#a fly caught in the spider's rope net

[mons-immortalium-if]

Hmmm, Nox 🤤 all his kinks~ just wanna do it like🐰 what would he do if mc were to tell him "you can have me, as many times as you want but first you have to catch me" and runs away, looking over their shoulder with mischief in their eyes.

Ah, I see what you’re going for, anon, but it might not be exactly what you hoped for because of his particular ✨curse✨. This would only work very early on, before he’d actually care for the MC even a little bit.

He’d be both amused and a little annoyed that the bratty human thinks he needs to chase after anyone for sex, and it could go either way from there. Depending on his mood, he might either let MC run off and not move a muscle to follow… or pin down MC with his shadows to the nearest surface in mere seconds. He’d be really cocky about it too. “You’re mine now, little human!”. He’d make it his mission to fuck MC so thoroughly until the only thing they could think about is the feeling of his cock buried deep inside of them, his cum leaking from all their holes, his presence signed all over their body. He’d make sure that from then on, MC runs to him for more, not away.

MC should also really be more careful with the deals they make since there was no time limit on that offer, and oh, he will come to collect his prize at the most unexpected of times - ‘as many times as he wants’ after all - as a little punishment for the audacity. They could all be having breakfast one day and he'd just sit up and sling MC over his shoulder and offer to take them right there on the table with everyone present if they complain too much. But once their bond happens and the curse is still going strong… not gonna lie, he’d be absolutely terrified of the concept of hunting down MC, even if just pretend, and he’d be convinced MC has an actual death wish. Even after the curse is broken he’d not really be in the mood after being reminded of it.

[revasserium]

could i request 'the thoughts of falling stars' for suga, please and thank you? :D also welcome back! i've missed your writing!

reqs are open :) and thank you darling! i hope u enjoy! <3

the thoughts of falling stars

suga; 2,193 words; a pirate falls in love with a falling star...

what do dreams dream of in our waking hours? what do stars think as they fall towards that place beyond our far horizons?

there are some stories too big for a single person, a single life to tell.

there’s a man with starlight hair and a sunrise smile who pedals stories for the price of dreams. what kind of dreams, you ask? well, it depends on the length and breadth of the story he tells.

once upon a time, a pirate fell in love with a falling star.

there’s a place beyond the edge of the earth where the world ends and the sky begins, that’s where all the falling stars go. at least, that’s what all the stories say. and if the stories say so, then it must be true. and men will chase the sound of stories much farther than they’re ever willing to chase the truth, sometimes, even if the story and the truth are one and the same.

by the time koushi is five years old, he’s certain that there’s nothing to the world but the sea — the endless stretch of honeyed depths, sweet and silken as it laps against the sides of their ship, the ship that he was born on. the ship that will one day be his.

dreamcatcher is her name, and never once had he thought to question it.

by the time he is eighteen, and by all considerations, a grown young man, he thinks he knows all there is to know about dreams.

the day that he watches you fall, he wonders if you’ll like him, and even though his parents had reassured him time and time again that it’s none of his concern, that falling stars don’t have likes or dislikes, that once they’ve caught you, all that there’s left to do is spin your hair into the stuff of dreams and toss what remains back over the edge of the world. it’s what they’ve always, always done.

he wonders anyway, and what a wonder it is because when he pulls you up over onto the light-soaked deck, all he can do is stare. you’re beautiful. but of course you are — most falling things are. like rain and sunlight and love. though he doesn’t quite know about that last one yet.

he will though, in time.

but for right now, all he can do is scramble up to untangle you from the star-catcher net. it’s his first time flying solo, his parents having passed on the tradition to him barely a year ago, sending him off with a brand new net and the promise of a whole ocean of yet undreamt dreams.

his fingers are gentle as they pull the thick ropes away from your delicate limbs. your eyes are closed, and he briefly wonders if you’re asleep.

when he first dips his fingers into the spider-silk of your hair, tugging out the first wisps of dreams, he tastes the hint of a summer breeze, bright and sweet as lilies. then, the tang of strawberries, the crunch of freshly fallen leaves, the warmth of fingers dancing over smiling cheeks. he tugs his hand back, blinking away the reverie.

he’s done this a million times, he thinks, spinning the hair of fallen stars into dreams that he can then sell to the people who live on the other side of this deep, honey sea, who toil day in and day out without the promise of reprieve. it’s a sad life, and no wonder they’re willing to pay so much for one good, sweet, endless dream.

but something about you stills his hand, and he finds himself sitting back on his legs, watching you as you sleep.

the sun rises as it is wont to do and still, he’s not spun a single dream.

he watches as the sunlight warms your face, and then — he watches as you open your eyes.

there’s an entire ocean caught beneath the sweep of your lashes.

“oh,” you say.

oh, he thinks.

you blink as the sky breaks into day, the light settling itself over your shoulders, almost ~~almost~~ blinding.

“you… i thought…” your brows furrow in confusion, and then your eyes widen as you seem to take in the scope of your current situation.

“please —” koushi holds up his hands, palms out as you scramble away from him, clutching the material of your dress, thick with the velvet of the night. “i’m not gonna hurt you!”

your eyes narrow and he feels his chest seize with — something.

“y-you won’t? you’re not here to steal my dreams?”

koushi blinks. steal? he’d never thought of what he’d been doing as… stealing. but…

“uhm… no?”

but he can’t help the hot flush that washes up his chest into his cheeks as he looks away.

“oh… then… thank you… i guess,” you say, and you flash him a smile, and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen — he wishes he could catch it in his hand, to pull it into his chest. for how many people can say that they’ve ever caught a falling star’s smile? and how many can say that they just let it pass them by?

“f-for what?” he asks, though he has an inkling, and that inkling turns out to be true as you wave towards the golden waves below.

“for… saving me from the sea.”

koushi presses his lips, swallows hard, and glances out over the far horizon. he should be heading back towards the mainland today, back towards those people with their callused hands and honest, hardworking lives. who don’t know where the dreams come for or what the true price might be.

“it’s… uhm — well… do you want breakfast?” koushi pushes himself to his feet, looking anywhere but at you, twisting his hands together as he fusses over the small sack of rations he brought along for the trip. he pauses as as the thought crosses his mind that he has no idea what falling stars eat — but he’s already asked, and he can hear the sounds of you shuffling to your feet, so he busies himself with preparing a few slices of bread, careful to spread them thick with honey and jam.

“thank you,” you say, nodding as he offers you a piece, and he watches in muted wonder as you take a large bite, your expression cresting into sheer, unadulterated joy as you take another bite, and then another, letting out a soft, thick groan that makes his entire body tingle.

“mm… it’s so good!” you polish off the rest of the bread slice, licking your lips with a bright-eyed smile, “is there… more?”

“y-yeah! here — have another one —”

and so it goes like this — him teaching you about the earthly things, like bread and honey and well-churned butter, and you teaching him about heavenly things, like songs and stories and the weaving of dreams.

when he finally tells you, with halting words and nervous hands, the trick and the trade that his family has always toiled in, you are quiet. but you don’t shrink away from him in horror; in fact, you don’t move at all.

“oh… so that’s what you do.” your voice is light, too light, and koushi wants so desperately to drop to his knees, to clutch at your hands and shake his head and say no — not anymore.

instead, he only swallows and nods and averts his eyes.

“what… what i used to do,” he says after a while.

it is your laughter that saves him.

you reach out to trace a finger across his cheek, “hey… look at me… koushi — koushi —” and you say his name like it’s something more than a name, something that weighs more than a single body, and he melts into the sound of your voice, into the sweet of your caress.

“the thing about dreams,” you tell him, pulling him close, letting him fall into you as he curls his arms around you and buries his face in your chest, “and the thing about love,” you say, smiling as he fists his fingers in the night-sky of your dress, “is that you can always make more.”

he looks up, eyes wide with hope, palms tender with salvation.

“so… i haven’t been hurting you? any of you?”

you laugh, shrugging, “maybe… just a little. and maybe, it would’ve been nicer for you to ask —” you cast your eyes up towards the darkening sky, at the cover of thick, velvet night, “there isn’t a star alive who wouldn’t have spun you dreams if you had only thought to ask.”

why didn’t we think to ask? koushi wonders as he drops his face back into the crook of your neck and you content yourself with twisting your fingers through his hair, the strands going silver the more time he spends with you.

“i’m still sorry…” he says, earnest, as he pulls back.

“i know… i know you are.”

and you’re both older now, and you both know things — great things and good things and solid, knowable things — like the weight of a hand as it holds another hand, the warmth of lips when met with another pair of lips. and the rush and pull of falling asleep in each others arms, the utter, unsinkable joy of laughter, the light and solid of love —

because he is in love. and — koushi is fairly certain — so are you.

but the problem with forever is that it is only ever a promised thing, and promised things are so, so often not earthly things to give. and even though you had once been a part of the heavens, falling stars are only ever just fallen after they hit the ground.

it was a selfish thing to do, and you know it is — but love makes people do stupid, selfish things.

“i… i could wish us forever — if you wanted,” you offer, because it’s what you wanted, and you hadn’t really explained to him what forever really means. and a part of you think he’d never really understand, anyway. at least not until he’s lived it.

“y-you could?” koushi’s eyes are wide as he clutches your hands in his; he presses his lips to them, and you can see his joy, his elation rising up in him like the shifting of the tides, and you lean in to kiss him, to drag the sweetness from his lips.

“yes…” you breathe, and you don’t tell him of the consequences.

“okay,” he says, nodding too fast and too hard and clutching at you like he could press your bodies into each other, like he could weave the solidness of your realities together until they were one and the same, “do it.”

you nod, “okay,” you take a long breath, card your fingers through his hair and start to speak.

“let me tell you how stars are born…”

once upon a time, a pirate fell in love with a shooting star; and she made a promise that wasn’t hers to make.

