sounds when she's callin' out to sell papes. I love how seriously she takes this job and how she never complains when the headline stinks." He smiled — he couldn't help it. "I love how she makes sure all the littles ate enough before she eats and how she stays up late if one of 'em can't sleep and how she's the first one by their side if they have a bad dream. I love how tough she is even though she's a girl. Remember that time she talked back to Morris Delancey? The death-glares they gave each other..." JoJo laughed. "God, if looks could kill. That's when I knew, I think." "When you knew what?" Buttons asked softly. JoJo rolled his eyes. "You know what." "When you knew what?" (y/n)'s voice asked from the doorway. JoJo turned around so fast, he nearly hit his head against the upper bunk. Romeo and Finch exchanged looks of surprise and excitement before looking back and forth between JoJo and (y/n). "When you knew what?" (y/n) repeated. "Um..." JoJo cleared his throat. This was his chance. He said he wanted to do it, and it was a little too late to get out of it. "When I knew I..." "Oh, spit it out!" Finch exclaimed, prompting a slap from Romeo. "When I knew I loved you," JoJo blurted. (y/n)'s eyes grew wide. "You...love me?" JoJo nodded, unable to meet (y/n)'s eyes. This was a mistake. She was flirting with a guy in a suit not even half an hour ago, why would she be interested in a poor and dirty newsboy? "Oh, thank god." (y/n) laughed with relief. "This would've been so awkward otherwise." "What would?" JoJo found himself asking. "This." (y/n) rushed forwards and hugged him, burying her face in the soft, dusty fabric of his shirt. "I love you, too." JoJo looked at the boys with wide eyes before wrapping his arms around (y/n). "For sure?" (y/n) giggled. "Yeah, JoJo. For sure." "How, uh...how much of that did you hear?" "Pretty much all of it," (y/n) admitted. She looked up at JoJo, positively beaming. She stood on her tips of her toes to kiss his cheeks. "And for the record, I think you’re a Fifth Avenue kinda guy."

[sun-kissed-star]

i wrote this for @dying-poet because i Love Her

trigger warning: hunger, small mentions of death

Race poked his head out the window, breathing in the air of the early morning. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling it would be a good day. Maybe it was because he hadn’t woken up to the sound of Jack clanging around the roof or a pair of suspenders being thrown at his face.

In fact, he hadn’t heard a word from Jack since the morning bell rang. Crutchie had come down a while ago, leaning on his crutch with his usual grin, but with no Jack in sight.

“Hey, Jackie!” Race shouted, climbing out on the fire escape. He rattled the metal ladder as hard as he could. “Up and at ‘em!”

Race waited a few seconds, then when he didn’t hear Jack whining from the roof, he grabbed the ladder again and started climbing. “Jack!”

When he reached the edge of the roof, he found Jack sitting up on his bedroll. His eyes were drooping and his hat was pulled over his face. Race hoisted himself up, walked over, and shook his shoulder. Jack’s head snapped up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m up,” he grumbled, adjusting his hat. “Quit whinin’. I’ve been up for,” he interrupted himself with a yawn, “hours.”

Race rolled his eyes. “Well, ya sure don’t look the part. You doin’ okay, Jackie? You’re usually the first one up.”

“I’m fine, kid. Don’t think on it.” Jack yawned again and stumbled to his feet. It was almost as if he was using Race’s shoulder to stay upright. “Let’s get to sellin’, yeah?”

Race nodded slowly. “Yeah. Let’s get to it.”

—

At the selling gate, Race didn’t say anything about letting Jack lean into his side. When the nuns finally showed up with stale rolls and coffee, Race separated from him to grab rations for the little kids.

“Here ya go, guys,” he said, ruffling a kid’s hair as he passed the bread around. He’d discreetly handed his own roll off to Elmer. He could go without breakfast for another day, it wouldn’t kill him.

Then, as he stood up and stretched his arms above his head, Jack materialized at his side. He shoved a bread roll and a cup of coffee into Race’s hands.

“The nuns had some extra this mornin’,” he said. “Eat up, kid.”

“Didn’t they have extra yesterday, too?” Race said, glancing around for a second before biting into the roll.

“Yeah, guess so,” Jack said. The nuns came around to collect their empty cups just as Morris and Oscar opened the gates. Race wolfed down the rest of the roll and licked his fingers, smiling at Jack before turning to the Delanceys to do his usual griping. Jack had an arm around his shoulders, gripping at the fabric of his vest. He was a tactile guy, and Race wasn’t worried. He was fine. Jack was fine.

—

Jack wasn’t fine.

For once, Race had decided to stay in Manhattan to sell. Whether that was because he was worried about Jack or because he had a couple guys in Brooklyn that wanted to punch him in the face, he couldn’t say, but either way it kept him on the same street as Jack for most of the day.

Around noon, Jack wandered over to Race’s spot. He looked half-dazed, like his eyes were focusing on a spot in the distance.

“Wanna go get some lunch?” he said, snatching the coins from Race’s hands to count them.

“Oh, uh, no, I’ll pass,” Race said. “You goin’ down to Jacobi’s?”

Jack frowned, grabbing Race’s paper bag to drag him forward. “Not if you’re not comin’ with,” he whined. “C’mon, you’ve got half a dozen papes left. You’ll be fine.”

Race rolled his eyes, grabbing his coins back. “I don’t got the money. I gotta pay lodgin’ fees for the last couple days -”

“I’ll cover ya,” Jack said automatically. “I got some to spare.”

Race wouldn’t say he agreed to get lunch, but somehow he found himself standing outside Jacobi’s, waiting for Jack to come out with a couple sandwiches. He wouldn’t ever admit it, but his stomach was growling a little. He could pay Jack back later.

The bell above the door chimed, and Jack stepped out with some food wrapped in paper. “Voila,” he said, presenting it with a low bow. “Anything else I can do for you, your Highness?”

“Shuddup,” Race said. Unwrapping the paper, he pulled out half a sandwich on stale bread. He started breaking it in half when Jack shook his head and swatted his hand.

“Hey, none’a that,” he said. “You take it. I had my half while I was waitin’ for Jacobi to wrap it up.”

Race peered at him, taking note of the bags under Jack’s eyes. They were darker than they usually were in contrast to Jack’s pale, sunken face. “...You sure?”

Jack closed his eyes when he nodded, like he just needed a few seconds of rest he hadn’t gotten the night before. Except Crutchie had said he was still out like a light when the morning bell rang, so that didn’t make sense. “Yeah.”

Race kept looking at him, the sandwich still in his hands. He couldn’t shake a certain thought out of his head, and as much as he hated it, it was the only thing other than pure illness he could think of.

He knew what it was like to be hungry. He knew what it was like to try and sell with an empty stomach, and he knew what it was like to be living off the energy of an apple from three days ago. The longest he’d ever gone without eating was four days. Looking at the way Jack’s clothes were hanging off his frame more than normal, Race started wondering how long he’d ever gone.

He looked down at the sandwich, turning it over in his hands. “...The nuns didn’t have extra bread this mornin’, did they?”

He could hear Jack go still. “What’re you on about? ‘Course they did. I think a kid didn’t show up or somethin’. Eat the damn sandwich an-”

Race shook his head, taking a step back and slowly letting his face morph into a glare. “Don’t lie to me, Jackie. I ain’t a little kid. Just… you ain’t been eating, have you?”

Jack was shaking his head, but the dots were connecting in Race’s head and it felt so obvious that he felt like hitting himself. Jack had handed him a sausage and a loaf of bread last night when Race had already given his rations to Romeo. He’d found an apple and some cheese sitting under his bed two days ago. The bread roll and the cup of coffee, the sandwich... he was such an idiot. Jack was an idiot.

“You’ve been givin’ up your food for me.”

Jack sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Racer -”

“Kelly, that ain’t fair! You’re always on my ass about not eatin’, then you turn around and do the same thing! I know you think you’ve gotta save all the damn strays, but starvin’ yourself ain’t gonna fuckin’ help anything!”

“I don’t know what else I can do!” Jack shouted, throwing his hands out. He was breathing heavily, either from adrenaline or lack of energy. “Race, I can only help one kid at a time. And if that means makin’ sure you ain’t gonna die this winter, it’s gotta be like that. When was the last time you took food without handin’ some of it out to the kids?” Race stayed silent. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Well,” Race sputtered, “it ain’t gettin’ us nowhere else when you’re the one missin’ meals. They need you more than me, Jack.”

“That’s so far from the damn truth, I’m gonna -”

“You’re gonna what?” Race said vigorously, stepping forward until their faces were six inches apart. “You’re killin’ yourself, Kelly. There ain’t much you can do to me when you can’t stand on two feet.”

“Race, I-!” Jack suddenly stopped, taking a deep breath as if he needed a minute to collect the thoughts tripping over themselves to get out of his head. “I know. I damn well know that. I know what it’s like to be hungry. The Refuge knocked it in my head pretty good. But you just look so much… happier. You’re actually smiling when your face ain’t pale and lookin’ like you escaped death’s door. If it can’t be me buggin’ the shit out of everyone at sunrise, I want it to be you.”

Race half-smiled. “As much as I appreciate you thinkin’ my mug ain’t half bad,” he said, “the guys need your obnoxious shit almost as much as they need mine. Crutchie’s gonna beat the shit out of me if he finds out I’m the reason you look like you crawled your way up from hell every day.”

“‘Obnoxious’, really? Spendin’ too much time with Davey, huh?”

Race snorted. “Yeah, I’m the one spendin’ quality time with him, sure.” Jack went a little red in the face, and Race spared him some embarrassment by looking down at the sandwich balled up in his hands. It was a little squished, but still good. He broke it in half and waved it in Jack’s face. “Start eatin’, Cowboy,” he said. “They don’t take kids lookin’ as sick as you in the wild west.”

TAG LIST

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[tiny-maus-boots]

Wild West AU pt 7

“It’s been three days.”

Beca gave a short nod and slid the blade along her whetstone with measured ease. Chloe brought the glass of whiskey up to her lips for a slow sip, her eyes catching Beca’s to share an annoyed look.

Jesse either didn’t see or chose not to and settled on a chair at their table. He and his boys had been making themselves at home in the Caverns and their presence was starting to ruffle everyone’s feathers. “You sure your crew is gonna show?”

Beca paused and let the deep blue of her eyes bore into him. “They’ll be here.” She let her gaze drift back down and slid the other side of the blade along whetstone with a final sounding snick. Jesse watched her with nervous anticipation, his lip caught between his teeth as if he were just barely keeping his words from spilling out. The memory of Jesse had been a thorn in Chloe’s backside for years, the desire to settle up with him for leaving Beca to hang never that far in her thoughts. And here he was in the flesh, so close she could punch him, but she didn’t dare because their success was dependent on tenuous peace between them all.

“We’re riskin’ a lot here already but if they don’t show…”

Chloe put her glass down hard on the scarred table causing Jesse to turn and stare at her. “You don’t have to question our loyalty to our own.” He had some balls on him for even doubting that their girls would come through for them when they needed it. It wasn’t just that though, he had been persistent with his attention toward Beca and she was more than a little put out by it. His look was not a warm one when he met Chloe’s gaze.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” His lips thinned out in anger and Jesse started to rise to his feet, the chair scooting back with the push of his legs.

“It means none of us are cowards.” She brought a shoulder up in a shrug at his question and played with the half full glass.

“You calling me scared?”

Beca sighed when his voice rose and slid her whetstone and polishing cloth into her rucksack choosing not to get involved in the brewing argument. Chloe didn’t blame her for not wanting to open old wounds and for the most part Chloe had tried to ignore Jesse but he seemed to be making a habit of popping up wherever Beca went, his presence a constant and weighted shadow over them. She brought her hand up, palm grazing over the hard butt of her gun and she itched to draw it. Jesse tracked the movement and curled his lip in naked disgust.

“No sir. Everyone gets scared from time to time.” The anger in his eyes flickered at Chloe’s words, confused by her acknowledgement of fear but not quite sure if he could trust it. She downed the last of the whiskey and turned the glass upside down on the table, her body rising smoothly from her seat to lean over the table in a pose mirroring his. “I’m callin’ you a yellow bellied bastard of a coward.”

His gun was out before she finished speaking but it didn’t scare her in the least. Chloe leaned in closer, the barrel of his gun brushing her shirt. The cavern around them slowly muted to silence as everyone focused in on their table. Jesse’s voice was a strained barely contained roar. “Call me a coward again and see what happens.”

“You shooting an unarmed woman because you don’t like hearing the truth isn’t gonna prove your point Jesse.” Neither of them broke eye contact to look at Beca who was finally done packing her tools away. The brunette stretched her back out and reached out casually to snag Chloe’s arm to tug her mate into her lap. The second Beca’s arms were around her Jesse ceased to be any kind of a concern because all she could see, all she wanted to see was Beca. Their foreheads touched in silent communication before Stacie’s amused voice broke them moment.

“Best put that steel away, boy, before you hurt yourself trying.” Chloe turned her head in time to catch Jesse leveling the gun at Stacie in anger and embarrassment. He wavered a second before putting his gun away and turning on a quick heel to stomp out of the entrance. Before he even cleared the mouth music started up again and folks resumed their drinking. Chloe leaned further into Beca’s body and smiled as Stacie settled into the chair Jesse had just vacated. “That kid has some fuckin’ nerve. He’s lucky Bree ain’t here.”

“He’s lucky my girl isn’t lookin’ to pick a fight.” Beca smirked, giving Chloe a squeeze and nodded her thanks when Stacie placed a bottle of whiskey in the center of the table.

“Who’s not looking to pick a fight?” They turned just as Aubrey sauntered in with a wide smirk. Chloe raised a hand half playfully and reached out to pour a shot for Aubrey with her own glass. “Thanks darlin’.”

Aubrey settled and swept her hat off her head, tossing it casually to the side to land on the empty chair left at the table. Her hair cascaded down and the blonde gave a quick jerk of her head to fling it back over her shoulder. Chloe couldn’t help but notice the way Stacie’s eyes lit up at Aubrey’s openly excited smile. She understood, seeing Aubrey this open and unselfconscious was rare thing, one they all treasured. “You look mighty pleased with yourself Bree.”

Aubrey downed the shot and wiped her mouth with the back of her gloved hand. “Found ‘em. The Sisters and La Muda are up in Penitence. Our lil buddy with a badge says Sheriff Cox won’t let anyone through town to head toward the Badlands. Ace and Florencia are settling their gear in some rooms. Dingo is makin’ friendly with Bumper.” The blonde’s lip curled a little at the idea of anyone getting friendly with Bumper and they all shared a laugh. “So what’d I miss?”

“Jesse pulled a gun on Chloe because she called him a coward.” Aubrey blinked at Stacie, weighing her words for truth before she turned to look at Chloe.

The redhead shrugged her shoulder for confirmation. “He was being a turd. But now that the girls are here he should be happier.” Beca snorted softly and Aubrey pointedly refilled her drink. Chloe looked between them then at Stacie who shook her head with a grin. “What?”

“He’s not gonna be happy until he’s riding out with a wagon full of gold and Becs on the back of his horse.” Stacie shrugged as if that were obvious and Aubrey made a face to say ‘she’s not wrong’ and downed the shot with a hiss.

