#So anyways figured I should probably branch out and draw people other than Wild + Legend

[ra-archives]

Oh what a shame, a sailor to fall to the sea

Lu-tober day 18

Prompt: Drowning From my Goretober prompt list

[sammystep]

No One Lives Forever- CH11

(AO3 link)

Stardust Crusader Wolf Pack AU

[From the beginning- CH1]

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The sky is painted bright orange and red by the time the pack arrives at the next camp site. The fall colors on the trees make the world look like it’s made of gold and rubies cemented to black cast iron trees in silhouette. The path to the camp ground is narrow but still large enough for the truck to navigate as Avdol drives carefully down the one lane trail. Kakyoin had kept in mind the need to be able to transform at will tonight and found a private campsite that promised a ‘true survival experience’ according to the reviews online.

Your attention is dragged away from the fall scenery outside as Jotaro shifts in his sleep, his head resting in your lap as he lays sideways on the bench seat of the back row. You adjust the hoodie you’d thrown over his sleeping figure and gently brush back his hair before returning your hand to rest on his arm. He’d been exhausted after the last fight and started nodding off almost as soon as you had set out. After the third time he leaned too far forward and jerked himself awake you gave in and decided to risk the embarrassment of the others teasing -or worse, Jotaro’s rejection- and offered to let him lay down. He looked confused for a moment but you patted your lap in invitation. He snuck a quick glance to the rest of the pack before shifting and laying down. You were both tense at first at first but you hesitantly ran your hand over his hair and he loosened up considerably. Soon he was fully asleep on you.

Joseph and Polnareff also seem to be sleeping, or close to it in the middle row seats, but a particularly rough bump in the road shakes the truck enough to wake everyone. Jotaro grumbles as he sits up, sweatshirt falling off and revealing the tank top and bandages on his shoulder. He looks it for a moment before handing it back to you with a gruff ‘thanks’, his voice raspy with sleep.

“It’s no problem. Feeling better?” you ask as you bundle the sweater on your lap.

“A bit. Still sore as hell.” He tries his best to stretch in the confined space. Another bump in the road almost causes him to bump his head on the roof and he slumps in his seat to avoid it happening again as the bumps and rocking get more extreme.

“Ah, that must be the camp site ahead.” Kakyoin says as he looks up from the map on his phone and points to the clearing now visible after cresting a small hill. The truck is barely still for a second before Polnareff jumps out and starts stretching. The rest of you follow his example, the cramped car ride after transforming and fighting not doing your muscles any favors. Like the site you just left this one was also empty but located much deeper in the forest. Perfect for keeping off the grid until morning.

The last campers had left some firewood under the cover of a nearby pine tree so you work to quickly clear the ashes from the fire pit. With the help of Jotaro’s lighter, a good size fire crackled happily to life just as the sun set. The rest of the pack had split up to investigate the clearing and into the woods beyond while you built the fire, but the rustling of bags draws everyone back in. Joseph makes his way over carrying as many bags of snacks as he can, “Dinner time! Looks like the choices tonight are beef jerky, chips or candy.” You all gather and take a seat on the logs laying near the fire and start passing around the bags.

While a meal of snacks wouldn’t be filling for long, for now it was enough to leave you all satisfied. Joseph is sitting with Polnareff and Avdol across from where you are seated between Jotaro and Kakyoin and sets off the first contagious yawn. You can hear his back crack as he stretches, your own eyes watering from the strength of your yawn. Polnareff laughs and slaps Joseph on the back, “Ha, looks like it’s past the old wolf’s bed time!” Joseph can’t refute this as he goes to reply and gets caught by another epic yawn.

“We should go over sleeping arrangements though. The truck is too small for all of us to sleep in and we only have a fire because the last campers left some wood.” Kakyoin says as he leans forward toward the fire and rests his head in his hand. He moves his sharp gaze around the clearing looking for any other supplies or natural resources that could be used. He heaves a sigh and drops his gaze back to the fire.

Jotaro hums in though as he looks around as well. “With all the encounters we’ve had just today I think we should take shifts on patrol. The truck can probably hold two people if we fold down some seats. The rest of us will have to spend the night transformed, for safety and for warmth.” The rest of the pack nods in agreement. “Avdol, are you ok driving the rest of the way tomorrow?”

Avdol tilts his head at the change of subject. “Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good,” Jotaro leans back and stretches a bit as he explains, “you and the old man can sleep in the truck tonight, the rest of us will pair up and patrol in shifts.”

“Well wait a moment Jotaro, I can patrol too!” Joseph slaps his hands on his legs as he leans forward toward Jotaro. “I know I joke about it a lot but I’m not that old!”

Jotaro sighs as he closes his eyes and crosses his arms. “One of these days your age will catch up to you. Besides, you’ll need to be well rested to navigate for Avdol tomorrow. And you need to manage whatever is going on at the new headquarters once we get there.” He opens his eyes again and fixes Joseph with a steely gaze. Joseph scratches at his beard and looks away, not ready or willing to challenge Jotaro on this. You can’t really make out what he grumbles under his breath other than ‘not that old’.

Polnareff laughs and slaps Joseph on the back, “Ha! I’ll remember you said that next time you try and get out of trouble using that ‘frail old man’ card!” Joseph just grumbles more as everyone chuckles; you see a small smirk on his face as he turns away though.

“Fine, fine. Us old guys will sleep in the car while you young whippersnappers brave the cold out here. But don’t come knocking on my door in the middle of the night!”

Jotaro grins at his grandfather’s antics before turning his attention to the rest of the ‘youngsters’ in the pack. “I think we’ll be fine if we spend the night as wolves. The temperature shouldn’t be so cold that we can’t handle it. As for patrol and watch,” he pulls out his phone to check the time, “we’ll pair up for the night and morning shifts, that way all of us get at least a few hours of sleep.” Just the word sleep has Jotaro suppressing a yawn. “I’ll take one spot on the morning patrol, anyone else have a preference?”

You nod and speak up, “I’ll stay up for night shift, I’m not an early riser.” You blush and turn away from Jotaro as you realizes he’s seen you in action- or inaction- two mornings in a row now.

“I don’t really have a preference.” Kakyoin says from your other side, he must have interpreted your movement as looking for his answer, not just avoiding Jotaro.

“I guess that makes me the deciding vote, I’d rather stay up for the night watch than wake up early as well.”

With the patrols figured out for the night everyone starts to prepare for bed. It turns out though that you’re the only one with rough camping experience as the guys watch perplexed as you start gathering a pile of leaves to make a more comfortable spot than just the hard ground. “What, you guys never camped without gear before?” Three sets of eyes look away, embarrassed as Joseph starts cackling in the background.

“You’re going to have to show these city boys the ropes (Y/N)! I’m sure you can handle it.” Joseph says as he climbs into the cleared space in the back of the truck and shuts the door behind him.

“Wait, seriously? None of you have camped out without tents before?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Joestar is right,” Kakyoin explains as he takes a step forward to better observe what you are doing, “is it really more complicated than just transforming to stay warm?”

“Well, that will keep you warm but it won’t make it more comfortable to sleep on the ground. Help me gather up some more leaves, we’ll make a two-person pile to use as a mattress. Then I’ll help you guys bundle up some pillows out of clothes so they don’t unravel overnight.” Jotaro raises an eyebrow but just shrugs and does as you instruct, the other two falling in line as well. Soon a pretty decent leaf pile is collected and you spread it out large enough for two adult males to fit comfortably. After showing the guys how to roll up pillows tight enough to withstand the tossing and turning that comes from sleeping on the ground you all scavenge the area for branches and sticks to keep the fire fed overnight. “Excellent! I’ll make campers out of you guys yet!”

“How is it you know all this anyway? You said you traveled a lot, but is this how you normally got from place to place?” Kakyoin asks as he drops off the last pile of sticks from his arms.

You wave off the comment, “Oh no, I usually had enough money to get a motel room or something. In a pinch I could sleep in my car for a night if I absolutely needed to. I actually learned all this camping stuff from family reunions. I have a lot of family when you start counting cousins and second cousins, and every year there is a reunion at the beginning of summer. We spend the whole weekend as wolves, hunting, racing, sleeping, occasionally fighting…” you smile and slap your hands free of dirt. “It’s really a great time, living wild for a weekend. Gets a lot of pent-up energy out, you know?”

“That sounds like a rather nice tradition.” Kakyoin gives you a kind smile, “Perhaps we should consider adopting it?” he turns his head towards Jotaro who just hums contemplatively before nodding. Another wave of contagious yawns overtakes the pack and you all decide its time to get some rest.

You all quickly shed your human forms for wolf fur, your senses sparking alive as your form shifts. Colors dim as your new sight allows for better night vision at the cost of reduced variation. You inhale deeply, expecting only the smells of woods and campfire but something slightly sour hangs in the air. Closing your eyes and lifting your nose to the wind you try and follow the trail but it’s gone as suddenly as it appeared, the wind chasing it away from you through the trees. You shake your head and snort to clear your nose. It was probably just some trash or something a previous camper forgot in the area.

Jotaro and Kakyoin get situated on the bed of leaves and Polnareff motions for you to join him at the edge of trees for your first patrol. The journey through the woods is slow going at first, both of you slightly on edge, not knowing what to expect. While you had more experience ‘living wild’ as you called it, Polnareff obviously had more experience hunting and tracking. He makes it a point to stop often to mark your trail with scratches on the trees and brushing up on other shorter bushes to leave his scent. He laughs at you a bit when he catches your curious gaze on the tree he just mauled, “What’s the matter? I thought you were used to camping out in this form?”

“Well yeah, but… I was always stuck hanging out with the pups. My dad and uncles split up patrol duty.”

“Ah, well in that case let me show you. I usually do this when I’m on a job to find someone in the city; its much easier to follow your nose back rather than loose track of a target because you were looking at a map.” He gestures to a tree ahead, “Go ahead and help out. It will probably help keep other animals away too if they smell too many predators in the area.”

“I was wondering why I didn’t hear anything moving around tonight. You think we scarred everything off?” you sniff the air again; you could tell some deer and rabbits had been through recently but only their scent remained now.

“Probably. They’d have to be pretty ill equipped to stay in an area with a bunch of wolves roaming about- or humans for that matter.” He lifts his nose and jogs ahead a few paces to a large boulder, “Here- this is where we started at. Now we just turn left and we’ll be back at camp.” You blink perplexed, you hadn’t really thought about how many turns you’d taken during your walk. Perhaps you were more tired than you thought.

The fire is burning low when you get back to the camp so you feed it some of the branches collected earlier, keeping the coals burning hot enough to reach the sleeping men and keep them a bit more comfortable. You take a seat next to Polnareff and grab one of the drink bottles from the snack pile. It’s a little tricky with your hands being larger and less dexterous than you are used to but you manage to open it and hand it to Polnareff before grabbing one for yourself. The lack of animal sounds around the campsite is still a little unnerving but you’re soon distracted when Polnareff turns to you and starts telling you about the time he had to covertly chase a target through an office building while dressed as a mailman, trying to catch the target in the act of cheating with his co-worker.

You take turns trying to one up each other with ridiculous stories, keeping an eye on the fire and the woods at the same time. You can’t help but let your attention drift every so often as Jotaro or Kakyoin move around in their sleep. Polnareff’s pointy elbow is suddenly nudging your side as he laughs at you, apparently, you’d been staring at the alpha long enough for Pol to notice. You quickly turn away even though your fur would cover any blush on your face. Standing up and moving to the woods again you initiate another patrol round, Polnareff snickering as you follow the trail left last time and refresh the scent marks.

The rest of your night on watch goes smoothly, and by the time your last patrol comes around you’re feeling a bit sleep drunk, playfully pushing Polnareff around on your walk as he teases you for being so concerned with keeping the fire warm and setting aside snacks for Jotaro and Kakyoin when they woke up. Really you were just trying to keep Polnareff from eating all the good snacks. You laugh and give a shove and he makes a show of exaggeratedly falling into a tree.

“Such violence! Just wait! I’ll tell on you to Joseph; we’ll see who’s laughing then!” the large wolfman throws a hand to his forehead like a swooning southern lady and points an accusing finger at you.

“Tell on me? What, you’re going to admit you can’t hold your own against me? He’ll just laugh and call you a spoiled pup again.” You continue slowly on the patrol path and wait for him to catch up.

“No, I’ll just tell him how you were making googly eyes at his grandson all night. You will never have another moments rest!” his triumphant smirk is infuriating even in his wolf form so you shove him off the path again and race back to camp, laughing as he playfully shoves you off course as he passes you.

Back at camp your eyes immediately go to the sleeping wolves and you have to admit maybe Polnareff has a point about you making ‘googly eyes’ at Jotaro; he and Kakyoin are tangled up in what would be a puppy pile if they were younger. You’re very tempted for a moment to not worry about waking them up for their patrol shift and just join the pile yourself, but your rational mind overcomes your instincts and you carefully wake them. Kakyoin wakes up quickly and makes his way to the remaining snacks near the fire. Jotaro however looks half asleep still so you keep him seated for a few moments longer on the leaf pile as you check the wounds on his shoulder hadn’t opened up or gotten too dirty in his sleep. You help him brush some crumbled leaves from his fur and you both make your way to the fire and sitting logs.

You grab a few packs of jerky and some drinks to help Jotaro wake up and you can’t help the startled yelp as he grabs your hand and pulls you down to sit next to him. You’re almost uncomfortably close, your side brushing against his any time either of you inhales. Jotaro doesn’t seem to notice how tense you are, he still looks half asleep as he mechanically eats the snacks you offered him while staring into the fire. You ignore Polnareff’s snickering and Kakyoin’s knowing looks from across the fire pit and hand over a drink to the alpha at your side. His arm brushes against yours as he takes it and you shiver as the contact marks you with his scent, even if it was accidental it is a highly intimate thing, usually reserved for very close pack mates.

“Did anything interesting happen while we were asleep? Anything we should know about?” Kakyoin tries to draw in Polnareff’s attention before he can start teasing you or Jotaro.

Polnareff is hyper focused on the opportunity to tease you though, “Non, non. In fact, you are witnessing the most interesting thing to happen all night,” he gestures to you both. Jotaro must be more awake as he looks back over his shoulder in confusion before he realizes what Pol is implying. You hear him mutter something as he shifts away from you, but only by a few inches so you were no longer joined at the hip.

“Seriously Polnareff?” he yelps and fumbles with a water bottle you throw at him. “But really, it has been pretty uneventful. We must have scared off everything around here.”

Jotaro tenses next to you and you look at him with a questioning tilt of your head. “You haven’t seen any animals around? Not even on perimeter patrol?”

“Uh, no. we just assumed we scared them all away.” Polnareff scratches his head, also confused by Jotaro’s concern. “Isn’t it natural to flee a place is a group of hunters moves in?”

“Maybe at first, but at least the animals in the trees should have come back by now…” Jotaro rubs his eyes and lowers his head with a huff, “Whatever, I’m probably over thinking it.” You glance around the camp site again, the peaceful quiet now more ominous as shadows cast from the fire dance behind trees and bushes.

