#Kyen

[deltaswap2442]

DeltaFellSwap

Crime boss

Mafia+50s Greaser+ Japanese Yakuza

A madman

Weapon's dealer specializing in close combat weapons (knives, swords, and of course scythes)

Can and will Rick Roll you

Smokes cigars and is an alcoholic

Burns himself with his own cigars

Del

NOWS YOUR CHANCE ÇHĀÑÇĒ TO KILL EVERYTHING

[sequs-art-box]

Team Avatar but they're kiddos/teens! I had this idea in my head for a while but for obvious reasons, I couldn't draw them until now.

[sweetdemolitionlovers]

« This world is a cruel place. And we're here only to lose. So before live tears us apart let. Death bless me with you. » ♫ Join Me In Death - HIM

Ralgath & Kyen 💕 My soul-transmitter Demon & his albinos 💕

Ralgath (demon) by me. Kyen by my partner @elodielsims 💕

[dspd]

I picked up a fic rec from TikTok that I thought was mostly about Regulus & Sirius if Regulus hadn't died and now I'm fully committed to the Kingsley/Regulus ship

Also IDK if it's already out there but I hc that at some point Kingsley's family name was Yeboah or Ozigbodi, or Dzifa and something *cough cough British imperialism* happened wherein an ancestor lost their surname. So, when the next ancestor was able, they chose a name no one would be able to forget. One that symbolized their pride for surviving while shoving it in the colonizers' faces the way you would rub a puppies nose in a pee spot while saying no and bad, such as Kyen. However, translation spells weren't what they are today and in the early 1900's, the spell translated it poorly. Hence, Shacklebolt.

[satorisoup]

i cant take dis anymore I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE !! ive been holdin’ back for… 3 months… ??? KYO SOHMA… m’ sho sorry… yous must be a selfship !! i mustn’t deny it any longer !! (っ⸝⸝⸝ <)

[y-rhywbeth2]

Elves: Language/s

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index[tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest. Frankly these posts may get updated now and then. etc]

Physiology and quirks | Names & Clans and Houses || Pan-Cultural things: Social life | Time and 'Growing Up an Elf' | Homes | Language | Art | Entertainment | Technology || Elven 'Subraces' still a wip || Philosophy and Religion & Pantheons || Half-elves | [WIP]

I have a weak spot for fictional languages and a compulsive need to poke them with a stick and babble about it. It was this or get sucked into trying to build actual headcanoned conlangs out of this nonsense. So.

If your character has elven on their character sheet: no they don't, the elves are just humouring you. No PCs actually learned this istg.

'Are you still putting off that elven subrace post?' YES.

The 'Elvish' you put on your character sheet as a language proficiency - or Lalur ('the Singing') in Elvish - is actually a pidgin tongue akin to Common, a 'simple' trade tongue that allows elves from various backgrounds to communicate. Elven languages tend to be varied, sometimes to an extreme extent. Drowic altered rapidly due to adapting to Underdark survival and meddling from the church of Lolth, and each drow city has a different dialect; and the Lythari dialect is utterly unlike any other.

As per the advice in Drow of the Underdark (1e), it's a perfectly valid choice to simply cherry pick words from canon glossaries and invent your own elven languages and dialects.

'Standard' Elven seems to look like this: 'Ai armiel telere maenen hir.' 'Qu’kiir vian ivae, qu’kiir nethmet. Ivae marat vand Cormanthor. Mythal selen mhaor kenet. Qu’kiir vand tir t’nor' Very big on diphthongs and ' .

Menzoberranzan Drowic looks like this: 'Khaless nau uss mzild taga dosstan.' 'Kyorl jal bauth, kyone, lueth lil Quarvalsharess xal belbau dos lil belbol del elandar dro.' They like their hard double consonants along with their dipthongs.

And the Lythari dialect looks like this: 'Na kwast wahir athu kyene wekht unarihe.' Seem to be a lot of 'clipped' sounds.

Put a moon elf a drow and an elven lycanthrope in the same room and tell them they have to use their mother tongue and they're not going to get anything done. A fluent speaker of the standard surface elven can make out about 14% of drowic by linguistic overlap, but nothing more, and such applies to other elves: a group of green elves and a migration of aquatic elves that encountered each other once had to spend time breaking down language barriers to talk to each other.

Usually the structure of elven languages flows like English, because the writers aren't actually making a genuine conlang. And then sometimes it really doesn't which makes trying to mine vocabulary and grammar annoying.

As well as spoken languages for daily communication, there are complicated mystical formal languages like Seldruin and 'High Drow' which is used by powerful spellcasters (High Mages and High Priestesses of Lolth respectively).

