#Mr monk meets the red headed woman

[mothdogs]

The hardest thing about watching Monk is that it’s ostensibly a comedic show—and it does have its funny moments—but the narrative constantly, quietly debases and humiliates Adrian due to his disability and these moments just pass by, largely unremarked upon. In the Willie Nelson episode, he can’t bring himself to play the clarinet because someone else touched his mouthpiece, and you see Sharona and Stottlemeyer wincing, but he just stands there humiliated and accepts it. In the episode with the murdered billionaire, someone asks him if he’s ashamed of himself and he says “Oh, every day.” It’s so desperately sad. You want Adrian to get mad at the way people look at him and laugh at him. You want him to defend himself but he just… never does. 😞

[flowerflamestars]

Isolation just hit me hard, sis, please give me something Nessian

Dark and scary times for us all! Stay safe and well and have the first few pages of the Ivy Moon Epilogue:

Cassian hadn’t worn a white suit since Havana in the thirties, and he’d enjoyed that state of being.

Sighing around a smile, he tugged his cuffs into place. Through the western wall of wide windows that made up Nesta’s bedroom- their bedroom- Cassian could see the snow beginning to fall heavily. The storm glow of the sky was bleeding pink as the day ended, time ebbing low.

The winter solstice had come.

A sacred witch holiday, the youngest Archeron’s birthday- and Rhys and Feyre’s wedding day. There were six inches of snow on the ground already, the longest night of the year promising to be icy cold, and Cassian was wearing linen.

Nesta had kept him company at the fitting, her smirk the brightest thing in the chaos of a particularly gifted pixie tailor’s shop. The owner and her assistants were invisible but for balls of twinkling light, flickering around as pins seemed to appear like magic adjusting the itchy white fabric.

“Has anyone told Fey that all the white is for virginity?” Cassian sighed, faced on three sides by mirrors that told him exactly how blinding the suit was.

Nesta cracked a smile. “Please say that exact sentence to Rhysand."   Somewhere in his brain Cassian had an aside to follow her words, but it got lost as Nesta stepped up to his side. Sliding away the phone she’d been using to unsubtly document the whole process- and from her twitching lips, pass on to Amren- Nesta leaned her head against his arm.

He was never, ever going to get used to the fact that this was his life now.   “Did you know my dress has sparkles?” She asked him, grey eyes dancing as they met his in the mirror. “Sparkles, Cassian.”   Her disgust was so clear he had to laugh. Was finally able to think about something besides the suit Nesta was wearing- blood red, immaculate, a sharp slash in the world she’d worn to a meeting before joining him- and snag her hand.

To anyone watching, Nesta might as well have not reacted at all. But Cassian was a wolf- and how he cherished the skills that came with it as he heard her breathe stutter, witches heart picking up in tempo.

Grinning, he raised her hand to his lips.

And was tapped less than gently on the side of the head by a bobbing pink light reminding him to hold still, Mr. Aquilar, or this will not sit correctly. “My apologizes,” Cassian had managed to say. Nesta’s eyes hadn’t left him once.   The slam of a solid oak door pulled Cassian from his memories, made him start from where he’d frozen, looking at the cold forest that somewhere contained his mate, draped in sparkling silver.   The bedroom door moved again, bouncing, and he took its heed. If he wasn’t used to the incredible hidden depths of Nesta’s affection, the seeming adoption of him into the family by the old witch house was startling.

And he wasn’t smug at all that it sometimes still refused Rhys entry.   Down through the house everywhere was magic, and everywhere was chaos. None of the legion of wedding guests Rhys had invited were arriving quite yet, but the Wild Hunt had come.    In lightening strikes and rolls of thunder, over the last week they’d strode in from the forest- or in one memorable instance, appeared armed to the teeth in the kitchen. Rhysand had tackled Alcheon before the sisters could blink away the strike of electricity, and gotten a knife in the stomach for his trouble.   Feyre still wasn’t done laughing that her dhampir have gotten stabbed by a monk.   Three floors down, Cassian followed the softly vicious sound of Elain swearing to the auxiliary kitchen. The place where the Archeron’s normally brewed potions and today, the cake staging room.   “Putian,” Elain bit out and waved her fingers over the top tier. An apron Cassian was very sure he’d last seen in Azriel’s kitchen was looped twice around her waist.   The dark head of the very brother in question peeked around the doorframe as Cassian came down the hall. It had been all of ten minutes, but Az had already discarded his identical blazer. “Kim Yu-Shin came to fetch Rhys.”   A banner of shining emerald was hanging over Az’s neck. Bare of course- collar already undone and shirt half unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, buttercream smeared on one wrist- Azriel’s allergy to formalwear was alive as ever.   “I’m sure Uncle just wanted to have a chat,” Said Elain lightly. It wasn’t a tone that inspired confidence in the pleasantness of that talk. She set down the piping bag she’d been wielding and snapped fingers over the cake. Like ignition, it caught, sparked.   The room filled with the scent of bonfires. Vanilla and smoke, cinnamon drifting up to cold clear October skies. And there in the pale frosting, embers floated and lived, mingling with silver-gold decorations.   The green resolved itself to be Lucien’s long hair, moving as he raised a sleep rumpled face from the back of Azriel’s neck to bare sharp teeth at Cassian. “She means we might need to go hunt down your brother in case he’s hog tied naked in the woods.”   Cassian grinned back. “I think the only thing in danger is his suit, then.”   “So life or death for Rhys,” Az replied, absently shifting until Lucien’s chin was looped more comfortably over his shoulder. “Do we know if he picked out the two toned velvet, or Feyre?”   “Feyre,” Anwsered two voices from the doorway.   On long legs, a pink haired welsh giant who’d been blond the last time Cassian saw him slid into the already crowded room.   “Green suits you, sapling.” Oberon crossed his arms, smile undimmed through exhausted eyes.   Lucien’s gaze danced, “Not as good as you in pink, old one.”   Cassian hadn’t needed to guess where the new color had come from. He’d met the Iron Knight- the bloody nightmare of the last faerie civil war, a changeling who’d wielded cold steel against the Seelie Queen herself- when he was mid apple fight with Lucien. One minute he’d been walking with Elain, and the next a massive unseelie warrior had dropped silently from one of the orchard trees to smash Lucien in the face with a honeycrisp.   Oberon laughed, the sound echoing, and redirected his attention to greet Az. “Azriel Esfandiyār Aguilar.”   A cool hand caught Cassian’s and he turned to allow the sight of Nesta, one step behind Oberon, to sweep over him like a tide. The dress did indeed sparkle- but spelled alteration had turned that mortal glitter to the shine of falling snow, every inch of silver white fabric as light and fine as the lattice of frost over leaves.   Silk, sliding over the skin of the most beautiful woman Cassian had ever seen.   Even cloaked- she was wrapped in a gauzy more truly silver wrap, arms and waist and neck, screened like enchantment-he had to swallow, heart in his throat as Nesta raised her eyebrows, knowing smile twisting that perfect mouth.   The problem with the Hunt- the lethal, ancient thirteen beloved of Acherons- was that they had to follow their own rules. Until you became something- familiar, known, quantified- full names mattered.   But Oberon only inclined his head to Cassian, and Cassian nodded back, grateful.   Elain drew the elder dryad into conversation, but once the moment of introduction had passed, Cassian had honestly stopped listening. Instead, he stepped closer to Nesta, leaning down. “Hi.”   Ice littered her hair from the falling snow, just beginning to melt and darken so much gold. The scent of fire- flame and moonlight, his magic still dancing over her- had announced Nesta’s incoming radiant presence to him before she’d even made it into the house.   How could the snow even touch her?   “Hello,” Nesta answered, soft as a secret. Close, her skin carried so much of his touch Cassian’s wolf wanted to roll in it.   And was smiling like she knew it.   This- this was the problem.   Secrets that his heart and magic and being crowed to the star scattered sky if anyone was paying attention.

Nesta, a sword and shield between the living and the dead, was so different as to not have to worry about anyone plucking up her feelings from the air.

Here Cassian was- a new last name curled golden in his mouth, a wedding band hidden around his neck, a glamoured tattoo on his ribs, and happiness pounding in his blood.   He couldn’t contain it.

[k18fics]

Strictly Business

Here's my next entry for Chestnutfest, I am so happy to be writing again. @chestnutisland

Strictly Business

A tall man with jet black hair spiked up tall wearing a three piece navy blue suit walked into the conference room where all the employees tensed up instantly. Ever since Dr. Gero lost that terrible lawsuit against a begrudged client, Goku, the banks have been in and out of the company distributing settlement money and to save his company Dr. Gero sold the entire company to someone else.

The employees who had all been there for a number of years feared for their job security and for what kind of new boss they would have. This serious man in the blue suit did not inspire confidence at all.

“My name is Vegeta,” he said. “I am the new CEO of the company appointed by the new owner.”

A blue-haired woman entered the room wearing a Navy blue tight dress with a red scarf tied around her neck. Vegeta motioned to her, “this is my wife Bulma, she is the new CFO.”

“Our goal is to keep the company running as smoothly as it always has except for more compliant with the laws. We are not here to fire anyone or change anything but to simply supervise things more closely. Unfortunately the lawsuit and buyout of the company puts us at quite a large loss and we need to close a large account to be able to recover the losses. We have a multi-millionaire heir who needs investment help because he grew up and poverty and we need to get him on our client-load ASAP.” Vegeta motioned to Bulma after completing his speech.

“Let’s see here,” Bulma said opening a manilla folder. “Our top investment agents are Lazuli and Lapis.”

Vegeta looked at the employees. “Are you here?”

“Right here,” Lazuli said standing up along with Lapis.

She was a beautiful, thin blonde woman wearing a white button up shirt with a pink sweater vest and a tag that said “Gero Enterprises” and her name.

Lapis wore a very relaxed suit without the blazer and had his long black hair tied in a loose ponytail that allowed a few pieces of hair to loosen and fall on his face.

“You are listed as the top the agents,” Bulma said. “You both have executive positions here, Vice Presidents and minority shareholders. Quite a feat.”

“Excellent,” Vegeta said handing Lazuli a folder. “You can take this potential client Ms. Lazuli. Mr. Lapis I would like you to come with me to review client files and see if we can stir up business that way. The rest of you Bulma has prepared a calling list for potential clients. We have prepared scripts as introduction, your goal is to set up appointments for in person meetings not to try to sell over the phone, understood?”

“Understood,” came the response.

The room cleared out quickly as Bulma had already set up folders for everyone to take. Lazuli walked straight to her office to start reviewing her file. A multi-millionaire heir who has no idea how to manage money, this should be an open and shut case. Earn his trust, close the deal.

She opened the folder and looked at the paperwork. There was no picture only a list of information:

Name: Krillin

Age: 29

Occupation: Owner of Roshi Martial Arts School, formerly a monk

Inheritance: $50 million

She hummed and started inputting his phone number and address onto her phone. A few years back she had had a one night stand with a martial arts teacher. She never knew his name and she never did see him again even though he was so cute, though a bit shorter than most of the guys she ever dated.

She dialed the number and waited for a response. “Hello?”

“Hi!” Lazuli said cheerfully, “My name is Lazuli with Gero Enterprises and you were referred to me to help you with your new inheritance.”

“Oh. That. Can I just donate it all?”

“You want to donate it?” Lazuli said. “To what organization?”

“Uh I don’t know, cancer research?”

“That’s amazing, so what would you like to do? Donate all of it once or give them a good amount every single month for years and years nonstop?”

Krillin made a surprised sound. “Wait I can do that?”

“Yes and still have money to set up income and retirement for yourself and anyone you want to help,” Lazuli said. “Are you available tonight for dinner so we can discuss this further?”

“Um, sure yeah,” Krillin said. “I get out of my last class at 7:30, we can meet at like 9.”

“Great let’s meet at Satan Cafe at 9pm,” Lazuli said. “Just ask the hostess to bring you to the table.”

“Okay sounds good, see you tonight.”

...

Lazuli had been sitting at the table for twenty minutes before the hostess appeared with a short bald man in a simple white button up with a messy black tie. Lazuli recognized him almost instantly and she just froze. In her years of experience as an agent she had never encountered something like this before.

He recognized her too and sat down across from her looking shocked. “You’re Lazuli?”

Lazuli gulped. “And you’re Krillin?”

Krillin chuckled nervously and scratched his head. “Well what a coincidence.”

“You know when I saw that you were a martial arts instructor I thought about you but I never thought you were actually that person,” Lazuli said.

“I think about you a lot too,” Krillin said, “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Well we certainly have some catching up to do,” Lazuli said smiling. “But let’s talk business first.”

“Yes let’s,” Krillin said grinning. “But this time we’ll keep in touch after yeah?”

Lazuli smirked. “Definitely. But right now...strictly business.”

...

Lazuli let out a heavy sigh as she collapsed onto the bed followed shortly after by Krillin who collapsed on top of her naked and sweaty.

Panting still she said, “okay so we didn’t get anything done.”

“Well we got something done,” Krillin murmured against her throat.

“And quite well might I add,” Lazuli said chuckling. “But I meant business wise.”

Krillin sighed and moved himself off of Lazuli so he could lie beside her. “You’re like the seventh agent that has come see me. I am not a...money guy. I got this inheritance when my mentor and father figure passed away. He had to die so I could get this money and I just...I don’t wanna keep it.”

Lazuli sat up and looked at him. “You are a good person Krillin. I have a twin brother and when we were teenagers our parents died in a car accident. The state gave us life insurance money. My brother was adamant about not taking the money but the truth was we needed that money to survive. Our parents had the foresight to purchase life insurance so that we would be taken care of if something ever happened to them. How disrespectful and dumb would it have been to not take the money you know? That money got us through college and set us up.”

“Hmm,” Krillin said sitting up. “I guess I never really thought of that.”

“How long did your mentor work to make all that money?”

Krillin looked pensive for a moment. “About 40 years. He’s the creator of my martial arts studio, and he franchised it and expanded it.”

“It was his life’s work?”

Krillin nodded.

“And he gave it to you? And no one else’s?”

Krillin nodded.

“What an honor that is Krillin,” Lazuli said smiling. “He loved and trusted you enough to leave you everything because he wanted you to be comfortable and well, and to carry on his legacy.”

Krillin smiled sadly. “Y-yeah, I guess he did.”

“So trust me then,” Lazuli said. “Let me help you set up your account. We can set up accounts for you to live comfortably the rest of your life whether you work or not, we can set up accounts for anyone in your life that you want to help, we can set up accounts to give money consistently to any charity or project you want, and we can set things up so you can get any leisures or luxuries you want.”

“I’m good with all the other stuff, I don’t know about the leisure part,” Krillin said.

“It’s all up to you,” Lazuli said smiling. “Whatever you want. So, what do you say? Do I have the job?”

Krillin chuckled. “Is this how you close all your deals?”

Lazuli leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “Only the short cute bald ones.”

Krillin laughed and kissed her gently. “You’re hired.”

Lazuli smiled and moved away so she could offer her hand for a handshake. He looked at her hand for a moment then said, “we can seal the deal another way.”

Lazuli grinned slid her hand up his torso instead. “After all, this is strictly business.”

[mordellestories]

Bless the Fallen

[lux-ace]

faberge.alvashie’s Inktober2k18 collection - 女の子とキツネ

Title Translation: The Girl and the Kistune

Inktober Day 3 "Kitsune Kylo" (狐, "fox") Translation: マスクのモンスター (Monster in a mask) Story: A girl sold as a slave to the local samurai by her parents, and a demon feared and banished to the forest by the Priestess... two lonely souls find each other and find their own belonging... Would their union bring forth peace or simply end in a thorny path? *She was five years old when she was sold into slavery.

Inktober Day 4 “Rokurokubi” (ろくろくび, "pulley neck") Translation: ろくろ首さん (Rokurokubi-san) Story: Every year the Kitsune would put a disguise seal to appear human and to bring his little friend to the Hanabi festival. On the girl’s 12th year, they met a fellow yokai in the festival. She offers her dango 🍡 in hopes to befriend the Rokurokubi. *Phasma/Rokurokubi-san that Rey/Rei wants to befriend.

Inktober Day 5 “Makura-Gaeshi” (枕返し, "pillow flipper") Story: The Makura-Gaeshi is a child Yokai that gets your pillow and flips it as a prank. This Makura-Gaeshi, named Vivi, was caught red handed. He accidentally awakened the sleep deprived Kistune. The Kitsune’s friend tries her best to calm the flames of his anger as she helplessly clings to his back. Translation: Rey/Rei - 便*! (Ben*!) Ben - ガキ! (Brat!) BB-8/Vivi - 不毛の犬! (Barren dog!) *Ben (便) in japanese means flights

Inktober Day 6 “Yurei” (幽霊, "ghost") Translation: Rose - クククク.. (kukukukun...) Story: Fifteen years had come and gone... She had found out her Kistune, for the life of him, cannot remember his birthday. She decided to celebrate it on they day they met. She celebrated this by reversing their roles. The Kistune as a human and the human as a Yokai. Her friend Rose, the Yurei, helped her look like a Yokai. Every time the Kistune would look at her, she couldn’t figure out if he was holding back a laugh or a grin. This made her happy. *Rose/Yurei is a friend of Rey/Rei.

Inktober Day 7 “Tengu” (天狗, "heavenly dog") Story: At sixteen, she met a Tengu. He was beautiful, like a dark angel...like her Kitsune... She knew her Kitsune was off limits. He often refers to her as Ko (子 - child) or Moyashi (もやし - bean sprout), thus, reinforcing how he could only see her as his baby sister. She would enjoy flirting with the Tengu, only to have her over protective Kitsune fussing around her....cus hey, a girl can dream, right? *The Tengu she's flirting with is Poe Dameron.

Inktober Day 8 “Gashadokuro” (がしゃどくろ, "rattling skull") Story: When people die and they suffer hunger in their death, they turn into the Gashadokuro. After finding out the truth about her parents, girl wondered into the pauper’s grave looking for their stone. In the darkness, the souls of the people who died of starvation merged together into a Gashadokuro. When she thought all hope is lost, her Kitsune came to the rescue. In his hand, he held the Katana blessed by Amaterasu. The blessing of the goddess granted the sword the power of the blinding light to banish evil. *The Gashadokuro is loosely based on the Rancor Pit.

Inktober Day 9 “Umibozu” (海坊主, "sea bonze or sea monk") Story: The Umibozu is a yokai known to capsize any ship or boat that comes its way... While the Kitsune was giving the girl her first boat ride, they encountered a gentle Umibozu who chose to rock their boat instead of flipping it. The sudden rocking caused the Kitsune to lose his balance and topple over his passenger...strange... he remained in the same position even after he found his balance. Translation: クククク.. (nnnnnnnn....)

Inktober Day 10 “Tsukumogami” (付喪神, "tool kami") Story: An old friend, the tsukumogami, had visited the Kitsune. It lost its way through the long corridors of the shrine and found its way to the girl. Frightened, she kicked and screamed, alerting her protective kitsune. He came rushing to her room in a frenzied speed. Upon the sight of him, the tsukumogami wrapped itself in glee around his his old friend and tangled itself in a hug...dragging the girl in the process... *The Tsukumogami is loosely based on porgs.

Inktober Day 11 “Dodomeki” (百々目鬼, "many-eyed demon") Story: For so long she had kept her feelings for her kistune a secret but on her 17th birthday she decided to confess. She wore her best attire and took her time to fashion her hair. When she arrived at the meeting place, she found him with another. Bazine, a dodomeki, who steals anything she gets her hands on...had now stolen what was most precious to her... Words died in her throat and the shattered shards of her heart pricked her eyes. “He was never mine to begin with”- her conscience scolded her... as her feet carried her away in vain hope of fleeing from the heart wrenching pain...

Inktober Day 12 “Yuuki Onna” (雪女, "Snow Woman") Story: After the incident with the Dodomeki, the girl wandered off. She stumbled upon an unlikely “friend”, Yuuki Onna. She was icy and frank like the snow she draws from. Yuuki asked her what a human like her was doing in their realm, the girl replied: “I need to find my place in this world”. The yokai laughed and told her to go home to her own world because a human never belonged in the yokai realm. The girl agreed...

Inktober Day 13 “Betobeto-san” (べとべとさん, "Mr. Betobeto") Story: Mr. Betobeto is a yokai who follows travelers around and he just so happens to have followed a very important missing girl. With huge mouth, he decided to gossip his find to the Kistune. *Two years since Rey/Rei left him, the light inside the Kitsune was snuffed out.

Inktober Day 14 “Otoroshi” (おとろし, "scary") Story: While the Kitsune was on his way to the human territory, the girl found solace in the town’s shrine. She had befriended a foreign monk in training, and a local Yokai guardian of the shrine, Otoroshi. Despite its harsh looks, it means no harm. It protects the shrine from the impure and those with ill will. She felt safe and comfortable in the shrine...but something feels wrong...terribly wrong... The head monk of the shrine, an old withered man, would teach his students how to banish yokais or how to bind them for use... *Rey/Rei is now 19-years old, traveling alone for two years, after she left the Kitsune. The foreign monk in training that Rey/Rei met is Finn.

Inktober Day 15 “Shuten Doji” (酒呑童子 しゅてんどうじ - a nickname, meaning: “little drunkard”) Translation: Shuten Doji: 玉藻 (Tamamo) Kitsune: おいこの野郎! (Oi, bastard!) Story: The girl wondered around the shrine and found a small cottage almost covered by the shrine’s trees. She took a peek inside and found the Shuten Doji. The Shuten Doji smirked and grabbed her. She struggled against the iron hold of the alcohol reeking yokai. In his drunken stupor, he mumbled about how his master would be displeased of having her found him. He started calling her Tamamo (玉藻 - moss ball) and assuring her he’ll take good care of her. She wanted to kick, to scream but some unknown magic had held her. Just when she thought all hope is lost, the Kitsune burst into the doors.

Inktober Day 16 “Ibaraki Doji” (茨木童子いばらきどうじ, “Thorn Tree Child”) Story: The Shuten Doji’s loyal chief deputy, the Ibaraki doji, was tasked to take care of the kitsune. In blind rage, the kitsune didn’t notice the seal tapped into his skin by his opponent. The seal weakened his abilities and forced him to retreat with the unconscious girl. Surprisingly, the Shuten doji and Ibaraki doji didn’t follow them. What could this seal mean? Will everything go back to the way it was?

Inktober Day 17 “Ushirogami” (後神, “behind spirit”) Story: After the escape from the shrine, the Kistune confronted the girl about the night she ran away. Fear brewed in her belly. The thought of rejection muddled her integrity. She couldn’t look at him as he innocently asked her why... Her fear grew stronger and it captured the attention of Ushirogami. A yokai who feeds off of fear. The Kistune called her name and she was too weak to resist.. “大好きだよ” The Kistune laughed and replied: “愛してるよ”. Translation: Girl - “I really like you” Kitsune - “I love you”

Inktober Day 18 “Kitsunebi” (狐きね, “fox fire”) Story: They say a Kitsunebi can often be seen during yokai events such as the night parade of one hundred demons, processions or meetings, and yokai wedding ceremonies... it’s formed when a fox breathes a ball of fire to light their way in the night. The Kitsune breathes the fire within set aflame by the girl. All seems to be well... except for the strange throbbing brand by the kitsune’s nape. It’s a little painful, it’s a little itchy but he could ignore it; especially in a moment like this.

Inktober Day 19 “Jorogumo” (じょろうぐも, “entangling bride/ whore spider") Story: The strange mark on the Kistune grew more painful each day. The constant throb of pain inches his conscience to darkness. They believed him to be poisoned, so the went to an old friend, the Jorogumo. The Jorogumo is an expert in making poisons but upon closer inspection, she concluded that this was no poison. It’s a beckoning spell.

Inktober Day 20 “Ubume” (うぶめ, “woman in late pregnancy”) Translation: Ubume - さようなら... (good bye) Kitsune - ママ (mama) Story: The kitsune had started being more open to the girl; he decided to tell her his past. His mother died giving birth to him. The grief of her spirit turned her into an Ubume. She took care of him until he was able to sprout his second tail. She then decided he was able enough to fend for himself so her spirit was able to rest in peace. *The Ubume, the Kitsune's mother in spirit, is Leia Organa.

Inktober Day 21 - “Nopperabo” (のっぺらぼう, “faceless monk”) Story: When the Kitsune suppresses his power the throbbing pain of the mysterious seal lessened. Now that he’s feeling a bit better he decided to take a night stroll with the girl in the human territory...unbeknownst them both, a spy from the shrine had located them. The Nopperabo will soon report the progress of the Ibaraki dōji’s seal to the shrine leader.

Inktober Day 22 - “Futakuchi Onna” (ふたくちおんな, “two-mouthed woman”) Story: The seal has been activated and the Kitsune lost his control over himself. It beckons him to its master. The Futakuchi Onna tried her best to hold him down and stop him but the Kistune was too strong for her. On the other end of the Futakuchi’s hair she held the girl to protect her from the destruction of the thrashing yokai but her efforts were futile... The girl lost her kitsune.

Inktober Day 23 - “Kappa” (河童, “river child”) Story: She was on her way to the shrine to retrieve the kitsune. With her, she brought a staff wrapped in protective seal to be able to fight any yokai she may come to face. As she neared, she felt her staff grow heavy... A baby kappa had latched itself to her staff. *The Kappa latching on to Rey/Rei is BB-9E.

