#and quite a bit of stuff under chain of thorns

[walkingaftermidnight07]

intro post i should've made six months ago :/

Hello whoever has stumbled upon my blog! My name is Scarlett or Raven, and I am fine with either! Use whichever you want, I don't really care :)

I am a high school student but I'm not going to disclose my exact age, and i am fine with any pronoun honestly but i usually tell people she/they.

i am a writer, and i write everything from screenplays, novels, poetry, songs, short stories, etc. i also take oneshot requests.

i am a very proud member of the lgbtq+ community, (i am a useless bisexual if you must know ;D) so homophobes and transphobes DNI (that includes TERFS 👀) and you will probably see a lot of gay stuff on my blog.

i am a part of A LOT of fandoms, but i mostly post abt Shadowhunters, Stranger Things, PJO, and Måneskin. But im also a big star wars and marvel nerd and im a huge theater kid.

my ask box is always open for oneshot requests, playlist requests, or anything like that! or literally just chatting with me i will love you forever if you send me asks to just chat and/or bc you wanna be friends <3

My DMs are also always open :)

I have a sideblog for reading, which is @readingaftermidnight007 so go follow me or talk to me abt books over there! i'll probably make more sideblogs soon but thats the only one for now.

i play bass guitar and clarinet and i really like music so i love to give music recs and receive music recs!

i wanna be a director a screenwriter someday

if you wanna add me on goodreads, here's the link..

if you wanna add me on twitter, im @.scarletttt067 but be warned my twitter is a mess of baseball, maneskin, and other random shit lmao

thats it! I'm totally going to be adding to this but for now, goodbye!

(all my personal tags are tagged below)

[alicewritingstories]

Febuwhump Day 23: Presumed dead

CW: Injury, apparent main character death

AO3

---

"You've got no right to talk to Sky that way."

Legend looked up at Twilight's accusing words and scowled at him. "What are you, his mom? If he's got something to say to me, he can say it himself."

"He's not going to because he's too nice, and I get why he doesn't want to fight back, but I'm still telling you you can't talk to him that way." Twilight meant it; he remembered how Midna had been at first and how that prickly exterior had hidden a genuinely good person, but that had been different. Her barbs had been aimed at him. Sky was too easy to bully and Legend's behavior was a thorn in a group that was still finding a way to work together and Twilight didn't know how anyone else tolerated it.

Legend rose slowly to his feet. He was a lot shorter than Twilight, but still stood as tall as he could to try to get nose-to-nose with him. "I'll talk to anyone I want however I want, Rancher. I'm not one of the snot-nosed kids from your backwater village who think you're hot stuff because you're the only person in town who can use a sword properly."

Twilight bared his teeth. "And don't talk about my home or my family that way either!"

"Hey!" Warriors' voice pierced Twilight's awareness and the captain thrust an arm between them. "Break it up, you two."

"Stay out of this, pretty boy," said Legend. "I can fight my own battles. Let's see if the rancher can."

"Legend -" Warriors' voice held a warning note, but Twilight talked over him.

"I can fight my own battles," he snapped. "And I can fight for people other than myself too: something you apparently don't have much experience with!"

"Twilight, that is out of line!" shouted Warriors, now turning to him.

"You don't know anything about my battles," snarled Legend.

"I'm fine not knowing what it's like to attack people who won't hit you back!"

Warriors caught Legend even as he lunged forward with a raised fist. Twilight was grabbed under the arms and dragged back against an armored chest.

"Walk away," snapped Time in his ear, shoving him towards the other side of the camp. He looked downright disgusted and at that look Twilight felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him. He'd just wanted to tell Legend to lay off Sky a bit. He hadn't meant for it to escalate. What had he been supposed to do, just take it when Legend talked about Ordon and its people the way he had?

But there was no use getting back into it now and just looking at Legend - now on the far side of the camp with his back to everyone - made his blood boil. He walked away.

***

Twilight and Legend didn't speak to each other for the rest of the day or the next morning, despite the efforts of other members of the Chain. Legend made no attempt to approach Twilight and Twilight didn't want to be the first to break the impasse either. He wanted an apology. He wasn't the one who had started throwing insults.

Now he bitterly regretted that decision.

As he sat a little way outside camp, staring out at the surface of a small lake, he didn't notice the black monster blood stiffening the fur of his pelt into spikes. He didn't notice the jarred ache in his right arm and shoulder from catching a moblin's club on his shield. All he could focus on was the images flashing behind his eyes.

Sky falling with an arrow buried deep in his thigh.

The moblin raising a claymore over him.

Legend throwing himself in the huge blade's path.

Legend lying pinned to the ground, the claymore through his stomach.

Sky's screamed denials of what was happening. Time's grim expression. Wind crying. Blood on Warriors' and Four's hands as they eased the claymore free. Hyrule's thousand-yard stare as he laid his hands on his best friend's body.

Twilight had gone to patrol and make sure there were no more monsters lying in wait. He couldn't face this. Couldn't face the fact that Legend was… Legend had…

Even the thought couldn't quite form in his mind as he stared out at the rippling moonlight.

They'd made camp. He'd kept patrolling. Talking to nobody, ignoring their stares.

He'd been wrong. And he'd never be able to say so.

"Twilight."

The sound of his nickname startled him so much he almost sprang up, but he managed to restrain himself to just looking round as Time came to sit next to him.

"I've been looking for you for a while," he said softly.

Twilight locked his eyes on the water, unwilling to see the disappointment and anger he knew would be there on the old man's face.

"I can't…" he started. "I just…" The words caught in his throat. "I should have… I should have said I was sorry." The catch turned into a sob and he rubbed his eyes. "He's… he's dead and… the last thing I ever said to him… was that he doesn't know about fighting for other people and he only attacks those who won't hit him back."

Time didn't reply.

Twilight kept talking, bleeding words into the silence as surely as the tears dripped down his cheeks. "He sacrificed himself for Sky and… the last thing I said to him was that he… And now I'll never be able to tell him I'm sorry. That I didn't mean it, I just… I was angry and I lashed out and… and then I waited for him to apologize first and he started it but that doesn't matter, I'm supposed to be the adult and now the last thing I said to him…" Unable to bear it any more, he buried his face in his hands.

After a moment, Time laid a hand shockingly gently on his shoulder. "Twilight," he said softly, "I'm glad you realize this now and I hope it lasts past hearing what I came to tell you."

Twilight looked up, confused.

Time didn't look angry; he smiled a little and continued, "Legend's alive. You didn't stay after the battle long enough to see Hyrule heal him. I came looking for you because he wants to talk to you."

Twilight stared at him for a moment, the world seeming to slow just as it had in those horrible moments as the moblin cut Legend down. "He's… he's alive?" he asked.

Time nodded. "Yes, he's alive."

Then Twilight was on his feet, sprinting back to camp. He barrelled past the others, over to where Hyrule sat by Legend. By Legend, he realized, not his body, caring for a wounded man rather than keeping vigil by a corpse.

"Le-Legend…" he gasped, dropping to his knees and grabbing the smaller hylian's hand. "I'm sorry, I should never have said those things."

Legend snorted. "Damn right. But I was asking for it. I'm sorry too."

Twilight sighed in relief, pressing Legend's hand to his forehead, and smiled as Legend wriggled it free, grumbling under his breath. It showed he was alive. It showed things were back to normal.

[thousand-winters]

Hello. Now that you have finished chain of thorns, could we know what you liked and didn't like? A rant?

Oh, it's a dangerous thing to ask me to rant, dear anon 👀 But yes, absolutely!

Let's keep it organized.

The positives/what I liked:

The platonic dynamics: Specifically the Carstairs siblings and Grace and Christopher, but special mention to Jesse and James. I was pleasantly surprised by them having multiple scenes being sweet and supportive and caring to each other. I know there have always been platonic relationships in CC's books but I feel like sometimes it feels more like they tell you they care than them actually acting as if they care about each other, so I was delighted by how it was done this time.

Matthew's alcoholism: I was concerned when the first few chapters were released and Matt seemed perfectly fine while apparently stopping drinking altogether, because... yeah, that's not how it works. I thought it was nice how it was handled, the withdrawal and him falling again during the Christmas party and the acknowledgment that even when his body recovered, he would have to be mindful from then on because it's not that easy.

James and the bracelet: This one too was a complicated matter and I know not everyone liked how much he avoided telling anyone about it, but I think it was realistic. With this kind of... heavy experiences, it's normal to want to close off as to not receive "pity".

Grace: Everything about her behavior was also nicely handled, I felt. This is something I always bring up when it comes to talking about why she did bad things even without Tatiana around, and it's because that kind of influence doesn't go away just because the person is not physically there. She lived under an abusive parent for like half of her life, so of course even her mindset and way to see the world reflects that, even to her own detriment. That was nice to see, that it wasn't brushed off as "she's out, so she's perfectly fine now".

Thomastair: Perhaps slightly biased since they were my favorites since the beginning, but their scenes were sweet, heartfelt, and sometimes so funny. They were so fun together, it was a joy to get to their parts when reading. Who else is doing it like them in this trilogy?

Lucie and the power of death: I quite liked how her power was a bit more versatile in this book than in past ones. I think some of my favorite "action" scenes were the ones she was in. I'm particularly fond of the moment with the ghost pentagram to keep Lilith in... "Rise. I do not command, only ask. Rise."

Now comes the more complicated stuff...

The negatives/what I didn't like:

The love triangle: Was it really necessary to make Matthew and Cordelia a thing for like five minutes just for the drama? It had already been established that Matthew's love for her wasn't actual love, and Cordelia didn't have feelings for him, so it was just annoying, honestly. CC could still have played with the idea of Matthew yearning for her as the sort of salvation they were presenting it as, without them becoming actually involved.

The disappearing conflicts: I mentioned this in another post, but they set up a series of conflicts in Chain of Iron that they didn't follow through with. Suddenly everyone was chill with each other and some of the logistics, for example, what it would mean for the queer characters to come out publicly in the era they are in, Lucie's consequences for technically performing necromancy, Matthew confessing his "sin" to his parents, just.... poofed out of existence. I understand why, as the ending was changed, but it just felt badly handled like this, and it makes the characters seem like idiots for even worrying about those things being issues in the first place.

Christopher's death: The goal here was to not make the book as tragic as it was originally intended, but something bad still had to happen, right? I also mentioned this in another post, but Christopher's death feels more like "well, someone from the main cast has to die", and less like a logical step in the narrative. In my opinion, it doesn't work, because it wasn't chosen from a narrative standpoint, so it ended up being mostly unimpressive in its own context. Main character deaths should be meaningful, not just shock value.

Lack of action: Don't get me wrong, I know we're all here for the characters and their relationships with each other, but this is still a Shadowhunters book, presumably about... you know, hunting demons? This was a problem throughout the whole trilogy though, it feels at times way too domestic or most of the conflict is relationship based, with action taking a second plane. The thing is, this is the final book of a trilogy, you would assume it would have some epic fights, right? But it doesn't, and the fights it does have never quite feel high stakes, so in that respect it's a bit... boring.

Important scenes skimmed over: The aforementioned scene with Lucie and her necromancy, aka, Jesse's trial on Idris? Charles coming out in front of the Clave to accuse the Inquisitor? Gabriel and Cecily mourning their son? Nope, we're just kinda told about all of these things and meant to just take them as they are. Ah, but we did have time for the love triangle, didn't we?

Pacing: Kinda ties to the lack of action, but it felt like we were going very slowly at the beginning and then at the end we have to go through fights and conflicts really fast, no time for anything to be properly felt because we are just moving on. At least that's what I personally felt.

The dissonance between the original plan vs the final result: Not only were we told certain things would happen that didn't (like the whole thing with the Carstairs owing the Herondales), but I felt like some of the things that were promised and did happen were... odd. Like they were originally meant to happen in a certain way, but since the ending was changed, now it just feels lazy. Esme Hardcastle? Vaguely funny, but CC, cut your losses, you changed your mind, we know the family tree was before that, it's fine. Belial owing Jem a favor? I admit I haven't read that side story, but owing him a favor just for delivering a message? I'm not sure it was meant to happen that way, but I could be wrong. It just felt poorly planned to me.

I think these are the main things, anything else might be me being extremely nitpicky, which I admit to be.

I do like TLH and TSC as a whole, but I don't look at it with eyes of love, so I can be quite harsh on it. Take my opinions with a grain of salt and don't let them take away your enjoyment of this book from you, since they're just that: my opinions.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

hi, ash! i'd love to hear about your ffxv s/i and your ship with gladio! also, what does iris think about your s/i? :O

YAY!! I love talking about this kind of stuff!!!

(Some talk of death, injury, drowning, a bit of blood + spoilers for the game)

F.FXV Ash was born in the Crown City to two members of the Crownsguard (eventually the Kingsglaive). Ever since she was young, Ash was always fed this idea that her kingdom was amazing. She loved her home so much and she wanted to grow up there forever with her parents and her sister. It all changed when she was 16. She parents were killed in combat.

(In Episode A.rdyn, there's a boss fight against two soldiers... Those were her parents.)

Ash stayed in the city long enough to graduate high-school, but after that, she just couldn't keep going. She felt hollow and empty inside. The murder of her parents shattered her in every single way possible, wrecked her faith and her love to kingdom, ruined her life. She's messed up.

And so, Ash leaves. She makes a name for herself as a monster hunter, drifting from town to town and protecting the people. She comes to be known as Eos' Rose. Beautiful, but with thorns too. She didn't choose to be called The Rose, it's just that part of her outfit is a long, red coat. I still need to work out the details of her outfit and all that, but she has a red coat and quite a few earrings. She has a chain threader going through two lobe piercings on one ear, and a dangling rose earring on the other. Both silver.

