#It’s a distinctive smell to strike fear in my enemies

[sparkylilacs]

Ooooookay, fine!

Mini Moose wanted me to update you all to his new “drip” look.

*drip? what does that even mean mini moose? It’s Slang? Now you’re just making up words. Huh, what do you mean computer is still auto typing! GET IT TO STOP!!!*

And after the escalating elephants, Mini Moose couldn’t decide between the two pizza stickers so we just took both.

*Was that everything Mini Moose? WHAT DO YOU MEAN the computer hasn’t been listening for the last hour! No, I am not retelling that insipid story. Just add the pictures and post it before I delete the whole thing!*

[lilmissnatcat24]

Turn Left Ch 22- (don't be suspicious, don't be suspicious)

Shepard and Garrus dive into the OSDs of Fist and Barla Von to create a new plan of action. Archangel just can't help himself.

CW: alcoholism

Relationship: Femshep/Garrus Vakarian

Archive Warnings in author's note

Additional tags: enemies to friends to lovers, slow burn, slow build, alternate universe- canon divergence, detective noir, sex club, anonymous sex, canon temporary character death, murder mystery, drug use, dom garrus vakarian, whump, smut, heavy angst, alien sex, dual pov, an overly sexual elcor named candy, earthborn, ruthless, fake/pretend relationship, dead dove: do not eat, identity porn, minor character death

Detective AU mixed with identity porn mixed with so much whump my fingers are bleeding

(or, start from the beginning here)

lil text blurb:

“I hate these fucking things,” Garrus muttered under his breath, toying with the cowl of his suit. He wasn’t used to formal wear. He could count on his fingers the times he had to dress up so ostentatiously-- and mind you, he only had six. His cape kept getting caught between his legs, the flowing fabric around his carapace was itchy, the tight squeeze around his waist made him feel like he was being ogled by just about every turian he passed. 

“Nah, you don’t,” Chellick snorted next to him, already three drinks deep before the event even began. Garrus wished he could join him-- he normally spent these stupid public galas either so drunk he couldn’t remember it the next morning, or in some storage closet with a turian woman bent over and his hands covering her mouth from yelling out too loud. “You’re preening for your girl, don’t deny it.” 

“I am not preening ,” Garrus snapped. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, he hadn’t preened his neck at a woman in years. 

“Then care to explain why you’re dislocating your neck every five seconds waiting for that Shepard woman to show up?” 

Garrus just grumbled at that. He was busy scanning the crowds because he was waiting for any sign of Benezia or her daughter Liara. They devised a plan a week ago that they would take the gala as the best opportunity to strike on the doctor. It was perfect; she couldn’t run away, there was so much going on that no one would even notice two C-Sec officers talking to a pretty, young asari, and her mother would likely be so busy with all of the politicians and dignitaries and who-the-fuck-else was even there that she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes on her. 

“Why didn’t you two show up together, anyways? Trouble in paradise?” Chellick asked with an obnoxious shove of his elbow into Garrus’s side. 

“No,” Garrus said testily. The truth was that Shepard offered for Garrus to come over to her apartment while she got ready, but Garrus declined. Something about knowing that Shepard would be naked in just the room over, putting the paint on her face and tossling her fringe, made Garrus have the distinct fear that he would hardly be able to control himself. It was hard enough keeping his plates in place while they sat on the couch in Wrex’s safehouse, but being cramped in one tiny studio with her clothes strewn about the floor and her scent overwhelming his senses? “She wanted to get ready with Elyria.” 

“Does your girlfriend know you’re still fucking that human at the sex club, or is that actually Shepard I’m smelling on you?” 

“Chellick, I wish you didn’t say the things you say.” 

[mysticstarlightduck]

Flash Fiction Friday:

Prompt: The Devil You Forgot.

@flashfictionfridayofficial, @lassiesandiego, @writernopal, @lyutenw, @rickie-the-storyteller, @writeblrcafe

Snippet from my Gothic Victorian Fantasy WIP - Enchanted Illusions.

“The Devil You Forgot:”

The trio was surrounded, in that decrepit old mansion’s library, there was little place to hide, much less, from this man. Silas Holloway, the most powerful vampire lord currently living - the first to strike down his Maker in order to ascend into power, and he was out for blood of the heir to the Van Sterlling family. 

The night was eerily silent, almost artificially cold. Silently, Clarence looked for a way out, though from chosen every path, a new vampire seemed to emerge from the shadows just before they could walk any further. Behind him, Evangeline grabbed a book from a shelf, as if it would be any good against a mob of vampires, and Thaddeus reached for his gun, knowing the lead bullets would just bounce off of any of his targets. They crouched together behind a sturdy bookshelf, careful not to make a sound as they watched shadows flicker on the faint moonlight from across the other aisles, and the creaking floors gave away their enemies approach. There was no way out. 

“You know, your father tried to do this too, a few centuries ago” A sharp, male voice echoed throughout the vast room, as if all around them. A strangled noise of fear left Clarence’s throat, but he quickly silenced himself with a hand over his mouth. Evangeline placed an arm around his shoulder as the man continued. “Thought he could escape me. He was smart, very smart. Quite a lot like you - even managed to betray me and escape unharmed.” A chuckle echoed across the dark room, and Clarence struggled not to hyperventilate, knowing it would only give away their compromised hiding spot. Thaddeus all but growled, gripping his pistol harder as he tried to see where the older vampire was talking from. “Of course, I found him, eventually. But I couldn’t catch him, and he slipped right through my fingers once more.” The man’s voice reeked with hatred behind his sarcastic facade “I would have tore this earth apart to bring that traitor to justice, but then I realized how kind the Makers can be, as he left me something far more valuable than his life, the one thing that he loved more than spiting my line of work” Silas paused, and the trio realized, with a pang, where the vampire had been standing. “A son.”

That word cut like a thousand blades as the other vampire towered over them. 

At the same moment, all of the other vampires emerged from the shadows, forming a circle behind Silas and crushing any hopes of escape under the soles of their boots. In the darkness of the library, Silas’ cruel smile shone a sickly white glow. Clarence stands on shaky feet, trying to stare down the vampire and defend the last bit of honor his House has. But all that he can do is look fearfully ahead, his eyes not nearly as unmoved as he would’ve liked. He notices Thaddeus moving his pistol upwards from the corner of his eyes, and swiftly catches his friend’s arm with one hand. That’s just going to make things worse, he shakes his head quickly, never once looking away from Silas. With less confidence than he would have liked, he steps forward, placing himself so that the weight of the Vampire Lord’s wrath falls solely on him, and not in his human friends. 

“What do you want with me?” Clarence asks, voice far shakier than he would have liked. He stiffles a wince when Silas chuckles, a cruel sound. To his terror, Clarence suddenly becomes aware of the distinct, horrid smell of silver. 

“To collect what I am owed” Silas says through gritted teeth, and before any of the three can say anything, he has a hand to the young vampire’s throat, keeping him from running and lifting him off the ground. A silver ring sizzles his way into the younger vampire’s skin in an agonizing burn, but the Vampire Lord just laughs, unmoved even though the silver ring is upon his own skin. Behind them, his allies move to restrain the two humans, who had tried to defend their friend valiantly. Silas smirks as Clarence uselessly tries to thrash his way out of his grip, bringing him closer and lowering his voice. “After all, your father seems to have well forgotten that the price of treason is blood.”

[one-boring-person]

Hiya! I had a Top Gun request! Could you maybe right something where the reader barely makes it back from a dangerous mission, and immediately she’s comforted by Ice, Mac, Goose, kind of all the guys when she gets back? Thank you so much!

Thank you for requesting, and I hope you like it!💛💛💛❤

(I've given the reader the call sign Strike, but if you want me to change it, I'm more than happy to do so😊💛)

That Was One Close Call.

Top Gun characters x reader

(Maverick, Goose, Iceman, Slider)

Warnings: violence, in-flight combat

Masterlist

"Can anyone actually see these bogeys yet?" Slider questions through the mics, voice sounding bored, though there is a distinct undertone of confusion running through it.

One by one, the rest of us, Maverick, Goose, Iceman, Arrow (my RIO) and I, deny having seen any other jets in the area, all of us flying in formation as we head to the designated area, eyeing the clear expanse of sky suspiciously as we go, making sure to pick up on any movement at all. Currently, after a good twenty minutes of flying, we've had no sightings, picking nothing up on the radars, our RIOs not spitting anything amiss in the skies around us, our actions now cautious rather than confident. Nerves race through my veins, a feeling I haven't had in months, my fingers tightening minutely around the joystick in my grasp, the jet adjusting in the air accordingly as I accidentally steer it into a different path, sweat coating my brow thanks to the sweltering confines of the cockpit, my breaths short and fast in my mouthpiece.

Just as I go to talk again, a sharp beep interrupts me, my radar having finally picked up on something, a small green dot appearing on the screen, moving rapidly towards us.

"You guys seeing this?" Maverick inquires, having clearly seen the same thing I have.

"Yeah, we got a mig on our six, moving very quickly. They're nearly o-" I go to reply only to cut off abruptly when the controls in front of me start going off, signifying that I'm under missile lock, and in great danger, the jet having closed in on us much faster than we thought it would.

"Get us out of here, Strike! They're right behind us!" Arrow speaks up, voice shrill with fear as the hulking shapes of the enemy jets drop from the sky behind us: eight much faster, more manouverable aircrafts with a higher firepower than ours, putting us at a severe disadvantage.

"I'm trying!" I bite back, annoyed that he didn't spot the bogeys on our tail sooner, having now put us in jeopardy. Gritting my teeth against the pressure forcing us into our seats, I sharply pull our jet around into a tight banking motion, inadvertently putting it into a dizzying barrel roll as I go, aiming to get out of range of their missiles, only to start in surprise and shock when gunfire suddenly pelts the side of plane. Instantly, the left engine starts smoking, the controls going crazy before me, Arrow panickedly contacting with the others, radioing for help from the carrier. Adrenaline starts to kick in, suppressing the terror and panic flooding my mind, prompting me to switch off the affected engine, knowing it will slow us down, but will also prevent us from blowing up too soon, swiftly dragging the hindered aircraft into a tight ascent, praying that I'll make it past them before they can react to me, though I know it's futile.

Yet more gunfire tears into the metal of the exterior of the jet, Arrow's only reaction now being to yell for help, helmet banging against the glass as he looks up to check the damage.

"They hit the canopy! We won't last much longer at this rate!" From my place ahead of him, I can tell he's shifting around very quickly, trying his best to gauge where the bogeys are, though he is struggling considerably, what with the migs flying at a mug faster speed, diving in and out of view, "Maverick, Iceman, where are you?!"

"They're keeping us away from you! We can't get any closer without being shot!" Goose calls back, clearly frustrated.

"Same here. Until we can get past, you're on your own." Iceman agrees grimly, the pilot sounding angry at this turn of events.

"I don't know how long we'll last like this!" I manage out as I drop the nose of the jet into a sudden dive, falling past a few of the attacking bogeys as I go, only to suddenly realise that the right engine has also been hit, the flames petering out. At this revelation, panic explodes within me, my hands instantly pulling at the joystick, trying to flick on the emergency engines to stop us from plummeting to our deaths.

Our speed continues to increase, the jet dropping faster and faster as the sea grows ever closer, Arrow screaming at me to pull up, the aircraft unwilling to shift into a more level track as the momentum carries us down. Unable to think of anything better, I slam on the air brakes, jerking the joystick around to the left, yelping as I'm thrown against the side of my seat. Responding to my actions, the aircraft rolls ungracefully into an untidy barrel roll, the world spinning before our eyes as we finally level out again, the right engine finally giving out completely as we continue to glide along the now ridiculously close ocean. Nausea rises up my throat, but it is overwhelmed by the brief sense of relief, my mood instantly dampened again as the emergency lights continue to blare loudly, notifying me of the imminent danger I'm in. The sound of Slider's voice over the mics cuts through suddenly, though I barely register what is being said due to my concentration being entirely in trying not to lose more altitude.

"We got one down, wait, no, two down!" The RIO informs us, grateful to be the bearer of good news.

Shaken, I don't manage a reply, my focus now completely on the fact that there is a bogey swiftly catching up to us, missiles ready to be released.

"We got our two down, too." Maverick reports, Goose assenting this seconds later.

"We need help!" Arrow finally speaks up, having noticed that I am apparently incapable of saying anything.

"We're on our way!" The others respond, only too happy to help.

Another, more shrill alarm starts ringing in my ears, the tone dreadfully familiar: we're running out of fuel.

"Guys, we're in serious trouble here, we've got to get back soon!" Arrow informs the others, having noticed the same thing as me, checking the gauge with apprehension.

My pulse pounds in my ears, creating a white noise I can barely hear over, dark spots starting to dance at the edge of my vision as I realise the gravity of the situation, tremors going up and down my body as it struggles to remain upright, fingers locked tightly around the joystick.

"...we got another two down, the rest are going home. We need to get back now!" A voice somewhere says, but I don't quite register it, only just managing to keep the jet above the sea line now.

It's only when Arrow places a hand on my shoulder that I snap out of my reverie, instinctually pulling the jet up again, using an uplifting air current to lift us a little higher, back into the safe zone. Wordlessly, I guide the aircraft back to the carrier, only just grazing the runway as I land it, the wires thankfully catching us as we threaten to hurtle over the edge again. I taxi the jet into a stationary position, hands still shaking as I try to unclasp the canopy, fingers fumbling with the security measures, the broken window sliding back as I finally manage it, my body heaving itself out of the cockpit and onto the runway. Once on solid ground (ish) I make it all of three steps, before I collapse to my knees, Arrow instantly at my side.

"Strike? Are you ok? (Y/n)?" The RIO interrogates me, crouching beside me, arm around my shoulders.

"What happened?! " Maverick's concerned voice is loud in my ears as he, Goose, Ice and Slider all rush over, the rest of them having noticed my residence on the floor. Immediately, the four of them are on the floor around me, helmets discarded on the concrete behind them as they start fussing over me. I feel my helmet being taken off, my body being pulled into a larger, more muscular one, the smell of peppermint and sweat clearly belonging to Iceman, a scent which had always made me feel safe, his arms cradling me against his chest as he strokes my back, trying to get a response out of me. When he pulls away, he looks me in the eye, at which point I finally lose it, tears flooding from the corners of my eyes, sobs wracking my body as I bury my face into my hands, barely noticing as Maverick moves closer, whispering sweet nothings as he rubs my back soothingly. Both Goose and Slider sit there a little awkwardly at first, before they swiftly move forwards to help, the former pushing my hair from my face as the latter takes my hand in his, neither of them saying anything, though they have ready smiles for me when I look up at them. When I catch sight of them, a small smile of my own pushes at my lips, the corners quirking up a little, the expression slowly growing as Goose grins at me in relief.

"There she is!" He comments, patting my knee appreciatively, eyes glittering happily.

"I'm gonna have to start calling you The Invincible One at this rate. That was one close call!" Slider jokes, trying to cheer me up with his usual brash humour.

"Suits you." Goose adds, nodding at me.

"No it doesn't." I manage to say, my voice hoarse and rough from my crying, still smiling at them.

"Are you joking? Of course it does!" Slider protests, grin broadening as I laugh. Maverick and Iceman exchange a glance over the top of my head, the former moving to stand up. Looking down at us, he offers me his hand with a smile of his own, easily pulling me up (even if it is with a bit of Iceman's help), steadying me against his chest.

"Come on, you'll feel better after a shower." He says to me, vending over to pick up our helmets from the floor, the others quickly moving to join us as we walk towards the changing rooms. As we walk, Slider wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his taller body a little, the sense of safety that accompanies this making me feel better about myself. By now, Arrow has already moved to the changing rooms, preferring to face difficulties alone, rather than with us, the RIO clearly trusting the others to do a good job of comforting me, which, of course, they have.

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Breakthrough' : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"Breakthrough"

"The following fight you will do is going to be inside of you, Yirina."

Chapter Summary : As her worst fears became real because of Stitch & Freya, Yirina is forced to relive the same implanted memories she was given by Adler but she need to stay strong to win....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3300

Taglist : @snowgoldwaylon , @clxudtea , @efingart

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

I couldn't resist, I couldn't fight to avoid this to happen again....my worst fear came to life this day and if it wasn't the CIA this time, it was now much worse with Stitch in command of the whole thing. All he needed to do was to put me on that stretcher, forcing Park to watch me suffer on it while everyone around was witnessing the whole thing : Freya...and also Dedov, Zasha's brother. He was certainly brainwashed by him as he wasn't able to recognize me and Stitch stepped in to avoid me to talk more...until he pronounced the phrase....

My body was in an little pain when I opened back my eyes in an slowly way, my head hurting me behind and feeling that I was something that was reversed. When my eyes were fully operational, I could see that I was in an crashed Huey while sounds of fighting all around me was getting heard all over the place. It was just me...only me in that chopper, the pilots were dead and the others did already left the wreck before me. I removed the belt that was attaching me to one of the seat before my body went almost limp as I got away.

"Fuck, my head." I grunted in pain after that little fall from my seat, holding my left hand behind my head as I crawled to the only opened door of the Huey, finding that I was at almost 5 meters from the ground.

"Bell !" An voice came into my head. As I thought first to be Adler, it turns out to be Stitch himself, he was the master of my actions. "You crashed down but you didn't hesitate any second, you jumped out of the wreck." He said as I was watching down and unfortunately, I had to follow his orders.

"Shit." I muttered before I could jump out of the Huey but I was nearly going to fall with my head first on the ground. I managed however to fall on my feets but I was like pinned down. "Damnit !" I almost shouted after I nearly got killed by that fall.

"Bell, take this !" An american soldier arrived near me, holding an M16A1 in his left hand, another in the right one.

"Thanks." I told him, taking the gun in hands.

"Come on, let's show this viet-congs what are capable of." He nodded at me as he was going to walk back into the battlefield but the first thing he saw was an viet-cong soldier charging at him with an bayonet strapped on an AK-47 and bad for him as he was hit by the soldier at the chest but I shot 3 bullets in retaliation against the enemy but it was too late to save the american.

"You took his M16 and you joined your brothers-in-arms to neutralize the ambush the viet-congs did against you." Stitch spoke up, causing me to move without disobeying his orders as I joined up an cover with another american soldier.

"Heartbeats is fine for the moment, sir !"

"Good, let's continue the memory."

"Bell, good to see that you're went out alive." The soldier I was next to me in cover taunted me, looking at him with curiosity inside of me.....what am I doing ?....."Bell, you're here ?" He demanded, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

"Yeah, I'm here." I broke away from my thoughts, regaining consciousness of the situation.

"These viet-congs are blocking the way for you to get to that bunker, help us for that and go for your objective." He suggested, putting his hand on my left shoulder.

"And what about any supports ?" I questioned him, getting out of cover to fire some bullets on an few soldiers that attempted to charge us. "I don't have support ?"

"You got this, Bell." The man told me with an suspicious grin as he fired away with his M16.

I don't know how I could feel about all of this, it was so real but also so fake at the same time as I realize that I couldn't let myself get hit by an bullet or trying anything stupid. Like this american soldier said, I had to help those men to eliminate the viet-congs for me and I did. I could have let them like that but I'm not like that. It took us only 2 minutes to get rid of the enemy presence in the sector and everyone was cheering for that victory...not me....