Elves also utilise alternate forms of communication like sign language and a sort of braille on a regular basis, even if abled. Drow are most known for their use of sign language (its lack of verbal component in particular is useful in the open Underdark, where making a noise is extremely likely to guarantee your death) but surface elves also use it, and use of 'braille' was promoted by moon elves for the sake of the visually impaired and blind, though many sighted elves also use it for secret messaging. Drow in particular make use of it for that, but they're hardly alone.

The alphabet elves use to write in Elven and Common is espruar, created by moon elves and adopted by other elven people (likely due to the amount of wandering and mixing the early moon elves got up to, pre-Crown Wars).

Comes in two variants, the latter of which is the most usually seen:

There's also an older variant of pictograms used by early elves that were 'predecessors' of the Thorass alphabet... which also might actually double as music instructions.

Seldruin is written in a distinct and basically extinct alphabet called Hamarfae.

Elven includes at least six grammatical tenses not found in the languages of shorter lived races to accommodate the elven understanding of time. While it hasn't come up in canon, with the Seldarine being ambiguous about gender elves should probably also have more complicated grammatical gender as well.

Just about every word in Common has about ten or more potential translations in an elvish language, each with a slightly different nuance which may be context sensitive as every word in elven appears to have several meanings within itself. Sort of like there's a word for every facet of a concept or thing, depending on what about the topic you specifically want to discuss.

Want to talk about the winter this year? Two words that will get translated into 'winter' in Common are Loress and Orth. Loress means winter as in the aspect of the season as a period of dormancy, slowing down and hibernation and winter's effect on plant life, you'd probably use it to discuss gardening and crops. Orth means winter in its aspect as a period of danger and consequences (closed roads and frostbite and death by exposure). But in common they just say 'winter.'

What you stress and how you use it will give you an entirely different sentence.

For general elven: Ar means great, Cor also means great, Selu means great.

Cor has connotations of 'grandness' and 'monarch,' carrying connotations of highest authority, and possibly a sort of peak: the highest point its possible to reach, and maybe culmination and fulfilment.

Ar also means 'sun,' probably the colour gold (since teu means silver and moon), as well as connotations of a high rank and the responsibility of guardianship and/or guidance judging by the title 'Arakhor' (ar + akh (duty-need) + or (woods) - the tree guardian, grandfather tree, the one who protects the woods)

(Thus gold elves, the Ar'Tel'Quessir have a name that communicates that they are the people of the sun (by golden appearance and affiliation with Labelas Enoreth), the 'highest' of the People, and they are those with a duty to look after the elven people and their ways.)

Not sure about selu, it places an emphasis on a translation into 'high' and it mostly crops up in connotations of High Magic. Usually gets contracted to sel, like 'Seldarine.'

And then, by changing the stressed syllable, a word has a different meaning.

For example 'Cormanthor,' 'Cormanthor,' and 'Cormanthor' are three different words!

Combining Cor = 'Grand/great ' + Manth = 'Promise/vow,' apparently with connotations of hoping/having faith in the promised outcome + Or = 'Wood,' 'place,' probably also 'copper'

Cormanthor means 'the King's Vow Forest.' Referring to the forest of Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Place of Great Promise.' Referring to the capital city of Myth Drannor, Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Ruler of the Forest True,' and 'King of the Oathlands,' was the green elven title for the coronal (king) of Cormanthor. Apparently when stress is taken of manth and or they combine meanings to get 'faithful-wood/land' or 'oathland'

And then there's 'Cormanthyr' which is a different word altogether whose nuance can be translated as 'the Fulfilment of Promise' and 'Culmination of Hope and Faith' simultaneously.

Also sometimes seems like nouns double as adjectives.

Theur means 'shield' and 'unbreakable,' 'unyielding.'

Aegan means 'physical strength' and 'strong.'

Plurals are just come in so many variants.

Vel -> Vael Sig -> Sige Or -> Ora Athil -> Athila Quess -> Quessir

[bearterritory]

