#Peninsula Pulse

[olympicjournal]

Peninsula Pulse

[No. 001] Nov 17, 2024

Clallam County: Where the Action Never Stops

Fentanyl Chaos + Law Enforcement Upheaval Let’s talk Clallam, where the OPNET drug task force is on life support. State officials just pulled the plug on its $180,000 annual budget, leaving law enforcement scrambling. Local officials are calling this a disaster amid a record-setting fentanyl overdose crisis. With Clallam County staring down its highest-ever annual overdose death toll—potentially crossing 50 lives lost—defunding seems as logical as a screen door on a submarine.

Meanwhile, a tragic crash on Highway 101 near Gardiner took the lives of a mother and her child. This heartbreaking incident has reignited conversations about road safety and seatbelt use in the region. Let’s hope some good policy emerges from this sorrowful event.

SEQUIM’S ARTISTIC REVOLUTION Our little lavender town is stepping up its game! A local photographer is breaking free from the frame, proving that art isn't just for your grandma's living room walls anymore[1]. This rebel with a cause is joining the Strait from the Artists tour, probably to show us all how to think outside the box – or should I say, outside the frame?

PORT ANGELES GETS DOWN TO BUSINESS Hold onto your wallets, folks! Port Angeles is implementing an annual business license fee[1]. If you're raking in over $25k, prepare to shell out $190. Because nothing says "support local business" like another fee, am I right?

WITCHES ON WATER In a twist that would make Salem proud, about two dozen witches paddled from Northwest Maritime to the Pourhouse pub[1]. No word on whether they used broomsticks or kayaks, but I'm betting it was a spell-binding sight!

Jefferson County: Keeping It Classy

Jefferson County: Progress with a Side of Dystopia Jefferson’s main stage featured a sobering blend of hope and bureaucratic theatrics. On the one hand, local organizations are scrambling to pick up the slack as OPNET funding disappears, hoping advocacy and recovery efforts can stem the tide of addiction. Yet, there’s no escaping the fact that losing proactive policing might leave communities more vulnerable.

On a brighter note, the arts are alive! Port Townsend is buzzing about an upcoming film festival, showcasing the creative resilience of this quirky enclave. A friendly reminder to support local filmmakers because Hollywood doesn’t have a monopoly on storytelling.

FROM WAR TO PEACE In a heartwarming turn of events, we're seeing a shift from "inhuman to humane"[2]. It's almost like someone's been reading my Julius Evola collection and decided to turn over a new leaf. Who says right-wingers can't appreciate a good redemption story?

HONORING OUR HEROES Veterans Day ceremonies are popping up faster than organic kale in my garden[2]. From Gardiner to Port Townsend, we're showing our vets some well-deserved love. Because nothing says "thank you for your service" like a good old-fashioned ceremony and maybe a free coffee at the local diner.

Kitsap County: The Quiet Achiever

Kitsap County: Storms and Showdowns Over in Kitsap, heavy rains and strong winds recently knocked out power for thousands. Our neighbors weathered the storm with admirable grit, but the incident underscores the need for robust infrastructure in an era of increasing climate volatility. Also, Kitsap’s ongoing push for better public transit has sparked heated debates, with locals torn between economic feasibility and environmental urgency. Cue the popcorn; this saga isn’t over yet.

Folks, I scoured the interwebs for some juicy Kitsap news, but it seems our neighbors are keeping it on the down-low.

BELL HILL HINT

Here on East Bell Hill, we know that self-reliance isn’t just a hashtag; it’s a lifestyle. Whether it’s OPNET’s funding woes or a highway tragedy, these stories remind us of the importance of community resilience. The world can be chaotic, but we’ve got donkeys to hug, gardens to tend, and a local arts scene to uplift. Let’s keep questioning the narratives, supporting each other, and building something real.

THE KAI-LIGHT REEL

Now, let's zoom out for a second. While we're all caught up in our local bubble, remember that we're living in a world that might just be a giant computer simulation. So next time you're arguing with your neighbor about property lines, just remember – it might all be ones and zeros, baby!

But hey, simulation or not, there's something beautiful about our little corner of the world. From the artists pushing boundaries to the witches making waves (literally), we're keeping it real – or as real as it gets in this matrix.

And you know what? In a world that sometimes feels like it's spinning off its axis, our community's commitment to honoring veterans and shifting towards more humane perspectives warms my heart. It's a reminder that even us skeptics can appreciate the good in people.

So, whether you're a right-wing homesteader like yours truly, a left-leaning lavender farmer, or somewhere in between, remember – we're all in this together. Unless, of course, we're not, and this is all just a highly sophisticated computer program. In which case, I hope I'm at least coded as devastatingly handsome!

Stay free, stay skeptical, and for the love of all that's holy, stay away from those business license fees! This is Kai, signing off from the hilltop. Until next time, stay wild and wonderful!

Citations: [1] https://www.myclallamcounty.com [2] https://www.peninsuladailynews.com [3] https://www.sequimgazette.com

[uncharismatic-fauna]

An Affinity for the Southern River Terrapin

The southern river terrapin (Batagur affinis), also known as the tungtung or the royal turtle, is a species of freshwater turtle residing, as its name implies, in the southern part of the Malaysian Peninsula, particularly along the western coast. They reside in estuaries, portions of large rivers that are regularly exposed to ocean tides.

While initially plain in appearance, the southern river terrapin can be visually striking. The body and shell are entirely black, or dark brown in females. The only spots of color are carried by males: bright yellow or white eyes and orange inner cheek flaps that are exposed when the mouth opens. Batagur affinis is also quite big, with females (the larger of the two sexes) reaching an average length of 62 cm (24 in) and a weight of 38 kg (83 lbs).

The tungtung is an omnivorous species. Its serrated beak allows it to feed on a variety of plants like grasses, algae, and fruits, as well as freshwater invertebrates like crustaceans and mollusks. Due to the high salinity of their habitats, they often leave the rivers and forage for food on land. The large size and thick shells of adults deters most predators. However, eggs and hatchlings are vulnerable to monitor lizards, otters, birds of prey, and crocodiles.

Mating for Batagur affinis occurs from October to February. Males and females remain relatively solo throughout the rest of the year, although they aren't overly territorial. Once a male locates a female, the two touch noses and he pulses his jaw to emphasize his bright orange cheek pouches and the white stripes on the inside of his throat. After copulation, the female lays a clutch of 20-40 eggs in nests dug in the sandy river bank. Young royal turtles hatch anywhere from 60-120 days later, depending on the temperature of the nest. Juveniles can take 18-22 years to reach maturity. Adults regularly reach ages well over 45, and individuals as old as 100 have been recorded.

Conservation status: The southern river turtle is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Over-harvesting of both eggs and individuals has decimated populations, and those that remain are threatened by habitat destruction. However, both local and international conservation efforts have been underway to preserve the species and its ecosystem.

If you like what I do, consider buying me a ko-fi!

Photos

Eng Heng Chan

Paul Calle

Thorn Sophun

[authorddreamz]

More Than Words Left Between Us... Part 2! Coming Soon 🤞🏾💨🧚🏾

Listen....I'm on a very strict journey to discipline myself as a writer. So, I'm going to drop this on Friday June 20th, 2025 8 PM CST

The grand opening of Club Juke proves to be too much for Annie. Seeing Smoke interact with other women so soon after reuniting with her sets off emotions she's far too fragile to process.

Smoke, riding a high from his reunion with his love, misses all the signals that their paradise is slowly going from a peninsula to a sinking island.

Preview:

Annie forced a smile to her face as Pearline, a locally known singer, pranced in her direction.

"Can you believe it!" Pearline crooned, cat eyes pulled tight as she grabbed Annie's hand. "I've heard so much buzz about this place opening and it's finally happening."

Annie's eyes shifted from Pearline to Smoke as he stood not too far off, in a close conversation with Stack. "Yeah, umm. It's great. I-haven't heard a thing about it though." Annie allowed the vulnerability to slip into her tone.

Pearline stood straighter, frowning. "You ain't know your man and his twin were opening a club?"

Once again, Annie felt like an outsider in Smoke's world. "Nope." Her lips popped as she returned her eyes to Pearline. "No biggie though."

Pearline's shoulders bounced. "Well, you're here and I saw you two walk in arm and arm. Don't let these hoes shake you. That man loves you down." Before Annie could say more, Pearline walked away.

A task. One presenting itself to be impossible. Each time a woman approached him, seductive eyes and intimate gestures, Annie's pulse quickened. Jealously danced in her gut, unapologetic twist and turns as she struggled to keep the rage from her expression. These emotions although new, were perpetual, undeniably draconian.

How does he do this so effortlessly?

Smoke's ability to unravel her both emotionally and physically deserves a prolific dissertation. Someone...anyone would sit through it, take notes and somehow use it to heal the world or set it on fire. She'd die peacefully as a sacrifice, not wanting anything else.

Rudely, her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of yet another woman approaching Smoke. Annie's eyes took in the deep plunge in her dress, coupled with a slit that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Manicured fingers curled around his wrist before she leaned in to place a kiss on his cheek. She wasn't the first woman to kiss him tonight and Annie knew she wouldn't be the last.

She couldn't stomach it.

"Fuck this." She grabbed her purse from the table, snapping it close before she started towards the door. The moment she began to move, she knew he was following her, yet she didn't stop in her stride to the exit.

Smoke cut in front of her, gently grabbing her arm before turning her to him. Intense eyes hit her as smoke from his cigar lingered between them like words unspoken. His gaze was centered on her as she shifted her weight in her stance. He stepped closer to her, invading her personal space like it was his to do with as he pleased. His hands moved from her arm to her waist, a gesture of intimacy that didn't hit her the way it usually did.

"Another hour or so before we can go." Smoke stepped closer to her, pulling her into a quick kiss as Annie struggled with returning his passion. Smoke instantly frowned. "Talk to me."

"I was gonnna call a Lyft. I'm a little tired."

He nodded. "Aight. Let me grab my shit and we can go."

"No." Annie grabbed him before he could move. "You should stay with Stack, you know he functions better with you in close proximity."

Smoke's brows touched. "You wanna leave alone?"

"It's a short ride..."

"You going to check on ol' boy?" His brow lifted, eyes hard and focused. Such a contradiction to the loud and loose club goers surrounding them. Loose tension moved between them, silently brewing as their eyes had a standoff.

"No." Annie answered finally. "I'm going home."

"To him?" Smoke refused to allow her to leave without real answers.

"No." Annie groaned. "I'm actually just sick of seeing bitches in your face. I need a break."

Smoke's jaw clenched. "I just had my face between you legs for eight hours, Annie. I plan to put your pussy right back in my face when we leave here." Smoke looked around, confused by her words. "I've been licking my lips so much they're chapped because I can still taste you on my tongue. Your juices still linger in my beard and I ain't doing shit to get rid of them because that's where they belong." He stepped into her, forcing her against the wall. "What bitches are you referring to, my love?"

.....

Friday, I swear! On momma grave! - Stack Moore 🥰

[fudgebuggyy]

H E L L I C O N I A S P R I N G

Pairing: Thunderbolts!Bob x Thunderbolts!Yelena

Tags: Post-Canon, Thunderbolts Team Members Live in the Watchtower, Mutual Pining, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort

Warnings: Thunderbolts SPOILERS contained!, Implied/Referenced Past Drug Addiction, Sexual Themes

Word count: 4.052k

Chapters: 2/4

Previous Chapter ✢ Next Chapter

Summary: Three months have passed since the Void descended upon New York, and Yelena is getting used to the life her sister led--dealing with PR agents and working in a team she's only recently learned to tolerate.

And then there's the Bob thing. And the Bob thing is super fucking complicated.

✢ Chapter 2 ✢

Bob told Yelena about the only person who had ever loved him from start to finish. He said it like that too, from start to finish. Like it was some grand, unbelievable gesture bestowed upon only the most deserving; like the Pope, or the son of “The Crocodile Hunter”.

Bob’s aunt had been one of those old-school hippies whose biggest achievement had been performing in a shoegaze band at Woodstock. She’d worn fringe vests and clunky crystal earrings and laced her coffee with turmeric powder. In summer, she'd rage against the cicadas by playing the guitar on her porch, her yellow bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac, with the crooked eaves and the sun catchers that scattered the loveliest light. 

Her favorite movie was The Man Who Fell to Earth starring David Bowie.

She spent most of his childhood fleeing the suburbs for beautiful places; Jaipur, the Sinai Peninsula, sending postcards from the Yellow Mountains in Anhui that Bob hid from his mother, who always thought of her sister as "dangerously progressive". Off and on, she reappeared on the porch of her little bungalow, the adventurer returned home, bestowing upon him riches from countries so far away they felt huge and cartoonish in his head at thirteen.

She taught Bob chess and how to roll a cigarette, and every once in a while, she taught him some dusty dance in her backyard—disco fox, Viennese waltz—her ditzy laughter, and her breath bloated with alcohol.

Like her sister, she had a bad taste in men. She forever fell for the lead singer, and they forever did something horrible that chased her out the country. That’s why you go for the drummers, Robbie. You go for the compass, the pulse of the group. They’re worth their weight in gold.

She died of lung cancer. Bob was nineteen. He spent months crashing in his dealer’s trailer at the edge of town, trying to get so high he’d forget or maybe die, but each time he came to, he was spit out into a world without her.

Bob had spoken about his aunt only once and then never again.

Yelena wondered if you could piece someone together based on the people they’d loved, or further even, if you could love someone based on who they were loved by. She wasn’t sure yet. She wasn’t sure about a lot of things.

