#also freezes. he’s naturally cold and all but man he is suffering in anything below 40°f

[pleniloon]

Hands

characters: ayaka, diluc, ei, ganyu, kaeya, thoma, zhongli

warnings: thoma’s leaked namecard below the cut :)

note: just,,, ideas about hands and hand-holding. idk man. i’ll probably do a part 2 if this does well. this isn’t beta-read or anything but that’s ok, i’ll die on this hill <3

⋆ kaeya’s hands are definitely colder than most. his hands aren’t freezing, but they’re quite chilly. they lean to the slender side.

⋆ his hands aren’t manicured and perfect, but he takes care of them. his nails are trimmed, he uses lotion regularly, etc. etc.

⋆ kaeya’s a talented swordsman,,, his hands are rough and callused despite the constant care. it’s proof of his experience. his fingers suffer the worst of it due to the gloves he always wears.

⋆ he’s got a few scars - again, mainly on his fingers. they’re not usually visible unless you’re looking for them. he’s confident that the scars add to his charm and he’s right.

⋆ his hands are very expressive; he moves them a lot when he talks. he’s generally doing something with his hands when sitting still, too. it’s rare that you’ll actually see him be completely still.

⋆ you’d think that he loves pda, and you’d be right. sort’ve. kaeya holds your hand when you’re in public, but only if it’s less busy. hand-holding is something he considers intimate, so he reserves it for times when you two are alone, or at least off-duty.

⋆ please invest in gloves that cover your entire hand kaeya

⋆ diluc’s hands are extremely warm - the polar opposite of kaeya’s. they’re a little larger and have prominent veins.

⋆ they’re rough and worn from years of battle. between a pyro vision, delusion, and claymore, his hands have suffered a fair amount of abuse. his gloves help a little, but not enough to leave his hands soft and smooth.

⋆ that said, his hands are oddly comforting. they’re warm and his touch is somehow gentle despite the rough texture. he’s also got a firm grip.

⋆ overall i think his hands are just,,, nice? you wouldn’t hold his hand for the feeling of it, you’d hold it for the sensation. he definitely rubs the back of your hand with his thumb when he’s not thinking about it.

⋆ you know how wearing a pair of wool gloves feels? that.

⋆ ganyu’s hands are delicate. definitely slender, and never too cold or too hot.

⋆ everything about her hands is well-maintained. despite thousands of years of battle, her skin is soft and free of scars, and her hands are pretty much never dirty. she takes great care of her hands.

⋆ ganyu strikes me as the type to polish her nails - likely with a protective polish to keep her nails from breaking during work or battle. nothing too fancy.

⋆ she tends to fidget nervously when she doesn’t have something to do. she’ll often clasp her hands together or tap her fingertips against her thighs. to avoid senseless fidgeting, hold her hand.

⋆ like with diluc, you wouldn’t hold her hand just for the feeling. holding ganyu’s hand is an experience that you should be grateful for. her grip is gentle, almost shy, but you can feel the power under her fingertips. she is a half-adeptus, after all.

⋆ i literally could go on about ganyu for hours

⋆ zhongli’s hands are firm. he has longer fingers, and his hands are overall large. despite this, they’re quite slender.

⋆ seeing as he uses a vessel, his hands are smooth and free from any scar or blemish. no matter how often he trains with his polearm or how severe his injuries are, his hands will always remain clean.

⋆ speaking of clean, he 100% has a very in-depth routine. i’m talking about a 30 minute routine every single night. he also only uses natural products, some of which are impossible to get nowadays.

⋆ holding his hand,,, sigh <3. he never squeezes too tight or holds your hand too loosely. he always removes his glove because he loves the skin-on-skin contact.

⋆ all the sappy things aside, when you hold his hand, you feel the power under his fingertips. he’s a god and the former geo archon, after all. it’s almost like a buzz, like something you can sense but not quite touch. if you hyper-focus on it, it might even tickle.

⋆ he’ll never admit it, but zhongli loves comparing hand sizes <3

⋆ ei and her shogun puppet are drastically different, both in mind and body.

⋆ the shogun is perfect, with slender hands and skin so soft it doesn’t even feel real. her hands are neither cold nor hot. ei, however, has slightly warmer skin, with electricity crackling under her fingertips.

⋆ the shogun is not one for hand-holding. she is a machine built for a single purpose: eternity. that being said, if you do somehow convince her to hold your hand, it’s… underwhelming.

⋆ the shogun holds your hand similar to how she’d hold a cup. or her naginata. there’s no love behind it. she’ll only indulge you as long as her patience lasts, or until she has an excuse to leave.

⋆ ei could not be more different. on the rare occasion she leaves her plane of euthymia or welcomes you in, she loves holding your hand. if it’s been a long time, you might get a little accidental electrical shock.

⋆ in short, ei is a sweetheart. the shogun is not.

⋆ ayaka’s hands are very similar to ganyu’s. slender, delicate, and well-cared for. they tend to be a little chilly, though.

⋆ ayaka tries her best to maintain the appearance expected of a noble lady. she has a nightly and morning routine, and has learned proper etiquette.

⋆ that being said, she is experienced with a blade. if you look very closely at her hands, you’ll notice the calluses from her sword handle. ayaka tries to take care of them, she really does, but it can’t be helped.

⋆ unfortunately, holding her hand isn’t an everyday thing. she has to maintain appearances, and that includes restricting pda. when you do hold hands, she’s a little shy.

⋆ ayaka loves intertwining her fingers with yours. despite her near-constant blush, she loves the little intimate things. if you rub the back of her hand with your thumb, or lightly squeeze her hand when she’s nervous, or kiss the back of her hand, her face is red and she’s using her fan to hide her smile.

⋆ she’s literally just so adorable and lovesick it kills me

⋆ thoma’s hands are warm. he takes his duties as the chief retainer very seriously, so his hands are a little rough from the constant work.

⋆ he has a few small scars, mainly from minor (or even silly) injuries. he maintains his hands, but doesn’t have much time for an extensive routine. wanna melt his heart? rub lotion on his hands for him <3

⋆ holding his hand,,, so lucky <3 thoma loves, loves, loves, holding hands!! due to his position, he can’t engage in pda very often, but when you’re walking down the beach at sunset or strolling through the city when he’s not working, he’s holding your hand the entire time.

⋆ he plays with your fingers all. the. time. he just adores every little thing about you. he’ll swing your arms when you walk and absentmindedly rub the back of your hand with his thumb, and kiss your hand when you depart.

⋆ the thing that kills you, though, is whenever you two are sitting together or cuddling, and he puts his hand on top of yours. just to be close to you. he’s very clingy, if you couldn’t tell.

⋆ listen i know he’s my favorite ok let me ramble

[shiedagabe]

The Dream

Today was the day. Today was the day Heath had finally invited you to go to the local carnival, and it appears it was just in time, for today was the spooky month. You could see all types of decorations sprinkled and scattered around town: haunting ghosts hanging from street lamps, jack-o’-lanterns laying on the heavily decorated porches, ready to give unsuspecting kids a good scare, houses decorated like abandoned mansions, each one of them filled with enthusiastic and joyous actors; it couldn’t get any more perfect than this. You latched onto his tall arm, resting your head on it. He was surprised, even startled at first, but he looked at you with his brown eyes, ones which perfectly encapsulated the universe in its entirety. In them you could see everything, from the reflection of the nearby neighborhood and its decaying trees, which leaves fell smoothly because of the calming breeze. Each one of those leaves was unique in their own way; their color brought calm respite to those who admired them; to the immense forest that seamed ever-growing, for each time you looked at him you could see another tree in his immense greenwood, another dream in an innocent soul. He smirked at you, reassuring you that everything was okay, and even though you weren’t in any danger or expecting to be, that smile brought your heart to a calm rest. You decided to pick this neighborhood not only because Heath knew a lot of people that lived here, but also because you wanted to admire these small little trinkets that the town left around, they filled your heart with glee. You knocked on some doors, with your inner child mind jumping around happily, trick or treating the unsuspecting town folk, all in good spirit. They were surprised to see you together, they had no idea you had started dating, but they were more than happy to know that. Most of them invited you two to have dinner at their house since they hadn’t seen you in such a long time because “You had something more important to do”, his words, not yours.

You had finally arrived at the carnival and your bags were already filled to the brim with sweets and treats. You had so many rides to try out, so many haunted mansions to visit, you honestly thought you were only going to leave at the break of dawn, and you relished that idea immensely. You decided to start at the skeet shooting gallery, one that fascinated you because you never had any experiences with firearms, but always had a strong feeling towards. “Are you ready?” the carnival man asked, looking at you with a terrifying smile. He had makeup on, like, too much makeup, but it sure did set the mood for this wonderful night. He looked like the Devil incarnate, but you could see that his eyeliner was already fading; maybe he did this sort of thing as a way to get money and regretted his decision immensely, but you were too afraid to ask. You grabbed the shotgun and as soon as the plates started flying, the recoil hit your face. Heath laughed for a bit, but he noticed that you had a huge red spot on your face, so he caressed it slowly and told you how to hold it properly: “Look, you have to hold up the stock up to your cheek and you have to wedge its butt in your shoulder pocket, like this.” – He said, as he grabbed your hands and placed them properly, you could feel the difference in temperature, fluctuating in a battle against something you had ever known. His palms were hot and warm; they reassured you that what you were doing was right. His fingers, however, were rigid and freezing, cursed by Demeter to be forever cold, yet, somehow, you found comfort in them, and they enveloped your hands and put them where they should be. After trying for a couple of times, you finally managed to shoot down a plate or two. You were happy, really happy, and so was he, he gave you a big hug and whispered something into your ear – “Now watch and learn”. He paid the carnival man to give him another shot and he managed to shoot every single plate down, well, except for one. He blamed that the wind had gotten into his eye, but the man didn’t care because he had finally seen a happy couple, so he let this one slide and asked him to pick a prize. He turned his head to face yours, with a look that said “It’s all yours, pick what you want”. You excitedly asked for the giant fluffy mind flayer plushy, its dark robes and tentacle-like nature fascinated you, for you have never seen one before, and you found it really cute, although mysterious. You decided to try a couple more rides before the big finale, such as the whack-a-mole and the bumper car ride. Now that you think about it, the latter was the most fun attraction you had had in a while. You had to sit in different cars because the operator wouldn't let you ride them together, but you had a blast while doing so. Every time you crashed into each other you looked at each other in the eyes and laughed it off, but whenever someone crashed into you, you two would tag team that person and effectively turn them into a metal sandwich. You were making jokes and were constantly laughing, the night couldn’t have ended in a better way, but both of you wanted to try the miniature London Eye out. It was a perfect replica or the British attraction, but it was sized down as to give everyone a chance to ride it. He once again bought the tickets, and it just now hit you that he had been paying for everything the entire time. You pulled and tugged his shirt, but he already knew what you were nagging him about. He merely placed his finger over your lips and, with a quiet shush, reassured you that it was okay. You never had much money to begin with, but you felt bad letting him pay for every single ride at the carnival, but with that small little gesture you felt at ease and comfortable around him.

As you sat on the ride, you were jumping on the seat, excited to finally see the beautiful landscape that lied beyond the light-infected streets. As you reached the top you could see everything you had ever imagined. The city, which lit up amazingly with its yellow sheen, reminding you that every single one of those lights had a purpose, a meaning; they represented each individual that lived there; the forest, immense in its nature, dark and gloomy, hiding secrets that will forever be unknown to humanity. As you saw the ever-distant trees you turned to look at your significant other and he, too, was appreciating the beauty of this gargantuan view. “Isn’t this amazing?” – He asked, without turning his head to face you. “It really is.” – You replied, placing your hand on his firm leg. He looked at you, his eyes were darkened because of the poorly lit atmosphere the ride had, and his gaze reminded you of the timberland below. You held his hand to pull him in for a kiss, but you noticed that it started flaking off rapidly, revealing something which you couldn’t even imagine. His flesh was made of void of indiscernible quality, pure and fresh. You freaked out and screamed, because you had never seen such a thing before. “Are you alright?!” – You screamed, turning to look at his face to see what reaction he would have, but it was no longer there. What lied was an amalgamation of faces and countenances, all screaming in agony, trying to leave this immortal bastion. All of them were unrecognizable, they meshed together, malformed and contorted, and uttered of unspeakable horrors they had suffered, simultaneously. You threw yourself into the corner, trying to get away from this…, wicked and fowl beast, but it grew larger and larger. He, or better, it started scratching what was left of his skin, revealing something unnatural, eldritch, even. It had an uncountable amount of tentacles and eyes, faces and screams, all of them made of pure and unadulterated void, black and unalloyed as the night, and all of them had their eye on you. You closed your eyes and covered your face with your hands, waiting for this nightmare to end, but you suddenly felt a limp appendage touch your shoulder. You peeped through your hands, only to see his face in the millions of others that had joined his and, in an uncoordinated choir, it only managed to say this: “I love you, it wasn’t your fault”.

You jumped out of your bed, startled and afraid, grabbing your plushy as soon as you saw it. You held it near and dear to your heart, squeezing it as hard as you could because you were glad this nightmare was finally over. After being consoled by your tiny little companion, you turned your head to the left to look at the weather, it was raining, heavily, and you weren’t able to admire the urban beauty for a single moment. You turned your head down and realized that the queen sized bed was missing something, or rather, someone. You grabbed the pillowcase that lied on the fresh sheets, unwashed, and smelled it once more. You tell yourself you can still smell his essence, but there is nothing there, not anymore, only a cushion filled to the brim with sorrow and dried tears. You would have readied up to go to work, but you had been fired for mourning for too long, but you decided to get up anyway, dressing anything that would bring back his memories. The drive to the local graveyard was a small one, but one that emotionally took so long. It reminded you of every good memory you had, every kiss you shared, every glance you partook in. Sigh, it’s just a shame to see it all go. You opened the graveyard door, rusty and creaky; and greeted the security guard, but he already knew your name, after all, you were a local. You slowly walked in the mud which consumed your feet, little by little, and sat next to his tombstone, telling him about your day and how you had this weird dream, which he starred in, but the story was all the same. I guess some things never change. I guess some people never let go.

[long-cosmos-overhead]

Platonic or not Credence x Reader cause he's sweet and needs to be protected 😖 So while he hands out flyers he usually gets ignored by everyone and someone bumps into him so hard that he falls and hurts himself. And Reader notices him and helps him, patching him up at her place and being kind to him and hes a bit shy and flustered. Rest is up to youuu ❤

Credence Barebone x Platonic Reader

(I do not own Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them or it’s characters/gif not mine)

⚠️ mentions of abuse, scars and anxiety ⚠️

It was a cold December evening. Not a ray of sun wondered about waiting for the sombre clouds to draw a thick grey curtain over its dying hues. Deadly ice lay where snow could not reach not leaving a fraction of uncovered ground. The cold had already eaten it’s way into the very core of the young boy huddled in the thin clothes holding a little less than twenty flyers. Credence stood his body shaking painfully in the cold. The freezing air bit at his red cheeks but he lost the feeling in almost all of his body some hours ago. He had to hand out all the flyers before coming inside the cuts and scars reminded him of that every minute of everyday.

All of the other children had either needn’t been given anything to hand out or thrown the flyers into the wind letting the brisk breeze carry them far away. Truthfully, Credence would’ve done the same, in fact watch the pieces of paper fly away far from his cold clutches would’ve satisfied him but the shouts and screams from the house warned him not to even think about it. Only one single flyer had been taken from his cold clutches then tossed to the ground to be trodden on into oblivion. By this rate he would surely be punished.

Another powerful gust of wind hit his face. As much as his body ached in tension he curled up tighter the only limb that reminded untucked was his arm. Outstretched holding a single flyer as it desperately flapped in the wind prying for release.

A body suddenly collided with his. Credence’s weak body and locked up legs caved below him sending him into sharp shards of ice littered across the ground. His arm took the most of the impact having slammed into pavement, his hip also bearing the same blunt force. The man who sent him hurdling to the floor paid no notice only muttering ‘scum’ under his breath and walking onward completely unaffected straightening his expensive winter coat.

The ice on the floor followed a red trail that slowly dribbled down until it pooled unable to drain down the even surface. Credence lay down in the ice watching as all the flyers whisked away into the wind. He felt so cold. Not physically but emotionally he failed to do what he was instructed and would now suffer the consequence. The pain in his hip throbbed worse in the cold but with no coat to trap the warmth he could do nothing. His hand which leaked the blood he had seen all too may times stung awfully. Credence didn’t stand up, he didn’t even move. He felt too hurt, too unworthy to do so. He lay in the snow and ice silently sobbing.

“Credence.” A gentle touch grazed his back. Instinctively, he jolted away but the position he lay in lead your fingers back to his quivering form.

“Oh Credence, what did they do to you?”

Upon hearing your gentle voice softy cooing him made his chest wrack with sobs. You were his everything, his home, his heart, his best friend. He wanted you.

“Shh I’m going to help you up, may I?” You were referring to touching him. He was so sensitive to touch he was like a frightened animal.

Credence only laid there. He welcomed your touch for you never handled him harshly he yearned for your soft touch after his lashings often wishing you were there to hold him. You put him at ease.

Ever so carefully you tugged at his uninjured arm bit by bit raising him to his feet. Immediately you noticed the blood on his arm and the heavy limp he carried by the way he almost depended on you to stand. You felt his body shake. Tears ran down his cheeks along the same path his previous ones took. You wanted nothing more than to take all his pain away in that moment.

He was freezing just touching him sent shivers down your spine how he was still conscious was a question you didn’t want answered. Slowly you shrugged him off. He whimpered and clung to you as you fiddled with the buttons of your coat. After a minute you managed to shrug your coat off and wrap it around Credence immediately his shivers halt and he looks at you as if you were an angel sent from heaven.

“Y...you-you’re co...cold.” His voice was nothing above a whisper cracked and slightly winded making your heart seize painfully.

“You need it more, Credence.”

Hearing your words and your genuine worry for him, Credence felt all his worries slip into oblivion. Mary Lou and the lost flyers were far from his thoughts as he reached your front door. Credence still relied on your support heavily making the fumble for your keys last a little longer than usual but that didn’t even cross your mind, you were so focused on Credence’s well-being that not even the cold air whipping against your shirt deterred you.

The cut on his hand was thankfully only a bad flesh wound and didn’t need any further medical attention than disinfectant and a bandage. It was a long process getting Credence comfortable enough to show you his hand. He was ashamed of the scars that resided in the same place your hand would touch, he didn’t want you to see them. Despite the difficult situation you never raised your voice nor did you force him to do what he wasn’t comfortable with. Eventually, he placed his shaky hand in yours.

Slowly, your fingers clasped around his hand rubbing soothing circles on his skin. Credence was naturally shaky but your actions seemed to make the tremor calm a little. He winced at the disinfectant a few tears breaking free of his eyes.

“It’s done now, it’s okay.”

You released his hand letting it fall at his side. The white bandage emphasising his pale skin. His weary expression broke your heart. You had known Credence for a year or so now and he was the kindest, sweetest person you knew he deserved anything but the anxiety ridden life he lived.

“Get some rest I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Y....y...y/n,” His voice was so quiet and scared you were surprised you’d even heard it.

“Th...than....thank y..y...you.”

You smiled directing your gaze at the floor before raising your eyes to meet his.

“You deserve it, Credence.”

You returned minutes later, a blanket bundled in your arms. Despite telling Credence to make himself a place to rest he stood almost in the same place the only difference, your coat now hung on one of the hooks by your door. You knew telling Credence he could do what he pleased in your household wouldn’t have much affect on his behaviour he was far too unsure and uneasy to allow himself to relax of his own accord. He also didn’t want to mess anything up in fear of damaging the only friendship he had and valued.

“Credence come here.” You slung the blanket over one arm allowing you to open both arms as an invitation. He complied. Very catlike in his movements he flushed his body against yours tensing when your arms enclosed around his back. However after a few moments he clung to you desperately. His body shook but his tight grip never faltered. His tension eased away but he still held onto you as if you were his lifeline he loved your touch you were so warm and gentle he felt safe in your arms.

You began shifting slowly towards the sofa never loosening your grip on Credence knowing full well he needed this affection. You sat down hands sliding to the back of his neck from the difference in height. You pulled yourself up so you were propped against the headrest swinging your legs to rest on the cushions. Credence unwilling parted touch looking at you for a moment and you could tell just by the look in his eyes he wanted nothing more than to lay down with you and rest.

A simple light pull on the top of his back gave him the permission he was looking for yet didn’t need. Gingerly, he lay across your chest his head placed over your heart. His legs took up the majority of the sofa having needed to bend to fit. You sensed he was nervous so in attempt to push his worries away your fingers raked through his dark locks. He quickly reacted with your hands running through his hair. He softened lightly nudging his head deeper into your chest.

You’d never seen him so relaxed in spite of every time you’d taken him into your home previously he was always a little on edge never fully relaxed but now you were certain you’d found one of things that set him at complete ease. The pair of you stayed this for a long time. You wanted Credence to always feel loved and safe. You pondered over what you were about to say for a little while, figuring out the finance and shift in yours and everyone’s life it would affect.

“You can move in if you like, you and Modesty.” You felt nervous not only for Credence’s response but the life you were about to have if everything went accordingly. Credence never had felt so certain about something in all his life. He cried from happiness in the arms of his saviour.

[spaceiplier]

Nepenthe

The sun was rising slowly, casting a dull light. Freezing fog rested over the rows and rows of soldiers standing before the barracks. The sounds of marching and trucks rolling by were muffled by the fog. The soldiers shifted uncomfortably. They were all young, ten years old at most. Each wore a gray jumpsuit, their hands behind their backs, staring forwards with tense anticipation.

It was happening today.

Today decided everything.

In their natural form, the shape-shifters glowed with a faint, colored light. This base, humanoid shape let them flow into any body they wished. Each one was lit with their own unique color, identifying them to one another. In this natural form, those of other species could see the faint color in their skin. To each other, they always glowed with it.

They had to stay in these natural forms as they stood in their rows. It sent them a message.  They were exposed here. Weak. Easy to kill. It was a threat.

Near the center, a boy stood. His fingers tapped his leg without rhythm. His eyes darted from person to person. His heart beat steadily, despite his need to move. On his jumpsuit, his identity was printed out: 08518. The number he’d owned since birth.

He wasn’t nervous; this happened to everyone. No, he was excited. He wanted to see who he would be paired with, who his teammates for the rest of his life would be. 08518 wanted to run forward, grab that list from the commander, and find out who his team was.

But his stayed still, tapping out his nerves.

Tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

The commander was talking quietly with someone else. They weren’t like them. No glow, no color. Bland. Looking down at his own hands, 08518 saw the pink glow coming from himself. He liked his color. It was fun, and happy. Things that weren’t often allowed. Emotions were reckless. They were for those who had earned them.

“101017!” The commander suddenly yelled.

A boy standing a few rows down from 08518 stiffened, his blue glow flashing with a burst of fear. 08518 knew him. He was the youngest out of their barracks, and also a twin. The youngest of them all by three minutes.

He stumbled forward when beckoned. Small, frail, and shivering in the cold, his natural form was smaller than most. A runt, 08518 had heard the boy called.

“Take this.” The commander handed him a knife, then placed a strong hand on his shoulder, turning him to face the rows of soldiers. “Weakness will not be tolerated. You begin your training today. Let it be known that if you show any weakness, you will be punished. If you fail in anyway, you will be punished.”

The crowd collectively shifted as someone was dragged into view, a bag over their head, arms and legs bound together. They were struggling, but their movements were weak.

“This boy,” the commander continued, “is the weakest of you. The runt. The youngest. A child with attachments.” He spat the last word, eyes landing on a girl who glowed red. She straightened her posture, staring him down. 08518 felt himself smile before he caught himself.

“Kill him,” the commander told the boy.

“Wha… what?” The boy stuttered, hands suddenly trembling around the knife.

“Will you be weak? Disposable?” The commander asked, speaking more to the crowd than him. “A body meant to be thrown into battle only to die? Or will you be strong, and rise above the others? Prove your worth, and become a soldier.”

The boy’s blue aura was quivering.

“Or will you be weak, like this fucking pathetic child?” The commander pulled out a gun, aiming it at his head. “Kill him, or I will dispose of you right here.”

The red girl started forwards, as if to do something. She stopped herself, her body poised to run, but holding herself back.

08518’s tapping accelerated.

The blue boy approached the hooded man, pressing the knife against his heart. The struggling increased. The muffled noises increased. The knife wavered, and then fell. He couldn’t do it.

Coward.

08518 might not know a lot, but he knew that failing to kill was a death sentence of its own. Seeing the gun rise, he felt a surge of protectiveness for the  other boy. Something tugged at him, pulling him towards the other boy.

“You have--” the commander started to say, but suddenly 08518 was moving forwards. He pushed through the crowd, only stopping when he reached them.

Before anyone could say anything, he took the knife from the blue boy and plunged it into the hooded man’s chest. He held it there, keeping eye contact with the commander as the man died at his hands.

“Insolent brat,” the commanded snarled, reeling back and slapping 08518 across the face.

He gasped in pain, falling back against the pavement. The blue boy made a move to help him, but stopped himself.

“I’ll take the punishment,” 08518 said, staggering back to his feet, meeting the commanders eyes. “I’m the killer. Isn’t that we’re supposed to be? Hell, I’ll kill him if you want.” He pointed at the other boy.

The blue boy’s aura flared in alarm.

The commander looked him over, then down at his list. He smiled cruelly, looking over into the crowd. “101217,” he called. The girl ran forwards, stopping between 08518 and 101017. “You three are paired for a team. Maybe that killer in you will rub off on these two weak links. Now report back to your barracks.”

The three of them ran off, the red and blue pair shying away from him.

Tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

08518 tapped his leg as they marched, ignoring their fearful and hateful stares. They’d get used to it. They’d get used to death. That’s what they were. Killers. Ignoring that fact was pointless. They weren’t good, they were born to destroy.

Anything else was pointless.

.

.

“I’ll take his punishment!”

08518 raised his hand, stepping forwards. 101017 looked at him with regret and surprise. They had been training for a few weeks now, and the young boy still couldn’t bring himself to kill.

Coward.

Weak.

They were going to hurt him. Punish him for refusing to kill.

So 08518 stepped forwards.

What did he care? Punishment was nothing compared to watching his teammate suffer for kindness.

101217 watched him coldly. It was just the three of them stuck in this classroom. A dead body was being dragged away. 101017 hadn’t killed him. The commander had, out of frustration, snapped his neck and demanded 101017’s punishment.

“Fine.” Their commander pushed 101017 back. “Get over here and change.”

08518 stroad forwards, ignoring 101017’s terrified expression. He let his shifted form fall away, exposing his natural pink form. The commander scowled. They hated their natural forms. Too shifty. Too unsettling. It was when they were weakest, however; a cut on a natural form stayed.

The commander pulled out his knife. He grabbed 08518’s face, letting the blade cut into his neck. 08518 gritted his teeth, struggling to stay still. 

Don’t fight it. Don’t show weakness.

When he was done, the commander pushed him back, letting 08518 collapse to the floor.

“Don’t assume you have paid for your weakness,” the commander snarled at 101017. “You will never be strong.” He stalked out of the room.

The other two ran to him, hands hovering over his natural form, uncertain if they should touch him.

“You’re an idiot,” 101017 said.

“You’re welcome,” he said back, shifting into a new form. The cut pulled and stung. Alone with them, he cried out quietly. They held his hands while he gritted his teeth and pulled himself into a new body.

He was an idiot, sure, but he was a protective idiot.

.

.

“Duck!” 08518 barked at 101217. The girl dropped immediately; 08518’s blast barely skimmed past the top of her head, and struck the robot behind her. Without hesitation, she launched herself at another robot, her knives digging into the joint between the neck and head.

101017 backed up, his back pressing against 08518’s. He could feel the sweat sticking them together. Both of their chests were heaving with exertion. 08518 could feel his knees waver, but he widened his stance and took out another robot.

“I’ll cover you,” 08518 said. “Get 101217 and take the tower. I’ll hold them off.”

“Are you sure?” 101017 growled, his staff coming down and crushing the head casing of the robot lunging at him. “There are still so many left. There is no way you’ll be able to hold them all off. It’s not according to plan!”

“Trust me,” 08518 catch 101017’s eye, winking. “I got this.”

101017 swung his staff, taking out a few more robots before turning to face 08518. “It isn’t according to plan. My plan. I’m supposed to make sure this goes perfectly.”

“And a good leader should trust his team,” 08518 shot a robot over 101017’s shoulder. “There are more than we thought. We won’t make it to the tower in time. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a few pawns to kill the king.”

101017 scowled. “You are not a pawn.”

08518 scoffed, “We’re all pawns. Don’t play dumb. Now, get 101217 and get going, leader.”

101017 hesitated, then took off running. As he passed 101217, he tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to turn and follow him. The two ran through the simulated terrain, robots spilling over the rocks to kill them.

None of the constructs got even close. One after another fell to 08518’s blasts, his deadly accuracy taking out any who dared get close. A few smart ones noticed him and abandoned the blue and red beings to target him.

08518 leaped back. He wasn’t very good yet, but he managed to teleport a few feet up into the branches of a tree. It would give him a few more minutes before they got to him. Robots crashed into the tree as he continued to take out those following his team.

All that mattered was that they reached the tower.

101017’s blue aura glowed stronger for a brief second as he built up his strength. In a burst, he unleashed it onto the tower door, the wood shattering. He and 101217 burst inside, just as the robots started clawing at 08518’s feet.

“Come on,” 08518 muttered, kicking at the robots below him. “Kill the fucker.”

Suddenly, everything froze. Then the sky flashed red, and the scenery melted away. They’d reached the top floor. They’d killed their target.     