(Whenever she was about 20, she met a lonely chocobo chick. This chocobo stays with Ash for a long time. She is a green chocobo named Sage. Sage is Ash's companion and best friend. Sage is very friendly to everybody, but she has a distaste for Gladio and has tried to bite him on multiple occasions. She succeeded once, but more on that later.

Again, Sage is naturally green. Prompto asks about this once.

"Hey, Ash! Why is your chocobo green?"

"Well, I dunno, Prompto. Why are you blond?"

It gets a good chuckle out of everyone.)

Anyways, early into the game, the Chocobros run into Ash! She actually draws her sword on Noct at first and then she realizes "holy shit, you're the prince. Oh my god, I tried to kill the prince. Oh no, oh no, oh no-"

It's a bit of a funny moment, but she ends up allying with the bros and she gets especially close with Gladio. They get along really well, both protectors of people and absolutely dorks too.

Ash is a gamer, so she gets along well with Prompto and Noct. They actually all played Kings Knight together online! So it's a bit of a "WAIT WE'RE KINGS KNIGHT MOOTS?!" whenever they finally meet. She gets along really well with Ignis too! Ash is very close with all of the gang. It's not long before her and Gladio are falling in love, kissing and sharing Cup Noodles under the stars.

And as for Iris, Iris ADORES Ash! Looks up to her as the big sister she never had. Iris thinks Ash is so cool and strong! And she tells Gladdy that if he breaks her heart, she'll kick his ass! Ash really loves Iris too. She was always the youngest in her family too, so it means a lot to her to be able to be an older sister figure to someone. Ash teaches Iris a bit about how to use a sword too.

Anywho, back to the plot.

Ash accompanies the bros whenever they go onto the boat to Altissia. Her and Gladio have a sweet, romantic date there. But that happiness doesn't last. It's been a bit of a running joke that Ash doesn't know how to swim.

The last thing Gladio expected was to lose her.

As Altissia falls, Ash sacrifices herself to save Gladio and Prompto. They both have to watch as Ash falls from a bridge and into the water. They watch as Ash dies. But there's not enough time to save her. Prompto sobs, Gladio screams in horror. Ash is content. She's going to die protecting the people she loves, right? It's not that cute and her almost drowning to death was the scariest moment of her life. She's choking and gasping for air, trying to grab any rubble she can just to stay alive.

Ash isn't seen again for a while. It's part of the reason why Gladio lashes out on the train—he's mourning his girlfriend's death. Whenever he's sitting there across the table from Ignis, you can hear him crying.

However, a few chapters later... Guess who comes back. She's injured, has scars on her face, and her coat is in tatters. Gladio hugs her and cries, Ash tells him to loosen up a bit since she has a few cracked ribs.

"What's the matter? Not a fan of ghosts?"

Gladio tells her that this isn't the time to crack jokes, but he hugs her so tight. She was alive. She was okay.

(However, during this time, Gladio actually found Sage and told her that Ash was dead. Sage bit him hard that day.)

But... How exactly did Ash survive..?

That gets explained in Episode Ignis. I won't talk about Ash's involvement in every DLC just to not make this to lengthy, but in Iggy's... Ravus sees her drowning. He grabs her out of the water and onto land. He's not gentle about it, and the impact of being thrown against rubble isn't great for Ash's bones, but she's alive. Ash is nursed back to health by the survivors of the town. There's a lot more detail there, but that's the gist of what happens.

Ash's relationship with Ravus is fascinating. They bond quite a bit and have a chat under the stars much later, right before Ash reunites with Gladio. I had to dig through like two years worth of discord messages for this but it went something like this

Oh and you know that level that's just Gladio and Ignis? Yeah, Ash is there too. She cusses out Ardyn actually. Although I really like Ardyn, my S/I doesn't. He makes a comment that she's quite grown up now. You know how he gets those flashbacks of peoples' memories after he kills people in his DLC? He saw an image of a little girl with red glasses. And here she was, a grown woman.

She breaks off from the group before the Ravus fight. I don't want her to see him like that.

Anyways, then timeskip rolls around. Whenever Noct arrives at Hammerhead is met with a familiar "kweh-kweh!". Sage greets Noct after ten long years, and then Ash runs over. They have a cute hug scene.

However, Ash's outfit is different. Not only is her hair curly (pre-ts Ash had it straightened), but she's wearing... Kingsglaive armor?! Her outfit is vaguely inspired by Crowe from Kingsglaive, but Ash had become a soldier. Not just to follow in her parents' footsteps, but because she had spent her whole life feeling lost and she had finally found a purpose. Traveling with Noct and Co had made her realize that her life had a purpose. She wanted to spend her life protecting her kingdom.

After her parents died, she didn't know what to do with herself. Noct was both her best friend and her king. Noct says that the Kingsglaive outfit looks good on her. It makes her smile. Ash had finally come home to Insomnia, and she had finally found what she was meant to do.

Before the gang leaves, she gives Noct a long hug and tells him to come back alive. She gives Gladio a kiss too.

And that's basically it!

[killian-spey]

Death Would Be Kinder [Ch. 2]

Prev. Ch.

[Drusilla/Spike/Calendar!Reader]

Words: 2276

Fic Concept: Jenny Calendar’s sister spends some “quality time” with the Season 2 Vampire Squad. This chapter takes place during [BtVS S2:E15]

TW/CW: violence, kidnapping, chains?

AN: Idea came from @prose-for-hire ‘s submission to the fic title game. Taglist is at the bottom, let me know if you want to be added!

You’d been sitting silently, watching Spike wheel himself back and forth across the factory. If you didn’t know better he looked like he was pacing. In reality, he was probably checking behind the pillars and corners of the factory for any sign of your friends. It seems the vampires were expecting Buffy to come looking for you. As the time dragged on, your suspicions became reality; Buffy had prioritized the threat of the Judge over saving you. You had to admit, it stung a little, but it was only logical.

Spike peeked his head into each doorway adjoining the main factory floor. You could tell he was getting restless. You contemplated your odds carefully before you decided on taking a calculated risk.

“You lose a sock?” you yelled.

“Did I what?” Spike wheeled back into the room, an odd expression on his face.

“I asked if you lost a sock.” You paused, his intense glare caught you off-guard. “You know… Because of all the pacing. And popping your head in and out of every room in the place. Somebody’s going to think you lost a sock.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He chuckled a bit before going quiet again and stalking around the factory in his wheelchair. You nodded to yourself, deciding to quit while you were ahead. After that, the only sounds left in the factory were the spinning of wheels and an occasional bumping of door frames and frustrated curses.

It had only been a couple hours of his pseudo-pacing before Angelus and Drusilla stumbled their way into the factory. Spike took one look at the state Angelus was in and hid a smirk under his hand by scratching his nose.

“Well, you’re home early. Slayer hasn’t even tried swiping the girl yet.”

Spike’s good mood vanished as he watched them come down the steps. Drusilla was beside herself, and for a moment you found yourself feeling bad for her. Then Angelus opened his big fat mouth and you remembered who these people were.

“Yeah, well things didn’t go exactly according to plan, Spikey.” He prowled the room, circling like a big cat before he gravitated towards you. Your nerves peaked and you swear you saw a glint of pride behind Angelus’ eyes as he heard your heart pick up. He stepped within arms’ reach of you and sneered.

“What I can’t figure out is, why would she abandon you like this?”

“Where’s your big blue friend?” You swallowed your anxiety and stared up at him in challenge, you weren’t going to tell him a goddamn thing. Might as well give yourself a fighting chance. If he figured it out, you were dead already. You were going to be careful, of course, but that didn’t mean you were going to let him win.

Angelus roared, grabbing your face by the jaw. He was suddenly wearing his game face front and center. ‘Buffy really rattled him, huh?’ You remained stoic, as statuesque as you could muster. If you had misjudged his mood, this might be one of your last moments alive.

Drusilla had floated her way over, leaning into Angelus and hugging his arm to her side. Your staring contest interrupted, Angelus pulled away from you. You took the free moment away from the spotlight to run your fingers against the grain of the armrests, trying to ground yourself in the feeling of the wood underneath you. Your panic was bubbling to the surface, tension and pressure building in your ribcage. You caught Spike’s knowing glance towards you as your eyes flickered between the vampires. You dropped your eyes to the floor, frozen as Drusilla subtly coaxed Angelus away from you. Before long, Angelus had stormed out of the factory again, mumbling about sending Buffy a message.

You were grateful and more than a little stunned. Drusilla saved your life. In her own, subtle way she’d dismantled Angelus’ rage and directed it somewhere else. She’d spun him out of the factory towards Buffy with little more than a subtle flirtatious gesture. You practically gawked at her as she made her way into Spike’s lap. She had these men wrapped around her finger and they didn’t even know it.

Well, maybe Spike knew, but he certainly didn’t mind. He was running his fingers through Drusilla’s hair, comforting her as he spoke.

“If you like the hostage so much, maybe you should have a little fun, Ducks.” He wrapped an arm around Drusilla’s waist to steady her as he wheeled towards you, continuing. “She was supposed to be the distraction for the Slayer, after all. That is what went wrong with the plan, wasn’t it?”

Drusilla lifted her head, gears turning as she looked between Spike and you. Your mind rushed with your fears of what she was contemplating. You didn’t put it past them for ‘playing’ to mean something rather unpleasant for you. Drusilla hummed under her breath excitedly, springing from Spike’s lap and practically skipping out of the room. Spike nodded at you, raising his eyebrows as if to say “Hey look, I fixed it!” and wheeled himself into a good position to watch from, a smug grin on his face.

Drusilla returned with two fistfuls of chains and your heart dropped. She fussed with them somewhere behind you and left the rest in a pile as she ducked off again to the other room. Spike flicked his eyes between the chains and his girl curiously, but said nothing as she flurried about the factory. When she returned, she was holding a long carrying case and a small over-the-shoulder bookbag. She dropped them beside the chains and left again without a word.

“Ducks, what is all this stuff?”

Spike called out to her and wheeled over to the bags. He unzipped one when she didn’t answer. You couldn’t see into the bag from your position and Spike’s exasperated reaction didn’t help you either.

Drusilla returned one final time, holding a large blank canvas in each hand. The left was maybe a 20”x24” and the right was maybe a 24” square. (50cmx60cm or 60cm square).

“Which one does the artist like best?”

You paused, unsure if there was a right answer. After a couple moments you pointed weakly to the left canvas. Drusilla smiled at you and put the square canvas down. Spike scoffed as Drusilla set up an easel from the carrying case and put the bookbag on a table beside it.

She dragged the chains over to your chair and kneeled, carefully untying the knots around your right leg. You studied her face; she bit her tongue lightly as she worked, pulling at the ropes with deft, perfectly manicured fingers. After she’d untied your legs and shackled them, she let your arms off the armrests.

She took your hands in hers and pulled you up to stand for the first time in almost a day. You scanned her expression and glanced backwards towards the easel, then back to her with trepidation. She glided you in front of the daunting white canvas and left you, sinking backwards and sitting in Spike’s lap.

You stood, dumbfounded at the prospect of Drusilla wanting you to paint, of all things. She seemed unimpressed by your inaction after a few moments, and had begun whispering into Spike's ear. He'd leaned into her, pulling her closer and snickered at what must have been a rather amusing comment. He flicked his eyes at you through his lashes, a predatory glint flashing behind his eyes as his smirk grew. He straightened in his seat with satisfaction, head held high.

“Paint for the lady or get eaten. Your choice.”

Drusilla’s eyes wandered back to you and provided no comfort, but then again, why should it? You turned back to the canvas, feeling both their eyes staring at you. A calming breath later, you assessed the materials on the table.

The canvas bag she'd brought had a full set of oil paints- far nicer than you'd ever been able to afford. You didn't dare think of the poor shopkeeper she'd probably killed for them. A person just like your Uncle. He was just another obstacle in these people’s way, and for that he was murdered. You shoved the paints to one side of the small table and began assessing the tools. A somewhat rudimentary selection of spatulas and brushes. You could make do just fine with these.

You set up a palette with some blue, red, white, and black to start. A color palette often was the first thought you gave to a painting. This painting would be mostly blues, purples, and grays. Without turning your head, your eyes flicked towards the vampires just off your left shoulder in the periphery. You had never really let anyone sit and watch you paint. It was hard enough showing a finished piece to someone other than family.

You mixed a deep lilac and raised a palette knife to the canvas. You paused, unsure where to place the landscape. The creeping feeling of being watched was throwing you. The white snow canvas was taunting you, paralyzing you. But you weren't about to let it win. Any of them. You closed your eyes and just swiped the palette knife confidently in a bold first stroke. Now you had a puzzle. How does this fit into a landscape? There was no going back now, it had to work.

It was a mountain slope. The hue you used was suitable for a distant fixture seen from a twilit glade. You could lean into that, thinking on how to keep the morbid whimsy of the piece consistent as a theme. You blocked out the clearing and plotted out the forest behind and around it. It fell silent in the factory as you worked, only the scraping of palette knives and brush strokes echoing in the room. Pieces fell in place as you added gnarled willows at the tree line, white ghost pipes and fungi crawling on the foliage, and sickly green fireflies in the weeping branches and crooked thorn bushes. You didn't like how the overall feel of the piece was so damp and dreary. It felt too muted, too blue for what you'd envisioned. You added nettles to the glade in a redder purple, almost magenta, to tie the piece back into the mystical tone you wanted. A few more touches, a ray of silver moonlight here or there, and you stepped back. You contemplated the piece, for some reason feeling unfinished. The glade felt completely untouched, too alone by itself.