Inktober Day 24 - “Tamamo no Mae” (たまものまえ, "Lady Duckweed") Padme - 帰って来いアナキン... (Come here, Anakin..) Story: In the depths of the Kistune’s unconsciousness, he dreams of a lady... a lady calling for someone named Anakin to come home. Strange... the voice the lady has resembles someone very important to him but he couldn’t remember who. *Lady Duckweed is Padme Amidala, Kylo Ren's grandmother.

Inktober Day 25 - “Nurikabe” ( ぬりかべ, “Painted wall”) Rey - 家に帰ろう.. (Let’s go home...) Story: Nurikabes that got in the way were hacked in one fell swoop of the Kitsune’s katana. He’s determined to fulfil his master’s bidding. Kill her. The girl... she was happy to finally see him after so long. If coming home with him meant her death then so be it... at least she had tried...

Inktober Day 26 - “Hitostume Kozo” (ひとつめこぞう, "one-eyed priest boy") pt1 Story: After he capture, she was brought by the kitsune to the head monk of the shrine. It’s an eerie sight to see a monk surrounded by hitotsume kozo. As the little yokais fiddles around the monk’s robes, the Kitsune asked for his next step and monk ordered him to kill her... *The head monk is Snoke, in which Kylo Ren serves under by force.

Inktober Day 26 - “Hitostume Kozo” (ひとつめこぞう, "one-eyed priest boy") pt2 Story continues:  The Kistune’s hands trembled as he drew his sword... and delivered the killing blow... The spell is broken... and her blood splashed on his face...

Inktober Day 27 “Wa Nyudo” (わにゅうどう, “wheel priest”) Story: The Wa Nyudo is a yokai that collects wicked souls and drags them to hell for torment. Today it brings a deliciously wicked soul. A soul of an old man. Scarred to deformity by an evil yokai, he took his hate and anger on the innocent...be it a yokai or not. He became a priest, not for virtue, but to learn the art of having power of the yokai. He twisted his sense of justice and abused his power. In his lust for power, he underestimated the Kistune. In a deceptive move and a flicker of control over the spell, the yokai stabbed through the girl’s shoulder and on to the priest’s throat... the nightmare came to an end. The girl was wounded by the shoulder but nonetheless fine. The priest drowned in his own blood. The yokais free from tyranny.

Inktober Day 28 - “Kodama” (こだま, “Tree spirit”) Story: Deep in the forest, in a house made of a hollow tree, there was a kitsune and a girl... They were surrounded by Kodama who maintain the balance of the forest but to them, they were each other’s balance. They found the belonging the seek and bliss of paradise in one another.

Inktober Day 29 - “Inugami” (いぬがみ, “dog spirit”) Story: The two had adopted an Inugami, a loyal service dog. Though an Inugami is made to serve their masters, they had treated it as their own child. A child... they decided to have one.

Inktober Day 30 - “Baku” (ばく - no translation) Story: When their son had nightmares, a Baku is summoned. It eats nightmares and leaves behind good dreams. *Their baby's name is Anakin.

Inktober Day 31 - “Hyakki Yagyo” (ひゃっきやぎょう - “the night parade of one hundred demons”) Story: Yokais and humans grew closer. Old misunderstandings and disagreements faded into history. In honour of their unity, a yearly yokai parade takes place, the Hyakki Yagyo. Within this parade is the fruit of the unity between yokai and human. Young Anakin, son of the kitsune and the girl, came from nothing and everything.

The End.

[thegreatpikminzx789]

Yggdrasil’s Nexus: Prologue (Chapter 5) - Etrian Odyssey Nexus Fanfiction

Wattpad|Fanfiction.Net (Will upload later)|Ao3

Summary: Korey meets someone who desperately wants to join his guild. But even reuniting with the Lux Guild doesn’t shake off the taunting memory that remains to shackle the answer on how he disappeared... Perhaps revisiting a Medic from Lagaard will get him somewhere...

Previous Chapter|Next Chapter

AN: I apologize if future chapters come a bit later than usual, I’m afraid my highest priority is artwork for Artfight. But I’ll do my best to continue working on this when I find the time.

Azure, Axel, and mentions of the Angelward Guild, Isiah, and Lynus (c) @theshatteredrose​

"Korey, are you okay?!" Shirota asked as she ran over to him before looking at the person who fell on top of him. Korey quickly recovered from the fall, his eyes also looking towards the person on top of him. She seemed to be that of a Monk class, but she held an overheated Drive Blade in her hands.

About the weirdest sense of deja vu Korey ever felt. The same thing happened in Iorys with Keiko, and only several years later, the same situation crept back to him. Jacinda rushed over to help the black haired twin tail girl up.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" Jacinda inquired, looking over her to see if there were any injuries. "O-Of course I'm alright!" The girl replied, seeming to brush off Jacinda's question in a sassy manner. Logre, however, was surprised to see a child like her wield a weapon that they created in the first place.

Logre turned to Baldur, pointing out the weapon in the girl's hand. Baldur let out a silent gasp before approaching the child. "Hey, where'd you get your hands on a Drive Blade?" He asked, as the girl cooled down the Drive Blade and placing it on her back before crossing her arms.

"Like I'm telling any of you strangers about it!" She barked, causing Baldur to flinch a bit. Wasn't expecting that reaction from a child.

"Rita!" A woman's voice called out, as the group's attention was focused on a woman who wore a blue cape, black hair, and purple eyes, rushing towards the child before taking deep breaths due to running quite the distance. After catching her breath, she placed her hands on her hips, looking at the Monk girl she called Rita.

"I was worried sick about you. You could've hurt someone with an overheated Drive Blade!" She exclaimed, exhaustion still quite hesitant on her face as she panted a few times as she talked.

"Oh quiet, you." Rita dismissed. "If my parents were still around, they'd have taught me a bit more than how to simply wield it! But no, I gotta learn all by myself!"

Korey blinked upon hearing what he heard. It's hard to tell whether this girl had Imperials as her parents or not, because they would've fled long before the events of Baldur's plans to restore the land with the Yggdrasil Titan... In fact, it could be a case of subclassing into an Imperial, since there was an extreme lacking of evidence that this girl's parents were around the Maginia. Nevertheless, it was quite hard for the Highlander to come to a solid answer.

"If that's the case, then where are your parents?" Akhos asked, wanting a solid answer.

"Not that I'm telling a bunch of strangers that!" Rita retorted, huffing as she looked away from the guild entirely.

The caped woman could only sigh as she looked to the guild before her, bowing as she spoke. "I'm sorry for her behavior, she's been like this ever since I adopted her back in Armoroad."

Adopted? At the very least it's not like Ayako where he'd call everyone he met his son or daughter and whatnot. Didn't want an Ayako 2.0 in his presence.

The woman stood straight after her apology. "Have any of you seen a Highlander named Korey? I have something important I want to discuss with him about."

"...I'm right here." Korey spoke up, after silently questioning how she was able to miss her standing behind Rita.

The black haired woman gasped as she quickly bowed again in apology. "O-Oh, my apologies, I didn't see you there! M-My name's Miriam, and this is Rita, my adopted child."

"It's nice to meet you two." Korey responded, as a relaxed smile came to his face. "This is Hilda, my wife, Simon Yorke, Frederica Irving, Baldur..." Korey continued on and on, introducing the members of the Refulgent and Lux Guild, as well as Hibiki, Yukina, and Lola, who were in two separate guilds.

"It's nice to meet you all." Miriam spoke, seeming to have calmed down from the running she had done. "Now, Korey, I wish to join your guild!"

Korey was taken aback by what Miriam said. He had only taken a few steps into the Maginia, and only now is he being asked by someone to join his guild. Talk about a new record...

"Whoa, take it easy, girl! From what I've heard, the Explorer's Guild hasn't even opened yet! A bit too soon to join a guild, isn't it?" Saral exclaimed, completely ruining Miriam's excitement as she sighed.

"I know... But I just wanted to seal my position for a guild member for a long time! I've heard many tales about the work Korey's guilds have done for the towns he visited." Miriam began, as Korey began to hide his blushing cheeks in embarrassment.

"It seems like someone's got a big fan over here~" Akhos hummed, only to get a glare from Kibagami.

"How long have you heard about Korey's great deeds?" Elma inquired, curious about when Miriam became such a fan of Korey.

Miriam took a couple of seconds to think about the first time she heard of Korey. "...Ever since I heard he stopped Etria from being destroyed by some mysterious ruins' weapon system, if I recall correctly." She answered.

"From Gladsheim..." Ricky murmured, almost recalling if M.I.K.E was getting better ever since their fight. As her only friend that survived one thousand years, she had hoped that saving M.I.K.E in the end was worth the trouble...

"Saving people whenever possible, the journey of all of his guild members, and so much more... I always wanted to be a part of it since that day! Please let me and Rita join your guild!" Miriam pleaded, getting closer to Korey before he stopped her from coming any closer.

"Calm down, Miriam..." Korey began, sighing as he took a bit to find the right words in his head to speak. "Look, I understand your request, but right now, we can't recruit anyone until the Explorer's Guild is open. Besides, I have a bunch of guild members to catch up with. It won't be easy trying to get caught up with the rest of them if I have someone constantly pestering me with a request to join."

Miriam felt like kicking herself after that. She was quite naive in nature, but apparently she took her nativity one step further. She lets out a sigh.

"I understand... Until it's open, is it alright if me and Rita come along? I'd hate for her to leave my sight again." The heroine asked, as Korey felt the attention of his guild members once more.

"As much I hate to crowd the road, two more people doesn't hurt." Korey sighed. "We're heading to Vivian's Inn, as that's where some of my guilds have gathered." He continued, as Miriam nodded in response.

With the conversation coming to a close, Simon walked in front of the group. "Then allow me to lead the way." He spoke, motioning for everyone to follow him, with Miriam and Rita beside him.

Korey took occasional glances to look around, seeing many explorers converse. He was mostly trying to find his friends from High Lagaard and his Armoroad Guild. Though being new to the Maginia, he'd be quite lost in an instant.

Though the only other thing on his mind was how he vanished from Iorys... It didn't help that ever since he thought about it, he couldn't keep his mind off of it. Perhaps he needed someone to talk to about it. Of course, the first person he could think of was Lynus.

Ever since Fafnir introduced him to Lynus, he had been coming to see Lynus often because he couldn't find it in himself to recall most of his memory. And although Lynus tried many times, they always found themselves two steps back than a step forward. Perhaps now that he's recovered his memory as best as it can be, perhaps now would be a good time to tell Lynus the news.

It had been a few years since they last met, but Korey could tell in his heart that Lynus had been through some things since he left. Perhaps it was thanks to the bonds he made with him that Korey was able to sense things from far away, recently... Though it would be difficult to explain that to the others.

A couple of minutes later, they arrived at the inn, entering into it as many members of the Refulgent Guild looked around. "Mmmm..." A girl's mumbling caught the attention of some of the guild members, looking at the front desk to see a woman with a cat on her head.

"Welcome... to my inn..." She spoke, her face seeming rather tired.

Korey couldn't help but tilt his head. "...Is she normally this tired? And what's with the cat?"

"Mrrroooowwww..." The cat began to purr, before scratching Vivian's face that surprised the Refulgent guild members and Korey.

The woman yells, as she hastily stood up. "Waaaaaa, okaaaay, okaaaay, stop it, I'm awake!"

Almost as if on auto pilot, the cat seemed to obey the woman's words and quickly settled back into a bored expression. Logre blinked a couple of times before scratching his head. That was certainly a surprise change from all of the inns Korey had been to.

"I'm Vivian, and this up here is Mr. Merlin." Vivian introduced herself, along with the cat on top of her head. Korey couldn't help but chuckle at 'Mr. Merlin'.

"If you need anything, feel free to talk to me..." Vivian continued, before slowly sitting down and resuming her nap. She seemed to lack the enthusiasm unlike Jenetta, and even then, Korey seemed to enjoy Jenetta's presence on a few occasions.

"Well, look who's back!" Korey turned to a familiar voice, seeing a guy whose skin was completely red, had white hair, golden gauntlets, and a large, red horn on his head. Korey walked up to him, surprised to see him in a long time.

"Nio... You're here, too?" Korey asked, only to flinch from the big guy slapping his shoulder.

"Of course I am! You think I'd stay behind in Iorys with nothing to do? You'd have to be crazy to think otherwise! Gwahahaha!" Nio laughed as Korey rubbed his shoulder.

Kurita and her siblings were quite shocked to see Nio, given they weren't used to seeing something like him. He wasn't a Vessel, nor a Sentinel... "Korey, who is he?" Jayla asked the Highlander.

Before Korey could explain, Nio intervened. "I'm Nio, part of the Oni race that lived in Iorys' Yggdrasil!" The man introduced himself to the new faces in the inn.

"Interesting..." Silvius murmured to himself, before looking to see a white skinned Necromancer approach Korey.

"Revlis!" Korey ran up to the Necromancer, giving him a hug as he returned the hug. "Korey's back..." Revlis beamed, as Hilda approached them.

"Hope we're not interrupting a reunion of our guild leader." Another familiar voice spoke up, as Korey separated from the hug to see the rest of his Lux guild members. Korey was just excited to see his fellow guild members, evident by his smiling face. Altum, the person that spoke up, smiled in return.

"Korey, who are these people?" Wiglaf spoke up, snapping Korey back to reality. "Oh, I suppose introductions are in order." He said, as Keiko, Misaki, Kyo, Demetria, Beta, Hilda, Ion, and Ayako joined up along with the other members of the Lux Guild.

"Members of the Refulgent Guild, this is my very first Guild, the Lux Guild." Korey began. "As you know, this is my wife, Hilda. She and I had our ups and downs throughout our journey through Iorys' Yggdrasil, but we support each other through thick and thin." Hilda's cheeks turned dark blue, as she smiled at him.

"It wasn't easy, but Korey taught me a lot. He means everything to me." Hilda affirmed, holding his hand. Some of the guild members let out an 'aw' after hearing Hilda say that. Korey continued on to the next two people.

"The name's Altum, and this is my wife, Amare." Altum spoke motioning to the small Necromancer girl next to him, as Amare bowed down like a princess before standing up again. "A pleasure to meet you all." She greeted, seeming to be rather happy to meet these people.

A small person with pointed ears, black hair, and red eyes and glasses spoke up next. "I'm Bortos, the Botanist of the Lux Guild. If you need anyone to note down anything related to flowers, I'm your Brouni!"

Another Brouni, this time with brown skin, purple eyes and red hair, decided to speak up as well. "I-I'm Lydia, former guild member of the Dazard guild, and Hilda's best friend." She spoke, motioning for Revlis to speak next.

"The name's Revlis. Former Dazard guild member." Revlis spoke, not wanting to go into a lot of detail.

A Therian with purple hair floated in the air, deciding it was her turn to speak up. "I'm Shizuka, a Therian Necromancer."

"Therian Necromancer...?" Baldur raised an eyebrow, surprised how a different species can be a class of another kind. He looked at Korey for some sort of answer.

"Long story short, our races can learn another races' class if necessary to explore our Yggdrasil." The Highlander explained. "I myself, used to be a Fencer, dodging attacks and striking back in return. But here I am now, a Highlander with only a sword to remember his original class by..."

Korey took a few seconds to recollect himself, feeling Hilda's hand around his as a reminder that she was here in case he needed to talk to her. "Anyways, next up is Hiroki and Takara, the Dragoons of our guild. Takara was the leader of Charon's mercenary group, but has stepped down after a certain incident around the 3rd Stratum." He continued, as the black haired Dragoon woman looked up after hearing her name.

"Hiroki, on the other hand, was a victim to a cursed shield that was lying around in the 3rd Stratum. With help from Amare and the Angelward Guild's help, he's now free from the curse, but he's left rather frail as a result..." Korey explained, soon trailing off to his thoughts.

Hilda noticed Korey's change immediately. "Korey, are you alright?" She inquired, worried about him.

After a while, Korey spoke up. "S-Sorry, can we go outside for a moment, Hilda?"

She nodded, and headed outside, as Simon seemed to follow suit, despite not being asked to come along. The guild members from both the Lux and Refulgent guild were left to introduce themselves among each other, as Hilda closed the door after Simon followed them outside the inn.

"It's unusual for you to suddenly trail off like that, Korey. You seemed quite excited to be back with your former guild members." Simon began, as Korey placed his hands on the railing.

"You know," Korey began, turning to Simon. "You're starting to sound like Lynus."

Hilda, while confused on who Lynus is, saw Simon grow a smile on his face, whether or not the Highlander was joking. "I guess his kindness must be rubbing off on me, then. Why don't we discuss what's on your mind with him?"

"I suppose that'll suffice... I wouldn't want to worry anybody else about what I'm thinking..." Korey answered, despite Hilda's increasing worry for him.

The long haired Highlander looked towards Hilda, as if sensing her worry. "A-Are you sure it'll be okay for me to remain looking like this?" Hilda asked, not wanting other people to think of her differently, or for anyone to get the wrong idea.

"Hilda," Korey sighed, grasping her hand. "It'll be fine. Lynus is a gentle Medic, and I know his guild members. There's no need to worry about being targeted just for being the last of your kind..."

Although reassuring as his words were, she still had some uneasiness about her. Hilda held Korey close to her, as he placed an arm around her. "So, where is Lynus?" Korey asked Simon.

"Follow me. I know where his guild house is." He beamed, starting to walk down the stairs.

...Lynus has a guild house, now? Korey thought for a moment on how surprising that was, before following Simon to their destination. Someone must have went out of their way to give Lynus a place where he can be around his guild members without the worry of being at an inn.

Although Hilda was close to him, neither her or Korey could shake off their ease for what the other's feeling. For Hilda, coming out like this to some other explorers that may target her for being different was scary. On top of something bothering Korey, she wasn't sure how to handle both situations at once. Even when Korey reassured her it will be alright, it did little to help ease her fear.

Some time later, they come across a huge house, easily capable of fitting a ton of explorers, almost akin to the Crescentia Korey and the Lux Guild occasionally visited. "This is the place Lynus is residing at?" Korey inquired, rather curious as to who gave him this guild house.

"Yep. This is it alright." Simon replied simply, as he walked on in, allowing Korey and Hilda to enter. Looking around, it seemed to be a bit fancier than the Crescentia. Guess when you got a bigger city, you can get away with looking more fancy and be expensive as hell...

"S-Simon?" A voice called out, as the three guests looked to see a Medic whose eyes were like azure, along with a light blue bag approach Simon.

"Greetings, Azure. Is Lynus around, by any chance?" Simon greeted, followed by asking him a question.

"H-He's currently in his room, Simon." Azure replied, looking over to Korey and Hilda, hiding in front of Simon upon seeing Hilda, occasionally looking around Simon to see if she'll do anything.

Simon was taken aback by Azure's action. "What's wrong?" He asked, concern filled in his voice.

"T-That girl doesn't l-look well..." Azure stuttered, as Hilda raised an eyebrow at him.

Separating himself from Korey, she looked where Azure is at. "I'm just fine, what're you going on about?" She asked, confused about not looking well.

Hearing footsteps approach them, Korey, Hilda, Simon, and Azure looked up to see a Landsknecht with red hair. "Axel!" Korey spoke, catching the Landsknecht's attention.

"Korey?" Axel asked in surprise, when Azure ran from Simon to hide right behind Axel, almost catching him off guard.

Axel sighs as he turns to Azure. "Azure, what's wrong?" He asked, as Azure pointed towards Hilda. "S-She's..." Azure began, unable to comprehend the rest of his sentence as Axel looked towards Hilda, who stood near Korey out of worry.

"I think he was caught off by Hilda's appearance..." Simon began, as Axel approached them, with Azure right behind him. Hilda placed her hand on her arm, fearing that she had already done something wrong.

"Hilda, huh? You're Korey's wife?" Axel inquired, intrigued by her appearance. Hilda could only give a nod in response.

Axel could only smile as he held out his hand. "The name's Axel. I'm Lynus' husband. Pleased to meet you."

Hilda, though still taking caution of things, shook Axel's hand. "N-Nice to meet you too." She stuttered a bit, as Azure seemed confused.

The landsknecht turned to Korey and patted his shoulder. "Well, you seemed to have succeeded in your goal of reuniting with your family." He congratulated the brown haired Highlander.

"W-Well, yeah, I did succeed in that..." Korey chuckled. "I apologize for Azure, he finds a lot of things intimidating, but we're doing our best to make sure he's not afraid." Axel said, still feeling Azure clinging onto him.

The landsknecht turned to face Simon next. "So, what brings you over here?"

"We're here to talk to Lynus about something, if he doesn't mind." Simon explained, adjusting his glasses a bit.

Axel shook his head. "He's currently talking to Isiah, who he's been pen-pals with over the last two years. We just got a new guild under our roof, so I don't think he'll be available for a while." The landsknecht explained.

"Though, if you want, I can give you a tour of the guild house and what we plan to do once we reach Lemuria." Axel added, catching Korey and Hilda's attention before turning to reassure Azure that Korey and Hilda are nice people.

It seemed clear from their faces that they were curious about the layout of the guild house, but also from the mention of Lemuria. Of course, having said that, knowing where Lynus' work space would make it easier for him to find him in the event that he needed him to talk to... Maybe even to send a few guild members to if he wasn't sure Simon, Anai, or Jacinda weren't enough.

Though Korey's bigger question was where Lemuria was. He wasn't made aware of the name, only that it was an island of sort. A place like that could only have so many treasures hidden within.

"...Sure. Show us around, Axel." Korey spoke up.

"Come along." Axel spoke, as he led the trio with Azure by his side.

[hinezumi]

Chip on my shoulder: An InuKag Drabble

A/N: Hi friends! So this is my first inukag fanfiction, but I really wanted to share it because I’m really proud of it. Special thanks to @keichanz for proof reading it for me. Enjoy! Critique is welcomed!

Hand gripping the hilt of his sword, Inuyasha dashed through the forest.

‘How could I have been so stupid?’ the hanyou thought to himself. What kind of protector was he if the person he was trying to protect kept on getting in danger. That was the last time he would ever let her out of his sight again.

Leaping onto a low-hanging tree branch, Inuyasha paused and sniffed the air. Sifting through the many smells of the forest, Inuyasha focused in.

‘If anything happens to her I… I-’ He didn’t need to finish the thought; though it was faint, he could smell her. There was no mistake; he’d know that scent from anywhere. Wasting no time, Inuyasha leapt from tree to tree, making leaves fall and tree branches groan ever so slightly. Piercing golden eyes focusing ahead, Inuyasha quickened his pace as he followed Kagome’s scent.

‘You better be safe, Kagome!’

“I’ll come back straight after I finish my exam, I promise!” Kagome said, picking up her yellow backpack before slinging it over her shoulders.

“What’s the rush? Why not take advantage of the down time we have and a relax a bit in your era?” Miroku asked. Accompanied by Sango and Shippo, who rested on the taijiya’s shoulders, the duo nodded in agreement at the monk’s suggestion.

“Well, I figured since we’ve been making decent progress on collecting the jewel shards why not come back sooner to make even more progress?” the schoolgirl replied.

‘Besides, it’s my fault the jewel is in so many shards anyways...’

“Alright, if you’re sure. But don’t overwork yourself for our sakes,” Sango said as she flashed the miko an encouraging smile. Kagome returned the smile and nodded in response.

“I promise I won’t,” Kagome said before turning to face the Bone Eater’s Well. Hands resting on the edge of the well, Kagome looked down into the inky blackness that connected the Feudal Era to her own. She paused; something felt off.

‘This is almost too easy..’

She almost expected Inuyasha to show up at the last possible moment and tell her she wasn’t allowed to go, that she had to stay and help gather the jewel shards before Naraku got them all. While she definitely didn’t like being told what to do by a hanyou with a temper worse than hers, she couldn’t deny that the hanyou had a point. And maybe, just maybe, he also didn’t want her to go because he’d miss her. Even though she was flattered at the prospect of him missing her, she knew she’d never hear him say that; he was just too proud.

“Kagome?” Shippo asked as he hopped onto her shoulder, breaking the girl from her reverie. Feeling her cheeks slightly warm, Kagome blinked a few times before turning her head to face the young kitsune.

“Ah, I’m sorry, did I zone out?”

“Only a little bit,” Shippo replied with a toothy grin. “Oh, don’t worry about Inuyasha coming after you to bring you back while you’re taking care of that ‘eggs-ham’ demon. Kaede needed help gathering some medicinal herbs. While I don’t remember him specifically agreeing to help, I did hear him say something along the lines of ‘gotta make sure the old hag doesn’t work herself to death’ before following behind Kaede.”

Kagome sighed and shook her head slightly. There was that pride again: Inuyasha was all bark and no bite. Still, whether he was aware of it or not, he really did have a nice side, and she really admired how proud he was at times. She wouldn’t be caught dead telling him that to his face though, it would go straight to his head.

“Good to know, thanks Shippo,” said Kagome, smiling at him. Shippo gave her a quick hug before scampering back over to Miroku and Sango. Kagome hoisted herself over the well, legs hanging over the edge, and looked back at her friends one last time.