“Congratulations,” a cool female voice said. “You have passed the final level of your training. Please report to your commanding officer.”

08518 hopped out of the tree as it dissolved around him. 101017 and 101217 ran up to him, their hair sticking to their foreheads with sweat and eyes alive with adrenaline. They paused for a moment, just looking at each other.

They wanted to hug. 08518 knew it. They wanted to grab each other and scream and cheer until their voices were hoarse. But they couldn’t. They couldn’t show emotion.

“Well done,” 101017 finally said. His voice was official, but his face split into a wide grin.

“You too,” 101217 added, and snapped to attention. 08518 joined her.

The three of them left the training room. The halls seemed so much smaller, now that 08518 knew they would be leaving soon. They were done. They would finally be sent on real missions.

As they walked down the hall, they passed a window. He caught sight of himself, and winced. Marks lined his face and arms, bright pink and raised slightly. Some were older than others, but they all told the same tale. He was a wildcard who disobeyed orders and became too attached to others.

Whatever. Nobody would know what they meant when he left.

The three of them finally reached their commanders office. He was glaring at 08518, but what else was new?

“Soldiers,” the commander began, “as recognition for your passage of training, and becoming members of the special race of warrior beings, you all have earned your names.” He handed them each a file. “Inside are your new names and the location for your first assignment. Congratulations.”

They grabbed their files, ripping them open to see what their new names were.

“Celine,” she said, her red aura flickering slightly with excitement as she read her name out loud. “My name is Celine.”

“I’m Damien.” He turned and grinned at 08518. “What’s yours? Oh no, is it something stupid?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No… it’s just… this is my name. These are our names.” He looked up, smiling as he looked at his team. His friends. “My name is William.”

        .

        .

William stared into the mirror.

Ugly.

Deformed.

Monster.

He had so many scars. Some of them were for Damien. Some of them were for Celine. Most of them were because he never knew when to stop. When to just roll over and take it.

William ran a thumb over one of the ugliest ones. Right over his heart. That had been a huge fuck up. William had let the Federation Official they had been escorting get killed. He’d deserved it, stuck-up bastard. When William had come back with his failure, he’d been forced down as they carved into his chest.

Make it ugly. Make it hurt. So he would never forget.

All William wanted to do was forget.

Forget his scars. Forget his life.

Forget and float away.

“Hey, are you okay?”

William jumped, pulling his shirt on quickly. He turned, seeing Damien standing in the doorway, his face a mixture of pity and concern. William felt his hands tighten. He hated that pity. He wasn’t weak.

Broken? Yes. A fucked-up soldier who could barely sleep without seeing the faces of the only two people in this mad universe that he cared about in his nightmares? Yes. A wild animal that killed upon orders of uncaring organizations? Yes.

But he wasn’t weak.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, yanking on his jacket. “What do you want?”

Damien reached towards him, but then pulled his hand back.

Coward.

“There’s a meeting happening soon,” he said. “Commander wants you there.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Damien nodded before slipping away without another word.

William turned and stared at himself in the mirror. He shifted his face, going from species to species. The scars on his face stung as they were pulled into differing faces. Faces he barely used to faces he knew better than his own. Something different. Something that he didn’t hate.

Nothing fit. Nothing felt right.

Why didn’t anything ever feel right?

He punched the mirror, his reflection shattering under his hand. William watched the skin stitch itself back together, slowly and painfully.

He wanted the pain.

.

.

“Do you ever wonder what we would be like if we weren’t war dogs?” Damien asked, his voice absent and far away, like he was talking to himself.

William looked over from where he was crouched at the window. The three of them were stationed on a desolate planet inhabited by pirates and war criminals. The natives had long since abandoned the planet, leaving ruins and criminals. The three of them were sent to find information on a warlord; their instructions were to observe and report back. Fairly boring, but better than the alternative of running away from bullets.

Damien was lying on his back, staring between the broken slats of wood at the stars. He blinked lazily, his blue aura a soft glow. Celine looked between him and William from where she sat at the opposite window. The three of them were shifted into Sicore, a gentle and unassuming species that was easy to slip into. Each showed some sign of their aura color: Celine with red hair, Damien with blue eyes, and William with pink freckles on his skin.

“What?” she asked.

“Just…” Damien gestured aimlessly at the sky. “What if we weren’t soldiers? What if we were normal people with normal lives doing normal things? Who would we be? Would we even know each other?”

Celine and William caught each others’ eyes. Damien had always been too kind for his own good. Half of William’s marks were from taking his punishments because Damien preferred to spare than kill. He was kind, but also… he was scared.

Coward.

“I don’t know,” Celine said, playing along with his fantasy. “But I think I’d be rich and mysterious. Maybe using my seer abilities to find out the secrets of those rich Federation officials and using them to get into a comfortable life where I didn’t have to see any military official again.”

William chuckled, “Sounds like you. I’d probably go hunting. Find some dangerous animal to hunt down. Put my skills to good use. Or maybe get a huge mansion and live out my days a million miles away from anyone who wanted to tell me what to do again.”

Damien was smiling at him, and William smirked back.

“Maybe I’d let you visit me in my mansion,” William said.

Damien nodded. “Oh yeah. It would be huge, like your ego.”

“Hey!” William protested, but Celine and Damien laughed.

“I’d probably try to help people,” Damien said. “I don’t know how. Maybe try to get into the Federation and make it better. Use those leadership skills and actually try and make a difference.”

“Oh, of course you choose the noble route and make us feel bad,” Celine teased.

Damien shrugged. “Not my fault you two are selfish assholes.”

Celine and William made eye contact, coming to a silent agreement. Simultaneously they got up and rushed Damien, pinning him to the ground. He laughed in surprise as they tickled him, hands running over his sides as his arms were pinned behind his back.

“Take that back!” William and Celine said, their own giggles barely held back.

“Never!” Damien gasped for air between his laughs.

They ended up in a pile on the ground, watching the stars slowly move across the sky with smiles on their faces. They were a mess. Limbs tangled together, breathless and happy. Soft purrs rose in their chests, the forms they had taken making themselves known in their happiness.

William looked at his hand. They didn’t know when it had happened, but somehow their colors had started showing up on each other. Little lines of red and blue in his pink. The others of their kind hadn’t noticed yet, it was so faint. But they were there.

“I think we’d still be together,” Damien said softly. “Even in every other universe out there… I think we would find each other.”

“Me too,” Celine said, snuggling into his side. “I’ll always be your sister.”

William nodded in agreement. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt… sad? No, that wasn’t it. Maybe just remorseful. A faint feeling that they could never have what they wanted. They could never be who they wanted to be.

Celine reached over, taking his hand, her gentle fingers tangling with his. She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile.

She knew something. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Stars burned millions of miles away, and William felt them all in his skin.

.

.

He didn’t know when it started, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

She was powerful, determined, daring, sharp and soft. When she smiled at him, he couldn’t breathe. When she touched him, every part of him felt alive. When she spoke, he couldn’t tear his attention away.

She made everything feel wild and alive.

But then sometimes, it wasn’t her. It was him. He was kind, honest, and confident. Stong, but fragile at the same time. His eyes made him feel at ease. His touch made him feel calm and open. His voice made him feel at home.

They haunted him.

He was scared of these feelings. They weren’t allowed. You didn’t choose who you loved, or who you held at night. Those feelings weren’t okay.

So, he hid them, and died more and more inside for their sake.

He could never hurt them.

.

.

“Watch out!” William, grabbed Celine, yanking her back as an alien twice her size swung at where she had just been. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to see the future?”

“The future is muddy,” she snapped back, using him to launch herself at the alien, her knives digging into his eyes. The alien screamed and choked, falling to the ground with a thud. “I don’t know exactly what is going to happen. I just have a vague idea. Where is Damien?”

“A floor up.” William shot a few aliens coming up behind them. “We got separated.”

“Let’s go then.” Celine pulled another knife out, slicing a throat, and pressing forwards. “We cannot let her escape.”

They had been commissioned by the Federation to capture a dangerous fugitive. A Xanhull. They didn’t say why they wanted her alive, but did, and their crew was the best in the business. Unfortunately, it seemed that she had anticipated them arriving. The place was swarming with hired mercenaries.

William and Celine stood back to back, fighting them off.

The crumbling building shook around them. The Xanhull had sheltered in the ruins of Akishiao, a lost and desolate planet ravaged by a disease that had wiped out the natives. A perfect place for a fugitive to hide.

A perfect place for an ambush as well.

 “Hurry up,” William heard Damien think at him. “I’m getting overwhe-ARGH!”

“Damien!” William shouted, panic flooding through him. He grabbed Celine and concentrated. It took a lot out of him, but William managed to jump them a floor up. The moment they arrived the world started spinning and his tongue felt like cotton. He hated transporting others with him, but Damien was in pain.

He couldn’t let Damien get hurt.

Neither of them.

“Oh no,” Celine whimpered. When William’s eyes cleared, his heart dropped.

Damien was lying on the ground. Several slain mercs laid around him, dead. A gaping hole was in his stomach, seeping blood. He groaned in pain, reaching out for them. William and Celine rushed to him.

“They… they got me,” Damien coughed. Blood dribbled down his chin.

“No no no no no no,” William said, frantically hovering his hands over the wound. “I can fix this. I can… this… this is fixable. I can… I can…”

He was failing.

He was falling.

“She’s in the next room,” Damien said. “You can finish the mission. Bring her back.”

No. There was no way he would leave Damien. He couldn’t just leave him here to die. Not when there was a chance. Celine took Damien’s hand, her eye’s starting to fill with tears.

“Damien… it’s okay, you can heal from this.” She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. “You’re in shifted. You can heal… you can heal from this. They didn’t get your Kisei. You’re going to be fine.”

He laughed, but it ended it a bloody cough. “Really? You’re going to start lying to me now? We’ve always been honest with each other, sis. Don’t stop now.”

Celine’s eyes darted over to William, and then back to her brother.

“I…” Her voice faltered, but then her face hardened. She turned to William. “We need to capture her. We have to complete the mission.”

“Are you fucking serious?” William asked, the hurt and outrage in his heart tinging his words. “We need to save him!”

“If we don’t capture the Xanhull, they’ll hurt us,” Celine said. “They won’t be happy. Damien might survive a little while longer. Then we can get them both—”

“No!” William interrupted. “I won’t leave him.”

They stared at each other for a moment, their wills clashing and breaking against each other. Finally, she dropped her eyes. She reached out, grabbing Damien’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out. Tears were flowing freely down her face. Celine looked like she was hanging on by a thread. That one line holding her to the two of them, stretched taut.

Damien weakly smiled at her.

Celine let go of his hand, grabbed William’s face, and kissed him. It was hard, desperate, and tasted like blood and tears. It was a mess of teeth and skin, and it made William’s body feel like it was on fire. Stars burning in his skin. She let go, and they stared at each other.

She was beautiful, even bloody and scared.

Celine ran away.

The thread broke.

William didn’t know what he was feeling anymore, but he turned back to Damien. He needed him. “Look at me,” William grabbed Damien’s face. “Stay looking at me, okay? I’m going to get you fixed up. They can fix you back at the base, okay? Just hold on. I have bandages. I can fix… I can fix this...”

        “Will…” Damien’s hand came up, the blood staining William’s cheek as he cupped his face. “I never thought I would end any other way. This—” He coughed again. “—this was always going to end like this.”

        “No!” William, reached into his bag, pulling out bandages and wrapping them around his stomach. “No, remember? You’re going to help people. We’re going to live in my mansion, and you’re going to be the good person you always wanted to be.”

Damien smiled sadly. “That dream is a joke, Will. It’s all just a joke.”

William refused to respond. He just focused on saving his friend.

Save Damien.

Ignore reality and save Damien.

Then Celine’s choked scream shattered his mind.

“Celine!” His head jerked up. Dread seeped into him, his body growing heavy. There was a moment of quiet… and then the door creaked open at the end of the hall.

The Xanhull stood there, wiping her hands of blood. Some of the blood pooled in her hands, which she let fall into a vial. She pocketed it. Behind her, William saw the last fading light of red. The Xanhull walked forwards, looking at William quizzically.

“Huh,” she said, voice soft and curious. “I assumed your kind were murderers. Yet you try to save him? Strange. You have a heart.”

“Fuck off,” William spat.

The Xanhull smiled, and kept walking until she was gone.

They failed.

William didn’t care about the mission. She was gone… he couldn’t think about that right now. He just needed to save Damien. He needed to save Damien, and forget Celine. Forget the red glow that no longer came from the room. Forget her.

Just forget.

.

.

“You failed!” the commander screamed, spit flying from his mouth. His face was pulsing red in fury, veins standing out on his neck. “Do you know how much money you have cost us? Federation credits! Millions of Federation credits for what? For a soldier?”

William remained at attention, but his attention wasn’t on the screaming man. It was on Damien, weakly stabilized and sitting in a chair next to him. His shifted form had fallen away a while ago, leaving his weak blue form.

Damien was barely staying awake. He had to stay awake.

“I accept any punishment,” William said. “It was my fault. I made the call.”

“Oh, you will be punished.” The commander stalked forwards, inches away from William’s face. “You will not forget how you have failed. You will never forget this day, William. Take them to the cell block.”

“Wait! Damien needs a medic,” William tried to protest, but the two of them were escorted down the halls. Farther and farther down, until they were in the prison cell block. Cold and dark. The walls were thick, hiding whomever might be behind them.

“In here.” The commander pushed Damien and William into one of the cells.

William was pushed against the wall. His wrists and ankles were chained, allowing him little room to move.

Damien was placed against the other wall. Only one chain was put around his ankle.

The commander walked up to Damien, his eyes locked with fury onto William’s. “Don’t think I haven’t seen how you look at your team. I know your weakness. I know you love them.” He spate out love like it was venomous. “You failed us. This is what you deserve.”

He leaned over, and stripped away Damien’s bandages. The rough tearing caused the skin to break again, blood seeping out. Damien gasped in pain as they tore. He weakly attempted to stop him, but his hands were batted away easily.

“NO!” William screamed, thrashing against the chains. “NO! Stop! I’ll do anything! I’ll take any punishment, just let him live! Let him go!”

The commander ignored him, instead pulling out a knife. He plunged it into Damien, barely scraping the one organ that insured Damien’s death. Kisei. The one organ that could kill them. William’s struggling increased, his pleas echoing through the cell.

“STOP! PLEASE STOP!”

The commander scowled at him, “This is all your fault.”

He left.

“Damien!” William leaned forwards as far as he could, getting as close as he could to him. “Damien, stay awake! Please, stay awake.”

Damien smiled at him, tearing running down his face. He tried to speak, but all that came out was rough coughing and more blood.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” William repeated over and over, pulling at the chains uselessly. He tried to teleport, but all that happened was something snapped in his brain, leaving him breathless and still chained to the wall.

“I’m sorry.” William reached out for Damien. He reached back, but they were too far apart. They couldn’t reach. They couldn’t be together.

There was no indication of the passage of time. All there was were two men, desperately trying to get as close to each other as they could before it all ended. William’s pink aura was frantically wavering, the reds and blues moving sluggishly though the colors.

“Remember that night on Ijida?” William asked, his voice rough from screaming. Damien’s head perked up, smiling with memories a million miles away in his eyes. “Ce… Celine was off on some mission. It was just us. Do you remember?”

Damien nodded.

“We slept outside, under the stars. It was so quiet. Do you remember what you told me? I do. I remember everyday. You said that you wanted to run away. You wanted to run away, you fucking coward.”

William was crying again, his vision blurry. Damien was reaching out for him, wanting to comfort him even though he was the one dying. They couldn’t reach each other. Not now. Not then. Not ever. They were so far away.

“Was that just a dream, too? Just a joke?”

Damien tried to respond, but his lungs were clogged with blood and all he managed to do was cough.

William slid down the wall, watching Damien as Damien watched him. There was nothing left to do but wait. Just wait for this all to end.

It felt like it had been only minutes, or maybe years. The room was drenched with the stench of blood. William felt empty. Nothing left to give, but every time he saw his best friend his chest seized. Looking up now, Damien looked back at William and mouthed something.

“What?” William croaked. “Wait, Damien, what did you say?”

Damien smiled sadly.

“Damien… what did you say?”

Damien didn’t blink. He was still. Unmoving. Unseeing. The blue was pulsing slower… and slower… and slower…

“No… no no no no no!” William struggled with new energy. “No, Damien, what did you say? Damien, wake up!”

He didn’t move.

He just stayed frozen, staring at him.

William closed his eyes and collapsed to the ground, breathing into his curled-up form. His heart was racing, hands shaking, and vision blurry. He shifted over and over again, trying to find something that would make it stop. Make everything stop, and go back. Make him forget. Something… something else…

Not this.

It wasn’t real.

This wasn’t real.

Forget, forget, forget, forget, forget…

When the door opened, William was back in his normal form. He didn’t look up at the commander. He didn’t look at the soldiers.

“I think I may have just broken you,” the commander laughed. “Unlock him and send him for retraining.”

A soldier – one of his own – bent down to unchain him. Maybe it was just the purple aura, maybe it was something else, but the moment William’s hands were free, his hand snapped up. The soldier’s throat was in his hands, and then it was broken.

They fell to the ground, dead eyes staring with surprise at nothing.

William rushed the others. They weren’t like him. They died easier. They fell like the pawns they were. The commander turned to run, but William dove at him, pushing him out into the hall and against the wall. They smashed into the wall with a sickening crack.

“Now, soldier,” the man tried to sound commanding, but his voice broke.

Coward.

William punched his face. Over and over and over and over until blood stained everything. He punched until the man stopped groaning and begging. He punched until he didn’t look like the man who had killed Damien. He punched until he held a bloody mess that stopped begging like a cur.

William ran for the ships in a bloody haze. Anyone who got in his way didn’t matter. It was just the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

The world was a blur of blood and noise, colors harsh and distant.

He rushed onto the ship, flicking the switches and yanking the throttle. The engines roared. He was gone, racing into the stars. The base faded behind him, and the twin moons grew closer.

William collapsed back into his seat, the world coming into focus.

Oh.

He just realized what Damien had said.

William put the ship onto autopilot. He wrapped his arms around his legs, and shivered, eyes closed tightly.

“You’re a good man,” Damien had said.

A good man…

William wailed, fist lashing out to destroy the closest thing to him. The panel crunched under his fist, sparks burning his skin. It hurt. It needed to hurt.

He wasn’t a good man. Good men didn’t let their friends die. Good men saved the day. Good men weren’t him.

“I am not a good man,” William cried quietly.

.

.

.

“Don’t you love me?”

Red and blue.

“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?”

Blood stained hands.

“Just one more night, please.”

Chapped lips against his.

“Fuck you.”

Dark eyes that had seen too many deaths to count.

“Stay.”

A name found on a gravestone.

“You’re a bastard.”

Hair tangled in the wind.

“Why won’t you stay?”

Red and blue.

.

.

.

He stepped out of the bar, feeling tipsy and a little less than steady. The world was spinning faster than he was moving. Everything was colors and blurs. Bright and brighter fighting in his brain. He laughed at it.

He didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know who he was, where he was, or even what he was. The world was a mess that he blocked out with drinking and dancing.

He didn’t care.

Stumbling into an alleyway, he pulled out the notebook tucked in his coat. The one thing that he couldn’t lose. Why couldn’t he lose it? There was some reason. Something important. Flipping it open, he saw the names.

Those names were so important.

Never forget the names. He couldn’t remember the faces, or where the names came from, but he knew that he couldn’t forget. So, he wrote them down. Over and over until they were almost meaningless.

Maybe that was the point. Who knew. He couldn’t remember, so who cared.

He tucked away the notebook. He knew the names now.

The colors sharpened for a moment, and he saw a woman. A beautiful, familiar woman whose entire being called to him. Her hair was dark with a red fringe, and her eyes took in the world with malice. She wore a white suit, the top unbuttoned, exposing her collar bones. Two lines ran from her eyes, one red and the other blue.

She glanced at him, and the world stopped spinning.

He looked at his hands. Red and blue. He looked at her. Red and blue.

“Hey,” he said, leaning against the alleyway wall. “Hey, pretty lady.”

She looked at him, somehow managing to look down her nose despite being shorter than him. “Who are you?”

There was no name attached to whatever he was. Whatever he was… it didn’t matter. It hadn’t mattered in so many years. He pulled a name out of nowhere. In his drunken, half giddy with inebriation and laughter, he snorted as he said, “Wingleheimer.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

He shrugged. “I’ll admit, I don’t have much of a name. Or any name. You can call me Wingleheimer though.” He smiled and winked.

Her lips curled into a dangerous smile. “Not much for attachments?”

“People come and go. Names come and go. Everything comes and goes. Nothing is permanent, and everything changes. I just move with the world and watch the world change.”

She considered him for moment, before moving closer. She moved with purpose, every step confident and powerful. As she got closer, he noticed a faint red glow about her. It wasn’t strong like his own pink one. It was muted, like a faint copy of the real thing.

“Well, Wingleheimer,” she said, causing him to giggle stupidly at his own name. “You seem familiar.”

“I would say the same to you.” He wiggled his finger around his ear, making a mockery of his own inability to remember. “Things get jumbled though. Memories come and go. Faces, names, places… I seem to forget the simplest things.”

She stopped, inches from him. He could see every freckle across her cheeks. The faint red light in her eyes.

“So familiar,” she mused as she reached up, touching his scars. Wingleheimer flinched, and her lips curled cruelly. “Oh. These scars… I remember these. It’s you, isn’t it? The one who gave up. The killer with a heart.”

He felt frozen, staring into her eyes. It was like staring at a wild animal; afraid to move and scare it into either leaving or attacking. You wanted to stare at its beauty. Revel in it. But the beauty had claws and teeth, and you knew that the moment you were deemed food you were dead.

It was thrilling.

“That was so long ago,” she continued on softly, seemingly talking to herself. There was a hint of sardonic laughter in her voice. “There are so many bodies behind me, I also seem to forget them. You were different though, weren’t you? You had a heart.”

He wanted to remember. It scratched and clawed at the back of his head, but something held it back. Don’t remember that. Don’t look at it.

Just let forgotten things be forgotten.

“What a strange thing you are.” She stepped back, hands clasped behind her back. She leaned towards him, dark eyes alight with amusement. “It’s exciting; knowing there are endless possibilities. Let’s see how this plays out, shall we?”

He wanted nothing more. He leaned forwards, ready to kiss her back but she laughed and turned, starting to walk away. Wingleheimer called out, snapped out of his awe.

“Wait! What’s your name?”

She just laughed, lifting a hand and waving without looking back.

Another ghost that walked away.

.

.

.

Abe had never been one for parties. He preferred the slow, steady motions of his day to play out as planned, like the rocking of a boat on the an ocean. He would work his cases, catch the criminal, and spend his nights relaxing with the comforts of home. The GLE was his life. Like a hamster running his wheel, Abe had worked his ass off to become one of the best detectives they could brag of having, all while going nowhere special in life.

When an invitation from the man who reminded Abe of the clowns from his three weeks in clown school – who also happened to be his boss – was dropped upon his desk, Abe’s first reaction was to refuse.

“Lighten up!” his boss laughed, reminding Abe of his time with the clowns. “It’ll just be me, a few friends, and some co-workers. You know Steve, right? He’ll be there with his wife. Come on, it will be fun!”

Steve… Steve… who the fuck was Steve?

“You know!” his boss said. “Steve? The guy you punched at poker night?”

Ah, that Steve.

Abe glanced at the stack of holo-files he had to get through. He had planned on working late. But this was his superior… and besides, a few drinks and some dancing couldn’t hurt.

“Fine,” he sighed.

“Excellent!” His boss clapped him on the shoulder. “Life is too short to be wasting away at the desk. Live a little!”

.

.

The music was loud; a raucous roar of laughter and fast tempos like a storm on the ocean of Abe’s life. There were more people here than Abe had been expecting. Every room was crowded, and every person was nearing some point of inebriation. Abe had found himself near the bar, downing whiskey and watching the dancers move across the dance floor. A live band played, clashing with the pre-recorded music coming from the other rooms, like a clown at a funeral.

“Another?” the bartender asked Abe as he finished off his drink.

Abe checked his watch. Nearing midnight. He wouldn’t be able to get any work done tonight, so why not. He nodded, watching the golden-brown liquid fill his glass like paperwork filled his desk.

“My, my, my.” He heard a voice come from his left. Glancing over, Abe saw a man with pink marks the color of strawberry milkshake across his face leaning against the door frame, smiling sweetly at Steve’s wife. Abe frowned. He didn’t recognize the species. “I must say, your dress brings out the blue in your eyes spectacularly.”

The woman was blushing, and she slurred back with all the eloquence and sobriety of a drunken Velm who’d spent their last credits on silný, “Why, thank you. I’m Ivory. What’s your name?”

Abe saw the man opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment the band kicked up, drowning out any more conversation Abe might have heard. They were obscured from his view, so Abe returned his attention back to the matter at hand.

Drinking until he was as drunk as a Velm on Scarlix Day.

Tracing his hand across the bar, his fingernails caught on something. Looking down, he saw someone had scratched two names into the wood.

“Who’re Damien and Celine?” he muttered.

“Abe!” It was his boss, throwing a sweaty arm around him and breathing heavily in his ear. Just like the clowns had when he’d said he was leaving clown school. “How are you? You look so grumpy!”

Abe managed to shrug him off. “Just a little tired, I guess.”

“Come on!” His boss reached out into the crowd and pulled out a pretty girl with hair that waved like it was underwater and wide pink eyes. “Dance with Jilly here!”

Jilly smiled shyly at him. Word of advice to those who dedicate their lives to running that hamster wheel to nowhere: never become too attached to anything or anyone. Family, lovers, glasses of whiskey that you had just forgotten about but were now being drunk by your very intoxicated boss.

Abe was torn between refusing or just giving in when an angry shout broke through the noise.

“That’s my wife, you bastard!”

“Well then I must say you have fine taste in women…”

“Get your hands off of her!”

“… and she has fine taste in men. Where did you get your hair done? It looks superb!”

Abe abandoned his boss and the girl, pushing through the crowd until he saw the man from earlier, pushed up against the wall by Steve. Ivory was off to the side, looking very confused. Steve was beet red with anger, his hands trembling in the man’s shirt. The man, however, looked completely calm. He was looking Steve up and down with a lazy smile and hooded eyes, continuing to compliment him.

“I’ll kill you!” Steve roared.

 “Well that’s not very nice.” The man tapped Steve’s nose, which was as red as the clown nose Abe had worn for a week when he’d lost a bet. Abe swore steam was coming out of Steve’s ears. “Here I was just swept away by your fine looks and…”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Abe stepped in, separating the two before they started either making out or fighting. He wasn’t sure what was going to come first. “Steve, go get a drink and calm down. And you—” Abe turned around, but the man was gone. “What the fuck?”

He whirled around, scanning the crowd. He wasn’t anywhere near him. The crowds shifted and rolled against him like waves, pulling and pushing. There, deep in the dancers. How had he gotten over there so quickly? The man was spinning with a Ninkain, winking and laughing. Was that a gun in his hand?

That was a gun!

Abe ran into the crowd, shoving people left and right, trying to get to him. The crowd was packed, though. Abe only managed to get wedged between two large men who were dancing their hearts out. Grabbing and pulling like a frantic monkey trying for that dangerous banana, he finally managed to get to where the man was.

“You!” Abe shouted above the music. “Put the gun down!”

“What?” he shouted back.

“PUT. THE. GUN. DOWN.”

“WHAT?”

Abe rolled his eyes. Fine. He reached out and grabbed the man’s arm, attempting to pull the gun out of his hands. The man was clearly just drunk and showing it off. He wasn’t going to actually shoot…

BANG!

The gun went off. A moment of silence hung like a dead man on the gallows before the crowd screamed and scattered, making a mad dash of the exit. Abe stumbled back, the crowd pushing against him, surprised that the man had actually fired. The man didn’t look concerned, only confused as everyone left.

“Why’d the music stop?” he asked, turning around to look where the band had rushed out the back doors.

“Put the gun down,” Abe shouted at him, getting over his surprise and raising his own gun.  

The man spun around, looking back at him. Abe was surprised to realize that the pink marks weren’t a species mark. They were raised and ragged. They were scars.

“Oh, it’s you again! So sorry to dash away like that. The fellow clearly had some issues going on upstairs, if you know what I mean. But not to worry, I am J. Barnum, but you can just call me Barnum.” He winked at Abe. “And who are you?”

Abe pulled out his badge. “I’m an officer of the GLE. Put the gun down and get on the ground, now!”

Barnum leaned in. “Abe? I like it.” He twirled the gun around his finger.

“Get down, now!” Abe shouted, frustrated.

“Now, now,” Barnum lifted the gun and fired. There was a groan of pain, and Abe turned to see someone fall backwards out the door. “Let’s not be so forward, although I like it. I must say, I love your hat.”

“You… you just killed somebody,” Abe said in shock, turning back to Barnum.

“He’ll be fine,” Barnum said.

“No, he won’t.”

“He might.”

Abe was getting more and more frustrated. This man wasn’t listening to him, and was flippant and clearly drunk. Dangerous to society. Maybe a GLE cell was in order. A long time in a GLE cell. A GLE cell with no key, and the cell was in the center of a star, and the star was imploding, taking the cell with it.

Abe tucked his gun away, pulling out his handcuffs. “Okay, I’m just going to put these on you and we’re going to take a ride down to the station.”

Barnum froze. His eyes were locked on the handcuffs, and his hands were trembling  around the gun harder than an earthquake on Múscadh. He was whispering something to himself, but Abe couldn’t hear what he was saying. Clearly having a breakdown faster than Bozo did during his first year of clown school.

Abe reached forwards to put Barnum’s hands into the handcuffs.

BANG!