You almost jumped when you heard Drusilla shift off Spike’s lap behind you. You froze, dropping your gaze to the floor, unsure of her intentions. With three clicks of her heels against the concrete flooring, she stopped just behind you. So close you would have felt her breath on your neck if she were human. She leaned forward and pulled your hair behind your ear. She placed one hand on your shoulder and raised your head with a finger under your chin, guiding your eyes back to your work.

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s not bad, actually.” Spike wheeled forward a pace or so to take a closer look at it. Drusilla still seemed to be waiting for your own answer. You studied it again silently.

It did feel telling, in an odd sort of way. It was invisibly and indescribably alive, despite the darkness and isolation. Could be a good metaphor for vampires... Alive and free only after their own deaths. Sure, they may not exactly live up to society’s expectation of a good neighbor, but you couldn’t say they let being dead keep them from living.

Still, the painting felt unsatisfactory, felt incomplete. You shook your head and pondered. You drew up a couple new colors, a ghostly blue and a red-brown clay. You loaded a palette knife with the clay tone and hovered over the painting, indecisive. The central piece as of now was a large, twisting willow on a small inclined mound of earth. The whole painting felt like background to an invisible subject. Nothing tied the eye to the painting, there was nothing to follow. No movement in a living place.

Drusilla took the palette knife from your hand and set it down. She pulled you lightly to step away from the painting, lightly petting your hair.

“Let it rest, you’ll do more later. With a clear mind,”

You let a heavy sigh escape your lungs. She was right. If you kept going now, at the end of your rope, you’d risk doing something that detracted from the painting entirely. You jerked your head up at a loud scraping sound from above you. Angelus had swung the door open on the mezzanine of the factory. He had a vicious grin and a playful look in his eyes, leaning on the guardrail and looking down at the three of you.

“Did you have fun with the Slayer, then?” Spike called up to him.

“Oh, she makes it so easy!” Angelus threw himself at the spiral staircase and rushed down them with glee.

“I barely had to lift a finger to throw a wrench in her little puppy problem.”

Drusilla twitched her head and glided towards him. She was staring at his face, fixated on something you didn’t pick up on. She swiped her thumb across the corner of his mouth and brought it to her own lips.

“Did you bring any home, Angel? I taste a young one on you.”

“Not today, darlin’. Besides, you have that one.” Angelus gestured to you and sauntered off, calling back as he left. “She wasn’t really any use anyway.”

[Next Chapter Soon!]

Tags: @prose-for-hire @soggy-enchilada @misselsbells06

[ginnyzero]

Publishing vs. Marketing Category

Okay, so book and writing community on twitter tends to have these flare ups of convos about books being shelved wrong and authors pointing out reasons such as their gender, or race, or even the content of their books being say, fantasy for them being placed on the wrong shelves in libraries and bookstores. Now, there is a human bias element to this. There are librarians and book buyers for stores who do see a female fantasy author and assume they must be YA no matter the content. Plus, everyone and their mother tagging things incorrectly on twitter or shelving badly on Goodreads.

Let’s dive into the INDUSTRY side of this though. The industry has two different and at times clashing categorizations of books, there are the publishing categories and there are the marketing categories. And while some, specifically some age targets and genres the marketing and the publishing categories will align, there are others that the age target and marketing target may be under the same “name” technically and then their aims completely clash.

Yes, I’m mostly talking about YA. (Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance can fall in here too.)

So, the publishing category of Young Adult, is pretty much what you’d expect. Young Adult should have protagonists of the age groups of 12 to 18, and most likely dealing with “coming of age” themes and “finding their place in the world” and quite possibly “being the chosen one.” I personally find theme categorization for age groups to be really limiting. But I read Brian Jacques from third grade on... so. .. yay fighting mice. (And I was into Star Wars at grade 7, like Timothy Zahn Star Wars. I am not the typical reader.) It’s just something to be aware of if you are querying agents because agents deal with publishing categories and not marketing categories. (And agents have biases too. Like, come on, Unicorns should not be limited to MG. How dull. Agents though will look for anything to clear stuff out of their slush pile, I guess.)

Young Adult publishing category books range between 40K words on the low end and 80K words on the high end. I’d aim for 50K words depending on age group. Remember, YA readers especially read upwards in age groups. So you’re 12 year old is going to be reading about 15 year olds and your later YA readers will have aged out into the adult category of books (supposedly. This is where MARKETING categories become a thing. More in a second.)

New Adult is not a thing. Until it gets a spot in bookstores. It is officially not a thing. Querying New Adult will get you nowhere. Don’t bother.

So, you’ve written your MS and it hits what you think are all the Adult markers, from age of the protag, to theme, to having ‘adult’ content such as sex, drugs, and violence. (Violence is so weird b/c we’ve normalized violence while keeping sex taboo. So, if your book has sex, it might be considered Adult, more than if your book has violence. Even then... marketing categories.) You’ve queried it as adult. You’ve got it through an editor and it’s been pitched to a publisher and they’ve picked it up and your marketing materials come out. And they, meaning the cover, and the blurb, all read Young Adult in their style and tone.

And this may be confusing because you wrote an adult book, why are they marketing it to YA? Like A Crown of Thorns and Roses? (Fae court romance is... err, dead on arrival btw.)

It’s because YA is also a marketing category which no longer equals the age group category. And there are some very popular book series you can thank for this, Twilight, Hunger Games, Vampire Academy, and Divergent are among them. These books were not only popular among teens. They were popular among their mothers. So, publishing quickly pivoted from YA being this age group category with certain things, to a marketing strategy to try and keep the attention of the moms of the teenagers with sex, and love triangles, and I dunno, forbidden romance. By the time ACOTAR came out, publishing decided maybe they should try for this college age, New Adult category so they could market these “sexy fantasy” type books to older readers and get the sex out of YA. So, they used ACOTAR to try and make New Adult happen as a marketing category for book buyers. It didn’t work. Because no one, like with Harry Potter, wants to split a book series across 2 sections. (And lo and behold Young Adult was kind of born because they didn’t want to keep the later HP books in the children’s section.)

And because it didn’t work, YA is now a mess. Because they still don’t want to give up those sweet, sweet, mommy dollars.

There is one very large aspect of publishing the author has no control over. Their marketing. Especially, their covert marketing done by the publisher. Covert marketing is the type of marketing indies salivate over, b/c covert marketing is basically the publishing house deciding where on the bestseller list this book is going to be, how much advertising it gets, does it get a fancy book launch, what is the advance of the author, when is it going to be published and will it have competitors in its genre that same month, who among the reviewers gets to read it, the style of the book cover, and more importantly, what, where, and how much book shelf space it gets in stores. Is the cover turned out? Is it at the front of the store? Does it get it’s own display? Or is it in the “new releases display?” Which book buyer at the chains gets to see it. How do Librarians get a hold of it and which ones? Because the buyer of say, romance, is not the buyer of young adult. The Adult scifi/fantasy book buyer is going to be different than say, mysteries. Same for librarians! There are more than one librarian in your system choosing your books! It is very important who your book gets to be put in front of, what they think of it to how it is going to be received and pushed on bookshelves. There was a very infamous romance buyer of a major chain store who refused to buy POC romances because she thought they didn’t sell.

If your book chain buyer, refuses to buy fantasy books or scifi books by female authors b/c they think they won’t SELL. Then, the publisher feels like in order to get your book to sell, they have to put it into a marketing category where it will sell, Young Adult. Because what do most of those “Young Adult” books have in common, women writers. (Urban Fantasy was almost an exception to the rule on SFF gendered authors. Then... UF became dead on arrival as they thought the market was glutted and yeah. Good luck on getting an UF published, you’d be better off writing paranormal romance. Same type of setting, different genre rules.) It’s not about the content of your book, or the age of your protag, or the theme of your book at that point, it is “What will make this book sell.” Publishing is an industry where profit is not a dirty word. Their job is to make your book sell and if they think it will sell better as YA, they will pitch it as YA.

Even if the book is written for, uses language appropriate for, and has content really intended for adults.

Be aware that Young Adult scifi is a very, very rare buyers market. For some reason, publishers don’t think they can market it? Dystopian yes. Scifi... no. So, if your YA is scifi, like either rewrite for adult or keep your eye open for that very rare time they’re willing to TRY and publishing YA scifi. Or, publish indie. (Dystopian is also I think DOA.)

Is this confusing? Absolutely! Because there are plenty of readers out there who are in the adult category, who don’t keep up with publishing trends, and don’t realize if they want vibrant fantasy books, they may have to look in the YA section of their bookstore. They’re adults. They want vibrant fantasy adult books. And I say fantasy because you see this happening MOSTLY with fantasy. It happens with other genres too, but it is a huge problem in fantasy due to, well, the combination of publishing trends (white, older, male) and the human bias. So, many times, if you want that cool marketed as adult fantasy book not written by a white older male, you are going to have to order it through the ‘zon because you aren’t going to find it most likely on your bookstore shelves. (Science Fiction is another kettle of fish. Outside of some very established authors, it’s not really publishing. It’s a very small category outside of indie. Like, Military SF was a thing for a bit in indie! Just... yeah. Sigh.)

Conclusion: Publishing category does not always equal marketing category. Even if the publishing category and marketing category are named the same thing. And it’s probably not going to change until something major happens that the big four are FORCED to change their current publishing and marketing methods. (Yeah, big FOUR now. Scary.) It’s a complicated system with the author having the most at stake and the least amount of control (and often the least amount of pay outside of agents.) I mean, when Disney of all corporations, doesn’t want to pay Alan Dean Foster his legal royalties for a book they acquired when they got Star Wars, there is a PROBLEM in the system.

Just be aware if you are going into this publishing game. I cover this and more in my FREE PDF “I Finished a Book, Now What? A Tongue in Cheek Guide to What Happens Next.”  Everything from editing types to querying to social media for authors.

It’s available for download on my website. https://ginny0.wordpress.com/books/

[thegoodgayshit]

Luz’s mother really doesn’t want to send Luz to camp. She knows once she leaves, there is no going back. But Luz has a knack for getting into trouble, and one day she stumbles into the same type of people her mother would have preferred she avoided. After helping Luz dissolve her high school bully into dust, Eda and Lilith know right away that this kid is just like them - a child of the gods. So Luz hops on a Pegasus and heads to Camp Half-blood, where she embarks on a dangerous quest that makes her both friends and enemies... and she might even save Olympus along the way.

Chapter Thirteen: We Make a Fort out of Thorns

Willow found us a nice little camping spot by a creek about a fifteen-minute walk outside the wealthy suburb where they’d left Orpheus. Luz was glad they could rest, she would never tell anybody, but despite her strength growing since arriving at camp, her weak little nerd arms probably couldn’t have carried Amity much farther.

Willow drew her sword and started weaving a protective barrier of foliage in a circle around us, large thorns protecting any monsters from barraging through easily. Gus reached into his stuffed backpack and pulled out something labeled “pop a tent” and opened the lid pointing it back towards a tree. Out popped, well, a tent. Luz’s mouth opened in awe. It was a six-person family tent, and it had already magically nailed itself down. Despite the rain, there was a slicker cover over it to shelter them.

Luz wanted to ask him where he’d got something like that, but her body was slowly starting to betray her. Her arms were now shaking carrying Amity’s weight over two miles, and when she opened her mouth nothing came out. She would have been embarrassed if Amity had noticed, but her worry was quickly overtaking her too. Amity had tucked her head against Luz’s shoulder and had somehow fallen asleep there, and her breathing was lightly coming in and out with every step Luz took.

Considering how shaky Luz’s steps had been, she must have really been exhausted to be able to fall asleep.

Gus zipped open the tent, gesturing inside. “Put her down in here, I’ll grab Willow’s medical supplies.”

Luz nodded and moved forward, ducking her head under the tent door and walking in. The inside was a decent size, with three sleeping bags already laid out on the left side of the tent. On the right side, there was a pile of blankets on the floor, a place clearly meant for sitting and relaxing. There were a couple of sleeping bags and other camp supplies stacked in the back corner. Luz hesitated, not sure where to go until Amity spoke up quietly from her shoulder.

“The blankets are fine,” she whispered. Her voice was raspy like she had just swallowed sand.

Luz gently set her down on the blankets, and Amity exhaled. Luz couldn’t help but perk up at that. It was almost a sigh of relief, but not quite.

As she collapsed into the blankets and settled in, Luz walked over to the camp supplies and took out an extra sleeping bag and a pillow.

Gus poked his head inside the door, dropping Willow’s bag near the entrance.

“Willow thinks she sees mortal hikers in the area so we’re going to try and magically conceal the campsite.”

Luz nodded, “Ok, I’ll be right out.”

Gus shook his head. “No, stay here. We won’t be long.” Gus left fairly quickly, with the promise that they would yell if they needed help.

When he left the tent, Luz walked back over to Amity and handed her the bag and pillow, who thanked her quietly. As she took it, Luz looked at her wrists and gasped. Her wrists were covered in deep purple bruises from the chains.

“Amity,” she started in horror, and the girl quickly covered her hands with her sleeves.

“It’s nothing,” she tried, but Luz shook her head.

“That’s not nothing,” Luz retorted. “And don’t try to tell me it doesn’t hurt either.” She wasn’t usually so stern, and with a jolt, she realized she probably sounded just like her Mami when Luz came home with an unexplained injury. Under different circumstances, she might have been embarrassed, but now she had a job to do.