“Preferably with you dead in the grave Chloe if God grants his prayers.” She refilled her glass once more and pushed the bottle back to the center of the table. Aubrey snapped a finger length splinter from the edge of the table and lit the end in the lamp. She leaned back in her chair and lit the end of a half smoked cigar she’d pulled from her vest pocket. “Jesse will be a concern before our business is through mark me on that.”

Smoke curled up in a billow above their heads oddly comforting despite Aubrey’s words. Stacie played with the charred splinter but she pinned Beca with a look. “Aubrey’s right but we won’t have to deal with him too much longer. Way I figure we do two jobs and it’s done. First is snag the train, bring it to the mine and the second is to load it up and blow out of the territory as quick as we can.”

Beca nodded and tightened her arms around Chloe as she shifted more comfortably in her seat. “Any word on when the next train is gonna be along on the old Union line from the east?”

Aubrey puffed on the end of her cigar and gave a nod. “Not for another month.” It took the wind from Chloe’s lungs and she slumped in defeat against Beca’s chest.

“That’s too long Bree! We can’t stay holed up here forever. Not with the company we got and the Army breathing down our necks.”

The blonde gave a nod and raised the shot glass to her lips. “There is another train but you’re not gonna like it.” She tipped it back and leaned back with a shrug. “A short line passenger from Georgia is coming up through town. Be here in two days.”

Two days wasn’t a lot of time to get the rest of the track laid out and the mine widened out enough for the engine. Beca grunted softly and shook her head, one hand reflexively tightening on Chloe’s thigh. “That’s risky. Grab the train in the same place we have to bug out of? I dunno about that.”

Chloe sat up a little so she could pull the charred splinter from Stacie’s hand using it to sketch out a rough map on the table top. “Maybe, we don’t let the train get to town. Look here, we can ride it down just before its due in Penitence. Stop her on the tracks right there, kick off the passengers and breeze right on through town until we get to the mine.”

The other three leaned closer to look and Aubrey nodded her agreement. “By the time they realize what’s happened we could be loading up gold. Be gone before they scout out the new track all laid down…it could work.” Some of Jesse’s boys laughed loudly at a table across the room. None of them close enough to hear the conversation but Chloe wasn’t taking any chances. Whatever was left in the bottle she upended on the table and swiped a hand over the charcoal sketch to obscure the route.

Beca reached across the table and put her hand out palm down. Chloe immediately rested her own hand over it and looked expectantly at Aubrey. The blonde smirked and rested her hand on Stacie’s already resting on Chloe’s. When they broke Stacie took Aubrey by the hand and tugged lightly. “C’mon let’s make those boys jealous.”

Aubrey blinked owlishly and looked around her voice a scandalized whisper. “What?” Eyes darted to them and a few chuckles could be heard around the cave. “What are you doing?” Chloe could see her trying to pull back her hand but Stacie held fast even going so far as to pluck the cigar from Aubrey’s lips to stub out on the tabletop.

“I’m trying to ask the prettiest girl in here to dance but she’s givin’ me a hard time.” Aubrey stopped resisting and blushed at Stacie’s words almost unsure if she was the party in question. For a second it looked like she might refuse and try to pull away again but Aubrey took a breath and stood letting a delighted Stacie lead her to the middle of the floor where they held each other in a slow sway.

Beca hummed and hooked her chin on Chloe’s shoulder. “I’m a sucker for those two ya know.” She smiled at the admission and turned her head to kiss Beca on the temple.

“You’re not alone in that Cowgirl. C’mon, let’s go hunker down for the night. Tomorrow is gonna be a busy day.” Beca gave another hum in agreement and let Chloe lead her back to their room. Little by little things were coming together and she was feeling more confident that they’d get through this just fine. They just had a few loose ends to tie up before they were out for good. As they passed through the corridor leading up she wondered where exactly Jesse had gotten off to. Not that she cared overly much about his wellbeing but Aubrey had been right. The only thing they could trust Jesse to do was look out for himself. Beca’s hands trailed up along Chloe’s sides, already pulling the shirt from her trousers before they’d even fully gotten in the room. Beca kissed her like she needed Chloe to know how badly she was wanted, needed even, and suddenly she forgot to be concerned with anything but the woman in her arms or the almost aching desire to touch and taste all of her, claiming Beca in a way that Jesse never could.

Beca was hers and she was Beca’s and there was nothing Jesse could say or do to change that. As the last of their clothes fell free and they tumbled into their bed Chloe stopped thinking all together and let her instincts lead them to ecstasy.

[jo-the-schmo]

Red, Dead, Reflections Ch.4

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

A/N: Finally! It’s here! The subtle romance plots! AH! Not to spoil it or anything, but there is a link that takes you to a song on YouTube, I suggest you listen to it to know what I’m going for. If it doesn’t work for some reason, just looking up Ain’t no Sunshine Shawn James cover. You’ll find it. I hope you enjoy it! (There’s also some real juicy reader lore so have fun with that!) 

Summary:  At the age of 23, you and your pseudo-family perform a heist gone wrong, leading you into a dangerous position. Discover your own history, the story of those around you, and gain new relationships along the way in this (eventual) choose your own adventure.

Warnings: Blood mentions, beating, mild torture, explicit language

Word count: 7256

Tags!: @zoilalove213 @eccentricc-catt Let me know if you’d like to be tagged!

Point A to Point B

I think I’m gonna lose it, this is it, this is how I die.

You stare up at the mountain face, mouth ajar. Which of my sins put me here? Which promise of revenge? Was is it the dying curse of that man I stabbed in an alley? This is my punishment. You had been on this mountain for weeks. At this point you were certain you had lost your mind. This gang was driving you mad, and the anxiety wasn’t helping. There was a point in your staring contest with the folded rocky edges that you thought you’d never escape the frozen grip of air here. Which was the reason that when Tilly asked if you’d help her carry some barrels with her you literally jumped for joy. The group was packing up to leave. No more chills, no more snow finding a way into your shoes, no more restraints from the rest of the world. Everyone was loading wagons, Miss Grimshaw was worrying about. John, whom you only got the chance to briefly meet only a week ago, was being carried and loaded into the back of the covered, wooden carriage.

Bill threw Kieran inside the back of a separate wagon. You weren’t fond of watching other people’s suffering, but you decided to leave this alone. You weren’t about to push your luck. Besides, it was obvious to you that they wouldn’t kill him, or even seriously injure him for that matter. He had information they wanted. You recalled your first memory of him one on one, it was two days after Arthur brought him back on Dutch’s orders.

________________________________________________

“Let’s let James take charge on this one.” He said, the smooth gravel of his voice bouncing through everyone’s ears. “He’s been nothing but a help to us, I’m sure this wouldn’t be an issue. Right, son?” Dutch was looking directly into your eyes, despite the fact that you were near the back of the room. He was putting you into the situation on purpose. You could tell by that look that it wasn’t to prove anything him, but to everyone else. Dutch may be on your side, but he takes everyone into account. There are many factors to this. You shut your eyes.

“Of course, anything to help.” Your eyes opened into devious slits, lips creeping into a familiar grin that you’d all too often forget you could conjure. It tied your stomach into knots. Not only because you knew that if you didn’t do this, there was a high chance of being ostracized, but also because of what you were being asked to do. Beating an already broken man felt like overkill in your opinion. You wished you didn’t recognize the adrenaline bolstering forward.

With every step you took forward, another regret pulsed into your mind. You’d never forgive Austin for that year. All those memories. But you’d never forgive yourself, either. You let yourself be swayed by him, enough to do what you did. Though, one good thing came from it.

Self-Control.

You grabbed the man by the back of his collar, forcing him to his feet. His knees wobbled, he was already afraid. You wouldn’t get caught up in it, you were better than that now. His clothes were messy, as was his hair as you tugged it with your opposite hand. The man’s deep sunken eyes were forced to look at Dutch.

“Kieran Duffy, huh? That’s your name?”

“Ye-yes, that’s my name.” He cleared his throat.

“Well, Kieran Duffy. Have you thought about how you’re going to die? Have you considered it? Or perhaps, have you taken in the possibility that we will be the last people to ever hear you say your name? That today may very well be the last day your name is ever uttered again?”  You kept your voice low against his ear, his breathing hitched. Fear, although cruel, would be better than beating him to near death. And in your opinion, it was more than effective.

“No, sir! I haven- please don- don’t kill me!” You spun him around to face you and didn’t give him the time to react. You slapped him with the back of your hand, with enough force to cause him to collapse to the ground.

“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” You mocked. “You’re an idiot, you know that?” He looked up at you with confusion, rubbing the side of his face. “Don’t beg. Begging just makes us wanna hurt ya more.” You shoved him to the ground with the outer sole of your boot. “Beg, weep, cry for mercy. No God or man can save you here. The more you beg, the more my blood boils.” You kicked him in the stomach, but not very hard, just enough for it to hurt. You knelt down to the ground and looked down at him in the fetal position. “But you wanna know what will get this pain to stop? The only way to satiate our desire to make you bleed?” His gaze almost went through you. “Give up what little sense of loyalty or pride you have left and tell us what we want to know.”

“You’re too soft with ‘em” Micah criticized.

“And you’re too much of an asshole.” You didn’t like doing this, you were going easy on him. If you wanted to hurt him, you easily could have. “So, what’s it gonna be, boy? Are you a man first or an O’Driscoll?”

“I ain’t an O’Driscoll…I been tellin’ y’all that…But-“

“But what?” You gritted your teeth.

“They’ll kill me if I tell ya!”

“That’s enough!” Dutch commanded. Now it was your turn to look confused. “I think we’re finally making progress with him. But we aren’t there yet. James, take him back to his room.” With that demand now yours, you pulled both his arms behind his back, locking them together with one of your own and yanking him back to his feet. You could hear Dutch continue speaking as you walked away. “You see gentlemen, interrogations aren’t just dealing physical pain. Take a note from Mr. West here, he’s got the right idea.” You waked out the door with him in front, waiting a few more steps before speaking again.

“Alright, now you listen to me, Kieran Duffy. You got lucky today.”

“Wh-“

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch that they haven’t killed you yet. I’ve seen what these people are like.” You were bluffing. “And you’re lucky I’m not one of them. I wouldn’t have been so gentle with you.”

“How was that gentle?!”

“Shut your mouth!” You pushed him a little to enunciate. “Now you may think you know me, but ya don’t. I don’t like hurting people, let alone take enjoyment out of killing them. You might think the O’Driscolls will kill you, but rather take the chance they won’t than go dick first into certain death.” You reached the cabin Pearson worked from, opening a door that led to what was like a small, empty closet. You figured it was meant for wood storage. With one more nudge, you let him fall to the ground. You scanned the area, no one had come out of the cabin with Dutch yet. You hid your body from view with the door, reaching into your bag and tossing a piece of bread Arthur had given you to Kieran.

“Why are…you givin’ me this?”

“It ain’t  much but it’s something. Tell anyone I gave you that and I’ll make sure you don’t make it through the night. Seriously though, think about what I said. I hope you’re not as much of an idiot as you let on.” You were about to close the door but decided last minute to ask him one more question. “What year is it?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, what year is it?” You tried to sound more forceful with it.

“1899. Just turned…why?” That was not the answer you wanted to hear. You didn’t answer him and just closed the door, leaving him in the dark. You turned to walk away, making it a few steps, but were stopped by something grabbing your arm. By instinct, you whirled around with a balled fist to punch whoever the offending hand belonged. They blocked and pushed your arm down. Even though his hair was covered, you recognized him by the jacket before seeing his face.

“Charles…sorry.” You relaxed your shoulders. He hadn’t been at the meeting this morning. His hand had been feeling better, so he went out hunting for Pearson. How long had he been back? And more importantly, how much did he hear? “I should’ve warned you, I have very specific reflexes.”

“You helped him.” Shit, he noticed. “Why?” You were expecting him to be more confrontational, but his voice implied some sort of sincerity.

���It’s not that I don’t trust Dutch’s judgments. But I don’t find amusement in hurting people. I know he’s withholding information, but I’m not one to cause pain without good enough reason.” You sighed. “He’ll talk. He’s the type. I don’t see any reason to go overboard. Micah and Bill can be ruthless.”

“You’re very strange, James.” Your brow raised incredulously. “You’ve got experience. Everyone can see that. I only caught a little bit of what you did inside through the window, but even I could see you were holding back. You’ve got compassion. That’s something you don’t see a lot from folks like you.”

“That a good thing or a bad thing?” You weren’t prepared for anyone to be snitching on you, you were getting increasingly nervous.

“It’s a confusing thing. You’re lucky I’m the same way, or else I would’ve already told Dutch about this. Micah certainly wouldn’t like that.”

“So, you’re not going to?”

“No. I don’t believe in killing unless I have to. I’m not a fan of torture, either.” You stopped him from walking away.

“Why are you helping me out?” Hosea gave you a reason last time, but the vagueness of his kindness wasn’t enough to quell your concern. Most people wanted favors, wanted compensation for silence. You didn’t want to be surprised later down the road.

“Dutch is a good, honest man. But Micah’s smart. I’m not the only one who sees that. He wants you gone. And if Dutch catches a whiff of betrayal, Micah won’t hesitate to latch onto it. Dutch may not want to hurt you, but that leech will, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get Dutch to listen.”

“What do you mean?” You asked. You knew Micah was an asshat, but was he really that manipulative, was he that skilled?

“You just gave food to an O’Driscoll. Even if I say you did it out of kindness, Micah’ll spin it so that you’re an O’Driscoll too. That you’re trying to lead us into some trap. You’d be beaten even worse than him.” He motioned he head toward the cabin Kieran was in. “Let’s just say, I don’t like good men getting hurt.” His answer took you off guard. Before he could turn away, you held out your hand. He took it, giving an affirming shakes.

“Thank you.”

“Just don’t make me regret this. And be more careful next time.” He let go and turned away but continued to speak with his back toward you. “Oh, and I’ll be sure not to sneak up on you again.”

________________________________________________

You were relieved that he was still alive, your assumption of them seemed to be correct. Though probably insane and having loose morals, they had enough honor keep him alive. You were so antsy to finally be leaving, that you ended up doing a lot more work than you were asked to. Hosea was the one to tell you to take a break, and invited you to sit with him, Arthur, and Charles on the way down. You accepted his offer. Out of everyone here, you trusted Hosea the most.

It wasn’t much long after that you found yourself staring out from the top the wagon as the mountain range moved past you. Arthur was driving, Hosea next to him, and Charles across from him. You didn’t know much about where you were going, other than it was called Valentine and it had been Hosea’s suggestion to go there. The ride was certainly giving you plenty of time to think, and even more to worry.

The bruises on your face had long since healed, and only added to your paranoia. Mary-Beth was extremely observant, she had been the first to point out how different you looked without the puffy purple washing under your eyes. She said you looked ‘nicer’. This made you nervous. Thankfully, it seemed no one else took notice of your new apparent softness. No one said you looked more feminine, which made you hope they just had gotten used to you and would be less quick to suspicion.

“It’s already start’n to get warmer.” Arthur mumbled. The snow was sticking less and less to the sharp landscape the further down you went.

“Indeed. Seems we left at a good time.” Hosea added.