Abe stumbled back. There was pain in his chest, like when his teacher told him he’d never be a real clown. Something was staining his shirt. Barnum was staring at him with shock and confusion. He was saying something, but everything sounded far away, like he was on a distant moon and Abe was on the opposite side of the planet. Abe blinked, his vision going fuzzy. His mind was racing faster than a Slipstream Cruiser, the world was a blur of color, and Barnum was saying something over and over again. And then Barnum was gone.

Abe reached out for help, and blacked out.

.

.

He woke up in a hospital. Light, whiter than heaven itself would allow, washed everything out. Something beeped out a mechanically steady tone. He was on his back, but as he rolled his head he was faced with the image of his past.

A picture of a sad clown.

“Good morning, detective.” The doctor walked into the room. He carried a clipboard, and a mask hung around his neck. He looked fairly feline, his wide eyes darting from clipboard to Abe with a nervousness that was unsettling. “Glad to see you awake.”

“What happened?” Abe asked, his voice raspy from a throat drier than the deserts of Varellex.

“You were shot. In the heart, in fact,” the doctor said. “You were rushed here, and we managed to replace your heart with a top-of-the-line GAAP-issued heart.”

“You put a machine inside of me,” Abe said. Somehow, the shock wasn’t catching up to him yet. It was just facts, passing by his head in dull monotone words. He had been shot. His heart was gone. It was replaced with a machine that steadily beat out a code he couldn’t understand. That man had nearly killed him.

“What happened to Barnum?” he asked.

“Who?” the doctor asked, his ear twitching.

“The… the man who shot me.”

“Oh, the pink fellow,” the doctor said. “He was brought in, but when the GLE went to interrogate him he was gone. They are still investigating.”

“He escaped?” Abe attempted to lifted himself off the bed, but the doctor rushed forwards, pushing him back down.

“Sir! Your body is still adjusting to the heart! Please, do not strain yourself in any way.”

“He escaped,” Abe growled. “That… that murderer escaped.”

There would be nowhere he could run; Abe was a fantastic runner. There would be no hole that he could hide in; he meant that literally, metaphorically, and euphemistically. There would be no fight he could win; Abe had fought many clowns in his day. Barnum was a fugitive of the law. He couldn’t hide from Abe. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t run forever.

Abe would find him.

.

.

.

“How long has Jack been out of contact?”

“Just for the weekend. He’s working on a project.”

“He isn’t going to get obsessed with it again, is he?”

“Don’t worry, Jack said he added a feature to Chase and JJ to make him go to bed after a certain amount of time.”

“Good. I don’t want to have to babysit him either.”

Mark and Tyler sat in the lounge. Amy, Kathryn, and Ethan had gone down to the planet they were orbiting for a shopping day and to let the dogs get some fresh air. The two boys had decided to stay behind, hanging out in the lounge.

The two of them were sitting back to back on the couch. Tyler’s warmth set into Mark’s back, letting a cozy feeling settle over the living area. Mark was holding a tablet, scrolling through several media sites from Ventos Beta. Tyler held his crystals, watching the light change as it passed through them.

Casual conversation was interrupted by a loud bang coming from down the hall. The two froze as footsteps ran towards them. Soon heavy breathing came from down the hall, and shortly after someone burst through the door.

For a moment, Mark couldn’t tell what they looked like. For a second, they looked faintly Nasazza, but then it was gone; replaced by a fairly humanoid shape of pink with streaks of red and blue.

“Hmm,” the form hummed. “I like it.”

Then the form was shifting, pulling and stretching. The pinks faded, and darkened. Soon the form looked like Mark, but with a pink mustache, pink hair, and several dark pink scars lining his face and arms.

They stared at each other for a moment before they frowned. “Hmm, could be taller.”

“Hey!” Mark protested.

They shifted just slightly taller.  “Thanks!” they said, giving a salute to the two. And then they kept running until there was another bang and everything went quiet.

“Uh,” Mark said, still staring at the empty doorway. “What?”

“Who knows anymore,” Tyler sighed.

Mark’s watch beeped a few times before a voice echoed out. “Attention! This is the GLE. Please prepare to be boarded.”

“Awesome,” Mark slowly got to his feet. “Go hide that, uh, good shit that Jack gave us.”

Tyler ran out, and Mark made his way towards the docking port. Just as he arrived, the docking door slid open, revealing a flustered and sweating man.

“Where is he?” the officer demanded.

“Who?” Mark asked.

The man sputtered, “The criminal! He was on your ship, I know it.”

“You mean the guy who stole my face and then left? I still don’t know.”

Still sputtering and cursing, the man stormed out as the door slid shut behind him. The Barrel alerted Mark to the departure of the GLE ship, and Tyler walked up behind him.

“What did he want?”

“Apparently my face is now on another criminal.”

“Oh,” Tyler said. There was a moment of silence before Tyler added, “Want to go pretend that didn’t happen?”

“Yeah, sure,” Mark answered, and the two headed back to the lounge.

.

.

.

How long had he been here?

Did it matter?

The music was loud, the alcohol was free, and the party-goers were coming and going, keeping the vibe alive. The air was thick with some kind of cotton candy-flavored smoke. Lights flashed through the heavy air, bodies moving and grinding against each other. Time moved but to where, nobody knew.

Wilford sat on a plush couch on a raised platform in the corner. A few beautiful Cahaynta sat around him, the glowing lines of their bodies making their corner come alive. He wasn’t paying much attention to them as he regaled them with a story even he wasn’t sure was true.

His eyes were locked on the crowd.

Watching.

Waiting.

Where was he?

“Hello, ladies,” Danny sauntered into the lounge, winking at the Cahaynta. They laughed, their collective glow pulsing brightly as he drew near. “How are you doing this evening?”

“Wonderful,” one purred, getting up to trace a long claw across his chest. “Even better now that you’re here.”

Danny gave the Cahaynta a coy smile, but glanced over at Wilford. “If you’ll excuse me, I have need to have a quick word with our guest here. Then my attention is all yours, baby.”

“Be quick,” she said, she and the others getting up and leaving.

Danny threw himself onto the couch next to Wilford, startling him. “Wilford! How are you, you old dog?” His hair waved, pulling itself back into a ponytail and out of his face.

“Oh, same old,” Wilford said, still distracted by the crowd. “The party is wonderful, as always.”

“Been going on for twenty years,” Danny said proudly. “Only a few murders.”

“A few?” Wilford glanced over at Brian, who was crouched in the shadows, watching. He locked eyes with the darkly dressed man. A black aura surrounded him, and Wilford glanced down at his own pink. Brian was like him, he knew that much, but he didn’t know what that meant.

When he looked up Brian was gone.

“That’s besides the point. I feel like you aren’t enjoying this party.” Danny leaned into his line of sight, an eyebrow raised. He knew he was right.

“I’m waiting,” Wilford looked around him. Still no sight of him.

“For what?”

“A friend.”

“You have friends?”

Wilford huffed. “Of course I have friends.”

“Uh-huh,” Danny chuckled, shaking his head and letting his hair fly into a mess. “I’ll take your word for it. I hope you find what you’re looking for. In the meantime,” Danny said, his smile taking on a more mischievous look, “I have some ladies to entertain.”

Wilford huffed as Danny walked off, glitter and sequins flashing in the strobe lights.  

He hadn’t expected it to take this long. Normally he found him within weeks, but Wilford had been here so long. Had he given up? Was their chase over so soon? He hoped not.

Something sourer floated through the air, and Wilford sat up straighter. Ethismós. A common smoke among GLE officers. It smelled disgusting, but it was cheap and kept the officers awake during long stings.  

Obvious among the sickly-sweet scents of the party smokes.

Wilford grinned, settling back into the pillows.

Sure enough, the sweaty detective soon came into view. Swearing up a storm, and marching through the crowd, gun raised. Most didn’t pay much attention to him. They had better things to pay attention to. The roll of bodies and music together, pushing and pulling Abe through them.

Wilford stifled a laugh as Abe was dragged into the arms of an especially drunk Genello.

Finally, Abe and Wilford locked eyes across the room. Wilford raised his drink, attempting to take a sip. The damn straw kept escaping him. Abe stalked with determined focus towards him.

“Get your ass down here,” Abe snarled, raising his gun and pointing it at him.

Wilford grinned, standing and hopping off the raised platform. The music kicked up and he started dancing circles around the detective, lights flashing.

“Don’t move! Show me your hands!”

Wilford threw his hands up, wiggling to the beat.

“Not like that, put them down!”

Wilford dropped his hands with the drop of the music, shimmying past with a strut and a slide.

Abe shot, but missed. He fired again, and missed again. Wilford danced around the bullets, laughing as Abe grew more and more frustrated. Nobody noticed them, off in their little corner of the world. Wilford saw Arin and Suzy shooting him a stern look, but he just laughed. It didn’t matter; he would stop shooting eventually.

“Stop!” Abe yelled, finally firing into the air. Wilford spun to a stop, coming to lean against one of the pillars.

“Hey,” Wilford winked, popping out a finger gun at the detective. “Long time no see.”

“You are coming with me,” Abe snarled.

Wilford raised an eyebrow. “Why? The party is here!”

“How do you not get it?” Abe tucked his gun back into its holster. “You are a criminal. You are under the arrest for the murder of way too many people to even count! You are going to prison, and you are going to stay there this time.”

“Well that’s just ridiculous! I would never kill anyone.” Wilford attempted to sip again. Damn this straw!

“Is that right?” Abe pulled out a taser. “Well, whatever you say, buddy.”

Wilford attempted to reach the straw again when Abe pressed the taser into his chest. Pain zipped through his skin, causing it to shift and harden against the electricity. Wilford yelled, his vision going dark.

Time moved on.

.

.

Wilford woke up with a yell. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. That wasn’t so unusual, but as his senses came back to him, Wilford frowned.

He was strapped down to a seat. The space was all cold and metal; nothing personal decorated anything. So bland and lifeless. There were bars between him and the pilot’s seat. As Wilford lifted his hands to try and sip again, Abe climbed into the ship.

Wilford smiled pleasantly at him. Abe smiled tightly back.

“It’s the end of the line for you.” Abe said, settling into the pilot seat. “They’re going to throw every book they have at you. And then they’re going to throw you into a cell, and after that they’re going to throw away the key, and after that they’re going to throw… the cell… into a star.”

Wilford nodded along. He was sure that they were going to try. It never stopped him.

The detective started up the ship, taking off quickly. The stars blurred as Abe sped up, taking them towards the nearest GAAP station.

It had been a while since Wilford had reached out, so he did. Abe’s mind was easy to read. So black and white. Nothing broken or hiding. What he thought he thought, and Wilford liked that about him.

“... sort out the paperwork. Is he staring at me? What does it matter. I get one night alone with him to get some answers, and they it’s off to prison forever with him.”

Wilford frowned. “One night alone?”

“Yes, I am taking you back and--”

Abe froze, then whipped around to face Wilford. His eyes were wide.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Do what?” Wilford reached down to sip the martini. It kept escaping him, just barely at the tip of his lips.

“Do… how did you…” Abe’s eyes darted around, searching for an answer. Suddenly he threw up four fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four,” Wilford thought. Obviously. He put them right out in the open.

Abe somehow managed to look more shocked. “Sirgon.” He thought, looking at Wilford with determined, stubborn face. “NASAZZA. ZUFORIU.”

“What are you doing?” Wilford asked.

“NGALAN!”

“Are you okay?” Wilford asked, concerned. Abe kept throwing random words at him.

“How are you inside my head?” Abe yelled, hitting autopilot and turning completely around.

“Why are you shouting?” Wilford asked, gesturing with his martini.

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

“YOU’RE STILL SHOUTING!”

Abe started yelling.

Well, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Wilford started yelling.

He didn’t know why they were screaming, but Abe reached for his taser. Wilford, still screaming, started frantically shaking his head, but it was too late. Abe pressed the taser into Wilford’s chest, pain raced through his skin, and then it all went dark.

.

.

“... yes. No, I understand.”

“AAAAAAAAAA!” Wilford woke up screaming. “AAAAaaaaa. Aaaaa?”

He was in a barren room. One wall was covered with a holographic board covered with information and pictures of him in his various forms, a few lists of his aliases, and little lines of light connecting everything. Prominently featured on the board, though, was one question that even Wilford didn’t know the answer too.

Who are Damien and Celine?

Wilford looked down. He was still tied to a chair. Well, at least he had his martini.

“You’re awake.” Abe was sitting on his desk, putting down the comm he had just been using. “Good. Enough games.”

Wilford frowned, attempting to drink the martini. Why would they end this game?

“Your ass is mine for the next twenty-four hours. And I am going to take my sweet time with that ass.”

Wilford raised an eyebrow suggestively.

“To… to get answers… out of it,” Abe clarified uncomfortably.

“Well.” Wilford looked around the place. “I suppose I could stay a while. Get comfortable. Nice place you got here. A little bland. Could use some color…”

“Just stop.” Abe picked up a file and slammed it on the table, cutting Wilford off. “How do you not get it? Are you really so stupid to not realize that you are a criminal? A murderer?”

“There is no need for name calling,” Wilford protested. “Words can hurt! You should be kind, and courteous.”

“Name calling?” Abe huffed. He stalked over to the holoboard, tapping on a few files so they enlarged. “And what name, exactly, would you like to be called? Wilson Jackson?”

Wilford laughed, “Well, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“Winston H. Sanders?”

“Oh!” Wilford said. “Interesting time for that name it was. Met this wonderful woman whose husband just couldn’t keep up. Paid me a little extra to help out, if you know what I mean”

Abe blinked. “What?”

“Lovely lady, she was--”

“William C. Darren.”

“Ah! That was--”

“Wingleheimer.” Abe said, then did a double take. “Wingleheimer?”

“Alright, I’ll admit that I was drunk and there was this pretty woman--”

“Name after name after name!” Abe double tapped the holoscreen, the names shrinking. “Sometimes within days of each other! What exactly is your aversion to names? We have you on file. You cannot run away.”

“I quite like the one now. Wilford. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Wilford said, attempting to get those last sips at the bottom of the martini glass.

“You just don’t get it,” Abe rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How do you not get it? You’re a criminal. You shot me!”

Abe closed his eyes, still rubbing his nose. He was so distressed. Wilford felt his stomach drop as he realized how tired Abe was. There were dark circles under his eyes, stress wrinkles on his forehead. His clothes were stained, and obviously hadn’t been washed in a while. The poor man was working himself to death on their little chase.

Huh.

He needed to let loose.

Wilford teleported out of his seat, appearing next to the holoboard where Celine and Damian’s names were highlighted.

“Wait, WHAT?” Wilford heard Abe exclaim. He looked over his shoulder at Abe, who was standing, pointing at the empty chair and looking with wide eyes at Wilford. “What… how…?”

“Names get jumbled in here,” Wilford said, gesturing with his drink at his head. “I find myself forgetting simple things. Those two, though” -- He returned his gaze to the holoboard -- “I know I cannot forget them. I can’t remember who they were, or if they’re even out there, but I know I cannot forget them. They’re so important. Just like you.”

“How did you do that?” Abe yelled, yanking his gun out and pointing it at Wilford. “How did you get your ass out of that chair? You are going to tell me, right now. You are going to tell me how you got your ass out of that chair so I can get your ass back in that chair. Now!”

Wilford smiled at him. “How did you find all of this? Some of these pictures and names are so old.”

“I’ve been collecting them. Hunting down your old hideouts, old friends and lovers, just so that one day I could bring you down.” Abe cocked the gun.

“That’s so sweet.” Wilford was touched. Abe had gone to so much trouble for him.

“That’s not sweet! It’s sickening!”

“Sickeningly sweet!”

“That isn't what I meant,” Abe said. “You know what I meant. Seriously, you need to get back in the chair. I can get more rope. Maybe some handcuffs.”

“Eh.” Wilford shrugged. “Worth a shot.” He turned on his heel and ended up sitting in Abe’s chair.

“How are you doing that?!” Abe whirled around, aiming his gun with shaking hands.

“I just am. I’m not sure how either,” Wilford riffled through some of Abe’s files. “Oh! Now I remember this. Do you? Running all over the city, never stopping. Or were you there? Was that before you?” Wilford sighed, putting down the file. “I can never remember. Events blur together. Names, faces, dates… they’re all the same.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Abe said, lowering the gun for a moment. “How can you not remember?”

“There is something I am forgetting. Sometimes I wish I knew what it was, but I can never find it,” Wilford looked at his drink. “Maybe it’s them. The names that haunt me. I don’t know, but now I just forget. It’s easier that way.”

Abe opened his mouth to say something, but it came out a shriek as Wilford teleported right in front of him. His gun went off, but the bullet shot harmlessly into the ground.

“I do remember you.” Wilford tapped the gun, lowering it. “When we met, that night at the party. You started chasing me, and you won’t stop. You’re the first one who hasn’t stopped, you know that? Running and chasing. The thrill of it has been a treat. But, there has been something I have been meaning to tell you. Something that I have been meaning to give you after all this time.”

Abe tensed.

Wilford leaned in and hugged him. “I’m sorry.”

There was a moment where it was just him hugging Abe’s strong, broad shoulders, but then he was pushing Wilford off of him. Wilford let himself fall back into the chair.

“I shot you, and that wasn’t very nice,” Wilford said.

“You… you’re saying sorry?” Abe asked.

“Over these past however many hundred years,” Wilford said, gesturing to the holoboard. “I have met many people, forgotten many people. Things come and go. Nothing sticks around, and maybe it was better that way. But you stayed. I left and you would follow.”

“Of course. I’m an officer of the law. You’re a criminal!”

“Exactly!” Wilford pointed at him. “This cat and mouse chase. It keeps us together. You, chasing me all over this damn galaxy; it’s what makes this friendship work!”

“F-friendship?” Abe stuttered, taking a step back.

Wilford nodded enthusiastically.

Abe shook his head, as if clearing it. “No! You’re the bad guy. You killed people. So many people. I am GLE. I’m supposed to capture you.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“What?” Abe snapped, turning to face Wilford, who had caught his mustache on the rim of his martini glass. He could just shapeshift out of it, but he liked it too much. “We are not friends. I’m catching you right now. You’re caught! Sort of.”

“You didn’t take me back to GAAP.”

“N-no,” Abe said. “But that’s because I need answers.”

“So ask. What would you like to know?”

Abe swallowed, eyes darting around the holoboard. “I, um, Scorsa! You were shacked up with some Raga’am. How did you get away? And Damien and Celine, who are they? What are you? None of the DNA we’ve gotten has matched any data we have. Where did you come from? We have tracked you back to before GAAP, but your trail stops around the time… uh… that time you went by Wingleheimer! Why? Where? How did--”

“Slow down,” Wilford waved his hand. “You’re focusing to much on the details of it all. The who’s who, the when and the where. You aren’t seeing the bigger picture.”

Abe stared at him. Clarity rose in his eyes. “You don’t remember.”

“Well, that also, yes.”

“Fine, then answer this. What do you remember?”

Wilford closed his eyes, setting the drink down. “It comes and goes. Memories are waves. Crashing into me, then gone again. Chaos of my past and present, clashing and mixing. One day my mind is fine, but then tomorrow comes and I can barely remember a thing. Spending hours upon hours writing those names… I can’t forget them.”

Wilford stood. His eyes opened, landing upon Abe, who only looked confused.

“I am broken,” Wilford chuckled. “And isn’t that what makes this so interesting? You’re so black and white. I’m such a mess of colors. This opposite chase that led us to each other. This is wonderful, and strange. And sure, you could catch me and I could go to prison. The chase would be over, and where would we be? I would be alone, chained down until I died. You would be back behind that desk, pretending to care about cases you hate. You could end this.”

Abe’s eyes were growing clearer, but his conflict was growing worse.

“But who cares?” Wilford waved his hands. “That doesn’t matter now. Life needs a little madness every now and then.”

“But…” Abe started.

“Shhh.” Wilford walked forwards, slinging an arm around Abe’s shoulder. “My friend, you have been working too hard. The stress is getting to you. This is chase is thrilling. The struggle, the hiding, the clues. Brilliant. But you are burning yourself to the ground.”

Wilford could see Abe fighting himself. He was supposed to catch Wilford. He was an officer. He wasn’t supposed to stop, he was supposed to catch him.

But then his shoulders sagged in defeat. Wilford smiled and concentrated. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done a jump this far, but it had been a long time. The world folded for a moment, and then the two of them were back on the party ship.

The music was still throbbing through the air. Beings from every corner of the galaxy danced and tangled together. Danny and Arin waved from the dias; Brian flipped them off.

“Why don’t we,” Wilford began, turning Abe towards the dance floor, “have a little fun?”

Abe looked at his gun, at Wilford, and then at the crowd. They were having fun. Letting loose. The world was theirs for the night. Why shouldn’t it be his as well?

Just one night of fun.

Abe shrugged, then turned and grabbed Wilford’s hands, dragging him into the crowd.

.

.

.

“That dream was a joke.”

“I’m not leaving him!”

“Strange. You have a heart.”

“DAMIEN, WAKE UP!”

Wilford woke up. His breathing was uneven, his body was drenched in sweat, and his hands were shaking. The world was spinning, refusing to make sense. Where was he? He couldn’t remember. Everything wasn’t right. Why couldn’t he remember?

What had he been dreaming about? He couldn’t move. Something he didn’t want to think about.

Wilfords face was wet. Had he been crying?

“Just let me forget,” he quietly begged his pillows. “Please. Let me forget.”

Nothing answered him. It didn’t need to, when the dream was already gone from his mind like sand through his fingers.

The fear remained.

Wilford rolled over, staring out the window. The sun wasn’t up. Just pitch black with only the light of the moon. Slowly, he remembered. This was his house. He couldn’t remember the name of the planet, but here he was. Drifting through a galaxy he didn’t remember on a planet he didn’t care to know.

For a moment the bed felt too big.

Too empty.

Wilford pulled himself out of bed, letting the form he’d chosen fall into place. It had been an accident, he was certain, but his natural form had started appearing when he had bad nights. Meaning, of course, that his natural form appeared every night.

The nightmares were just a part of his life now.

Wilford couldn’t stop them. Nothing did it. Not booze, not lovers, not wasting his nights thinking of anything but the fear. They came, and then he forgot.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror. He’d never learned the name of the man whose face he wore, but it didn’t matter. It was just a face he liked. Another false piece of himself he couldn’t place. He wouldn’t have remembered it anyway.

Morning birds sang outside of the window as Wilford moved about the room. The house was only one room. His bed was shoved into one corner, a small kitchen in the other, and a couch on the opposite wall, facing him. It was small, but it was his. His own corner of the universe that nobody really knew about. The walls were covered in names. Scratched, written, it didn’t matter. They were there. Wilford dragged on pants, shirt, shoes, and belts. Why did he wear so many belts?

It was just beginning to rain when Wilford stepped outside. Nothing intense, just light morning showers, gently covering the fields of grass with droplets. The first sun began rising, painting the sky pink and gold. The twin rings appeared as the sun illuminated them, crossing the sky and giving the world a shadow.

Lonely wasn’t ever a word Wilford had considered himself. He was never alone. He surrounded himself with people. Parties, full of vibrant and lovely beings. Crowds of people who could love or hate him. Lovers whose beds he found his way into. Wilford wasn’t alone.

Standing on the edge of the porch, watching the sun rise, Wilford felt that hole in his heart grow bigger.

Maybe he wasn’t alone, but now Wilford was realizing he was still lonely.

Wilford had been running from that hole for as long as he could remember. The hole that clawed at him, scratching and tearing at his heart. It demanded to be filled, and so he fed it. With drinking, dancing, sex, murder, whatever caught his eye. For those brief moments the beast inside was sated, and he went on.

Then that hole was back, demanding more.

There was something missing. Someone. Maybe it was them. Celine and Damien, whomever they were. Maybe it was the red and blue on his pink. Maybe it was just a feeling that he was stuck with, pushing him until he finally died.

Wilford closed his eyes, stepping out and letting the rain fall over his face.

Cold.

Temporary.

Meaningless.

Wilford fell back against the porch railing, letting his eyes remain shut. He missed them. Was that strange? Missing someone you had couldn’t remember? They had to be important, didn’t they? The reason behind his obsessive writing.

Maybe it didn’t matter and he was making a big deal out of nothing.

A hum - quiet but steadily growing louder - came from a ship entering the atmosphere. Wilford frowned. Nobody but Abe knew where he was, and Abe was on vacation. The ship was growing closer though. It was nice, but not standard GAAP.

Wilford’s hands tapped an old rhythm on his leg.

Tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

It landed in the field, the morning rain spraying as the landing force-fields pushed it away. It reminded Wilford of something, but he couldn’t remember. The roar of the engine slowed, coming to a stop.

The door opened, revealing a man standing at the top of the ramp. He stood with confidence, surveying the world with distaste. Someone stood behind him in the shadows, features hidden. Wilford caught a flash of metal in the sun. Robot or android, or even cyborg, he couldn’t tell. They stayed behind, just watching.

The man walked towards him with purpose, jacket billowing behind him in the wind. His hair was dark. Two lines ran down his face.

He looked like him.

He looked like her.

Wilford glanced down at his hands, and then back at the man.

Red and blue on his hands. Red and blue on the mans face.

“Hello again,” the man said, coming to a stop before Wilford, his lips curling into a smile. “Did you miss me?”

[itsbenedict]

Kingdoms and Koopas: Ep. 3

K&K is a Fate Accelerated campaign set in the Mario universe, which I’m running for three players:

Bee @thebeeskneesocks​, playing Kandace Koopa

Jovian @jovian12​, playing Cozmo Naut

Malky @sleepdepravity​, playing Dr. Chevy Chain

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Previously on Kingdoms and Koopas: the party disturbed the restless dead, including Kandace’s gym coach, and managed to retrieve the Music Key from the Heart of Darkness. Then they tried teleporting out, and found themselves... out, but surrounded by hostile Koopalings. Whoops! They should probably do something about that.

(pictured: maps! of the Koopa Kingdom capital, Bowserburg Shellington New Bowseria Whatever It’s Called Today. above, and below.)

So, to recap their predicament in a little more detail, their teleport took them to the cloud of a Lakitu, who, upon suffering the effects of the Vacuum Shroom toxin they teleported into his cloud, proclaimed himself “the Storm God” and began terrorizing his fellow students. At least, until Kandace cast a spell to make them heavy and sink down into the fountain below, where it all got washed out and they all return to normal.

To normal, except they’re in this big indoor courtyard foyer thing, and they’re surrounded by five of the seven Koopalings. And... see, the Koopalings attend Kam Ekademy, the school across the street from Kammy Koopa’s Academy For Young Witches and Wizards. These two schools... have something of a rivalry. And a rivalry between two magic schools populated by irresponsible troublemakers... it’s more of a prank war type of deal. And wouldn’t you know it- the party contains a Kammy’s student!

Chevy, as usual, attempts to just roll the fuck outta there, but, uh... well, Kamek’s school uniforms are blue, and Kammy’s school uniforms are purple. And Chevy is purple, and seemingly with Kandace, and so the Koopalings jump to conclusions. “The Skammies are trying to escape!” Lemmy yells.

So... Roy is the first to act, firing a cannonball at Chevy. The way the rolls go, though... I guess Roy’s cannon is no match for a charging chain chomp, and it glances right off. Morton tries to stop her, too, and manages a little better- they tie, and Chevy manages to shove him to the doorway but not out. Cozmo tries to follow Chevy’s lead, doing the standard-issue X-Naut bum-rush. Lemmy tries to roll over to block him, but again the rolls are not in his favor, and Cozmo just knocks the ball out from under him and charges past. Kandace also attempts to flee, and also shout taunts at the Koopalings, but Ludwig grabs at her broom. And... just gets a handful of bristles as she speeds away. Larry tries shooting spells at them from the second-floor railing, but misses.

So as they get out the front door of Kam Ekademy, they’re attacked from behind as Wendy O. throws a ring at them from the balcony above the door. She also misses, though, and Kandace fires back with her heaviness spell, targeted at Wendy O.’s bow- causing her to lose her balance and fall off the balcony. The lot of them proceed down the front path... only to be blocked by Iggy, the final obstacle! Who... also misses, and knocks some of the pursuing Koopalings back a bit with the stray blast. They breeze right past him.

As they leave by the front gate (which the Koopalings aren’t allowed to pass out through, as school is in session), a “psst” gets their attention. Kandace recognizes the source of the voice as that shifty junk dealer that tries to sell useless crap to the kids at Kammy’s at a huge markup- looks like he also hangs around by the Ekademy.

Cozmo does not recognize that this brown Shy Guy in a trenchcoat, wearing an enormous fake mustache, is actually his boss, Shady Guy.

Chevy, with no patience for this, takes off for the hospital, but Cozmo and Kandace check out Shady Guy’s Deals Guy’s wares. There’s some weird yellow mushrooms, green dried shrooms, some weird little metal thing that he calls a “good’un” (or “G’un”), a ratty old umbrellla, and... ooh, a collapsible stunt bike!

Before buying anything, though, Kandace gets suspicious, and tears off Deals Guy’s mustache- revealing that it was, in fact, Shady Guy all along! Shady Guy tries to snatch it back, but fails- and Kandace ransoms it back in exchange for the bike. Hooray for robbery! Good thing there’s no way Shady Guy would ever go to the police about this. Cozmo gets the bike, and excitedly heads home.

Kandace returns to Kammy’s, Music Key in hand. On the way, though, she encounters... the hooded figure with the pink beak. It gestures for her to hand over the Music Key, but Kandace is suspicious. She instead insists that it escort her to Kammy personally, at which it balks, but ultimately agrees. Or, pretends to- as they’re almost there, it attempts to snatch the Music Key but fails. (Kandace cast a spell that creates a protective but freezing-cold ice bubble, before it could get her.) Kandace, vindicated in her suspicions, hamster-ball-rolls into the school and heads to Kammy’s office.