But, bit by bit, she’d piece Bob together, a patchwork of tossed-aside comments and strange stories and extraordinary mistakes and the sun tattooed in the dip below his right ankle, and by the time the fourth month rolled around, whatever had been coming for her, came for her all at once.

It felt more like a reckoning than a realization.

✢  ✢  ✢  ✢  ✢  ✢

Being in a room with Bob made every part of her tilt towards him.

Yelena imagined herself living the rest of her life always standing at an angle, like the shadow of a very defective, very useless sundial. Pivoting every time Bob moved from bedroom to common area to kitchen to couch to gym to therapy to the helipad to everywhere else. Pivoting even when the pivoting meant it would earn her a hunting knife to the arm.

It had happened on the last day of a two-week mission to shut down some black-market biotech ring dabbling in interdimensional manipulation (which was a mouthful). In Svalbard of all places (which was super awful). Because of course international super villains never tried to dismantle the fabric of reality from some cushy beach villa in the Bahamas.

And of course Yelena had been too busy wondering about Bob back at the tower, wondering if he’d woken up yet, if his hair was stringy and curling from his shower, if he’d made himself a cup of coffee yet, and how ridiculous it was that he always added a spoon to it even when he skipped the milk, and how she’d asked him once, and how he’d said he’d only had Folgers instant coffee growing up, and how he’d gotten used to grinding down those tough little kernels—

“Alright, count to three because this is gonna hurt like a motherfucker,” Bucky warned her on their flight back, lifting a field stapler to her bleeding arm and pressing down.

He wasn’t kidding.

The clarity barely lasted a minute. Before, hunched in her seat trying not to scream, she thought about the only thing she’d been thinking about for days: Are you reading in the den? Are you watching The French Chef without me? Are you out for a smoke? Are you letting Valentina talk you into that horrific supersuit again? Yellow’s not your color. Are you bored? Do you miss me? Are you thinking of me? Do you ever just sit there and think and think and think and think and think of me—

“—I’m just saying, I’d appreciate it if I were utilized more. It’s always: Ghost, run through that wall! Ghost! Disappear!”

Walker groaned. “That’s what you do.”

“Case in point, you fucking moron.”

They were a clump of bloodied, beaten cretins by the time they slopped into the tower, dragging themselves to the common area like a funeral procession.

Ava and John had been at each other’s throats since takeoff, and the endless flight from Svalbard’s base had made Yelena ponder ripping the staples out of her arm to let herself bleed to death.

“Bucky, why don’t you jot this very serious issue down so we can discuss it with HR," John said, grinning when he was met with Bucky's vibranium middle finger. 

“Just because mass casualty is off the table, doesn’t mean I have to be shoved aside to pick locks,” Ava swung her arm towards John, “while Captain Cuck over here gets to spray his bullets around like he’s Tony Montana.”

“Oh, that’s good one, Ava. Very funny.” Dragging his fractured leg, Alexei howled the way he always did. He had a real pervert’s laugh, and it was loud and bellowing enough to smack even Yelena out of her stupor.

She rolled her eyes. “Not that I enjoy jumping to his defense, but they had us cornered.”

Vindicated, John waved at her. “Thank you—”

"What was he supposed to do?” she cut him off, “smack them with his hat?”

“For the last time, it’s a beret.”

“You gave your hat a name?” Alexei scrunched his brows.

“No, that’s the—You know what, screw all of you. It tested well with the focus groups. Plus, my kid likes it.”

“Didn't know god-awful taste is genetic," Ava mumbled.

Judging by the look on John’s face, she wouldn’t have made it to the kitchen in one piece if Bob hadn’t kicked the door open, wielding a baking dish filled with blistering, bubbling cheese. 

“Welcome back,” he said, like a mother in a 50’s sitcom, all frazzle-haired and oven-mittened and wonderful.

Something in Yelena sagged with so much relief she wanted to crawl towards him on her hands and knees and wrap herself into a ball at his feet.

He looked just the way they’d left him.

“You made your lasagna?” she croaked. She sounded like someone who’d had their arm stapled shut on a ten-hour flight from a frozen tundra at the end of the world.

“I made four.”

Satisfied groans from all around.

“Come here.” Alexei was already climbing over John and Bucky to grab Bob by the face.

“That won’t be necessary.” Caught in a chokehold, Bob’s cheeks ripened with a brilliant flush. “Thank you—Oh. Okay. Please…stop—”

“We missed you, Bobby boy.”

“You’re just saying that ‘cause I made you food that isn’t poached.”

Alexei grumbled another one of his dirty-old-man laughs before giving Bob’s head a silly smooch.

And as they spread across the counters and dug into heaps of Lasagna alla Bolognese in exhausted silence, Bob watched over them like a mother hen counting all of her chicks, and then counting them twice.

✢  ✢  ✢  ✢  ✢  ✢

After a long visit to the med bay and an even longer shower, Yelena lay sprawled on the couch in the den, lumped under so many blankets and throw pillows she’d have to be exhumed. Loafy-warm and liquefied and aching, she struggled to keep her eyes on the projector screen: The French Chef, season two, episode four: "Coq au Vin".

(Bob hadn’t watched without her.)

It turned out, he’d spent most evenings in the den, hints of him lazily scattered about; his AirPods on the coffee table, a forgotten mug, a notebook and pen, a tattered paperback with a strange bird on the cover and a title Yelena couldn’t decipher from afar.

The faint smell of his deodorant. Clean lemongrass.

Every once in a while, her attention drifted towards Bob, who was the only one awake enough to join her. (Also, the only one who was willing to sit through an hour of Julia Child explaining how to properly chop chives.) Sitting on the blankets next to her, his hand so close she could touch him if she just flexed her pinkie far enough.

Something about this made her feel young, like she was back in Ohio having returned from a sweltering summer afternoon out on the block, lolling on the couch with the television on while Natasha braided her hair in slow measured strokes.

Yelena didn’t know when returning to the tower had started to feel like returning home. This bastioned mountain filling a space in her mind that had been kept vacant for a reason. Now, home was a military-grade security system and steel beams and tinted glass and the loose collars of Bob’s pale blue sweaters that dipped just so, and dipped so sweetly sometimes she could spot the space between his collar bones, begging for her thumb to be pressed to it.

What did you do without us around? Did you wonder about me? Did you think of me, ever? Did you miss me? Were you so miserable with the missing of me?

“Were you okay?” She asked this carefully, checking in like she was checking for a fever.

Bob gave one of his silly Bob-snorts. In her head, she could eat them. “You know,” he arched a brow, “contrary to popular belief, I’m able to survive in a glorified luxury bunker without talking to a volleyball…or like, I don’t know, hanging myself in a closet.”

“That’s not funny, Bob.”

“It’s a little funny,” he mumbled, smiling. She wanted to touch his eyelashes. “It was fine. Boring, but uh—you know. I think I spent way more time in therapy just to have someone to talk to. Umm…practiced with the nunchucks. Still terrible at it. Oh, and I tried making a soufflé.”

Her slow tired smile. “From season one, episode twenty-nine?”

He snorted again, endlessly amused by her knowing each episode's name and number by heart. Outdated American references stored tidily in her head, relics from her time spent strapped in front of television screens leeching on this country’s culture like a tick.

“That’s the one,” he said. “Apparently, I’m worse at making soufflés than using nunchucks, so do with that what you will.” He picked at the blankets. “I taught Mel how to play chess. We did a whole tournament-type thing.”

“Did you win?”

“Oh, she beat me, like, immediately. And then she let me win the last round because she felt bad.”

Yelena huffed a laugh. “How would you know? Maybe you’re better at chess than making soufflés and using nunchucks.”

“No, she made sure to tell me. Multiple times.” Bob snorted again.

“I feel like Mel could secretly beat the shit out of me.”

“We should probably keep an eye on her.”

“Make sure she doesn’t cause global annihilation."

"Yeah."

"Yup."

He smiled, then took a breath, then looked up. “What about you? Were you okay?”

Yelena swallowed.

Anywhere else, with anyone else, her answer might’ve been different. She might’ve skipped over those long agonizing nights staking out in the hull of a cargo ship, or the young Interpol agent who’d been caught in their crossfire, his body going limp in her arms. She might've scoured through herself looking for the right box to push it into, push it away.

But this was Bob, and she was so tired.

“No,” she said.

Shifting, he turned towards her fully.

His eyes looked darker like this, darker even when his attention zeroed in on her bandaged arm. It happened sometimes, this disquieting panic that felt instinctual, old, swelling inside of her, reminding her of the day his black shape rose over New York. A gaping pit of nothing, its never-ending tunnels to places unfathomable. 

She wanted to hold his face in her hands and tell him that she was fine, she was okay, I’m okay like this, I’m okay now. But she was tired. She’d missed him. She’d been so miserable with the missing of him.

With every ounce of energy she had left, she arched her pinkie towards his—just a little, inch by inch—until, finally, the tip of her nail grazed the tip of his.

She knew the shape of this feeling by heart.

✢  ✢  ✢  ✢  ✢  ✢

Yelena had spent most of her life doling out punishment for people who believed they had the right to lord over those who deserved it and those who didn’t.

She was twenty-seven by the time she’d destroyed the last trace of the Red Room. People intentionally had kids at twenty-seven, they went on their last backpacking trip before settling for a career, they had cars that didn’t have to be shitty, they had a place of their own where they could afford the furniture. They were in relationships and went on dates and had sex and went out and complained about how they couldn’t drink the way they used.

At twenty-seven, the first thing Yelena had ever gotten herself was a tactical vest (with pockets), followed by a vinyl she couldn’t play (Dusty Springfield), and a gay porno on VHS that she’d watched in a motel in Arkansas (Saving Ryan’s Privates).

She supposed at that point, sex had been an alien thing, only to be whispered about in the bunk beds of the Red Room, a lecherous thrilling secret, oh, the things to be felt, Yelena! Have you tried it with a showerhead? Even kissing had been alien—kissing was for jewelry commercials and rom-coms about witty men meeting witty women in rainy cities, it was for Italian frescoes and horny poets and the horny chain-smoking Frenchmen in Bob’s New Wave movies.

The first person Yelena had ever kissed was Kate Bishop, and it had been as terrifying as it had been perfect, this trembling thing that unspooled inside of her, how the needing of it had surprised her so completely she could’ve begged for it on hands and knees. She’d concluded that kissing was as much for jewelry commercials and horny poets—as it was for the Kate Bishops of the world.

But then Kate had broken her heart, and Yelena had stumbled through the rest of her life wondering if she was meant for kissing too, or if all she was good for was assembling a gun.

And then there was sex.

And sex was something she didn’t know how to have sober. (Even with the Kate Bishops of the world.)

It wasn’t a thing she thought or worried about much. It existed mysteriously in the periphery of her life; along with dating and backpacking trips, and whatever average customs and crises plagued the people her age. But then sometimes, just sometimes, every once in a while during moments so minute...Bob stretched and the hem of his sweater skimmed up his skin…Sometimes he brushed past her in the kitchen, and his hand grazed her waist so tenderly it must’ve been by accident…Sometimes she felt his breath blast down the back of her neck, her elbow in his ribs, his knee sinking into the meat of her thigh—

“—faster. You’re dragging.” With a shove backward, Yelena unhooked Bob from herself, and he went tumbling onto the training mat. “You can’t second-guess yourself. You don’t have time for that when you’re fighting for—”

“—for your life, I know. I know.”

“Then move like it.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do? And that’s a rhetorical question, please don’t answer that.” Bob fell to his back, his T-shirt shucked up to reveal the taut planes of his stomach.

Swallowing, Yelena looked away. She leaned forward to catch her breath, wiping away the sweat stinging her eyes. The stitches in her arm had popped; she could feel it.

Bob sat up, completely dry and breathing normally. “Do you want to take a break?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yelena—”

“I said I’m fine, Bob.”

His concern shouldn’t have bothered her the way it did. Neither should his sweat-less-ness.

Sure, he fought like someone who’d avoided fighting his whole life, stiff and unsure, and more stiff and unsure than he usually was on the mat. But he was far stronger than he had been a month ago, faster too, and Yelena knew what that meant. Soon, the only people he could train with were those able to survive a super-serum-induced punch with the blowback of a sonic boom. Yelena was for the regulars, the humans with their breakable bones and woundable flesh, and here she was sparring with a man who had the potential to be the most cataclysmic force on planet earth.

The very least she wanted to do for him was teach him how to fight when fists were the last resort: Hand-to-hand, face-to-face, bound, gagged, feral, with nothing to lose. She’d been doing this long enough to know that even gods and super-humans met their match eventually.

She needed Bob to pack a nasty uppercut once the time came.

Nudging him with her foot, she said, “Come on, get up.”

“Yelena…”

“Again.“

He sighed. She cocked a brow. He relented. Again, they circled each other. And again, his movements dragged, almost as if it were deliberate. Yelena was so fucking tired of being held back on. Sliding her foot between his legs, she managed to unbalance him, aiming at his ribs in a series of quick cruel jabs, his breath close and damp enough she felt it spill below her ear. She pushed. He tumbled.

Again, she demanded. Again. Again. “Again, Bob.”

“Yel—”

“Again. “

And so they returned to the same sequence of movements—elbow hook, low sweep, slip and circle—again and again, until finally, Bob, like an ancient colossus exhausted from defending himself from some mortal’s fickle weaponry, grabbed her by the waist and hurled her onto the mat so hard her breath spewed out in one vicious blow. The pain in her arm wrecked through the rest of her body. Teeth clenched to keep herself from yelling. Dizzy, reeling through the whiplash, a body shoved above hers, head stooped low, shrouded in dark as it crowded out the light.