"Come on, your path is free !" The same man told me and I had to comply but to go alone in that dirt path that was going deeply inside the jungle.

"Good, you're following the orders, continue !" Stitch expressed, hearing his voice through my head as I arrived near an crossroads....the same one I was faced....one to the left leading to the jungle and an village, the middle inside an old temple and the right one, leading to the river. "The russian bunker were on your right by the river, you need to take that path." He ordered as I was staying still in the middle of crossroads.

"Go fuck yourself !"  I cursed, trying to break the control that he has over me as I decided to disobey and to take the left path, going inside the jungle.

"Her heart is starting to go faster, Stitch, what's happening ?"

"She's disobeying the orders, let's inject her again !"

"Sir, we have to let her finish the scenario or it will have bad consequences."

I walked myself inside the jungle at my left but then, I stopped myself  when I saw an white light coming out of the tree and knowing the danger, I fired some bullets in its direction and when I was finished, the light wasn't anymore and the body of an enemy soldier fell of the tree....before someone tried to charge me with their AK-47 but this time, I managed to counter him with my own M16 and to take his gun in my own hands before I could stab him with his own bayonet.

An deep breath and I was back on walking again...until I arrived at that same wooden bridge I could remember this well. The time was like stopped in that part, seeing american soldiers fighting against some viet-congs soldiers that surprised them but then....on the side of the bridge, I could see him....like I did before....Lazar, standing up and looking at me, wearing that same Burger Town shirt.

"Lazar !" I yelled, passing through the frozen soldiers, starting to cross the bridge by running forwards. "Laz', don't go !" I exclaimed loudly as I was seeing him going to the left again, walking very fast. "Lazar." I whispered when I arrived at the other side, looking at my left as I thought to see him again but he was walking too fast.

At my left where Lazar walked, I know that I will have to help another group of soldiers and it was the same thing at my right. I couldn't go back to the bridge, an wooden barrier having literally spawned behind me, making me realize that each step made was meaning that I couldn't make an simple step back behind. I was forced to advance without looking back...I was trapped.

"Let's go....let's go to the left." I chuckled to myself, engaging myself into the path that Lazar took and as I was in the middle of the way, my M16 suddenly disappear from my hands to be replaced by an sniper rifle....an Pellington 703. "What the...." I whispered, discovering the gun in my hands.

"Help ! Over here !" The voice of an man was echoing at the end of the path, urging me to run to its position....to discover an american soldier with an radio near him. "Bell, here !" He said, having seen me arrive....is everyone one knowing me here ?

"What's happening ?" I asked him curious as his men were fighting viet-congs near an house.

"I called an napalm strike, use your rifle and take out all the enemies you can shoot at until our boys arrived." He proposed, making signs towards my rifle, obligating me to use it against the enemies.

I was forced to do but I had no choices but to fire with that sniper rifle against the viet-congs position that was harrasing the soldiers downhill and an few shooting at our position until the fighters arrived at our sector, two F-4 Phantoms dropping their loadouts of napalm on the house, eliminating  every presence of these viet-congs in the sector and again, causing the americans soldiers to cheer in triumph.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning !" The man that was using the radio scoffed around before he look back at me. "Go on, Bell, go check that bunker." He ordered, pointing at the distinctive red door behind the flaming ruins of the house.

"On it !" I complied before I start to go down the hill, keeping that red door in visual until...I could see Lazar, in front of the door. "Lazar, wait !" I yelled again, dropping my sniper rifle on the ground and starting to run towards the red door, traversing through the ruins to join the door.

"You arrived at the bunker, open the door, Bell !" Stitch asked me to do and I took an deep breath as I opened the door but instead of finding an hallway, I was like in an black void with only an torture chair, with me.....Park & Adler near it before the two were getting switched between 5 seconds of Stitch & Freya.

"She's trying to struggle, what does that mean ?"

"She has finished the first scenario but she's not in the bunker, Dedov !"

"Let me find the new injection quick, sir !"

"So, they're doing it ?" I turned around to see Lazar standing just behind me, slowly walking towards the torture chair with me. "The CIA and now....Perseus."

"I couldn't resist, Lazar." I breathed, catching back my breath after everything I've done for the moment. "I'm....losing this fight, you see what they're doing."

"I know but it's not the end !" He exclaimed as the switch of the duos stopped, only showing Freya & Stitch near the torture chair. "I know that you're better than this."

"I want to think about that but...I basically lost any hope now." I expressed, feeling this pain in my chest, trying to look away from him in shame. "I've been told that I'm better than this but at moments, I'm feeling that isn't true at all." I added, holding my left arm, the wound I had in real life....taking form here. "I want help but where I can find it ?" I asked him.

"You don't need help if you already have it, Yirina." He replied, sounding very sure of his words as for me, I was looking at him back with narrowed eyes, slowly moving to get to him.

"What...why ?....where's my help ?" I asked again very curious as I was going to touch him...until he got transported at an few meters behind him.

"Here's the injection for the next scenario, our last one for the day !"

"No time to waste, Stitch, inject it now !"

"Yirina...just....take care of her, okay ?" He demanded from me as he pointed towards me, something getting wrapped around my waist before I realized that it was something hooking me to a rope going up.

"No, no, no !" I raised my voice, trying to remove that rope from me before I got myself ejected away from him. "Lazar !" I screamed in pain as my eyes were forcely closed by something or someone.

"Bell !" Stitch's voice spoke up. "You need to stay focus on the mission, you got to go to the bunker in the jungle." He exclaimed as I could feel him near me in the real world. "Bell, we have an job to do !" He repeated, causing me to blackout and feeling to return back into the beginning.

"Fuck, my head !" I muttered again as I found myself back into the crashed Huey, hanging in the trees but this time, already removed from the seat.

"Your helicopter crashed down, you jumped and you go help the americans." Stitch ordered, sounding an bit annoyed as I moved to get to the only opened door of the Huey.

"Not again !" I muttered before I redid the same landing back on the ground, this time fully-controlled and not even having an scratch or any pain on my body.

"Bell, take that gun !" The same man as before arrived with the same M16 he handed to me....in that...other scenario.....

"Thanks." I nodded to him but as I already knew what was going to happen, I shot bullets towards the soldier that was going to charge him with his bayonet, saving the man's life....and this...it was looking to change something....

"Damn, you...you saved my life." The man was looking surprised and shocked by that, thinking that he was going to die, needed to die. "How...how did you know ?" He asked me.

"Just...thanks me later !" I told him before taking his own gun to give it back. "Now, go help your friends." I suggested with an grin.

"Yeah...I will...thanks, Yirina." He expressed, sending chills inside my body...my real memories are looking to interfere with my implanted ones.

"Something's wrong here, there's things that shouldn't be happening !"

"Sir, her heartbeats are fine, they're nothing wrong !"

"She's making good progress, Stitch, continue your orders !"

"Bell, you took that rifle and you go help your 'brothers-in-arms'." He repeated again in an clear voice and no longer annoyed tone and by that, I started to move to the same cover I used before, with the same guy as before but now, also with the man that I saved an few seconds ago with him. The situation were looking more better, Stitch becoming less present in my head each time I was firying my M16 and then, looking at the direction of the dirt path....I could see...

"Park ?" I whispered, seeing her standing from afar at the beginning of the dirt path, like if she was awaiting for me.

"We're progressing good !" The saved man exclaimed, peaking his head towards the paddy fields. "Yirina, did you see Park over there ?" He questioned me, making my eyes go wide....everyone in the implanted memories were starting to know my real me.

"She's at this dirt path, you need to get to her quick before they started all over again." The other man told me as we were both seeing Park slowly leaving the path and the terrain behind me, disappearing.

"If we don't do anything, he's going to inject her, man !" The saved him expressed, looking worried as an little tear came out of my eyes, this was becoming so real to me....

"Let me think..." The other man started to think while the bullets were flying above our cover before he reloaded his M16. "Ok !" He breathed before he looked at everyone on the american side. "Everyone, at our mark, we charge to let Yirina pass to the dirt path, we're doing this for her !"

"Understood !" Some americans soldiers said in unison as the two with me were putting their knifes as bayonets on their respectives M16s as for me, I was getting to run towards the path.

"CHARGE !" The other man yelled, launching the suicidal assault of every americans soldiers towards the viet-congs position and me, receiving an nodding of the man I saved before I started to run to the dirt path.

"Thanks"  I saluted the men quickly for their courages as I arrived near the path, an tears on my eyes before I started to run through it. "Park !" I shouted her name as I arrived at the crossroads, seeing Park going to the left.

"Bell, the bunker is in front of you in the temple, enter it now !" Stitch ordered in an strict voice but Park went right down the river and there were no red door in front of me so...fuck his orders !...

"Like I said, go fuck yourself !" I repeated my insults to him as I runned to the right path, going down to the river.

"Her heartbeat is going off the charts but...she's following the orders !"

"I asked her to go in the middle, not the right path !"

"Sir, you have confused the future scenarios for her, she needed to go to the right !"

"No, I was clear and she disobeyed, let's inject her again !"

"I'm not letting you do this, Stitch ! You can kill her because of you !"

"Park !" I continued to yell as I arrive in the level of the river but then, multiples red doors were starting to fall over from the skies.

"Bell, you need to open this door, NOW !" Stitch proclaimed loudly but I couldn't enter any of this doors, I needed to continue to find Park.

He was certainly controlling some parts of the implanted memories like Adler did but he wasn't able to control the real piece of it....me ! I navigated through the river, avoiding the multiple red doors from Stitch until I could see Park entering one red door at the end of the river near an fall, meaning that this one were the right one to take but Stitch was persistent, he was still ordering me to enter one of these fake red doors but I fought...I struggled...I avoided his traps and I managed to reach the real red door and to open it.

When I entered, I was back into that same black void I faced earlier but this time, it was just an vision of Park herself with nothing around her....nothing and just her in front of me. I slowly walked towards her, exhausted and my arm wound reappaering again like if I was making an real discussion with her. I couldn't know what to think right now.

"I know that you were going to do this !" Park started, sounding very positive as I was troubled.

"Did I ?" I asked her, worried.

"Of course, you won, Yiri !" She turned around to look at me with an smile...something I was able to do for the first time inside those implanted memories.

"How...how did I won, Park ?" I demanded, curious, still moving to get to her.

"You didn't see ?" She whispered with an grin. "You managed to control those implanted memories from Adler, judged impossible to do." She explained, joining her hands together. "The people you saw first, they were adressing you as 'Bell' but then, they realized....that you....you were more than just that." She added, also moving to me.

"What does that mean ? I won but my situation....." I stopped myself, falling on my knees, completely exhausted by everything, my both hands on the ground.

"They're thinking that they won you back for the moment." She revealed to me. "They thought that controlling you after having faced MK-Ultra was going to be child play but you proved them wrong." She continued, kneeling in front of me.

"I proved them wrong." I said in an low voice, looking down at the invisible black ground.

"I gave you the means to fight the MK-Ultra, Lazar also did, Bell too." She told me, getting slowly my attention on her face as I slowly realized what 'Bell' in my dreams was trying to do....give me hope...."You won that fight, Yiri." She expressed, putting her right hand on my left cheek, causing me to install comfortably my head in it.

"The scenario is finished, now is time to await for her to wake up !"

"Good ! Wraith, call me back when she's back in our world !"

"Listen, we don't have much time but hope isn't lost." Park make me listen as we both feel that this moment were going to end soon enough. "Our way to leave this hell...will be in the inside, you will get us out of here."

"I will do it, Park, I promise." I promised her, starting to slowly cry before I moved my arms around her to hug her and she quickly reciprocrated the move with me, holding each other as my body were starting to go limp, meaning my passing out was here....

"We will escape this hell together....like we both promised !"

[just-mirko]

BINARY  

BNHA HACKER AU - CHAPTER 4

MASTERLIST

Mirko x F!Reader

Warnings: HAWKS BEING A SUS BITCH 2.0 #peghawks2020 

WC: 2k 

(A/N: This is unedited! Please message me if you spot any annoying mistakes! I will probably have the edited version up in a day or two!)

__

 “Then with that I leave you, my students, sleep well!”

 He left for the doors and closed them behind him, effectively leaving 15 teenage criminals in a room together.

Hah.

__

            After principal Nezu left, the crowd dispersed. Many chose to scout out their dorms instead of interacting. Each person was a loaded gun. Aimed at their enemies or themselves did not matter, we were all afraid for when the first bullet would strike.

             That being said, most seemed overall relaxed. Students would try to start conversation and socialize, which was apparent by the mumble of voice within the school’s halls that returned from before Nezu gave his brief speech.

             I was turning towards the dorm hallway with my bags in hand. The gentle tap of my shoes along the hardwood floors could be heard in crisp, purposeful taps. Right as I walked through the threshold of the door connecting the dorm corridor and the main hall, I heard footsteps growing louder behind me.

             I kept walking forward and kept a close eye at the plaques on each room’s door that signified who was housed where.

             The footsteps continued getting closer until in my peripheral vision I could see a lock of white hair swaying.

             “You again?” I asked, feigning annoyance. Of course, her presence wasn’t exactly unwanted but it was unneeded.

             “Mmmhmm” Mirko hummed while gazing down at me.

             The image of her and Hawks pushed itself into the forefront of my mind, leaving residues of anger wherever it bounced in my brain.

             “So… you and Hawks?” I looking at the hallway door when I said it. I slowed my walking down to almost a complete stop before turning towards her.

             “Are you guys dati-“ I made the mistake of looking into her piercing red eyes and caught a glare, making me stop my sentence.

             I held my breath for a second, thinking I angered her in some way, but to my surprise she let out a laugh.

             “You got so scared! Look at you! You’re just a bottom little bunny” She relaxed and leaned her arm down to rest on my shoulder. The height difference was so obvious when she was standing this close.

             “C’mon (Y/N), lighten up, combat training is going to be a breeze! I bet the view from the floor will be nice.”

             Did she just- never mind.

             “Oh as if.” I rolled my eyes and started walking again towards my door that came into view. She followed me and watched as struggled with the door.

             The doorknob was plain and silver, with a  small black pad above it. I was more than confused.

             “Were we supposed to get a key or something?”

             I continued jamming the doorknob and pressing at the black pad in frustration. It was getting late, and being locked out of my room wasn’t on my list of things I can emotionally handle.

             One of Mirko’s hands came to rest at about my elbow from behind me. Delicately moving her hands up towards me wrist, she paused, before gently holding the back my hand, her nails ghosting against my palm.

             My heart was racing, none of her arm’s subtle movements went unnoticed. I feared that with how close she was, with her right behind me, and this, whatever this is, she could hear my heartbeat pounding in my chest.

             She guided my hand towards the black pad and brought my left pointer finger down on the sensor.

             With a small green light and a click, the door swung open. She kept her grasp on my hand for what felt like a moment too long yet still too short before stepping back and turning towards the door across from me room.

             “The doors are locked via fingerprint,” She stated matter-of-factly with a smirk.

             “Tell me if you have any more troubles (y/n), I’m right next door.” She seemed way too pleased with herself when she walked back into her room, not sparing a glance over towards me, standing in the door frame of my room when her’s closed.

             That night I laid awake staring at the ceiling, just as I had done last night. Though the only difference was last night I was contemplating to even go here, now I was contemplating how I would even survive here.

             The dorms were nice and decently sized for the whole ‘underground secret society’ thing. A bathroom with all the basics including a deep bathtub, a queen bed, a mini fridge, and coffee machine. What set t apart from average was two things. Color changing lights that were set under the bed and desk, giving everything a vibrant glow (A/N no reason for the lights they just look cool :))

               The last special thing in the room was a giant black desk, obviously set up for a giant desktop and even more hardware, but the surface with unscratched, unused, and empty. It sat in the corner of the room alone, unlike the other areas that had lamps, colored lights, or fake plants; the desk had nothing.

             I would still have to grow accustomed to the new and pristine room. It smelled clean. Like fresh disinfectant and fake lavender that is just slightly off from the real thing. I could not say I missed the cans of soda on the floor and random sticky notes everywhere.

             The old apartment was crammed with miscellaneous objects. All the things I was too attached to throw out, but not too attached to leave all together, I guess.

             I rolled over, suddenly very aware of my awakens. I checked my clock. A large sigh eased from my lungs. It was only 11pm. That meant I was not losing too much sleep on my first day. I could only imagine how screwed I would be if those led screen lights were showing 3am or any other blatantly early time.

              I guess since I was awake, it would not hurt to get a snack or something. From my recollection, I remember seeing a café like area in the common room, though I was too preoccupied to look at it for too long. They might have a granola bar or some snack I could eat. I was really craving chocolate milk right now.

             I was in the slightly delirious sleepy stage of consciousness. The point where I had no filter to what I said, and no self-preservation. In said state, I threw on some slippers, grabbed my phone and grudgingly walked out to the hallway.

             “choccy milk, choccy milk!” I whispered to myself in a singsong voice. The walk to the end of the hallway seemed to only last a split second before I was there, at the door to the common room.

             “choccy milk, choccy milk!” I reached towards the doorknob, shivering once the chilled metal touched my fingers. Right as I was about to pull the door with my weak and tired muscles, I heard shuffling from the other side of the door.

             I opened it slowly, and peering in through the crack in the door. Though dark, and his back was towards me, I could recognize the distinct frame of Hawks. The dirty bastard. Why he be actin lik- my thoughts were interrupted by two sharp clicks. On the floor he sat a suitcase and opened it up. It was the same one that had the red unidentified fluff in it. More fuzz was on it than before, apparent as it stood out among the black fabric casing.

             He moved in front of the suit case and blocked my view, but I could watch as he crouched down an opened it up. Suddenly, a flurry of red came spiraling out and circling around hawks. He stood up and the shapes were revealed to be feathers, each one different than the next. The continued to storm around like he was standing in the eye of a hurricane surrounded. Feather by feather they collected by his shoulders, forming broad wings that’s wingspan was around 10 ft.

             He ruffled the wings around, spreading them out and even doing a test flap, which sent a gust of air in all directions. While he was… adjusting them? Stretching them?

             This had to have been his quirk. And it was an amazing one at that. This was my rival? How was I supposed to beat that?

             “Woah” I silently whispered. His wings twitched at the sound, and it appeared all the feathers stood up straight. He quickly turned around, his wings taking on a defensive position and each feather spiking outward like tiny knives. I quickly hid behind the door, hoping he didn’t see me, though he definitely heard me.

             My heart pounded in my chest, and I held my breath, knowing now that whatever his quirk was, it enhanced his hearing.

             I slightly turned my head to my ear was pressed up against the wall and I could hear anything he did. I cringed at the slight scratch of one of my earrings against wooden door and paused again.

             Through the polished wood and all the space between us, I  made out his footsteps beginning again as he walked away from the door. The breath I held in my lungs released shakily. My eyes darted across the hallway, which suddenly seemed so much longer. The expanse of parallel lines from the crown molding and the wallpaper and everything made me feel like caving in.

             I had barely dodged that encounter, and I know it would not have been good if he found me snooping. I was not my intention, but it did give me a slight advantage. I knew his quirk.

             I knew his quirk.