Though you were more than elated to be away from the dense cold, a sliver of anxiety still gnawed at you. What would come next for you? It wasn’t like you to not have a plan, but everything else got in the way of that. After Kieran said it was 1899, you weren’t sure what to think. Every single red flag was popping into your head. There was no way he could be outside the gang and still believe that. You weren’t dead, at least it didn’t make sense that you were. Nothing seemed to point in that direction. The only conclusion you had gotten this entire time was the craziest.

You kept your back turned to everyone to make sure they wouldn’t see your face as your thoughts progressed. The sun was high, world sprawling before you. It was incredible, making you feel incredibly small. Yet, at the same time, there was a sense of severity in the scene, like a slap to the face. You swallowed your pride and considered the possibility that had been tangling in front of you this whole time.

Did I time travel back to 1899? 120 years into the past?

After spending multiple weeks with the gang, it hardly seemed as crazy of a concept. The way they talked, acted, not even the most delusional of people could be like this. The fact that Sadie and Kieran believed them to be correct didn’t help your judgement either. You didn’t think you’d be as crazy as to accept this situation, but until something told you otherwise there wasn’t any reason not to believe it. You sighed and rubbed your eyes.

“You look like you could use a heavy wet, friend!” Arthur huffed.

“A what?”

“A drink, you dense bastard. God, you kids these days, don’t know a damn thing.”

“Don’t let Arthur get to you, James, he’s always been a little rough around the edges.” Hosea chuckled. This had actually been the first time Arthur had really said something ‘rough’ toward you. You aren’t gonna count it, you’ve heard him say worse to Micah, and this seemed closer to a joke than anything else. You saw Lenny ride past you, moving up to the front line.

“I’ve never been to Valentine. What’s it like?”

“Oh, it’s just a little livestock town. Sheep if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Are you not…worried about what could be down there?” You hinted.

“No? Why?” He clearly wasn’t seeing where you were going with this.

“No reason, just wanted to make sure it was safe. O’Driscolls and all.” You lied.

“Well, those idiots will be down there no doubt, they’re like parasites.” Arthur complained.

“What even is the issue between you all and the O’Driscolls?” Charles questioned.

“I suppose we haven’t run into them much these past couple months, at least not since you’ve been around.” Arthur began his explanation. “Colm O’Driscoll and Dutch have been at each other’s throats for years. A genuine ol’blood feud!”

“He killed someone, right?” You had actually been really curious about this, so you decided to ask while it was on topic.

“Yeah… Dutch killed Colm’s brother. Dutch and Colm used to be acquaintances of sorts way back when. His brother double crossed us in a job, almost got us near killed. Dutch killed him, Colm killed Annabelle, and they’ve been at odds ever since.”

“Who was Annabelle?” You asked.

“Dutch’s sweetheart.”

“I was sure Dutch was going to settle down with her…” Hosea shook his head. “Fool’s never been the same since.” You felt an inkling of pity hit your gut. “I bet you’re real excited to get in touch with your friends, huh James?” It took you a moment to respond to Hosea’s question.

“Something tells me they won’t be hearing from me anytime soon.” You were shocked that you had said that. Even though you hadn’t fully accepted what seemed to be the reality of your situation, something about it all just gave you the impression that this was far from over.

“You ain’t got a girl back home you’re excited to get back to?”

“Nah, nothing like that.” You rubbed the back of your neck. You weren’t lying about that. You had people to get back to, but not in the way they were thinking. You leaned back and looked to the side, the wagons ahead were crossing over a river.  About a minute later, the wheels of the cart were cutting through the water beneath you.

“Get us out of the current, Arthur.” Hosea instructed. Arthur spared him a glance that said, ‘I know what I’m doing’. You were glad he did, because once the pushed back onto dry ground, you felt a violent bump. The sudden change in balance flew you a little closer to Charles, but he blocked most of your weight to prevent you from falling on top of him. Or push him over the edge, either way.

“Damnit!” Arthur cursed. You stabilized yourself and stood upright.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Charles stated simply. You heard Javier’s voice rear up.

“What’s going on back there?”

“I broke the god damn wheel.” Arthur sighed with discontent.

“Do you need any help?” He asked.

“I reckon we got it covered.” Arthur waved Javier off. Everyone began to leave their seats, you followed suit and alighted on the ground below with a heavy thump from your boots.

“Charles, James, help me lift this up.” Hosea requested. You and Charles stood on either side of Hosea, backs to the wagon, bent into a squat, and lifted the wagon with the leverage of all three of you standing up.  Arthur went over to where the wheel rolled off to.

“Ain’t you a little old to be lifting that, Hosea?”

“Hardy Har.” Hosea let out a plastic laugh. Arthur heaved the wheel up straight and circled it back to the peg that held it. With a few shoulder hits to its base, Arthur managed to pop it back into place. You eased the wood frame back down then went and helped Charles pick up the few pieces of cargo that fell out. You placed what looked like a metal tank back in its spot and noticed everyone looking up in the opposite direction. You followed their trail and vaguely made out three shapes perched on top of the cliff. You couldn’t completely figure out what the shapes were, but Hosea’s wave gave you a clue that they were probably people. “Poor bastards.” Hosea comments with sympathy. “We really screwed them over around these parts.” He motioned for all of you to get back on the wagon. “Let’s not push our luck.” You got back up to your original spot with Charles helping to pull you from the ground. Arthur lightly whipped the reins on the horses and the journey began once more.

“Who were they?” You asked.

“Indians. The whole lot of them got the short end of deal around here, lost nearly all their land in the process. It’s a real shame.” They’re worried about Native Americans? Is this shit real right now?

“Where’s your tribe, Charles?” Arthur asked, turning his head for a second to address the man in question.

“I don’t know if I even have one. I know we stayed with my mother’s tribe when I was young…” You listened intently as Charles explained his past. He rarely ever talked about himself, and hearing his story was fairly heartbreaking. You knew the world was cruel, you learned that a long time ago. But seeing how bad it was for other people always got to you. “…I ran away at 13, been on my own ever since. At least, until I joined up with all of you.”

“Why did you stick around?” Arthur asked.

“What, you want me to leave?”

“It’s not that, I’m just curious is all.”

“I got tired of being on my own. I work well by myself, but it’s far too lonely.” He switched his focus from Arthur to you. “What about you, James?” Well damn. “You don’t talk much about yourself.”

“Known you for weeks but we hardly know a thing about ya!” Hosea exclaimed. “Though, you don’t have to go too into detail if you’d prefer.” He hinted. You weren’t great at lying, particularly about major stories like this. You knew you wouldn’t be able to keep the story straight. Tell most of the truth, leave the scraps out. You thought to yourself.

“Left home first chance I got. Wandered around for a while. Got into some trouble.” No need to explain that. “Someone found me and helped me out, been with them ever since.”

“That’s rather vague, ain’t it? Who exactly you tryna make it back to?” Arthur clearly was a curious man. You decided it should be safe to say first names, considering no one this far out would’ve heard of you anyway, especially with these circumstances that you were choosing to ignore.

“It’s a few people. Not nearly as big as yours anyhow. Only 4, excluding myself.” 5, you heard in Austin’s voice. “Sorry, 5.” You rolled your eyes.

“Sounds like you ain’t too happy with that number…” Hosea stated but clearly meant it as a question.

“Yeah, I’m not. Austin’s a moron.”

“Austin?” Now Charles was asking questions. “That your leader?”

“I guess you could call him that. Personally, I call him jackass.”

“Ha! What makes ya say that?” Arthur boomed like a foghorn. You took a moment to think of how exactly to explain this.

“Austin and I don’t exactly get along, anymore at least. He makes a lot of bad choices for the group and is mad that I stand up to him.”

“Why do you wanna go back there if you butt heads so much?” His accent drew. You groaned and rubbed your eyes.

“I care about the others…even him to a weird extent. He’s the bane of my existence, but he’s the reason I still exist. I can hate him all I want, but that’s gotta count for something, yeah?”

“Remind us to ask more about that later.” Charles intervened. He seemed to pick up on your frustration and went ahead and saved you the trouble. Make no mistake, this conversation wasn’t over, and you knew that. The group continued on in silence for a moment. Could you really trust these guys? They had been nothing but good to you, but that made you cautious. Every group had its infighting and drama, Micah seemed to be the main antagonist but with so many people involved more issues were practically a given.

You remembered the day you met Austin, the first few months after you paired up it was just the two of you. He taught you a lot, how to survive. But that came at a price. You supposed anyone can be driven to madness when met with enough desperation. You remembered the fear, the rush, the screams, the blood. After Miguel came into the picture, everything slowed down, you finally started to see reality. There was no end to the arguments you and Austin shared once Eli and Gina joined, but they never knew what for. Neither of you spoke a word of what you’d done. Even after all this time, everyone still treated you two like the quarrelling lovers. You saw where they were coming from.

It wasn’t much longer of the others talking that the wagon approached a patch of trees where Javier was standing in wait for you. Arthur slowed down to a stop and let Javier jump to hang off the back. You greeted the new passenger, shooting him a two fingered salute. Arthur pushed forward, slowly encroaching on the rest of the gang busying themselves with setting up. After taking a moment to pull in close and come to a stop, you all hopped out and met up with Dutch.

“Gather around, everyone!” He commanded in his usual projection. There was a brief window between his speech that he let everyone make their way over. “Remember, we are factory workers from out west who’ve decided to come out here after their factory shut down. We have to keep a low-profile, I don’t want any fuss. We stay out here for a little while, make some money, and then we’re back on the road.” He turned to the side and produced what looked like a lockbox. “Remember, whatever you make, the camp gets its slice.” He enunciated the last three words with more of an edge, a sharpness.

“And we need food. That means every day, one of you.” Pearson added.

“Now, let’s get goin’, this place won’t make itself!”

You left and followed along with the hustle of everyone else. Miss Grimshaw originally had you give Pearson a hand. You were surprised to see Sadie doing the same. You hadn’t seen or heard much from her since you’d first met her, she wasn’t much for conversation. You understood why. Of course, there was always the occasional greeting and pleasantries.

“Hello, Mrs. Adler.”

“Hi there, James.”

“How are you feeling today?”

“Not much different…” She exhaled.

“At least it’s warmer. Not sure how helpful that is, but that’s one less edge to deal with.”

“I suppose you’re right.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “How are you?”

“Same old, same old.” You flashed her a subtle smile. “Let me know if you need anything, newbies gotta look out for each other.” You covered the side of your mouth and lowered your voice so no one else would hear what you had to say next. “I know Pearson gets under your skin, so if you ever need a break from him and I’m around, just let me know.” She looked stunned.

“How did you know about that?” She whispered.

“I heard you and Abigail talking about it one time. I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but I was messing with the fire in the next room because I have nothing else better to do with my time.” It was true, they didn’t give you much work to do. “Imagining you with a knife will forever haunt my dreams. You’re from bear country, I hope no one messes with you, for their sake.”

“You really think I’m that intimidating?” You would’ve thought she would be offended by your comment, but she seemed stupefied than anything.

“Maybe intimidating isn’t the right word. I’d go with skilled and underestimated. Everyone seems so inclined to baby you, except for Pearson. I get where they’re coming from, but I can tell you’re frustrated by it.” She looked relieved that you noticed.

“Right? I just wish they’d let me go out and do some real work. Not any of this cooking crap.”

“Why don’t you head into town when you get the chance? I’m sure the others won’t mind as long as everything we have to get done is done.” You suggested.

“Should I?”

“Yeah, why not? We’ll just convince them to take us along when they head out, no harm in asking.” She agreed, and maybe you just imagined it, but she looked a fraction happier than she was before. Knowing you had a hand in that made you feel good. You kept on working until Pearson got mad at you for trying to stack some potatoes into a wicked pyramid and told you to run off. You saw Sadie snicker opposite of you as you rubbed the back of your neck and walked away. Some people just don’t appreciate the aesthetic vision you had.

“James, could you give me a hand with this?” Lenny’s voice called to you. He was unloading one of the tables from a wagon, having a hard time getting it the ground without it almost dropping.

“Yeah, I got you.” You jogged over to him, gripping the bottom of the rounded edge with both hands. With less weight on him, the two of you were able to safely lower it and move it to its desired location.

“Is this good, Miss Grimshaw?” He cawed.

“A little more to the left!” Her voice boomed, despite being so far away. You followed her request until she approved of the placement. The two of you walked back to the wagon to get started on the rest. He jumped up into the back of the wagon, pushed it toward you, and jumped back down.

“Y’know-“ He huffed a breath in between the phrase as you both lifted the next table. “I never did thank you for helping me, back at the raid.”

“You did the same for me, no thanks needed.” Your knees buckled for a second. “Arthur told me you did a good job on that train mission. Also heard that Bill fucked up pretty bad.” You joked.

“Did Arthur really say that?” He ignored the latter comment.

“Yeah, why? Did he tell you something different?”

“No, I just get worried sometimes.” You sat the table down and went back to continue the pattern.

“Worried about what?”

“I thought he was just trying to get me out of trouble, Arthur did most of the work. Didn’t think he really meant it.”

“Why wouldn’t he? You’re more than capable. You’re one of the most competent people here. Meaning, you actually think for two seconds. Not all the time, but most of the time.”

“Not all the time?” He laughed with mock offense.

“You can be a bit reckless sometimes, but not enough for it to be an issue. You’re way smarter than I was when I was your age.” The new table in your palms felt heavier all of a sudden. “Woah-“ You almost collapsed beneath yourself from the unexpected change, but Lenny caught himself (and the table) before you slammed to the ground.

“Sorry!” He apologized profusely, hand grazing past yours to stabilize your position. “Let’s just set it down here for now.” He said lightheartedly. You went ahead and helped him with rest of the ‘furniture’. Once it was all in a place that Miss Grimshaw deemed acceptable, Lenny thanked you for the trouble. You told him it was no trouble. That guy was polite if nothing else, his attitude was always a nice break from the others. Lenny was incredibly sweet. He may try to hide it, but it was clear he had a more hopeful outlook. You were glad only Micah seemed to bother him, that bastard would get what’s comin’ to him eventually.

Time passed by rather quickly after that. You kept yourself busy, helping everyone else with some small jobs when needed. All the girls were surprised whenever you offered to help with something like folding some sheets or anything to that effect. They returned the favor by setting you up with a small tent by a tree just adjacent to where you noticed Javier setting up his stuff. You felt a twinge of guilt that you got special treatment, but you happily thanked them, nonetheless. They told you you’d make it up to them eventually, which meant you had to be on your toes. These women weren’t to be trifled with, they were a sneaky bunch.

A few more hours passed by that consisted on you lugging boxes and sacks over to Pearson’s table, feeding the horses, and going around with Hosea to find some water in the surrounding area. By the time the sun and set, you felt hunger gnawing at your gut. Pearson prepared a rabbit stew that was ready for everyone to eat just as you and Hosea got back. There was a line by the pot, it reminded you of school lunches. You waited your turn, got your bowl full and followed everyone to the fire where they were gathered around. Everyone was acting really happy for a change, talking, laughing. But once your food was gone, you got lost in the sea of conversation.

You stared into the flickering shapes of the camp fire, mesmerized for a moment by how quick the individual flames blinked out of existence. The chatter around the fire started to fade from focus until it was near silent in your head. The heat on your face was uncomfortable, but not intolerable. The thought of how odd you found destructive purpose to be so alluring passed through for and instant but was all too quick drowned out by the sudden hollers of everyone around you. Your face snapped up to see what all commotion was about. Everyone was clapping, getting really excited.