“tell me a story!” a little girl asks, with eyes bright as stars, her smile just as wide, and koushi hums, tapping a finger along his lips as he looks around at the crowd that’s gathered around him.

“ah… but stories don’t come for free,” he says, grinning as he leans in, his voice thick as the honey sea.

“how much?” a little boy with sunrise hair asks, glancing between koushi and the little girl.

“just a dream,” koushi answers, twirling his fingers through the air, and the world seems to shift around him, the boy swaying on his feet before he catches himself against a red brick wall, shaking his head.

“o-okay then… you got your dream. tell us the story!”

koushi nods rather sagely as he leans back against the wall and takes a breath.

he spins the dream in his palm, letting it ghost over his lips as he leans down to breathe it in — it’s a lovely dream, all sunshine and summer haze, rose petals and moonlit bays. he tucks it away in his knapsack, pat it with a finger and prays —

one day, he thinks, he hopes, he dreams, it’ll be enough. one day, he’ll spin enough dreams to bring you back, because you’re still out there, he knows — he knows, in all the dreams he’s ever stolen from the hair of falling stars.

and he knows that if he collects enough dreams, pours them over the edge of the world, that one day, you’ll come back to him. because a gathering of stolen dream is how the stars are born.

koushi clears his throat and starts to speak —

“once upon a time, a pirate fell in love with a falling star…”

[burnt-multimuse]

The "drone" was back, flying in carefree loops and rolls in the sky over Cobalt's shop. Almost tauntingly. As far as he was concerned, the airspace belonged to him and only him; not much challenged a NEO to begin with and even among their own kind, not all of them flew.

A mistake.

The last thing he expected to encounter was a gossamer lattice stretched between buildings that just yesterday were safe to fly past. Unseen meshing bit into him, his face, his wings, his limbs, his tail--

Panic set in immediately. At once, he screamed, thrashing about in the net to try and disentangle himself from the veritable horde of strings that had clung to every last inch of him. In the process, he achieved nothing except further entanglement.

The "drone" had been caught.

Cobalt practically flung themselves over the counter and out of the shop, looking up into the trap Cherry so kindly had helped them set. Their web, that they had so painstakingly woven.

And it looked like they caught exactly what they were after.

They just grinned their terrible little grin and stared up for a while, taking it in. Another success for them, and one that hopefully wouldn't be snatched out from under them any time soon. Below the pride and general smugness of success, there was a hint of something else a bit less pleasant that tried to surface as they watched him panic and thrash. They elected to ignore it.

Not wanting to waste any more time, they ascended up the rope they had Cherry set up for them too, so they could retrieve the "drones" they caught. They weren't quite as skilled as Cherry with this though, so it took them a moment.

They perched on top of one of the buildings the web had been attached to. Now that they were closer, it was clearly visible that the hearts they had sewn onto their jacket's lapel on April 1st had been picked apart, instead replaced with embroidered spiders. Just in case the web wasn't enough.

They shook their head in mock disappointment, clicking their tongue.

"I see you found the surprise I left you. You like it? We haven't done so well with just one string, so I thought hey, what about one thousand instead? Each and every one of them is for you."

They looked down.

"How would you handle a fall from this height? Should we find out?"

[aka-indulgence]

Hmmmmmmmmm, for the game thing, do the word Snack!

You walked around in the dark, waving your flashlight this way and that way as you stumble blindly through the cave.

It was pure dumb misfortune that literally landed you here. One second you were having a leisurely hike in the woods with your friends. the next you stepped on some roots covering up a hole and tumbled down into earthen tunnels. You heard something crunch in your bag when you did, but thankfully, when you went to check, nothing important had been lost- just a bag of snacks you’d been carrying around. You checked your phone- you must’ve separated from the others some time back, and when you tried to contact them you found no signal. You attempted to climb back up the way you came from, through the same roots that dug into the ground, but to no avail. All you got was some rope burns (root burns?) for your trouble.

So here you were, wandering around aimlessly, hoping that these tunnels would lead somewhere out.

You thank the itinerary list for telling you to bring a flashlight, even when you thought you wouldn’t need it. You gulp as the occasional wind blew through the tunnel, creating moan-like sounds that sent shivers up your neck. The beam of light shuddered along with your hands, less because of the cold and more fromt he eerie silence, the suffocating feeling of being alone.

But where there’s wind, there’s an opening! You try to tell yourself optimistically. If there was only one entrance, there wouldn’t be such a draft.

After what felt like hours of being alone with your thoughts and fears (occasionally wondering if anything else lived down here... something you quickly shoved away before the thoughts turned to paranoia), you stopped when you saw a hint of moss on the ground. You had been walking alone in the dark, with some patches of light here and there from above, but this moss wasn’t near any of those patches. To your delight, you saw the tunnel, where it bent, is starting to get brighter the more you advance.

Please be an exit please be an exit!

You smile when you turn, seeing at the end of the tunnel... light.

Your way out.

You almost squeal happily at the sight, after being alone and afraid for so long- you’re finally going to be out! You don’t know where, but, it’s better than being down here!

You make haste towards the light, your steps echoing all around you as you run towards it-

Only to stop as you get closer, your heart almost stopping in your chest when you see what’s in your way.

A giant spider web.

You freeze in your spot, the chill from before nothing like the icy cold that grips your heart now. You felt as if someone had just doused you in freezing water as your eyes trail the patterns shaped by the web, tangling, intricate... giant.

This... this couldn’t be made by any ordinary spider... could it?

The web was thick, like a rope, and there were big spaces in between the silk, something a bug would easily fly through... like this web was made for bigger prey.

And it definitely didn’t look old and abandoned like a cobweb... it looked relatively fresh. Used.

A lump forms in your throat as you look behind you.

Was a giant spider walking around back there and by luck you missed it?

You looked around the web again, expecting to see the monster...

... and you don’t.

But you see a crevice on the side, gaping and as dark as the tunnels you were walking around earlier. Your hair stands as you search for any signs of something terrifying, eyes watching you...

... nothing.

... Phew.

You look at the web. Was there a way you can get through that..? Could you maybe walk through one of its holes and cross the other side unnoticed? Trying to cut it sounds like a very bad idea...

You take a few tentative steps closer, wondering if you just moved your body like this you could maybe slip through, and...

Ok, nope, that’s not happening. You’ll touch the web, and who knows how strongly it’d stick to you if you touch it.

You were desperate to get out but... not desperate enough to risk getting trapped on a large web.

I just hope I won’t meet anything scary on the way out... You think to yourself. This can’t be the only way out, can it? You take a step back...

... and cringe when you feel something sticking to your shoes. You look down to see fibrous webbing on the ground, thicker at the base of the web and thin as it spreads out on the ground. It isn’t thick enough to keep you in place, but lifting your feet pulls strands of it off the ground, almost like when you’ve got gum under your shoe... a lot of gum.

The image grosses you out a little and fills you with an amount of dread you can’t quite place, and you struggle as quietly as you can to get it off your shoe, but it’s much stronger than it looks and you squirm a bit as you try to get it off you.

Distracting you from the creature that was slowly crawling out of the crevice, awoken by the minute shudders you made when you stepped on the webbing.

It crawls out one leg at a time, its legs latching onto the web, eyes focusing on the cute little thing wriggling at the base of its web.

The nervousness on her face.... it’s adorable.

You only get more webbing on your hand when you try to lift it off your shoe and you’re trying to get that off when you’re suddenly keenly aware of the feeling that someone’s watching you. A shadow skitters out of the corner of your eye... and you look up.

Your face blanches at what you see. A giant spider, with 8 sharp legs perched on the giant web above you. And not only that- where it’s head should be sprouted a spine, forming the upper body of a skeleton similar to a human’s, except these were thick like muscles, and its skull was much rounder. Two eye(light)s pierced yours, and below it was a set of teeth... two huge fangs catching your attention almost immediately.

Your body stiffens.

“well well well... what do i have here? it looks like a little snack has wondered her way towards my web...” The spider speaks, his(?) smile widening when you flinch at his voice. He starts crawling towards you, and icicles form in your heart. You don’t know what to do- you want to run away but you’re shaking so much you don’t think you’d be able to stand up.

“aww... what’s the matter? you look a bit... tangled up...” he chuckles, and you squeak when you realize he’s halfway across the web, and he’d be upon you any time. You dig your hands into the ground and pull your legs with all your might- a move that the spider quickly zeroes on, and instantly, he jerks his abdomen, and out of its end shoots two webs at your feet, gluing you into your spot. You gasp, eyes as wide as saucers as you look at the quickly hardening web, almost wet when it first lands on your feet (and a bit warm...), but dry when you reach out to touch it. You’re still looking at it curiously (and terrified) when two spindly legs land on either side of you, and you look up when the monster straddles you. You press yourself into the ground as tears well up in your eyes, scared out of your mind.

The monster tilts his head and smiles again, and starts bending four of his legs to get closer to you. He plants two hands on either side of your head and you turn away, gritting your teeth when his skull gets close to you.

“trying to leave so soon, dear? why- we’ve only just met!” he teases, grinning so wide, showing off his fangs to you. You shudder, wondering what you could do to try to get away-

You make a little eep! sound when his claws find your face, digging into your hair and scratching your scalp in the slightest. “what’s your name, little thing? i’m sans... it’s such a pleasure to meet you.” His sockets crinkle, as if he was curious enough to know the name of the human he’s probably going to eat soon.

Your mouth feels dry as you stutter your name. “P-please, Sans...” you almost whisper, “d-don’t... eat me... I didn’t mean to disturb you in your home.”

“ahahah... no one stumbles into a spider web on purpose, my darling.” Sans says, idly running his thumb across your cheek. “i must say... you are quite soft... softer than anything else i’ve caught here.” He says almost absent-mindedly. “and of course you don’t want me to eat you. but i must eat nonetheless, and you were unfortunate enough to walk into my home.” Sans says, almost sadly(?), and he starts to grip your back, and panic sparks in your chest.

