#Milk (Skulk! Moon)

[vectorisheree]

Sees the moldy skulk boy(Moon):

Yes, headpats and kisses. Mhm.

The only piece of affection he has ever received </3

[vectorisheree]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OH I LOVE HIM SO SO MUCH OOHH OHH OH OH OUGUGUGHHEGHGHGHGHGEEEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEHEHEHEHE

cute boi——

from @vectorisheree

Will he like eating golden apples?🤔🤔

[seafleece]

Prompt: the characters have switched bodies, but only partially! What that means is up to you

(this is a loose interpretation of this at Best, but that’s just how it be sometimes)

“do you like being a tiefling, beau?”

jester’s accent is so thick in that moment— teef-link, she says— and it’s one of those things beau thinks she’ll remember for a while. forever, probably, just rattling around in her brain, the way jester looks at her all moon-eyed, how she sinks her milk-white front teeth into her lower lip almost fiercely.

“uh.” she looks down at herself— it’s not quite the same as bazzoxan, she thinks caleb was probably too sad to think about molly’s dick again, or whatever— but still that bleary, bright, sun-in-a-smoky-sky red, with the horns that go straight back and curl up at the ends and the whip-sharp tail.

her new vestiges are darker, though, and even with the gold trim it’s a little more subdued, the blue and red together. she’s still got the abs, thank god.

“i guess, kind of.”

why had they done this again? it seems so flimsy a reason— tieflings aren’t inconspicuous anywhere, especially not in the empire, and decidedly not a bright red one.

she’s not gonna argue, though, not with jester watching her like that.

“why, do you like it?”

beau usually knows what she gets, teasing jester. she flushes this deep, bruisy purple, excuses herself or squeaks out something just a little bit incriminating or says nothing at all. it’s heart-stoppingly endearing, is what it is, so much so she’s willing to make jester just a little uncomfortable to see it, otherwise she’d never.

what she isn’t expecting jester to do, though, is stop smiling, tilt her head a little to the side like she’s really thinking about it. her eyes get a little less moony, a little more narrow, and trail down and back up slowly.

it reminds her of marion in the best worst way, when she speaks. it’s not often jester seems so much like her mother, and it always hits her straight in the face, like whiskey or at least something smoother than nott’s bullshit, when jester gets quiet and deliberate. when she slows down for a second.

“yeah.”

and then jester turns on her heel and flounces down the alleyway they’ve been skulking in, back out towards the street.

at the last second, her tail— softer around the edges than beau’s, just like everything else, tangles with her own, the jewelry strung from it trailing and whispery and cold. it’s a little uncoordinated, they get properly tangled for just a second, like she hadn’t meant to get so close.

she almost stumbles, starts, and beau thinks she feels it too, this strange, almost buzzing sensation that climbs up her spine like a warm shiver. it’s weird, how much sensation they have.

it’s weird, too, how she can’t remember quite what molly used to do with his, how she thinks she never really saw him twirling it, lashing it all excited the way jester does sometimes, or how she’ll curl it around beau’s ankle when they bed down.

something a little restrained about him, all that time, and she never really understood till now.

“come on, beau!”

the moment passes— or she thinks it does, at least, except jester doesn’t look forlorn at all when the spell runs out, almost a little relieved. she wraps her tail around beau’s ankle that night, in the bed they really don’t need to be sharing, and it buzzes in her veins in the same warm way.

[englass]

Baptism in Ichor

Pairing(s): N/A (Reader insert featuring John, but it’s hardly a pairing)

Warning(s): Attempted drowning, visual hallucinations(?)

Word Count: 1,944

A/N(s): It’s about 5 in the morning, I’m feeling shattered, and here’s another abandoned fic that nobody asked for, but that I want to post. Enjoy.

- - -

The water is chilled, a liquid ice that strikes you straight to the marrow. Your breath is stuttered, gasps that don’t quite follow through, as flesh and muscle twitch and shiver in the frigid air of the nights domain. Your vision is slightly blurred, a chlorine sting that burns fierce, the edges filled with will-o’-the-wisps that glide to a woeful waltz.

There is something in the water. It makes your mind slow, aims to wrap it in a warm cotton that should be serenely comforting. An embrace that eases your worries and trepidations, lulling you into a muted sense of compliancy and openness. Instead, what you are given is a blanket stitched with a biting polyester. A mock silk that leaves the grotesque impression of a slimy film across your skin. 

Everything feels wrong. A sense of frenzied fear vibrates your nerves like a frying circuit, mind flickering like a dying bulb as you tremble and mentally grasp at something that does not exist. Your skin prickles with a rising itch, lingering under the surface and just out of reach. It feels like you are wearing an extra layer that shouldn’t be there; that doesn’t belong.

Your digits quake under the desperate hold you have on the figure in front of you. Amongst the twisted fireflies parading in your unfocused sight you catch the dirtied beige of an uncomfortable sweater, feel its coarse texture beneath your numbing hold. Yet you feel something else under your grounding grip, nauseous and cringe inducing, much like the slick of a used grease tray. With a wavering focus your stinging eyes are cast down, watching the noticeable tremor in your hands and the inky substance that clings to them like mould.

You blink, an indistinct terror that flails on the tip of your tongue yet fails to get through to your muddled mind. There’s a familiarity to the substance, like you know it personally, as you would an old friend from time ago.

An old friend that you never wished to see again.

The figure in front of you pays no mind to your lost gaze, pieces not quite fitting together, and proceeds to ease you towards the river bank with a patient motion. The moment you move however, is when the penny violently clatters to the ground.

With all the deathly shrillness of a banshee your legs scream. With pain-widened eyes and a wail that never breaks the air you freeze with a glacial fear that seers you like a blaze, sharp and prickly like a scarring burn.

The substance is no longer unfamiliar, and panic has seized you like a rabid dog.

Hands jerking in their hold you try to stumble back, try to get away from the obsidian poison, but you can’t seem to let go. With a mounting distress you realise that the obsidian-black slime is all over you. You catch a glimpse of it on your legs, on your arms, and even on part of your torso.

To see so much of it in one instance, painted in the corners of your sight like a macabre display, in your eyes, is the equivalent of seeing your name on death’s wish list.

There is an itch that tears you apart, that gifts you the need to rip your skin away to eliminate the rising nausea, your throat constricting in an almost subconscious attempt at self-asphyxiation. Your head pounds something terrible, a nasty pressure that refuses to let-up, and you know for a fact that something – everything – is very, very wrong. 

With joints of unbending metal that ache with every movement, muscles pulling like a wire on the cusp of viciously snapping, you find little interest in the shifting world around you. All you can focus on is the pain.

Thoughts caught in the desperate wails of your joints you don’t catch on to where you are steadily being lead to, eyes cast defiantly to the gunk infested water below as you will yourself to breath; urging yourself with a wavering frustration to calm the hell down. It’ll do you no good to be in such a state. You know this. You know that your distress will only feed it, and despite its misguided nature you know its appetite is a ditch with no end.

Through the incessant drumming band in your skull and the shimmering wisps in your sight you see the water ripple, making way for the extra presence that waits before you. Swallowing air in deep gulps you shakily look up.

It’s a slow recognition, one that has you glance around the distant bank like a skittish mouse not sure whether to run or stay, but soon that lone piece is slotted back into place; the puzzle put back together. The revelation only tightens the suffocating knot in your chest.

The viper reared in front of you – expression deceptive and shielded in the shadows of the moonlight – is a blue breed, scales impeccable with a pretty patterning that catches the eye. His own eyes are an equally bright blue, crystal clear like the ocean and just as deep and treacherous. He was there that night you remember, in the church, slinking around in the dark behind his delusional tamer.

Nerves plucking like a badly tuned guitar your anxious gaze trails away from the slender serpent, his sharp eyes unkindly judgemental, and instead latch onto the darkened tree line just beyond. Goosebumps pebble your flesh and your frame shivers in the night air as you cast a fevered look into the dark. But truthfully you don’t really need too.

It’s hard to initially tell, ethereal fireflies distorting your vision as they are, shadows concealing it well within the darkened greenery of the woods past the waters bank, but you’ve known them for a very long time now. So long in fact that you’ve no need to see them to know that they are there.

You feel tense, high-strung, head pounding to a different beat now that your old friend has made a noticeable appearance; eyes a pinprick of light within the dark and teeth refracting the moon’s mirrored light in an expression that comes across far too knowing.

Despite your ordinarily better judgement you can’t help briefly wondering where your loving companion has been all this time. It has been just under a week since you were sacrificed to this imposed martyrdom of yours and you have not seen your companion since you awoke in Dutch’s bunker. The most you’ve come across was Its slick, an abyss of black ichor that you’d find on the odd surface or oozing from the ceiling and clinging to the walls like a toxic leakage, warm against your flesh and thick like churned milk.

Finally knowing that they are here, watching with hollow sockets and an anticipation that causes your chest to feel icy and strained, gives you an unwarranted sense of relief. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.

Breathing a heavy sigh through your nose you keep what contact you can with the lights in Its skull, reading It like a lover can read their other half. And the tale they tell has you shuddering.

So lost in the appearance of your deranged companion you fail to notice the way the blue scaled viper watches you, expression contemplative as he halts your movement toward the bank.

For the briefest of moments there is a spark of gratitude within you, a naive brush of victory against your statuesque companion; Its elongated and pointed ears pulled flat against its tar covered form. Its eye-lights are like laser beams, direct and unwavering, as it stares you down with a lazy malice that growls like a revving engine. You struggle to remember the last time it felt so monstrous. 

Suddenly, that brief taste of ease is now an acidic dread.

Not even a pass of a second has gone by and already they feel closer, no longer a distant figure and echo skulking around in far off corners and stalking along the back of your skull. They slip through the shadows cast by luminescent lights on the bank like a pike in the river. It feels more prominent now, more present and piercing. And there’s no denying that you’re terrified of what It’ll do when It gets a full hold of you.

Bones straining under a growing ache you’re loosely held still before the serpent, his tongue smooth as he hisses words of an ominous undertone that you don’t quite make sense of, all the while keeping your petrified gaze locked on to your eldritch companion.

In the next moment water surges to meet you.

Your lungs burn at the sudden intrusion, limbs thrashing wildly as you’re pinned beneath the surface. The body above you is coiled tight, its grip constricting as it holds you down with a palpable hate. Desperately your arms launch out, muscles straining as the limbs are snapped straight, a terrible stiffness in them that gets your arms whimpering as you latch onto a slippery fabric.

With a sharp jerk the biting touch of a cold breeze forces itself on you.

Greedily you sputter, sucking in air quicker than you can cough up water. Bent over yourself drool slips from your gaping mouth, hacking up tainted liquid and thick ichor as you flounder. Like the mantra of a broken clock all you can do is silently tick over, sense of time and place lost, as you focus on the globs of dark obsidian dripping into the water.