Your eyes followed their trail to find Javier sitting down with a guitar in hand. You had seen the guitar before in the wagons but never asked who it belonged to. Apparently, it was Javier’s. He adjusted his sitting position to get comfortable before his eyes clicked across the group gathered around. The only ones not directly by the fire were Charles and Arthur, but they were still in view and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“Anyone have any requests?” He smirked. When no one answered, his grin remained as he drew out a sigh. Using his thumb to pluck the strings, he created a simple melody.

“Yes! That’s the one!” Karen rooted. Tilly and Mary-Beth rolled their eyes in amusement. One by one, voice started joining in with a joviality you had rarely heard from them. It was enough to surprise you.

“In Louisville, I met a maid/ Mark well what I do say./ And she was mistress of her trade/ It was diddle-diddle-diddle all day!/ I put my hand upon her toe/ Mark well what I do say./ She says, ‘young man, you’re rather low for the diddle-diddle-diddle all day’!” Wait…what? Arthur cracked a smile and joined in, but Charles remained silent but clearly enjoying seeing everyone acting so ditzy.

“I put my finger on her knee/ Mark well what I do say./ She says, ‘young man, you’re rather free for it’s diddle-diddle-diddle all day’!/ I put my arm around her waist/ Mark well what I do say./ She says, ‘young man, you’re in great haste for the diddle-diddle-diddle all day’!” WHAT IS THIS? AN INNUENDO?

“I put my hand upon her thigh/ Mark well what I do say./ She says, ‘you’re getting pretty nice for the diddle-diddle-diddle all day’!/ I put my hand upon her ass/ Mark well what I do say./ She says, ‘let’s lay down on the grass and diddle-diddle-diddle all day’!” The tune ended with a fit of giggles from the gang, cheery smiles plastered onto all of their faces. Which is why they were easily able to sense the confusion melting through your brow.

“What’s wrong, James? Never heard a song before?” Abigail teased. You’d never seen her this relaxed before.

“Oh, I know songs. Just not any like that. What the hell was that all about?”

“Did your crew not sing tunes by the fire?” Lenny asked.

“Well, not by a fire, and not ‘tunes’ for that matter.” You joked.

“What do ya mean?” Arthur spoke everyone’s curiosity. You sighed, resting your elbows on your knee.

“We played music, not tunes. Clearly there’s a difference.”

“Well then, how about you show us this difference, friend.” Javier insisted with a certain childlike tone, as if he were trying to cozen you in some way. You pursed your lips and thought for a moment.

“Alright, if you insist.” You put a little more pep into your step as you moved over to Javier, the delighted twinkle in his eyes shifted to one of perplexity. You took a strong stance and held out a hand. “Can I borrow your guitar?” Now you were taking on his earlier expression.

“Why?” He gripped the neck tighter, it was a small signal of defensive behavior.

“I’ll take real good care o’her, I promise.” You slipped into the same accent he had heard you use multiple times. After that first conversation with him up in the mountains, it became a bit of a habit to go into the speech pattern. Your own little inside joke with him. Your warm response seemed to ease his icy position, he gently handed it to you.  

As you felt the weight of the wood in your hands and the distinct course metal strings under your fingertips, a memory passed through your head. You sitting under and overpass in the midday shade. Austin and Miguel are talking about a drug trade and whether or not it’s a good enough deal to risk. All the while, Eli is guiding your fingers into the shapes different chords requires.

___________________________________________

“Like this?” You ask in frustration.

“Patience is a virtue, dear. Can’t rush these things.”

“Well, we need money, and I’m very impatient. Why can’t you just do it? You already know how to play, it’s your guitar!”

“It’s more sympathetic if you do it. People take more pity on little girls who’ve lost their way.” Eli was only a year your junior, but he had been on the streets for a lot longer. You were 21, he had just joined up with you all a few months prior. “Just trust me on this one, okay?”

“If you say so…” You yawn into your elbow, hunger making you wish you were asleep. “These strings hurt, are they supposed to be like this?”

“You’ll get used to it.” He laughs. “See?” He shows you his left hand and his right thumb, the pads and sides calloused. “No pain, no gain, yeah?”

“No pain, no gain.” You repeated.

“Alright! Let’s get back to it. Now, show me some chord progressions.”

__________________________________________

The memory faded as quickly as it arrived, the feeling of the strings brought a certain nostalgia to you. The ever so familiar scratch noise rolled as your palm moved. Your eyes slanted as you thought of the repertoire Eli had drilled into your head over the years. The songs were nice, not alone from the visions associated. You settled on a classic, rather your rendition of a classic.

“You guys have probably never heard of Bill Withers, huh?” You gleamed. They all gave each other quick glances to confirm their shared bewilderment. “Uneducated.” You fake gasped. You pulled a crate up next to Javier so you wouldn’t have to look up at everyone. Taking a full breath in, you centered yourself and focused. Your fingers moved almost instinctually, the side of your thumb pick the strings over the sound hole. It wasn’t a moment later that the breath you had been holding flowed out into your best singing.

“Ain't no sunshine when she's gone…” You soothed the notes, making them sound mellow. “It's not warm when she's away...

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.” The note stretched out a little more. “And she's always gone too long

Anytime she goes away.” It was at this point you looked up from your hand, noticing everyone staring at you. It took you by surprise for a moment, but you continued the song, with more strength.

“Wonder this time where she's gone

Wonder if she's gone to stay

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

And this house it ain't no home

Anytime she goes away.” You broke from the note pattern and gingerly tapped the front of Javier’s guitar as you continued.

“And I know, I know, I know, I know,

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know

I know, I know,

Hey, I oughtta leave young thing alone

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.” The note practically belted out of your diaphragm, your eyes shut tight for a moment in concentration to sustain it the way you had earlier. “Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

Only darkness every day

Ain't no sunshine she’s gone

She’s always gone too long, anytime she goes away…” The way you trailed off the decrescendo eased the song back to it’s previous somber tone.  

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone

It’s not warm when she’s away

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone

And this house it ain’t a home

Anytime she goes away…” You hummed out the rest of the melody. You got lost in the longing for other days. For the first time in a while, a wave of peace washed over you. The chill on your back from the night air, the heat of the fire meandering over your cheeks, it all felt so wonderfully familiar. But once the hold of recognition diminished, you were left with the peering view of those around you. The resonance of the last chord died out as your eyelids slowly drew back. Everyone looked back at you. You couldn’t quite decipher the reason for the silence, but you did notice a tension lingering about. They were all looking at you with varying degrees of intrigue. And to your right, there was Javier. You weren’t entirely sure what reaction you had expected from him, maybe amusement from how bad you sounded, but that wasn’t what you found. Instead, you found a sort of intensity behind his eyes. Awe-struck.

“I’ll be damned…” Dutch’s voice was the first to be heard. It was at this point you noticed that Charles and Arthur had moved closer while you were playing and Sadie, who had been looking down at her lap in a mix of sadness and annoyance, had shifted her attention onto you. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like that!” He praised.

“Me either.” Arthur followed up. “It was good.”

“Yeah! It sounded real sweet. Very romantic…” Mary-Beth mused. “I didn’t know you could sing, James! Especially not so passionately.”

“Well-uh, I’m not really that good…uh-ha… Thank you.” You handed the guitar back to Javier, the movement causing him to bounce back from his stupor. He cleared his throat and spoke as he took the instrument from you.

“Where did you learn to play like that. Haven’t seen many people around here who can.”

“A friend of mine, a way to get money. He’s better than I am.”

“I still like ours better.” Karen chided.

“Fair enough, Miss Jones. Fair enough.” You retorted.

“We should let our boy James serenade us more often. Twice the musicians, twice the enjoyment!” Hosea smiled.

“Just don’t touch my guitar without asking.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Javier- oh wait, wouldn’t dream of it, pard’ner.”

[thenewlittleprincess]

Little Guerrilla

"OK everybody!  Es'era 'Ay Bendito!' y su cancion 'Bembe!' , Numero Tres en las listas aqui en WSNY, 'S' por 'Espanol' en Nueva York, en el corazon de Brooklyn. Soy Marty Martinez aqui y bienvenido a ustedes que acaban de unirse a nosotros.  Ahora son las siete cuarenta y cinco dela manana del lunes, primero de diciembre, dos mil vientecinco. Y ahora alguien que acaba de unirse a nosotros aqui es La Princesita. Bienvenidos, nenita."

"Muchas gracias, Marty. Hola, Nueva Yorka! Vos quiero muchá!"  says the Princess.

"Has estando viajando por las estaciones de radio, hablando con gente y cantando nuevas canciones. Que clase de reaccion tu viste?" says Marty.

"First, can I speak in English?" the Princess asks.

"Yeah, sure. But I t‘ought you was fluent in Spanish," Marty says.

"Yeah, but our Spanish is not exactly the same as yours and I get confused and confuse everybody. Also, we decided I would sing in English and speak English so everyone can understand. ‘cos me Guatemalan people need all the help they can get!" the Princess says.

"OK, sure. I understand," Marty says.

"Bu' I'll answer your question now," the Princess says. "Yes, the reaction's been great. Talkin' directly to fans and other people. I never dreamed it! Sometimes you get the odd one out but me Uncle, the Barrister in London, told me to be in the business you have to get a rhino's hide. You cannot let anything hurt you."

"OK and do you have a new song for us today?" Marty says.

"Ciertamente!"  the Princess says.

"Ciertamente y cual es el nombre?" Marty says.

"It's name is 'Little Guerrilla' o en espanol 'Guerrillita','" says the Princess.

"OK, adelante!"  says Marty.

"Gracias!"  the Princess says.

The band strikes up a reggae beat, the Princess playing the electric piano in chords. The video below is one of the best examples of the genre.

Then the Princess sings, in Jamaican style.

She sittin' in de back

O' de cantina

Hidin' from gran de guerra maquina

Guerrillas gettin' useless on de quetzalteca

"Vamos! Vamos!"

Little Guerrilla sippin' quiet on de limonada

Not any money for a drop o' soda

When she hear de tanks de planes

And de guns she run

"Vamos! Vamos!"

Hey, hey little guerrilla

Maybe just 10

Your whole family gone to Heaven

And you're just waitin' to see dem again

Little guerrilla

Fight for what's left

It's fight or flight

You know what's right

'Cos in dis revolution

You de cuttin' edge

[Musical interlude - electric piano melodies around the bands' chords]

She doesn't like no gun

De knife is good enough

Just push and turn and turn and turn

But you gotta be tough

Don't be no powderpuff!

Dey never believe it

'Til after dey gone

De cute little one

Wid de knife in her pocket

Can kill you faster

Than any gun

Hey, hey little guerrilla

Maybe just 10

Your whole family gone to Heaven

And you're just waitin' to see dem again

Little guerrilla

Fight for what's left

It's fight or flight

You know what's right

'Cos in dis revolution

You de cuttin' edge

[Musical Interlude - electric piano solos with the band keeping the reggae beat]

Hey, little one

Don't you have no fun?

She say

Fun is for de rich kids

Not for dis one

Fun is wakin' up

And still seein' de sun

Dere be time for fun

When de battle's won!

We can celebrate when de war is done

[Spoken by Princess in low tone] Gotta take care of business

Little guerrilla

Fight for what's left

It's fight or flight

You know what's right

'Cos in dis revolution

You de cuttin' edge

Woh, woh!

And de struggle goes on

And de struggle goes on

No holidays, no weekends

Every day de same

Yeah, yeah, yeah de struggle goes on!

For we not givin' it up

We gettin' justice or death

If one happen we quit

If de other we gone

Yeah! Keep movin' on

Band: Keep movin' on, keep movin' on, keep movin' on

Little guerrilla

You are tomorrow

Ready to die to make our future bright

A prayer, a thought, a hope for you tonight

For you tonight ... (3 times)

Sleepin' in de jungle

In de shinin' moonlight

Oh, oh, oh  

Oh, oh, o de ho Oh oh, oh oh (3 times)

[Applause in the studio]

"Magnifico, Princesita, magnifico!" Marty says.

"Cheers, Marty! Muchas gracias," says the Princess.

"Y quien es la guerrillita? Tu?" Marty says.

"No! I thank Jesus, Mother Mary and all the saints that I can fight for Guatemala in air- conditioned studios!" the Princess says. "I doubt I could 'sleep in the jungle in the shinin' moonlight' for fear of the snakes!"

"Hay ninas asi en Guatemala, peleando en la selva?" Marty asks.

"Not many, I think," the Princess says. "But there are some. People from Guatemala come to Crummer Canyon and tell us what’s goin' on there. One bloke showed me a photo of a li'l girl in a red cap and really common clothes carryin' an armalite. He told me she was one. He called her "un' otra princesita".

The Princess giggles.

"Pero la nenita en la cancion, no le gustan las armas,"  says Marty.

"Yeah, that were my idea," says the Princess. "Li'l kids carryin' guns, that picture's off. People wouldn't like it and couldn't believe it. But this li'l one who can kill a man by surprise with a knife, just because he'd never dream that was what she would do. That's believable and sort o' more interesting, innit?"

"Eso es cierta. Y los hombres que te dicen lo que está pasando en Guatemala. Qué dicen ahora? " Marty asks.

"All the news out o' home is bad," the Princess says. "First, they showed us videos: airplanes droppin' firebombs on villages and burnin' up the houses and the kiddies. People marchin' in the city and soldiers mowin' 'em down rapid fire with machine guns and even planes. Then they tell us the shelves are empty in the shops. People were down to eatin' tortillas and frijoles but now the frijoles are too expensive and too hard to find. The Presidenta gave the campesinos land and the Army chased them away, killed half of 'em and gave the land back to the ladinos. It goes on and on. Then they attacked Belize and lost a whole lot of soldiers there. They were our neighbours now they're our enemies. On and on. But . . ."

"Qué ?" Marty says.

"I've go' a scoop . . . special for you lot," the Princess says. "Me bessie Antony always loves when I do this."

"Quién es Antony?" Marty asks.

"He's the top entertainment reporter for Topzine," the Princess says. "He loves when I give him a scoop!"

"Quieres decir una primicia?  Algunas noticias que nadie más conoce? " Marty says.

"Sí,"  the Princess says. " You're the first in America to know this I think. Well, I was, but you're next. You and all your listeners."

"Qué ?" Marty says.

"We've got a leader now," says the Princess. "It's what we've needed. He's the Presidenta's cousin. He was a General  but he's been hiding in the jungle with his bessies since the Presidenta was murdered. They've been trainin' and gettin' ready. Now they're ready and we're gonna use the Freedom Fund ta fill 'em full o' food, clothes, medicines, guns, bullets, rockets: anything they need. The leader is named Xihualtepec, like the Presidenta was: so they call him 'Comandante X'. I have a video of him saying that the junta are all traitors and he's going to put them against the wall for fusilamiento. And may God speed that day! First, they're goin' up to Belize to help the people there win their freedom and then the Belize people will help us win ours."

"Ahora te gustaría recivir algunas llamadas de los oyentes?"  Marty says.

"I'd love it!" says the Princess. "Let's hear from them."

"Primo de Bronx. Teodoro?"  Marty says.

"Sí,"  Teodoro says. "Princesita. Solo quiero decir que admiro tu coraje. A tu edad, lo que estas haciendo. Haciendo frente a una dictadura brutal. Rezo por ti y por los guatemaltecos."

