#and garvan's like

[vsnotresponding]

karma: *completely unaware he's developing a crush*

gman, watching it all unfold: *eats popcorn* *is proud*

[cressidagrey]

Welcome to the World - Chapter 1

Summary:

The quickest turnaround time between finding your mate and having a kid anybody in the history of Prythian has ever managed

Warnings:

Rhys bashing, Mention of Domestic Violence, Mention of Miscarriage, Mention of Child Murder, Mention of Adult Murder, Mention of Stabbing, Childbirth, Labour

(super pretty dividers thanks to @saradika)

There weren’t many things Ciara trusted. 

Her memory wasn’t one of them. 

Her first memory, that one that was set in stone, that she trusted…that was waking up in a little stone cottage, an older woman at her side that was replacing the ice on her forehead. 

She hadn’t understood what was happening them. 

Sometimes, she still didn’t. 

But Esmeray, as she had later learned was her name…she was the first thing in her new life that Ciara trusted. 

Esmeray and later Garvan, who she had learned was the one who had pulled her from the snow near the mountains. 

How she had come to be there…who had broken her ribs and bruised her to hell and back…she hadn’t known that for months. And even then, the memories had come to her in dreams, until she was no longer sure what was real and what wasn’t…until Esmeray had sat her down and made her talk through them all, until they had tried to write it down and make up a timeline and figure out what had happened to her. 

The result of that…she hadn’t really wanted to know more until some of the pieces had clicked in place…until she just knew, deep in her bones that…that had happened. 

By then she had already known that there was a child slumbering in her womb. 

And she knew that whatever she did…she needed to have a safe place to raise her baby. 

That was all that had mattered. 

So she had stayed in Rosehall. And she started to trust that as well. Rosehall, nestled between the Illyrian mountains and the crashing ocean…between cliffs and forests. Rosehall, with its tight-knit community of Illyrians who maybe didn’t all get along but would still lay their life down for each other because they had a common goal: Survival. 

And she did her best to find her place there, to make herself useful. To thank Esmeray for everything she had done for her, repay her for the kind she had shown Ciara that she hadn’t needed to but still had. 

And so, as the babe within her grew and started kicking, as the days grew longer into summer and then shorter as autumn came and winter knocked…Ciara had started to…trust Rosehall. 

Trust in the rhythm of Esmeray’s cottage, in her work in the seamstress shop…had realised that whatever she had been before…she had been that with the callouses on her fingers.

Ciara couldn’t even remember her name but she remembered the rhythms of needle and thread. 

And still…even with Esmeray opening her house and her work for Ciara…giving her name when she hadn’t even remembered her own…even with all of that…Ciara had trusted on being alone. 

Trusted on there being her and her baby and that would be it. 

And then she opened the door to the cottage for lunch and there hadn’t just been Esmeray…but also the most beautiful male she had ever laid eyes on. 

And between one blink and the next…everything in her body had yearned for him. 

She hadn’t expected that. 

A part of Ciara had trusted that there never would be any…that there wouldn’t be any male in her life. Not like that. Not as a mate, or a husband or anything of that kind. 

She already had been burned once…even if she still couldn’t remember everything. What she had remembered…it scared her out of her mind.  

And suddenly he was standing and she realised how tale he was, how broad his wings were and she had stumbled back in terror, unable to keep her eyes from him. She had expected him to…do something. 

“Azriel. You are terrifying the poor girl,” Esmeray had snapped. And that had been that. 

Azriel. Azriel. Azriel…she knew that name. This was Esmeray’s son . The one that worked for the High Lord. The one that Esmeray liked to use as the shining example that not all males were out to hurt every female they came across. 

Some noise escaped her, and then suddenly, the baby twisted within her, a sharp biting pain and she couldn’t help the pained gasp that escaped her. “Ciara!” Esmeray’s hand on her elbow caught her easily, fitting herself under her shoulder to help her sit down at the kitchen table…nearer to him…nearer to her mate . 

He still stared at her, hazel eyes wide, these mighty shadows swirling around the massive wings. 

Shadowsinger, her mind supplied weakly. 

“Azriel, sit,” Esmeray said sharply. “I can’t have you fainting either.” Like a string was cut, he sat back down, the shadows swirling around him, like they also wanted to take care of him. 

Esmeray helped her out of her coat and she bit back a hiss as she could feel the baby move within her. She rubbed the side, near absentmindedly, wishing that the babe would calm. 

The further she had been in the pregnancy, the more uncomfortable she had been as well. 

Though it was a bit amusing to see Esmeray run roughshod over her son, who looked to be twice her size, especially as she put the bottle of whiskey in front of him, clearly trying to knock him out of the nearly frozen state he seemed to be in. 

“She’s kicking?” Esmeray asked, a hand joining Ciara’s on top of her baby bump. 

Oh, she was. 

“It’s fine. Just took me by surprise.” Not just the kicking…also the mating bond.  

“I bet,” Esmeray said, smiling at her. “Drink that, alright? Nora did tell you to take it easy.”  

Nora had said that. Especially as they didn’t quite know how far Ciara was along now, but they did think that it should be any day now. She was waiting or it…waiting to wake up with labour pains. But till now the only thing she got was truly horrible back pain or a fiery, shooting sensation in her pelvis that sometimes slid apart with a sickening pop. 

“At least, you won’t interrogate her now, Azriel. Or at least, I hope you won’t. She’s your mate. I take it, the Mating Bond snapped for both of you.”

She could just swallow, still staring at him as he just so managed to nod, still seemingly utterly frozen in place. shocked. 

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. 

She wished this hadn’t happened like that. He deserved something else. And not her, with a kid in tow. A child that wasn’t his . She loved her child more than anything, but she knew that she couldn’t expect the same from anybody else. 

“Clearly, introductions are in order. Azriel. Ciara. My stray,” Esmeray introduced her. “Ciara, Azriel. My son. Who can be a tad overprotective, but he tends to mean well.” Esmeray stared at her son like she was waiting for him to disagree. 

“Esmeray talks a lot about you,” she dared to say. He stared at her. 

“I wish I could say the same, but she hasn’t mentioned you with a single word,” he blurted out and then looked immediately like he regretted it all. 

It was a bit amusing. It soothed something inside her that he also didn’t seem to have any idea of what exactly he should do. 

“A female is allowed some secrets,” Esmeray said quickly. “How about, I’ll warm up those meat pies for lunch?” And off she went bustling around the kitchen. 

Another pulling pain deep in her womb, the baby kicking once again, hitting a rib. Ciara rubbed the place where she had kicked her, wondering if it was a leg or a little wing poking out. 

“Are you…alright?” his voice was…hesitant like he expected her to bite off his head for daring to ask that question. “You are…wincing.” 

“Yes, of course. The Baby got a foot stuck in my ribs,” she explained. 

“Does it hurt?” No, she wouldn’t call it painful…it was just... 

“No, it’s just not particularly comfortable,” she admitted quietly. 

“It should be any day now,” Esmeray said, smiling brightly and Ciara swallowed down the anxiety she had when she even thought about the idea of giving birth. 

Nora had spent months reassuring her that it was a natural process and that if the time would come, all would be well, but she still was terrified that something would go wrong. That she would do something wrong and would hurt her baby. 

“She isn’t married, Azriel,” Esmeray continued and she just so managed not to flinch. Yeah, she wasn’t married…not anymore. “You were wondering it. There is no male you need to worry about.”

He still looked like he was going faint and Ciara couldn’t fault him for this. 

This was probably the last thing that the poor male had been expecting when he had just been visiting his mother before her birthday. 

“I…”  he stuttered and she cut off Esmeray before she could try and attempt any more matchmaking. 

“Esmeray. Please. I doubt this was what he…wanted.” 

Probably the last thing he wanted. And Ciara would rather him turn her down flat than try and then decide that this wasn’t going to work. 

She hadn’t planned on a mate. And she never would want to tie him to her when…he could very clearly have somebody without the baggage that she brought along. 

Esmeray just sighed. “Ciara…tell him, why you came here,” she ordered. Ciara just stared at her wide-eyed. She couldn’t be serious! “It’s alright. Tell him,” Esmeray assured her, even as ice-cold dread filled her.  “He won’t be angry,” she said, pointedly staring at her son. 

Ciara felt the tears threatening to spill, felt the cold dread that crawled up her spine, the way her wings tightened behind herself, as she tried to…

“I think I killed him.” It escaped her as she stared at her mate and he looked at her with a mixture of shock and something that she could not quite place. 

“You think you killed who ?” he asked her as he blinked twice. 

“My husband,” she admitted shakily. She was still not sure if she had actually been successful, but she could remember the knife in her hand and how she had thrust it into his chest, the blood pouring out of him…she remembered that. 