“Wish me luck!” the school girl exclaimed before jumping into the well, a faint flash of blue emerging once she’d successfully returned to her era.

At least, that was the story the runt had told him once he’d come back from helping Kaede. Inuyasha had been secretly relieved at the time, because the day she’d left was also the day of the New Moon, when he was at his most vulnerable. He hated the fact that Kagome had to see him like that- how could he protect her if he struggled just to protect himself? However, as soon as the sun had risen over the horizon the following day he’d gone through the well to give her a few choice words for not asking for his permission to go home.

That’s when things had begun to take a turn for the worst. After he’d made his way into the Higurashi residence, he remembered the feeling of his heart dropping when Mrs. Higurashi had told him that Kagome wasn’t home, that she’d gone through the well for whatever reason last night. That’s when he knew something was wrong.   

‘I promise I’ll find you, Kagome. Just hold on a little bit longer!’ Inuyasha thought to himself as he soared over the treetops, a glowing red and white dot against the darkness of the night sky. Moonlight washing over the forest below, Inuyasha stopped in his tracks when he noticed smoke billowing over the tree line.

Sniffing in the direction of the smoke stack, he caught traces of Kagome’s scent intermingled with the smoke’s almost overpowering stench. Inuyasha leaped through the trees, closing the distance between the smoke stack and himself.

“I swear I’ll tear them apart if they so much as lay a… hand on…” Inuyasha’s voice trailed off. Ears twitching towards the now visible fire, he blinked as he saw Kagome standing in front of what looked like two cowering bandits.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Inuyasha muttered under his breath as he drew closer.

Even though Kagome’s hands were bound behind her back, she was anything but helpless. Her brown eyes glared at the two men cowering beneath her as she continued to drill them with questions, her gaze never wavering.

“Have you no shame? How dare you just go around and kidnap any pretty girl you see? You’re despicable!” The two men continued to shake in fear, until something behind Kagome caused them to look higher. As Kagome was going to turn around and see what the fuss was about, strong arms picked her up around the torso and lifted her onto their shoulder. Kagome began kicking out of instinct until she noticed the familiar white mane and red haori.

“Inuyasha!” Kagome exclaimed, relief washing over as she tried to crane her neck over her shoulder to catch his gaze.

“Calling this wench ‘pretty’ might be a little generous, but she is right in calling you two despicable. Are you two such cowards that the only way a woman will come near you is if you make them, or are your personalities just that shitty?”

“W-We’re sorry! Honest!” the two blubbered. Inuyasha smirked at them before turning his gaze deadly serious.

“Next time you fuck with what’s mine you won’t get off so easy,” Inuyasha threatened before turning around and walking away into the night.

Kagome mulled over his words as Inuyasha continued to carry her over his shoulder, deep in thought as she tried to determine if she’d heard him right.

‘Did he really just call me… his?’ Kagome’s cheeks burned at the thought. ‘But if I’m really his, then why…’

“Why haven’t you untied me yet?” Kagome asked, her situation finally dawning on her.

“Be quiet, wench,” Inuyasha replied, not even offering a glance in her direction.

“Why? And why are you so angry? I didn’t do anything wrong, and I was handling myself just fine until y- hey!” Kagome exclaimed in surprise as Inuyasha quickly shifted Kagome into a bridal style carry before leaping into the nearest tree. Heart pounding, more confused than anything, Kagome blinked in surprise as she waited for an explanation.

“Inu… yasha-”

“Never pull that shit on me again,” Inuyasha snapped, piercing golden eyes meeting soft brown. Noticing the rising fear in the girl’s eyes, Inuyasha cursed himself before taking a deep breath. He was never good at conveying what he was feeling- hell, half the time he wished he didn’t have stupid feelings to mull over. It would be so much easier that way! The smell of tears broke his train of thought, and his heart dropped when he saw pools of tears pour down Kagome’s eyes.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m always the one getting targeted. I’m sorry if I get in the way. I’m sorry that I’m so we-” Inuyasha cut the girl off by wrapping his arms around her and bringing her head to rest on his chest. And it could have been Kagome’s imagination, but she almost swore that she felt Inuyasha slightly tremble while in his embrace.

“That’s not… That’s not what I meant,” Inuyasha admitted, pausing at the feeling of his cheeks burning. “You scared the shit out of me, Kagome. I thought something bad had happened, something worse than what did happen.” A sigh racked his frame as he paused once again, mulling through the many thoughts and emotions swirling in his mind.

Kagome blinked in surprise. Maybe she hadn’t heard wrong.

“Hey… Inuyasha?”

“What is it now, wench?”

“Thank you,” said Kagome. She moved to nuzzle the crook of his neck. “I promise to try and not scare you like that anymore.”

“You damn well better. You’re safer with me around, being a god damn clutz and all…”

“That reminds me, Inuyasha,” Kagome said, her voice turning sickeningly sweet as she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “What exactly did you mean back there when you said that calling me ‘pretty’ was generous?”

“Oi, don’t try to turn this around on me, bitch! You should be thanking me for rescuing you again,” Inuyasha quipped, meeting her gaze head on.

“Did you forget what I said earlier, or are you going deaf dog boy? Also, when are you going to untie me?”

“When I feel like it,” Inuyasha replied with a cheeky grin. Wriggling backwards in an attempt to “escape”, Kagome almost fell off of the branch. It wasn’t even a second later, though, that Inuyasha shot an arm behind her and brought her close again. The two looked at each other, and before they knew it they were both laughing.

Neither of them had said everything that they wanted to say, but perhaps what was said was just enough.

[remarriedempress]

Alternate ending to Mr Sunshine

KES built a fantastic world, in a fascinating period, full of fvcking beautiful characters. And I’m so thankful for this drama. 

But you know what? She killed all my faves. Now normally I have no problem with character deaths because narratively, they can be very powerful; like how Gunner Jang’s story came full circle, trusting that Ae Shin, and soldier boy, will carry on and lead the fight. However, there is something frustrating, and quite frankly, deceitful, about the way each of our four main characters were killed off. I understand how we got to each point but I still feel cheated. No matter how neatly the story lines were tied up, I would think most readers/viewers don’t want to get to the end of a story and see their heroes die. 

So here’s how I would have rewritten the finale BUT still maintain the glorious and hopeful ending KES envisioned in which our mains pass on the mantel to the next generation with AE SHIN at the forefront. 

Let’s start with our QUEEN HINA. The hotel still blows up. No matter what, I strongly believe that needs to happen. It’s the removal of their last bastion. But this time, they plan it a LOT BETTER. The day the military academy is attacked, Hina is out there in the streets shooting up the Japanese troops like a BOSS. As she heads home, she spies a familiar body among the dead. It’s Guidan. She feels a pang of regret. After all, they were close for a time, even with the betrayal. And no one deserves to die on the streets. Hina starts to turn away but then she gets an idea. 

She hires a rickshaw driver to take Guidan’s body and heads to the pawn shop to buy explosives. As she leaves, Ae Shin drops down from the rooftop. She’d overheard Hina’s request and offers to help. With both their mighty brains at work, they manage to get all the troops good and wasted and the employees far away with enough time for BOTH OF THEM to make a run for it. The hotel explodes in flames. Several bodies are found the next morning, including an unidentifiable woman’s corpse in what used to be the hotel owner’s room. The only thing they could make out were the red shoes on the corpse, tailor made for Kudo Hina just a week before the explosion. 

The chief of police is still a spineless, incompetent weasel so he accepts the corpse as Kudo Hina. The king still receives Hina’s letter from Sumi. And so “Kudo Hina” still takes the blame for attacking the Japanese troops and her name is dragged through the mud. Meanwhile, “Lee Yang Hwa” is long gone. AS put her in contact with some RA members heading east, towards the coast. There she adopts a new name, Mae Hwa. She purchases a humble home for herself and spends her time at the orphanage across town. Her home becomes an occasional base for RA members laying low in between missions or waiting for the next boat out of Joseon. It’s a modest life. She makes jewelry and paints, and sells them on the side. She never does meet a nice man. But she’s often visited by a surly looking pirate wearing dark robes with flowing sleeves. 

DONG MAE: He stops being so damn ready to die. After he saves AS in Japan, she still tells him to be back in Joseon in three months to receive the money from her. DM still says “And just like that you give me hope,” but get this - HE DOESNT LOOK FREAKING MISERABLE AT THE THOUGHT. And when Ae Shin leaves with the court ladies, he DOESNT walk in plain sight on the beach for all to see/capture. Instead, he goes back to the shadows. It’s easier than he thought. But rather than making him feel like this is where he belongs, it makes him realize just how far he’s come. He can adapt to this world but it does not define him. He lives pitifully for a while. The Mushin Society is still after him so he can’t do much in the open. But he has some allies here who still owe him a favor. They’re able to get him out of Japan via boat. Though the ride is more miserable than when he first traveled to Japan. 

He arrives in Jemulpo’s harbor. Beaten, hungry, and pale...but alive. He makes his way to the temple. He’s not sure why. Just a feeling. The same badass nun is there but she receives him warmly this time. AS told her what DM had done for the rebels and so the nun allows DM to recuperate there. They explain his presence as a monk in training. He adopts the name Haneul. 

AS drops in one day with a letter from Manchuria. Yujo and Hotaru are doing well. They started a little tea shop where Hotaru reads tarot cards for customers. The shop does really well but with 20 mouths to feed, they had to find other jobs for the boys. Most of them found honest work in farming, fishing, mining. A few started up a collection agency. They send him good fortune and a wish to see him again some day. DM smiles before burning the letter. Knowing they are safe eases the burden on his heart. 

By day, he helps lead visitors across the temple grounds, preserving the last remnants of Joseon Buddhist culture. By night, he helps to train new RA members in the cover of the forest. It started with a request from AS. She wanted to learn how to handle knives and swords, in case she ever found herself without a gun. She was good. But DM was still better. And AS knew him well enough at this point to know that he would need a purpose, to keep him going. So she asks him to train the new recruits. And whaddaya know? Within months, they see better success rates on their missions and raids.

HEE SUNG lives. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION. 

When the hotel blows up, and he thinks he lost his friend HINA on top of everything else, he’s devastated. But it just makes him more determined to expose the Japanese’ cruelty. He’s brought in to the police station for questioning. He’s beaten up real bad but makes it out alive with a major bribe from dad. SEAMSTRESS and mom fuss over him till he recovers. Then, he sets out again to uncover the truth, but this time it puts his family in danger. And it scares him enough to consider stopping. But he knows his soul would never be able to bear the guilt if he turned away now. 

So he becomes smarter about his printings. Thankfully, both the chief of police and the Japanese minister who were catching on to him end up dead. The first was rumored to be murdered by a dark shadow reeking of incense and dirt. The second was shot from across the market square by some masked figure, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Free of suspicions now, HS goes back to playing the rich noble fool by day. While he and FEMALE JOURNALIST (cause KES can’t be bothered to give her side characters some names???) operate an underground printing press. HS makes extra copies of everything. Burying it in multiple locations so that their history and deeds are never forgotten. 

When AS comes to him asking for funds to purchase train tickets or gun powder and bullets, he gives it to her, no questions asked. Coincidentally, these funds come from the Japanese government; rent money on the multiple properties the Residency General leased out from the Kim family. 

He never quite falls for the SEAMSTRESS and she understands that his affection for her is just that. She’s grateful that he’s extended his protection to her family and works with him to collect evidence of the rebels and the Joseon people and their fight against Japan. But the little brother really grows on him. He convinces his parents to adopt him as a Kim, to have him be the one to carry on the family name. The ticking clock still haunts him. He’s not sure the Kim blood should be passed on. But if the Kim name can save just one more person, he’ll suffer as many tick ticks as it takes. 

Eventually, he and Mae Hwa are reunited. He bursts into tears and she apologizes for not being able to tell him the plan. He kisses her in relief and thanks her for staying alive. They share a smoke and talk about the good old days. They wonder about their favorite swordsman and that annoying foreigner. They talk about all the trouble blackbird has been up to. And make plans to meet up, another day, in the far future, for pool and drinks. It takes some time for this to happen again. But when it does, the swordsman, the American, and the blackbird are there too. HS kisses DM/Haneul just because and hugs AS tightly. EG gets a pat on the back. And that’s when he suggests a photo, to commemorate this moment, CAUSE NEVER BEFORE HAVE THEY CONVERGED IN ONE SPOT BEFORE. 

EUGENE...He spends some time following around the RA, protecting AS on and between missions. But he sticks out like a sore thumb despite his best efforts and is forced to go into hiding numerous times. Eventually, he has to call on Kyle to get him out of Joseon. His face was exposed on a mission and since he was dishonorably discharged, he can’t call on the embassy for help. He ends up back in America and runs into Ahn Chang Ho again. EG makes use of his old military connections and language skills to spread word of Joseon’s struggle. They make it back to Joseon a couple more times but never for very long as they both become very high profile activists. 

AE SHIN: Girl keeps doing what she doing and kicking ass. She becomes a little bit of her grandfather, Gunner Jang, Miss Haman and Mr. Hangrang to the next generation; receiving the occasional support from her original friends and allies, OUR VERY-MUCH-ALIVE HEROES. Those brief moments when they get to see each other again are bittersweet cause they never know when the next time will be or who will make it to that date. But they’ve each proven themselves to be FIGHTERS. And though they don’t know what the future holds, they leave each meeting a little more hopeful, till the next SEE YOU AGAIN. 

[thetradeway]

Session 41 17 Apr 2021: Wait, a TRAP door? Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.

Duncan is walking back from the opticians, so we start a little bit late. Ed is also going to be late, but he says to go ahead without him and he’ll catch up.

Mr. Pickles has a gift for Ahleqs (which Joe forgot until this week…)

Should be fun riding through the streets of Waterdeep - until he gets done by animal rights activists.

Matthew reminds us of what Brother Charity and Gideon did at the end of the last session - the buddy cop movie, during which they got some names of some people. (He explains in a very sketched out way until Sophie asks him to clarify a bit further, ‘like I was asleep or something’.) (For those who weren't there at the time, she *was* asleep.)

Mirt, Harper’s quest, Maxeene, talking horse, ride around the city, inn with a glory hole in it, disguised selves, names of a sun elf fellow and a half orc lady. Timothy P. Fuckapple and Thunderbuns, ah yes. (apparently Matthew was going for Danny Dyer, but he’ll take Ross Kemp.)

“That was exhilarating!” Charity says to Gideon as they flee down side alleys.

(Joe shows us an image of Undermountain, the dungeon under the Yawning Portal.)

(holy shit.)

We pick back up at the Dagger. Kessler wanted to ask Shanks about procuring us a book to offer the monks at Candlekeep. (Joe shows Melaina her new weasel…)

Kessler and Ahleqs arrive back at the Dagger, shortly followed by Charity, Carl and Gideon. Kessler points and laughs at Gideon’s disguise.

Tarragon has gone to find Renah and challenge her to an arm wrestle, loser buys drinks. Matthew worries that it might turn into a bar fight. Ahleqs: “It’s all fun and games until someone throws a dwarf.” Tarragon wins 18-21, and asks for a half an ale. “I’m very small and I’m not used to drinking.”

The others are deciding how to contact Shanks about the book. Ahleqs asks at the bar what would be the best way to get in touch. Ria and Jirr are tending bar tonight. Ria isn’t sure who Ahleqs means when he asks for Shanks. She offers to ask the other staff, and has a chat with Jirr.

Jirr can get a message to Shanks for us. Or - do we want to meet her? That might be better. Jirr will organise a meeting in the cellar. This might take a day or so to arrange.

Do we need preparations or supplies for the journey to Candlekeep? (Shopping episode! Somewhere, Travis Willingham sighs.)

We probably need rations. We also need to get passage on a boat - we could ask Surge (Gunna's water genasi friend in the Docks Ward), or Larissa. Either way, to the Docks Ward!

(Charity Prestidigitations Gideon before we leave.)

Kessler debates buying a shield and goes to speak to Filiare before we go, as well. (Scribe’s note: Her AC is already 18.) He will sell her one for 7gp; she accepts, choosing a metal one with a plain front so she can add her own design. She sells her crossbow bolts as well.

Ed joins us and Charity remembers about the mad druid that Tarragon needs to speak to, but that’s not for a few days. We decide to speak to Surge first as he’s slightly less dodgy, and if he’s unavailable or can’t help, then we’ll try Larissa. We’re trying to get passage but also get paid for it, like going to a festival and pretending to be cleaners.

(Duncan gets lost on his way to the kitchen to make coffee, and finds himself in the off license buying beer.)

As we go through the streets toward the docks, a bird lands on Tarragon’s shoulder and gives her a scroll from Amithrel, giving her the name of the druid whose tome may be of use in curing Tansy’s illness. She asks the bird to thank Amithrel for her and it flies off.

Kessler: “I wonder if I could snatch that bird out of the air…”

Duncan OOC: “This whole time I’ve just been imagining you grabbing birds out of the air and eating them.”

There follows a discussion about the diets of goblins, and how much evidence there is to suggest that they really do eat babies.

Melaina makes a Perception check to get us to the Docks ward (I almost wrote Dicks ward by accident lol). We find the temple, and Surge is in the middle of it, feeding sick sailors. He sees us and recognises us, and asks straight away if we’ve seen Gunna.

Melaina, suddenly and excitedly: “Have you seen him? Not that we care about… where… he… is…”

Surge says that he saw him briefly before he left, and that he said something about visiting his father. It could take a few months for him to return.

Melaina asks about passage on a boat. Do we want to pay, or work, Surge asks us? Well, we’ve acquired some skills in recent times. He asks about what sort of skills we have. Fire magic?, Ahleqs suggests. Tends not to be popular on wooden boats.

Kessler can make stuff…? Melaina is an elf, she could make a good lookout? Tarragon is a herbalist, she can make poultices. How many are there of us? Six? Yeah, six. Seven, if you count Brother Charity. (We’ve accepted Carl as one of us.) (Charity looks wounded.)

Ahleqs makes a Persuasion check with Guidance - 25 total.

To Candlekeep, you say? Maybe the return journey as well? Space for seven, we’re looking at a cargo ship. Is there any way Surge can contact us? We’re staying at the Dagger. Surge will ask around and send word.

Brother Charity has some shopping he wants to do. Where would he find adventuring supplies? Market in the Trades Ward. He wants Healer’s kits and scroll scribing kits, that sort of thing. We like to travel in a lump; our lump arrives in the Market.

Between a lucky roll and help from Charismatic Ahleqs, Charity can have 20gp off the asking price of 70, to the shopkeeper’s chagrin.

Tarragon buys some more herbs, as she’s offered her services as a herbalist on whatever ship Surge can get us passage on. Kessler buys some healing potions.

Anyone else want to do some panic buying? Chain mail! A gun! Some big bombs! The Death Star! Nope, that’s it. We head back to the Dagger.

So - rations, and a meeting with Shanks to maybe procure a book. Gideon has a heavy supper and falls asleep in front of the fire. (Tarragon: Five bean chilli from the new vegetarian menu, and a peach liqueur.) As we sit down to eat, Jirr motions to us. We’ve got a guest.

Shanks meets us in the cellar. Can she procure rare and curious books? Ahleqs explains what it is we need - a book that the monks of Candlekeep don’t already have in their collection. What about something unique, like a journal? Are we familiar with Xanathar’s thieves’ guild?

No-one is really sure what it’s real name is. The higher ups in that guild are known as The Hand. Their master of magic is a woman called Emerine (I think?). She’s a powerful wizard, not to be crossed. But she is undertaking research in the sewers, Shanks knows where. She has a something called the Tome of Bindings. Shanks could take us there to get it? She can time it for when the wizard isn’t in.

Would this wizard part with the book, or will we have to nick it? If we time it right, she won’t be there to defend it. But she’ll likely have traps and stuff. Ahleqs asks what do we think the chances are that she has an actual Beholder there? Low, says Shanks, as the guild leader is one and Beholders are notoriously territorial and won’t put up with another close by.

It would be doing Shanks a favour, if we got that book away from her. Can we be ready first thing?

Charity: “All those in favour say Aye.”

All of us except Kessler: “Aye!”

Kessler: “I don’t see why not, I mean I’ve got no objections…”

Shanks tells us it’ll be another trip to the sewer, so get ready.

Tarragon, thoughtfully: “Do you know anyone who sells nose plugs…”

Shanks returns the following morning and leads us into the sewer. We make CON saves against the smell. Only Tarragon fails and is polite enough to lean away rather than puking on Brother Charity, which she feels is very magnanimous of her.

Shanks leads us to a new (to us) part of the sewer, where we haven’t been before. It looks in poor state of repair. She points to a locked trap door. The wizard has been seen going in and out of there. Do we need help picking the lock…?

Melaina: “I think we’ve got this.”

(Wait, a TRAP door? Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.)

Melaina checks for traps and unlocks the door with ease, and after some wrangling, Joe gets a marching order out of us. (A police car goes by in horrible Nottingham.) There’s a small delay while Joe fights his way through all the gubbins I’ve filled roll20 with (SO MANY RED DRAGONS!), and puts our tokens on the board.

Back in the charming sewers again! It’s a nice part, and doesn’t smell. It’s part of the old elven sewer.

Ahead of her Kessler sees a metal door, with a slot into which something presumably fits. She checks for traps - it is not trapped. She goes for a pick, but rolls a 12 so nothing happens. She could try impact engineering… (Is that a fancy-lady way of saying she’s going to twat it?) Melaina elbows her way to the front and does it properly.

(Gideon has had too many meads and has probably fallen asleep - or gone to the kitchen to get sausages, so the DM moves him gently out of the way.)

We are just exploring when Joe tells us to stay where we are - uh oh!

We all make STR saves except Tarragon, who is now glad she was stuck at the back.

They roll so badly that they couldn’t pass if they added all their scores together. They are hit by lightning from the pillars in the room, as well as being blown around by wind.

Kessler shoots at one of the pillars to try and discharge the magic, but is at Disadvantage because of the wind and rolls a 9. It zaps her, and she takes 13 lightning damage.

Melaina has a go but also fails and takes some lightning damage. Joe rolls 4 1s for her damage though, noice.

Ahleqs makes an arcana check to see if he can figure out this magic, but rolls a nat 1. He uses a Sorcery point to re-roll for a 17. It seems to be retaliating when attacked, and there are glyphs on the floor that zap you if you stand on them.

Kessler and Tarragon see that the winds inside the sphere seem to be physically blowing the ammunition off course. Perhaps magic might work better…?

Ahleqs tries an Eldritch Blast, and it hits. Yay! He assumes the foetal position; just as well because he gets hit with lightning.

Tarragon does a Thorn Whip, which also hits. The pillar is starting to look damaged, and she takes 17 lightning damage. Oof! Kessler fires off a Firebolt, as Ahleqs downs a potion. She hits for 3 damage and takes 15 lightning damage. Yikes.

Melaina does a magic arrow at it - or, a spell? Or Charity can do a spell, so Melaina isn’t using up a spell slot?

He does a Divine Eldritch Blast. (A what? He is a Cleric, right? Sophie, OOC: ‘He’s a sneaky bastard is what he is.’) It does 1 damage, which is just enough - the pillar breaks. He does a Cure Wounds for Kessler, and offers the same to Ahleqs.

Melaina tries the door. It is a large, metal double door. She checks it for traps - once she’s found her character sheet again. She sees the telltale signs of trappage! She sleight of hand disarms it with a 27 - “Bazinga.” She then unlocks the door. It swings open to reveal a monster - “Lock it again! Lock it again!”

We roll initiative. DM asks if one of us want to take the Grease Wizard “because I think you’ll need him”. Oh shit. Matthew and Sophie both take him so they can squabble over him.

(Sophie OOC: “What is that thing? Oh, it’s massive and it’s got a big old sword.”)

It moves forward and breathes poison on Kessler, Melaina and Tarragon. Only Melaina makes her save. If only our front-line fighter wasn’t on a boat going to see his mum!

Tarragon rages and does Cure Wounds on herself (but the other way around); Melaina casts Woundbind on Kessler, who went down after the poison breath. (How’s that shield working out?) Melaina bonus-action-disengages and backs up.

Kessler gets to her feet and goes for a Thunder Gauntlet, which misses. She stands her ground.

Ahleqs: "I stand my ground too!" (We all laugh.) He screams (part of his spellcasting ritual), and casts Fireball. It doesn’t bother trying to make the save - ah shit.

Kessler, Tarragon, Ahleqs and Gideon (and Melaina) make perception checks - we all notice that the creature absorbs the fire, and any little dents in the armour repair themselves. Matthew-as-Gideon - “Fire appears to mend it!”

Ahleqs runs away.

Grease wizard doesn’t have Enlarge-Reduce prepared, sadly. He has a go at Enfeebling it instead. He rolls an 18 and it misses.

Oh fuck…

Kessler, right up in melee range: “Run, save yourselves!”

Ahleqs, already halfway out of the room: “Way ahead of you!”

Charity casts ‘a buffing spell’ on himself to get more HP, and then shilleweghilghosllhsoaslkhhah. Carl holds an action, as there’s not much he can do.

It’s the golem’s turn. It tries to squish Kessler, who is standing right in front of it, by bringing its sword down on her noggin. It misses! But dents her new shield. Then it swings an arm, trying to slam her into the wall. That time it hits for 14 damage.