Kammy, for her part, seems surprised and slightly distressed that Kandace has returned with the Key successfully, and that it wasn’t somehow stolen from her. Odd, that. She weasels out of her promise to hand over a magic item from her treasure vault- modifying clarifying the terms of the deal such that, okay, it’s one magic item per orb for whoever turns it in, so four total- but they’re only handed out once all the Music Keys have been collected. So... Kandace better get back to work finding the rest!

Kandace isn’t happy about this, but whatever- she’s guaranteed at least one, as long as Kammy gets all the Music Keys, so if she can find the rest, cool beans.

And... cut to black, because we’re moving to the next day. Cozmo has decided to take his new collapsible stunt bike out for a spin at Plumber’s Folly, one of those incredibly deadly natural obstacle courses that occur in this neck of the woods. Kind of a companion to The Part That’s Supposed To Stop Mario But Doesn’t. Anyway, uh... Cozmo finds out the hard way that the collapsible bike “purchased” from Deals Guy has the emphasis on “collapsible”. It breaks underneath him and sends him flying into a lake of lava, causing his lives to go down from 3 to 2 and landing him with severe injuries back on shore.

He’s found by Party Guy, his direct superior at the talent agency. Shady Guy owns Shady Guy’s Talent Agency, but doesn’t do much management- that end of things is left to this clown. This literal clown, a guy who’s attended every Mario Party and knows how to have a good time. He takes Cozmo back up the hill to the talent agency, but Shady Guy calls him inside to deal with something urgent, and he leaves Cozmo on the ground after calling Kandace to come pick him up.

Kandace finds her way down past the Koopa Katacombs (think the ones in Paris, except it’s just sort of an underground apartment district for Dry Bones), and the Cavern of Gratuitous Spiky Peril, which she’s able to just ride her broom over. She picks up Cozmo and takes him to the hospital, where Chevy reluctantly patches him up again. 

...Oh, while they’re in the waiting room there, Kandace and Cozmo overhear- from a heavily-injured superhero wannabe Pokey named Pokey Man, who works for Shady Guy’s Talent Agency- that the boss was seen carrying a shiny orb into Plumber’s Folly. Weird!

Anyway, Chevy decides that she needs to see Cozmo’s place of work, and find out what conditions are like there. There has to be some reason this guy keeps getting horribly injured! So... they decide to take what should be a shortcut, since the Cavern of Gratuitously Spiky Peril is harder to navigate with three to a broom. They take the underground below the hospital, and find... one small tunnel, and one big tunnel. The big tunnel has a broken bridge, though, so they can’t go that way at this point in the plot. They take the small tunnel...

...Which suffers a cave-in, due to the fact that I came up with it just then as a way for them to bypass certain obstacles I hadn’t finished setting up on the real path. So they won’t be using that one again. But they escape the cave-in, by running really fast in a panic, and arrive at the big cavern where Shady Guy’s Talent Agency is situated.

Cozmo decides to take them on a tour! Weirdly, the receptionist, Goomfried, is absent- but there’s a lot of noise coming from the dance room. They go check that out, and find... well, as usual, a particular couple new recruits are there. This guy Mike, some kind of robot, is DJing, and Jamie Thang is cutting a rug like there’s no tomorrow. Or, well- there’s no rug, it’s one of those light-up colored grid floor things, but you get the idea.

Also in the room is Party Guy, talking to... incredibly famous Mushroom Kingdom actor/director Zip Toad! Apparently the talent agency finally has an actual client! Zip Toad, who we decide sounds like Tommy Wiseau (because Party Guy and Cozmo are already sharing the surfer dude/stoner type accent), is looking for stunt talent for his new film. Cozmo’s eager to show off, so Zip Toad, Party Guy, and the party head off to Plumber’s Folly for Cozmo to show off.

Cozmo makes two rolls, here. One roll is with +Flashy, to see how totally sick his stunting is. The other roll is +Careful, to see whether he sticks the landing and doesn’t wipe out on the Plumber’s Folly hazards.

Cozmo’s Flashy is +3. His Careful is +0. The outcomes of these rolls are exactly as you might predict.

So, Chevy has unraveled the mystery of why Cozmo is getting injured so often. It’s because he goes out of his way to do the most dangerous possible things, all the time! Wow! The case is closed. She goes down to try and peel Cozmo off the spike wall he impaled himself on, while Kandace...

Kandace has that magical ability to sort of sense the direction of nearby Music Keys, and... huh! Seems like there’s one down, down deep in Plumber’s Folly! Weird. So, of course, she heads right inside, heedless of the dangers. And then... oh, boy. Oh, boy, the dangers. A wall of rock cuts her off from the others, and then more walls of rock erupt from the ground and knock everyone else off their feet! The party and company begin to tumble down into the depths of World 9-5. Next time: we’ll see how well the party manages doing plumber’s work!

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[queenevaine]

A request for Kingfield where Dwight suffered from Hanahaki Disease.  Gladiolus flowers are the flowers Dwight keeps coughing up.  Gladiolus flowers represent remembrance. It also expresses infatuation, telling the receiver that he or she pierces the heart. It also stands for strength of character, faithfulness and honor.

Hanahaki Disease was something Dwight had only ever read about in school, a condition that he was sure didn't really apply to him.  He had spent his high school years avoiding people rather than seeking them out.  He watched several other classmates get the disease, and how the petals littered the halls at the start of a new school year.  He saw them less and less as he grew and graduated from high school.  He never learned much about it; a brief knowledge of the obvious symptoms and cause.  It was enough to get by, and that was all really Dwight cared about.  

That is, until he noticed himself coughing more and more.  Do people get sick in the Entity’s realm?  It started subtle at first, an irritated throat and coughing.  Even after dying in a trial, it just wouldn't go away.  When he saw the first blood covered petal, his heart sunk.  

He was in love with David King, the selfless scrapper who put himself in harm's way for all the others.  How could he not be?  David was so much of what Dwight wished he was, and even with the abrasive personality he had, David was still someone Dwight looked up to, admired, and truly loved.  And it hurt knowing it wasn't returned.  

Dwight felt like his heart had been crushed into a fine powder, and every trial with him made the feeling worse.  Not to mention the time he needed to take to stop coughing up flowers and blood was getting longer and longer. It was only a matter of time before Claudette caught him at the outskirts.  

“Dwight?  Are you okay?”  

He tried to compose himself, nodding.  

“Yeah, I'm okay, just-”  

He was interrupted by another coughing fit, seeing the flower bud fall to the ground.  Claudette was at his side in an instant.  

“You definitely are not okay.  How long has this been going on?”  

Dwight shook his head.  That's a good question.  When had he fallen in love with David?  Claudette’s attention turned to the flower, picking it up delicately.

“It's still getting worse, too?”  

He nodded, taking deep breaths.  She inspected the flower bud intently, then looked to Dwight.  

“You're in love with David?”  

Dwight looked up to her, stunned and nervous.  How did she know?  Almost on cue, she gave a reassuring smile.  

“I'm not going to tell him, don't worry.  Flowers have plenty of meanings, and Hanahaki disease flowers usually are ones that represent the person you're in love with.”

He let out a sigh.  It was hard to hide from Claudette when something was wrong; she tended to just know.  

“There’s just no way, y’know?  Why would he like a guy like me?  I’m pretty sure he’s not even interested in guys that way.”  

Dwight started biting his nails.  Claudette grabbed his wrist to lower his arm, letting out a quiet sigh.  

“You'll never know unless you try.  And it doesn't end well having the flowers removed.  The Entity might do it at some point, and soon if it's getting worse so quickly.”

He was really wishing he had paid more attention to that part of health class now.  

“Hanahaki Disease can be cured one of two ways.  Either, the person you love returns your feelings, or the flowers are forcibly removed.  You won't die, but you won't be able to feel love ever again.”  

Dwight looked away from the serious gaze of Claudette.  What even was the point of love in a place like this?  Again, as if aware of Dwight’s internal monologue, she crossed her arms.

“I'm not going to cut them out, nor do I want you to let the Entity do it.  It's going to be painful.  Just tell him how you feel, please.  I don’t want to see you being hurt by this any longer.”  

Dwight hated the sincere, concerned look Claudette had mastered.  He looked to the flower bud, now carelessly strewn aside, and sighed.  

“Alright, I’ll tell him.  Just..  if it doesn’t work out..”

“We’ll worry about that when we get there.  I think it’ll go better than you think.”  

She gave a small smile, then turned to head back to the campfire.  Dwight took another deep breath, following shortly after.  There were a multitude of ways this could backfire; Dwight knew he wasn’t a very good speaker.  Regardless, he couldn’t worry about it right now.  The draw of a trial was pulling him to the fog.  

The Meat Plant was an unsettling place; Tapp had told them about the kind of things that had happened there.  The traces were still littered around, old decayed bodies still with the marks of how they were tortured and killed.  He took a deep breath, the fog rolling over the ground like lazy clouds.  No one was near him, but that was almost a blessing as he stifled his coughing.  Not now!  

He didn’t hear anything concerning yet, and started to work on a generator next to one of the many closed metal doors throughout the lower level of the plant.  It was more of a maze than an actual factory of any kind, and the various dead-ends made him nervous.  

He heard the growl first, then the sound of a woman roaring as she charged with the hidden blade.  He took off running from the generator, crying in pain as the blade connected with his back.  He ran around the corner of the nearest wall, making a dash for the freezer.  He knew she was crouching again, the action taking away the only indication he had besides keeping his eyes on her.  

Dwight hid around the corner of the wall, hoping to at least be able to keep her busy for a little longer.  That was his goal, until he felt the need to cough again.  He held his hand to his mouth, trying to stifle back the urge, but the uneven breathing was all Amanda needed to find him.  She turned the corner in a sprint, the small blade slamming into Dwight’s stomach.  He fell backwards, clutching his stomach in pain.  

Amanda watched quietly as Dwight turned his head and coughed up the flower buds, a grin slowly growing under her mask.  She was too familiar with it for the longest time, until she had been chosen to undergo her baptism.  She had devoted plenty of time to fully understanding the disease, and how to utilize it to her benefit in the tests she made, and what flowers symbolized what.  The grin grew wider and wider as she took tough rope from her pockets, tying his legs together.  

Dwight was hung upside down from the small meathooks in the freezer, alongside the mutilated bodies of pigs.  He saw her walk away, leaving him in the cold.  He tried to lift himself and untie the rope, but the freezing air seeped into his body and made it hard to even try to undo the impossibly complicated knot.  He could nearly touch the ground, hanging just an inch above it.  He blinked several times, trying to keep himself calm as blood rushed to his head, hoping someone would find him.  

David hated this place.  There were too many turns and fucked up traps for David’s liking.  He didn’t fear them, but he hated the thought of them being used again.  That, and the place was too much of a maze; and he counted way too many hooks too close to each other to feel entirely confident protecting the others.  They were too many ways for the Killer to take someone out without him being able to stop it all.  

He heard Dwight’s cry of pain while working on a generator on the ground level of the factory, working on a generator in one of the many rooms.  He immediately got up to try and find the stairs down, or any place he could get to the lower floor.  He heard the heartbeat indicating the Killer’s presence, which he knew was the one who had come along with this hellhole.  

He couldn’t get caught now; he knew Feng would focus on generators, and it just wasn’t in his nature to let Dwight be hurt without doing something to help.  David stayed at the edges of the terror radius, finding himself heading closer to the main room where this Killer had designed most of her machinations.  He jumped up the steps to the room with the monitors, crouching just below the windows.  The static on the screens caught his attention as it shifted, the sight on the screens making his blood boil.  

Every single screen had the same view; the camera in the freezer showing Dwight hanging upside down.  David could barely see the foggy breaths, and.. Were those flowers?  He turned his attention to the rest of the room, moving to find the hole in the floor that lead to the bathroom.  It was always in the same place, he learned, and he knew it was a fast way to get down to the freezer.  

When he landed in the bathroom, he immediately bolted to find the freezer.  Things shifted around all the time, but one constant was the bathroom was never too far from the freezer.  The paint on the wall was enough indication he was at the right place as he sprinted past the concrete walls.  

Dwight’s gaze barely focused in the midst of the cold.  He was losing feeling in his arms and legs, blinking rapidly when he heard heavy footsteps.  He could always recognize David, the man was hard to miss.  He was somewhat glad now his face was already red; feeling David’s arms around his waist to lift him off the hook made him blush furiously.  His head spun as he was set down, David helping him free of the rope.  

“Come on, we’re gettin’ the fuck outta here.”  

Dwight dumbly nodded, following close behind David.  They only had two generators left, and this was one of the rare moments David was glad that Feng was in this trial with them.  He wanted to get out of this as soon as possible and address the fact that Dwight was sick.  Not many took David as someone who had an extensive education, but part of him liked it that way.  It wasn’t all that relevant to him in most cases, anyway.  

David kept his arm wrapped around Dwight, both to keep him steady and stifle as much of the bleeding as he could.  He simply nodded to Feng as she walked past to head to the generator in the bathroom.  David lead Dwight upstairs, pausing when Dwight grabbed onto the concrete half-wall at the top of the stairs to cough up blood and petals.  Now’s really not the time for this, come on…  

Dwight winced, shaking his head.  

“I’m okay, let’s keep going.”  

David hated having to wait.  It was painfully clear Dwight needed help, but now just wasn’t the time to address it.  Another generator powered on, but something told David they had to move.  

“Move it, go!”  

On cue, Amanda was roaring behind them.  David pushed Dwight ahead of himself, focused now on keeping the Leader safe.  The heartbeat pounded in his chest, but David’s determination kept him going.  Just one more generator and they’d be able to escape.  Work faster, Feng!  He dashed forward just before the blade swung, the blade harmlessly swinging through the air.  

He breathed quiet relief when the generators were all powered and done.  He saved a key in his pocket to go ahead and try to use, and he was glad he did.  He’d worry about the others later.  He turned around a corner to get her to swing the blade into the concrete.  He was extremely grateful to see the familiar metal trapdoor, jamming the key into the lock and shoving Dwight into it first.  He hissed as the blade connected with his back, but willed himself to stay standing long enough to jump in.  

He staggered back to the campfire, rolling his shoulders.  Not gonna kill me just yet.  He turned his attention to Dwight, who was sitting beside the campfire with his arms wrapped around his stomach.  

“Oi, she getcha bad?”  

Dwight jumped, shaking his head.  

“No no, I’m fine!”

David sat next to him, arms crossed.  

“We both know that’s a fuckin’ lie.  Who’s it for?”

“Wh-what?”

“I know what Hanahaki Disease is, Dwight.  I’ve gotten one of the best educations you can get back home.”  

“Oh!  Oh, right.  Well..”

Dwight went to bite his nails, David’s hand reaching over to stop him.  

“Just spill it, Dwight.  I’m not gonna give ya shit for it.”

Deep breaths, Dwight.  

“..It’s you.”

The silence that followed was terrible, and Dwight wanted nothing more than to sink into his shirt.  He was sure he fucked up now, based on the lack of any response from David.  

“..You serious?”

Dwight just nodded, bracing himself to be mocked.  He blinked at the sudden hug.  

“Christ, Dwight, I ‘ad no fuckin’ clue.  I thought it was obvious ‘ow I felt.”   

“Wait, you..?”  

“You think I’d get the shit beat outta me if I didn’t?”

Dwight couldn’t help laughing.  He felt so ridiculous.  Tears filled his eyes.  

“Oi, hey, what’s the matter?”

“No, no, I’m just.. Really glad.  I thought.. I thought someone like you would never be remotely interested in even talking to a guy like me.”  

David turned to face Dwight, expression more serious.  

“Quit sellin’ yourself short like that.  You aren’t as fuckin’ worthless as you think you are.”  

Without giving Dwight time to respond, David pulled him into a hug.  

“Enough of that shit, Dwight.  I love ya to bits, and I don’t wanna see ya do that to yourself.”  

Dwight sat in shock for a few moments, then buried his face in David’s shirt.  Being so close was reassuring and comforting, and Dwight didn’t wanna move just yet.  He took a deep breath, noticing how clear his chest felt now and how wonderful it felt.  

[a-40k-dad]

Hive7 : Malevolent

The constantly updated post that might become a draft.

The story of Evjen Praxi, moneyed socialite and influent businessman of Hive7 The story of his army of underhiver agents and spies. And of course, the story of the eponymous Malevolent, his Guncutter shuttle custom built around the remains of a derelict Inquisition attack-ship.

P1

From orbit, Azoria shines in a blend of grey continents, small patches of dark and fouled toxic seas and a gargantuous, ever-shifting green mist, through which the spires of its hive cities and forges are clearly visible.

Elevated from Knight World to Forge World, Azoria is now one of the many industrious jewels within the great Imperium of Man. It is indeed a jewel, but one made of rust, dust, and toxic wastes.

A world with a slowly decaying magnetic field that jas allowed small amounts of its sun's deadly radiation to seep into the atmosphere. To remain anywhere outside of the shielded Hive Cities or industrial areas would be ill advised to say the least.

Although the radioactivity doesn’t render life impossible — yet — visitors and other guests are still advised to apply for medical treatments that will bolster their rad-resistance. Whether the purpose of those goes beyond bringing peace of mind to the outworld-travelers, remains unknown.

Most of the inhabitants of this world have developed over the millennia an uncanny resistance to their sun’s adverse effects but still, mutations, sickness and untimely deaths are all but too common for the indigent underhivers or wasterlanders.

Unlike those poor souls, Evjen Praxi did not lack the means to survive, for he has had the privilege of being born in a family of absurd wealth, leading a life of opulence and display thereof.

One's natural defenses could be engineered and bought with credits and Evjen always had more credits than he could care to count. The middle-aged man has been at the head of his parent’s legacy : Praxcorp, the single most powerful privately owned industrial group in the system with many ventures in the sub-sector’s commerce.

Evjen had seen his parents act unreservedly around nobles and have had government officials act obsequiously around them. During his youth, Evjen did not know of the misery reigning down below. Although he’s been born in a social sphere far removed from the suffering of the common people, when Evjen Praxi came of age, he made the choice to open his eyes wide and look upon the truth in humility.

A dour intention locked on his face, the green fires of the faraway furnaces reflecting in his deep grey and yellow iris, Evjen awaits a friend in the night. Seen from one of the gloomy private docking area of Hive7′s upper section, Azorian nights remain the same : made of dark above and of its terrible radioactive green mist down below, where the lights of the innumerable spires dim and vanish. 

The air is as cold as it is rare outside above the clouds. Yet Evjen has made the choice of waiting there, in the relative seclusion of the anchoring platform. Only the revving engines of passing-by ships and the distant hum of power generators can be heard through the sharp wind that blows during the hours of darkness. 

Leaning against the railing, Evjen is focusing on his senses, when he begins to hear a faint metallic tapping coming from behind, slowly gaining in intensity. Without moving he raises his voice : “Aerin“ he says, “I’m glad you could make the time”.

As he turns, he discovers the young woman, clad from head to toe in thermoregulative gear. “Why do we always have to meet up here?” she says, abrasively. “Why don’t you come down to me for a change? It would be just as safe for you as any of your beloved freezing perch”.

-“You know I can’t be seen in the lower levels, Aerin” Evjen scoffs. “Besides” he lightly punctuates while checking her out, “you don’t look like you need to be any warmer right now”. 

Aerin instinctively looks down at her feet, trying to understand what could be wrong with her current attire. “Well, Evjen” she utters, insisting on his name to let him know that she had been slightly offended, “I am not one of you nobs or other well-offs.” as she positions herself to lean against the nearby structural pillar, she continues “I’m used to the warmth of the underbelly of this gigantic beast” she says, while tapping her hand on the pillar, referring to Hive7. 

Evjen starts laughing.

Aerin laughs too, but only to get it over with.

The cold chills her down to her bones despite the thermosuit. She feels it all through her face which is left unprotected. Most underhivers like their climate hot and preferably a little humid too. She had been trembling since the moment she had stepped onto the platform. 

“Aerin,” the middle-aged man says, “I need you.” the young woman forgets the cold for a moment, as the tone of Evjen piques her interest. “Not your reaction cell, just you” he added.

–“What’s the catch Ev?” she asks. 

Evjen takes a breath and gulps “I need someone I can trust” he almost whispered. “and I need the best copilot in the system”.

Aerin isn’t immune to flattery, but even she knows that his assessment of her skills is not at all misguided. She tries to deflect the gravity of the request : 

“Taking Mally out for a spin boss?” she asks.

–”Don’t call me that.” he replies, without animosity.

Aerin takes a few steps and switches from leaning against the pillar to joining Evjen at the railing. She considers the height of the potential fall while she produces a soft and indistinct utterance marking her considering his request. She had never been one to ask for much but in this case, she needs details.

“I’m not saying yes just yet, Ev. But why just me?” she asks. – “I would go on my own if I didn’t have the option to ask you, Aerin,” Evjen confesses. “and before anything else, let me make this one thing clear ; feel free to say no.” he delivers, caught in a moment of self-confidence. “but, hear me out first”.

—”Alright.” she answers, with a hint of curiosity showing through.

–“You and I, Aerin, we are freedom fighters at heart. You understand the game we are playing here, you get the sort of position I’m in” he mumbles, with a defeated look.

“What I’m trying to say is that you’ve always stuck with my little operation out of conviction”. Evjen stands straight and looks over Aerin’s shoulder towards the airlock. He turns his gaze towards the other pier, on the other side of the gap of the empty anchorage area of the docking tower.

“I don’t trust anyone on my payroll”. he continues, in a serious tone. “There is no amount of credits or valuables that could keep the many dishonorable types from stabbing me in the back.” he hypothesises.

Aerin stands a moment in silence before responding : –”Why not trust my cell?” she asked. “They are every bit as loyal to our cause as I am.” 

“They’re loyal to you, Aerin” Evjen replies. “It wouldn’t be fair to implicate them into this.”

Aerin reflects on Evjen’s opinion and as he was about to give some of the information she requested, she interrupted him :

“You know what, Ev? I don't want to know. I’ve got your back, like always.” she says. Evjen lets a sign of relief escape from the back of his eyes. “Whatever it is you need help with, I'll do it for the usual fee” she adds.

“Deal!” he says, while they shake hands on it. “Two levels up, opposite bay, you’ll find Mally. She’s ready. I’ll be right there”.

”You got it” she cheers, while walking away.

The fact is that the underhiver had already been picturing herself piloting Evjen’s Guncutter, which entailed the promise of thrilling sensations and possible mayhem on some unworthy, profiteering souls of this Imperial System. Aerin smiles in disbelief at her own excitement taking the decisions for her. 

The airlock’s door at the end of the platform can be heard very faintly over the ever stronger winds of the night. The business man turns and stares into the dark corners of the docking bay. 

He feels observed.

In the elevator, Aerin reflects on her impulsive consent. “Oh, shit!” she utters in resignation. She doesn’t even know the basic information of when, where, and why, let alone the details she had been meaning to ask.

“Fucking Mally” she mumbles. “You manipulative old bitch”.

The docking bay indicated by Evjen is plunged into darkness, Aerin heads for the control booth near the entrance, activates a console, which sparks life into the hangar. A low hum fills the room, its pitch slowly shifting towards a higher tone. The generators are warming up. Suddenly a loud noise can be heard as power gets redirected to the bright docking bay spotlights, revealing the Malevolent, affectionately nicknamed “Mally” by its owner.

Aerin takes a moment to look at the Malevolent which looks rusty. The bulky old lady looked like nothing really, an old dropship perhaps. It is however part of its camouflage. A ship that looks in poor shape seems much less of a threat after all. 

The Malevolent being in fact an inquisition ship that Evjen had found derelict a few star systems across the void also warranted for a more subdued appearance. It was therefore also heavily modified to avoid immediate visual class-recognition. 

Aerin had heard Mally’s story a few times too many : Evjen had dismantled the damned thing completely before stowing the parts away in a dozen of his company’s freighters in order to discretely smuggle it back planet-side. 

Reassembly, repairs and customisation had been much more of a pain, apparently. Not only the costs of custom-made or salvaged parts but most exorbitant of all was the price of secrecy ; the paying-offs, the unending amount of favours, the machinations, the oft violent silencing of loud-mouths, and their corpses to recycle, all of it probably still weighs heavily on Evjen’s conscience.

For all the disgust the man has for servitors, they at least, wouldn’t betray him. Unless someone hacked into them, that is. Aerin understands her benefactor’s words fully when he says he can’t trust anyone but kindred spirit.

Aerin sighs in satisfaction. For an underhiver, simply seeing a void-capable ship from up-close is already remarkable. Boarding one would be far-fetched to say the least, but piloting one? That is well-nigh inconceivable.

But there she is, ready to make the old lady sing her song of grace and mechanical fury, with harmonics of metal and fuel, hurled supersonic into the darkness of space. 

Maybe Aerin will get to hear the loud beating of the ammo drums being emptied at some pirate or whatever type of sucker who thinks they can get away with double-crossing Evjen Praxi.

Mally, deadly old lady with tricks up her sleeve that even Astartes would envy. How could Aerin ever refuse such an opportunity?

Evjen enters the cockpit and notices Aerin already seated. “The pilot seat, uh?” he observes in feigned irritation. “That bad of an itch?” Aerin turns her seat around towards Evjen as he stows a couple of toolkits and datapads away.

The underhiver nods, breathes in deeply, holds the air in for a moment, then delivers solemnly : —“I’m in love, Ev”. The man lets his bag slide off from his shoulder and it falls heavily onto the deck. Visibly taken aback, he looks at Aerin for a moment, not understanding what she means.

—“Your ship, Ev, your ship!” she specifies, “your graceful, powerful, agile, and deadly Mally!” she adds as her hands grip the stick and the throttle.

—“Uh-huh” Evjen utters as he throws himself in the copilot’s seat.

“Very well” he sighs. “Would you kindly take your fling to the skies, then?”

—“Oh, she’s much more than a fling, Ev” Aerin corrects. “At this point she’s my significant other”.

Evjen giggles in amusement as he straps himself in :

—“Just, take her out, Aerin”.

Aerin quickly wraps up the lift-off procedure checks before powering-up the Malevolent’s plasma engines. The hull starts vibrating in a deep rumble which fills the soul of the voidcraft’s pilot with an incommensurable sensation of triumph. She reaches for the panel overhead and tunes into the local traffic control’s communications.

—“FC Eta-Seven, this is voidbound shuttle PeeCee-Alpha-Niner — Malevolent” she says, as if she had been a comms-op her entire life. “Requesting clearance for manually operated flight from Praxcorp docks to orbit, over”. The voxcasting system makes a clicking sound as she stops broadcasting. After a few seconds, another clicking occurs, covering the murmur of the idle engines —“PC-Alpha-9 please specify cargo and destination” the flight operator asks.

Evjen who had started slouching again, straightens up and reaches for one of the data pads he has brought with him.

—“Feed them that” he says, handing the pad over to Aerin.

The underhiver takes the pad and looks towards the console next to her, searching for the right connecting slot. Before inserting the metallic capsule into the slot, she dusts it off to ensure the reading heads are clean. The pad fits into the console with in a snapping mechanical noise. Aerin hits a few buttons before opening the comm’s channel once more :

—“Transmitting, flight control” she utters, in the same appropriately monotonous voice.

The tower acknowledges the reception of the data and asks for them to wait for a pending approval of their flight path. After a few moments, Aerin covers the soft roaring of the plasma drive :

—“What’s on there?” she asks, pointing at the datapad.

The casual tone of her voice can’t conceal the curiosity gnawing at her as well as she would like.

Evjen inhales loudly, as if he wanted to convey his boredom :

—“A detailed route we won’t follow” he answers. Taking another breath, Evjen continues : “along with the specs of a bogus inspection mission on some of my astral ore mining facilities”.

Aerin looks disappointed, but nods nonetheless. The business man, feeling he wasn’t precise enough to satiate his sidekick’s interest explains that the resources his corporation gathers from the void is vital to this world’s production of Imperial machines of war, and surely, they wouldn’t mess with the daily affairs of the biggest purveyor of raw materials in the system. It still isn't what she wanted to hear. She is waiting for him to tell her who has to die and why. She likes a good story and loves to get involved in them. Sensing she won't get it out of him just yet, Aerin simply goes for “makes sense”. A good follow-up-killing pair of words.

They spend a moment in silence, their senses lulled by the sound of the engines. Finally, the clicking of the final transmission is heard, along with the awaited sanction of their flight path. Aerin reaches for the docking clamps’ release and lets Mally gently drift out of the mooring bay, along the suspended observation pier. As the Guncutter clears the docks, the pilot starts allocating more power to the drive’s capacitors, which can be heard revving all the way from engineering. Soon it seems like the whole craft is pulsing with tremendous potential energy from within its core, energy ready to be unleashed into the propulsion systems. For Aerin, this moment is as overwhelming as it pleasurable.

Clinging to his seat’s armrests, Evjen comments in feigned tranquility :

—“Easy now.” he says, his entire body as stiff as a support beam.

Aerin, slowly tilting the Malevolent towards the skies, turns her head and meets the screaming apprehension in Evjen’s eyes. She lets the ship sally forth and smiles as the Malevolent’s hull quivers and resonates under the mighty roar of its engines, now hurling the two of them into the void.  

P2

“The big one, at one o’clock high. Do you see it?”

Aerin takes a quick look towards the asteroid field.

“Yes.“ “That’s where we are going”.

“Understood”.

Evjen allows his back to rest into his seat. “They are hidden on the other side, waiting for us” he utters, before exhaling sharply through the nose. “Their ship has a ventral docking bay, big enough for us to land”.

While focused on her approach, Aerin can’t help twitching her eyes to the side, in an attempt to try and gauge the situation by the look on Evjen’s face. He never was too big on dispensing the details but this time he is being particularly ungenerous.