She remembered leaving him there, laying the house…she remembered leaving. 

And then it went blank. 

“I...I don’t remember all but…I think I was married. And he wasn’t…very nice…I lost a baby…because he…he hurt me.” She remembered snapshots of her life before…she remembered her belly round with a child even before she had ever shown with this one. She remembered the feeling of a punch to her face, a whip to her wings…she remembered all of that. 

 “I…I found out I was pregnant again and I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t. He had already done it once. He was going to do it again…I think he caught me sneaking out…I stabbed him. It’s spotty. I don’t…I don’t know if I am telling the truth, because I can only tell myself what I…what’s in my mind but...”

She tried to make it make sense, as the words poured out of her…But it didn’t. What must he think of her? She had killed somebody. Regardless of what she had done, she had still plunged a blade into her husband’s heart…

But he had killed an innocent, unborn life, so…

“I am sorry,” she apologised to him. 

“You don’t need to apologise to me,” Azriel cut her off before she could say even one more syllable. His voice was hoarse, but he wasn’t looking at her with hatred. Instead, his gaze was heated, looking at her like he understood why she had done it. 

He worked for the High Lord, Esmeray had said, she recalled and when Ciara had flinched back, out of instinct that she couldn’t place because she didn’t know about the High Lord, couldn’t remember…Esmeray had told her not to believe everything she heard. That the High Lord was a good male that tried his best. 

Did that mean that the same went for Azriel? 

That maybe he understood how it was to kill somebody, becasue he had done the same. 

“Do you hate me?” she asked weakly. 

“For maybe killing your abusive husband?” Azriel gave back, his voice bone dry. “No. It would be utterly and completely ridiculous to hate you for killing him for what he did to you. I have killed for much less. You killed to protect yourself and your unborn child.”

Oh. 

Something inside her was soothed by that. 

What did it mean that she was soothed by the fact that her mate told her that he had killed multiple people, not always for the right reasons? Why did something inside her seemingly start to purr like a cat at these words? 

Strong. Will protect me and our young. 

If she needed to put them into words, these were her instincts and she swallowed against them. 

Not his young though. 

“Does…Does it bother you?” she asked, needing to know now, pressing down slightly until she could feel the comforting movement of her child under her skin. 

For a moment he hesitated.  

“The baby?” He asked her and she nodded, holding her breath as she waited for his answer. “No. The baby is yours. That’s all that matters to me.  There are only very few things that you could do that would bother me, I imagine. And your child doesn’t even come close to any of them.”

“She’s not yours.” She would never be. Her daughter would be hers, not his. And for life in a society where children were traditionally the husband’s and not the wife’s…that was…

She took in his face, the handsome arch of his brows, the dark, black hair…hazel eyes, greener than hers. The same olive skin they both shared. 

“I don’t care,” Azriel promised her, his eyes fierce. And then they gentled, near imperceptively. “You think it’s a girl?” She hadn’t expected that. And she also hadn’t expected the clear delight in his voice at that. 

Didn’t most males prefer a son? 

“I have…a feeling,” she answered nonetheless. Since she had known that she was with child, she had just known that it was a girl. “I won’t give her up,” she told him nonetheless. 

She was not. 

It didn’t matter what he promised her with a mating bond. Her daughter would always be first to her. She would always be more important. 

“And I would never expect that of you,” he matched her seriousness.  “The only thing I want is to protect you both.”

Oh. 

It was a heady promise, wasn’t it? 

The protection of this male, a fully trained Illyrian Warrior. A Carynthian as his mother had told her. 

Somebody that would never hurt her or her daughter, if Esmeray could be believed…

She reached out across the table, offering her hand to him. 

Ciara was startled when he took it, his own hand violently scarred, belying the gentle grip of it…so gentle that she could have pulled her own from his any time. 

And he wouldn’t try to stop her…she knew that in her bones. 

“You should stay the night,” Esmeray said suddenly, pushing a plate with biscuits in the middle of the table, interrupting them with a bright grin and a look at their intertwined hands that made Ciara’s cheeks heat.  “Though you will need to take the couch, because Ciara is using the guest room, Azriel.”

“I can…” she started to offer but both spoke at the same time 

“No.” 

“No. You are pregnant, you are not sleeping on the couch,” Azriel said evenly.

“I am pregnant, not ill,” Ciara pointed out drily. She could sleep on the couch. Granted it would probably kill her back but…

“I am aware of that, but you need your rest,” he gave back, brokering no argument. 

“I told you he was overprotective,” Esmeray said with a sigh. “Though I agree in this case. And don’t even think about helping with lunch!” she warned Ciara. 

“I can help,” she protested. She could pull her weight! 

“Just like you can split the firewood in the back?” Esmeray said pointedly.   “And heave the big sacks of grain for Thistle? Even after Nora told you to stop doing that?”

Better her than Garvan. Or Esmeray herself. 

“Thistle?” Azriel asked curiously 

“The donkey,” Esmeray answered. Who the name was just made for because Thistle was very prickly indeed. 

“And Nora?” 

“The midwife.”

His eyes darkened at that. “How about you let me worry about the firewood and the grains, Ciara?” He suggested drily. 

His voice wrapped itself around her name and something inside her wanted to give in…

Still, She couldn’t help herself and glared at him, even when everything screamed at her that that was stupid to do. 

He just raised an eyebrow at her. “I am not the one growing a child,” he pointed out, his voice gentle, reasonable. Too fucking reasonable. 

“I can at least collect the eggs,” she finally said, giving in. 

“If I am already supposed to tend to a donkey, I can do that too,” he gave back immediately. 

“You are on thin ice,” she warned him, making him laugh, his hand tightening around hers. 

“Fine, not keeping you from that ,” he agreed. 

By then the meat pies had warmed up, Esmeray handing out plates and cutlery, and Ciara watched the shadows still swirling behind Azriel’s wing with ill-concealed fascination. 

“They won’t hurt you,” he assured her, following her gaze. 

“I wasn’t worried about that,” she responded. “Do they…talk?” she wondered. 

“To me? Yes,” he answered and one tendril came flowing down his ar, wrapping itself around his hand and then hers…she didn’t flinch away, just watched. The touch was velvet soft and warm.  “They are just…curious.” 

Curious. A curious bunch of shadows.  

She let it trail up her arm, play with her hair for just a moment and then to her surprise, curl itself up on her bump like a cat. Her breath caught in her throat. 

He pulled them back, she could see it as they moved from her body but she shook her head. 

“Let them. They aren’t doing anything,” she assured him and he met her gaze inclining his head, letting go of her hand, so they both could eat. 

The shadows stayed until they decided to wrap themselves around her hand instead, as they had lunch.

she nibbled at the meat pie, not really hungry, her appetite probably taken away by the shock she had…or maybe the incessant tugging pain she still felt in her belly, making her wince. 

“Still in your ribs?” Esmeray asked her as she shifted, pressing a hand against her rock-hard belly. 

She just nodded, grinding her teeth. 

“Are you sure it’s just that?” Esmeray asked her drily. Ciara stared at her. 

“What else could it be?” She asked. It couldn’t be…it couldn’t be…

“Any back pain?”

“Since this morning. It comes and goes,” she admitted. But it was fine! Nothing that she hadn’t had before. Granted it had never held on for this young, but she gave the fault to the fact that she had a near heart attack…

“I’ll get Nora,” Esmeray said with a chuckle, moving to stand, and Ciara stared at her, fear knotting low in her belly. 

“I don’t need Nora. I am fine,” she assured her. Esmeray reached out, placing a hand on her belly and she winced as another ripple went through her, the muscle hardening without her doing anything. 

“Every time your belly goes hard, it’s a contraction, sweetheart,” Esmeray said drily. “You are in labour.”

***

He could just stare at his mother at that pronouncement, who finished pulling on her coat matter of factly, leaving Ciara who had gone chalk white with…fear, her scent of nutmeg and clementines going absolutely haywire. 

“Get her upstairs, Azriel,” his mother called over her shoulder. “I’ll go get Nora.” 

“Of course,” he managed to bring out, anxiety seemingly pouring all over him. 

Probably her side of the bond, even blunted as it was, until the mating bond would be properly accepted. 

The door closed. 

He forced himself to stand, as Ciara doubled over, gasping with another…contraction. 

“Can you walk up the stairs or do you want me to carry you?” he asked her, hands hovering not daring to touch her. The shadows hovered too, hissing incessantly at him. They were offering any advice over childbirth that they had ever overhead, though he was quite sure that there was some stuff about foaling in there as well. He highly doubted that Ciara needed a stable with plenty of hay after all. 