“Oh, thanks a lot Jotaro. Giving me the creeps right before I go to bed.” Polnareff’s fur is standing on end making him appear comically fluffy. “I’m blaming you if I get no rest tonight. And after (Y/N) and I did such a good job on our watch.” He huffs as he attempts to smooth down his fur again.

The red wolf next to him just chuckles and shakes his head, “Well no one said you have to go to sleep. You’re free to stay up and keep an eye on camp if you want.” Kakyoin stands up and stretches as Polnareff mumbles to himself about needing his beauty sleep and shuffles over to the leaf bed.

You and Jotaro rise from your seats and you give another skeptical glance around at the trees before grabbing hold of Jotaro’s arm as he starts to walk away. This may be becoming a habit for you, grabbing onto his hand for reassurance. He faces you and tilts his head an you search for words as you make eye contact with him. “I…um… just…” you glance away and refocus on his face when he gives your hand a squeeze “Be careful?”

He nods and his stoic features soften slightly as he smiles, “We will, don’t worry. Go get some rest.” His hand lest go of yours and trails up your arm and around to your back to nudge you in the right direction. Too tired to put up any resistance, you follow his order. You’re asleep almost as soon as you lay down next to Polnareff in the leaf pile.

Kakyoin waits patiently at the entrance to the patrol path you and Polnareff created as Jotaro checks around camp. Avdol and the old man still asleep in the truck, the coals of the fire still hot enough that the heat reaches your sleeping spot, and there should be enough wood to keep it that way till morning. He’s satisfied with the state of things and casts one last critical glance to the shadows beyond the tree line before joining Kakyoin on the path. The silence of the forest is unnerving but easy to ignore, Polnareff was probably right about the animals keeping a wide berth around a group of predators.

His concentration is pulled from the surrounding woods by Kakyoin. “(Y/N) seems to be really fitting in well with the pack.” The red wolf faces ahead with a straight face, but there is a glint in his eyes as he glances back to Jotaro to gauge his reaction. “I don’t think I’ve seen you warm up to anybody as fast as you have to her. It’s a bit shocking you decided to trust her so soon if I’m honest.” He tries to keep his face neutral, but Jotaro can see the beginnings of a smug smirk.

“You saying I shouldn’t trust her?” Jotaro throws the statement back at him, years of experience turning Kakyoin’s teasing comments on their head coming into practice.

“Ha, no, not at all. She more than proved herself today.” He pauses, a more serious look on his face as he continues, “But even you have to admit, you’ve been acting very strange since you met her.”

“It’s… complicated. I don’t really want to talk about it.” Jotaro shakes his head and continues moving on.

Kakyoin stops in his tracks, “You know I wouldn’t push you unless I was worried about you. This may be your last chance for a while to get it out in the open. No audience, just us and the trees.” Kakyoin gestures to the woods and waits as Jotaro stops and contemplates his options.

He heaves a sigh before continuing to walk and Kakyoin grins knowing he’s won. “It’s complicated because I don’t really understand what’s going on myself. I know I don’t really know her yet, but at the same time I don’t care about that at all.” Jotaro ruffles his hair in frustration and embarrassment. “The old man thinks its my instincts trying to tell me she’s my mate, or potential mate at least. Logically, I know I should take it slow and get to know her first like a normal person, but…”

“But we’re not normal people Jotaro.” Kakyoin nods sagely, the internal issues clearer to him now. “But she’s not a normal person either. From what I can see, she’s just as eager to get closer to you too.” He can see Jotaro’s shoulders slump in relief as they keep walking the path. “You do have options here, but you need to figure out what you want first. And you don’t have to take Joseph’s words to heart. We’re not going to have the same thoughts on pack bonds and mates as the full wolf members of the pack do.”

“True.” Jotaro sighs again, “Maybe it’s just my human half making me over think this. Gramps and the others don’t seem to have a problem just following their instincts wherever they lead to.”

“Well, that doesn’t always work out perfectly either. That’s what my father did all his life and you know I only call home for mother’s sake these days.”

“I don’t think that’s a trait limited to wolves in that regard.” There is more of a growl in his voice than Jotaro intended. He clears his throat and continues, “Some fathers are just like that.” The rest of the walk back to camp is silent and Jotaro makes himself busy tending the fire when they arrive.

Kakyoin is equally subdued and takes a seat on the log next to Jotaro after raiding the drink selection. He hands over a bottle of beer and Jotaro quirks his head in question. Kakyoin just shrugs and pops the cap off his own, they each take a long swig and stare into the fire.

After a while its time to walk the perimeter path again, the red and black wolves moving quietly to the edge of the camp. Jotaro can’t help but sneak one more glance to where you and Polnareff are sleeping before giving the whole area one last critical look. He joins Kakyoin at the entrance but is stopped by Kakyoin’s outstretched arm before he can continue on the path. The red wolf has his nose tilted to the air so Jotaro follows suit. A slightly sour smell, like a mixture of garbage and deer musk assaults his nose before a breeze makes him loose the scent. Kakyoin must have lost it too based on the way he opens his eyes and searches the woods around. Nothing seems out of place, all the trees around silent and still. The animals have still not reappeared and the silence makes each footstep loud and clear as a bell. Another strong breeze makes the trees creak and groan, leaves shifting and rattling on the ground.

The soured smell is back again as they reach a landmark tree indicating they need to turn left soon, but as they pass it by, they are met with unfamiliar woods in front of them. The trees groan in the wind again, but Jotaro notices no leaves shift from their spots on the ground. They both freeze and turn in place, Kakyoin barely catches movement from his right where the landmark tree is, the roots undulating and creeping like snakes before quickly resettling.

“Jojo, the trees…”

“Yeah, I saw it. Not just the trees though, look at the branches on that bush.” The shrub in question was undoubtedly larger than it was a few seconds ago, its branches and twigs looked like they were caught in the wind but were using the movement to disguise how they grew and stretched themselves towards the wolves.

Jotaro’s fur stands straight up, there was no telling how far off the path they’ve been led. Were they even in range of the camp to hear if anything was also going wrong there? They’d have to rely on the scent trail to get back before… The sour smell from earlier is suddenly overpowering as a few trees about fifty feet away move on their own to make way for a giant creature lumbering towards them. Its beady eyes are focused on them and it grins, revealing jagged teeth as it lifts its arm. The plants around them writhe and tangle themselves at the leshin’s command.

Kakyoin growls loudly as he cuts away reaching branches with his claws. Jotaro focuses on the creature before them, looking for any obvious weaknesses. Its body is gigantic, probably twelve feet tall even though it was hunched over and dragged its knuckles like a great ape while it walked. Rough textured skin peeked out between ragged pelts and tufts of mossy hair on its body, probably the most vulnerable targets at a glance. On its head it wore a deer skull like a helmet, the antlers scraping branches above it with each bob of its head.

It’s distracted with pushing a tree out of its way to make room for its body and Jotaro uses the moment to rush forward, Kakyoin following right behind him. They quickly close the distance and lunge at the beast leaving deep gouges in the creature’s skin. No blood rises to the surface of the cuts though, in fact, the leshin makes almost no note of the injuries. They repeat their attack, but the rough patches only splinter like tree bark as they make contact. It retaliates and swings a fist at them but it’s too slow to connect.

They quickly fall back out of range to regroup. Jotaro growls lowly with his hackles raised, “Its skin is too thick to break through.” The leshin raises its arms again and they cut away the creeping branches.

“We can out run it though. Get back to camp and get everyone out of here.” Kakyoin pants as he slashes at vines threatening to anchor them to the ground. Jotaro nods and turns towards the woods, Kakyoin leading the way back to camp. The creature catches onto their plan though and with a chilling wail the trees in front of them weave into a solid wall before their eyes.

Roots spring up from underground and snare their legs too quickly to cut away. The creeping vines quickly climb up past their hips and tangle their claws when they come close enough. Their struggle is fruitless and the leshin lumbers closer to them making up for its speed handicap by totally immobilizing its prey. It reaches for Kakyoin and its massive hand is large enough to completely wrap around his torso as it plucks him from the ground.

Jotaro’s eyes widen and redoubles his efforts to get free as Kakyoin is lifted towards the creature’s mouth. He glances around desperately looking for something that can aid him before it’s too late. The trees and roots are still undulating wildly, rocks and dead branches pushed out of the way for the living plants. Living plants. Of course, it was only able to control living things! He’s finally able to free one of his arms and grabs a rock laying near his feet. It flies free of his grasp and shatters the nose of the dear skull on the leshin’s head sending shards of bone into the creature’s forehead and eyes.

The leshin howls in pain using its free hand to brush away the shards and lowers Kakyoin towards the ground. Kakyoin had been scratching and clawing at the gigantic hand still squeezing him but uses the opportunity to grab onto a large rock as he’s swung low to the ground. The creature recovers and swings Kakyoin back up towards its mouth. The rock Kakyoin is holding slams into its face as he swings his arms with all his strength and the creature wails in pain again.

Keeping hold of the large rock, Kakyoin quickly shoves it into the mouth of the screaming leshin, sinking his arms up to the elbow to lodge the rock in its throat. He’s barely able to withdraw before the leshin snaps its jaws shut. Its wails and cries now reduced to gurgling choking as its eyes begin to bulge and look franticly around the woods. Panic is starting to set in as it’s unable to draw in air, its grip on Kakyoin finally releasing and control over the plants waning. The drop to the floor is jarring and Kakyoin scrambles to regain his footing, one arm braced across his stomach where the leshin’s grip had tightened painfully.

Jotaro is finally free of the vines and roots that kept him bound in place and sprints over to where Kakyoin is hunched over, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him away from the creature as it fumbles and thrashes. Its gnarled hands grasp at its throat, clawing and scraping away at its own bark-like skin. It rises to its full height and stumbles backwards, beady eyes rolling in their sockets and tongue hanging from its gaping mouth. One of its arms flails wildly before making contact with its mouth, pushing fingers into its own throat to try and dislodge the rock but only pushing it deeper. The lack of air finally makes it loses consciousness and it falls back into the trees with a crash.

Kakyoin stands, panting as they watch the leshin twitch in its death throws, both he and Jotaro winded but thankfully just bruised from the encounter. The woods around them are again still and silent, trees and roots creaking and groaning in protest to their new locations but no longer moving on their own. They keep their eyes locked onto the creature as they catch their breath but as soon as they recover, they turn back to the path. The markings on the trees can’t be trusted to lead them so they rely on smell as they run through the woods back to camp.

They burst past the line of trees into camp and take stock of the scene. The fire is burning low, but everything else seems to be just as they left it. Jotaro motions to the truck and Kakyoin nods and makes his way over to wake Joseph and Avdol. From where he’s standing, he can see you and Polnareff are still sleeping, your face pushed into the white wolf’s back for warmth and Polnareff has wrapped himself around one of the makeshift pillows. Jotaro shakes you awake first; you grumble and reluctantly roll over to look at him. “We’re leaving early.”

A kick of adrenalin feels like ice shooting through your veins, fully alert and stiffly sitting up to look around the camp for danger. Nothing seems out of place so you turn your attention to Jotaro. He’s panting slightly but seems fine other than some random leaves and twigs stuck in his fur. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” you ask as you stand up from the leaf bed and keep a careful eye on the woods.

Polnareff is grumbling as he’s woken up too but Jotaro turns to you and answers, “We encountered a creature, I’m not even sure what it was.” Another spike of adrenalin rushes you, “We took it down but I don’t want to take any chances that it had friends out here. I’ll explain more in the car when we’re out of here.” You and Polnareff nod and help him to quickly pack up camp.

Joseph and Avdol make their way out of the truck just as you finish smothering the fire, Kakyoin behind them and once again in his human form. Jotaro drops his transformation as Joseph approaches him and claps his hand to Jotaro’s shoulder as he looks him over for new injuries. A few new scrapes have appeared on his skin but you were correct earlier when you didn’t see any serious ones. He huffs as he completes his visual check and pulls Jotaro into a tight hug. “We’re really having some shitty luck lately, aren’t we son?” he pulls away with a grin as Jotaro mumbles out his trademark ‘good grief’, but you see the small smirk on his face too. “Kakyoin told us the… thing… out there is dead?”

“Yeah, but I’d rather we get out of here as soon as possible. We don’t know if it was the only one here.” Avdol nods at the order and gets to work arranging the seats and loading gear into the truck. You and Polnareff are the last to drop your transformations and the chilly morning air causes you to shiver. It’s still a few hours till dawn, but soon you are all ready and seated in the warm truck, Joseph is acting as navigator as Avdol drives carefully out of the woods, the last leg of your journey to New York City now underway.

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Author’s Note:

I just keep falling further and further behind, don’t I? I try to write for at least an hour a day on my lunch break, but between this chapter being SOOO long and my lunches being shorter lately... well better late than never! 

[thebibliomancer]

Shadows of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 15

Shadows of the Dark Crystal by J. M. Lee because urVa is a delight.

Last times on book: Naia is on a journey to Ha’rar with Kylan to clear brother Gurjin’s name and warn the All-Maudra about all these dark crystals. Their journey took them through the Dark Woods where Naia dreamfasted with a tree and made the forest less spooky. Then urVa burst out of a tree and invited the Gelfling for a cryptic soup dinner.

Chapter 17

urVa teaches Naia about archery but mostly says a lot of cryptic stuff that Naia and Kylan can’t make sense of. That’s how it be.

Naia has a flying dream.

I swear, this has to be building up to something.

When she wakes up, Kylan is already up staring at the mysterious writing again because darnit he wants to know.

Naia ponders some more whether urVa is truly alone in this dirt hovel.

From the limited belongings he kept, it was hard for Naia to believe he was completely solitary. Life in Sog was very different, with every family keeping their own stock of meat and preserves, ranging gear and ceremonial garments, spears and bola, trinkets and family treasure. The Spriton had lived in communion with one another, too, each village hut full of material evidence of life and family and the village as a whole. Even the Podling burrow they’d found had had that same proof... but should urVa one day pass away, or leave for another place, the only thing left of him would be the bare walls with the writing Naia couldn’t read. And even then, it wouldn’t take long for the wild and the elements to eat away those as well, and then there would be no record he had existed at all.

Somewhere, the Skeksis have just broken out into a cold sweat.

urVa interrupts her melancholy to offer her some ta, which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. Since it has red steam once the water hits the herbs, which I’ve never personally seen tea do. But as a name, ta still has the feel of caf or choc where writers don’t want to be just so mundane as to have coffee or chocolate in their fantastical world.

Cough Star Wars Cough

Despite his size and dragging tail, he was surprisingly stealthy and was already halfway across the small den’s space, heading toward the kettle. As he walked, his spine snaked in a liquid motion from his head to his bulk.

This. This is some good description.

urVa makes a comment about having all three suns in the sky at the same time which makes me wonder if there’s a time when that doesn’t happen and what that does to day and night.

Ta apparently tastes tangy and like alfen fruit. Fascinating.

Naia asks for directions from the Black River and urVa just gets up and gets his stuff and sets out. He’s a show, don’t tell kinda guy, I guess.

The Dark Woods is some whole other animal after Naia healed it. Full of life and joy and new growth. They’re going to need a new name for it, probably.

When the group stops for lunch, Naia asks about the corded staff and feathered spears urVa carries and he explains that they’re bow and arrows and asks if she wants to see.

