#air bearing spindles

[colibri-spindles]

Air Bearing Spindles: Precision and Performance for Industrial Applications

Understanding the Power of Air Bearing Spindles

Air bearing spindles have revolutionized the field of industrial machinery, providing unmatched precision, performance, and reliability. With their unique design and advanced technology, these spindles have become an integral component in various manufacturing processes, offering exceptional results across diverse applications. In this article, we will explore the key features and benefits of air bearing spindles, highlighting their significance in the industrial landscape.

What Are Air Bearing Spindles?

Unveiling the Inner Workings of Air Bearing Spindles

Air bearing spindles are cutting-edge devices that utilize a thin film of compressed air to suspend and rotate a workpiece or tool. Unlike traditional spindles that rely on mechanical bearings, air bearing spindles offer several advantages, including enhanced precision, reduced friction, and increased load capacity. These spindles are designed to operate with minimal vibration and noise, making them ideal for high-speed and high-accuracy applications.

Advantages of Air Bearing Spindles:

The Superiority of Air Bearing Spindles

Unparalleled Precision:

Air bearing spindles excel in delivering exceptional precision, ensuring minimal deviation from desired specifications. The use of air cushioning eliminates mechanical contact, reducing the risk of wear, friction, and heat generation. This precise control enables the production of intricate components with tight tolerances, meeting the most demanding requirements of various industries.

High-Speed Capability:

By eliminating physical contact between the spindle and the workpiece, air bearing spindles allow for significantly higher rotational speeds. This attribute is crucial in industries such as aerospace, automotive, and electronics, where rapid and precise machining is essential. The ability to achieve superior speeds without compromising accuracy sets air bearing spindles apart from traditional alternatives.

Enhanced Durability:

Mechanical bearings are prone to wear and require regular maintenance and lubrication. Air bearing spindles eliminate these concerns, as they do not rely on physical bearings. This absence of mechanical wear extends the lifespan of the spindles, reducing downtime and increasing productivity. Furthermore, the elimination of lubrication requirements makes air bearing spindles more environmentally friendly.

Applications of Air Bearing Spindles:

 Versatility Across Industries

Semiconductor Manufacturing:

The semiconductor industry demands utmost precision during the fabrication process. Air bearing spindles play a vital role in applications such as wafer inspection, lithography, and wire bonding, ensuring precise positioning and controlled motion.

Optical Systems:

In fields like photonics and laser technology, air bearing spindles enable the production of high-quality lenses, prisms, and mirrors. Their exceptional stability and vibration-free operation guarantee optimal performance in optical systems.

Metrology and Calibration:

Air bearing spindles are instrumental in metrology and calibration processes, facilitating precise measurements and standards. The inherent accuracy of these spindles ensures reliable and repeatable results, essential in industries where precision is paramount.

Colibri Spindles: Leaders in Air Bearing Technology

When it comes to air bearing spindles, one name stands out: Colibri Spindles. With years of experience and a commitment to excellence, Colibri Spindles has established itself as a leading provider of high-performance air bearing spindles. Their innovative designs, state-of-the-art manufacturing processes, and unwavering dedication to quality have made them a trusted partner for industries seeking top-of-the-line spindle solutions.

Conclusion:

Unlocking the Potential of Air Bearing Spindles

Air bearing spindles represent a transformative breakthrough in precision machining, delivering unparalleled levels of accuracy, speed, and durability. By eliminating mechanical friction and offering high load capacity, these spindles have dramatically enhanced manufacturing capabilities across numerous industries. They have demonstrated their efficacy in diverse applications, from semiconductor production to optical systems manufacturing and metrology tasks.

[raayllum]

It's not structurally sound, so Zym walks beside him, one wing tented protectively over his head just in case. At least that's what Soren said, eyes still with a fading yellow hue to them, traces of magic still stubbornly clinging on when Ezran had finally arrived.

The sky was still grey, flecked with smoke and embers, Callum slamming into him in a banther hug before Ez had even gotten his bearings—both sobbing a little, exhausted, relieved. Callum cupping his baby brother's cheeks and brushing away tears, till—Ezran had spotted him lurking over Callum's shoulder, dressed in greens and all too terribly alive.

The shouting match that had followed hadn't been pretty, but—

Opeli had stepped in. Soren had ushered everyone else away.

"He just needs some time to mourn," Corvus murmurs.

Ez had cried at the wedding, and cried on the way home. The putrid air stings his eyes now as he walks amongst the ruins, though no tears fall. His eyes are too full of something else, reconstructing everything around him perfectly. There's where the eastern tower stood before it crumbled into the courtyard. The balcony by the king's chambers where Ez had taken his first steps, toddling confidently towards his father's face. Half the battlements are blasted apart, barracks and weapons in splintered disarray. The rest of the castle isn't in much better shape.

His family's home, his family's legacy, all the precious things he hadn't taken with him to New Aurea, because why would he have? A box of mementos from his mother—the tie from her braid, a pressed flower from her wedding bouquet, a letter she'd written and sealed for him for his sixteenth birthday—buried in ash. Burnt to a crisp.

Every portrait of his father, his throne, his... A lump rises in his throat.

Gone.

It's all gone.

Opeli has the grim work of consulting everyone to make a list of the dead, all the guards and servants and people—families—wiped out. Ez knows there will be names he recognizes. Even worse, there will be names he doesn't, people who lived and died here, in his castle, in his kingdom, and as king, he didn't even—

His vision blurs as he picks his way over charred brick, Zym following dutifully behind him with a tiny whine. He staggers over the collapsed walls, the massive pile, but picks out a spindle of what he knows is a rocking chair, sticking out from the side.

"My mother sat here," he explains to Zym, sitting down slowly on the pile of bricks. It's as comfortable a seat as anything else could be. "When she rocked me to sleep." He sniffles. His shoulders shake. "This was my nursery, Zym."

His Dad had kept it preserved, just for him. For whenever you want to feel close to her. And after his Dad's death, to both of them.

Zym presses his snout to Ezran's arm as they settle together, his castle consumed by dragon fire.

Ezran weeps in the middle of his nursery.

This is where tiny children are supposed to cry, after all.

[just-some-user-hunny]

Aurelia Targaryen the bastard princess pt.2

Her relationship with her closest family members...

. As Aurelia grew, the more she found herself more inclined to keep herself distracted. She found comfort in a needle and thread- pushing and pulling the silver thorn between canvases, mimicking a memory from long ago. Craving the comfort of sewing clothes and cushions in her little home, but instead of mending ragged shirts and socks, she weaves stories with silken thread and beads.

. She'd often find herself accompanying Heleana, the two soft-spoken princesses lost within the comfort of silence and dance of fingers and needle. Heleana would embroider silver winged butterflies and spindle legged spiders, whilst Aurelia would weave pictures of dragons and flame. The two little twins playing nearby, tended to by a maid with cast down eyes. Helaena was a kind company, her odd dreamy mutterings were nothing but distant bird songs to her ears. She could not understand, but she listened and appreciated it.

. The training grounds often bored her, you see. She would often feel inclined to watch Jace and Luke train with their clashing swords, perched upon a balcony above like a ruffled dove, her gleaming dress of seafoam and gold surrounding her in a cloud of soft fabric. Her heart had warmed over the years towards the two princes, as she could only stay bitter and sad for so long at so many people. Her heart grew lonely, and those two found themselves wiggling their way inside.

She would often capture their glances towards her like she were the sun, their smiles just as bright. She'd smile and blow playful kisses, finding laughter as Luke would pout and Jace waving back. However Aemond, the one eyed prince, his intense smouldering glare would startle her- causing her to shy away in the end. She found no amusement in the clash of steel or the shouts of men, the kick of dust and rubble polluting the air. Nor the willowy man who'd glue his eyes to her like she were some spectacle.

. After all, she had her half-sisters to tend to.

Rhaena and Baela.

The twin girls would sail upon oceans to visit, always bearing tender expressions and gifts. The older girls would spoil her, almost as rotten as Rhaenyra would. Treasures of pearls and sea glass, jewelry fashioned into shapes of seahorses and dolphins and shells, all placed upon her throat in golden chains. But Aurelia could only look forward to being in their arms again, that was the greatest treasure she could ask of them.

Their hair of spun silver and gold almost seemed to tangle into one as they'd hold one another, Aurelia finding comfort in their familiarity and embrace. They were kind to her as a child, the closest she had felt to ever since she had been taken. The adults never seemed to understand, always blinded by their own greed and power- but the friendship between children is simple and pure.

. Rhaenyra was a warm and kind woman. Warm hands and eyes, embracing and gazing at her with wholehearted adoration.

Often would the silver haired woman preen and tend to her curls of silvery gold locks, picking at braids with gentle fingertips and brushing down the fabric of her dress to look presentable, before smiling happily and kissing her daughter upon her brow. Syrax is just as attentive, bowing her neck of gold scales to coo and trill like a mother bird- huffing her smoky sulphur burnt breath over her face, her snout nestling within Aurelia's palm contently before retreating to her riders side.

. To them, she was a soft little dove. Letting them bestow her with pretty things for her nest of solitude, gleaming silk threads to embroidery with, or shimmering gowns made of the finest fabric and jewels. It almost seemed to weigh her down, like chains. Pretty chains made of gold and gems are still chains.

But to Daemon? She was just as spiteful and stubborn as she had been the day he took her. She seldom even looked at him. Him and Ceraxes both frightened and angered her.

Her breath would catch in her throat whenever the blood scaled beast would chirp and coil close to her like a viper, his eyes beady and predatory like a shark. She was just as much in his hovering possessive glare as her father's, whose eyes seemed just the same. Watching. Nitpicking. Controlling. Yet he'd still speak to her like everything was simple and plain, like she wasn't under his thumb. She'd curse and curse him in her mind, under her breath, grinding the words of his name between her fingertips into dust- as if it would eradicate him entirely. Daemon was aware, of course he was. But he couldn't care less. Seeing her all dolled up in pretty fabrics and looking clean and healthy kept him docile. No matter how much his daughter would spite him with venomous glares and pursed lips every time he'd forbid her from riding her dragon without him accompanying, or simply leaving the castle to walk upon the beach without a guard trailing her heels like always.

[butmakeitgayblog]

Medusa and The Blind Woman

Part I

~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~

She crashes in on an easterly wave. 

One that threatens the bare spindles of a long dead port. The wind bites at stilts gnarled by sea salt and the negligence of time, threads of frayed twine whipping in retaliating lashes against the onslaught versus sturdy grecian wood. 