She picked up Willows backpack and unzipped it, reaching inside to pull out the mortal first aid kit and a canteen of nectar. Underneath the canteen, Luz pulled out this Ziplock baggie of what looks like some kind of square food, and Luz’s brow furrowed. Amity chuckled at her expression, reaching over to take it from Luz and open the baggie, popping a square into her mouth and chewing.

It was like life immediately came back to her face. A lot of the bruises began to fade from her body, including the ones on her wrists. Her face started to go less pale and more to the tan color she’d had when Luz first met her at camp. Her gold eyes brightened, and Luz noticed with a smile that she looked a lot better. Amity finished chewing and looked at Luz, her cheeks pinkening.

“What?”

Oh, she was staring. Luz looked away quickly, her own face coloring.

“Nothing. I just have never seen that before. Does it do the same thing as nectar?”

Amity nodded, smiling softly at Luz’s curiosity. It was a weird look on Amity. For a while there when they met, Luz didn’t think she could do anything else besides scowl and stare blankly. “It’s ambrosia. If nectar is the drink of the gods, then ambrosia is the god's food.”

“I didn’t think the nectar would taste like my mom’s soup,” Luz admitted, and Amity laughed. It was a clear sound that rose in a crescendo, and Luz didn’t think a noise like that would have ever come out of her mouth. She wanted to try and make her laugh again.

“It tastes different to every demigod. It’s supposed to be your favorite tastes wrapped into one bite or sip.” She ripped off a little piece of the ambrosia, holding it out for her. “Here, try some.”

Luz hesitated, which was so out of character for her she almost couldn’t believe she’d done it. “Won’t it burn me up if I’m not injured?”

Amity laughed again, and Luz couldn’t help but smile. That was easier than she thought. “No, not an amount this small. Besides, I saw Orpheus step on your back. This will help with the pain.”

Luz felt her face heat up at the memory. Now that Amity had mentioned it, her lower back was killing her. But she would never admit it, not with Amity as injured as she was. “I’m alright.”

Amity pointed her nose up at Luz. “You’re not alright,” she said, mimicking Luz’s earlier tone. Luz’s cheeks flushed deeper and she decided it was worth shoving the ambrosia in her mouth if it meant Amity wouldn’t tease her anymore. The second she started chewing she hummed in approval. Her mouth was filled with the delicious sugary cinnamon taste of reganada’s.

“So good,” Luz said in awe, never wanting the taste to leave her mouth. Amity was quiet, watching Luz in amusement. When she finally did swallow, she realized that she had been right, the pain in her back was now gone, and the exhaustion in her arms from carrying Amity all the way here was also easing up slightly. Feeling embarrassed she’d almost denied needing the help, she smiled sheepishly at Amity.

“Thanks.”

She chuckled, “no problem.”

They were quiet for a few moments, neither of them sure what to say. Well, Luz knew what she wanted to say but her ADHD brain was running a hundred steps ahead of her. She wanted to ask about the prophecy, about what had happened in Colorado, about the man in the mountain. Amity seemed nervous, and she bit her lip, wringing her hands together. Just when Luz felt like she was about to burst, Amity finally spoke first.

“What did it taste like?”

Luz blinked. She definitely hadn’t been expecting Amity to ask that.

“Uh, reganada’s.”

This time Amity looked confused. “Huh?”

Luz chuckled softly, rubbing the back of her neck. “They’re like Mexican cinnamon cookies. When we lived in upstate New York closer to my Mami’s family we would have them after church or at baby showers and stuff. My Mami usually gives them to me when I managed to not get expelled from school that year.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Amity said with a smile, sharing the happy sentiment. Luz flashed her a nervous smile, fiddling with her hands. She always had a hard time making friends, and she didn’t want Amity to think she was a weirdo. She was lucky that Willow and Gus wanted to be around her, but she found that their friendship was easy, almost effortless. But with Amity things were tense and charged, likely because of their initial dislike for one another and the now shared double prophecy they were still skirting around together. Luz didn’t want to mess up and make Amity hate her again.

“What about you?” Luz asked, trying to keep it going. “What does ambrosia taste like for you?”

Luz knew it was a bad question the second she asked it. Amity’s face fell, and her mouth twisted into a frown. Luz immediately started apologizing.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to-”

“No, no, don’t apologize, it’s not a bad question.” Amity cut off quickly, shaking her head. After a short pause, she quietly added, “for me, it tastes like cherry pie.” She bit her lip, deep in thought, and Luz felt herself leaning in curiously as Amity seemed to get lost in the memory.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Luz began softly, and Amity hummed, looking at her with a smile, but it wasn’t soft like the other ones. This one was tense, almost sad.

“I’m sure Willow already told you anyway. When she first came to camp, she and I were friends. We used to play hooky from the campfire and steal cherry pie from the kitchens. We built a fort in the forest and ate it with our hands. We’d sit there for hours away from everyone else, keeping each other company.”

Luz smiles at the cute mental image. She had heard the story about how Willow and Amity had been friends, but when Willow had talked about it she was a lot more tense and upset about it. Luz couldn’t figure out why Amity was talking about it so nostalgically, especially since she had been the one to abandon Willow for her new friends. At the same time, she wasn’t opposed to Amity wanting to reconcile with her other friend, especially since they would be together on a quest and needed to work as a team.

Plus, Luz couldn’t help but think that she’d done something different with Amity and gotten her out of her shell a bit. Maybe she could create some shenanigans to get her and Willow back as friends. She was so lost in thought, she had to snap back to reality as she processed that Amity was still rambling.

“Nectar tastes like buttered popcorn for me. That’s another memory with Willow. We first became friends at movie night during Willow’s first week at camp. They were showing Disney’s Hercules, and all the other kids were mocking it for how incorrect it all was, but Willow just sang the songs to herself and smiling at me and soon I started joining in. After that night we were inseparable, even once she was sorted into the Demeter cabin and we couldn’t see each other as much but then after that year….”

She stopped, swallowing hard and looking ashamed. She tucked her knees up to her chest and looked away from Luz. “Well, I’m sure Willow told you what I did.”

Luz didn’t know why she felt sorry for Amity, especially since she just basically confirmed that Amity did in fact abandon Willow because of her interesting goldy parentage. As a friend, she should stand up for Willow, and call Amity out for being cruel. But instead, she just sat down next to Amity on the blankets, gently reaching out to touch her arm reassuringly.

“Look, Amity. We all do things we regret. All that matters is that we acknowledge what we did and try to move forward.”

The green-haired half-blood scoffed, keeping her eyes trained on the floor. As Luz scanned her face with her eyes, she realized that this look wasn’t just out of exhaustion or regret. She almost looked haunted. “I don’t deserve to have a person like Willow in my life. Why are you being so nice to me? I was terrible to you at camp.”

Luz shrugged, nudging Amity with her shoulder playfully, trying to cheer her up. “Most people tend to be terrible to me when they meet me. It must be a half-blood thing.”

Amity managed a half-smile and a weak laugh. Luz took that as a cue to move forward. Now she was more curious than ever. She just hoped she wouldn’t do her Luz thing and be too much. She leaned down to look Amity in the eyes.

“I know those memories must be painful for you, but what happened to you guys? And why are you both trying to hide it?”

Amity sighed tiredly, and Luz thought that despite being her age, Amity had an old soul that Luz could probably never understand. But Hades be damned she wasn’t going to try.

“There are a lot of things in my life that stop me from feeling like a real half-blood.” Amity started quietly, and Luz’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion. She thought that Amity was as real a half-blood as she could get. I mean holy Zeus, she was chosen for the quest because of her skill and her reputation. But she didn’t voice this, instead, she did her best to listen and fidget as little as possible.

“I know you know that my mom is Aphrodite, but I don’t know if you knew that Edric and Emira are my full siblings, not just half like the other Aphrodite campers.”

She shook her head. She hadn’t known that.

“So, you guys have the same mortal father?” Luz concurred, and Amity tensed.

“Yes. But we also have the same mortal mother.”

Luz had never been more confused in her entire life. Thankfully, Amity didn’t want to continue.

“My parents are also demigods. They went to camp with Eda and Lilith as kids, and that’s how they met. They worked together to run a successful business inside of Olympus, and are well renowned by the Olympic Council. But they didn’t get together until after my father fell in love with Aphrodite. The twins were babies when my parents got married. My mother said she didn’t mind, she hadn’t planned on having her own children anyway. But then, when they were two and a half, Aphrodite left me on the doorstep. My mother was not happy about this.”

“Amity…” Luz began with a gasp, already knowing where this was going. Though it was clear how hurt she was telling the story, she still continued, swallowing hard before moving on.

“My mother told my father that because of their reputation on Olympus, and their status within the community, she would forgive him. She said as long as we turned out to be just as respectable as she was in the eyes of the gods, I would be welcome in their house. By the time I was three, I was taught to swing a sword. I already knew what camp was when I arrived, and I already had been given a standard to uphold. I had to be the best, the strongest, the most skilled, the most honored. Otherwise, I would always be a mistake.”

“So that’s why you stopped being friends with Willow,” Luz whispered softly.

“She was never the weak one, or the freak, or the half a half-blood,” Amity confirmed, her eyes betraying how ashamed she really was of this. “Willow is the strongest demigod I’ve ever met. And I had to be better, and that meant I couldn’t be her friend.”

There was silence, as Luz took time to process all of this. She couldn’t believe what Amity had just told her. She had known that being a half-blood was always going to be complicated, but Amity was like one of those massive puzzles her Mami never finished. How could you even unpack all that in one sitting?

“Is that true?”Luz and Amity jumped at the voice from the tent entrance, and Amity flushed with embarrassment when she saw Willow standing there, watching her with blank, unreadable eyes. Luz’s heart started hammering in her chest, worried that Willow was either going to snap at them both for talking behind her back or that Amity was going to yell at her for eavesdropping.

There was a tense and uncomfortable silence as the two of them stared each other down. Willow with those unreadable green eyes and Amity with gold eyes blinking in shock. Luz would have killed a thousand white eagles to know what would have happened next, but as all half-bloods have to deal with, they were unfortunately interrupted.

Gus screamed in terror from loudly outside the tent.

“Guys!” He yelped, and Luz could hear the click of his watch as he drew his shield. “We’ve got company!”

Luz jumped again, touching her ring and drawing the sword version of Aletheia. Willow and Luz shared a look before racing outside of the tent, and when Luz saw what was there she couldn’t help but think that maybe she was starting to understand why half-bloods were so unlucky.

Luz didn’t know a lot of Greek myths off the top of her head, but after meeting the guy, she had brushed up on his saga of quests with Gus just to see what all the fuss had been about. This monster was straight out of his legend, a massive man with the head of a bull, and huge horns circling his head. He was dressed in a Greek chest plate, and he was slashing down Willow’s thorns with his huge ax. They fell to the ground like he was slicing paper.

It breathed in a fury and roared so loudly that Gus shrank from behind his shield. Willow was soon at her side, and despite the fact that Luz knew she was way too exhausted to fight, Amity was there too, her own xiphos drawn, the amethysts glowing in the sun.

The four of them stood together, waiting for the Minotaur to tear down the last of the thorns and charge.

[minnochu]

Lustrous (pt. 10)

Hybrid!Kook x Reader AU

Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3 | Pt 4 | Pt 5 | Pt 6 | Pt 7 | Pt 8 | Pt 9 | Pt 10 | Pt 11 | Pt 12 | Pt 13 | Pt 14 | Pt 15 | Pt 16 | Pt 17 | Pt 18 | Pt 19

A/N: Why hello. Enjoy. Is all I have to say LOL.

**I tried to proof it the best I could LOL so please forgive any dumb mistakes. I’ll also update my masterlist and links later on ‘cause I’m at work right now LOL 

It’s been hours since Seokjin purified the thorns and the boys relaxed and went back to sleep. They went on alert at the sight of dark magic but relaxed… sort of… when it was found to only be the unconscious doing of your powers. 

The warlock could only pace around in a fit of anxiety. The more he thought about it, he knew the only logical explanation was the Blackwell blood inside you. With the siphoned magic in the stone, it’s finally activating your power as a witch that you have only begun trying to control.

He wondered if it was just your unconscious, or your emotions out of control from the stress of trying to learn as much as you could. There was no way his textbooks had any dark magic, nor did he ever teach you anything of the sort. Then could it have been the time when you and Yahiko were attacked by their surprise package? Had your body recognized the magic?

It seemed impossible but also a likely possibility given how quickly you excelled at understanding and using witchcraft.

If your body got too used to the dark magic festering from your stone and integrating with your aura, he didn’t want to imagine how it’d affect your mind. The Blackwells were known for their dark and conniving nature due to the overuse of the dark arts. It would play with your mind, slowly eat away at your purity. It would change you.

Seokjin couldn’t allow for that to happen to you. However, he couldn’t deny that if you were to inevitably fall under the clutches of the dark arts, he wasn’t sure how to bring you back without hurting you.

Holding onto a tray of rice porridge and tea, he took a deep breath and entered Jungkook’s room. Ignoring the automatic growl that sounds from the wolf’s chest. Blue eyes glare right at him as the younger’s arm constrict tighter around your body that curled against his. After your episode, you wouldn’t stop crying and breathing heavily in a fit of anxiety.

He must’ve realized what he was doing, aqua eyes disappearing as soon as he blinked and looked away with a grimace, “S-sorry hyung… it’s the wolf…”

“I know,” the elder chuckles good heartedly, setting down the tray on his desk, “In case she’s hungry.”