With a morbid vagueness you watch as the ichor breaks apart in the water, tendrils of darkness reaching like bony fingers only to fade into dust. In your sparkling peripheral you catch the trail of the demonic blood, seeping into the scales of your assailant at a languid pace. Childishly, infeasibly, you hope it burns him.

Pulling you close the blue viper makes it a point to look down on your shorter frame, shifting with your wobbling legs as he leans in with a mocking smile, fangs gleaming in the moon’s silver-plated glow. With a centring inhale you cast a glance toward where your companion last was. Your stomach twists ever so slightly when you make out its humanoid shape, spindly talons drilled deep into the bark of a tree as it rests on its hunches, glowering viscously.

At which one of you you’re not too sure. 

Noticing you’re distracted with something other than himself the viper tightens his grip, fists paling at the exertion, and yanks. You gasp, startled, and stumble into him. Your vision swims as the moment you brush against him he jostles you back, still keeping you tethered by his controlling hold.

You blink owlishly, nausea swirling as the fireflies at the edge of your sight further disorientate you. As you steady yourself the viper breaths the faintest of laughs before hissing a soft hush that is far from comforting. In an instant his teasing expression turns wrathful.

With a harsh pressure your legs buckle.

Eyes tightly closed, jaw achingly tense, you expect an icy embrace; expect for the water to once more rush to greet you with a punishing bite. Only it does not. Your back aches at the position you’re in – arched as though in a twisted lovers dip – as you try to keep your balance, your form weak and unstable.

Gulping, throat tight and tinged with a familiar sunburn-tingle, you peel open your eyes to watch as the viper’s expression switches into something pitiful, looking throughly scolded as he slowly pulls away from you and – surprisingly – brings you with him.

[vectorisheree]

HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!! MY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUUAUEGUAEUUGAUEUGAUEURUAERAUHEHHGAHEHGAHUEHUAERHAHERAEFUHAEFAHUEFAEEYEEHEAHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEAHAHEFHAHFIAHFHIA

friendly fire against @vectorisheree !!

I saw Milk and immediately went “yeah, I’m drawing them”

[nitewrighter]

Reidan Fairy Tale AU Pt 3

Part 1

Part 2

In Which Meeting Your Girlfriend’s Family Is Always Awkward

Also Whoops I guess this is going to be a Four-Parter fic.

-----

It took the prince another two days in the form of a swift hawk to return to the forest, but he was back within four days, as promised. He arrived in the dead of night and looked up at the moon, nearly full, but not quite.

“Tomorrow night,” Aedan said to himself as he swept over the forest, “I should tell Rei!” In a few wingbeats he glided past the forest, over farmland, to a great manor house. The stink of forges nauseated him as he flew over the little town near it, but the thought of seeing Rei again seemed to sap all exhaustion from his hollow bones and he landed on the tower window of the manor house. 

“Rei!” he called into her room, beating his wings, “Rei?” He hopped off the window sill and walked around the room, looking around. She was not in her bed, and her needlework sat unfinished on a table near her window. “Odd...” said Aedan. He was back on time, so where was she? “Perhaps she meant to meet me in the forest,” said Aedan, hopping back on the window sill, “She wouldn’t go out there after dark, would she?”

If she was out there, she shouldn’t be out in the woods alone. Aedan took to the air again and flew back to the forest.

 “Rei!” he called, weaving through trees and moonlit clearings, “Are you here, Rei?”

He then heard another call in the distance.

“My Lady? Hallo?”

“Lady Rei!”

“Where are you, Lady Rei?”

“Reeiii!” the last call was half a wail. Aedan smelled steel and horses on the air and winced slightly, but followed the source of the call. Soon he made out the yellow lights of lanterns through the trees. Aedan alighted on a tree branch and looked below. There must have been a dozen men on foot with twice as many dogs sniffing the ground as well, and three figures on horseback. He could recognize the grim and graying man as Rei’s uncle, frowning and holding his bow at the ready. The other two were a fully armored knight (that explained why the scent of steel was so strong) and a fair lady with pale gold hair in a thick braid over her shoulder.

“Rei!” the armored knight called.

“Rei!” the golden-haired lady called.

She’s missing? thought Aedan, But how? When? He took to the air again, doubled behind the search party, landed and quietly took the form of a hound, sniffing along with the other hounds.

“It’s getting late, Lady Angela,” a footman sidled up alongside the noblewoman’s horse, “The men and dogs are exhausted, and we haven’t found a trail.”

“This forest is vast,” said the Noblewoman, who Aedan now knew was called Angela, “She may yet have gone deeper than we can track.”

“’Twould be better to set down a marker and pick up from there in the morning when our eyes and minds are sharper,” said the footman.

“But she could be hurt, or starving!” said Angela, “I cannot leave my daughter in these woods!”

So, the noblewoman was Rei’s mother, in the light of the lanterns, Aedan could see it now. 

“You said yourself she had taken a lover,” said Rei’s uncle, “Perhaps...”

“She wouldn’t leave us to worry like this. She would leave a note if she meant to be gone long, at least,” said the Knight.

“And she said he wasn’t a rake,” said Angela, “Rei’s too strong willed to just be... stolen away.”

“My lady, we need to rest if we’re going to continue this search at full strength,” said the footman, “It would only be for a few hours, but we must turn back now.”

Angela took a deep breath and looked at the knight. “What say you, husband?” she asked.

The knight flipped up the visor of his helmet, revealing a scarred face, “The men are too tired and the trail is cold. Close ranks and return to the estate,” he said, “We’ll continue the search at the first light of dawn.”

“Understood,” said Rei’s uncle, motioning to the other footmen gather together as he turned his horse around.

“I feel as though we’re missing something,” said Rei’s mother, as their footmen left their company, “Something... something doesn’t feel right.”

Rei’s uncle suddenly nocked an arrow.

“Hanzo what are you---” the knight started and Hanzo fired an arrow at one of the dogs.

“Hanzo!” Rei’s parents cried out in unison and Aedan yelped as the arrow struck his shoulder.

“There was one hound too many,” said Hanzo. 

“What are you talking about!? Those are our---” the knight cut himself off as Aedan re-took the shape of a man, gripping his arm with the arrow embedded in it, “What on earth...?”

“Rei had been behaving oddly for a while now,” said Hanzo, swinging off his horse, “Leaving saucers of milk out, coming home with those flowers braided into her hair,” He easily picked Aedan up by the front of his shirt, “I thought your kind were merely tales for children, but you have stolen my niece away.”

“There’s obviously been a big misunderstand--” Aedan started before Hanzo slammed him against a tree. Pain seared through his shoulder.

“Where is she!?” demanded Hanzo.

“I didn’t steal her! I wouldn’t steal her!” said Aedan.

“And why should we trust you? Skulking about in disguise, listening to our conversation?” said Hanzo.

“I’m looking for her too!” Aedan blurted out and then his eyes widened, “That is--I mean---I... um... I don’t know this human girl but... I would hate for there to be strife between our worlds on account of her---”

“You’re her lover,” said Angela, dismounting from her horse as well.

“...absence,” Aedan finished and his stomach dropped. He winced at the arrow in his shoulder.

“Him?” said the knight.

“Me?” said Aedan, “No I’m not her---Not that I would know if she would have a lover. Since I don’t know who we’re talking about. Well--I know her name is Rei since you’ve been shouting it all over the forest but---”

“It’s him,” said Hanzo flatly, releasing the front of Aedan’s shirt.

“Wh--how do you know?” said the knight.

“Because Rei is your daughter,” said Hanzo, looking at Angela, “And like you, she’s attracted to idiots.”

“Hey!” said the knight and Aedan at the same time.

“So, you’ve lost her as well?” said Hanzo, looking back at Aedan, “The way the village spoke of them, I thought the fair folk had full control of these woods.”

“Of the woods, yes, but not of each other,” said Aedan. He wrenched the arrow from his shoulder and winced, “It had to be a fae that took her, and as prince of these woods, I take responsibility. Hence, I give you my word, I will find her and return her to you.”

“Once she is safely back in our custody, you must cut off any further contact with her,” said Hanzo.

“What?!” Aedan blurted out.

“Do you think she would be in this danger to begin with if not for your dalliance?” said Hanzo.

“We--we don’t know she’s in danger,” said Aedan, “My folk are very hospitable after all--”

“Why even toy with her heart to begin with!? You know your kind far outlive any human! You---”

“I wasn’t toying with her heart! I even went to the cairn of a Death-Lord so that I might share a mortal life with her!” 

“Share a mortal life with--!?” the knight started.

“Striking deals with Death-Lords! That sounds perfectly safe for Rei!” snapped Hanzo.

“Hanzo,” said the knight, “That’s enough.”

“We can’t decide something so harsh so quickly,” said Angela. She looked at Aedan, “We have to work together to find her.”

“She is likely hidden in a place humans can’t tread,” said Aedan, “You can search for her in the places you can see, I’ll search... everywhere else.”

“Hmph,” Hanzo glanced off.

“You said you were Prince of these woods?” said the knight.

Aedan reddened, “I... yes, yes I am.”

“Then your word represents the honor of your house,” said the knight, “Did you mean what you said? About sharing a mortal life with her?”

“Of course,” said Aedan.

“...You must love her very dearly,” said the knight.

“As dearly as she loves all of you. She refused a seat in the fae court for your sake,” said Aedan.

“You offered her a---!?” Hanzo started but was silenced as Angela put a hand on his shoulder.

“Here,” said Angela, rifling through a small satchel at her side and pulling out a small vial “I don’t know how well human salves can treat fae wounds, but this should ease that wound in your shoulder.” 

“Thank you,” said Aedan, taking the vial, “Again, I promise you, I will find my Rei.”

Haunzo shot him a look and Aedan cleared his throat.

“Your Rei,” Aedan corrected himself, “Though, she’s... not really anyone’s... Rei on account of her being... her own... Rei. I’m just going to---”  He turned into a a fox and ran off, limping slightly.

“Odd boy,” said the knight.

“As odd as you were in your youth, husband,” said Angela with a smile.

“At least Genji didn’t turn into a fox,” muttered Hanzo.

“He’ll find her, I’m sure of it,” said Genji.

“Or he’ll raid a chicken coop, whichever comes first,” said Hanzo.

---

The fae court was the first group of suspects to question, but Aedan found no help there. For immortal beings, his mother’s courtiers’ memories proved infuriatingly spotty. Perhaps they had seen a fair human maiden in their ranks, but human maidens come and go so quickly, don’t they? Perhaps it was yesterday, perhaps it was a century ago, perhaps it was only a dream. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. So many damned perhapses that Aedan stormed out and sought out the creatures of the wood. He turned into a fish and searched the rivers, and sighed with relief to find that Rei had not drowned in their swift cold waters. He turned to a bird and swept into flocks and murmurations, asking whether  they had seen a girl. Hundreds of birds would shake their heads---didn’t see a girl, no, our kind don’t go out at night. Dawn was breaking by the time he managed to catch an owl on the way back to his roost.