They leave Kylan to rest his feet and go to a ledge where urVa can demonstrate.

“Bow -- two ends connected by a single string. Arrow -- head and tail connected by a single shaft.”

“For hunting? They look like spears.”

“Bow and arrow do not hunt; a hunter hunts. I am not a hunter.”

Naia be like ‘doubt’ but she’s impressed when he fires an arrow.

urVa hands her the bow and she tries to use it but the thing is nearly as tall as she is and the bowstring is bowstrung with the expectation of a Mystic’s bulk and four arms. She doesn’t really have success pulling back the bowstring, even without an arrow.

He helps her pull back the string and she manages to shoot an arrow, although it goes bouncing off everything because she didn’t so much shoot it as lose her grip on the bowstring.

Neech wants to go chase the arrow because that’s what he do but Naia settles him down.

urVa chuckled. “We need a Gelfling-size bow.”

Oh there’s a really cool picture of Naia and urVa on the ledge. The art in this book is so good.

Naia shoots off a few more arrows, getting better at it. She also takes the time to examine the bow and how the string is notched, the amount of curve and the type of wood. She looks at all his different arrows too.

Each was unique, with a different engraving or colorful adornment. Some had glittering sea-green scales along the sides, some had feathers or barbed orange leaves. The arrowheads were an array of hard materials, from stones and claws to bone and ancient wood. One even appeared to be made of a tooth. Every arrow was different, made with painstaking care and detail.

I wonder if Naia takes and spreads this knowledge and that’s how archery among Gelfling becomes so widespread that Toolah in Beneath the Dark Crystal can use arrows to solve every problem.

I’d like to think so.

Naia offers to go retrieve the arrows she had fired but urVa just tells her he’ll make more.

She gets really antsy about this because of the craftsmanship of the arrows and how the tradition in the Sog is to retrieve your bola. It makes her feel a little like shit that such good arrows will be lost forever just so she could see how archery works. She goes to climb down anyway but urVa pulls her back gently.

“Ah, Gelfling, little Gelfling,” he said. “Let them go. They were made of Thra and have returned to Thra. Now that my quiver is nearly empty, I have room for new arrows.”

So there was a thing I saw in a magazine profile of urVa that said he was so good at archery because he knows when to let things go and it simultaneously annoyed and impressed me because I hadn’t quite reconciled archery with how the urRu usually are but the explanation made perfect sense and was also kind of wordplay.

But it really works here and it really works as a dynamic against which Naia can butt her head.

She considers sneaking down to retreive them anyway but he just keeps staring at her so she gives it up.

“A stone in each hand leaves no room for a fifth... Mm, or in case of Gelfling, a third. Holding on to things too tightly will prevent you from moving forward.”

He’s just super good at letting things go.

But this also doesn’t sit right with Naia and tries to argue the point that if you let go of the things you care about there’s no point in trying and that there are things that are more important than stones.

urVa didn’t argue, simply bobbing his head from side to side. Though she hadn’t really expected to change his mind, Naia felt a pinch of frustration when he didn’t reply at all, but she kept it to herself. It was fine to disagree, after all, so long as neither of them held the feeling in contempt.

Naia: ‘i came her for an argument!’

At least its not getting hit on the head lessons.

But, the more urVa the more I like urVa. People could learn a lesson from how chill he is.

Naia asks urVa whether the visions and phantoms the Cradle-Tree showed her were just illusions and echoes of her fears.

“Hmmm,” urVa murmured. “Yes and no.”

“Yes and no are opposites,” Naia said, though it pained her to state the obvious.

urVa’s point though is that the Cradle-Tree is a tree and can only show what’s already there. “If you heard it, someone said it. If you saw it, someone did it” but context is key.

This doesn’t really answer the question of whether it was real for Naia but I think she’s getting used to that at this point.

While on the arrow quest, Kylan has been dream-etching the words he saw in urVa’s hovel into his book.

“Smart one, this one,” urVa said with a chuckle ... “What words are for, you know. Passing along a message from one place to another, even when the original dreamer has, himself, passed along and gone.”

The group sets off again and they pass under where the broken bridge was. And nice scenery building, the broken bridge was actually a branch of the Cradle-Tree, broken due to its darkening. Nice. I like that it ties together.

But urVa draws their attention to a figure traveling along the ridge and tells the Gelfling that its looking for them and then shrugs when they ask how he knows.

“An archer knows the path of an arrow from either end.”

Another way of saying a hunter knows when he’s being hunted, Naia thought. At least sometimes his riddles made sense to her.

Naia doesn’t worry about their maybe stalker because there’s nothing she can do about it until the pursuer catches up except pick up the pace which she does do.

They arrive at a stream that urVa tells Naia and Kylan will lead them to the Black River.

“Thank you, urVa. And for showing us the way to the river.”

“May we meet again,” urVa replied. “Even be it in a different form.”

Uhhhhhhm I mean, I like the sentiment here but I have a sinking feeling that he is going to meet them in a different form and its not going to be as pleasant.

Cough the Hunter cough.

Naia: “He seems very wise, but what good is wisdom when it can’t be understood? I didn’t understand half of what he told us this entire time.”

That’s the Mystic experience for you, Naia.

Alas, I’d like more time with urVa but he has other plot to attend to and really he’s like a super high leveled guest party member. He’s a tension breaker. For the good of the story, he has to go shoot arrows to annoy Aughra.

Bye urVa. You were a delight.

[delimeful]

the shapes in the silence (6)

warnings: panic, violence, blood

Chapter 6

Virgil took a step forward without even meaning to, and then jerked to a stop as Roman skittered back like a frightened deer. He wilted slightly, but tried not to take it personally. He knew better than anyone how scary being suddenly small could be. 

“Puff? Don’t- Don’t let them control you!” Roman’s sword faltered back and forth, face contorted with an odd mixture of anguish and fear. 

Virgil narrowed his eyes, casting a glance at the Dragon Witch. Control him? As if. Roman was tiny, in danger, and afraid. There was virtually nothing that could stop him from doing his damn job, and absolutely nothing that would make him actually attack Roman. 

Meters away, the Dragon Witch shifted impatiently. “I said, give the prince a taste of what dragons are really like, runt.”

Once again, the compulsion to move, to rend and tear, filled his mind for a heartbeat before being shunted away at the speed of light. He’d have to be a jackass to make this work, but he’d already proved himself capable of that in the name of protecting his people. 

A beat late, he started forward again, his gait now distinctly menacing. He thought of what could have happened if the Dragon Witch had used this spell on Roman when he was alone, and a low growl started up in his throat. Roman’s face crumpled as he started taking careful steps back, sword raised in a barely-steady hand.

“Puff, please. Don’t make me fight you.” He pleaded, raising his other hand defensively. Virgil continued to move, matching the prince’s retreat step for step. 

Until Roman stumbled over a stray branch, his sword dipping slightly for a moment, and Virgil lunged. 

That sword wasn’t all for show, of course, and Roman lashed it at him as he knocked the small side over, but with all the adrenaline flooding his system he had no idea whether the blow had landed. Didn’t really matter. He ducked his head down, and carefully latched his teeth onto the back of that cheesy outfit, lifting him up like a scruffed kitten with ease. 

The moment he was sure Roman was secure in his grip, he bolted, sprinting away for all he was worth. Behind them, a startled and then enraged shriek came from the Dragon Witch, but if there was one thing he knew, it was how to hide. 

He ducked between the long shadows cast by the late afternoon sun, mind set on finding a secure place to hide and nothing else. It could have been minutes or hours before he found the small cave carved into the wall of a cliff face, but all that really mattered was that he had found it. 

Clawing up the small jump to get into it, he made sure it was deep enough to hide them from view before finally releasing the death grip he had on Roman. He immediately switched gears to sniff at him instead, searching out any possible injuries.

The tiny side shoved him back, eyes a little wild with panic, and Virgil retreated. Right. He’d forgotten that he’d been fake-threatening Roman before. 

“Puff?” He asked, searching his eyes intently.

Virgil scooted back to give him some space, before carefully lowering his head to settle onto the floor, trying to be as non threatening as possible. It made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable, but he probably deserved any retaliation after the scare he’d given Roman, and he probably wouldn’t kill him, right? 

Before he could get himself worked up about the possibility, Roman sat down, letting out a deep breath. “You’re… still you, right? For realsies?” 

Virgil huffed impatiently at his hesitance, and more of the tension leaked from Roman’s frame. 

“Okay… okay. I believe you. Are you alright?” 

Virgil blinked. Was he? He stood up, turning in a circle to inspect himself, and then froze at Roman’s gasp. What, did he move too fast and scare him again?

“Puff, your side!” A delicate touch pressed against his left ribcage, and his ears flattened at the sudden sting. 

Huh. Guess the sword had gotten him after all. 

He laid back down, feeling too crowded in the small enclave otherwise, and rumbled at Roman reassuringly. It felt pretty shallow, it would be fine. Probably.

Roman looked at him with a stricken expression. “I… hurt you. You were only trying to protect me and I… I could have seriously injured you!” 

Virgil grumbled a disagreement. Roman was like half his size. He had scales and stuff, he was fine.

“Don’t you try and say otherwise!” Roman demanded, despite the fact that Virgil wasn’t really saying anything. He inhaled sharply, as though about to go on a self recriminatory tangent, and Virgil decided that no, he’d had enough of those. 

Without another sound, he padded over and curled his non-injured side around Roman, finding that at this size, he could comfortably curl up into a ball with the creative side tucked against him. Roman spluttered at being interrupted, and Virgil draped a wing over him, teasingly muting his protest.

“Fine, fine! But we’re going home, and getting you treated.” 

A loud crack echoed from outside, and they turned to see it had begun to storm while Roman was preoccupied by being a dunce. 

“When… that clears up, I guess.” Roman frowned, drawing closer to Virgil seemingly without realizing. He chirped in agreement, and settled his head back down to wait. After the earlier panic, he was happy to be a shield between Roman and the rest of the world for as long as needed. 

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of heavy rain and rolling thunder.

“They can control dragons, y’know.” Roman said, drawing Virgil out of his sleepiness. “The Dragon Witch. That’s why I… when they ordered you…” He trailed off. 

Virgil remembered the compulsion magic, but it hadn’t gripped all of him. It was almost reassuring; despite his appearance, he was still him, not a dragon. He turned his nose up dramatically for Roman’s sake, as if to dismiss the magic as insignificant. Roman chuckled softly.

“You’re really something else, Puff. Sometimes I think you’re not even really a dragon.”

Virgil froze, despite having just thought the same thing. If Roman figured it out… He felt his stomach sink. It wasn’t even really about the fact that he was a monster to be slayed anymore. There was something new he had with Roman, with all three of the Light Sides, and he desperately didn’t want to lose it. 

The moment of silence stretched on agonizingly, before Roman laughed again, a bit more genuine this time. 

“It’s okay, Puff. You’re special, you don’t have to tell me why.” A pause, as Virgil tried to process that. “I… apologize for being unable to protect you. For making you protect me.”

Virgil couldn’t tell him that if this were a fairytale, he’d be cast as the villain anyways, so there was no reason to apologize. He couldn’t tell him that he was supposed to protect Roman, couldn’t harangue him for being so insistent on taking everything on alone.

All he could do was curl himself tighter around Roman, and let himself purr loud enough to drown out the thunder. 

When the sky finally cleared, Roman was drooling from his position sprawled out against Virgil’s side. He snorted. Prince Charming, to be sure. The guy was out cold.

He ever so carefully lifted the wing he had left laid over the side like a blanket, and then slapped it back down on him, jolting him awake. 

“Hwagh?!” Roman said, jerking upright.

Virgil smacked him again for good measure. Rise and shine, Sir Sings-A-Lot. 

“Augh, stop your assault on my person, you fiend!” Roman rolled out from under his wing, sending him a petulant glare. He chirruped smugly, and proceeded to stretch obnoxiously as Roman moved to gather his belongings. 

The sky outside was grey, but the only sign of the storm was the lingering petrichor. Roman looked at his hand, minuscule against the backdrop, and sighed. 

“At this size, it will take ages to return to our entry portal. Normally, I could shift it closer, but… this form seems to have more disadvantages than mere size reduction.” 

Virgil looked at Roman consideringly. It should be doable at this size, and there was a soft blanket of leaves and other forest mulch in case he fucked up, so… 

“What? What are you looking aaaAAAAAHHH PUFF NO!” 

Roman hollered in protest as Virgil pushed him forwards towards the opening of the cave, grabbing Roman’s shoulders and then launching them both out into the open air. 

He almost lost at the beginning, the difference in weight making them plunge for a moment- and making Roman screech at an ear-splitting pitch- before he flapped hard, managing to regain his balance in the air.

There. Easy as pie. 

It was a bit difficult for him to trace their path backwards from such a different perspective, but luckily after Roman had finished yelling, he begrudgingly helped guide Virgil back to their doorway. 

He stumbled a bit on the landing, but managed to drop Roman only half an inch off the ground, so he counted it as a win. From there, they walked through to the familiar halls of their home in the Mindscape. 

Roman craned his head back, trying to take in how large everything was. “I… have no idea where we are. Everything looks so different!”

It was a little funny, that Virgil was used to this perspective by now. Hell, sometimes he got a little disoriented waking up big. 

“Wait.” Roman seemed to realize something. “Why hasn’t the spell worn off yet? Enchantments are usually limited to the realm they’re cast in.” 

That sounded like a problem Virgil had no idea how to solve. Good thing he had other people to depend on in this form! He grabbed Roman’s sash, lifting him up yet again, and began trotting down the hall towards the lounge. 

“Hey! Puff? Where are we going?” Roman called, nervously. 

Virgil purred lightly to reassure him, and then began carefully making his way down the stairs. Luckily, the others were already in the lounge area, Logan undoubtedly lured out by the smell of whatever pastry Patton had been baking.  

“Puff, wait- I don’t want them to see- !”

“Did you say something, Lo?” 

Roman went silent and still, and Virgil realized that he was probably hearing their voices from this size for the first time. He slowed, still mostly hidden by the bannister of the stairs, and set the creative side down, watching as he leaned against a stair for support, breathing hard. He motioned towards the others with his head, flicking his ears back and forth. They’ll help. 

“They… they shouldn’t see me like this. We should go back, I’m certain it will wear off eventually.” Roman said, voice layered with false confidence. 

Virgil stared at him, unimpressed, and Roman opened his mouth again before abruptly paling. 

“Puff? Kiddo, that you?” 

Virgil twisted around, seeing that Patton was now standing at the foot of the stairs, only a couple of feet away. He evidently hadn’t been as well hidden as he’d thought. Whoops. 

He shifted slightly, flaring his wings a bit to hide Roman’s crouched form from view, and then chirruped a greeting. Patton smiled. 

“Hey, little guy! What are you doing all the way over here? I made some cinnamon rolls for my son-namon rolls!” 

“Not your best.” Logan called out from his chair. 

“But you still ate them!” Patton responded cheerily, ignoring Logan’s displeased silence. 

Virgil shifted uneasily, but before he could really formulate a plan of action, he felt a tiny form duck under his wing. Patton’s eyes went wide as saucers, and Virgil looked down at Roman with his own surprise, resisting the urge to shift his wing and re-conceal him.  