Tarragon goes for an Indiana Jones slide between its legs but fails her Dex check and hits it in the legs. (If Duncan was DM she’d have hit something else.) She tries to batter it with her quarterstaff, but misses.

Melaina hides and shoots, and hits the thing! She rolls badly on her damage, however. (Joe assures us that this fight is winnable; we all make dubious noises.)

Kessler goes for the Thunder Gauntlets and hits it for 11 Thunder damage. She uses Fury of the Small on top for an extra 7 damage. She would like to disengage for a bonus action and split her attack; after a short discussion it’s decided that she can. She wants to move behind it so she makes a DEX check - and passes! Like a greased seal she slides between its legs. She goes for her second attack, with Advantage as she and Tarragon are now flanking it. She hits again for 8 more Thunder damage.

"Are we still in the shit? We kind of are, aren’t we." Ahleqs uses all his remaining Sorcery Points to create a 4th level spell slot before screaming “GO AWAY!” at it and casting Banishment. It fails the save and disappears!

We still need the gem around its neck, which is very much phase 2 of the plan, and Ahleqs will leave that to us.

Kessler: “I would say next time make that your opening gambit?”

Ahleqs, Concentrating: “Look, let’s not waste this minute bickering.”

(DM decides that was inspired so he won’t enforce it now, but next time Ahleqs casts Banishment he will actually have to produce the spell component - something distasteful to the target. Duncan, OOC: "I may go full monkey and fling my poo at it.")

We prepare - moving to flanking positions and rerolling initiative. Tarragon goes bear and waits to re-Rage.

Bear Tarragon and Kessler both hit with their attacks of opportunity as the thing pops back. Brother Charity goes for a whack with Sheldflhjdasdlaflfghhh, and natty 20s it for triple damage - 36 total!

It’s Kessler’s turn. She punches it upside the back of the head for a 19 which misses, then natty 20s for her second hit. Max damage, then she rolls the damage dice again, yeah!

Tarragon does a multi attack and crits with her claws - bloodied nose. Max damage and roll again - she gets max damage on that roll too! She’s so pleased it’s hard to maintain her rage.

Melaina goes for a shot but misses.

Ed has woken up! He is pleased to know that Matthew, about to take Gideon’s turn, was about to Grease something. He asks how this thing feels about fire, and is warned that it loves it. He’s very disappointed until he realises that he can use his new toy.

Wait is this the main big bad, or is this on the way to the big bad?

Sophie, OOC: “We just got into this dungeon, we’re in the foyer.”

He does Phantasmal Killer! The thing makes a WIS save - at Advantage - and fails. Ed, delighted: "It’s timid and scared and frightened." It makes another WIS save on each of its turns, or takes more psychic damage; for now it takes 16.

But…

It’s immune to psychic damage - and being frightened.

That is a poor show, Joe.

Brother Charity is up, and he’s the last one before the golem. Gideon: “We’ll have to do this the old fashioned way Charity, go and stab it with a spear!”

It’s still flanked, so Brother Charity rolls with Advantage and hits it with a 26 for 12 bludgeoning damage with Shillgslahkfksjddkghglhlhllbblhh. It’s looking tatty now, yeah!

It doesn’t get its breath weapon back, phew. It attacks the bear, at Disadvantage (because it is not attacking Kessler). It hits, but she takes half damage.

It’s Coward Time! He doesn’t need to move closer so he casts Shenanigans at level 2. He expends a spell slot to regain a sorcery point. Now he casts Shatter at level 3, using the sorcery point to use Careful Spell and steer it around his friends.

It does a CON save (“I imagine it’s okay at those”) which it has Advantage on, but it’s a construct so it has Disadvantage as per the spell. They cancel each other out so it makes a straight roll, and gets a 16 which succeeds. It takes half damage though. Having covered his eyes as he cast the spell Ahleqs shouts, “Did I get it?”

We all want Carl to get the how-de-do-dis. He does Gauntlets of Helm but misses even with Advantage.

Kessler goes for the Thunder Gauntlets and hits with her second attack, for 7 thunder damage. It’s at Disadvantage to attack anyone but her again.

Tarragon does a multi attack and hits with both - and gets the how-de-do-dis! She rips it apart with her bear claws, with a horrible screeching noise of claws on metal.

We get the crystal key!

(After the dust settles, Joe reminds us of when we fought the Flesh Ripper and Melaina very cleverly hid herself on the other side of a doorway through which the Flesh Ripper was too big to fit. We look again at the map we’re on now to see that we came through a corridor that would be too big for the golem… We are so stupid.)

The crystal fits in the slot in the door, which leads us down another corridor into a study. Melaina rolls to pick the lock with a 27. We get the book, yeah!

(Next week we pick up with our old campaign, for which I DM. I will try to add an entry here, but it won’t have the same level of detail!)

[whitequeenasitbgan]

The House of Smoke and Fog

Cap 5

November, 2016

Blake emerged from his memories: Crawley’s body was still there. He had been a fool, he should’ve listened to him. He should’ve written to Erin. He checked his pockets. He had no paper. He had asked his moms to send him some, but the mail was bloody slow.

It was raining cats and dogs, anyway. He remembered Crawley had a drawing album, a small one, hidden in his pocket, where the heart was. He dragged him down. His brain was coming out of his smashed skull. He laid him down gently, covered his head with the helmet, then took off the album from Crawley’s pocket.

-leave him- ranted an officer.

-I was just covering his face, Sir. Can I carry him to the sidelines? He was my friend.

-where?!

‘He’s drunk. This guy is bloody drunk’ Blake told himself. ‘Our superior officers drinks wine like a trunk drinks gasoline’

-to the sidelines, Sir. To the trains, he’s going to go home to rest now, isn’t he?

-of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury will officiate the funeral and the whole royal family, dogs included, will be present to comfort the widow. WAKE UP, lad. He’s going to a mass grave, just like everyone else. He’s lucky to be here. A couple of metres further and we would have left him to the crawls... fucking babies. Fresh from training. What did you expect?

-but we have his body, we should send him back home, the military code...

-SCREW THE MILITARY CODE. Whoever wrote it has never seen a trench. If you die in this trench, you don’t get to go back home. You die here, knowing there’ll always be a corner of a foreign land that is forever England. These are the orders.

-orders from who? -Blake dared to ask. ‘Over my dead body I’ll let them bury you in France’

-orders from who...?!

-From who... Sir - said Blake. ‘Fucking military ranks’

-FROM UP ABOVE YOU BLOODY IDIOT, FOR I AM YOUR GOD NOW. YOU DON’T EVEN PISS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION NOW, YOU GET TO BREATHE ONLY CAUSE I LET YOU DO IT, UNDERSTOOD?- the officer spat as he ranted at Blake,

-Yes, Sir.

-Lieutenant White?- a gentle but firm voice broke the tension.

-what is it, Schofield?- the officer asked, his eyes still on Blake.

-May I suggest that we let this poor fella’ take his friend to the sidelines? The rats will banquet on that corpse and by tomorrow morning you will wish you had gotten rid of it.

-how much water do we still have?

-about that, Sgt. Barnes just told me to go get some. And get the chow. It’s almost soup time. A good meal will cheer up the morale. It’s been a long day, Sir.

-the last of a long Battle. The Somme- the officer kept talking at less than an inch from Blake’s face. He could smell his rancid breath -you may have seen the end of it, but had you been here from the beginning you wouldn’t have been this soft. Now that I think about it, such an idiot would have never survived. I doubt you’ll see the end of the next battle. Or the next day... take him with you, Schofield. And take that bloody corpse away from me. It stinks already.

-this way- Schofield said.

-why are we going to the hospital?- Blake asked

-you’ll see.

Schofield stopped at the entrance of a field hospital. He went in and talked to one of the nurses, a noun. He pointed at Blake, then she walked outside the tent, towards Blake.

-is it this one? Poor fella’ I’ll take care of him. I’ll make sure he catches the next train home.

A smile appeared on Blake’s face -Thank you, sister...?-

-Sister Michael, and as your tag says, you must be Lance-corporal Blake.

-yes Ma’am.

-go fetch your chow, now. Both of you.

-we need water, too.

-ask to those guys, they’re from the artillery. They always have some for the horses

-thanks, sister. Take care.

-you more. I’m not sleeping side by side with the Boches.

As they walked away, looking for the artillery guys Sister Michael talked about, Blake asked how did Schofield know that noun would have helped.

-Sister Michael? She’s the granny of the regiment. If God had a problem, He would ask her how to solve it. Plus, she still has a heart.

-So do you. Thanks for what you did. I’ll write to Crawley’s family about you.

-No need, spare the paper. You need it- said Schofield, pointing at the albums in Blake’s back pocket.

-I wasn’t stealing it.

-I’m not accusing you. He’s dead now. You need it more. Are you writing to someone?

-My mum.

-Nobody would steal an album from a corpse to write to his mom. You’re writing to a girl.

-I didn’t steal it. I just needed some paper. I’ll send it back to his family as soon as I get some.

-I was just joking, mate... so, how is your girlfriend? Blonde? Dark haired? Or red? I like red heads. I married one.

-She’s not a red head. And she’s not my girlfriend.

-Oh, an unrequited love. That’s interesting- Schofield exclaimed zigzagging among the tents, the wounded men waiting to be taken care of, the munitions, soldiers on their way to somewhere.

-It’s complicated.

-How much?

-This much- Blake said, mimicking ‘a lot’ with his arms. Mimicking was something he took after his mother.

-If that’s the size of your balls, then you don’t need paper, my friend. You need a brothel

Blake stared at him, a cheeky grin on his face.

-No, that’s the sized of my cock.

-Well then that’s why she’s not your girlfriend. If you screwed her, she would die - Schofield said, laughing as Blake punched his arm playfully.

-Enough, now. I’m really fond of her. I respect her. And I’m a gentleman. I would have waited for our wedding night.

-Are you a virgin?

-I’m a gentleman, not a monk.

-Just asking. A vergin in the trench is bad luck. I don’t give a shit about this stuff, but the others do. So, why isn’t she your girlfriend?

-She was. But she, ehm... got angry, when I enlisted. So she’s not anymore. She felt like I had betrayed her. I did, somehow. She’s a pacifist, you know. Of course she’s got to keep it quiet: pacifism is a synonym of treason in a small town, like Limmeridge

-even in a big one like London. My wife almost got arrested once. She’s a suffragette. Pacifism is the second love of her life.

-The first being you?

-No. Vote for vomen. Then our daughters, our two dogs and a cat. I’m somewhere in between her cat and her favourite teapot.

-Sounds like she hates you.

-She does. Women can hate us more, but they cannot love us less. For luck. Cause we’re bewitched body and soul by them. God, how I love that woman. I’m getting melancholic. No more talking about my wife. Let’s get back to your girl. Where were we?

-At She felt like I betrayed her... with a rifle.

-Well, you’re a brave man, mate. What you just did for your dead friend was brave, considering Lieutenant White is despicable when he’s sober and deadly when he’s drunk. But I’m afraid your also an idiot.

-Why?

-You’re here.

-So are you!

-I’ve never said I wasn’t. I’m twice the idiot you are. I enlisted two years before you did. Well, I bet your friend would be happy if you used that paper to write to this girl of yours. What’s her name?

-Erin.

-If Charlton asks you, lie.

-Why? Who is he?

-Private Robert Charlton. Cocky little bastard. He loves singing dirty songs about other soldiers’ wives. His girlfriend left him for a medical officer... How long have we been walking?

-Ehm -Blake checked his watch -5 minutes more or less.

-5 minutes! Where the hell are the guys from the artillery? We’ve been walking for ages.

-I pity your wife if 5 minutes is like ages for you.

-How fun... I can smell the horses but where are they?

-That way, on your left.

-Oh- Schofield exclaimed, surprised. Blake had spotted a single man from far away -you have good eyes, uh?

-I could shoot a duck at 100 yards, if I wanted to. But ducks did nothing to me. I’d rather hunt Bloches.

-It’s nice to know I have a good sniper watching my back.

-I can teach you, if you want. It’s not about sight. Once you spot the target it’s all about breathing.

-Is there something you can do for the spotting part. It’s not that I don’t see well. I just don’t spot well.

-Nothing, sorry.

-I suck at shooting. I’m great with grenades, though. You should have seen me in my good old rugby years...- they were approaching the artillery, the men resting under a tent -Ask them about the water.

-Why me?

-Because you’re nice, and I am tired.

-I’m tired too

-ask for the water: I’ll get you some food

-now we understand each other

-You know what? I think we’ll get along, you and I.

-It’s Schofield, right?-said Blake, offering his right hand to shake. How curious: they spoke so easily they forgot about manners. But who cared about manners in the trenches?

-William. Will. And you’re Blake.

-Tom. Nice to meet you, man.

-Me too, mate. Now go ask for the water.

-we already sound like an old married couple

-we’ll have time to work on this- said Schofield, waving his hand on his way to the field kitchen.

Cap 6

https://whitequeenasitbgan.tumblr.com/post/611959037030957057/the-house-of-smoke-and-fog-cap-6-april-6th

[thenickelportrust]

Morgan Sharp

The fact that it's five in the afternoon does little to quell the general air of discomfort that permeated the four faded white-blue walls of the room. Normally, by this time, Eleanor would be packing her computer into her bag- an overstuffed, dingy black thing with a broken zipper, frayed edges, and a tiny rooster keychain she brought back from a trip to some resort in the Caribbean. Similarly, the smells of coffee would fill the cramped quarters of Nickelport’s Easter Bay Police HQ, the familiar bitter scent of Mikel preparing for the evening shift, and the rest of the office clustering around the origin of the scent like a cloud of hungry blue-clad pigeons. The thing that brought me the most joy, and what keeps five in the afternoon near to my heart, however, was the fact that five in the afternoon was when I left. Normally.

Cristina McDonall, as she introduced herself in rapid, muddled words, was a forty year old woman with the energy, and paranoia, of a fresh college graduate. She had dark rings, purple bag dangling from lidded brown eyes, and deep wrinkles made more prominent by the deep-seated frown plastered on her face by a recent cruel turn of fate. Her button-nose is red and as swollen as her dilated eyes. Bow-knuckled hands wave about her face, tucking back a stray strand of starch-colored hair here, patting away rebellious tears there, wiping mucus leaks everywhere. She wears a flower-print dress with distractingly bright blooms, and a cheerful bird pin holds her hair away from her face while tiny, dangling faux-diamond earrings clink joyously against her neck as it bobs visible while she swallows and chokes on her words.

“Are you listening, sir?” My eyes able back to hers- searching my face in jolted, flickering motions.

“Yes.” I speak through interlaced hands, my nose resting against my knuckles. She remains silent.

Slowly, my shoulders rise with a deep breath. Exhaling over my hands, I release their grip on one another and slide the photo away from the underside of the manilla folder, more such pictures spilling out from its belly, the tape that held it neatly together ripped open like a wound. Along with the photos come the case file reports, family testimonies, and the two eye-witness records. I flip the lamented square onto its white back, the black-and red, boiled, peeling face of a fourteen year old boy stares back at me. Through the door I hear the office fan splutter and die, followed by the dull thud of a foot connecting with machinery, and Mikel’s agitated cursing. I slide the photo back into the folder.

“As of right now, Mrs. McDonall-”

“Ms.”

“What?”

“Ms… Ms. McDonall,” She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, making loud, grating squeaks against the floor. “My husband and I split two years ago- Daniel carries his name, legally.”

My hands fold in on themselves one more, squeezing together against the cool of the fold-up table, a small ache pools in my back. “Which does he go by?” Ms. McDonall looks sheepish.

“Mine, usually.”

I sit back in the chair, forcing my fingers apart and drumming them against the top arrhythmically. The fan starts up again, purring loudly. Mikel whoops, victorious.

“Well, Ms. McDonall,” I push forward once more, “As of right now, we have no new information on the whereabouts of your son-”

“Nothing?”

“- But we’ll be sure to contact you once we hear something more substantial-”

“I don’t want substance-”

“- Until then I’m obligated to reiterate that popping into our office without a precursory office call-”

“-I want Daniel back, officer-”

“- Will only hinder our investigation-”

“-I want to know where he is-”

“- And makes it-”

“- I want to know what happen to my son-”

“- More difficult for us to find him.”

“I want him back!”

Silence cakes the space between us. Water pools in her eyes and leaks down her cheeks, reflecting the fluorescent lights above. Her lips move, but I can barely catch the words as they leave her mouth. “Please find my son.”

“If you have any more information on what happened, Ms. McDonall, you can call our offices.”

---------

Sunlight streamed through the gap between the flimsy white curtains. Pale orange, the last life sapped from winter’s weakened yellow eye. I run my hands once more over the manilla envelope, eight photos, four angles- front, side, side, back- two for each boy. There are also four large white papers shoved neatly inside- the official report, the Pestia family testimony on their son, the little email printed out with their refusal to meet in person glaringly obvious at the top, and, finally, two “witness” accounts that differ so greatly I’m not entirely sure that one is for another murder that the Nickelport East Bay Police Department has yet to find out about. I reread over one of these reports, the one that seems to match the photos, once more.

A fisherman, gave his name as Illal Monk, reported feeling a blast of hot air and hearing a loud boom, like an explosion, coming from the area near where the construction site for a new warehouse building at around six in the afternoon. He originally brushed it off as construction work and went back to gutting tuna in his rented-out shack by the water, but Illal Monk noticed something strange. Silence. No clanging metal beams or shouting workers in neon yellow hardhats, no beeping machinery or whirring engines. Silence. Thinking something had gone wrong at the site, Illal Monk headed over at about six thirty in the afternoon. The orange vests were hung up beyond the chain link fence, the machines towered in silent sentry, the transportable storage closets were shacked up and closed, and none of the dirty, heavy burning-oil scent was to overpower the salty sea-breeze. Illal Monk at this point considered turning around and heading back when he noticed a different smell. A smell that could never be washed away or buried, the kind that sticks to your skin and will cling to your clothes twenty years later. The smell of burning human flesh.

Illal Monk called the N.E.B.P.D at six forty-five in the afternoon.

“Knock knock,” Mikel popps his tan head into the quarter-open doorway, a bright and unconcerned grin on his face. “Staying in all the way today, Cap’n?” He shoulders it open the rest of the way, toting two white coffee cups in his hands.

“Regrettably,” I shuffle Illal Monk and the boys back into their manilla folder.

Mikel places the cups down with a happy plunk, “Got caught trying to sneak out of the house, eh Morgan?” His knowing, self-assured smirk is a relaxing ripple of normalcy in today’s otherwise eerie still…

“I’m allowed to take a lunch break, Mikel.” Calming, infuriating normalcy.

“Yeah.. but at five?” Mikel’s white-toothed grin is hidden behind a frown, his floppy, sweeping black hair bobs above his brows as she shakes his head, “And you drag poor Ellie out with you everytime… When do you eat dinner, anyway? Eleven? One in the morning?”

“When Eleanor eats is her decision.” My eyes flitter up to Mikel’s, which are quirked in that lopsided, sharply curious way. “And I don’t eat dinner.”

-----

Jay Pestia was the second oldest of the four at fifteen. He had sandy blonde hair, baby-peach skin, and a crooked smile filled with bright silver braces. The braces apparently melted to his gums somewhere in the midst of the attack. He wore size thirteen shoes but his toes would still often back black and blue from being pressed against the sneaker-tops. He’d been at school, Three-Stands Preparatory High School, playing viola in the third-floor jazz band room. He sat in the back.

He sat in the back because he had a track record at the principal’s office. He sat in the back because the teacher would always yell at him for not paying attention and would scream at him for missing his cues. He sat in the back because stage fright made his fingers stiff and numb. He sat in the back because the window was there. He at in the back because his music notebook was always filled with doodles of the bird in the nest outside the window. He sat in the back because he named them. He sat in the back because he could talk to them.

Jay Pestia had cloudy blue eyes and thick-rimmed glasses and freckles splattered across his nose. Jay Pestia left school at four in the afternoon to meet his three best friends after school, like every other day. Jay Pestia’s body was thrown over the chain-link fence and caught three feet up on one of the exposed beams, his left arm was found five feet away from the rest of him.

Jay Pestia was left handed.

----

It took all of two seconds after she was let in for Eleanor to lock onto the coffee cups, one of which had been drained during the reading of the Pestia family’s email.

“When Mikel walked in here with two cups I assumed one of them was for himself.” Eleanor’s hazel eyes fill with an unspoken question.

“I’m fine.”

“For now,” Eleanor folded her long, slender arms across her chest. She has a ballerina’s face, pinch-pot prim and expressionless. “When was the last time you ate something?”

“I just had coffee.”

“Ate, not drank, ate.” Eleanor’s thin eyebrow drifts up her forehead, sending wrinkles through the pale-pink canvas of skin. “Sharp?” Slowly, the other eyebrow rises to join its sister, simultaneously pushing away the corners of Eleanor’s lips. “Morgan?”

“Did you ever get in contact with the Laurens on their statements, Eleanor?” Her head hangs, auburn braid drifting lethargically over her shoulder.

“No, sir, but I can call them again?” I nod, gratefully mumbling a thank you as I bring the second cup of coffee up to my lips.

“Get some lunch afterwards,” I add on as the door slowly creaks closed, then open, as Eleanor’s defiant, disbelieving exterior makes an appearance once more.

“Fine,” She raises her pointed chin, “But I’m bring you back some food, too. And you will eat it, Sharp. Even if I need to get Mikel’s help, I swear, we will make you eat something.” Eleanor Pike slams the door closed.

----

Dominic Kim Laurens never went by his full name. But, that lack of a full name was more than covered for by a plethora of nicknames. His friends called him “Dom”, his teammates “The Dom”, his girlfriend June either called him “Nicci”, “Domi”, or “Baby”, and his parents most often called him “Dominic Kim”, which while included his full name was not as much, by virtue of being more than just plain-old “Dominc”.

His room was messy with photos taken by others of him. Dom by the sea, with his swimming trousers still stuck to his thighs, black hair damp and drying in wild, messy clumps sticking up and down and this way and that. The Dom scoring the winning shot at the homecoming basketball game, his just-ever-so-slight, fading summer tan on his otherwise pale-ish beige skin shining with a fresh sheen of sweat, already dark, close-set rounded eyes made black by focus on the net. Domi and Junebug, celebrating their second anniversary with a homemade candlelit dinner, insisted upon by June’s mother, where he sits with a smile as big and bright as the moon and rivaled only by June’s own. Then, tucked away in the back corner of the room, atop a desk next to splayed writing materials, a closed laptop, and a haphazard stack of old textbooks were two instances of Dominic Kim. A baby with his mother’s lips pressed to his cheek, crinkled in the midst of joyous, uncaring laughter, and a young man celebrating his fourteenth birthday, face rounded in a soft smile and dimly lit by the orange glow of candlelight.

Two days later Dominic Kim Laurens had four more photos taken as he lay approximately four feet from the murder site on the wharf's concrete floor, one of the front, one from the back, and two from either side. None of these were to ever be present in his room.

-----

Once Mrs. Laurens finishes her abbreviated rendition of Dominic’s life pre-mortem, of which I find myself having to fill in for her more weeping-filled gaps, she turns to the box of tissues placed out between her husband and herself, the former of whom had wordlessly stood up and left the room, one hand covering his mouth and eyes snapped shut just minutes into her telling.

“Mrs. Laurens,” I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees as I wait for her to finish wiping the tears from her eyes, “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the night of the murder, and take a look around Dominic’s room, if that’s alright.”

“Yes,” Her voice cracks, throat bobbing with the effort to speak anymore. I nod to Mikel, who had remained still and silent for the duration of her talk.

“What was Dominic doing the day of the attack?” As Mikel’s gentle voice begins the interrogation, I stand and move inside the victim’s room, keeping one ear out for her response as I shift the door covered with different stickers depicting basketballs, hoops, and players alike.

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Laurens breathes in sharply, gathering herself, “Dominic always went to his friend’s house after he finished practice…” She pauses for a moment, the door reveals a room much like she described- littered with photos and all of himself, “I… He didn’t say if anything was different that day…”

“What was his friend’s name?” Mikel’s voice is small, barely a soft whisper floating around the corner. Is she crying again? No, her voice didn’t break, but she must be losing her composure. Mrs. Laurens isn’t responding. “Take your time, Ma’am.”

I find the photos Mrs. Laurens described, all in their specified places, and examine them for myself. The beach photo is blurry, taken with an unsteady hand, with grains of sand stuck to the lense as if the camera’d been dropped or abandoned in the sand until time to pose for the picture.

“Daniel,” Mrs. Laurens’ tenor quivers, “Daniel Rivera, legally, but he goes by McDonall.”

The basketball shot is even more blurred by motion, tilted at an awkward angle with any focus in his eyes diminished by the bright light obscuring his face, glaring angrily at the camera from the stadium’s ceiling. “And how did he know Daniel McDonall?”

The most accurate to its description is the depiction of “Domi” and “Junebug”. Both kids smile in the uncomfortable, controlled manner that comes when appeasing a pestering parent with a camera. They’re seated at a dining room table, bodies awkwardly turned to face the lens, hands stiffly interlocked.