“N-no wait please!” You hold your hands out in front of him, “t-there must be a way! Isn’t there something I can do?”

You shake and shiver as tears well up in your eyes, terrified for your life, your heart thumping wildly in your chest. You don’t see how Sans’ sockets widen when a tear spills out of your eyes, your breaths shaking your whole body.

“Please...” you beg under your breath, squeezing your eyes shut.

“...” Sans is silent. and when his other hand brushes your waist and goes under you, you think he’s not going to hear you and is going to bite your neck out any second now. So you’re surprised when he lifts you up carefully in his hands and says “very well.” 

His hand grips your middle (his thumb reached half your stomach, and his back fingers could cover your back no problem!) and he lifts a leg towards where you’re caught in the legs, slicing the webs with the end. Your hair stands thinking about how sharp his legs must be to cut it so easily, but Sans only chortles when he sees your face.

“it’s magic, little thing. i can manipulate it to my will.”

His tucks you into his arms as if you were a baby, and your breath hitches as he climbs up the wall sideways, never looking away from you.

“i am... lonely. it’s not often i get to talk with my prey... you seem pleasant. why don’t you and i... have a conversation? just for a while. if you convince me, i’ll let you go.” Sans says slowly, as he reaches the crevice.

“but if not...”

His grip turns hard, more like a trap than a safety net. “i’ll get to keep you.”

Sans looks deranged when his grin widens, the only thing you could see other than his eyelights as he slowly drags you into his little hiding hole in the wall, and you frantically look for a way out of this to no avail, as the darkness swallows you and you’re trapped with the spider.

[fremedon]

Brickclub 2.5.10, “How Javert Came to Find the Bird Had Flown”

Here we meet Javert at the beginning of his corruption.

I am now firmly sold on the idea that Javert broke his geas when he killed Fantine. In taking a life the law had no claim on, he has lost his ability to act as an empty vessel for the law.

He has none of the self-awareness about his corruption that he will have started, barely, to develop by the barricade. He doesn’t seem to realize or acknowledge any culpability in Fantine’s death:

The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean Valjean had made him burst out laughing by asking for three days’ grace to go fetch that creature’s child. He recalled that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris as he was getting into the coach for Montfermeil. Some indications even then had led to speculation that it was the second time he was taking that coach, and that he had already made a previous trip the day before to somewhere on the outskirts of that village, for he had not been seen in the village itself. Why was he going to that place, Montfermeil? No one could work it out. Javert now understood. Fantine’s daughter was there. Jean Valjean was going to fetch her.

But he must be starting to realize that his instincts and his self-gaslighting are more openly at war with each other than they used to be. In Arras, months after recognizing Valjean and making a meticulous case against him, he immediately throws it all out when presented with an officially-identified Jean Valjean, makes a positive identification of Champmathieu, and is certain enough about it to recount the whole story to Valjean’s face.

But here, officialdom (and the newspaper) says that Valjean is dead; Javert’s instincts say Valjean is alive (and, given free rein, lead him straight to the Pont d’Austerlitz); and Javert...doubts. He hesitates, waits for verification he doesn’t need, wastes time going for backup.

But at the same time, Javert is also enjoying his job on a personal level. From being an empty vessel, Javert has become “an artist,” and in this context that is not a good thing.

And then there’s that pinch of snuff once he thinks he has Valjean cornered. I always think that this passage cannot possibly be as horny as I remember it being, and it is always even hornier:

Then he began to have fun. He experienced a moment of fiendish delight, letting his man go on ahead, knowing he had him in his grasp but wanting to delay to the utmost the moment of arrest, taking pleasure in being aware that the man was caught; and seeing him free, gloating over him with that relish the spider takes in the flitting of the fly and the cat takes in the scurrying of the mouse. Claws and talons enjoy a monstrous thrill: that is, the unseen movements of the creature imprisoned in their grip. How delicious is this snuffing-out! Javert was in ecstasy. His net was firmly staked. All he had to do now was tighten his grip. With the backup he had, the very idea of resistance was absurd, no matter how energetic, strong, and desperate Jean Valjean might be. Javert advanced slowly, delving into every nook on his way down the street, as into the pockets of a thief. When he reached the center of his web he found the fly was gone. You can imagine his fury.

We kind of don’t need to, Victor. You’ve spelled things out very clearly.

I remember mentioning when we met Javert that he was the only major character whose introduction did not immediately situate him with regard to Napoleon. And we do get a Napoleon reference at the end of this chapter: “Certainly, Napoleon made mistakes during the war in Russia,” at the start of the long litany of colossal mistakes made by great men. It is telling that Javert only gets the Great Man comparisons here, at the start of his corruption and in the moment of his failure.

But even though the Napoleon reference is to the Russian campaign and not to Waterloo, I think it is supposed to prime us to think about Waterloo, because the long dissection of Javert’s failures brings us to this:

Great strategists have their weaknesses.

The greatest follies, like the stoutest ropes, are often composed of a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take separately each petty determining motive, and you can snap them one by one and say, ‘There’s no more to it than that!’ Braid them and twist them together, and what you have is momentous: Atilla wavering between Marican in the east and Valentinian in the west, Hannibal lingering at Capua, Danton going to sleep at Arcis-sur-Aube.

We’re back to watching fatalité at work in history--accident, carelessness, oversight, the accumulation of small debts, the guide who points the wrong direction. Javert is getting the Great Man treatment, Doylistically, because Valjean already has, and he needs to be well-matched as a threat. But we’ve already seen that great men can be--and should be, must be--brought down by small things. A single failure isn’t a judgement Javert’s skills or potential, or the new level of personhood he’s starting to develop--but we should be asking what those skills, and that potential, are in service of.

Other stray observations:

The old verger, “muttering prayers and spying through his prayerfulness,” does not inspire confidence in the convent as a refuge. 

“In this world there are two beings that shudder to their core: the mother finding her child and the tiger finding his prey. Javert felt this profound thrill.” FUCK YOU JAVERT, that should have been Fantine’s feeling and you stole it from her.

Besides the by-this-point usual tiger images for Javert, Valjean is both a stag hunted by hounds, and a lion.

Javert has learned the streets of Paris extremely thoroughly in less than a year on the job.

[takerfoxx]

IM Swiftly Descending Dark, Chapter 6

Even before the spellcard had left Kohta’s fingers, Rumia was already turning to run. When the darkness of the night was swallowed up by a flash of light so bright that it banished the shadows and turned the black sky overhead blue, she had already started to accelerate into a run.

And then a wave of force and heat hit her from behind, nearly knocking her off her feet. Rumia stumbled, somehow managed to keep her balance, and used the momentum to give herself an extra push into a headlong sprint.

The white light cooled, to be replaced with a pulsing red. The forest behind them was on fire. As for the spiders, she could hear them shrieking. Rumia didn’t even have the wherewithal to take satisfaction in that and hope that all four were burning like torches. She just prayed that it would delay them long enough for her and her friends to get away.

Running through the webbed-up part of the woods was nearly impossible, and more than once her legs got snagged or something unseen slipped beneath her. At once point her shin hit a low sheet of webbing that was stretched across like a net. It swiped her legs right out from under her and she found herself pitching forward.

Before taking what undoubtedly would have been a fatal landing, a pair of arms grabbed her and hauled her back up. Gasping, Rumia jerked her head around to see Haruko holding onto to her.

The two girls stared at each other for half a second, and then a shrill howl of rage echoed through the forest.

“Run,” Haruko said. Rumia nodded and did just that.

Soon they had left the webs of the spiders’ domain and were fleeing through the rotting leaves of the forest proper. Rumia didn’t know if any of the other kids were even with her anymore. She could hear some of the others panting as they ran alongside her, but she couldn’t spare the time to see if they had all made it out.

No.

They didn’t.

You’re short one. You’ll always be short one.

Rumia gasped and increased her speed. As horrific as the image of Eiko’s butchered body was, it did make for a great motivator.

And then she heard the voice.

“Where yah goin’, me ‘ickle dumplings?” called a nauseatingly phlegmy voice. It was coming from somewhere behind them. “Yah can’t get away from Minty!”

The spiders were coming.

“Run,” Rumia muttered under her breath. “Run. Run. Run. Run.”

The word fell in time with the rhythm of her soles pounding the ground, and soon she forgot that she was even saying it. All that mattered was movement and speed. All that mattered was escape.

Something whizzed past her. Rumia started for a moment, certain that she had been caught, but it turned out to be Keine. The tiny girl was speeding ahead with Kana’s still unconscious body draped onto her back.

If she had the breath for it, Rumia would have laughed. Oh, of course Keine would be the fastest, despite having been knocked out by spider venom and having to bear the weight of another girl on her own! Sure, that was totally fair!

Keine was pulling further and further ahead, sometimes even leaping fully over especially deep piles of leaves while Rumia was forced to skirt around them. As odd as it sounded, Rumia was starting to wish she had been the one to be knocked out by spider venom, then she would be the one carried out and away.

Rumia skirted around yet another tree, and then another, and another. She tried to keep her focus on Keine’s back (or Kana’s, to be more accurate), but her friend was pulling further and further ahead, and Rumia was torn between rooting for her to run completely out of sight or screaming for her to wait for them. She wanted Keine to escape with Kana, yes, but she also didn’t want to be left behind!

She sidestepped yet another tree only to take a bad step and have her legs slip out from under her. She pitched forward and landed in a mess of rotting leaves.

Gasping, she tried to stand up, but as it turned out the leaves were

The monstrous youkai woman slowly looked from one terrified face to the next, her neck gliding back and forth like a snake. “Awww, did’ja tink yah could geddaway dat easy?” she said. “So sorry tah dassipoint, but yah is gonna be-”

Then something red and glowing zipped past Rumia’s vision to splash against the spider’s gaunt cheek, like a flying ember from a fire.