#4 Cal Tops #10 UCLA, #19 OSU in Opener

Lauzon Named ACC Gymnast of the Week

OCEANSIDE – The No. 4 California women's gymnastics team took home a pair of wins at the season-opening American Gold Collegiate Classic posting a 196.275 at Frontwave Arena in Oceanside. No. 19 Oregon State finished second in the tri-meet with a 195.775 and No. 10 UCLA came in third at 195.250.   The Golden Bears (2-0) had six individual podium finishes from its senior class, including three event wins. Mya Lauzon finished second in the all-around with a score of 39.525, while also earning a share of the balance beam and floor exercise titles, and a share of the silver on vault. Ella Cesario's 39.200 in the all-around earned her the bronze and Maddie Williams took the gold on the uneven bars.   Cal took on the events in Olympic order beginning on vault. Freshman Mya Wiley made her collegiate debut and did not disappoint earning a 9.80 that was the sixth-highest score of the afternoon. Lauzon's event-winning 9.90 was the top routine of rotation as the senior led the Bears to a 48.950 and an early lead over the Bruins (0-2) and Beavers (1-1).   The Bears, who finished last year as the second-ranked uneven bars team in the country, posted the highest score of the afternoon on their second rotation collecting a 49.175. Williams got her senior year off to hot start anchoring the lineup with a 9.95. She was one of just two gymnasts on any apparatus to achieve the near-perfect score. Cesario placed fifth in the event notching a 9.85 and both Lauzon and junior eMjae Frazier tied for sixth scoring a 9.825.   Cal headed to the balance beam with a healthy half-way lead sitting at 98.125 while Oregon State sat in second at 97.750 and UCLA in third at 97.250. The third rotation got off to a strong start with Cesario and Williams each posting a 9.85 in the lead-off spots that earned them a share of fourth place. Lauzon turned in her second 9.900 of the day in the fifth spot of the lineup to help keep the Bears in front with a 49.100.   A strong performance on beam saw the Bears' lead grow to a half point over the Beavers and nearly a full point over the Bruins heading into the final rotation on floor. Once again Cal got a great start from its two leadoffs as sophomore Kyen Mayhew got things going with a 9.800 and senior Jordan Kane followed with a 9.850 that earned her a share of fourth place. Lauzon anchored the lineup with a 9.900 to put her team over the 49-point mark at 49.050.

Thanks to her four podium finishes and two event titles in the meet and hellping her team score 196.275 (that was the sixth-highest score across the NCAA during week one), Lauzon was awarded the honor by the conference in being named the first ACC Women's Gymnast of the Week for the 2025 season.   Her all-around score was the sixth highest achieved by any gymnast during opening week and she now ranks third in the country on floor, seventh on beam, and ninth on vault.  

[glittter-vamp]

Part Tres:

Nuremberg, Germany

I accomplished my dream of exploring Nuremberg castle. It was beautiful! Some of it was rebuilt after it was bombed in WW2, but the chapel and first floors, basements, and the well survived unscathed. The chapel is the oldest building being a bit over 1000 years old I believe. They don’t know how old the well is because records about it weren’t kept (so enemies couldn’t find it and poison it). It’s most likely as old or older than the chapel and likely took 7-10 years to finish. It’s so deep that it takes almost 5 seconds for the water to hit the bottom.

I also got some Lebkuchen (Leb-koo-kyen) which is like kinda like gingerbread but not. It was created in Nuremberg and the family I bought it from has been in the business for 70ish years. I got to see some of the Christmas market still being set up. And I got a traditional German pretzel.

The castle was just spectacular though but I TOASTED my calves walking up there. It is a STEEP walk (warded off enemies in historical times). So worth it.

I also got to see where the Nuremberg trials were held. So much history in one city. It’s incredible.

How fun!! So nice you got to see something on your bucket list. As a history nerd I’m so jealous!

[spoon-writes]

Ends of the Earth | Chapter 29

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairing: Mando x OC

Read on FFN or AO3

Summary: When Sinead's husband is ripped from her, she escapes the Hutt Empire and goes on a quest to find him. Since being a runaway slave in the Outer Rim isn't exactly easy, she makes the Mandalorian an offer he can't refuse, and soon they travel across the galaxy looking for her missing husband.

Chapter index

Chapter 29 - Legend of the Lost

Sinead opened her eyes and regretted it immediately. The cave was filled with sunlight that seared into her brain, which already felt like it had been dragged across a gravel path. Her lungs were tight, making it difficult to breathe. She let out a pathetic groan and pulled the blanket over her head.

One after one, the memories from the day before slotted into place. There had been something in the air … she furrowed her brows and forced herself to breathe slowly despite the discomfort. Mando had found her and dragged her to safety.

She placed a hand on her sternum. It suddenly dawned on her that she was wrapped in Mando’s cloak. It smelled unmistakably of him, like metal and blaster fire. Unconsciously, she breathed a little deeper.

"Sinead?"

She pulled the cloak from her head. Mando stood at the opening of the cave, turning a round object over and over in his hands.

She sat up with a grunt, wincing as her whole body protested against ... everything. She had slept on the cold, hard ground before but it was the first time it had left her feeling like she'd taken a tumble down a flight of stairs. "I'm up."

"How're you feeling?"

"Like I just went three rounds against a mudhorn.”

"Mhm. You should eat something." He gestured to a ration bar lying beside the now extinguished fire, and Sinead made a big show of picking it up and shoving it into her mouth. It had the taste and consistency of old rubber but it did make her feel a bit better.

When she was done eating, Mando handed her a flight helmet that had seen better days; the red paint that covered the plastoid was chipped and scarred and a small crack ran down the visor. "Where did you find this?"