“It’s supposed to help,” she managed to bring out and he offered his hand to pull her to her feet, her belly knocking her off balance, until she finally stood. 

Help? “With what?”

“Labour pains,” she answered. “I’ll try.”

“Walking stairs? Really?” he had never heard that before but still he followed along beside her as she started to scale the staircase, pausing every second or third step, breath caught in her throat. 

“Yeah, it’s helping. Too much,” she mumbled under her breath, once more grimacing in pain and discomfort and he hovered. 

“Want me to carry you?” he suggested again. It was better if they just got that over, right? He was worried that she was going to fall down and he wouldn’t be quick enough to catch her, regardless of how ridiculous that was. 

“I am too…” She stared, once again, her words interrupted by her clenching her teeth, a sharp breath coming from her nostrils. 

He had enough. 

Even as pregnant as she was, she weighed near to nothing to him as he scooped her up as carefully as she was made out of spun glass. “You aren’t too heavy,” he assured her, quickly scaling the stairs and taking a turn to the rid to his mother’s guest bedroom. 

Normally he stayed in there if he came to visit Rosehall but it had become very obvious that it had become Ciara’s room over the last few months…a half-embroidered dress thrown carefully over the back of a chair at the tiny desk tucked in one corner.. the bookcase filled with a couple of books that he had never seen, and a few carved figures made out of wood there…the crib that was already assembled, next to the bed…the quilt stretched over said bed, that was decisively feminine, made out of little squares of floral cotton…

“Sorry for taking your room,” she apologised as he put her on her two feet again, as she sat down on the bed, carefully holding her bump. She pulled up her right foot so that she could unlace the boots she wore and then needed to stop once again, breathing deeply. 

He kneeled down before her, carefully taking her foot in his hand to open the laces himself. Right first. Left second.  

“I only use it a few nights a year. I’ll gladly have you use that if it means that I got to meet you,” he told her calmly. 

There was surprise written on her face, but something softer too. 

“Do you need any other help?” he asked her as she stood.  Anything that he could do to make this easier for her? 

“Could you open the laces of my dress?” Ciara asked, standing to turn.  He smiled and nodded. 

It left her in the cotton chemise she wore underneath it, as he opened the grey woollen dress she wore over it, opening it enough that he could help her pull it over her head. 

“Thank you,” she thanked him, sinking down onto the edge of her bed again, knuckles turning white as she buried them into the quilt on her bed, her eyes closing as she concentrated on the next contraction. 

“You don’t need to stay,” she told him, eyes still closed. 

“You’re my mate,” he responded. Of course, he would stay. At least until his mother and the midwife were back. Then he would leave if she would prefer that, giving her the opportunity to choose how exposed she wanted to be to a male that she didn’t even know. “I’ll stay until Esmeray and Nora are back. I’ll be downstairs. If you want me here, you only need to say,” he promised her. 

“You don’t owe me anything. Not because of some…Oh gods,” she broke off, with half a sob or groan, he wasn’t quite sure. 

He took her hand from the quilt, interlacing their fingers, giving her something to hang onto, her fingernails biting into his mangled skin. He didn’t care one fucking bit. 

“I know I don’t. But the mother has decided that clearly we are supposed to fit together and I…I would like to explore that,” he admitted quietly. Azriel hated having to lay himself bare like that, but then she was the one labouring in front of a male that she didn’t even know so…he should get over himself. “If that’s…alright with you.” 

She looked at him, hazel eyes tearful, but she nodded at him, still. 

“Yes,” she agreed. “I want that too,” she promised him. 

A shudder worked its way to her and he stared at the cold fireplace in the room. 

“Are you cold?” he asked her. They could build a fire…it would probably be for the best anyway, the heating charms on the cottage weren’t doing anything. “You are shaking.” he moved to stand up, but she kept a hold on him. 

“No,” Ciara managed to bring out. “I…I am terrified. Of giving birth. Of being a mother.” She admitted that so frankly and he stared at her. 

“You’ll be a great mother,” Azriel assured her. Everything he had seen of her, made him think that. She would do well. It would be fine. It needed to be fine. He couldn’t allow his own anxiety to run away with him. 

And it threatened to because there was no enemy for him to slay, nothing that he could fight, nothing that he could do. 

“You ran away to protect your baby. You were in a horrible situation and you did everything you could so that your daughter wouldn’t be in the same,” he said quietly. 

She gave a laugh, not amused in the slightest. “I nearly killed us both,” she whispered, not looking at him. 

“But you didn’t, he disagreed. “That took a lot of bravery, Ciara. More bravery than some fully fledge warriors will ever have in their whole life.“

[mindblowingscience]

Researchers have mapped 50,000 of DNA's mysterious "knots" in the human genome. The innovative study of DNA's hidden structures may open up new approaches for treatment and diagnosis of diseases, including cancer. DNA is well-known for its double helix shape. But the human genome also contains more than 50,000 unusual knot-like DNA structures called i-motifs, researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have discovered. Published today in The EMBO Journal is the first comprehensive map of these unique DNA structures, shedding light on their potential roles in gene regulation involved in disease.

Continue Reading.

[rotworld]

20: Drive-Thru

(previous)

you will have to go home again soon, but first you'll have to survive everything falling apart.

->contains gore.

.

.

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The meeting is held in an abandoned theater. The damp, soggy scents of moss and mold are thick in the air. Tree roots split the floorboards and climbing ivy creeps up the walls. Only a handful of the seats in the front row are occupied, feral-eyed, sharp-toothed strangers lounging on the ripped, red upholstery. You know a couple of them; the Stag’s inner circle, their gazes hungry and lingering despite the somber mood. There are fewer of them than you remember. Others are strangers, no less intimidating. 

To your surprise, Glenn is here, too. He greets you with a tense, mournful embrace, burying his face in your neck and inhaling your scent. He looks between you and Jamie with a knowing smile.

“There’s a plague in Verlinda,” one of the Stag’s men says. “Fever and chills, vomiting, and painful, pus-filled sores. Extremely contagious. Hitting some places worse than others, but we’re dropping like flies.” He scoffs at the look on your face. “You can relax, courier. Humans can’t catch it. Not even your kind, unless you’re our kin.” 

“We sent you to the University with a tissue sample. We have a contact at the clinic who’s helped us before,” Garvan explains. “We need a cure. Treatment options. Anything.”

“We’re past that now,” another growls, raking his claws through the armrest of his chair. “We know who did this to us. The law is vengeance. Idleness dishonors his memory.”

Who did this to us, he said. They think it’s a bioweapon. Jamie doesn’t even seem surprised. “Anchor has a small army for private security. You won’t even get through the gate,” they insist. “We’re going to the University. They might be able to get clearance—”

The man snarls at Jamie like a rabid dog. “You’d deny us what we’re owed, outsider? You want to do things the human way with pretty words and a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine that won’t mean anything to them?” 

“I’m not denying you anything. I’m telling you you’re going to get massacred and you’ll never get your vengeance if you rush in there without a plan. We stand a better chance in greater numbers.” 

You still don’t have a plan—no real idea of what you’ll actually do once you reach the University—but an alliance is coming together. The Verlindans trust you, and by extension, Jamie. They’re willing to hold off their attack, but not for long. The idea of returning to Anchor makes you sick to your stomach. You don’t feel ready to face that place again, not after knowing everything they’ve done to the Drift. And for what? Why banish cities? Why set a plague loose in Verlinda? The God of Nelton tries to calm your racing thoughts but you feel so overwhelmed.

“Courier?” Glenn says quietly.

The meeting comes to a screeching halt, the theater falling silent. You wipe your tears with your sleeve. You’re fine. You don’t have time to lose your nerve. But Jamie asks the others if they mind the two of you stepping out for some air and their gazes are understanding. 

“Not much more to say now, is there? We should all rest, eat. Get ready to leave…”

Their voices fade into a murmur as Jamie leads you outside. “You okay?” they ask. “God, nevermind. Stupid question. Let’s get some food, alright? Then we’ll check back in, you can properly introduce me to the guy who was looking at us both like a fresh steak.” 

“Which one?” you ask dryly.

Jamie laughs and kisses your cheek. But once you’re back in the car, they stop you just before you pull out of the parking lot. “I’m not making you go back there,” they say quietly. “We could just stay at my place until this whole thing blows over, you know?” 

You shake your head. You don’t want to go back, but you need to. Something in you will never rest until you do.

“Then I’ll be right there with you. Okay? You’re going to have your homecoming, courier, and I’m going to be there to see it happen.” Jamie takes your hand in theirs and squeezes reassuringly. When they smile at you like that, when they hold you and you can feel their warmth, you almost believe it’s possible. 