"Muchas gracias, señor," the Princess replies. "Pisto es importante pero oraciones igalmente. No m'admira. Ayuda a los chapinos. Puedo hago tan poco. Vosotros, la fuerza, hagan todo. For the English people listening, I said money is important but we need prayers equally. Don't admire me, help the Guatemalan people. I can do so little. You, the power of the mobilised youth, do everything."

"Siguiente, Marcelina?"  Marty says.  

"Little Princess, aren't you scared?" Marcelina asks. "Wouldn't those soldiers try to do something to you?"

"No,"  the Princess says. "I thank God and Mother Mary that I am safe in America to do this work. If I had to do this in Guatemala, I'd last all of five minutes. I know nothing they can do to me is worse than what they're doin' to all people of all ages in Guatemala. So why do I deserve any better? If they cry, I can cry too."

"Y siguiente, Paul?" Marty says.

"Bue-nas di-as, prin-cessa. Co-mo es-tas?"  says Paul.

"Oh, there's a Spanish language student!" the Princess says. "We can see one comin' for kilos! It's OK. You can ask in English. It's me first language."

"What do you really want in Guatemala?" Paul asks. "What's the solution there?"

"Easy Manchester caviar that one!" the Princess says. "But yet someone needs to say it out clear like that, 'cos it's so obvious people can miss it. First, there's Comandante X's solution: stand the junta in front of a wall and shoot them down. They dunno' deserve to live. That will make the people free. Then we canno’ get the Presidenta back from Heaven, where I'm sure she is, but have another election. Maybe Comandante X can stand in place of his cousin. He - or somebody - can help the poor, the black people, the Mayans, the campesinos and the trabajadores like the Presidenta did. Give them land, food, enough money, medicine, schools, water, toilets, everything they really need. So they can live like we do. That would be a beautiful thing. Everyone would come back to Guatemala and live happily like we used to."

"Que hermoso sueño, princesita!" Marty says. What a beautiful dream!

“No esta un sueño, Marty. Esta un plan d’accion!” says the Princess. “Why dream it if ya can do it?”

[wildroseofarran]

Plans Aplenty || June & Fletcher

June: "Before you say it's too much, no, it's not too much." June set two casseroles and a container of cookies she'd brought on Fletcher's table. "I was in a cooking mood."

Fletcher: "Are they rich and heart attack inducin'?" He smiled. "'Cause I love tormentin' Luke with that."

June: "They're loaded with chocolate chips and butter so yes," she said with a chuckle. "I put some nuts in there too. That's kinda healthy. Ish."

Fletcher: "I think he's tryin' t'make me vegan," he said, making a face.

June: She laughed. "He just wants you to be healthy and eat more green things."

Fletcher: "I'll be fine. He ain't gotta worry n'I don't like kale."

June: "It's good when it's mixed with other things. I put it in one of those casseroles."

Fletcher: He made another face. "You're one of them."

June: June laughed.

"There's a ton of cheese in there, too. And chicken."

Fletcher: His smile faded as he dwelled on a thought. "Ya like him, Luke?"

June: "Of course I do. He's sweet and he adores you, what's not to like?"

Fletcher: "He's all that, I just don't get why..."

June: She walked over and kissed Fletcher's cheek. "He does. And I do."

Fletcher: "But ya know what I do t'relationships. Ya saw it first-hand."

June: June squeezed his hand. "This isn't the same situation. Whole different ballgame here, and from an outsider's perspective, it looks like it's going really well. You look so happy."

Fletcher: "I am..." and it scared him. She probably already knew that.

June: She did, which was why he got another kiss and squeeze. "He looks really happy, too. You should see the way he looks at you." She smiled. "I'd give anything for someone to give me the Gatsby look."

Fletcher: Fletcher turned into the kiss, his sigh one of peace. "The Gatsby look?"

June: "You know that bit in the movie where they say Gatsby looked at Daisy the way everyone wanted to be looked at?"

Fletcher: "I ain't watched em or read it."

June: "Oh my god, you have to. It's such a good movie."

Fletcher: "It's a chick flick, right?"

June: "Parts of it could be called chick flick-y. The rest falls under classic."

Fletcher: "Classics can be chick flicks. Just sayin'."

June: "True, true. Either way you have to watch it so you'll get how Luke looks at you."

Fletcher: "Is it... watchable with him next t'me? What about ya watchin' with us?"

June: June nodded. "Yep! I think he'd really enjoy it."

She brightened, nodding immediately. "I'd love to!"

Fletcher: Those bright eyes made him smile. "How 'bout this Sunday?"

June: "Perfect! My place or yours?"

Fletcher: "How 'bout yours? New experience for him."

June: "Done. I'll get popcorn and junk food."

Fletcher: Another smile. "He'll probably bring kale juice or somethin'."

June: "No kale juice allowed on movie day!" she chuckled. "Tell him it's house rules."

Fletcher: "I'll let him know," he chuckled.

June: "See that you do. Any requests?"

Fletcher: "Those croissant-wrapped lil sausages? Please. I'll being the mustard. They've been banned from the house."

June: June laughed. "You got it," she said with a nod. "Did he really ban them?"

Fletcher: "He frowns loudly by how often I ate em so I stopped."

June: "Aww," she chuckled. "That's sweet. And a little funny."

Fletcher: "So, anyway," he wasn't used to so much romance talk, "how's work been? Any mention givin' ya trouble?" As though he hadn't been watching.

June: "It's been good! A lot less trouble behind the bar, especially now that P--" She abruptly cut herself off and continued down a different path. "You still get the occasional moron but that's par for the course. It's a bar after all."

Fletcher: "...It's okay, June. Ya know how t'punch now." Of course he was back; of course he knew. He had no intention to delve into that.

June: Neither did she. The last thing she wanted was to make Fletcher talk about Pete. If he wanted to talk about him, he'd bring him up.

"I do know how to punch now, thanks to you." She grinned. "Guess what? I found a boxing gym in the next town over."

Fletcher: "There's one in town but it's pretty seedy." She probably already knew that. With Peter mentioned, his mind was trailing away.

June: "It is," she said, making a face. "It almost makes O'Charlie's look like a five-star hotel."

Fletcher: "Yeah, if ya told me ya were goin' there I'd probably be goin' with ya."

June: June gasped. "You should go with me!"

Fletcher: "But it's so far." I'm so lazy.

June: "Come oooooon. I'll drive."

Fletcher: "Fine, fine. I'll help with gas money."

June: "I'll pass it on to my sister Ruby. I've been using her car since I don't have the Caddy anymore."

Fletcher: "What happened t'the Caddy?"

June: "Uh...its owner returned."

Fletcher: "...Right. That. Thought Luke was watchin' it. I swear ya mentioned this..."

June: "Luke's got his own fancy car. I was looking after the Caddy after my dad made me get rid of my 'road hazard'," she said, making air quotes.

Fletcher: "Road hazard?"

June: "That's what he used to call my Honda. It was up there in years and issues."

Fletcher: "Need a co-signer for a car?"

June: June gave Fletcher a pleasantly surprised look. "You'd do that for me?"

Fletcher: "If no one else in your family will or can, yeah."

June: "You're such a good friend." June squeezed him to within an inch of his life. "I love you."

Fletcher: "Augh!" He groaned, laughter following. "It's just a car, Junebug. I got ya covered."

June: "It's more than that," she said, squeezing him more.

Fletcher: He held to her by her forearm. "What is it?"

June: "Just...the fact that you'd even offer. And mean it."

Fletcher: "Ya know others would offer."

June: "Yeah but that's my family. I know a lot of people but not a lot of people like you." She kissed his cheek. "I mean, you taught me how to throw a punch."

Fletcher: Why wasn't it Peter years ago? He was frowning. He tried to mask it, looking away and patting her arm. "Love ya, too."

June: "Hey." June gently took his face in her hands. "What is it?"

Fletcher: "S'nothin, bug."

June: "You can tell me."

Fletcher: "I can but we don't talk 'bout that."

June: She nodded, kissing his forehead. "Okay. But if you ever need to or just want to, we can. You can talk to me about anything, Fletcher. You know that, don't you?"

Fletcher: "Ya ain't gotta be that kinda person, honey. Ya deserve better than someone talkin' your ear off."

June: "I'd be one hell of a hypocrite if I spent all day talking people's ears off and couldn't take the time to listen to my best friend."

Fletcher: "Who was your best friend before me?"

June: "No one. Haven't had a best friend since middle school."

Fletcher: "Don't tell me that. Now we sound like kids."

June: She laughed softly. "There are worse things to sound like."

Fletcher: "I guess. Just...curious why someone didn't teach ya sooner."

June: She didn't have to ask who the someone was; his tone told her. "Short answer? I never thought to ask or think I needed it."

Fletcher: "That's not how our conversation went. I offered n'asked because it was obvious."

June: "I'm sure it was to him, too. Why do you think he got a reputation for yelling and throwing people out? It was because of me."

Fletcher: "He does a lot of that anyway."

June: "He's always yelled, sure. He's always broken up fights. But he never had to manhandle someone out the door until I started working there. And he wouldn't have had to if I'd had more self-respect and better taste."

Fletcher: The Samsa blinked. "Why ya sayin' that?"

June: She gave him a small, sad smile. "Because it's true. Self-respect and I are just starting to become friends."

Fletcher: "Why d'ya - It doesn't matter what kinda woman ya are, ya should be respected. N'he shoulda done better. He shoulda been good t'ya n'given ya the tools t'stand up for yourself."

June: "He tried, Fletcher. He drove me to the army surplus store once on my birthday to buy me a knife and I didn't let him. I lost count of all the times he warned me about men I dated and I never listened. He's been very good to me, he tried to do right by me. I just...I couldn't see the writing on the wall. So he started punching people."

Fletcher: "Why didn't ya take the knife?"

June: "I didn't think I needed it. Thought he was just being Pete, you know? Being overprotective."

Fletcher: "D'ya have one now?"

June: June nodded, smile a little happier. "Yeah. He gave it to me that following Christmas. Along with that." She pointed at the alarm panel on the wall.

Fletcher:

"Good." Knife, alarm, boxing. She was improving herself with defense. "Would ya be opposed t – never mind."

June: "No, tell me. Opposed to what?"

Fletcher: "Workin' at like... The Brig. I miss seein' ya."

June: "I miss seeing you, too. Why do you think I'm trying to make you go to the gym with me?"

Fletcher: "...Alright. Yeah. Then I'll... I'll definitely go."

June: "Yay!" He was squeezed and kissed yet again. "We're gonna be so ripped."

Fletcher: Now that he had to laugh at. "This physique doesn't get ripped. I tried in high school."

June: "Then we're gonna be in really, really good shape. We'll be able to run marathons."

Fletcher: "Alright. We'll see. Ready t'deck someone in the face for whistlin'? Ain't that what happens these days?"

June: "A whistle's nice every now and then. But if someone tries to grab my ass, they're going down."

Fletcher: "I'll be there cheerin' ya on, bug."

June: June beamed at him. "You always are. You deserve a cookie for it. Do you like chocolate chip?"

Fletcher: "What am I, a hound?" he laughed.

June: "If you were I couldn't give you chocolate chip," June said with a giggle.

Fletcher: "Ruff!" He laughed against her cheek before kissing it. "Muwah."

June: June giggled again at the kiss. Well that affection definitely deserved a gigantic hug. "I love you to death, you know that?"

Fletcher: "Mm," was a content little sound in response. "M'not worthy."

June: "You're the worthiest. No arguments."

Fletcher: "...Hmm."

June: "Ah, that was an argument. None of that."

Fletcher: Ah. He shook his head and laughed. "Weird kid."

June: "You love my weirdness," she said cheerfully. "Want some coffee with your cookie?"

Fletcher: "What, right now?"

June: "Sure! No time like the present."

Fletcher: "Uh...okay."

June: "Great!" She kissed his cheek. "I like fussing over you."

Fletcher: "I guess I spoil ya with reasons, huh?"

June: "Your existence is all the reason I need, sweetheart."

Fletcher: "Ugh. Stop with the diabetes!"

June: "Neverrrrrr."

Fletcher: "Tell me somethin' with less sugar."

June: "Um....Socks killed a rat?"

Fletcher: "Awesome," he smiled.

June: "It was waiting for me when I got out of the shower. I almost stepped on it."

Fletcher: "It was a gift. He thinks you're hungry."

June: "I know, and it would be super cute if it wasn't a rat and if I hadn't screamed. He brought me a cheerio later that day."

Fletcher: "Well, he saw y'all had different tastes," he laughed.

June: "He's a smart little cookie, I love him."

Fletcher: "He have anyone else to play with?"

June: "His brother, Mrs. Pennyapple's kitty. I try to go over there as often as I can."

Fletcher: "He don't mind the travel?"

June: "I think he enjoys it. I carry him in my jacket."

Fletcher: "You're a regular ol' Snow White."

June: "In looks at least," she said with a smile. "How's Creep?"

Fletcher: "Creep's still a Creep. Still can't tell if she likes Luke or not."

June: "She's a mysterious lady. I can't tell if she likes me either."

Fletcher: "She didn't even like her babies. I think they were her first."

June: "How old is she?"

Fletcher: "Almost ten? Shit, probably older."

June: "And these were her first babies? Damn."

Fletcher: "She's not an outside cat. She only purrs when I feed her and when she tries to smother me in my sleep."

June: June giggled. "Socks does the same thing. They want all the warmth."

Fletcher: "So, what d'ya wanna do now?"

June: "I say we eat and watch something ridiculous."

Fletcher: "Campy movie and greasy burgers?"

June: "You're a genius."

Fletcher: "I'll order the food, ya pick the movie."

June: She gave him a giant kiss on the cheek. "Deal!"

[airanke]

Bet You Wish - pt 2

@madmadameem​ YOU ASKED FOR IT AND I’M GIVIN IT 2 YOU //SCREAMS

Sorry ya’ll it would have been some SMUT like someone else wanted because I’m a horribad BUT NOPE EM WANTED THE ARGUMENT SO HERE IT IS--

Suffer mortals.

Alright, so, maybe? Nadia had spent far too much money than she should have. As she unpacked her fabric choices and the multiple dresses and the jewellery and goodness she really shouldn’t shop when she was angry - but all this was pushed to the back of her mind.

She was beginning to notice a theme with everything she had picked out for Vol’jin. Dark blues. Vibrant greens. Golden decorations.

Nadia was more furious about Amita’s departure than she thought.

Hurriedly, she exited the room she shared with Vol’jin, and stormed up the hall to the main office. The guards on either side of the door stood at attention when she approached.

She had half a mind to barge right in, but took a breath to calm herself and looked at the sentry to her right, “is he in a meeting?”

“Yes ma’am,” the troll replied. Nadia pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Do you know when he’ll be done?”

The guard looked down at the floor, then over at his companion. The female pursed her lips, “well, de blood elves be arrivin’ mebbe an houah ago. Dey didn’ tink it would be takin’ dem long, jus’ some talks ‘bout supply lines an’ Amani troubles. So… I tink mebbe, ten mo’ minutes?”

The male guard that Nadia had originally spoken to nodded his agreement. Nadia breathed deeply.

Then moved to stand off to the side in the hall.