“Elementary,” Mrs. Laurens speaks with a surprisingly controlled voice, schooling herself into a state of numbness for the sake of answering Mikel’s inquiries. “Daniel, Jay, Luca… Dominic went to middle school with all of them… But he met Daniel in elementary school. They were such good boys… they were all…” Her voice begins to waver again. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, Ma’am.” Mikel quietly reassures her.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re helping us greatly, Ma’am. You don’t have to be sorry.”

Silence.

“Thank you, Officer…”

“Mikel Bosque- but Mikel is fine, Mrs. Laurens.”

“Officer Bosque… Mikel, thank you… Are there any other questions? I’ll… do whatever I can.”

I proceed to the desk in the corner, a small schedule stapled above a thick golden physics book with papers shoved between the pages. My eyes trace the dates down to the day of the murder. ‘Dock 7, 5:00’ is written in embolden black letters. The location of the bodies.

“The photos… can be a little overwhelming.” I turn sharply, Mr. Laurens stands in the doorway, one hand idly tracing up and down a chipped section of the wood, “He did this on accident, we used to keep a vase on a table set outside his door- to look nice… Told Dom not to practice indoors but, well, he never listened to this old man anyway.” His chuckle is dry and cracking and followed by a weak sniff, his nose and eyes are lined with red.

“Did your son tell you why he was heading to Dock 7 at five on December 5th?”

Mr. Laurens shakes his head, stepping into the room, he looks around, and though he seems still and peaceable, I catch the shaking of his hands as he nervously rubs them together, the unsettled eyes as they flicker to one photo- before immediately looking away, only to catch on another that appears to hold some particular memory to him.

“Did your son mention Dock 7 at any particular time? Was it a common meeting place for him and his friends?”

“I don’t…” He chokes on his words, “I don’t know. No. No. It couldn’t have been. He hated the wharf. Couldn’t swim- Scared of the water… I wanted to teach him. This summer. That was the plan. He was too old to not know how to swim. If something had ever happened, I wanted him to be prepared. He was scared. His friends- I… I don’t… I don’t know…” The man in front of me cracks and crumbles, stumbling against the wall, he slides down, slowly, until he sits on the floor, laminated papers crumpling beneath him. Mr. Laurens hangs his head between his knees, and begins to weep. I clear my throat, glancing towards the doorway to check if Mikel is done with his part yet, but I can’t see him and Mrs. Laurens from around the corner.

“If you have any information about Dock 7, you can call our office.”

------

Daniel Rivera Jr. started introducing himself as Daniel McDonall after his brother Luca showed up at their house, sleeping in the arms of a social security worker with a note written to the senior Daniel Rivera, his father, notifying him of the death of an Abigail Spellmeyer. He was ten years old, Luca Spellmeyer was seven.

“And?” I speak into the pause on the other end of the phone line, originally having thought that perhaps Ms. McDonall needed to gather herself to get into the grittier details of Daniel and Luca’s childhoods, but when that pause has since lapsed into a sizeable silence.

“And?” Ms. McDonall’s echo comes out as a static hiss, “You wanted to know why Daniel went by McDonall instead of Rivera, this is why!”

“Ms. McDonall, Daniel was sixteen-”

“Is sixteen- just because you haven’t found him, Morgan Sharp-” She spits out the words with a serpentine venom, “- Does not mean my son is dead!”

“- Yet you stated that Luca… arrived… when Daniel was ten. What happened for those six years between?”

“Ask my husband.” Ms. McDonall drawls sarcastically.

“Ms. McDonall, it would be easiest if you-” The connection dies abruptly. I let the phone scream loud dial-tones in my ear for a moment before eventually, slowly, setting it down on the receiver. Almost immediately a sharp knock resounds at the door. “Come in.”

Eleanor slowly, purposefully pushes the door open, “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I couldn’t help but listen in.”

“Your desk is right outside my office, Eleanor, I don’t think you would’ve been able to avoid hearing that if you tried.”

She considers my words with a pursed expression, before nodding in agreement. “Well, anyway, I did some digging as to why it was Mrs- er- Ms. McDonall was still showing up as Mrs. Rivera in our system.”

Folding my hands on my desk, I watch as Eleanor steps aside, allowing Mikel, who had apparently been waiting behind her, strides confidently into the room, waving a small collection of papers in his hand. “Would’ja believe it, Cap’n, that it wasn’t just the system screwing up again? But just some more family dirt dug up in this beautiful little case of ours.” He slaps the papers atop my desk, lips peeling back from his teeth triumphantly.

I look to Eleanor for a more direct answer, she steps around Mikel, spreading the papers out in a neat row, “Daniel Rivera Sr. and Cristina McDonall never filed for a divorce.” She taps the fifth and last paper neatly, “Until Ms. McDonall tried to- about one month ago.”

I turn the paper to face me, “November 28...”

“Just a bit curious how that’s only a week before the murder… and the kidnapping- of his own two sons, if I might add.” Mikel fills the room with that cloudy thought hanging over everyone’s head.

“But it’s not enough to prove he’s guilty.” Eleanor cautions him.

Mikel holds out his hands, “I’m not saying that the guy is!” He pulls up one of the two chairs by the desk, flipping it around so that he can sit on it and slin his arms over the back, “What I am saying, though, is that either we need to give Mr. Rivera a li’l visit, or he’s gonna have to visit us.”

“Mikel!” Eleanor snaps, her jaw hangs open, eyes glimmering with slight exasberation, “We’re not on some crime television show…! We can’t just- just barge into his house unannounced. We need a search warrant, or an arrest warrant if we really think he… might play some part in what happened.”

“We don’t have the time.” Both of them turn to face me when I speak up. “If there’s even the slightest possibility that Daniel Rivera Sr. killed those two boys and kidnapped Luca and Daniel Jr. then we can’t waste any time in making sure that they’re safe.” I pick up the phone again, standing as I do so when a sudden wave of antsy energy rushes through me. Eleanor opens her mouth to protest. “There won’t be any more kid’s corpses on these docks.”

She holds my gaze, staring me down, but her jaw slowly shuts. “You still can’t do anything in the system without a warrant.”

“Oh, Ellie, Ellie” Mikel laughs, “There’s always a way around the system.”

“Do you have a suggestion?”

Mikel rocks back in his chair ever so slightly, “Of course I do!” He turns to face me, and despite that impish smile there’s a stern, serious glint to his eyes, “Call him to make a testimony at his house. We three go and then you do what you did with the Laurens and say that the two of you,” He points to Eleanor and then myself, “Are going to take a look at Daniel and Luca’s rooms, respectively. The fact that you just so happened to end up looking elsewhere in the house becomes little more than a small feat of getting lost.”

“So lost that we end up thoroughly searching every room in the house for incriminating evidence of arson, murder, and kidnapping?” Eleanor shakes her head.

“You underestimate just how lost one can get. Come to the city with me sometime, you’ll see.”

“Mikel, how long do you think you’d be able to distract him?” Mikel faces me once more, sobering up a considerable amount as he mulls over the question.

“Depends,” Mikel shrugs, “I haven’t met the guy yet and I’d need to get a good read on him to figure out whether or not he’s the chatty type. Not to mention I’d have to do this all under the guise of an actual interview, and there’s only so many questions I can ask before any sane person gets suspicious. But if he really is guilty of all this then we might not have to worry about that last part.”

“So you want us to search the house of a man who is either completely innocent, or managed to sneak a bomb of some kind into a populated wharf and then blow up two boys? Without a solid sense of how long we’ll have to do so?” Eleanor speaks slowly.

“Well, most of those details are irrelevant to the search itself, Ellie. Just think of it as find and go seek, count to one-hundred if you don’t trust me, then shout olly-olly-oxenfree and come back if you really want. Otherwise, I’ll let you know when he’s getting antsy.”

“How?”

“However seems natural at the time.”

“We have to try it.” I stare at the papers on the desk, the manilla folder still out from the last time I poured through its sparse contents. “We have to.”

“If it doesn’t work,” Mikel starts to stand, pushing the chair back into place, “We’re at least supposed to interview him, anyway.”

-----

Daniel Rivera Sr. lives nearby the wharf… a fact that certainly made Eleanor’s calm facade break momentarily into an expression of surprise. The house is small with vanilla paint over red brick and a tiled roof, it’s squished, townhouse-style, between two near identical buildings, with the most distinctive aspect of Mr. Rivera’s abode being the bundles of fake flowers pushed into a real flower pot that hangs outside his window, bright pink and red against the otherwise barren urban winter. I step up to the door, with Mikel right behind me and Eleanor lagging back a bit as she surveys the surrounding area. The doorbell chimes with a long, melodic tune that echoes around, muffled by the door. The man who opens the door has a square jaw and tired brown eyes, a sad smile lighting his face when he sees Mikel and Eleanor’s uniforms behind me. He’d expected us… considering we called him to set up the appointment.

“Come on in, no reason to freeze outside.” He stands astride the door, waving the three of us into his house hurriedly. “Would you like to hang your coats? There’s a fire already warming the living room- sit, rest, you three must be freezing.”

“No, thank you.” Eleanor politely refuses, “We won’t take much of your time, sir.”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Rivera has deep lines by his nose and mouth, the kind that make for a bright grin like Mikel’s, but now seem only to be used for a melancholy ghost of such. “You’re here so I can help you find my sons, correct? If that is so… then take as long as you need and I’ll… I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Officer Bosque will be handling that,” I shrug towards Mikel, who extends his hand in greeting, “Officer Pike and I were hoping it’d be alright to take a look at the boys rooms while Officer Bosque interviews you?”

Mr. Rivera nods slowly, “Of course, but first, sit and have some tea. I insist,” He adds when he catches Eleanor’s hesitant glance towards me, “It’s too cold to do anything else, and I have all day free for you to snoop into my private laugh.” The joke is coupled with a weak laugh, Mikel does his best to match it with a soft chuckle of his own, but Eleanor’s face remains cold as steel, I remain silent.

“Alright,” I acquiesce, Eleanor’s eyes slide over and catch my own, but I keep staring towards Mr. Rivera, “Tea it is, then.”

“Fantastic! You can wait in the living room,” Mr. Rivera points through a doorway, towards a crackling fire, “I’ll be right back.”

Once we go through our doorway, and Mr. Rivera disappears around the corner, Eleanor tugs me closer to herself and Mikel, “Sharp, what are you doing?”

“You wanted a time limit,” I whisper, “This is Mikel’s chance to get us one, get a read on him.”

“He seems nice.” Mikel pipes in. “I kinda… feel a little guilty, honestly. It seems like he really misses his sons.”

“You were the one to suggested this!” Eleanor reminds him.

“I know,” Mikel shrugs, his eyes located somewhere distant, “I just… I still think it’s a good idea to look around- don’t get me wrong, but I… well, I won’t be surprised if we don’t find anything, is all I’m saying.”

Eventually he seems to slide back into the present, catching Eleanor’s gaze, “Oh come on, Ellie, you can’t seriously say he doesn’t seem depressed by what’s happened, can you?”

“I’m reserving my judgement. Like I should.”

“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” I remind the both of them, “Now stop fighting, and focus.”

A few minutes later, Mr. Rivera comes through the open doorway once more, juggling four cups in his bare hands. Eleanor stands to help him but Mr. Rivera shakes his head, “No, no,” He turns away from her help, “They’re hot, you’ll burn your hands.”

“But what about yo…” Eleanor trails off as her line of sight falls down to Mr. Rivera’s hands, which glow a soft ember orange color as he sets the cups down on the table.

“You have powers.” I comment, half to myself, as Mr. Rivera stands straight once more. He laughs, bashfully, a sudden wave of sheepishness overtaking his features as he rubs his hands together self-consciously.

“Nothing quite so fantastic, I’m afraid.” He squeezes them together, the glow slowly fading, “I can heat my hands up to boil water or cook, which saves quite a bit of money, and I don’t have to worry about being burned in the kitchen, which saves quite a bit of pain…” Another quiet bout of laughter, “But I’m no hero. Far too old to go running around saving the world and all that.” He shakes his head, “Though I appreciate those who are able to do more than I.”

Mr. Rivera takes a seat, clutching his mug between his hands. Mikel sits straighter, and takes a breath to begin the conversation-

“Mr. Rivera, why did you and Ms. McDonall wait until a month ago to file for a divorce?” It’s almost eerie, the way every single head snaps to look at me with a similar perplexed expression once I speak up. Mikel nudges me in the side with his elbow, and once Eleanor registers what it is I’ve said, her expression shifts from emotion to emotion before finally settling on a combination of confusion and annoyance. Mr. Rivera, on the other hand, is frozen in place, or so it seems. The only mobile thing about him comes from the steam curling out of the ceramic mug in his hands.

“What my boss means to say is-” Mikel starts in spluttering tones, but he’s cut off when Mr. Rivera lifts a hand, still staring in my direction.

“It’s… fine, I suppose.” Finally shaking himself from his stupor, Mr. Rivera glances into the tea mug before setting it back down on the table, he runs his hands over his knees, smoothing out his pants. “Though… I thought you wanted to go upstairs and search the boys’ rooms?”

“So did I…” I hear Eleanor mutter from the other side of the couch.

“I have a few questions.” I shrug, glancing Mikel and Eleanor, “I think it’d be best if we ask them now.”

“If… that’s what you want.” Mr. Rivera hesitantly agrees.

“Well, that’s fine with me,” Mikel shrugs and flops back against the couch, slinging one arm over the back, “Whatever you think is best, Cap’n.”

Eleanor searches my face for a moment longer, her gaze lingers silently as she nods and stiffly leans her arm against the armrest.

“So, why now?” I return to Mr. Rivera.

“Well…” Mr. Rivera scratches the back of his head, running a hand through curled dark brown hair, “I guess I should… clarify. Cristina and I- the plan was never to divorce. We wanted-” He stops, swallows heavily, “Well, I wanted, to give the boys a normal childhood. As normal as it could be, considering… The circumstances with which Luca came into our lives. Cristina wanted, reasonably, to leave. I promised that it would just last until they were off into the world on their own. Then we would go our separate ways and she would never, ever have to see me again.”

“Which didn’t go over very well, did it?” I fill in.

“No.” Mr. Rivera shakes his head, then stops, “Well, no… later. At first she seemed to agree- it was the one thing we’d agreed on since Luca arrived. We both wanted the boys to be happy, and we thought two parents would be better than one but…” Mr. Rivera sighs, “It was worse. Much worse. We fought constantly, and she hated me, had reason to- but- I just…” His hands wrap around his knees, “I can’t shake the feeling that this is all my fault. That if we’d split there then none of this would’ve happened, everything would’ve been cleaner and… Luca and Daniel would still-”

“Why?” I cut him off before his train of thought can continue.

“Cristina came to me with the divorce papers to sign, we fought- of course,” A dry, sarcastic, loathing laugh escapes his lips, “Luca overheard, he was eavesdropping- curious boy.” Another chuckle, this one somehow simultaneously happier and more pained, “I think he told Daniel. I think that they… wanted to escape, just for a while. Go somewhere with friends far from home, far from everyone. As far as they could get from Daniel’s mother’s house. So they went to the docks that day- nevermind how dangerous that area is and now… They both acted so distant afterwards I couldn’t help but believe that was why.”

“They got along?” Eleanor’s tone betrays surprise, she sits straighter, perked up at this small detail. Almost immediately she snaps her mouth closed, realizing her words and looking away embarrassedly. “I’m sorry, sir. I assumed, with the circumstances that they might not’ve-”

“It’s fine.” Mr. Rivera shakes his head, “I suppose it does seem strange, especially since, as you probably know, Daniel stopped using my family’s name after Luca came home. But… Daniel is a good boy, I think he resented Luca at first- would barely talk to him, but I believe that Luca grew on him. So, yes, the two got along. They were brothers, full brothers, no matter what the past is.” There’s a glimmer of pride poking through the cloud surrounding Daniel Rivera Sr.’s eyes.

“They left because they found out of the divorce? And that’s why they ended up on Dock 7, to get away, correct?” I repeat.

“Yes. I’m sure.” Mr. Rivera answers.

“And both of them- both of your sons- were upset at this time?”

“Well, yes.” Mr. Rivera’s head tilts in confusion, “Of course they were, we’d been struggling for so long to keep our family together and it just-”

“Everything in their lives fell apart.”

Mr. Rivera nods. I stand up, “I see. Thank you for your time, Mr. Rivera.”

“What?” Mikel is the first one to bolt up, shocked, “Woah, Morgan! What are you doing?”

“You’re leaving?” Mr. Rivera goes wide-eyed. “So soon?”

“Yes. We need to leave.” Mikel is by my side, one hand grasping the back of my arm, Eleanor stands as well, shaking her head at me in disbelief.

“Hang on- Morgan!” Mikel tugs me back, “We’ve barely asked any questions! Let alone, y’know, looked at their rooms?”

“We need to go,” I pull my arm free, “Now.” Mikel and Eleanor share a quick glance, but by the time they start to follow me I already have the front door open, half jogging towards the car we came in.

“Thank you again for your time, Sir!” I hear Mikel shout behind me as he runs towards the car, Eleanor several paces in front of him. “You’ve... uh, really helped us out!” He slams the door behind himself as I start up the engine, Eleanor already buckled in beside me. “I guess?”

“Mind telling us where we’re going?” Eleanor is the first to speak, her hand clenched in a white-knuckled grip on the car door as we speed along the narrow streets near the wharf, sirens blaring.

“Yes, call it in.” I instruct, “Contact the western HQ, tell them to search the Rusty Side for Luca Rivera and Daniel McDonall, then have our office fax them the images on file. Tell them not to open fire, but to use extreme caution.” Eleanor, suspiciously but surely enough, reaches for the radio lodged into the car console.

“The Rusty Side?” Mikel leans forward from the back seat, “That’s on the other side of town!”

“As far away as possible. They won’t leave the city. They can’t.”

Mikel’s eyes stretch until his irises are surrounded by white, “You mean you think you know where they are?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I have an idea.”

Mikel sits back in the seat with a huff, “Lotta pomp for just an ‘idea’.”

“Do you have a better one?” Eleanor turns her head sharply behind her, pausing as the message is relayed to the western N.P.D.’s western headquarters.

Mikel stretches his arms out to the side, “I honestly can say that I have no idea what’s happening. So, no, no I do not.”

-----

Once we’re actually in the Rusty Side of Nickelport I begin to feel a lot of the tension and original adrenaline of my discovery drain away. I loosen my grip on the steering wheel as I pull the car into a side alley, the three of us step out and I pass to the keys to Eleanor. “Drive around, but keep the lights and siren off. If you see anything then contact us immediately.” She nods somberly, before slipping into the driver seat and slowly rolling down the road. Mikel and I watch until the tail lights disappear around the corner.

“We need to find them before dark.” Mikel comments, glancing up at the ever fading sky. I pull back my sleeve and check my watch. Five in the afternoon. “Your favorite time of the day.” Mikel comments with a smile as he takes a peak over my shoulder. “Must be good luck.”

“They’ll be somewhere quiet.” I shove my hands into my pockets, the winter chill crawling through the thin fabric of my coat, “Look in alleyways, abandoned buildings, anywhere uninhabited.”

Mikel’s beam fades away, “Are you sure about this?”

“I have to be.”

“No,” He shakes his head, “I don’t mean where they are, I trust you on that.” That confidence makes a brief return at the comment, “I mean… splitting up- will you be okay? And if you find them…? Maybe you should’ve taken the car…” His eyes start to waver towards the ground.

“Mikel,” I draw them back, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be fine… I have to be.” One more glance at the sky shows me that it’s grown even darker, “Now, get moving. Remember what I told you- it’s just a hunch but… exercise caution.”

He beams at me once more, “Aww, you worried about me now? Come on, Morgan, when am I ever not careful?” He throws his arms out to the side, already backpedaling slowly down the alleyway.

I don’t respond.

Mikel laughs boisterously, “See you on the other side, Cap’n!” He gives a mock salute before turning around and walking off, bouncing on his heels.

-----

Quiet surrounds me. Lights dimly gleam from barred windows, casting broken shadows on the cracked, uneven street. A bag floats by and catches on a lamppost with a shattered bulb, glass scattered dangerously around the sidewalk. I take peak down each alley I find, only to be met with that same sullen silence. I hear jaunty whistling coming from one open door as a woman with her hair tied in two knotted pigtails pushes a ratty couch onto the street, casting me one suspicious outsiders-glare before kicking the couch the rest of the way outside and slamming the door closed. No more whistling. No more anything.

My feet begin to ache by the time that the sun has crested over the squat buildings and the sky’s been bruised purple and blue, just barely enough light that I don’t yet feel the need to flick on my flashlight and expose my presence to this unwavering ghost town. Static crackles on my radio each time I consider contacting Mikel or Eleanor to check in with their progress, but the risk of revealing myself remains too high to try. I spot one abandoned concrete building, like a half-built factory… no, not half built. I realize by the faded sign and rusted up, unused shipping trucks parked in the nearly empty driveway. It’s been destroyed.

The building is wide, taking up three houses space, with a broken down old metal gate in front, the latch missing and one side hanging open at an angle that I squeeze through. The peeling sign talks about some kinda fabric- maybe shirts or pants- the words are too far gone to tell. The left half of the building is fully intact, plain grey concrete with symmetrical rows of blackened windows and two tall steel pipes rising up out of the ground… but the right half has caved in on itself. Exposed rebar pokes out of slabs of concrete that have fallen down and now lean haphazardly against what remains of the left half of the building, deep gashes gore the parking lot, with one truck still wedged vertically between the layers of destruction, its torso crushed beyond recognition, a stain on the asphalt below indicates where oil had leaked and then dried up over time.

This was the site of a hero’s battle.

Who’s, and when this was I have no idea, no matter how long I search my limited knowledge of famous battles no recollection comes up. Considering the fact that it's been left untouched for rebuilding could mean three things. It’s a twisted memorial for whoever important it was that died here- most likely the hero in that case, nobody cared enough because it was in the depths of the Rusty Side of Nickelport, or the ground is still too unstable to touch. My hopes remain in the former two. The fact that it’s a factory does, however, give some insight into when this was, considering most factories were dismantled or moved decades ago when the Rusty Side of Nickelport became more and more populated. If it weren’t for that fact, then the thick swathings of rust and dust would be more than enough clue, only barely broken up by graffiti markings from the more adventurous Rusty Side youth.

Other than that, however, this is a place for ghosts.

And, if I’m right, two very scared teenage boys.

I traverse across the beaten, broken path to the left side of the factory, slipping carefully underneath one precariously balanced horizontal slab of concrete as dust rains down upon my head. Inside the shadows are so dark that I find it finally time to flick on my flashlight to get a good look at what’s around me. The light flicks on and almost immediately I am greeted with a rough, suspicious voice,

“Who’s there?” A young voice.

“My name is Morgan Sharp…” I speak calmly into the darkness, I can’t call for Mikel or Eleanor, not now, not when I’ll be heard if I do. “Are you Luca Rivera?”

Silence.

“Daniel, then? Daniel McDonall?”

“What do you want with me?”

“Your brother isn’t with you?” There’s no response, “Can you come outside first?” I ask, eyeing the broken up ceiling with my flashlight, “This place is dangerous.”

“Not until you tell me who you are and what you want.”

I stifle a sigh, “My name is Morgan Sharp,” I repeat, “I’m a detective and captain of the Nickelport Police Department, I work in the East Bay-”

“So you’re…” Daniel interrupts me, but promptly stops.

“I’m here to talk about Dominic Kim Laurens and Jay Pestia,” I whisper the words, unsure of the reaction, “Yes, that’s right.”

“They were my friends.” Daniel’s voice is equally quiet. “They were…” He chokes on the words.

“Can you come outside?”

I’m not answered verbally, instead, I hear footsteps crunching slowly on debris. Exhaling calmly, I turn around and slip out the way I came in.

Daniel McDonall stands with his arms wrapped around himself, shaking, head hanging, with blood dried on his shirt. The resemblance to his father is uncanny, the same curled brown hair and light brown skin, the same sharp jawline and broad shoulders, you see that he has his mother’s button nose which only adds to the confirmation that, yes, this is Daniel McDonall. And he’s still alive.

“I’m going to call someone, they’ll get you back to the station. When was the last time you ate?” Daniel just shakes his head, “They’ll have food there, just ask. Wait one moment.”

I step away from him, pulling up the radio, first, I wire in my location to the Rusty Side’s HQ so they can send someone. Then, I call Eleanor.

“Eleanor,”

“Sharp! I was getting worried. I haven’t heard from you or Mikel, are you alright?” Her voice pops against the radio static

“Yes, I’m fine. I found Daniel.”

“You did?” She sounds hopeful, “Great, I’ll swing by and pick him up-”

“No, don’t. I already called someone else.”

“What? Why not?”

“Luca isn’t with him.” Eleanor doesn’t respond, waiting, “I’m going to ask why, but call Mikel and let him know what’s happening… Actually- no, scratch that. Find where he is, meet up, then call me and I’ll give you my location. I think we’ll need to reconvene soon.”

“On it.” Static fills the radio, I pocket it once more and walk back to Daniel, who hasn’t budged since I left him.

He glances up at me as I approach, brown eyes voided into blank reflective pits. No fear. No sadness. No emotion. “Can you tell me where your brother is? Where Luca is?”

Daniel stares at the ground once more. “I don’t know.”