“A girl? Yes, there was a girl, running through the trees and calling for your name, princeling,” said the owl, “I would have pursued her, but I was distracted by my own nightly hunt. Try a prey animal, they have to listen all the time, after all.”

So it was that Aedan took the form of a badger, dug up a warren, and dragged a poor rabbit out, taking the form of a fox once more and pinning the rabbit beneath his claws.

“Digger, listener, runner, Prince-to-prince-with-a-thousand-enemies, tell me where she is,” said Aedan, snarling.

“W-where who is?” stammered the rabbit.

“As if you haven’t heard already!” growled Aedan.

“Fine! You want to know where your little human is? Ask the one you’ve been avoiding asking this whole time! I’ll not bear her wrath!” barked the rabbit before scrambling out from under Aedan’s grip and disappearing into the brush. Aedan turned into a human again and sorely rubbed at the still-healing wound on his shoulder.

---

The queen was sitting on her throne when the prince threw open the doors to the great hall and angrily walked in.

“So you’ve returned,” said the queen, examining her nails, “How were the ruins?”

“Where have you hidden her!?” demanded Aedan.

“My beloved prince, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the Queen.

“Rei,” said Aedan, “The human girl. What have you done to her?” said Aedan.

“What makes you so sure I had anything to do with her disappearance?” said the Queen with an innocent tilt of her head, “Humans are flighty and fickle creatures after all, perhaps she simply... lost interest in you?”

Aedan’s brow furrowed. “You owe me better than lies and games, Mother,” he said grimly.

The queen looked at her courtiers and frowned.

“Leave us,” she said, and the courtiers quickly bowed and vanished, leaving Aedan alone in front of the queen.

“You did take her,” said Aedan, “If you’ve harmed her---”

“I’m not as barbaric as the humans,” said the Queen, gesturing at Aedan’s shoulder, “She’s perfectly safe.”

“Then release her!” said Aedan, 

“The humans are taking my child, isn’t it only fair that I take one of theirs in turn?” said the Queen.

“No one is taking me!” snapped Aedan, “I’m leaving on my own!” He then caught himself and his eyes widened, “I mean... I... I’m....”

“So, the truth comes out,” said the queen, rising from her throne, “I formed you from white birch and sapphire, agate, and amber. I filled your lungs with the wind that shakes the trees. I gave you the shapes of all the beasts of the forest, I tell you that you will sit on my throne in the event of my death, and this is how you repay me?”

Aedan looked down, then drew a deep breath. “I love her,” his voice was steady.

“You love a human. You love a mortal. You love the last glimmer of light on the horizon with the setting sun. You love the temporary and refuse to recognize it as so,” said the queen.

 Aedan’s jaw tightened, “It is temporary,” he said quietly, “Perhaps... that’s what makes it feel like it’s worth something.”

The queen looked upon him with steely eyes. “Only a fae could live for centuries and still prove themselves a fool,” she muttered, before turning away from him.

Aedan rolled his fingers at his side. “If not for my sake, then for her family’s---Please, tell me where she is,” he said.

The Queen glanced over her shoulder at him. “If I give you her location, do you give your word to cut off all contact with her once she is safely returned to her family?” she asked.

“Once she is safely back in our custody, you must cut off any further contact with her,” Hanzo’s voice echoed in his head.

“Do you think she would be in this danger to begin with if not for your dalliance?”

Aedan’s stomach tied up in knots briefly, but then his mind swam with sunlit memories of a girl pulling a hood back from her face, of skilled light hands patching up a wound in his leg, of bright eyes, thick eyebrows, and a fierce joyful smile. 

“I might as well cut the amber heart out of my chest if I promise that,” said Aedan.

“Foolish and selfish,” said the Queen, “I will be waiting when you come to your senses. We can wait a very long time, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Aedan sighed and walked out of the throne room.

---

It was late in the day, long-shadowed, as Aedan emerged from the halls of the fae court and walked among the trees.

“No help from Mum,” he said quietly, “Suppose that’s to be expected, considering it’s her doing to begin with.” He pressed his forehead against a nearby tree in grief, “And mine,” he muttered under his breath. He had to find her, and soon. The Dullahan’s Wild Hunt would be that night, only a few hours--his only chance to break free of his mother’s influence--but if he gave up being a fae, he could very well give up his only means of finding Rei. He had to move, and quickly. He took to the form for a squirrel and scrambled up the trees.

He darted through the canopy, watching the forest floor below for any unusual signs of fae movement. There had to be something... circles of toadstools where there were no business being any, tree roots that looked a little too much like stairs, anything. But there was nothing---no sweet scent on the air, no mushrooms or flowers springing up in odd spots, no--

It was then that Squirrel-Aedan was sideswiped by a sparrowhawk and was so surprised by the action that for the brief few seconds he was sailing through the air in the hawk’s talons, he had a certain resignation about him. Then the hawk landed on a falconer’s glove with Aedan grasped in one of its feet.

“Bad Gin,” said Hanzo, “Not hunting. Searching. Sear-ching. We’re finding Rei.”

He held up another glove to the hawk, “Rei. Not hunting. Find Rei. Now drop it, Gin. Drop it. Drooo--”

The sparrowhawk released Aedan from its talons and he retook the form of a man with a painful thud on the ground.

“Oh,” said Hanzo, looking down at him, “It’s you.”

“Why does every encounter I have with you end up with me getting mangled?” said Aedan, sitting up among the leaves on the ground.

“Perhaps if you didn’t insist on the form of animals so often, I might be less inclined to shoot you,” said Hanzo.

“Might,” said Aedan.

“Might,” conceded Hanzo, “Any luck finding Rei in your ‘unseen’ places?”

“My mother is the one responsible for Rei’s disappearance,” said Aedan, getting to his feet and dusting himself off, “But she’s no help in finding her.”

“Figures,” said Hanzo.

“I’ve been sending Gin off to find her, so we’re as desperate as you at this point,” said Hanzo, gesturing at the sparrowhawk, “He never seems to have any trouble returning to her, but I haven’t been able to pick up a trail since I started following the blasted bird... he’s likely only hunting for himself.” 

“There’s plenty of other rodents in these woods to eat,” murmured Aedan, letting the sparrowhawk nibble at his knuckle slightly, “But he picked me out.” Aedan paused, “Set him loose,” said Aedan, “Let’s see where his path ends.”

Hanzo set the sparrowhawk to the skies once more and they followed it as it glided over the forest canopy. 

“I... I should have mentioned,” said Aedan, “My mother---the queen---she offered me knowledge of Rei’s location in exchange for promising to never see Rei again...”

“And you didn’t take it because---”

“Because of the deal I struck with the Dullahan--If I can outride him at his hunt tonight, he’ll grant me a boon, freeing me of my mother. I have to find Rei before the hunt. Make sure she’s safe...”

“You’re really serious about choosing this mortal life,” said Hanzo.

“I am,” said Aedan, “We don’t know when the next Wild Hunt may be, the Unseelie aren’t as cyclical as we are. It could be next year, it could be next century. We don’t know, so it has to be this one.” 

The sun was just kissing the horizon when they reached a grove of standing stones. Gin the sparrowhawk was perched on the tallest one, beating his wings.

“Rei!” called Hanzo.

“Rei!” called Aedan. They searched all around the stones, but found nothing.

“A dead end,” muttered Hanzo. 

“And the sun is setting,” said Aedan. He ran his hands through his red hair in distress, “I’ve failed her... I’ve failed you. All that searching and it’s only lead us to these stupid roc--” He moved to pound a fist against the standing stone the sparrowhawk was perched on, but his hand only phased through into the rock, as if it were a ghost. Aedan looked at the rock and put both his palms against it. They sank into the rock, disappearing up to his wrists before he withdrew his hands again.

“An illusion?” said Hanzo, putting a hand on the rock but finding it quite solid to his touch.

“A door,” said Aedan, “But one only my kind can get through...”

“You think she’s on the other side?” said Hanzo.

“Only one way to find out,” said Aedan, walking through the stone.

He found himself in darkness on the other side. Though his eyes were still adjusting, he could immediately tell from the cool still air and the way his footsteps struck the stone beneath him that he was in a cave. He moved forward.

“Rei--PFPT” he moved to call her but found his mouth immediately full of cobwebs. His eyes adjusted and he saw that the whole cave was covered in them. Not sticky, not trapping, just hundreds upon hundreds of pale cobwebs. With a flick of his wrist he spun a dagger of black glass from the air as easy as you or I might pull something from a pants pocket and began cutting his way through the web-filled tunnel. He looked for a torch sconce in the hopes of maybe burning some of the webs away and lighting his way better, but as he went further down the tunnel, he found his way being lit by ghostly greenish mushrooms hugging the cave walls. After a lot of tedious web-cutting and brushing tiny pale spiders off of himself with nearly every step, Aedan soon emerged from the tunnel into a massive cathedral like cave chamber, just as covered in cobwebs, though significantly lighter in the chamber than in the tunnel, thanks to an apparent opening in the cave roof overhead, filling the chamber with purple-gray dusk light. And there, in the center of the chamber, framed by stalactites and stalagmites on a raised altar of stone long worn smooth by the rain from the opening above, he saw Rei. He broke into a stumbling run over to her, tripping over the uneven ground and scrambling up onto the raised stone platform to look at her.

She was laid upon a crystalline dais, with swathes of lacy cobwebs hanging over her like gossamer curtains. He shoved them aside to see her in full. Her wild dark hair had been pulled back from her face in a snood of pearl and silver, with a thick braid threaded with white ribbon over her shoulder. Her face was ghastly white, with red-painted lips. The spiders had apparently spun a dress all around her, and were still spinning it, as the trail of the gown spilled over the edge of the dais and splashed white across the ground with spiders scattering away from it as Aedan stepped toward her. Clasped in her hands was a bouquet of white flowers and bioluminescent mushrooms, and around her neck was the very green ribbon she had given him when they had first met---He could feel his mother’s magic coursing off of it now.

“Must’ve been how Mother got you through the door,” murmured Aedan, “Well then---let’s get out of here, shall we?” he gave her shoulder a shake but she didn’t respond. He frowned, shook her shoulder again. “Come on, we don’t have a lot of time---” No response. Aedan’s eyes trailed from her closed eyes to her red lips.

“Oh for the love of---Okay,” Aedan took a deep breath, bending over her, “This is to break a spell. Not trying to be creepy. Breaking a spell. I--I really wouldn’t be doing this if there weren’t a spell--N-not that I’m taking advantage of the situation! I don’t like this anymore than you do--You’re unconscious--that’s stupid--I mean--Not that kissing you wouldn’t be enjoyable! It would just... be more enjoyable if you were... awake and... Oh fuck it,” he cupped one hand to her cold cheek, then gave a brief tender kiss to her red-rouged lips and then immediately backed away several steps from the dais and waited several seconds. Nothing happened. He took a tentative step back up to the dais and looked at her.