“I’ll wait right here,” she said, holding up a hand, “I need to talk to him and I’m not going to let him sneak away.”

At least her comment on the warchief sneaking got a chuckle out of the guards.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

At fifteen, the door was pushed open. First, Rommath exited. He caught sight of Nadia, bowed to her respectively, then went on his way. Halduron followed, giving her a salute as he passed, but like Rommath, didn’t stop to converse.

Lor’themar, however, did stop.

“Lady Ravenscroft,” he greeted, dipping his head. Nadia flicked her brown eyes in the direction of the open door, then smiled at the Regent Lord politely.

“Regent Lord. I hope the meeting went well?”

He pursed his lips, glancing in the direction of the door as well, “for the most part! Some things have to put off for now, but I came here with the expectation that that would be the case. We’re off to the Undercity, and I’m assuming you don’t have time for any more pleasantries?”

Nadia sighed in relief that he had noticed her eagerness to go in the office, “not today, Regent Lord. Perhaps some other time?”

“Of course,” he smiled, bowed, and followed after his companions. Nadia waited until the blood elves were gone completely from sight before she stormed into Vol’jin’s office.

She slammed the door, and actually made the warchief jump.

“I cannot believe you,” she hissed. He stared at her for a moment, molten eyes swirling with confusion - then it clicked. Vol’jin rubbed his hand over his chin.

“Not now, Nadia.”

“Not now? Not now?!” she snapped, striding over to the desk until she was standing right across from Vol’jin, “then when were you planning on telling me, hm? Because I highly doubt you didn’t notice how distracted I’ve been by that necklace!”

Vol’jin raised a hand to cover the item in question, his gaze averted. Her anger only increased.

“Were you maybe hoping I wouldn’t see her?”

“As if I be expectin’ her ta show up today!” Vol’jin growled, abruptly rising to his feet. His claws dug into the wooden desk, “I haven’ heard from her fah two weeks!”

“That has nothing to do with why you never explained that to me!” Nadia argued, jabbing a finger at the necklace, “apart from me not asking! Because that’s another troll’s tusk - her tusk - and I didn’t know how to bring it up! So? When were you planning on telling me why she was so absent, Vol’jin?”

The way he furrowed his brows told her that if he could have avoided it, he would have never told her. A chill settled in the room, as much as Nadia tried to rein it in.

“You… she’s my friend, Vol’jin, and you-- you even kept me from going to Ratchet to check on her! Every time I decided I was going to go, you found something that you needed my help with-- no!” she slapped her hand against the desk when he made to interrupt her, “you knew! You knew and you stopped me and you kept me in the dark and maybe I’m glad you did because at least I got to hear it from her!”

Vol’jin’s ears were tipped with red. She’d love to hear him come up with a retort to that, and she glared at him with all the fury she could muster. Vol’jin growled under his breath, the gouges he was making in the desk growing deeper with every second.

“Fine,” he spat through clenched teeth, “I be knowing, so I stopped you. Fine. Bu’ don’ you dare tink I didn’ tell you to be keeping you in de dark,” he gestured to the tusk around his neck, “I had no idea how ta explain dis.”

“Um? Just tell me?” Nadia said, as if it were obvious. She didn’t like the smile that crossed Vol’jin’s lips.

“Right, right, sure,” he walked around the desk, digging his claw into it as he went, “sure. Hey, Nadia, dis necklace I have? Ya, I be gettin’ it aftah I ripped out Amita’s tusk. Den gave it back aftah apologizin’, only ta have her break it in half, an’ give part o’ it ta me,” he leaned down to get in Nadia’s face, an angry fire growing in his molten eyes.

“You know, right aftah she be tellin’ me dis be de end o’ us.”

Nadia flushed, brows narrowing. Amita hadn’t told her that part. She’d assumed that it had just simply been difficult for Amita to want to speak to Vol’jin after he ripped out her tusk. It hadn’t crossed Nadia’s mind that it could be due to Amita… ending her friendship with Vol’jin.

“Bu’ by all means, Nadia, be upset at me ova de fact dat I was havin’ some trouble figurin’ out how ta tell you dat I fucked up enough ta ruin one o’ de most important friendships I had.”

The mage balled her hands into fists, refusing to let him stare her down. Vol’jin scoured deep lines in the desk, and clipped some of the papers lying there too.

“On top o’ ev’ryting I hafta’ tend ta as de warchief of de entire damn Horde. On top o’ ev’ryting I hafta do as de chieftain o’ de Darkspear. Bu’ sure, git ya panties in a twist ova dis.”

Nadia couldn’t stop herself from striking him against the chest with the back of her hand. The nerve--

“You know what? Yes I am going to get my panties in a twist over this!” she jabbed him in the chest with a finger, “you were everything to her, Vol’jin, everything! And now this has happened and she’s up and left!? Did you think I wouldn’t be upset by that?”

“She didn’ just decide ta leave because I be rippin’ out her tusk!” Vol’jin snarled, standing up to his full height, “she been tinkin’ about dat fah a while, an’ I be guessin’ she neglected ta mention dat!”

“What did you do that made her want to leave that badly?! She loved you!”

His eyes went wide. Nadia had struck a chord, and the next thing she knew he brought his fist down so hard on the desk that it splintered.

“I, MARRIED, YOU!”

Nadia froze. Amita had alluded to that being the main reason she left. She had said she couldn’t watch Vol’jin get “cozy” with Nadia.

“I’m not a fool,” Vol’jin continued, more quietly, and in Zandali, “she’d inadvertently told me once before. I knew, Nadia, I knew. We be knowing each other for so long, it would have been natural. But I could never be that selfish,” his fist tightened, “everything I be doing, I be doing for the Horde - for my people. Marrying you was the best decision I could be making for their future.”

He raised his hand from the desk in favor of clawing at his neck, “she loved me and I loved her and we were both too Loa damn stupid to be doing anything about it. All she be doing was trying to put a wall between us after she be returning from Zandalar and I still don’t know why. She didn’t even tell me what happened to her on the islands until the king himself be showing up here to drop Bujune on her out of the blue.”

The warchief fixed Nadia with a scowl, and Nadia could only stare up at him, because this situation had gone and opened up an entire can of worms she regretted sticking her beak into.

“I be making my choice. I could have been selfish. I could have chosen her, but I chose you,” his scowl deepened, his hands balling into fists again, “and don’t you be misunderstanding, Nadia. I do love you. How I feel toward you changed from infatuation to something more genuine but you want to know why Amita left? Because I be breaking more than just her tusk.”

He jabbed a finger between Nadia’s breasts, “I be breaking her damn heart too.”

With that, he stormed out of the office, leaving Nadia to stare blankly at the floor, her face hot.

If only Amita were here.

OKAY WAIT LET ME EXPLAIN THE COLORS THING BECAUSE IT’S KIND OF FUNNY TL;DR AMITA HAS DEEP BLUE HAIR WITH VIBRANT GREEN HIGHLIGHTS AND SHE WEARS GOLD JEWELLERY A LOT SO LITERALLY NADIA WAS LIKE “OOOOOOOO THAT VOL’JIN I’M GONNA’ MAKE HIM WEAR AMITA’S COLORS” and idk why I thought that was so funny //SOBS

Actually my favorite part is where Nadia decides that YES she’s gonna get her panties in a twist over it because I can just see the argument comically ending there with both of them like “.... RIGHT WELL. OKAY. SURE.” //sobs moRE

[bytedown]

==> Tell the truth

flippinoptimist hi i imight naut reply to big talky posts for a bit cause a friend showed up an im givin him weird confusion pie but im still here im just distracted unless you beep at me!

flippinoptimist wait i see the thing now!

bytedown

Oh! Alright, didnt mean ta be spotty, and you've not missed much, I got called away for a bit, an I'm not mobile

flippinoptimist i do that too sometides!  i get distracted easy but i try to remember to come back evventually hope it was for fun stuff

bytedown I try ta take fun where I can :)

flippinoptimist lol youre good at naut specifyin shit optimisms super great though, i think its important to findin all the secret cool endings when weird shit goes down

bytedown ..is it too terrible obvious I'm doin that?

flippinoptimist most people are kinda dumb so idk, but the clever ones that come from places where theres secret cops that blend into social groups and then arrest everybody w/ the wrong opinions are probably gonna notice or the ones from places where the wrong opinions get dudes killed in general youre p laid back an careful

bytedown LOL I aint a cop thats for damned sure

flippinoptimist lol sweet cause thats naut too popular a lotta places

bytedown Sounds like some real bad places, is that common?

flippinoptimist yeah p much i dont see it on dudes w/ green eyes often but life sure is sometimes most places have some p harsh lifestyles for whoevers on the bottom

bytedown Now that I'm real familiar with, though I'm thinkin my bottoms a bit different from th' one you're thinkin of

flippinoptimist

bytedown Gonna have ta quit the internet now, laughin too much

flippinoptimist B) i mean i bet shits different it always kinda is, but im curious what your deal is aint a lotta trolls that know much about magic, an the smart dudes that know how to naut spill their private shit all over are usually worth noticin you have no idea how many dudes home coordinates i get from offerin to send free pizzas no strings attached

bytedown Now thats a wee bit reckless of them

flippinoptimist right i mean i dont do anythin w/ it but i like collectin coords just to see if i can

bytedown ya realize the irony of sweet talkin me into givin up my secrets by complimentin my ability to keep them?

flippinoptimist its terrible! im cool w/ whatever im just curious B)

bytedown I can see you're curious, an thats a bit dangerous for me, I didn' break th' nanny restrictions on this thing ta be shut up so soon

flippinoptimist im naut a big fan of shuttin anybody up

bytedown ya could just be sayin that ta be honest

bytedown I don't much know anyone around here enough ta judge whos safe and who isnt

flippinoptimist you got a point there.  for what its worth, though its only a side gig, im an occasional space pirate, an i grew up scroungin shit and sayin w/e i felt like, and fuck what the system thought about it youll get more trust online from the ones smart enough to notice what youre doin, if you pick details that you are willin to share -- real or fake -- and stick to em or dont mind sayin that you dont know who to trust, that works too thatll probably get you a lotta concern an friendly ears to be honest

bytedown ...

flippinoptimist aight, ill stop bein pokey, but i like talkin in general what kinda stuff is low risk enough to chat about?

bytedown I'm just tryina think

flippinoptimist like, non-identifyin kk ill bug my friend whose visitin some

bytedown I don't even know, cause theres details that're gonna not fit, I'm already havin that trouble what I'm worryin about is you know the folks I dont want things gettin back to

flippinoptimist i got that feelin, yeah

bytedown I live on prosperity, I supposed thats safe enough ta tell ya and explains some stuff

flippinoptimist sorry for steppin all up in your shit, i didn mean to, i just notice things yeah it explains most a the bits that dont fit an the parts you aint used to.

bytedown if I'm gettin caught I oughta know about it, so I can fix shit

flippinoptimist is w/e's wrong w/ your bottom

somethin the dudes in charge could fix p easy?

bytedown you're weirdly fuckin charmin pretty sure they aint gonna care about my problems

flippinoptimist thanks, i like to think its my good side.  you seem neat too.

flippinoptimist ...yeah, if youre gettin caught, youll know about it before i say anythin.  im not promisin i wont yet, i dont know if you mean anybody harm, but like, youve been chattin in good faith so im gonna chat back in good faith have you heard about like, hemism yet? as a concept

bytedown I can fake that I know what that is real easy

flippinoptimist i mean, thats prob close enough for most shit, but like theres colors of trolls that, in most universes, get hatched slaves.  theres colors of trolls that, in most universes, get culled the second they peek outta the egg

bytedown Damn

flippinoptimist they hatched wrong, they get fucked.  an then theres colors a trolls that get the nice shiny pretty end of things. and theres dudes that rebel against the nice pretty shiny end of things and sometimes they win, and take over the universes they make and thats who sparks is.  he hatched into a not-people caste. and now his life is not like that anymore.

bytedown Dont tell him about me

flippinoptimist and like he spends a lotta his time an energy tryin to make things right for dudes in other universes... if you aint hurtin anybody i wont, but its kinda odd news to hear theres nasty shit goin down over there

bytedown fuckin here look

Thats me.

flippinoptimist oh dude your wings are kinda like mine

flippinoptimist yeah there sure is a lotta people bein pissy about fae in prosperity, i can see how youd be tweaked.  nice job photoshoppin your avatar

bytedown Some of the castle folk are kind enough, but he aint one of them.

flippinoptimist he gets p mad about stolen kids

bytedown A pixie has never stolen a child I'll guarantee you that.

flippinoptimist fuckin lol

flippinoptimist yeah thatd take some practice and effort an a clever series of hammocks an slings an shit theyre called slings when they aint like secured to a wall, right?

bytedown Slings are for huntin, I think

flippinoptimist theyre the same shape but you would probably want a different word for the throwin kind from the carryin kind when theres a baby in it

bytedown dependin on the type

flippinoptimist that is one a those cases where you do naut halfass the distinctions

bytedown lol

flippinoptimist as long as you aint like actively plannin stuff thatd hurt my dudes, i dont got a reason to tattle on anythin grats on gettin to the cross-dimensional internet on your own, that aint the easiest thing i think theyd be proud and interested to meet you if they knew you did, but, your call

bytedown He swats at us, did you know? and yells a fuckin lot

flippinoptimist

me in danger mode w wingles

bytedown blue eyes'll probably be mad about me stealin and retrofittin shit thats for proper people your wings're lovely, you're a very handsome lad

flippinoptimist i kinda want to tell him naut to do that shit since youre peopley enough to hack shit

bytedown I dont want him knowin about me

flippinoptimist yeah, aight. you mind me takin a coincidental interest in pixie shit that has nothin to do w/ anybody i may or may naut have met online? cause, he needs to be nice to dudes

bytedown Ya think he'll actually listen ta that?

flippinoptimist yeah

bytedown I caint stop ya from anything ya wanna do

flippinoptimist i mean like its super important to be good an im surprisingly attentive to that kinda deal, but when Grenades R Us starts tellin a dude to be more responsible w/ his shit a surprising number of dudes listen but like.  this is your shit and i dont got a right to meddle if you tell me to step off so if you tell me to go i dont say another word about it, and youre just a dude on the internet from a world a lot like prosperity

bytedown I don't wanna seem like I don't want some help, cause him not actin like a dick

bytedown 'd be nice

flippinoptimist not Not permission is p much all id need, i kind of go hunting when i find out someones been a douche

bytedown His partner likes us well enough, an set up a lil trade station. even if he doesn't seem ta believe we're literate.

flippinoptimist anybody like, talked to them about this? i mean i know that shits harder than it sounds when dudes are big and unpredictable

bytedown theres a wee bitty bit of a problem with talkin ta big folks An that has ta do with hearin range

flippinoptimist welp an illusions an shit dont cut it / arent an option im guessin

bytedown There was a real kind man who liked ta bake bread who was at the castle for a while, and he'd listen even though it was hard

bytedown Most've th' things I know how to do are for hidin, not for bein more noticable

flippinoptimist spooner?  human guy, hung out w sparks a lot?

bytedown yes!