I step closer, unsure, “Daniel- I need to know- I need to find him. Your brother-”

“Half-brother.” Daniel spits on the ground.

I pause, grind my jaw, “Luca is in danger, Daniel.”

No response.

“If you have any information at all-”

“I don’t know!” His voice comes out in a high pitched, shrill scream, he turns wildly towards me, eyes bulging like a frightened animal, arms flung out to the sides, “I panicked and I ran! I left them there! Dead! They’re all dead!” His hands dig through his hair, into his skull, his legs start to shake, “They’re all dead! They’re all-!”

I grip his shoulders before he can topple over, Daniel sobs, “They’re all dead- so why aren’t I?” Carefully, Daniel sits down on the ground, I keep hold of his shoulders until he’s no longer in danger of falling over, then, I release him and step back. Daniel hangs his head once more, shoulder heaving in sobs, broken by the occasional hiccup.

“Luca isn’t dead.” I speak in a carefully controlled manner, “He’s still alive, but he’s in danger, Daniel. If you can remember anything, anything at all about where he would go, or even just what direction he ran in… You could help, Daniel. You could save him.”

With this, Daniel finally lifts his head to stare at me, his cheeks are wet with tears and he’s still trembling terribly, but he nods, and through quivering lips, he manages to speak. “Dock 9.”

“Dock 9?”

“We…” He swallows his spit, “We were going to walk there together, the way it’s set up we would…” A shaky smile comes across his face as Daniel sniffs and rubs the bottoms of his eyes harshly, “We used to sneak out there, all four of us, when we were young and play on the beams- like they were monkey bars ‘n shit, the plan was to meet at the construction site and walk there together… we didn’t… we didn’t make it there, did we?” He twists his shirt between his hands.

I opt out of answering, I can already hear the sirens approaching in the distance, “You may have just saved your brother, Daniel. Thank you.”

He nods, and unsteadily stands up, wordlessly walking towards the flickering red and blue lights.

-----

“Where are we going?” Eleanor wastes no time pulling the car out into the street soon as my door is closed. Mikel twists around to face me from the front seat as I pull the belt over my chest.

“Dock 9.”

“Dock 9?” Mikel repeats, “All the way back on the East Bay? What about running as far as they can?”

“Change of plans.”

I stare out the window as the scenery whizzes by, Eleanor already has the lights and siren on, making the outside world look like little more than a red and blue screaming blur. I jump a little when I feel Mikel reach over and pat my leg to draw my attention.

“Hey,” His lips pull back in that pearl white grin, “You handled that well, Morgan. Better than well, actually.”

“Mh,” I make an unassuming noise and turn back to the window, mouth covered by my hand.

“Yeah, well, get ready to do it again.” In my peripheral I see Eleanor’s eyes flicker to me through the rearview mirror. “Because we’re about to save another kid.”

“Mh,”

----

Even with Eleanor’s neck-breaking speed we manage to pull up as the last to a series of N.E.B.P.D. police cars, all with the lights blaring and doors open.

“Captain Sharp, sir,” Officer Moran Dubois comes sprinting up to me, gun drawn and clutched in their hand, “Luca Rivera’s presence inside has been confirmed, sir.”

“What is everyone doing with their guns drawn…?” Mikel observes as he takes a quick glance around the premise. Officer Dubois nervously tucks their gun back into the holster.

“Sir, we-”

“I specifically ordered no firearms,” I frown, “No matter what.”

“But, sir-”

“No firearms.” I repeat, “Unless you want everything to go to hell. Now, Mikel, Eleanor, Officer Dubois, get everyone centered once more. This is a kid we’re dealing with, not a villain.” Moran is the first to sprint off, Eleanor and Mikel hang back a moment. I glance between the two of them, “What?”

“You’re planning on going in there.” Eleanor’s voice is steady, her face remains expressionless.

“Yes.”

“Alone.”

“I can’t scare him.” Eleanor purses her lips, a disapproving silence hangs around her.

“Listen, Morgan,” Mikel steps forward, “Let me do this. Personal interaction is, quite literally, my only use on this team.” He tries a joking smile, but for once it comes across as nervous, “Let me prove that I’m not yet out of date, alright? I’ll go in there and-”

“Absolutely not.”

“Neither of you should go in there alone.” Eleanor interjects.

“I am. And you two are to stay out here and keep watch.” I unhook my gun holster, gun still inside, and pass it off to Eleanor, “And watch this.” She stares at it, registering what I’m saying, before her face contorts into bright red fury.

“Now you’re just insane…” Mikel whispers.

“Are you kidding me, Morgan?” She flings it on the ground, “No! No way! I will not entertain the kind of stupidity that’ll get you killed!” She jabs her finger to my chest, “You are not going in there alone, and you’re sure as hell not going in there unarmed!”

I push her finger away, sternly staring her down. “I’m going. And you’re staying, and keeping my gun. This is a kid, and I can’t scare him.” Neither of them seem willing to back down, “This is an order.”

Eleanor’s face has gone blood red, flushed deep with a rare streak of anger, but she is the first to leave, leaving the gun on the ground where it lay. Mikel looks sick at the thought, staring at the firearm before staring at me. Eventually, slowly, he bends down and picks it up, turning the pistol over in his hands before hooking the holster to his belt. Shakily, he raises a hand in mock salute, his voice quivers when he speaks.

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Mikel slowly sulks away.

I take a deep breath, and turn to Dock 9.

------

The inside is filled with the sound of a creaking metal chorus. Moonlight leaks in through an open window, bouncing off of the bronze beams and exposed piping that criss cross around the entirety of the warehouse. It’s easy to see how a bunch of kids would find this place better than any normal park, with beams to balance on and places to climb galore. The entire thing is just one big steel jungle to explore for them. My footsteps echo around this jungle, announcing my presence long before I would ever want to.

I listen for a similar such sound, hoping that perhaps Luca is moving around, and I’d be able to hear as much. But when I stop walking, so does any sound, and any inkling that this will be easy is simultaneously sapped from from my body. With a weary breath, I move on, cautiously calling his name out into the warehouse.

“Luca?”

A steel door provides entryway into another section of Dock 9’s warehouse, I push it open, the prolonged, unoiled creak stretches and distorts down the hall.

“Luca?”

My voice bounces back at me from between the rebar, off of the walls and up from the floor.

“Luca?”

I’m not entirely sure what I’m expecting to find. Whether he’ll been standing or sitting, crouched in a corner or balancing on one of the beams high above my head. Daniel had the advantage of being tucked away by a layer of shadows, and so was spared from the light, as he was from many things, apparently. Some silly, fantastical part of me expects to first see a flicker of light or flame, some kind of indication of light reflecting off of the many shiny surfaces in this place. What I find instead is another large steel door, twin to the one before it, and as I push it open my nose is blasted with the salty smell of the bay, my ears assaulted by the crash of the water rumbling against the support pillars that dig into the sand beneath the water, and the creak of the wood as I step outside, and beyond that, past the closed door, sitting underneath an outcropping that was at one point perhaps meant to store equipment is a small boy with floppy brown curls stuck to his forehead with surprised, wet round eyes as dark as his brother’s, wearing a hoodie two sizes too big with the hem pulled over his knees and the hood thrown over his head.

“Luca?” I ask, and he nods, his cheeks are wet and his eyes and nose puffy and red. He looks much less like his father than Daniel did, with rounded shoulders and face- features which all must come from Abigail Spellmeyer. But the eyes and hair are distinctly Mr. Rivera’s. I crouch down next to him. “My name is Morgan Sharp, I’m a police officer, Luca.” The boy’s face pales considerably.

“Are you here to arrest me?”

“No.” I fold my arms, letting them rest on my knees, “I’m not here to arrest you.”

“But you know what I did. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re all here.” He sniffles, but he doesn’t back away, his hands pull on the sleeves, already too long for him, balling up the fabric between his fingers.

“We’re here to make sure you don’t get hurt.” I speak slowly, quietly, trying hard to imagine what it is Mikel would say if he were here instead of me. But trying to understand his mind is a lot like trying to walk through a maze blindfolded and dead drunk. Luca stares at me for a long while, his eyes wide and searching, judging the truth in my words. His hands slowly relax, he pulls the sleeves away from them, fresh burn marks run up and down his palms, blackened skin peeling away slowly, fading into irritated red boils.

“I did it.” He buries his face in those hands, I hear quiet weeping between his words, “Daniel, Dominic, Jay- I did it… I didn’t mean to! I don’t know what happened! I just- It’s all my fault, everything that happened- everything is my fault!” His composure starts to break, and I watch as flames seem to spark to life around him, even on this wet ground they lick the floors and heat the air around us. I flinch when one comes a bit too close to my side, but I keep myself rooted to the ground. “I watched! I saw it! I didn’t mean to but it just… happened! I couldn’t- I didn’t want- Jay, he tried…”

“Luca.”

“He tried to reach out- he was- I knew he was trying to help- but I panicked!” Luca sobs, the fire picks up around him, wild and uncontrolled, eating away at its own master, gnawing on the back of his hands.

“Luca.” I fight to keep my voice controlled.

“Daniel was right! Everything goes wrong because of me! It’s my fault Mom and Dad are leaving! It’s my fault that Jay and Dom are… are… Oh god.” He covers his mouth, eyes wide and wild with fear and morbid fascination, “I… I killed them. I did.”

If I don’t stop him… I bite my tongue and reach out, hissing when my hand passes through the fire growing around him, and grab onto Luca’s shoulder. “Luca! You need to stop.”

Something in my voice, or maybe the contact, snaps Luca back to reality… But soon as he notices the fire around him, he screams and slaps my hand away, scrambling to his feet he backs away, but it just follows him, biting at his heels and snapping at his hands. I cradle my injured hand, a stinging, burning pain blossoming in the palm as I stand up, slowly proceeding towards him.

“Stay away!” Luca’s voice is little more than a primal, panicked yell molded into modern words, “I don’t want to hurt anybody else! I can’t! I can’t!” He takes another step back, another step towards the dark and murky waters of the bay. The fire seems to ball up at his feet, ready to burst.

Ready to explode.

I never understood Mikel, anyway.

“You can.” I speak, straightening my shoulders. “You can hurt people, Luca, if you don’t calm down and control your powers.” His focus is drawn back to me, away from the flames, “Which is why you need to learn how to. The more you run, the worse this gets, and if it doesn’t kill you first, then it’ll kill somebody else. It’s already taken two lives, your right. But that wasn’t you, it was your power. I can help you prevent it from killing any more than it already has. I can help you prevent it from killing yourself.”

My gaze is steady, my hand pressed against my chest, the fire hisses and crackles by his feet, swallowing his shoes. “Do you want that?”

“I don’t…” Luca takes a half step back, “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You haven’t. But it has.” I nod to the fire, now up to his ankles and swirling around, “But you can stop it. I can help you stop it.”

Luca nods numbly.

“Good.” I tilt my head slightly, “Now calm down.”

“I… I can’t.” Luca shakes his head, the fire hisses, “I can’t just-”

“You can. Just remember that you can be in control, you just have to focus. Breathe. Take a step forward.” He does. “Good, now another one.” Two steps forward and he’s far enough away from the edge that I begin to relax some, the fire begins to hiss as it dies out, “One more, then do it on your own.”

Luca breathes in time with his steps as he numbly places one foot in front of the other. By the time he stands in front of me, the fire is little more than hissing smoke in the air around us, what lingering heat there was is gone, along with Luca’s shoes, his feet scarred and burned, and as his senses begin to return, he cries out in pain, collapsing to his knees. Tears stream down his face and hit the wooden planks beneath him. “What… happened to me?” He sobs out quietly, “Why am I…?”

“You have powers.” I state, “Powers you need to learn to control so that this never happens again.” I reach into my pocket, pulling out one of the small white cards I always carry around, partially for this specific purpose. I grab a pen from my pocket and write a familiar name and address on the back of the card. “Talk to your parents- especially your father. There’s psychologists for these kinda things, tell them you need this help. And… here,” I hand the card to Luca, who gingerly takes it in his hands, wincing when it hits his palms he shifts to hold it delicately by his few unburned fingertips. “Someone who can help.”

Luca remains silent, pocketing the card numbly and nodding obediently.

“Can you walk?” The question feels obvious even as it leaves my mouth, still, Luca tries to stand, only to fall back to his knees. “Never mind.” I run a hand through my hair, pulling out my radio. “I’m going to call some more people-”

“People who can help?” Luca finally strangles out a couple of words, his voice is raw and he winces when he speaks.

“Yeah,” I nod, “People who can help.”

-----

I tuck the manilla folder away in the steel cabinet, shutting it with my one good hand. The other still rather useless in its bandaged state while it hangs in its sling against my chest. I leave the case files room to come face to face with Eleanor, a brand new manilla folder clutched between her fingertips. Her eyes instinctively flicker down to my hand, a sharp frown pulling at her mouth.

“Came in this morning,” She explains passing it cordially over to me.

“Thanks, Eleanor.” I take the folder from her, expecting her to just leave after that, but Eleanor lingers, a contemplative look on her face. I tilt my head, waiting.

“I know you’re deadset in your ways,” Eleanor starts reluctantly, crossing her arms over her chest, “But promise me that next time you’ll take someone- anyone with you as backup, even if they wait a few feet away while you do your thing, just for safety. Promise me this, and I’ll forgive you.”

I can’t help but feel the edges of a smile creep up on my face. “How about I just take my gun next time instead?”

“No.” Eleanor frowns, “Because you are taking your gun in next time, promise or no promise. Even if I have to throw it at your head in the line of fire I’m not letting you pull that again.”

“Fine. Then I promise.”

Eleanor’s stiff face relaxes into a smile, some of the tiredness by her hazel eyes diminishes as well. “Good,” She sighs, her hands dropping, “Then I forgive you.”

-----

Soon as Mikel sees me, his face lights up in a familiar excited grin. “Hey, Cap’n! You’ll never guess who I just heard from!” He stands from his desk, a knowing spark to his dark eyes.

Knowing he won’t tell me unless I play along, “Who?”

“Well, I’ll give ya a hint- you hated her, she’s chatty, and you got her her son back.”

“Ms. McDonall.” I blink in surprise. Mikel nods.

“Yeah! Believe it or not, she was actually thanking us for once. Danny boy started going to that psychologist you recommended for Luca-”

“You mean Dr. James?” Mikel nods once more.

“Apparently Mr. Rivera passed the word onto her as well, thinking it could help Daniel as well as Luca with all that happened.” In that moment, Mikel’s demeanor shifts to a much more serious tone. He shakes his head. “You know, Morgan… I just… I hope nothing happens to that kid after this. He seemed to take after his father- good kid. Didn’t mean to hurt anybody…”

“Almost none of them do, not at the beginning.” I retort, “When their powers are that unstable… It’s not safe, for them or anyone around. There’s no control- nothing to stop them from going out of control. The situation only exacerbated what was already going to happen.”

“Quite the nihilist, ain’t ya?” Mikel manages a weak smile, “Still, if he does get good control of his powers, then I’m sure that kid could help out a lot.”

“You think he could be a cop?”

“I was going to go with hero.”

I shake my head, “I’ve worked in this business for a long time, Mikel. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that-”

“I know, I know,” Mikel waves his hand dismissively, “I’ve heard it all before, Cap’.”

Mikel’s grin grows as he readjusts his posture into a mock version of what I assume he believes is mine, adjusting his voice in accordance, “The last thing Nickelport needs is more heroes.”

Mikel shakes his head good-naturedly, “Well, Morgan Sharp, maybe one day you’ll be able to put the lot of ‘em outta business.”

[megaatomiccollectorbeliever]

LION FORGE March 2019 Solicitations

Credit: Lion Forge

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Thomas, Gabe Soria (A) Nicky Soh, Wendy Xu, Tabby Freeman, Becca Farrow, Matt Martines, Kyle Latino (CA) Alane Grace Our heroes must raid a labyrinthine of a long dead wizard to help a temple of pacifist monks! We're solving puzzles aplenty in this issue of Rolled & Told! Try not to get befuddled by these mystifying modules before reading up on imaginative night time encounters, solo role playing, and much more! In Shops: Mar 27, 2019 SRP: $7.99 ENCOUNTER TP VOL 02 (W) Art Baltazar, Franco (A/CA) Chris Giarrusso, Art Baltazar Who is Champion? Is he a new hero loyal to Encounter and Barko, or is he just another villain sent by their arch nemesis? Barko's sure he's no good, but when they fight villains Staremaster and Deconstructinator, Champion might just save the day. In Volume 2, Encounter must protect his friends and learn his arch nemesis's true identity! In Shops: Mar 20, 2019 SRP: $12.99 CELLIES #8 (W) Joe Flood (A/CA) Joe Flood It's noon at Jog Mobile, and everyone has plans . . . at the same time. Jerry makes the ultimate sacrifice to run the store alone, while Elena, Devin, and Christian have the best lunch break of all time! Well . . . that was the hope. In Shops: Mar 06, 2019 SRP: $3.99 MAE VOL 2 #6 (W) Gene Ha (A/CA) Gene Ha With Mae finally reunited with Abbie in the Other World, the epic battle between alliances is on. When they try to take down the Lord Protector, they face an obstacle far greater than a fleet of sky ships or massive weapons. As the sisters uncover unimaginable secrets, will Mae and Abbie fight for family or fight to protect the innocent people in Cimrterén? In Shops: Mar 20, 2019 SRP: $3.99 CATALYST PRIME ASTONISHER TP VOL 03 BLACK HAT (W) Priest, Ryan O'Sullivan (A) Matt Batt Banning, Al Barrionuevo Magnus Attarian, heir to the AtiSat corporate empire, has saved the world from his brother Drew's attempt to help the "Red King" hack the minds of everyone on Earth, but at what cost? Now the past and present collide when a mysterious woman attacks Magnus and his family. But can Magnus save them, or will he unwittingly destroy their legacy and their lives with his selfishness? In Shops: Mar 13, 2019 SRP: $14.99 CATALYST PRIME SUPERB #18 (W) David Walker (A) Alitha Martinez, Baldemar Rivas (CA) Joe Karg, Chris Bivins A devastating attack from Cipher and his followers has Jonah scrambling as he tries to lead an untrained team of Enhanced. In Shops: Mar 20, 2019 SRP: $3.99 QUINCREDIBLE #5 (W) Rodney Barnes (A) Selina Espiritu (CA) Michelle Wong Quin's head conflicts with his heart as he comes face to face with the mastermind behind the city's discord only to discover it's a face he knows well. In Shops: Mar 27, 2019 SRP: $3.99 CATALYST PRIME NOBLE #16 (W) Kevin Grevioux (A) Manuel Garcia, Le Beau L. Underwood (CA) Khary Randolph, Emilio Lopez David and Astrid Powell have dealt with more external, circumstantial drama than most couples could ever imagine, from Astrid's CIA level job stress to David unexpectedly becoming a superhero while on a mission that nearly took his life. What they haven't had is any time to decompress and reconnect in the aftermath, and now that they're making time to see a counselor, it's not what they expected. It turns out they're not the only ones listening to each other's deepest secrets, and the thing that's been surveilling them has malevolent designs on how to use what it's learning.   In Shops: Mar 06, 2019 SRP: $3.99 CATALYST PRIME ACCELL #19 (W) Joe Casey (A/CA) Ramon Bachs It's Daniel Dos Santos's final showdown against George Hayes's hired supervillains-and the timing couldn't be worse as Daniel's condition with the Stream reaches a crisis point. In Shops: Mar 13, 2019 SRP: $3.99 CATALYST PRIME SUMMIT #14 ](W) Amy Chu (A) Cresta, Marika (CA) Jess Taylor As the mysteries behind the alien conspiracy and Val's powers come to a head, Val's unlikely ally, Major Tom, reveals an ace up his sleeve that Lorena is desperate for. In Shops: Mar 20, 2019 SRP: $3.99 CATALYST PRIME INCIDENTALS #17 (W) Ramon Govea, Brandon Easton (A) Jose Jaro (CA) Ryan Brown The city of LA is being painted red with the bodies of its most vulnerable, leaving behind a wake of body parts and a mystery to solve. Someone is out there creating monsters, and it's time for the Incidentals to find out who. In Shops: Mar 27, 2019 SRP: $3.99 Read the full article

[abbyklinkenberg]

01 July 2017

I just finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude for the second time. It's a hot day in Chicago and the edge of the circle of time is so sharp. 

I decided that I should try to see all 50 major museums here in Chicago before I leave, so yesterday I went out on the Brown line & transferred to the Red line in order to get to the Chicago station. There, I had a Potbelly sandwich and talked to Aidan for a little while before heading to the first museum: the Loyola University Art Museum, which turned out to be a very Catholic museum full of religious artifacts from the middle ages/Renaissance era, mostly. There were relics, the bones of saints, in some of the pieces--there were silver chalices from Germany in the 1700s and Roman keys from the first century BC and paintings by students of Caravaggio and stone apostles defaced during the Reformation. One of the hallways was full of self-portraits done by member of a poor community somewhere in Chicago, just pencil sketches that mostly looked as if they were done by children but were probably done by adults who never had the time or resources to fool around with artistic experiments. I tried to read all of the little museum information signs but at some point I got overwhelmed by the religious imagery and simply took it in aesthetically. There were two stained-glass windows done mostly in gray with bright yellow shading as the only color that I probably liked the best. A display of keys from the copper ones of the Roman empire through to the iron ones of the Middle Ages and steel ones of the Renaissance was also really striking. I like that they all did the same things but in slightly different ways, that they were all so neat and precise in their designs--one even had a club shape as the barrel of the key, or whatever it's called. It was really empty, I only saw maybe one or two other people apart from the staff (college-aged girls in blue shirts and black pants) who gossiped with one another while I walked through the museum. 

The Museum of Contemporary Art was only a block away, and was the real object of my day, so I went over there and paid the $8 entrance using my JNU student ID that expired last month. Lots of young people sat on the steps leading up to the entrance and the windows above were adorned with a giant tentacle motif in homage to the Murakami exhibition on the third floor. The first floor had two exhibitions, ETERNAL YOUTH and SMOKE, RISES or something; the first was nostalgic somehow, with magazine prints of Marky Mark and Kate Moss in Calvin Klein ads, an Instagram model blown up to be life-sized, and some other not-so-surprising or provocative looks at youth; it's not surprising anymore, to see kids wrecked by drugs or hiding behind masks or struggling with the trials of adolescence; we're so oversaturated with such content these days, it felt like a somewhat lazy exhibition--I did find some of the text pieces interesting, talking about the commodification of youth and how it's used as an empty promise and vague reason to buy something. 

The other, across the hall, was a series of basic sculptures involving 'other people' outside of the exhibition somehow, outside of the museum. Marble sculptures with shallow pools containing contact lenses of people who didn't know one another, SIM cards in cement blocks, manipulated window panes folded in strange shapes with cigarette buts or guitar strings attached to them. The most provocative one, to me, was a 'wall' with a square canvases on either side painted in the pattern of a shirt and a dress worn by a man and a woman who would occasionally come to the museum; the might meet, they might not; the canvases were put on parallel tracks that ran the length of the wall. And then a metal rod with a single earring through it--the other is presently worn by a woman somewhere in the world, which is the complementary part of the sculpture. The artist invites you to imagine the human elements that are contained in-part, yet that ultimately transcend, the museum space and sculpture itself. I found myself wanting more of that one, I felt that it was real art that provoked something in the viewer, a creative act that was the same and different every time. 

There was another gallery on that floor, tucked in the corner--a series of made-up constellations was on one wall, understandably meditating on the arbitrary yet meaningful nature of any constellation in the night sky that we have come to identify. The exhibit was named after some part of Moby Dick, 'the shallow level' or something like that. From Ahab's quotation about needing to strike through the mask, about how there is something beyond us that we can't quite access. Though the written explanation of the intention excited me tremendously, I found the art to be somewhat lacking, probably just because it's not to my taste. A painting that was overlaid with pink paint such that you can still kind-of see the stuff beneath (really obvious relevance, not profoundly interesting), a set of concrete blocks that looks solid from 3/4 sides but opens on the other, a map written over with a poem by the artist about metaphor and perception and imagining an analogous human example of reducing the world to a map, which I liked best, and some other things that didn't strike me particularly. 

Upstairs was an installation that I really hated with some computer-generated supermarket images of fruit and weird grocery store dollies and something about trying to make you feel like you're inside of a freezer with bags of fake ice and all that. Then things that look like paint cans but are actually meticulously crafted wooden sculptures of paint cans. The only part I liked, which was small, was built into the wall; a supposed massage parlor--you can see the entry with the sign, a stairway up to a door, and a back entrance, all in miniature, through holes in the wall. Playing the voyeur with nothing to see, sparking a curiosity that exists but can't exist there. 