“Thanks,” Jungkook says, glancing down at you.

Right before the warlock can leave, you heave a big sigh and turn to call out to him, “Wait!” He turns and you feel discouraged suddenly. However, Seokjin offers a gentle smile, prodding you to go on and continue.

“What’s wrong with me?” You ask finally with a heaved sigh. “Why do I feel a nasty intent from my magic? Why is it any different from your magic?”

Seokjin bit his lip, moving to take a seat on the bed, cautious of Jungkook’s wolf flaring in jealousy.

“Nothing’s wrong with you (Y/n),” He sighs, holding out a hand for you to take, “The Blackwells have a chain around you… is my hypothesis at least… I believe it’s in your blood that you recognize dark magic, I suppose it must be why you’re so prodigious at witchcraft..”

He notices your deepening frown and smiles, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head over that stuff though, it’s quite impressive how far you’ve come in such a short amount of time… although I would like to watch over your unconscious use of dark magic. I’d like for you to stay out of the darkness.”

You scrunch your nose at the cryptic advice, opening your mouth to ask what he means by that but you shut it when he smiles and gets up to leave. There’s something in that smile and the subtle way his eyes close much like a cheshire cat that tells you to be quiet and accept his answer. You have to leave it at that, giving in as the warlock takes his leave from the room.

Placing a hand over the amber stone lying on your chest, you grimace as you recall your nightmare. The thought made you visibly shiver at the implication of what would happen if the Blackwells got a hold of you. After all… the dream depicted the burning of Minerva.

Despite your finicky memory, you felt your heart hurt at the sight of your mother in such a state. Bare of any clothes, her injured body was shackled to a stake in the ground. Further scrutinization showed the shackles emitting a dark miasma from their thorny locks as her fellow witches gathered around with black flames burning in their palms. It reminded you of the flame that appeared at the tip of your index finger, making you shiver at the reminder of your bloodline. Biting your lip, you can hear the echoes of her horrified screams of the black flames engulfing her body.

“Hey.”

You flinch, looking up at Jungkook who averts his gaze immediately. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looked anywhere but at your face, “Um… are you alright?”

Despite him avoiding your eyes, you can make out the pink burning at his cheeks as he realizes he still has his arms around you and pulls away suddenly. You feel your mouth frown slightly at the loss, but it can’t be helped with how awkward you both are still.

“I’m fine… but are you okay?” you ask, recalling the torn state of his shirt. You didn’t want him to leave your side as soon as you came to after your nightmarish episode, so he didn’t have the chance to change out of his ruined clothes.

“What are you talking about dummy?” His brows furrowed as he pokes at your forehead, “That was nothing, I’m all healed up.”

You confirm this as he lifts his torn sleeve to show you his unmarred shoulder where he had been pierced through. You visibly relax at this but Jungkook looks away remembering the searing pain he felt. He wondered if that was the result of dark magic, but he didn’t want to dwell on it and make you feel worse than you already do for putting him in danger.

“Don’t worry about it,” He brushes it off, rising from the bed to grab new clothes to put on, mulling over asking Seokjin to mend his clothes later on.

You jump at this, reaching out to snatch the hem of his shirt to stop him from leaving you completely. He turns with a raised brow, almost looking intimidating but you purse your lips.

“Um, do you wanna go out for a walk later?”

The wolf looks at your face, noticing how you avert your gaze shyly and wait for his answer. His heart beats in his chest at the expression and he pushes this thought aside to clear his throat awkwardly.

“Sure.”

.

“Thanks for coming out with me, Jungkook.”

The wolf grunted in agreement as you happily swung the plastic bags of ingredients for dinner. You decided it was finally time to get up and out of the house after your episode, proposing to Seokjin that you would make dinner tonight as thanks for his patience and help after what happened. He eventually agreed when you wouldn’t stop pestering him to let you out.

Although, it was cute having Jungkook following you around the grocery store like a puppy. He was taller than you were, but it was still endearing to go out like so. Thinking about it now, you feel your cheeks heat up at the implication it must’ve made to other shoppers.

Like an actual couple, you think in embarrassment. No way Jungkook would think of you in such a way. He’s so against breathing the same air as you, he would rather die than be anything close to lovers with you.

Even then, you can also sense Jimin and Taehyung trailing behind you both as a precaution made by Namjoon after your episode. They initially apologized for snooping on your “date” with the youngest, but you vehemently refused to call it a date.

“(Y/n).”

You blink as Jungkook stops, causing you to pause as well and look ahead of you. From beside you, the wolf tenses and a growl emanates from his chest as he stands in defense at the woman standing before you both. Something feels off from her aura, and you can feel it as well as her movements are slow and advancing towards you both. Her hair is messy and covering her face as she steps into the light of the street lamp. Her skin appears an unhealthy pale under the light and her hair moves out of the way when her head lulls backward to reveal her face.

Your stomach twists in anticipation, eyes squinting to observe her increasingly erratic movements before the person has disappeared in the blink of an eye and reappearing in front of you.

Large dark orbs stare right back at you as you recognize the face of your mother, but fail to protect yourself from the strike of her hand against your abdomen. Her hand forces itself like a spear into your body before dragging backwards, covered in your blood.

“M-mother?” you gasp, eyes wide as iron fills your mouth, hands shaking as you touch the wound at your waist. Your fingers shake as red taints your skin, but you can only stare in disbelief at Minerva.

It didn’t make sense. Even as your knees buckle and you fall into the arms of Jimin who catches you in record speed, your brain just can’t connect what you saw in your dream. Was it just a nightmare? What was going on?

Jungkook roars in anger, eyes bursting into a brilliant blue as he kicks off and seizes the reanimation of your mother by the neck. Lifting her off her feet, his grip surrounding her neck is so tight, he crushes it completely. However, she in turn, continues to move and latches onto his hand. Growling, he launches her into the ground, turning furiously at Jimin and Taehyung tending to your fallen body.

“Get her out of here!” he demands, blocking his face with his arms in an x-formation when the woman throws a heavy kick at him, “It’s a reanimation, get Seokjin!”

“N-no! That’s my mother!” You exclaim through rugged breaths as Jimin presses against your wound, wincing as his veins fill with a midnight liquid that surprisingly eases your searing pain. “I saw her die… I-I don’t know what’s going on.” Biting your lip, you look to the wolf helping you with pleading eyes, “Please Jimin, let me stay, I’ll be fine until Seokjin gets here.”

“Taehyung, go get Seokjin,” Jimin says to the vampire, knowing that you wouldn’t want to leave without knowing what’s going on. He knew it would be difficult to handle you if you didn’t get your way. The younger nods and vanishes, before quickly phasing back with the elder warlock whose brows are furrowed and a frown downturns his taut lips.

“Gosh, you kids, you go out just this once and attract more trouble,” he shakes his head and sighs exasperatedly as he kneels down to your level to heal your wounds, a light sphere emerging from his palm to press into your abdomen and heal as much as he could. The skin mends itself, along with any wounded internal organs, but you remain weak with the amount of blood you lost from the attack.

“What do we do hyung?” Jungkook asks between clenched teeth as he delivers a hook to the corpse’s face and sending it down temporarily. A resounding crack from it’s jaw is apparent, but it aggravates him that it continues to repair itself and stand again.

“I’m not quite sure myself,” the warlock admits timidly, “As far as I know, it gets complicated to deal with necromancy… I can’t just simply purify the reanimated corpse…” He waves his hand, “Mana visio electri”, and a crystallized shield unfolds in front of the wolf just as the woman launches herself at him. Her body slams against the hardened shield, the brunt of the force causing the barrier to shatter almost completely. Jungkook uses the momentary distraction, spin and swing his back leg around in a heel kick, smashing the bottom of his foot against her temple.

“Although, I do know of a skill that I can’t perform, but I know someone else who can,” He said in a matter of fact tone, although he didn’t like the implication of it. After all… the skill was dark magic. He only ever read of it once in the library. It was described as extremely powerful and could make a witch or warlock invincible if they could perfect it.

“Out with it then!” Taehyung said as he aided Jungkook in fighting back the reanimation. The vampire’s eyes glow a royal gold, fangs and nails growing as he bisects the woman at the waist. They watch in disbelief as the two halves merge together once again and Minerva is back on her feet.

Seokjin turned to you, smiling softly as you looked back weakly. Taking your hand in his, he took a deep breath and let his magic trickle into your body and to the stone. You feel a surge of energy as Seokjin leans close to whisper into your ear.

“I know I told you to not use this type of magic… but just this once alright?”

Jungkook grabs Minerva by her face, reeling his arm back then smashing her head into the ground before he and Taehyung jump back. You muster the last bit of your energy to hold out your hand as that familiar dark purple rune manifests in front of you.

‘absoluta inrita!’

Runes like chains, that weren’t visible before on the reanimation, suddenly light up and crack before ultimately shattering in an instant. You finally take a good look at the body, noticing your mother’s pale-ish gray skin and her blackened eyes, sclera no longer white. Those bastards. They killed your mother and made her into a puppet to kill you. With the spell broken, her skin cracks and flakes as her body begins to disintegrate. She looks you straight in the eyes, and you feel your heart drop to your stomach.

It was sad that you would meet your mother like this.

“D-did I do it?” You ask as Jimin and Taehyung help you up, Seokjin looking on with a frown on his face. You lean against the two, offering them a grateful smile for their protection and help.

“Yeah, you did well,” the warlock sighs as no trace of the reanimated corpse remains, “Please, please, please don’t use that spell unless under desperate circumstances.”

“Of course,” You smile, glad that the situation has been diffused, “Right, Jungkook?”

No answer meets your ears, not even a grunt like he usually does to make it seem like he’s disinterested. You look over at the wolf whose fringe creates a curtain over his eyes. His shoulders are tense and his breathing is audibly ragged. Noticeably, his fists are clenched, nails digging into the meat of his palms.

“Jungkook?” You repeat in confusion.

“Oh shit,” Jimin curses, looking down at your bloody abdomen, “Jungkook, stop.”

His eyes flash gold dangerously, but it does nothing to intimidate the 

You blink in confusion as Taehyung and Seokjin ready themselves defensively but they aren’t as quick as the wolf is as he lunges. You don’t even know if you could call it a lunge when he’s so quick that it appears like he’s teleporting.

“Mana visio electri!” Seokjin hurriedly chants but the shield protects nothing, it doesn’t manifest in time to stop the erratic wolf.

Soon, your world is tilting and your back slams against the ground abruptly as a weight presses on your stomach and legs. With the wind knocked out of you so suddenly, gasping for air that won’t come back, you can only wheeze as golden eyes burn into yours.

Golden? Had they always been golden?

If you look any closer, you can make out the flecks of blue within them as Jungkook glares at you furiously.

You wonder if you never noticed it this whole time as he licks his fingers soiled in your blood, noticeable fangs protruding more pungent than his usual wolf canines would have.

That his lustrous galaxy of blue, had always had little specks of gold.

And now, as he glares down at you with fervent hunger in his eyes that bleed gold and little blue, you realize why Hyejin didn’t want you around him and why he kept pushing you away.

You also realized in that moment. That Jungkook was a hybrid. Werewolf. And vampire.

.

Tags:  @twilight-loveer @reinyrei @mistytail @mygukandonlyficrecs@xanny91@unpocodesoledadywisky @xxqueenwxtchxx@lildemonangele@gukworld @sunnyoongles @zamirayinyue13 @hannahdearr@tiredjedi@sunnyoongles

[bowan-deflorentine]

Extremely detailed character sheet template

Character’s full name: Bowan deFlorentine

Reason or meaning of name: OOC I like gender-neutral or masc-leaning names for all characters, and thought it sounded cool at the time! I just took “Bowen” and added an “a” to make it slightly more feminine, visually.

Character’s nickname: “Bo”

Reason for nickname: It’s short and cute!

Birth date: January 23rd (the day she hit lvl 10 in-game :P I use that for all my Wow RP characters)

Physical appearance

Age: 37

How old do they appear: About the same

Weight: 145lb / 65kg, an average healthy weight if on the lighter side

Height: 5′11″ / 180cm, taller than average for cis women

Body build: Angular, long-legged, lean

Shape of face: Oval-shaped, with sharp cheekbones and a strong jawline and strong chin

Eye color: Dark brown

Glasses or contacts: neither

Skin tone: Medium brown

Distinguishing marks: Broken nose, blind & scarred right eye

Predominant features: Probably the nasty dead eye

Hair color: Black

Type of hair: Thick and wavy

Hairstyle: Wears it long and down, or in a low ponytail tied with a ribbon

Voice: Low & rich with a heavy Gilnean lowborn accent

Overall attractiveness: Super subjective, but she’s got that handsome aging roughed-up scoundrel sailor look if you’re into that  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Physical disabilities: Blind on her right side

Usual fashion of dress: Heavy leather or canvas coats, high collars, heeled, thigh-high leather boots, wide-brimmed hats with feathers in the band, loose long-sleeved blouses tucked into a high waistline, fencer's gloves

Favorite outfit: TBH probably her old Cavalier uniform and coat; a dark- and steel-blue laced-up vest, leather, with gold and brown trimmings and a wide-brimmed hat with a white feather in it. Single blue leather pauldron with the gold Cavalier star on it

Jewelry or accessories: Very little, usually one or two small hoop earrings. A golden wedding ring on a chain necklace under her shirt. No rings or bracelets

Personality

Good personality traits: Motherly, caring, charming, helpful, protective, curious

Bad personality traits: Moody, impulsive, stubborn, reckless, anxious, violent

Mood character is most often in: Current day, bitter and melancholic

Sense of humor: Inside jokes, straight-faced funny comments, good-natured teasing.