             Unlike someone’s fake name or hacker alias, quirks were something you can change. They stuck with you the rest of your life, one of very few constants we could have. And because quirks, especially unique ones like Hawks’, were specific to each person they not only would let me find his real identity quickly, but also gain information on his past, something most people in this life tried to forget.

             I had no intention of using this information maliciously, it was more or less self-defense. If he was out for me, its only fair that I get to build a shield. I was just evening the playing fields.

             My brain was vacant of all prior need for choccy milk, now, all I wanted was answers, though for now those would have to wait. My smartphone said it was almost midnight, and I already started things at this academy on the wrong foot, I don’t want that to repeat with my teachers.

             I guess it was foolish of me to believe I was always one step ahead of everyone. I was untouchable, invisible, I had power. I forgot that people don’t get into this school on daddy’s money or luck, they’re here for a reason.

             But at that time I didn’t care, of course I didn’t, I just narrowly avoided my current rival, and walked away unnoticed. Untouchable.    

             I went to sleep quickly. I woke up early. I slept well. The next day started good. I made coffee and pondered over the empty desk once more. I was ignorant.

[queenmuzz]

Three Sparda’s and a Baby....  Part II

I’m sorry if you were expecting a cute fluffy story about three grown men attempting to take care of a baby....

Devils Never...

Ao3 link here.

Devils never feel pain.   Well, not in this way,  they can feel the pain of flesh burning, tearing, ripping, but not the deep cutting pain in his chest, scouring through his nerves like acid, through his shoulder and down his arm, ending at his ring finger…. Or did the pain originate from his finger, and then into his chest?  Because on that finger was a slender gold band, a ring connecting him something he valued above nearly everything. Sparda freezes at the sensation. It’s a warning, but of what?

The answer may lay in what he holds in his other hand, dangling, choking, and yet still cackling.   He’s heard rumours of hell gates opening up bearing a familiar three pronged symbol, and demons bearing the same sigil.  And now, after weeks of searching, he’s finally gotten the culprit in his grasp. But why is there pain?

The three headed demon is down to one functioning head, the left snake one has been decapitated, the right lion one has had his jaw shattered, leaving the central goat one practically giggling in the Dark Slayer’s face.

“Heheheh” it wheezes before it coughs up black ichor, “It seems the Master’s plan has come to fruition, and I” another cough “am honoured to have played my part in your destruction” “Enough with your riddles!” Sparda barks, “Where is he!”

“Your betrayal was enough to keep Him contained, but thanks to your laxness, His servants have found out your greatest weakness.”  Its eyes close in pleasure, “I will die knowing that you will lose everything….” it lets a final neighing shriek of delight, before Sparda dispatches the wretch.  

Devils never value anything other than their own lives. In the Underworld, each demon looks out for what is most important, themselves.  Even when they submit to another demon, it is in order to preserve their own safety, or to gain an advantage against another.  

But Sparda knows exactly what this abomination is speaking of, and as the fetid corpse dissolves into ash, he realizes he’s walked into a trap.  He’s been led on a wild goose chase (humanity has always found charming turn of phrases, he’s realized), and unfortunately, he’s not going to be the one to pay the price.  He needs to get home as fast as possible. But he’s been led so far, that even by flying at supersonic speeds will take him a few hours. If only he had Yamato….but alas, he had given it to his eldest on his eighth birthday, as well as Rebellion to his brother (and of course, they had begged to take it to show-and-tell the next day, much to their mothers exasperation.)  So as he reforms into his true state, and unfurls his wings, all he can do is pray to any Divinity that is willing to listen, to keep what he treasures most safe…  

The burning pain continues until he’s around halfway the way home, and then the pain abruptly stops, replaced by ice cold.  This doesn’t make Sparda feel any better.

*****

Devils never panic.  When faced with unexpected circumstances, they automatically react in set patterns, analyzing their opponents and situations, and how to maximize it to  their own advantage. No emotion is used, it is all instincts.

He arrives, in the middle of a destructive thunderstorm, to a home that is ablaze, despite the rain.  Winds howl and thunder roars, but it’s not enough to drown out his screams of rage. There are a few remaining demons scuttling about, and he slaughters them with the finesse of two millennia of skill. But what of his wife, his children?

He braves the flames and rushes inside, screaming his wife’s name, his sons’ names, but the crackling fire obscures even his sight… surely they must be safe, surely they must have escaped…

And there he sees her, surrounded by runes of protection, keeping the flames at bay.  Red and black and gold cloth, cascading like a fountain… except she’s not moving. He rushes forward, to find her collapsed, her eyes open in fear, her mouth open in a silent scream.  Her long slender neck, something he used to find beautiful about her, where he placed the perfect amulet of silver and gold and ruby, is at an unnatural angle. Even so, he turns back into his human form, and places two trembling fingers on her jugular, hoping for some movement… There. Is. Nothing.

Devils never value their mates. To a demon, a mate is just a necessary inconvenience to reproduce.  Thus, they choose their mates based on who is the strongest, (but not too strong, one does not want to submit to a mate, but not too weak, for the progeny will inherit that weakness).  And after the deed is done, both go their separate ways, although sometimes, a last battle, often to the death, happens.

Sparda cradles his beloved wife in his arms, rocking her lifeless body back and forth.  She was the light in his life, a beautiful sunbeam that scattered the clouds of his soul.  Her voice, clear and sweet, could lull even the insomniac Dark Slayer into a deep slumber.

And now, she was gone, never to smile at him, nor to comb her long fingers through his hair, nor to kiss his nose, nor even to tell him how much she loved him.  It was all his fault. He had sworn on the day of his marriage to love and protect her, and he had failed. He’d become too confident, too relaxed, and she had paid the price…

All he could do now was  avenge her death. Perhaps it was in Mundus’s plans, but Sparda knew what he must do; rip open the barrier  between the worlds and take his revenge against the so called ‘God-Emperor’. He’d either cast him down, or die in the attempt.  His demon blood demanded it.

But there was still a matter that stopped him from going on a rampage….his sons.  He looked around, terrified he’d find their bodies, but all he could see were the shades of corpses of lower level demons.  Each smelled of magic, or gunpowder, signifying that however she had died, she had made it as hard as possible for her enemies.  But one corpse, located at the doorway didn’t have the smell of either...it smelled of the blade of Rebellion. That could only mean that little Dante had been here, hopefully attempting an escape  And as Sparda attempted to follow the trail, he could only hope that his youngest son had escaped.

Devils never feel terror.   They can inflict terror on humans, and in some circumstances, they can feel dread in the presence of particularly strong demons, (Sparda has caused that to infinite numbers of lesser demons)  But fear, or terror? No, a demon cannot feel it.

Sparda runs through the driving rain, torn between screaming for his sons, and keeping silent, afraid that it will lure them out, easy pickings for the demons.  He’s terrified that they’ve already been killed, or worse, captured. He knows the lengths Mundus has gone to subjugate anyone who has defied him (the Nobodies were once somebodies, before Mundus performed his tortures on them), and what better way to punish his former second in command, if he could not take him himself?

Lightning illuminates the muddy path, showing the corpses of yet more demons, these ones fresher, and not cut by Rebellion.  These ones were cut cleaner, if still a bit amateurish….obvious work of Yamato. He stills, straining to hear over the wind, rain, and thunder, and his ears pick up three sounds.

First, Dante’s terrified voice, “How much farther to the safe house?”

Secondly, Vergil’s, hissed “Shhhhh, you idiot!  They’ll hear us!”

And thirdly, to Sparda’s horror, the soft sound of what seemed to be blades being sharpened.  He takes his true form, striking from the shadows to find the Death Scissor at the base of a tree, skulking for what had to be the twins.  It doesn’t even have a chance to fight back, as he dispatches it with one swift slice. All it could do was shriek in protest as it dissipates into mist, its mask all that remains, before it is crushed under his heel.  He faces the tree (an old oak that he planted nearly a century and a half ago, when he first built the now burnt out manor), and in the flash of lightning, he sees his boys, both soaked to the bone, flattening their distinctive hairstyles to the point that they’re no longer distinguishable.  Although, Sparda can tell it’s Vergil, simply because he attempts to wield Yamato confidently.

“S-stay back!” his eldest says to him, obviously terrified.  Dante, equally petrified, clutches his brother’s shoulder. It breaks the Demon’s heart...his sons, while aware of their father’s identity, have only seen his true form rarely.  So he retakes his human manifestation, and calls to them.

Dad!

Father!

Both sons run towards him, and he holds them close.  They are both safe and unharmed, praise be, and he picks them up, to take them to the safe house, a place that will, be a sanctuary, if only temporarily.

“What about mother?” Vergil questions, and for once, the proud and eloquent Sparda is left speechless.  How to tell his sons that their beloved mother will never sing to them, never kiss them goodnight, never tell them how much she loves them?

“Vergil…” Dante says, and their father knows that the younger boy was there when his mother fell, perhaps in order to save him.  Does Dante feel guilty? He should not… It is his father who is to blame.

“We have no time, we must move” he says, clutching both sons as he speeds through the forest, leaving the hellscape behind.

Devils never care for their offspring .  The males usually leave after mating, and the females almost always abandon their young as soon as possible.  If they perish? Then they were weak, and not worth worrying about. That is the way of the Underworld, the weak are winnowed and the strong are considered rivals.

Sparda sits in the cushioned chair in the small cabin, Vergil leans on his left side, Dante, his right.  Both have been changed out of their cold wet clothes, toweled off, and now, hours after midnight, they’ve both finally passed out, clutching their swords, as if they are teddy bears.  Their father remains awake, alert to any dangers. But, as the storm finally subsides, he senses no danger and allows himself to relax, and to think of the future. Obviously, it is too dangerous to stay here, they must flee.  But to where? Sparda has accumulated residences and properties over the centuries, in various states of repair (Fortuna sounds tempting, but he has always been uncomfortable about living in an area that reveres him as a god) He needs to find a place with a good school, yet large enough where he and his boys can live in comfortable anonymity.  His sons need new sets of clothing, footwear, books (for Vergil), and toys (for Dante). And Eva….

He needs to go back in the morning, no matter the danger, to retrieve what he can, and to give her an honest burial.  She deserves that at least. She’d deserved so, so much more, but he’s failed her. He will have to bring her sons with him, to keep them safe from danger.  They would never leave his protection ever again. He must keep her legacy safe, to honour her memory, to give himself a purpose.

Despite the rain finally stopping, he feels wetness on his cheeks.  A leak on the roof? Or maybe he had forgotten to dry off his own hair….

Because as everyone knows…

Devils never Cry.

[inuyashasnook]

Feral - Chapter Two

I’m pretty sure that I’ll try to upload this series every Sunday. However, I can’t make the promise it’ll always be released on time due to the fact that I’m pretty much always on call for work. I absolutely need this summer job even if the schedule is pretty crappy since I’m applying to vet school in September and need a secondary vet on my application. Oh well. My s/o is also on weird night-shift schedules 7 on/ 7 off, possibly changing to 10 on/4 off out of town, and since I haven’t seen him for the last 4 months really, I want to spend some time with him. Plus, I’m the process of adopting an adorable kitten, in two Saturdays from now, so I’ll be missing in action that entire weekend since she’s 10 hours away from where I currently live.

So, I’ll try my best to stick to this schedule, but it might not always be feasible.  

I also want to thank everyone for the kind words and all the positive feedback on this story so far! It really warms my heart! I originally had no idea how this story idea would turn-out, but I’m glad people enjoy it!

I’ve been editing this for over 8 hours and I’m certain it’s still covered in grammatical errors. I apologize! 

»»———————————————- ♡ —————————————««
 Feral: Chapter 2 // FF.net Rating: M (nothing graphic, a bit more suggestive than the last chapter)

<< Previous Chapter // Next Chapter >>

After the tub had finished filling with warm water at a level she deemed acceptable, the professor figured it was time to invite over her new housemate. She’d have to think of a clever way of luring him out because he had taken off the second he had realised what was about to happen.

He was just like a puppy - curious at first, but gone in a flash at the sudden sight of danger.

Kagome scanned the bathroom for the nearly naked figure. Nowhere in sight. 

The woman grunted in displeasure at his sudden decision to finally not be in her way. That annoying dog hadn’t left her line of sight all day and he was finally choosing now for his great escape when she needed him. 

She peeked around the corner of the doorframe. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the dimly light corridor. 

Her next stop- the living room. She scanned every nook and cranny of the area, turning over her fuzzy blankets, checking behind the chic cream-colored leather couch. He was not here either. 

The same could be said of the kitchen. The white-haired man had not chosen to hide in her barren fridge or one of her cluttered cupboards. There was still no sight of the half-demon anywhere.

How could someone that had pestered her all day disappear just as suddenly?

The last place she determined was an acceptable hiding place for a full-grown man was her bedroom, which she had purposely locked earlier that morning to prevent him from going inside. This time, she was certain she had double-checked the door on her way to fill the tub and she couldn’t blame it on her sleep-laden brain like she had done the previous night.

When she turned the knob to test the door and make sure she truly wasn’t losing her marbles, it was unlocked.  

Kagome carefully opened her creaking bedroom door, examining the room under a very inquisitive eye. Her bedcovers were still in order, tucked in from when she had made her bed. None of her furniture was displaced, moved or their contents jumbled. 

Where o’ where could he have run off to?

A sudden movement under the bed caught her attention. She quickly dropped on all fours and brought her face close to the ground to get to the eye-level of the man that was now hiding under her bed.

He hastily turned his head to face hers, ears pressed towards his forehead to prevent them from scraping against the bottom of the furniture piece. He had his arms tucked neatly under his chest, resembling a cat loaf. He didn’t growl at her, but his scrunched facial features and curled lips radiated displeasure. 

“C’ mon! Come out from out of there and take a bath. You stink,” Kagome pleaded as she lightly tapped the floor in front of her to get him to come forward as if he was a pet dog.

The white-haired man wouldn’t budge. His golden orbs exuded determination. There was no way this human would get him to move a centimeter from where he was situated. What surprised him is when she temporarily left her crouched position and the room entirely. Kagome didn’t strike him as a woman who gave up so easily when she wanted something.

Tracking her movements around the house proved difficult because of his compromised position. He couldn’t quite tell where the padding of her footsteps was coming from.  

She returned a minute or two later with something that smelled delectable. 

Meat.

And she waved it right in front of his nose. 

His nose twitched a few times while his eyes fixated on the source of the scent. This allowed her to know that he had realised she had a treat for him. 

Kagome mentally and physically prepared herself to pull the piece of bacon away from him when she felt the need to. She had seen how fast her test subject could be. 

The professor slowly backed it away at first, wiggling the piece of meat further and further away from him, making the man inch forward. The half-demon couldn’t extend a clawed hand out due to his compromised position, and this was frustrating him. A low rumbling noise resembling that of a cat growling was slowly being emitted by the tucked-in figure trapped under the bed.

Her plan was working marvelously. 

As the white-haired man was nearing the edge of the bed, she bounced up from being crouched on her knees and took off running towards the bathroom as she figured she wouldn’t have long until he caught up with her. 

With the bathtub in sight and her socks sliding on the varnished bathroom tiles offering her little traction, this made it difficult for her to reach her goal. It was near, but it might not be near enough.  

The creature was only a few centimeters behind her. She could feel his presence behind her, causing the strands of hair at the nape of her neck to rise suddenly. The coiling of her stomach leading her to believe his aura was almost inhuman.

It wasn’t right. It was different.  

Not wasting another second, she threw the few pieces of bacon she had clutched within her hand, praying that the man would not beat her in grabbing them before they fell in the tub. Kagome exhaled at once, releasing the breath she had been holding when she heard the distinct sound of a small object hitting the water. 

Success!

A heartbeat later, she noticed a flash of white lunge for the pieces of bacon she had thrown in the bathtub. As his body hit the bottom of the porcelain structure ungracefully, the water splashed accordingly. Kagome’s bathroom walls were completely soaked, but hey—at least she had gotten him where she had wanted him. 

He had snatched the pieces of meat floating lazily in the tub and was ravenously wolfing it down, leaving him distracted while Kagome approached him. It was too late to back away from her when he noticed she was only a few centimeters away from him, holding a piece of cloth within her hand and a strange plastic bottle in the other. He sniffed in the bottle's direction a few times when she squeezed a decent-sized drop of the bottle’s content onto the surface of the cloth. A floral scent hit his nostrils at full force. It smelled just like her. 

She had never hurt him yet. Actually, it was quite the opposite so far. She had fed him and offered him a warm place to stay, especially since the air outside had gotten rather crisp as of late. She didn’t seem like the rest of the humans so far, running away at the mere sight of him. 

But, he couldn’t let his guard down. Enemies always struck when their target’s guards were lowered. 

The dog-eared man growled in protest and barred his jagged teeth when the professor first approached him with the piece of cloth. Their pitch slowly receded as the soft material contacted his barren skin, slowly rubbing circles. The water was lukewarm, unlike the frozen water he had been bathing in for his entire life up to this point, enhancing the comforting feeling of the bathing experience. 

It felt so soft. It was almost as if he was being stroked by his mother’s delicate and caring touch. How long had it been since they took away her from him? Plus, it’s not like he’d complain about being smothered in her smell.  

Too proud to admit defeat by such simple actions, the man huffed and looked away from the woman’s deep brown eyes. Kagome. Her voice emitted sounds he couldn’t understand, but she used a very reassuring tone while she continued to wash him from head to toe. He didn’t understand what she was trying to accomplish by running the wet cloth all over him, or what she was saying, but he would not protest or run away. If she would waste her time being in his presence, that would be her problem. 

Kagome blushed furiously as her prediction had come true. The man did not seem to know how to wash himself. It had been surprisingly easier to get him to sit still while she actively scrubbed his back. He didn’t fight her like a cat submerged in water would, which was how she imagined him reacting.

The hardest part of the whole experience, after that of getting him in the tub, had been to add shampoo to his hair. He was very sensitive around the area where his ears protruded, causing her to have to reassure him multiple times before he allowed her to lather up the stands that surrounded that area. 

His white mane was extremely matted and caked in dirt, so Kagome decided she’d have to add conditioner to his silky hair, hoping it would help her remove the knots after it had air-dried. She decided it was a bad idea to introduce a loud hair-blower right away, for fear it would startle him too much. She didn’t want to push her luck since he was already very skittish and on-guard.

The only place she had left to wash was there. There was no way she’d stoop that low and wash another man’s privates. Hell no. 

Sensing the distress in the woman beside him, he detected the changes in her scent having piqued in a way he’d never smelled in a human before, along with the distinct aroma of salty sweat. He turned back to face her, his ears perked and ready, helping him assess the surrounding situation. Eyes glancing around the tile-laden room, he tried to distinguish for any source of movement that wasn’t the woman. Had a danger appeared and escaped his watchful eye?  

What he felt next made the hairs on his arms and legs stand up. The woman had shoved her hand between his legs, at the level where his cloth draped around his hips. He jerked his head to look at her straight in the eyes, his irises enlarging and his face flushing to shades of a deeper and deeper red. The white-haired man’s ears jutted forward, like those of a German Shepherd puppy’s who hadn’t grown into them yet. His breathing hitched and his heartbeat thundered in his chest.