“Rei?” he said quietly. She was still stone-like on the dais. He gave her shoulder another small shake. “Come on. True love’s kiss and all that. Time to wake up.”

She didn’t respond. Still asleep. Still silent as death. Aedan huffed. “Great. Still cursed and now I feel like a--” he caught himself as he saw a pale spider crawl up the length of her braid. Aedan’s brow furrowed a bit and he propped Rei’s head up with one hand and removed the snood and unwrapped the white ribbon from her braid with the other. He flinched back at the sight of nearly a dozen pale white thumbnail-sized spiders weaving in and out of her hair, tangling it with tiny fairy knots and wrapping those knots tight with silken thread.

“Witch knots...” Aedan said softly. He snatched several spiders up, threw them to the ground and crushed them under his heel, but more spiders descended from the ceiling above. “They can weave faster than I can crush them...” Aedan said quietly. He looked at Rei’s serene, waxy face, then drew his dagger from his hip. He saw his own red-ribboned love knot and cut that loose and pocketed it.

“You have no idea how sorry I am about this,” he said, propping her up again, bunching her hair up in a massive thick ponytail, then chopping it short.

Rei’s eyes flicked open with a gasp and she found herself leaning against Aedan.

“Aedan?” she looked up at him and smiled, cupping her hand to his cheek, “It’s you..” Her eyes suddenly widened and she looked around, “Where am I? How long have I been asleep?” she looked down at her dress, “What... am I wearing?”

“Two days,” said Aedan, not wanting to tell her that she had likely had spiders running all over her body spinning that dress, “Three, at most.”

“My family---” said Rei, “They’re probably worried sick!”

“They are,” said Aedan.

Rei’s eyes widened. “You’ve met them?!

“We had to work together to find you, and now I’m going to get you home to them,” said Aedan, sheathing his dagger at his hip.

“Since when have you carried a dagger---are we in danger--!? Is that my hair!?”

Aedan gave a glance to the dark ponytail he was still gripping in his other hand.

“I...uh... had to break a spell,” said Aedan, “The spell was... in your hair.”

Rei felt at the now chin-length ends of her hair and then took a steadying breath. “ah... all right then,” she said.

“We still need to get out of here, there’s not a lot of time,” said Aedan.

“Right!” said Rei, swinging her legs off of the dais, jumping down, then immediately tripping on the yards-long train of the white dress she was wearing. “Ugh!” she stumbled to her feet, furious, “Dagger!” she said, holding her hand out. Aedan handed her his black glass dagger and she began angrily cutting through the silken skirts of the gown. “Asleep for two days... spider webs everywhere... wearing this ridiculous thing... and why is your mother so fixated on my hair?!” she kilted the ragged remainder of the skirt above her knee. “Family’s probably worried sick and I’ve---” she suddenly found herself caught up in a tight embrace from Aedan as she brought herself back up to her full height. She returned the hug.

“I was so worried I’d never see you again,” said Aedan, muffled into her shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Rei, smiling.

Aedan nodded. The two of them journeyed back up the tunnel and stepped through the stone wall at the end to find themselves in the clearing full of standing stones again, with Hanzo waiting for them in the moonlight.

“Uncle!” Rei ran forward and Hanzo took her up in a tight hug as well.

Hanzo stroked her now-short hair and looked up from his niece to Aedan.

“Are you hurt?” said Hanzo.

Rei shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said, smiling.

“Good,” said Hanzo, “Now we can--”

He was cut off by the loud bellow of a horn that seemed to shake the very sky. 

“...please tell me that wasn’t your mother,” said Rei, looking up from Hanzo.

“No,” said Aedan, looking at the darkening moon and the dark clouds forming in the distance, “It’s the Wild Hunt.”

[vectorisheree]

Skulk! Moon progression. I like to call him Milk (Skulk + Moon -> Mulk -> Milk)

[randomeevee]

Headcanon Compilation: Eevee

Below the cut is an extra large info dump about my headcanons on Eevee and Eeveelutions.

- Eevee History in Pokemon Culture -

~ Eevees were originally a native species to the Kanto Region, and so they are classified as a Kanto Pokemon. Around the time when the first trading empires were established and Pokemon were being tamed by humans, nobles and royals visiting Kanto would bring back caught Eevees to their own regions. Some of these Eevees escaped, some had eggs, and a few might’ve been abandoned. These Eevees ended up settling into their new regions thanks to their adaptability. Eevees were spread to all regions, but are most prominent in Unova, Kalos, and Alola, where they can be found in tall grass still (without the use of a pokefinder or anything of the sort).

~ In the ancient days (around the time of AZ), Eevee were a more uncommon or semi-rare pokemon like Clefairy or Pikachu. Their population however began to decline around this time, the leading causes being habitat loss and the Great War and the firing of the Ultimate Weapon. This population decline was gradual, however. It wasn’t enough for the people to take notice yet.

~ There was a time when a business dubbed “The Pokemon Fur Trade” boomed. It was uncommon to hunt pokemon then, and making their pelts into coats and trinkets proved to be a profitable business. The carelessness of humans and their greed resulted in the serious decline of several pokemon species. The hardest hit were Eevee, Vulpix, Pikachu, and Zorua. Eventually, a ban on hunting pokemon was established when species like Eevee and Zorua were dangerously close to extinction.

~ The wild Eevee population has been growing slowly but surely, though the species is still damaged by the over hunting and continual territory loss.

~ Jolteon and Umbreon have been seeing an increase in favor among Mareep ranchers as herding and guard pokemon.

~ In the past, pokemon were used to pull sleighs in teams. The practice has now become more of a sport, but teams of Glaceon, Vaporeon, and Flareon have proven to be successful and have even made history as sleigh pokemon in some cultures.

- Eevee and Eeveelution Mannerisms -

~ A male Eevee is called a Tod, while a female is called a Vixen. This is also true for Eeveelutions, except for Jolteon and Espeon. A male Jolteon is called a Dog, but a female Jolteon is still a Vixen. A male Espeon is a Tom, while a female is called a Molly. A female Eevee/Eeveelution that has had or is expecting an egg is called a Queen. Baby Eevees are called Kits, Kittens, Pups/Puppies, or Cubs. An Eevee that has just evolved is called a Fledge.

~ Fledge Eeveelutions are known for having difficulty controlling their new abilities. Particularly dangerous Fledges are Jolteons and Flareons. You can differentiate a Fledge Eeveelution from an older or more experienced Eeveelution by their pelts. A Fledge will have fluffier fur for a time, and may still bear some faint brown markings, a veteran Eeveelution will not have these traits.

~ A group of Eevees is called an Eon. While some Eeveelutions can dot the population, an Eon is mostly comprised of Eevees. Eevees have a matriarchal  society. In an Eon, the eldest female is the pack leader.

~ In places where one Eeveelution is more favorable (Ex: Vaporeon in a pond, Glaceon in the tundra) Names for groups of Eeveelutions have been coined:

- Vaporeon: A Pod

- Jolteon: A Coalition

- Flareon: A Pride

- Espeon: A Clan

- Umbreon: A Pack

- Leafeon: A Garden

- Glaceon: A Skulk

- Sylveon: A Fable

~ Eevees mate for life, and have become a sign of virtue in Pokemon culture. The female Eevees call the shots, and decide who their mate will be. Due to the fact that the population of males outnumbers females, competition for one female can be fierce in some Eons. Common courtship techniques are battling between other males and giving gifts of prey, stones, flowers, etc.

~ Female Eevees are very picky with who they choose as a mate. However, instances where female Eevees have paired with other pokemon can occur. This usually happens when the population of other Eevees in an area is very low.

~ A female Eevee can have 1-3 eggs in one litter. When the Eggs hatch, the male will seek out and find berries for the kits to eat while the female provides milk. Once they develop further and start to play with each other, the parents will start training them to hunt. First by presenting the young with dead prey, and then with live prey. Young Eevees will grow independent at 10 years of age, and are considered mature at 20. A young Eevee can either stay with their Eon, venture out for new territory, or get caught by a trainer.

~ Pokemon live longer than the average dog or cat, and sometimes outlast humans! An Eevee will live for about 70-100 years of age if they are kept in captivity.

~ Real animals do exist in the pokemon world, and are often prey for pokemon. An Eevee’s typical diet in the wild consists of berries, mice, voles, shrews, birds, moles, and rabbits. Once an Eevee has evolved, it can hunt for bigger targets such as deer and wild boar.

~ The only Eeveelutions that can stomach fish are Vaporeon, Espeon, Umbreon, and Glaceon.

~ Eevees can also form Eons in cities and urban areas. These Eons, however, rely much more on humans. Their diets consist on human trash and the wild animals of the city (rats and pigeons). City dwelling Eons have been dying out, however, but it is still uncommon to find a single Eevee or Eevee family hiding in an alleyway.

~ Of all the Eeveelutions, it is extremely rare to find a wild Sylveon as it depends on a strong bond and knowing the moves Baby-Doll Eyes or Charm to evolve. Usually, a wild Sylveon is one that has been abandoned, but a Sylveon that has bonded strongly with its mate is a very possible occurrence.

~ While it is rare, Eevee can be evolved into Espeon and Umbreon by use of a Sun Shard or Moon Shard. This method is falling out of favor as the shards are not only very rare and very expensive, but most trainers dislike that this method does not create a strong bond with their Eevee.

~ A common health problem present in Eevees is hip dysplasia, or the developmental deformation or misalignment of the hip joint. This is commonly found in Jolteon.

~ Another health issue in Eeveelutions is an ailment called Evolution Corruption Syndrome. This occurs in Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, and Umbreon who have been evolved with a low-quality or knockoff evolution stone (Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon cannot get this as Moss and Ice rocks are natural occurrences in nature and Sylveon does not need a stone for evolution). Symptoms of ECS include early osteoporosis, inability to control elemental moves, eyesight problems, disorientation, etc. The best way to avoid this problem is to buy evolution stones from a reputable source and to never use low grade stones on your pokemon.

[newstfionline]

Letter from Antarctica

Jerry Guo, CS Monitor, March 18, 2017

MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA --The world’s southernmost ATM is just downstairs from my dorm room. Two actually, courtesy of Wells Fargo. But aside from the penguin tchotchkes and a few other items in the town’s only shop, there’s nothing much you can blow your paycheck on.

So other forms of currency have naturally evolved, including the underground avocado economy, in which certain highly rationed fresh foodstuffs (or “freshies”) have become our equivalent of prison contraband. As a chef here on base, that makes me feel like a baron reigning over my own mini-fiefdom.