Character’s greatest joy in life: Her seven-year-old son, Rory.

Character’s greatest fear: Losing either Rory or Jeán, her husband.

Why?: Because she loves them, and they’re the only family she has left in the entire world, and she’s lost/ given up everything else in her life to protect them and to make a life for her family.

What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil?: She’s numb to everything that’s not extreme at this point, so again, losing either Rory or Jeán

Character is most at ease when: When her family is not only happy but safe, as are her close friends, and she’s at home somewhere warm and dry and comfortable and there's no war going on

Most ill at ease when: Someone she loves is missing, or hurt, or in great danger, or when she doesn't know where she is / is lost

Enraged when: Something threatens the safety of her loved ones or children

Depressed or sad when: When she’s isolated away from people she loves.

Priorities: She’s been forced into survival mode lately, so #1 is her family’s and her own safety. Beyond that, her son’s happiness, her husband’s happiness, her friends’ happiness, and then protecting others. She's happy when others are happy.

Life philosophy: There’s some good left in the world, and it’s worth fighting for. But family always comes first.

If granted one wish, it would be: To bring Timira Redsummer back

Why?: She was her closest friend and now she’s dead, and she’s tired of losing people and having no control over all the loss in her life.

Character’s soft spot: Children, and music

Is this soft spot obvious to others?: OH absolutely, she’s SUCH a mom. Her rough grimdark rogue sailor deal just vanishes around kids and she’s making funny faces and listening very intently to their babytalk stories and crouching all the way down so they can take her hand and lead her around to show her interesting things, etc. The usual supercute little kid stuff. She loves children and is very good with them.

Greatest strength: Never ever giving up when it comes to protecting others, accomplishing her goals at any means necessary, even at the cost of her own safety or health (which crosses very quickly into one of her greatest weaknesses)

Greatest vulnerability or weakness: She can be on the self-destructive side, and is easily goaded into fights against her better judgement because she can just not back down from a threat or a challenge.

Biggest regret: Leaving Teldrassil during the War of Thorns before the attack, when it was just citizens and adventurers and soldiers helping to evacuate / fortify / bring supplies to the city, as they were expecting a siege. She left to go get her ship in Stormwind and bring it as a back-up to get escaping citizens out in case they needed to evacuate. She sailed back to a completely burning tree.

Minor regret: Not having a wedding with Jeán. They had been together for a few years and had talked about getting married, but were too busy with work. They got hastily married on paper before she left for Kul Tiras.

Biggest accomplishment: Founding the Stormwind Cavaliers with Jeán, and the few years she spent as the captain for them. They did a lot of good work for the city and for the people, especially in the surrounding territories like Elwynn, Westfall, and Duskwood. 

Minor accomplishment: She can make the meanest cup of Gilnean black lavender tea

Past failures they would be embarrassed to have people know about: Actively sheltering a rogue Uncrowned agent and trying to cover up all the VERY obvious murders they kept committing under her watch while working for the city guard, oops   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why?: Because at the time, they were very close friends and she didn’t have the guts to make the tough calls.

Character’s darkest secret: As of now in the storyline, currently, hunting and sinking Horde ships out of revenge for Teldrassil. She hasn’t told a soul and uses an alias with the crew she works with.

Does anyone else know?: Not yet! 

Goals

Drives and motivations: She wants vengeance for all the lives lost in Teldrassil, but the root of it comes from wanting to protect her family and friends and loved ones. Second only to those feelings is her desire for freedom, and sees sailing and going rogue as an opportunity to kill three birds with one stone.

Immediate goals: Sink Horde ships.

Long term goals: Building a better world for her son and her friends’ children.

How the character plans to accomplish these goals: Gathering a crew of other disgruntled Alliance soldiers and hunting down as many Horde ships and soldiers as they can before they get caught and probably executed.

How other characters will be affected:  😬 Well Jeán was a pirate and gave up everything to live his life with Bowan, and to find she’s been doing basically piracy behind his back would be a big oof. Plus before it all she was a very proud soldier of the Alliance and strove to better herself and to be a good and kind person, so it would probably be very disturbing news to others. Then again, that’s only if they find out.

Past

Hometown: Keel Harbor, Gilneas. 

Type of childhood: Strict-ish. Father was a sailor, mother was a wealthy merchant’s adopted daughter. Her father tried to teach her freedom and passion, her mother tried to teach her obedience and to be ladylike. Mother ultimately won and she was more or less prepared for marriage into her teen years until she ran away to escape the pressure.

Pets: A hound dog named Jager.

First memory: Meeting her maternal grandmother for the first- and last time. She was a harvest witch and disappeared to escape witch hunts. 

Most important childhood memory: Sailing with her father outside the harbor for the first time. It was a dangerous trip and they nearly capsized, but she loved every second of it. 

Why: While Bowan and her mother Louise loved eachother, they weren’t as close as she and her father, Bayne. Her father always encouraged her to be herself and to blaze her own path, and her mother told her that she would never find a husband acting like that. Really experiencing sailing and the sea made her realize that that was quite all right, because if being a good wife meant giving up exciting things like sailing then the choice was obvious for her. 

Childhood hero: Genn Greymane

Dream job: Professional bard! She *almost* achieved that after running away from home in Gilneas but never could quite make it happen.

Education: Homeschooling and a few years of attending a little bitty schoolhouse in the countryside. 

Religion: The lowkey Light worship Gilneas practiced, and some of the Old Ways.

Finances: Not poor, but her father had to work very hard to support them and tried not to let it show. 

Present

Current location: Kul Tiras

Currently living with: No one she’s close to, a crew of other soldiers unhappy with the way the war with the Horde was handled.

Pets: Ardis, her beautiful black mare, is stabled in Stormwind.

Religion: Same as her childhood, a bit of Old Ways and a bit of Light.

Occupation: Unofficially ex-Alliance soldier and guard, pirate

Finances: Actually doing pretty well from herself considering all the ships she’s robbed! :D 

Family

Mother: Louise Ollington

Relationship with her: Strained, but they were family at the end of the day. She was born into a family of harvest witches who were culled by some backwoods witch hunts. She was dropped off in Gilneas city and adopted by wealthy bookkeeping nobles. The entire experience still left her very unhappy and traumatized, so she clung very tightly to her new life and tried to make sure her daughter would be safe and not face the same challenges as she did when she went against tradition. 

Father: Bayne Arrow

Relationship with him: Very close. A sailor from Tanaris, he tried to make as comfortable of a life for Louise but could never really live up to her expectations. They still loved each other very much, and he adored his daughter and tried to instill in her the same love of adventure and the sea as his family had. Ultimately his teachings won over, but it cost the family a lot.

Siblings: None.

Relationship with them: n/a

Spouse: Jeán deFlorentine.

Relationship with them: Jeán were best friends long before the relationship became romantic. They’re perfect for eachother, both cocky swaggering rogues who love duel banter and sailing and getting into trouble. They had all sorts of wild adventures and hit rock bottom and bounced back together, and they bonded hard and fast. They never really bothered with marriage before because they didn’t feel like their relationship needed it, but they got married on paper before Bowan left for the war in Kul Tiras just so they didn’t leave any regrets in case she didn’t come back.

Children: Rory, her son. 

Relationship with them: He’s a bastard, but she doesn’t like to talk about it or his father. She loves him more than anything and is doing her best to raise him to be a good person. He’s a very gentle and sweet boy.  

Other important family members: None.

Favorites

Color: Dark grey-teal, the color of the sea during a storm. 

Least favorite color: Pink, only because it’s just very much not her color. 

Music: Fiddle and hurdy-gurdy.

Food: Pandaren cuisine, especially dumplings and spring rolls.

Literature: Romance, and inspiring heroic adventure novels. 

Form of entertainment: Music! She loves to sing and play her own instruments or listen to others perform. 

Mode of transportation: Her ship, a former Stormwind sloop with black sails. 

Most prized possession: Her Cavalier rapier, a gift from Jeán when the unit was founded. 

Habits

Hobbies: She used to practice minor medicinal alchemy when she was young. She likes to read and write for fun too, and riding her horse on the trails around Stormwind city when she still lived there.

Plays a musical instrument?: Yes! Mandolin and guitar. She’s a little rusty but she’s talented. 

Plays a sport?: Fencing! 

How they would spend a rainy day: Brewing tea and reading by the fireplace, either alone or to her son. OR sailing.

Smokes: Yes, occasionally.

Drinks: Too much these days, before also occasionally. 

Other drugs: None

What do they do too much of?: OVERTHINK

What do they do too little of?: Taking a goddamn breath and thinking things through before jumping into dangerous situations.

Extremely skilled at: Sailing. 

Extremely unskilled at: Cooking.

Nervous tics: Bouncing knee, cracking knuckles, drumming fingers 

Usual body posture: Confident but closed-off. 

Mannerisms: Lively even in poor moods, lots of expressive gestures and hand motions

Peculiarities: She seems fidgety and checks over her shoulder too much until she gets her back to a wall. She always goes for the wall seat and likes to face the door. 

Traits

Optimist or pessimist?: Tries to be an optimist but her natural state is pessimist. It’s just been beat out of her.

Introvert or extrovert?: Ambivert, she’s a social butterfly in good moods but gets moody fast and retreats to be alone often. 

Daredevil or cautious?: Some sort of unstable mix of both, anxious a lot and overthinks danger but then does stupid recklessly brave things like, for example, challenge old and terrifying pirate captains to duels she has ZERO hope of winnings (this has happened like three times now??)

Logical or emotional?: Emotional. She’s not controlled by her emotions but they are powerful. Listening to her heart and her gut keeps her alive.

Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat?: Surprisingly organized and neat. When she had her own desk at the Cavalier office it was fancy and extremely well-kept. 

Prefers working or relaxing?: Prefers working. She’s a bit of a workaholic, and doesn’t like to sit still for too long.

Confident or unsure of themself: Fairly confident these days.

Animal lover?: Yes, but not to the point to keep pets.

Self-perception

How they feel about themself: Her confidence isn’t low, but currently she’s felt helpless about her life and her path and is doing whatever she can to feel like she has some control. She knows some of the things she’s doing is wrong but feels like she has to make the hard calls for once and do the dirty work no one else is willing to do. 

One word the character would use to describe self: Ambitious.

What does the character consider their best personality trait?: Her dedication to her family. 

What does the character consider their worst personality trait?: Her inability to let go of the past. 

What does the character consider their best physical characteristic?: She loves her hair and takes pride in keeping it long and brushed and clean.

What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic?: Her broken nose that was never set right and healed crooked, and now her scarred eye. She thinks it’s ugly and will frighten children. 

How does the character think others perceive him/her: Hopefully, as someone they can trust and will be there for them when they need her, always.

What would the character most like to change about themself: Her paranoia and her anxiety. She’s been horribly wounded by the past and wants so badly to heal from it but she just can’t find the right way to do it yet. 

Relationships with others

Opinion of other people in general: Bowan has a low opinion of people as a whole, and views people in general as something to defend herself against, but believes in the good of individuals. 

Does the character hide their true opinions and emotions from others?: Sometimes. She’s the sort to hide her minor feelings from others to save their own feelings, and isn’t above lying to loved ones if she thinks it will protect them.

Person character most hates: Sylvanas Windrunner (now that Deathbreathe is dead). She wants her dead SO BAD.

Best friend(s): Timira Redsummer, Jeán deFlorentine, Watcher and Seeker, Reiko Al-Tariq.

Love interest(s): Jeán deFlorentine

Person character goes to for advice: Timira

Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: Watcher and Seeker, the Twins. They used to be in a spy unit together but they’re a lot younger than she is and just wants them to be safe. All of the Cavaliers, too, present and former.

Person character feels shy or awkward around: No one, she’s over those feelings.

Person character openly admires: Lorna Crowley

Person character secretly admires: Princess Tess Greymane (secret due to her work for the Uncrowned).

Most important person in character’s life before story starts: Her father

After story starts: Rory, her son

found here

(( Okay I know this is a monster so I won’t tag anyone but please feel free to fill this out, it’s so fun and makes you really think about the details!! ))

[abstracthappiness]

microfiction, May 22 - 28

The kraken rose up from the depths, tentacles twisting delicately as it accepted a skull from a girl wearing a blue cap over red curls. It was a yearly tradition, to ensure less ships were lost at sea in the winter months. No one asked where the skulls came from.

-

A child approaches him, little blue flowers in her hair. He wonders what kind of mother would let her daughter drape a garland of #periwinkle around a murderer’s neck. The child vanishes; a soldier pushes the condemned man forward. The gallows awaits, and he is marked.

-

Jackie was a bonerack sort of girl, a bit odd, a bit shy. On Sundays she’d explore some grotto or forest or abandoned mansion, while everyone else was at church getting their holy, holy, holy on. This meant she sometimes found things that were better off lost.

-

“I'm not one of those crazy mages who dreams of taking over the world—I just want to take over my little slice of it. That’s an attainable goal, isn’t it, Mr. Hero?” The hero, of course, can’t answer the madwoman, stripped and bound and gagged for her amusement.

-

You follow the echo of viscous dripping further into the house, calling your cousin’s name. Entering the kitchen, you drop your phone; the flashlight glints off bone white and too much red. You thought something smelled dead, and you were right.

-

When I came of age, I heard voices in my head telling me to flee the house. I didn’t listen. The whispers grew louder, until I followed them all the way to the cellar. The brick walls fell easily to the swing of my sledgehammer, revealing—oh so many skulls…

-

Marcia brought out some weird goo and smeared it on our faces. It was green and smelled bizarrely of meat, motor oil, and strawberries. She grinned, her cheeks glistening with the stuff. “This will keep the pixies away! Also werewolves, sea monsters, and jocks.”

