#Red Valerian

[mellygregs]

Red valerian.

Babbacombe Bay, Torquay, Devon, U.K.

July 2024.

IPhoneSE

[natureisthegreatestartist]

Say "hi" to the katydid who came to visit. The plant, by the way, is red valerian (aka Jupiter's beard).

[wiley-treehouse-gardens]

Treehouse Gardens

[dansnaturepictures]

29th May 2024-Water dropwort at the Weirs in Winchester, view at Lakeside Country Park, poppy in Winchester and the centre piece of glorious displays of colourful roses I enjoyed in Winchester today at Abbey Gardens.

Mallards wandering around the green in front of Winchester Cathedral, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, House Sparrow, Goldfinches, Song Thrush heard, my first bindweed, broad-leaved willowherb and yarrow of the year, fox-and-cubs, red valerian and buttercups were other highlights today.

[thebotanicalarcade]

Instagram

[crudlynaturephotos]

[photosbyjez]

Red Valerian -- FOTD Dec 20

Red #Valerian is my latest post for Cee's FOTD Dec 20 #photography #flowers

Hi all 😃 My latest post for Cee’s FOTD. Red Valerian

[vampvalerian]

the queer experience is forgetting that straight people exist because i cannot imagine orin with a guy durge or gortash with a gal durge. what do you mean that they arent both there for the sake of gay toxic bloody relationships. what do you mean there’s straight toxic bloody relationships.

[houserosaire]

Prompt #26: Last

Silvaineaux’s eyes lingered for a moment on the space before the chapel door. Whatever snow had lain before it was now trampled flat by the back and forth passage of men and birds. Whatever secrets it might have revealed had been trampled under his own boots the night before. He shook his head and turned back to Cartier. “Make sure they’re getting through the last of the preparations to move out. I want to leave this place far behind us.”

“Yes, Ser.”

“Is Ser Valerian back yet?” Silvaineaux asked one of the men standing out beside the birds. 

“Not yet, Ser. He and Redding and Bardin went up that way, further into the trees.”

Silvaineaux nodded, shifting his hold on the reins and bringing one hand up to rest on Joyeux’s neck as he turned his own gaze to the treeline. The unease he had felt the night before settled in on him like a heavy cloak and he was grateful that the man watching the birds didn’t try to make any further conversation. Instead the man went back to fussing with the birds and Silvaineaux sat and watched the snow at the edge of the trees. It was not far to the treeline. He could easily see the tracks where they had gone in from where he sat.

Come out. Silvaineaux demanded in his thoughts. Any moment now Valerian would ride out of the trees, Bardin and Redding in tow. He would give his report and they would leave. Silvaineaux would never see the frozen font or the window with its broken saint again and he would be glad of it. 

Something stirred at the edge of the trees.

He had no sooner had time to discern the movement than it took shape. A riderless chocobo burst from the trees, two mounted men hard on its heels. The bird ran toward the rest of the mounts, chirping out the familiar little distress call of a bird in search of something. 

Silvaineaux went still, numb and stiff as a statue inside his armor. Blood dripped down the chocobo’s hind leg. He recognized the little seam where Valerian’s barding had been patched and the fine grey feathers of his familiar bird.  

He gathered his temper like he was tugging in Joyeux’s reins, shoved it down so that when Redding and Bardin’s birds trotted into sight he could meet them with a calm face. “Where is Ser Valerian?” He demanded of them. 

“I don’t know, my Lord.” Redding said. Silvaineaux had never heard the older hyur sound so humble and respectful. “We only fell behind him a moment, my lord, I swear it. Bardin thought he saw something in the snow.”

Silvaineaux turned to look at Bardin. 

Bardin lowered his head. “I thought I saw something… some fabric, a marker. You know I had family out this way before…” He gestured to the snow around them, ever present and stretching on forever. “I only stopped for a moment to look, Captain, I swear it. I said something but Ser Valerian must not have heard me. He rode on. I should have been louder.”

Silvaineaux ‘s fingers shifted on the reins, under him Joyeux stiffened and then danced in response to his tension. “Where is Ser Valerian, then?” He asked, forcing his voice to steadiness, speaking around the tightness of his own set jaw. “There is his bird. Did you notice it coming back without him? Did you look for him?”