The three-inch figure was standing up, stiff-backed, right in front of Patton. He summoned up a strained smile, tilting his head back to meet Patton’s gaze as though nothing was wrong. 

“Hey, Padre.” 

[orlha]

Title: Haru no Tani (A Valley of Haruno) Fandom: Naruto Genre: Family Characters: Haruno Sakura Triggers(s): – Rating: G Additional Tags: AU Summary: Where the Haruno Clan does have a kekkei genkai, except it's a useless one and everyone forgets it exists, until it becomes relevant.

AO3

Sakura had grown up with lessons that she was a Haruno, Harunos are the trees and the earth and that Harunos never married out.   

Contrary to Konoha’s belief, the Harunos did have a kekkai genkai. It just wasn’t useful in battle and in the days of the old, the Harunos were revered. They fertilized the earth when they died, blooming into pastures and trees, orchards heavy with fruits. Vegetation that would continue to bloom and grow decades even after their deaths. 

Now with the event of chakra and jutsu, the need and reverence for a person’s death had been significantly diminished.  Why feed and wait for a person to age and die when you could pay a shinobi to do the same regularly? 

So the Harunos adapted. 

Instead, they bought a large plot of land and when they died, they would plant their bodies there, fertilizing the land and selling fruits and vegetables from it. 

The Harunos became simple merchants. 

The day Sakura insisted on becoming a shinobi, was the day she had a tattoo inked onto the small of her back. 

History had largely forgotten them and the Harunos wanted it to stay it that way. As long as no one released her seal, she would not turn into earth when she died. That was their own requirement. 

Of course, all that changed when the Chuunin Exams happened. 

It was assumed that the Harunos had been forgotten. The Suna clearly did not. 

✥.✥.✥ 

“Let go off the boy,” Sakura growls at the strange kabuki painted boy. 

“Ha— Haruno?!” the boy splutters.  

“I apologise on my brother’s behalf if the kid was one of yours Haruno-sama,” the blonde girl with twin pigtails says nervously. “Kankuro!” she hisses at her brother and he quickly sets Konohamaru onto the floor. 

“So— so sorry for this!” Kankuro stammers, bowing as his sister drags him away. 

“I didn’t know you were a big shot,” Sasuke says when the two siblings vanish from sight. 

“Ah—” 

I didn’t know either, was what Sakura really wanted to say. Also, she would definitely need to report this to the clan elders. 

✥.✥.✥ 

In retrospect, as a shinobi, Sakura should have planned for eventualities where she would be interesting to other shinobis.  

Sakura’s a Haruno. Harunos are considered civilian in the fire country region. There is literally no one who would kidnap them for any reason — maybe except for that merchant clan in Iron. 

So when she found herself on the back of a Suna shinobi, Sakura is completely embarrassed by her first reactions. She did not act like a genin or even as shinobi in training.  

She had, instead, screamed “Pervert!”  

Sakura states several times in her report later, that it had been a reaction to someone grabbing her butt and legs. Kakashi-sensei later ups her evasion training.  

Kakashi-sensei is also confused why a Suna-nin would attempt to kidnap his civilian student. Neither Kakashi nor Sakura realises until much later when Gaara becomes the Kazekage that Harunos are a legend there, thought to have died out in the warring era. 

The Harunos are worshipped in Suna. 

✥.✥.✥ 

“Why are you worshipped?” Shikamaru asks Sakura months after Temari had revealed the Haruno religion in Suna. ‘You’re civilians,’ he doesn’t say. He can’t figure out why and neither Temari nor Kankuro would say why. 

“Would you like to see why?” Sakura says as she moves her gold general across the board.  

He nods and counters her move. “Tsumi.” 

Sakura had been lasting longer against him. With more practice, she might even become as good as a Nara. 

“Next week, Thursday. Wear something formal and come over at four pm. Don’t be late.” 

The requirement of wearing something formal is ominous enough to rope Ino into joining him. Shikamaru knows with the right buttons, Ino would be curious enough and he is right. 

“What kind of situation would we even need formalwear anyway?” Ino grumbles the entire way to the Haruno compound.  

They arrive precisely at four on Thursday. Both dressed in their formal black kimonos. Sakura definitely not wearing formal black kimono, instead she, her aunt and probably nephew are all wearing bright red qipao. 

Sakura rises from her seiza, giving them a formal bow as the little boy ushers them in, fetching their geta and offering guest slippers.  

“Nara Shikamaru, heir to the Nara Clan, Yamanaka Ino, heir to the Yamanaka Clan, Haruno Sakura, heir to the Haruno Clan greets you. You are welcomed here,” Sakura greets.  

They stiffen. Shikamaru had never known Sakura was a clan heir. It’s likely because the Harunos were… are… civilians?  

Shikamaru is actually not sure anymore. There has to be a reason why a whole village would worship them and attempt to negotiate the Harunos setting up a branch in Suna during the diplomatic meetings. 

“What is going on?” Ino hisses to Sakura when they are alone in the hallway. 

“Shikamaru asked to see why we’re worshipped. It so happens that there’s a funeral today.” 

What has a funeral have to do with being worshipped? 

“A funeral? I didn’t ask to go to a funeral.” Ino eyes Sakura’s bright red qipao then glances at the other Haruno’s funeral red qiapo. 

Ino is tactful enough to not ask why anyone would wear red to a funeral, instead follows Sakura silently down the hallways.  

“Please do not make a sound and fidget during the service,” Sakura whispers when they reach the door to the courtyard. 

Ino scoffs. “We’re clan heirs. Of course, we know not to.” 

Motioning to another little boy, Sakura pushes the boy forward. “This is Hibino. If you need anything, you can ask him. These two are Nara Shikamaru, heir to the Nara Clan, Yamanaka Ino, heir to the Yamanaka Clan. Take care of them, Hibino-kun.” 

The pink haired boy grumbles under his breath but plasters a service smile. “Haruno Hibino, second in line at your service.”  

Sakura’s words are oddly specific that Shikamaru wonders if he’s overthinking it. 

Hibino shows them to seats on the engawa. “When the procession starts, you can follow behind me. Please remain silent.” 

“We’re clan heirs too,” Ino mutters indignantly. 

Shikamaru can’t help but feel a shudder. Likely because the sun is setting. Not because of the shadows in the forest, or how wild the Haruno forest looks.  

The Nara forest has all these too. 

Sakura is upfront next to a woman wearing white at the end of the pathway. The Harunos stand along the path, holding up tiny lamps. A man wearing white carries an old woman, with blanket folded around her, in his arms steps onto the path.  

There is no sound. Not even the sound of the birds roosting as the sun sets. Not even the sound of the leaves. 

The man takes the lead, followed the Sakura and the woman in white, Shikamaru and Ino are near the last to follow.  

The forest is dim enough that Shikamaru has to circulate chakra in his eyes to see the path before him and he wonders how the other Harunos don’t seem to have a problem. They walk far into the forest, until they hit a clearing when the man places the old woman in the middle. Sakura bites her forefinger and crouches next to the old woman, drawing symbols on the woman’s face. 

“Bloom,” the woman in white says. 

“Bloom,” the Harunos chorus. 

“Into the Spring coursing through our veins.”  

Sakura stands next to the woman in white, just over the old woman.  

“Grow,” the woman in white says. 

“Grow!” the Haruno chorus, this time louder. 

“Into the fruits and trees that we partake.” The woman in white holds her arms up and the Harunos roar as Sakura presses her hands into a tiger seal. The blood on the old woman glows briefly. 

“FLY!” They scream.  

There’s a heavy silence, a pause that Shikamaru idly muses if he had just witnessed a sacrificial rite. Then a shuddering, an explosion of branches and leaves, trees and earth exploding from the old woman around them.  

Ino claps her hands over her mouth, muffling her shriek. 

The clearing turns into an overgrown forest, the dirt becomes grass, the sprouts become the trees, the trees grow fruits and dip their branches. 

All in a span of minutes.  

Almost like watching Yamato using mokuton, except these are civilians, people that shouldn’t have a kekkai genkai.  What is a civilian clan with a kekkai genkai called? Is a civilian with kekkai genkai even a civilian?  

Shikamaru watches all these and realises with horrifying clarity that even in the shinobi world, a clan with the ability to sprout fruits and trees in a matter of minutes is irreplaceable.  

How has no one wondered how the Haruno sells fruits even in the dead of winter? 

Shikamaru goes home with more questions than answers.  

✥.✥.✥ 

Sakura punches the clones into submission. How dare this Pein person attack Konoha. She punches the puppet through the wall but it still gets up.  

It’s likely that she will die today, Sakura realises. Thank the sage for the seal her clan head had forced onto her when she insisted on becoming a shinobi. At least she won’t accidentally turn land into a forest when she dies, or at least not without another Haruno’s chakra. 

Then a meteor crashes into Konoha. 

Sakura holds onto her conscious long enough to see the broken buildings transform into a valley of Sakura trees and thinks that soon she’ll join them. 

Except she doesn’t die. Not permanently that is. 

Sakura wakes up to a crater of what was once Konoha but now trees and to the knowledge that Pein had resurrected all the people who died in his attack, except the Harunos. Not the Harunos, because they had a kekkai genkai that activated when they die, converting them bodies into earth. 

If there was no body, there is no way Pein could have converted them back. 

Sakura becomes the last Haruno, the only person in a village full of people that day, to shed tears of sorrow instead of tears of relief and joy. 

[justlookfrightened]

The Sting of Love

From @thesaltqueen​: Not really an prompt but a timeless classic au: flower shop/tattoo artist

This is more beekeeper Jack and tattoo business owner Bitty -- I hope you like it anyway!

Jack couldn’t help but sneak peeks at the man standing in front of his booth, perusing the jars of honey, then burying his nose in the vases of echinacea he’d put out this week.

It was his mother’s idea to sell the flowers along with his honey at the market.

“At the very least, it will add some color to the booth,” she said.

Jack wasn’t sure he should really be selling flowers that you could pick wild in a lot of places, but they were pretty, and there were more than anyone could ever need in his gardens. So he kept the prices of the flowers low, and often threw in a bunch for free if someone bought more than one jar of honey.

It was all in the name of educating people, he decided. If he could get more people to grow bee-friendly flowers in their own gardens, so much the better for everyone.

The man who was looking at the honey had been in the market before; Jack had noticed him looking at the table. He had honey-blond hair (really -- it would almost exactly match the light amber of his blueberry honey, although he wouldn’t have any more of that until later in the year) and deep brown eyes.

There were tattoos on his arms, and on his lower legs, and Jack had almost followed him to get a closer look one week. He’d never bought anything, or lingered this long before.

Jack turned back from the display hive he was packing up to take home to find the man looking at him.

“Can I help you?” Jack said.

The tattoos on his arms were plants, Jack could see now. A branch of a lemon tree on one forearm, a delicately colored lavender spring on the other. And there points of more leaves poking above the neckline of the man’s black T-shirt.

“How much for two jars of the this honey?” the man said.

“They’re $15 each, or $25 for two,” Jack said. “And if you buy two, you can take that bunch of coneflowers as well.”

“I couldn’t do that,” the man said. “They’re marked at $10.”

“Sure you can,” Jack said. “I really just bring them to make the booth look better, and I’m closing up soon anyway.”

“If you insist,” the man said, sliding a debit card across the table.

“What you’re buying there is wildflower honey,” Jack said, trying to keep conversation going. “Later in the season, after we take the bees to pollinate different crops, we’ll have blueberry honey and apple honey.”

“Good to know,” the man said. “Too bad we’re so far north. Peach honey is something special.”

Jack looked at the card after he ran it through the machine.

“I’m sure it is, Mr. Bittle,” he said. He wondered if the man was from Georgia, between the drawl and the talk of peaches.

“Mister -- I’d say Mr. Bittle is my dad, but no one ever called him that either,” the man said. “My friends call me Bitty.”

“I’m Jack.”

After that day, Jack saw Bitty at almost every market day. He didn’t buy honey every time -- how could he, after buying three pounds the first day? -- but he always stopped to chat, and often took home a bunch of flowers.

Jack took took to making up special bunches combining some of his favorite summer flowers: yarrow and bachelor buttons, ox-eye daisies and cosmos, sage and hyssop. He kept them separate from the flowers he had for sale until later in the day, when the man -- Bitty -- came to the market.

He never marked them with a price, and usually tried to give them to Bitty. It wasn’t hurting Jack any to give them away -- bees and the honey they made were his main business -- and they seemed to make Bitty happy.

Not that he wasn’t happy anyway. Bitty usually had a smile for everyone, and he talked with several of the vendors and other customers as he wandered among the stalls. He was always alone, too, which pleased Jack, even though it shouldn’t. Why should he want his favorite customer to be lonely?

Then he appeared one day with someone else, an Asian woman even smaller than him, and even more covered in ink. They weren’t holding hands or anything, but the way they laughed and talked made it clear they were close. Maybe Bitty was taking the flowers Jack gave him (that he tried to buy) and giving them to her? Well, even if he was, Jack couldn’t really complain. Why shouldn’t Bitty try to make his … person he was close to happy?

Jack’s suspicions were confirmed when Bitty led the woman to his stall.

“This is Jack,” he said. “He always has these gorgeous flowers, and he’s the one who makes the honey.”

“No,” Jack said.

“No?” The woman raised a pierced eyebrow in his direction.

“I don’t make the honey,” Jack explained. “I harvest it, but the bees make it.”

She nodded, and said, “Can I look at your hive there?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “That’s why I bring it.”

“Jack,” Bitty said. “This is Lardo, my partner.”

Jack’s heart sank an inch or two further -- as though he needed further confirmation of their relationship -- while his mind caught on the name.

“Lardo?” he said stupidly.

“Nickname,” Lardo said, without looking up from where she was studying the hive. “This is really cool,” she said. “I could make some interesting things out of this.”

What?

“The hive’s not for sale,” Jack said.

“No,” Lardo said. “I was thinking designs. Drawing it? The honeycomb pattern, and the way the bees look.”

“Lardo’s a tattoo artist,” Bitty said. “She designed everything I have on me, and most of what’s on her.”

Bitty seemed to be standing straighter, almost preening, so Jack could see the tattoos that weren’t covered by clothes. It might be as close as Jack ever got to touching Bitty, and he let his eyes wander and linger.

Nearly all of the art was botanical, he realized, and most of it had to do with plants that were food sources: the lemon and lavender, of course, and a band of rosemary around his bicep.

There was a new one, on his left arm, an intricately detailed coneflower. Jack wondered if it was based on the first flowers he had given Bitty.

The tattoo on his right ankle was different. Silhouettes of a figure skater, male, captured in stop-motion as he moved through a jump, circled the ankle.

“Did you skate?” Jack asked.

The question seemed to startle Bitty, until he followed Jack’s eyes down his own leg.

“Oh,” he said. “Yes. That was the first design Lardo did for me, when we were in college and I was talking about how much I missed it.”

“I know what you mean,” Jack said. Because while he didn’t regret leaving the hockey world behind -- the stress and anxiety were not good for him -- he missed the feeling of gliding across the rink, the scrape of his blades on ice, even the chemical tang of the air.