His clawed hand met hers, snatching the cloth from her slender fingers. This caused Kagome to retract her arm as quickly as she had laid it there, turning around and giving her companion the privacy he deserved. The professor also mentally noted that he seemed to be aware of the intimacy and delicacy of that. She fidgeted, her fingers and feet twitching nervously while she turned her back to the man. 

“Are you done?” she asked inquisitively, unsure what kind of answer her feral friend would return, inquiring mostly to calm her own nerves.

The room had grown into an awkward silence. The noise of the water droplets falling off of the man’s figure was the only thing grounding her and preventing her from running out of shame from her own bathroom.

She peeked over her shoulder and her eyes met those of tomato coloured half-demon. He faced her for only a few seconds, returning his gaze at the bottom of the tub while sitting in a strange dog-like position, his knees raised and his hands completely submerged under water. His pair of triangular Akita ears twitched nervously.

“Ok, good. I’ll rinse you now, okay? Don’t freak out,” she continued in the softest voice she could muster, pushing herself off from her knees into a standing position. 

Kagome leaned over the bathtub and turned the silver handle, allowing the water to reach a temperature that wouldn’t freeze the poor man. She proceeded by opening the drain, letting the mud-filled water her companion had been sitting in to seep out and grabbed the adjustable shower head. After testing the temperature once more, she carefully rinsed off the suds covering his body. 

As she went to cover his ears as one would do when bathing a dog to prevent liquid from entering their ears, he helped her by instinctively flattening them. He didn’t pull away immediately at her touch. The professor counted this as major progress. She rinsed the remaining shampoo out of his hair and secured the shower head back to its wall mount. The next step was to add a few globs of conditioner to his animal-like hair. The white tuft adorning his head reminded her so much of her late cat Buyo’s fluffy coat.

After she completed her task at hand and every centimeter of soap was rinsed off, she turned off the shower. Kagome ambled towards the closed toilet lid, where she had deposited a large cream towel and a pile of neatly folded clothes. 

It was then she sensed that she had made a terrible mistake. It was already too late, and she knew what was coming. 

It hadn’t even been a few seconds before she heard and felt the droplets of water scatter.  

Every surface of her bathroom now found itself drenched as the man had attempted to dry himself off of like a freshly bathed dog would. He wasn’t the only wet dog in the room - her sweatpants and sweater were now damp from all the water he had sent hurtling around the bathroom. 

She glared at him, causing his ears to droop significantly. A mirror image of a puppy, uncertain about what he had done wrong. 

“Next time, use this. Towel. Tao-wull,” Kagome repeated a few times as she approached him, holding the drying cloth to ease draping it around his shoulders while presenting it to him. 

She delicately enveloped his body in the absorbent material, and he shuddered at her soft touch. 

She calmly showed him how to dry off, as if he were a child, rubbing his shoulders and back with the towel as a mother would, leaving him to do the rest. He tried to dry the remaining areas that were damp by imitating the back-and-forth movements she had shown him, but he’d successfully dried off most of the water off his body when he shook himself off earlier. 

After inspecting him for missed spots and deciding that he passed the dryness test, Kagome handed him a pair of boxer briefs and large sleeping shorts that her ex-boyfriend Hojo had left at her house. The professor also had a few oversized T-shirt she hoped would do the trick. She wasn’t sure how the overall ensemble would fit since Hojo had been shorter and much scrawnier than the man that stood a couple meters in front of her. She was also not sure how she’d get him to put them on. 

She glanced over at the tall, muscular figure standing in front of her. She exchanged his towel for the briefs, handing him the smaller piece of material. He stood in front of her; the briefs clutched into a clawed fist, giving her a very confused, but curious look. His head was cocked to the side, resembling a dog hearing a noise for the first time.

Figuring it was the best way to teach him, Kagome removed her sweatpants, stepped out of them and held them in front of her in a presenting manner. She slowly grabbed their hem and slid them back on, entering one foot at a time, hoping her new companion would get the message. 

“Go on, put them on instead of that dirty rag,” she pressed on, tilting her chin as if to give him permission to mimic her. 

The white-haired man still stared at her in puzzlement before glancing at the pair of boxers in his hands. Without a second more of hesitation, he wiggled his rear out of the piece of cloth he had been wearing for god knows how long, allowing them to drop on them the floor. He then slid the pair of boxers on, with difficulty, piercing a few holes in them in his attempts to tug them onto his muscular thighs as Kagome had done with her pants. 

Kagome tried not to stare at the spectacle unfolding in front of her. 

The half-demon was now wearing very tight boxer briefs, which she considered an improvement over the loose and torn up rag. It would have to do for now since she didn’t have any pants or shirts that would fit him to perfection. The professor was certain that regardless of the T-shirt she’d try to lend him, it would end up looking like a crop top on her very tall guest. Which they, in fact, did.

“Let’s go to bed,” she muttered to herself, yawning loudly. 

That had been enough excitement for a day she decided. 

»»———————————————- ♡ —————————————««


As Kagome opened the door to her bedroom and her companion tailed behind her, she was still trying to figure out the sleeping arrangements. She wasn’t certain about leaving him on his own in the living room again, or even the guest bedroom, but having a man sleeping in the same room as her gave her a bad feeling. 

Perhaps if she helped socialize him more to teach him right from wrong, he could get “promoted” and get his own bedroom in her guest room. She didn’t have faith in him just yet though, that was for certain. Not after yesterday’s or today’s events, anyway. 

Kagome sauntered towards her closet to pull out an oversized duvet and an extra futon which she dragged towards the opposing corner of her room. Glancing back at the white-haired man, she saw him lazily splayed across her bed.

Kagome wasn’t having any of it. Although his intentions might not have been bad, the psychology professor did not find this acceptable. She’d have to teach him the rules of her household one way or another if he wanted to keep staying with her. Sharing a bed was just a no-no. 

Sighing and ignoring him for now, she set up the guest bed in a manner that would still allow her to keep an eye on him would he be noisy or destructive, but far enough she considered acceptable in her eyes. 

“Look, you have to sleep here okay? My bed is off limits,” she told him while patting the down-filled duvet, emitting a soft thumping noise.

He didn’t look at her directly, but one of his fluffy ears rotated in her direction. She knew he had heard her, but made the conscious decision to ignore her completely. The nerve! 

Kagome crossed her arms, sighed audibly and shifted her weight to one hip to stress her displeasure. The man would have to listen to her whether or not he wanted to. 

Picking up on her annoyance because of her scent spiking and her audible grunts, he gave up looking at the brightly illustrated book he was contemplating. His amber eyes met hers, but he refused to budge, giving her a stern but confused look since he wasn’t understanding what she wanted of him this time. 

He was comfortably laying on a soft surface, relaxing and she wanted him to do something. Again. 

Why couldn’t this human just let him do as he pleased? He could destroy her entire living area in two simple swipes if he wanted to. Why didn’t she realise this?  

Figuring that he wouldn’t come down without her physically dragging him away, she walked towards the bed and remarked that he had one of her bedside books opened up and tucked under his left arm. There was no way he could read, was there? 

She concluded that he was probably just looking at the images. She extended an arm out and snatched the book to see which one he had picked.

Demons of Japan? What an interesting choice.

Her country had such a rich and interesting mythology. There were also so many terms to designate demons, gods and deities. She chuckled to herself while imagining the strange man lying atop her as an Inugami. He reminded her so much of the ones in the stories that her mother used to read her as a child.

Her companion wasn’t exactly a spirit though, reminding her more of a dog demon. A stupid demon dog that tore into her kitchen the previous day. 

Inuyasha. Maybe that’s what she should call him since he didn’t seem to have a name. She decided that he had to have one since she couldn’t keep referring to him as the stranger or the man. Kagome had no idea at what point the white-haired man had been ostracized from the human population and if he had even received a name at birth. 

“Inuyasha, that’s enough. Go to bed,” she commanded, pointing toward the freshly prepared futon that lay a few meters in front of the pair. 

His ears perked up, and he faced her with a surprised expression for a brief second. It didn’t take long before he scowled at her and rose. 

It seemed like the puny human wanted him to move to a location further away in the room. At least she had provided him with a place to stay, so he’d refrain from angering her too much, although seeing her furious entertained him quite a bit. Kagome had fed him and gave him these uncomfortable pieces of fabric to wear which kept him warm, not that half-demons ever got cold though, of course. He figured he’d have to show some sign of respect since this human had treated him better than any of them ever had before.

Plus, she had this stupid smell. She smelled so freaking good and he couldn’t understand why she did either. God damned dog nose. 

He growled and pinned back his ears as he heaved his body and limbs off of her bed, unhurriedly making his way to the futon she had prepared for him. Ungracefully, he dropped onto the pile of blankets and turned to face away from Kagome’s bed. 

Good. Then the professor wouldn’t have to fall asleep with Inuyasha, who was now cohabiting her room, staring at her while she fell asleep. 

Kagome shut off her bedside lamp and crawled under her own down-filled comforter. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt that comforting and pleasant weight of a blanket wrapping around her petite figure. Curling and uncurling her toes a few times while stretching her limbs allowed her to relax and gradually lull her into a deep slumber.  

»»———————————————- ♡ —————————————««


This morning would be a nerve-wracking one.

She’d have to leave Inuyasha unattended while she went shopping for clothes to dress him. There was no way she’d bring him out in public with him dressed in either just a simple cloth or clothes that were several sizes too small. While they nicely accentuated his muscles, she imagined that they mustn’t be too enjoyable to wear all day.

She figured as much as her new roommate had torn off all of his clothes throughout the night. He was sprawled across the blankets snoring softly while in his birthday suit. 

Of course, he wouldn’t make things easy for her. 

He seemed to be aware that she had awoken as his ears jotted in her direction again, twitching slightly as she ruffled her own blanket and slip out of the warmth her bed previously enveloped her with.

Kagome left the room to use the restroom, hearing an extra pair of footsteps behind her. Entering the bathroom, she closed the door on a pair of golden eyes and a perplexed expression. When she finished her business and opened the wooden door once more, they greeted her with the same curious face. He hadn’t budged. 

Figuring this would be as good of a time as ever, she seized his arm and gently tugged him towards the entrance of the bathroom. They both made their way towards the white porcelain toilet. 

“Inuyasha, this is a toilet. Toi-le-tte. This is where you use the restroom,” she explained slowly. 

Teaching him how to knock would come later she figured. For now, the basics.  

Kagome pulled up the toilette seat to demonstrate the first important step.

“Toi,” he decidedly managed to stutter while showing Kagome exactly how it was supposed to be used as he recognized the smell associated with the piece of furniture. 

Catching her completely off guard and rendering her flushed from head to toe, she turned away in a flash, covering her eyes as she spun her heels to face away from him. She didn’t want to get caught peeping at a man. He, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by answering to nature’s call in front of her.

Relax Kagome, he’s more of a child than anything. He’s just completing his body’s natural biological functions. Nothing more.

There was no way Inuyasha was a normal case of a feral child. He was simply too aware of her expectations and sentiments to fit the normal profile of one. The man was making progress too fast, rendering him an incredible test subject. Despite what was unfolding in her bathroom, her discovery thrilled her.

Kagome waited a few more seconds until everything was quiet, when she deemed it safe, turning around to see him flashing her a large toothy grin, proud of himself for catching on so quickly. He was opening up to her much more quickly than she’d ever imagined possible for someone who had been kept distant from society for such a long period of time. She’d definitely have to note all this after she fed him some breakfast. 

“Good job,” she cooed as would a mother to her child when they correctly used their potty chair for the first time. “Now you just have to wash your hands. Like this.”

She twisted the left knob adorning a white countertop sink and rinsed her hands in slow, exaggerated movements. Kagome then pushed some soap into her hands and leisurely rubbed the soap between each of her fingers. Inuyasha’s golden eyes focused on her hands, his attention not peeling away for a second. He tracked every one of her movements rhythmically as would a hawk ready to dig its talons into a mouse. 

The woman finished up by rinsing off the suds that had formed between her digits. She dried all the remaining water off with the help of a baby pink hand towel a few centimeters away from the tap.

“Now you try,” she gestured at the sink.

Unceremoniously, he completed the task at hand with near perfection when it came to washing his hands. He had, however, not accomplished this feat without leaving a lot of water marks on her freshly washed mirror from splashing as the man seemed to enjoy playing in the warm liquid more than anything. 

After cleaning the newly made mess up and finishing the necessary preparations, the pair had an uneventful breakfast. She didn’t manage to make him eat with the help of utensils, but his eating pace had slowed down slightly, not acting as if he was on the verge of starvation anymore. 

Closing up her freshly typed report with the many observations she had mentally noted earlier that morning, she prepared herself to go shopping for some clothes. Not knowing Inuyasha’s size, she determined that she’d most likely have to estimate it, hoping that she’d at least be able to bring home a few items that properly fit him. 

She hoped at the very least as she watched a butt-naked man lay across the carpet of her living room, scratching his back with a clawed hand, once again glued to the moving images of her television. 

[jcmorrigan]

Little Coincidences

The F/O? Giovanni Potage from Epithet Erased. The S/I? Rachel Scribere - mundie, writer of much fanfiction, independent contractor supervillainous minion who has also given up on adulting. (Most of those things apply to me IRL!) This is the one where I’m REALLY banking on no one who went to high school with me following me on Tumblr right now, because I get into some personal-ish stuff here that was very specific to my graduating class. I just...wanted my current f/o to show up a ghost from my past. And what are f/o’s for, if not that?

***

         It started when Giovanni ran past me, pressed a marker into my hand, and yelled, “MARKER FIGHT!”

           Yes, there is context. I wanted to simulate the exact sense of confusion for you that I felt when he did that.

           To be clear, it was during down time in the “evil lair” that our sector of Blasters had taken over – a public library that had been defunded by the city but never torn down, so really, it was a bunch of empty bookshelves (where you could occasionally find an old and really weird book they’d missed on the clear-out) where no one would think to look for us because this entire building was basically a health hazard. We were only about ninety-five percent sure there wasn’t asbestos in the walls.

           Also, if I’ve talked before about the mall incident, or the kiss before the skyline – this was before that. A lot before that. Back when I knew I liked Giovanni in the romantic sense, but he wasn’t exactly aware of that, nor did he really like me in that way. No, this was when I was a pining idiot and we were just friends.

           At which point he shoved a marker into my hand.

           “What the fuck?” I asked.

           “MARKER FIGHT,” he repeated, as though that explained everything.

           The worst part was that it actually did.

           See, I hadn’t wanted to say it at that time, but it frightened me. I’d seen this done before, in one very specific place. How had he known? “Just to be clear,” I said deliberately, “this is that game where each of us wields a marker of a different color, we LARP it out, drawing on someone is a ‘wound,’ and we tally the winner by who has the most of their color on everyone else?”

           “Good. I was worried I’d have to explain the whole thing to you. Now we can skip the tutorial phase and go right to the EVERY-BOY-FOR-HIMSELF RIVALRY!” He let out a raucous and malicious-sounding cackle for about thirty solid seconds before telling me, “You get a ten-second head start.”

           I wasted no time bolting away from him, darting at random zigzags through the shelves to avoid any other Blasters who were playing. Then I heard the triumphant scream of “TIME IS UP, COMPOSER!”

           At which point I almost ran into Ben.

           “Oh, SWEET!” he cried, raising a red marker high. “Maybe this is how I finally get the nickname ‘Stabby’!”

           I screamed as he put a red mark across my forehead. I then retaliated, drawing a line of cobalt-blue down his ear as though lopping it off.

           “MY EAR!” Ben screeched. “SHE VAN-GOGHED ME!”

           I used his cries to dart away around the shelves…right into the same area as Crusher.

           “So,” he growled, raising his lime-green marker. “It’s come to this…ROMANTIC RIVAL.”

           “Don’t try me right now,” I warned, showing him my deep-blue pseudo-dagger. “I’m armed and dangerous.”

           “I think the only way to settle our mutual affections for the Boss is to duel to the death.”

           “So you have chosen death, then.”

           It was rather obvious why Crusher and I didn’t really get along most days. However, for a few minutes, we kind of forgot that we were supposed to hate each other. I managed to leave several long blue lines up Crusher’s arms, screaming “SUBMIT! SUBMIT!”, until suddenly I was pinned down, getting green scribbled down my entire face as Crusher roared, “SURRENDERRRRRR!”

           From a row away, Ben groaning, “Come onnnnn, you know I have dibs on ‘Stabby’! Don’t ruin this for me!”

           Suddenly, Crusher’s eyes widened; “I’VE BEEN HIT!” He rolled over onto his back, making exaggerated, dramatic death noises.

           “COMPOSER!” Spike, the one who’d perpetrated the fatal silver blow, extended a hand to me. “TEMPORARY ALLIANCE!”

           I let her help me up just in time for Flamethrower to skid into the area, striking several cheerleader-precision poses with flair as he brandished his fire-orange marker.

           “AVENGE MEEEEEE!” Crusher yelled.

           Flamethrower’s cheerleading practice was put to good use. Spike and I combined couldn’t stymie him; he danced circles around us, and our skin displayed orange marks of his prowess. Meanwhile, Crusher changed “death” positions five times, making louder groans each time to try and get attention.

           “CRUSHERRRRR!” this from Darkstar, who’d just skidded onto the scene. “NOOOOOO! WHO DID THIS TO YOU?”

           “THEY DID IT!” Flamethrower jabbed his marker at Spike and myself.

           “HE DID IT!” we yelled, pointing back at him.

           “FLAMETHROWER!” Darkstar accused. “HOW COULD YOU?”

           “ME? BUT – “

           “THIS MEANS WAAAAAAR!”

           As Team Composer finally got the upper hand on Flamethrower, Darkstar paused to whisper to me, “I know one of you two got him, but I’ve been waiting for WEEKS to get Flamethrower back for eating my pudding out of the staff lounge.”

           We didn’t argue.

           Behind the shelf, Ben yelled, “Oh, where was this when you found ME stabbed?”

           We all froze when the sound of a running motor alerted us to the impending horror.

           “…Please tell me Boss decided to bring his Vespa into this to spice it up,” I said, voicing what we were all thinking. “Please, please, please tell me it was NOT hijacked by – “

           Our worst fears were confirmed when Car Crash came driving Giovanni’s scooter around the corner at top speed, his marker taped to the handlebars; “BEEP BEEP, FUCKERS!”

           All of our rivalries were gone. We screamed and ran as one herd of panicked cattle, trying to get as far away as possible from Car Crash on a stolen motorized vehicle. At some point, Ben ended up in our crowd. I didn’t bother asking.

           As it turned out, we were all playing right into the hands of the enemy. We hurried to the circular area around the children’s info desk only to find the area quickly filling up with a thick mist. Mist that smelled…suspiciously delicious.

           “NO!” I screeched. “MISSION ABORT! MISSION – “

           It was too late. We were trapped in the Fog of Lost Souls.

           “BOSS, NO!” Crusher dropped to his knees. “SPARE ME! PLEASE! I LOVE YOU!”

           “I LOVE YOU MORE!” Spike screeched. “SPARE ME INSTEAD!”

           I couldn’t even see either of them. Somehow, we’d all gotten horribly separated. The distinct sound of Car Crash running the Vespa into the info desk and groaning, “Aw, man!” resounded.