The panic this time was strange. Thicker. Hot. Something primal that dug through her skin. She felt it vibrate in her hands as she reached for him. An impulse so ingrained it was muscle memory. Grabbing hold of his head, she tugged him close, and when he turned his face…light pooled along the smooth valleys of it. 

He blinked. He softened, his head bumping puppy-like and clumsy against hers. 

“Shit,” he ground out. “I didn’t mean to, I’m—sorry. Sorry. Are you—”

“I don’t break that easy.”

He was so close his face was a pale blur. “I’m sorry," he said again. 

Her fingers tightened in his hair, then loosened. “Don’t apologize.”

The heat of him like this. Her feet ground into the mat. Her chest swelling with air, and his breath, and the smell of his deodorant, clouding her over in a haze thick enough to chew on, Oh, the things to be felt, Yelena—and what a horrible fucking time to be feeling them.

“You won't always be able to depend on your powers, Bob,” she said this so quietly she was afraid he hadn’t heard.

“They’re designed to be dependable.”

“Everything in this building is designed to be dependable until it isn’t. When people are able to do the things you can do, relying on anything is conditional.” He was still so close. How was he still so close. “Trust me.”

“I do,” he said without hesitation. “But, I just—I need these powers to be dependable, because if they’re not…” he trailed off. She didn't want him to finish that sentence. 

Whatever spell had pinned her to the mat, unpinned her. She released him. As if on cue, everything inside of her lost its balance.

“Because if they’re not, you’ll be left with a shit right hook.” She cut him off before he said something stupid he couldn’t take back, and rolled out from under him. “Get up. We’ll take a break in a bit.”

She wanted to say more but stopped when the gym came back into focus. The dumbbells weren’t where they were supposed to be, nor were the keg rings or the weapons on the racks. Her eyes tracked as half the room floated in the air, spinning in slow circles like comets.

“Bob—”

“It’s okay,” he said, and then he said it again, and before Yelena could protest, her body loosened itself from the ground.

She never expected weightlessness to devastate her.

“I wanted to tell you. But it just never...I don’t know, it just—” He shook his head. “I’ve been able to do a lot since you guys left for Svalbard.”

“That’s a long time, Bob.” Trying not to panic, she bobbed upside-down, before a warm invisible pressure tipped her upright and kept her steady.

“I know," he said. 

Was he devastated too?

In another version of this very moment, Yelena might’ve cackled with her head tipped back. She might've let Bob pinwheel her between floating barbells and training dummies until her head bonked against the ceiling. She might’ve told him to show her more, show her everything. 

In this version though, she stared at Bob rooted in the center of the gym like a planet around which everything spun. And when he rose, slowly, slowly, she thought he looked nothing like that day; lit from above, he fit into his body in ways she’d never seen before.

The benevolent titan carrying the world in his orbit. 

“Sometimes it almost feels like it did back then," he said, and she didn't like the way it sounded. 

“Does Valentina know?”

Bob's eyes flicked to something behind her shoulder, but Yelena was too busy trying to keep her balance to check what it was. “I’m not worried about her,” he said. A breath, then, “This doesn't change anything.”

“It’s already changing."

He was floating above her now, power rippling all around, his hair and clothes flowing in a tide she couldn’t feel but wanted to so frantically the wanting of it surged through her, from top to bottom, and how she could’ve arched towards him then, her body like a pebble knocked loose in a current.

Two weeks she’d spent in a frozen tundra, obsessed with the thought of Bob safely tucked away in a glass box, endlessly looking forward to returning to him.

How had Natasha done this? Any of this? Had she expected the people she cared about most to stay put if she'd just expected it hard enough? Did she have someone back then? And did she expect that someone to always be the thing waiting for her in the tower, waiting to be returned to. Had she wanted to stand between them and life itself? Breakable bones and woundable flesh and fickle mortal weaponry and all?

How did you live like this? 

Yelena tossed that question onto the pile of other questions she’d never get to ask her sister.

Staring up at Bob, his powers lowering her gently to the ground, she thought of the first time she’d ever seen him fall from the sky. A solar flare over Utah. She thought of his aunt. She thought of that movie with David Bowie. 

Robert Reynolds wasn’t Sentry, he wasn’t the Void—but he had been. It was only a matter of time until he would be again.

Previous Chapter ✢ Next Chapter

[sataniccapitalist]

A new discovery of methane leaks in Antarctica could be a game-changer and potential near-term threat that’s difficult to characterize without sounding overly negative. Of course, situations like this that appear threatening to civilization, or life as we know it, are difficult to believe and accept as something the will really happen, which is understandable because nothing in human history compares to the risk attendant to the dreaded runaway greenhouse effect. So, there’s nothing in human history to compare it to.

Nevertheless, there are scientists who believe we are living on borrowed time because of massive changes happening at the top and at the bottom of the planet where only scientists and indigenous people hang out. Now, this new discovery serves to emphasize their concerns of a climate monster capable of altering everything, lurking in the background.

The threat is explained in a YouTube video: Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica: A Hidden Climate Theat Unveiled by Phantom Ecology, which is headed by Milton Muldrow, Ph.D. asst. professor at Wilmington University and Chair/College of Arts & Sciences.

As a prelude to this new information, it’s important to note that Russian scientists have been monitoring the risks of methane breakouts in the High Arctic for a couple of decades and have voiced concern about the risks of a sudden burst as undersea methane clathrates increasingly melt, bubbling to surface in ever-larger diameters, which they have measured. As it happens, methane (CH4) is many times more potent than CO2 at trapping excessive global heat.

Additionally, the risk of a methane breakout is mentioned by Peter Wadhams, emeritus professor, Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge, in his celebrated, brilliant interview: The Future of Sea Level Rise: “Russian scientists working the region believe a huge pulse of methane could erupt.” This could crank up global temperatures to ultra-dangerous levels in as little as 2-3 years. The consequences would be unspeakable. And with Antarctica joining, the game changes.

As a science researcher/writer of over 400 articles, this new development is extraordinarily spooky and difficult to accept because the consequences feel way too close for comfort. Stated at the opening of the Phantom Ecology video: “Deep beneath the icy plains of Antarctica, a slumbering giant is beginning to stir. Scientists have made a startling discovery. Vast reservoirs of methane hydrates locked away for millennia are showing signs of instability.”

The finding sent ripples of concern throughout the world of science. The consequences for the planet could be quite dangerous, maybe sooner rather than later. Rising plumes of methane (CH4) near the Antarctic Peninsula raises a major concern that trapped methane will be released into the atmosphere, exacerbating an already dire situation of accelerating global temperatures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Maginot line of 1.5C above pre-industrial not to be exceeded as framed at the Paris 2015 climate conference by nearly all the nations of the world is kaput. To date, global temperatures have been exceeding that level for nearly two years running.

Meanwhile, world famous climate scientist James Hansen (Earth Institute, Columbia University) says 2C is on the horizon. “The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead” (Climate Change Target of 2C is ‘Dead’ Says Renonwed Climate Scientist, The Guardian, Feb. 4, 2025). It’s a huge understatement to say this would be horrendous for Antarctic methane leaks, Arctic methane leaks, including Siberian methane leaks and Alaskan methane leaks, as well as Glacial methane leaks (see below “Methane Double Trouble” for another disturbing new discovery).

The volume of methane locked away in Antarctic ice is estimated to be more carbon than all other fuel deposits combined for the planet. A small fraction of this escaping into the atmosphere could have catastrophic consequences for the climate system “in the not-too-distant future.” (Muldrow)

[swappetf11]

He didn’t know his name would be erased.

Not at first.

Not when the slick black car picked him up outside the crumbling apartment complex in Sofia. Not when the men in tight suits handed him the envelope with two thousand euros and a plane ticket with no return. Not even when he stepped off the plane into the golden, suffocating heat of the Arabian Peninsula, and was escorted past customs by men in tailored linen and mirrored glasses. The realization didn’t come until he was stripped bare in that room.

A hexagonal space lined in mirrors. Cool marble under his feet. That eerie buzz of electrics and incense in the air. Six men—silent—circled him like wolves. And one, seated in a wide leather chair, watching him with eyes that glowed like burnt honey.

“You are a fortunate man,” said the one in the chair. His voice curled like smoke. Arabic lilt with European polish. “You were selected for resemblance, but also for your… malleability.”

“My name’s Deyan.” The words came from his mouth like they didn’t belong to him. “Deyan Gochev. I didn’t sign up for anything like—”

“You’re done with that name.”

Two snapped fingers. His clothes were cut from him. Boxers last. He stood exposed, 5’10”, pale with sallow skin, slightly stooped from years of coding jobs and nicotine habits. No facial hair—could never grow much. Patchy. His teeth were slightly yellow, and his lips narrow, always drawn in thought. He had a slight curve in his spine from poor posture, thin ankles, barely any hair on his chest.

He was nobody.

Until the transformation began.

First came the bath. Heated oils and silks, hands scrubbing until his skin burned and tingled, opening pores, massaging elixirs into his scalp, into his face. His ears rang. His chest throbbed.

Then the tattooist entered.

“This is not ink,” the artist whispered as he crouched beside him, pressing the tip of a blackened needle to his breastbone. “This is magic. It marks the bond.”

Searing pain. Not the sharp pain of a tattoo gun, but the way hot metal sears animal hide. Deyan tried to scream, but incense thickened in his lungs. His chest convulsed as the ink bled into him, spiraling out in sacred script—Arabic characters laced with symbols older than language. They twisted across his chest, down over his ribs, his thighs, his back.

The symbols pulsed. He buckled.

He felt his hair fall out in soft clumps—eyebrows gone first. Then scalp hair. Face bare as a newborn. But not for long.

The new hair sprouted—coarse, dark, and tight, jet-black and curly. Thickening at the jaw, pushing through his skin with a burn. A mustache bloomed above his lip, dense and commanding. His cheeks filled in, and he felt the follicles erupt, thick as wire, spreading down his neck and across his chest.

His nose cracked audibly. He screamed as it reshaped, cartilage shifting to a proud, arched bridge. His lips swelled—no longer thin and drawn but lush and masculine. His skin darkened—gradually—tingling like sunburn, deepening from pale beige to a rich olive bronze.

His limbs stretched.

He fell forward on his hands, which thickened before his eyes—veins rising, fingers roughening. He cried out again, but the voice that emerged was not his own. It was lower. Bass-heavy. And laced with a soft Gulf Arabic accent.

“No… what—what are you—” he began, and stopped. The words were English, but the sound of them was wrong. Too smooth. Too confident.

The man in the chair stood. “You are no longer Deyan. That man was a statistic.”

The mirror showed the truth.

He stood nearly 6’2” now, with thick thighs, a chest full of dark curls, a soft layer of masculine fat padding his midsection. Not obese—just wealthy. Well-fed. His beard was sculpted—already trained to taper just below his chin. His eyebrows were darker, more angular. His feet had widened. His ass was fuller, jutting slightly, and his penis—he gasped—hung heavy and low between muscular thighs, no longer shriveled and shy.

He touched it. He felt it. The weight. The warmth. His own breath hitched.

The door opened again.

A younger man stepped in. Tall, broad, and golden-skinned. Tight jeans. Open white linen shirt. Gold chain. He smelled like oud and tobacco.

“Who’s this?” the man asked, eyeing the newly formed figure in the mirror.

The voice in the chair responded. “This is Hamza al-Khoury. He is the cousin of the Sheikh. He spent six years in Monaco. Studied in Paris. Had a love affair with a Danish sculptor. He returned last year to oversee the Sheikh’s vineyards.”

“I don’t know any of that—” Deyan—no, Hamza—choked.

“You will,” the man said.

The younger one smiled. “He’s… beautiful.”

Hamza’s heart pounded.

Something stirred low in his gut. An unfamiliar heat. He watched the man approach, that gold chain glinting. The man’s hand touched his new cheek, rough thumb dragging over Hamza’s fuller lips.

“You want to remember, don’t you?” he whispered.

“I—” Hamza trembled.

The man leaned in. “Say shukran.”

“Shukran,” Hamza breathed, the sound curling like honey.

The man smiled wider. “Good. He learns fast.”

That night, he was dressed. Black robe tailored to cling to his chest and hang elegantly over his now-broader shoulders. Underneath, snug-fitting white undergarments held his heavy parts. He walked with a slow gait—no longer the quick, hesitant shuffle of a programmer but the grounded sway of a man with lineage, power, and indulgence in his blood.

He was brought to a lounge where sheikh’s inner circle smoked cigars and played cards. A leather case was presented to him. Inside—a Cohiba, thick and uncut.

A man pressed it to his lips. “Smoke, cousin.”

The first puff nearly floored him. The smoke filled his nose, down into his chest, anchoring the new identity deeper. The taste was bitter. Spicy. He coughed, his chest heaving—but they laughed.

“You’ve been away too long, Hamza.”

He grinned, the cigar now resting easily between his fingers. His accent more natural with every word. His spine straighter. A hunger in his eyes.

Later that night, he caught his own reflection again in the marble mirror.

“I am Hamza,” he whispered. “Aren’t I?”

The door creaked open. The golden-skinned man stood there again, shirtless now, watching him.

Hamza exhaled cigar smoke and spread his legs slightly. The words came naturally now.

“Well? You coming in, habibi, or just gonna stand there staring at your new man?”

And the door shut behind him.