The spider paused in surprise. She touched her cheek, found no damage, and then turned her attention to the culprit.

Haruko was still sprawled onto her back, but her arm was outstretched and pointed right at the spider’s face, trembling as it was.

“Really?” the spider said, her multifaceted eyes narrowing. “Danmaku again? Fookin’ really?” She then made a small, almost casual gesture.

A spray of sickly green diamonds spewed out of her fingers to hail all over the children. Rumia covered herself with her arms, but they still stung her flesh where they hit.

Rumia had never actually been hit with danmaku before. It was supposed to be nonlethal and incapable of causing serious injury, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. She had always been kind of curious though, but none of the grown-ups had ever agreed hit her with even the smallest bullet.

Now she knew why.

It felt like getting assaulted by a swarm of enraged wasps. It felt like falling into a pit of needles. Dozens of tiny pinpricks of pain erupted all the backs of her hands and where they managed to cut through her clothes. She drew herself up to her full height, which was far, far, far too tall. “Jus’ fer dat, girlie, we gonna save yah fer last. But we ain’t gonna let you ‘ang in peace, oh no. Every time we eats one of yer friends, they’ll have one of yer fingers stuck in deir eyes as a garnish! And when we does gets to yah, we’ll be sure to split yah open nice an’ slow.” She started to advance on Haruko, who was now shaking all over. “Remember what we dids to yer ‘ickle friend? Oh, we’s gonna do so much worse to yah.”

Haruko tried to get up and run, but one of the spider’s arms came down right next to her. She went the other way, only for the other arm to cut her off.

The spider knocked her back to the ground with one casual swipe. She leaned in close, bringing her face in close so that Haruko had to stare her in the eyes. “‘Ell, mebbe I’ll ‘ave Andy ‘ave some fun wit’ yah. Make a proppa lady outta yah before we slice yah open.” Her black lips parted in a hellish grin, revealing her rows and rows of quivering teeth. “Or bedda yet, mebbe right afta we does the splittin’. Give ‘im more ‘oles tah-”

Haruko thrust her hand forward again and shot her right in her hideous eye.

“ARGH!” the spider stumbled back, both her hands clutching her face. “Me eye! Me fookin’ eye!”

“GO!” Keine screamed.

She didn’t need to say it twice. As the spider pitched this way and that, the children scrambled to their feet and ran.

The forest was already dark, and with her vision now blurred by tears, Rumia could barely see anything in front of her. But she kept running and running and running, because to slow even the smallest bit meant death.

She wasn’t nearly fast enough.

Something snared her leg and yanked her back. Screaming, Rumia clawed at the ground and came up with nothing but handfuls of cold, hard clay. She looked down and saw her right leg encased in a formless white mass, which was connected to a long, sticky rope. To either side of her, her friend were finding themselves in the same predicament.

The spider hadn’t chased them. She didn’t need to. She had merely snagged all of them with her webs and was now reeling them in like the hooked fish that they were.

“Niiiiiiiiiiice try,” she sneered, her wounded eye still shut tight. “But if yah tink fer one minute dat I’m gonna-”

Then she stopped in mid-sentence. And she looked around.

Rumia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand to get a better look. The spider had stopped reeling them in and was now frantically looking this way and that at her surroundings. What was more, she seemed quite alarmed.

“Oh, fook dis!” the spider cried as she hurled her weblines away. From there she took off on all fours, skittering like ancestors as fast as she could go, leaving her terrified and befuddled prey behind.

…

Putting out the fires caused by the little Human brat’s spellcard had ended up taking several minutes, and by the time that the Youkai Forest spider clan had managed to snuff the worst of it out, most of their home had been destroyed and their dinner had fled.

“Figgers,” Andy groused between vomiting great globs of webbing onto any burning patches. “Jus’ figgers, now don’ it? Too good tah be true!”

“I tol’ yah,” Muffet snapped at him. She spat a gooey white wad at what little remained of her chair, choking out the rest of the embers. “I tol’ yah all it be a dumb idea! Only lead tah trubble, I said.” She turned her head toward Edna, who had been the primary organizer behind the plan. “But did yah listen? Fookin’ nooooooooooooo!”

“Shut yer gob!” Edna sneered.

“Oi, mates, let’s jus’ do what dah creepy Hummin sez an’ waltz right intah a buncho Hummins in Hummin land an’ take off wit some o’ dey spawn! Idda be eazy, yah said!”

“I said shuttit!”

“Dere’s no way dey find us, yah said! We gets paid an’ we gets eazy food!”

“Shut! Yer! Damn! Web hole!”

“Now likkit dis place!” Edna shouted at her sister. “We gets unly one good meal, an’ den dah whole place, jus’ goes up in flames!”

Andy sighed. When those two started to get into it, they could go on and on for hours.

As they argued, he looked bleakly around at the remains of their home. The trees had taken only minimal damage, but the furniture was mostly gone, as was the intricate network of webbing they had set up around the place. Moving around was going to be a pain until it was replaced, and they were back to square one when it came to their possessions.

Damn it. Damn it all. Back to poverty.

“Well, at leezt I don’ ‘ave a big fat ‘ead like you!” Muffet screeched.

“Dah fook you goin’ on aboot? We’re twins, yah daft twat! Our ‘eads look dah fookin’ same!”

Then Andy heard something. “‘ey,” he called at them. “Quiet!”

“No wunnda evahthin’s dah shits den, if I gotta share me life wit’ you!”

“I said quiet!” Andy roared.

That did the trick. “What is it?”

Andy held up his claws in front of his lips. Then he pointed to the treetops.

Sure enough, it was Minty. She was scrambling toward them and looked quite disgruntled while doing it too. She also didn’t have any of the brats like she was supposed to.

“Well?” Andy demanded. “Dah fook are dey?”

“Likkle bloodbags gon’ run right inta dah bone grove,” Minty hissed. “Ain’t no way I’m gon’ in dere!”

Andy slapped a hand across his face. “An’ you jus’ let ‘em?”

“Hell nah am I gon’ anywhere near dat fookin’ nightmare! Let ‘em find dah black circle for deyselves!”

“Whaddya tink’ll happen tah dem?” Muffet said.

Before Andy could respond, a new voice, one that was cold as the heart of winter and sharp as Dragon’s teeth, spoke from the dark. “Yes, tell me. What do you think happened to them? I’m interested!”

Before Andy could even begin to register that something was wrong, everything got so much worst.  

Something came whistling through the air to strike Andy’s temple so hard that his brain was rattled in his skull, and he went down.

Muffet screeched and bounded toward the intruder, or at least that had probably been her intention. In truth, she didn’t get much further than the bounding stage before a flash of red and white appeared at her side to seize her by the arm and the hair. Her momentum was redirected, and she was driven facefirst into the ground. She tried to rise up, but two hands grabbed her by the head and gave it a swift twist. Before she could even scream, each one of her limbs was seized up in turn and wrenched this way and that, their joint yanked from their sockets with audible pops. A second later a boot slammed into her back, breaking her spine with a sickening crunch.

Edna tried to scamper up the side of a tree, but then something that looked like a bright red firefly whizzed through the air and flew right in her mouth. She gasped in surprise, swallowing it instinctively. Edna tried to spit it out, but then she choked, she coughed, and she began to scream. Smoke poured out of her mouth, ears, and eyes, and then red flames erupted from beneath her skin. With a piercing shriek she fell to the ground and started writhing as her whole body burned.

Minty was already in full retreat. Given that she was high in the treetops she had the best chance of it, or so she thought.

Unfortunately, a blazing fireball shot from seemingly nowhere like a comet to his her right in the stomach, knocking her from the branches. Before she even hit the ground the blur of red and white slammed into her. There was a confusing moment where the two bodies pitched back and forth in midair, but then a pair of powerful hands seized Minty’s forehead and chin from behind. A sharp twist, and she found herself no longer able to move.

Those hands remained where they were, holding Minty’s moaning head in place. Then Minty’s whole body jerked, and she began to twitch and convulse. Steam rose up from the palms on her cheeks as the veins beneath her skin started to turn red, brightening the pale skin around them to a horrid pink. Minty whimpered and cried and choked as steaming red tears dripped from her reddening eyes.

Andy tried to right himself. His vision was still swimming and his ears still ringing and his limbs felt unwilling to respond to his frantic insistence that they hurry up and get him the hell out of there. As he struggled to push himself up, he saw something come his way, the red and white blur striding across the ground purposefully in his direction, dragging Minty’s writhing form by the hair.

“No, by all means, go on,” said the cold, hard voice. A hand seized Andy by the throat, and he was lifted right off the ground and had his back slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree. And as he gasped and writhed, he found himself facing a pair of burning red eyes, ones filled with a strange, yet terrifying, mix of cold rage and hot fire. “Tell me what the bone grove is.”

…

Though the spider had wrapped all of their legs up pretty good, they still had the anti-youkai knives that Kohta and Rumia had brought along, and they still worked just as well at cutting the sticky strands away.

Kohta slashed away at the mess encasing his legs until he had gotten enough of it off to separate his legs and stand up. Clumps of dirt were now glued to his lower legs and feet, but at least he could walk. Then he went to work on his friends.

“What happened?” Haruko squeaked. “Why’d she leave?”

“You rather she didn’t?” Rumia said.

“Shut up, Rumia!” Haruko was trying to hold still to let Kohta work, but she was unable to keep her body from trembling. “Did you hear the things she was threatening to do to me? I saw what they did to Eiko! I saw the whole thing!”