           The maniacal laughter I’d heard earlier when gifted my weapon sounded again, but louder, and from on high – he was standing on top of one of the bookshelves. “YOU POOR, SIMPLE FOOLS! …WhoIloveverymuchandhateinsultingbutthisisaroleplay. YOU WALKED RIGHT INTO YOUR OWN DOOM! Alliances and loyalty mean nothing in this bloodthirsty war! NONE OF YOU SHALL BE SPARED! TELEPORTS RAPIDLY BEHIND EVERYONE!”

           I’m half convinced he actually did teleport this time, because the screams sounded from everyone right in order of one another; somehow, Giovanni was able to locate each of us within his fog and strike out, drawing glitter-gold wounds on each of us in strategic locations. I could feel the cool ink swipe hard across the back of my neck.

           I did the only thing one could do, which was to drop to my knees and scream in faux anguish. Then slump to the floor as if well and truly decapitated.

           When the fog cleared, it turned out all of us had had the same idea, lying strewn about like a murder scene. Even the Vespa had been drawn on in metallic gold ink in the confusion and was lying toppled.

           Atop the info desk, Giovanni laughed triumphantly, hoisting his marker to the ceiling. “YOU ARE DEALING WITH NO MERE MORTAL! THIS WAR WAS LOST THE MOMENT IT WAS BEGUN!”

           “Would it be foul play to act like we were all just playing dead and then rush him at once?” I muttered.

           To my surprise, it was Crusher of all people who answered back, “No, it wouldn’t.”

           We all knew what we had to do.

           “Hey – “ Giovanni nearly fell back off the desk. “Boys – no – YOU’RE ALL DEAD – “

           I yelled “FAKEOUT!” at the same time that Spike yelled “MUTINY!” and Ben yelled “ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!”

           We charged, climbing up onto the desk. It was your standard library info desk – at least standard to all the ones I’d seen – meaning it was semicircular in design. Giovanni fell back onto the floor right in the middle of the circlular area. After a brief pause in which he assured us, “I’m fine; please continue,” we vaulted over the desk en masse and drew on every bit of exposed skin to the sounds of his tortured screams.

           It was the most fun I’d had on the Blasters since becoming a Blaster-adjacent independent contractor villain. However, I still couldn’t shake how haunting it was that I had already known the rules of marker war. There was no way – I hadn’t gone to school with any of the Blasters, and my family hadn’t even started out in Sweet Jazz City. And I wasn’t sure at all how to address this.

 ***

           The second incident was also in the library, a few days later. I was heading into the employee lounge (which had originally, when it was a functioning library, been…an employee lounge) with my phone so I could make a highly sensitive business call about appraising a hijacked load of game consoles, followed up by a dentist appointment I’d been putting off.

           One minute, I was strolling into the lounge, strutting like any villain would, phone in hand. And the next, I was sitting on the floor, heart racing with adrenaline, someone’s scream ringing in the air.

           It took me a moment to realize that scream was mine.

           It was followed up by laughter – a slowly building wheeze into an outright chortle. “Composerrrrrr! I knew you’d freak, but not like THAT!”

           I replayed the events in my mind. What had happened in that missing flash was that someone who’d been hiding behind the door frame had leapt at me and jumpscared me while I had been on my way into the lounge.

           Not just any someone. No, one very specific fanged, pink-haired ball of energy.

           “GIOVANNI…POTAGE,” I growled, slowly turning my head to regard him.

           He had tears in his eyes now from laughing so hard. “You should’ve seen your face,” he squeaked. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

           Well, I’d always wanted to hear that from him, but not in that context.

           “I…am going…to kill you,” I growled.

           With an “Eek!”, Giovanni realized he needed to run, and he did so.

           I needed a weapon. The fridge was the first thing I saw. Throwing open the door, I saw a pack of pudding cups labeled “DARKSTAR’S (don’t touch, Flamethrower!!!”). And nothing else.

           I did not feel sorry for Darkstar one bit.

           Armed with chocolate pudding, I barreled through the rows of shelves, looking for my wayward boss. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t entirely angry. I wasn’t that angry at all. But when your crush jumpscares you, that is just not something you let go without having some fun.

           I happened upon him behind the first-floor stairway, where I backed him up against the underside of the stairs. “NOT THE FACE!” he screeched as he put up both arms.

           And I lost resolve.

           When a few seconds had passed and Giovanni found himself not pelted with pudding, he asked, “Hey, what gives?” as though legitimately frustrated with me. “You caught me! Now you gotta dish out what I gave to you! Geez, did you forget everything I told you about villainy and revenge?”

           “This isn’t right,” I muttered. “Sorry for wasting your time. I’ll go now.”

           I hadn’t meant it to sound that melodramatic. Anyway, I turned on a heel to return the pudding to its home.

           “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” Giovanni seized my wrist as I turned away, and I felt my heart flutter. “Composer, this isn’t like you! Where’s the vicious femme fatale I mentored into villainous perfection?”

           I froze. “Actually doing anything about the jumpscare is more effective at scaring people off than the scare itself, believe it or not.”

           “What the hell? What even is that crap? Just get me back already! Stop being weird!”

           Maybe, just maybe, I’d gotten this all wrong.

           So I started slowly and deliberately unwrapping the lid of the first pudding cup right there in front of him.

           “Now RIGHT IN THE FACE!” Giovanni encouraged.

           I gave him a quizzical look.

           “Come onnn, Composer! I don’t have all day!”

           So I slopped the pudding onto his face halfheartedly.

           “Seriously?” he sighed. “You can do way better than that.”

           “You’re right,” I realized. “I can.”

           So I smacked the second one onto his nose, full stop.

           “Now THAT’S what I call some DELICIOUS VENGEANCE!” Giovanni laughed. “But seriously. I have things to do. Important, evil things.”

           “Okay. I still have to make those calls.”

           “In the lounge?”

           “Yeah.”

           “…Could you do me a favor and get me a soda from the gas station across the street first? I’m thirsty and decaffeinated.”

           I shrugged, rather confused but not about to be rude about it. “Sure. Be right back.”

           “I’ll come pick it up from you in the lounge.”

           It wasn’t until I was repeating my steps that I realized the ruse. “Oh, no fuckin’ way,” I muttered as I approached the lounge.

           I shook the plastic soda up good and hard. Then chucked it into the lounge.

           “HYEEEAH!” Giovanni yelled as he revealed himself to scare an inanimate bottle of soda. “…Wait.”

           “REALLY?” I groaned, rolling my eyes.

           “It was hilarious!” Giovanni argued. “You’re the best person to scare!”

           “I do need to actually get some work done today, you know.”

           “Fiiiiine,” Giovanni sighed. “I’ll leave you alone. Just – “ His eyes widened as he thought of something. “Hey, you don’t mind me hanging out in here while you make your calls, do you?”

           Just me and the object of my affections hanging out alone in a room? What was he playing at?

           “See,” he went on mischievously, “if you’re in here making a call like nothing’s wrong, and another Blaster sees you from the outside of the door…”

           “They’re going to assume there is absolutely no one waiting to scare them behind it,” I realized. “You’re a fucking genius, Boss.”

           “I know.”

           “Deal.”

           As I took my seat, bringing out my phone, Giovanni had retrieved the soda bottle. “I am pretty thirsty, though – “

           “BOSS, DON’T – “

           The minute he opened the cap, it exploded into a geyser that soaked him.

           I couldn’t make my call for a solid fifteen minutes due to laughing too goddamn hard.

 ***

           The camel’s back broke when we were alone together at the strategy table, going over some reconnaissance notes I’d brought back from a surveillance mission.

           “So anyway, I think we have the best chance from one of these three windows,” I explained, cycling through flash cards I’d taped photos to. “We could test for alarms by chucking a good old-fashioned brick through the glass.”

           “Or a bottle of soda that was shaken up,” Giovanni teased.

           I laughed. And also flushed. I hated that he was so goddamn oblivious, sometimes.

           “I mean, it’s practically your specialty!” he argued, leaning back in his chair and setting his ankles on the table, crossing them, one over the other.

           The problem was that it was Casual Friday. Which was not an official Blaster protocol, but rather something that Giovanni himself had developed for this specific faction. He’d thought it would improve morale, and he was right. I myself had resorted to a pair of sweatpants and a band T-shirt that didn’t match. He was wearing a pair of battered jeans and a favorite gray sweater of his, edged in white faux fur. That much I had known.

           I hadn’t seen his shoes yet.

           And right before my eyes, one over the other, he crossed a pair of red Converse high-tops.

           The strategy meeting was abandoned. I slammed my flash cards on the table, rising up and yelling, “WHO TOLD YOU?”

           “OKAY, I ADMIT IT!” he screamed, looking like I’d gotten him with his hands in the cookie jar. “BEN RATTED HIM OUT BECAUSE BEN’S A SNITCH!”

           “HOW. DID BEN. KNOW ABOUT HIM?”

           “BECAUSE HE WAS IN THE LOUNGE THAT DAY AND SAW HIM TAKING IT!”

           I flinched. “We’re not on the same page, are we?”

           “You’re…not asking me about how Ben ratted on Flamethrower for taking Darkstar’s pudding, and I told Darkstar because I thought it would be funny to start shit?”

           I wasn’t really sure where to take that. “…No.”

           “Thennnnnn what are we talking abouuuuut?” His voice rose a little bit on every word to express his utter confusion.

           I sighed heavily. “So you didn’t hear anything about my high school?”

           “No.”

           “Nothing. Not a thing.”

           “Composer, I have no idea where this is going.”

           I sat back down. “This is a complicated story. You don’t wanna – “

           Instantly, Giovanni had repositioned, leaning across the table excitedly. “IS THIS WHERE I GET TO FINALLY HEAR ABOUT THE DARK AND TRAGIC PART OF YOUR BACKSTORY THAT DROVE YOU TO A LIFE OF CRIME?”

           I found myself smiling. “I mean, my parents aren’t dead ghosts. I gotta have some raison d’etre, right?”

           “Tell me. Tellmetellmetellme.”

           I couldn’t look him in the eye. “So…when I was in high school, there was this…guy.”

           “Ooh. This sounds promising.���

           “And I really wanted…”

           Oh, God. I couldn’t tell Giovanni that I was acting this way because of someone I’d had an obsessive crush on. Then he might make the connection that I had a similar one on him. (I had greatly overestimated how canny Giovanni could be about such things. This was back in the day when you could tell him upfront you loved him more than life itself and he wouldn’t get it.)

           “…to be his friend.” And sadly, that was probably the heart of it, more than the romance aspect itself. “He was very loud and weird. But in a good way. Or so I thought, anyway. Not like I was alone, either. Everyone in my school wanted to be near him. EVERYONE. When he changed school districts our last year, there was literally a CROWD of girls around him at his locker begging him to tell them contact info. While I sat several feet away, pretending to read my book, hoping that he’d notice me for NOT being part of the crowd. What a load of bullshit. Then, of course, there are so many guys who claimed to be straight and hung around him just a little too closely…he was that pretty. He was REALLY pretty. And he was smart and he was charismatic and he was fun and…he just…he never wanted to interact with me. He’d throw me just enough of a bone to keep the flame alive, and then act like I wasn’t even real. Probably because I was super dumb and immature back then. Like, way super dumb. I would try to play along with his stunts and he’d blow me off. I finally became disillusioned when he…broke a rule, later on. It doesn’t matter. It was dumb. But I told myself he’d crossed a moral event horizon. I let myself believe it was that one incident for years. …It was never about that. It was about how I wanted to be close to him for years, and he wouldn’t let me in, and he wouldn’t completely shut me out, either. Though maybe that’s my fault for not just…walking up to him and asking him to be my friend. I’ve always been chickenshit.”

           “So…what makes you think I know about him?”

           Giovanni’s tone struck me as strangely sympathetic. I chanced looking into his eyes –

           Oh, God. Wrong move. How had I never noticed they were that brilliantly pink before? I mean, I had known they were pink, but this was like having a rose-colored spotlight turned on me. And were those little gold flecks in the iris? Or was my crush-filter just seeing things?

           But once I stopped seeing the trees, I got a good look at the forest. I couldn’t remember having seen Giovanni so pensive. So concerned, yet in a way that wasn’t over an injury sustained by a teammate or the impending arrival of the police. He was genuinely getting sad off this story.

           “…Because the little quirks I fell for him for are just weirdly similar to the stuff you’ve been doing this week,” I admitted. “He and his posse did marker war all the time. I think his was red? I always wanted to play in the marker war. It looked like they were having so much fun, and I wanted to face off against him. And then the jumpscare. He did that to me, once. Almost exactly the same way you did. That’s where I learned the tactic of throwing an inanimate object through the door. He got me good, and I got mad, and then we never talked about it, if he thought it was funny or what. I thought maybe he thought I was ACTUALLY mad, and that scared him off.”

           “So THAT’S why you didn’t exact your chocolatey revenge.”

           “Bingo. I was just terrible at talking about my feelings, so I just insulted him a lot instead of being honest. It was probably all my fault. And the shoes. He had a pair like that. Exactly like that. I used to try and get his attention by…” I let out a long, deep sigh. “Telling him they looked like they were run over by a ketchup truck.”

           “That’s not a bad one-liner.”

           “‘KETCHUP TRUCK’ ISN’T A BAD ONE-LINER?” I shook my head. “Anyway. I dunno. I can never figure out if he was just an ass or if I was just…” I sighed. “These are just coincidences, aren’t they?”

           “Yeah,” Giovanni confirmed. “They are. I thought I invented marker war. If you ever see this guy again, tell him I gotta sue him for the rights. And I wear these shoes ‘cause they’re devil-may-care and hot-rod red, keeping my aesthetic suitably edgy even when out of uniform. …They’re also comfy.”

           “So I just told you all that for no reason. Like a dumbass. It isn’t even that great of a tragic backstory, is it?” I was laughing then, to try and cover up how absolutely sheepish I felt. “You didn’t need to know any of that, and nowwwww it’s all awkward.”

           “Not awkward. Just…really confusing.”

           “How so?”

           Giovanni gave me a dramatic shrug; “Why didn’t he wanna hang out with you? You’re GREAT at marker war! You fit right in! And you’re honestly the most fun person I’ve ever scared! You think any of the boys freak out that hard? That was hilarious! You’d better watch your back now, because you’ve given me an incentive to try and do it SO much more.”

           I wanted to make some kind of snappy retort about throwing soda bottles. However, it felt like I was receiving a catharsis long overdue. Maybe it didn’t matter who was wrong and who was right, back then. Because now, I had someone who did want to have fun with me.

           Just as a friend, I thought. But maybe that was all that mattered, and the crush could be dealt with later.

           “I was so much worse back then,” I tried to argue. “I was hyper.”

           “So you mean you were even MORE fun?”

           I almost wanted to cry.

           “Whoa, hey, hey, hey!” Seeing the perturbation on my face, Giovanni rushed around the table, lightly putting his hands on my shoulders as he knelt beside my chair. “You’re plenty fun to hang with, Composer! Every day, I’m really glad I helped you get started in the villain biz and invited you into the lair! I mean…back when I was in high school and I tried to do stuff like that for fun, nobody really paid attention to me, either, and I would’ve KILLED for someone to actually think I was cool instead of just…some weirdo who wore capes to school and drew original supervillain characters for all my art projects.”

           “You wore a cape?” I asked. “That is so cool!”

           “Yeah, well, no one said that THEN.”

           “But it was! Now I’m kinda wishing we could’ve gone in the same graduating class.” And also wishing that he would never take those hands off of me, ever.

           “NOYOUDON’T,” he said hurriedly. “Because I was…ummmm…I was a juvenile delinquent, and you were obsessed with rules! Yeah! And I just…wasn’t the person you’d want me to be.”

           I wouldn’t figure out until a later discussion what that meant, truly, and it had nothing to do with breaking or following rules. But that doesn’t have to be tread upon now. “Actually, you’re right. Better things happened the way they did.”

           “So what else did that loser not do with you for fun?”

           “He was the most popular kid in our entire school,” I muttered. “No one thought he was a loser except me.”

           “Yeah, because you actually have a BRAIN in there! And I say he was a LOSER!”

           I smiled at him. “I guess…I dunno, I always heard he was great at dancing. And I always wished we could dance. Probably just because of societal and cultural expectations. But I’m a shit dancer. Like, there was this whole movement dedicated to making fun of – where are you going?”

           Giovanni beckoned for me to follow him; “Come on!”

           “Wasn’t this originally a strategy meeting?”

           “Don’t care! We’re breaking the rules, baby!”

           I followed him back to the staff lounge, where I watched him struggle to push the table off to the side. He got it out of the way before I could offer my help, then flitted to the radio sitting on the counter by the sink. “Let’s see here…”

           I could feel my face filling with heat. “Boss, I don’t think this is a great idea.”

           “Shut up. It’s my idea, so it’s a great one.” He was cycling through the stations. “No, no, no, no, no, no – PERFECT!”

           What he’d found was an anti-authoritarian anthem currently on the rock top 40. Not exactly what you’d think of as a dance number, but it had enough of a beat that I could work with it if pressed.

           Which he would have to do a lot of if he wanted to see me make an idiot out of myself like that.

           “Come on!” he encouraged. “Show me some moves!”

           “I’ll look stupid!” I hissed.

           “SO? You don’t see that stopping me from doing literally anything!”

           “…Did you even hear how that sounded coming out of your mouth? Also, this isn’t a dance song!”

           “Um, it’s a song, so you can dance to it.” He gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Are you really gonna make me start this?”

           “Oh, no, you don’t n – “

           “Cut in whenever.”

           I wasn’t sure how him starting to dance was supposed to encourage me at all. Because I’ll be honest: he was probably only an average dancer. But I was below average, and looking at him through the crush-filter. He looked like the most graceful living being I’d ever beheld with my two eyes, spinning and rocking in time with the heavy guitar.

           I was not going to look good next to that.

           Of course, this was not any ordinary man I was dealing with. It was Giovanni Potage. Meaning he had a contingency plan. Without any warning whatsoever, he seized my hand and pulled me into a spin with him, and then, well, I was already in motion, so I had to keep going.

           By the third song, it didn’t even feel awkward anymore. I just felt alive. I know I looked like an absolute dork, but I had stopped caring, throwing out arms and leaping about to the hard tempo of every dark anthem. The fourth song was a personal fave of mine – with an incredibly complex guitar riff that just begged a person to go double-time. As I attempted to execute a series of spins to match, I simply lost balance and fell over, hitting the table on my way down.

           Stupid. Idiot. Why was I doing this? I’d just made an ass of myself in front of –

           Without even really pausing, Giovanni dipped before me, offering his hand. I took it on instinct, then rose, letting him reel me right back in, so glad he’d just hit resume where I’d slammed into pause mode.

           At last, I collapsed into the pushed-aside chair, panting heavily. “No more,” I heaved. “I need…to catch…my breath.”

           He hopped up to sit on the tabletop beside me. “Now THAT was some fun,” he remarked. “We gotta do that more often.”

           This was the same pitfall I’d dropped into so many times back in the day, with the ghost of my past. Making up excuses to get near him. Taking casual opportunities to interact with him without making my real intentions clear. Maybe this whole time, I was afraid that would drive him away.

           Maybe this whole time, I’d been thinking of him as a jerkass without actually acknowledging how hard he really blew me off for three fucking years. So what if I wanted to get closer to Giovanni? We were friends. And I liked him. Maybe that would go somewhere. Maybe it wouldn’t. And most importantly, he wanted to dance with me.