“Dock while maintaining vox-silence. I don’t want any stray signals” he orders.

As they pass on to the other side of this huge space rock, the target ship appears on Mally’s scopes. To the naked eye, it is still but a dot easily mistaken for one of the smaller asteroids in the background.

Aerin inhales slowly as she builds up the courage to speak.

“Would you care to tell me what we are doing here? Who are these people, you — one of the most powerful man on the whole Emperor-damned planet — have to meet behind a rock the size of a hive city?”

Evjen stares into the monitors as he tries to bring the necessary order to his thoughts to formulate an answer. “They’re pirates” he mumbles after a moment of silence. “Thieves, criminals, debased scum, sure, but yet resourceful.” he adds, more clearly.

“They do have a voidship” Aerins comments.

“Yes. But they also have contacts with certain, special people outside of our system. People who, they claim, can find anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.” Evjen continued without pause : “I wanted something very special and they asked around for me. Naturally they asked those special people I mentioned. Turns out one of them quickly found what I needed and our friendly pirates arranged a meeting between me — or rather, us — and this, shall I call, artifact finder.”

“Who are these special people?”

“I have my suspicions but I don’t like it. Not one bit.” he declares. “Anyway, I have brought payment for the pirates, but I haven’t been told what this finder requires for his or her troubles. This might be tricky. This is why I needed you. Because I know I can count on your discretion and, if my dealings with this person fail miserably, I also know I can count on your sizeable set of other abilities”

Aerin knows better than to push this line of questioning any further. Evjen expects things to get messy and it is information enough for her, for now at least. Instead, she contemplates the story she’s just been told while observing the pirates’ ship which now appears much bigger through the cockpit’s window.

It was a modified freighter, similar ships can be found in countless amount in the system : bringing supplies, shipping off cargo to the sub-sector’s commercial hubs, they are so common that she can’t help but approve this choice for a ship engaging in illegal activities.

It is in a state of disrepair, but nothing out of the ordinary. Captains push their crews and their ships to the last limits and accidents are rather frequent. The modifications however, those, she feels, are too obvious. Heavy ordnance and laser turrets slapped onto a cargo ship, it isn’t very discreet nor elegant. Then again, they didn’t have the limitless budget of her passenger and benefactor. Mally here, Aerin thought, had concealed weaponry. She might look like a defenseless void shuttle but underneath the facade, she is armed to the teeth ; she could beat squadron of interceptors on her own and perhaps she could hold her own against light scout corvettes. She’d definitely chew up the piece of garbage freighter Aerin is going to make her metal steed land in, she has no doubt that.

As the Malevolent gets into its final approach, Aerin decides to steer it towards the ventral docking bay, but using a backwards manoeuvre. An uncommon procedure, especially since there is barely any room for Evjen’s prized Guncutter there, but she manages to land it smoothly. Evjen frowns at her intricate piloting.

—“Much easier to get out of here this way” she explained.

Evjen’s frown leaves the way to a conniving smile. As Aerin turns off the engines, she notices armed men running onto the docking area.

—“Don’t worry about it” reassures Evjen as he lifts one of the bags he brought with him. “They’re probably here to escort us to the bridge” he wheezes. The bag must be heavier than she thought.

They both stand in front of Mally’s rear airlock, ready to disembark. As the pressure equalises, Evjen checks his side arm, Sagitta Tenebris, a custom-made beauty of a needle-gun. Aerin looks at him, still waiting on more instructions. Having finished his weapon’s inspection, he holsters it. As the hatch starts opening, Evjen stares right into Aerin’s awaiting eyes.

—“Whatever happens” he insists, “you follow my lead out there.”

[dontfeedthebabytigers]

You’ve Got So Much Heart: Chapter 8

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Dick’s screaming woke up Bruce that Saturday night as it had many nights before. Fearful howls pulled Bruce, like a marionette, out of bed and into the room across from his. The room once belonged to Bruce when he was a child, easy to scare and in need of his parent’s affection when the creatures in the night gave him nightmares. Next, the room became Damian’s when Bruce needed to keep the rebellious child on a short leash. The room didn’t switch occupants again until Dick came into their lives for the second time. That decision kept Dick in the room closest to the master suite for when the Court ever came for him again. Never again did Bruce want to hear Alfred so panicked or walk in on an empty room with rumpled blankets.

Then there were nights like tonight. Nights when faceless creatures torture his ward’s mind. Nights when Bruce found Dick curled up under the bed, screaming as he pulled at “Dick, you need to wake up.” Bruce’s voice was clear and concise; he left no room left for an argument. He hated taking that tone with Dick, but his ward needed to wake up before he started hyperventilating. Softness could come after Dick woke up.

“Come on, Dick. You’ve don’t this before, just open your eyes. You need to do better.”

Nothing. Dick continued to write on the cold hardwood. Cold, Bruce realized, the room was too cold. Outside the re-enforced window, Bruce saw a flurry of snowflakes as they drifted to the ground. Winter had come far too early.

Alfred, still in his night-clothes, rushed into the room and took in the situation. As Bruce continued his attempts to calm Dick, Alfred grabbed the space heater from the closet and set it to eighty degrees. By flicking a switch, Alfred turned on the heated floors and he handed the blanket to Bruce who tried to drape the blanket over Dick as best he could.

Not long after, Bruce and Alfred dripped with sweat. Dick’s screams had all but tapered off into silent tears while he attempted to soak in all the warmth that he could.

“Dick,” Bruce slipped into his concerned parent voice once again. He held out his hand to the child, moving slowly with clear intent. “You’re safe now. Come here, please.”

Dick took Bruce’s hand, the small hand cool against Bruce’s sweaty palm. Once he  was pulled  out from his hiding place, Dick curled into Bruce’s lap. His father muttered to him about how he was safe, he would warm up soon, and how he was sorry that he hadn’t known about the sudden snowstorm.

Getting details from Dick’s time with the Court was near impossible, trauma had sewn the boy’s lips nearly shut. From what Bruce did learn from Dick’s reactions and sparse accounts, he knew that the Court used frigid temperatures to torture his ward. He believed the cold functioned as a punishment and means of storage for out of commission Talons. Something in Dick’s DNA changed the way he reacted to cold temperatures. When chilled, the boy suffered horrid flashbacks, but the worst reactions came from an intense cold. Dick’s body begins to shut down when he gets too cold too fast. The boy’s first  encounter  with Mr. Freeze had been terrifying; Robin had just dropped for no reason Batman,  Nightwing , or Bluejay could come up with. Keeping  Nightwing  from maiming Mr. Freeze after that particular incident presented had been equally challenging.

Dick also heated slower than he should, and it took near ten-minutes until Dick was able to speak again from the minor chill he experienced that Saturday night.

“Bruce?” Dick’s shivering cut up his word.

“Yes, Dick?” Bruce held the boy tighter to his chest to try to calm the shaking.

“Are you going to send me away like you did with Tim?”

Dammit. Bruce froze, his grip around Dick slackened, and Alfred watched on as pity crept through his heart.

“Why would you ask that?” Bruce tried to put the right emotions in his voice, tried not to shut down.

"I hurt people,” Dick said as though commenting on the Gotham Wildcats game last night. “I hurt a lot of people for no reason.”

Raining was something Dick didn’t talk about other than fevered mumbling after dissociation events or the clipped phrases that escaped the grasp of a flashback. Blood, gore, death, and not in that order. All the details  were scattered , but enough so Bruce could create a picture of what happened. Though faded and smudged, the image was horrific.

“You never wanted to hurt anyone, don’t forget that,” Bruce whispered into his son’s hair. He pulled Dick back against his chest, and he pushed away from the sounds of his second son’s manic laughter that turned into wails. Words like you’re safe and you’re not what they made you trickled out from his mouth. He closed his eyes and used years of visualization training to pretend that all his children were asleep in their rooms, ignorant to the way Gotham crumbled around them.

Dick didn’t say anything for the rest of the night, he barely moved. In fact, he was corpse-like in the way he laid there. He was regaining the heat that he had lost so fast too slowly. Maybe they dozed in the early hours of the morning. There were times when he could have sworn that Alfred had stuck his head in to check on them. He would have to insist Alfred take the day off, but he knew that Alfred never listened to him, probably for the best.

Life was peaceful in that transition state between reality and dreams. The place where life became hazy, and they didn’t have to feel scared.

Dick finally fell, truly asleep, again at ten in the morning. With his ward resting, Bruce was able to turn down the heat in the room from boiling to border-line uncomfortable. Winter always attacked them with brutal disregard for Dick’s trauma; nature’s reminder that Dick could never escape what mutations linger in his DNA.

The door opened not long after Dick had fallen asleep. No knocks. Damian. His eldest took in the sight of his resting brother and the smell of sweat in the room. Damian moved with the Flash’s speed to sit on the edge of Dick’s bed. When the boy stirred, Damian hushed him back to sleep.

Once sure that Dick was asleep, he pulled Bruce out into the hallways, geared up to deliver a lecture.

“What happened?” He couldn’t yell for the fear of waking up Dick encompassed him, but the years of living with Alfred taught him that he didn’t need to raise his voice to strike the fear of God into a man.

“I thought you weren’t coming home until the evening.” Bruce wasn’t trying to change the subject, not completely at least, but Damian coming home early without any warning was abnormal at best.

“I sent word to Pennyworth that my trip ended early a few hours ago. He never responded, but I can see why now.” Damian looked towards Dick’s room. “He hasn’t looked this bad since he remembered what happened to his parents.”

“The cold front caught us off guard.”

"Don’t treat me like a child, father. I know what a chill does to him, this is different.”

Cold flashes didn’t leave Dick unaware of his entry, not after having been warned. Sudden chill accompanied by previous emotional trauma could lead to such a reaction.

Bruce sighed, he knew there was no way to avoid Damian's questions. He had been trying to since his son was ten-years-old.

“We had a run in with the Red Hood and Joker,” Bruce told him every he knew about Dick’s nightmare and the  encounter . How the clown had found a way to get the upper hand on a half-trained Talon. “I don’t know what he said to Dick, but it was enough to distract him mind-battle and give him a  night  terror.”

“Did he have one last night?”

“I don’t know. He seemed better these past few days, but he could have repressed all that, and with the cold, he  was pushed  too far.”

Damian looked back towards Dick’s door and thought of the boy inside. When he slept, Damian could still see bright smiles with a gap between two front teeth, eyes too bright, and wild hand gestures. He could see tears from a burning temper and hear words that spilled from the mouth of a child not yet in control of his anger. Those memories dropped to his stomach like cement every time he woke up.

“We should cancel the Gala,” Damian said.

Bruce pinched that area on his nose that got the most abuse when he spoke to his children. “You don’t think I’ve thought of that? Dick doesn’t want to hide anymore.”

"The timing is less than ideal.” So close to the anniversary of Dick’s escapes, Damian couldn’t count all the reasons that what they were doing was a bad idea. “You’ve always believed that members of the Court were part of Gotham’s elite. What if they are in attendance? How do you plan to keep Richard safe if we are surrounded by an enemy we cannot  identify ?”

“We can’t lock him up forever, Damian. Eventually, he will have to go to school, make friends, be a kid again. He can’t do that in here.”

Damian knew that it was impossible to hide Dick from all the danger that would face him until the Court got dismantled. He knew that, but he also knew what the blood-stained halls of the Labyrinth looked like; hot they smell like piss and copper. Hell  was locked  below the streets of Gotham, and Damian would die before Dick ever went back there.

[forestbathing-studies-blog]

Shinrin-Yoku: —The Art of Forest Bathing

I remember turning on the television. The camera moved down the normally sand-coloured dirt road, now churned into a red sticky mess by the latest rains, with oil puddles of ominous grey and brown refusing to melt into the earth. They glimmered with a splattering of rainbow colours, but the oil was still and stagnant.

The sky was grey, no clouds or anything. The camera crew had walked up to a little coffee-skinned boy who stood in the lane smiling, periodically pressing his palms together, fingers outstretched. He looked at the reporters, eager to please.

“And have you ever seen a flower?” One of them asked.

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“No,” said the little boy, shaking his head and smiling.

I finished packing my bags and scribbled a haiku to pin on my front door as my traveller's message.

what if you are fooled- that rainbows are scars in the sky you applaud and let bleed?

2

As I walked to the edge of my forest the boy's answer came to me again  who had never seen a flower in the mud of his shanty town, who trusted those that sent the bombs tt would set him free, free of a family to love him, free of the need to go to school any more, and free to choose which crater to sleep in, now that his house stood no more. I was leaving in my pursuit of forest study and specifically to further research forest bathing, a science started in Japan that I saw also as an art, and I knew that ultimately this study would benefit in those who had been robbed of the nature to nurture them. With this in mind I set off on my journey.

It is true that my own log cabin in the wilderness has no lock. No lock means a certain feeling of freedom. But freedom must be fed to flourish. It is not something you can give up, when your health suffers, or finances run low. You must build up your beliefs and values and experience them, and learn to learn them from others. That is the real reason to get in touch with nature, for walking in a forest also means stepping away from civilisation.

With my bag over my shoulder, I paused at the last tree before walking out into the meadow to pin my goodbye haiku to a tree trunk.

the aroma of pine

and the young morning’s fresh rain

reach my words

An early morning mist lay streaked with sunrise over the grass on  meadows. A few rowers were already gliding down the river that bordered the large expanse, dipping their oars in and skimming along the calm surface, tiny whirpools in their wake. There was an elegant, timeless quality to the scene before me. Standing under an old oak trees, I thought if I was writing a novel, this is where I would start it, just as the hardy young rowers swept by, seamlessly almost, in the mirrored river.

the sturdy oak tree

gives some ancient shade

to my thoughts

In truth my journey started in-between Panama and Colombia, in a village called Paya. I wore a red loincloth in the jungle of the Darien Gap, between Panama and Colombia. I stayed with the Kuna Indians almost exactly on the border, deep in the rainforest.There have been many efforts from colonial missionaries and sects to prise the Kunas of the Darien Gap away from their belief in the Nana Dummad, Mother Hearth, a belief closely associated with respect to the nature around them. All failed. These people, who live in the jungle remain closely at one with their environment. This seems to have a real benefit: Kuna people have a low average blood pressure (BP, 110/70mm Hg), and, do not experience the age-related increase in blood pressure that is common in Western society. Death rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer, the first and second causes of death in the western world, are so rare in the Kuna that they are almost non-existant.It is impossible to say there is no connection between living in the equatorial forest and these figures. A parallel can be drawn to the jungles of Kerala, in southern India,where the local people enjoy a remarkably healthy existences among forests, where fresh food is available almost freely throughout their environment. If there ever was a model for sustainable development, it is the State of Kerala in India, and its jungle patterned by waterways, in hich reed and wooden boats float past idyllic villages set among the trees. No slash and burn here.In both the Darien Gap and Kerala, inhabitants are literally able to pluck food from branches. Freshness is always an important issue, and their food from their respective forests is  high in vital flavonoid content. Flavanoids existabundantly and naturally in cocoa trees, but are often removed from chocolate, even dark chocolate because they can be bitter, and milk interferes with their consumption.Among the Kuna, I witnessed forest life first hand. Contrary to what one sees in news reports about people who live in these environments, everyone was healthy, and fit. It was only when leaving the settlement of Paya in the jungle, and heading towards the town of Turbo across the huge bay, that settlements began to look ragged, and disorganised, and people listless, with ill-fitting, ripped clothes, and vacant expression.In the green jungle there was always work to do, though more leisure time too, after the work had been done. Pollution was basically a foreign affair, and the Kuna carried much knowledge about the nutrients, health aids and poisons in their environment, as well as which areas were mosquito-ridden, and therefore likely to have the malaria parasite, and which areas of the rainforest were free of mosquitos.Living in the jungle, or even travelling through a jungle, is an enthralling experience. In sweltering heat as healthy as a sauna, and better than any exfoliant or moisteriser, every day is an adventure, and a detoxication for the mind.almost But problems occur when our world reaches into the areas of wilderness. I discover sad news after I leave the Darien Gap that , Víctor Alcázar, my guide and good friend was caught in an attack by a Colombian right wing squad, an attack that killed four Kuna Indian spiritual forest leaders and terrorised the harmonious settlement I had stayed in. Victor, who escaped suffering from bayonet wounds, was accused by police and prosecutors of being an accomplice of the invaders. It is inconceivable that such a kind, gentle person, who lost previously lost his front teeth demonstrating against Noriega, the Panamanian dictator, and a much-experienced guide in the jungle, could have done anything like that to destroy his own business. The veteran jungle guide, who had complained frequently about how the lack of police presence in eastern Darien hurt his business, told reporters he was a scapegoat for the police failure. I have never been able to get further information about what happened to him, this wonderful Carib of the Darien jungle, who had found himself under great stress and pressure, a man of great happiness and humour who harmed no-one, who I had corresponded with for a few years, with an unbelievably simple address of Víctor Alcázar, El Real, Darién jungle, Panama. among the treesshadows and thoughtstravel for miles 木木木

木木木

Siberia: it is no wonder this great expanse spawned such unparalleled works of literature. Every person one meets is a perfectly described character, a walking story, ready for a novel to step into. As for the land mass itself, there is simply too much of it to describe. Many don’t even try, and rarely even glance out of a window from their train invariably traversing through the immense taiga, but none will admit to any monotony of the journey. Most travellers on trains here are not romantics. Siberia pulls on more than the mere sentimental. The concept of time and space take on a new condominium for those who do stand or sit looking out of the train windows. The trees are lyrical, and give rise to great orchestral symphonies of the mind. These pines, birch, spruce and larches may not have been the forests that padogas and fancy pavilions were built from, nor the dark, luxuriouds wood of Balinese carvings, but on these tree trunks and logs whole cities had been erected over permafrost, the wooden stilts serving better for the purpose than concrete, which starts to crumble in the plunging cold. At these times temperatures slide to such nonsensical figures that bananas become hammers and even vodka freezes. But vodka is an imported drink here, from wheatfields and grasslands, and made for drinking around kitchen tables up in high-rise flats that circle cities. From these tables and bottles trains are watched below as they made their way through the taiga. Those who take those trains across Siberia are not people who succumb to the self-indulgent charms of wanderlust. True travellers, they are mostly teatotal. The true Siberian traversing his or her native land cures and heals not with vodka but with pine oil, which he or she imbibes, or rubs on ailments and heats as a natural aroma.

Chita (Чита) is situated right where two rivers meet, the Inogoda and river Chita, from which the town is named. The two rivers come together a couple of hundred kilometres north of Mongolia, in Eastern Siberia. Chita is distinct. There are only two cities in the world where on the same hill at the same time are three temples of three different religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and Chita is one of them. In the ancient part of the city on the top of the hill (the old prison used to be there, too) there is a synagogue, a mosque and an orthodox church. This is why Chita is called the second Jerusalem. Even the flag looks Palestinian, with a yellow triangle replacing the Palestinian red one, and three stripes of red, white and green.

“I understand there is no key to your log cabin, where you said you live, so if you don’t need a key, what are you searching for?” said the wizened old man, sitting on a wooden ledge lining a thin bed of small growing roots. With his thin white beard and green shawl he looked like a curator of bonsai trees.

“You mean why have I travelled so far?” I asked, the traveller in me long adept at turning philosophy around like the spinning of a coin, but only to help the conversation grow, to water it, give it life.

“In miles or in ideas?” the man replied, hand on his beard, a little tug, “or perhaps the key is only in the questions.”

I looked at the little man, at his amused eyes. He could have been from Tibet, or Kalmikiya, or of Hazara descent, living in the middle of Afghanistan. Chita was not part of the Siberia of pine, spruce or birch tree anymore. Here one felt the bleakness of the Central Asian grasslands, the steppes. The old man was a Buriat, of Turkic, Mongolian origins; a Buddhist.

“I’m just looking for my way forward,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, “then in miles!”

He tugged his silky white beard again, once, twice, a third time. “A pity,” he said, “in ideas is more fruitful.”

“If I hadn’t come all the miles across Siberia we would not be chatting about this,” I said.

“And nor would we if I had crossed over Siberia the other way” he replied. “It is a good thing all I did was sit here, otherwise I would not have had such a delightful, perhaps only an inconsequential moment, but I am rather sure that from here, near the end of your journey, it is your ideas that will now travel.”

“The importance of my journey then is not what I feel about it, but in what others find in it,” I said.

“That is the real journey,” replied the man. He lifted his hand up flat, horizontal, so that it cast a shade over the small plants growing in the fresh spring soil. “It is not my ability to lift my hand that is important,” he said, “but the shade it provides so the flowers can grow and bloom without over-exposure to the direct light.”

He stood up. “Ah, see, you are taller than me. You are offering me shade,” he said, giving a chuckle, “but others kilometres away will only receive shade from the ideas you have.”

He offered his hand and I shook it.

“If you must travel far to find the right way to provide shade of ideas for others, so be it,” he said, “but remember one must travel for that reason, not to count the distance.”

From within a slip of a pocket at his chest he pulled out a small booklet, with grey cardboard cover. “When you think about our meeting, and exchange ideas about the trees, then please make one of these haiku in here part of that exchange. Only open and look when you have collected your ideas and tell others.”

I took the booklet, and slipped it into my chest pocket. I wanted to tell him that everyone needs space, and some need movement, too, the creaking of a rolling wagon wheel, ruffled flapping of a sail or click of train wheels.

Then this small, alert man on the edge of the large flower bed surprises me, placing his hand on my arm. “my niece will accompany you, the taiga is her home and she is returning there after visiting me,” he says, “her name is Yenisei. Tell me what you learn from the trees, if we meet again. If not, tell another.” BELOW SYRAIGHT AFTER leaving forest part: 木木木

It took a childhood of intermittent tramping through pine forests in the Alps, where I grew up and a decade of living in the empty deserts of the Middle East to understand forests. That and spending an afternoon in the ethereal Redwood forest, in California. I thought I’d never seen anything more exquisite and majestic. Exploring the taiga of Siberia is awe-inspiring. There is also something else, that the more time I spend in forest areas, the better my chronic and inexplicable breathing difficulties I have improve.

the pine cone that feeds all the forest is the forest

l long for nature’s products when I walk among the bushes, shrubs and trees. Not the creams from companies with names like Natura, or Flower, Plantigen, with pictures of flowers or berries on the front, and packed with goodness knows what chemicals in a plastic container. TO REMOVE

sunlit waterfall in my wooden cup the taste of a rainbow

misty morning droplets of forest poetry I touch the sky

木木木 By name alone, Yenisei sounds beautiful. Yenisei. Names become more exotic the deeper one ventures into the forests of Siberia, in the endless boreal forest, or snow forest, of coniferous trees, pines, spruces and larches, and the white trunks of the birch trees. Yenisei is my guide, and is named after the River Yenisei itself, one of the three great rivers of Siberia. She is sleeping under the boughs of another pine tree, under great branches that trap the warmth. My guide is the niece of the man I met in Chita, and related by DNA and language to many of the tribes of Northwest America.

The forests ripple over the horizon. I am under the impression I will take this mysterious, beautiful forested land with me wherever I go, spiritually, in my heart, and soul. Already mentally, and physically, it has had a positive effect after only a couple of days. There is no other forest like the pine forest. I try to write a haiku about falling asleep under a pine tree, where heavy snow does not make it under the thick boughs that trap the warmth, but just can’t get it right. No matter, I am content merely to be, among the trees. Perhaps it is the scent I like most, as well as the gentle grandeur.

pine tea for the soul starts with a harvest of needles and forest air

Yenisei is not necessarily my guide for distances we will cover in the vast interior of Russia, but also my guide for my own interior. For that purpose, I will accordingly learn all I can about the forests of Siberia. Yenisei lives in the taiga, in the forest, usually in a small community, with other ethnic Evenks, who live a nomadic life among the trees, setting up camp a while then moving on, for the pleasure of moving as well as living. On a mat of pine needles am rejuvenated

 木木木  

Here, at the other end of the thermometer from many, in Siberia, it is cold. My hands are already numb as I light the third match. The dried grass and hay, though, is still unfrozen. This time, with cupped hands not feeling the naked flame, it catches alight, a whisper of smoke then glowing tips. The herbs start to smoulder and flare, minute pinpricks of light, and soon I sip pine nut tea and offer some to my guide, through the large snow-covered branches. She smiles, and has her own forest herb brew to boil up. She hands me some dried Valerian flower roots. “Chew them,’’ she says, ‛’the flower grows here. It will help you sleep well, with nice dreams.’’ “I’m having wonderful dreams already!’’ I answer. It is only now I understand how much I appreciate the company of fir trees, and only now that I am consciously learning how healthy they are for our physical and mental health; our chemical balance, and for the soul. The landscape of rolling forests is peaceful and mystical at the same time, and we are near the top of a small hill, among thick pine trees, in scenery that looked tame enough for a Christmas card, but far enough from any settlement to see by the light of the stars and moon alone. I open the old man from Chita’s little grey cardboard book and read the first haiku. without roots we cannot flower 木木木

The first time I heard the term ′forest bathing’ was at 4 am, in Banff, Canada. It was the middle of January, and I was half way up through the trees of Sulphur mountain. I had a long knife in hand in the absence of a pick axe or walking stick, to stab at the icy snow on the steep incline and a heavy old rubber mattress thrown over my shoulder, and twisted together at the hip. The plan was to climb the mountain, blow up the rubber mattress and speed down again, and continue my journey all the way to the Darien Gap, and Kuna Indians, over the next few months. It was tough work going up the mountainside. Not so much because of the steepness, but because of the deep snow up to my waist, and I wanted to widen a path, so that my ride down would happen at speed. It was also tough work as I had not quite got over my long summer and autumn’s work, first tree planting, then burning old tree tumps, followed by carrying heavy loads of water on my back to put out smouldeting tree stumps, before finally graduating to lumberjack, and felling trees for miles and miles into late autumn. No-one could accuse me of idealistically falling in love with forests — my relationship had been physical. The Japanese woman on the ledge had been watching me for a while when I arrived. I had started at 4 am. She had started earlier, or more likely had trekked up faster. Or both; she had been on the Japanese Women’s Everest Expedition a few years earlier. Our conversation was brief, some might say terse, or aphoristic: to her quizzical look I had offerred an explanation of  enjoying being on the forested slopes in winter. “You ever heard of forest-bathing?’’ she asked. “Oh, you mean because of the rubber mattress?” I answered, lifting it off my shoulder. “No. It’s what you’re doing. Getting in the good air,” she said. “They studied the benefits in Japan a couple years ago, and it’s called Shinrin-Joku. Forest bathing.” somewhere far in the woods under the pine’s speckled sunlight a tiny acorn gives birth

I blew up the inflatable mattress, jumped on and sped down the steep hill through the forest, down the gulley I had made walking upwards. At the bottom of the mountain my travelling partners arrived by pick-up. I duly got picked up, and we drove down to Central America. And I forgot about forest bathing until  Guatemala, a few months and many miles later.

under the trees leaves and shadows of leaves only shadows stay

木木木

When I arrived in Guatemala I befriended two honey collectors in the lush bushes up the sides of a volcano. The path we were on went straight up, no matter how steep the side of the volcano became, straight up through the trees, then areas of grass, then trees. And they walked fast. Fast meant really fast, up the slope. It was a lesson learnt, in many different ways — in general, our lifestyle is worse than many in the developing world. Of course, on that day on the volcano I had very little style, and not much life in my limbs either. They stopped, politely.

“I will let you go,” I said, “you are too fast!”

The elder of the two men patted his midriff and smiled: “Have some wild forest honey!” he said in Spanish.

He put his hand in the bag he had slung at his hip, and took a glass jar out, opened it, then took a tortilla out and dipping it into the jar, gave it to me. I chewed the honey-dipped bread. It was suitably delicious.

The forest honey on my tortilla was a dark, deep amber; real medicine, and strongly antibacterial. When honey is applied on a cut, graze or scrape, an enzyme from bees called glucose oxidase activates the release of H2O2. Forest honey, the most medicinal of all honies, can even kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. It is also hydroscopic and pulls water away from an infected wound by osmosis. Dryer wounds heal faster, but honey also pulls lymph fluid to the wound, making balanced healing, and this honey’s low pH of between 3 and 4, makes it acidic. Bacteria cannot survive in an acidic environment.

The unrefined forest honey on the tortilla was my excuse to immerse myself into my environment. I waved goodbye to my companions and admired the view through the trees, thankful for the cover as the rain poured. As I sat, I thought of ways to render the exotic appeal of the surroundings onto paper in haiku, to convey the atmosphere of purity and harmony.

Below me in the tinsel light of the rain, I saw a shining river winding its path between the hills, and made my way downwards towards it. Great Mayan cities were carved out of the jungle here, cities now so hidden that one can really only stumble on them by accident. I took out my notebook and waded into the river, and sat on a small smooth rock to watch the current stream pleasantly by, the clear surface of the river broken by the fast patter of raindrops. It was then that a rubber raft came drifting around the bend, with four occupants, three men abnd one woman, in mid-conversation.

“Ah’m tellin’ ye!’’ shouted the man in front, in broad Scots dialect, and bright red Celtic hair . “Tha’ bloody rum’s poison man, gie’ us a whisky any day!’’

“Nah,’’ his colleague insisted in Carribean lilt and big laugh, “there is nothin’ compared to rum man!’’

Seeing me just are they were seen by me, they both expertly swivelled the rubber craft round with their wooden paddles to where I sat.

“Join us man,’’ said the Carribean, all smiles again contrasting with ebony skin. “My name’s Claymore, that reprobrate there is McGillan,’’ he laughed, in a fitting Jamaican accented musical tone, “and this is Beatrice, from Canada, and there’s Guillermo,’’ he said, pointing to the third man holding his oar as a rudder, having pioted the dinghy alongside me.