-

“All your friends are dead, my dear. There’s no one coming to help you. I’m not asking for much: only surrender to me, beg me to save you, and I’ll take you away from all of this. Continue to defy me, and I’ll break you, I promise. You’ll learn to love those chains.”

-

Everyone in town said the old house was haunted, and despaired for the nice young couple who moved in with their charming daughter. But the nights were quiet for the family; the resident ghosts didn’t want to cross the demon sealed inside the little girl’s doll.

-

Every few days, she spits up something sharp. Broken glass, barbed wire, rusty nails. Her throat and mouth scratched up and bloody, but she is finally calm as she takes the newest piece of her anxiety and drops it in a drawer full of jagged, twisted objects.

-

Her goodbye kiss is cold against your skin, as she wraps herself in twilight. Her return is announced by a cacophony of cats. There’s graveyard dirt under her nails, thorns tangled in her hair. Her kiss, no longer cold against your skin. #2WordPrompt #WeirdMicro #vss365tbt

It’s supposed to be a joke, a lame sleepover rite: say “Bloody Mary” three times, in pitch dark, before a mirror. Then you feel fingernails scratching your face. You shriek, flip the light on—red lines run down your cheek. You’re not laughing anymore, but She is.

-

It starts with a song stuck in your head, with stargazing, with falling in love. It ends with a sigh—and you wish there was more to it—more than a dark spot in your memory, a dark spot in the sky. You wake up and you can never quite remember everything you’ve lost—

-

My brother likes to use me as a test subject in his science projects, often without my knowledge. One day I woke up with magenta feathers growing on my arms and back. He plucked one, muttering, “Interesting reaction,” as he disappeared into his room.

-

The human soul has ever been a source of fascination to the beast. It shines and beats away, nestled in gore and ribs splayed open. Before the soul can still and fade, the beast gulps it down, then sinks into the dark, greedy for another meal.

//

read more on twitter: kattra | prompts: WeirdMicro / vss365 / FromOneLine / vssHauntedHouse / vssParanormal / 2WordPrompt / vss365tbt / vssAfterDark / whistpr / SciFiFri / horrorprompt

[thorns-and-rosewings]

Wild Things

A gift fic for @ninjacat1515 I hope you enjoy it! ^_^

When Eliza first stepped off the boat and onto Raoul Silva’s private island she could tell almost immediately that something was wrong and it wasn’t just because the goons that had escorted her here wouldn’t come off the ship… in fact, no sooner had she set foot on dry land did the men retreat farther back onto the boat and none of them even bothered to unmoor it. They just tore part of the dock off in their haste to leave as fast as humanly possible.

“Okkaay.” The shifter muttered under her breath as she took note of her surroundings and how everything just seemed eerily quiet. In spite of having known Silva for some time she’d never been to his island before. It wasn’t exactly what she’d expected… truth be told everything just seemed far to quiet and there was a strange and pungent odor in the air that smelled distinctly like… fish?

“Ah, you must be Eliza.” The voice of a woman who had just stepped out from the shadows of a nearby building said politely, although her abrupt appearance did make Eliza jump a bit. Unfortunately, she could not help but be on edge, as he had been at the receiving end of Silvas teeth before. Hell, she’d been chomped by the whole frickin’ family before. Old habits truly did die hard, and being on guard around members of the Salazar family may be something she would never truly lose.

Now the woman before her Eliza knew to be, for lack of better words, Silvas evil secretary. The ‘evil’ part having been literally on her resume when he had acquired her services a little over a year ago. Appearance wise, as she wore an attractive light grey what could only be accurately described as the universal ‘Secretary’s Uniform’ and she was even carrying around a clipboard… although oddly enough she wore what appeared to be running shoes rather than traditional heels. Her eyes could only be described as being a very pale lavender and their unusual color was only accentuated by the pair of glasses she had. Finally her hair which was about shoulder length was of an unusual color, just like her eyes. It was not quite white and not quite light blue, so the nearest word to properly describe it would be the color of ice… although while most of it was properly brushed out and neatly tied back into a low hanging ponytail it looked as though the entire left side of her hair had some kind of gel product in it causing the hair to look distorted and messy. “My name is Dana and we’re so glad you could come on such short notice. Mr. Silva is waiting to speak with you, if you’ll just follow me please.”

“Um… yeah.” Eliza muttered as she hesitantly followed the taller woman. While she could tell the woman wasn’t a vampire, she also was quite sure she wasn’t human either. And whatever she was Eliza had a feeling it wasn’t a particularly cuddly critter. “Silva mentioned something about a problem you guys are having here. But he never got specific beyond the urgency for me to pack my bag and get out here as fast as possible… so what gives?”

“Well…” Dana momentarily trailed off as the sounds of something crashing were heard echoing from somewhere farther inland. But the brief pause allowed Eliza to take notice of a multitude of tears in Danas clothes that exposed a multitude of shallow but nonetheless painful looking cuts. Definitely not the kind of wounds vampires tended to make, and Silva was very against injuring his employees so they were not likely to have come from him… still Dana regained herself and continued moving, although now at a far faster pace. “I’m afraid it’s a very difficult situation to explain.”

“Try me.”

“Mr. Silva will tell you all about it.” She stated firmly effectively ending the conversation for the remainder of their walk. It wasn’t to long before they came to what appeared to be the ruins of what was once an enormous statue and sure enough there was Silva…

Silva may have been smiling his trademark happy yet evil smile but his appearance was… off… to say the least. For starters his pricey suit was a wreck, completely ripped up and completely missing its left sleeve and the biggest red flag was that all the hair on the left side of his head was styled straight upwards with the same gel that was messily smeared in Danas hair as well. It was not a good look, made even more unnerving by how the look in Silva’s eyes practically screamed he was about ready to completely lose it. “Ah welcome dear sweet Eliza!” He said, his voice careful to hide how his obvious agitation behind his usual seemingly happy demeanor.  “Thank you so much for coming here in such a hurry.”

“What’s going on Silva?” Eliza asked flatly.

“Straight to the point as ever? Fine, fine. Walk with me and I will explain everything.” Silva said calmly gesturing with his hand for Eliza to follow him. Immediately Dana was her bosses side and Eliza internally groaned as she realized that she was probably going to have an entire tour of the island before he got to the point. “The story begins a few months ago, surely you’re aware of the most recent problem the world seems to be having. You know, how dinosaurs seem to be popping up everywhere and causing all kinds of mayhem? Of course you know... Why just a few short days ago you had to scare off one of the three-horned beasties that had wandered onto your beloved sanctuary.”

“How did you… you know what nevermind. I don’t think I want to know how you know this stuff.” The shifter growled lowly. Inwardly remembering her complete shock of seeing an actual Triceratops calmly walking through the grounds of her sanctuary. It had been a majestic scene, until the creature took notice of all the people watching it and got spooked and ultimately charged at the gathering of shifters. Resulting in a great deal of property damage and Eliza needing to take the form of Beast in order to drive it away… Although her words did little more than make Silva burst out in a fit of mock laughter.

“Satellites my dear! Nothings easier than commandeering a satellite to just check in on the people I care about the most.” The flashy vampire pointed out although his words didn’t make the fact that he had been spying on her via hacking a satellite any less disturbing.

“You have entirely too much free time and too many toys.”

“Regardless.” He said waving off the young woman’s obvious annoyance. “Well you’re sure to find out sooner or later. But the truth is that the animals were rescued from their now molten crater of a home, only to be sold off to anyone who could afford them. Be it arms dealers, pharmaceutical companies or big-game hunters.” Silva paused, noting how Eliza had stopped walking and was now staring at him with a look filled with nothing short of abject horror. “Not exactly a happy story I’m afraid, but it’s important that you know the origins of my current dilemma.”

“Silva, tell me you didn’t have anything to do with all mayhem that’s going on now.” The shifter demanded.

“Of course I’m not responsible for things ending up as crazy as they are now! However…” He trailed off, clearly looking for the right words in order to continue his story. “You see… In recent times I’ve had some unpleasant dealings with a Russian arms dealer. Nasty fellow, got on my nerves relatively quickly and even had the audacity to sell me a cache of weapons that were nothing but duds! So, when I heard that he was attending this little event in order to acquire some dangerous carnivores to be his own personal attack dogs I just had to be a thorn in his side and purchase whatever creature he really wanted the most. So, I sent Dana to the auction on my behalf.”

“And that is when the trouble began.” Dana acknowledged, just as Eliza suddenly noticed that the evil secretary had gone quite pale and looked like she was ready to become physically sick. But she suppressed it masterfully and continued on… “Our target became very interested in a prototype creature called an Indoraptor. You remember the stories about the Indominus Rex? Well this creature is a smaller derivative of that beast. And naturally, we outbid him…”

“However the preview model was not the one that we received.” Silva groaned apparently too distracted to have taken notice of his secretaries’ moment of sickness. “That one got lose or something… But right when I thought I blew $29 million. A beast was delivered to my lovely home.”

“So let me get this straight… You bought a breed of dinosaur that is pretty much a living weapon and I’m going to just take a shot in the dark here; it’s running loose all over this island and trying to kill everyone and everything?” She stared at the vampire, honestly not entirely sure what to think of his entire story. But the one thing was becoming painfully clear… When any kind of revenge or payback was involved, in spite of his vast intellect… Silva was a complete moron driven only by his anger and no common sense.

Sensing the young woman’s ire the blond man sighed and rubbed his temples. “Yes and no.” He muttered. “I received an Indoraptor all right, but I can definitely see why they did not show this one as the preview model! If they had it would’ve made the geneticist a laughing stock!”

“What-”

“He’s cuddly.” The vampire said flatly. “2000 pounds of raw muscle, teeth and claws and the damn thing is freaking cuddly. Mind you when we first received it, it was showing all the signs of an abused animal. Even had terrific scarring on its hide, like someone beat it with chains and then let the wounds get infected and the animal then scratched them raw. It was actually quite sad… But we fed him, gave it a large room to stalk around in, mostly while we were trying to figure what the heck to actually do with him, because I will admit I didn’t exactly plan this out as well as I should have.” He paused as a small smile creeped onto his features. “Until one day one of the feeders left the latch on the door open and he got out… we prepared for the worst, only low and behold. The big beastie was like a giant cat. All he wanted was pets and hugs. It was hilarious! But I was able to have this creature stalking around my home while I’m speaking with my business clientele and they are completely terrified him. Usually begging me not to sick it on them. Thus, negotiations almost always went my way…”

“Or at least that’s how things were until recently.” Dana muttered. “All of a sudden his personality has completely flipped. I watched him drag away one of our employees the other day. As you have noticed the majority of our staff got on a boat and is remaining offshore until things calm down, cant say I blame them… considering we have a multitude of personnel who are still missing and we can only assume that they are either in hiding or dead. I’m guessing dead because or so called pet, went for both Raoul and myself.”

“Thing about abused animals,” Eliza said calmly, carefully noting how Dana had accidentally referred to Silva by his first name. “some can be overly affectionate out of fear, and when they aren’t afraid anymore… you better watch out.”

“Thanks a lot Dr. Dolittle.” Dana injected flatly. “Point is, Indigo is now out of control and needs to be dealt with.”

“Indigo?”

“Its name, apparently they were identified by colors in place of names.” Silva said as more visible cracks in his demeanor and he smiled in a semi insane way. “Now this is where you come in, dear Eliza. I need you to go in there and take care of this problem for me. I would be beyond grateful for your assistance!”

“All right, this is the part where I tell you to go screw yourself. You’re the idiot went and bought an animal you can’t control! Besides, just what would you have me do about it anyway?!”

“We are aware that you can turn into a Tyrannosaurus Rex.” Dana injected. “Our hope was that you could… deal with our little problem before things get even more out of control than they already are.”

Now it all made sense and truth be told Eliza wasn’t having any of it. They expected her to come all this way only to get into a vicious and bloody fight? Well they had another thing coming for them! “Oh no, I am not getting all ripped up because you-”

“If you do this for me, I’ll completely pay for all the damages the dinosaur rampage inflicted on your sanctuary.” Silva broke down and literally pleaded. “I am begging you! He’s driving me absolutely crazy!!!” Now Eliza had seen many things over the course of her life that most people would never believe. But the sight of Raoul Silva, perhaps the greatest hacker in the world, clearly on the razors edge of sanity was definitely one of the most unnerving… Dare she say it, she felt… bad for him… In spite of everything that happened between them, she still felt bad for him.

God damn it…

(20 Minutes Later)

 Eliza cautiously made her way through the winding labyrinth of buildings and wreckage that covered the majority of Silva’s Island. Armed with only her natural born instincts as a shifter and a walkie-talkie to communicate with Dana and Silva when the deed was done. She had been told that the Indoraptor had been seen predominantly around the building that housed Silva’s computer mainframe and network systems. So that was the place she was beginning her hunt.

Upon reaching the building she cautiously open the door and peered inside only to be greeted with the sight of what had undoubtedly driven Silva insane… well more insane… a mountain of destroyed computer equipment.

Eliza whistled in an impressed way as a few sparks of electricity erupted out of some exposed wires. “No wonder Silva is losing his mind. I always imagined nothing would make him want to cry more than the sound of his precious computers breaking.” Just inside and got nearer the wreckage, only to become fully aware of the strange sound that sounded bizarrely like a voice… granted it was very low and laced with static, almost as though it was generated by one of the destroyed computers that littered the ground.