[kinardsevan]

can't outdrive pain (some day it's gonna take the wheel)

Evan leans back on the couch as he slides the photo album back down on the coffee table. He wasn’t snooping at all, but in the process of moving some things around in the closet while moving his own things in, he’d stumbled upon it. And the thing was, he didn’t really have one of his own. His parents weren’t present enough when he and Maddie were kids to think of having family photos done after Daniel’s death. Most of the pictures that did exist were from disposable cameras Maddie paid for with her own money once she was old enough, and a number of those photos had gotten destroyed by Doug. Evan never really complained about it because there was stuff that Maddie had hung onto and still had, even now, like the postcards he’d sent her while bouncing all over the US and into Peru before he’d ended up in LA. 

Still, for all he’d expected to find in the album, which wasn’t a lot, given how tight-lipped Tommy still was about his childhood…he wasn’t expecting what he did find. 

. . .

“Baby?” 

Tommy comes around the corner of the living room into the kitchen as Evan slides a tray of fresh brownies onto the counter, smiling up at him as he reaches behind himself to untie the apron. There’s enough batter on it that he’s going to have to wash it, but that can be a problem for later. 

“You baked for me,” Tommy cooes as he crosses the space, a smile crossing his face as the wafting heat of the fresh brownies hits his nose. Evan tugs the apron over his head and folds it, setting it aside on the counter as Tommy reaches him, slotting an arm under Evan’s around his back, kissing the corner of his mouth. 

“You kept talking about them yesterday and I had some free time,” Evan replies. He chuckles softly as Tommy trails kisses down his jaw to his neck, nuzzling against his pulse point briefly. 

“So good to me,” Tommy murmurs against his skin. 

“Yeah,” Evan murmurs, his face scrunching as he tries not to think of the photo album. When Tommy pulls away, he busies himself finding a knife so he can cut into the brownies and get them each one. “How was your day?” 

“Long,” Tommy replies, circling the peninsula and leaning against the counter. He grins happily when Evan passes him a plate with the brownie on top of it. It’s still steaming, almost too hot to eat yet. “What about you?” 

Evan inhales a deep breath, unsure if it’s the right time to ask. He gulps.

“I found something today,” he admits. “I was emptying boxes, trying to find space-..” 

“I mean I’d expect you to do that,” Tommy replies. “You are moving in. You should find space for yourself.” 

Evan nods, still his expression is mildly pained as he looks up at his boyfriend. “I found a photo album.” 

“Oh.” 

Tommy says it like it’s so simple; like it doesn’t mean anything. But the look in his eyes betrays the sound of his voice, and it makes Evan’s stomach flip. 

“I wasn’t trying to-..” 

“I’m sure you weren’t,” Tommy says. There’s no anger in his tone, but it still hurts Evan to hear it. His gaze is locked on the counter between them now, refusing to look up. Evan sighs softly, settling his own plate down. He walks around the peninsula and slides his arms around Tommy’s waist, physically having to move his boyfriend to get him to turn towards him. 

“Talk to me, babe.” 

Tommy gulps. “I honestly never wanted to have to tell you.” 

“Tommy,” Evan lilts. He slides his right hand back, bringing it under his boyfriend’s chin and making him look up. When Tommy’s eyes meet his, they’re wet. Evan’s frown sets deeper, reaching his thumb up and brushing away at the first tear as it falls. 

“You know what my childhood was like,” Evan murmurs. “How little my parents cared when my bone marrow wasn’t enough to save the kid they were concerned about.” 

Tommy nods. They’ve had many conversations about his personal hatred towards the Buckleys and how fucked up he thought it was that at three months old, they’d put their newborn through that kind of procedure to save their oldest child. They’d originally planned to the cord blood—at least, that was the story that Maddie had told him when he’d asked—but it had become contaminated, and given that Evan was already intentionally a genetic match for Daniel, they’d managed to convince his care team to allow the bone marrow transplant, given that it was a last-ditch attempt. It wasn’t Evan’s fault that the graft hadn’t taken. 

Still, for as little as Tommy had given in information about his childhood, he’d never really wanted Evan to know just how much he could understand the pain he’d suffered through. 

“I told you my father and I don’t talk,” he rasps, sinking against one of the barstools against the counter. Evan nods. 

“What I didn’t tell you was why,” Tommy continues. 

Evan sits down in another one of them, his hands sliding down until they find Tommy’s and squeezing them lightly. 

“Kinda figured after everything about Gerrard that it was because of your sexual orientation,” he replies. 

“That was certainly part of it,” Tommy replies with a quirk of his eyebrows. “But it wasn’t all of it.” 

Evan nods again, watching and waiting as Tommy stares at the counter. 

“Things were never good between him and my mom. That militant attitude you joke about me having? He always had it. It was like even after he took off his fatigues, the drill sergeant attitude stuck around. A-and when my mom left, he turned it on me,” he explains. Evan nods. The few photos from Tommy’s childhood showed telltale bruises. The average person looking at them might take them for childhood injuries, but their job and Evan’s own childhood had given him a generous education on what abuse looked like. 

“When I was ten, he broke my arm,” Tommy tells him. Evan had seen a picture of him in a sling but hadn’t pieced that together. “My teachers figured it out, and they called CPS. They tried to find my mom, but whether she’d disappeared into a bottle or was so far into drugs at that point, I’m not sure. Either way, she wasn’t an option, so they put me into the system.” 

Evan lifts Tommy’s hand, kissing his fingers. 

“It wasn’t great there, either,” Tommy admits softly. “There were people who…” He pauses, shakes his head. “Nobody hit me, but it wasn’t any better. A-anyway, he did the classes they required him to do, and I was sent back to him right before I turned thirteen.” 

“You’re not going to tell me it got better,” Evan surmises, his throat tight from the expression on Tommy’s face. 

“No,” Tommy whispers back, pressing his lips together in a hard line. “At that point, I’d figured out that I was gay, at least to myself. I was home for like three months when he caught me kissing this kid who lived around the corner.” He pauses again, staring down at Evan’s hand on his as the blonde traces his thumb over the back of Tommy’s knuckles softly. “He beat me up so badly from that, that I didn’t leave the house for a week. But it was summer, so no one knew.” 

“No one caught him,” Evan asks, anger tinging his tone. “CPS didn’t-..” 

“They’d done a visit like a week before that,” Tommy explains, glancing up at him. “Had no reason to come back so soon. Anyway, after that, I just kept my head down and stayed away from home as much as possible. When I got into high school, I joined as many extracurriculars as I could. I found ways to make money so that I could afford the hotel stays and travel, and when I was seventeen, I enlisted. He thought that was great until he found out I wasn’t going to be a marine because ‘no son of mine is going to join the army. Three generations of Kinard men have been marines’.” 

Evan huffs, shakes his head. 

“You already know how it went there,” Tommy says softly. “When I got home, I called up a friend from high school and was able to sleep on his couch for a few weeks until I got my own place and enrolled in the fire academy. And then when I was twenty-five, he showed up at the 118.” He pauses again briefly, lets out a haughty laugh. “He got on great wtih Gerrard.” 

“Of course he did,” Evan mutters under his breath. He already hates the man they’ve both had to call their former captain. 

“He said he wanted to mend fences, but I knew after seeing him with Gerrard that nothing had changed,” he states. “So I didn’t make an effort, and he’s one of those people who thinks your elders deserve respect regardless of how they treat you, so when I didn’t call, it didn’t move forward.” 

“Thank god for small favors,” Evan replies quietly. Tommy nods. Evan looks up at him, and it seems that Tommy’s finished. He stands up from his stool and moves into his boyfriend’s space, wrapping his arms loosely around his neck, fingers sliding up through the curls on the back of his head. “He’s unworthy of any of your time.” 

“That’s what I tell myself,” Tommy responds softly. 

“I hope you know that you are worth so much more,” Evan tells him, brushing his thumb back and forth over the back of Tommy’s head. “I know you still hold guilt over how you were with Gerrard, but that trauma bond didn’t really give you the space to be a better person.” 

Tommy quirks his lip up in a skeptical expression. That’s a common disagreement for them, but Evan is determined to get him to forgive himself one day. 

“I love you,” Evan adds. “Every part of you.” 

Tommy gives him a small smile. “Sometimes I think you love me more than I deserve.” 

“Well, welcome to the party,” Evan replies with a smile on his own lips. “Evan Buckley. My boyfriend makes me feel the same way.” 

Tommy chuckles. 

“What’s the saying,” Tommy murmurs to him, pulling Evan closer, looping his arms around his waist. “We’re all just looking for someone whose demons play well with ours?” 

Evan leans down, brushing his lips against Tommy’s before leaning back enough to look down at him through lidded eyes. “Think I’ve found mine.” 

Tommy smiles at him, pulling him in so they’re chest-to-chest. “God I hope so.” 

[himluv]

Illario Summer Appreciation Day 7: "Feels Like Summer"

The Lightning Strike (what if this storm ends?)

A summer storm strikes Treviso. Illario and Bellara make the most of it.

Who doesn't love a good thunderstorm? ;)

Read it below, or over on ao3!

The storm came out of nowhere. One moment Illario was asleep, peaceful and warm with his arm curled around Bellara’s ribcage, and the next lightning flashed through his room, followed by a great boom of thunder and an ominous rattle as a terrible wind tore through the terrace shutters. 

He startled, tugging her closer against his bare chest, and she gasped. 

“What?” She asked, her voice thick with sleep. 

He shushed her, his lips to the point of her ear. “It’s just a storm, Colibrí.” But even as his own pulse settled and he loosened his grip, Illario felt the thrum of her body against his. It was too late – she was awake. 

“I didn’t know Treviso got storms like this,” she whispered after another thunderclap threatened to shake the villa. 

“Sometimes,” he said. “In the late summer.” Conditions had to be perfect for such a big storm, though. The bay was too protected by the Rivaini peninsula. Most storms lost momentum long before they ever made it to Treviso.

“Do you think it woke everyone else?”

“Yes,” he said. If Lucanis had even been asleep, he was certainly awake now. And he wasn’t sure if Caterina ever slept. The Dellamortes were not good sleepers, with good reason.

“Oh,” she said, and her disappointment pierced him like a dagger. 

“Why?”

Bellara shrugged. “I love storms,” she said. “Cyrian and I would always run out to play in the rain. When we were kids.”

He was still half asleep, but it was clear to him that she wanted to go out into the storm. That she hoped he would go with her, and that they would not be interrupted. And while Illario was loathe to leave the bed, he couldn’t deny he was intrigued. 

He was always intrigued by Bellara. She never did what one might expect. 

Illario sighed and threw the duvet off of them. “Fine,” he huffed. “Let’s go.”

“Wait? Really?” She peered back at him, but didn’t move.

“Yes.” He nudged her with his hips, urging her out of bed. “Now, hurry. Before we miss it.”

Bellara scrambled out of bed, hauling on her shorts and her shirt. She didn’t bother with shoes and left her hair in its sleep-strewn bun. Illario followed suit, slipping into his pants and his discarded shirt, leaving it unbuttoned. Then he took her hand and led her through the halls on silent, bare feet. 

By the time they stepped out into the courtyard beneath his terrace, the worst of the lightning had passed. The wind had mellowed, but the rain kept coming, warm and heavy on his skin. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the occasional flash of lightning dashing through the dark clouds further west, beyond Treviso. The night was warm and the air thick, and as the rain soaked through his shirt, Illario couldn’t deny the exhilaration that hummed beneath his skin. 

Bellara laughed as she reached the center of the courtyard, her arms outstretched and her face upturned to the sky. She closed her eyes, grinning as the rain fell onto her blight-stained cheeks. Slowly, she spun in place as the rain saturated her shirt, making it cling to her curves, the white linen going transparent in places. 

Mierda, she was gorgeous. Illario always found her stunning, was frequently entranced by her mere presence. But there in Villa Dellamorte’s garden courtyard, spinning slow circles in the rain, Illario thought she had never looked more alive. 

He was struck then, as if by lightning, by how utterly enamored he was with Bellara. He was enchanted. Enraptured. Every other possible word he could think of. The truth was, Illario was impossibly in love with her. 

Soundlessly, he went to join her, his hands skirting up under her soaked shirt to cling to frigid skin. She blinked up at him, raindrops in her lashes, her smile never once faltering as she wrapped her arms around his neck. They swayed in the rain, foreheads pressed together until he could not bear it a moment longer. 

Illario kissed her, overcome with a hunger not just for her kiss, but for her life. For that vital, thrumming energy of the storm that was Bellara Lutare. He wanted to taste that vitality, to know its quiver on his tongue, to swallow it down and feel it bloom low in his belly like jasmine blossoms in the dark of night. 

He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. They were soaked through with rain, their skin wet and frigid, and Illario had no patience to fight with clothing. He laid her down on the little table where they so frequently ate breakfast, and they worked together with desperate hands to push and pull at fabric until they were free enough. Bared enough. Until he sank into velvet heat and felt that electric thrill pulse in his veins. 

To Illario, sex had always been like a storm. A jolt of lust, a whirlwind of desire, something to be shared with another in a single encounter – powerful but brief. But with Bellara? Sex was like lightning that struck him over and over again, relentless and overwhelming. She lit him up, rattled something deep in his bones like the wind in the shutters, caught him up in her whirlwind until he was dizzy with a desire that went beyond bodies. 

After all Illario had survived, all he’d suffered, and all the terrible things he had done… Bellara made him feel so frightfully alive. 

And there would never be another storm in Treviso where they did not celebrate the fact. 

[amagnificentobsession]

If ever there was a character in sci-fi television who straddled the fine line between rogue and romantic, swashbuckler and survivor, it’s Captain Jack Harkness—a walking paradox in a leather coat, all charm and buried heartbreak. Introduced in *Doctor Who’s* first modern season, Jack didn’t so much walk into the story as saunter in with a grin, a glint in his eye, and a plan to hustle the Doctor and Rose Tyler out of their time tech. Of course, it didn’t go quite that way. The Ninth Doctor saw right through his con, Rose was intrigued, and fans? We were instantly hooked.