“You skated?” Bitty asked.

“I played hockey,” Jack said.

“Seems like a big jump,” Bitty said, “from hockey to beekeeping.”

“Let’s just say after some of the checks I took a couple of little stings didn’t scare me,” Jack said.

“If you say so,” Bitty said.

Lardo straightened up and said, “Do you have a card? Can I call you and maybe come out and make some sketches when you’re not busy here?”

“Uh, sure,” Jack said. “Right here.”

He handed her a card from the stack on the table, then remembered his manners. It wasn’t like Bitty had betrayed him by having a partner, after all.

“Did you want to take some flowers home?” he said, picking up the bunch he’d made especially for Bitty that morning.

Bitty gave Jack his sunniest smile and said, “Of course. They’re lovely. How much do I owe you?”

“No charge,” Jack said. “I’m closing up soon anyway.”

Two days later, Lardo called, and three days later she was in the barn on his property, working away with a sketchbook and pencils. She came to find Jack in the honey room before she left.

“Thanks,” she said. “I don’t know if you have any ink, but if you wanted one, I’m sure Bitty would be happy to do it on the house.”

“Ink?” Jack said. “You mean a tattoo?”

“Yeah,” Lardo said. “Maybe something like a bee, or a bit of honeycomb. Or some of those flowers you keep giving Bits.”

Jack shrugged.

“I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it,” he said. “Does Bitty -- does he also work with you?”

“Chyeah,” Lardo said. “We own the tattoo parlor on Park together. I make most of the designs, but he can follow a stencil well enough. And he handles a lot of the business stuff. He’s much better at making the customers feel comfortable than me. Especially the newbies.”

“LIke me?” Jack said.

“I guess,” Lardo said. “Look, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but he really likes you, y’know?”

“Okay,” Jack said.  “I like him too. He’s a real nice guy.”

“Right,” Lardo said, and sighed. “A nice guy. That’s all you’ve noticed about him? Because the first time he came back with honey, he went on and on about how blue your eyes were and how broad your shoulders were and … well, you get it. Then with the flowers and everything, I thought he’d be planning a wedding by the end of the summer.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“No need to apologize, dude,” Lardo said. “But if you aren’t interested, maybe stop with the flowers and the flirting? It’s mean to string him along.”

“I haven’t been flirting,” Jack said. “Wait, you two aren’t married already?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lardo said. “First, I saw you at the market this week. If you look up flirting in the dictionary, they have a video of that. The way you looked at him. And no, we’re not married. Bitty doesn’t date women, and even if he did, he’s not my type anyway.”

“But he said you were partners?”

“Business partners. You thought, like romantic partners?”

And then Lardo might have been laughing at him, but Jack couldn’t help laughing too. Bitty was single, and even better, Bitty liked him.

“Here, let me give you his number,” Lardo said. “I promise he’ll be happy to hear from you.”

The next market day, Bitty stayed and helped Jack pack up his stall, waiting for him to get coffee and have a proper date.

Jack learned that Bitty had always assumed he would be some kind of a baker, and still loved baking and food of all sorts, but found it easier to make a living in the tattoo industry.

“I’m not a real artist,” he said. “Lardo is. But I’m good at the easier stuff, and she gets bored with that.”

Jack explained that he took up beekeeping as a hobby after a near-disastrous overdose and stint in rehab, and Bitty did not flinch away. He talked about how the company of the bees soothed him, and the time outdoors quieted his mind.

It was near dark by the time he got home.

Bitty stayed late again the next week, and this time rode home with Jack, preparing dinner in Jack’s kitchen and chirping him about his lack of cooking supplies.

“Except honey,” Bitty said. “There’s plenty of honey.”

The honey peach pie Bitty brought drew an indecent groan from Jack, which drew a hooded, smoldering look from Bitty. It may have led directly to Jack seeing Bitty for the first time without a shirt, tracing his fingers and then his tongue over the tattoos he hadn’t seen before, nibbling at the peach that hung from a branch right over Bitty’s heart.

“Because you’re from Georgia?” Jack asked, looking up.

“And I don’t really go home,” Bitty said.

Jack filed that away to ask more later.

A month later, Jack found himself on Lardo’s bench, Bitty holding his hand. Lardo was inking his first tattoo -- two tiny bees on piece of honeycomb -- on the back of his left shoulder. He had just watched Lardo ink the same design into Bitty’s skin.

“Are you coming home to mine tonight?” Jack asked, when she was applying plastic wrap over the area.

“Of course,” Bitty said. “There’s a new honey pie I want to make.”

[jay-cult]

Static and Stars : Prologue

Before a great story is told, one must often understand why.

Two dark figures stopped suddenly in the dimly lit night. The sand at their feet stood still, marking the hour windless. They looked up at the neon sign.

Ed and Edna’s Scrap N Junk

“I can’t believe he didn’t come,” a young, scared-looking girl commented to the other person.

“He couldn’t,” the other woman replied, full red lips moving in a whisper. “He didn’t even want to think about it.”

The smaller girl nodded, and pulled a hood on. The woman followed suit. They kept on guard from any possible security cameras.

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” The girl asked. “I mean….. What if they don’t want him?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the woman answered, taking a step through the gateway. “They were, a long time ago, very good friends of mine… we… are very sure. They wanted to raise a kid, but they were unable to have any. A-anyway. We’ve been over this.”

The girl nodded again, but her light blue eyes looked down in some doubt.

The two walked around the mountains of rubble in the darkness. The woman clung tight to a bundle in her arms. It stayed still.

They finally arrived at the door to a humble-looking trailer. Its light only dimly filled a small space around it. The woman stooped down, placing the bundle at the very foot of the door. It continued to lie still, almost too peaceful.

She slid a note out of her pocket, and placed it right on top. If ever you find the need to reveal the origins of this child, this address is enough for him to find his way, it read. An address was listed. We respectfully ask one thing. There is no need for him to be famous or important. He just needs to be loved, and free. Please do that for us.

The woman reached into a pocket again, and took out a light blue charm that shone with easily reflected light. It was in the shape of a lightning bolt. She placed it by the note, as if to say, he’ll always be a Staticholder.

The two gazed at the thing on the ground. The woman couldn’t draw herself away, until she forced herself to look to the side. Tears found their way to her eyes, then down her cheeks, but she knew she could not even let her own sister see how torn she was. “I’m going to go,” she mumbled. She stumbled away.

“Where are you going?” The girl asked, voice toned with fear, the woman a few steps away already.

The woman lowered her head. She wiped her face with her hands. “Away.”

She bolted up a tower of junk, almost invisible in the cold night. Her hood flew off and her golden hair wove as she ran. Her sorrowful, tear-ridden face was now a little visible in the dark. She reached the top, and leaped off the mound. The air beneath her lit and blue energy began to take shape, the shape of a dragon. It flew away, a sparking light, until it was dark again and the speck was gone.

The girl turned and looked back at the bundle, making her way towards it.

“Oh, you,” she whispered. “Little Staticholder…… a….. little guy.” She didn’t really understand. She didn’t understand why this had to happen.

The bundle stirred now, awakening, but no voice came yet. Little eyes were still shut tight. The young girl crouched down to look at it again. This time she was alone. Confused thoughts raged through her head. She wondered if, for a few moments, she could take it, and she thought maybe she could run away and be free of the future her parents promised her and instead try to make a life with a child- no, that would never work. The idea was insane. She knew it had to be left here. He had to be left here.

Still, she felt an odd connection that was there, even if she had never seen him until these past few hours. Perhaps it was sympathy, or perhaps it was a weirdly quick bond from staring at a sleeping baby, or maybe… it was just an automatic family tie, like as if blood was a path to loving.

“You’re not exactly my blood, are you though,” she said silently. “We still both have something from my parents though, I guess. I-”

The bundle stirred again and eyes screwed as if they were trying so so hard to do something. And then miraculously the eyes opened for the first time she had ever seen.

“....They. They’re like mine,” she breathed in awe. Light blue as if reflecting the lightning that ran always through the Staticholder family’s veins. Man to man to man to the two sisters, and their name would end on their branch.

Her heart twisted and she looked down at the little charm that had been given to the baby. Self-control let go and she knew she had to make herself some connection to him. She reached down to take it in her hands, and then a separate little hand reached out and touched her own. She smiled more sadly than she had ever frowned.

It was over quickly, and she dragged her hand back, and slipped the metallic charm in a pocket.

“Agh, typical. Now I have to figure out how to make sure you get in as soon as possible and I get out of here so I don’t get caught. She just bolted it outta here, and now I have no way home either, huh.” Yeah, sure her sister had quite a lot on her mind with all…. This. But was it really an excuse to just dumbly leave her in this desert? She hadn’t even reached her true potential let alone been able to conjure an energy dragon, how the hell was she going to get out- right. The kid first.

No need to think up a storm of a plan. The girl stood up and banged loudly on the door, immediately scampering away to hide behind a pile of trash.

Silence.

She poked her head out for a second, until suddenly the latch of the door opened. “Hello?” She heard a very tired voice of a woman say. The girl peeked out, and saw someone about 40, which she supposed was surprisingly old to raise a child. “Oh! Oh dear, what’s this? Ed?”

A similar-aged looking man stepped out. “By golly,” he exclaimed. “It seems we have ourselves a dilemma, honey.”

The girl narrowed an eyebrow, slightly confused about the odd way the couple spoke.

“Dilemma? Well, I’d hardly say that’s the word. It doesn’t have to be,” the woman replied. “I mean look at it. What a cute little….” a pause, “guy!”

“There’s a note,” Ed said.

The girl took one last look at the situation and sighed. She supposed she should probably go back to her house before her parents found her out of bed. She quickly snuck away, back through the illuminated sign, and to the road in the desert.

“Yugh. I’m gonna have to walk all on my own now, huh.” She said disappointedly. She began the path down the road in the sharp, cold night.

She pulled back her hood, and began to ponder as people who walk often do. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the charm, moving it about to observe the starlight’s effect on its shiny surface.

A familiar car pulled past, a rare sight in this area especially at this time, and stopped suddenly. The window rolled down and a face poked out. “Rhon? Is that you?” it asked.

“Ah FSM, Irene? What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same, and even more relevantly, about you! Get in! Where’re your fancy whozits and whatnot? Can’t you pull yourself around in those?”

“They’re just small remote-control prototypes,” the girl named Rhon mumbled, dragging herself into the surprisingly nice passenger seat. “I’m not making mobiles at twelve-”

“Alright, alright,” Irene said defensively. She rolled up her window and quickly drove on. “Hey, I am taking you to your house ASAP right now. For real what are you doing-”

“I MAY or MAY NOT have went with Lib to take care of the problem, you know the problem where she didn’t have enough to take care of more than herself-”

“SO YOU WENT INTO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND KILLED HIM?”

“NO you DIMWIT!” Rhon yelled, and sighed to herself after, rubbing her forehead. “We brought him to the Walkers.”

“Ah, good choice,” Irene said. She seemed to recover easily. “FSM… a twelve year old shouldn’t have to go through this.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a child, unlike her,” she said almost in a growl.

The car stayed in silence for a while.

“Sorry,” Rhon said suddenly.

“It’s alright, you’re starting to be a teenager after all, most of them say things like this,” Irene replied coolly.

But it was never this intense or weird between us, Rhon thought.

As if reading her thoughts, Irene piped up and said, “It’s just that this whole situation seems a little… shocking, eh?” She smiled like she knew what she did.

Rhon gave her the most disappointed look. It was an odd situation there in that car with a young girl being more serious and having gone through more than a well-established adult. “Ah, well… how have things been going, I haven’t really talked to you much since this all… happened. How’re you and that noodle boy getting along?”

“Hardly a boy,” Irene smiled. “Ah, he did used to be so young. He was only somewhat older than his apprentice when he was teaching him.”

“Ah, the infamous… did you hear about him?”

“Rumors have been going around,” Irene answered, frowning. “But… he left Chen a long, long time ago. Chen would know nothing now.”

“Wonder why,” Rhon commented.

“Yeah,” Irene said. “The man is crazy. But secretive, and well, he’s just wonderful, and it really is going pretty great with him. I-in fact, I should probably use this chance to tell you.”

Irene just stuttered. Irene never stuttered.

“You may have just had your baby situation. But now you can have real hope with me, I guess-”

“Holy. Shi-”

“YES, okay, I am, I do have a. Situation that I love that I have and I guess that’s just news for you and WOO yes there!” Irene shouted.

Rhon clapped. “Aa, nice! Cool! Wow, that’s new, huh.”

“Yeah,” Irene said.

More happy silence.

“We’re an odd couple, you know that?” the older woman said suddenly. “I mean, how did we even get to be like this, a young kid like you and… a person like me?”

“I dunno,” Rhon shrugged. “I s’pose friendships are just wild like that.”

The care came to a stop by Rhon’s home, but not right in front of it lest her parents wake up. “Ah, thanks for grabbing me outta that desert, the timing was perfect.”

“Yeah, I’m great, I know,” Irene joked. “Now do go get in your house. It’s so damn late ya crazy kid.”

She bolted off and snuck around the front of the house until she reached a window. She took a step onto it and climbed to the top of it, then onto the roof, and then she quickly dove into the window up there. Her room was just as how she had left it that night, thankfully. She dove into her covers, too tired to stare at the “Cyrus Borg: Kid Genius”-and-like posters on her walls for a few minutes before falling back asleep. She grabbed a blue dragon plushie and hugged it to her heart.

[a-mad-scientist-approaches]

The Cipher Conspiracy (1)

Another fic! What is this! 

I had a massive brainwave some time ago, and this is what happened. A Gravity Falls Spy AU. 

I don’t know if the Spy AU in general belongs to anyone, let me know if it does, but this was kickstarted by @hntrgurl13‘s version (with a few changes, sorry, sorry) and that one story anon. My imagination was CAPTURED, I tell you.

Adeline Marks is @hntrgurl13‘s marvellous OC, and the Addiford ship belongs to @scipunk63.

AO3  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Chapter 1: Numero Uno

Sacramento, California (USA)    ∆

Stanley Pines knocked briefly on the office door before making his way inside and sitting familiarly in a chair. Not the comfy swivel chair behind the desk. That hadn’t been appreciated when he’d tried it.

“I’m finished for the day,” he said, stretching his arms out behind his head.

“Must be nice,” huffed Senior Special Agent Carla McCorkle of the FBI from over at her filing cabinet.

Oh. One of those days.

“Case not going well?”

“It would be, if one of these idiots could get me the right information, and not lead me on a wild goose chase TO THE PIZZA PARLOUR!” she finished in a shout, turning to direct it across the hall at the office opposite hers. A muffled (and maybe English-accented?) yell answered her, but the words couldn’t be discerned. Although Stan was pretty sure they weren’t polite.

He frowned. “You need me to teach that guy a lesson?”

“Believe me, I already did,” Carla flashed a malevolent grin and walked past him back to her desk.

“That’s my girl!” He took the opportunity to pat her butt. Instantly, she whipped around and gave him a death glare that made him quail. “Okay! Okay! Sorry!”

Not the time. Got it.