"There's a crashed ship down the mountain," Mando said. "It's air-tight, I checked."

"Great. Not really itching to get poisoned again. Once was more than enough." It ended on a croak and Sinead cleared her throat. Her lungs spasmed, sending her into a coughing fit that shot pain through her chest.

Two hands on her shoulders kept her from keeling over, and she was vaguely aware of Mando saying her name. When the coughing fit ceased, she looked at Mando through watery eyes. “M’ okay.”

“We’re going back to the village.” Mando’s voice was strained. “They can deal with this.” His left thumb rubbed soothing circles into her shoulder.

Sinead sucked in a breath. “No, really, I’m okay.” It wasn’t a lie. It felt like the coughing fit had removed whatever it was that had restricted her lungs. “We’ve come too far to turn back, besides we need fuel to get off the planet.”

Mando suddenly became aware that he was still touching her and his hands fell from her shoulders. He stood abruptly and stepped back to the cave’s opening, giving her some air.

She schooled her face into a neutral expression while she got to her feet. The cave spun and she swallowed, fixing her gaze on a patch of moss growing on the rocky wall. Her stomach flipped once before she found equilibrium.

Wordlessly, Mando handed her a canteen and she drank until it was empty. The cold water cleared her head, and when she bent down to retrieve the cloak, she almost felt like before.

She handed the cloak back to Mando. "Thank you for this, and for ... yesterday. Couldn't have been easy getting out of there." She pushed down the image of Kyen, dead and cold.

Mando cleared his throat. "Yeah." He turned his head towards the mouth of the cave. “If you’re really sure you want to go on, we should get moving. I don’t want to spend another night out here.”

She looked out at the gently swaying trees just outside the cave. Somewhere on the other side of the valley the kid was waiting for them. “Yeah, just give me a second.”

A few meters from the cave there was an ancient fallen tree. The rotten wood dipped when she sat and started to pick at her dirty braid. Most of the hair had escaped during her adventure in the woods, and underway she untangled dead leaves, clumps of dirt, a beetle.

“Your hair is too long.”

Sinead glanced up at Mando, squinting against the violently blue sky. She was halfway done with braiding her hair around her head to make it fit inside the helmet. “Excuse me for not taking hair advice from someone who always wears a helmet. For all I know you could be bald under there.”

He didn’t seem perturbed leaning against the side of the cave entrance. “It’s too easy to grab in a fight.”

“Well I like my hair no matter how grabbable it is.”

His shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. “Suit yourself.”

Once she finished she slipped the helmet over her head. It let out a whir as the vacuum seal closed around her neck. The vivid green of the forest was muted through the visor but it beat getting a face full of poison. Her head felt strangely heavy, the sound of her breathing amplified in the small space.

"Does it fit?"

"I'll get used to it. Where did you say you found it again?"

"Down the mountain there's a ship. It's been here for a while, I almost missed it."

"You think that could be responsible for the toxins?"

"Don't think so. It’s overgrown, it has been here for too long.”

"I guess we just have to go and look around," Sinead looked up at the tree crown where slivers of blue sky were visible.

"If you start feeling anything off, we head back. Don't take any chances."

Despite the mild weather, a chill went up Sinead's spine. "Don't worry. If I see any ghostly figures you'll be the first to know.” She stood and was about to brush her pants for any errant moss or bark when she froze. Her hand hovered over the spot where the whip should have been.

What happened yesterday? She tried to think back but panic made her brain reel. She’d seen the ghosts, specters, figments of her drugged mind. They’d come closer and she had pulled out the whip. She must have dropped it in the forest.

Somehow she’d managed to lose a priceless Mandalorian artifact—one of its kind—and it would take months, years to find it again.

“Here.”

She looked up. Mando was holding out the whip in front of her.

She took it in numb hands. The metal felt sun-warmed and as always lighter than it should have been. “I thought I lost it.” Relief made her voice wobbly and she cleared her throat. I can’t believe I … thank you.”

Mando shrugged one broad shoulder. “Don’t mention it. We have to go now. If we lose the light before we find the cause, we will go back.” His voice brokered no argument and Sinead didn’t want to spend another night out here even if her life depended on it, so she just gave him a nod.

The trek down the mountain didn't take long. The forest was not as dense here and they followed an animal track until the ground evened out and they were back in the valley. Sinead scanned the dark trees. It felt like she was watching everything through a screen, the sounds and smells dulled by the helmet. Was this how Mando felt? Separated from the world by a layer of beskar, never really being able to touch, feel.

The forest was barely any brighter in the daylight, the leaves twisted to catch the sunshine, casting the ground in shadows. There were no movements. No eyes in the trees, no specters appearing out of the mist. No Kyen.