Born Javic Piotr Thane on the Boeshane Peninsula in the 51st century—one of those impossibly grim places *Who* likes to drop in its character backstories—Jack grew up in a war-torn future and made a name for himself as the first from his region to join the Time Agency. But somewhere along the way, something was erased, quite literally. Whole chunks of his memory were stolen, leaving behind a sharp-tongued flirt who masked his disorientation with bravado. If the Doctor is the universe’s compass, Jack is its weathervane—always shifting, adapting, smiling through the storm.

But what made Jack *important* wasn’t his flirtation with everyone with a pulse (though let’s be honest, that helped). It was what happened after he died. Gunned down by Daleks, Jack was resurrected by Rose Tyler in her “Bad Wolf” goddess phase—infusing him with life, but also cursing him with immortality. You’d think living forever would be a gift. *Doctor Who*, always cleverer than it lets on, flips that on its head. Jack’s immortality becomes his burden, his isolating scar, and more importantly, a storytelling masterstroke. The Doctor, disturbed by this fixed point in time, bails—something many fans (and the character himself) never quite forgave.

Stranded in the 200,100s and time-hopping with a vortex manipulator held together by duct tape and desperation, Jack missed his target era by a century and wound up waiting. Literally. From the 19th century to the 21st, he lingered in the long shadow of the Doctor, watching history unfold with the patience of a man who could not die. This stretch of lonely time is what quietly forged him. By the time we meet him again in *Torchwood*, he’s no longer just the cheeky con man; he’s the immortal leader with blood on his hands, regrets in his eyes, and a silent question lingering: *Who am I without the Doctor?*

It’s not an accident that Jack became one of the most enduring figures in the *Doctor Who* universe. Behind the scenes, Russell T Davies, ever the master of character-driven genre writing, saw in John Barrowman a rare screen presence—part Errol Flynn, part tragic Byronic hero. Jack had flair, yes, but also emotional gravity. He joked like a sitcom character, fought like a soldier, and carried the ache of a man who’s lost too much. Davies wisely spun him off into *Torchwood*, a messier, more adult sandbox where Jack could fully unravel. And unravel he did, especially in “Children of Earth,” where we saw the price of immortality laid bare with unflinching cruelty.

Jack is *Who*’s Han Solo, its Dorian Gray, its Peter Pan with a death wish. He’s flirted with the Doctor, fought beside him, been rejected by him, and still saved the Earth more times than we can count. He’s the kind of character who can go toe-to-toe with Time Lords and still feel more *human* than most of them. And that’s the paradox. He began as a con artist with no memory and no allegiance. He became the man who outlived empires, timelines, and every person he ever loved. In a universe of sonic screwdrivers and regenerating aliens, Jack Harkness stands tall as the one thing even the Doctor couldn’t predict: a man who remembers *everything*.

[bipolarman2022]

The first to arrive did so discreetly, almost like shadows at dawn. They came from the East, descendants of an ancient Arab dynasty, wrapped in an aura of serenity and wisdom that seemed to defy time. They carried neither swords nor armies, raised no flags, nor delivered grand speeches. They simply arrived, and with them, an unusual calm began to spread across the Iberian Peninsula, like a soft breeze heralding a storm of change.

At first, people observed them with suspicion, keeping their distance, as if something about their presence challenged established certainties. Their gaze was different: deep, penetrating, capable of touching the innermost fibers of the soul. It was not a hostile or inquisitive look but one filled with ancient wisdom, silently inviting introspection. Little by little, those who dared meet the eyes of these travelers found themselves changed, as if something within them had awakened from a long, heavy slumber.

They sought neither confrontations nor conversions. They did not impose their faith, nor preached with the urgency of those who wish to conquer. They spoke of life with a simplicity that both puzzled and attracted. They mentioned Allah with a softness that seemed to resonate with the very pulses of the earth, as if the entire universe confirmed their words. “Everything in the world is part of Allah’s plan,” they said, and those who listened, initially out of mere courtesy, ended up nodding, captivated by the spiritual logic that emanated from their phrases.

At first, these encounters seemed insignificant, but gradually, like drops of water eroding stone, they left an indelible mark on the minds of the Spaniards. Initially, the conversations were sporadic and trivial, but they soon transformed into deep dialogues about the soul, death, the universe, and the purpose of life. The answers the Arabs offered were not wrapped in rigid dogmas but in a wisdom that seemed inherent to humanity itself.

The churches were not destroyed, as many had initially feared. Instead, they began to transform. Their tall towers echoed with the adhan, the call to prayer, while the bells continued to mark the passage of time. It was as if two worlds, once distant, had found an unexpected harmony. Cathedrals and mosques coexisted not as rivals but as reflections of a shared spiritual yearning.

Gradually, and without imposition or violence, the Spaniards began to pray. At first in secret, then in community. They did not do so out of obligation but because something within them demanded it. The verses of the Quran, read under the stars, seemed to answer questions that had gone unanswered for generations. The Arabic language began to flow naturally from their mouths, as if it had always been there, latent, waiting to be awakened.

The Arabs did not consider themselves superior. In fact, they rarely spoke of themselves. But there was something in their serenity, in their way of moving through the world, that inspired admiration. Their faces radiated a peace that seemed unattainable for others. Those who observed them couldn’t help but feel that these men were closer to something sacred, to a universal truth that everyone longed for but few could understand.

Over the years, Spain transformed. It was not a conquest, nor a forced conversion. It was an awakening. Islam did not arrive as an invader but as an echo of something that had always been there, waiting to be remembered. The faith unified the peninsula not through imposition but by offering answers that resonated deeply within people’s hearts.

For the Spaniards, embracing Islam was not an act of submission but a return to the essential, to a truth that seemed older than the mountains surrounding them. And so, without wars or bloodshed, Spain became a land of mosques and adhan, of peace and serenity.

The whisper of Allah had come to stay, bringing with it a new dawn. And with it, the hearts of an entire nation found the peace they had sought for centuries.

And in the end, under the stars shining over a transformed peninsula, someone asked softly:

“Was this our destiny from the beginning, or was it we who chose it?”

[heavy-draw]

🎄

"Oi, Shamir!"

Mareeta shouts out, gesturing to come closer.

"How's everythin' going? Still hard to believe a place has so much decoration..."

The time of the solstice, and the turn of the year onto the next, had... never been something Mareeta had seen to this extent. Sure, Fiana had always been a festive spot on the peninsula whenever the time came around, merriment and wassailing around town, with Mareeta always enjoying the sight of the people around her beaming and happy.

But this? It was downright absurd. And she loved it.

"...What're ya lookin' at me like that for?"

Mareeta looks up - some kind of plant over the door frame - not one she recognized. Was their a certain meaning to it, oooorrrr...

While Shamir had never been one to care much for the holiday season, there were certain times that caused her to feel a bit lighter than she normally would. Seeing the Academy fully decked out in gaudy decorations that made it look hideous was... oddly comforting, and it added a sense of normalcy to her life that she otherwise wouldn't have. And, of course, the tradition of "mistletoe traps" that had been scattered around the campus grounds. It seemed to have blown up overnight, and everyone had to be extremely careful about who they wiggled through a doorway with, lest they be caught in a compromising position... After all, to back out of the tradition would be to become a coward-- and who would want that reputation? So when Mareeta steps into the archway, Shamir's eyes flicker upwards to the conveniently placed garnish that hung several feet above them both. The mercenary can't help but chuckle, uncrossing her arms before sauntering forward. "Well, this," She motions to the plant above them both. "Is a tradition around this time of year. If you have two people under it at the same time, well... You're stuck- can't leave until you share a kiss. And as for me, I can't back out- it's not in my blood... Knowing you're a mercenary as well, I'd wager it's the same for you." She reaches forward with one hand, palm gently brushing against the other's cheek before leaning in, and she stops just long enough to allow the other to back away if she chooses. When she doesn't meet resistance, she closes the distance-- head tilted slightly, she doesn't break eye contact as her lips barely brush against Mareeta's before pressing in with a soft, teasing kiss. Her gloved fingers graze against the back of the other woman's neck in an almost idle motion, though they make no move to further incite action. Shamir would be lying if the impulsive thought didn't cross her mind, though; but she's a woman that has more than enough self-restraint. It lingers just long enough to cause her pulse to quicken as the playful tension between them simmers, and Shamir opts to pull away. She hums in thought before peeling her hand away as well, the corners of her lips tugging upwards into a satisfied smirk. "There. A new experience to add to the list." She turns to leave before pausing, tossing a pensive look over her shoulder. "You're not half bad. I'll have to remember that."

[envihellbender]

WRATH

WRATH

Resident Evil

“Since you are so insistent on acting like a disgusting beast around my child,” William Birkin snarled, looking down at Brian Irons as he prepared the syringe with his new creation filling it. The substance glowed a blood red, appropriate, William thought. Irons’ bloated limbs were kept in place by reinforced restraints. On capture he had been injected with neuromuscular blocking agent meaning he was unable to move, but in a moment that wouldn’t matter. “Luckily, I needed a new test subject.” Irons’ eyes widened in fear and William couldn’t help but let out a deranged laugh. He roughly grabbed a portion of fat on Irons’ bare arm and stabbed the needle into the skin. “Would you like to know what’s going to happen to you?” William paused and looked at Irons expectantly before chuckling again.

“It’s rather amusing watching you try to talk even though your muscles are paralysed. Anyway, it’s my new creation the I-Virus. And by the looks of your bloodshot eyes and reddening face it’s starting to work. I know, I know, everything is so infuriating isn’t it? That anger filling your chest is making your chest hammer against your rib cage so hard I can hear it.”

Irons managed to open his jaw as the virus strengthened his muscles, he let out an unintelligible yell and struggled against his restraints but could do little else. William watched in curiosity as his veins grew thicker and began to protrude through his skin, the pulsing blood visible and the skin beginning to grow purple.

“Oh dear, it seems your massive energy increase is not being expressed. Not that a man who lives on alcohol, food, and cigars could do that anyway. If this keeps going you’ll make yourself-” William was interrupted by another yell followed by silence as Irons’ rib cage tore itself open. Shards of bone, chunks of muscle, fat, and heart tissue covered the room. William looked down with raised eyebrows. It seemed the intense rage had caused his heart to explode. How poetic, he thought, as he began collecting samples for further research.

The Silt Verses

From Press Secretary Carson’s file on illegal faiths. Every illegal faith he comes across is here and the notes are neatly and meticulously kept.

God: Frater Russo

Deity Type: the God of Masculine Anger (some have called him the God of toxic masculinity, which seems accurate. Others say the God of the Patriarchy which feels a little unfair.)

Followers: they call themselves Fraternity of Russo, seems to be primarily based on SacriFile (social media site for finding sacrifices and discussion interfaith topics).

Sacrifices: Primarily women between the ages of eighteen to twenty five but potential victims have been as young as sixteen and old as forty five.

Origin: The first signs of it were on SacriFile with the creation of the SubFile Fraternity of Russo. It was at first thought to be a hoax although encouraged lots of young men to post about their anger with being rejected by women. The opinions generally seem extremely radical conservative, more align with historical ideas of women. It was assumed to be a distasteful joke until the creator share a photograph (see attached picture) of said God and posting pictures of the sacrifices who have been confirmed to be missing people.

Known Crimes: Blasphemy, heresy, suspected sexual abuse, suspected unlawful sacrifices, suspected murder. Sixteen women have been confirmed, could potentially be more but there are a lot of missing people cases and he has been seen up and down the Peninsula and possibly in the Linger Straits. It’s possible that he is manifested by the internet.

Sacrifice method: Followers on the SubFile that one must make a post stating your intentions with a picture of who you wish to sacrifice. However, it only seems to work if the victim leaves the house after dark as several are left safe and now under government protection. The post seems to get to Frater Russo somehow, although some think it’s still a hoax and we should be looking for a serial killer. The creator of the SubFile says that there is no visible mouth and it squeezes sacrifices to death like a boa constrictor. It seems to consume the sacrifices but no one is sure how.

Weaknesses: Uncertain. From what we can tell he is only able to be out at night. For the foreseeable future we recommend that anyone who can be perceived as women stay inside after sunset.

Chances of legality: None (as is the case with all faiths believed to be hate crime related.)

At the bottom of the page is a printed out photograph of a strange dark red figure. It seems to be made of some smoke like substance with black holes for “eyes”. It has at least six tendrils of red smoke coming from its presumed torso which seems to float off of the ground. No legs are visible. Its tendrils end in sharp points which seem far more corporeal than the rest of its body.

Scream

Julia stood over Charlie’s sleeping body silently, breaking into his house was surprisingly easy - and now she stood over his bed and filled that same rage filling her chest. He was so pathetic, falling head over heels after anyone who was nice and gendered him correctly. All Julia had to do was talk about horror films and not invite him to come with the girls and he was eating out of her hand like a puppy. She debated as she stood there putting one of his pillows over his face, it would be so easy. In around twenty minutes she’d be out the door and no one would be any of the wiser. However, she needed him. She needed a second, someone who was easily manipulated. The only person she was unsure she could turn him against was Robbie, but after he’d cold shouldered Charlie after their secret make out sessions and decided to focus on girls Charlie had been heartbroken. Especially after that one little pronoun slip up at lunch that afternoon. Watching it unfurl made Julia want to throw up and bash both of their brains in, but she had to play sweet and sympathetic. She was Billy Loomis, and she was going to use Charlie just like he used Stu Macher. She took a deep breath, everything made her so angry these days. Her limbs were shaking at the idea that Charlie thought he was worth being friends with her.