“We were looking at what Bardin found. I heard the bird scream somewhere too far off.” Redding said. “And that’s when I realized how far behind him we’d fallen. There might have been shouting but between the snow and the trees and the hills. I’ve not got ears like you, Ser. The bird came tearing back past us and we thought we’d better come with it to tell you what had happened.”

“And have you told me that?” Silvaineaux snapped. “Because it seems to me you do not know what happened.” He took a deep breath. “Redding, with me. Cartier, with me! Laval!Get mounted, that bird is bloodied, we may need a medic. Bardin, you help see to that chocobo. I want everybody ready to move out the moment we come out of the trees.”

A breeze was rising. Silvaineaux could smell the chill of a storm in it as he waited the seemingly endless minutes it took Janvier Laval to tie his saddlebags into place and mount. He kept his hand steady on Joyeux’s reins to remind himself not to run off immediately as he wanted. 

They set off back along the tracks the others had left. In the fresh snow those tracks were easy enough to read, the rapid tracks of the frightened bird and following men gave way to the place where Redding and Bardin had dismounted and wandered around a small clearing. There past them were two sets of tracks. One of a chocobo moving at an easy trot off up the slope through the trees, beside it the tracks of that same bird rushing down the way it had come. Small spatters of crimson stood out stark against the snow at intervals. 

Those little flashes of color kept unpleasantly drawing Silvaineaux’s eye. They reminded him of the saint’s armor in the window. He thought of the saint’s cracked face and Valerian’s empty saddle and he touched his heels to Joyeux’s sides. Then he glanced back to make sure the men were with him. Looking back almost made him miss it, that first anomalous little mark. But as trees and snow flashed back he saw it again, drew on the reins to slow Joyeux enough for a better look.

The track of a boot, not far off the trail Valerian’s mount had made going up. Now that he sought it he could see another set, a different size, and then as they crested a small rise those tracks were all about, along with other clawed markings that were the track of neither man nor bird.  At the top of the small ridge the snow was trampled into a mass of tracks he could not truly hope to decipher but only to guess out. 

There, perhaps, Valerian had come out into the small clearing, paused to look over his shoulder as he realized Redding and Bardin had not followed. And there all around him tracks rushed from the trees and added themselves to a maelstrom of churned and bloodied snow. 

Silvaineaux swallowed and rode forward a little, adding Joyeux’s tracks to the edges of that mess long enough to see the tracks at the other side that went together in a mass down a little draw and deeper into the mountain. Too many tracks for him to reasonably follow with three men at his heels no matter how desperately he might want to. There was not enough blood there for a body. Just perhaps, Valerian still lived. He could gather the rest of the company…

A shadow flickered over the snow. Silvaineaux glanced up, and then touched Joyeux with the spurs. The warbird leapt back in under the shadow of the trees with the others. For a moment there was no sound but their breathing as they watched the shape of the dragon glide over, then wheel in toward the mountain, following in the sky the same line as those tracks. Numerous small shapes shadowed it. Silvaineaux closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of Valerian’s smile and that sturdy presence at his shoulder. 

Then he looked back into the wide eyes of the three men with him who waited for his orders. “Get back to the chapel.” He said, and every word felt like a betrayal. “We ride out. Now.”

[fontainebleau22]

The Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets AU I can’t stay away from! With thanks to @lazaefair for the original prompt and the wonderful artwork that goes with it.

Vasquez gets himself kidnapped and almost eaten, Faraday enlists Goodnight’s help to look for him, meets some new people and almost gets himself killed, and everyone learns some surprising things about their friends’ pasts.

[redwayfarers]

Howlers and minstrels in the night

Fandom: FFXIV Ship: Nika/Ianera Characters: Nika Perseis (OC), Ianera Maliriq (OC) Words: 772 Rating: Gen Summary: It's Nika's first night in Camp Dragonhead and he feels very out of sorts. Ianera is there to take care of him. Author's note: Once more, I am very baby into this game and this is all prone to change if I see fit in the future. That being said, I like how this came out, so I'm posting it!

The wind howls. The night they seem to have chosen to arrive at Camp Dragonhead is particularly sharp and particularly cold and Nika can’t help but feel grateful at Lord Haurchefant’s offer of hearth, dinner and tea. Ianera agrees, nodding along to whatever he says, and sometimes, he wishes she’d speak up in his place. However nice Haurchefant may be, one nice Ishgardian can’t rub away all of the soreness of his nerves left by his countrymen. 