It was strange walking through the forest again. It felt so far removed from the dark labyrinth from the night before. She almost expected to see translucent shapes reach out, and she tried to suppress a shudder.

"See anything?" Mando said.

"Ghosts or their cause?"

"Both."

"Nothing yet. I'll keep you posted."

By the time they found the facility, Sinead barely noticed her lungs hurting anymore.

In a hollow in the ground, close to the center of the valley, sat a collection of large square buildings looking like they'd been poured directly from a cement mixer, and surrounded by a tall fence. The forest had started to reclaim the buildings, trees and shrubs growing through the fence and shooting through the concrete paths going from building to building. They were bare, without windows, except the biggest one that stood in the center. A large hexagon separated into six parts had been painted on the side. The sight sparked a long forgotten memory.

"I've seen that before," she said and pointed to the symbol. "A mechanic who worked on my parents' cargo ship for a little while. He had that tattooed on his shoulder. Said he worked in a shipyard on Antar 4." She had loved listening to his stories about fighting against the oppressors. It had sounded like a fairy tale. "Most of the Separatists were either killed or joined the Empire years ago."

"It's probably a holdout from the war," Mando said. "If they were trying to make some kind of biological weapon."

"And what? The Lost decided that now was the time to test it?"

Mando shrugged. "Let's go down and take a look."

The buildings were a lot bigger than Sinead first thought. Not tall but just ... large. They took up too much space until it felt like she was looking at a realistic hologram instead of the real thing. They didn't fit out here in the old forest. Like a grey wound in a sea of green.

It didn't take long to find a place where the fence had been pushed down by the foliage, and they climbed across and into the silent hollow.

A commando droid lay slumped against one of the buildings, weeds growing through holes in its chassis. Sinead stopped. “How long do you think it’s been there?”

"I don't know. A long time. Keep your eyes out for more."

The unnatural silence of the forest seemed magnified between the concrete walls, bouncing back and forth until the air was thick with the absence of sound.

"Do you see any doors?" She circled a smaller building and found the pockmarked concrete without even a window to squeeze through. "They must be connected through a tunnel underground. Fewer entrances to guard, I suppose." Not that it saved them in the long run.

"Over here!" Mando shouted, and Sinead rounded the corner to find him standing in front of a blast door set into the biggest building. There were more broken droids here in a half circle around the door and faded scorch marks on the concrete wall. No one had bothered picking them up when they fell.

Mando examined the wall all around the door while Sinead ran her fingers across the control panel which required a code, but even if they'd known it, there was a blaster hole right through the keypad. Whatever was in there the Separatists didn't want to risk anyone finding it.

"Depending on how thick the wall is," Mando said, "a couple of blast charges could knock the door loose, but it'll make a lot of noise."

"I doubt these guys'll mind." Sinead gestured to the broken droids around them.

"Mhm." Mando rolled his shoulders in irritation. "It'll be safer going in quiet."

"I don't think anyone's home after 20 years."

"That's not what I'm worried about. The entire building could fall on our heads."

Sinead jabbed the one remaining button on the keypad; predictably, nothing happened. "Do we have another option if we wanna get inside."

With a sigh, Mando pulled out two thermal detonators and attached them to the wall close to the door, while Sinead picked her way across the battlefield out of the radius of the blast. Mando followed, stomping through the broken droids. Once they were both a safe distance away, he activated the detonators. The boom tore through the silence, the explosion itself leaving a burning white scar across Sinead’s vision. She felt the blast deep in her bones, even though the helmet protected her from the worst of it.

The smoke cleared and revealed the door still stood although there were deep cracks in the concrete wall. A large piece broke off and clattered to the ground. Sinead adjusted the helmet. "Well, it's still standing."

"I think we can push it over. C'mon."

The blast had caught a droid and ripped it from its weedy grave, laying its blaster-riddled body bare for them to see. It still clutched a powerful blaster rifle in its rusty hands. Sinead prodded it with the tip of her boot. "You know, I'm glad we missed this particular party."

Mando didn't reply or look at the droid; he went back to the door and rammed against it with his shoulder. "Help me with this."

They pushed against the door until the wall was crumbling and pieces of concrete pinged off her helmet. With one final shove, the door fell and landed on the ground with a crash that rivaled the explosion. Clouds of dust whirled into the air, illuminated by the sunlight that streamed into the room for the first time in years. There was a set of stairs in the middle of the room, disappearing down into the dark.

"If anyone's down there they've definitely heard us by now."

“If anyone’s down there they probably already know we’re here.” He scanned the quiet buildings. “This place is too secure not to have security cams.”

“Oh, that’s …” A shiver went down Sinead’s spine. “I didn’t think of that.” She’d had enough of hidden eyes watching her.

Mando made his way across the uneven door, concrete rubble crunching under his feet, and shone a light down into the darkness. Something glittered in the air.