Finally, Julia sat on the edge of bed, leaned over and gently took Charlie’s shoulder. She shook him awake. His eyes shot open and he backed away suddenly, falling off the other side of his bed. He stood up wearing a Final Destination t-shirt and his boxer shorts. Julia rolled her eyes and exhaled, he was so ridiculously small and weak. She could wrap him around her little finger, and he’d thank her for the pleasure. It made her want to smack his face against the wall until his head was concave. But he’d be at the end of her rage in time.

“Julia?! What the hell are you doing here?!” Charlie whispered angrily, clearly keeping his voice down so as not to wake his family.

“Nice boxers, Charlie,” Julia teased. She internally cringed, she always felt so stupid talking like this but her friends ate it up. Seeing how Charlie relaxed instantly and sat back down was like a drug to Julia, she felt so powerful that her (incredibly rightful in her eyes) fire of anger sated.

“Yeah well, I didn’t expect visitors. Why are you here? Wait how did you-”

“You remember the Ghostface killers-”

“Yeah it’s like the best mo-”

“Not the movie. The real killers.”

“Erm. Yeah? Why?” Charlie narrowed his eyes as he stood staring at her, a part of her wondered if he was suspicious. She dismissed that thought instantly and resisted the urge to laugh, Charlie wasn’t clever enough.

“Because I saw how you looked at Robbie today. And I saw that saw anger and resentment I’ve been harbouring for years. How’d you like to be my Stu?” Julia asked slyly. Charlie widened his eyes, he started to give an awkward laugh but quickly silenced himself when he realised she was serious. He got back into bed and and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“Okay, so this is either a bad joke or you’re secretly crazy either way please leave and we can pretend this was a dream, okay?” Charlie said a little too quickly. Julia stood up and shrugged.

“Okay, but keep this window open okay,” she said gesturing to the right wall. “I’ll come back in this way. If you’re not as interested as I think you are, then it’ll be locked, right?” When she turned and left with Charlie’s eyes boring into her back her smile dropped. She exhaled felt the overwhelming urge to hit something. The wall, a person, anything. She took deep breaths until she was out of the house, she knew a place she could let off some steam.

[dreamdepot]

Dreams of the Kingdom - Chapter 16: Dreams of Hope

Previous < First > Next

Retrieve the Master Sword and find the final piece of the Triforce as you prepare to confront Ganondorf.

AO3 Wattpad or below!

Thank you for your patience on this delayed chapter!

Chapter 16 – Dreams of Hope

A/N: Lyrics for Zelda’s Lullaby by twilightstorm1994

==============================

The sun shone over the sparkling water, but the world was silent save the lapping of waves. Suddenly, the silence was shattered by the roar of the Light Dragon as it climbed back into the heavens. You and Link stood at the tip of the spiral Rist Peninsula, staring at the dragon – no, Zelda – rise into the sky. Silent Princesses grew at your feet. Tears rolled down your cheek. The final memory played over and over in your mind.

Link squeezed your hand. “We’ll get her back. We’ll find a way.”

You wiped your eyes. “Yeah.” You felt the piece of the Triforce that had washed up on the beach pulse in your hand. “Yeah, we’ll find a way.”

You stood with Link for a little longer. With one more shuddering breath, you steeled yourself. “First, we need to find a way up to the Li… to Zelda. The Master Sword is waiting for you.” Link nodded. “The question is how.”

“We can try getting up to a sky island and dropping down as she passes, maybe the Sokkala Archipelago? Not sure if our gliders will make it though, and we’re out of wing capsules. We’ll need to- wait, what’s that?”

A low drone filled the air. Both you and Link searched around, expecting to see approaching monsters, but none were nearby.

“Mr. Pri-i-i-nce! Mr. He-e-ero!” Both of you looked up. A rickety biplane buzzed through the air. It was a mix of wood, leaves, and repurposed Zonai parts, just barely held together by ropes. Somehow, it managed a smooth landing on the sand. “Ya-ha-ha! We found you!”

“Captain Hollo?” You said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

The Captain and his companions saluted. “Your majesty, we’re here to help you! We’ve been practicing, and we’ve made our first successful prototype for you!”

You tried not to focus too hard on the word “first”. The biplane, despite being held together by hopes, dreams, and rather thin ropes, was just big enough for both you and Link to ride on. “Do you think it’s strong enough catch up to a dragon?”

“A dragon?!” Captain Hollo followed your eyes up to the sky. “Um… isn’t it dangerous to get close to the dragons?”

“It’s really important,” Link said. “We need to get up there.”

Captain Hollo did his best to look brave, but he and the other Koroks trembled. “Well… if you’re sure. It should make it, just be careful not to fly to fast otherwise it might break the wings…”

“That’s not exactly comforting…” you said, “but thank you. Link, let’s go.”

“Right behind you.” You clambered up onto the aircraft as the Koroks waddled to the propellers. “Wait… these don’t have capsules, how did you get propellers?”

For wearing a leaf mask, it was surprising how easily you could see Captain Hollo blush. “Well… we might have took it from one of the shrines Sir Link’s already finished…”

Link tried to hide his groan. “To be fair, you don’t need them anymore,” you offered, even if it was a bit worrying how seriously the Koroks took their materials.

Instead of focusing on that, you watched the Koroks adjust the leaf flaps and climb on each other’s backs to reach the propeller blades. With a mighty heave, they forced the blades down. “Contact!” The Koroks shouted as the propellers spun to life.

“Good luck!” Captain Hollo said. The Koroks saluted as the aircraft began to roll.

“Thank you!” You shouted back. You and Link carefully leaned back on the wing, getting enough of an angle to lift off, just before the water.

“This might take some getting used to,” Link muttered, as the two of you shifted your weight to keep the wobbly biplane on a steady course.

“Let’s just hope it stays together.” The extended wings made of wood did not look sturdy as they shook with each cycle of the propellers. In spite of that, you steadily gained altitude until you were climbing up over Akkala and into the skies. “Alright, let’s go pay my sister a visit.”

==============================

It was lucky for you that dragons usually don’t fly very fast. Just as the ropes and Zonai devices started to give out, you soon came up to Zelda’s flank. As you followed Link, leaping off of the biplane, its wings snapped off and the wreckage slammed into a floating island before crumbling to the surface below. You and Link landed softly on the glittering scales, safe and sound.

“She’s flying a lot lower now,” you muttered. “Do you think some part of her remembers?”

“I’m sure that deep down, she knows.” Link said, taking your hand. “Come on.”

Together, you climbed up the undulating dragon’s back. Reaching its mane, you paused, subconsciously stroking the hair before continuing your climb forward towards the halo of light just above. There, over the final crest, was the Master Sword, embedded in her head.

You crept down to her snout and gave it a gentle pet. “Hello sister.” You swallowed the lump in your throat and let out an uneasy laugh. “To think I was complaining about my headaches. Can’t imagine that felt very good for the past millennia.”

Zelda gave you a long, slow blink and a short snuff.

Link patted her head, and then turned to the Master Sword. “You might want to brace yourself up here. I have a feeling she’s not going to like this.” You couldn’t argue with that, quickly hunkering down next to Link and gave him a thumbs up. “Sorry Zelda,” he said, before planting his feet and grasping the sword.

Link was right, Zelda did not like it. She roared and began to charge across the sky. “Come… on!” Link grunted, pulling as hard as he could but the sword would not move. “She won’t give it up!”

“Maybe she thinks we’re trying to steal it?” You shouted back over the wind. Zelda soon curled into a nosedive, but the two of you held on. At the last moment before plummeting into Hyrule Field, she curved back up, climbing straight into the sky.

Your hand slipped, and you flung back into empty air. Suddenly, you jolted to a stop. Link strained, hanging on to you with one hand, the Master Sword with the other. Muscles straining, he pulled you back up until you could catch a foothold on the scales as Zelda leveled out.

The wind whipped around you as Zelda bucked and roared. You embraced her, locking your body under her horn and pressing yourself against her ear. “It’s okay Zelda, I’m here, I know it hurts. Your brother’s here. It’s okay, you can let it go.” Link strained to pull the sword as Zelda climbed higher and higher. The air grew thinner, and it was getting harder to breathe. “I know you don’t remember me, but I’ll never leave you!” You pressed your forehead against her cool scales as she thrashed left and right. Something, anything… what could help? Then it struck you; memories of the nights she cried after your mother’s passing.

You sucked in as much air as you could and began to sing.

Go to sleep

Rest upon your bed

May this night bring dreams to your head

Hear my voice

Never let it die

Keep this lullaby

Soon the sun shall set on

Long it will be till dawn

Never from you will I be gone

Carry on

Rid this world of fear

Now the time is near,

Peace will soon reign here…

Zelda’s thrashing tapered off as she rose higher, until she settled into a calm flight. You lifted your head, stroking her scales. “She remembered,” you said softly.

Suddenly it became easier to breathe. Zelda flew miles above the clouds where the sky was filled with golden light. “What… is this place?” you muttered. You turned to Link, seeing that the hairs had released their grip on the Master Sword. Link hesitated for a moment, before taking the sword in hand.

Effortlessly, the sword came free. Petals of light peeled away from the Master Sword as Link lifted it, revealing an almost crystalline core. The new blade pulsed with an almost holy light.

Link…

Link…

Your sister’s voice echoed around you as you were blinded by light. In a shower of sparks, an image of her appeared before Link, seemingly frozen in time.

The Master Sword… She is the key to destroying the Demon King. He defeated her before but her long slumber has healed these wounds. When you two next face the Demon King… you will have my strength to help you, through her. Link you are our final hope. I pray this sword reaches you in the future. Protect Hyrule, and protect [Y/n] from him…

The image soon faded, and Zelda began her descent. Link pressed his hand against the Master Sword. “It’s good to have you back.” The Master Sword pulsed with light in response, as Link sheathed her.

You meanwhile focused on your sister. “I’ll see you soon, Zelda,” you said, hugging her snout again. “We’re gonna bring you home, I promise.”

Zelda dropped the two of you down at the Great Sky Island, before taking flight once again. As she flew into the distance, you swore you could hear her roaring more as singing back to you.

“Where are we going now?” Link asked.

You ran the mental checklist. Each of the Triforce pieces but one had been found. Looking out across the sky and down to Hyrule Field, you soon found what you were looking for. “There,” you said, pointing to a massive stump in a small lake on the western edge of Hyrule Field. “We’re going to the place where it all started. The first dream.”

==============================

Water dripped down the twisted knots of roots. “Is it down there?” Link asked.

“No, but it has to be here somewhere. The first dream was obviously here.” You shimmied down the root, deeper below the Ancient Tree. Every so often, you’d toss a Brightbloom seed to help light up the dim trunk. “I wonder if it was like this for that Link,” you said, more to yourself. Such a little kid having to deal with this awkward climb was not a pretty picture.

That was nothing to say of the monsters that enjoyed making life difficult. The Keese were dealt with easily enough, but the variety of Likes and Horroblins on the narrow roots made the going slow. Each of the smaller caves were empty, and despite not wanting to investigate the pond at the bottom, your options were growing limited.

You sat on a mossy root and closed your eyes. “Okay, come on, you’ve shown me visions the rest of the time, why not now? Something to help?”

Nothing happened.

“Please, anything? I can feel how much time and history is in this tree, there has to be something. A hint from the Era of Twilight? Maybe Hyrule’s Dark Ages?”

Still nothing.

You heard Link shimmy down the vines, landing next to you. “No luck?”

“Nope.” You pulled the other shards out of your pack. “They haven’t so much as sparkled since we’ve gotten here. Hoped we could use them like a dowsing rod or something.” You ignored how the Master Sword seemed to glow a bit brighter at hearing the word “dowsing”.

“Not a bad idea, but maybe they gave us a different hint?”

“How so?”

“Not sure yet,” Link said deep in thought. He knelt next to you and moved some of the pieces. “Three we found by defeating monsters, Colgera, Ghirahim, and Marbled Gohma. Three were given to us, the Mine Construct, Captain Hollo, and Cece. One we found washed up on shore at Malin Bay, and the last one we know is somewhere here.” Link frowned. “Guess that doesn’t help a ton. Maybe we could say the ocean gave us one and the last one we have to beat another monster somewhere here?”

You shrugged. “We’ve slain nearly every monster here already.”

“What about the dream?”

“I mean that Link did have to fight Aquamentus, but when was the last time anyone saw an Aquamentus?”

“When was the last time anyone saw a lot of these monsters?”

“Good point,” you sighed. You stared into the water below, turning one of the shards over in your hand. The light from the Brightblooms bounced off and sparkled across the water. “Too bad we don’t have a map and compass. Treasure hunting was so much easier when we were kids,” you laughed.

Link didn’t laugh, but he looked a bit confused. “Hey, didn’t you say the name of that place was the Bird or something?”

“The Temple of the Eagle. Why?” Link stood quickly and started changing into his Zora armor. “Link, why? What do you see?”

“There!” He said, but instead of pointing he jumped into the water. Without thinking you jumped after him. In the murky, stagnant water, it was hard to see, but Link dove deeper and deeper. You dropped a Brightbloom into the water, letting it light up the bottom. Deep in the water were shattered statues, now home to minnows. Link, however, dove to one statue in particular, an eagle. Link pulled out a stone axe and began to hack away at the statue. As a chunk broke away, he grabbed it and swam to the surface.

“Got it!”

“What?”