Lexa watches from on high, eyes on mastheads and white sails in the distance when she takes a moment to admire her only non-hissing companion, the sea. She stands an eagle in her nest of serpentine thorns, as the speck of a sailor draws near from the horizon, boat marching on the back of winds that carry it onward. The ocean howls of intruders long before they arrive, the swishing churn of embattled rip tides announcing the threat among rustled gusts and spits of algae foam. 

It's all become so painfully predictable. 

Lexa sighs at the sight of them marching on toward her fortress. 

A sinking weight floods her stomach, weary resignation presses heavy against her throat.

The grip of her spade reminds hers they mean nothing to her morning, to her unforgiving schedule that must be kept. What with the chill slipping through the cracks of a waning afternoon sun setting on the intruder's horizon. 

She doesn't bother to watch their approach further, instead keeping her thoughts to steady hands that churn earth and crumble stone, driving her blade against charcoal and turning it to soot. She checks her moorings to the west and fells a few fresh saplings for kindling. Nuisances in that particular corner of her nest of thorns, ones she's been waging a losing battle with for ages.

Her thoughts scatter like the seed and silt that pour through the calloused cracks of her fingers, wondering—

A sharp whine fills the air below, followed by a screech and crash of splintering wood. A thunderous boom echoes along the rockside loud enough to shake the very gravel under her feet followed by a full chested bellow.

"Gods damn it all!"

Lexa straightens from her work at the cry of anger, loud enough to have her dropping her tools where she stands. Loud enough to send a shiver across her scalp that hisses and spits its welcome in return. 

She slips past brambles and thickets of overgrowth. Moves between boulders and shrugging aside the hang of vine, winding her way to the edge of her oasis. The sweet scent of honeysuckle mixes with sea water as she moves close to the rocky ledge of the cliff shore. 

Careful to stay hidden, tucked neatly in the shadows, she lifts a few leaves on the tips of her finger to see her would be… captors…

Or. Captor.

The waters are littered with floating bits of dock and warped wood, now useless and broken into a thousand tiny shards that bob their way back out into the wild. 

In its place is a boat. 

A rather pathetic boat, Lexa notes at the feel of a nose nudging her cheek. A vessel of one lonely single seat, barely a rod for a mast, with two matching oars on each side. The sight of its paltry build makes her frown, her lips slackening in shock as she looks past the debris of the wreckage to the fleeing white sails receding into the burgeoning twilight distance. 

Another screeched caw from a circling bird above makes Lexa jump, ignoring the snap and hiss in her ear at the same time the air fills with a strained, "Oh shut up!"

Well.

This is certainly not what she had expected. 

Because…

She's blonde. 

Her apparent assassin is blonde. 

And a woman.  

Altogether a decidedly less muscular figure than Lexa had become accustomed to seeing her would-be heroes in the making that washed up on her shores. Not the type bearing rippling muscles, or the thuggish brawn born of beating one's own chest.

In fact, this assassin is downright dainty.  

~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~

Read on AO3

[kickingitwithkirk]

La Princesse Vierge

Pairing: Pirate!Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 5296

Warnings:  pirate ship attack, cursing, show level violence, p/v sex, fingering, cunnilingus, a pinch of dub/con

Squares filled: @spnkinkbb -Hair Pulling @j3bingo - “Can I kiss you?” @spnaubingo -Pirate AU  @spnmixedbingo -Sam @winchesterandbeyondbingo -virgin @anyfandomgoesbingo -Bodyguard AU @howbadcanitbebingo -Magical Healing Cock @anyfandomdarkbingo -aquaphilia @witchsambingo -solitary witch

Winchester brothers art inspiration and here

A/N: Thank you to @justagirlinafandomworld and @b3autyfuldisast3r for helping pick bingo squares inspiring this story

A/N II: Once again, brevity is not in my vocabulary

*divider by @firefly-graphics

*No Beta-all mistakes are mine

The sound of men shouting and heavy thumping on the timbers started me from my slumber and by the time on the carriage clock, it was pre-dawn. 

I barely had the sash of my robe tied when the cabin door unlocked flying open and my guardian rushed in, still attired in his night clothes, hair askew, shouting something when the first cannonball slammed into the ship's hull making me stagger. 

Righting myself I pushed past him making for the main deck and finding it in chaos when I emerged from under the poop deck. 

The British officers rushed around me barking orders, crew climbing the rigging to secure lines on the yardarm that had been damaged so the sails didn't fully collapse as the ship shudders from the pounding it’s taking and our cannons returning fire.

I made my way onto the forecastle and froze seeing a dark, ominous, and easily twice the size of our ship flying a Jolly Roger seconds before it fires again.

The blast hitting near the waterline knocks me off my feet. 

I scurry to the closest railing wrapping my arms around one of the spindles can barely understand Captain Barrows shouting orders from the helm as he turns the wheel, maneuvering the ship so the sails can catch more wind and will allow us to outrun the significantly heavier ship.

The captain finished spinning the wheel only to realize he’d steered directly in line with another ship, equal to our attacker's size, bearing down fast upon us leaving him no choice but to call for the white flag of surrender to be raised. 

The air is thick with cannon smoke and tension as grappling hooks fly over the port side sinking into the wood and dragging us towards the first ship as the second comes along starboard pinning us between them. 

Planks are extended allowing the marauders to come aboard with guns and cutlasses drawn, rounding up the crew and disarming them. I was led to stand off to the side with my guardian and officers awaiting the pirate captain's arrival.

During the time we were waiting the raiders methodically unload everything of value from the ship's stores as their quartermaster takes inventory against the ship's manifest and paused speaking to a burly pirate, who’d been silently observing the going on when a handsome, sturdily built man made his way across the deck to them.

He’s taller up close, clad in a well-worn ensemble; cropped dark blonde hair under a wide-brimmed, woven straw hat, a jerkin over belted thigh length, open tunic showing smooth skin covered with a dusting of cinnamon freckles, made more prominent by the Caribbean sun, below the knee trousers, hose and and and tall leather boots.

Watching him converse with the burly one I felt envious of his full lips and long lashes when his verdant eyes drifted over to me causing several of the officers to attempt closing ranks to hide me only to find several guns pointed at them to stop. 

I definitely glared directly when the man’s wicked chartreuse eyes framed with long, thick lashes traversed my scandalously underclad body, blatantly staring at my breasts and smiling in an unsettling manner.

 “Looks like we’re gonna get some fun after all Benny.” 

That’s when my guardian pushed forward and said the stupidest things, “how dare you..you pirate pig! When the king hears about this..”

“Stop flapping that tongue or I’ll do it for ya,” Benny threatens in a bastardized French accent reaching for the knife hilt protruding from his boot when the other slaps the back of his hand against his chest and calmly remarks in his deep, gravelly voice, “relax Benny, let's hear what the man has to say before you collect another trophy.”

My guardian's eyes boggle when Captain Barrow spoke up. “Take whatever items you wish then allow us to proceed to our destination.”

The quartermaster points out something in the manifest to Benny made him grin, take it and drapes his arm over the other's shoulders.

“Deano, the rougir mariée is King George’s niece, Countess Y/L/N, heading for her nuptials to the prestigious Governor of Antigua and lookie..ol’ George sent a dowry.”

“Dean Winchester?” 

The Captain's eyes widened as there was a restless murmuring amongst the offices, many seem to lose their resolve realizing who had captured us.

“The one and only,” he smirked, canting his head to the right, “ya’ catch who we have the honor of being in the presence of Sammy?”

Captain Barrow follows his line of sight and standing a few feet away a man blocking the view with his tremendous height and breadth of shoulders is tapping long fingers on the hilt of a cutlass. He is clad in the same manner as this Dean except for a jacket and the open tunic reveals his golden-hued, moderately-haired, muscular torso. 

The subtle sea breeze stirs the ends of his longish, chestnut streaked with coppery tints hair, tied back under a tricorn hat is without a doubt the most incredibly striking man I’ve ever seen.

“It’s Sam,”  he emphasized in a deep, honey-whisked voice, ”and we mutually agreed not to get sidetracked again, we’re already late for our rendezvous.”

“Aww, don’t be like that little brother. Gordon will understand when he sees what the king's benevolence has sent our way.” Dean crooks a finger at me, “come here, wench.”

No man outside the King had ever dared speak to me in such an impertinent manner makes my spine stiffen and Dean’s eyes narrowed, not pleased with my defiance came over grabbed my wrist jerked me out of my indignant repose.

I soundly slapped him.

His eyes boggled for a brief moment then drew back his arm and I closed my eyes bracing for his physical assault. 

It never came.

I cracked one eye open and gasped; hovering scant inches from my nose was his fist enclosed in the much larger one of his younger brother.

“Do you realize the amount of trouble your impetuousness has brought upon us, big brother?” 

Dean twistes his hand lose and stepping within earshot lowered his voice, “you think the kings gonna get pissed over losing her? She’s obviously not of much value since he refused her her rightful title.” 

I blinked in surprise. 

Dean presents himself as a common pirate but even out here in the middle of nowhere has contacts within the court who supply information of the goings on of the Palace. 

Dean gestures to Benny for the ship's manifest, “look at her dowry, this ship's stores have more monetary value.” Sam took the book, its pages made his lips turn downward. 

“Old George’s marrying her off as a reward to some bureaucrat instead of brokering a new alliance by marriage with France or Spain, so his loss is our gain. We could make quite a bit of coin selling her to Zachariah.”

Benny interjected, “ya’ brothers right on ‘dis one cher. Zachariah be willing to pay handsomely for royal blood, even outta favor. Plus being a vierge makes her a more délicieux morsel to offer up.” 

Sam hands the manifest back to Benny as his uniquely colored eyes traverse over me and I feel a sensation of pleasure?

I found myself sitting on a water barrel on the deck of this ship, The Charger after Dean lost some strange game called rock, paper, scissors.

Over the horizon, I can barely make out the longboat, with what was left of Captain Barrow's crew (and my former guardian) rowing away while his ship sunk into the fathoms wondering if it would’ve been a kinder fate to have gone down with it.

Sensing someone I turn to see an innocent looking young man wave at me.  “Hi, I’m Jack, the Captain requests that you join him below deck please.”

The please surprised me, “and if I refuse?”