This is the part where I should talk about how life on the coldest, driest, most remote continent is really, really extreme. Indeed, most dispatches from the “end of the world” paint a romantic image of scientists working in the field, buffeted by the elements, an apotheosis of man versus nature. But the reality for most of us stationed in Antarctica is more man versus the temptations of 24/7 free and unlimited pizza. I should also point out some of the other amenities that exist: yoga classes, a hot tub, and the after-hours dance parties called “Math Club” (to throw off the higher-ups who might think there is too much frivolity going on).

Until a few years ago, there was also a two-lane bowling alley. If all this sounds ripe for parody, you’re right--two sitcoms focused on the unique lifestyle here in the basement of the world are currently under development at Fox and HBO.

From the outside, the largest research base in Antarctica looks like a cross between an incestuous community college and an Alaskan mining town. At its peak summer population, 1,000 scientists, blue-collar contractors, and military personnel live in a community that churns out discoveries on a vast array of topics--from the vagaries of Earth’s magnetic field to the chemistry of subglacial lakes to the mineral content of meteorites arriving from across the solar system.

But beyond all the revelations that end up in scientific journals and National Aeronautics and Space Administration seminars, McMurdo Station offers a window into one of the most interesting social experiments in the world today. For here is clustered a group of people, almost hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world, working and playing together in the freezer drawer of the planet.

It may be the closest thing we have to what colonial life on Mars will one day look like.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) runs McMurdo, which serves as a logistical hub for much of the science conducted on the continent. It’s also the lifeline to the Amundsen-Scott Station, a research outpost that the Americans planted at the geographic South Pole in 1956, narrowly beating out the Soviets in an unspoken race during the start of the cold war.

While Antarctica has indeed been a showcase for international collaboration and peace since then, there’s still a geopolitical and strategic undertone to the presence of the United States here. Until the 1980s, McMurdo was operated largely by the US Navy. Nowadays, the US Coast Guard coordinates the once-yearly supply vessel that comes in, and an Air National Guard operates the three weekly flights to and from New Zealand.

Yet much of the science simply can’t be done in a less remote place. Just across the sound from McMurdo are the Dry Valleys, an ice-free desert area that is considered the most similar landscape on Earth to Mars. NASA used the harsh environment there to test its Mars rovers.

Astrobiologist Sarah Johnson of Georgetown University is testing out lightweight real-time DNA sequencing on microbes that live in the extreme conditions, which she hopes to one day apply to the search for extraterrestrial life. “It’s exactly the kind of low mass-low power instrumentation we might one day use on Mars or an icy moon of Saturn or Jupiter,” she says.

Meanwhile, Ralph Harvey of Case Western Reserve University heads up a research consortium that’s been hunting for meteorites on the continent for the past 40 years. It has amassed 22,000 specimens from the asteroid belt, the moon, and a variety of planets, including Mars. The meteorites stand out from the background of blue ice, and they gradually “float” to the surface as the fierce katabatic winds erode the millenniums-old glacial crust. Most of the world’s meteorites come from Mr. Harvey’s consortium.

“For 1/1000th the cost of a space mission, we’re bringing back 100 kilograms of stuff from all over the solar system,” he says.

Harvey is backed by an obscure division of NASA called the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which hints at the relevance of the consortium’s work. We know shockingly little about near-Earth objects like asteroids--which, if they survive the fall through Earth’s atmosphere, are called meteorites.

The Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013, star of many Russian dashcam videos, injured some 1,500 residents and caused $33 million in damage. Harvey and his team are hoping these Antarctic meteorites will shed light on how to monitor and possibly prevent other meteorite collisions with Earth in the future.

“You have the best in [their] field coming down to work here,” says Beverly Walker, manager of the lab facilities on base. “So in the science realm, you’re working with a lot of famous people.”

For every scientist (“grantee” in local lingo), there are about five support contractors who transport their scientific cargo, cook their food, maintain their snowmobiles, cut their hair, and staff the hundreds of other jobs that go into running a small town.

Scientists and contractors often work side by side, and many are friends. It’s a close-knit community, where PhDs and GEDs can share a lunch table. Friends are made fast; romantic partners, even faster.

But there’s an unspoken social hierarchy. Every person who comes on base is issued a high-tech Canada Goose jacket that costs more than $1,000. Yet it’s the light wind jacket that only the grantees get that everyone covets.

The quote from “Animal Farm” is apropos here: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” As my season progresses, I realize George Orwell’s communist parable should double as an employee handbook.

For one thing, there’s full employment. (But you can’t just switch jobs and become, say, an artist. There’s an actual selection process for approved “artists-in-residence” to work here.) A corollary is that it’s pretty hard to get fired for doing your job poorly.

Your basic needs are also taken care of: food, housing, universal health care, even the entertainment--all paid for by the NSF, which spent $260 million on Antarctic “facilities and logistics” in 2016 and another $128 million on research (including in the Arctic).

And everyone shares what he or she has, donating leftover clothes and household items after the season to the next crew. The system’s called Skua, named after the Antarctic scavenging bird that skulks around town.

In our Democratic People’s Republic of McMurdo, the grantees and NSF administrators make up the Party. The Politburo would be “distinguished visitors” (DVs as we call them), which normally means members of Congress who oversee our funding and this season included then-Secretary of State John Kerry, who became the highest-ranked American official to visit Antarctica. While everyone else eats the cafeteria food, we prepare restaurant-quality dishes for them. They also get special housing, which may include the luxury of a private bathroom.

I would be part of the proletariat, for which life revolves around the work unit. In the cafeteria (“galley”), we eat generally with our immediate co-workers. Most of our friends end up being those we work with.

Of course, in any centrally planned economy, there’s rationing. One day at brunch, we had to make a sign next to a bowl of stunted strawberries: “Please limit yourself to two.”

There’s a healthy black market and barter economy, too, from massages to fresh milk smuggled down on a cargo flight. Yet even though money is mostly useless, other ways of exhibiting status inevitably emerge. An obvious one is Ice Time, which is determined not just by how long a person has been coming down to Antarctica, but also in what capacity.

Someone who’s been here through the winter is higher on the rung than a summer-only newbie like me. But a summer at Amundsen-Scott Station at the geographic South Pole beats a winter at McMurdo. And for those who spent a winter at Amundsen, well, they’re minor rock stars.

Your Ice Time dictates what kind of housing you receive as well as what “boondoggles” you go on. Boondoggles are sanctioned morale-boosting recreation trips. A fairly standard one, which I went on, takes you across the sea ice for two hours in a balloon-tired Delta truck to the expedition hut Sir Robert Scott built for his ill-fated race to the South Pole. One NSF administrator regaled an awestruck group with the tale of her boondoggle to the Italian research base, where she had real gelato and wine with lunch.

There’s also a propaganda department that carefully selects one or two journalists a year to take on orchestrated press tours of the stations. Government minders escort them around the entire time.

People come down thinking Antarctica is a free-wheeling continent unshackled by strictures and sovereignty. Yet the research stations here are some of the most tightly controlled places on the planet, as they need to be for safety.

In a Condition 1 blizzard, for instance, you’re forbidden from even leaving your building. I once accidentally ventured outside the boundary of the neighboring recreational ski field at the New Zealand base--the entire station received an urgent warning via email.

But Antarctica is a place that often can’t be controlled. Employees can succumb to the intense psychological isolation by what we call “getting toasty.” In 2013, a small group mutinied during the winter over at the South Pole station, when the outpost is shut off from the outside world for nine months. They took their frustrations out on the furniture.

Or they succumb to the extreme conditions when venturing outside town. This season, renowned glaciologist Gordon Hamilton died after falling into a crevasse a few miles from McMurdo. He was one of the world’s leading experts on crevasses.

Despite these dangers, the most desirable position--for both scientists and contractors--is to be out at a remote field camp, as far away from McMurdo as possible. Some research teams use helicopters and vehicles with tracks for their daily commute into the field, returning to McMurdo to sleep.

Phil Wannamaker from the University of Utah is on his last leg of a three-year expedition on Mt. Erebus, one of only half a dozen volcanoes in the world with an active lava lake. He and two collaborators are on-call every day, ready to jump in a helicopter on short notice if the weather clears enough to traverse the slopes and peer inside the crater. He’s placing tomographic instruments that can create a 3-D model of the internal plumbing of the volcano. “It’s not the kind of science where you find a pterodactyl bone and you’re done,” says Mr. Wannamaker.

Other groups just use McMurdo as a staging point. Filmmaker Jeff Wilson and his crew spent six weeks camped close to a colony of 600,000 Adélie penguins at Cape Crozier, a 20-minute helicopter ride away. Once there, they faced an hour walk, with 60 pounds of camera equipment, each way, to the colony.

Since these penguins need snow-free rock for their nests, they invariably choose the windiest spots on an already-windy continent. This season, they faced only 90-mile-per-hour winds and minus 22 degree F. temperatures.

“There’s a specific noise that sounds like five or six jet engines; that’s your best indicator that you need to get out of there,” says Mr. Wilson. “It can be equal parts terrifying and quite fun playing around in those high winds.” In 2009, when he filmed “Frozen Planet” at the site, the winds reached 150 m.p.h.

They share the site with David Ainley’s penguin science research group, which has been studying this colony for 20 years. It takes an entire week for the four researchers to walk through the 280,000-nest colony and check up on the nests of the 500 penguins, identified with bands, that they are studying. “In the last eight to nine years, this population has been going through the roof,” says Mr. Ainley.

That sounds good--until you hear the reason: Warming oceans from climate change have opened up more polynyas, or small ice-free openings, that benefit the penguins. At the same time, overfishing of Antarctic toothfish has knocked out one of their main competitors for food. The food chain is going awry.

Living in these remote camps--where you have to melt your own snow for the occasional shower and blizzards can trap you in your tent for days--still gives you a sense of adventure. It’s the kind of office most people imagine when they think of Antarctica. The most extreme camps require a long ride, usually starting with a ski-equipped military transport plane.

Matt Siegfried of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego is leading a six-member team to study subglacial lakes and their effects on glacial flow. This season, they’re taking a squad of snowmobiles with them on the 560-mile flight. Once they land, they’ll barrel across the ice stream, setting up a series of four mobile camps over six weeks.

But it’s hard to completely shake off the Club Med attitude--they’ll be bringing some Cornish hens, among other things. “It’s kind of a silly nice life we have out there. Glamping,” says Mr. Siegfried of their attempt to create glamorous camping conditions.

Among the support crew, a few groups stand out. There’s the One and Done, young people usually fresh out of school who often haven’t traveled much. They stay for a season, if that, and basically just tick Antarctica off their bucket list. One dining attendant this year quit on her first day.

Then there’s the Perennial Contractor, like my first roommate. These people are at McMurdo for the money. They’ve often done a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq as military or civilian support staff, and you won’t be catching them at the Sunday science lectures. The Partyer is reliving his--or more often than not, her--college years; a guy-to-girl ratio of 3 to 1 means that women are often the center of any party.