On the third floor was the Murakami exhibition, which I didn't expect to love so much. The wall was covered in silver and electric pink, tentacles patterns and a stylized 'MURAKAMI.' Some of his beautiful early works with a traditional Japanese artistic technique that depicted turtles that seemed to have been made of condensed and reptilian mystery. A massive blue wall of many panels and absurdly deep blue pigments, an ornate stage setting with 2/1 at the top to celebrate the artist's birthday by making fun of that one guy who only made art that was the date written out on a canvas. More of those mocking types except the date and the canvas were painted the same color so it can hardly be distinguished. And then some rooms on Mr. DOB, his mouse-thing, that I liked sometimes but mostly didn't. Some explanation of his workshop technique making his larger pieces was also featured, but I wasn't too interested in seeing how the magic is made, but rather in the magic itself. His 'superflat' pieces were really compelling--flowers with faces covering an entire wall, for instance--and his aesthetic came back to me from his various famous collaborations with people in the 2000s, especially. None of that stuff was really my thing, but the rigorous detail impressed me. It started to get really exciting for me upon seeing Kanye's Graduation album cover in real life, in addition to a sculpture of the Kanye Bear and another painting from that time-period. A grandmother was trying to explain to her grandkids who Kanye West was--'a very famous rapper' and I found it funny. 

The room that made me feel the most, though, was a huge rectangular gallery with two massive sculptures of demons or something, red and blue, at the entrance and exit of the room, with some Murakami stained-glass windows behind them in a sort of religious allusion. The long walls were covered by two pieces--one was a white and blue dragon that didn't captivate me terribly much, but the other was a huge, intricate, and profoundly striking work of 100 monks of various sizes, stylized and detailed in the most precise and stunning manner. It was both grotesque and ascetic, simultaneously religious and irreverent. The size of everything was really moving to me. 

The final room displayed Murakami's most recent piece, done especially for the exhibition, entitled 'the octopus eats its own tentacle' or something like that. It's a reference to a Japanese saying that deals with cutting off an arm in order to grow a new one, with the recycling of the past and the coming of a circular future. That one was also beautiful, though I had been too impressed by the previous room to feel anything but a visual hangover as I pondered the equally beautiful scene. 

I left looking for a place to read and enjoy something to drink while listening to Vince Staples' new album, which I was inspired to hear because the museum is having him speak there later this month. I really liked what I heard and keep meaning to peruse it further. I ended up at a little French bistro where I had some happy-hour red wine that I had missed. Red wine was plentiful in Argentina, but I was very deprived of it in India, so it felt like a revelation. I read my book, talked to my sister and parents, and then ordered some muscles around sunset. They were gorgeous; I had smelled them from another table earlier in the evening and resolved to try them despite my ongoing attempts at vegetarianism (currently, I've decided to eat meat only one day per week). And it really was a beautiful day, I couldn't have asked for anything better. Solitude isn't necessarily that bad. 

[stormcloudgeneral]

Dalfourt’s Daughter

The Red Badger tavern in Vausdel wasn’t the most respectable of establishments. Its shutters needed a new coat of crimson paint, its ales were rather bitter, and the stews could be worryingly obtuse about what meat went into them. And yet, for the small logging town, it was as integral to the atmosphere as air itself. What the Badger lacked in cleanliness, it made up for in clientele. Travelers from far and wide tended to drift through Vausdale as they made their way through the south of the Niildren Empire, and many decided to spend their coin on meals and drink at the Badger, making it quite the hub for stories from abroad. For this reason, many of the town guards made it a mainstay of their off duty hours, and many an intrepid youngster made their way into the smoke-scented main room to try and overhear a tale of adventure.

This particular night was no different. Captain Jorik of the guard sat at his usual table with two fellow guardsmen, white shield insignias stark against their charcoal doublets. With them for the night was a trio of travelers, each from a different land. One named himself Kaldor Urdraan, a Dwarf from the nearby freeholds. His thick, double-plaited beard was copper brown, but the dome of his head bore naught but a complex green tattoo as covering. The Dwarf claimed to be travelling with a shipment of iron bound for the neighboring Kingdom of Albriona, but his cart seemed more than happy to accept other goods for the right price. The second traveller went by Erik Halfbald, a redheaded human youth seeking employment in the capital city, though Godswood was many weeks of travel away. He seemed optimistic despite this, but the guards advised him not to get his hopes up; unless one was a devout member of the Church of Justice, employment anywhere near the capital was difficult.

Compared to the others, the third guest was far more a sight for the curious eyes of the town’s youth. Towering a head or more above the rest of the humans at the table, this man’s skin was black as burnt coals, matched by three raven cornrows of hair running along his scalp and into long, thick braids hanging down to his waist. A crimson shirt upon his torso was stretched taught by the musculature underneath, and the rolled up sleeves left plain a series of warrior’s scars on his forearms. Upon his shoulders lay a densely furred animal pelt of snowy white, fashioned into a sort of cloak. This man had introduced himself as Unlauon, claiming to be the leader of a sellsword company. It seemed likely, given his demeanor, but he’d refused to give the company’s name, leading the guards to cast suspicious glances in his direction. Despite that, the man was personable and jovial, happy to chat with his companions and down drinks. More importantly, it was he that engaged the group of six in the night’s activity: games of dice with coin on the line.

The six men had been at their table for three hours, gambling and drinking to pas the time. The tavernkeeper had no reason to complain; they were all paying properly, and Captain Jorik could be trusted to keep the travellers in line. Besides, their loud discussions of Niildren’s border disputes gave the man plenty of gossip to pass on to future patrons. But as the third hour tilted into the fourth, and night had fully fallen, the door to the tavern swung open to admit yet another traveller. The tavernkeeper jerked his chin towards the entry, and his young son scurried over with a grin. “Evenin’ ma’am, and welcome to the Red Badger. I’m gonna have to take your weapon, they’re not allowed inside.”

The mention of both a woman and a weapon managed to catch the attention of the gamblers, and they tossed an eye towards the newcomer in curiosity. Closing the door behind her with a graceful air was a Homo felixis, a cream-coloured cat’s tail extending from her hindquarters to balance her digitigrade legs. Her long, pointed ears flicked as she lowered the hood of her sky blue robes, and her shining golden eyes crinkled in a smile at the statement. As she spoke, her accent flicked up and down in a singsong fashion, marking her as foreign to the region. “Are you sure you can carry it, little one?”

The boy nodded, and reached for the weapon the Felinoid carried. As it happened, said weapon was a maul, customized as a weapon rather than as a tool. Its haft was pale wood with a silver wire wrap, matched by a two-sided hammer head with circular faces carved with some sort of insignia. As the boy took it, his eyes widened at the weight, but he dutifully carried the weapon into an alcove, setting it on a rack alongside other weapons taken from the Badger’s patrons. The Felinoid gave a small clap of her hands, tail swishing. “Well done, little one. A strong man you’ll be.”

Puffing out his chest in pride, the boy gestured at the tavern’s interior. “Take a seat, and my pa will come by to get you drink or food as you like.”

With a nod of assent, the woman moved into the tavern, idly reaching up a hand to adjust her creamy hair after so long under the hood. A quick scan of the room saw her notice the guards, travellers, and their game of dice. Her expression immediately turning into one of happiness, the Homo felixis made for their table, and placed her fingertips together in front of her sternum as she bowed to the men. “Good tidings, gentlemen. What game are you playing?”

“Batrion.” Unlauon’s voice rumbled deep in his companions’ ears as he smirked at the young woman, his own accent turning his consonants harsh. “Game from my homeland. Seems no one in this empire can play it properly.”

“You wouldn’t be so skilled at veissach if we taught it to you.” Jorik leaned back in his chair, taking an annoyed sip of beer; his purse was far emptier now than when he’d started playing. “Why the question, young miss?”

“I’d like to play, if you gentlemen aren’t opposed.”

Erik gave a small chuckle. “I mean, your company is appreciated miss, but are you certain? You’ll just lose your money to our swarthy opponent here.”

“I will play. My god is with me.” So saying, the woman took a spare chair, swung it about, and sat primly between one of the guardsmen and Erik, across from Unlauon. “My name is Brinasse of Vanhall. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

The six men glanced at each other a moment, then the Dwarf gave a quick snort. “God’s with you, huh? Don’t think Emperor Ekreion is much a fan of gambling.”

“Oh, I don’t serve the emperor. My faith is my own.” Beaming, Brinasse adjusted her tail behind her, and glanced at the dice. “How does one play?”

Shrugging, Unlauon went about explaining the rules to the newcomer after the table had gone through a round of their own introductions. After greeting the gamblers, Brinasse stayed silent save to ask for a mug of mulled wine and a plate of smoked salmon from the tavernkeeper. Her quick nods of understanding during the explanation seemed to amuse the guardsmen and Dwarf, and Erik spent far too much of the explanation staring at her features; of the group, it seemed the drink had hit him the hardest. Once Unlauon had finished his spiel, he passed the dice over to the young woman. “So, give them a roll, test your luck. And don’t forget a wager.”

“You’ll need it, kitten.” Kaldor took a long gulp of ale.

Shrugging, Brinasse took the pair of dice, and cocked her head. “I wager...four silver pieces.”

That prompted a laugh from the guardsmen, and Jorik reached over to place a hand on her shoulder. “Young lady, you’d be better off starting with copper bets. Otherwise, Unlauon there will rob you blind.”

“Thank you for your concern, sir, but as I said, my god is with me.” Smiling happily, Brinasse rolled the dice in one hand, and tossed them down on the table in a fluid motion. Over and over they bounced, bone-carved edges clacking softly against the wooden table, until they came to rest on a five and a two.

The six men sucked in their breath, and Unlauon gave a gruff laugh as he pushed four silver coins from in front of himself over to the girl. “Sevens off the bat. Talk about beginner’s luck.”

“It was a good roll.” Brinasse collected her wager from the rest of the men, ears twitching at the clink of coin. “But I’m sure you’ll have an equally good one.”

“Then let’s get into it.” Unlaoun gestured for Erik to take up the dice, and the game continued.

Another hour passed with Brinasse’s inclusion in the game, and the balance of fortune quickly shifted. Unlauon’s pile of winnings slowly dwindled, appearing in front of the Felinoid instead. The amusement of the guards and Dwarf quickly shifted to respect, and Erik’s apparent infatuation with the female traveller grew despite his purse’s emptying. Finally, Unlauon slapped a hand down on the table with a dry laugh. “Gods and demons, girl, you’d make a pirate blush at his misfortune.”

“Aye. What kind of god do you follow that grants you luck at gambling of all things?” Kaldor stroked his beard in irritation. “I should have been following such a divine from the start.”

“I am a monk of Dalfourt, Mr. Urdraan.” The woman’s tail thumped against a leg of her chair as she happily sipped her wine. “I serve him and spread his name, and he blesses me with good fortune.”

Jorik frowned, and glanced at the woman. “Dalfourt, you say? The god of gambling dens? Have you been using his powers to cheat us?”

“Cheat? No, never.” Brinasse gave the man an affronted look. “I have no need of tricks or spellcraft, simply my faith.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” The captain of the guard crossed his arms. “But he blesses you with good luck. Meaning he curses us to bad luck.”

“Curses our purses, it seems.” Erik giggled. “But I’m sure Miss Brinasse meant no ill will.”

“Thank you.” The felixis smiled at the young man, then turned to the rest. “I will happily give back a portion of the money you lost to me, if you’d let me speak more of my god and his ways.”

Scowling, but ultimately relenting, Jorik leaned back in his seat, and listened to Brinasse give a quick speech about Dalfourt’s graces, tenets, and the orphanages built in his name. When she’d finished, the monk drained her second mug of wine, and gave each man back ⅔ of what she’d taken from them. Smiling brightly, Brinasse stood. “Well, I have had my game, spoken my words, and now I must go see about accommodations for the night. So gentlemen, goodnight. I hope you’ll consider giving Dalfourt your patronage if ever you travel near one of his temples.”

“Temple is a strong word for it, miss.” Jorik waved a hand. “In this country, one of those crude establishments would never be allowed. The Emperor doesn’t stand for such things.”

“To each their own.” Tail swaying, Brinasse gave her bow to the men in farewell, and headed for the door to reclaim her maul.

A moment’s hesitation saw Unlauon scoop up and pocket his dice, and the man stood with a chuckle. “I think I’ll need to get my own sleep soon. Besides, I’d rather not be beaten at my own game again. Gents.”

So saying, the man stalked over to the entry, waiting side by side with Brinasse while the tavernkeeper’s son went to fetch their weapons. As they stood, the man glanced down at her. “Where you headed, lucky girl?”

“Wherever Dalfourt leads, which is to say, anywhere.” The woman smiled. “I trust in my good fortune, and things work out for the best.”

Grunting in acknowledgement, Unlauon smiled. “Well, it just so happens that my friends and I have been on a bit of a bad streak recently, and we could use a little bit of luck in our lives. If you’re not going anywhere special, how’d you like some temporary employment?”

“Employment of what kind?”

“Depends on what you can do.” Unlauon watched as the boy handed Brinasse back her maul, eyes lingering on the sigils; pips within square depressions, five on one face and two on the other. “If you can swing that hard enough to hurt, then you can be a fighter.”

“I prefer to fight only in self defense, or in the defense of others.” Brinasse hefted her maul for a moment. “But I am a decent cleric; my tutors in the orphanages said I had the talent necessary for it.”

“Then you can be our healer. We can use one of those too.” Unlauon glanced back at the boy as his own weapons were brought out. Said weapons consisted of a hunting dagger that the man stuck into one boot, and a pair of matched swords. Their curved blades lay within matched scabbards of black lacquered wood decorated with brass depictions of horses on a plain. The guards were discs of the same brass, patterned to resemble a ring of grasses, while the pommels were bell shapes with similar patterning, both separated by crimson cloth wound over the grips. Unlauon placed both scabbards on his left hip, angling them until they rested comfortably. Compared to the rest of his attire, the finery of the blades seemed rather out of place, yet he wore them with the ease of a knight.

Brinasse watched this carefully, then aimed her golden eyes towards Unlauon’s chocolate ones, two feet up. “You have no doctor or healer already?”

“Last one took a quarrel through the eye socket last time we were on a job. Travelers are getting tougher lately.” The man smirked. “So what say you, kitten? Willing to lend your luck to those in need?”

The Homo felixis was silent for a few moments, then took out a copper piece. Flicking it into the air, she gave a grin. “Heads says yes.”

The coin clattered onto the floorboards, drawing the eyes of both the man and the woman. Staring back up at them was the decorated helm of Emperor Ekreion, its starburst halo glittering in the candlelight. With a nod of decisiveness, Brinasse held out one hand. “You have yourself a healer, Mr Unlauon. Sevens and I are at your service.”

Grinning, Unlauon took her hand in a tight shake. “In that case, welcome to the Salthome Bandits, kitten. From now on, you’re under my command. Now let’s go meet your new family, shall we?”

With an easy stride, Unlauon left the tavern, one hand resting upon the blades at his hip. Brinasse hesitated a moment to offer a quick prayer for fortune in her new occupation. That complete, she pulled her hood back up, and followed after her commander. Left behind on the floor was the copper coin, a good luck charm to whomsoever decided to pick it up, blessed by a daughter of Dalfourt.

[thegreatpikminzx789]

Yggdrasil’s Nexus: Prologue (Chapter 2) - Etrian Odyssey Nexus Fanfiction

Wattpad|Ao3|Fanfiction.net

Summary: With the reunion of father and son, the whole family will soon be thankful the Highlander is safe. Even when that's the case, an answer eventually comes to Korey as he decides on what to do next.

Introduction|Next Chapter

AN: I apologize for the delay in writing this. Life and boredom kind of took me over, especially when I’m trying to prepare for something in May. Depending on how I’ll handle things, maybe you’ll see another chapter from me. But anyways, enjoy!

From the protection of the city of Maginia, the colors of the city of Tharsis' buildings are much lighter than they appeared to be through the white, transparent cover that hanged above them. But not that it mattered to Shreya, a young girl who was wearing some clothes a black-haired female Hero gave her as a welcoming gift to Maginia. Staring at the city of Tharsis was all that she had been doing recently, as she let a pair of hands brand her brown hair into twin pigtails.

Her yellow eyes gazed to a gray haired Medic who was sitting right beside them, seeming to be reading a book of notes. All Shreya was wondering about was when her big brother was coming back. She wanted to look for him, but didn't want her hair to be messy in case they bump into her father in Tharsis.

"Mommy, when's Karim and Keiko coming back? They've been gone for nearly two hours..." Shreya asked, fiddling with her fingers as she shifted back her focus to the city of Tharsis. "I'm not sure." A sweet and caring voice spoke behind her.

"Maybe it's taking them a while to find some new clothes for him. I'm not sure what kind of clothes they would have here..." She continued, finishing up the second strand of her pigtail. The gray haired Medic glanced up from his book, turning to the two girls, seeing Shreya stand up and adjust her hat.

The skin colors of Shreya and the woman she called mommy contrasted each other- Shreya having human skin color, while the white haired woman had blue skin. There's also the fact that Shreya's hair color reminded the Medic of the hair his guild leader that he met in Etria. He promised the two people in front of him that he would guide them to where Korey was, but he was unsure where he was, after he left Armoroad...

"Perhaps that may be the case, but if they don't come back within the next day, they'll likely be left behind." He groaned, unsure how long the Maginia will be staying here beside the city of Tharsis. Whatever the amount may be, depending on the amount of adventurers that come, there may be little time left...

"Hey, Hilda, Simon... Sorry I'm late!" A familiar voice called out to the group, as they turn to see Keiko approach them, wrapped a bit in bandages.

Simon stood up in surprise, rushing over to the Therian. "Keiko, what happened to you?! Did you get attacked by someone?!" He exclaimed, quickly inspecting the covered areas on her.

"No, it's nothing too serious, Mr. Simon. I merely tripped when I was searching for Karim." Keiko reassured him, causing him to slow down, but maintain a worried expression on his face. Hilda let out a sigh, shaking her head as she approaches her. "Even when I told you not to trip, you still somehow do..."

Simon looks over the bandages, surprised that they were wrapped very carefully, almost as if they've been applied recently. "Who was it that healed you, exactly? These bandages seem to be wrapped with care..."

Upon being asked, by the gray haired Medic, Keiko turned to face him with a smile on her face. "You're not gonna believe it, but when I was looking for Karim, I found Korey within Tharsis!" Hilda and Shreya let out a surprise gasp when they heard Korey's name.

"Papa healed you, Ms. Keiko?" Shreya exclaimed, getting rather excited to hear that her father was nearby, and in the city that she had been staring at for a while.

"Yeah, he did. He must have learned a lot if he was able to do so." Keiko nodded, seeing the small child jump in joy.

"After two years of searching, we're finally going to be reunited..." Hilda sighed with relief, glad the many days of searching for her beloved would soon be over. "Oh, and he also said that he wanted to see some of his old guild members." The Therian added, having almost forgotten the very thing she was asked from him.

"Then I volunteer to go, seeing as I promised to help guide Hilda and Shreya to see him. If Karim is next to him, he should be easier to spot." Simon declared, putting the book that was on the table inside his bag.

Shreya turned to face her mom, who glanced at her in return. "I'm so excited, mommy! We get to see papa again!" The excitement in her daughter's voice made Hilda smile.

"Korey would be so happy to see us, my daughter. Come, let's prepare to head into Tharsis and make our way to him, rallying a few members who would want to see him." Hilda hummed, motioning her daughter to follow behind her as they make their way inside the building.

"You guys go do that, I'm gonna- oooow, get some rest." Keiko groaned in pain from trying to move. "Perhaps for the better. No need to harm yourself any further." Simon sighed, urging the Therian to get inside.

.................................

Back at the guild house, Yukina, Shirota, Logre, and Frederica all look around outside, looking around for someone. "He couldn't have gone that far..." Shirota pondered, trying to see if she can see him through the crowd of explorers.

"I sure hope he'll be alright." Frederica sighed, trying her best to look for Korey. Logre glanced at the blonde haired gunner, with his typical friendly smile.

"You put too much worry on yourself, Frederica. Just keep looking, he'll be fine." He assured, hearing the millennium girl sigh before continuing her search.

The red haired monk soon spots Korey approaching. "Guys, I see him." Yukina exclaimed, before spotting the smaller person walking alongside him. "And it appears as if he's brought somebody with him."

Shirota turned where Yukina was looking, spotting the small person as well. "That person is rather small, though..." The dancer points out. The Highlander approaches the four person group, seeing them glance at him, mixed with relief, but also worry.

"S-Sorry for taking so long guys, things happened..." Korey chuckled, scratching the back of his head. "Why the kid, though? Is he a new recruit or something?" Logre inquired, causing Korey to glance at Karim for a second to understand the Imperial's question.

"Oh, he's not a new recruit. This is my son." Korey revealed to the group.

"He's your son?!" The four of them exclaimed, startled, yet surprised by the news he suddenly dropped on them.

Korey nods, turning to his son and lets go of his hand. "Why don't you introduce yourself, my boy?" He queried, seeing Karim nod in response to his question, turning to face the group before him.

"My name's Karim! It's so nice to meet ya!" The white haired child chirped.

"D'aaaaawww, he's so adorable~" Shirota couldn't help but coo upon hearing the child's adorable voice, rubbing her hand through his white hair, earning a few giggles out of him as he enjoyed the session from her, removing her hand and smiled back at the beaming child. "I'm Shirota, the Dancer of Korey's guild." She introduced herself, standing up afterward.

Yukina kneels down to face the child, smiling as she comes face to face with him. "The name's Yukina. I'm a monk that traveled from High Lagaard." Karim nods and turns to the next person who knelt to his height.

"I'm Logre. Though you're free to call me 'Whirlwind' if its too confusing." Logre introduced himself, giving the child his friendly grin he normally greeted other explorers when he was called Whirlwind.

"And I'm Frederica Irving. Nice to meet you, Karim." Frederica concluded the introductions, giving the small child a handshake as she spoke to him. Karim looked up at the Imperial.

"Mr. Logre, why do you wear such heavy armor?" He asked, making Logre blink for a moment before he took a seat next to him and sat in it, motioning for the child to come to him. "You see," Logre began, picking up Karim and placed him on his lap.

"I came from a worn-down empire who attempted to use Tharsis' Yggdrasil tree to try and bring new life to the land. But thanks to Korey over here, he helped me and Baldur see the error of our ways, letting me assist him in the battle to defeat the Titan that emerged from the tree." As Logre explained, Karim's eyes widened in surprise, before turning into a face of amusement.

"Woooooow, I wish I could've seen my daddy beat up that Titan!" Karim chirped, wishing he was there to witness the battle Logre mentioned. "Although it was a dangerous battle... With you there, it probably might have worried Korey if he never survived the battle." Shirota argued, crossing her arms after giving the child's words some thought.

Frederica nodded her head in agreement with the dancer. "The Titan wasn't no pushover, and neither was that fail-safe measure that was left behind by the people who were in the Yggdrasil Project. Even with Wufan, Kibagami, and Logre beside us, it was still difficult to take down the Heavenbringer."

Karim looked towards the blonde hair girl, doing his best not to fall off Logre's lap. "I bet it was really cool, though! My father once told me he took down a dragon that mommy once encountered in our Yggdrasil tree." He disclosed, as Korey felt everyone stare at him, probably wanting some validity from him.

"Yeah, that we did." The Highlander sighed after taking a couple of seconds to debate to himself. "But enough about that, why don't we head inside to see more of my guild members, Karim?" He asked, wanting to move on from the topic at hand.

"But I wanna wait til mommy and my little sister come to see all your new guild members!" Karim replied, raising a couple of eyebrows from everyone. Korey was quite confused when he mentioned a little sister.

The sounds of rushing footsteps caught his attention, turning around to be introduced by someone hugging him out of the blue.

"W-Wha-?!" Korey yelped, trying to maintain his balance as he looked at the person hugging him... "I've missed you soooo much, big brother! We've been looking for you for years!"

There was no way... He really felt like he was dreaming. That was the voice of a sister he knew all too well, even looking at her similar hair color and heterochromia of her blue and green eyes.

"M-Misaki?!" Korey finally spoke up, breaking free of the short trance of recognition. She looked up and grinned from ear to ear, hugging him more tightly a few seconds later.

"You honestly have no idea how much we've been waiting to see you!" Another familiar voice called out to Korey, seeing Kyo walk up to him and the others. Her hair was a few inches longer, but other than that, she was completely the same person he was friends with back on Arcania.

"Kyo! You're here too?" Korey gasped, trying to break free of Misaki's grasp. The Celestrian nodded to his question before turning to Misaki and motioned for her to stop hugging him, getting a sigh out of Misaki before separating herself from him.

Karim got off of Logre's lap, running up to hug Misaki, who gladly returned with a hug of her own. "I told you we'd find papa!" Korey heard Karim converse with Misaki, who was also ecstatic.

"Just how many surprises are there, today?!" Frederica exclaimed, honestly surprised at how these two people knew Korey. Granted, she likely should've seen this coming eventually, but with little information on his very first guild, it was surprising to see them for the first time.

"Papa!" Korey quickly turned to see a young girl with a dark blue hat and dress, with a pink cape. Her yellow eyes, as well as seeing her brown hair was enough to cause another memory to snap back into Korey's head. He wasted no time in kneeling down and accepting the girl's hug.

"I missed you so much, papa!" She beamed, feeling her father's arms wrap around her. "Same here, Shreya... God, how did I manage to forget my own children this entire time?" Korey pondered as he continued to hug Shreya for a bit, before separating himself from the hug and reveled in being around his children once more.

"I guess your memory might be coming back into place if this is all that it takes..." Yukina commented, placing her finger on her chin as she tried to soak in all of the information that was happening before her and the others. As Misaki stood up, Karim looked to his left, gasping as if seeing someone familiar.