Jack's face turns serious, “you don’t want to know what happened to the last person who did that.”

~~~

Captain Winchester and his first mate, a short, older man named Crowley, are hunched over a map table barely gaze up at my arrival, continuing on with their discussion. I take the opportunity to look around at the spacious, well-organized, not cluttered with ill-gotten gains, cabin. 

There's an oak dining table seating six, a rolltop writing desk with several rolled documents lying neatly on it, and strangely, a bookcase running along the wall nearest me followed the progression of its various volumes, so absorbed I stumbled face-first upon an overly large bed realizing these are the Captain's personal quarters.

“I’ve never had a woman fall into my bed enraptured by my literature.”

Embarrassed by my oft-clumsiness making itself known, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, “well, it is truly impressive,” peering up to find myself staring straight at his..”cock?”

“Now I have had many a woman say that.”

I dropped my face back into the bed feeling a blush coursing from my toes to the top of my head when he burst out laughing, gripped my arm, and hauls me upright. I knew he was big and, though I am not as delicate a specimen as a lady is expected to be, he is massive this close.

“Let’s start over by properly introducing ourselves,“ he steps back, bowing elegantly, “Dr. Sameul Winchester, previously personal physician to the Governor of Montauk, currently captain of The Charger.”

My mouth dropped, “how does one go from such a prestigious profession to..”

His lips, how does a man have such pretty pink lips, quirk, “a scourge and scallywag of his majesty's providences? It started when my father was accused of treason.”

A vague memory of an overheard conversation tickles the back of my mind, “your father was Sir John Winchester, the shipbuilder?” 

“He was part of a consortium that found out several of the king's advisers were in cahoots with Spain during the War of Succession.”

I remember the turmoil that conflict caused for years as he poured an amber liquid into two goblets and hands me one.

 “I lodged a complaint through the governor about his innocents. Subsequently, I was arrested and found guilty of insurrection against the crown.”

“That is outrageous! If the King was made aware of such a miscarriage..”

“It was all done on the Lord Chancellor's orders,” Sam bitterly bit out sitting at the table's head, “spent the next two years at the oars.” I sat down in the chair next to him sickened, having heard rumors about the Lord Chancellor, knowing of what deceptions some would resort to for power.

“I was then auctioned off to a plantation owner and worked at the grindstone when the niece of the island's governor did me a favor. I spent the rest of my time as his personal physician before several of us orchestrated our liberation.” 

“We hid out for months on uninhabited islands Crowly knew from his time on a naval ship in these waters caught wind that Dean had escaped England, ironically on the first ship our father had constructed, The Impala.”

He stared into his cup, “it took another five months of dodging his majesty's navy before he found us and now,” he gestures with one large hand, ”I’m captain of the last ship our father built.”

He studied me with a clinical eye asking, “is what Dean said about your circumstances true?” 

I read in his handsome feature’s anything but the truth wouldn’t be tolerated and took a sip from the goblet to help steady my resolve wheezed from the strength of the spirits made him chuckle. 

Catching my breath I told him the abbreviated version.

~~~

King George I had an ongoing, private feud with one of his siblings, my father, for over two decades.

Upon my birth, the King refused me the title of a princess and instead granted countess as a slight to my father, rendering me almost valueless despite my prestigious lineage. 

Out of shame, my father sent me to live at Hatfield House, saying it was for my health and despite my family’s wealth, I grew up rather poor.  All household accounts were paid by my inheritance, adjusted for my lower rank, thus explaining my minuscule dowery. 