“The community down here is extremely unique,” says Ms. Walker, the science manager here for the past seven years. “The people are adventure-seeking travelers, and everyone has a very cool story to tell.”

Gossip spreads and characters quickly become legends. A roommate swears he’s met a guy in witness protection here. One friend says he knew of a guy who skied everything he wasn’t allowed to ski (which is basically everything) in the first week and was promptly fired. Just among the chefs, there’s a former guard at Guantánamo and a salesman who goes around the world selling glitter.

In my last month of the season, I will travel to the other side of the continent, where I will work as a naturalist guide on a 200-passenger expedition cruise ship. On board will be Tom Hart from the University of Oxford in England. Instead of being based at one of the national research stations, he piggybacks on these periodic cruise liners to conduct his studies of penguins.

It’s an ultra-cheap version of the same sort of science being done at McMurdo. But while the passengers politely listen to his lectures, they’re really more interested in getting their close-ups taken with the birds.

I already miss the geeks and misfits and bureaucrats of McMurdo.

[ricorper-tow-blog]

perchance.

When the world keeps me awake at night, I can feel his arms around me and know safety is near.

            I don’t know how I got this way. Well; I do—if I sit, and breathe deeply, and break it down logistically. I know why my head is the way it is. I know why…I am the way I am.

            Broken and splintering.

            In my heart of hearts and other clichés, I am aware that I am very much a product of my own misgivings and mistakes. An upright family, a proper upbringing. Snobbery and deception; sneaking around with a married man while pretending to be well-to-do and unproblematic. Closeted and for some reason unsure of ever telling anyone. Pursuing a degree in language that fascinated me—wanting to be able to communicate with everyone about everything. What a narcissist I was, expecting anybody at all would want to speak to me. About anything. At all.

            And when I wake up with a racing heart and the moon is nearly full, I can feel myself slipping back to the dark places I was months before I met him—in the street, in the middle of nowhere. Some rainy alcove in which the world turned differently. How friendly he seemed; with a generous face and a knowing smile. Knowing eyes; too, for ones that didn’t see. And God, was I thankful they couldn’t see me.

It was barely eight months after the bite—working odd jobs and trying to keep my head above water. For what reason, I still don’t know. A new town every couple of weeks, filling in the blanks and keeping my head down. Making sure nobody noticed the big-eared, long-limbed, skulking figure sweeping the floors of cafes or the orderly picking up trays to take to patients who were that much safer after he left.

            Everyone was always safer after I left.

            Those nights, though—these nights, rather, because it was one of those nights now, just before the full moon—where I woke drenched in sweat, clothes sticking like fresh blood to my skin, pulse racing and jaw cracking with the force I applied to it to grind my teeth—I didn’t want to leave.

            Fear propelled me. It always had, in a way—fear to pretend, to be normal. Fear pressured me into unhappy places; bullied me into corners I could not get out of. It kept my adrenaline spiked, wore my nerves down. It made me jumpy, when people touched me unexpectedly. I had night terrors [still do] ages after…him, I had…nausea and migraines and dizziness and shortness of breath; all the things inside of me shredded by paralyzing anxiety. It made me make even worse decisions than before. It told me not to tell him what I was; who I was, what I’d done. A murderer; a—a psychopath; maybe, a monster, I don’t know…! The only one I knew for certain was the last, that I put others at risk by becoming—the thing that made me…what I am.

            The cycle continues, and…all that.

            Fear propelled me into lurching awake; gasping for breath, grasping for nothing. I’d wrap my hands around the air’s throat and squeeze, trying desperately to bring oxygen to myself. Sheets were discarded; kicked off in a frenzied flail. Spit flew; wood creaked protest. Sometimes I’d scream. Sometimes the scream sounded more like a howl. I clung to the nothing in the dark and tried to come back from the edge I’d nearly fallen from. It was the constant sensation of missing a step on the stairs, prevailing gravity pulling me down headlong.

            But he’d be there.

            He’s here now, with me, strong arms secure around my heaving middle. His face, half-buried in my back, is alert, but not overly-concerned. His pulse is quick, but does not match mine. Mine falls to match his as I lean back against him, inhaling his scent. He gives me space, gives me air when I need it. But what I need most right now is to be held, and he knows it. Instinctively, he knows it, and he keeps me in his arms—arms that despite everything, endure and show no fault in strength. Stripped of any protection I had over myself; whatever quirky, self-deprecating joke I could come up with, however I could make my mouth move to deflect suspicion, I huddle to the shelter he provides in skin and whispers, feeling the barely-there touch of his fingers stroking my arms. I try to remember to breathe regularly. He tucks his nose against the crook of my shoulder as he shifts upright and, moving with caution, rocks us both from side to side.

            “I’m here,” he says. Zachariah is firm and steady to my shaken and stirred. He smells like pine sap and good black coffee. I close my eyes and inhale. “I’m right here,” he reiterates, concern creeping into his hoarse words, voice still muzzy with sleep – but once a soldier, always a soldier, and I think he was a soldier, somehow, some way. I still don’t know everything about this man; this man I’ve fallen for, but that tracks with all my choices. Better not to know, probably. Best to not ask.

But because he was a soldier, he wakes at the drop of the hat to endure my nonsense. Almost every other night. When I’m frantically tearing at the bedclothes, feeling like I’m being choked or changing in my sleep; shifting shape to become something massive, grotesque, and lethal. He reminds me to the beast, there is a human side. Even if that human side stays racked with guilt that in endangering him, I became a self-fulfilling prophecy – I did this to him, made him stay. A bite worked better than a collar. The leash of love was tenuous at best. Clearly I had to ruin something to keep it, just as anyone who’s been with me before knows that’s what it takes. I had to be broken before I could hold still, and now I’m frozen with fear. Forever.

            Frozen, but he warms me. He warms me with his gentle sighs against my ear. Zachariah wraps the blankets back around us. His arms close around mine, not a cage, but a reminder that I have something to lean on. He wavers between sleep and awareness now, pressing a kiss against the side of my face from where he can reach. I curl back against him, hiding in the blankets, hiding in his arms. I watch the moon outside peek in through the window, a laughing, rounded face full of possibilities. Pale and mad, says the tarot. I don’t know why I think of it, it just—comes to me. The tarot of the Moon; indicating doggedness, madness, obsession, losses…to my Moon, Zachariah is the Star, the shining example of perseverance, creative problem-solving, and steadfastness. A star in the North, because the moment I saw him on that rainy street, I imagined I saw a way home.

            With home in him came home with Brooke, my head in her hands as she tried to sing the pain and sorrow away. Her diligent, yet trembling hands preparing meals fit for kings, not the likes of me. I found home in the way she’d tease me. How she didn’t think I was crazy, or unsettling, or violent. Dangerous. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that those same, loving, careful hands could sweetly drown any who came close enough; threatened enough, to merit submerging them. Maybe it was in the way her lullabies left me wandering through sleep so deep and dark it felt like a forest of closed fingers. Squeezing the life out of me, or the worry. More likely it was because she was the most dangerous person I had ever met–yet oh, how she made me feel so safe.

            Home was in Tristan. In the arrogant toss of his hair or the cocky, hollow places of his put-on smile. It was in the way he tried to show no concern whatsoever. How his jaw would set and his eyes would drift when he thought no one was looking. It was in that ridiculous accent he had—put on as well, I reckoned, as linguistics did happen to be my meagre background. But beyond all appearances of masks, Tristan was steadfast and warm as fire. The threat of a burn was still there, but he stayed seething in his embers, only offering light and the strangest form of comfort. Dangerous, in his own way.

            And Zachariah had his dangers hidden like knives on an assassin; lock-picks on a thief. They crept guerilla through the trenches I perused looking for answers while at war with myself. I came face to face with a few of them, in the way he’d sometimes freeze mid-motion; a practiced gesture of defense or something similar. There was power in him long before I meandered into his life—power that kept him coiled and ready to spring before he even had haunches or hide to change to better do so. He was steely-sinewed in make, built on a foundation of concrete. Unshakable. Lovable. Safe.

            “I love you,” I say to him. He answers with a squeeze. His lashes bat my skin—a soft reminder that he’s still there. Zachariah, for all lean muscle and calloused hands, is always soft reminders. He exhales, and I remember to do the same, finally.

            “I love you too,” he says, after a long moment’s silence in the semidarkness. Somewhere outside, a creature chirps. Leaves rustle. He catches it all before I do, turning slightly toward the window before I even have a chance to register the noises. His arms around me tighten just a fraction before he relents, pulling away enough to draw the blankets around us just a little bit more. I tuck my head down against his arms and scrunch into a ball against him. Hiding. Always hiding. He does his best to accommodate, never once complaining. He says it’s fine. I say it’s not. Round and round we go; but it’s silent, this time, as opposed to the variations wherein I drop the sugar dish and assume he’ll hate me forever. It’s different than when I think I’ve lost him when all he’s done is ducked out for a jug of milk. It’s not my full-blown panic leading up to the full moons wherein I check the locks three times and trace, re-trace, re-re-trace a course through the woods with a piece of chicken on a string to keep my…other self distracted.

            “It’s alright.” It’s like he knows. Zachariah’s mouth tugs at the corner, and before I can protest, he’s kissed my head, returned to stroking my arms. I feel my heart slow a little more; closer to his, now—just a couple beats away. The branches outside bow and sway, nodding absently on an unfelt wind. Ghosts lapse in the moonlight; timeless and tranquil, mist unfurling tendrils of pre-morning dreams across silver-frosted tall grass. I shut my eyes, shut it all out, and let Zachariah guide me as he always does.

            “Just breathe with me, alright?” I nod a little, just enough to let him know I’m listening. He heaves in. Holds. I mirror. He releases, I follow. We match rhythms for a while, and eventually, he hums—a low note, meditative and serene. I try to match, but mine wavers. I open my eyes and Zachariah grins–I swallow, wondering if he’s annoyed or I’m not following correctly and—

            “Howling,” he says distantly.

            “What?” I ask, confused.

            “S’like howling,” he says, one hand drifting up to rub my neck. The sensation is just enough to be felt, not too much to feel held down. I lean into it. “I make a sound, you make a sound…it’s nice,” Zachariah adds. “I can always find you that way. And you can find your way back to me.”

            He wants to find me. But is it because of what I did? Did I trap him? Why did I do this to him? He could’ve had anyone nice; anyone normal. He could’ve been meeting friends of Brooke’s who didn’t feel like drowning or devouring him [maybe?], or perhaps even he and Tristan could’ve been a “Thing”, as it were, before I stumbled in and all but fell into his arms like a complete and utter arsehole.

            “Find your way back to me, George,” says Zachariah, more slowly and with more focused purpose. I snap out of the thoughts by the sound of his gravelly voice and nod again. “In?” He breathes. I breathe. “Out.” We both release.