A thick layer of dust stifled their footsteps and the air smelled stale even through the helmet's atmospheric processor. There was something besides dust that hung in the air, clinging to Sinead’s exposed hands.

"I don't think anyone's been down here for a long time," Sinead said.

"Somebody released the toxin."

"What are the chances that there's another top secret facility hidden somewhere in the forest?"

"Small."

The beam of light revealed that they had reached the bottom of the staircase and found themselves in front of another blast door with black scorch marks and an intact keypad. A droid lay crumbled on the floor and Mando kicked it aside.

"It's too risky setting off another explosion down here." He gave the door an experimental push. "We'll get buried alive."

Sinead ran a hand over the keypad, pressing a random number. A little red light turned on. “Well, there’s still power. If we get the code somehow …”

Mando made a sound and the light disappeared as he inspected the wall around the blast door, leaving Sinead in near darkness. She pursed her lips and looked down when her eyes fell on the dark outline of the droid. She crouched down. “Hey, Mando, can you give me some light?”

Mando turned and the droid was illuminated; it was long-limbed and sleek-looking and fortunately just as lifeless as its mates getting reclaimed by the forest.

“I think I’ve seen one of these before. A cargo runner my parents did business with who had one of these reprogrammed. It’s a commando droid,” Sinead said.

“Mhm,” Mando said in a tone of voice that suggested the less he knew about it the better. She tried shooting him an apologetic look, but the light source on his helmet made him hard to see.

“What are you doing?”

She had found the droid’s wrist and prodded around with her fingertips, tongue held between her teeth. “I’m trying to get to this—” A small metal rod extended from its wrist—” scomp link.” After wiggling it back and forth it broke away with a clang. “Keep the light on the keypad, please.”

"Does it even still work?" Mando's voice was full of doubt but he still obliged, stepping back and craned his head to illuminate the keypad.

"It should," Sinead said, slipping the scomp into the port, slowly turning it between her fingers. "Unless there's a sort of ... life-check built into the system to make sure that the droid is online. But why should there be?"

"So this exact thing doesn't happen."

"Shush now." She closed her eyes to concentrate, feeling the metal warming up in her hands, waiting for the mechanism to catch. She could feel Mando behind her, impatient and skeptical.

She felt more than heard a click. The door slid open with a grating whine and a cloud of mist rolled into the decontamination chamber. Sinead's breath hitched and she reflectively lifted her hand to slap it across her mouth, but her fingers bumped against the helmet. She held her breath as the mist pressed against the vizor, eyes wide, looking for even a glimpse of a white translucent specter.

"How're you feeling? Is the helmet holding up?" Mando's voice sounded anxious beside her.

"Yeah, I think so. We'd know by now, wouldn't we?" She lifted a hand and watched as the mist swirled in the current. If she looked closely she could see it was made by particles small enough to be carried in the air.

"This is what I saw in the forest ... something must have happened down here."

Sinead swallowed and lowered her hand. "Let's find out what."

The mist swirled when they entered the chamber.

Red warning lights blinked out a constant rhythm, making the shadows move and twist, but thankfully there was no blaring alarm. The facility was eerily silent just like the forest, and the slowly moving mist made everything seem unreal; their entrance had disturbed it, but even on the opposite side of the room the mist seemed to move by its own accord, rising or falling in an indecipherable pattern. The room itself was in disarray with signs of fighting, datapads and flimsi strewn across the floor. A broken phosphotube dangled from the ceiling by a single cord.

An open door led into a red-lit corridor that branched off into smaller rooms filled with barely visible lab equipment. The toxin was everywhere, billowing silently across the floor in great big plumes, sometimes so thickly that Sinead had to squint to see Mando beside her. She could feel his presence though, brushing up against her side.

"Do you think anyone could survive down here?" She asked.

"No." Mando touched her shoulder. "Look."

Something white was lying across the corridor floor, and Sinead's heart seized for one terrifying moment, hand flying to the vacuum seal around her neck but it still seemed to be holding tight. Whatever it was, it wasn't one of the Lost.

The mist cleared a little and they both stopped in their tracks.

"Is that a-"

"Stormtrooper." Mando bent down to get a better look at the body; the helmet was gone revealing leathery skin pulled tight over the skull but the white plastoid plates were unmistakable. The warm dry air had mummified him. His face seemed to move in the blinking red light, empty eye-sockets suddenly staring straight into Sinead's eyes. "I don't see any wounds. He must've lost his helmet."

Sinead swallowed and doublechecked the seal on her own helmet. "At least there are two blast doors between the toxin and the outside world."

Mando got to his feet with a grunt. "One door. We broke one, remember?"

"Let's hope one is enough."