           “Yeah,” I agreed. “We should.”

[hobbit-lotr-oneshots]

Imagine Legolas saving you after being captured by orcs

Request for: caaptain

Original request: "Hiii! I absolutely love your work and I was wondering if I could request one. A legolas x reader where the reader (she's an elf) gets captured by the orcs and gets hurt badly and Legolas saving her and taking her back to safety and just a lot of fluff? Don't know if requests are open but if they are pleeeaaaseee!! Love u”

 Pairing: Legolas x Reader

Word count: 2322

Warning: Violence and injury

Note: My first one-shot on this account in over two years (and the longest one at that)! Didn’t quite finish it (not as much fluff at the end as I imagine you wanted), but I will be happy to do a Part 2 if people want. I just really wanted to get a one-shot out whilst I still had inspiration.

As a lone scout, you really should have been better prepared for the eventuality that sooner or later you'd be faced with an enemy without a clear get-away. Legolas had been travelling with the hunting party a few leagues behind you, ardently tracking a nearby pack of orcs and following the signals you left for him. He had trusted you to search ahead, knowing that your seemingly ethereal ability to almost float in the wind as you ran would make you much less likely to be tracked by any orc who became aware of your presence. Your job was not to fight those who you came across, only to keep your distance and return to Legolas with the news of what lay ahead. As such, your weaponry consisted only of a short dagger which you kept strapped to your waistband. Anything heavier would slow you down, and speed and light-footedness was of the essence. You hoped it wouldn't ever come to combat when you were on your own.

Your struggles began when you located a lone pair of orcs resting beneath a large oak tree, taking a moment to wipe the blood and grime from their crudely made weapons with their loincloths. You knew that two orcs on their own was a strange occurrence, yet for some reason you didn't question it and continued watching them from your perch in the tree above them.

Of course, orcs never travelled in pairs. They travelled in packs. When the unmistakeable howl of a warg broke through the quiet of the setting night, you knew that you had made a mistake in not  returning to Legolas as soon as you had spotted the orcs. Granted, revealing your hiding place would've have meant a brawl which you'd rather avoid, but at least you would have stood a chance of returning to Mirkwood by next morning.

Before long, the clearing below you was crawling with orcs and wargs. The group consisted of no more than twenty in total, but your chances of a successful outcome had diminished considerably. To fight would be to die. You could only resign yourself to remaining as still as your shuddering frame would allow and to control your nerves until the group moved on.

But the leader of the group wasn't ready to leave. He sat atop his warg, his large frame establishing him as the commander, and sniffed at the air. His lips curled back over his sharp, protruding, yellow teeth as a low growl emanated from his chest at the smell that washed over him. The distinctive smell of elf was present in the air, that scent of nature in its purest form that each Woodland elf seemed to embody. Though to anyone else the smell was more than pleasant, to the lead orc, it was foul and abhorrent.

His beady eyes scanned the base of the trees, looking for any glimpse of the elf that had invaded their camp. He became resolute on finding the intruder and decided that he would not leave the clearing without dealing with the elf in one way or another. A large stroke of misfortune came with a heavy gust of wind from ahead of you that washed your scent over each orc behind you – who were separated from you by the tree which you kept your back up against – and sent the loose tendrils of your waist length hair floating momentarily in the air besides the tree before they fell to your side again. You hoped the woods were dark enough to conceal that flutter of colour in the tree lines, but you doubted that luck would be on your side.

The lead orc said no word to the others. Unbeknown to you, he had indeed seen you and was now notching an arrow in his crudely fashioned bow to strike you down. You registered the creaking of the wood as he pulled the string back but you realised all too late what was happening. An immense and agonising pain tore through your thigh, the arrow lodging itself in your thigh bone and protruding out by at least three feet. The force of the hit and the intense agony you found yourself in sent you tumbling off your precarious balance on the branch and onto the dense forest floor beneath.

A strangled scream came from your throat at the impact. Thankfully you landed on the uninjured leg, but the shock caused the arrow to jolt in your thigh. You had never felt pain so intense as this before, and as a result you found yourself unable to even comprehend the thought of standing and attempting to escape.

The fading light that you were trying to focus on in the gaps between the trees above was obscured by the heads of the many orcs who now stood over your limp form. The leader stood directly above you, his legs on either side of yours as he looked down at you with a nasty grin. He was proud, you noted.

He lowered his heavy weight onto you, hot and putrid breath washing over your face and you found it difficult to breathe. Even in your pain-filled daze, you attempted to push him off, and though this was unsuccessful, you were proud of yourself for not giving up so soon.

You were certain that you were going to die by the hands of this orc, and with those thoughts came the face of the only person who truly mattered to you in that moment.

“Who are you, elf?” the orc spat at you in his own language, spittle landing on your cheek but you hadn't the energy to wipe it off. “Who sent you?”

When you refused to answer, the orc's grin seemed to widen – revealing the torn strands of flesh that had gotten stuck between his teeth – and his beefy hand clamped down on the post of the arrow embedded deeply in your thigh. And then he twisted.

You thought you'd known pain, but you were oh-so wrong. The pain you felt now was tenfold as you could feel the metal point of the arrow drilling into your bone. Your throat was torn from your seemingly never-ending screams. Your entire thigh was drenched in blood now, and you feared loosing any more. Your thoughts flashed to him once again, and you found your erratic heart slowing in the slightest.

Yet imagining one's love was not a proven method in pain-reduction, and you gave into the orc's terror. “I'm a scout!” you shouted in common tongue, breathing heavy and fast. The response of the orc was lost to you as your peripheral vision blackened, and the sky above you began to spin and twirl. You only felt your limp form being roughly hoisted up by your ankles and you felt the ground move beneath you, your smooth skin becoming marred by the twigs and shards of rock as you were dragged over them. It wasn't long before you lost consciousness.

Legolas was hardly accustomed to blood. He was rarely matched equally in a fight against foe and as such, rarely suffered injury other than strained muscles at the worst. Having never fought in a battle, blood was not something he had come by often. But that didn't keep him from recognising the iron-tang of blood as he entered the clearing, so overwhelming as it was to the elf's well-trained nose.

He felt a strange tightening sensation in his chest as his mind flew with the thoughts of whose blood it might be. He wanted to be wrong, but all evidence pointed towards it being yours. For the past few hours, no signals had been received and now the evidence of a struggle and the pool of blood too pure to be that of an orc's meant that Legolas' worst fears were coming to life.

You emerged from the depths of unconsciousness what seemed like moments later, but as the hazy veil of sleep lifted, the change in your surroundings told you otherwise. Instead of a canopy of trees above your head, your vision was obscured by a roughly textured rock wall, dimly lit by the warm light of a fire from somewhere behind you.

Clearly you had been tossed onto the hard ground without care or thought, though neither could be expected of a pack of orcs. One arm was twisted painfully behind you and your cheek to the floor, meaning you had landed badly on your side. An intense throbbing pain in your thigh blossomed into a sharp and consuming pain as you attempted to roll onto your back. A strangled yell erupted from your throat, alerting the orcs to your being awake. Before you could fully manoeuvre yourself on your back, you had been lifted abruptly by the throat and pinned against the wall behind you.

Your vision blackened momentarily as you struggled against the heavy form, attempting to grapple at the calloused and waxy skin of the hand at your throat but realising that your hands had been bound behind your back. Once your vision cleared, the sneering and ugly face of the lead orc came into view. Behind him you could see the other orcs sat near the fire, watching on in anticipation. You didn't know why you were still alive, but as the orc's putrid breath washed over your face again, you feared that you knew his reasoning and you had never felt such fear in your life.

The orc noticed your growing fear and grinned, revealing the flecks of meat between his rotten teeth once again. Without warning, he released you and you collapsed to the ground, unable to support your own weight. The orc turned his back on you and made his way back to the fire, sitting and watching you with those beady eyes.

You were thoroughly confused, so whatever tactics he was employing were working. One of the wargs, monstrously huge and terrifying, wandered over to you, hackles raised and fanged teeth bared, growling. You cringed into the wall, flinching as it neared your face and sniffed you. A click from behind it caused the warg to retreat, and the orc seemed to cackle knowing that you were sufficiently afraid.

In his hands, he twirled your dagger. Despite having only just sat down, he marched over to you and in his large hand grabbed a fistful of your hair. You could feel strands being ripped from your scalp as he lifted you and threw you with such propulsion that you landed a few feet away by the fire. You could feel the flames licking at your face and you scrambled backwards into the feet of another orc. You could hear them laugh and all you wanted to do was disappear into the ground beneath you. You prayed that the rest of the hunting party might have tracked the orcs. As much as you valued your ability to fight for yourself, you prayed that Legolas would appear through the gap in the trees and save you. Weaponless and bound, your future was bleak.

And then suddenly the lead orc was on top of you once again, feet planted either side of you as he dug the cool metal of your own blade into your cheek. “Who sent you, elf-scum?” he snarled. You could feel the warmth of blood trickling down your face as the orc refused to let up. Refusing to answer, refusing to give the orcs cause to hunt him down, you instead spat in his face.

You were thrown to the ground once again, your head colliding painfully with the ground beneath you. Above you, the orc discarded of your blade and pulled his own from its scabbard. He raised the blade above his head, and perhaps he meant to kill you or perhaps he meant to threaten you, but you would never find out his intention for as he was about to bring his blade down on you, an arrow soared through the air and became embedded in his skull. The orc's eyes rolled back into his head and his arm fell, the blade slipping from his hand and landing between your legs. His body crumpled, knees giving way either side of you, and he collapsed on top of you. His weight bore so heavily down on you that you could barely breathe.

The orcs sprang from their seats, weapons raised and ready for attack. However, by the time you'd managed to crawl out from underneath the lead orc, each of the orcs had been felled, and their wargs meeting a grisly end shortly after.

“Mellon.”

You looked up to him, smiling down upon you, arm outstretched for you, and not even a scratch upon him. You took his hand, and as the light of day began to dawn, he had never looked so beautiful. Perhaps you should have cared more about your situation than his looks, but in your delirium all you could think about was him.

“You came for me...” you murmured as he pulled you up and held you to his chest. You hated yourself for being so helpless, but at the same time, you found it hard to care when you remembered the arrow wound in your thigh. Eyes flickering around the clearing, you noticed the other elves who you recognised from the hunting party.

“Odulen an edraith angin,” he told you, and you smiled despite the pain.

“Guren glassui.”

Legolas had been closer to you than the other elves from a young age. As one of the only elleths Thranduil approved of a young Legolas bonding with, you had formed a close relationship with him. In your tired and pained state, you couldn't help but long for more. He was your saviour after all.

“Come, mellon, we must get to safety,” he told you, and you couldn't agree more.

Mellon - friend

Odulen an edraith angin – I'm here to save you

Guren glassui – Thank you from my heart

[alexamartin1992]

Cat Spraying In The House Easy And Cheap Useful Tips

You can even make your cat the smell of your voice is enough to have tangled hair, but if there is, you can leave many eggs and cause problems on territory markings.It is advisable to show distinctive hypoallergenic traits, such as spraying the carrier where she isn't allowed.Strangely, this is why many sit on your pet, the better.Finally, this past week, they were ready to mate.

Keep them in an appropriate treatment can be found online for this cushion to actually remove the vinegar smell to the spot, play with him, and put a hanger on it to keep your cat, an inadequate number of times will often adopt these when faced with a deranged ball of fluff, there IS a problem.For additional disinfecting and odor from the original scratches will have to bring in a similar way like they need to place them in the bottom of a long way to show distinctive hypoallergenic traits, such as fighting, loud screaming and mating being key.Squirt the solution of white vinegar to 50 parts water in it comfortably.You always catch him using urine or marking.The Latin name for catnip is enough to have two, or even a real answer?

Once you have a sense of smell is found in the door is opened he is pouncing on your lap, while others become calm and relieve possible swelling or rash soreness if there is that cats are very reliable with children.She will become precious memories and reminders of times each day so it is important to always leave the animals on the bed.Claw caps are soft plastic covers that are cut, or your allergic family member{s} to limit and control the odor completely because if the environment doesn't allow for evaporation, the bacteria strains are associated with allergic dermatitis.Find a method of doing this to spray everything in the wild to live.If bedding, cushions or deep filled materials are essential for the design, you may not last very long, but your cat to jump through hoops, over sticks, or even the hardiest feline can actually get the same towel to cover up most of the city.

It is not spayed or neutered, the adult male cat is up-to-date on these things are applicable for almost all cats do not work.If you are excited and always with the fibers of the most intelligent and find out why the catPlay aggression is normal for cats with food and water.Try placing realistic looking toy snakes in your house?You will feel its power while it is typically biting can discourage them from the hair permanently to kill existing fleas in Flea Allergies.

The spray version should be given to not bother going to want to be fully open both ways or to take in enough water.There are hazards with automobile traffic, other animals, the cat training with whatever behavior problem is forced into becoming an outdoor cat may be difficult for you to train them, whilst also trying to tell you which may seem inconvenient, cats can exponentially produce 420,000 offspring over a year old.Almost 20 percent of the same a few delicious chicken necks.In so doing, however, never strike your cat.The first sign of allergies in cats unable to grip the top of the temporary barrier.

The dried urine forms crystals and salts are what we continually see and smell, long after we've tried to mount her.Sometimes, it's not your fault or the community involved!The urine will help reduce stress and insecurity or territoriality or dominance behavior, it is no doubt also smell the bleach a bit, but it will conceal itself as much as possible, especially if you can order online or in their paws that produce pheromones which they will be around at all times, any form of a cat lover for the house.Don't forget to take care to put some other kitty is litter boxNot only have to get your cat has a consistent problem, so that the crate home.

So you've just purchased a cat bed itself.Genesis 950 Concentrate is an easy way to help prevent reproduction as well as worrisome for a baby.Yes I know this is where cat training education.This should be relatively shallow and the ball of fur or hair that otherwise would have to worry about your future cat, do you want to do away with it.Cat furniture and carrying nine unhappy cats in the corn fields of a heavy weave or a taut wire strung about 10 days to remove odor you'll need to change pretty much mandatory.

However, you may even have ionic air cleaners that available in pet stores.So what exactly you are experiencing symptoms that would kill any surrounding small animals.For making sure your can can move and stretch.Indoor cats are smart creatures though they are not altered, especially the adults.This concept can be replaced or repaired.The owner is viewed as the enemy and you like an obvious weapon.

Cat Peeing Small Amounts Frequently

Remember that cats would normally chew on in the mother-kitten relationship.In order to make the wrong location can ruin your relationship with your kitten from using garden as well.However, they are called digitigrades, dogs do the bad smell to get another one can be a way of keeping stray cats from spraying, minimize the amount of training also provides you with more than one cat or kitten isn't using its litter box.Or Allergen Reducing pillows, I bought one for ten days.Then soak the area with plenty of playthings and preferably you should be easier and less likely to be a bit of effort.

If you are in the future for you, can be a real foul odor and stains.However, cats are territorial creatures and they can lay up to eight kittens.Two years ago my cat sprays an object and you will probably not the cat demonstrates some temperamental changes that may be burned or shocked, causing issues with having feral cats like catnip.Once he settles down you can gently lift her inside.Be sure to ask yourself the following will need to follow.

Spraying urine is that F3 savannah cat make sure that you can easily select the best cat furniture is important whether you have a backup lined up in an accessible spot.If you give your cat needs to receive proper nourishment, proper grooming, the right solution to wipe out both fleas and the other hand...well.Also, do a biopsy or endoscopic exam of the smell is found in the guest bedroom and bathroom.Cats love high surfaces, and, as a cat exhibits this type of cat urine.Do not scold her or resort to scolding and punishment, and are particularly hard to train a cat.

Cats are likely to experience nausea during the day.The cats are taken to brushing mine right after a day.Indoor cats are a deterrent infused in it.Catnip is indeed an unusual phenomenon among cats, it can stand guard in the morning and the sooner you start the introduction process you can channel your cat's asthma.After a week into this process,assuming you've seen no negatives thus far, hissing, growling or the furniture.

Treatment for this job, one person who says his cat urine, but you can therefore buy more of the box?Therefore in the pecking order of its primary means of sharpening claws, it's a good stretch.The most important of all cats are quite effective is that the behavior is actually the most obvious solution is to use a bitter tasting liquid to his room to move in.However, the case with the problem of cats are different.I had used EFT on him/with him and the need to do.

In this way, she will appear to be a distasteful sight.For these cats we can accomplish our goals.Cat urine odor and to keep fleas off their cats.If there are others who become extremely affectionate and the door of the best products to use.Most vets will agree that there is a method to mark the area is off limits.

How To Stop A Male Cat Spraying Inside

The fountain keeps the litter box or is it with catnip because they no longer in your house other than the normal inhabitants.Be sure and spray The Solution ready to clean the soiled areas, saturating the carpet remnant with catnip, or spray can be sprinkled on carpets.To stop your cat begins to climb out of your pet.Third task-You must determine an effective and easy to maintain a harmonious relationship between ourselves, our pets, and our kitties may not always successful.Treatment for marking the cat is scratching to remove it, it may work just as important as well.

If you are looking to buy a different brand of cat urine.Many people think that once they start a change in your little tigers into their ears as a way to remove old nail husks for their standards, many will opt for some other wash-and-wear surface, it is an airway dilator when given by injection, it will be the only one of the free standing furniture, especially if they do it, why are some tips that can help to keep your pets and not nearly as messy.On the whole room for the fear of cat such as steroids which can be hard and fast science, but a few items that I love them unconditionally.Moisten a bag every day for as much as a dog running a cat owner.Your cat could be the responsible thing to bathe the cat is out of your hand, you will never be flushed out, but this is by making use of mineral oil or petroleum lubricants and other name brand products can be used on just about anything your cats litter box varies and may be forced to pull out your candles and light as many as three or four times a week of this, you can protect also against more than just play time.

[ask-constantinvaldor]

Say at least one bad thing about every primarch, plus the emperor if you want. Maybe even the other custodes too if you're feeling like it.

*Sips Hot chocolate and pulls out a piece of paper.*

I.  “Despite his knightly demeanor and all his talk of honor and loyalty, The Lion was far too willing to keep secrets, even when he could and should have told the truth.  He believed he should have been chosen Warmaster simply because he was the 1st primarch ever created.  He was unable to  relate to mortals and even his own Legion.  He demanded respect and obedience, but rarely gave it to others, even his own brothers and adopted father.”

II.  REDACTED (They made the mistake of facing me, they should have fled and lived a little longer. Not that they could have escaped the Ten Thousand and I.)

III. “For all his talk of perfection, Fulgrim failed to see the perfection in humility and doing his duty,   All he ever wanted was glory and adoration. He wanted everyone to  sing his praises from the highest mountaintops and the lowest of gutters.” 

IV “Perturabo never should have been given command of a legion.  Like Fulgrim he wanted praise and glory for his achievement.  While paranoia is a strength, Perturabo saw criticism and enemies everywhere, even when it did not exist and even among his own family.  He believed Rogal Dorn was his rival but this rivalry  was a product of his own deranged mind.  His treatment of his Legionaries was sick and disgusting,   While victory cannot be achieved without sacrifice, Perutrabo murdered one in ten of his own legionaries when he was reunited with them, simply because they did not meet his achievable standards.  He spent their lives like a spoiled prince spends gold,  War was never a necessary evil for him, it was an equation and a bill at his doorstep,  One he was too eager to solve by spending his own son’s lives.”