"Mommy!" Karim called out to, wasting no time in rushing towards the person he called mother. Shreya turned around, letting out a short chuckle before breaking free of her father's hug and followed Karim. Korey stood up and brushed his pants before turning his attention to where the kids were going to, freezing right in his tracks as he spotted who they were running to.

Logre and the others soon turned to face the approaching person, being dragged by the hands of the children. "That's one interesting mother those kids have..." He muttered to himself, trying to get a good grasp on what species the person in question is as he stood up from his chair.

Her white hair, mixed in with some light blue spots on her hair was a soothing combination, with the exception of the red antenna's that sprouted from behind two protrusions of her hair. The clothes she wore were quite familiar to him, as they were the Harbinger clothes that most female Harbingers wore. The blue skin, while drastically contrasting the skin colors the children bore, along with the cyan eyes that he grew to love. She was finally able to break free of the children's grasp, as her velvet arms- adorned with some grey spikes, along with a strange gray and red symbol, brushed at her dress.

Korey steeled himself and walked forward to the person he had waited so long to meet again... She approached him, as both of them stopped half way between, raising her hand and touched his cheek. He... placed his left hand on hers, a small smile forming on his face as he felt the familiar smoothness of her hand grazing against his.

"Hilda..." Korey sighed, bringing his other arm around his beloved, bringing her closer to him. "We're finally back together, Korey. I'm so glad to see you're okay." Hilda smiled, staring at the Highlander's blue eyes.

Korey tried to hold back the tears he was getting from hearing her voice again. "I-I'm so," He stuttered, wiping his tears away with his left hand. "So glad to see you again, after the pain and suffering I've dealt with without you."

Hilda gave him a few pats on the back, before giving him a quick kiss on the lips, causing his face to turn red in the blink of an eye. "There's no need to worry anymore, dear. I'm just glad we never stopped looking for you..." She sighed in relief, tracing her hands to hold his hands. "Along with a few members of your old guilds."

"O-Old members?" Korey questioned, before looking behind her as she walked to stand by his side. A girl with light green hair, red scarf and white clothes, ear covers with an interesting pattern, along with what appears to be wings sprouting from behind it, along with two diamond shaped trails below it.

Next up was a white skinned Sovereign, though her familiar green and red tipped hair and forest-like clothing was all too familiar to him. Following behind them was a Celestrian with red and orange hair, a Pugilist with black and yellow hair, and the all-too-familiar gray-haired Medic from the Midgard Library, Simon Yorke. The two green haired girls made no effort to hide their excitement of seeing Korey again, evident by their combined hugs on the Highlander.

"Lola! Hibiki! You girls are here too?" Korey chuckled, returning the hug for the two of them.

"Yep!" Lola chirped, excitement filling her very voice. "We've been waiting for mooooonths to see you again!"

The Forest Princess nodded in agreement. "We art pleased to see thee once again, Korey. And this time, with thy entire family." Hibiki added, giving the Highlander one of her rarest smiles.

"Man, I wish you were with us to see how huge the family's gotten!" The Pugilist hummed, quickly catching Korey's attention as he spots the Pugilist and male Celestrian approaching him. "Ayako, Ion! It's nice to see you again!" Korey grinned, giving both of them short hugs.

"Ion glad Korey is safe and alive. If Korey died, Ion would not know what to do..." Ion's voice quavered a bit, almost as if he had been fearing the worst outcome.

"At least you found him in the best case scenario, Ion." Korey could only grin upon recognizing the voice, quickly removing himself from the hug as he noticed Frederica approach a gray haired Medic. "Simon!" She chirped, easily getting a smile formed on Simon's face.

"It's been quite some time, hasn't it, Ricky?" Simon chuckled, greeting his friend back in Etria and High Lagaard. Yukina looked around, almost dumbfounded at what had happened.

"I am so lost on what's happening." Yukina sighed, admitting her confusion at long last. "This is amazing, but at the same time, I feel as if we're left in the dark as to who everyone else is." Shirota added, sharing her expression of confusion.

As Korey turned around, he noticed Logre looking at him, almost as if he's urging him to explain something. "O-Oh, yeah, I guess introductions are in order." Korey spoke up, motioning for the others to settle their conversations, clearing his throat before motioning to the small girl.

"Shreya is my daughter that me and Hilda had a year after Karim was born. This is my wife, Hilda, the girl with the blue and green eye is my sister, Misaki," Korey began, doing his best to keep a clear voice as he motioned to the next person. "The Celestrian woman is Kyo, the guy in the green robe with red and orange hair is Ion, Ayako's the one with black and yellow hair, Simon Yorke is from the Midgard Library, Lola came from someplace within Armoroad, and Hibiki was a Forest Folk I encountered in High Lagaard."

Korey had to let out a huge sigh after that. God, he hasn't given a long-winded introduction before, but boy, he's gonna have a hell of a time the least he expects it.

"And judging from the looks of things, it looks like a lot more of Korey's members are soon going to join the family~" Ayako hummed, placing a hand on his hip.

Frederica couldn't help but tilt her head in confusion. "What does he mean by that?"

"He usually tends to act like a father towards anyone he meets. Questioning him is like asking a brick wall..." Simon explained, sighing as he rubs his hand on his head.

Korey couldn't help but chuckle. "Now you know how I felt when I first talked to him. He's just that caring."

"Plus, you seem to have gotten a ton of guild members the last time we saw you." Kyo chimed in, divulging the conversation. "They've been on the Maginia, waiting to see you again."

Oh boy...

"Including everyone from your first guild!" Misaki added, causing Korey to gulp to hide his worry. Who knew being the leader would've eventually lead to this?

"T-That is quite a lot of people to manage, though!" Korey stuttered, soon turning his attention to his approaching children.

"That is a lot, papa! But I know you can do it!"

"Yeah, me too!"

Korey's worried stance started to lower upon hearing his children's encouragement. At least they know how to keep him up whenever things looked down or whatever caused him to be worried.

"Given your leadership skills, it seems like everybody we met who knew you had some great memories traveling with you." Hilda noted, her hands grazing up at his arm before wrapping her own arm around his. "It would please everyone, including us, if you came back..."

Well now that's just a given.

"Of course I'd come back to you, Hilda. You, my family, and friends are what kept me going, and I don't intend on stopping anytime soon." Korey assured, placing a kiss on her cheek and causing a giggle to come forth.

Shirota couldn't help but inquire something that she had been wanting to ask. "Then, is your mind made up about going on the Maginia?"

Korey's eyes turned to look at the brown skinned dancer, with a smile on his face. "Just because I'm finally reunited with my friends and family doesn't mean we can stop soon. Wherever this Maginia will take us, we'll have the adventure of our lives!"

The sound of sniffling caught everyone's attention, as they turn to see Yukina trying to wipe away at some runaway tears that couldn't help but escape her grasp. "Man, you grow up so fast, Korey..."

Logre grinned as he placed a few comforting pats on her shoulder. "To be honest, he's already grown up, seeing as he's got a family of his own."

"Still doesn't mean I'm wrong..." Yukina uttered, wiping away another tear from her eyes as she tried to calm herself down.

"I'm sure the Count will need to hear my decision on traveling to the Maginia." Korey spoke up, causing Logre to give him a glare that, although wasn't menacing, urged him to do something.

"Then just go already. You're the leader, you should know when to make the first move." Logre insisted, giving him his casual happy-go-lucky grin.

"Logre right." Ion concurred without hesitation. "Korey should speak with Mr. Count person."

"What is this, everybody remind Korey day?" Korey groaned, rubbing his head in confusion.

"We'll make it seem that way until you get going." Hilda teased, finally giving Korey the incentive to go.

"Okay, fine, we're going..." Korey sighed, urging the group behind him to follow behind him. "I'll start making supper, so don't stay there for too long!" Korey heard Yukina call out to him. Despite knowing that she wasn't his actual mother, Korey couldn't really help but feel confused about the huge family he's getting himself into.

He nodded in response, holding Hilda's hand as she walked beside him, finally able to do so after two painstaking years of waiting for this moment. Nobody'd blame them for having missed each other for that long.

"Come on, kids!" Lola chirped to Karim and Shreya, who were a bit behind from the group. "Coming!" They replied, trying their best to catch up with their father and mother.

.............................................

After going through the same street he traveled through multiple times to report their mission to the man himself, the group arrived at the Outland Count's place. Some of Korey's old guildmates were quite surprised by the huge size of the place, but followed behind them nevertheless. Korey and Shirota soon tell everyone to wait beside the door and keep their noises down.

Probably wanting to surprise the Count with the news he found on his own might not have been a great idea, but if he was gonna kill two theoretical birds with one stone, he was going with it, dammit. As Korey opened the door, he spotted Baldur conversing with the Count. The squeaking of the door caught their attention, as they spot Korey peeking through the door, along with Shirota.

"Oh- ummmmmmm," Korey began, shifting his eyes to almost any direction he can look at. "I-Is this a bad time to come in?"

Though he probably might've been mad, the Count's smile held no malice towards their eavesdrop. "Ah, Korey, Shirota. We weren't discussing private matters, but next time do knock." The Count replied, rubbing Margarita's fur with his hand.

"Y-Yes sir." Korey sighed, urging Shirota to go through the door before he followed afterwards, slowly closing the door behind them, but keeping it open so slightly. "I came here to discuss about the guildhouse with you, but I also bring a bit more regarding how many people I brought with me. I figured you and Baldur might want to meet them.

"New recruits, am I not mistaken?" Baldur couldn't help but ask, wondering why he would announce new explorers at a time like this.

Korey and Shirota looked at each other for a couple of seconds, before Korey shrugged his shoulders. "It's easier to show than to tell." Korey replied as he turned and opened the doors, motioning for the others that were waiting outside to come into the room.

Lola was instantly taken in by the room's decor. "Woooow, this room is the most coolest one of all~"

The Count had to reassure Margarita, as he glanced at the many faces that entered the room. "Are you fellows friends with Korey?" He asked Hilda who stood by her beloved's side.

"Everyone else here is." She answered the Count's question. "As for me and my children, we're more of a family to Korey, than friends."

Baldur couldn't help but blink. After all, he's seen at least a few married couples back in the empire, including Shira and her husband. Seeing Hilda was quite a surprising change of pace...

"So, you're... Korey's wife?" Baldur inquired, wanting to get some assurance to make sure he wasn't going crazy.

Hilda turned to face the Imperial Prince. "Yes, I am. The name's Hilda, the last remaining Arken in existence. And these are our children, Karim, and Shreya."

"Pleased to meet ya!" Karim waved at Baldur upon hearing his name, as Shreya followed suit. "Yeah, pleased to meet you!"

Before Baldur could sink in the information he heard, he saw Margarita walk to the two children, sniffing them to determine whether or not they're a threat.

"D'aaaaww, it's a puppy!" Karim cooed, doing his best not to frighten her. Eventually, Margarita's ears perked up, starting to feel at ease with the amount of people in the room.

Shreya couldn't help grin from ear to ear. "Soooo adorable! Is it alright if we play with her?"

The Count gave the children an eager smile, seeing as the children would need to do something to rid themselves of boredom. "Go right ahead, lads. We'll be discussing something in the meantime."

With the go ahead from the count, the kids start petting and using the dog toys to play with Margarita. After assuring himself that everything will be fine, he turned to see the gray haired Medic. "I assume you must be this Simon Yorke fellow Korey once mentioned to me."

"Indeed I am." Simon nodded as he confirmed the Count's assumption, as the two shook each other's hands.

"It's a pleasure to meet with one of the Midgard Library members. Words of your efforts had often been the word of gossip when explorers from Etria came here." The Count proclaimed, seeing Simon grin as they finish shaking each other's hands.

"I wouldn't be surprised. After solving the mystery of the Yggdrasil Tree, there wasn't much one can do in Etria, so me and a few others from the library went back. Korey and Ricky are the only ones who still travel together."

"That they do." The Count concurred with Simon's explanation, before looking around the room and seeing the others had been waiting patiently. "Now, may I ask who the others are?"

Upon hearing his question, Hibiki made her move by bowing to him before raising herself up and looked at the Count with her scarlet eyes. "I am Hibiki. It's a pleasure to meeteth thee." Kyo, Lola, Ayako, and Misaki introduced themselves shortly afterward.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you. I am Prince Baldur of the Yggdrasil Empire." Baldur introduced himself, shaking Hilda's hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Baldur." Hilda hummed, as the Count glanced at Shirota. "So, Shirota, introductions aside, why did you and Korey come here?"

"Ah, you see, Korey finally made up his mind to head to the Maginia, and we were wondering what we should do about the guild house." Shirota explained, seeing the Count smirk a little, likely as if he predicted their reason for being here.

"Well, Baldur and I have been discussing a bit about that particular thing, and we decided to come to a conclusion."

Shocking that despite their hatred back in the Empire's domain, they eventually managed to grow past their previous debate. Korey turned to Baldur, waiting for an explanation from the Prince himself.

"The Count will be looking over after our guild house. Since Maginia will be a temporary home as we explore the new region, we'll need our home to be ready for when we arrive back."

Shirota sighed in relief upon hearing Baldur's explanation. "I see. We'll need a place to come back to eventually, so that's justifiable." She hummed, clasping her hands together.

"Although with that being said..." Korey, on the other hand, let out a rather questionable sigh as he turned to face the Count.

"After we do visit this place that the Maginia will take us too, I won't be the guild leader of the Refulgent Guild. I have a home to look forward to, back with my family and friends..." Korey explained, his gaze soon looking away from the Count as he spoke.

He felt someone clasp his hand in reassurance, turning his head to see Hilda attempting to calm him down through a smile of hers... Though it wasn't enough to fully cheer him up, he smiled back with whatever strength he could muster.

"Then, who might take up your role as the leader?" Shirota couldn't help but question Korey. The very question made him perk up, as if he was expecting that question to be asked.

"Baldur will." He disclosed, getting gasps from Shirota, the Count, and Baldur himself. "For now, he's going to be traveling with us as a guild member on the Maginia."

Baldur couldn't really believe what Korey was doing here. Here he was, seeing a Highlander, who led four guilds before their encounter, never giving up his position as guild leader on all of the times he told them he had led his guilds. This felt like it was all a dream, for Baldur never expected to truly find himself descending from ruling an empire to leading a guild.

"Y-You really trust me to be a leader? Even after what I wanted to do originally?" Baldur couldn't help but question the Highlander's decision.

But Korey was stubborn in his decision.

"I'm sure Logre would agree with me fully on this, Baldur. He would've made you the leader if he felt like it, but he believed that day will come eventually." Korey explained, leaving the prince stunned and silent to ponder the information the Highlander left him with.

The adults in the room fell silent as they let Baldur think to himself, hearing only the sounds of the dog toys being thrown and Karim and Shrey's cooing and adoring Margarita. The Count eventually cleared his throat, bringing all of them back to the point of discussion.

"Back to the subject, there's something I wish to discuss with you, Korey." He began, shifting a couple of papers he had to the side, handing them to Korey.

"What's this about?" Korey inquired, unable to fully grasp what was written on the papers.

"When the princess and her soldier assistant was here, I asked if he could secure a guild house for you, along with seeing if they can take your airship with you." The Count began, taking a moment to sip the drink provided to him by a butler.

"And he allowed that airship of yours to be held. He should be able to get you a guild house by the time you make your guild there."

Hilda and Shirota gasped in excitement upon hearing that news. "We'll be able to have a guild house there?" The dancer spoke up, trying her best not to freak out like she did the last time when they were given their guildhouse the last time.

The Count's nod was all that she needed to know to confirm her question. "Oh, thank you for doing this for us, Count!"

Korey and the Count couldn't help but chuckle at her amusement. "It's the least I can do for the guild who saved the land of Tharsis, after all. Why, even some adventurers who won't go to the Maginia will help protect the town while you're gone."

"That is forsooth reassuring." Hibiki hummed, her hidden relief of the town being attacked was out of the question.

"Knowing that there are others to protect the town you care about in your place does ease one's worries." Simon added, glancing over to Karim and Shreya, as a smile formed on his face.

"Anyways, if that's all you've come to discuss, then I will see you off tomorrow morning. You should head back and make preparations to leave." Baldur tilted his head up as he heard the Count speak, nodding as if he was following an automatic protocol whenever meetings had ended back in the empire.

"Sounds good to me. We'll see you tomorrow, Count." Kyo commented, urging the other members of Korey's guild to start to walk out of the room.

"Karim, Shreya! We're heading back to the guild house!" Korey called out, seeing the children stop what they're doing and turning to face their father.

"Ooooh, do we have to?" Karim sighed, wanting to play with Margarita some more.

Hilda smirked, as if she's been through this before.

"I guess you must not be that hungry, then. No deserts when we get back to the Maginia~"

Her jest worked wonders on the children, quickly dropping the toys they held. "Okay, okay, we're coming!" Shreya shouted, rushing over to grab her father's open hand, with Karim grabbing Hilda's hand. With the family together, they made their way out of the door.

The Count knelt down and picked up Margarita, holding her in his arms as he waved goodbye at the leaving group of people.

"Have a good afternoon!" He yelled to the group, who took a moment to stop and look back, shouting the same thing to him before leaving the building.

Today was a day Korey would never forget. But who said it was over just like that? He still had to check up on the others, for god's sake!

For now, he wanted to just embrace his beloved the moment when they're free from dinner.

[tina-423]

Ten Interesting Greece Novels:

1). “ When the Tree Sings” by Stratis Haviaras : The cover of this book is deceptively pastoral, because a world of casual brutality as well as timeless beauty awaits within its pages. Set in a Greek village during the Second World War, firmly under Nazi occupation, the story is seen & recalled through the memories of a boy, well aware of cruelty & injustice, yet also aware of the golden haze of tradition & imagination. It's written in remarkable prose, which utilizes bold, even harsh strokes of sunlight & shadow, while maintaining a gorgeous lyricism. The senses are all engaged in palpable detail & immediacy, so that the reader is there in the midst of all that happens. At times this is almost unbearable; but such is the author's skill that we continue reading anyway. (Source: Amazon)

2). “ Eleni” by Nicholas Gage :  In 1948, as civil war ravaged Greece, children were abducted and sent to communist "camps" inside the Iron Curtain. Eleni Gatzoyiannis, forty-one, defied the traditions of her small village and the terror of the communist insurgents to arrange for the escape of her three daughters and her son, Nicola. For that act, she was imprisoned, tortured, and executed in cold blood. Nicholas Gage joined his father in Massachusetts at the age of nine and grew up to become a top New York Times investigative reporter, honing his skills with one thought in mind: to return to Greece and uncover the one story he cared about most: the story of his mother. Eleni takes you into the heart a village destroyed in the name of ideals and into the soul of a truly heroic woman. “(Source: Amazon)”

3).  “ Zorba the Greek” by Nikos Kazantzakis, Νίκος Καζαντζάκης: The classic novel, international sensation, and inspiration for the film starring Anthony Quinn explores the struggle between the aesthetic and the rational, the inner life and the life of the mind. The classic novel Zorba the Greek is the story of two men, their incredible friendship, and the importance of living life to the fullest. Zorba, a Greek working man, is a larger-than-life character, energetic and unpredictable. He accompanies the unnamed narrator to Crete to work in the narrator’s lignite mine, and the pair develops a singular relationship. The two men couldn’t be further apart: The narrator is cerebral, modest, and reserved; Zorba is unfettered, spirited, and beyond the reins of civility. Over the course of their journey, he becomes the narrator’s greatest friend and inspiration and helps him to appreciate the joy of living. Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the most remarkable figures in literature; he is a character in the great tradition of Sinbad the Sailor, Falstaff, and Sancho Panza. He responds to all that life offers him with passion, whether he’s supervising laborers at a mine, confronting mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the tales of his past adventures, or making love. Zorba the Greek explores the beauty and pain of existence, inviting readers to reevaluate the most important aspects of their lives and live to the fullest. (Source: Good Reads)

4). “ The Odyssey” by by Homer, Robert Fagles (Translator), E.V. Rieu, Frédéric Mugler(Translator), Bernard Knox (Introduction):  Literature's grandest evocation of life's journey, at once an ageless human story and an individual test of moral endurance, Homer's ancient Greek epic The Odyssey is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox in Penguin Classics. When Robert Fagles' translation of The Iliad was published in 1990, critics and scholars alike hailed it as a masterpiece. Here, one of the great modern translators presents us with The Odyssey, Homer's best-loved poem, recounting Odysseus' wanderings after the Trojan War. With wit and wile, the 'man of twists and turns' meets the challenges of the sea-god Poseidon, and monsters ranging from the many-headed Scylla to the cannibalistic Cyclops Polyphemus - only to return after twenty years to a home besieged by his wife Penelope's suitors. In the myths and legends retold in this immortal poem, Fagles has captured the energy of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom. Seven greek cities claim the honour of being the birthplace of Homer (c. 8th-7th century BC), the poet to whom the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey are attributed. The Iliad is the oldest surviving work of Western literature, but the identity - or even the existence - of Homer himself is a complete mystery, with no reliable biographical information having survived. If you enjoyed The Odyssey, you might like Robert Fagles' translation of The Iliad, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Wonderfully readable ... Just the right blend of roughness and sophistication' Ted Hughes 'A memorable achievement ... Mr Fagles has been remarkably successful in finding a style that is of our time and yet timeless' Richard Jenkyns, The New York Times Book Review 'His translation of The Odyssey is his best work yet' Garry Wills, New Yorke.”(Source: Good Reads)” 

5). “ Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays #1)” by: Sophocles, J.E. Thomas (Translator: "...what man wins more happiness than just its shape and the ruin when that shape collapses?" Sophocles' Oedipus Rex has never been surpassed for the raw and terrible power with which its hero struggles to answer the eternal question, "Who am I?" The play, a story of a king who acting entirely in ignorance kills his father and marries his mother, unfolds with shattering power; we are helplessly carried along with Oedipus towards the final, horrific truth. To make Oedipus more accessible for the modern reader, our Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics includes a glossary of the more difficult words, as well as convenient sidebar notes to enlighten the reader on aspects that may be confusing or overlooked. We hope that the reader may, through this edition, more fully enjoy the beauty of the verse, the wisdom of the insights, and the impact of the drama. “(Source: Good Reds)”

6). “ Antigone (The Theban Plays #3)” by Sophocles, J.E. Thomas (Translator): The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles' classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play. Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can. To make this quintessential Greek drama more accessible to the modern reader, this Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary of difficult terms, a list of vocabulary words, and convenient sidebar notes. By providing these, it is our intention that readers will more fully enjoy the beauty, wisdom, and intent of the play. “(Source: Good Reasons)”

7). “ Tides of War” by Steven Pressfield:  Brilliant at war, a master of politics, and a charismatic lover, Alcibiades was Athens’ favorite son and the city’s greatest general. A prodigal follower of Socrates, he embodied both the best and the worst of the Golden Age of Greece. A commander on both land and sea, he led his armies to victory after victory. But like the heroes in a great Greek tragedy, he was a victim of his own pride, arrogance, excess, and ambition. Accused of crimes against the state, he was banished from his beloved Athens, only to take up arms in the service of his former enemies. For nearly three decades, Greece burned with war and Alcibiades helped bring victories to both sides — and ended up trusted by neither. Narrated from death row by Alcibiades’ bodyguard and assassin, a man whose own love and loathing for his former commander mirrors the mixed emotions felt by all Athens, Tides of War tells an epic saga of an extraordinary century, a war that changed history, and a complex leader who seduced a nation. “(Source: Good Reads)” 

8). “ Medea” by Euripides, Rex Warner (Translator):  One of the most powerful and enduring of Greek tragedies, Medea centers on the myth of Jason, leader of the Argonauts, who has won the dragon-guarded treasure of the Golden Fleece with the help of the sorceress Medea. Having married Medea and fathered her two children, Jason abandons her for a more favorable match, never suspecting the terrible revenge she will take. Euripides' masterly portrayal of the motives fiercely driving Medea's pursuit of vengeance for her husband's insult and betrayal has held theater audiences spellbound for more than twenty centuries. Rex Warner's authoritative translation brings this great classic of world literature vividly to life. “(Source: Good Reads)”

9). “ Electra” by Euripides, Janet Lempke (translator):  Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Herbert Golder and the late William Arrowsmith, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. This vital translation of Euripides' Electra recreates the prize-winning excitement of the original play. Electra, obsessed by dreams of avenging her father's murder, impatiently awaits the return of her exiled brother Orestes. After his arrival Electra uses Orestes as her instrument of vengeance, killing their mother's husband, then their mother herself - and only afterward do they see the evil inherent in these seemingly just acts. But in his usual fashion, Euripides has imbued myth with the reality of human experience, counterposing suspense and horror with comic realism and down-to-earth comments on life. “(Source Good Reads)”

10). “ The Penelopiad” by Margaret Atwood: Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making.In Homer’s account in The Odyssey, Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumors, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters, and sleeping with goddesses, he kills her suitors and—curiously—twelve of her maids.In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged maids, asking: “What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?” In Atwood’s dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing. With wit and verve, drawing on the story-telling and poetic talent for which she herself is renowned, she gives Penelope new life and reality—and sets out to provide an answer to an ancient mystery. “(Source Good Reads)”