Link swam over and held out the piece to you, a chunk of the eagle statue with a sparkling bronze eye. “When you were playing with that one shard, I saw it reflect off something in the water, this bird statue. When you said it was the eagle, I figured it had to be it.”

You hugged him, almost dragging you both underwater. “Link, you’re amazing! Let’s get back up there and get the other shards.” As your hand grazed the piece in the statue, you felt a burst of energy, almost knocking you and Link back.

The remaining pieces in your pack floated down, spinning around the last piece. Faster and faster they spun, the excess stone disintegrating away as they slowly merged together. The depths of the trunk grew brighter and brighter until you had to shield your eyes. Then, all at once, everything fell still.

You opened your eyes to see the room had changed. You and Link were on solid ground, warm and dry. The dirt and roots had been banished away, replaced with dark blue stone. Eerie Zonai-like carvings filled the walls, but with more grotesque gargoyle-like faces. Eight menacing dragons surrounded you, each holding a small triangle in their jaws. A small set of stairs led up to a raised altar and floating just above that was a golden triangle. It lazily spun in the air, slowly flipping point down. The crest of Nayru appeared for a brief moment upon its face.

“What is this place?” Link asked. “Did it teleport us?”

“I think this is the old Temple of the Eagle. And that… that’s the Triforce of Wisdom.”

You stared for a moment at the holy artifact before you. “What are you waiting for?” Link asked.

“Are you sure?”

Link smiled. “If the goddesses were whispering in your ears, then they probably want you to be the one to wield it.”

You nodded, slowly climbing the steps. As you grew closer, you swore you could hear the whispers of rulers past. You reached out your hand, pressing it against the cool surface.

In a burst of light, the Triforce of Wisdom disappeared, leaving your hand in the air. The energy pulsed throughout your body, warm and comforting. You rubbed your hand, nearly your entire arm turning to gold.

Well done, Prince and Swordsman… came an unfamiliar voice. Bring together the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom to rebuild the Light Force. Do this and you shall defeat Ganon…

“Who…” you started, but the voice was already fading away, only with the plucking of the harp echoing around you. Instead, a blue light wrapped around the two of you, whisking you away from the altar and back to the surface in the center of Hyrule Field. A gentle breeze wrapped around you as the power faded. You looked down to your hand to see your tattoo had changed to show two of the triangles were now filled in.

“Do you think two pieces will be enough?” Link asked.

“It was, at least once in the past. Besides it might have to be. None of my other dreams seem to lead anywhere special and we haven’t seen any signs of the Triforce of Courage. Unless you’ve been having weird dreams?”

Link laughed. “No, unless you count the one about that Goron scarecrow, the metal construct, and the weird lion. I don’t think having a bunch of creepy women hitting on me really counts – more of a nightmare honestly.”

“Heh, pretty sure that was just from eating too much of that mushroom pizza I made.” You looked up at Hyrule Castle. “Well… we’ve been everywhere that have been in my dreams so far. The only major place left is up there.” You let out an uneasy laugh. “Where better to hide the Triforce of Courage than the place that scares me the most?”

“It doesn’t make me feel great either.” Link seemed lost in thought.

“It doesn’t matter. We have two pieces of the Triforce, and the power of four sages backing us up. We’ve got this.”

==============================

All too soon, you found yourself at the Lookout Landing Observation Deck, the sun already dipping low in the late afternoon sky. You tightened the straps on your pack, making the final pass on your checklist for battle. Your pack was filled with extra food and elixirs, especially anything that would counteract gloom. Your Ancient Sheikah armor was polished and ready, still perhaps the strongest set of armor you owned. It had protected you well enough during your siege against the Calamity, save when you were cornered by several Guardians. It would have to do now as well.

Your quiver was filled to the brim with arrows, your best bow slung on your back next to your Sword of the Six Sages and several backup weapons Link fused for you.

“Ready?” Link asked, similarly prepared in his Champion’s Leathers. The Master Sword seemed to glow with contentment, now returned to its rightful place with him.

“Ready.”

“Good luck boys,” Purah said, taking a final look through her telescope at the castle. “It looks like you’re expected. One of the fake Zeldas are already waiting for you.” She then turned to you. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for the Sages to get here first?”

You shook your head. “I know they’ll get here soon, but we don’t have time to waste. The Blood Moon is supposed to happen tonight. We can’t give Ganondorf the chance to regroup his forces.”

“Then there’s no time to waste,” Purah said, straightening her glasses. “I’ll send the Sages as soon as they arrive.”

“Any last words of wisdom?” Link asked.

“Princey, Linky,” Purah said solemnly. “Go kick his ass.”

Link barked out a laugh. “Yes ma’am!”

“We’ll be back before you know it,” you said, leading the way to the tower. You almost stepped on the pad before Link pulled you back.

“Don’t even think about it. Boyfriend or not, I’m still your knight. Don’t want you getting ambushed.”

“Fine, you win,” you said, raising your hands in defeat. Link snuck in a quick kiss before getting launched into the sky, with you not far behind him.

As Hyrule Castle loomed in the sky, your mind returned to the very beginning, back in the Depths. Sharpe’s words echoed back to you.

==============================

Landing back at the castle grounds felt like déjà vu. Even so, you felt a pang of sadness at how much further it had degraded. The plants were now ashen, and pools of gloom had spread like a plague across the walls. Moblins and Horriblins had taken up residence and various Likes grew under the balconies. Part of you expected to see the Eyes of the Calamity watching from the malice, but there were none. Despite that, you could still feel Ganondorf watching you from all angles.

If your home felt foreboding and intimidating when you were here to fight the Calamity, now it felt depressing. “It’s never going to be the same, is it?” Link gave you a questioning look. You motioned to the castle. “I know we wanted to try to restore it, but it really is beyond repair now, isn’t it?”

Link put his hand on your back, his touch a small comfort. “Maybe. But maybe that’s a good thing.”

“How?”

“Wiping the slate clean. We get rid of Ganondorf once and for all and Hyrule will be safe. Maybe that means it’s time for us to build a new castle from the ground up.” Link scratched the back of his head. “Think about it. You and Zelda have been haunted by the shadows of Hyrule’s past for your whole life. Hell, even me too! Maybe it’s time we break away. Learn from the past but leave it behind.”

You stared at the ground with a soft smile. “Maybe that’s what Sharpe wanted me to do when he said to break the cycle. Maybe it is time we leave the past in the past for good.” You looked up at the entrance to the Sanctum, high above. Everyone you had met along the way had helped you get to this moment.

There were your brave sages, Tulin, Sidon, Riju, and Yunobo.

There were your friends old and new; Purah, Robbie, Impa, Tauro, Paya, Teba and Saki, Penn, the Stable Trotters, Lady Yona, Captain Hollo, Sophie, Captain Buliara, the people of Tarrey Town, Bludo, everyone who had ever helped to rebuild Hyrule and help you stop the Calamity.

Sharpe… the Champions…

Zelda…

You turned and saw Link, determination in his eyes. All this time, he’s been there by your side, and you knew he always would be.

You grinned. “Alright, let’s go. Let’s end this nightmare. Tomorrow is going to be a new day for Hyrule.”

==============================

A/N: Thank you for your patience on this delayed chapter. As the speedrunners say, we're now in "go mode" so you know what that means. Next week, I hope you’re ready for suavemente... I mean, Ganondorf.

[xtruss]

Fagradalsfjall Volcano Erupting in July. In 2021, Fagradalsfjall erupted for the first time in about 800 years, kickstarting a new era in volcanic activity in Iceland 🇮🇸. Image credit: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

'Time's Finally up': Impending Iceland Eruption is Part of Centuries-Long Volcanic Pulse

Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula is now in a new era of volcanic eruptions that will last for up to 500 years, and the building magma beneath Sundhnúkur and Grindavík is part of this millenia-long cycle.

— By Hannah Osborne | Live Science

Iceland's potentially imminent eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula is part of a 1,000-year cycle of volcanic activity that will likely cause eruptions for centuries, scientists say.

"Time's finally up," Edward W. Marshall, a researcher at the University of Iceland's Nordic Volcanological Center, told Live Science in an email. "We can get ready for another few hundred years of eruptions on the Reykjanes."

Seismic activity began increasing in the south of the peninsula in October, with hundreds of earthquakes recorded there each day. On Nov. 10, authorities evacuated the town of Grindavík, with experts warning an volcanic eruption could take place in just days.

Infographic showing the seismic activity that has hit Iceland in recent weeks. Image credit: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

According to the Icelandic Met Office (IMO), a magma tunnel stretching 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) formed beneath the ground between Sundhnúkur in the north and Grindavík. The area affected also encompasses the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa — a tourist hotspot that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

Magma in the tunnel — also known as a dike — appears to be rising to the surface, and there is a high risk of it breaking through. The greatest area of magma upwelling is currently close to Sundhnúkur, about 2 miles (3.5 km) northeast of Grindavík, according to the IMO. Researchers believe the amount of magma in the tunnel is "significantly more" than what was present during the eruptions at Fagradalsfjall, which sparked back to life in 2021 after more than 800 years of inactivity.

That 2021 eruption marked the start of a new cycle of volcanic activity on the Reykjanes Peninsula. Geological records show periods of inactivity last between 600 and 1,200 years, which is then followed by pulses of eruptions lasting between 200 and 500 years, Clive Oppenheimer, a professor of volcanology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., told Live Science in an email.

"It looks like 2021 kicked off a new eruptive phase which might see the several fault zones crossing the [Reykjanes Peninsula] firing on and off for centuries," he said.

Grindavík has been evacuated over fears an eruption may take place in or near the town. Image credit: Kjartan Torbjoernsson/Getty Images

The Reykjanes Peninsula sits above two tectonic plates that are being pulled apart. The strain that builds up is released in bursts as part of the cycle. "We are now in one of these pulses," David Pyle, a volcanologist and professor of Earth sciences at the University of Oxford, U.K, told Live Science in an email. "Each eruption releases just a bit more of the stored-up strain, and eventually, when all of that strain has been released, then the eruptions will stop."

It is currently unclear if an eruption will take place as a result of the magma tunnel. "These sorts of dikes are actually a tectonic, not a magmatic feature. In other words, the lava is filling a fracture, not forcing its way into the rock," Marshall said.

Should a fissure emerge, an eruption could last for several weeks. The large amount of magma involved compared with previous eruptions in the region could result in more lava flow at the surface, Oppenheimer said.

What happens next is a waiting game, Marshall said. "I predict — if an eruption occurs — that it will occur between a few days to threeish weeks. If it hasn't erupted in three weeks, I don't think it will happen. Cooling will begin to close the fractures."

— Hannah Osborne is the planet Earth and Snimals Editor at Live Science. She worked for several years at Newsweek and at International Business Times U.K. as the Science Editor. Hannah holds a Master's in Journalism from Goldsmith's, University of London.

[politetim]

Endless Peninsula Chapter 9

Only took me several months of not writing. TW: mild violence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Past Awakens

Aurgin struggled up the side of the pit, scrabbling at the loose rock and dirt. The spider that she had fallen with was head, its head and eyes mashed by her maul. She herself did not escape unscathed. The fall had bruised her all along her side, and the spider had given her a close call with flashing fangs dripping with venom. Her brigandine held, and so she lived.

As she heaved herself over the edge of the pit she heard the loud T’Chunk of Maker’s crossbow. Aurgin scanned the room in time to see the final spider scuttling down the hall, after the retreating footsteps of Aileen. The cleric’s mace was on the floor, its strap burnt and snapped. Panic flooded Aurgin, and she leaped to her feet trusting Moe and Maker to hold back their foe. The stale air of the dungeon built into a rush in her ears as she sped for Aileen.

Aurgin heard the sound of a body hitting the floor. A cloud of dark dust billowed out from one of the hall’s many doors. She hesitated as she saw the crumpling legs of the spider. The dust cloud moved. Against a tightening knot of dread Aurgin forced herself forward. Her fears were realized when she peaked around the door, maul in hand, and saw a humanoid figure take shape out of the dust–now smoke. Aileen raised a terrified shield as the figure pulsed with a dim purple light. It crawled over her shield, incorporeal claws grating against the metal. Then Aurgin noticed movement from a dirt-coated suit of armor.

There was a blast of bright sunlight. The armor heaved to its feet, a battle ax in one hand. Golden light suffused its form, the dirt and grime of untold years burning away. At once Aurgin knew it was a Sentenate, like Maker, but unlike Maker in its construction. Without a word it raised its battle ax and pounced on the wraith, blade golden with power. Underneath this combat Aileen went limp on the cold stone.

The Sentenate did not just drive the wraith back, it pursued it with one hand outstretched. The undead apparition screeched in a horrid tone and scrabbled at the hand that sought it, but the golden light seared it and in some places made it corporeal. As the dueling pair rounded the forge, the Sentenate caught the wraith and yanked it close. With a gigantic swing of the ax the metal Folk carved an empty swath through the wraith’s center, turning its dark purple dusk to bright white sparks.

Aurgin took the opportunity to dive for Aileen, who was still unconscious. Her shield arm had been scratched and looked woefully pale, even in the dim light of the dungeon. Maul forgotten Aurgin gathered her friend in her arms and dragged herself back towards the door, where an unphased Maker had appeared. T’Chunk! A bolt whizzed through the wraith. The glowing battle ax made another pass through vaporious evil, and there was another screech. Its form failed, and with a pop the force keeping the wraith together dissipated. Aurgin pulled Aileen close as smoke and dust billowed out and filled the room, choking them both.

The recently arisen Sentenate did not hesitate in the gloom. Aurgin heard the clanking of its footsteps approaching, then a flat voice spoke. “Release the human, orc.”