            This keeps up till the windows are pale with the threat of dawn, and I’m not sure which comes first—the light of day or the peace of sleep without further fears.

            Fears that felt like dreams which felt like memories.

            I much preferred the ones I had awake, but the next best thing to that was falling asleep at his side, knowing I’d wake again to something better, brighter, and mine—

            No matter how much I insisted to myself he could do better.

            Maybe we could be safer with one another. Maybe cycles could be broken. Maybe I was not a complete monster—

            Yes, those were the dreams.

[vectorisheree]

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL YYYYYYYYYEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More AF attacks on @nebuladreamz , @vectorisheree and @garbagechocolate

Bonus:

I just liked this doodle (Hazy with Theta)

[ecotone99]

[SP] The Hand of Glory

I never planned on becoming a thief. Skulking around in the dark was never really my forté and, other than a few misguided instances of childhood shoplifting, I never stole a thing in my life. That being said, I never thought I’d be living in a quarantined city while the world burns away into chaos and hatred like charcoal and ash. The whole thing felt like something out of a bad dystopian horror movie.

Scavenging had become the only way of finding resources, murder the only means of survival. If you hoped to see the sun the next day, you had two options; smash and grab from a commercial business or sneak into an occupied home. (I personally believe that the lesser of the two evils is making my way into a house.) Looting a store out in the open forced you to face other desperate scum, hoping to find anything of value, only to leave empty-handed more often than not. If it looked abandoned, you can bet that it’d already been picked clean by those vultures... or worse. A house, on the other hand, was still occupied which meant they were not only secure but even filled to the brim with valuables and whatever else people wanted for themselves.

I know you must be thinking me some kind of creep or predator, sneaking into someone’s house while they’re still home in order to pilfer their property.

I’m not a bad guy, though making that choice grew rarer the longer the quarantine went on. When I burgled a residence, I made sure to enter and leave without almost anyone becoming aware of my trespassing until I was far and away, never a soul harmed nor an item lifted that couldn’t be replaced. Things did not always go so smoothly though; it took more time, mistakes, and blood on my knife than I’d like to admit before I could call myself a “Propper Theif”. It wasn’t with years of practice, persistence, or any sort of talent that I had perfected my new skills. Some say its a blessing, though they know nothing of the curse it truly is, for no soul since 1599 AD had made a Hand of Glory.

All it took was one botched job, one bad day to haunt my dreams and force me to seek out a new way about my “business”. I could not abide by another pool of red, another little girl lifeless on the floor, her blood dripping from my knife and her parents wailing like banshees into the night. Looking back, I’d have happily starved to death that night rather than endure that horrifying grief and unrelenting guilt.

The archaic system of survival demanded we become beasts again, however, no other child would ever know or need fear the monster I had to become.

Creating the Hand was not my first option, honestly I never even considered it until I fount The Book. A hodge-podge of parchment and calfskin vellum pages, bound in some strange scaley leather, the tome was filled with recipes and “spells” that seemed more appropriate at a renaissance fair than a safe in the back of some large manor. The information found in the book was bizarre, “Command animals to do your absolute bidding (Ha!), Build a man out of clay to protect your community (too Jewish), Create a skull that tells the future (doubtful), The pro’s v. con’s of wish-granting ape fists (baloney) ...” It all seemed like superstitious mumbo jumbo when I first flipped through the pages, after carefully liberating it from the previous owner. After my initial look through nothing seemed to be of any use, other than maybe the age of the book, it didn’t have really any value. Hell, I threw the book across the room and remember thinking a drink seemed more important at the time. Something stopped me from walking out the door to my kitchen, some deep-seated urge kept ringing in my mind, “Go pick up the book”.

Unable to clear my head, I turned back, walked over, picked up the mysterious codex and saw my wretched future drawn out in that faded iron ink. “La Maine de Gloire. The Hand of Glory: A gift for thieves and those who wish to remain unseen.” Though never a religious or superstitious man, this was the first time I felt...blessed. Clutching tight to the book, a single tear streamed down my cheek, the first tear I had shed since that terrible night.

After hours of translating a rediculous mixture of Latin, French, and very old English scribbled around the page, I had my recipe for creating the Hand. The recipe was not a simple one: requiring pickling, saltpeter, hot peppers, hair, fat, and of course a human hand. Even the means of procuring some of the ingredients were incredibly detailed and complex. Have you any idea how difficult it is to find the fresh human hand, fat, and hair of a recently executed murderer, during the new moon... at MIDNIGHT?! Luckily, there was no shortage of scum and villainy out on the streets, so I had my “pick of the litter” when it came to materials. Finding some poor devil strung up on a street lamp by some angry mob was where I claimed the left hand, the hair, and fat to make the candle. All the other ingredients could be found in your local grocers or chemists.

The process was long and overly complex; first draining and arranging the hand, then salting and pickling, air drying and inscribing with mystic symbols, before finally repeatedly dipping the hand in a tub of melted beeswax. After months of work and preparation, my Glory was finally ready. After sticking the candle made of human hair and fat to the palm, I attempted to light my macabre creation. I held the flame of my lighter to the “wick” for minutes waiting for it to catch, but as moment after moment passes I feared I had made a mistake, or worse, the Hand of Glory was just another old-world folktale. I checked the book and realized that I somehow missed that the Hand required the phrase “Vox Vorbis Lux” to be chanted continuously for the hand to ignite. Once lit it could only extinguishable by the barer or by a splash of sterilized milk. I tried again, fearing failure meant no other options, many wasted nights, and my eventual death via starvation. This was it. It HAD to work...and it did.

The candle ignited in a tiny explosion covering me in a bright, almost blinding, light emanating from a white, blue, and violet flame. It was wonderous, I could barely pull my eyes away from the miraculous flame. As I looked around the room, a thick inky void surrounded me, all-encompassing and inescapable. I pointed the light towards my dresser on the far side of the room and was astounded when the entire wall began to illuminate as though being basked in the light of the sun. I could see everything in perfect detail, nothing could escape my gaze.

After that stealing became the easiest thing I could wish to accomplish. On my first job, I learned just what the Hand was capable of. When I entered a house through the basement, my usual means of entry, and ignited the Hand and the void blanketed everything in sight. Not only was the candle aflame, but so were the thumb and the first three fingers that I later learned indicated that the four members of the house were still awake. Cautiously, I started walking around the house and, to my complete surprise, slipped by every member of the house as if I wasn’t even there. I didn’t even try and hide, the young family just continued on their activities. As the children fell asleep, two of the flames slowly fade before snuffing themselves out. Without a single worry or care, I was able to make my way through and out of the house pilfering cash, jewelry, food, trading material, and other valuable resources. As I continued my thieving spree, I gained enough treasures and provisions to easily live out the rest of the quarantine in comfort and luxury. Through thick and thin I never forgot why I created the Hand of Glory, often leaving gifts or provisions to the house of the grief-stricken family whose lives I crippled. They never knew from where all the gifts came from, I never left a name with any of the gifts. The last thing I wanted or deserved was recognition.

Before long I felt something was wrong with the Hand of Glory, with every use I could feel as though something was affecting me. I went back to the mysterious book, scanning the pages about the Hand vigorously, hoping to find any clue or list of side effects using the Hand may have caused.

Nothing. What else could there be, I’ve read over each of those pages thousands of times... but I never bothered to read the back of the page. There, not only did I learn the properties of the Hand of Glory but also the eventual fate of whoever used the Hand, as well as whoever dares craft one.

According to my translations (which I had confirmed by educated professionals), those who use a Hand of Glory for a prolonged period of time( or multiple times) are susceptible to horrific nightmares, visions, spontaneous parasites, all manner of illnesses, bleeding from the eyes, and leprosy. Though my use of the Hand had finished by this time, I made sure to seek out proper medical treatment to counteract any lingering side effects. It didn’t matter though, I was damned but just didn’t know it yet. The “sins” of using the Hand were microscopic compared to that of the creation of a Hand itself.

According to my translations, consultation from the catholic arch-diocese, and advice from so-called paranormal investigators,

“...those who use the Hand are already prepared to break a number of the Lord’s commandments. The creation of the Hand of Glory is not only a macabre and physically vile act but also spiritually binding to those that were deemed ‘suitable materials’. The Hand of Glory must be constructed with the left hand of a murderer, thief, or otherwise heinous villain. Their soul, already damned to hell, becomes warped and twisted by the procedure and incantations needed to construct the Hand, and their soul itself is used to light the Hand and acts as the source of its power. Those who actively seek to create the must understand the severity of this action; the sins one commits in order to create a Hand are numerous and horrendous, setting them on an unwavering path to the depths of damnation. Upon their passing, amongst the flames of the inferno, sits a malevolent beast waiting simply to torture and torment its victim. This demon is all that remains of the soul of whoever was mutilated post-mortem to gather the aforementioned materials from their corpse, seeking retribution for their eternity of suffering and deformity. There is no means of reversing this bond, for God himself contends those selfish enough to dare create a Hand of Glory.”

There you have it, it’s all there. I am damned.

Not only damned but awaiting a reserved torture chair and personal tormenter at the moment of my passing. I know I deserve to go to hell, for what I did to that girl, to her family. What I didn’t know, nor expect, was that I was horrendously tormenting the eternal existence of the poor man I found hanging from that street lamp. Now he, or what I can only imagine is left of him, sharpens his tools of torment and pain in anticipation. Can’t say I blame him, really. He deserves his vengeance, especially after the number of times I used the damned artifact to further my own agenda.

I made the Hand of Glory 45 years ago. The years are catching up to me, there is nothing I can do about it and that frightens me terribly. Wallowing in my fortune, my breath grows shallower and shallower, there is nothing left I can do but wait for deaths cold embrace. All I can do anymore is glare at the key of my eternal punishment, and ponder that poor girl from all those years ago. What would she have made of herself? Would she have been happy with life? What good would she have accomplished? What was her name?

My god, have I really lived my entire life without ever knowing the name of the little girl who died on my knife? I’ve spent all these years trying to avoid reliving that terrible mistake, but was it for their benefit or my own?

The shadows are creeping in now, little time remains. If you are reading this, then my soul has already been claimed. I implore you to head this warning; there is no glory to be found with the Hands use. It shall rot you from the inside out, festering gluttony and incurable greed, it is a curse I would not wish upon my worst enemy. If you are smart you might cast it into the sea, or lock the thing away submerged in a bath of blue milk and holy water.

There is nothing left for me to say, my time has arrived. He is com--

submitted by /u/TheGiantIdiotTeddy [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2RGvgWl

[sidpah]

Sutra of the Magick Kingdom Part 4 – Dream Worlds

1.

Knees pulled under chin, toes burrowing into hot sand… I’m being absorbed slowly back into the Earth… People run in every direction around me, not one seemingly aware of my presence. I’m battered by blowing sand and splashes of cool mist. And am again, like always, the lone voyeur surveying alien terrain...