Five months ago, an envoy from London arrived announcing my marriage to the governor of one of his Majesty’s Caribbean provinces and after weeks of preparations my appointed guardian and I boarded Captain Barrow's ship bound for the Caribbean.

~~~

Captain Winchester, Sam, he insists I call him, gave me an unreadable expression before laying out some rules while aboard his ship; I had access to the main deck as long as I was accompanied by Jack, Crowley, or himself, otherwise confined to his quarters we’d both be sharing. 

I was scandalized, it wasn’t that I’d never shared a room before, I had with my governess, but to do so with a man I wasn’t wedded to, if anyone got wind of those arrangements, it’d malign me in society. 

Vehemently objecting I went a step too far in telling him when one overly large hand grabbed my loosely plaited hair and yanked me sideways I felt a strange but not unpleasant sensation traverse through me, a mixture of fear and pleasure.

He tightened his grip and said, “hate to break it to you princess, what you want doesn’t matter. My ship, my rules.” Keeping our eyes locked leans so close I could feel his rum-spiced breath caress my lips when a loud banging on the cabin door interrupts. 

He shouts what, listen to the message relayed, and, with a growl, releases me standing up unabashedly adjusting his engorged member before storming out, slamming the heavy oak door behind him.

When I’m able to feel my legs I shakily cross to the wash basin pouring some water into it and, in a very unladylike manner, dunk my face trying to compose myself but wasn’t helping, every fiber of my being hoped next time he manhandled me, he wouldn’t stop.

Captain Sam Winchester has proven to be a dichotomy and discombobulates me to no end!

Publicly he acts like a well-bred gentleman, even granting privacy when attending to my personal needs, then does a complete turnaround when his brother comes aboard, reverting to the crudeness associated with pirate ilk. 

During the evening meals, the rum flows freely and so does both brothers' lips, especially Dean's. I have had to resist the urge to punch his smug face, plastering on the polite smile I would fake at court when his conversation became pugnacious towards me. 

The last straw was when he indiscriminately pissed in a chamberpot and I fled, mortified, as both brothers laughed. 

At least Sam has shown discretion when it comes to his privy moments but proved true to his words with the other arrangements. The first night I’d made a pallet on the other side of the table, it was the furthest point with some semblance of privacy, instantly fell into an exhausted slumber. 

I was startled when he flung off my blanket and gripping my ankle dragged me across the floor screaming bloody murder when the cabins door burst open and his first mate charged in with pistol drawn.

Crowley assessed the situation and had the audacity to be amused at our tableau; Sam standing over me clad only in his breeches, my nightdress ripped, hanging off a shoulder with the hem bunched up around the top of my thighs barely covering my pudendum.

 “Might I suggest gagging her if she's going to protest your romantic overtures Moose, some of us need our beauty sleep.” 

“Fuck off Crowley!” 

“Oh, I intend to, dreaming about this,” and with a wicked grin, left and Sam returned his attention to me. “I told you we’d be sharing this room; that includes the bed. Get up and get into it now!”

With what decorum I could muster clutch my ripped bodice warily getting up, and edge around him ordered me to stop handed me the shirt he’d been wearing, “I don’t want you fussing with that torn rag all night.”

Turning so I had a semblance of privacy I gasped upon seeing his broad back littered with whipping scars move closer, lightly rubbing my fingers over them flinched and spun seizing my wrist. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have been subjected to..I have never condoned such treatment of anyone, no matter what.”

Not saying a word he shoved me towards the bed and I obediently climbed in mentally bracing myself for what was to come when he climbs in the other side and lays down with his back to me.

 “Good night, princess.”

Sleep eluded me for a long time, my mind occupied by this man sleeping next to me, like none I have ever met, and cannot figure out what game he was playing.

Six days later 

I found myself sitting on the beach of some obscure island half-listening to the brothers' conference as Gordon, whom I had taken an instant dislike to, scrutinized me.

Pressing my lips tight together, I vehemently try but cannot suppress my chortle over the item sitting on a crate in front of me any longer.

“What the hell so funny women?” Gordon snaps. 

Lifting my chin from my hand peer over at the darker-complected man, my senses tingling, warning me something about him is all wrong.

“I was wondering,” getting up to dust the sand off Jack’s spare breeches Sam insisted I wear in case we needed to make a quick exit, “if they know what the translation of bолшебный исцелеющий петух is?” 

The Winchesters exchanged looks, “seriously? Neither of you speaks Russian?”

Gordon’s eyes narrowed, “keep quiet or I’ll remove your tongue.”

Little did he know such threats would not scare me, they were nothing compared to the Kings during one of his fits of displeasure.

“The literal translation is Magical Healing Cock.”

They wore matching bewildered expressions, “it’s used in magical practices to help channel sexual energies of the participants while they are,” I made the crude gesture learned from Dean indicating a certain sexual act.

“What the..magical sex..how can you..you’re a virgin!” Dean stumbled out before turning on Gordon, “you lying sonuvabitch, thought you could cheat us!”

Gordon moved quickly, wrapping an arm around my neck placed his pistol against my temple, using me as a shield.

“Since we can’t come to terms, I’ll take the virgin as compensation, she’ll bring me quite a bit of coin at Le marché des esclave AHHHH!” 

Gordon's scream echoed across the beach when I sliced his arm with the engraved silver blade I was given years ago. the whites of his eyes disappear revealing what he was before the beach erupted into pandemonium. 

The Winchester's men engaged Gordon's crew in a bloody battle as I struggled to escape his hold saw the brothers simultaneously fire their pistols and felt one iron ball pass my cheek embedding into that bastard's face as the other enters his chest, his dead weight dragging us down.

But instead of dying, Gordon pinned me under him, wrapping both hands around my throat heard Dean begin reciting, “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te..” 

Gordon looked up and flicked a hand sending Dean hurtling towards the treeline and Sam continued, “cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare, Vade, satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciæ, hostis humanæ salutis..Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei; contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine..”

His voice choked off from the invisible force constructing his throat I managed to wheeze out, “quem inferi tremunt..Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos!”

Gordon's head snapped back, his mouth exuding thick, black, sulfuric smoke plumes outward before penetrating the sand, the heat solidifying it into a jagged ring of black glass. The demons infesting his crew also smoked out to save themselves.

Benny checks Dean's bleeding head and helps him up, slapping his shoulder. Sam inspected my person, finding me uninjured except for finger-shaped bruises on my neck.

“Is this where the rogue pirate asks the princess can I kiss you?”

The surprise flickering across his face at my flippancy made Dean laugh, “alright princess, where the hell did you get that blade and learn to exorcize a demon?”

“My governess was from these islands. She passed her knowledge of the supernatural, and the blade, on to me.”

“Looks like the vierge is worth a lot more than I assumed,” Benny grudgingly remarked.

We spent the rest of the day split into groups:  I helped Sam attend to the injured, Dean led a group to search Gordon’s ship for anything worth salvaging while the rest gathered the bodies, rowing them out to deposit onboard setting it alight before sailing away.

In the pre-dawn light, the ships anchored in a deep water cove of another remote island to lay low for a few days, a chance to rest and recover plus replenish the water casks and some perishables. By late afternoon the necessities were squared away.

A tired-looking Sam had me gather bath sheets and a change of clothing while he grabbed some bread, cheese, and a small, tied bag, placing everything in a burlap sack then we boarded one of the longboats headed for shore.

He led us along a hidden path inland and noticed my fascination with the sight and sounds and began telling me the names of brightly colored birds, strange animals scurrying into the bush, and exotically scented flowers. 

My babbling with delight at finding fresh fruit and mint amuses him, gathering the fruit that’s out of my reach, and starts describing the variety of drinks and dishes they are used in to ward off scurvy..once a doctor.

I picked some of the mint leaves, added a few to the canteen, and began chewing on a couple when I heard running water follow the sound enter a secluded area with a small waterfall feeding a clear pool.

“I found this years ago, the waters are safe and no nasty critters to contend with,” Sam informed me, sitting the sack down on one of the flattened, water-smoothed rocks surrounding the pool digging out the small bag handed me one of the soap cakes.

The one thing I hated the most after leaving England was the inability to cleanse properly, especially my hair, for weeks, only allowed a cursory wipe down daily from the one water cask I was allotted. 

“We won’t be disturbed so take as long as you like. I’ll be on the other side,” he pointed to a grouping of bushes, “and able to hear you.”

Spending the night covered in sand, ash, and blood I wanted to tear my clothes off and dive in instead hesitantly asking, “are you still planning on selling me to this Alistair?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Keeping me would be advantageous for you.”

Sam leaned against a Bannon tree crossing his arms, “explain to me how keeping you would be advantageous?”

“One-thanks to the King, no one will miss me enough to cause trouble. Two-thanks to my governess, I’m knowledgeable about artifacts and other things that are not Christian, thus exposing Gordon's attempted deception. Three-thanks to my tutors, I speak six languages, well seven, if you include Latin, which saved your collective arses from those demons.  Four-thanks to my intended marriage and what you liberated from Captain Barrow's ship surpasses any monetary value you would make selling me.”

I had learned when Sam partially opened his mouth and rolled his tongue he was considering whatever was presented and decided to up the ante.

 “And five-you. You find me attractive, and would it not be far safer having me in your bed than those doxies of Tortuga to tup?” 

Sam frowned, “what do you know about doxies and tupping?” 

“Did your father never take you to court?” 

“No.”

“The King's court is riddled with some of the best whores in the world. Many were sent to France to train as courtesans and are encouraged to implement their charms to curry favors or seal deals. Several of the queens ladies-in-waiting educated me about copulation while avoiding the maladie française and pregnancy.” 

Sam’s throat rapidly bobbles at that tidbit.

Slowly moving towards him asked, “did you know that royalty isn’t permitted to bathe by themselves? It was always someone’s responsibility to ensure their personage is disease free.” I stop a handbreadth distance and fixate upon his chameleon eyes, “as the only person qualified, it falls upon you to continue monitoring my health.”

He moved so fast. Suddenly I was pinned between his well-muscled chest and the tree, his long fingers roughly tangled in my hair creating an exquisite pain jolting my core.

“Are you only offering to evade being sold off?”

“Maybe.”

  “If I were to keep you, you would be completely under our command.”

 “Please, what do you mean by our?”

“My brother and I equally share everything, this includes women.” I shuddered at the thought of being with his brother, “would you also share me with your crews?”

“No, Dean and I are possessive of our dames entretenues. Do you understand what that entails, princess?

“I would appreciate explicit clarification.”

“Explicitly,” Sam pulled my head to the side leans so close I can feel his lips against my skin as he spoke, “you will be warming one, or both, of our sheets every day,” he continues, “participating in whatever sexual gratification we desire.” I mewl when he bites down hard enough to leave a mark on the juncture of my shoulder, “unless it is time for your flow. Is that clarification enough?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Yes Sir,” he corrects.

“Yes Sir.”

Sam released me, “take off all of your togs.” 

Unabashedly he removed his shirt, “you pointed out it is my responsibility to keep you in good health so I need to examine your physique before engaging in relations charnelles.”

I had little to fear sleeping next to him the last few days but now at the prospect of what is going to happen, I felt trepidation while sliding off my trousers when Sam’s bare feet and calves appeared in view and he lifts my arms, gripped the hem of the shirt and pulls it over my head casting it off. 

Sam wasn’t the first man I saw in the altogether but still felt myself blushing fiercely at both of us taking inventory of everything on display, reminded of the old adage of proportions and a man's appendage undeniably true for him.  

Taking my hands he walks backwards into the warm water till I’m waist-deep then undoes the tie holding back my hair says, “take a deep breath and submerge yourself.” 

I resurface momentarily panicking at Sam’s overly large hands on my head, feeling his fingers lathered in soap cake, massaging my scalp, strangely soothing and exciting, like when he pulls my hair. 

After rinsing he handed me the soap cake, wetting himself then moving back knelt down on his knees in shallower waters.