A tower of files was dumped on the desk, enough to obscure Carla when she sat down in the coveted swivel chair. Not for the first time, Stan was immensely glad that he had never completed the FBI training course. Best to leave the paperwork to people who actually had the patience to get through it, like Carla, or Fo-

“Y’know, we were getting so close. What the hell happened? Suddenly we can’t gain an inch on these guys!”

“These guys being the-” Stan stood up and looked at the name on the topmost file – “Cipher Wheel?”

“Yep. Whoever’s running the show goes by Bill Cipher, according to rumour. We don’t have anything concrete to back that up, though,”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Stan said easily. Carla grunted unhappily.

Time to break out the big guns, he decided.

He stepped between Carla and the desk, the chair rolling backwards. She didn’t look happy to have her work interrupted, but Stan was confident that that would change soon.

“I have a present for you,” he told her, putting his hands on the chair’s armrests.

“Pines,” she warned.

“You’ll enjoy it, I promise,”

“We’re at the FBI!”

He leaned closer. Before she could threaten to eject him from the building, he shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and brought out a white-petalled flower. While she stared at it, he tried to keep the smugness off his face.

“You lost your other one,” he shrugged, by way of explanation.

For the first time since she’d gotten to work, Carla laughed slightly.

Mission accomplished.

She took the flower and kissed him gently. “See you back home?”

“You know it, babe,”

As he was leaving, Stan gave a mock salute and said, “Until tomorrow, Special Agent McCorkle,”

“That’s Senior Special Agent McCorkle, Mr Pines,”

When Carla made it back to their apartment (a full three hours later than himself), she had the flower tucked behind her ear.

Manhattan, New York (USA)    ∆

“Fidds, what the hell happened?” Agent Adeline Marks stared in shock at her partner, who was covered from head to toe in muck. His normally green suit was completely brown and black.

With as much dignity as he could muster, Agent Fiddleford McGucket took off his glasses and wiped them clean, then placed them back on his long nose. “I’ve just crawled through five hundred heckin’ metres of basement to fix our gosh-darn processin’ system, and I don’t think it was worth it,”

Addi stared at him pityingly for a moment. “You could have waited for the clean-up crew to get rid of the mess down there,”

“I was getting frustrated, and I wasn’t sure they weren’t goin’ to reschedule again.” He sighed. “They wouldn’t keep doin’ that if they knew what our building was a cover for.”

Addi nodded, and Fiddleford knew she was wistfully reminiscing of the prioritisation they had had before their branch was supposedly shut down.

“Well anyway, you know we’ve got a meeting now? I think it’s a new assignment,” she said.

Fiddleford groaned as he looked down at himself, and then back at the mud trail he had left coming through the elevator doors. It had definitely not been worth it. A passing agent slipped in the tracks, papers flying everywhere.

“Alrighty, let’s get this over with,” Quickly, so I can have a shower.

They headed up to their boss’s floor.

Sacramento, California (USA)    ∆

“Hope you like fish! It’s all we had,” called Stan from the stove as Carla dumped her bag on the couch.

“Smells great,” she said in relief, wrapping her arms around him from behind and burying her head in the crook of his neck.

“Geez, you really need a holiday,” said Stan, knowing what the answer would be.

“Not until the case is done,” she mumbled.

“And then you gotta promise you’ll give it a rest for a while,”

“You betcha. I am so sick of these hours,”

They stayed like that for a little while, until Stan noticed the fish was burning. As he hurriedly took it off the heat and waved away the smoke, Carla sat down at the kitchen table and examined their mail.

“Bills, neighbours having a party tomorrow, more bills – huh. A postcard,”

“Well, I don’t have any friends – any who want to contact me anyway – and all yours live around here. So who’s it from?” Stan set a plate down in front of her.

“Doesn’t say, exactly.” She looked up at him curiously. “Take a look.” She passed it over as he sat down on the opposite side of the table.

The postcard showed a forest and a cliff-face with a waterfall running down it. In big orange and green block letters, the words ‘Gravity Falls’ were emblazoned across it.

“Never heard of it,” said Stan, and turned it over. He almost dropped it in shock. As Carla had said, there was no address, no message, not even a name. There was a drawing. A hand. A six-fingered hand.

He looked up at Carla. “Ford?”

“It looks like it,” she nodded, clasping her hands in front of her face. “It’s been, what, five years?”

Stan took a deep breath. “I – I’ve gotta-” He stood up and ran his hands through his hair, staring between her and the postcard helplessly.

“Yeah I know! Go!” Carla said, smiling widely and standing up as well. “Come on, you have to pack!”

Stan laughed incredulously as they raced to the bedroom. He was feeling simultaneously scared and overjoyed. Before Carla could extract his suitcase, he pulled her in for a hard kiss and hugged her tightly.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,”

“No, it’s okay, take your time. I think you’ll need to. He wouldn’t have contacted you unless he needed something,”

Well, that hurt. But she was right. It wasn’t Ford’s fault, not really, and truth be told they hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms. He should be glad he was getting to see his brother at all.

“I should probably bring some cereal,”

“Good idea,”

Manhattan, New York (USA)    ∆

The Oracle Division had been created for the sole purpose of finding and eliminating the worldwide threat posed by an organisation known as the Cipher Wheel. The only problem was, as they soon found, no one had ever knowingly encountered an agent of this organisation. No one had ever admitted to having dealings with the organisation, even through a middle-man. There wasn’t even any evidence to back up the rumour that the head of the organisation’s name was Bill Cipher. So far, the only thing that the agency had managed to collect was a wide variety of symbols that the criminal underground had used in connection with the Cipher Wheel. Of course, they had so far led nowhere. Still, the government maintained that it existed.

So, due to the extreme lack of work available for the Oracle Division, it was a very small agency, and until anything to do with the Cipher Wheel was brought to their attention it was assigned other cases for efficiency purposes. Furthermore, as the Oracle Division was classified in an ultra-top-secret manner, it had to be hidden. Thus, why it had recently been relocated to a tiny five-storey building in Manhattan.

Adeline reflected on this as Fiddleford knocked on their director’s door. It was still surreal knowing they were the only field operatives in the whole agency.

“Come in,”

They entered.

“Well, agents, I’m sure you know – Fiddleford, are you okay?”

Fiddleford dripped onto the carpet. “Sorry ma’am, I was seein’ to the processing system,”

“Well, you have my thanks. It really did need something done for it. You’ll be hailed as a hero tomorrow.” The director smiled. “I’ll make this quick so you can go clean yourself up.”

“Thank you,” Fiddleford sighed.

“As I was saying, I’m sure you’ve guessed why you’re here,”

“You have a mission for us,” Addi said.

“Correct.” The tall, dark-skinned woman stood up from behind her desk and turned on a projector. An image of a bemused-looking woman appeared on the blank stretch of wall.

“This is Dr Jane Hansen. She is a chemist who has developed a new material with extraordinary refractive, reflective, and focal properties, called shimmern. This could be used to revolutionise the technological industry, for instance providing greater laser capabilities, enhancing computer operations, and creating a far cheaper way to manufacture stealth products.” The director nodded approvingly at Addi and Fiddleford’s raised eyebrows.

“Dr Hansen, however, is a very gentle soul who has insisted on using the only existing sample to create a fabulous piece of jewellery for her wife, which made our superiors rather frustrated,” the director said with a small smile.

The image changed to show a photo of Dr Hansen in her house, presenting a glittery, tear-shaped pendant on a silver chain to another woman. The picture was taken through the leaves of a bush.

“Aww,” said Addi. It was a very sweet scene, captured forever in an ethically questionable manner. “So, you want us to obtain that necklace?” she asked, switching back to professionalism.

“Of course. As well as the method she used to create it. We’ve been asked to hold onto it until our superiors have had a chance to study, and presumably replicate, it – as Dr Hansen has made it clear she has no interest allowing it to be used for weapons or stealth technology,” the director said with only the vaguest hint of approval.

“I assume the plans’re all stored electronically?” asked Fiddleford.

“Yes, Agent McGucket,”

“Then it’ll be an easy workday, ma’am,”

“Good to hear. Dr Hansen is planning on unveiling her creation at the Centro Congressi Giovanni XXIII Convention Centre in Italy five days from now. It will be a very classy event, so, Agent Marks, I assume you have some very classy clothes?”

Addi grinned at the director. She was looking forward to this assignment. “Of course, Jheselbraum,”

Gravity Falls, Oregon (USA)    ∆

Stan walked cautiously up the stairs to the porch of 618 Gopher Road. It was a very isolated house, nestled in a forest, and yet Stan couldn’t help but feel watched. Like there were eyes pointed at him from all directions. Considering this was apparently where Ford lived, though, that wasn’t exactly surprising. He’d probably been scanned no less than eighteen times since stepping out of the car.

Trying to convince himself that everything was fine, is fine, would be fine, he knocked on the door. It was flung open instantly, and he looked down the barrel of a gun.

His hand was coming up almost as soon as the door started opening. Stan slapped it away from his face and into his other hand where he flipped it around and caught it in a two-handed grip pointing at his opponent.

Ford beamed and said, “Well done, Stanley. It’s good to see you haven’t lost your skills.” Then he stood aside as though it was perfectly normal to brandish weapons at your family members.

“I’m fine, by the way.” Stan muttered as he stepped inside. “Might’ve pissed myself, but I’m fine.”

“I assume you found my message?” asked Ford, holding out his hand for the gun, which Stan wasn’t exactly eager to return.

“You mean the one written in invisible ink on the mysterious postcard with a cryptic drawing?”

“Yes, that one,”

“Yeah Ford, I found it. Been doing that since we were kids.” Stan rolled his eyes. “But an address and ‘Please come’? You had me worried, bro.”

“I’m sorry, but there wasn’t much else I could say. I didn’t want to risk it falling into the wrong hands. By the way, you burnt that, didn’t you?”

Stan nodded. As they spoke, his eyes roamed around, taking in everything they could. Ford didn’t look like he was in any trouble. He seemed completely normal, if a bit manic, but he had been that way forever. At least he wasn’t in some deep danger like Stan had been had been fearing. Five years of silence, and then ‘Please come’? Worried was an understatement: he had almost had a heart failure.

The large room they were standing in was absolutely covered in things with Ford written all over them. Maybe even literally, if he had been indulging in the invisible ink. Technology, gadgets, weird substances in science beakers, it was all there.

Ford was looking at him oddly, with an awkward half-grin on his face like he wasn’t sure what else to say. Guess it was up to Stan to make the next move.

Crap.

He didn’t know what to do either. It was getting weird now. Should he try for a hug? No, that would make it even worse. Ford was still standing there, and now they were staring at each other. Just when Stan was on the verge of yelling “NON-SPECIFIC EXCUSE!” and making a break for it, his brother spoke up.

“So . . . you’re working for the FBI now?”

“Oh, er, you know about that?” Of course he does, it’s Ford. “And it’s more like with, not for. I’ve got connections and such, I know people. Useful for them, and I get paid when they need me, so I’m not complaining,”

Ford nodded, like this was exactly what he had wanted to hear. This is getting stranger by the minute.

“How did that happen?” This time, the question was genuinely curious, not prying for information, or confirmation, or whatever.

“Heh, well, remember Carla, from back in Glass Shard Beach? She works for ‘em now. Found me in California about four years ago, arrested me on a case, I put the moves on her,” he waggled his eyebrows and Ford snorted disbelievingly, “she couldn’t resist, and the rest is history.” Not exactly true. He’d completely fallen for her all over again as soon as she had laughed in recognition while handcuffing him. Then he’d bargained for a job and sold out his co-conspirators.

“It was surprising to learn you went back into law enforcement, or some semblance of it,” said Ford.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I just never would have expected it of you, especially after the way you gave up your training when we were both at the FBI,”

Stan frowned. “The way I gave it up?”

Ford tilted his head. “Well you didn’t exactly quit in a regular fashion,”

“I didn’t quit, they ran me off the property!”

“Yes, because you were idiot enough to accept a drunken bet and try to steal secure files! That practically sealed your life as a criminal!”

“Well let me remind you why I was off getting drunk that night. A certain high-paying job offer from a shady government agency ring a bell?”

“Stanley, we have had this conversation before. They offered you the exact same deal!”

“Which you were all too eager to accept! A deal, by the way, which included completely cutting off all ties with family and friends,”

They were glaring at each other now, and were unconsciously tensing for a fight. Things had gotten heated even more rapidly than Stan had expected.

“That was not a permanent arrangement, Stanley, as is clear from your presence here right now,”

“It’s the principle of the thing that matters, Ford! You just upped and ditched me, like you couldn’t wait to get rid of me!”

“You’re talking to me about principles and ditching? The last time I saw you was five years ago, when you led the FBI to my apartment after attempting to steal from them, broke in, yelled at me while grabbing all my cereal, and then climbed out the window! I am assuming that was all deliberate, as when the FBI kicked down my door they thought I was you and arrested me!”

“Well, in your words, that wasn’t a ‘permanent arrangement’ and they sorted it out eventually,”

They lapsed into silence, the air between them practically sizzling. Stan had said enough, had had enough. He’d come here to help Ford if he could, and he’d hoped to maybe patch things up, but it didn’t look as though Ford was all that inclined t-

“I didn’t mean to abandon you, Stan,” Ford admitted, frowning angrily at him. Stan blinked. Carla’s words immediately came to him: he wouldn’t have contacted you unless he needed something. However, if this was a ploy to get his help, it was pretty sincere.

“Although your actions didn’t make it easy to apologise. Furthermore, taking my cereal was incredibly petty.” Ford waited, looking closely at him, seeing how he would respond. Stan was tempted to start up another argument over Ford’s hypocrisy in calling him petty – he wasn’t the one still sore about cereal. Instead, he was reminded forcefully of his brother as a kid, and what one of his first thoughts had been to do when he thought he’d gotten a chance to see Ford again. He’d been half-convinced he never would, what with the super-secret job Ford had taken.

Stan pulled a box of cereal out of his bag and handed it mutely to his brother, who stared.

And stared some more.

And laughed. And pulled him into a hug.

“It’s good to see you again,”

“Yeah, you too bro,”

Well that was easy.

Ford gave him a tour of the house. As he memorised the layout of it, Stan noticed that Ford didn’t seem able to confine his inventions to the main workroom – and they were Ford’s inventions. Stan guessed his brother’s brain was the main reason he had attracted attention from the government.

“Ford, not that I’m complaining, but why am I really here?”

Ford grinned and stepped back into the workroom. He picked a thick, red-bound book off a bench. “For this,”

Stan took the book. It had a gold, six-fingered hand emblazoned on it, similar to the one on the post-card. He opened it to where it was bookmarked.

All the words were in code, but it was a code he and Ford had used since they were kids. It was like a second language to Stan, and he read it easily.

“What’s shimmern?” he asked, looking at a hand-drawn picture of a pendant on a chain.

“A new kind of material.” Ford had an excited look in his eyes. “There’s only one sample in existence, in fact. My assignment is to appropriate, and eventually replicate, it. You’re here because I want your help,”

Stan noticed with some elation that Ford had specifically said “want” not “need”.

“This would be much easier with you, Stan. Like you already said, you have contacts. You’re good with people, not to mention you haven’t lost the skills you had five years ago,”

“I’m in,” said Stan without hesitation. “but don’t you have a partner to help you out? Pretty sure that’s what’s supposed to happen when you work for the government.”