At this, Hayate abruptly sat upright. “What?” she said in a small voice. “Is…Is that why we left her behind? Did they…did…”

“They made me watch!” Haruko screamed. “I woke up first, and when they saw that I was awake they laughed at me! They laughed and told me to enjoy the show! They already had her on the table, and they did something to wake her up too. They waited until she was awake, they waited until she could see what they were doing, and then they…they…” The rest of her words were swallowed up by a strangled sob. Haruko buried her face in her hands as she cried.

“Dead?” Hayate said after a beat. “Eiko’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Kohta said. “Sorry.”

Hayate slowly laid back and stared up at the black sky. Soon they could all hear her weeping as well.

Rumia had nothing at all to say. It was not often that she felt the slightest bit sorry for Haruko or her friends, but she couldn’t imagine having to watch something like that happen to Keine or Kohta.

She waited until Kohta had freed them all. Her legs were a little wobbly, but fortunately she was unhurt. All the stickiness on her legs were a problem though. She grabbed up handfuls of dirt and slathered them on. Hopefully that would provide her with some friction.

“Come on,” Kohta said as he sheathed the knives. “I don’t know why she ran off, but we need to get moving.”

“What for?” Haruko said bitterly. “If they don’t get us then something else will. We’re all going to die here.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that!” Keine said. “We made it this far. That’s, like, at least three-fourths of the way back! The worst is over, so we just-”

“Don’t say that!” Haruko cried.

“Huh?”

“Don’t say that the worst is over! That’ll just make things get even more bad!”

She had a point, Rumia had to admit. After all, this was supposedly one of the places where superstitions went to grow larger and more powerful.

In the meantime, she was starting to wonder about exactly where they had ended up. For one, she had noted a distinct lack of leaves on the ground for the first time since they had gone into this godsforsaken forest. It was just plain dirt and tree roots. There weren’t even any fallen twigs or pieces of bark.

Well, whatever. That was one mystery she was content to remain a mystery. Let the forest keep its secrets; she just wanted to get out.

“Speaking of which, why did she run off like that?” Kohta said. “I mean, anything that would scare her has to be a problem, right?”

“Who cares?” Rumia said. “Let’s just go already.”

“He has a point,” Keine said. “I mean, that was pretty weird.”

“Well, I don’t care!” Rumia snapped as she continued stomping forward. “All I know is that we’re still stuck in this stupid forest, with hungry youkai coming to-” She turned around to find a hideously deformed skull leering at her. “-gah!”

Rumia leapt back away from the ugly thing. Fortunately, it didn’t pursue her, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

The skull was jet-black and looked like it had been partially melted. Parts of it were just drooping down in big drips of solid bone to dangle off of its twisted lower jaw like stalactites.

The skull was partially embedded in the trunk of an equally black, equally twisted, and equally dead tree. In fact, the rest of the skeleton was. It was like whoever it used to be had been standing too close to the tree when a massive wave of heat and force just melted them together.

“Wh-wh-wha-” was all Rumia could think of to say.

Then Keine cleared her throat. “Er, Rumia?”

Rumia looked at her. It was then that she realized that in her panic, she had leapt fully into Keine’s arms and thrown her arms around her smaller friend’s neck. While Keine didn’t seem to have any trouble holding her up, it was clear that the whole thing was getting pretty awkward.

“Sorry!” Rumia hastily dropped to her feet. She brushed herself off, paused, and straightened Keine’s collar. “I was just, you know, startled.”

Haruko brow twisted up. “Just how strong are you, exactly?” she demanded.

Keine shot her a look. “Stronger than you,” she said. Then she went over to investigate the fusion of bone and wood.

“Don’t touch it!” Kohta snapped, but it was too late. Keine had already reached up to brush her fingers across both the tree’s trunk and the side of the skull. She withdrew her hand and rubbed her fingers together.

“Huh,” she said.

“What is it?” Rumia asked.

“It’s…they’re made of stone.”

Haruko frowned. “So…wait. They’re, like, a statue?”

“I don’t think so,” Keine said. “I think they’re petrified.”

“They what?”

“Uh, you know how when really old bones get buried for a long time, and they fossilize and turn to stone? The same thing happens to wood. It’s called petrification.”

“Wait, that can happen? How do you know that?”

Keine looked at Haruko like she was completely dense. “Don’t you ever pay attention in class?”

“No?”

Shaking her head, Keine returned her attention to the petrified tree. “Well, I don’t know what happened here. Just that something fused this poor guy to this tree, and now they’re both kind of like a rock.”

“Wait a second,” Kohta said. “Look! Here’s another one!”

Next to him was another dead and blackened tree, and imprinted in it was the skeleton of a deer and several birds, ones that were just as malformed as the human bones that had scared Rumia.

Rumia felt her gut turn sour. She slowly looked around them.

All around them were black, gnarled trees, with twisting leafless branches and bark the color of midnight. And in those trunks were fused the bones of the dead, all of them malformed. They were standing in a grove of death.

“Um, guys?” Hayate said. “Where are we?”

Rumia didn’t have the slightest idea. None of the stories she had heard of the Old Pine Wood had ever so much as mentioned a place like this.

“Hey, I think I see something,” Keine said, peering off past the macabre grove.

“Where?” Rumia said.

“There! In the clearing!”

She was right. There was a break in the trees, and past it was an area completely clear of the forest entirely. It wasn’t like the clearings they had already seen though. Those at least had things like grass and fungus and other foliage. This was a large circle that looked like it had been completely scoured of any sign of life, leaving nothing but what looked like fine, black sand.

That didn’t mean it was empty though.

Surrounding the whole clearing was a ring of rocks, ones that were about waist-high to Rumia and had flattened tops. And sitting on the rocks were bones. Each one had three arm-bones laid out across each other in the shape of a six-pointed star, and in each of the star’s center a human jawbone was laid.

“What in the hell?” Kohta said. “Who did this?”

“Well, I don’t know and I don’t care,” Haruko said. “Clearly they don’t want anymore messing with it, and you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that! So, let’s get out of here right…huh.”

“What?” Hayate said.

“I thought…I thought I heard…”

Haruko fell silent.

Rumia.

The voice seemed to drift on the wind, not even a whisper and yet Rumia was sure she had heard her name. It was like the Moon itself was calling to her, and she was hearing the call in the depths of her soul.

“Did you hear that?” Kohta said.

“Yeah, I did,” Keine said. “I think it came from…”

Rumia.

Keine started walking. She went past the morbid markers standing guard over the clearing and right into the expanse of black earth. The others followed her.

Upon looking back, Rumia couldn’t honestly say what made her set foot onto that clearing when all of her good sense had to have been screaming at her to stay away. It was more than simple curiosity. It had been like she was being pulled in, drawn by something small, quiet, but deadly insistent.

Whatever it was, it drew them deeper and deeper into the clearing. As they did, Rumia started to notice…changes. For one, everything felt like it was growing colder, from the bite of the night air to the ground beneath her feet. Even though her shoes and socks she could feel the chill of the earth.

For another, things were growing darker. Though the Moon and stars were still shining overhead, it felt like a cloud had passed in front of them, even though the sky was completely clear. The light was now becoming weak and strained.

And finally, Rumia was starting to hear things.

At first she thought it was just the rustling of the wind in the leaves, but there were no leaves around to be rustled. And the further she got toward the clearing’s center, the louder it got. Voices, dozens of them, all of them speaking in quick and furious whispers. She couldn’t understand anything they were saying, she wasn’t even sure if they were speaking the same language as her.

The gibbering increased the further she went, and again she heard her name drift through the night.

Rumia.

The children reached the center of the black circle and stopped. As they did, so did the voices. The night was silent.

They all looked at each other and frowned. Haruko scratched her head. Hayate sneezed.

“Um,” Keine said. “Why exactly did we come out here?”

No one had an answer for her.

“Okay. Then maybe we should…uh…”

The ground had started to move. As everyone stared, a depression began to form between them. It started off small, just a small dip in the ground.

But it grew.

And it grew.

Soon it was clear that the space beneath them was hollow and the sand was pouring in.

“Run!” Kohta shouted.

Run. Okay, that sounded like a fantastic idea. The only problem was that the clearing was swiftly turning into a sinkhole and doing so faster than they could even turn. Rumia tried to bolt, but by then the depression had reached her ankles.

Of them all, only Keine managed to actually start the process of fleeing before she was caught. The ground turned vertical, all of it flowing toward the growing hole in the center. Rumia tried to climb but slipped. She tried to swim, but that was nothing more than an act of desperation.

Fly, she begged herself. Take to the air! Go up, go up go…

The tilt increased, and she was sliding. The hole rushed up to meet them, and then they were all swallowed up.

…

When Mokou had suddenly bolted off into the dark, Joshua wasn’t sure if he would be able to catch up with her. She was just so much more athletic than he, and with much longer legs. He huffed and puffed along the best he could, finally got impatient, and took flight.

Flying through a forest such as the Old Pine Wood was not recommended, especially at night. Go too fast and you risked breaking your neck on an unseen tree trunk or low-hanging branch. Too high, and your hair would get snagged in the tightly woven canopy. Plus, you never knew what was skittering around in those upper branches. But Joshua didn’t have time to worry about safety. He went as fast as he dared, but had to come to a sudden stop on more than one occasion to keep from running facefirst into a surprise tree.

“This is…this is insane…” he whispered under his breath. “Oh Lord Jesus, please be with us. Right now. That would be-”

Then he heard a piercing, feminine scream of agony.

Joshua froze in midair. He swallowed and shot off, a little faster this time.

Another scream followed, followed by the distinct sound of snapping limbs. There was a third scream, this one accompanied by sharp hissing sound, like a flame consuming a lit fuse.

There were lights up ahead, ones that cast thrashing shadows on the nearby trees. Though Joshua knew not what he could do to save Mokou when he reached her, he kept on anyway, praying that he was not too late, praying that there was still enough left of her to save.