[NOW PLAYING ON THE RADIO: MOON BY ART SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND]

For a little while, you just drive. You take a dirt path through a desolate stretch of Verlinda all the way to the highway, and then back across town again. You and Jamie spend the time talking about all the things you haven’t said before and try not to think about the suffocating sense of urgency in the air, like this is your last chance to get these things off your chest. 

You tell Jamie everything you know about the Road Ripper, which isn’t much. They tell you they met Elisile while studying mimics during undergrad; that he visited often, the closest thing they had to a mentor. “He means well in his own way. But there are some things we could never understand about each other,” Jamie says. “Still, we stayed in touch. He has a soft spot for children of the road, even if he thinks we should all just leave, like glass mimics do. I wonder if he saw something he recognized in me, or just thought he did.” 

You can feel another conversation happening like overhearing mutters in the next room, indistinct sound and sensation in the back of your mind. The God of Nelton has been quiet today, speaking more to Jamie’s fluke than to you directly. You’re not worried—you would feel any tension—but you wonder what they’re saying. The corner of Jamie’s lip twitches into a smile involuntarily and seemingly without their notice. Their hand settles on your thigh.

“Courier. About earlier, with Elisile…I’m sorry for frightening you. I meant what I said; I fear for you. I wish you would be more selfish. But I regret making you doubt me for even a moment.” 

“To be fair, I’ve given you plenty of reasons to worry about my safety,” you admit. 

“You have. I’d tell you to cut it out, but…this is the Drift.” 

Their gaze is drawn out the window to Verlinda’s verdant landscape, watching cracked concrete and mossy roofs pass by. You’ve noticed they often look at houses. This part of Verlinda must have been suburbs once because there’s no shortage of them; quaint cottages with overgrown stone paths, bungalows with spacious porches and crumbling overhangs, two-story Victorian style houses rotting quietly deep in the woods. You wonder what home really means to them now. 

“I wonder what the Drift would be like if Anchor cared about anyone but themselves,” they murmur. “Maybe there wouldn’t be much of a change. Anchorware has its limitations, even when it isn’t being sabotaged. It just seems like this place is crueler than it needs to be.” 

You’re both hungry and there’s a line of neon signs dotting the highway. Most of the lobbies are closed, likely to avoid further spread of sickness. Jamie insists that they’ll pay and also insists that you get more than a basket of fried eggs. 

“So,” Jamie says casually, “what’s his name?” 

“Whose name?” 

“The guy who was eyefucking us at the meeting. Short, red hair, nice thighs?” 

Your face heats up. “That’s Glenn.”

“Go on.” 

“Wh—what do you wanna know, exactly?” 

Jamie laughs, giving you a gentle nudge. “You can relax, courier, I’m not jealous over something that happened before we met. You have good taste, he’s cute. If he lets us stay the night, I might even be willing to share you.” 

The idea of Jamie and Glenn ganging up on you is undeniably dangerous and appealing. Maybe Halvard wouldn’t just watch this time. Maybe the God of Nelton says something, or maybe you look as flustered as you feel, but Jamie giggles and gives you a peck on the cheek. 

You pull up to the drive-thru window and Jamie hands you their card. You get drinks, greasy fries to share, a couple comfort food sandwiches. But just as the cashier reaches out to hand you the food, you hear a sharp, brittle crack. It sounds like a bone breaking or a massive tree branch snapping off the trunk. The air crackles. Verlinda sways like a mirage. You feel like you’re moving, hurtling through space, and completely paralyzed at the same time.

There’s a brick in the restaurant’s foundation that isn’t like the others—shiny and metallic, colors rolling across its iridescent surface. You recognize it; you’ve seen industrial anchorware before. But it’s not supposed to be shimmering like that, you think. It’s not supposed to make the ground shake in time with its pulsing flashes. Instinct sets your heart racing. You know on a base, animal level that what’s happening is wrong and dangerous but there’s no time to react. You’re right next to the anchorware when it flashes and sputters and finally winks out like an extinguished candle.

Reality comes apart in a rush like a wave breaking over a sand castle. You fall straight through the bottom of the car, through the pavement, through oblivion. The drive-thru follows you down like a plunging stone, a smear of garish color and neon light. Form contorts and meaning shrivels. The drive-thru sign becomes porous, magma-spurting stone. The window tries to grow eggs, small plastic whorls forming along the frame. 

You see the cashier trying to hold onto something but the worst of the malfunction is inside, viciously warring physics colliding. They’re liquefying before your eyes, red, misty slush spattering across the walls. And there is no cohesion, nothing that dictates a start or end to the carnage, nothing to delineate living from non-living, organic from inorganic, so the restaurant dies with them. Panels of checkerboard floor peel away and drift into the dark, leaving oozing, architectural scabs behind. Glass doesn’t shatter but bruises and bleeds. Putrid brick bloats and blackens like necrotic flesh. 

Your fall slows but the carcass of the drive-thru keeps going, past you, far below you, neon flickering out and fading. You see shadows moving in the waning light just before it all goes dark; enormous scavengers drifting soundlessly through the void. You feel the air stir in their wake. You can hear them ripping the bloodied building apart, shrieking territorially over steel-marrow.

Something you can’t see brushes against your legs. Light, azure and emerald, sparkles in serpentine ribbons. The dark moon you see in your nightmares opens like the end of an eclipse, beholding you.

“Here you are again. Dreaming when you should not.”

The eye moves as the thing in the dark glides around you, stirring auroras and falling stars in its wake. Fingers—tendrils? Slender, flexible things—curl across your shoulders as it goes, squeezing playfully at your throat. “What do you want from me?” you say.

“More than you can give, as you are now. But I am patient.” 

You smell blood with such sharp, visceral clarity that you can taste it. Slick, sour copper. Rancid blood. Shift-rotted. You’re no bottom-feeder. You won’t touch prey like that. You’re startled at your own thoughts, the realization; that you can tell so much from the smell. That you have this intuition, a bone-deep knowing. The fleshy, pseudo-organic slurry that used to be the drive-thru is far away but you can still smell it, can feel the air shift and things move all around you. Part of you knows this darkness. It’s at ease here. 

“I need help,” you admit. You don’t know why you’re telling the thing, why you feel you can trust it with your worries. “Everything’s going wrong. The Drift is falling apart. I don’t know what to do.”

A rumble like distant thunder; the thing laughs. “I told you. I am not a dream. I am no oracle, no inner voice of yours. I cannot tell the future. But…” It comes closer in graceful, swaying motions, the eye bobbing like a buoy on the tide. “You are coming home. I know this, because you have no choice. You feel the end coming without knowing it is the end. I want to tell you not to go, but I am selfish. Maybe you will see me then. Maybe you will truly see me.”

You feel it near you. Some part of it, smooth and undulating, rippling with colorful light, wraps around you. It doesn’t constrict. It doesn’t choke you or cause you pain. It passes like wind and your heart aches for it as soon as it’s gone. 

“Wake,” the thing says. “Come home. Come to me. Do you feel it now? You have always known how to breathe.” 

You gasp and open your eyes. You are cold, sprawled out in the grass. You don’t see the car, or Jamie, or the drive-thru. You don’t even see Verlinda. This is the road, foggy and endless, and you are all alone. You climb to your feet and find yourself sore, dizzy, not badly injured except for a tender, bleeding spot on your scalp. You have no idea what the anchorware malfunction did—how much of what you just saw was a dream. You don’t know where you are but home is north now and far, far away. 

“Jamie?” You don’t see them, but you call out anyway. You hope they’re alright. There’s no blood or debris. You were in the driver’s seat, closer to the anchorware when it failed. You hope that means Jamie escaped unscathed. It’s still night. The road goes east and west. You glance back and forth, unsure of what to do, where to go. A cold wind makes you shiver and wrap your arms around yourself.

A single snowflake flutters down and melts on your cheek.

(next)

[rqs-arcade]

🕹️ ⸻ c!techno/cc!techno mixtive name suggestion

ft; russian and irish names with animal and warrior themes

borisyuk / bori (wolf or snow leopard) medvedev (bear) volkov (wolf) renata (born again) rodion (hero's song) rostislav (usurper of glory) sergei (protector)

aiden (little fire) aodh (flame) cahir (soilder) cathal (ruler of battle) conchobhar (lover of dogs) devlin (fierce courage) fallon (leader) farrell (hero) fearghal / fergal (brave) garvan (rough little one) phelan (wolf) phelim (like a wolf) reamon (protecting hands)

[feisaru]

Do you have any other IE ships besides FeiSaru? And do you have any sexuality/Neurodivergence Headcanons for anyone in IE?