flippinoptimist he was a guest a sparks, probably went back to his hive universe or somethin

bytedown It was a sad time for us all when he left

flippinoptimist lemme try an remember his blog

flippinoptimist hes been idle a while but you never know sometimes dudes come back after months a quiet http://cosmorobottips.tumblr.com/

bytedown ! Wonderful

flippinoptimist p much all the udes that have ever been through the castle have a blog or a trollian or both

bytedown Do Newsight and Suntouch?

flippinoptimist i know who would know and i dont mind askin quietly!

bytedown They're good people

flippinoptimist yeah.. i dont know em as much but i know one of newsights alternate selves a little bit he runs the teashop

bytedown They have milk and honey there (: We clean sometimes

bytedown You'd be surprised how many people will pay food for some cleaning

flippinoptimist theres a lusus in my hive that does the opposite of cleanin he likes rollin in dead things and fillin containers with sticks and leaves

bytedown That sounds like a bit of an adventure in not gettin sick from somethin

flippinoptimist i grew up outside, im good at naut gettin sick

bytedown Whats our definition of outside tday?

flippinoptimist i had a breather mask and a mud tent, an i swam down under trees on streams or into the sea shallows an burrowed into silt an slept there an came out when it was time to wake up most people do not think to look there

bytedown I lived in a tree hollow we cleared of deadwood, before I came to th' city

flippinoptimist an when you get good at it you can wiggle loose and un-mud w/o gettin much on you i lived in a big tree for a couple perigees...

bytedown how'd ya like th' tree?

flippinoptimist it was okay i think i like water or like, low-down skulky kinda lairs better

bytedown It'd gunk up my wings somethin fierce, I'm not a nixie

flippinoptimist they dont got a retracty deflatey mode?

flippinoptimist -- flippinoptimist has shared three contacts -- in order, those are newsight, suntouch, and twoblade the guy who is technically the city's diplomat right now

bytedown I'm afraid they're always out I'm grateful for th' contacts, you're a real chum

flippinoptimist that sounds inconvenient as shit and i mean, it seems like if im gonna give you kind of a scare an see straight through the cover story, its nice if i can like be cool too

bytedown terribly kind've ya

flippinoptimist B)!

flippinoptimist this one time, i decided to stop bein a dick, and its kinda stuck! im p happy about that, its been workin out for me

bytedown Seems ta be workin pretty well for ya!

flippinoptimist yeah!

bytedown Is there anythin you're needin ta know before you go pesterin someone out of the blue about beins he hates?

flippinoptimist has anyone Actually gotten hurt from him swattin, or just close calls?

bytedown We're fair fast, I don't think hes actually caught any of us

flippinoptimist good

bytedown if he'd actually hit one of us someone would've bit him

flippinoptimist yeah..an hed be kinda freaked out once he realised

bytedown Once he realized what?

flippinoptimist that hed been physically threatenin dudes w/o thinkin aboat it an did harm w/o realisin

bytedown Are you sure we're talkin about the same guy?

flippinoptimist cause like, "fuck off get outta my shit", sure, but "you have touched the coffeemaker pay in pain", naut so much yeah he gets yelly but hes nice once you get past that

bytedown The rules aren't always the same for us as proper people

flippinoptimist see that right there is the part that will make him tweak and decide to treat you exactly like regular people

bytedown What, because he found out I can type?

flippinoptimist hes a huge nerd, its a lot easier to notice smart people especially ones that are good at the same things that interest the nerd in question

bytedown :/ We're all fair smart, mate. Just too small for anyone ta notice

flippinoptimist yeah but as soon as someone does all bets are off and it is super fuckin easy to notice someone online where words are all there is

bytedown Th' elves know what we are an who and they could give less of a damn unless they need us ta do fine embroidery

flippinoptimist okay but like, also, fuck them

bytedown they like us for messengers too and th' like mostly

flippinoptimist have you heard a disruptive innovation

bytedown Cant say I have?

flippinoptimist like, search it real quick

flippinoptimist like its when a new thing gets made or learned, and it changes Everythin an fuckin Everybody has to move their shit around to adapt to the new way things are

bytedown sounds like an interestin concept

flippinoptimist usually its better tech -- "oh we have a cheap fast way to do this now, guess we'll stop payin hundreds of dudes to do it the slow way and theyll have to figure out new life plans" or science or shit -- "oops, everyone lives like twice as long as they dd before, we are gonna need a shitton new housing"

bytedown New types of magics do that sometimes

flippinoptimist ill bet!  sometimes like social movements or big political shit can do it too but.. thats basically what my deal is, or a bit part of where im tryin to aim what im about

bytedown You enjoy doin things that disrupt other things?

flippinoptimist yeah, kinda.  if it makes room for more possibilities than it tears down

flippinoptimist life is growth and change.  i got saddled with a destiny that makes me super good at bein smart and breakin shit.  sooo.... im gonna do it this way instead a the mean way.

bytedown They do say th' castle folk are gods

flippinoptimist theres a lotta arguin aboat that online sometides but yeah basically.  im kind of a half-formed young one that fucked up along the way, so i still gotta figure out a lot. i still dunno how the fuck prayer is supposed to work.  i will figure that one out though like i cant just Hear things.  i gotta figure out how to use magic to enable that

bytedown This's a lot ta think about, an I'm gettin real tired, its a wee bit late

flippinoptimist yeah i didnt mean to mess up your night or make it weird welcome to the outside internet

bytedown its a bit relievin not ta try ta pretend ta be a troll for a bit thank ya for th' welcome

flippinoptimist you might as well say youre a troll from one a the villages or somethin, they dont got good records from out there an prosperity is definitely v weird compared to other universes

bytedown I ah, cant lie

flippinoptimist oh, dang ... did you come from outside the city?

bytedown aye, I did

flippinoptimist somethin we could broadly describe as a rural home?

bytedown Ha, aye

bytedown I'll just say I'm from outside th' city

flippinoptimist then you wont get caught quite so easy w/ all the troll culture junk

bytedown Rest well, friend, and it was pleasant talkin to you

flippinoptimist im glad, you too dude!  good luck w/ your computery bits, if you ever wanna trade for junk hit me up most dudes online cannot get into prosperity even if they try, cause theres a like, lock on the universe to keep gross guys out.  it takes a password to get through.  im one of the dudes who can get in tho oh uh, bye, have a good one!

bytedown I'll remember that, though I doubt you could visit me, good night to you

flippinoptimist ill trust you on that one

[woozletania]

Sanctuary, part 3 (first half)

Rocket and Lylla don’t know how to deal with the otter’s newfound mistrust of the raccoon. Luckily they aren’t the only ones on the Milano.

Since I am writing this in chapter form for another archive, and two chapters = 1 post here for some reason that’s entirely my fault, I’m posting them as “halves” as fast as I write them.

***** The Milano was not a big ship. There was the cockpit, a U-shaped common area below that with a reasonably large open area at the back end of the ship (mostly used for training) and what used to be four tiny cabins. Now there were three and a lifeboat and if you didn’t count the two tiny shower/relief areas that was all the room there was.

There were a total of seven beds, three in semi-private rooms and four fold-up beds in the common area that were used mostly as sofas, except the one Drax actually slept on. Throw in some cargo and a workbench or two Rocket set up in the back room and things could get cramped even with only four human-sized crew, one toddler-sized tree and two Uplifts.

So when two of the crew wanted to avoid one another, things started to get awkward. Rocket would take the long way around the U to avoid Lylla and Lylla would stick her nose into the cockpit, find him there and go right back down the stairs. They would sit as far apart as possible at mealtimes, avoiding each other’s gaze. Rocket would spend as little time as possible eating and then disappear to the far end of the ship. Wherever Lylla was, there was always maintenance or a personal project to work on as far away from her as possible. While never very far, it kept them from needing to deal with their disagreement.

The good news was the ship had never looked better. Rocket quickly used up the obvious projects like flickering lights and squeaky doors, moving on to scrubbing corrosion off the deck with the ship’s repair gun. Unfortunately his workbenches were in the common area and there was no way for Lylla to avoid him there so he made the best of it and moved the two padded beds he and the otter used out of Peter’s room and under the workbenches.

Peter found him standing there a day later, ears swiveled half way between confused and angry. Rocket was staring at the two little beds where they lay a couple of feet apart under the workbench.

“What’s going on, bud?” His hand wandered down to scratch the raccoon between the ears, but Rocket was too distracted to enjoy it.

“Nothin’,” he said, but he stood there staring suspiciously at the beds for a moment longer before hopping up on a tall stood and grabbing a welding stylus. He spent an hour finishing work he’d started earlier before heading down the hall.

Behind him a vine emerged from an air vent, quested back and forth as though looking for something, and then slid the two padded beds ever so slightly closer to each other before disappearing back the way it came.

Rocket found Lylla sitting with Mantis and said, “Stand up please,” without preamble. Then, “Try this on.”

Lylla took the bundle of green fabric from him and soon realized it was a belt and harness, custom-made for her long bendy torso. Three buckles on the left side let her slide in and click the thing on and the leather strapping across her back was so positioned that it didn’t ride over her shaved areas or implants. It came with a pouch on each side and and rings to clip on more and once she got it situated Rocket starting handing her things.

“This,” he said, “Is a wrist comm set for our frequencies. I know Pete’s been showing you around the cockpit, you oughta be able to use it no problem. These,” he said as he handed her two silver disks, “Are space suits. Drax can show you how to use ‘em. Everybody carries two, you understand? If yer awake, you have two space suits on you. One for you, one for someone else if they need it.”. He took a rectangular object from yet another pouch. “Aero rig. Lets you fly. Don’t play with it, someone’ll give ya training first chance we get. I’m only givin’ it to ya now for emergencies, and here,” he handed over a small pistol in a holster. “Stunner. Thirty second knockout, red button on the handle changes that to ten minutes. Fifty shots, spare battery in the holster. I figure you don’t want to hurt people, but you gotta have somethin’ if things go bad.”

“Okay,” Lylla said questioningly.

“One more thing,” Rocket said. “See all the snaps on the harness? I got flex-armor mostly made for you. It’ll snap right on when you have ta leave the ship. Helmet too, if you want it.”

As he turned to leave Lylla spoke up again. “Why, Rocket?”

Rocket shrugged. “No one is gettin’ killed because I didn’t make enough gear.” It wasn’t that far to the room at the end of the common area, and Lylla saw him stop to stare at something for a moment before continuing on. His newly made bed had a particular raspyness to the fabric so she knew what she was hearing when he curled up for a nap.

Gamora came in right at the end and stood admiring Lylla’s new harness. “Stunner?”

“Yes,” Lylla chirped. “Rocket made this for me. Well, maybe not the stunner, but the rest.”

“If he didn’t make the pistol he customized it,” Gamora said as she sat next to the otter. “Two settings, yes, short stun, long stun, this button toggles that. Do you have any training?”

“I was for linguistics,” Lylla chirped. “And diplomacy, but I only got the first dose of that.” She touched her head. “Direct learning feed. I saw the schedule, I was supposed to get diplomacy, then learn about poisons and assassination.”

Gamora nodded. “Those things all go together. I can train you on poisons.”

“I can teach you some diplomacy,” Mantis said. “It was one of my functions for my master. Peter does it too, but he is not so good at it.”

“I heard that,” Star-Lord said from the next room, and the three women smiled.

“Let me guess, he gave you this wrist comm,” Gamora said, “And probably two -”

“Space suits,” the otter chirped and pulled them out of a pouch. “He said I was to carry two at all times.”

Gamora showed her how the suit worked by putting on her own. “Just slap it on to a flat part of your body and it grows to cover you, see? Take it off by pressing the center stud. It won’t deactivate unless there’s breathable air. We have hard suits but the Milano only has two and they are too big for you anyway.”

“He gave me an aerorig too,” Lylla chirped, “But said someone will train me later.”

Drax wandered in, saw the small grouping and sat down. Crowds have a gravitational attraction all their own and soon Peter and Groot were sucked in as well.

“Do you have any combat training,” Drax rumbled.

“Only a little. How and where to bite, mostly.”

“Yes, you nearly killed Rocket that way. It was well done.”

“Drax!” That was Gamora, and “Dude!” from Peter.

“From a fighting standpoint,” Drax said unapologetically.

“I am Groot,” the thigh-high (except to Lylla) tree said.

“I was scared,” Lylla said. “I’d just seen him kill two men. I panicked when he pulled me out of the cage and he was covered in blood.”

“Rocket is not the neatest killer,” Gamora said. “But he is effective.”

“And he was wounded,” Peter said. “Some of that blood was probably his.”

“I was afraid,” the otter said. Like Rocket, her face was far more expressive than it had any right to be and she was feeling picked on and guilty. “I didn’t know he was there to help!”

“Shhh. No one’s blaming you,” Peter said, and Lylla relaxed as Mantis and Gamora jointly petted her. “Rocket was in a hurry. He had to get you out fast. When you are in a hurry, mistakes get made.” He shot Gamora a glance and she took the hint.

“Like when he was sorting his tools yesterday,” Gamora said. “He was saving time so he could examine you as soon as you woke up.”

“He had scalpels!” Lylla said, and shrank back into the chair. “And skin cutters, and a bone saw, and all the other tools.”

“He uses them on me,” Gamora said, and touched her face where her implants showed. “And on himself. On my sister, once. He is an expert at everything mechanical but he doesn’t always think when he’s dealing with people.”

“That’s for sure,” Peter said. “But, Lylla, this is what you need to know. Rocket would fight for us. He’s almost died for us at least three times. We’re his family now and he’ll kill to protect us. He makes us gear and insists everyone have two space suits at all times and he sets alarms and traps wherever we set down. He’s rude sometimes,”

“Often,” Drax rumbled.

“And he’s snapped at me when I pissed him off,”

“Which is easy to do,” Gamora added.

“He built armor into my clothing,” Mantis said, and touched what looked like perfectly ordinary fabric on her thigh.

“But Lylla, I’ve never seen him sleep next to someone the way he did with you. It took months before he’d even let us pet him.”

“His fur has a pleasing texture,” Drax mused, and stroked Lylla’s tail. “More so than yours.”

Peter shook his head at Drax. “Even though you bit him, he wanted you to be comfortable, to feel safe. Rocket won’t hurt you.”

Lylla nodded. Bit by bit the group broke up, Peter to check for bounties, Drax and Gamora to inventory stores, Mantis to sleep. Pretty much everyone promised Lylla some sort of training. It was just Groot and the otter when the two made their way to the common room where Rocket lay sleeping.

“I want to talk,” Lylla chirped, and sat down a pace away. “I know you are awake.”

Rocket lay unresponsive until a tendril prodded his shoulder. “I am Groot.”

“All right already,” the raccoon grumbled as he sat up. “Yeah, I was listening. Bald bodies are so loud it’s hard not to.”

“Who was the doctor you threatened yesterday?”

Rocket was taken aback. “You heard that? You were all the way downstairs!”

“Diplomat,” Lylla said, and touched her ear. “ 'Enhanced hearing, grade three.’ Very useful when people are tying to keep secrets. Also, poison resistant.”

“I was wondering why the gas didn’t do anything to you,” muttered Rocket, but she continued to stare. “Fine. That was the head of the project that made you Uplifts. He’s in jail but he’ll be out soon and I told him I’d personally hurt him if he starts work like that again. And I will. I was soft, if I’d been meaner going in more of you would have survived.”

“You’d kill to protect people you don’t even know?”