Well, Ishgardians and so many other things. It all almost makes him snap, but he restrains his anger. Yet he can’t guarantee that the smiles he threw their way were anything pleasant.

One thing at the time, though. They met the guy, they were led to their lodging for the night at the very least, they fell fast asleep from exhaustion on the road. At least, until Nika’s own head decided to torment him, thus promptly cutting his rest short. 

No, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Just like he doesn’t want to talk about the bodies in Vesper Bay. Just how he doesn’t want to talk about how he saw the Perseis surname in Adama Landama graveyard and he didn’t want to look at the name, for fear it's his father’s grave and that his father now saw him break like a child’s toy and that he’d laugh, even if he knows full well his father’s not buried in ass end of nowhere. 

Nope, he has no fucking desire to talk about things at all. 

And now he’s waiting for the sun to rise, lute in hand, while the wind howls around him like a mad wolf. He sees a guard shift at the gates. He holds the lute tighter, in lieu of squeezing it to his chest. His head and feet hurt, and he wants to cry. It will make his headache worse. He wants to cry anyway. His body feels like a prison and like something wants to claw out, but he blinks the tears away anyway. 

He holds the lute tighter. His nails, long overdue for a cut, press against the wood. Wind plays a horrible tune, plucking strings at will. It’s a cacophony and he almost regrets bringing it out with him, but it’s the only thing of comfort he can think of. It’s the only thing keeping him from breaking down again. 

Nika closes his eyes and wills all this shit away. 

“Why aren’t you asleep?” A somber, gentle voice rings against the racket of noise, and Nika audibly breathes out. With a sharp turn, he sees Nera wrap herself in a woolen coat Lord Haurchefant provided them with, oversized on her small body. 

“I.. I’m tired,” he says softly. There’s no reply for a long time; part of him thinks the wind swallowed it. It’s funny, how he was just about ready to scream at Ishgard lords only hours ago, but now his voice is drowned in the night. 

“It haunts me too,” Nera says as she steps out. Her words are small and shaky, yet Nika feels them like a blow. From afar, the night swallows her, but her eyes, silver and gold, breach the picture she presents. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he bites out. It’s harsh, it’s rough, but he can’t look her in the eye otherwise. 

“Go back to sleep, then,” she asks, makes a few steps forward. Blue, blue, all the blues of her hair and skin, like the waters of Lominsa, where his moms sleep. 

“Let me be, Nera,” he huffs, “I’m–” He takes a deep breath in. His eyes prickle and burn. “I’m just–” 

“It haunts me too,” she repeats. He feels the pressure of her forehead against his arm and the warm touch of her fingers on his hand. “Go back inside, Nika. Your fingers are cold.” 

“I’m tired, but I don’t want to fall asleep,” he admits and lowers his eyes to his feet. Shame burns like poison. 

“You don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to,” he can hear the frown in her voice, “but just come inside.” 

“It is freezing outside,” he agrees. Her fingers play with his, and he could just rest his head on hers if he leaned down far enough– “I– Alright. It’s cold and lonely outside.” 

Nera simply smiles against his arm. 

He does sleep that morning, against all earlier claims to not wanting to. He can blame it on his tired body, or the comfort of her embrace that he knows she needed too, but when he wakes up again, the wind doesn’t howl quite so loudly anymore.  

[dansnaturepictures]

09/04/2024-Great Crested Grebe and chicks, red valerian, buttercup one of my first of the year and view at Lakeside Country Park today.

Blue Tit, Great Tit, Moorhen, herb-Robert and the exciting and hopeful sight of my first Orange Tip butterfly of the year my seventh species of the year were other highlights.

[thebotanicalarcade]

n332_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Field and woodland plants, London,Longmans, Green,1911. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/11388581

[jhalya]

10 FAVOURITE MOVIES (THAT I AND I ALONE LIKE)

Thanks @iamstartraveller776 for the tag!

Leave your judgement at the door is all I'm saying :)))

1. Beowulf (1999):

2. Valerian and the city of a thousand planets

3. Pitch Black

4. Deja Vu

5. Gladiator

6. The Deep Blue Sea

7. AvP

8. Predators

9. S.W.A.T

10. The Red Planet

[spockvarietyhour]

Pre-Show at the Red Dirt