I do. But tbf, tbf I've drifted away from the other ships ever since I played CS and these two entered my life. You could say they're the only ones I have really hard feelings on. Other than that, I pretty much just vibe with what the people I follow throw on my dash (there are a few ships that trigger me, but luckily nobody here has subjected me to them yet and I've filtered their tags)

Nevertheless, here's some other stuff I enjoy:

Enhiro!!! My babies. I love them. A lot. I wrote crap analysis on them at 3 am after I watched S3. I've heard the Japanese side of the fandom does them pretty dirty though. Glad I didn't have to witness any of that yet lmao

Arugan (Alpha and Gamma from CS) (@amalg4me's fault. These two are so friggin cute)

Rococo and Fideo

Garsha and Vanfeny (recently decided to call them Garvan)

Meia and Giris

Hakushuu

Kyouten

Somefubu

Midori and Nishiki

Anything within the Break Trio (yes, as polycule also)

Very fine with Kdfd and Kisaku

Haruna and Kogure

Tourika

Ennatsu

Most of the typical Galaxy pairings, I think? Like Minamana, Mataten, Munetaku, Konoha and Kusaka... I kinda forgot what I shipped there because in the end I found Ozrock as an antagonist really enthralling and thus focused on him mostly. Gotta touch up on that someday.

(There's also a special ship my friend made up that I'm not listing here...) (and Aoi is a firm sapphic imo, make of that what you will)

It all comes down to I don't seek out ships, if they come to me they do, if they don't, they don't. There are various things I like seeing people get worked up over but can't say I actively ship (e.g. Takuran, Ranmasa, Nosaichi (bc I have not seen Areori)). Suma sumarum you could say I'm pretty chill over almost everything mainly bc I'm so insane over Fei and Saru that there's no room for much of anything else *fingerguns*

Now to the sexuality hcs: I have a lot of those. If you want my thoughts on any specifically, u can send 'em my way bc I wouldn't even know where to start. They come flying to me like the word of God to an ancient monarch.

And neurodivergence! Honestly, there are quite some characters in the entirety of IE that exhibit signs of being nd. Lots of them hyperfixate on soccer, use it as a coping mechanism, or both. But once again, my brain doesn't mull over the entirety of this franchise. So, (who would have thougt?) I definitely have pretty firm thoughts concerning Saru's mental problems (Fei's too but Saru's are overall easier to figure out for me)

(Bonus little thing which I think is a pretty popular fan interpretation: Endou has ADHD and Kidou's definitely autistic)

[jcmarchi]

New Light on Cells that Break Down Bone - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/new-light-on-cells-that-break-down-bone-technology-org/

New Light on Cells that Break Down Bone - Technology Org

Imaging technology developed at Garvan Institute shows that bone-resorbing osteoclasts gather in distinct pockets, leading to new insights for osteoporosis and cancer treatment.

Image of cells contained in a bone tissue. Image credit: Garvan Institute

Bone may seem like a hard, lifeless structure. Still, the cells living within have been imaged in unprecedented detail, thanks to an innovative imaging method developed at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.

The new method lets researchers study cells inside the bones of mice, to visualise not just isolated sections, but the entire length of a bone. With a new level of visual detail, the researchers discovered that osteoclasts, cells that break down bone tissue, are more active in some parts of the bone than others.

This knowledge could be used to develop new treatments for osteoporosis, and for dormant cancer cells, which can stay hidden in bone for years until osteoclasts reactivate them.

“Our method has given us an unprecedented window into how cells go about breaking down bone, giving us a new way to investigate osteoporosis and cancer relapse in bone,” says Professor Tri Phan, Head of the Intravital Microscopy Lab and Gene Expression (IMAGE) Lab, immunologist at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, Co-Director of the Precision Immunology Program at Garvan and senior author of the paper, published in Nature Protocols.

“We can finally image processes inside bone that we thought were happening, but which were until now beyond the limits of conventional microscopy techniques. We are only beginning to understand the implications of this exciting technology.”

Picture of the bones in a human hand (from an authentic human skeleton). Image credit: Raul654 via Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA-3.0

Giving disease-causing cells no place to hide

Osteoclasts are crucial to the normal maintenance and repair processes of bone, but when they are overly active, they can cause excessive breakdown, known as osteoporosis.

“The inside of living bone is a ‘dark space’ that is difficult to study, because of its hard, mineralised structure,” says co-first author Dr Nayan Deger Bhattacharyya, post-doctoral researcher in the IMAGE Lab. “In order to understand diseases such as osteoporosis and cancer recurrence, we’ve needed to develop the technology to look inside bone tissue.”

The new technique developed at Garvan’s ACRF INCITe Centre can image other dynamic cellular processes until now hidden in bone.

“Our new imaging method is minimally invasive and lets us map out localised populations of cells along the length of an entire bone in our mouse models, instead of just in small sections,” says co-first author Wunna Kyaw, PhD student in the IMAGE Lab.

The researchers tracked down distinct pockets of bone resorption activity as the cells ‘morph’ between actively resorbing osteoclasts and an intermediate cell state called osteomorphs, in real time.

Osteoporosis in bones. Image credit: Scientific Animations, CC BY-SA 4.0

“We suspect these osteomorphs are dangerous as they can accumulate while osteoporosis treatment is administered but can rapidly reform activated osteoclasts to supercharge bone breakdown as soon as treatment is stopped.”

“This would explain an observation in the clinic, that many osteoporosis patients taking the medication denosumab, which blocks osteoclasts from resorbing bone, experience rebound vertebral fractures after they stop using the drug. We will use our imaging method to study how this withdrawal effect could be prevented,” says co-author Professor Peter Croucher, Head of the Bone Biology Lab at Garvan. 

The researchers say their method could also be used to investigate cancer cells that can migrate to bone during cancer treatment and lie dormant there for years, only to be reactivated by osteoclasts breaking down the bone tissue surrounding them.

“Being able to see cells and molecules interact in the bone – and one day target them – could be a critical new tool for bone-related diseases,” says Professor Phan.

Source: Garvan Institute

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[yellowcats-redplumbobs]

garvan and morgyn Wizard Tower Abode sits unfinished bc im busy with important things like zane's oops baby with don

[shahshakuras]

Princess Selina

She is the daughter of the Empress Selana and Khan Arcanis. She mostly handles the courtly and domestic matters of the Garvan Imperium and co-rules its central territories with her mother. She loves cats and likes to socialize with fellow cat lovers. She is affectionate and hopeful as her mother. Despite her young age she is at the mature side and choses to keep it to herself and focus on her training as an Empress and a doctor. She has a flowerily and caring persona and she is deeply worried about you for some reason. Disclaimers: Not a substitute for real therapy. Specialized in curing fictional disorders more so than the real life ones. Might give flawed or unrealistic advice. Procedures she and her helper use are fictional and do not correlate or correspond to any real life treatments. https://janitorai.com/profiles/2f364f6e-f6cb-4509-b2e1-01875d5b879e_profile-of-shah-shakuras

[dustedmagazine]

Cian Nugent — She Brings Me Back to the Land of the Living (No Quarter)

Photo by Joey Gavin

She Brings Me Back To The Land Of The Living by Cian Nugent

Cian Nugent first caught our ears as a Takoma-style fingerpicker, one of the younger players on the third Imaginational Anthem compilation, alongside Mark Fosson and Stephen Basho-Junghans. His Doubles, in 2011, followed a similar path, offering two side-long solo acoustic compositions in the style of Jack Rose’s transcendental blues raga. But like Steve Gunn, Nugent has refused to be boxed into the sometimes musty and archival pre-war blues category. He got his teenage kicks out a couple of years ago with the rollicking power pop outfit, The Number Ones, carrying on a ragged romantic tradition of bands like the Undertones. Now, with She Brings Me Back to the Land of the Living, he ventures into song-structured country folk rock, a la Zachary Cale, Red River Dialect and that Gunn fellow we just mentioned.

Nugent wrote these songs while caring for his mother after she suffered a stroke (she painted the cover image while recovering in the hospital), and while they don’t overtly focus on illness and mortality, they have a ruminative, inward-looking bent. Consider, for instance, the lovely “Sound of the Rain,” taking shape out of shadows and wavering tones of pedal steel (that’s Dan Lead who plays with Norah Jones and Cass McCombs, among others). Nugent’s delivery is unhurried and without drama, as he evokes the late-light drift and reverie. “Sitting here with the window open, I can feel the rain coming in,” he sings with a worn-in nonchalance. “The lamplight unbroken like some cigarette skin, cast out into a wind to melt away, I’m hearing the sound of the rain again.”