The corridor ended in another blast door that had closed on a hapless droid. Mist billowed out of the resulting gap, obscuring the wall and Sinead had to fumble her way to the control panel. When the door slid open it was like being submerged in murky water.

They moved into the room beyond. Strange contraptions appeared from the mist like icebergs, machines with tubes running from the ceiling, tables strewn with beakers filled with mystery liquids. The battle had reached this room too; two Stormtroopers lay dead on the floor with blaster holes in their chest, and there were even more broken droids. On one desk, a beaker had tipped over and the contents had melted a deep hole all the way down to the floor. Another one stood precariously close to the edge. Somehow it hadn’t evaporated in however many years since the lab was abandoned.

Sinead stopped in front of a large container where one of the purple flowers was suspended in transparent liquid, fed by four different tubes coming down from the ceiling.

"Sinead," Mando said, and she turned to see him standing by the far wall. The mist had dispersed enough to see a giant window with a large crack running down the middle. The chamber behind was massive, circular with a catwalk running all the way around the edge. In the center stood four large vats, two of which were filled with poison, the other two were nothing more than warped metal. It looked like they had been caught in some kind of explosion. The same blast had ripped part of the catwalk from the wall. That answered the question of why the facility was full of toxins.

"Hey, look ..." She had reached a control panel at the center of the room. A corpse lay slumped over a console. At first she thought they had died like the Stormtrooper and that the air had mummified them, but as she looked closer she saw a breathing mask affixed over their mouth and nose, and there was a charred hole in their back, probably from a blaster round. They were human, or near-human, but death had erased all other identifiers?

Sinead was about to turn away when she spotted something under the corpse. She took a stabilizing breath before grabbing their shoulder. The skin beneath the grey shirt was at once firm and unpleasantly pliant, and the corpse slid off the console with a leathery whisper, revealing a screen.

"Trial event set to ten thousand three hundred seventy-one days," she read aloud as Mando joined her. "Countdown ... zero."

"Can you stop it?"

"Hmm ... maybe. If we can reset it somehow that'll still give us ten thousand odd days to figure out a more permanent solution. Wish Jami was here." She chewed on her lower lip and examined the control panel, finding two similar levers on opposite ends just out of reach. "Let's try this one. We have to turn the levers at the same time."

Mando took up station and waited for her count.

"Alright." Sinead grabbed the lever. "On three. One. Two. Three!" They yanked down on the levers and the machine gave a short, high-pitched beep before the screen scrubbed itself clean and the countdown reverted back to 10.371.

"Do you think it worked?" She asked after a couple of seconds of silence. "This seems a little too ... easy."

"You think this was easy? You got poisoned! You could've died." Mando shot her a look that endeavored to be exasperated even through his helmet and the mist.

"You know what I mean. An entire village fled to the mountains and all we had to do was press a couple of buttons." Her hand bumped against her helmet as she tried to push a lock of sweaty hair out of her eyes. "Why do you think they set the trial so far out in the future?"

Mando shrugged. "Could be an accident when the facility was attacked. It doesn't matter now."

"I guess it doesn't." She glanced around the darkened lab at the machinery that took on strange shapes half obscured by the mist. "Let's head back to the villagers. Who knows how long we've been down here." Without natural light it was hard to tell.

"We've already wasted too much time here. We should've been on the way to Celvalara by now." Mando took a step back and nearly disappeared in the mist.

An image of Kyen, cold and dead, flashed across her mind. "Yeah.” The dark lab, not exactly the most hospitable place in the first place, grew even more foreboding. She rested a clammy hand on the grip of her blaster.

Small pinpricks of light shone through the mist from the various machines still somehow functional after all those years.

The lights moved.

“What the—” a metal hand shot out of the mist and closed around her arm. Before Sinead had time to react, she slammed into a table, sending datapads and beakers crashing to the floor.

She ducked under a whirling metal arm that had enough force behind it to crush her skull, helmet and all, and slid off the table.

A commando droid advanced on her. Its oval face made it uncomfortably humanoid and it moved in a way that was both too fluid for a droid but too deliberate for there to be anything else but wires and silicon behind it.

It lunged and Sinead scrambled out of its way at the last second. She danced backward, keeping it in her line of sight, barely noticing when she hit a large machine.

She caught a glimpse of Mando through the wildly swirling mist, heard the sound of fighting, metal on metal. Just how many droids were down here?

The commando droid sprang for her and Sinead tried dodging but that split-second distraction proved to be too long. Its metal fingers scraped across her helmet sounding like a thunderclap, nearly enough to drown out the pounding in her ears.

The commando droid grabbed her around her neck, but she didn’t even have time to panic before her feet left the ground and she was hurled over a table, crashing to the ground. A rack of vials fell and showered her in glass shards. At least these were empty and not like—

An idea struck her just as the commando droid vaulted the table in one leap. She rolled out of the way, hearing glass crunching as it landed.