What he actually saw when he got there was quite different from what he had been expecting, but still horrifying.

There were three twitching humanoid lumps on the ground. They seemed to be female and had on dresses, though their necks and limbs were far too long, as were their faces. It took Joshua a moment, but he then recognized three of the four spider youkai that had attacked the Children’s Home.

However, they had been in considerably better shape then.

One was a smoking, blackened wreck, her roasted skin flaking away while rivulets of fire still ran over her in places. She was still alive though, twitching and moaning in agony as any wounded spider would.

Another hadn’t been set on fire, but it looked like her back had been broken, her neck snapped, and all four limbs dislocated at the joints and not set back in place. She lay in a heap, croaking out piteous moans through her mangled throat.

The third’s skin had turned beet red and was cracked all over, with glowing orange light pulsing through the cracks that flared up with every tortured breath. She was lying flat on her back, arms and limbs splayed out around her as she continuously tried and failed to scream.

And standing with her back to the trio with her hand grasping the throat of the fourth spider youkai as she pressed his back against a tree was the Aoki Yume Children’s Home’s cook.

Despite all of Joshua’s fears, Mokou looked completely unharmed, thank God. But Joshua wasn’t sure he liked seeing her like this. The spider youkai in her grasp was frankly terrified, and was garbling nonsense at Mokou. No doubt he would have been screaming had Mokou not cut off his air. Mokou was holding him up with her left hand, and in her right…

It was on fire. Her hand was enveloped by a ball of flame, and yet she wasn’t burning. She clearly didn’t even feel the heat. What was more, he was pretty sure that she was glowing. There seemed to be a thin red aura covering her.

Joshua swallowed. Mokou was a strong woman, one that he knew had a dark past. But this…but this…

“Mokou,” he said, his voice cracking.

Mokou sighed. “Joshua,” she said without turning toward him.

“What are…” Joshua glanced at the mangled wretches on the ground. “What did you do?”

“Well, for the blackened one I set all the fat in her body on fire,” Mokou said, her voice terrifying calm. “That was an old favorite of mine, always got a good scream. The croaking one is pretty self-explanatory, just twisted this and popped that, leaving her kind of broken. The glowing one had all the blood in her veins boiled. And as for this guy…” The hand clutching at the spider youkai’s throat tightened. “He’s going to have all three done to him if he doesn’t tell me where the children are, and not necessarily in that order. I already gave him a small taste.”

It was then that Joshua noticed that the male youkai’s hands and feet were twitching and scorched ruins, no doubt to prevent him from clawing at her. Joshua clutched at his head. “You…you tortured them!”

“I did.”

“You didn’t have to do that!”

Mokou breathed in slowly through her nose and then released it out of her mouth in a long sigh. “Josh, buddy. You’re a sweet guy, and I know you can be tough when you need to be. I like you a lot. So I’m giving you this warning right now: don’t go into that clearing over there. Just take my word for it.”

Joshua paused. He then looked over to the clearing in question, which was a ring of tree surrounding what looked like the remains of a scavenged home. He saw the burnt wrecks of several pieces of furniture, including a table.

“Trust me on this,” Mokou said.

“What happened?” he said hoarsely.

“What do you think happened?” Mokou growled, her tone suddenly shot through with venom. Her fingertips started to glow red where they dug into the youkai’s neck, and his strangled gibberish took on a whole new note of urgency. “Why do you think this scum took our kids?”

Joshua fell silent. Then he turned toward the clearing.

“I’m warning you, what you see you won’t be able to unsee.”

Joshua knew that Mokou meant well; he knew that she was just protecting him. However, she was not the only one who had seen and done things that he wished he could take back. And there was plenty that he already wished he could unsee.

Taking a deep breath of the ash-tinged air, Joshua started walking toward the clearing.

“Your choice,” Mokou said.

Stepping between two trees with blackened trunks, Joshua entered the clearing. Sure enough, it was filled with trash and pieces of furniture, most of it burned.

And in its center was a dinner table of all things.

And on that table…

Joshua took a good, long look. Then he slowly bowed his head and closed his eyes. His hand gripped the crucifix around his neck.

Things hadn’t changed at all when he stepped out from the clearing. The three females were still mewling in pain while Mokou held the fourth member of their party aloft. “Told you,” she said.

Joshua nodded. “Who was that?” he said hoarsely.

“Eiko,” Mokou said. “I could tell because of that birthmark on her hand.”

“I…see,” Joshua said. “And the others?”

“Well, as it so happens, this guys was about to tell me all about that when you showed up,” Mokou said. She tilted her head and gave her captive a small shake. “So, how about it, tough guy? I ease up on your throat, and you can tell me all about this Black Circle. And maybe I won’t slow cook you on a spit. Sound good to you?”

The male youkai stopped groaning long enough to shoot her a sallow glower, his yellow, multi-pupiled eyes conveying pure hate.

Then he spat a white gob right in her face.

Joshua started, but Mokou hadn’t so much as twitched. The gob turned out to be webbing, and it had completely encased her face like a mummy’s mask. However, smoke started rise from her face, and the web’s gooey strands began to crinkle and collapse inward. Then it began to turn black.

And then it began to turn red.

“Now that,” Mokou tsked as the burning web fell away from her face in embers, “was big mistake.”

Then she spun around and hurled the spider at a nearby tree. He struck it hard with a pained gasp and fell to the ground.

Mokou began to advance on him, both of her hands now encased in flame. Realizing her intentions, Joshua ran over and put himself between her and the spider. “Wait!” he cried, sticking up his hands.

“Get out of my way, Josh,” Mokou said, her glowing red eyes fixated on the spider.

“This isn’t right!” Joshua pleaded. “You must know that this isn’t right!”

Then Mokou finally looked at him. “Isn’t…this isn’t…”

Suddenly she extinguished the flames in her hands and seized Joshua by the lapels. She swung him around, holding him up with both hands as easily as if he weighed as little as the children they looked after.

“Right?” she snarled. “You wanna talk to me about what’s right? Those monsters came to our home and took our children! They slaughtered Eiko and probably ate her alive! A thirteen year old girl, and they ate her alive!”

“Yes, but torturing…” Joshua’s voice trailed off. Over Mokou’s shoulder he could see the male spider starting to rise. He was hacking and wheezing in pain, but one of his mangled hands was fumbling toward his jacket pocket.

“They deserve no less,” Mokou said. “This is not the time for mercy, so I would appreciate it if you would go off to the side, say a nice little prayer…”

The spider youkai pulled his hand out of his pocket. Though his fingers were still burnt, they hand managed to clutch around something small and glinting.

“Mokou,” Joshua said.

But Mokou wasn’t listening. “…and stay the fuck of my-”

Joshua seized Mokou with his own hands and tried to yank her out of the way. “Mokou, look out!”

It was too late. The spider youkai hurled the tiny knife. Despite the damage to his hands his aim was supernaturally true. The blade hit Mokou at the back of her head and buried itself in up to the hilt.

Mokou dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Joshua fell as well, his eyes wide and mouth agape. Mokou was lying lifeless, the knife still sticking out of the back of her head, the roots of her pale violet hair turning red.

The spider youkai threw his head back and let out a piercing shriek. Then he charged at Joshua on all fours, his gait clumsy from his burns but still horribly fast.

Joshua scampered back away from him. “Wait!” he said. “Stop!”

The spider opened his mouth wide. Inside was a horror of rows upon rows of quivering teeth surrounding a long and pale tongue. He threw himself at Joshua, blackened fingers extended and black spittle running down his pointed chin.

Though he knew that it wouldn’t save him, Joshua threw his arms in front of his face and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the end.

It didn’t come. Instead, there was just a low thump.

Though he didn’t want to at all, Joshua cracked his eyes open. The spider had fallen to the ground, his outstretched arms falling just a few centimeters short of Joshua’s body, his face contorted in surprise and bewilderment.

And wrapped around one of his ankles was Mokou’s hand.

“Ugh,” the dead woman groaned as she pushed herself up on her elbows. She groped around with her free hand until she found the handle of the knife. A quick yank and it was out, its blade still crimson with her blood and brains.

Shaking her head as if she had merely taken a light slap to the face, Mokou rose up. She blinked a couple of times and shook her head again.

Then she looked down at the shocked creature still in her grasp and her eyes narrowed.

“Now that,” she said, “was also a mistake.”

Then her hand twisted in a peculiar way, and suddenly the spider had two shins where he previously only had one.

“Mokou?” Joshua whispered.

“Joshua,” Mokou said as she began to drag the screaming spider off. “Go back into the clearing. I saw some unburnt bags in there. Empty one out and put what’s left of Eiko inside. Then wait for me.”

Joshua blinked. “What?”

“I know it’s not ideal, but we’re short of options, and I don’t want anything spoiling her further.”

“But-”

“I have work to do, and you’re getting in the way. So get to work.”

“Did…you were dead. How did you-”

Mokou’s face snapped toward him, her eyes a blazing fury. “I said move!”

Joshua’s head jerked back in surprise. He opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it without saying anything.

Then he got up to do as he was told.

…

The fall had been dark, terrifying, but at least mercifully swift. The landing hadn’t been that bad, as there was at least a pile of soft sand to land in.

Unfortunately, the sand also turned out to be ice-cold, and it got everywhere! It was worse than having snow go down one’s back, because that at least would melt away.

“Ah! Cold, cold, cold!”

Rumia tried to flee from the pile only to get her feet tangled up, causing her to fall.

“You okay?” Kohta said as he looked down at her in concern. Of course he had managed to get out of the sand and onto his feet.

“No,” Rumia said crankily. “I am very much not okay. But I’m not dead yet, so that counts for something.”

Kohta extended his hand, and Rumia took it. With a slight grunt he pulled her too her feet.

“What is this stuff?” Rumia complained as she shook the freezing sand from her hair, arms, and outfit. “Why is it so cold?”