“Look, the galaxy is a dangerous place. You need to learn that. But when someone gets hurt who hasn’t done anything, it gets under my skin. If I find someone being treated the way you were, yeah, I’ll kill. I helped kill a whole planet to protect people I didn’t know. One a these days I’ll die doin’ it. But someone’s gotta stand up for the little guy. That’s what Guardians do.”

“I am Groot.”

“I know buddy.”

Lylla sat there thinking for a moment before she stood. Amongst the clutter of half-completed projects on the workbench were Rocket’s various tool bags, some open, some closed, and she grabbed one she recognized. She sat back down and opened the flap, exposing the handles of mostly custom-made cybernetics tools.

“You can do your examination now, Rocket. I know it’ll help if you send scans to your doctor friend before my appointment. One condition, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Everything you do, I want you to explain. Not because I don’t trust you.”

“You don’t know me well enough to trust me,” Rocket said. “Bein’ untrusting of strangers is a good thing.”

“I’m trying to learn. I’m a cyborg too, so explain what you’re doing as you do it, and maybe someday I can help someone else like me who needs it.”

“You got it.” Somewhere on the ship a song by someone called Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing, and Rocket hummed along as he started by selecting a shallow scanner. “See, cyborgs vary a lot, internally and externally, so unless it’s an emergency you start at the limbs, scan for servos and other components, then move toward the torso. You gotta figure out how someone’s built before you do any real work.”

Lylla nodded, drinking in the info, and if anyone noticed as Groot spouted out a silent tendril and pushed the two padded beds a little closer together, no one said anything.

[esfor-dazrumi-18]

findings

y’know it says a lot when it tries so hard to look like fucking twitter and the like where it’s all tiny and stuff

moment you join too you’re forced to pick tags so they can cater to ya i just picked the obvious shit

tbh i don’t like being tracked but i got shit to say so i’ll get on with it.

i don’t follow the rules other people set out, i make my own, so don’t whine this is long or shit, y’all learn to read in school for a reason, bookmark it or something, heck, read and then stop, ain’t my fault it’s your own disinterest

was following this guy named bogor. been helping out some girl with her problems, various things on the net she can’t confront due to various issues, associations, internets a nasty place yo so me and a few friends go around doing the work and the eyes for em

we’re not on the internet much, we’re just people with a close attachment to each other, so dont expect to see all your picture pic stuff, that ain’t our thing here, i just looked up blogging sites n tumblr was in the list so i’ll treat it as that

despite we aren’t on the internet much, we got a basic grasp how these things go.

so then

my situation, as esfor, is, wow, hecked up. Didn’t realise someone else here chose the same name oh well that’s what i did for google. but never mind. Me and a friend, puni, who’s looking up places like gbatemp are searchin the web all fine n dandy and then I get asked by our girl ‘there’s this suspicious forum can u look into it’

so puni goes into this forum and fucks up first impressions, so then i go in. there’s a guy named bogor who runs the place and holy fuck he’s nuts. like not even slightly, this dude’s inferior complex is bigger than you’ll ever know

so the reason we were asked to inspect some suspicious looking forum was because this concerns her finances. It runs on the assumption that this program this girl’s mum has signed up to is a scam, been running for 20 years with slow increments to givin cash. Loads of cash, sounds like blatant scam material, but the site’s materials are a decade old, and this guy seems hell bent on controlling that material as well.

Finances ain’t a joke, neither are scams. So as a friend i decide to be cover. puni fucked up the first impressions, indicating she wasn’t gonna lurk so I had to take measures. some other guy comes in who we don’t know, and after many logic tossups with admittedly little material on my end, this guy takes drastic measures threatening his family, and i don’t agree with the threatening the family bit, but i agree with the post in an admittedly vague way, and then he bans both our asses.

So then I can’t speak, puni and peli (another dude, more rude than me or puni if i’m being honest) make an account called muzifa to lurk. this time, we say nothing until yesterday

this suspicious forum doesn’t attract much activity, there’s only a few hundred members on the forum, suspiciously, though, they don’t get active on the site much. ever since both of us got suspended, your email gets verified, which is fine, our emails are gibberish anyway irrelevant to the names we choose (except the one on this site), but yea, despite this, there’s like 1 or 2 members that even speak at that. the forum’s running in mybb.

which is obvious, i lurk another forum infrequently which uses the exact same format so i’m not particularly unknown

when i say i’m not in the internet that’s more a lie. i have twitter, i have nowhere else though. i lurk more quiet places. no facebook, no insta, no shit. just twitter to converse about problems with the other dudes (or girls in the cases of our friend and puni), so i know this shit, i just don’t take myself to care about much of the spammy promote-yourself shit.

basically, the gist of the forum is this program is run by a guy named mike, who’s supposedly an immigrant as we’ve half-learned, and yo, he posts updates every 2 weeks basically drunk. this bogor bitch posts said updates in text on the forum, and reacts to em callin mike names and shit, and he expects everyone to go along with it. puni on muzifa’s account got too heated, because bogor went all authoritarian on him too, but here’s the logic tho

mike got contacted in one of these updates and he posted the email addresses of all involved. some of these emails mention a jeff.

so there’s a whole team behind this scam... huh interesting a whole team

yet bogor goes ‘there’s no team, just mike’ which dang dun lines up with the suspicions from our source. sure, teams can be involved in scams, no denying there. but use your words: a team is comprised of more than one person. so if bogor claims to have inside info, how come he’s sure there’s no ‘team’ if there’s a jeff? is jeff some personality? but then why’re the emails mentioning jeff and mike as if they’re separate?

and mike’s drunk updates refer to himself as mike at the end of every one. if he wanted to fake out by being jeff, he’d be jeff. so if he’s getting shit from jeff, who’s a different person, ergo, there’s a team. 2 people sure, but that’s still a team. there’s no i in team.

there isn’t a response to this, and as well, this lot also fuck up forum formatting because usually on these forums there’s tags to tell you when the reply ends if you’re responding to a quoted post, that’s how the text after isn’t stuck in the blob, but this lot like the 40 yr olds they are continue writing in this field. i’m not that old i can’t clearly see when the field ends

so bogus then bands muzifa with warnings that as peli tells us he’s blocked from seeing because the site totally blocks him from doing anything, apparently reading your own private messages is a warning. puni then goes back with her permanent account, with words from me in twitter as to what constitutes a response, and despite this, even she’s blocked, for supposedly 2 weeks. peli gets on with a different email, but the account is blocked instantly. so it’s not even a matter of 2 weeks, peli was blocked on sight.

so why care so much about an admin on a suspicious site, why not just leave it alone?

well first up, this scam hasn’t coughed itself up so the site has some merit

we received some emails pointing to two instances happening at once. the one with mike in charge, and one suspiciously pointing to bogor (including a recent update from mike himself claiming bogor is behind the crappy shit), along with a gmail account called ‘vsb-trust’ that supposedly said payment is happening, but only if $200 per member were sent. Since the girl involved in this is young, that’s $400.

we also found in this decade old site that’s suspiciously not on the frontloaded site he keeps pointing to (bogor loves to say google looking his name only results in scams, but all of them are a decade-old or dead in the case of the old forum), a letter containing something from the authority with some bogus claim he got evidence they don’t have

it’s like if he were being honest he’d have sent it right then and now why put this out to the publi-

oh right

he then asks for 50 grand from everyone to give this evidence to the authority.

Suspiciously in this forum, the one where he asked 200 from everyone also is never mentioned, despite it, y’know, supposedly being under mike’s name.

even though it ain’t according to these old emails

so basically both are scams and i’d like if we could change google’s history so we ain’t painting it as so one-sided

what the fuck 50 grand to send evidence about a criminal like fuckin wow i’m pretty sure your singaporean woman had better things to do than entertain a fuckin coward

because it’s obvious, set up a forum that really should’ve been a blog (he had no money for a blog), people join to echo chamber (just like actual scams, the replies usually aren’t real especially if they’re a pic), and then they lure u in, simple as that

because we try arguing with logic against the points, not that we dont agree, just the logic’s all fucked up, but nah, heck it

idk what the fuck to do with this tumblr now i think imma chill it

but i’ll still be spittin on tumblr

[maria-zolts]

An Alliance pt 2-2

OOC: This was a long post so I cut it

"Oh yeah?" her grin was all teeth now. "Ye met Maral an' Voren then? Might o' even met th' little one, if they let 'im out an' around th' place. I imagine he might be walkin' bout now. Had some business wit' em? How did it go?"

Maria could almost see the calculations going on behind the woman's eyes as she regarded her. Judging by how irritated she had seemed earlier, probably not well. How much to tell, how little, how close was Maria to the owners, was there anything she could use to her advantage - if it were her, that would be what she'd be thinking. If the woman was *smart*, she'd be thinking those things.

The question was, what did this woman want, and was she a harmful threat? And if she was, what was Maria going to do about it? Murder was the fastest, most logical choice (most obstacles that threatened anything she cared about in any significant way could be solved in this manner), but not the most efficient one. She'd leave the option on the table anyway for now.

The hyur woman finally spoke up. "The owner...Maral, was it? I don't think she cared much for my proposal. It was hard to tell, she didn't show much...of anything."

The grip Maria held on her glass lightened a fraction and she burst out laughing. This startled the other woman, but she too seemed to relax a bit. "Aye, Maral is a bit o' a...disciplined girl. Ye can say she's been like that fer a long while. Those who 'ave th' patience ta dig in an' get ta know 'er get ta see that she's more than what ye see at first glance." Now, what would be a good way to get this woman to open up a bit more? "Hmm, I've known Maral since she was a lass, mebbe tell me a bit o' what happened an' I can give ye some advice on how ta handle 'er."

When the other woman's face lit up in genuine relief Maria fully relaxed for the moment. It looked as if the venture had been a genuine business transaction, nothing sinister.

Jocea Bove was the woman's name, and she owned a company called the Ajna Collective. She went into more details about her proposal to Maral, what she had wanted and her general confusion as to why Maral hadn't been more enthusiastic about something that she felt would have been an improvement for both sides. After listening to her, Maria took a long sip of her brandy and studied Jocea for a moment before replying.

"Ye don't mind if I speak frankly Jocea?" Maria asked.

"Not at all, please go ahead."

"Well, yer proposal ain't bad, it's just not considerin' all o' her people." Maria shrugs lightly. "Voren an' Maral worked hard ta build their company from th' ground up, jus' like ye likely did. Not jus' that, th' people they have they care bout. They ain't jus' contractors, although they do consider th' business side o' things. Ye also tryin' ta pull from their numbers, but ye ain't givin' no numbers in return. Ye say ye got a network, use it. If ye gonna take, give them somethin' ta replace th' numbers wit'."

"But...if I could do that, I wouldn't be asking for bodies in the first place."

Maria gives her a grin and raises a brow. "Ye sure bout that?" she leans in. "M' guessin' th' reason ye approached us specifically is because yer wantin' certain skills that ye know we have. O' experiences. Why else would ye call on a small tradin' company ran in Kugane mostly wantin' their aetherial researchers and engineers? What projects ye workin' on that ye be wantin' us fer?"

Jocea clicks her tongue and leans away from Maria, letting out a small sigh and then a shrug. "Fair enough, you caught me. I am looking for people with specific talents and skills in the aetherial and scholarly arts and I knew the Sunset in Stone company had a few in their midst. I have a few projects I would love for you and the Sharalyan scholar Dorien Eyls to be a part of, but naturally it'd be disingenuous to approach the company so blatantly. I wanted the proposal to be mutually beneficial to both sides. I also heard you had some others, someone from a Grand Company that had some skills in the healing arts."

"Well, sounds like Maral saw through yer intentions anyroad. She's been through a lot over th' past few cycles, and seeing through people tryin' ta take advantage o' 'er is one o' 'er strong points. If ye want ta make this work, ye gonna hafeta change yer strategy."

"I wasn't trying to-" Jocea cuts herself off and shakes her head. "Intent doesn't matter, Jocea. Right. Very well, then. How do you propose I adjust my proposal? Businesswoman to businesswoman."

Instead of answering right away, Maria turned back to her food and began to eat. A business proposal that was a mutual benefit to all parties involved. For one, she had to think about how she felt about Jocea's obvious hint that she wanted to recruit her to her company. She wasn't exactly strongly aligned to any company, she never really had been. Being tied down to a company had never really suited her in the long run, she had found their tight structures and 'family but not really family' environments stifling. Now that there were chunks of her life missing from the past two cycles it made things even more difficult for her in regards to how she felt about companies.

Sunset in Stone held the most memories for her, but only because she had been with them most recently, and she had most of her more recent ones before the incident. She had been helping Maral with the enchanting research but that had long since finished, the rest had been up to her in finding her clan-mates, if any remained alive. Outside of that she held no real attachment to the company or any of its people outside of Dorien. She didn't dislike anyone, but she didn't really consider anyone there a friend or companion either. It had been a simple affair to leave to help Dorien with his research and reopen her shop.

Being able to do research again, go relic hunting - that was an enticing proposal. It excited Maria. A part of her was curious about whatever projects Jocea's company was working on. But first she wanted to solve the mystery of Charon. That was more important than anything, considering the danger. Even if it was a goddamned voidsent.

"If ye were comin' ta m' wit' yer proposal..." Maria puts her hand through her hair and lets out a hard sigh. "If I were expandin' an' someone came ta m' wantin' m' people....I'd want compensation. Not monetary either. Manpower fer manpower. If anyone were ta sign over ta ye, then ye'd have ta supply m' wit' a network I could pull from ta get a replacement just as good. Also, it'd have ta apply ta everyone, not jus' people ye want specifically. One fer all, all fer one or whatever." she looks at Jocea. "Yer plan didn't say anythin' bout th' crafters th' company's got."

Jocea looked taken aback. "Why would I want to pull from there? Wouldn't they want to keep their crafters? That's the lifeblood of their company."

"Aye, but their trade also involves a bit o' research, engineering, an' enchantin'. They 'ave those departments fer a reason. So if ye want ta pull from one, ye need ta make th' offer ta all. Even if it's just a courtesy, it's showin' yer considerin' all their people, an' yer givin' em a network ta expand and find skilled workers from a trusted source. So even if none o' em leave, they still 'ave that network ta use fer their expansion."

"I'd not thought of that, but it's a good idea." Jocea's expression, and entire demeanor, shifts to one of interest and excitement as Maria continues. "That does make it more mutually beneficial. And well...hmm. I can put any potential blacksmiths to work with the engineers. It'll reduce costs on purchasing parts if we can just manufacture them in house. If you have any botanists, herbalists, or alchemists we could certainly use them."

"I think if ye go wit' that ye'll have somethin' fer them ta chew on. Ye may not get walked out th' door quite as fast." Maria chuckles. "As fer yer wantin' m' ta be a part o' things...I'm helpin' wit a project m'self so fer now, I'll have ta say no. But once th' dust settles I'll consider it."

Maria pulls out a few gil coins and sets them on the table before getting up. She holds out her hand to Jocea and they shake. "Anyroad, seems like fate brought us together fer a chat this eve, glad fer it. If yer ever needin' some alterations done, feel free ta stop by m' shop."

"Thank you. I'm glad I was able to meet you, this was...informative. I think my next meeting will go much smoother thanks to you. Do consider my company when you can. And I will take you up on your offer and stop by your shop. Have a pleasant evening."