The band is really rather good, including not just Lead but Nugent’s co-producer and drummer Sean Carpio, Garvan Gallagher (once a young Nugent’s music teacher) on bass and the viola player Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh. Irish jazz icon Greg Felton plays the piano and the Zelig-like percussionist Ryan Jewell turns up for a track as well. The arrangements are subtle and unshowy, whether in the loping, open-ended “High in an Airplane” (which reminds me a lot of Steve Gunn’s Eyes on the Lines material) or the pensive syncopations of “Pass the Time Away” (where I’m hearing a bit of Ryley Walker’s song-based style). That latter song continues in “How the Time Passes,” an atmospheric instrumental which carries on where the verse gives out with blues-tinged riffs and antic rhythm and a mad swirl of Irish fiddle. It’s a reminder that, while Nugent may dip into verse chorus structures when it suits him, he’s never going to be bound by them, and it is a fitting climax to this moody, gorgeous album.  

Jennifer Kelly

[vsnotresponding]

púlsar chapter x

more in the "scenes sher is that have me being normal about him" saga

karma questions ONCE why he's there and a total of ZERO times why he has ira's creation. THE ONE TIME HE SHOULD OVERTHINK A SITUATION. anyways

@my-cursed-prince more sher content :]

[cressidagrey]

New Pursuits - Chapter 6: Knitting

Summary:

The shadows decide that Azriel needs a hobby.

5 times when said hobby-related shenanigans didn’t end so well…and the one time where it may end up better than Azriel could ever have imagined.

Warnings:

Rhys bashing, Mention of a Forced Marriage, Mention of Miscarriage, Mention of Domestic Violence, Mention of child murder

(super pretty dividers thanks to @saradika)

By the time he managed to wrangle another free day to visit his mother at Rosehall…it was winter. 

A day before her birthday to be exact…just before Winter Solstice and Feyre’s birthday. 

Regardless of what else was going on… he tried to at least see her around that time, even if not the day of. He would bring flowers that the shadows managed to acquire from the Spring Court and a gift…

Brightly Pink died wool this year…he always brought her something for her craft. She was a seamstress after all. That had always been what she had done. 

And while she had never been allowed to provide for him as she had wished, it didn’t stop her from trying to do it now. 

Didn’t stop her from knitting him sweaters and socks and sewing him finely tailored jackets if he as so much let her near him with a measuring tape…

She tried and he tried to, to bridge the time that had been taken from them. 

Rosehall had been…When Rhys had become High Lord and he had finally been able to get his mother free of the clutches of his father…when he had gotten her out of there…Rosehall had been nothing but a cottage. 

These days, Rosehall was a bustling little hamlet tucked beneath the outskirts of the mountains. Protected by wards and magic…and filled with Illyrians that were unwelcome in the warcamps for one reason and another. 

Protected and sheltered and able to live their lives unbothered. 

 They had trade relations with some of the more liberal warcamps, some of the High Fae villages surrounding them and nowadays even with Velaris, but they were mostly self-sufficient these days. It had taken a long time until they were that. 

But they were there now. 

Not the least because his mother had taken it in hand and made sure that it was flourishing. 

Azriel flew to Rosehall, a trip that took less than an hour from Velaris and he managed to land on the outskirts of the little village. It was just as bustling now as it had ever been, and he couldn’t help but bite back a small smile as he saw a couple of younglings run around, doing their best to pelt each other with snowballs. 

The boys were old enough that he knew they would have already been thrown into the sparring rings in any war camp, but here…here they were allowed to be kids a little while longer. 

It wasn’t like they weren’t trained. Azriel had made sure of that. There were veterans of wars in the ranks of the Illyrians living in Rosehall and the ones that wanted, the ones that felt able…they trained all the kids in self-defence, and the ones that wanted…they were also trained in more. 

But clearly, right now, they were allowed to just be kids. 

He trudged through the snow, letting his shadows out to investigate, knowing that one of them would be able to tell him where his mother was. 

She’s at home, Master! 

A part of him was surprised that she wasn’t in her dressmaker shop, but then, maybe she had finally taken his advice and started to give some of the work over to the females she hired. 

“Azriel!” came a voice from his right and he stopped in place, turning around to find Garvan limp towards him quickly. 

“Garvan,” he greeted him warmly, concentrating not on the scars that trailed down the side of his face, or the one sole wing that laid limply at his side, but on the warm smile on his face. He had been one of the first inhabitants of Rosehall. An old friend of his mother. 

Or maybe he was even more than that. Azriel had never dared to prod. But the man, still muscular even through all the hardship his life had thrown at him, smiled brightly. 

 “Everything alright around here?” Azriel asked. It went unspoken that if they needed somebody to get one of the inhabitants to behave…he would gladly take that job. If only so that Rosehall could continue to flourish as it had. As it had for centuries. Even through the years of Amarantha’s reign of terror. 

“Of course, of course,” Garvan waved him off. “The worst thing we had was a brawl at the village hall last week,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “You coming to visit Esmeray?”

“Always,” he responded easily. 

“Essie will be so happy to see you,”  Garvan told him brightly. “See you around.” 

And off he went, dragging after him some sort of rolling cart contraption piled high with wood from the surrounding forest. 

It was easy enough to find his mother’s cottage, a charming grey-stoned little thing. 

In the summer and spring the windows would be decorated with heaving marigolds that his mother doted on and it would be cheery and bright. 

But now it was winter, and he could see the chimney happily puffing away as he went to knock at the door. 

It was opened just moments later by his mother, long black hair, just so starting to grey at the roots, pulled back into one long braid…a surprised expression on her face until she saw him. 

Then she launched herself at him, a bright smile on her face and he grinned at the impact of her small form. She only reached the middle of his chest and still, she hugged him so tightly that there was no question about how much she loved him. 

“Azriel!” she exclaimed, so pleased by only his presence. 

“Happy Birthday, Ma,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head and she stepped back. 

“That’s not until tomorrow,” she corrected him, still smiling brightly “Thank you for coming, sweetheart. Let me look at you!”

She took him in, clearly checking for new scars he had received. “You look well,” she told him, patting his cheeks. “But you need to eat more.” And she dragged him into her little cottage, fire happily burning away in the oven. He could smell that she was making bread, but right now a teakettle went on the stove, filled with water and he sat at his usual seat, surprised to find a knitted sweater stretched over the back of it. 

“So what brings you here? Besides my birthday?” she asked him as he put the bag containing her wool on the table. 

“Can you teach me how to knit?” He asked her and his mother‘s eyebrows rose. 

“You want to learn how to knit ?” She asked him incredulously. He nodded. To his surprise, he found a tendril of shadows already playing with some wool that his mother kept stashed next to her couch in a basket. He gave it a pointed look and the shadow came slinking back to him before accidentally unravelling any of his mother‘s hard work. 

“Yes,“ he agreed. Knitting. Why not. Knitting needles promised to be less dangerous than going hiking or accidentally slicing off his thumb while wood carving. 

“Of course. Never thought I would get to teach you anything anymore, sweetheart,” she agreed with a bright smile as she put a cup of tea before him and then sat down next to him. “What brought that on?” She asked curiously. 

“The shadows think I need a hobby,” he told her drily, making her laugh loudly. 

“And knitting is their first choice?” She asked, sounding doubtful. 

“Oh no, I have already gone through…a few dozen different things,” he assured her. “I was surprisingly talented at wood carving,” he told her brightly, making her laugh 

“I am sure Garvan would be willing to teach you anything you want to learn about that,” she promised him. Maybe he would take him up on that one day. 

Only then Azriel noticed a third cup of tea on the table…not the one his mother usually used, a chipped green one, but another one, light blue, standing next to a closed book, both laid carelessly away at the kitchen table like somebody was just gone for a moment but would return for it. 

“You had a visitor?” he asked his mother, wondering if it had been Garvan but a deep breath, his nostrils flaring told him that it had been a female…a few lost traces of Nutmeg, where there…maybe clementine? Or oranges? 

“Yes,” his mother agreed. “You know how I take on strays,” she said with a smile.

Yes, he did indeed know that. there hadn't yet been any poor animal that his mother hadn't yet tried to save. He still remembered a particularly snappy three-legged cat that had hissed at him for existing. 

“And you never thought to mention it in any letters you wrote me?” he asked, somewhere between exasperated and amused by it. 

His mother hesitated for just a moment.

That didn’t bode well. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her, sharpness edging his voice, and she sighed. 

“Because I know how you would have reacted,” she gave back drily. “Exactly like that, Azriel. She has not done anything to deserve that kind of scrutiny.”

Right. 

“Where did you find your stray?” he asked with a long-suffering sigh. How high were the chances that it was…truly nothing he needed to worry about? Nothing that would put his mother or Rosehall in any danger. 