“Because it’s evil,” Hayate said in a hollow voice. “Don’t you feel it? It’s evil. This is a place where evil dwells. It’ll eat us up, just like they ate Eiko!”

Normally Rumia might have been tempted to mock her for her fear and superstition, but all things considered she was having a hard time coming up with an argument.

“Speaking of which, what is this place anyway?” Keine wondered.

“I don’t know,” Kohta said. “Maybe it’s some kind of…oh, wait. Hang on.”

Everyone froze. “What?” Haruko whispered. “What is it?”

Kohta reached into the pile of cold sand and pulled something out a box of matches.

The cold had made his fingers clumsy, so it took a few strikes to finally light a match. But at last a tiny flame sputtered to life, and he held up the match to give them a better look.

Rumia quite frankly preferred the darkness.

They were in a huge circular space, one even larger than the orphanage. It was empty save for themselves and the tall pile of black sand in the middle, which was still bathed in the circle of moonlight that came from the hole in the center of the roof.

But the walls were an unending tribute to Death.

It was the same as the stone trees. Skeletons of once-living things were embedded into the walls in twisted positions, many of which would not have been possible when they had meat and skin. Most looked like they had been partially melted as well and splattered right against the wall. Only instead of a few, there were hundreds of them: humans, deer, cows, birds, fish, snakes, squirrels, horses, lizards, bats, and several things that she could only guess at.

If there was one thing they all had in common other than being dead and stuck in a wall, it was that they looked like they had been trying to flee from…something, something in the center of the room, something that had pulverized them all with a single blast of power.

“What the hell,” Haruko said flatly.

“We…we got to get out of here,” Hayate said. “This is a bad place. We shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here. We need to escape.”

“I’m…open to suggestions,” Kohta said.

Rumia opened her mouth to respond, but then low, raspy moan echoed through the chamber, like a mummified corpse awakened from the dead and filling its dusty lungs for the first time in an era. The match in Kohta’s hand slipped from his fingers, and the light went out.

“What was that?” Hayate whispered in the dark.

Then the moan sounded again, and louder this time. Kohta hastily felt around for another match and lit it, and he held it up so that they could see.

They needn’t have worried.

It was Kana, who was finally starting to stir. She had been lying on the ground next to Kohta, but now she was awake and struggling to rise.

“Oh, hey!” Kohta said as he knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”

“Uhhhh…” Kana groaned. “Feel…airy…”

“So…pretty much the same as always?” Rumia said. Keine shot her a sharp look, which made her feel a little ashamed. “Sorry.”

Kohta helped Kana sit up. She coughed weakly. “Wha…where are we?”

“Underground,” Kohta said. “I think.”

“Ugh.” Kana blinked blearily at her surroundings. “Huh. I…I thought I was flying up. But now I’m down. How’d I get down?”

“You got captured by spider youkai,” Kohta helpfully supplied. “And you got stung with their venom. That’s why you feel so weird.”

“Oh. Isn’t that…nice…” She smiled up at him and giggled. “You got sandy hair.”

Kohta involuntarily touched his spiky hair.

Then Rumia got an idea. “Hey, Kana?”

“Oh, is Rumia here too? That’s also nice. Hi!”

“Uh, hello. Listen, do you remember when you were flying earlier?”

“Uh-huh. It was fun. Until it wasn’t.”

“Right. Do you think you could do it again?”

“Uh…dunno.” Kana’s head slumped forward, digging her chin into her chest. “I’m tired.”

“No, no, stay awake!” Rumia leaned over to slap Kana lightly in the cheeks. “Kana, I need you to try to pay attention. We’re stuck in a hole in the ground-”

“Oh, that sounds fun.”

“No, it’s not! We’re trapped, so we need you to fly out and go find help!”

“Can’t she lift us out?” Haruko asked.

“What, are you crazy?” Rumia snapped at her. “Look at her! It’ll be a miracle if she can get herself out!”

Suddenly the ground started rumbling. Hayate yelped and hid herself behind Haruko, who looked like she wished she had someone to hide behind. Keine threw herself to the ground and covered her head. Rumia and Kohta quickly retreated from the center of the room, dragging the still-loopy Kana with them.

The pile of sand that lay directly beneath the hole had started to rise. It lifted upward like an hourglass in reverse, pouring up into the hole.

“What the hell?” Haruko shouted. “How is it doing that? That’s impossible!”

Despite the frightening situation they had found themselves in, the sheer stupidity of that statement meant that Rumia and Keine both had to stare at her in disbelief.

“What?”

The sand finally all lifted out of the room, plugging up the hole completely and choking out the moonlight. The only light was that of Kohta’s match, which was running low.

A few seconds later, the tiny flame sputtered and died.

For a brief, dark moment, nothing happened.

Then every single dead creature that had fused with the wall opened its eyes.

Everyone screamed as hundreds of brightly glowing red lights appeared in the empty eye sockets all across the walls. Hayate broke off from Haruko and ran toward the center of the room.

“Let me out!” she sobbed. “Let me out! I don’t want to stay here, I don’t want to-”

Then the ground started shaking again.

Something was rising up from beneath, filling the space left behind by the pile of black sand. In the scarlet glow, it was hard to make out, but it appeared to be a multi-sided cylinder about the size of a fully-grown man. It was also completely black, so that any features were nearly impossible to make out.

Hayate screamed and ran back, only to be reminded of the dead things staring at her with red eyes all along the walls. She tried going back the other way, but the cylinder was there, so she just fell to her knees and clutched at her head as she cried. “Please, make it stop, make it stop!”

Under normal circumstances, Rumia might have been tempted to mock her for her cowardice. But in all honestly, if Hayate wasn’t doing that, then Rumia probably would be.

“Oh, it’s a box,” Kana said calmly, as if she were remarking on a particularly interesting cloud. “I wonder what’s inside.”

“A box?” Kohta said. “That thing is…”

His voice trailed off. Even Hayate’s crying had quieted.

Rumia didn’t need to ask why. She heard it too.

Rumia.

The voices were back, the gibbering ones that she couldn’t understand and the one that was clearly calling her name. Only now they weren’t whispering out of the thin air. Now they had a definite source.

It was the box. The box was speaking to her. The box was calling to her.

Rumia started walking toward the box. Without a word the others did so as well. Kohta, Keine, and Haruko all slowly made their way across the room. Hayate stopped sniveling and stood up to follow. Even Kana had managed to totter to her feet and limp her way over.

Rumia.

Each of the six children came to a stop around the box and turned toward one of its many sides. Rumia stared entranced by the smooth, black edge, so flawless and beautiful. It was like it had been carved out of solid night, a perfect piece of darkness.

Rumia.

The gibbering grew louder. Rumia raised up her right hand. Unprompted, the others did the same. As one they all laid their hands against the sides of the box.

Its surface was colder than steel that had been left out all night in the snow. Rumia’s skin instantly froze to it.

Interesting.

Then something sharp bit into her palm. She could feel the hot blood leaking out, warming her palm.

Rumia.

Rumia wrenched her hand away, ripping off an entire layer of skin in the process. It was left on the side of the box, a white handprint set against the black, with a tiny bead of ruby blood hovering in its center.

As Rumia watched in fascination, the bead started to shake. Then it began to grow, sending rivulets of red across the handprint, dying the white skin bright scarlet.

Soon the box had six crimson hands on six of its sides, one for each child.

And then it began to open.

…

To anyone who’s read IM: three guesses at what’s in the box, and the first two don’t count.

Until next time, everyone.

[hazbinextgeneration]

Along Came A.......Deer?

-In H-ll; At the Hazbin Hotel- Two human like beings were sitting next to each other. "So....what's it like working for Angie's brother?," the foxy one asked. "It is...interesting." She flexed her wings." I never met someone so.......serious about his work," she replied with a slight Russian accent," How is Angel?" "Same as always....energetic and lovable......Oh! There he is now." She gestured towards the entrance of the room. Sure enough, there the spider demon was, pulling what looked like a white rope behind him. "Speak of the angel, and the angel shall appear!," he shouted forming a pose. "What a drama queen," the bat one teased. "Val. Luna. Nice to see ya," he greeted. "Angel....what exactly is that?," Val asked pointing at the white thing in his hand. He held it up." Oh, this? It's part of my trap." The two women looked at each other. "It isn't gonna be like the time you got drunk and dug a pit trap in Baxter's lab is it," Titiana asked," I had to fly him out, and he surprisingly has a very tight grip." "What? No. This is nothing like that." He tugged it a couple times." Ya see, someone's been sneaking inta my room and taking my stuff. My eyeliner, my favorite bowtie, and my brush have all gone missing within a week." "Are you sure you didn't just misplace them?" "I searched my room top ta bottom and looked in every little crack! Is has ta be someone." "How exactly does it work?,'' Val asked curiously. "Oh, that's the exciting part.~ Ya see...I placed a web on the ceiling and set a trip wire. Even the slightest touch will set it off." "Then what's the one in your hand for?" "Oh, this? I tied one end to the net, so when someone gets caught in it, it'll tug the rope." "........Like that?" Angel looked down and noticed that the web string was swaying back and forth slightly. ".....Hah! It worked!" He quickly ran off, picking up the string as he went." I'm gonna tear their a$$ up!" Titiana looked at Valtina." Wanna go watch?" "H-ll Yeah!" They sprinted off after the spider demon. -Meanwhile- Angel was speed walking towards his room. Still collecting the web strand, which swayed harsher the closer he got to his room. He stopped when he finally reached it. He could hear someone struggling inside. "Alright ya little sh-t! You better tell me where my stuff is," he slammed open the door," or I'm gonna....!.........Al?!" Sure enough, the red eyed deer demon was. Staring right back at him." Why...hello, Angel. it seems I got myself into a sticky situation." He chuckled." Would you be kind enough to lend me a couple hands?" Angel, stilled confused, reached over and carefully started to untangle him.".....You're the one that's takin' my stuff?'' "Yes. But I was bringing them all back along with a few......interesting items.~ Mmhmhmhmhm. They're in that box there." He pointed a red tipped finger at a small box a little ways from them. Angel reached over and picked it up, using his upper two arms while the other four worked on untangling Alastor. "I still don't see why you....wanted....my stuff.." he froze upon seeing the contents in the box. He reached in and brought out what looked like a teddy version of him. It was wearing his favorite bow and eyeliner.".....The f-ck is this?" "Well, I needed a few things to make a voodoo doll work. Getting hair from your body was too rough a job. So I borrowed your brush. Hope you don't mind." He watched as Angel looked back in the box, raising an eyebrow. Like Alastor promised, his eyeliner and brush were in the box. Right next to some.......interesting tools. Angel stared at them.....then at the doll in his hand.....then finally back at Al. "...........Heh. Ya know..." He pulled the deer demon closer by the jacket." You could've just asked.~" -Meanwhile- "That is the last time we ask Husk for directions," the bat sinner groaned. "Especially when he's in a bad mood." They rounded a corner. "There's Angel's room," Val said pointing at a door," I hope we didn't miss too much." "You go ahead. I want to fix my shoe." While she bent down to fix her shoe, Val shrugged and continued on. Upon reaching the door, she instantly opened it." Hey, Angie. Did you catch the.....?" Everyone froze. Both males looked up at her. Her eyes widened and her cheeks burnt red before slamming the door shut. Still flustered, she quickly marched up the hallway. titiana was staring at her confused." What's wrong?" Val just started dragging her away. "Hey! What about Angel?," she protested. "You don't wanna see. Trust me. Besides....he'll tell everyone ounce he's drunk anyway." 