I had washed my dogs when they came in muddy from the fields but never another person rubbed the cake between my hands then tentatively ran them through his locks, silkier than I’d imagined a man’s hair would be. 

When my short nails scratched his scalp, his muscles twitched and I trailed my fingers over their contours, tracing the scars decorating his skin and felt his breath brush my cheek moving towards my lips I dropped my hands, confusing him.

“I did not verbally agree to those terms,” maneuver back into the water call out, “I have some stipulations of my own,” and swam to the falls. 

I heard him curse and look back, unable to find Sam when he emerged from underwater lifting me onto one of the flattened rocks stood between my spread legs annoyed.

“What makes you think you’re in any position to negotiate terms?” A gentleman would endure only so much, and I had pushed my luck and his patience.

“I only have one. I do not wish to be shared with your brother.” Sam’s mouth downturned,  “something happened to him, it caused an unsettlement..it scares me,” suddenly I am very aware of how naked, not only physically, I had made myself.

I leaned back when Sam placed his hands on either side of me and brought him a bit too close, “what do you know about that?” 

“My governess figured out that I knew things about people just by being in their proximity. It’s why she taught me about the otherworld, said I had been born cursed and if they learned of it, they would come for me someday.”

Sam’s shoulders dropped and his expression saddened, skipping the worst details of what happened to Dean when he was under the tower, the darkest place to be imprisoned, run by a true connoisseur of medieval torturers, Alastair. 

I reached up cupping his cheek putting his focus back on me and tentatively brushing my lips against his he reciprocated, gently caressing mine when I felt his tongue and surprised open up, he inserts it, tangling with mine, showing what a real kiss can be.

His lips following his hands trailing over my bare skin makes me shiver and release a nervous giggle, I feel him smile against my neck, nipping the delicate, bruised skin and I tip my head back as he continues exploring.

At some point I find myself lying back on the rock, eyes closed, an absolute mess while he licks the water off my skin only to have his hair rewet the area and starts over again.

His long fingers brush a sensitive place inside, has me on the edge of needing something I cannot name, and every time I try descending into it, Sam stops and returns to teasing my nipples, suckling gently and twisting between his fingers. 

Jesu, how can a man have both; hands so violent and tender, lips harsh and caressing, at the same time feel a deep aching rising again, can almost taste it then, once again, halts touching me smugly asks, “still want to renegotiate the terms?” 

“Fuck you!” I yawp in frustration.

Sam’s expression changed to irate and bracing myself for the worst he leaned in..amused? 

I could only blink owlishly as he scans my prone form, lewdly splayed before him, chameleon eyes settle upon my pudenda licking his lips trailing fingers downwards over my heated skin inserting three into me, rubbing over that place dipping his head his talented tongue sends me over the plateau, and, without warning, lifts me up off the rock.

I find myself filled with his substantial membrum virile, waters churned up around us, not from the falls but his vigorous thrusting, now appreciating my thorough préparation for Riding St. George felt his muscles tauten, buried his face in the crook of my neck groaning out his release. 

My vaguely functioning mind is amazed after such a strenuous physical excursion he is still holding me in his arms, walks us to the shore, and sits with me clinging like one of the strange creatures explorers write about felt him silently chuckle. 

“Seems I missed learning a lot about ladies by never attending court,” I peer at him puzzled.

 “Dean will be pissed, he was looking forward to using this,” his fingertips trace the outline of my mouth, “for more than your verbal vitriol. Now I’ll have to sweeten the pot so he will forget about you with that very special pistol he’s been wanting.” 

“Are you saying what I think you are saying?”

“I agree to your counteroffer, princess” 

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx  @lyarr24  @flamencodiva  @b3autyfuldisast3r  @lassie-bird @nancymcl  @spnbaby-67  @leigh70

Sam/Jared:  @idreamofplaid

Dean/Jensen:  @thoughts-and-funnies  @stoneyggirl2  @akshi8278  @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl  @siospins2

[gilgalahad]

"On Good-Friday that event happened in Caithness that a man whose name was Daurrud went out.

He saw folk riding twelve together to a bower, and there they were all lost to his sight.

He went to that bower and looked in through a window slit that was in it, and saw that there were women inside, and they had set up a loom.

Men's heads were the weights, but men's entrails were the warp and weft, a sword was the shuttle, and the reels were arrows. They sang these songs, and he learnt them by heart:

"See! warp is stretched For warriors' fall, Lo! weft in loom

'Tis wet with blood; Now fight foreboding, 'Neath friends' swift fingers, Our grey woof waxeth With war's alarms, Our warp bloodred, Our weft corseblue.

"This woof is y-woven With entrails of men, This warp is hardweighted With heads of the slain, Spears blood-besprinkled For spindles we use, Our loom ironbound, And arrows our reels; With swords for our shuttles This war-woof we work; So weave we, weird sisters, Our warwinning woof.

"Now Warwinner walketh To weave in her turn, Now Swordswinger steppeth, Now Swiftstroke, now Storm; When they speed the shuttle How spearheads shall flash! Shields crash, and helmgnawer On harness bite hard!

"Wind we, wind swiftly Our warwinning woof Woof erst for king youthful Foredoomed as his own, Forth now we will ride, Then through the ranks rushing Be busy where friends Blows blithe give and take.

"Wind we, wind swiftly Our warwinning woof, After that let us steadfastly Stand by the brave king; Then men shall mark mournful Their shields red with gore, How Swordstroke and Spearthrust Stood stout by the prince.

"Wind we, wind swiftly Our warwinning woof. When sword-bearing rovers To banners rush on, Mind, maidens, we spare not One life in the fray! We corse-choosing sisters Have charge of the slain.

"Now new-coming nations That island shall rule, Who on outlying headlands Abode ere the fight; I say that King mighty To death now is done, Now low before spearpoint That Earl bows his head.

"Soon over all Ersemen Sharp sorrow shall fall, That woe to those warriors Shall wane nevermore; Our woof now is woven. Now battlefield waste, O'er land and o'er water War tidings shall leap.

"Now surely 'tis gruesome To gaze all around. When bloodred through heaven Drives cloudrack o'er head; Air soon shall be deep hued With dying men's blood When this our spaedom Comes speedy to pass.

"So cheerily chant we Charms for the young king, Come maidens lift loudly His warwinning lay; Let him who now listens Learn well with his ears And gladden brave swordsmen With bursts of war's song.

"Now mount we our horses, Now bare we our brands, Now haste we hard, maidens, Hence far, far, away."

Then they plucked down the woof and tore it asunder, and each kept what she had hold of.

Now Daurrud goes away from the slit, and home; but they got on their steeds and rode six to the south, and the other six to the north. A like event befell Brand Gneisti's son in the Faroe Isles."

Njal's Saga - Ch 156

Art Credit: Einherjar_manga

[fanfoolishness]

from the desert comes a song (Jedi: Survivor)

A spamel heeds the call from a wounded wanderer in the desert, and bears him on a difficult journey. Spoilers for Jedi: Survivor. Spamel POV (yes, really!), ANGST (yes, really!), Jedha, Cal needs all the hugs and the spamel needs them too. ~2000 words.

--

She and her brethren hid, sheltered in a stony cove held back rom the drifting sands.  They had long used this cloistered waypoint as a place to hide from predators, from the beasts that crawled and scuttled in the sands, to the two-legs in white armor with their blank staring eyes and their terrible weapons.  Now the smell of smoke drifted across the cold desert winds, and she bowed her head, hoping it would pass soon.

There was… something… nagging at her.  Something… calling.  She grunted, shaking her head.  Fear coiled deep within her, in her long legs, in her beating hearts.  The call grew louder, and she raised her head, listening not with her ears but with something deeper.  

The voice of the True Desert stirred within her.  All spamel knew it, the sense and spirit that lived in the singing winds and the shifting sands, in the beasts that walked and the beasts that flew, in the lichens and the desert scrub.  It connected them all, bound them together.  She had never sensed it so clearly as she did now, and it called in a desperate voice, a song that begged for aid.  The singer was in the greatest of need.  This she knew instinctively.

She nuzzled the neck of her mate, a low hum deep in her breast.  I must go, she whispered with scent and gentle huff of breath, and her herd understood.

---

The sands flowed beneath her steady hooves.  A storm raged, but she wove her way through destruction and fire and flame.  The desert was burning in a terrible battle, the white two-legs’ war.  She scented fear on the winds, and hatred, but she turned her muzzle from them.  She focused on the song stirring in her hearts, the need, woven deep into her spirit with a warmth unfamiliar in her land of cold and stone.  She quickened her pace, her legs lengthening into a speeding stride, and she stretched out her neck and she ran.

The song pulsed, carried deep in her veins.  She would find the singer.  She would help them.  It was the will of the True Desert, and she could not deny it, nor would she want to.

She stopped, suddenly uncertain.  There was wreckage here.  She made her way gingerly around it, one of the flying machines the two-legs used, both the desert-walkers and the white ones.  She bent to sniff the machine, and her muzzle twitched at the foul smell of fuel and raw metal, mingled with human scents of pain.  She raised her vast head and turned, the song growing clearer.

She passed the fallen in the sands, white ones with their weapons still warm beside them.  The scorched rock and glassed sand seared her nostrils, and she squinted, trying to see her way through the lingering smoke.

The soaring mesa loomed beyond her in the hazy air.  The song called, and for a moment she was lost; her kind could not ascend those jagged steppes.  Then she realized that the song was loudest here, among the mesa’s tumbled rocks and spikes at its mighty base.  She stepped precisely, mindful of her bulk; she did not want to harm the singer, even by mistake.

She stopped.  

There.

A small figure, facedown in the sand, dark clothing and red hair.  She stepped toward him purposefully, scenting blood and burnt flesh.  Compassion filled her.  He was wounded, then; surely that was the desperate note that she had heard within the song.

He did not stir, though she sensed he could feel her approaching.  She was so close now.  She reached out one spindled leg and gently, so gently, rolled him over.

He rolled limply with the weight of her hoof.  A scorch mark marred his chest, though she was relieved to see that still it rose and fell.  He was a human two-legs, perhaps one that had joined with the desert-walkers in their journeys through the wastes.  

She bent down, as low as her kind could, and huffed a breath across his face.

He woke.  His eyes opened, and he slowly sat up, taking deep, pained breaths.  He reached out a hand to her, and a shadow passed over his pale face.  

“Cere,” he gasped suddenly.  “Cere!”

She wondered at the word.  It meant nothing to her, but the song within her jangled, suddenly painful.  She nudged him again with her leg, and he staggered to his feet, swaying.

“Help me,” he whispered.  She held her leg against him, a brace that he could lean upon.  He shivered, then closed his eyes and leapt into the air, an impossible leap for one so small.  Yet he lit upon her back, light as a canyon bat, and rested his hands against her hide.  

She saw a place with eyes that were not her eyes, a shelter hidden in the crags and jutting stone, where the desert-walkers dwelled in peace and safety.  Where they had, until the white two-legs brought fire. She saw confused flashes of a weapon, of a human falling to the ground, of screams and a speeding flier.  She did not understand.  The singer’s song was garbled within her, spiking with a sharpness that made her flinch.  She roared her confusion, and the singer held on tighter, brushing her neck with his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he cried aloud into the wind.  “Just take me there, please.  I have to save them -- please, please -- GO!”

He did not try to speak in his own language again.  It was too hard.  She sensed a desperate hope, an aching loss, a need to make things better.  To help fix what had been lost.  To protect.  

She roared again, but this time with renewed purpose.  The vision coalesced once more into the hidden sanctuary.  That she could understand: a herd hiding with each other, trying to stay safe within the harshness of the desert.  Somehow this small human was a protector, one who fought against the predators, who helped his kind as the spamels helped each other.  She would not fail him; this she promised the True Desert.

She loped into a gallop, the human on her back jostling with every stride, and she swore she would bear him there in the greatest haste.  The voice of the True Desert welled within her, mingling with the human’s song, and for a moment, the music was something beautiful.

She would tell her young of this, someday; she would carry the memory of this journey with pride, all the days of her life.

Her feet flew across the sands, deftly staying to solid ground, avoiding the lairs of skriton and the pits of softsand.  She would follow her purpose, carrying the singer to his people, to where he could be safe and whole once more.  The wind rushed past them, and she galloped onward.

She galloped past the smoking hulks of machines, twisted and burning in the sand.  She galloped past white two-legs being pawed and set upon by scavengers as they lay broken.  She galloped even though her lungs burned, even though her legs ached.  She galloped with hope.  