Why didn’t you tell me? he hissed at the shadows. 

There was nothing to tell, they gave back, placating him…not worried in the slightest. He could feel his temper flare. She has done nothing. 

“Garvan and I pulled her out of the snow near the mountain a few months ago,” his mother said at that moment. He could just stare at her. They had pulled her from the snow? Where had she come from? “We don’t know where she came from.”

Well, that answered that question. Not. 

“You don’t know where she came from,” he echoed unbelievingly. By the cauldron, had his mother lost all good sense? 

She could be anybody! A spy perhaps, or sent by one of the worse war-camps or supposed to take revenge on him or…

“She had a head injury when she came here. Her memory was spotty. She still can’t even remember her name ,” his mother told him tightly. 

Or so she said. 

“And you believed that?” Azriel asked, doubtfully. “Ma, did you even think about the risk?” He asked her sharply. 

“The risk of what?” His mother asked him with a snort, not taking it seriously at all.  “Of giving a traumatised young girl a home? Yes, Azriel, I have thought about that risk,” she told him, sarcasm bleeding out of every word. “What else was I supposed to do? Just let her freeze to death laying in that snow? Broken and Bruised and…You didn’t see her, Azriel,” she said, hands tightening around her teacup. “You weren’t there. We thought she was going to die. And if she wasn’t, then at least…” she trailed off, shaking her head. 

Be that as it may, it was still a fucking risk. 

“Where is she?” he asked his mother, crossing his arms. “If she has nothing to hide then she can come talk to me.” 

His mother stared at him for a moment. 

“No,” she said drily.

He opened his mouth to respond, but then he could hear a key jiggle in the lock. 

“Esmeray?” called a bright voice, “I brought lunch! Granya made too many Meat Pies so we are…” 

He could only stare. 

The voice belonged to a young female, with olive skin, dark hair, and the usual set of Illyrian wings on her back, as she closed the door…Though they clearly hadn’t been clipped. She had been spared that at least. He wondered if she had been born into Rosehall, if she had never seen the cruelty of the warcamps…

And then she turned around, and suddenly everything else ceased to exist. 

Mate , something inside him sang. Mate. Mate. Mate. 

Nothing else seemed to matter, as his whole life, his whole world, narrowed down to her . 

To the female with dark hair and wide hazel eyes that stared at him.

To her. 

She was…She was everything. He knew nothing about her, but he felt like he was choking with his want, his need for her. He needed…He shot to his feet. 

“Azriel. You are terrifying the poor girl,” his mother hissed at him suddenly, and he stared at her, wide-eyed and wild, watched as she stumbled backwards, before coming to a standstill, her eyes locking into his. 

“Oh. Oh .” The shock was clearly written all over her face. 

And then his mate seemingly crumbled forward. 

“Ciara!” his mother was quicker than him, out of her chair and at her, at Ciara’s side. 

Ciara. Ciara. Ciara. Ciara.

She had caught herself against the wall of the hallway, one hand pressed to her midsection…his eyes snapped towards it, and only now he realised that…

It was swollen, distended from her slight frame…pregnant. 

She was pregnant. 

He swallowed. The ground underneath him threatened to give as instincts warred.

His mate. His. Pregnant by another male. Bred by another male. She was…She was with somebody else. He had no chance. it didn’t matter what he did, He had…no…She was his but she wasn’t. He had spent centuries waiting for her but she had found love before she had ever met him and now it was…

Master, Stop! the shadows hissed sharply, stopping him from spiralling, as his mother helped her to the table. Nutmeg and Clementines. It was all over him with every breath he took.  She doesn’t have a male. 

Yes, she does, otherwise she…she wouldn’t be in this… state! he thought lightly hysterical. 

She was already in this state before she ever even came here, the shadows told him long sufferingly. She’s your mother’s stray. She was pregnant when she was found. 

What?

“Azriel, sit,” his mother said sharply. “I can’t have you fainting either.” He collapsed back onto the chair. It creaked with his sudden weight. 

His mother helped her into the chair across from him, taking the coat she had worn that was soggy with snow and ice. It left her in a grey woollen dress, that stretched over her bump, one hand still pressed against the side of it. 

He was startled at the sudden movement beneath her skin, a near-violent jumble as the babe shifted within her. 

“Is everything alright?” his mother asked quietly, as she bustled to the stove. He startled once again as she harshly put a bottle of whiskey in front of him. “Drink,” she told him, not unkindly, before she went back to doting on his mate.

“She’s kicking?” she asked, a hand gently joining Ciara’s on top of the bump. 

“It’s fine. Just took me by surprise,” her voice was quiet but melodious.  

“I bet,” his mother said with a soft smile, nudging a mug of tea in her direction. “Drink that, alright? Nora did tell you to take it easy.”  

He could just watch the whole interaction, the whiskey bottle forgotten near his elbow. 

It wasn’t…anything that he ever thought he would have. 

“At least, you won’t interrogate her now, Azriel. Or at least, I hope you won’t,” his mother told him drily. “She’s your mate, I take it. The Mating Bond snapped for both of you?”

He could just manage to nod.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. 

“Clearly, introductions are in order,” his mother said drily. “Azriel. Ciara, my stray,” his mother said with some amusement. “Ciara. Azriel, my son. Who can be a tad overprotective, but he tends to mean well,” A pointed look was levelled his way. 

“Esmeray talks a lot about you,” Ciara said hesitantly, addressing him for the first time. 

He swallowed again. 

“I wish I could say the same, but she hasn’t mentioned you with a single word,” he blurted. What was wrong with him? Why did he say that? 

“A female is allowed some secrets,” his mother saved him with a grin. “How about, I’ll warm up those meat pies for lunch?”

Right. 

The awkward silence was the worst part, and he couldn’t help but stare as she still rubbed her belly, the expression on her face tightening with…something. 

“Are you…alright?” he asked hesitantly. “You are…wincing,” he hurried to add at her startled, wide-eyed stare in his direction. 

“Yes, of course,” she hurried to assure him, even when she still seemed so…hesitant. “The Baby got a foot stuck in my ribs,” she added quietly. 

That didn’t sound…

“Does it hurt?” he asked her, curiosity taking over. Granted, he hadn’t really been around that much during Feyre’s pregnancy, but he couldn’t remember that having happened to her.

“No, it’s just not particularly comfortable,” she admitted quietly. 

“It should be any day now,” his mother said brightly.

Any day now. The baby would be born soon. 

He thought back to what the shadows had said, how they had insisted that she didn’t have a… 

“She isn’t married, Azriel,” his mother told him drily and he startled once again, staring at her wide-eyed. She laughed at his expression. “You were wondering it,” she said with a shake of her head and a smile. “There is no male you need to worry about.”

“I…” 

Only because he had a mating bond didn’t mean that he had any fucking right to the female sitting across from him. He wasn’t that kind of Asshole. 

He would never force her to have anything to do with him if she didn’t want it. And he could very much understand if she didn’t want to. 

Even if it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the fact that she should be concentrating on her baby that would be sure to make its entrance into the world quite soon.

“Esmeray,” Ciara said quietly. “Please. I doubt this was what he…wanted.” The way she said that made it very clear that she expected him to…if not turn her down, get angry with her for something or…refuse to have anything to do with. 

He understood why. 

For most Illyrians, the fact that she was carrying another male’s child would have been an absolute dealbreaker. Some kind of hit to their male pride, regardless of how ridiculous it was. 

Azriel…Azriel didn’t care. He didn’t fucking care one bit. 

His mother just sighed. “Ciara…tell him, why you came here,” she said pointedly. “It’s alright. Tell him,” she assured his mate who stared at her wide-eyed. “He won’t be angry,” she said the last bit pointedly, staring at him. 

He steeled himself, trying to put a neutral expression on his face…and then utterly failed. 

“I think I killed him,” she blurted out, tears immediately threatening to pour over her cheeks and he blinked. 

What?

“You think you killed who ?” he asked, his voice harsher than he wanted to. 

She had killed who? 

She was a slight thing, tall but thin and there didn’t seem to be any muscle on her whatsoever. Or fat for that matter. So for her to have killed somebody…he mustered her, for the life of him unable to imagine her with a sword. And what did she mean with she thought?

“My husband,” Ciara whispered. “I...I don’t remember all but…I think I was married. And he wasn’t…very nice…I lost a baby…because he…he hurt me,” every word seemed to make her shake with feelings, seemed to make her withdraw. “I…I found out I was pregnant again and I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t. He had already done it once. He was going to do it again…I think he caught me sneaking out…I stabbed him. It’s spotty. I don’t…I don’t know if I am telling the truth, because I can only tell what I…what’s in my mind but...”

Fuck. 