Two old lovers swim into each other’s arms a dozen yards out from shore – voices rough with age but their hearts fragile as shy adolescents. Leaving me to steal a kiss from my distant love… My darling Luna, the Effervescent, who, though it’s still bright blistering afternoon, has been brazen enough to reveal her frail, anemic body; exposing herself to the ridicule of the masses who are themselves, brazen only in the day. When shadows rule, and the Sun has shown her fickle nature and retreated to turn her gaze upon more interesting entertainment – all wild dramas and merriment bare before her - they praise Luna for her protecting light; they are scared orphans, desperate for a new mother…

That is the extent of Luna’s love for me… The romance I never consummated.

I’m perplexed by those sounds. How children laughter sounds so much like sexual ecstasy... How two newlyweds crossing the lake can be so silent… Are they thinking communal thoughts? How I fight the urge to bark at the Moon and swat at the chiggers and gnats...

Respect life, young son. They only want to be happy, no different from anyone else.

How the mother understands every inarticulate gurgle of her daughter, while sons can’t understand the garbled monologue of their own thoughts… Resigned to be a sinner. Hungry and steadfast in that hunger…  Shoot a hole in the Moon’s glass eye… Fuck it, I’ll be the one to murder my frigid lover. The droughted lake... I’ll be a user ‘til the day I die and have nothing left to use… Abused ritually and narcissistically. Snap the wrist, vein rolls away in disgust...

“Lightening can be very therapeutic.” I’m hung.  Shoving broken glass into empty hole. Bleeding geysers of pus. Tourniquet pinches bicep and the fist ventilates... A horizontal river in the intermediate plane between heaven and earth. Universe implodes; dead husk I so eagerly disposed of implodes in wide-yawning laughter with tiny misshapen hands curled in ecstasy... Parents touching their vacant ghost.  Digging for reassurance… bleeding the anemic hole...

All hungry snakes having vomited their night blood meal skulk into tunnels and coil tongue against rattle. Tasting their own restraint. Completing the current, earning their venom its ferocious toxicity.  

Bogs of bloody tissues, gauze syringes laced with active viruses swim into empowered bloodstreams…  

War drums reverberate in time with explosions of organelles… The beating heart all floating in its own broth, expanding in time to the thunder, contracting the dead-bell-whine, hum, ring of silence. Spilt songs. Spears pointed at tight throats… Adam’s Apples rising to ring the bell and clanging back against hard thorax...

Ferns sprout from cavernous nostrils, rock formations grow like hemorrhoids from seamless asses…  They push the seat of his pants out in reverse mockery of hard-on – pole and its respective fissure united... Glass noses sense each whiff of pie and lime, each carrot stalk musty with earth, spicy with botulism.  

The gods have been angered – Wrath appropriated, the cat burglar steals a monkey paw with just one wish left… Mother and her milk infused with aftosa – Someone spiked the anthrax tea – The whole beast imploding, driving its frantic herd into fits of Grande Mal retreat. Teats blown out like ragged inner tubes empty and spoilt, emitting loud whistling farts as they shrink away to thin red latex... Calves and cubs and kids, cheeks full with the warm nutrients melt from bones and tendons leaving two spinning eyeballs in white sockets, small shreds of cartilage hang from blistered bone. Mewling and wailing and screeching bestial vestments, the creatures dance around the May Pole of their own demise, singing “The blood drips in the vial,” in warbly decomposing voices. Tripping over furless hooves, blood follows thin pipeline to intricate system of tubes, now stopped up tight with small balls of toilet paper.  

The clot sets up its detour.  

May Pole splinters when a half-dissolved goat kicks it with shattering hoof... The chef has arrived to eat… May Pole swings a wide, fast arc to the Earth, upending a noxious plume of ferrous nutrients into the air…  

The slow animals gnaw their own legs to escape, not realizing they aren’t tethered to anything...

Erect spires cast off kaleidoscopic clouds, transfixing me to my white-stamped beach. Eyes blink off and titanium sheets snap shut amputating the neck clean and cauterized. “Asante Sana.”  

Lonesome accents; accents wearing torn gloves and antiquated battle armor, tiled hats and feather headdresses. Rain is confusion, their mouths open beating drops blow throat dust between teeth as eyelids meet. Tiny buds of brown rise from larynx on vines of this lonesomeness. Lonesomeness is not loneliness; the wise are alone and satiated as kings after a banquet. The lonely are beggars craving sustenance, their throats stuffed, choking on the rotting vegetation…  

Rain blooms into yellow pods of pulp and noxious juice filling each segment with coagulated congratulations, condolences and introductions beneath burning watts of grow lights hidden away in damp basements and firetrap closets.  

These actors pretend to feel reality while the gunshot happens off camera and the arsenic silently plays its role in the cappuccino skin. These things happen, but these things are inconsequential to the Son.  

Whole honey-breasted Earth Mother, legs shuddering to open and close, exorcising the profligate offspring....  

The accent is a sign of obedience. Obedience to the feigning Baphomet.  

Someone scalped the full Moon. Lopped off her crown leaving her off kilter to spin out of control on a collision course with the Sun… A connection between all occurrences is indeed discoverable.  

Apatosauruses were long-necked herbivores spending their days lazily grazing on high foliage.  Their personality traits are carried by the pensive giraffe who lives same as his ancestors did twenty-million years prior. Giraffes give common spirits a familiar vessel in which to dwell. I am purely a byproduct of my upbringing and influences. Mannerisms are not unique, but are composites of those family and friends we idolized during our formative years. Our way of speaking, gesturing, eating, voting, dressing – our favorite sayings and passions – all sums of our varied influences... Once these influences become plentiful enough that their initial donors are too numerous to pinpoint, we credit said person with having their own persona. This is the Emptiness of Personality.  

“I know what you’re doing.” So do I. Getting caught up in label and form. Like always. I’m warm, but I’m still sick. I shall stop being morbid and go collapse. Stab the sky and return to my frigid bed…  

 2.

Out there remains running with precision, the Real World. I touch it vicariously, constant. They’re frustrated and angry, impatient and hungry. Working a meager wage, smacking their children, telling strangers to shut their fucking mouths, to keep their hands to themselves or they’ll have them arrested for assault, crying in a crowd of hundreds, being stung by bees and rushed by siren and strobe, withering their fortunes and placing final bets. The length we go, the fortunes we spend, the births we waste on this quest for pleasure... Self-fulfillment through forced smiles and opiate warmth. These droves I fall in sway amidst demonstrate in collage that the search is universal. The thirst once whetted, insatiable.

How could we find fulfillment in garish costumes sewn by thirteen-year-old mothers in distant lands whose existence seem like impossible urban legend surrounded by such playful opulence? While smoked mutton legs are torn apart by round young teeth in grotesque imitations of medieval royalty… Tossing bones and cartilage to immaculate ground.  

Make a mess and the peasantry will always clear away the corruption. Keep careful tallies, divulge the hidden crush, open the trap door and rain down hail and hell. Rain down sunburnt cheeks, rain down smooth thighs not yet parted, rain down mockery upon the chivalrous!

Resentment taints the flavor of even the most succulent meal. Globe adorned with divot for each day of the year stands high above all pettiness... Completely, exquisitely unperturbed…

Emptiness is the black silhouette of palm fronds against a dust blue island sky – Emptiness is the voice in my ear imparting statistics and folklore I’m bound to forget in lieu of this foreign landscape.                  

 3.

This act of writing is an act of defiance...  Some of the romance has returned – a fraction maybe, but it tastes like mango and sweet cream… The bliss state is inexorably separated from the Real World. As long as the two remain individuals, as reflections of each other’s opulence, then one becomes a necessary haven from the other. Striving is a waste of time. We spend both holiday and labor trying desperately to forget ourselves.  

The crux is that there isn’t any self to remember or forget...  

There’s a futility behind all action.  

Sometimes I’m not sure whether I’m Buddhist or just depressed…

From all corners where I’ve exercised my irrepressible voyeurism, I’ve come to the same realization: a face may be plain, but the hidden thoughts, turbulent behind layers of fortified armor, deceptively stable: dead skin sheaths – (kissed, exquisitely caressed, licked by patient meandering strokes – flecks of discarded yesterdays on your tongue – Oh, sainted lover! Oh, cannibalistic ravisher of my flesh!) muscle, sinew, expressive masks and face paint, never were blessed with such luxury as simplicity – as peace.

In rows they form a steady procession of black waves rising up from the water, into their own deep brooding substance. Shoulders rolled round neck pulled taught to project strong pecks to the Rising Eastern Sun… Soon sunken – spotted ribs hunched to rejoin heart with mud – Thumping dulls in throbbing brown murk.  

Radiance inseparable from Source of Light… Mud and heart inseparable from deep black waters of All That Is –

 4.

Vivid striped leaves stare back at me incredulous – How dare I ignore their cluster for this old mangled sheet in my hand – Their fallen brethren, doomed to this scratching servitude…  

Cold concrete bench shakes beneath my ass, damp and rustling – Am I or the wind rocking it? Am I the wind? Shouting like ambulance siren? Echoed from distance to distance fading –

The tall trees enthroned continue their indictments, guilty, I bow my head – God bark of foliage from the wind and siren – Loud and brash is the god of this midday hour. Stifle the eyes, suture the ears… Closed, all doors sealed against the tumult… I could die upon that tree – murdered by fate attacking through obstreperous evil leaves –

I feel sullen and doomed. Testicles ache with indecision. They crowd loudly around – shadows spiked and tall – one million gods all sides... On this day of judgment the Fear dawns. Sentence handed down – (touch thumb to third finger and frown) – An icon guilty or explicit: it was all a dream I murdered – killed the mist. Strangled the tortured soul who’d forgotten my face; dreamt up the final sequence of the Stone Statue Lucifer emitting golden rays of hope from tail and forked tongue, each fang and dagger nail unsheathed sent shivers of glorious light through my dream until they’d all perished sleepily, until the backfire of a moving van – Rapid blasts – (am I hit?)  – Check for blood or holes – fragments me and I am again – body and fog – Two gunshots shy of one less morning…

[vectorisheree]

I don't think I've ever mentioned it here but Milk is mute! He had his voicebox damaged from the skulk infestation and now chooses to communicate through writing and sign language

From the @daycarefriendpickup magma ^^

[vectorisheree]

OOOHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYY GODDDDDDD????????????????????????????? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAEEFAEEAEEAAEEFAEFAEFAEFAEHEHEHEHAEHFAEFHAHEFHAEFAUVKJAVNAKJEFJAEKJFNAJEKFAKJEFJKAEFJAJKE HIM!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

number twelve!!!!! real proud of this one!! for @vectorisheree :D

[vectorisheree]

Moon before the mold took over </3

Character on the left belongs to @n0maku!!