I got in. Beatrice, long-haired with red bandana, red-flowered wrap and bikini top, sat on the opposite side of the dinghy and I picked up a paddle amd dipped it into the river, swivelling it back.

“Well Ah’m nae normally one tae argue mind,’’ McGillan continued to Claymore, in full swing, “Ah’d waste neither disinfectin’ yer backside frae the tooth marks of tha’ croc over there!’’

We turned quickly to see a small alligator floating slowly in our direction, snout causing a few small bubbles to escape as it watched us guide by.

“Hey man,’’ said Claymore, “the alligator that bites your butt gets a drink from me!”

“You bloody men,’’ said the woman called Beatrice.

The forest murmured constantly with almost electric activity, but not all the noises blended in, just as the flash of colours of a macaw startled against the background of green, so a high pitched cry or deep rumble caught the senses sharply. Large butterflies, in translucent blue fluttered out of reach, almost in a dance, and no again near the riverbank on either side there was a sudden plop! As an animal quickly jumped into the water as we swept by; frogs perhaps. This was haiku country, and surely Bashō would have felt inspired among the lush, green vegetation.

Then Guillermo said: “Look!’’

Beatrice was still finishing a drawing. “The calm tranquillity of the woman’s mind,’’ she had just said, as she sketched in a long thick phallic tree trunk that bent slightly upwards over the water. Guillermo seemed to see things that we did not with our untrained eyes. He stood watching the jungle from the raft, looking at things that had happened here years ago, gesturing at what was indistinguishable in the thick forest. He quickly and easily leapt ashore picking a leaf and chewing it, then picking another from a different tree, We stepped out of the raft, causing Beatrice to look up, and waded to the river bank.

“I am Lacandón Mayan,’’ Guillermo said, as he led us up the steep bank into the forest, “my people live here long, long time ago. We came to the jungle to escape the Conquistadores, and have been a forest people since. When we farm in the jungle, nosotros, us Lacandon, we farm with nature. We mix plot of land with different plants so we don’t starve mother earth. We grow lemon, onion, pepper, corn, watermelon, all in same place. We grow banana and papaya trees to shade, so the rhythm of the forest does not change. We don’t have disease spreading on our land because we don’t grow only one kind of plant. The earth keeps strong because different plants’ needs are different.’’ He looked around. “Here we can build a incense burner renewal ceremony hut.”

The jungle looked untouched. To Guillermo, however, the pattern of the jungle had been modified, and soon we came up to some light undergrowth. We walked around what appeared to be a large mound, and pulled at the tangled branches.

“I think there’s a way in here,” said Claymore.

“Do ye then?” Asked McGillan about thirty minutes later, as we pulled and chopped and cut. A passage way finally appeared, and we slithered into the entrance, an entrance that was paved with chunks of stone. There was room for one down the small rectangular corridor, and room for two in the small chamber at the end of it. Rough scratched on stones set around patches of earth were all that was left of the probable etched hieroglyphics and artefacts.

“People have been here before us,” said Guillermo, “only the forests have stayed.”  He looked up towards the treetops. “The name Guatemala comes from Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān, ′place of many trees,’ a translation of the Mayan K’iche, ′many trees’,” he said.

in my forest I hunt for words -trees are stories

木木木

Up near the Arctic Circle, there is magic afoot during the winter months. We know that Santa was a shaman in his big black boots, collecting the Fly Agraic mushroom, red with white dots from the forest, and feeding it to his reindeer then drinking the mix when their livers had removed the toxins, or putting them in a big sack and later hanging them to dry above the fireplace. And these magic mushrooms that grow under the fir trees, with ethereal fertilisation, are symbolised now with the draping of silver-coloured tinsel over the so-called Christmas tree, in reality the world tree, the tinsel symbolising sperm.

Of course, after eating the magic mushrooms the deer fly, and Santa laughs, with red cheeks, and the Siberian tribal and Saami people’s myth of the world tree is real. If you would like to treat yourself to one of these mushrooms, make sure you boil it first, unless you have any reindeer around. And then come North, and see the northern lights, glowing, moving behind the silhouettes of pine trees and watch, touch our magic, natural world.

snowflakes drift

as plum blossoms open in Seoul

and in my memories

The world tree has been ursuped and used in many homes as the Christmas tree, but if people wanted to follow the Nativity scene more closely they would use a palm tree. Palms are wonderful, magical trees in their own right.

two tall palms

in monsoon rains

give a coconut kiss

I briefly mentioned living in the deserts of the Middle East. What I meant was working as in-house environmental consultant for the Saudi Arabian oil company, based in a desert town called Abqaiq, meaning Tiny Bug, over the world’s largest oil field, the Ghawar Field, and on the edge of Al Ahsa oasis, with its 30 million palm trees, in the Eastern Province. 30 million trees is a lot of dates.

in only one date the taste of paradise  — never eaten alone

Walking through the immense date plantation, shaded by the broad patterned leaves in a day exotic with heat was always a thrill.  Meeting bedouins in the evening, who had nothing to offer but the best hospitality and warm sand dunes, under a backdrop of a wide, clear sky full of stars and the aroma of roasted cardamon coffee, the cardoman, as always, from the Guatemalan highlands, and the coffee possibly too, served with fresh, frothed camel milk and genuine conversation; a life at its most luxurious.

in coffee friendship

embers from the dancing fire

-floating stars

At the fringe of the large date palm plantation I stopped one evening, and walked towards a small oasis set in the wavy, curved lines of the desert sands. The oasis was surrounded by lush green palm trees, some tall and stooped, and some thick and rigid. I knelt down and reached deep into the cool, fresh water, and lifting my cupped hands drunk some and splashed my face. When I looked up I saw her sitting at the waterside about fifty yards away, opposite me, between the trees. Her legs were in the cool water of the oasis and she’d pulled her black abaya up to her thighs. I had startled her and she started to pull the abaya downwards but stopped when I smiled and touched my forefinger to my lips.

The oasis took on a creamy glow as the sun set in the desert somewhere in the distance. She kept her abaya up on her thighs, kicking in the water, softly, as I sat on the opposite side of the oasis, taking in her etheral beauty. Finally she stood up, carefully letting her abaya drop from uncurling, long fingers. Pushing a large palm leaf aside she turned to walk away in the sand, and glanced back for one long moment before making her way up the sand dune behind her.

Only in Saudi Arabia could one share such an illicit, sensual spell.

the setting sun

melts into shadows

and shadows melt into night

木木木

I am reminded again of the inbuilt need of western culture and civilisation to proletise, often found these days through the workings of charities, who go to great lengths to inform us of noble savages around the world who need our help to care for their environment and develop, by which the charity companies really mean they want our money.

In Kerala, sitting on a houseboat made from reeds on one of the many waterways through the jungle, I was told thatt the first tree huggers were from India; 294 men and 69 women of the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who died in 1730 while trying to protect the trees in their village from becoming raw material for building a palace. They clung to the trees while being slaughtered. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. Thee days the villages are virtual wooded oases amid an otherwise desert landscape.

The Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, spread across India, forcing reforms in forestry and a ban on tree-felling in Himalayan regions.

among the trees only thoughts and shadows move

木木木

The traveller, farmer, writer or must seek isolation, whether he or she likes it or not. So I walk through the forests and hills back to where Yenisei has fashioned a small yurt from branches and canvas, marveling that yet again I found my way. Through Bashō we learn that the true writer does not lead a sedentary life, and indeed must walk in order to express his or her syllables. Bashō walked for 156 days through Japan in his legendary ′Deep Road to the Far North,’ series of haibun that defined the term.

By walking on his long walk, Bashō also demonstrated that the true haiku and haibun haijin’s tool is not the pen but the wooden staff. Not only does this staff lift branches and part bushes to see the dew drops and flower petals, but it can also be leant on when searching the sky for floating eagles, patterned clouds and drifting cherry blossoms. The wooden staff also taps haiku on a road perfectly, like a variant of morse code message to nature:

win—ter—is—o—ver

a—dog—barks—to—each—tap

of—my—carved—staff

My journey is in fact a journal of nature—a kikôbun. Ahaibun is a pilgrimage, maybe only of ideas, but a kikôbun has no destination, despite being a journey. The travel journal that is the kikôbun denotes a wanderer that is not Quixotic in his or her reveries, but rather seeks to record. A sword or lance of any kind must therefore be put aside for other quests, as a kikôbun merely takes from the nature that is seen when walked through, to put onto lines on pages. The semiotic wooden walking staff therefore takes on symbolic meaning.

My wooden staff— the kikôbun’s sword carving thoughts

Not Don Quixote, nor wandering samurai, what, then? Like the Navajo in the southwestern states, who use wooden tools on mother earth lest they leave scars, I don’t set out to make an impression that might not heal.

my staff slices the trees still stand and yet…

木木木

The ice patterns blown onto plants are more beautiful than the flowers that briefly bloom in summer, and more fragile. But my journey into Siberia brought me equally tender and graceful moments, landscapes, untamed, grandiose, full of proud fir trees, and the natural home of Siberian religion, for the true Siberian religion is shamanism, and travelling through the Siberian taiga is also taking another journey into the spirit world with a shaman encountered on a muddy village path, or up in a grassland meadow.

I know shamanism well from the Saami people in Lappland, and find female shamans are able to reach further into the sky. Shamanism also has a spiritual home in the steppes of Kazakhstan, and Yakutia, in the north. From Kalmykia on the shores of the Caspian to Korea, true shamans listen and interpret what nature is trying to say. No traveller or journey man or woman can remain untouched by this simple and compelling spirituality.

to know your path follow the shadows of the tracks above you

I realise my guide Yenisei is a shaman first through her commitment to her forest environment, even before watching her use different herbs for nutrition and salvation, spiritual purposes that involved intricate rituals.

northern lights

the night sky whispers in colour at the edge of the town

Yenisei teaches me to be at one with the forest around me She does this by encouraging me to sense the forest as well as merely see it. As all simple messages, it takes time to fully understand and grasp, but as I do I feel real comfort.

pine trees gently sway -is it the wind blowing or is it my mind?

Her rituals are deeply personal, and intimate, and it feels like such an honour that she lets me watch, and participate, showing a trust one only finds among forest-dwellers. And I don’t take notes. The rituals of the shaman are not to be broadcast wherever one feels like, so I will give only the most basic of impressions here.

Before any sacred shaman ceremony, juniper is burnt. The very first step is the connection with nature, and the juniper must be sought and found. Yenisei chose the juniper bush carefully, studying the texture of the berries and tasting a few, before deciding on the right bush in the right location. She put her juniper berry mixture into some oil in a small bowl, which she heated with a candle in her hand and walked the perimetre of a clearing she had found with longest view facing northwards.

She took the rest of the juniper needles and berries and boiled them into an immune-strengthening tea that helps heal the digestive system, pulling energy into the solar plexus. This juniper berry tea acts as a diuretic to help support the function of the liver and kidneys and expel toxins, energising the endocrine system. Pine needles from other pine trees can also be used for tea, or birch bark, and nettles.

She started softly tapping her shaman drum. The rhythm of a drum further energises and awakens the inner senses., and she had specified no shyness or holding back when transprted by the beat of one’s rhythm. Then came the hush. My Evenki shaman listened, especially for the sacred cuckoo bird, a symbol of good luck: hearing it could improve your spirit and feeling — if we let it, and we listened to the sounds of nature for strength.

Yenisei then spoke, softly. She said juniper pine needles were dropped nto the hands of those taking part in the shaman ceremony. The closed hands are passed over the incense or oil lamp a few times, and palms are opened to reveal the pine needles, which are ‘read.’ Being right, or wrong, was not important. What was important was to come to a consensus about possible meanings, and that in this concensus the healing may begin.

sounds of the drum

through the trees echoes tapped

shaman

her eyes lit by fire

the yurt by song

We sleep a while. Then from my bag I take out a packet of coffee made by an Italian friend, roasting the coffee on the charcoal dawn fire. I serve it to Yenisei, as she purrs herself awake and unwraps herself, naked, from the fur. In front of our shelter a beautful sight: a ring of green fire, the Aurora Borealis.

midwinter night a dark sky's lights dance in the wolf's eyes

northern lights the magic world speaks shaman inspired

木木木

I find it difficult in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, and do not need to be in the capital of anywhere. Soon Yenisei will show me how to draw the birch sap from the trees, and I will literally taste the taiga. Today, though, Yenisei, my mysterious shaman has other duties to take care of, and so will make her own path alone, and let me make mine. We will part ways, my shaman and I, my guide, in more ways than one.

among the pine trees only one set of footprints- mine

And I write one more haiku, as I wach her become a small dot on a space between trees that is my horizon, walking lightly in the soft snow.

snowflakes and I on the path this morning even the trees are lonely

木木木

We often talk about taking the train, but of course, the train takes you, just like a dream does. Everytime one steps up the steps of a train carriage, one steps into a dream.

on the train deep into the soul of Siberia we share bread and reverie

My travelling ccompanions on the train eastwards through the forests are American. American travellers busy sewing or sticking flags of Canada to bags and shirts is legendary and has almost become de rigeur. It is rare, however, that being an American is alone an offense, and cetainly not in Siberia. All the same, one of the Americans across from me is busy plastering Canadian patches on bags and clothing, before practicing the accent with a lot of lilted ‛ays.’

“I am not sure all the matriachical train station guards in the small towns along the railroad tracks will spot the difference,’’ I say.

“Hey man, you gotta do what you gotta do,’’ says the young man. “Where’s Snowden anyway?’’ he adds, “I’d like to meet him, maybe even bring him in. There must be some kind of reward.’’

“Well, Canadians wouldn’t be saying that,’’ I said, “and you never know what kind of microphones they have on trains.’’

The American goes quiet in contemplation, a silence broken only by the pretty sight of his travelling colleague, Linda, slipping out of her flip flops and painting her toenails bright red.

“I’d do this in the bathroom normally,’’ she chuckles.

She was from Florida, and wasn’t exactly sure where the train was heading.

“All the way to Vladivostok,’’ I answered.

“And no cute guys,’’ she said.

She was good-looking in a disharming sort of way, with strawberry blonde hair, but as such did not stand out in the carriage, aside from her flip flops which set her apart from the high heels worn by the Russian women on the train. Inside the compartment it was too warm as usual in eastern Europe, but most passengers have kept their sweaters on regardless, as if judging the temperature by the view outside, where patches of snow flashed by under the fir trees.

Linda puts her heels on the seat beside me across from where she sat. “I could paint a little white maple leaf on,’’ she giggles.

At a small station her male colleague dashes off to restock on food, eschewing the fresh pine pastries being sold from baskets on the platform and buying instead overpriced stale buns in plastic packets from the buffet.

“They even asked if I was American, man,’’ he says, mournefully, returning.

“Don’t worry, only the mosquitoes weren’t fooled,’’ says Linda.

winter morning- the scenery paints itself into my imagination

木木木

I find out that about 150,000 inmates were imprisoned in more than 150 camps in the Perm region during the late 1940s. This was about a third of the working population of the region:

Perm-36 Labour Camp Schedule

Daily Schedule of a Gulag Prisoner Time Activity

6:00 AM Wake up call

6:30 AM Breakfast

7:00 AM Roll-call

7:30 AM1 ½ hour to march to forests, under guarded escort

6:00 PM1 ½ hour return march to camp

7:30 PM Dinner

8:00 PM After-dinner camp work duties (chop firewood, shovel snow, gardening, road repair, etc.)

11:00 PM Lights out

Much of the railroad has been laid by the bare hands of prisoners from labour camps, whose prison was Siberia itself. Gulags rarely needed fences or guard towers. Escapees were never going to get far. And the railroad still crushes the bones of those who perished building it.

Not everyone who laid down rail lines in Siberia was a prisoner. Many volunteered, and even stayed afterwards. Those people have a special inner peace about them. An understanding and deep respect of nature. They are people who prefer the numbing colds of winter to the pleasant summers, full of unforeseen dangers and reckless laziness.

Their sense of freedom is like nothing experienced elsewhere, and maybe all the more so because it is worked so hard for. Freedom in the land of gulags. It is an interesting thought. But for all its history of brutality and horror, Siberia is a vast, mystical land, a land of shamans who reach where the church or mosque doesn’t, and where temperature plunges so low that cement or metal foundations of buildings are useless next to the hardy wooden ones of the taiga, thus proving, once again that nature wins.

the further one travels

the more opens up

behind us

木木木

Two decades ago I drank a glass or two of homemade wine on a front porch, with a retired postman who’d walked home from Toliatti, on the Volga, from the non-descript decrepid town somewhere on a trainline in the middle of Russia.

Delivering the post had been his job — to the Hungarian eighth army who had invaded the Soviet Union in support of German troops, during the Second World War. And János delivered mail. He collected it from the train, or trucks and delivered it to the front line troops. This is a more important role than it first appears, for a man cannot fight without news that his loved ones are well.

It was love that made János walk. In the middle of the Second War and the middle of Toliatti, János delivered his mail and kept walking. He walked out of the town, along the trainline, then through the taiga, through the trees, over forested hills, across rivers and sleeping in the woods on the edges of villages. He walked, and walked, all the way back to Eastern Hungary, across the steppes then great plain. He walked under stars, raindrops and hailstones, from sunrises to sunsets, to the golden soils of the wine-growing town of Tokaj, back to his wife.

When he arrived back, he discovered his sister-in-law had been taken away, just taken off to the gulags of Siberia. So he turned around and walked again, attempting to find her, somewhere in the hugeness that was the Siberian taiga. He never found out what happened to her, but still now missed the Siberian forests, and especially the tribespeople that were its inhabitants. As I sat in Tokaj, Eastern Hungary, drinking his delicious homemade wine, which he kept in a wine cellar dug into the hillside, I noticed her picture, his sister-in-law, hanging on the wall; a beautiful young woman, the portrait soft in the evening glow.

János spoke no English but we understood each other very well. We shared much, János and I, much of the same soul, as we refilled or glasses, glancing at the portrait of the young woman who died in the gulag.

water drop on a branch from a cloud far above  — tiny tree magnified

木木木

We are in Yekatinberg. Among the Ural mountains outside Yekatinberg’s eastern balconies in pine-scented forests, I think of János and his long monthly walk, passing through here years before. I am not a man of the pencil-line horizon, and I walk upwards, to the nearest peak, to compose my haiku.

high in mountain forests where even shadows don’t reach nature inspires through silence

Siberia is home to so many who live with nature. Winter, when traps are laid, and fresh water comes from holes dug deep in the ice, is discreetly turning towards spring. I always miss the hard, yet pristine environment of the winter months in the forest. Winter is a time when travel is often easier, across solid lakes and rivers and through frozen forests. It is a time when hospitality is offered, when bears are not around near villages, nor dangerous ticks and bothersome mosquitos in muddy parts of the forests.

Soon though, the bears will be out again, and hungry. It is not possible to chase them away when fishing. They will always come back, so must be shot. The leaves will shimmer in the breeze. It will be harder to follow animal tracks, and easier for animals to keep their distance from hunters. In Tyumen I will only see the fort from afar. I don’t mind. I feel at home among the birch and pine trees, and castles all seem seem to share such similar histories.

Tyumen fort shines at night not as much as the birch trees -such longing

I look over at Linda, now applying another colour of nailpolish. I imaged her taking a few barefoot steps with snow melting.

she walks in the snow until the grass at the edge of spring

But by the time I have scribbled my three lines and looked up again out of the train window it is snowing:

how thoughtless-

spring blossoms are late yet another haiku about snow

木木木

Stragglers are we. All for what? Sometimes, like now, its good to get off before the end of the journey, then the journey really never ends. Until then, the traps are set. The night is young. The snow is fresh. I’ve seen the tracks. The conditions are difficult for the elk right now. The snow is not strong enough to support elks, so they often get stuck, making easy meat for hungry wolves and awakening bears. And an elk, or caribou in north America, can provide food for a long time.

But the taiga used to be home to a much larger mammal: for four hundred years, thousands of mammoth tusks have been found in Siberia, about fifty thousand of them, from mammoths almost intact, with many organs perfectly frozen and stomachs half full of food — at times the blood still viscous due to the ‘anti-freeze’ components found in the blood, so called cryptoprotective properties, as in Arctic amphibians and fish.

It is quite easy to imagine that at some point in the future a mammoth is going to be cloned using that viscous blood. Large animals like the woolly mammoth could help stabilise the ecosystem in parts of Siberia.

But why so many mammoths ended up in Siberia remains a real mystery. Why did millions of the woolly mammoth move to the cold in Siberia, and how did they die so quickly after eating? Did a massive cold front move suddenly from the Arctic? That would be a climatic condition that does not exist today. If this is the case, it would have been very cold — freezing a mammoth suddenly and quickly is no easy thing at all. It would have taken temperatures as low as -100°C. The mystery is far from solved…

so many tusks found far in the Siberian tundra we step over ancients

木木木

On the Road of Bones you never travel alone. Here, they say, words themselves freeze, dropping in tiny fragments, tinkling like a wind chime.  This is the notorious road built by the prisoners of the Gulags, the torture camps.The road stretches to Magadan on the Pacific ocean, from Yakutsk in Yakutia, a vast mysterious republic within the even larger emptiness of Siberia. A republic that would be the eighth largest country in the world if fully independent, with a population of just 1 Million.

In the distance

more forest

—and more distance

Here in Yakutia the temperature can plunge to -60°C, rendering the road a gamble that only those needing to escape a misdemeanor take, or those imbibed with a certain madness. But who would go in summer, when the mud and mosquitoes make escape almost impossible and madness almost sure?

So the best time to go is in late winter, before the melting of snow and floods, when the cold is loosening its bitter grip - but even then it is dangerous, for when the temperature rises it begins to snow heavily again, after being too cold to snow during the winter months. And the wolves are hungry by then. And I mean hungry. Last winter a pack of 400 wolves killed 300 horses before they were finally driven away. But we gamble. We leave behind the rugged Yakutians who want us to stay until June, the summer solstice, and the start of the new year in Yakutia, when the republic is full of festivities, and greets the rising sun in the morning as one.

sunrise- drumbeats of snow thud

from high branches

Yakutia means a chance to also explore the Buddhist nature that lies within each of us. I sit facing the last of the taiga, the last birch tree, and compose my haiku – peacefully, I thought.

pine needles make a comfortable rest oh! stinging ants!

And I return to the train. The Trans-Siberian, and stare at the early morning dawn.

trees touch sunlight something blossoms in me I ask no more of my forest

木木木

The train nears the Pacific coast, near to the land of  volcanoes called Kamchatka, but on this journey we are only passing by, and our last stop will be Vladivostok. Vladivostok is the kind of city I would like to arrive to at dawn, and there has always been something fascinating about this last city on a train line that one could start in Portugal if one so desired, with a few waits on station platforms in-between.

In Vladivostok we will be near the North Korean border but also near to Japan. But for now I would be satisfied to sit on a wooden bench facing the Pacific. I think about Ese, photographer and writer who drove up from Bulgaria to the beautifully forested Carpathian mountains of Western Ukraine, to be my translator and travel companion at the start of my journey through Siberia. Together we hiked from village to village, tasting the homemade wine and raindrops, sleeping in bales of hay and cottages, walls covered with local hammered tin art.

While trekking a trail that wound up through pine forests on steep hills where small brooks and streams tumbled, and Carpathian chamois carefully took their quick morning drinks I sat against a tree trunk and edited a draft of her fascinating book, Butterfly Thy Name, a raw intimate journal covering her inner desires, while she joked with me about coming on the Trans-Siberian and adding another exotic chapter. Ese was disarmingly frank.

“I have an idea that a half Ukrainian, half Georgian lumberjack with fine equipment would be an exciting, erotic mix,’’ she declared, and smiled when I said “Vladivostok or bust!”

hello Ese I am here at last, facing the sea  — without you

And then I know with rare certainty that when I arrive in Vladivostok I will already miss the trees of the Siberian taiga:

-her beauty

thousands of miles away

in the immediacy of my mind

木木木

Some notes on Shinrin-Joku, or Forest Bathing:

The history of forests is an alternative history.  Yet looking back, we can see clear signs of how trees contributed to physical and mental heath. Tuberculosis, for example, was incurable only a smattering of decades ago. Up to the mid 20th century it was the norm to send people to the mountains in Switzerland, or somewhere where the air was fresh. But when those afflicted by the deadly lung disease went to the hills, where were they going, exactly? They were not going to the peaks, but in fact to the mountain forests. It was not specificaly mountain air that was healing, but perhaps more the forests, from the pines and fir trees, which grow on elevations from the sea up to 3960 metres on a mountainside. The Paimio Tuberculosis sanatorium, in Finland, was an example of this, where until the 1950s patients were wheeled out into the forest itself, which was more or less at sea level. Contrary to expectations, results also seemed to be magnified when the forest air trapped moisture.

Rehabilitation through interaction with forestry has long included psychological issues. When one is deep in a forest, on a path between tall trees all three potentially negative issues melt away. Among the many reasons to preserve our ancient forests, the emotional ones stand tall. Forests are the perfect landscape to cultivate what are called transcendent experiences—unforgettable moments, of attunement to that outside the self, and moments that are ultimately perceived as very important to each of us.

It was in 1982 that the Forest Agency of Japan unveiled shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, in the beautiful woods of Yakushima. Yakushima was chosen because it contains some of Japan’s most pristine forests, including those of select cedar trees that are over 1,000 years old.

The first findings of shinrin-yoku testing showed lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in subjects after forest walks, compared with those who took laboratory walks. It was the first hint that a walk in a forest might not be the same as a walk in a different environmental setting.

We know now that time within forests reduces psychological stress, depressive symptoms, and hostility, while at the same time improving sleep and increasing both vigor and a feeling of liveliness, and lowering blood pressure and pulse rate. Studies also show increased heart rate variability, which is a good thing because it means the circulatory system can to respond well to stress.

Research has shown that the emotions of pleasure and happiness are elevated with an increase in tree density. The bigger and denser the trees, the higher the scenic beauty scores—up to a point.  Arguably the composition of the air intake, the serenity and at times majesty or beauty of the surroundings will all have a role to play. Forest bathing; spending time in forests, increases ability to focus.

It takes only twenty minutes of shinrin-yoku to alter cerebral blood flow to a state of relaxation and opyomose hemoglobin (as found in red blood cells). Stress hormones that can compromise immune defense are dramatically reduced. This is vital: activities of antiviral white blood natural killer cells are suppressed by stress hormones.

Since forest bathing can lower stress hormone production and elevate mood states, it is not surprising that it can also influence immune system strength, specifically increases in the number of  white blood natural killer cells, increases in the functional activity of these antiviral cells and increases in the amount of intracellular anticancer proteins. In addition, the level of the hormone serum adiponectin is also increased. When this hormone is present in low concentrations it is linked with obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome, among other bodily disorders. These changes can be noted at a significant level for a full week after some time in a forest.

Natural chemicals secreted by evergreen trees, collectively known as phytoncide, such as a-pinene and limonene, have also been associated with improvements in the activity of our frontline immune system. Measurements of the amount of phytoncides in the air during studies have correlated the content to improvements in immune functioning. In the fresh forest air we breathe in the phytoncides. The trees give off these chemicals to protect themselves from insects. Phytoncides have antibacterial and antifungal qualities which help the evergreen trees and plants fight disease. When we take in these chemicals, our bodies respond by increasing the number and activity of a type of white blood cell natural killer cells. Increased activity from these important calls from three-day, two-night forest bathing trip lasts for more than thirty days.

Spending time in forests gives the cognitive portion of our brain a break, allowing us to focus better and renew our ability to be calm. Patients recover from surgery faster and better when they have a view of trees, and had fewer postsurgical complications compared to those who had no view or a view of a cement wall. The use of pain medications is significantly lower than that of rooms with no plants; patients have lower blood pressure and heart rate, and rated their pain to be much lower. Patients who have plants in their rooms also have comparatively higher energy levels, more positive thoughts, and lower levels of anxiety.

Since a view of nature or a few potted plants can influence subjective and objective measures of stress, and maybe get us out of the hospital faster, it seems likely that nature can keep us out of the infirmary to begin with. The first indication that this might be the case was examination of the annual sick records of the State Prison of Southern Michigan, which highlighted a glaring difference in health-care utilisation based on prison cell location. Those inmates housed in the cells facing outside to a view of forests had far fewer visits to the medical division than did those inmates housed with a view of a concrete yard.

Research in Japan showed that greening select high school classrooms with potted plants for a four-month trial period significantly reduced visits to the infirmary compared with age-matched students attending classes without the visible plants.

But forests need not be merely admired. Forest gardening is historically the prime source of gardening in tropical regions and the most traditional of land use forms. It is also probably the most resilient of agroecosystems, and are the most common form of land use in Kerala, in southern India. They are also common in Nepal, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Mexico and Java, and have been shown to be a significant source of income and food security for local populations. These gardens exemplify polyculture, in layers, building a woodland habitat, and conserve much crop genetic diversity and heirloom plants that are not found in monocultures.

Kerala has three and a half million forest gardens. Even the smallest forest garden can hold over twenty coconut palms, over ten cloves, over fifty banana and pineapple trees and thirty pepper vines, with additional fodder.

In Nepal, 70% of households have home gardens of an area 2–11% of the total land holdings, cultivated with a mixture of annual and perennial plants that can be harvested on a daily or seasonal basis. Biodiversity that has an immediate value is maintained in home gardens, as women and children have easy access to preferred food, and for this reason alone we should promote home gardens as a key element for a healthy way of life.

A natural forest is divided into seven distinct layers:

a ‘canopy’ layer

a ‘low-tree’ layer of smaller nut and fruit trees

a ‘shrub layer’ of fruit bushes

a ‘herbaceous layer’ of perennial vegetables and herbs

a ‘ground cover’ layer of edible plants

a ‘rhizosphere’ of plants grown for their roots and tubers

a ‘vertical layer’ of vines and climbers.