She opened herself to the True Desert, and upon her back, she could feel the human do the same.  The song pulsed with purpose --

And then there was a shrieking, discordant wail, and the song went sour.

She faltered in a quiet canyon, her chest heaving.  The song jarred and stuttered within her, lashes of pain shivering from her neck to her withers.  She grunted in confusion.  What was happening?  This was not the pain of a predator attacking, nor the pain of a twisted hock, nor the pain of hunger or thirst.  She realized that it was not her pain at all.

The human slumped over onto her neck, burying his face in her hide.  He shivered on her back, his hands clawing against her skin, a feeble, broken feeling.  She stiffened.

It was… raining?

She had heard of rain, long, long ago, in songs still whuffed and hummed and rumbled by her kin.  It was nothing she had ever believed she would feel herself.  Could that really be what she felt, those soft droplets landing against her skin?

But something was wrong.  This was not rain from the old songs; they held memories of water falling from the sky, clean and fresh and everywhere, droplets on their heads and necks and backs.  

She smelled salt instead of fresh.  She felt water, but only where the human’s face rested against her hide.  And there was a sound no song of her people had described, a sound of keening, a sound of agony.  

The human wept against her, shattered with a terrible grief.  The song wailed, and she lowered her head and moaned into the wind.  

No more was there the desperate hope, woven in amongst the melody.  More images came to her, a woman with a weapon of light, a soul of light -- a light snuffed out.  She could sense the voice of the True Desert reverberating deep in the heart of the human on her back, a conduit that showed him visions, visions that flowed into her eyes, too.  And she understood.  

The True Desert had spoken to him.  His hope had crumbled.  

He already knew what he was going to find.

---

She did not run anymore.

She still carried the human, clinging to her back, careful not to unseat him.  While his chest still heaved, the rain he had brought had faded.  He did not push her to her greatest speed again, for that need had ended.  

They were already too late.

She crested the final hill, coming to the cleft in the canyon walls where the song had told her to go.  The dead littered the sand, white ones and desert-walkers both.  The fires had burned the detritus to ash.  She breathed deep of the smoldering rubble, though it scorched her nostrils and her throat with its foulness.  

She carried him, smoothly, past the wreckage to the secret entrance set within the rock.  For a moment, they gazed at the door.  Through the song she understood that part of him wished to flee.  To not face the truth that lay within.  They could turn back to the desert, to the temples rising among the rocky spires, to the empty lands beyond.  If he asked it of her, she would take him. 

But she knew, now, what he would choose.  She slowly lowered herself down as far she could, waiting for him to take the leap.

He shuddered.  Then he slid down, landing hard in the sand and stumbling.  She braced her leg against him, and he clung to it, sagging against her.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice a broken sound she heard more in the song than in her ears.  “I -- I know you did everything you could.  Thank you.”

And the song vanished, leaving her hollow and bereft.

She bowed her great head, nudging the human’s shoulder.  He leaned against her, reaching up to stroke her muzzle with a soft, trembling hand.  

Then he limped forward, raised his hands, and opened the door.

---

She did not reach the herd until nightfall.

She was too exhausted to help them understand, to share her journey.  Instead she made her way carefully to her mate, nuzzling him.  She gazed out at her mother, her grandmother, her sisters, the young ones.  

They were safe.  The True Desert had protected them, and the storm and battle had passed them by. 

They were safe, and the desert-walkers were not.

She twined her neck with her mate’s, seeking comfort, and she brayed with a sorrow she knew was not her own.

[jaybeewriting]

Silk Lung: A short story

Back then, everyone knew that when one of your kin fell to the Silk Lung, the only option was to bang on the Old Woman’s cottage door, offer her a gold coin and loaf of fresh bread, and beg her to save whatever was left of the invalid. When Piero did so, not long after his sister Lucretzia fell to coughing while ladling out his supper, the Old Woman appeared in all her aged splendor. Her gray hair was twisted into a dozen overlapping braids, her lined face bore the whips of time and a sour looking mouth. Her eyes were as brown as any bear’s and her ears as sharp as any bats. She glared at him, and when she spoke Piero felt as if she had touched his bones. “What do you want?”

Piero took a step back before remembering poor Lucretzia, red faced yet pale, struggling for breath as Mother hurriedly kneaded dough, and Father searched his trunk for any coin they could spare. He had to be brave for her. “Madonna, my sister has the Silk Lung, her body shivers from lack of air.” He held out the offerings in a basket tied with ribbons. “We beg you to help her.” The Old Woman sniffed. She plucked up the coin in her thick, steady hand and took a nibble of the bread. The crust was still warm. She shrugged and took the basket from him and laid it over her arm.

“Very well,” the Old Woman said. She fetched a cloak and a spindle from her house and then set off in the direction of Piero’s house, although he had not told her where it was. He padded after her, his many strides never seeming to match her long ones. 

As they neared the house, Lucretzia’s coughing could already be heard. The Old Woman stopped suddenly and Piero nearly tripped. He watched as she reached into the basket and drew out the coin, placed it on her tongue and swallowed it whole. Then she took the bread, crumpled it and scattered it across the yard. She seemed to consider the crumbs and the tidings they yielded. She looked at Piero, then held a finger to her lips. 

She went inside and ignored his parents’ thankful pleas. The Old Woman went straight to where Lucretzia lay in her cot and climbed atop her, pinning her to the bedsheets. Piero rushed in as Mother barely held Father back. 

“You, Piero,” the Old Woman called to him, although he had not said his name. “Take this spindle. When I tell you, you must spin.” Piero nodded and took the spindle. 

The Old Woman pried open Lucretzia’s mouth, shook her wrist and then stuck it down his sister’s throat. Piero heard Mother gasp, but he kept his eyes glued to the Old Woman as she reached further and further down, her arm seemingly lengthening until it caught hold of something. She raised her eyebrow, drew her arm out and held up the end of a white silken string. A spider’s web, pale and glistening. She passed it to him and cried, “Spin!” 

He did. As fast as he was able, the spindle twisted so fast under his fingers that smoke licked up from the flood boards. More and more silk passed from his sister’s lips as the Old Woman held her down. Then, just as the spindle was nearly full, the Old Woman jumped back and Lucretzia shot up in bed and, with a final croak, dislodged something from her throat. 

The iridescent yellow Lung Spider, covered in blood and saliva landed on the floor and before it could scuttle away, found the heel of the Old Woman’s boot. 

Splat.

The house was suddenly quiet, all thanks to the Old Woman. All thanks to Piero.

Mother and Father thanked the Old Woman, offering her more than they had in thanks but she waved them off, collected her cloak, and was gone. 

Piero sat beside the still panting Lucretzia and showed her the spindle, wrapped in the silk from her lung. “It’s supposed to be the strongest thread on earth,” he said. “What shall we use it for?”

Lucretzia ran her still shaking finger along the silk. “With this,” she said. “I shall weave you a mask so you may walk in the woods without fear.”

[whimsybrain]

I am wearing a dress of moonbeams, spun on a spindle of ice. It is cold against my skin, but I am just strong enough to bear it. The sleeves are fashioned out of the steam breath makes in winter air, and they are embellished with the largest and most shimmering snowflakes. When I walk, there is a faint chiming sound, as everything that is frozen sings.

[hexusproductions]

A little more Hush Weaver and Doctor Dalmatian that I wrote last night.

“Keep…working…keep…working…”

The voice continues, hushed and insistent at his ear. He can’t breathe, chest heaving, drenched with sweat. He’s sitting hunched over a desk, a pen shaking in one hand and papers pinned down in the other with enough force to tear.

There’s someone behind him, pacing back and forth, watching him. Waiting for him to finish, waiting for him to hurry up, he has a hundred things to do today and he’s working too slowly.

“Keep…working…keep…working…”

He scrawls out another sentence, squints his bleary eyes and rubs them. The words look blurry, it’s hard to make out what he wrote. He crumples the paper into a ball and tosses it away, starts again. It needs to be good. It needs to be great. Someone needs this, needs him to do this for them. They trust him, they rely on him, he can’t disappoint them.

“...”

He manages another paragraph. The pen slips in his throbbing fingers, sore from use and slippery with sweat. He drops it down onto the desk and holds a hand over his face. His teeth clench around a wave of nausea, acidic in the back of his throat. He slumps further over the desk, small tremors wracking through his body. He doesn’t make a sound, besides the sucking in of oxygen. The pacing behind him slows, and whoever’s behind him moves closer, closer. Looming over his shoulder. His free hand curls into a tight fist, papers sticking to the skin.

“It looks like you’re losing steam, Dalmatian…” The voice is somehow closer now, prying into his skull. Two hands curl around him from behind, every finger ending in a long, elegant gold claw like a spindle. One hand places itself against his chest, over his racing heart. The other curls around his throat, the very tips of the claws pricking into his jaw, and slowly pulls his head back. He gasps for air and squeezes his eyes shut. The palm pressing against his neck makes it even more difficult to find air, to find a moment to regain his bearings, regain himself. The voice speaks again, hissing comfort and reassurance, “That’s alright…you can always push forward again…” He swallows, wanting to shake his head, to give in and say No, no more, please. But he can’t. The voice is right, he can keep going. He has to.

He opens his eyes, and he lowers his head, swallowing once more involuntarily against his dry mouth. The contents of his stomach roils, and another tremor passes through him. He fights through the haze and the pulsing pain at his temples to concentrate.

A light appears in the vacuous space, at first tiny underneath the hand on his chest. Then it grows, becoming larger and brighter, filling the space with golden and glorious light. His vision becomes a little less blurry, his stomach settles, and the agony sparking through his brain lessens.

He unclenches his jaw, mouth falling open into a pant. His shoulders slump at his sides as the glow fades, darkness lashing out and reclaiming the space once more. He feels even more exhausted than before, but it’s enough to keep going. His hand moves, hesitates in the air. He pushes forward and takes the pen, pressing it to the page and starting again. The hands recede, claws dragging along the threads of his clothing and disappearing behind him once more. He thinks he hears a noise, a chuckle of satisfaction, of pleasure. It’s reassuring. He’s dependable, he’s making other people happy…it’s worth breaking himself down. He can always repair his injuries again, keep pushing forward, keep doing more. It’s worth it, it’s worth it, it’s worth it.

The pacing begins again, and his pen travels back and forth across the page, completing sentence after sentence. His eyes narrow, focusing on each word, on keeping his hand steady.

“Keep working…keep working…keep working…”

Keep working.

[hellsitesonlybookclub]

20k Leagues under the sea, Jules Verne

Part 2, Chapter 19 part 2

But the sky became more and more threatening. Symptoms of a hurricane became manifest. The atmosphere was becoming white and misty. On the horizon fine streaks of cirrhous clouds were succeeded by masses of cumuli. Other low clouds passed swiftly by. The swollen sea rose in huge billows. The birds disappeared with the exception of the petrels, those friends of the storm. The barometer fell sensibly, and indicated an extreme extension of the vapours. The mixture of the storm glass was decomposed under the influence of the electricity that pervaded the atmosphere. The tempest burst on the 18th of May, just as the Nautilus was floating off Long Island, some miles from the port of New York. I can describe this strife of the elements! for, instead of fleeing to the depths of the sea, Captain Nemo, by an unaccountable caprice, would brave it at the surface. The wind blew from the south-west at first.