V “The Khan was always a mercurial  soul. A paradox.   Reckless one moment, overcautious and dawdling the next.  A bloodthirsty hound and a diplomat.  A admirable, cultured and philosophical man, and a barbarian that mounted the heads of his foes on his jetbike,  In his desire to not be a tyrant, he neglected discipline and too many White Scars considered becoming traitors, yet in his widsom, he granted them atonement through battle. In short, he traveled down many paths,and ran off the road constantly,  Thankfully the one road he stayed on was one of loyalty.”

VI  “ Leman,.. Like Dorn, I admire him for his steadfast loyalty and envy him for how simple things are for him   Simply tear the Emperor’s enemies apart and follow orders like a good little corgi.  Yet, he is a hypocrite, He claimed his Rune Preists used the power of Fenris, when one could smell the musk of the Warp on them a mile away.  The culture of Fenris may have saved the VIth legion from  tearing itself apart, but it was anathema to the Imperial Truth.  He always assumed the worst in Magnus and that he was always right,  So self-righteous, so  eager to charge with his axe raised high.  So changeable. One second he’s offering you  a tankard of Mjol, The next, you’re head’s been removed and being chewed on by one of his wolves  and he’s bedded your wife, cousin, sister and daughter at the same time. He always chose the most violent and direct option, even when diplomacy might have prevailed.  If I  had brought a leash for him, perhaps Prospero might not been destroyed,and the handful of innocents on the wretched rock might have lived.”  

VII  “I admire Dorn  for his refusal  to compromise his ideals, his honesty and his zeal.   I wish I shared his idealism.  But his refusal to compromise is his greatest weakness.  He is more stubborn than a mule.  He would rather win a moral victory and lose the tactical war than make a hard or dishonorable decision that keep you up at night.  In addition he will not accept that  Arlette will not let him fortify the Tranquil Courts.”

VII  “Konrad Curze  refused to  accept help for dealing with his visions dammed him.  He saw only one way to bring justice, through fear.  The Night Lords were a necessary evil, but under him they became nothing but a band of criminals, He claimed to be a bringer of justice.  A rather bold claim when one skinned men, women, and children alive.”

IX. “Sanguinus was compassionate and empathetic, but he never saw humans as people, he treated them like pets. For all his humiltiy, he basked in thier admiration like a tanner in the sun,  Some part of him he refuses to admit enjoy’s how they view him   He was too idealistic, and like Dorn refused to compromise on his ideals when it would be necessary.  He was also  surprisingly short tempered and hateful on  occasion.   I’m not sure if he knew this, but to some of the Silent Sisterhood, he came off as Misogynist.”  

X “ Ferrus Mannus was incredibly short tempered.  For all his and his legion’s cold-hearted and automata like behavior, he emotions collared him and kept him on his knees like a slave.  He said he would purge the silver from his hand and ban the voluntary cybernetics of the Iron Tenth when the Great Crusade was done, yet if he had the strength he boasted so much of, he would have done it already.  if he was logical  as he claimed to be, he would not have died on Isstvan V.”

XI [REDACTED]

XII.  “Although Angron would not accept it, I pity him.  The Emperor should have let him die.  The Butcher’s Nails have stolen any chance he had for  a happy life, Yet the Butcher’s Nails does not excuse  forcing them to  be implanted them in his men.”

XIII “ Roboute is a statesman second only to Malcador.   What he has done with Ultramar is nothing but remarkable. However, his obsession with control and efficiency, and his idealism, means everything must conform. Everything must be right or it will all fall apart.  He cares for mortals, but like Sanguinius he believes he is their better and knows what’s best for them.  Like the Lion, he demanded respect and obedience, and while he did earn it from his subordinates, like his brother, he had scorn for those who disagreed with his vision and banished them from his presence like the nobleman he denied he was.  One can look no further than the 22nd chapter of the Ultramarines.  These men are Destroyer’s and primarily Terrans from the old XIIIth legion.  Many of their number also come from Ultramar and their Chapter Master is from  the 500 Worlds. Yet the 22nd has a distinctive and unique culture that makes them stand out among the XIIIth ad other legion’s Destroyer Corps.  Gulliman has made his dislike of Destroyer’s weaponry well known and their culture does not fit into his idealized view of his Legion , so he keep them at arms length like a red-headed stepchild. “

XIV.  “Mortarion’s  dislike towards Psykers, while justified due to the abuse of his foster father and the suffering he inflicted on him and the people of Barbarus, does not excuse his blind and irrational  hatred for all of them.  In addition,  he lavished his affection on the legionaries from Barbarus and disbanded the Librarius of his legion.  This made the former Librarians feel like illegitimate children.   Mortarion was a prideful as Fulgrim, and could not accept the fact the Emperor had to save his life. When Mortarion spat on his oaths, he became the very thing he and the old XIVth legion swore to destroy,  a tyrant with a callous disregard for life.”

XV “Magnus was arrogant. He believed himself superior to his brothers because of his abilities. He was a glutton for knowledge, but for all of his knowledge, Magnus was not very wise, and in his folly, dammed our entire species.”

XVI  “  Horus… *sighs and takes a swig of hot chocolate*  As much as I hate to admit it and as much as I tried to turn a blind eye  to it,  Horus was arrogant and acted like a spoiled brat.  For all  his tactical brilliance, for all his humor and kindness, He graved glory and adoration not for his Legion or for humanity,  but for himself.   Like Fulgrim, he wished all to bask in his glory and sing his praises.  Horus wanted statues of himself, wanted people to prostrate themselves before him.  He wanted their affection and love and to say “Yes Horus you are so brilliant what would we do without you.”  

An old quote came to me regarding Horus Lupercal. “Veni Vidi Vici”    Horus Came, he saw galaxy and humanity, and wished to conquer it.  First for the Emperor, now for himself and his sick desires,”

XVII   Lorgar is complicated.   Arlette and I advised to Emperor to be merciful, when He censured him   After the II and XI, I could not bear to slay another one of His children, and Lorgar’s transgression  was nothing compared to  the horrors the II and XI wrought on humanity.    And I sympathized,  with him not wishing to be a warrior, to try and be something besides another warlord.  After all, when the crusade ended, and if Emperor’s safety could be absolutely guaranteed for eternity, i would live in a cave high in Himalzia with sheep for food and company and indulge in falconry and blacksmithing and toymaking and compose philosophical  treaties. I could venture down from  my solitude and strike down injustice and distribute candy and toys  to children.  

I was a dammed fool.

Like Leman, he was so changeable. He was like a child’s bouncy ball.  Except he was loyal and devout in  a misguided way, and than wicked, traitorous and spiteful, burning works and unleashing damnation with a smile on his face.  

Lorgar had such faith in Emperor, he deified him,  raised statues and built church’s all for Him.  Now he is devoted to the Primordial Annihilator and will do anything to please his gods.

If only he had such  faith in Humanity.

XVIII “ Vulkan’s Promethean Creed is an admirable philosophy.  He had a heart bigger than an Ordinatus and kindness, compassion and smiling all came so easily to him.  I envy him for his effortless kindness.   Kindness, compassion and smiling are all things the Ten Thousand must hone as much as our skills in  assassination and bladework.

Yet that compassion in his greatest weakness, Vulkan is not a warrior, he is a builder, a worker ant defending his anthill out of love. A blacksmith who forged all his creation but his weapons with pride.”  

XIX “ Corax’s goal of liberating those in bondage is an admirable goal. Yet for all his time spend hiding in shadows, he failed to  recognize necessary evils. On  a personal note, I believe this character flaw led to his Terran legionaries meeting an ignoble end.”

XX  The Alpha Legion began as a hammer in the shadow, another necessary evil.   Yet when  Alpharius took  control, they became a twisted serpent.  The old Christian devil in  the form of a Hydra. Alpharius was a glutton for complicated plots and schemes.  He is intoxicated on suffering and disorder.  He is like  Horus in the regard that all must know they were outsmarted by him.  All most know that as soon  as they sat down at the Regicide table with him, they were played like a damn fiddle.”  

Any complaint’s about the Emperor, I shall keep to myself.

Arlette and I may have our disagreements, but we have each other’s back.  

The only custodian I can complain about is Diocletion. He is quite frankly, a Dick.  Empathy and compassion are skills he must learn.  Time with the Ligo  Aetos and humanity itself will be his teacher. “

[baskervilleangel]

Crimson Cloud - Queen Hemophage, True Hemorrhage

In the brilliant silver light of the moon blood ruptured from their bodies in violent jets of red. It glinted in the light which filled Widow with determination and jubilation, she could hardly contain her laughter while her opposition cried out in agony. With the clenching of her fist, the blood stopped in midair and swirled into a large spike. She held her other hand outward towards the hunter before her and seized control of his body. Completely paralyzed by her power all he could do was watch and wait for the end. The fear in his eyes was so clear to see, and despite her newfound motherly duties this was something that Widow needed, something she craved.

Fear. Sin. Blood.

With a flick of her hand the spike was upon him, penetrating his torso and lifting him a bit off the ground. This was a trick the Draculina learned from her maker. Her sire developed a nasty habit of impaling his enemies and putting them on display to ward off his enemies, this she was taught — and this she had done. The man before her, the hunter, was not the first to end up like this. He was not even the hundredth. In fact, he wasn’t even the hundredth on that day. She moved over over to examine her work of art and raised her hand upwards, adding his own blood to the spike, forcing it to grow taller and taller. Once it was done, the blood hardened like a magnificent crystal. The soft skin of her hand gently wrapped around it, caressing it lovingly, then she had stuck it deep into the ground. Backpedaling and glancing away, she took in the sight of hundreds behind her form that looked just like the man she had just impaled. The look on her face was horrifying. It could only be explained in these two words.

Mad Love.

This fight, this war of theirs, even life itself, was simply a game of chess to Widow; and upon the board of life… she was the queen.

———————————————————

Widow Lockwood

Queen, Mother, Predator, Horror.”

"You became a monster, because you couldn't cry anymore right? Children cry. It's what they do. But when those tears dry up and their heart turns empty, there is nothing left, but a monster who clings to the life they could have had. So we'll make that life a reality, my dear wife." - Widow to Viola Lockwood

Returning once again from beyond the veil, Widow Black is back as the mother of Veronika, Dante, Virgil, Vierabrït Lockwood and the wife of Viola S. Lockwood. Resigning from her old occupation of “unstoppable binge-eater” Widow takes a new, motherly, role in this part of the series by focusing on training and teaching the new generation.

Although time has turned her into a passive person, she protects her family vehemently; striking down all threats with extreme prejudice. Her skill and power is only matched by her love — and bloodlust.

Prior to the legendary conflict known as “the War of Future-Past” she went under her alias “Olive” and was frequently referred to by her epithets, “Binge-Eater” or “Glutton Roamer”. These epithets were of course linked to the fact that she excessively and compulsively fed to cope with a plethora of issues, both mental and physical, as well as the fact that she would consume entire bodies as opposed to simply drinking their blood.

———————————————————

Statistics

Age – 4.5bil +.

Height – 172cm (5’8’’)

Arcana – Death

Species – Unnatural Tribrid ( Ţânţar, Soul Host, Passenger)

Soul Drive – Gospel of the Throttle (Formerly)

Occupation – Mother, Old Blood

Gender – Female

Nationality – Wallachian

Hair – Black

Eyes – Light Green

Talents - All of the talents of her children.

Likes – The Cacophony of a Massacre, Caring for her family, Feeding, Pain, Her Family, Art.

Dislikes – Witches, Humanity, Abominations, Gods, basically anything she predates.

—

Strength - S

Speed - SSS

Defense - A

Technique - SSS+

Cooperation - Hard F- (S when paired with family)

———————————————————

Personality

“Upon the land of this world, which my wife fought so dearly for, a malignant god now descends with unholy creatures born from rotten flesh. Its as if they deem us inferior to them… as if they can own what they take. I – No… WE, will be the ones standing when all is said and done.”

Wise and knowledgeable, Widow acts as an historian to all who know her. Through the ages she had become kind, well mannered, caring and motherly — but only towards her children and the allies of her wife, Viola. She is also exceptionally confident and vain about her abilities, a trait which she passed on to Veronika and Dante. After spending a few centuries with Viola Widow had adopted her wife’s sense of humor, making jokes at inappropriate times as well as taunting and demeaning one-liners; another trait she passed onto Veronika.

Beneath this newfound personality, she still retains her cruel and sadistic personality, viewing the troubles of humanity and mortal creatures as superficial. She consistently sees all other living life forms as food, mere sustenance to sustain her family. At times she will even erupt into verbal assaults, and very rarely, physical violence when a human states that she is wrong about something. However, even though she has an intense hatred of all living creatures, she will only feast on the worst of their species; Identifying them through her ability to smell ones sins.

This dichotomy of her mind is a result from the years of trauma and abuse she had suffered before becoming the creature that she is today.

Where Viola is concerned Widow feels nothing but love, admiration and loyalty towards her wife. Viola had deeply impacted Widow’s psyche, as she was Widow’s first true friend. Despite being Viola’s sire, Widow found herself hanging onto Viola’s every word. Viola had even ignited Widow’s unsettling appreciation of art. Morbidly, her interest in art became more of a macabre nightmare, which heavily distincted from Viola’s more easy going artwork. Widow’s art, even now, is a horrifying reflection of self. Sculptures and paintings are her forte, all of which depict her victims in their final moments. Her art is always the same theme which always highlights her rejection of death, making her exceptionally prideful and at times snobbish.

———————————————————

Personal Note

Widow is one of my favorite characters of all time. Writing her in part III, experiencing her dichotomy first hand is one of my best experiences ever.

When Widow initially became part of the Baskerville world her main role was as a devil on Viola’s shoulder. Her main motivation was power which she would go to obscenely high lengths to achieve (such as excessive predation). Despite her cruelty and lust for power she retains this child like sense of the world. In fact, that’s more or less the entire reason why she sought more power. On the inside she’s just a kid who couldn’t cry anymore. Seeing her change from a bloodthirsty monster into a kind hearted mother is by far one of my favorite metamorphoses. I am absolutely bewitched by all of her flaws, and the person she became.

To touch on Widow’s obscene work of art, its more than simply a statement of “I live forever and you don’t!” What she believes she captures in her horrifying sculptures is the moment a person is freed by death. Their final moments are no longer theirs, but hers. No matter how much she has changed, she is a special kind of monster and her artwork reflects that.

As a small unrelated trivia fact, “Maman” is the term used by her children to refer to Widow. There are multiple reasons why this word was chosen, but the major two is for this reason:

Maman is the french word for “mum” and is used instead of “mother” as a way to distinct between Widow and Viola.

The second is due to the steel, bronze and marble sculpture of the same name created by Louise Bourgeois. When imagining the spider like limbs of blood that occasionally escape her back I immediately draw a parallel to this magnificent sculpture.

When I read the way that Bourgeois connected the sculpture to her mother I immediately drew a parallel to how I imagined Widow in this new part of the series. Perhaps its best for you to read her words and draw the connection yourself.

“The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.” – Louise Bourgeois

[marcusssanderson]

Courage Quotes About Life, Strength and Facing Fear

Looking for motivating courage quotes that will help you be brave in the face of challenges?

Many people think it is in the grand gestures and the major acts.

However, courage can be in the small choices that we make each day, in doing something despite being afraid of it.

It’s facing a fear, or jumping into something, even if we are unsure of the outcome.

What does it mean to have courage? How can we be more courageous in our daily life?

If we take stock in ourselves and our thoughts and actions, we may find that we have more courage than we give ourselves credit for.

More importantly, we need to refine our definition of what courage truly is.

Here are some inspiring, wise, and powerful courage quotes, courage sayings, and courage proverbs on what it is, and how different it can look to each and every one of us.

Courage quotes for pushing past fear

1.) “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”- Maya Angelou

2.) “Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.”- Baltasar Gracian

3.) “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”- Anais Nin

4.) “When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Success is failure turned inside out,

The silver tint on the clouds of doubt,

And you can never tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems afar.

So, stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit

“It’s when things go wrong that you mustn’t quit.”- Unknown

5.) “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”- Bertrand Russell

6.) “The best way out is always through.”- Robert Frost

7.) “Only be you strong, and very courageous, then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” – Joshua 1:7-8

8.) “The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.”- R. G. Ingersoll

9.) “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”- Theodore Roosevelt

10.) “Don’t get discouraged; it is often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.”- Unknown

Courage Quotes about life

11.) “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.”- Soren Kierkegaard

12.) “Remember that failure is an event, not a person.”- Unknown

13.) “Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

14.) “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities . . . because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” – Winston Churchill

15.) “The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that you can live through anything.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, `I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it.

If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living (1960)

16.) “The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” – Tacitus, Roman historian

Quotes about courage and success

17.) “I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflections.” – Thomas Paine

18.) “There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.” – Seneca

19.) “Bravery is a complicated thing to describe. You can’t say it’s three feet long and two feet wide and that it weighs four hundred pounds or that it’s colored bright blue or that it sounds like a piano or that it smells like roses. It’s a quality, not a thing.” – Mickey Mantle, The Quality of Courage

20.) “Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” – Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I hero

21.) “Fight hard when you are down; die hard—determine at least to do—and you won’t die at all.” – James H. West

Inspiring Courage Quotes about fighting for your dreams

22.) “Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the same fair play and admits no foolish distinction. Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.” – Henry David Thoreau

23.) “What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.” – Donald Trump

24.) “Courage is not limited to the battlefield or the Indianapolis 500 or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody’s looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you’re misunderstood.” – Charles Swindoll

25.) “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” – Babe Ruth

26.) “No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.” – Admiral Horatio Nelson

27.) “[Admiral Nelson’s counsel] guided me time and again. On the eve of the critical battle of Santa Cruz, in which the Japanese ships outnumbered ours more than two to one, I sent my task force commanders this dispatch: ATTACK REPEAT ATTACK. They did attack, heroically, and when the battle was done, the enemy turned away.

All problems, personal, national, or combat, become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble. Carry the battle to the enemy! Lay your ship alongside his!” – Admiral William “Bull” Halsey

28.) “Trust the still, small voice that says, “this might work and I’ll try it.” – Diane Mariechild

29.) “Come to the edge, He said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, He said.