Where was the entrance to the lab? The place was hard to navigate when all she had to worry about was the mist and now she had a murderous droid on her heels.

She sprinted down the length of the laboratory, somehow hearing the slight whirr of the droid following. Mando was close by but she didn’t have the wherewithal to find him in the murk.

Something struck her in the middle of the back and sent her sprawling into a table, where a beaker wobbled dangerously close to the edge. She didn’t think, her hand wrapped around cold glass and hurled it at the advancing droid.

The glass smashed against the droid’s head which started to cave in on itself with an impossible sizzling sound like meat hitting a hot pan. No, not caving, but melting away as the acid burned through layers of metal like it was flimsi. Its body tumbled to the floor with a crash.

Had she breathed since the droid first grabbed her? It didn’t feel like it. Her knees buckled and she had to grab the edge of the table to stay upright.

There was a sound of screaming metal. She looked up from the smoking remains of the droid and saw Mando standing, breathing hard. A headless commando droid lay crumpled at his feet, its head still spinning on the floor beside it.

"Are-" Sinead sucked in a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he said, looking down at the droid. "Security."

She winced as she rolled her shoulders. Now that the adrenaline was ebbing she felt every time the droid had hurled her across the room. "They didn't do a great job clearing out the place."

Mando kicked the headless droid out of the way with an angry grunt. "No they—SINEAD!"

Something hard crashed into her. She was pinned to the floor, hands clawing ineffectively against metal. Two round eyes stared down at her. It lifted a clenched fist.

Then her lungs caught fire.

And the world went dark.

<- Previous chapter

[nicoleaudreyco]

"I hope that you'll never get tired of dealing with those pains that you can't share with anyone because you're anxious that they might judge you. Always remember that you're not alone, and even if you don’t know me, I believe in you. This too shall pass. There is help. There is hope. You're a brave soul."

A girl who is named Sisa by Nicole Audrey Co (Wide Awake Volume III Anthology)

Ukiyoto

https://www.ukiyotoindia.com/product-page/wide-awake-volume-iii?fbclid=IwAR2zPnNsGAg60kS_-CV2xaF43N_2rLByxCi8v3db65hqQuxGqEB_4VWUO5A

Anthology Contributors:

Monika Arora, Taniya Briana, Bijaya Ghosh, Kuntala Bhattacharya, Adrija Chatterjee, Kyene Shane Pelayo, Nicole Audrey Co, Radhika Sharma Acharya

[maximuswolf]

Griffin Seagle - Limerence [Indie]

Griffin Seagle - Limerence [Indie] https://youtu.be/A_omwFI-9_c?si=XbkYTjGo48S-KYEn Submitted May 11, 2024 at 03:43AM by Mrfishyfun https://ift.tt/emxviUj via /r/Music

[sequs-art-box]

I WILL continue the Avatar train! For now, have a doodle of Kyen Ha (Disgust)!

[voidofthearchive]

dune 1 is soo good and they lifted quotes from the book but they Still left out scenees! the greenhouse/shoudout mapes scene, the whole liet-kyenes internal monolouge,,, the "mood is for making love and writing poetry" line,,, as a dude fanatic who hyperfixated on it as like a 9 year old im disapointed smh

[satorisoup]

𓍼 koene ⋮ koutaro & lene

“ i never thought i’d see something beautiful, until i saw your lips curl into a smile that’s beyond what beautiful is. ”

𓍼 kirene ⋮ eijiro & lene

“ hold me closely under the rain that falls, so i may hear your heart beat like a melody that drowns the dew on our skin. ”

𓍼 armene ⋮ armin & lene

“ dance with me to the beat of the melody that plays, until our knees are sore and all we can remember is the smiles on eachothers faces. ”

𓍼 kitane ⋮ shinsuke & lene

𓍼 keilene ⋮ keiji & lene

𓍼 luroo ⋮ tetsuro & lene

𓍼 sholene ⋮ shoto & lene

𓍼 katsene ⋮ katsuki & lene

𓍼 levine ⋮ levi & lene

𓍼 lenemi ⋮ sanemi & lene

𓍼 kyolene ⋮ kyojuro & lene

𓍼 lumeya ⋮ hajime & lene

𓍼 sueno ⋮ hayato & lene

𓍼 sakurene ⋮ sakura & lene

𓍼 lereo ⋮ reo & lene

𓍼 hiore ⋮ hiori & lene

𓍼 kyene ⋮ kyo & lene

[yourstrulykyen]

get  2 know kyen and a bit about her sister!!!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1E37HMwJXppyct44AmwGLkoOfmjtUWjGP_os-J2WdrYI/edit#slide=id.g103ea3115b1_1_104