Maker stepped forward from somewhere in the cloud, Aurgin could feel their feet close by. “You will retreat. These are not hostile.”

“It is an orc. You question my command, scout?”

“Yes. Do you know where you are? What year it is?”

There was a pause. The head of the battle ax fell through the dust and came to a rest on the stone just beside Aurgin’s head. She could see from its construction, the flat top and beard, that it was dwarven in make, despite being human in size and length. “Explain yourself, scout, or I’ll have you decommissioned for insubordination.”

In this discussion Moe scuttled forward, its bladed arms gently prodding at Aurgin. She cautiously reached a hand out to pull herself and Aileen another arm length, when a heavy steel foot clamped down on her leg.

“You are going nowhere, Orc.”

Anger broke through shock. Aurgin released Aileen and lashed out with a boot, kicking the Sentenate back. Powerful arms and shoulders heaved her to her feet, and though she was unarmed she lunged for the metal Folk. The dust swirled, but enough had fallen that she could see dim shapes in the dark. Her hands grabbed the sides of its metal head, and with a furious yank and a backwards pace she threw the Sentenate towards the door. It swung ineffectually with its ax before it crashed to the ground.

“Aurgin! This is a grievous mistake!”

“Do not call me that!” Aurgin roared. She caught sight of her maul and kicked it up into her hands with a deft flick. Before she could do more, however, Maker reached out and stopped her.

“Aurgin! They just awoke! We were built to fight you, to fight the undead! They were made to see you as an enemy! Please! Let me speak with them! Let me at least try!”

The smallest spark of emotion broke through Maker’s dull tone. Aurgin paused, staring into her reflection in Maker’s lensed eyes. The Sentenate on the ground shifted, dazed, but did not rise. With a pounding heart Aurgin let her maul fall to her side. “Okay. Okay, you talk to them. But I won't sit around and let it kill me, or kill Aileen.”

Maker whirled with mechanical speed and accuracy. “You, you know me. You were here, weren’t you?”

“Of course. You were supposed to lead them away. Why didn’t you?”

“Aren’t you curious to know my name? Aren’t you going to give me yours?”

In the clear air Aurgin could see the newcomer better. Instead of the Folkish features of Maker, it had a boxy head with one large lens for an eye. Its construction was rugged and overbuilt, and in this excess of metal were a myriad of dents and scratches. It looked up at Maker. 

“Why bother? You failed. They found us, and they broke through the doors. We fought them, room by room. Arrows and bolts vanished in the crushing mass. Swords were bent and spears splintered. Our shields clawed at and worn away to nothing. A wight took me, and all vanished.

“Where were you? Why didn’t the scouts help? What happened out there?”

Maker was silent for a long moment. “We noticed the swarm had changed course. We didn’t know why. We were returning, as fast as we could, but an abomination met us low on the slopes. I was thrown and when I crashed back down all vanished.”

The Sentenate staggered to its feet. “I am Arnith, paladin of Ankirat. I heard her, in the darkness.”

“Sentinel?”

“The very same. She told me I had to come back.” Arnith looked around the room, appearing still dazed. “I am still here? How long has it been?”

“I am Maker, scout of the Steel Brigade,” Maker dropped their head, “it has been one thousand and one hundred years.”

Arnith sagged back, their metal shoulders grinding against the stone wall. The ax dropped from their hand with a clatter that echoed throughout the dark halls. Aurgin was reminded there was still much of this place that was unaccounted for, and gave the rest of the room a look over.

It was a forge room, clearly dwarven in its pentagonal shape. Though they considered sixes and hexagonal structures holy and special, they always made their forges with five sides. A dwarf traveler who she had met told her that the act of forging, of making new things from metal, was considered the “sixth side”. Her interest waned when she saw and heard nothing, not even from the door in the rear of the room that had gone unnoticed.

“So long?” Arnith asked.

“I am afraid so,” Maker said.

“We lost, didn’t we?”

Aurgin’s attention returned to the two Sentenate. “I have been told we lost. Some of us return from deep underwater, and arrive on shore. One I met mentioned fighting under a storming sky, then an immense hammer crashing down to Kyranta. There was a wall of devastation that took all, and then nothing.”

In the following silence Aileen shifted. Aurgin collapsed to her knees to inspect her friend, and was pleased to see some color returning to the cleric’s face and arm. Arnith said nothing, they only watched. With a careful movement Aurgin cradled Aileen’s head in her arm and with her free hand pulled out her waterskin and put it to the half-elf’s lips.

Despite her low murmurings Aileen did not wake. She supped faintly at the the water, her hands twitched weakly, but still she did not wake. Aurgin’s brow furrowed. Her heart is still beating, her blood is still warm, her chest still rising and falling. After a moment she tried talking.

“Aileen? Can you hear me?”

Aileen twisted, eyes rolling behind closed lids. Her hair, messy with knots and dirt, fell across her face, but she did not raise a hand to brush it away. Aurgin did it for her. “I don’t understand, what’s wrong with her?”

“Do you care about this elf, orc?” Arnith asked.

Aurgin battled the spike of anger. “My name is Aurgin, and you will call me so, tin-skin, else I’ll mash you into scrap! Yes I care! She and I are to complete this quest with Maker and… I want her to see it done. What is wrong with her?”

Maker looked at Arnith. “Your lore is better than mine, I do not know.”

The one-eyed Sentenate took a step forward. Aurgin’s hand strayed toward her maul. “The wraith struck her, with pain and with fear. She will not wake unless healed by magic.”

The single lens considered Aurgin seriously. “Aurgin, if that is what you are, I can heal her. You speak of a quest, and it is not mine. I will help you, but you will need to tell me more about this world I have awoken into. Do you trust me? Will you help me as I help you?”

“Help her, not me! And yes, I will tell you what I know.” Aurgin held Aileen up. Her arms quivered under the weight of her body and chainmail, but she held firm. Arnith moved with mechanical accuracy, placing a metal hand on the cleric’s chest. The Mathuni warrior tensed, watching with forced calm as the recently awoken Sentenate worked.

The same light that banished the wraith of dust and smoke shone throughout Aileen, her unhealthy parlor evening out even more. When the Cleric spasmed and sucked in a huge breath, it took all Aurgin’s discipline not to yank her close and away from Arnith. She didn’t even notice when Aileen flinched, the rim of the cleric’s shield hitting Aurgin in the collarbone with a dull thud. 

Aileen rolled deeper into Aurgin’s arms, coughing as she did. Arnith stepped back, then met Aurgin’s stare. “There. She will recover. I am surprised to find she survived at all, a wraith can conjure incredible agony in even the slightest scratches. If you are to face more undead, know their most dangerous weapon is not the physical trauma they inflict, but the spiritual trauma. Now, Aurgin, you must tell me where and when I am.”

Maker wandered off as Aurgin began her halting explanation of Kyranta at large. They knew there was such a large gap between when the Sentenate were last conscious and now that there was no explanation holistic enough to bridge those long centuries. Maker themself had endured a myriad of explanations, treaties, debates, and lectures about the state of the world, and it had brought nothing but more confusion. What happened in those interim years, how the very landscape had changed, where the nations of the past went, why the names of the divinities are different, all of these things were unexplained.

The only Folk living who could speak at length about what had happened and where everything had been moved to were the Elves, and they had turned to enslaving maniacs. The undead were just as present as they had been in the remote corners of the world. The roving hordes of Maerui, then called Orcs, had formed their own societies free of the whispers of Gathra. There were also new Folkish races, like the Drazgol and Slazgol and the Grulai of Hoeperlund. 

Beyond this, the very Endless Above had changed. Not just their names, but their scopes and their realms. Maker pondered a time where each endless had a real and tangible place, a position in the greater cosmos that was theirs and theirs alone. Tanis of death. Judge the ferryman. Uncountable years and the change that came with them had not spared the Endless Above. The very thought of these immense beings weathering the winds of time the way the Folk did shook Maker in a way they could not place.

There were a number of theories about the origin of magic, of war, of love and of hate. Some from before the world as Maker knew it had ended, and some that were the same today as they had been then. Along the stone walls of the fort were deep grooves, some were from the chisels used to shape the bricks and blank rock; some were from the claws of the undead and the scoring of enchanted weapons. How is it that the scars of a war long forgotten and ended are more permanent and unchanging than the primordial forces that govern the very rocks they are carved into?

Maker gazed into the dark of the further reaches of the fort. The forge room, pentagonal after the way of the dwarves, had a back hallway that led around to the personal room of the family that had lived here. Maker did not bother checking the store room as not even the most salted provisions would last hundreds of years. Aurgin and Aileen had enough food for themselves.

The bed was caked with dust and pebbles, and the fireplace beside had caved in. Maker wondered idly if the forge’s chimney had suffered a similar fate, and if it had been the point of weakness her platoon worried it would be. Down more narrow hallways led the Sentenate to a pair of sarcophagi, their lids slotted into the walls around them. None of her squad knew the dwarves who rested here so they passed the time on long patrols guessing at their temperament and history. Maybe they had been low-born royals, maybe ascended merchants.

In the room beside was an oddity, something Maker did not remember. A battered chest, held together mostly by the rusting iron bands to which the rotted wood was riveted. With a bronze hand Maker unhooked the remains of the lock and lifted the lid. Inside was exactly what everyone who spent hours digging around dusty ruins hoped to find.

Arnith and Aurgin sat, backs to the dusty stone wall. Aileen was asleep with her head in Aurgin’s lap who brushed the cleric’s hair with a calloused hand. The Sentenate’s single lens took them both in without expression. At least Maker looks Folkish, with eyes and a brow Aurgin thought to herself. Aileen shifted in her sleep causing the warrior’s heart to stumble.

The Sentenate finally spoke. “So much… Nothing I remember has a link.”

“A link?”

“You didn’t mention the name of a single civilization that shares or is unmistakably similar to one from my world. Caelumnar? Lamante? Turgandy and Ogroth? Yes, the Twilight Star is the same, but they were mountain peaks, not islands. What of Dwerlum and Schakatan?”

Augrin shrugged. “I have never heard of those. My dad has spoken about how few books there are from more than two thousand years ago. He insists that something should’ve survived, as there are equally fragile works from before, but no words remain.”

“The Age of Heroes.” Arnith said to the silent forge.

“Hm? What was that?” Aurgin asked.

“What we called our time. The Age of Heroes.” The Sentenate paused at the sound of a distant creak. “The role of the paladin, my role, was the latest in the war against the undead. And the orc.”

Aurgin’s thoughtful face twisted. “Mathuni.”

“What does it mean? I don’t remember your… kind having much of a language. You were too new, and Gathra’s hand crushed most everything except your temper from your minds.”

The casual way in which Arnith spoke of the Mathuni during, if the Sentenate was to be believed, their earliest years in existence stabbed at Aurgin’s mind. A furious sense of condescension, a parching curiosity, and a juvenile insistence to not learn more out of spite. She held her silence for a moment, deciding not to ask further. If the Sentenate was to give her answers, they would need to prove themself more respectful.

“Mathuni. The Forgotten, or We Who were Forgotten,” she said at last. There, she thought to herself with a nod, disarming ignorance is disarming hatred. She heard it in her father’s voice, with more gravel than a landslide.

“The Forgotten. I suppose that is fitting, considering how you all vanished,” Arnith said, turning to face the sound of Maker’s approaching footsteps. “The plague of the undead made it very easy to forget everything else.”

Maker loomed out of the darkness behind the forge, their too-smooth gate unexpectedly springy. They were holding a rotting chest banded with rust. Before Aurgin could open her mouth to ask, Maker answered.

“It would appear that our reinforcements used your gravesite as a hiding place,” they said as they heaved the chest to the ground. Aurgin and Aileen both coughed in the storm of dust the box kicked up as it slammed to the stone, unseen parts of it snapping and buckling. Maker flung the lid off, causing an awful squeal of metal on metal from the hinges. Inside was the grim-covered but unmistakable shine of enchanted goods.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Another Atmospheric River Hits British Columbia

About a month after a powerful atmospheric river brought abundant rain to coastal British Columbia, another storm drenched southern parts of the Canadian province and western Washington in the U.S.

The atmospheric river made landfall over British Columbia on October 18, 2024, and moved down the coast on October 19-20. Portions of southern Vancouver Island recorded up to 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain between October 18 and 20, while the Vancouver metropolitan area on the mainland received up to 150 millimeters (6 inches). According to the Vancouver Sun, the rain overwhelmed the city’s storm drain system, leading to widespread flooding.

Toward the south, the storm also brought rain and wind to portions of western Washington. Up to 150 millimeters of rain was also measured on the Olympic Peninsula. Gusty winds toppled trees and contributed to 14,500 households in the Puget Sound region briefly losing power on October 19. NASA-led research has shown that atmospheric rivers are associated with the most damaging storms in the middle latitudes, especially with regard to the hazardous wind they produce.

A second pulse of water vapor moved over southwest British Columbia and northern Washington on October 20, when the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite acquired this image. In the image, an elongated stream of water vapor—the hallmark of atmospheric rivers—had reached the western coast of North America after crossing the Pacific Ocean. When atmospheric rivers encounter land, they often release that water vapor in the form of rain or snow.

According to the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego, forecasters expected the atmospheric river to hit western Canada as a Category 3 or 4 event, the second- and third-highest tiers on the scale. The storm follows an unusually strong Category 5 atmospheric river that hit British Columbia in September 2024. Experts suspect that the September atmospheric river was among the most intense events to transit the northeast Pacific in a satellite-based record going back to 2000.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Emily Cassidy.