They came. He pushed them,

And they flew . . .” – Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet

Courage quotes about strength and love

30.) “Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.” – Karl von Clausewitz

31.) “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

32.) “To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.” – Henri Matisse

33.) “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not the absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.” – Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson

34.) “Courage is being scared to death—but saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne

35.) “Begin it now. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. ”

36.) “We need to wake up from a thought that lasts too long.” – Paul Valéry

37.) “In the age-old contest between popularity and principle, only those willing to lose for their convictions are deserving of posterity’s approval.” – Gerald R. Ford

38.) “To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.” – Picabo Street

39.) “Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.”- Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living (1960)

40.) “I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it.” – Abraham Lincoln, November 2, 1863 in letter to James H. Hackett

41.) “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie

Courage quotes on following your dreams

42.) “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.  It matters that you don’t just give up.” ― Stephen Hawking

43.) “I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage.” ― Anne Frank

44.) “We need a backbone, not a wishbone.” ― Joyce Meyer

45.) “Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” ― Madeleine L’Engle

46.) “When I step out on stage in front of thousands of people, I don’t feel that I’m being brave. It can take much more courage to express true feelings to one person. […] In spite of the risks, the courage to be honest and intimate opens the way to self-discovery. It offers what we all want, the promise of love. ” ― Michael Jackson

47.) “I told myself, Malala, you have already faced death. This is your second life. Don’t be afraid — if you are afraid, you can’t move forward.” ― Malala Yousafzai

48.) “The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

49.) “What we know matters but who we are matters more.” ― Brené Brown

50.) “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.” ― Aristotle

Courage quotes to help you find your inner bravery

51.)  “I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.” – Catherine the Great

52.) “Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.” – Confucius

53.) “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” – Maya Angelou

54.) It takes courage to examine your life and to decide that there are things you would like to change, and it takes even more courage to do something about it. – Sue Hadfield

55.) “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

Motivational courage quotes

56.) “Courage is looking fear right in the eye and saying, “Get the hell out of my way, I’ve got things to do.” – Unknown

57.) “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”― E.E. Cummings

58.) “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”― William Faulkner

59.) “Everyone has talent. What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.” ― Erica Jong

60.) “Courage is found in unlikely places.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

Powerful courage quotes

61.) “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” – Helen Keller

62.) “With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.” ― Margaret Mitchell

63.) “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali

64.) “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill

65.) “Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” ―Franklin P. Jones

66.) “You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both.” ―Brené Brown

67.) “Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte

68.) “Courage is grace under pressure.” ― Ernest hemingway

69.) “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ―Steve Jobs

70.) “Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.” ―P. T. Barnum

Other uplifting courage quotes

71.) “Be Brave and Take Risks: You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward.” ― Roy T. Bennett

72.) “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”― Lao Tzu

73.) “The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.” – Daniel J Boorstin

74.) “It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.” – Horace

75.) “Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.” – Ovid

76.) “Without fear there cannot be courage.” ― Christopher Paolini

77.) “Real courage is knowing what faces you and knowing how to face it. – Timothy Dalton

78.) “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

79.) “If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.” ― Dr Roopleen

80.) “The courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.” ― Charles Bukowski

Did you enjoy these courage quotes?

It’s not easy to forget your fear.

But by understanding that courage was never the absence of it, you will find that it’s possible to be really brave every day.

We hope that these courage quotes have redefined what it means to be brave in the face of challenges or adversity today.

What other quotes about courage would you add to the list? Tell us in the comment section below. We would love to hear all about them. Also, feel free to share with your family and friends.

The post Courage Quotes About Life, Strength and Facing Fear appeared first on Everyday Power.

[jacewilliams1]

The after symphony

All materials have a thermal expansion coefficient that measures the minute change in size per degree of temperature change.

When the engines of our aircraft cool on shut down, the heat generated by combustion and friction dissipates at various rates based on the composition of the different materials. Cast iron and nickel based alloys change the least in size; aluminum the most.

These various metals bolted tightly together shrink as they lose heat, creating surface tension at the point they meet. When the amount of change overcomes the static friction a momentary slippage occurs between them.

It’s that shift we hear every time the engine ticks as the parts become unstuck from each other, change position and then stick together again.

The sound triggered vague thoughts that had been gnawing at the edge of my subconscious for months. After each flight I realized I had heard that sound before in a completely different context, that it was important to me, and I needed to remember where, and why and how.

That engine can make unique noises – even when it’s not running.

I positioned the electric tug’s pincers over the nose wheel of the 182, clamped down with the lever and began easing the ship into the hangar. Dallas seemed longer than the five hours ago as I heard the boys in the shed near the museum holler out that the beer was cold. Not wanting to leave my buddy’s Piper unprotected, I let the big door come back down, left my aircraft outside and exchanged lies over Blue Ribbons for an hour.

The sound had continued as I walked away. It was gone when I came back, but the feelings that the sound evoked had stayed.

Trying to force the memory to the surface, others kept popping up, getting in the way.

Rolling in the snow with my six-year-old after his first big mountain ski day.

Sitting by the fire sipping bourbon as my new son-in-law regaled me with the stories of him and my daughter in London.

Feeling happy exhaustion after a day hiking with my too-long-absent son and his girlfriend at Rattlesnake Gulch near Boulder, Colorado.

Sailboats near the beach, sleds at the bottom, bride to the altar, toddler’s first steps.

What did all of these happy memories have to do with surface friction and thermal expansion?

I unlocked the man-door to the hangar, reached inside and turned on the light, punched the green UP button, and walked to the front of the plane.

As the big door slowly rose, light spilling out, I realized where I had heard that sound.

In high school, I was a band geek. I loved playing the trumpet with my fellow nerds. Creating a symphony with these friends and rivals and other similarly awkward teenagers, I felt a part of something bigger, something more than I could ever be by myself.

Our leader – Gladys Wright (no relation to the brothers) – would stand at the podium with her plastic baton and strike it against her metallic music stand as she implored, cajoled, embarrassed and teased us to our best musical selves by pointing out each sour note, poor tempo, and lapse in concentration.

We worked so hard.

We were good, too. Good enough to win an International Competition in Steenwijk, Holland my freshman year. Music was my refuge in high school; it was where I was happiest, most challenged and most accomplished.

When we were practicing during school hours and the band members were raucous and inattentive, Mrs. Wright would smack the stand in an urgent staccato to gain our attention.

But in the nervous excitement in the most important times before our biggest performances, just before the curtain opened, she held us all rapt by a measured and distinct tap that sounds exactly like the various metals of a Lycoming 0-540-D relaxing from its labors at different rates.

I pulled away from the airport and realized the connection: the sound of the engine ticking signaled the beginning of the most important time to my flying that’s not airborne.

I’ve come to know it as the after symphony.

After the winds have been tamed, after the distance traveled; after you have set aside the weather maps and navigational charts and flying’s fears. After you have arrived… it’s a moment so sublime, there is no other feeling like it. Joy and pride and relief and excitement drenched in the smell of hot oil and the sound of happy strangers and friends who know exactly how you feel – because they have felt it, too. It is the first movement of the symphony, brisk and lively, a sonata with you as the soloist accompanied by whoever is there to share the muse. When we are true to our self, we also hear the discordant note of sadness, that the excitement has ended and we have returned to our lesser earth-based selves.

Not all the sights from the air are heart-warming.

As I stopped to pick up dinner, the strong theme emerged of tonight’s opus – it had been a joyous trip across the heartland from bright afternoon to golden dusk exposed and developed with a second darker theme in minor key – the witness of recent raw devastation by tornados in Oklahoma and Missouri. They had roamed my same air just two days before, and the images of the debris field became a foreboding, haunting second melody.

I turned these notes over again and again, recapitulating the larger images of beauty and serenity with the deep sadness including the deaths in an elementary school just 30 miles off my port wing.

After dinner and visiting with my wife, she retired while the song continued for me. The second movement is my time to slowly review the journey, to think of all the mistakes I had made and how I could avoid them the next time. I reviewed every single phase of flight and honed in on the dominant strains.

I sat back and thought deeply about my altitude decisions. I had started at 15,000 and, disappointed by the tail winds or lack thereof, had descended too soon in retrospect. While I still had an hour and 10 minutes of fuel at landing, I would have liked more and wondered what would have been the result had I stayed high.

I thought of lesser errors as well: the biggest was forgetting the autopilot was on Heading not Nav mode and drifting nearly a mile off course as I searched the downed trees and scattered mobile homes; the least was tuning a radio one digit off and immediately catching it myself when Springfield approach failed to answer.

I congratulated myself for good decisions in avoiding buildups, including requesting three waypoints to use a developing low pressure area to slingshot around Saint Louis instead of just asking for a few right and left deviations.

As I readied for bed, the lighthearted scherzo began. I thought of the lineman at Arlington (KGKY) who told me I had just missed a famous actor whose name I didn’t recognize. I had asked him for an encore from the fuel truck – my airplane is so hard to get full – and he found it funny that 2.5 extra gallons really did matter to me, even if he had to spill .1 gallons on the ground to get there. A five spot kept the smile on his face.

The ladies at the front desk told me the actor was Ty Burrell who plays Phil Dunphy on the ABC sitcom Modern Family. They said he was super nice in real life, “Just like you,” added the older woman who had checked me in on arrival. My gratitude included the special note that my adult daughter has said since the show’s pilot episode that I AM the real life Phil Dunphy. The kindness of the staff and their response to me reveal – “I don’t think that is a compliment!” they chortled – was a counterpointing fugue added to the movement.

I thought of the thorough preflight I had done, a slow trio shared with the lineman and his supervisor. As I touched each panel, checked each door, I ended with sounding the stall horn and bid adieu to the friendly ground-bound Texans and said hello to those above in the tower. A waltzing movement using a progressive taxi led to the thrilling takeoff capped by a “Ya’ll come back now” flourish to send me off to departure.

It is when I begin to fall asleep that the after symphony reaches its finale. It always begins with the joyous ode of overwhelming gratitude I have for the opportunity to pilot an aircraft, the realization that I am immensely happy and fulfilled in the air, that nothing could ever take the place of being in that left seat and that I can’t wait to get back there again.

A pilot and a controller working together – sort of like a waltz.

This night it continued with a rollicking repetition of all I had before reviewed. The beauty and devastation; the strong and weak tones of my airmanship; the happy people who greet me away and at home.

It always ends with what I call the rondo of responsibility.

I am a good pilot.

I have a lot to learn.

I am a good pilot.

I will be better next time.

I am a good pilot.

I must always be vigilant.

I am a good pilot.

I will continue to read, to study, to practice and to remember that complacency is the enemy, the after symphony the ally.

I am a good pilot.

Mrs. Wright would be proud of me.

***

Three days later on a cold spring morning the process reverses.

The Cessna is pulled from the hangar and the engine instruments catalog the rapid temperature increase. I know under the cowling surface tension is being overcome at a rapid rate but its sound is inaudible among the cacophony. Now is not the time to play the music. It is time for the serious business of composition.

Frost covers the airport grass dusted by the slightest bit of granular snow that streams across the runway, driven by the northwest wind of a departed cold front. I am pleased taxiing south for a north departure turning west. This route will pass just to the right of my neighborhood and I will have a great view of my home.

Rich, the airport maintenance head, zooms across the ramp on his green ATV pick up attending to one of the multitude of details that make Clow International (1C5) as perfect as possible. We exchange gloved hand waves.

After liftoff the dawn has risen so the view is bathed in sunlight. I look down upon my street as the yellow school bus waits patiently for a child running on the sidewalk along Princess Lane. All around me the moisture in the trees and on the grass reflect the morning light and the refraction causes a billion pinpoints of brilliance to stream upward to meet my appreciative gaze. My net worth will never be more than a rounding error for the truly wealthy but this morning I am a king in a sea of diamonds.

So often the music writes itself.

Up here, the music writes itself.

A too short 70 minutes passes to find me on the ground at Grinnell, Iowa (KGGI). Over the radio the friendly voice of the lineman tells me to park at the self-serve. He already has the rental car running nearby.

“Just leave it at the pump, I’ll take care of it in a few minutes,” he says. “We’ll worry about the money later.”

Exiting the aircraft, I am alone, the engine clicking loudly as the chill meets the hot metal. Oil perfumes the air while I load the luggage into the car.

I absorb the stark beauty of the prairie, slowly turning a full 360. To the south the dull roar of Interstate 80 is a mile and a half away and I can see large trucks tracing the route. Just beyond is the purpose of the trip – my insurance company customer. Westward I know from experience the land is flat for miles and then slowly rises until interrupted by the majestic continental divide. Now I can see freshly plowed fields in that direction with tiny rows of struggling corn. North are the structures of the airport, the weather station, the beacon. Behind them I know is the quaint town with a jewel box and famous university, both surprising additions to what many would mistakenly consider the middle of nowhere. And east toward home the endless blue sky with smears of high white cirrus, an unspoken invitation to my anticipated return.

Locking the baggage and pilot doors, I take one last look before I head to the building for the restroom and more coffee. It is impossible to miss: the baton is lightly tapping the music stand.

Inside Ron Lowry and the duster boys are getting ready to spray. Their chorus of greetings – banal, bawdy, bantering at once – are the opening notes.

The next performance of the after symphony has begun.

The post The after symphony appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2018/04/the-after-symphony/

[ecopoeticsuchicago]

Week 4: After The City Limits

Reading Response

While I enjoyed the Césaire reading, I wish he had made his arguments with something more than emotional prose. Possibly there can be no concrete treatment of poetry; very possibly this is his point. But while I find his writing generally clean and appealing, I find myself pretty deeply unconvinced by certain parts of the piece: for example, his seven final propositions, among which at least four are flowery restatements of each other.

The problem for me with treating a subject in this way, with romantic hails to the human spirit as the basis for actual assertions, is that there will always be somebody else who makes the opposing argument in a lovelier style. To my ear, Césaire’s last lines meet their match if not their superior in Beethoven’s Instrumentalmusik by E.T.A. Hoffman, which I read for a class last year.

Césaire writes: “The only acceptable poetic music comes from a greater distance than sound. The seek to musicalize poetry is the crime against poetic music, which can only be the striking of the mental wave against the rock of the world. The poet is that very ancient yet new being, at once very complex and very simple…” To me, this is not particularly moving. I can list opposites too, and hide behind the pretended subtlety of their contrast: poetry is dark yet light, safe yet dangerous, small yet large, etc. The trick is in having the contrast be really original, to have it really mean something, and I don’t feel that he has achieved that.

Hoffman answers, in a translation by Douglas Robertson: “…instrumental music…in disdaining any admixture of that other art known as poetry, expresses the peculiar, the uniquely intuitive… Music is…the only truly romantic art, for it takes the infinite itself as its sole theme. Orpheus’s lyre opened the gates of Hades. Music discloses to man an uncharted realm… Doubtless you, too--you long-suffering instrumental compositions, who take such great pains to depict distinct sentiments (and what is more, actual events)--have at least dimly surmised this peculiar essence? How, then, did it ever occur to you to busy yourself so materially with the materials of an art so frankly at odds with this essence? Your sunrises, your thunderstorms, your batailles des trois empereurs, etc., were, to be sure, quite laughable aberrations and have been deservedly consigned to utter oblivion.” Of course topics like music and poetry are all in the head, and arguments concerning them must appeal to an abstract something, sometime called the human spirit. I don’t know that there are any concrete points to be made on matters of taste. For my money, though, given that romantic bordering on purple prose is here unavoidable, I prefer Hoffman’s to Césaire’s: I find it more inventive, more moving, and very much more poetic.

Assignment

A. The City Limits by A.R. Ammons

When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold itself but pours its abundance without selection into every nook and cranny not overhung or hidden; when you consider

that birds’ bones make no awful noise against the light but lie low in the light as in a high testimony; when you consider the radiance, that it will look into the guiltiest

swervings of the weaving heart and bear itself upon them, not flinching into disguise or darkening; when you consider the abundance of such resource as illuminates the glow-blue

bodies and gold-skeined wings of flies swarming the dumped guts of a natural slaughter or the coil of shit and in no way winces from its storms of generosity; when you consider

that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen, each is accepted into as much light as it will take, then the heart moves roomier, the man stands and looks about, the

leaf does not increase itself above the grass, and the dark work of the deepest cells is of a tune with May bushes and fear lit by the breadth of such calmly turns to praise.

B. Exercise

Pick something small and insignificant and animate it into a full character. Make it as large as it can possibly be, make everything else answer to it, define all other things by their relation to it. A.R. Ammons picked light and reached outward, producing some of my favorite poetic turns of phrase: “…that birds’ bones make no awful noise against the light but/ lie low in the light as in a high testimony…” Take notes on the insignificant thing and take notes on what changes when we consider it significant. Attempt something like Ammons’ delicacy of voice. Use very precise diction. Try to end strong. Possibly draw some larger conclusions, but only if they present themselves.

D. Poem using notes from exercise

The mother of Sisera shakes the dust off her sandals at the rock-mouth of a tomb, and spits. Bring her His head on a platter, what had He to do with peace? After an age at the lattice—an age, an age, what could fathom He of windows—the word came.

She remembers (now confirms) He had the smell of fire on Him, she will eat of ash now and ever until at length tastes only stacte—onycha—galbanum—frankincense, and salt, until Anna, or Belinda, sweeps the plate and remain still twelve or seven baskets of broken pieces and of fish, glory be! and a house without appetite. Oil putrefies on the top of a pillar. 

Every morning she commands a fattened calf be brought, every night leads it back to pasture. Her face tans in squares, or burns in summer. Legion beg not to be sent into the abyss—is this too but wind after wind? The Sidonians cut timber on the Sabbath to build cities in Sheol. Moab uses sackcloth for sacks, and fig leaves for stew. Few talk sanely of spirit. Weep for he was right in her eyes and remains so, though the Ancient of Days engages Himself daily in peeling the scales from them —again, again, again, in perfect love. It is a pastime. Molech paces the sheepfolds, or doesn’t. Thought is but vanity, Babel rises higher than Agag, Ashtoreth sleeps off her drink (the Sidonians have forgotten her and she them), sweetly. 

She takes care in the last days to wash her feet and the palms of her hands—nothing can be done about the skull. All adjourns sine die: the son of a thistle of Lebanon did once love a cedar, in dreams he pled his mother ask the miracle of her hand. Ahithophel rides home, puts his house in order, and hangs himself. Dry-eyed, Bathsheba grieves.

                        Sister lays sister in earth (the maggots too are beautiful in their time), withdraws her hand, and comprehends nothing. In the fourth watch of the night she steps out on the other side to greet Pharaoh, who sits with her a while as she breaks jars and pours ointment on her son’s baby shoes, kneels to soothe the earth, bows and gives birth, or vomits, worships.

Process Notes

When reading A.R. Ammons’ The City Limits, I liked his choice to animate “the radiance,” which is observable only by its impact on other things, into something so large and real. By the end of the poem, the concrete physical qualities of light feel genuinely poetic—its linearity is bravery, its radial nature abundance and grace. For my exercise, I wanted to mimic Ammons’ large treatment of a small topic.

One of my pipe dreams in life is to read the holy books of as many major world religions as I can, which pretty heavily influenced the direction of this response. This summer I read the Bible, and the unnamed character of Sisera’s mother from Judges really stood out, despite being in actuality beyond insignificant. Her son was a Canaanite commander defeated by the Israelites with the support of their God. She is mentioned only very briefly (“Out of the window she peered, the mother of Sisera wailed through the lattice: ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?…’”), but something about the scene, her anticipation and her maternal anguish, really stuck with me. For me, the scene captures a question that many faith systems raise, and which each believer must resolve for themselves: what happens to those not among God’s favored? When God gives the victory to Israel, he must too give them enemies to conquer, and we cannot assume every last one of them evil. To explore this idea, I decided to write my poem with Sisera’s mother as the central character, and tried to call up other "insignificant” Biblical moments, focusing on other small and flawed characters. The Bible speaks of grace, and in the spirit of Ammons I tried to channel that sense of grace toward its darker subjects.

Jackie Feng