Forest Gardens are ideal projects for open spaces such as industrial wastelands, where trees can be planted, where even in heavily built up areas, new ‘city forests’ could contain perennial vegetables with little intervention.

At some stage forest gardening leads to forest farming, combining trees with crops or livestock, or both, on the same piece of land. Products typically fit into the following categories: edible, medicinal and dietary supplements, floral or decorative, or specialty wood-based products. Toyohiko Kagawa, who began forest farming in Japan during the 1930s, persuaded many of Japan’s farmers to plant fodder trees to conserve soil, supply food and feed animals. Then World War II disrupted communication and slowed his advances in forest farming, unfortunately changing the course of agriculture again.

Researchers in Japan and South Korea are re-establishing that connection again, with their scientific advances in the study of forest bathing. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits I personally discovered about shinrin-yoku, that stays with me, is the way it starts, and deepens long enduring friendships.

how many plants

Can I fit into

one haiku-

木木木

[rubyleeray]

Several Shades of Sadism Game & Routes Review

This is something a bit different for me but I always look for these before I start a game/route, so I hope this will be informative/helpful to someone else! 

Game Overall - The game overall is really fun and one of my favourites for sure! It operates much like every other Arithmetic game but you can really tell they put a lot more into this one. The addition of the voice actors is really cute and interacting with them multiple times a day made me very giddy (the voice actor for Minami is the same as Yuri from Yuri on Ice!!!). This game has everything I look for when deciding if I love a game and whether or not I recommend it to others. Those being: 1. Good Stories/Plot - Absolutely! There is a great mix and variety of funny and devastating moments with real relevant issues being addressed at times. I looked forward to my 5 tickets every day and there were several occasions where I spent because the cliff hangers were too intense! I just had to know what happened next!

2. Good MC - with the exception of Murayama’s and Minami’s MC - This MC is one of the best I’ve ever played! 

3. Interesting/Hot Guys - Yessss! The art in this game is amazing! Every guy (even the evil dad!) is gorgeous. I will say that the secondary sprites are just blue and pink outlines and that seems like a waste opportunity. 

4. Sex? -  I’m not shallow enough to say this makes or breaks a game for me, but as an adult playing a game with adult love interests, this matters to me. Yes there is sex, but only with some characters in their main story (Event stories differ in that they often feature sex with every character).  I’ll tell you below who has sex in each route description because that’s something that helps influence my spending.

5. Can I have a good time if I don’t spend any money/Will they force me to spend/make me wait weeks to progress? - Absolutely you can have a great time and achieve all endings without spending money! I played 3 full routes before I decided to spend money and the money I spent was on story tickets and an event after ending. As for having to build up free cash/experience/skill points for road blocks - it happens very easily and as long as you do it at least once a day you should never have to wait long to advance past checkpoints. 

TLDR - You need to play this game! It’s so well written and fun! You’ll find the perfect mix of romance, comedy, angst, and sex within this game but the best part is the MC who feels refreshingly modern and truly representative of a young woman of this time. There are other incentives like generous daily logins and frequent events that aren’t impossible to full clear without spending so you really feel valued as a player and a person. I highly suggest starting with Chiaki or Mei and then moving onto the others.The game is alive and well and new routes are still being released. 

Full breakdown of each guy and route spoilers below!

The MC - The MC is what made me fall in love with the game. She is HILARIOUS and she has motivations and dreams of her own. She is still my favourite MC ever despite her behaviour in Minami’s route ( much more on that later). She is just a super funny, goal oriented, mature (for the most part but aren’t we all) woman who speaks her mind and isn’t afraid to put the men in their place. I felt like she was a good representation of a real woman in an otome game. 

In order of release:

Chiaki Kira Route

- Chiaki was my first route! I chose him based on appearance alone really - Tall, dark, handsome - giving off real Jumin Han vibes you know? Chiaki is an adorable lazy idiot who says offensive things but is really sweet. He will also give you lots of attention which is something I look forward to! His route is very similar to Jumin’s in the sense that it centres around his resentment of his father but it’s a good story that really develops a good relationship between Chiaki and the MC. Sex? Unfortunately not but it’s still super cute! In the happy end they have confessed their love and are finally able to give themselves to each other fully. (The ending CG involves Chiaki climbing on top of you telling you he loves you and asking you to not give him blue balls lmao).

Sequel to Chiaki - This is a real fire & ice route. When it’s hot, it’s very hot! But when it’s cold, it’s freezing! This route suffers from the typical MC doesn’t speak up when she’s depressed and being bullied which drives a wedge in her relationship. Chiaki isn’t exactly innocent here, he can be a total dick when times get tough but the route overall is great and the ending CGs are GORGEOUS! Use your gacha tickets on his epilogue... a CG of Chiaki wearing a wedding ring as he licks your wrist? GIRL I’VE GOT THE VAPORS! 

Pick Chiaki if you love attention, romance, and a witty/sassy relationship between love interests. (Think of characters from other games like SLBP’s Nobunaga, MM Jumin + Zen, TCC Claude, Ikemen Nobunaga + Masamune)

Toma Kira Route - Toma was my second route and while Toma is drop dead gorgeous - he is kinda dead inside? His story is a dark one but it is very interesting and the climax is intense! Excellent character development here from both the MC and Love Interest. Sex? Hell ya! Toma does have sex with you towards the end a couple times and they are DETAILED scenes (The happy ending CG has a naked MC and Toma in bed after a night of sex as they are about to have even more sex!). But! He does something super hurtful to the MC during a sensitive time, so you have to have a bit of a thicker skin to play through this. Thankfully, he apologizes and more than makes it up to you! I\ll be honest, I wasn’t enjoying Toma’s route as much as Chiaki’s initially, but his ending retroactively made everything better! 

Pick Toma if you like a challenge, don’t need constant attention, don’t mind a teacher/master relationship, and you enjoy good smut. (I’m still shook from Toma’s sex scenes). (Think of characters from other games like Ayato from 7HAMH, Isuka + Asena from TCC, SLBP’s Kojuro + Masamune, Ikemen Hideyoshi).

Minami Kira Route - Ugh...let me just tell you based on every event and item scenario I got of Minami, I was REALLY looking forward to his route - like a lot a lot. It started off alright, but I quickly realized there wasn’t going to be much of a plot which was really disappointing. Minami is a fun and intelligent yet immature guy. He’s constantly pulling pranks and showering you in false affection. Unfortunately Minami does something completely unforgivable (I’ll write the spoilers at the bottom if you really want to know) and because of this and the combination of the lack of character depth and the worst iteration of the MC in the entire game - I can’t happily recommend his main route. His event routes are fun but his main route is the one of the most disappointed I have ever been in an otome game and I’m not sure how Event Minami and Main Story Minami can be so different. The MC in Minami’s route is completely different than the MC in Toma, Chiaki, and Mei’s routes. She has no ambitions of her own and she never puts Minami in his place even though he deserves it and needs it the most. She’s so scared of hurting his feelings and making him not like her that she becomes a shell of her former self and that was seriously disappointing. Minami’s past was very sad and dark but it wasn’t really fleshed out. It’s confusing. There was so much potential and it feels like it all amounted to nothing. I would have rather seen a route where the MC teaches Minami how shitty it is to treat women like toys and have her fix him, or a route where the MC helps Minami accept and control the darkness and anger within him instead of just pretending to be a happy prankster all the time. Sex? Yes but at this point I was screaming “Don’t do it!” to MC through my screen. It didn’t feel like anything good was going to come from it and surprise, surprise it didn’t. 

Do not pick Minami unless you have the thickest skin and an infinite amount of patience. 

Mei Tarantino Route  - Mei’s route reminds me of why I fell in love with the game in the first place. Mei is the sweetest tsundere there ever was and I’m still smiling about his Happy Ending. His story was wonderful (motivational and inspirational) and the relationship that develops between him and the MC feels natural, believable and is absolutely beautiful. They really support each other through their trials and tribulations and work to achieve both their dreams. There is a tragic past that explains a lot but doesn’t try to justify poor behavior in the present. His route is far superior to Minami’s and has even helped wash the bad taste Minami left right out of my mouth! Mei is everything you want from the perfect Tsundere route. The MC is funny as ever and back to her intelligent strong self. Sex? No but there’s a lot of satisfaction to be found elsewhere in this route. 

Pick Mei. Just pick him. He’s so sweet. He has creative insults but the more creative they are the more you realize he’s falling in love. Plus the red blush on this boy is TO DIE FOR!!! (Think of characters from other games like SLBP’s Mitsunari, DTL’s Takasugi, RB Aito, Ikemen Ieyasu)

Rei Shindo Route - Okay this is seriously one of my favourite routes I have ever played in any otome ever. It is extremely emotional  and the Sweet End is the most beautiful thing - paired with an absolutely BREATHTAKING pair of CGs that I think about on the daily. This route has angst, romance, comedy, and tragedy in HEAPING spoonfuls. I genuinely SOBBED twice.

I can’t write much as I don’t want to give too much away because you genuinely need to experience this route and see how fantastic and touching otome writing can be. Basically, you are roped into a revenge plot by a version of Rei that is far different than the man you have come to know in the other routes. The more time you spend together, the more you find out his reasons and what his end game is. It is A LOT TO TAKE IN but it is so rewarding! Please play it and tell me all of your thoughts and feelings.

Save him for last (if you can wait that long) because I feel like if you start with him, the other routes won’t look as good in comparison - and they don’t deserve that (except you Minami). I will say it’s important that you achieve his Sweet ending. I did not like his Normal ending at all in comparison. It was fine but it was much different and lacked all of the emotional depth of his Sweet End, so in playing Sweet first - I had high expectations of his other end as well but that was unfortunately not the case. Sex? Oh god, forgive me but I really don’t remember! I was so stressed out and emotional during this route that sex was the last thing on my mind!)  

Pick Rei if you have a thick skin and don’t mind being put through an emotional ringer. (Think of characters from other games like SLBP’s Ieyasu, + Saizo, TCC’s Lugar + Yuri, MM’s V + Saeyoung, 7HAMH Soichiro + Ayato, Ikemen Mitsuhide)

Shizuka Kira Route - Okay I loved Shizuka’s route, I really did BUT it is the most hollow of them all. Shizuka is a sweet heart but his story isn’t very exciting or memorable (Save for the sex scenes!). It’s not a bad route by any means! It it full of genuinely funny and romantic moments so I really enjoyed it and him as a love interest, the problem is that it is the most formulaic and predictable so it’s not necessarily a unique story. One of the best parts of Shizuka’s route is the more mature and level headed MC compared to the other brothers’. She was also very in touch with her sexual wants and needs which I really appreciated and found refreshing! The biggest surprise in this route for me was how big of a role Minami had and how amazing he was in it! This is the Minami I want to romance! 

Rintaro Murayama Route - Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I didn’t think I could hate a route more than Minami’s but HERE WE ARE. This route was so so so bad! I’m shocked! I took a week off from thinking about to to see if I was just being dramatic but I’m still just as mad as I was when I finished it.I’m so mad that I went back and CHANGED MY MIND about Minami’s route. That’s how bad this was. The thing about this route is everything is bad. The story makes no sense and they make NO ATTEMPT to make him a desirable love interest! The MC starts off strong and I felt for her inner struggle but then she just becomes flat-out stupid and not the fun loving hilarious witty MC this game has offered us from day 1 #notmymc. Murayama’s motivations make 0 sense and contradict themselves often. He’s supposed to be doing everything he does for his sister but he’s also supposed to not know anything about her these past 10 years?! So then why is he ruining little events that the hotel runs? To get back at his sister’s adopted brothers even though he might need them to be organ donors? What? And then that Happy Ending. No. That “Happy Ending” made everythign the MC did and put up with worth NOTHING. I have no idea how someone approved this. Murayama blackmails you constantly and at one point - late into his route - he starts trying to raping you while recording it. Not only that, he insists he’s going to show the video to her bosses and everyone else at work. Like - enough is enough in general but Murayama’s route was enough by chapter 3. It was like a cycle of dumb that just kept repeating.  

Murayama route is inexcusably bad, don’t play it. 

Sex? Another great part of Shizuka’s route is that it has the most sex and all of it was free sex (I also got to view the CGs for free? I’m not sure if this is a bug that may be fixed by the time you read this). The sex scenes were all INCREDIBLY HOT and I was sweating and taking screenshots while trying to remind myself to breathe. Out of all the Kira Brothers - Shizuka has sex with you the most. I believe it is 3-4 sex scenes vs Toma’s 2. 

Pick Shizuka if you want a romantic route with a plot straight out of a romantic comedy and/or if you like sexxxxxxxy routes. (Think of characters from other games like DTL’s Haru, MM’s Zen, 7HAMH Haruto + Shizuki, Ikemen Shingen).

***Minami route spoiler*** Minami goes on a bender after kissing you where he stays out for days getting drunk and not coming home. One night a random guy brings him home and they accidentally end up in your bedroom instead of Minami’s. Minami flops down onto a chair by your bed and then gives permission for the guy to start raping you - he even says he doesn’t care. Only after the guy has began his rape of you and like the equivalent of 6 story tickets later - does Minami stop and actually do anything about it. This was seriously disappointing and you’d think that would be the end of Minami’s bullshit but it’s not - not even close. I just found it so unforgivable that near the end of the game after you both have fallen in love, that something like this happens and it’s not even vague/implied - it’s full on clothes tearing & body violating and Minami watches the whole thing!!! His apology after doesn’t even make up for it. The writer’s really disappointed me here. It would have been just as hurtful for Minami to say he didn’t care if the MC slept with the guy but for him to sit back and watch her get raped wasn’t something Minami could come back from for me, especially with such a lackluster plot. Minami also never really apologizes or makes up for referring to women as his toys and he treats women really poorly overall. There is a really heart wrenching scene where a woman who was in love with Minami confronts him politely and he screams at her and belittles her and the MC just kinda forgets about it. 

[artificialqueens]

Cold Hands - Chapter 1 (Trixya) - Star

Cold Hands - A Victorian AU in which Katya is a wealthy heiress and Trixie is homeless - though they both have more than they realise in common. Their first meeting gets off to a slippery start, to say the least.

Hi guys! A new multi-chapter trixya fic that I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I hope you enjoy! Feedback is appreciated:)

Snowflakes fell.

Gracefully, they dwindled from the overcast grey sky, and the sun began to set over the empty streets of the small town. The villagers had retreated to their homes from the local market, and almost no trace of them remained - tracks covered by a thick layer of snow.

Katya sat comfortably in the confines of her carriage with her chauffeur sat next to her, the coachman reluctantly guiding the horses cautiously down the icy streets.

The poor weather conditions of the middle of December left the cobbled tracks questionably safe for travelling along, yet Katya imagined braving the lethal forces of nature outside of the somewhat acceptable temperature of her carriage would be even worse.

Shivering, Katya pulled her luxurious knitted shawl closer to her body, wrapping herself up in whatever warmth she could get.

“Are you cold, ma'am?”. Questioned her chauffeur, turning to look at the girl more than half his age for the first time in the duration of their journey back to Katya’s home, after spending the day visiting the girls father two towns over.

Turning her head slowly, Katya gave the chauffeur a tight lipped, unimpressed smile.

“No, not at all. I’m burning up, in fact. It’s extremely humid today”. Mused Katya, closing her eyes briefly, only to open them again when she felt the carriage rattle unsteadily along a particularly uneven patch of the ground.

Do not worry, she heard the coachman mumble. It was just a bit of ice. “Would you like me to ask one of the maids to draw you a bath when we return?”. To Katya’s distain, the chauffeur continued to question her. Granted, she acknowledged, he was simply trying to be friendly and do his job yet - after the alarming day she had suffered, she wanted nothing more than to be left alone to wallow in her own misery.

Turning to give the chauffeur a cold glance, Katya shook her head signalling no.

“Just - would you please instruct Miss Alaska to visit my room later in the evening”.

Nodding, the chauffeur agreed. Having been a servant to Katya for almost a month already, he was more than aware of his employer’s and the maids friendship. One would not realise at first that the younger girl, Alaska, worked for the heiress, as they acted more like siblings than anything else.

She doesn’t cast judgment over me, Katya had explained once. She just listens and gives me her best advice. Almost like a person advisor - a councillor.

“I’ll be sure to pass on the message to her, Miss Zamo”. Grimaced the chauffeur, as he watched Katya’s eyebrows furrow lightly.

“You have the permission to just call me by my given name. Yekaterina is acceptable. Katya, would be even more so”. Katya made eye contact with the mature man, possibly properly for the first time since the morning prior.

“You told me, ma'am, but it feels very unprofessional of me to do so anymore, seeing as you are now leader of the household-”.

“I’m the only member of the household. Just because my father left and moved to another town it does not mean that-”.

Inhaling, Katya paused. The carriage she and the chauffeur were encased in clattering presumably off to the side of the street.

“Mother of-”. Bellowed the coachman, the horses screeching to a halt, making the carriage do so too.

“What in the name of- what happened?”. Questioned the chauffeur, seeking an answer from the coachman.

“Do not be alarmed-”. Began the coachman, stepping out of the front of the carriage and opening the rigid door to the inner part of the carriage where Katya and the chauffeur were sat - definitely alarmed. “-but I believe the carriage slipped on a patch of ice and bowled a young lady over”.

“Dear lord”. Katya breathed, beginning to hustle out of the carriage and past the coachman. Ignoring the warnings of the chauffeur.

“Ma'am, it’s lethal out there! What are you doing?!”. He all but shouted, watching as the dark blonde stepped carefully on to the stone ground beneath her.

“How could you be so careless!”. Vented Katya, giving the coachman a look filled with venom as she crossed his path.

“Miss Zamo I do apologise I- the weather conditions are extremely bad this evening and I swear I didn’t mean to barge in to her like that”.

“Use your little eyes, sir”. Katya emphasised, moving around to the front of the carriage.

Horses; unharmed, she gathered.

The carriage; also without damage yet - He may have been an adequate coachman for my father but he certainly is not for me, Katya noted mentally, vowing to herself that he would not work for her a day longer.

The young female that had been unfortunately knocked over was rising to her feet, albeit unsteadily, when Katya reached her.

Her light blonde hair was damp from the snow, and her clothing was seemingly worse for wear.

Skin; pale and speckled with flecks of blush red that were borderline purple and blue from the far below freezing temperatures. A single gash, in aforementioned skin, deep along the right side of her forehead which featured multiple yellowing bruises.

The chauffeur had come to accompany Katya by the time she had gotten an arm around the young girl, mumbling a quick and flustered that wasn’t intended I am so sorry, followed by a concerned please tell me you’re not extensively hurt. The fallen girl shook her head slightly, grateful for Katya’s supportive arm that was wrapped strongly around her waist.

“I am fine”. Whispered the girl, wincing at the feeling of her head pulsing as she spoke, along with the throb in the side of her ribs.

“You don’t have to hold me up, I’m capable of standing alone”. Continued the girl, though she could barely stand with Katya’s aid, let alone without it.

“No no -”. Began Katya. “My coachman barraged in to you, it is my duty to ensure that you are safe and well”.

The taller girl gave a minuscule smile up at her saviour, from her hunched over position.

“There really is no need i-”.

“If the woman says she is fine then she is fine, Miss Zamo. It is very unsafe to be out in this weather right now, we need to get you home; promptly”.

Whipping her head around to cast yet another cold glance towards her chauffeur, she clenched her teeth defensively.

“Listen-”. Katya started, feeling the girl in her arms weaken further.

“I know what you are thinking - and your ignorance towards the lower classes is really quite disgraceful. I don’t care if we hit queen Victoria herself, or the poorest worker of them all, it is our role as citizens of this town to help them”.

Maybe he’s not my ideal chauffeur after all, Katya realised. I was quite certain after this past month that he was suited to the job, maybe not. “Your servant is right”. The deteriorating girl mumbled.

“The outdoors while this cold is no place for a lady of your class - especially if you were seen with me”. Especially if you were seen with a peasant, Katya corrected in her mind. She knew how people thought around these areas.

“Sweet, at least let me accompany you on your journey home. My carriage is big enough for the three of us - if I can trust my coachman to lead efficiently”. Katya persisted, eyeing the guilty coachman suspiciously.

The darker blonde felt her chauffeurs eyes burrow in to the side of her head at her words.

“Miss, are you certain that is a wise idea?”.

Katya let her eyes roll and her back straighten, asserting her dominance over her chauffeur.

“Before you jeopardise not only your position working for me even further, but your possibility of getting any work in the future, I advise that you quit suggesting such outlandish things”.

“M'sorry”. Exhaled the girl still struggling for breath.

“Please don’t feel like you have to aid me. I have no home, Miss”. Admitted the girl nervously, pulling away from Katya’s hold and making a feeble attempt at propping herself up against the nearest building to them; a tavern.

Katya noticed the two men stood now at either side of her shifting nervously at the girls confession, refusing to as much as look at the distressed girl.

A gasp left the wealthier girls lips, warm breath turning to smoke as it met the icy cold air surrounding them.

“How-”. Katya began, only to be interrupted by her chauffeurs words and the gaze of the coachman.

“You heard the woman, Ma'am. She has confirmed that she is fine. We are free to return-”.

Taking a protective step towards the girl who had almost slipped for the second time, Katya blinked upwards at the two men who towered above her, yet cowered in embarrassment when she spoke.

“I realise now why my father hired the both of you - you are just as heartless as he was. This lady is hurt, solely because of your incompetence as a coachman, and I will not allow this kind of neglect”.

Katya took another step towards the girl whose hair got damper by the minute thanks to the ever descending snow, and encased her trembling frame in strong, purple fabric covered arms.

“Miss-”. Katya addressed the girl, who managed to flicker her deep blue eyes up to meet Katya’s light ones.

“-If all is acceptable on your account, I would like to take you to my home. My nurse will attend to any injuries you have and ensure that no serious damage has been done”. Stated Katya firmly.

Opening her mouth to argue, the weak girl began coughing before any words could escape her dry lips.

“Shh-”. Katya whispered, rubbing her hand up and down the girls back, whose thin dress was soaked through with melted snow.

“-please do not protest me on this”. Pleaded Katya, forehead lines becoming pronounced as she frowned.

A singular nod was the only response that Katya was given, along with a quiet yes ma'am. Relief flooded through Katya’s body, thankful that the girl that she had inadvertently hurt was accepting her offer for help.

Treading cautiously towards the open door of her carriage, fragile girl wrapped in her arms, Katya turned to face both of her servants who looked nothing short of bewildered.

“As for both of you, I will require you, coachman, to get the both of us ladies back to my home in one piece - if that is not too much to ask for - and for you-”. She spat out, glaring at her chauffeur.

“-do not utter a word to me from now until we arrive at my home. When we arrive, I want your luggage packed and removed from your room by morning. The same goes for you, coachman. I will write you both average references for new jobs if you are lucky. For now, however, please for the love of god, get me and this poor young lady to the warmth of my residence”.

[thinkofduty]

Three days she’s spent jailed. Three long days of dry bread and flat, watered ale to wash it down with. Three days, and Orella has come up with no less than seven plans to escape. Four of them are flights of fancy only, the fifth requires two extra pairs of hands to help, and the last two are conceived to waste time as she waits.

Several times a day a jailer walks by her cell and checks she's behaving. At least they've had the courtesy to remove the heavy iron manacles from her wrists, which had started chafing the moment they'd clapped them on her. Cellmates have come and gone, none of them willing to make conversation before their relocation, and Orella has come to terms with her bleak, short future. Either Ul'dah will execute her, or Garlemald will come for her. Neither option suits her. The name she gave the guard was a false one, but the Empire does not exactly tolerate acts of terrorism. What’s more, her face is well known, and she does not think she will be able to resist yet more torture.

Her thoughts invariably drift back to Ingvald, alone in Limsa Lominsa, set to live out the rest of his days in Eorzea not knowing what happened to her. That makes her stomach clench horribly, over and over, until she makes herself sick with worry and retches into the pail they've given her to piss into. From the very beginning of her mentorship she’d pushed herself on his behalf, made herself a better swordswoman to better teach him, gotten so far with a great deal of his suggestions and good sense, and now she’s thrown it all away like it means little and less. Some knight she is. Some tutor.

That's when they bring him in. Another Mhigan, taller and broader than her, his cheeks hollow as though good meals are but a distant memory. She keeps her eyes on him as he's led in, even crouched over the pail as she is. He's manacled, as she was, though they undo his bindings quicker than they had hers. His must be a lesser crime. Resolutely, he ignores her, simply settles against the stone wall and rests his hands upon his knees like he's done this a thousand times. Orella retches again, stomach still clenched with nerves and regret even as her mind has moved on to other things.

It's a while before she stops heaving and spits one final time into the bucket. Wiping her mouth, she leans back against her own stretch of wall, ignores the bad taste in her mouth and does her best to get a good look at the stranger out of the corner of her eyes. It's hard without being obvious. He's dark hair cropped close to the skull and although lean, something in the way he holds himself strikes her as tense, ready to launch up and fight, to run, to do anything but sit still. Orella has borne that selfsame posture a great deal in the last few months.

The third day's end is heralded by the cell being dyed the colour of burning sand. The guard makes his final rounds as he ever does, checking to see that his charges have started no fights nor attempts to escape. If nothing else, the Empire at least taught Orella the dangers of routine. If she only had some way of unlocking the cell door, she'd be able to get herself out, surely. The Ul’dahns wouldn’t know to even look until morning broke.

When the steps fade away, Orella is doing her best not to think of the Empire and whether or not they’ve heard her description yet. She can only hope they haven’t, but hope will do her no favours here. "The wardens won't even look at you, sister. What did you do?" It's her cellmate, speaking the common, brusque dialect of East Abania. It’s crasser than what she is used to speaking and hearing: no cause was there in the Kingsguard for sounding like a commoner unless they all were in their cups. It's also blessedly familiar.

"Nothing," she says simply. The man nods like he understands. "What do they blame on you, then?" It's such a direct question that she finds herself staring at him openly, now. He doesn't shy away from her gaze, already watching her as bold as can be. Likely he's been watching her since he was first led in, trying to get the measure of her. There's nothing in his face that gives him away as trustworthy or working for the Empire. "They think I killed a Garlean," she admits. "Did you?" "Did you not hear me? I did nothing. Do I look so guilty?"

The question earns her the tiniest of roguish smiles. "Yes," her cellmate says, and what feels like dread displaces the worry still making its home in her stomach. Garlemald ripped her once-calm moue from her and made her smash it herself; if she cannot even lie to a criminal she'll have no hope in whatever farcical trial that might put her in. Too busy caught up with her thoughts, she forgets to watch the man, who still smiles. "A murderer knows his kind," he says calmly, pulling her back to the real world. Orella flinches when he moves - but only so his aching muscles do not suffer. "Well met, sister. Your name?"

"What does it matter?" she says. "They'll hang me soon enough. A name won't help me then." "Suit yourself," the man shrugs as though it is of little concern to him. Orella is ready for the conversation to be over, wants to bury her face in her hands. "Horrick," he continues, and jabs a large thumb into his own chest, startling her eyes into following the movement. "They put as many Mhigans in here as they've room for," he adds. "Worthless to everyone. How far we've fallen."

The image of a young girl fighting for Gyr Abania's long lost honour pops unbidden into Orella's mind. All at once, she's angry. "Shove your honour," she snaps. "What does it matter in here? Can you use honour to tunnel out? To eat? I want no part of your misconceptions, villain."

Silence falls upon the cell after her outburst, and Orella quickly turns from the man, who does not avert his gaze from her. It is impossible for her to tell what he is thinking, and she does not want to know. Her stomach grumbles - she'd eaten the bread the guards had brought her earlier, but had had nothing new given her after vomiting, and now she regrets getting so worked up.

The dark of night slowly paints the golden light of dusk away. Curled up though she is, Orella cannot sleep, and wants desperately to toss and turn. She wants no attention, though, and stays still - but even this is not enough to lose the man's scrutiny. "I'll be moved when the sun rises," he says conversationally, as though the jail isn't quiet with prisoners trying to sleep. "That would be the best time to escape." Giving up all pretense of feigning sleep, Orella snorts from where she lies. "You cannot be serious."

The continued silence suggests that he is. "... Truly? You think it would be so easy?" "Only if you've spilled blood afore," Horrick says. Orella finally rolls over to look at him, and he is calmly inspecting his fingernails as though he discusses something as banal as the weather. "But I suppose a false sentence would rest more comfortably about your neck, if your hands truly are unstained." He looks at her then, lying where she is, unarmed and unarmoured. The cloth sacking they'd given her to wear after taking her plate does nothing to make her feel safe. "Take the chance, sister. I've friends that can get us out of the city."

When she wakes from fitful sleep, Orella is cold. Her sack garb is less than adequate for an underground prison, no matter if they reside in the desert or not, and she was afforded no luxury as generous as a blanket. She lies still and silent, wondering what time it is.

She hears nothing more than the soft breath of the highlander that rests against the far wall. No steps belonging to a jailer, no jeers or calls from one cell to another. It must still be early, she decides, and pushes herself to sit, to flex her arms and legs and work the blood back into them.

Horrick is awake already, or perhaps he did not sleep, and it’s that which makes her freeze. Stiff with sleep and cold, she remains crouched where she is. He looks not at her, but out of the bars of their shared cell, and a single finger of his rises to press against his lips, cautioning her to be quiet.

Curious. She remains as she is and says nothing, rubs the sleep from her eyes as she waits to find out what has him so focused, and why. He stays as still as she does until she can take it no more. “What?” she hisses at him, and he waves a hand at her without tearing his eyes from beyond the bars. “Quiet,” he hisses back. “Even if you don’t want to leave, I will not waste my chance.”