If she had truly killed her husband for doing that to her…she had every fucking right to it as far as he was concerned. 

“I am sorry,” she apologised to him and he couldn’t stand it. 

“You don’t need to apologise to me,” he cut her off. Not now. Not ever. 

She was telling the truth. Even if maybe his thoughts were laid over with the fact that she was his mate, the shadows agreed. In his line of work, being able to suss out the truth…that was pure survival instincts. 

At the very least, she believed that she had killed her husband and that the story she was telling him was true. 

She has not done anything since she has been in Rosehall, the shadows assured him. Nothing but tried her best to pull her weight in the community, nothing but being grateful to your mother, Master. She is kind. 

If she was out to hurt any of the people living here, this was a stupid way to go on about it. Especially with her pregnant. 

“Do you hate me?” she asked him at that moment and he could just stare at him. She looked at him like she was waiting for her judgement, long slender fingers curled around her tea mug, hazel eyes still impossibly wide and filled with tears. 

“For maybe killing your abusive husband?” he asked her seriously. “No. It would be utterly and completely ridiculous to hate you for killing him for what he did to you. I have killed for much less. You killed to protect yourself and your unborn child,” he told her honestly. 

She swallowed, her hands slightly unfurling. 

“Does…Does it bother you?” Ciara asked him, a hand going back to rest on top of her swollen belly. Like she couldn’t wait to cradle her baby. 

He thought about it for seconds, but he could already feel the answer deep in his bones.  

“The baby?” he asked, making sure, waiting until she nodded. “No,” he promised her. “The baby is yours. That’s all that matters to me.  There are only very few things that you could do that would bother me, I imagine. And your child doesn’t even come close to any of them.”

“She’s not yours,” she pointed out evenly, mustering him. It was a test of some sort, he was quite sure. 

“I don’t care,” he gave back, still matching her gaze. And then he hesitated for a moment. “You think it’s a girl?” he asked her. Curious, beside himself. A girl? 

“I have…a feeling,” Ciara answered quietly. Mother’s intuition. “I won’t give her up,” she told him, fiercely, her eyes glowing brightly with the love she already had for that baby. 

“And I would never expect that of you.” He would never put a child through what he had gone through. And he would gleefully slaughter anybody who stood in Ciara’s way to take care of her baby. “The only thing I want is to protect you both.”

[petnews2day]

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[tri-nationsmigration]

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[kulay-ng-banaag]

Glazing my art means I have to re-reblog them for this sideblog (sorry, but I'm not taking chances on weirdos using my works to train AI).

As a bonus, I wrote a little more than what I initially had!

(footnotes under cut)

Real ones would notice the changes from the original version. 😂

I originally used the precolonial Philippines design by tloraxin. The tattoos were also all Visayan batuk. It was only later on that I really wanted to reflect what shaped his experiences at the time. Part of that desire is also out of spite for popular fanon.

I've talked about his tattoos before. When I have the time again (haha), I will talk about how and why I dressed him up the way I did.

☼ ☼ ☼

The 2nd panel was also supposed to be a bloodier scene. Specifically, Piri was lying dead in a battlefield, surrounded by arms of fallen warriors and their very bodies. He also should have been bruised and concealing a fatal wound through his chest with his hand. Then he is abruptly stirred up by the giant tortoise to cross the rainbow bridge.

I decided to vaguely place him in the afterlife (however that looks), if only because I already depicted him in the midst of war and violence. Not that it's bad to do it again, but I felt like that was enough visual angst from me! 😂💦

Does the comic, in any way, hint that precolonial Philippines died? I dunno, we have a long way to go before I even bother covering that arc. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I intended for Indo to hold his hand out in that one panel. I hated drawing hands back then (me with feet now). Believe me when I say making pose references and observing where parts go will level up your skill.

☼ ☼ ☼

The last line is so cheesy, even for me, as I look back on it. But it's also an allusion to the challenges in both researching and writing about queer histories.

When I think about that, I cannot help but wonder how people expressed love? How did people define love in the first place? WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME!

What more for same-sex love — and by extent, understandings of sexuality, gender, etc.? How were all of these constructed/deconstructed? Transformed/destroyed?

Anyway, I just wanted to draw two queer, brown Southeast Asian men kiss kiss fall in love!

☼ ☼ ☼

This was the original Twitter thread that served as my inspiration. I also attached the respective sources below (in order of the tweets from L to R, top to bottom).

Barton, Roy F., Segundo Aligmayo, Miguel Bacoco, Joseph Biteng, Angel Ayogat, Reynaldo Abad, James Bawayan, et al. “A COLLECTION OF IGOROT LEGENDS: Sagada Social Studies No. 6 (December 1955).” Philippine Sociological Review 22, no. 1/4 (1974): 91–116. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23892245.

Abrigo, Emilia N. "Oriental Mindoro Folktales, An Analysis." Master's thesis, Philippine Women's University, 1971. Quoted in Damiana L. Eugenio, ed. Philippine Folk Literature. Vol. 2, The Myths. Quezon City, Philippines: The University of the Philippines Press, 2018.

Scott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994.

de Loarca, Miguel. "Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas," in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583, ed. Emma Helen Blair. Project Gutenberg, 2005. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16501/16501-h/16501-h.htm.

Garvan, John M. The Manóbos of Mindanáo: Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir. Washington, 1931; Project Gutenberg, 2006. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18607.

Disclaimer: These myths were sourced from distinct ethnolinguistic groups that do not necessarily share the same pantheon/s, even if deities and the like have similar names and/or attributes. I combined some of them purely for visual choices.

But also, when you're a lot of things, the afterlife may or may not be as much a funky amalgamation as you are.

PURI v. - to praise n. - to hold pride for

IndoPhil comic I (re)drew for Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈 I used some rainbow myth stories from across the Philippine archipelago 🇵🇭 as inspiration for this short comic!

[crypticcodexcreations]

Character Theme/Intro Songs

I was tagged by @writingently to share the songs that would play when my OCs enter a scene! Since only William has shown up so far in Only Human, I'm only going to do him from that WIP, but I'll also do The Stories Beneath the Stars. Which is actually going to be a lot of characters. I'm going to be nice and put this under a read more actually, and put my tags up here.

Tagging @blind-the-winds @calicojackofficial and @midnight-and-his-melodiverse

Only Human

William: Touch Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon. I actually literally came up with the original concept of Only Human by listening to a mash up of Touch Tone Telephone and Bubblegum Bitch that someone made on YouTube and yes I will share that link if anyone wants it. He popped into my mind almost exactly as is immediately. The other half? Well, went through a lot of revisions and I actually don't know if Bubblegum Bitch fully fits anymore, but hey! That's the fun part of writing with such an out there inspiration.

The Stories Beneath the Stars

Callisto: Love Like You, specifically Caleb Hyles' cover of it. This one is a little harder to explain, and really, specifically more of his inner thoughts than anything. This one really reflects how he feels about himself. He's got an image and way of being that he so desperately wants, but he doesn't feel like he can actually reach that goal. Bellamy: Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes. Bellamy is just the kind of person who loves and loves some more, and even if they get hurt in the process, they're not going to stop being open to loving others. They're just that kind of person, you know? Milian: Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet. Listen. This poor middle aged dwarf just wants to be sure he can retire. He dreams of just finding a nice home to put his feet up. He's willing to do the work first, and adopt these youngins along the way, but he just wants to relax. And @crowsnest-creations was an enabler for me to make his playlist Like That. Crag: Rats by Ghost. I don't have a good excuse for this one. She's an anthropomorphized rat lady and a barbarian ready to smash some teeth in. So she gets the song called rats that's based on the black plague. Clotilde: Live to Fight Another Day by The Cog is Dead. Honestly, the title of the song is kind of her motto. She's been through a lot, but she absolutely refuses to do anything but keep on living. Fate: A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay. Honestly, I don't really have a good reason for this one other than the fact that they're a cleric to the god of the stars, and that's the only thing they remember about their life, being an amnesiac. Garvan: This man dragon has been so hard to make a playlist for that picking one song for him is just impossible. I don't want to leave him out, but I can not actually justify any song. I think the closest I could get is Mama by My Chemical Romance, but the vibes just aren't right enough. Aeronwen: Godhunter by Aviators. It could be argued that this is the theme song of the entire WIP, which it is, but I feel like Aeronwen embodies it the best. She doesn't care what it takes, she's determined to be a force for justice in her world. And if that means going to the edges of the continent in search of the source of her world's troubles, she'll do it. Narcisa Cindergrip: Play With Fire by Sam Tinnesz. Narcisa is someone who's always metaphorically liked to play with fire, diving into the magically dangerous. On top of that, her family is named for the unique fire magic they wield.