Ford cleared his throat. “That’s not how we do things. Our missions are carried out entirely without assistance from other agents. There’s less chance of a leak that way,”

No matter what his brother’s test scores said, to Stan, Ford was as easy to read as a child’s book.

“Ford . . . you do work for the government, don’t you?”

His brother shifted now, not even attempting to lie under Stan’s scrutiny. “You don’t have to worry, we aren’t working against anyone. We’re primarily research-based,”

“What kind of research needs highly-trained field agents with no connections?”

“I’ve told you all I can,” Ford said firmly, with a hint of apology.

Ever since he and Ford had both been made an offer during the training course for the FBI, Stan had assumed it had been some sort of government branch, the CIA or something. However, the more he thought about, there was absolutely nothing to support this assumption. In short, Ford had him worried. Again.

Even more reason to stick close to him then.

“Okay, I’m still on board. How do we get this thing?”

“Italy, five days from now. We have a party to attend,” Ford said mischievously, and again Stan was reminded of the plans they’d come up with as kids, specifically the more notorious ones.

“I’m gonna need my fake IDs again,”

∆

“Hey Fordsy, how’d it go?” Bill Cipher said, sitting ramrod straight in Ford’s desk chair and swivelling around in it as the elevator doors opened to the basement.

“Good,” Ford replied. “We’re ready for the assignment. Or we will be soon. Stan has to sort a few things out first,”

When he’d first met his employer, Ford had been slightly disturbed by his too-wide smile, eyes that blinked less than a person’s normally would, and far more familiar demeanour than befitted the director of a shadow organisation. Now, he knew it was just one of Bill’s quirks.

“I hope you understand how lenient I’m being, letting your brother in on this. Not that I have anything against him, swell guy I’m sure, but of all the people to choose . . . I mean, really? Didn’t he used to be a bit – what’s the word? Oh yeah. Impulsive. Reckless. Untrustworthy. Take your pick. From what I’ve seen, smart guy, you are far more capable on your own. I don’t want him dragging you down or anything, numero uno,”

“Stan was just angry before. I promise that he will be more focused on this, and he will be a valuable asset,” Ford assured him quickly. It had taken over a year for Bill to come around to the idea of letting Stan meet up with him, and Ford was sure he had only agreed because he knew how ridiculously stubborn Ford could be.

Or because it was affecting your work.

The thought was immediately brushed away. Bill was right to be concerned about Stan. The organisation he had built was founded on levels of secrecy unlike any Ford had previously encountered. Any breach of that could bring it all crashing down. So yes, allowing Ford to bring someone in was a risk, he understood that. And so what if Bill had only agreed because their argument five years ago was eating away at Ford enough to disturb his performance in the field and the lab? That just proved how much Bill trusted, valued,and even cared, about him.

“Alright Sixer, we’ll try this your way. Just keep the objective in sight, you know what I mean?”

If there was one thing Ford was certain about in his line of work, it was that Bill Cipher was a good guy.

“Yes sir,”

[survivoraqualand]

EPISODE 4: Bring On The Chaos

Oh boy, this was a big one.

Immediately after Sea Council, the castaways were given their next reward challenge - a mythological Wikipedia race which Rose and Linden would eventually win - along with a TEAM SWAP ANNOUNCEMENT! Everyone was added to a joint chat, at which point they could speak with anyone in the game until the teams were divided via a schoolyard pick, with the team captains chosen by MJ because he intercepted a signal from the watchtower shortly beforehand. The choices were made very quickly, and our new teams were [MJ, Logan, Jenna, Marg, Rose, Alyx and Zoe] on New Proteus versus [Jessica, Katie, Linden, Rhea, Jessie, Linus, and Allyn] on New Ceto, picked in that order.

A few hours into getting settled onto these new teams, Logan decided to mosey down to Submere 3 and let out Proteus’ monster. He was warned that this would be made public to the team yet still proceeded anyway... and was rewarded with a hidden immunity idol but punished by sending his team automatically to Sea Council. He was told this decision would be posted after the immunity challenge.

Meanwhile on Ceto, Katie made the same choice just a few hours later - which meant she also got an idol, and also sent Ceto to Sea Council, thus triggering a Double Sea Council round where only one was originally planned. 

To make this all the more delicious, this round’s immunity was a temptations challenge, in which each player had to decide whether to follow the instructions of Persnickety Pete to give up powers in the game in order to win points and keep their team safe. (Contrary to Katie’s speculations within her alliance chat, this was in fact the original planned challenge for this round, not specially chosen because of the monsters.) With about half of each team having been informed about the automatic Council, most players did not give much up, although Rose went almost all in on Proteus and Linden went rather OTT on Ceto firmly believing that everyone else was going to take all the temptations alongside her.

After the reveal of the monsters’ double release, almost everyone in the game was exiled from the team chats and unable to communicate with each other for 5 hours, as for some reason this was the one temptation everyone wanted. After the time-out was up, however, plans began quickly coming together on both sides to shift votes onto the outliers, which meant Alyx/Rose on Proteus and Linus/Jessie on Ceto. For the latter, there didn’t seem to be much to do besides campaign against one another at the mercy of the majority vote; however, on Proteus, Alyx had a couple tricks up his sleeve. Thanks to a newly forged alliance with Logan & Marg as well as his discovery of a Sapphire Idol in suite 2D at the Hotel, the idoled-up threesome were able to concoct a plan to make sure the majority votes were split between Alyx and Rose, so that those two would be saved by the Sapphire Idol and could decide who went home with a minority vote.

Due to their poorer performance in the immunity challenge, Proteus went to Sea Council first, where Rose had an extra vote cast against her from Persnickety Pete, six out of seven players had their vote publicly revealed (good thing Marg kept theirs secret!), and Alyx went through with his plan to play his Sapphire Idol, sending Zoe home in a 4-3-1 turned 1-0-0 vote.

At Ceto’s Sea Council, things were a bit less spicy, but not by much. The votes ended up being incredibly close, with Jessie being sent to walk the plank in a 3-2-2 vote. 

LINDEN

Uhhhh it's super awkward when you definitely probably know who voted for you at Seat Council. Guess I know where I'll be voting next time maybe?

[HOST NOTE: It was Pat. The person who got voted out. There was one vote for Linden and the rest were for Pat.]

I love my new team! I'm ready to have more active teammates who will be more involved in things. I hope we can get along well and not have too many issues with old alliances and the sort. Or maybe we can and make it more dramatic!? Who knows!

RHEA

my life is in katies hands

also i have an idol lol but i seem to be like way worse at searching than like other people so like how many people have an idol?? whats the tea

JENNA

I'll do a quick written confessional rn. At surface level I'm happy with the swap. But I think I'd feel safer if I was with Katie. I'm soooo glad I'm with Logan, but I'm worried we're gonna be targeted. I know MJ could easily flip the team on us for being close. And Zoe would most likely follow. But Hopefully that won't happen. I would love to stick with MJ. I'm not sure where Logan stands with everything, so right now my closes people would be Katie, MJ, and probably Allyn. Logan is working with Marg and I don't mind trying to work with them, so I'm trying to talk to them a bit. Zoe still isn't super responsive so not sure where we stand, but as long as MJ doesn't decide to go against me and Logan it should be okay. I hope Katie is okay on the other team. I'm assuming Jess will work with her. Anyway, gonna see what Logan has found in the hotel later and prob share with MJ so he knows I'm not just gonna ditch him for Logan.

KATIE

Yay: Jess is here! Cries in the club: Jenna is gone.

MARG

i really am just having so much fun in my first ever org. my heart is full trying something new <3 lot's has changed since my last confessional. a swap happened!!! i am now on Proteus with MJ, Logan, Jenna, Rose, Alyx, and Zoe. i was a little nervous going into the swap just because i don't know anyone, but i'm actually feeling ok! both Alyx AND Logan found idols in the past 24 hours which is WILD. i feel great knowing that all three of us have something and i feel a sense of security knowing where stuff is. i'm not sure how many advantages Ari put into the game, but i feel like there shouldn't be many more idols than that?? 3 feels like a lot. ANYWAYS, literally all three of us from Ceto have idols, so i'm feeling ok right now! Alyx and Logan both only told me about their idols too, so i feel like i'm in a good spot between the two of them. i made an alliance chat for the three of us and i am trying to bring the two of them together. hopefully it works and we can figure something out whenever we go to sea council next!! i'm also trying to branch out and meet everyone from the original Proteus team. i really am loving meeting everyone and getting to know each other! i have talked to Jenna the most out of the people new to me. she's really easy to talk to, and i would love to work with her! i hope we can make it happen. i think it would be fun, and i'm here for fun!!! my biggest fear in this game is being delusional or not really understanding what is going on. i think i have some agency in the game and don't just follow people who have played in orgs a bunch??? i want to have a mind of my own and play to win. i think i'm doing that? i hope i'm doing that? i'm really just trying to focus on social bonds so that people want to work with me. gosh i just reread everything and i sound so optimistic. i'm ending this confessional before something bad happens. bye!

JESSICA

I know we have already lost this challenge because Katie let the monster out. Tempted to take an auto self vote so I can avoid the drama..... but I know people would find this SUSPICIOUS!

LINDEN

I really hope I can convince everyone to go along with the wild plan to take all the options. Allyn, Katie, and I have all said yes for sure in one on one chats! Linus and Jessica are both maybes and Jessie is also hesitant. Rhea is very busy with her mouth but I really think we should go for it!!! I just have to get everyone to trust one another for a brief moment.

JESSICA

The number of times I have googled "aquaman" while trying to visit this blog is astounding. Anyways... I love Linden that is it that is all that is the confessional. I saw this challenge (and the option to self vote??? Amazing) and I didn't take it because I was like oh no, Jessie and Linden need me and I can't risk them going home. I come back and Linden has said don't worry, I took every single thing because I think it's funny. I could never achieve this level of being iconic. 

I think what actually happened is Katie told everyone on her side we automatically are losing so none of them are going to take anything. That's fine by me honestly! If Linden is self-voting, I think I will make this go to rocks. But not just any rocks..... I think I'm gonna try and do this: - me, Jessie, Linus: vote Katie - Katie, Allyn, Rhea: vote me - Linden: is not voting at all Then if it ties, Katie and I are safe from rocks and everyone else does it. This seems really fun so I hope it works. However, I think Linus might mess up a plan like this so who knows what will happen. 

LINDEN

I TOOK ALL THESE DOWNSIDES FOR N O T H I N G /flips table

ROSE

i can't believe both monsters got out and i hope it was NOT intentional bc if it *was* logan has a LOT to answer for! this was very unexpected and i'm definitely a little worried about whether i gave too much up in this challenge. our team only got 18 points, which means that some of us did NOT make the sacrifices we all agreed upon

KATIE

Episode Title: She Did The Monster Mash 

I released the monster and I would do it again and again and again!!!!!! I found out Rhea has the missing mask and can mutiny after sea council... I had a plan to take said mask and jump to the other team to then release their monster, but no such luck because LOGAN LET IT GO!!!!!!!! 

I am also the holder of all pearl information and am excited to watch who unleashes the curse first-- its between Jess or Jenna... I don't really do reward challenges unless I get to draw a picture so I know I wont have enough hotel trips to figure out the curse myself so now I watch and wait. Someone has the f5 item from the vending machine and I am being CONSTANTLY LIED TO about who has it... thats my next goal 

I tried to tell my old team members not to give anything up but nobody listened and now I'm the only person not exiled and alone in the team chat. It's amazing~

JESSIE

BAM TEAM SWAP SCHOOL YARD PICK SHOOOK 

That's right. I was shook. I was also almost picked last which I don't know how to feel about. At least I ended up on the team I wanted to be on. Jessica, Linden and me are hoping we can snatch up Linus because apparently he was in the minority on the other team and Linus passed my vibe check so I am fine with that. Us Canadians must stick together ? Yeah that sounds good I kind of  like the sound of that lol. 

Anyways I did not take all the punishments for this round and no regrets because both teams lost. Katie let pancakes free of course Pancakes was going to cause some trouble. So we go to council tomorrow most people have punishments so I should be okay this round. The public vote? Not as scary as not getting a vote or getting an extra vote to your name. I can do damage control if need to. I just got to believe in myself. 

*insert some quote about hope and despair from danganronpa* 

I will also be staying up so I can start strategizing when we all get added back to the chat after this lovely chat exile break. Anyways at this point I will probably be voting Rhea due to lack of bonding but who knows what plans later tonight or tomorrow will bring? I sure don't know. But I am ready. Bring on the chaos <3

JENNA

So I actually meant to talk about something else in this confessional but I'm dumb and forgot about it so I'll type it out. Playing with Logan reminded me to chill out a little more and have more fun and not take everything too seriously. I remember this book I was reading where this team did something that would make them lose for sure but then they would learn from it, and if you're not willing to take risks and go outside of your comfort zone and fail then you're never going to grow as a person. You're not gonna win all the time because if you do you never actually learn all that you can and so I wanna have fun and cause chaos and not be afraid to lose because I'm growing and that's good! Life is a lot more fun if you're not focused on being the best and just having a good time with good people and taking steps in the right direction. Eventually you become the best anyway, so I'm really glad Logan helped put that in perspective. I'm still gonna try! But I wanna take more risks, like releasing that curse! Maybe the game will be harder but I'll be having fun on the way.

ALLYN

Team switch is actually going okay! I am still with Rhea and Linus who are my number 1 and 2, and Katie is being trustworthy at the moment so that is good.  I am also with Jessica, who I've been friends with for 6 years and I definitely want to align with her eventually (she's a beast in person and in Survivor), it's just I don't know why she doesn't want Jessie out.  I'm hoping telling her to go for Linus won't hurt us in the long run, because she is definitely a person I want to work with.  Katie is controlling and mean (sorry, just what I have witnessed) and she's good for our votes at the moment, but I definitely want her out soon.  She completely ignored my all my ideas and input on the rule making challenge, and it was just not very fun to work with her.  (Jenna has confirmed, wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy)  Linden is so sweet and I love her, (we are Bellingham buddies and I wish she still lived here) I just don't think the numbers are there for her to stay too much longer :( Pretty sure we're all good for Jessie to go tonight!

ZOE’S FINAL WORDS

nice meeting you all <3 lots of love, no hard feelings.

JESSIE’S FINAL WORDS

I had a lot of fun this season and I’m glad I played ! Good luck to everyone left :)

[diamondsableye]

The Ivory Parasite

The Ivory Parasite

       It's kinda funny how your viewpoint on anything really can be completely shattered within a day, hell, usually it happens in a matter of minutes for most.  Like the time you caught your parents putting presents under a beautifully decorated tree (probably adorned with ornaments yourself) on a chilly Christmas Eve. Or maybe when you lost one of your teeth and didn't tell your parents out of forgetfulness and woke up to the sight of its shiny, pearly color still resting under your pillow.  If you never had any of those wondrous experiences, you are either in denial, or you had no childhood.  Sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?  Well, the fact of the matter is that I am dying as we speak.  (or type for that matter)   I should probably specify and say that I am dying as the result of becoming a host to a devilishly malicious parasite.  It's almost comical how I thought just a few hours ago that the only real harmful parasites you could get in the modern world were maybe tapeworms, but even then they're easily dealt with and even easier to prevent.  I think I've droned on enough and should probably start explaining how this mess even started. I'm not sure how long the Incubation period lasts, but if this thing takes control of my brain first, then I'm going to speed things along.