Request for @zikkafriday. Valtina(now Flare) belongs to her. Tatiana is mine. All others are Vivziepop’s.

[memsmedic1]

SCUBA Diving! 02/28/17-03/19/17

After teaching my third EMR course to Z-Rescue in Myawaddy I traveled to Yangon to apply for a tourist visa at the Thai embassy. I had to do this because of a new Thai law prohibiting more than two tourist visas to be automatically approved at a border crossing in a calendar year (and I’ve already used my two freebies). Well I went in ready to pay for my visa and found out that due to a low tourist census in Thailand the embassy was authorized to offer a promotion of free visa applications and today was the last day to apply for it!

My visa came in two days later so on that evening I took the night bus back to the border and crossed into Thailand on March 2.

Even though I live right next door to Thailand I’m too busy to hardly ever get away for a visit so I was looking forward to making the most out of this trip!

The main reason I was traveling to Thailand was because our team had been offered an opportunity to attend a rescue and recovery SCUBA diver class that is being taught by a rescue diver foundation we’ve worked with in Thailand in the past.

First thing I did after clearing immigration was catch a motorbike taxi to a great little Thai restaurant for breakfast, then because SCUBA classes don’t start for several days I walked to the songtau station and took a songtau to Sunshine Orchard Children’s Home and school for a few days.

School had just been let out for the season and all of the students who had families had gone home to visit them so the campus was a lot quieter than usual!

I played in the river with the children who stayed behind, read countless stories to them in the hammock, and we picked up trash around all the buildings and burned a bamboo house that had developed an unacceptably high termite to house ratio.

Early morning on the 5th I hitched a ride back to MaeSot and purchased a seat on a passenger van to take me to the bus terminal in Tak. After arriving I went to the ticket counter to get a bus ticket to Kanchanaburi and found out that the next bus wouldn’t leave until 9:30 that night!

After a tedious 11 hours (the bus was a little over an hour late) spent reading the medical book I had with me, wandering around looking at the shops, and buying a meal at one of them mainly because they had a place to charge my phone, the bus finally arrived.

The next morning the bus arrived in Kanchanaburi and after breakfast and a cup of coffee my team picked me up in our Thai ambulance that was also crammed full of diving equipment, and we went straight to the Royal Thai Air Force base which has a giant training pool that we had obtained permission to use for our diving class.

At 0800 our instructors from the Thai rescue and recovery SCUBA diver foundation arrived and training was kicked off!

After a brief and rather sporadic introduction to basic diving and the names and functions of the equipment we would be using, our instructor had us each choose a set of gear and prepare to go into the water for the first time.

I happened to choose the buoyancy control device with the air leak in it which was exciting since our first time in the water was jumping off the deep end!

The other main instructor that ended up teaching most of the course was a lot more thorough and meticulous and went over more of the theory and basics before we went in again (at the shallow end this time).

I had been worried that I wouldn’t be able to certify because I’ve always had a terribly hard time equalizing my ears when swimming or flying. But after practicing all that first day I was able to dive all the way down and even lay on the bottom!

I thought it was quite a surreal experience to be that far away from my natural habitat and still be semi self sufficient, after long enough below the surface you start to feel like you can stay down forever! Then your tank starts getting low on air or you have to pee or you want to tell someone something besides “I’m ok”, “shark”, “I’m out of air”, or another of the hand signals we learned.

Because there were too many of us to all fit in the ambulance unless we wanted to ride Thai style we commuted back and forth between the military base and the school property we have for sale in Kanchanaburi both in the ambulance and a passenger van.

While we were staying at the school going to class the villagers decided it was the right time of year to burn the jungle. This is a pointless and destructive practice (purely subjective obviously) that kills many stands of bamboo, trees, and small jungle inhabitants. The smoke was so thick that my eyes burned and I could taste it in the back of my throat.

The night after the fires were lit I went outside to see what I could see. Across the lake from me on the other side of the small valley I could see a giant half circle of angry red fire smoldering down the mountain towards me with another fire that I could only see the red glow from coming down the mountain our property is on.

In the jungle -even in the dry season- the humidity is so high that a fire can’t travel very fast and only burns the understory layer, so the villagers light the tops of the mountains and the fire just burns its way downhill unsupervised.

The next day we lit backfires where our property meets the jungle just to make sure all the buildings and orchards would stay safe.

The second day of dive class we learned how to buddy breath, clear the water out of our masks while under water, take off all our equipment under water to squeeze through an obstacle course and then put it back on, and not panic when the instructor or one of the other students would rip off our mask and pull out our regulator.

On the third day of class we learned underwater search and rescue techniques, rope signals, different ways to set up a search grid, and body recovery.

One night I was walking from my room to take a shower when I heard a rustling noise coming from behind the netting we have shrouding the doorway of the bathroom (there’s no door) like a spider web to help deter bats from flying in. Peering through I saw a large and colorful Tokay gecko staring back at me. Tokay geckos are the second largest species of gecko in the world and are considered a delicacy in Thai and Indonesian cuisine. They are also prized for their supposed healing qualities in traditional medicine and their distinct call makes them one of the loudest animals in the jungle (or house), but it’s ok because they eat huge quantities of mosquitos and cockroaches. Even though it was 1130 at night and I was exhausted I decided it would be a good idea to catch him for a picture.

I was able to shoo him into the shower room and after giving me an impressive runaround I finally threw a towel over his head and got ahold of him.

I don’t think he appreciated that very much because kept holding his mouth open and snapping at me like a baby alligator. He probably thought I wanted to eat him! I didn’t think too much about it at the time but I found out later that this species of reptile is not recommended for beginner exotic pet owners because of its powerful bite!

While I was trying to keep all my fingers intact, find my camera and get him in position for a picture a scorpion suddenly came running into the room pell mell straight for my flip flop protected feet! This is not normal behavior for a scorpion to attack like that but I was significantly distracted by the very angry gecko I was holding so I just shooed the scorpion back out the door. After standing stock still for a several seconds he frantically started running down the veranda away from me. Just as I was going back to the gecko I saw something else just outside the door in the semi dark running in the same direction. At first I thought it was a snake, but then I realized it was a massive centipede hunting the scorpion! I would have liked to follow them both and see what happened but the gecko was a more pressing matter and by the time I was finished photographing him (he actually made a startling noise and I dropped him) the pair was nowhere to be found.

After completing the rescue and recovery SCUBA diver course and receiving a Thai certification at an underwater ceremony I decided that I really like diving and at some point I am going to get more training!

Since I was so close already I wanted to visit my aunt and uncle who had just returned from visiting the US. Given the situation I had experienced during my last bus journey I said I would try to make it but I couldn’t guarantee anything!

After getting dropped off at the bus station in Kanchanaburi I took a van into Bangkok where I could get a bus the rest of the way to Ayutthaya.

The day before, one of my friends from Texas had let me know that he was in Thailand teaching a TCCC instructor course and we had agreed to meet up for lunch as I traveled through Bangkok.

Accordingly after I arrived at the Bangkok bus terminal I grabbed a motorbike taxi and took it 8 km through the city to our meeting point. My friend had was already there and so we had a great time talking and catching up.

That night it was too late to continue on so I stayed in a hotel and found a bus going to Ayutthaya the next morning. Since they were so busy trying to get caught up from being gone it was a pretty hectic weekend with my aunt and uncle. Then I had to say goodbye and was back on the bus headed to MaeSot.

After another brief visit to Sunshine Orchard I crossed back into Myanmar on Sunday the 19th, just in time to ride back to Yangon with some teammates who had just finished packing our newly completed ambulance full of medical supplies and hired a driver to take it north to our operations area!

After I crossed the border, my phone had a malfunction and I couldn’t use it to contact anyone from my team to let them know I was back. I wasn’t sure what to do so I just walked to the bus stop and there I found one of them! She was guarding the back seat that used to be in the ambulance, tools, and a bunch of other stuff going back to our headquarters in Yangon waiting for the bus to arrive. Needless to say, I was relieved!