Captain Nemo, during the squalls, had taken his place on the platform. He had made himself fast, to prevent being washed overboard by the monstrous waves. I had hoisted myself up, and made myself fast also, dividing my admiration between the tempest and this extraordinary man who was coping with it. The raging sea was swept by huge cloud-drifts, which were actually saturated with the waves. The Nautilus, sometimes lying on its side, sometimes standing up like a mast, rolled and pitched terribly. About five o’clock a torrent of rain fell, that lulled neither sea nor wind. The hurri cane blew nearly forty leagues an hour. It is under these conditions that it overturns houses, breaks iron gates, displaces twenty-four pounders. However, the Nautilus, in the midst of the tempest, confirmed the words of a clever engineer, “There is no well-constructed hull that cannot defy the sea.” This was not a resisting rock; it was a steel spindle, obedient and movable, without rigging or masts, that braved its fury with impunity. However, I watched these raging waves attentively. They measured fifteen feet in height, and 150 to 175 yards long, and their speed of propagation was thirty feet per second. Their bulk and power increased with the depth of the water. Such waves as these, at the Hebrides, have displaced a mass weighing 8,400 lbs. They are they which, in the tempest of December 23rd, 1864, after destroying the town of Yeddo, in Japan, broke the same day on the shores of America. The intensity of the tempest increased with the night. The barometer, as in 1860 at Reunion during a cyclone, fell seven-tenths at the close of day. I saw a large vessel pass the horizon struggling painfully. She was trying to lie to under half steam, to keep up above the waves. It was probably one of the steamers of the line from New York to Liverpool, or Havre. It soon disappeared in the gloom. At ten o’clock in the evening the sky was on fire. The atmosphere was streaked with vivid lightning. I could not bear the brightness of it; while the captain, looking at it, seemed to envy the spirit of the tempest. A terrible noise filled the air, a complex noise, made up of the howls of the crushed waves, the roaring of the wind, and the claps of thunder. The wind veered suddenly to all points of the horizon; and the cyclone, rising in the east, returned after passing by the north, west, and south, in the inverse course pursued by the circular storm of the southern hemisphere. Ah, that Gulf Stream! It deserves its name of the King of Tempests. It is that which causes those formidable cyclones, by the difference of temperature between its air and its currents. A shower of fire had succeeded the rain. The drops of water were changed to sharp spikes. One would have thought that Captain Nemo was courting a death worthy of himself, a death by lightning. As the Nautilus, pitching dreadfully, raised its steel spur in the air, it seemed to act as a conductor, and I saw long sparks burst from it. Crushed and without strength I crawled to the panel, opened it, and descended to the saloon. The storm was then at its height. It was impossible to stand upright in the interior of the Nautilus. Captain Nemo came down about twelve. I heard the reservoirs filling by degrees, and the Nautilus sank slowly beneath the waves. Through the open windows in the saloon I saw large fish terrified, passing like phantoms in the water. Some were struck before my eyes. The Nautilus was still descending. I thought that at about eight fathoms deep we should find a calm. But no! the upper beds were too violently agitated for that. We had to seek repose at more than twenty-five fathoms in the bowels of the deep. But there, what quiet, what silence, what peace! Who could have told that such a hurricane had been let loose on the surface of that ocean?

[leatherjacketmixtapes]

My 2022 in Books

This year I read 78 books which is a step down from the last few years (all 100+) but I'm trying to read in a more purposeful, slow way, trying to savor and absorb what I read, which is definitely a challenge since I've always been a very speedy reader.

There's a complete list below the cut of all the books, but here were my absolute favorites of this year:

Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton

Dracula - Bram Stoker (Dracula Daily was probably my favorite thing to ever happen on this beloved hellsite in the last 13 years)

The Storyteller - Dave Grohl (I'm not an audiobook person but it was such an experience listening to him read this)

Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry

Book of Night - Holly Black

The Key to Deceit - Ashley Weaver

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I loved so many of the others too, don't get me wrong, but those are the ones I know I'll be re-reading again before long (especially Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom, which I wanted to start reading again the very minute I finished them).

Off to start my 2023 reads now!

A Spindle Splintered - Alix E. Harrow

Ruin and Rising - Leigh Bardugo

Ruin and Rising - Leigh Bardugo

The Tea Dragon Society - Kay O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Tapestry - Kay O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Festival - Kay O’Neill

Flight, Vol. 7 - ed. Kazu Kibuishi

Boxers - Gene Luen Yang

Saints - Gene Luen Yang

The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures - N.D. Stevenson

Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World - Jack Kelly

Cemetery Boys - Aidan Thomas

The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan

These Violent Delights - Chloe Gong

This Is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Burning Down The Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Tim Mohr

The Puzzle Women - Anna Ellory

An Age Of License: A Travelogue - Lucy Knisley

True Love Bites - Joy Demorra

The Bear and The Nightingale - Katherine Arden

Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness

Under The Whispering Door - T.J. Klune

Rivers of London: Body Work - Ben Aaronovitch

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements - Sam Kean

Home and Exile - Chinua Achebe

Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other - Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish

Our Violent Ends - Chloe Gong

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab

The Paris Apartment - Lucy Foley

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Bert V. Royal

Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City - Kate Winkler Dawson

The Devil and the Dark Water - Stuart Turton

Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

Portrait of a Thief - Grace D. Li

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music - Dave Grohl

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

The Key to Deceit - Ashley Weaver

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry

Book of Night - Holly Black

Cryptid Club - Sarah Andersen

Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci

Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas - Sara Lorimer

The House in the Cerulean Sea - T.J. Klune

hir - Taylor Mac

All Boys Aren’t Blue - George M. Johnson

The Wedding Date - Jasmine Guillory

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Y. Davis

Other Birds - Sarah Addison Allen

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Demon in the Wood - Leigh Bardugo

The 39 Steps - John Buchan

Wade in the Water: Poems - Tracy K. Smith

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Five Orange Pips - Arthur Conan Doyle

She Who Became The Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan

While Justice Sleeps - Stacey Abrams

Cinnamon - Neil Gaiman

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper - Hallie Rubenhold

Persuasion - Jane Austen

Illuminae - Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

No Bones - Anna Burns

Mercury - Hope Larson

Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (re-read)

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - August Wilson

Year of the Reaper - Makiia Lucier

The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow

Paper Girls, Volumes 1-6 - Brian K. Vaughan

[nervousmusickingdom]

Grinding in Manufacturing: How It Works and Why It’s Important

Grinding is a fundamental process in various industries, including manufacturing, construction, and engineering. It involves the use of abrasive materials or tools to remove unwanted substances, smooth out surfaces, or sharpen cutting tools. Grinding has been an essential process for centuries, with ancient civilizations using primitive grinding stones to process grains and other materials. In this article, we will delve into the world of grinding, exploring its definition, types, applications, and key facts.

What is Grinding?

what is grinding is a machining process that uses abrasive particles or surfaces to remove material from a workpiece. The process involves the interaction between the abrasive material and the workpiece, resulting in the removal of unwanted substances, such as metal, stone, or wood. Grinding can be performed using various tools, including grinding wheels, sandpaper, and abrasive belts. The choice of tool depends on the type of material being ground, the desired surface finish, and the level of precision required.

Types of Grinding

There are several types of grinding processes, each with its unique characteristics and applications. Some of the most common types of grinding include: surface grinding, cylindrical grinding, internal grinding, and centerless grinding. Surface grinding involves grinding flat surfaces, while cylindrical grinding is used to grind cylindrical or spherical surfaces. Internal grinding is used to grind internal surfaces, such as holes and bores, while centerless grinding is used to grind cylindrical surfaces without the use of centers or spindles.

Applications of Grinding

Grinding has a wide range of applications across various industries. In manufacturing, grinding is used to smooth out surfaces, remove burrs, and sharpen cutting tools. In construction, grinding is used to polish concrete, marble, and other stone surfaces. In engineering, grinding is used to precision-grind components, such as gears, bearings, and engine parts. Grinding is also used in the food processing industry to grind grains, spices, and other food products.

Key Facts About Grinding

Here are some key facts about grinding: Grinding is a precision process that requires careful control of the abrasive material, tool speed, and feed rate. Grinding can be performed using various coolants, such as water, oil, or air, to reduce heat generation and improve surface finish. Grinding wheels are made from a variety of materials, including silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, and diamond. The choice of grinding wheel depends on the type of material being ground and the desired surface finish.

Safety Precautions

Grinding can be a hazardous process if proper safety precautions are not taken. Some of the common hazards associated with grinding include: flying particles, noise, vibration, and heat generation. To minimize these hazards, operators should wear personal protective equipment, such as safety glasses, gloves, and earplugs. Grinding machines should also be equipped with safety features, such as guards and dust collectors, to prevent accidents.

Conclusion

Grinding is an essential process in various industries, including manufacturing, construction, and engineering. It involves the use of abrasive materials or tools to remove unwanted substances, smooth out surfaces, or sharpen cutting tools. By understanding the definition, types, applications, and key facts about grinding, operators can optimize the grinding process to achieve precise results and minimize hazards. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a beginner, grinding is a fundamental process that requires careful attention to detail and a commitment to safety.

[7r0773r]

The Opposite House by Claudia Emerson

Ephemeris

The household sells in a morning, but when they cannot let the house itself go for the near-nothing it brings at auction, the children, all beyond their middle years, carry her back to it, the mortgage now a dead pledge of patience. Almost emptied, there is little evidence that she ever lived in it: a rented hospital bed in the kitchen where the breakfast table stood, a borrowed coffee pot, chair, a cot for the daughter she knows, and then does not. But the world seems almost right, the near- familiar curtainless windows, the room neat, shadow-severed, her body's thinness, like her gown's, a comfort now. Perhaps she thinks it death and the place a lesser heaven, the hereafter a bed, the night to herself, rain percussive in the gutters— enough. But like hers, the light sleep of spring has worsened—forsythia blooming in what should be deep winter outside the window—until it resembles the shallow sleep of a house with a newborn in it, a middle child she never saw, a boy who lived not one whole day (an afternoon? an evening?) sixty years ago in late August. And as though born without a mouth, like a summer moth, he never suckled and was buried without a name. She had waked to that— that cusp of summer, crape myrtles' clotted blooms languishing, anemic, the cicadas exuberant as they have always been in their clumsy dying. This middle-born is now the nearer, no, the only child. The undertaker's wife has not bathed and dressed him; the first day's night instead has passed, quickening into another day, and another, and he is again awake, his fist gripping a spindle of turned light, and he is ravenous in his cradle of air.

***

Lock

After the Emily Dickinson traveling exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., 12 April 2012

I noticed the quick wore off those things... - EMILY DICKINSON, ON DAGUERREOTYPES

The evening includes a reception, wine and hors d'oeuvres with the curator, lighthearted discussion of the various diagnoses, hypotheses long debated—depression, lesbianism, grief, agoraphobia, the kind of anxiety a cat has about the threshold, and the most recent theory—epilepsy; that would explain it all, they say, spasmodic punctuation, reclusiveness, the shame, everything, the hour of lead, at last, unlocked. On display: one of her beloved nephew Gilbert's boyhood suits, velveteen, and beside it the contents of his morning's pocket—a bullet's spent casing, a wad of tangled string; drafts of more famous poems bearing clearly the needle-piercings where she sewed one to another—the sutures of a fascicle's finishing undone; what is thought to be the only image ever made of her, of which she disapproved, here, itself, as yet without compare; and next to it, the something rare, unexpected, lock of her hair—the shape and circumference reminiscent of a sparrow's nest, the color she likened to a chestnut bur. She had brushed, cut, coiled, and folded it into an envelope, then sent it to someone, letter-like. Everyone lines up to photograph it with their phones, when what they must truly desire is to touch it, as though they might feel the sheen it retains. And while they can never get close enough, they will never be any closer than this to what it does not tell them, and they are desperate for all that that might mean.

[butmakeitgayblog]

Medusa and the Blind Woman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come to me, my love