   To start off, I should probably give the setting where all this started, which is around the southeastern area of the U.S.  I'm not going to give my precise location in case some idiot tries to be the hero and save me.  Please don't look, really.  I don't know If you can stop whatever is afflicting me once it fully takes hold, and the fewer people I come in contact with, the better.  Anyways I'd advise you not to go out at night, actually, venturing into any dark and moist environment is probably a bad idea as well.  (as you can see, I learned that the hard way.) Lock your windows and doors too, hell carry cyanide around with you too, just anything you can think of to keep yourself safe from this damn parasite!  But I digress, I at least want to get the story of my encounter out there, so you know what to expect, or something like that.

   It all began last night, a particularly humid night for that matter.  I was dealing with lots of stress, from social events to finals and the end of school, and even a few existential crises here and there.  (I have never been sure of my life or anything for that matter.)  So I ventured outside to get some environmental therapy.  I was living in a cheap apartment at the time, (One not even suited for roaches if I might add.) so I threw on some old sweatpants and a hoodie, before deciding to take an Uber out to the local park.  My car at the time was my parent's 'hand me down' and frequently had to go in for maintenance.  I can't get another car that's at least decent for not finding a high paying job fast enough.  (Then again, what kind of high paying job can I really get with an arts degree anyways that doesn't require a minimum of ten years experience?)  I'm getting sidetracked, the point is I was out there alone without any quick way to get back to my small flat.  That didn't really register with me however because I was already in the midst of a full blown panic attack and even the few sentences spoken between me and my driver was enough social interaction for weeks in my troubled mind.

   For a moment I realized that the park was less occupied than usual, but I reasoned with what little sanity I had left, that there were fewer people at night, and I usually strolled through the park grounds during the day.   Using the flashlight on my phone, I decided to take my usual route through the deer trail that I had discovered a few years back, during one of my first few trips here. I should probably mention that I have high functioning autism and some various other mental issues that typically come along with it, like ADHD and anxiety.  My old psychologist that had done social therapy sessions with me during my teenage years recommended that I try nature walks as a form of stress control. So ever since I was about 16 or so, I've frequented this place often and knew most of the east side like my own home. That being said, it was glaringly obvious that my small 'hidden grotto' as I referred to it, had been discovered. I couldn't tell if the damage was done by an animal or a human, but whoever or whatever had done it really ransacked the place.  The overhanging tree next to my climbing rock near the middle area of the clearing had been nearly shredded in half, with deep gashes in the bark.  I was honestly surprised that it was still standing.  Patches of dirt and soil had been torn up from the earth and had been strewn all about the spot of land and the various forms of foliage that dotted the vaguely barren expanse.  Small areas of shrubbery had been completely ripped from the ground from their roots (But not all were in one piece.) and appeared to be thrown around the site.  This set of my already shaken nerves, but oddly enough the urge to run never came. Instead, I was utterly captivated by my own morbid curiosity.

   I know this might sound strange, but I've always had a strange fascination towards the nightmarish and gruesome the world offered me. (Drawing blood is probably one of the most relaxing activities I enjoy.)  It was this bewildering interest that brought me to look closer at some of the stranger markings left in the soft, moldable soil.  I was confused at first, to say the least.  I found myself to be staring at bundles of handprints and footprints littering the topsoil.  The strangest thing was that they weren't positioned in a way I could accurately follow, or to put it simply, there wasn't any way that the prints could've been created that didn't defy the basic laws of human anatomy. Took a mental double take as I re-envisioned the possible movements that would've been taken.  It still didn't add up, even if someone were to scamper around on all fours like some wild creature, there's still no way they could've made those prints.  It was confusing, to say the least, and my tired mind wasn't in the mood to search for a logical explanation.  So, like the idiot I am, I decided to follow the prints deeper into the woods.   I guess it's my fault for always living in a sheltered environment, not knowing how to deal with wandering criminals that would hold you at knifepoint or mentally unsound druggies that would become violent at a moment's notice.

   I was about a few yards into the continuing woods until the dense underbrush became too thick to pass through.  Feeling rather unsatisfied I decided to head on back letting my tired body lead the way until some rustling bushes caught my attention, followed by a small rabbit leap out of them, startling me somewhat.  It was injured, made evident by the long gash on the side of its body, fresh blood staining the otherwise clean pelt of its cream colored hide.  I half pitied its plight while half expecting a wild fox or bobcat to chase it, following suit.  Figuring that there's no reason to stick around my damaged and not so secret anymore grotto, I walked down the deer trail the second time that night, making a mental note to find another, not so banged up hideaway.  I was about halfway through the trail when yet another sound grabbed my attention.  What I heard could only be described as gargling, except it was the lethal kind, like the sound of someone drowning.  Quickly jerking my head around, trying to locate its source, I was met with the complete lack of movement and sound, a silence which no one should ever hear in a forest.  I started to panic, changing my leisurely stroll to a faster half jog.  Eventually, my own nerves got to me to the point where I turned my half jog to a full run.  At that point, every passing branch felt like a limb darting out at me, and every twig became fingers tugging at my hair.  Even my own breath sounded like the pained gasps of someone barely living. Looking back at it now, it might as well have been.

   I decided that I had enough nature for that night and decided to take the trip back home.  The sun had set hours ago, and I really needed to get more sleep thanks to my unshakeable habit of working on projects throughout the night.  I was about to call another Uber when I realized that I didn't have enough pocket money on hand to afford the trip back.  Cursing myself and not wanting to wait half an hour for the next bus, I began the 30-minute trek back home, according to Google maps.  The streets were relatively barren like usual, save for the few partygoers and late night travelers still present.  It was only after a short while did I notice the now unimaginably strong smell of spoiled eggs and soured milk emanating from the resting hood of my jacket. Expecting the worst, I gently slid it off while walking, careful of its disgusting contents, and peered inside the hood.

    It was a finger, a human finger.  One that was green and black from rot and decay, looking weeks old. I threw it to the ground in panic, with questions racing through my mind faster than the lead car in the Indie 500. The most notable one being "how?".  Maybe there was a dead body in the canopy above me?  Somehow it got picked up when I was running?  I was trying to come up with a reason for it, any reason at all. I flashed back to the rabbit I saw fleeing the clearing with the gash along its abdomen.  It was made by a fox or wolf or some other natural predator right?

   "Hey doll, ya looks as if ya seen a ghosts or somethins. Ya interested 'n a drinks?" A large, mildly intoxicated man called out to me, breaking me out of my haze.  He chuckled heartily, seeing me physically jump, escaping my stupor.  I hadn't realized I had passed by the rather shabby bar that served as my one fourth distance landmark.  Glancing up at the one bright, now barely functioning neon sign, it read "Al's Ale".  I chortled to myself at the thought of a balding man somewhere in his forties and who was most likely an alcoholic at that managing to snap me back to reality faster than my nature walk.

   "What? Are ya deaf or somethins?  Don't leaves me hangin ya pretty thing, I knows ya wants ta shares a shots or twos wif ol' Sammy heres" he continued with a more pronounced lisp.

   "Oh, ah.  N-No thanks, good-uh-sir." I responded in my usual, stutter riddled fashion. Hearing this, he let out a hearty laugh before retorting

   "No mores al-alcohol for ya! Sounds ta me that ya alreadys got enoughs sweet cheeks."

   "Yeah, I-I buh-better get, uh going." I meekly responded before continuing my way back home.

   "Yeah!  Party hard sugar tits!" he called out after me.  

   Pretty soon 'Sammy's' cries along with the general ruckus of the bar faded behind me as I continued on towards my apartment complex, leaving me alone with the general ambiance of the near barren street and my own thoughts echoing their hushed worried tones throughout my head. However, something lingered throughout the general atmosphere of the city's slum.  The general disturbance caused by the strays and the alley cats had disappeared, but they hadn't vanished completely. Instead, they were replaced with something one would describe as being more calculated.  It wasn't like the usual white noise of scurrying paws, and occasional growls, barks, and hisses during a scrap over food or turf.  This was very different.  It was what sounded like distant, haggard breaths, the creeping sway of determined movement and, the slight shuffle of something being dragged along the ground. I told myself that this wasn't out of the ordinary, that this was just some old, late night janitor making his rounds, garbage bag in tow.  

   I wasn't buying my cheap, half-hearted explanations, and becoming more vigilant than usual, began to look around for the probable cause.  I told myself that I was just overreacting, that whatever this was is entirely logical.  Within one quick glance, however, nearly all thoughts that this was the result of something ordinary completely vanished.  I had locked eyes with dead ones.  However, they retreated back into the alley from which they had appeared from as quickly as I had caught sight of them.  I started off in a full blown sprint, nearly tripping on the uneven sidewalk. However, even with adrenaline coursing through me as my fuel, I have to admit that I was not terribly overweight, but I still was extremely out of shape.  Needless to say, I couldn't keep running for too long and soon had to revert back to a slow walk.  I didn't know what it was, or if it was following me, but I rejoiced at the sound of the usual city sounds enveloping the streets and alleyways once more. However, my good news stopped there as I had missed a turn in my hurry and was still about 15 minutes away from my apartment.  

   The rest of the trip back was agonizingly painful, jumping at every sound I heard.  I doubted my sanity, but the world provided me with a harsh reality check each time I fell into questioning myself by gifting me with unnatural sights just at the edges of my vision, darting into some unknown hiding spot each time it presented itself.  Maybe a rotting limb here, a fractured bone there, or maybe a spindly, Ivory appendage crawling back behind the corner it came from.  I wasn't sure what was real anymore, only finding solace in my own room once home, locking the door just in case.

   I brewed some tea for myself, not for taste but for stress relief as I settled down in my bedroom.  By that point, it had started to rain, and I gladly settled down, relieved that I had not been caught in the steady downpour.  The rhythmic beat of the rain put me at ease hearing its patter against the windowpane.  It was almost surreal.  The effect of the rain and tea combined began to lull me into a trance like state as I casually drifted between consciousness.  I awaited the warm welcome of sleep, resting underneath my bed covers. However, this was interrupted by an unusual tapping at my window. Half expecting it to be tree branches or something of the like, I remembered that trees only tapped against the windows of my parent's house and that there aren't trees outside of the building.  I jerked my head around almost hard enough to pull a muscle at the realization and turned to see several black tendrils retreating upwards.  

   I sat in stunned silence for a moment before reality came crashing down on me and bolted towards my kitchen.  I grabbed a knife along with my phone and keys and was heading out my apartment door when I heard the window to my living room shatter.  I was taking no chances and decided to call the police. Running down the halls towards the stairs, I glanced over my shoulder to find whatever it was already close behind after reducing my door to splinters.  Taking off down the stairs, I tried to explain to the operator what was happening as best I could.  It wasn't far behind, I could hear its wheezing breaths inching closer and closer to me.  I finally saw the door to the main parking lot, taking my chance, I shoved open the double doors for myself and slammed them behind me into the creature.  I actually managed to cut off some of the tendrils with the door as I shut it, and I could hear it screech in pain as they were sliced.  I checked my phone to make sure I was still on the line, and I was notified that dispatch was on their way and would arrive soon.  For the briefest of moments, I really thought I was going to make out of this alive.  That feeling was all too early shattered as the creature started to forcefully pound at the doors.  It only took a few strikes for it to force its way out, and I was finally able to see the beast in all its glory.

   It used to be a girl, now broken by what I am sure to be a vile parasite.  Her body was mangled nearly to pieces and was experiencing severe decay.  The gray skin had rotted of her completely in some places, exposing some of her bones and deteriorated muscle.  The black tendrils had actually been eye stalks and had a bright white orb among each tip, and they seeped out of every hole and tear in the skin.  I could see them writhing underneath.  The legs along with the pelvis and spine had been spun until they faced backward, and the neck was broken, leaving the head to freely move limply around in the dead flesh. I also noticed that the body was missing a foot and several fingers.  However, that was only what used to be human, the real parasite showed itself by the various ivory, insect-like limbs that jutted out from broken arms at the elbow, what remained of the ribcage, and from inverted legs. To my horror, it seemed that somehow, the girl was still alive, as I could hear her shallow breaths as she struggled to breathe.  I could see her twitching in pain at the touch of those stalks wriggling under her skin. I could hear what remained of her vocal chords trying to cry out, but only giving off a gargle as they decomposed and stirred into her own rotting flesh.

   I was frozen in fear, I tried to move, tried to shout for someone anyone to help me, but the only thing I managed to do was give off a pitiful whimper of fear as the parasite advanced towards me.  It swiftly picked me up with the two front legs extruding outward from under the rotting skin of her arms.  As it cradled me in its strong grasp, the rotten and broken human arms once belonging to the girl clasped onto my shoulders, dragging me closer to her face.  She tilted her head to a close upright position, and her once brown hair, now blackened and matted fell from her face and drifted across mine.  I wanted to die from the smell alone.  I would've vomited had I not skipped dinner, never the less I retched and recoiled from being as close as I was to her face.  Her eyes once dead in her sockets I'm now sure were peering right through me into my very soul.  Slowly she opened her mouth, and two more small insect-like appendages revealed themselves extending from the tears in her neck.  Without warning the ivory limbs attached themselves into my jaw, forcing it open.  As the girl's mouth kept widening, the smell as impossible as it seemed, continued to get worse, and I was crying from the horrid aroma.  I watched and felt as she gave me what only could be described as a kiss of death, that is, my widened mouth on her gaping one, and having what was left of her almost completely shredded lips hanging down in thin raggedy pieces darting across my face.  Soon enough she extended her tongue down my throat, far longer than any human's tongue and I felt something crawl down it, something horribly rancid.  With that, the creature withdrew its tongue, dropped me on the pavement and left.  I couldn't make out where it was going to in my shock, and I just lied down in defeat. I cried until the police showed up and I kept crying afterward.  I think at some point they tried to explain to me that what occurred was just a home invasion and I must have dreamed up the rest.  

   I want to believe them, I want to think that they're right, but I can't.  I can't when I can feel this parasite moving inside me.  I feel what I think are more tendrils moving around inside my skin, and see my blonde hair turn dark and have patches of skin turn gray with rot. I know I'll be like her soon, and I can feel it growing inside me.  It's getting harder to breathe, and type, and think, and I didn't sleep at all last night. I wonder what will happen If I kill myself, will I still live and turn into that thing?  Or will I kill the parasite along with myself as it's host? I know I can't go anywhere or see anyone. Otherwise, I might spread it more, despite the urges telling me to visit my friends or family or just go out into the grotto one last time.  I'm trying to fight it, but I don't know how long I can keep it at bay.  I really do think yhis thin is tryun to git in m hed bc I fel ih t gt n.

 Sorry for the ruckus!  I went to the officials, and they say that I'm all better so no need to worry!

That being said, does anyone want to trade contact info?  I'd love to meet some of you IRL, you know, in real life?  Anyhow, ring me up if you want to meet!

After all, I make for great company.