That has her silent, shocked. He truly does have a plan to escape - or at least feels as though he does - and here she still sits, content to be melancholy and waste away until the hangman or the Empire comes for her?

Not so, she finds, and feels a familiar flicker of tension curl below her ribs. Her countryman is looking away from the bars now, looking more relaxed than he had done a moment prior, and his eyes find hers. “Last chance, sister,” he says lowly, and Orella can only curse herself for not being so forward-thinking as she once was. “Will you come, or will you stay?”

“What would you have me do?” Orella asks, mind made up. There is no sense in staying. If she is to die anyway, better she does so in action. Horrick nods, approving. “The jailer comes now. We wait until he opens the door. I’ll pull him in and keep him quiet. You’ll cut his throat and take his keys. Think you’re able to do that?” “Of course,” says Orella, to whom this feels a second nature now. Whatever good moral and upstanding she once had has long since fled her body. At another wave of his hand, she settles back against the wall, muscles tense, ready to spring again. Ul’dah has been nothing but misfortune thus far, but if she is able to escape here, she never need return.

The scrape of the key in the lock is louder than it ought be. The blood is rushing through Orella’s veins as though she’s sprinted a hundred hundred yalms without rest. Something is going to go wrong. The jailer is going to sense that they are ready to spring free and call for aid and draw his sword, and the noose will sit comfortably around her neck before the day is out, and Ingvald will never know what happened--

But Horrick stands as he is bidden, puts his arms out patiently as though happy to be manacled once more, and when the midlander reaches forward he pulls the hapless man in. “Wha-” the jailer tries to say, but Horrick pushes him against the stone wall of the cell and clapped a big hand over his mouth before he has a chance to draw more breath and yell. Orella, shaking but confident she will be able to do at least this, rises and draws the jailer’s blade. She sees his eyes widen, hears his ragged intake of breath as he starts trying to struggle, and finds his armour to be only leather when she pushes the blade in. It catches on something and she pushes harder, until the crossguard rests flush against his chest, until her hands are wet with his blood.

“Take the keys, sister,” Horrick says in that same low, urgent voice, and waits until Orella has taken the iron ring from his belt to sling the dying man’s body against the far side of the wall. At a glance, he looks as though he lies there sleeping, but the longer she stares the more she sees him struggle with the effort of keeping his blood within him. She feels nothing for his pain. “Where do we now go?” she asks Horrick instead, turning from the guard. “I know not how the cells are lain.” “We go east,” her conspirator says as though this is a simple thing to determine. Judging by the way he pokes his head out of the cell and looks around for more guardsmen, it is. Perhaps he has done this before. “Follow, and stay quiet. Keep the keys from jangling. The next patrol won’t be by for minutes yet.”

Their trudging through the prison is slow and steady. Through some miracle, the two cells next to theirs are empty, their inhabitants already moved to trial or the chopping block. Orella shadows Horrick as close as she can without stepping into him, casting frequent, terrified glances behind them. She has seen nothing, heard no voices telling them to halt, but-

She walks into Horrick’s back as he stops dead in front of her. Barely, her tongue holds onto the grunt that wishes to escape, and she takes two large steps back, presses herself against the wall. Horrick shadows her steps, now, his massive bulk somehow finding it easier to melt in against the stone and the shadows. One glance his way has him shakes his head - an almost imperceptable movement - and then Orella hears the voices.

“Truly? The blade was in her hands? Then there’s no need for a trial,” someone is saying. “Why have you deliberated for so long?” “She’s adamant of her innocence, m’lud,” another voice chips in. “And the one whose nose she broke wants her to answer to the Empire. Garlean,” they add, and the company of guardsmen round the corner. Orella holds her breath and stays as still as she can as she offers prayers to the Twelve. Please, she thinks fervently, I know I do not deserve your blessing, but please, please. Let me return to Ingvald. Keep me from Garlemald’s clutches once more.

Whether the Twelve hear her cries or not, the guards somehow fail to see the two escapees against the wall. One, a Lala, has his attention occupied with sheafs of vellum, is focused only on making sure his little feet march without tripping as his mind is elsewhere. The Roe that follows a pace behind stares down at his compatriot, and keeps talking. “You think the Empire has enough say-so to take her from us? A murder’s a murder, m’lud, and t’was blood spilled on our soil. We ought to be the ones to hang her.” “You don’t know the Empire very well,” the little one says, and sounds as weary as anyone can. They keep walking, Orella’s eyes tracking their every movement. “If they want her, they’ll take her, and damn anyone that tries to get in their way. You want to be the one to stand before them? Be my guest. I’ll hold off signing that one off until I know for sure what they want with her.”

The company round the corner, still talking about the likelihood of Garlemald’s forces being brought down on their heads, and Orella lets loose a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She dares not even swear, though her tongue desperately wants to release its stress somehow, and looks toward Horrick, who nods.

No going back, Orella, she tells herself, Do or do not, but you cannot quit now. Move on, forward, and do not look back.

The first yell echoes through the stone corridor, and she knows not to waste time staring behind her. The guardsman’s keys jingle as she looses her grip on them and breaks into a run, and a pace behind her, she hears Horrick mirror her movement.

“Go, sister,” he says. Orella does not need to be told twice.

[alphas-and-angels]

SOMEONE PLEASE WRITE THIS

NOTES - DEREK NEVER DOES ANYTHING ROMANTIC OR SEXUAL WITH ANOTHER, EVEN WHEN UNDER JENNIFER’S CONTROL. HIS LOVE FOR STILES PREVAILS ALWAYS. KATE DID KILL HIS FAMILY IN THE PAST BUT THEY NEVER HAD A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP. IN THIS FIC DEREK IS A VIRGIN AND STILES TAKES HIS VIRGINITY

I WOULD LOVE IF SOMEONE WROTE A FANFIC OR DREW FANART BUT MAKE SURE TO CREDIT THE IDEAS TO ME PLEASE. FEEP FREE TO MESSAGE ME IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS

BASED OFF “THE WORLD IS STILL BEAUTIFUL”

Teen Wolf AU (Stiles is a Rainmaker / Stormbringer)

Title: Love Like Rain (gentle and sweet yet rough and harsh and all-encompassing)

Stiles was born with a beautiful gift, a gift he shared with his mother before she died - the power to create rainstorms. Claudia’s ability was weak, at most she could create a slight spring shower. Stiles’ true abilities become clear the night his mother dies, with rage and despair in his heart he sings to the heavens and the skies open up, letting torrents of water drown the land below them. A horrible storm racked the land for a week before he fell weak and fevered, his voice gone from the strain of singing for so long.

Years later he is captured by servants of a neighboring kingdom - the Hale kingdom. Their land is constantly sunny, the harsh hot rays beating down mercilessly on their land destroying their crops and leaving everyone hungry. It is said the kingdom is run by a cruel tyrant, the very same man who kidnapped Stiles from his family. Stiles is the kingdoms only option to end the drought, but when he arrives he refuses to sing for the king, for the man who took him away from his father. The kings sisters, Cora and Laura, try to attest to the fact the Derek isn’t evil, but his murderous glares and haughty attitude speak volumes to Stiles about his character. Still Stiles sees how hungry the villagers are and he even begins to notice how much Derek cares for his kingdom. He can also see how much Derek’s uncle Peter wants the crown for himself, so much that he’s willing to plan an assassination.

The day that changes Stiles life forever starts in tragedy, Derek Hale is trapped in the castle by a fire set by his executioners (this is how his family died) Stiles does something he said he’d never do again after his mother death, he opens his mouth and sings. He sings for Derek, to save him from the pursuing killers, he sings for the loss of his father, but most of all he sings for his mother, to his surprise the heavens above answer by sending a calming spring shower that washes the land anew, bringing health and nourishment to the crops while also providing a distraction for Derek to capture his pursuers. Stiles is amazed at the rainfall that reminds him so much of his mother, he vows to remember her more by singing for the king who suddenly doesn’t seem so bad anymore, in fact Derek himself seems more than a little awestruck by the beautiful abilities of the boy before him, and maybe the pure beauty of the special creature…although he’d never tell him that, and Derek definitely doesn’t find the sight of Stiles, wet hair slicked back by the rain, droplets of water rolling down his face and across his broad shoulders to his slim waist attractive at all, not in the slightest

His singing is the most beautiful sound anyone has ever heard, inside his voice one can hear the gentle soothing harmony of falling rain, or they can hear the wild untamed power of a lightning storm, all electricity and power washing over them. When he commands the wind you can hear the whisper of power underlying his unearthly voice

His rain doesn’t only enrich the land, it helps to heal the hearts of those that are hurting. It even is able to heal the memory of the terrible Fire that has been haunting the Hales since their families demise

In order for Stiles to summon the rain he has to see the beauty of the land around him, to be surrounded by the natural world in order to draw inspiration for his song, and Derek is the one to show him this world through necessity. Stiles spends his days attempting to show the beauty of nature and the world to Derek who has lost faith in beauty and kindness since his families untimely deaths

Inside the Hale kingdom Stiles faces discrimination, fear, and disgust from many different people. They call him different offensive slurs like Sorcerer and Demon because they don’t know the source of his powers and think that the rain and dark clouds are evil omens and aren’t used to seeing supernatural abilities. Derek doesn’t know how his guards and royals treat the young boy until he witnesses it firsthand

He sings the same song for gentle rainfall and brutal storms but they are sung with a different tone and inflection

Since Stiles song is meant to heal and nourish his rain takes on calming properties, the water is warm and soft, covering everyone in a cloud of love and healing. The raindrops give off soothing sounds as they beat against the ground and walls. The water reflects the light of the harsh sun around rooms glittering and gleaming with beauty. But when he’s angry and is using the rain as a distraction or weapon it becomes brutally cold and hard, beating down on his enemies (he doesn’t like to use his sacred gift as a weapon but he’ll do anything to protect those he loves)

Every weather worker has a different song that focuses their abilities. The lyrics of these songs sync with the thoughts and desires of each singer. In order for this song to manifest the weather worker has to be introduced to the natural wild beauty of the land around them as well as the true nature of the human souls they’re surrounded by so they can find the inspiration their song is born of.

Stiles focuses his power through a hummed melody as a child (he didn’t have enough inspiration for lyrics) but after entering the Hale kingdom he finds awe and inspiration through Derek after he realizes how much depth the cold king has and how badly he is hurting on the inside. Stiles is surprised to find how much he wants to heal that pain, this need to heal and help has Stiles opening his mouth to let out a verse of beautiful lyrics to match his melody. When a weather worker finds their song their abilities are strengthened ten fold which allows their weather to not only affect the physical but the mental and emotional as well (Stiles can not only nourish the land but the souls and hearts of people around him)

Verses of songs are discovered throughout the weather workers life, some may never find their complete song. At Stiles wedding to King Hale the last verse of lyrics pours from his mouth, completing his song and gathering the most beautiful and gentle cloud of rain above them.

When a weather worker sings their voice splinters, creating many different echoes of their song that make up harmonies and melodies and back up. To everyone else it sounds as if the worker is singing an arrangement

If a weather worker experiences severe trauma and negative emotions before their song manifests then their powers can be twisted to evil and dark purposes. Their powers become violent and damaging to both the body and the mind, this is what becomes of Jennifer Blake.

After spending a lot of time with Stiles, Derek begins to open up to those around him, accepting the love of his sisters and friends and beginning to finally heal after his family’s murder. Around that time he begins to fall in love with Stiles voice, his song, and maybe even the boy himself. So of course he’s scared when a neighboring kingdom, who’s noticed all the wealth and joy that Stiles has caused with his powers, starts a battle over the weather worker himself. Derek is terrified of losing him, so he refuses the boy when Stiles asks to sing for the opposing army, hoping to use his powers to put love and peace in the hearts of the harsh men. That’s when a mysterious woman appears at their doorstep claiming to be another weather worker.

Jennifer Blake is a beautiful woman, but her beauty is cold, harsh, and cruel (like frost or diamonds) and Derek finds himself craving Stiles warm eyes and mole dotted skin. Her song mirrors her looks, it’s a somber ballad with haunting lyrics that summons freezing snow and ice, yet Derek can’t help but compare the haunting sad notes to Stiles joyful, calm melodies and he realizes that she is nothing compared to the boy he is beginning to love. She offers to help him win the war, and Derek can’t refuse the offer in order to keep his love safe. She turns her snow against his enemies, freezing the entire army in a matter of minutes, everyone is awed by her strength and power yet during her song Derek feels something inside him ice over, the numb overtaking his newfound warmth for his family, friends, and Stiles. That’s the power of her enchantment, Jennifer’s inner desire to make others suffer and feel numb and cut off from others manifested her ability to literally freeze the hearts of those she encounters. Yet even after that when she begins to seduce Derek he refuses her at every turn, knowing deep inside that this wasn’t right.

Stiles realizes what has happened and makes a stand against Jennifer, but when Derek takes her side Stiles loses faith in his abilities and he falls under her snow and ice and is thrown in the dungeons. Eventually he realizes how much he loves Derek and how much he needs to save him and how much Derek must be hurting himself so he finds confidence again in his love for the grumpy King and uses his rain on the guards to make them feel love and compassion so they set him free. He then confronts Jennifer in the throne room where she’s sitting with a crown on her head and manages to beat Jennifer and Derek’s heart unfreezes and he tells Stiles that underneath the numb cold he felt all the love he had for the warm weather worker and he would’ve made it through eventually, he would have come back for Stiles because he loved him so much.

Eventually Stiles and Jennifer face off and she taunts his ability, stating that a little bit of water could never compare to her ice. Stiles feels nothing but pity for the woman and proceeds to show her his true power - love and healing. Her ice falls against his rain and even she begins to thaw out. At the end of the story she has healed completely of her numbness and she works at the castle, her true abilities allowing an individual to see the genuine beauty in a person, inside and out. She even falls in love herself, with Laura Hale.

As a young girl Jennifer Blake was beaten repeatedly by her father and told over and over again that no one would ever love her because she was broken and an evil witch. Everything changed when she fell in love, but the wolf Kali strung her along in order to use her powers for her own personal gain before leaving her cold and alone saying he could never love a sorceress. She felt cut off from others, numb and broken. Her powers twisted, becoming an imitation of their former beauty. She begged for vengeance and was given the evil ability to make others feel her pain, to make them feel lost and alone and frozen. After Stiles heals her from that pain, her abilities revert back to the course they were originally supposed to take - to make others see the inner and true beauty in a person and the world around them, while her snow becomes soft and beautiful, the cold transforms from treacherous to refreshing and awakening (making an individual feel alive and aware)

Sequel: The Argent kingdom has been waiting, biding their time for when they’ll be able to attack the Hale kingdom, who killed their princess Kate after she murdered the Hale werewolves.

They plan their attack around a young girl, a weather worker, they discover that has the ability to manipulate the winds. The Argents beloved princess, Allison, is charged with seducing the fiery young girl and persuading her that the Hale kingdom is dangerous and violent. But over time Allison falls in love with the smart, beautiful girl before her, and they secretly plan to overthrow the evil tyrant Gerard.

Lydias entire village was murdered while she hid away, this resulted in the intense desire to be able to protect others and know when something bad will happen so she can change it. This trauma kickstarts her abilities, giving her powerful control over the winds and air currents, which is so powerful she can even create tornadoes. Meeting Allison and seeing her beauty and compassion inspires her and lyrics manifest to match the melody of her song. With the lyrics of her melody comes the mental ability to use her winds as a buffer, blocking the physical and mental abilities of other weather workers, along with the power to sense the oncoming deaths of others which manifests itself as a piercing scream that rips its way from her throat.

Lydia and Stiles battle a few times, she’s eager to prove herself worthy of Allison. But after a couple of months Allison overhears Gerard saying that after the witch defeats the Hales he would kill her so she couldn’t turn her power against him. Allison is heartbroken and immediately leaves, taking Lydia with her to protect her. They make their way to the Hale kingdom where they’re met with suspicion. After Gerard brings his entire army of men and witches to the Hale’s doorstep, Derek has no choice but to let them go free in order to help. The three weather workers gather their powers together, their songs merge to form one achingly beautiful melody that no one can resist. The songs form the largest, most powerful storm any kingdom has ever seen, none of the evil witches from the Argent kingdom have the power to go against the weather workers and Gerard is finally defeated.

In the end Allison returns to her kingdom as queen with Lydia by her side. Her father is pardoned after he realizes how wrong he was and Chris becomes her new advisor

Witches in this universe are dark, twisted creatures that are addicted to the rush of their magic and use it to cause pain and suffering on others, their evil power is feared by many

Sequel: Erica Reyes grew up bullied because of her disease, epilepsy was ruining her life. It left her weak, exhausted, acne prone, and with over protective parents. She was utterly miserable, this misery produced a strong desire to save others from feeling the sadness she felt, and that’s when she heard the first lilting notes of a melody hum through her ears. As she hummed them out loud the sky above her responded, the sun growing bright and warm, sending strong shafts of light around Erica, the more she hummed the stronger the sunlight became, over time she was even able to start small fires and burn others. From the second that beautiful tune floated across her mind her disease dissipated, and all her symptoms. She became beautiful and confidant, her power to control the suns rays became second nature and she loved it. With just a few whispered words she can channel the light of the sun through her hair, the golden tresses lighting up with fiery reds and oranges, filtered through with a bright persistent gold sheen (she uses this to temporarily blind her enemies)

She eventually meets a kind young werewolf named Hayden who’s in a loveless relationship with an angry boy named Liam. Hayden ends up breaking off the relationship in order to spend more time with Erica, the strength and determination of the girl before her gives Erica enough inspiration to find a verse of her song, allowing her to bring happiness to others

Rain Melody - Stiles can influence the weather through song. He sings a song of joy and happiness and a light refreshing rain cleanses the land around him, however if he sings a song of sadness and rage the land will be destroyed by floods of water and strikes of lightning

The sadness born today, It soars up high above the grey clouds and hides away. The sky opens its eyes, And calls upon a wind on which my heart can learn to fly.

I’ll keep you safe so don’t you worry, I want to share my destiny with you.

Every tear that you cry, When your heart begins to sigh,

I will hold you in my arms when you feel blue.

It’s a tender rain, May this song reach where you are. And however far, I know I’ll see you again.

So trust in me, If you believe, Then these words will heal your soul.

So let the love you feel make your heart whole.

Singing in the rain, Every drop shines in the sun, Each and every one, They will wash away the pain.

And for this time, The sky will shine, And the world will bloom again.

Although apart, Love in our heart remains.

Please, come the tender rain.

If one day this all fades, I know the passion in your eyes won’t go away. As long as you are here, The world could fall apart and I still would never fear.

To show you that I love you deeply, And understand the feeling that you hold.

Where you’re lying on the ground, There are flowers all around,

And just like you’re heart, they all begin to bloom.

It’s a tender rain, Falling softly through the air. When you call my name, I will always be right there.

I’ll never stray, Or go away, I will stay right by your side.

I’ll always give what my heart can provide.

Singing in the rain, May this be your lullaby. Every word I say, Is a raindrop from the sky.

Through time and space, My warm embrace, In the dark will light your way.

Until the day that we will meet again.

Here comes the tender rain.

No matter where our fate may lead, Our love it will succeed, Cause without you, I cannot breathe.

No matter how your tears fall, The rain will clear them all, And fade into blue skies.

It’s a tender rain, May this song reach where you are. And however far, I know I’ll see you again.

So trust in me, If you believe, Then these words will heal your soul.

So let the love you feel make your heart whole.

Singing in the rain, Every drop shines in the sun, Each and every one, They will wash away the pain.

And for this time, The sky will shine, And the world will bloom again.

Although apart, Love in our heart remains.

Please come, the tender rain.

Come, tender rain.

Air Manipulation - Stiles discovers that his abilities allow him to control the dry air of the Hale kingdom in order to protect himself and others. All he has to do is whisper a command and the wind is at his beck and call

[shannaraisles]

Set In Darkness

Chapter: 43 Author name: ShannaraIsles Rating: M Warnings: Canon-typical violence and threat Summary: She’s a Modern Girl in Thedas, but it isn’t what she wanted. There’s a scary dose of reality as soon as she arrives. It isn’t her story. People get hurt here; people die here, and there’s no option to reload if you make a bad decision. So what’s stopping her from plunging head first into the Void at the drop of a hat?

Senior Moment

"They arrive daily, from every settlement in the region ..."

The familiar line of dialogue caught Rory's attention. She glanced up from her notes, unable to keep herself from smiling as she saw Cassandra and Kaaras standing nearby, watching the newest arrivals greeting those who milled about in the lower courtyard. Come to think of it, there were more people in evidence all of a sudden. Not that Skyhold didn't have a surprisingly large population already, but usually everyone was busy at some task or other. It was slightly strange to see so many just loitering, but then, why wouldn't they? Today was the day the Inquisitor would be named and invested. Everyone wanted to be the first to know who their new leader would be.

Ever since the news had been spread that an Inquisitor had been chosen, the subject had been on everyone's lips. It was a way to pass the time as they worked, the debate going back and forth as centuries of neglect and disrepair slowly began to clear away under determined hands. They'd taken possession of the fortress two weeks ago, and already the place was beginning to resemble the home base she remembered from the game. Most people were still living in tents, both here and in the city below, the courtyards crowded with canvas walls. There were injured still to care to - mostly soldiers who had taken damage while clearing out the spiders - but far fewer of them than she had expected. Some were dying, and she was hoping for an unexpected cure; others just needed care to rally and recover. And if, as had happened on occasion, she went to a dying man or woman only to find their throat neatly split, it didn't alarm her. She knew Cole was lurking around here, drawn by the pain and his need to help.

"Last chance to place your bet, Ror," the familiar cadence of Rylen's Starkhaven brogue drew her attention. She looked up to find her friend grinning down at her.

"And I maintain it's not gambling when we all know who it's going to be, anyway," she pointed out with a smile, setting her notes aside to stand with him. There was definitely a crowd forming now. She nudged Rylen teasingly. "What I really want is to know is this ... when are you going to ask her?"

The captain actually blushed, glancing away with a secretive smile. "Tonight," he told her quietly. "I called in a few favors. I want it to be perfect."

"You silly sod." She laughed affectionately. "It'll be perfect no matter how you do it. Because it's you, and she loves you, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Aye, but she's a noble, Rory," he countered, nervous and uncertain. "I've no way to offer her the life she's used to."

"The life she's used to is the one she's been living for the last six months," Rory reminded him pointedly, glancing up as a murmur from the crowd around them heralded the arrival of Leliana on the parapet, bearing the sword of the Inquisitor. "A life with you, no matter the hardship."

"I can't give her the luxuries she deserves," he fretted, shaking his head with a frown.

"You're not listening," she chuckled, rolling her eyes at her friend.

"No, I'm not," he agreed, his inked face creasing in a sheepish smile. "But don't stop telling me I'm a silly sod. It helps."

Rory snorted with laughter, any chance to answer lost as first Cassandra, then Kaaras, came into view. A series of cutscenes that lasted about ten minutes on the computer, and had actually taken closer to a month in reality, were about to reach their culmination in the acceptance of a Qunari as the leader of the Inquisition. It was a satisfying moment in the game - at least, she thought it was; it had been a very long time since she'd even seen a computer - but after all this time, all this work; after all the prejudice and violence and plain stupidity he had faced, it was a privilege to watch as Kaaras Adaar accepted the honor and responsibility he was offered. To be one of many who cheered with true enthusiasm to celebrate him as their Inquisitor.

"So," Rylen said as the crowd dispersed around them in the aftermath of the investiture, "d'you really think I've a chance? Truthfully now."

Her face aching from her own smiling cheers, Rory turned to her friend with honest eyes. "I wouldn't be encouraging you if I didn't," she assured him with absolute certainty. "Just be yourself, Ry. That's the man she loves, not some mask you might put on to impress her."

"It's disgusting how you always speak sense when it comes to my relationship," he informed her fondly. "And give up no details about your own."

"It's a gift," she drawled, bending to catch her notes before a gust of wind could scatter them all over the yard. "You'd better scoot before she comes by, or you're going to blurt."

"Aye," he agreed, flashing her a warm grin. "Make a wish for me tonight, Ror. I need all the help I can get."

"Anything for you, captain."

He chucked her cheek gently as he turned away, leaving her smiling to herself as she sat back down in the afternoon sunlight to concentrate on her writing. It was still cold - still winter - but somehow the sun beat down warmer on Skyhold. She had no idea why; it could be a consequence of the altitude, or it could be magic. Whichever it was, she wasn't complaining. A little warmth after too many days spent freezing was more than welcome. Summer might not be so pleasant, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

So Rylen was going to propose to Evy. About time. Rory had done her level best to plant the idea and encourage him; it was rather exciting to know he was going through with it. She was in no doubt as to what Evy's answer would be, and despite the younger woman's sometimes retiring nature, she also knew her friend would fight tooth and nail to make sure no one took Rylen away from her. It was truly lovely to see their relationship progressing ... but it made her wonder a little about her own. She loved Cullen - hell, she'd been halfway there before any of this had happened - and for the first time in her life, she had no doubts about whether the man she loved, loved her. But where did they go from here? She still had no idea if this was really real, and even if it was, should she be making a life with him? She might disappear at any moment. What would that do to him? A loss like that might set him back years, but it would be salvageable if she was only his lover. Wouldn't it? Wherever she might end up, her worry was all for Cullen. But if she had the choice ... This was home now. He was her home. She'd give anything to stay.

The sound of a throat clearing got her attention as a shadow fell across her lap. She lifted her head to find Roderick waiting patiently for her acknowledgement.

"Chancellor," she greeted him politely. "How can I help you?"

"I believe the more appropriate question is, how may I help you?" he countered, taking her invitation to sit with gratitude. The wound he had taken in Haven was almost healed, but he needed time to rebuild his strength and fitness. "I have been granted a position within the Inquisition. The commander believes my talents are best suited to logistics."

That did make sense. For years before the Conclave, Roderick Asignon's life had revolved around calm and order, the organizing of the Divine's day-to-day. They had a quartermaster to procure equipment and supplies, but what happened to all that when it was delivered to the Inquisition, especially if it was not specifically military? Putting a man who clearly excelled at keeping things moving smoothly in charge of such things seemed like a very good idea. Rory felt a swell of pride in Cullen for thinking of it.

"I'm pleased you've changed your mind about us," she said discreetly. "About Kaaras."

"I was wrong," the cleric said simply in reply. "I will apologize to the Her - the Inquisitor, when I can. But for now, I am gathering information on the needs of the fortress and the city. As you have been named officially as the senior healer, it is to be assumed that you know what you are lacking."

"Just about everything, to be honest," Rory told him with candid resignation, ignoring the comment on her promotion. She hadn't wanted it, but no one would let her argue about it. "Our limited resources are running low already. I can make you a list, if you'd like."

"That would be most useful." Roderick nodded as he spoke, evidently approving of her suggestion. "I understand that you and a small staff will be remaining in the fortress. Do you keep contact with the healers in the city?"

She snorted wryly. "I don't have much choice - they send me daily reports," she admitted in a rueful tone. "Whatever I put on the list is needed down there, as well."

"Then you are able to put together an order that will cover the needs of both the fortress and the city?" he queried, impressed when she nodded confidently. "You are more organized than I had given you credit for, healer."

Uncertain whether that was a veiled insult or not, she ignored it. "Even if we had all the resources, what we desperately need are apothecaries and alchemists," she confessed worriedly. "We're capable of making the potions ourselves, of course, but it takes us away from our patients."

"I see." The chancellor frowned, his expression pensive. "I did not realize we were lacking such a vital asset."

"In Haven, we only had Adan and his assistant," Rory said, her eyes clouding as she remembered the alchemist's terrible death - a death he had suffered because his instinct had been to save her. "They ... they didn't make it."

"Let mine be the last sacrifice," he intoned softly, giving her a moment to compose herself before he spoke again. "We shall honor their loss with lives well-lived, healer. I will speak with Lady Montilyet about extending an invitation to the guilds. If you could put together a list of the supplies you need, I will liaise with the new quartermaster on your behalf."

"You could always buy direct from a reputable businessman."

Rory frowned as she looked at the source of that uninvited interjection. Seggrit had come out of Haven without a scratch on him, despite having been rescued from a burning building. And despite owing his life to Kaaras, he was still calling her friend an oxman behind his back, a man very much at home with racial slurs and the ways he could use them to best effect. Not only that, but she could have sworn he was following her around as they settled into Skyhold, always within earshot of her as she worked, always at the edge of her eye-line. The only time she didn't see him was when she curled up in her bedroll at night, and she had a sneaking suspicion that was because Cullen was invariably at her side.

Roderick gave him a cold look. "Such as you, I suppose?" he asked archly. "A man who listens blatantly to words not meant for him is hardly reputable. And you are no longer a recognized supplier to the Inquisition. We now have access to honest traders."

Seggrit flushed angrily, but held his tongue, casting an ugly glare at Rory as he stalked away. She shifted uncomfortably. She couldn't have said exactly why, but that man's presence was distinctly unwelcome to her. She didn't feel safe when he was around. At her side, the chancellor snorted at the merchant's retreat.

"What an odious toad of a man," he muttered, rising carefully to his feet. "I will return tomorrow for that list, healer. I trust that gives you enough time?"

"Plenty, chancellor, thank you."

"Well, then ..." he nodded to her animated in his pursuit of order. "Walk in the Maker's light."

Well, that was ... interesting. Rory glanced down at her notes, and groaned suddenly at the sheer amount of paperwork she had to do. Leliana wanted the names of the entire complement of healers and nurses; Cullen wanted a full accounting of the injured and their expected recovery times; Josephine was eager to know when they would be able to hold clinic for their visitors again; these notes needed to be written up and filed; and now she had a stock-list to compile as well. Good gods ... I'm not just sleeping with Cullen.

 I'm turning into him.