Across fields full of lilies at night

The stars shining overhead 

Are witnesses to our love 

As bright as the sky.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Coming sorta soon to an AO3 tab near you)

She crashes in on an easterly wave. 

One that threatens the bare spindles of a long dead port. The wind bites at stilts gnarled by sea salt and the negligence of time, threads of frayed twine whipping in retaliating lashes against the onslaught versus sturdy grecian wood. 

Lexa watches from on high, eyes on mastheads and white sails in the distance when she takes a moment to admire her only non-hissing companion, the sea. She stands an eagle in her nest of serpentine thorns, as the speck of a sailor draws near from the horizon, boat marching on the back of winds that carry it onward. The ocean howls of intruders long before they arrive, the swishing churn of embattled rip tides announcing the threat among rustled gusts and spits of algae foam. 

It's all become so painfully predictable. 

Lexa sighs at the sight of them marching on toward her fortress. 

A sinking weight floods her stomach, weary resignation presses heavy against her throat.

The grip of her spade tightens as she reminds herself they mean nothing to her morning, to her schedule, that must be kept. What with the chill slipping through the cracks of a waning afternoon sun setting quick on the intruder's horizon. 

She doesn't bother to watch their approach further, instead keeping her thoughts to steady hands that churn earth and crumble stone, driving her blade against charcoal and turning it to soot. She checks her moorings to the west and fells a few fresh saplings for kindling. Nuisances in that particular corner of her nest of thorns, ones she's been waging a losing battle with for ages.

Her thoughts scatter like the seed and silt that pour through the calloused cracks of her fingers, wondering—

A sharp whine fills the air below, followed by a screech and crash of splintering wood. A thunderous boom echoes along the rockside loud enough to shake the very gravel under her feet followed by a full chested bellow.

"Gods damn it all!"

Lexa straightens from her work at the cry of anger, loud enough to have her dropping her tools where she stands. Loud enough to send a shiver across her scalp that hisses and spits its welcome in return. 

She slips past brambles and thickets of overgrowth. Moves between boulders and shrugging aside the hang of vine, winding her way to the edge of her oasis. The sweet scent of honeysuckle mixes with sea water as she moves close to the rocky ledge of the cliff shore. 

Careful to stay hidden, tucked neatly in the shadows, she lifts a few leaves on the tips of her finger to see her would be… captors…

Or. Captor.

The waters are littered with floating bits of dock and warped wood, now useless and broken into a thousand tiny shards that bob their way back out into the wild. 

In its place is a boat. 

A rather meager boat, Lexa notes to herself at the feel of a nose nudging her cheek. A vessel of one lonely single seat, barely a rod for a mast, with two matching oars on each side. 

The very sight of its paltry build makes her frown. Her lips drop open shock as she looks past the debris of the wreckage to the fleeing white sails receding into the burgeoning twilight distance. 

Another screeched caw from a circling bird above makes Lexa jump, ignoring the snap and hiss in her ear at the same time the air fills with a strained, "Oh shut up!"

Well.

This is certainly not what she had expected. 

Because…

She's blonde. 

Her apparent assassin is… blonde.

And decidedly less muscular than she'd become accustomed to. Not the type bearing rippling muscles, or the thuggish brawn born of beating one's own chest.

This assassin is downright… dainty. 

Dressed in a simple white shift in place of the bronze and pounded silver chest plate that Lexa is used to, stands a woman with sun laden ribbons of spun gold hair, bare of the usual swords and shield expected of such a journey and instead grasping a rather pathetic looking stick. Her face is cloaked in a curtain of wispy strands of gold, darkened by sea spray and the looming cliffs above as she fiddles with a satchel tied to her hip. She tussles with the strings, fingers awkward as she struggles to keep hold of the long spindle stick while fighting a losing battle with a knot that ignores her angered muttering. 

Lexa watches from the safety of the shadow's edge as the intruder goes about her various tasks. She watches her reach out and smack the end of the stick in her hand along the ground in sweeping thunks. Watches her do a slow sort of pirouette, a kind of turn here and there as she taps each stone and rock around her in a series of dull clicks. Her steps seem timid, calculated in the way they shuffle and pause and then go again, as her head twists slightly at every creak of the trees that bend toward the skyline, every crash of the tide, every chirp of a bird that follows. 

She watches the woman zigzag a line away from the wreckage of splintered wood and sails, weaving her way in measured footsteps and the incessant tapping of her stick. 

Lexa glances toward the two beady eyes staring at her and gives an equally mystified shrug. 

It's only when she comes close, dangerously close to the ridge cut in the cliff face that leads to the well worn path inland that Lexa finally finds her voice. 

"Who are you?"

The peculiar tapping stops on the sharp cut of a startled scream. "Hades in hell!" 

The hand not brandishing the stick clutches at her chest as she takes a half spin, the stick coming up in a wild arch like a sword apparently ready to slice the air in battle. 

Lexa frowns from the safety of her shadowed nook at the ridiculous display below. "If you wish to keep your life, turn back. Now."

The woman makes another half turn in her direction, face lifted and eyes screwed shut. "Where are you? This place is like an amphitheater."

"Your search is in vain! I said—"

"Give me a left or right, lady," she cuts her off impatiently, the stick shaking but still held vaguely menacingly aloft. "Clap or something so I at least know I'm not talking to a tree."

"Leave," Lexa booms with all the might of her weary bones, feeling her words reverberate against the stone embankment and echo into her chest. Power courses through her as she watches her idiotic, would-be killer startle and stumble back… only to right herself and throw her hands up in a huff. 

"Fine! I'll just shout at whatever, since apparently that's what you do here!" The stranger slams the stick down on its point, burying it deep into the sand and leans her weight against it, wobbling only slightly with a heaving sigh. "Listen. Just relax a minute and listen to me."

Only the crashing waves and panting drags of her breath echoes in the silence.

"Alright," she says as Lexa seethes and looks on. "My name is Clarke. I'm not… one hundred percent sure where I am, but if I am where I should be, I need you to know that I was sent here by my people, okay? I didn't choose to be here—"

"That does not matter!"

"I know that!" this woman, this Clarke, snaps right back. "I know you're pissed, you've made that abundantly clear, but what I'm saying is, whatever you think I'm here to do, believe me when I say, I am not."

"I think you're here to kill me," Lexa says in all but a growl.

Clarke throws the arm she's not leaning on into the air. "Then it's a wonderful thing we're having this chat, because I'm not."

Lexa's jaw aches with how hard she grits her teeth at the snark soaked rebuttal. "Then what are you here for?"

"I already said I didn't have a choice. I was just shipped off here and told to—." Lexa watches the woman swallow down the rest of her words, blonde hair swaying with the shake of her head. "Look, it doesn't matter what I was told to do. I'm not interested in fighting anyone else's battles right now. All I plan to do is squat here for a few weeks, work on my tan, fix my gods forsaken boat, and get out of your hair… Or uh, not your— The, with the— I'm assuming, if you are— If you're —"

"Why shouldn't I strike you down where you stand?" Lexa calls over the pathetic bumbling of the woman below. "I stay to the shadows for your safety, grace you with an opportunity to flee for your life. Why should I not step forward and let you see the face of your end?"

All Clarke does is snort. "Yeah, good luck with that."

Fingernails digging into the weathered bark of the tree does nothing to soothe the surge of anger that rises in Lexa's chest. She watches as the stranger seems to sigh to herself. The stick gets yanked from where it'd been buried in the sand and shook off.

And then the damn tapping starts again.

"What is that you are doing?" Lexa calls in a huff.

The woman flops a careless hand in her general direction as she calls back, "Playing a real fun game called trying to not break my neck. You can't tell?" and taps the stick against a hip sized boulder along its side and up the top, and then moves on to it's sister to the right in a few series of clicks. 

Lexa watches her repeat this process several times over, wandering in short bursts until finding another object of interest before starting the process all over. She watches that face turn up, eyes still shut tight, pausing and leaning and listening to every roll of the waves, every rustle of wind, every minute chirp of birds.

It's only when a head butts her temple and black beady eyes slip closed and stay closed, when the tip of Clarke's stick finds the gnarled roots of an upended tree and the woman chances a feel with her hands along the rough bark that it all finally makes sense.

"You're blind."

She says it more to herself than anyone, long since used to the lack of audience that can talk back, but the astute observation still earns her laugh. One topped with a tired smile from that unseeing face as she eases down onto the overturned tree for a rest. 

"Whew. Nothin' gets past you."

[dh5ryxhgbctgr]

Global Air Spindle Market Overview and Strategic Growth Analysis 2024 - 2031

The global air spindle market is experiencing significant growth due to advancements in technology and increasing demand for precision manufacturing across various industries. This article explores the key drivers, challenges, emerging trends, and regional insights within the air spindle market.

Market Dynamics

The air spindle market is positioned for significant growth as industries increasingly prioritize precision, efficiency, and sustainability.

Key Drivers

Technological Advancements

Innovations in air spindle technology are enhancing performance and efficiency. Developments in air bearing designs and control systems are allowing for higher speeds, greater stability, and improved reliability. These advancements are crucial for industries that require precise machining and manufacturing processes.

Demand for Precision Engineering

The need for precision in manufacturing is rising, particularly in sectors such as aerospace, medical devices, and electronics. Air spindles provide low vibration and friction, making them ideal for applications that demand high levels of accuracy. This trend is driving increased adoption of air spindles in various industries.

Rise of Automation

The shift towards automation in manufacturing is a significant factor in the growth of the air spindle market. Companies are integrating air spindles into automated systems to enhance productivity and reduce operational costs. This trend reflects a broader movement towards smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 initiatives.

Challenges

High Initial Costs

One of the primary challenges facing the air spindle market is the high initial investment required for these systems. The cost can be a barrier, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises that may find it difficult to allocate budget for advanced technology.

Maintenance Complexity

Air spindles require regular maintenance and specific operational conditions to function optimally. The complexity involved in maintaining these systems can deter some potential users, especially those lacking the necessary technical expertise.

Emerging Trends

Increasing Adoption in 3D Printing

The integration of air spindles in 3D printing applications is gaining traction. Their ability to enhance speed and precision makes them valuable in producing complex geometries and high-quality prints. As the 3D printing market continues to expand, air spindles are likely to play a crucial role.

Focus on Sustainable Manufacturing

With sustainability becoming a priority in manufacturing, companies are increasingly seeking energy-efficient solutions. Air spindles, which operate with minimal energy loss and waste, align with these goals. Their adoption can contribute to reducing the overall environmental impact of manufacturing processes.

Regional Analysis

North America

North America holds a significant share of the air spindle market, driven by advanced manufacturing capabilities and a strong aerospace sector. The presence of key players and ongoing investments in research and development are supporting market growth in this region.

Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region is poised for substantial growth due to rapid industrialization, increasing investments in manufacturing technology, and a rising demand for precision engineering. Countries such as China, Japan, and India are leading this development, driven by their robust manufacturing sectors.

Europe

Europe is focusing on high-tech manufacturing solutions, particularly in aerospace and automotive industries. The demand for air spindles in these sectors is driving market expansion, supported by strong regulatory frameworks and a commitment to innovation.

Future Outlook

The global air spindle market is expected to continue its growth trajectory, fueled by ongoing technological advancements and increasing demand for precision across various sectors. Key players are likely to focus on innovation, product development, and strategic partnerships to enhance their competitive advantage.

Conclusion

The air spindle market is positioned for significant growth as industries increasingly prioritize precision, efficiency, and sustainability. Understanding the key drivers and challenges will be essential for stakeholders looking to capitalize on emerging opportunities within this evolving landscape.