“Sssssiilvva?” The voice came through the static again. Only it seemed to be even more garbled, yet still the single word it was saying was discernable. Eliza stopped feeling her heart fall into her stomach as a massive form moved out of the shadows of the room.

It was big, not T Rex big… but still pretty darn big. Its hide was as black as ebony although was very noticeably riddled with scars that looked just as Silva had described, like someone had taken a bike chain and whipped it. It had very large pale blue eyes and perhaps its most noticeable feature, a thick indigo colored stripe running down the entire length of its body. In its mouth was what Eliza could only speculate to be the wreckage of what was once a pricey laptop.

The creature walked forward and with a surprising amount of precision put the destroyed laptop on oddly arranged pile of mangled computer equipment, even taking an extra moment or so to make sure that the piece was placed in just a certain way. Clearly whatever it was doing was deliberate and thought out. What Eliza never got the chance to finish marveling at the creature’s apparent intelligence as it turned its attention completely onto her and after a moment there came a low staticy word of “Meat.” And it suddenly charged at her. The vision of this animal lunging at her brought about an immediate involuntary reaction and suddenly Beast towered above the monstrous hybrid and with one swat of her tail she sent the Indoraptor flying and crashing into its carefully arranged pile of junk.

Beast roared angrily at the Indoraptor and just as she was getting ready to charge a garbled mess of static erupted from where the creature had landed. Static that once again sounded suspiciously like words and so panicked that it made even Beast pause. Was there someone else in here with them?

“No hurt! No hurt Indigo!” The voice said again only now Beast realized that this voice was actually calming from the Indoraptor! It was pretty safe to say that no one had ever seen a T-Rex drop its jaw in total shock… Well, there’s a first time for everything because that’s exactly what happened.

The hybrids head cautiously poked out from where it had landed and it looked up at Beast nervously. “Big. Really big.” Came the static laced words again. After a moment its head disappeared and suddenly the creature popped out of the rubble with a very large fish in its jaws. It cautiously approached the Rex before putting the fish on the ground and nudging it closer to what could potentially be its aggressor. “Eat fishy not Indigo?”

Beast stared, in both the human and animal portions of her mind this entire situation had gone in a completely bizarre direction. Unfortunately for the Eliza portion of her mind beast came to her senses a bit quicker and actually decided to eat the offered raw and somewhat rancid fish. The taste was pretty bad and the human gag reflex managed to force her out of her transformation and she fell to the floor coughing, trying to spit out some of the disgusting taste that still lingered on her tongue. Unfortunately, her rapid reduction in size led the creature to get closer… A lot closer… actually by the time Eliza looked up this thing was now mere inches from her face, looking at her and sniffing curiously.

“Small now.” The barely audible voice said with a tone of interest. “Who you?”

Eliza didn’t answer, quite frankly she was spending more time trying to wrap her brain around the fact that this creature was somehow talking.

“Who you?” It asked again. This time words making the shifter come to her senses and answer before it decided to lose its patience with her and try to eat her again.

“Eliza.” He said hastily and then decided what the hell and gave something a shot and pointed to herself. “Friend of Silva.”

“You pack?” It asked tilting his head to the side a little before seeming to answer its own question and the damn thing nodded and suddenly pressed its head into her chest and rubbed emitting a deep purring sound in a friendly manner. “Pack good.”

“Yeahhhh.” She trailed off, just as she took notice of something around the animals’ neck that looked like some kind of collar. And suddenly it dawned on her and Eliza inwardly swore left right and sideways.

“Leave it to Raoul Silva to find a real world working version of the ‘Talking Collars’ from the movie ‘Up’ and put it on his fricking raptor!” She inwardly hissed. Although she also took note that it looked a bit damaged and while the raptor was rubbing up against her she carefully pushed the damage components back into place. Hopefully fixing the static problem but she wouldn’t know until it tried to talk again. Remembering her task, she suddenly pushed the big beasties head away from her and stood up.

“Your… Indigo right?”

“Me indigo. You Eliza.” It chirped happily. The static now gone from its voice and allowing it to be properly identified as a male and a full emotional range to be distinctly notable its tones. “You help Indigo now?” He asked as his tail wagged slightly in a playful manner.

“You want me to… help you?” Eliza echoed not entirely clear what the animal, Indigo, actually wanted. “Help you with what?”

Indigo suddenly hopped up and began running around the piles of wrecked equipment and began to reorganize them. At the same time also revealing that among all of the sharp pieces were numerous pillows and blankets, even clothing all arranged into a ring. And right in the center was a pile of rotting stinking ocean dwelling fish. There was even a dead Mola Mola propped up in one corner! He suddenly returned and began to much more forcefully push his head against Eliza, directing her out the door and into the central courtyard. “Help Indigo find meat! Meat from not-pack humans!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Eliza said as she maneuvered herself away from the hybrid beast. “You can’t eat humans! Bad! Bad Indigo!”

“Indigo not eating humans!” The creature defended, actually taking a step backward like Eliza had cracked a whip on him. “Red bite humans, they made Red sad with zaps. Red always cry until he died… Green ate human, Green got shot dead. Violet bit doctor human, doctor human made Violet dumb with cuts to her head. Violet die. Gold…” Indigo trailed off right around the time that Eliza started to feel sick when she realized that Indigo was in fact talking about other Indoraptors he must have been created with. Animals that had no doubt suffered badly if this story was any indication. “Gold was psychopath. Gold ate humans, but gold was big. Gold was frightening. Gold never got in same trouble as others. Indigo once tasted human meat, but taste bad… Indigo like fish, not meat. Fishy better.”

“If you’re not eating them what did you mean when you said that you want to find… meat.” She pressed. Now officially starting to think that that Silva and Dana had mistaken this animals recently developed strange habits as signs of aggression. And the damaged collar had no doubt inhibited their ability to understand whatever he had been trying to say. All in all, he seemed like a pretty tame creature, if not a goofy one. Fuck… he was adorable in a menacing-predator-that-is-scared-of-a-butterfly sort of way.

“Indigo trade.” He replied simply. “Indigo trade meat for fish.”

“Riiiight…” Eliza looked at him skeptically. “So, you throw them in the ocean?”

“Yes! Throw meat in water, catch fish in return. Fair trade.” All right, that pretty much explained the whole situation. Indigo wasn’t killing off Silva’s goons, he was throwing in the ocean as some sort of weird ritual he believed would help him catch fish. Like he believed something was actually giving him fish in exchange for people. So chances were fairly high that all the men who had disappeared were actually alive and all right, just probably well-hidden on another portion of the island away from the raptor.

“You don’t want to hurt Silva do you? Or Dana?”

“Never, Silva pack! Dana pack! Baby will be pack!” The raptor screeched, literally screeched with some earsplitting roar mixed in with the artificial voice of the collar.

Eliza blinked once in slight confusion. “What baby?” But then she stopped as a realization dawned on her.

…Oh…

(A few minutes later)

Silva and Dana cautiously entered what had once upon a time been the computer room. Only a few steps inside they were greeted with the sight of Eliza scratching Indigo’s belly and the big raptor laying there and enjoying it. It was not the site they had expected to see when the young woman had radioed them and informed them that she had dealt with the situation. Upon noticing the vampire and his secretaries arrival a cheeky grin spread across Eliza’s face.

“So you to finally got here. I’m sure he found something to do in order to keep yourselves entertained while I handled everything?” She really tried, but was still unable to hide all of the smugness in her voice.

“What’s going on?” Silva demanded as he cast his eyes over the now apparently docile Indigo. “How in the world did you fix this?”

Eliza snickered a bit. “Turns out he wasn’t getting aggressive at all. He was getting protective.” She then gestured over to the ring of broken equipment with the pile of fish in the center. “Do you know what that is Silva?” Judging by his look of growing agitation, no doubt directed completely at her not getting straight to the point… no, no he did not. “It’s a nest… He was making you guys a nest.”

“What in the world fo- Gah!!” Dana started, only to find herself being grabbed by Indigo and dragged over to the nest. As the big hybrid did so, a pair of large feathery wings unfurled from her back and her hands became very sharp claws… revealing her true form to be a harpy… but before she got a chance to use her claws she was dumped in the middle of the nest. And then a fish was dropped in her lap… She just sat there for a moment completely dumbstruck and unable to grasp just what the hell was going on.

“It would seem Mr. Silva, that you have fallen victim to an age-old temptation… and thus you’ve knocked up your secretary… classy… Oh and congratulations, I’ll be sure to send you a fruit basket.” Eliza could no longer contain herself and burst out laughing as the look of sheer bewilderment slowly spread across Silva’s face. Not to mention that Dana looked every bit as dumbfounded as her employer and apparently, secret lover.

In spite of the mirth everyone really should have been paying a bit more attention to what was going on around them. Especially when Indigo’s head perked up and his attention became locked on a lone figure that had just entered the room. It was one of Silva’s missing thugs and judging by his disheveled appearance he had been hiding for some time. Probably only coming out when he thought that his employer’s pet was no longer out of control. He had been quietly approaching Silva from the behind, no doubt right about to ask what was going on… When all of a sudden Indigo snarled and rushed forward, which of course resulted in this man screaming and running away. Naturally he didn’t get very far and Indigo grabbed him with his mouth, not in a way that would have severely injured him but in a more than effective way to drag this man wherever he wanted.

The laughter was almost immediately cut short and was promptly replaced with all three of them chasing after the hybrid creature, screaming for him to stop and put the man down. Even with the vampires incredible speed he wasn’t able to keep up with his pet. Indigo raced all the way down to the water’s edge on the north side of the island and in a single surprisingly swift movement he flung the man far out into the ocean.

“Indigo you beast! What are you doing?!” Silva demanded as he raised his hand and gave the raptor very hard swipe with his claws. It was not a particularly hard strike, as much as it was supposed to get the creature’s attention. Of course it worked, maybe a little too well, as the motion made Indigo cower and whine. No doubt due to past traumatic memories.

“It’s all right Silva! He’s not actually hurting anybody!” Eliza stated trying to diffuse the situation. “He just thinks throwing people in the water makes it easier to catch fish for some reason.” Before Silva could reply, there was a splashing sound from the water and when everyone looked… The man was gone. Indigo’s head perked up and he looked expectantly towards the water.

“Trade.” He said calmly. “Trade with friend. Meat for fish.”

A rather cold, unpleasant feeling settled in the trio’s stomachs at that moment. With Dana being the only one actually finding the ability to say what was on everyone else’s mind and she quietly asked. “Who is your friend?” And right on cue, no less than several hundred massive and varying fish were abruptly thrown out of the water and smacked with a great deal of force into all the parties watching, with the only exception being Indigo. Who had been smart enough to stand off to the side… A massive form surfaced from beneath the water and a large reptilian eye looked upon the group. After a moment the Mosasaur submerged… but not before it smacked its flipper in the air several times in a distinctive waving motion. To which the Indoraptor merely chirped happily back in its direction and waved as well…

In spite of now smelling like 15 kinds of different fish, Eliza still managed to watched this scene and laugh weakly. Very much aware of the angry glares she was getting from the vampire and the harpy.

“Well… that’s definitely not good.”

[journeysintowebcomics]

Girl Genius Liveblog #137

UPDATE 137: Zola Gets Moving

Last time Zeetha took a sword to the gut, courtesy of Zola, who’s under the influence of some strong stimulants. Nobody’s laughing anymore. So let’s continue.

Agatha doesn’t take kindly to her friends getting hurt like that. She immediately tries to go and help, but Tarvek and Violetta stop her. She’s Zola’s target, after all, going near her can only end badly, and since Agatha won’t just sit back and not help, the only option left is to knock her out. Well...alright! Sorry, Agatha, you’re going to have to be unconscious for a while! Take her away, Tarvek!

...is that an accent? That resembles an accent. So I may have been right after all! Higgs is a Jager! It hasn’t been outright spelled in the story, but by now there’s so much circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction. I’m growing more and more convinced now.

Zola doesn’t even have time to gloat or warn before Higgs gives a good kick, two punches, not even when she slices him with the sword he stops. No wonder he was able to drag Bangladesh to Mechanisburg despite having three or four limbs broken, this is some serious endurance.

You know what’s the problem I see here? There’s no one to help Zeetha. Gil is currently ensnared by a plant, Agatha is unconscious, Tarvek is taking her away...nobody has medical knowledge, as far as I know. I really hope she can resist until she can receive help, because that’s not a harmless wound.

Agatha wakes up while Tarvek is carrying her away, and since she’s a supportive friend who wants to help her friends, her first thought is to want to return to the conservatory. But the Castle is the priority here, once it’s repaired it can kill Zola. Well...they’re not wrong, once it’s repaired that can be done! But can it be repaired in such a short time! Agatha is an amazing spark and she has Tarvek with her, but I’m not sure they can do it in time! Besides, even if they manage to place the Castle’s mind back into the structure, would it be able to reach the conservatory? So many potential obstacles and so little time left.

Wait wait wait wait, that was the end of Volume Ten! One moment they’re going to the library, the next the footer of the image here says Vol.11 Page 001. I’d have never guessed it was over if it wasn’t for that footer. Wow, what a place to finish a volume. At this point I should try to give some thought about what happened in this volume, so let’s see...

Okay, the list of events here in the page list show that everything from the Castle’s most-likely-temporary death until now is Volume Ten. So, I must say...honestly I’m not sure what to say. This is, what, the third volume in the Castle? Well, it’s the first since Gil arrived, but overall, I don’t think there’s much to say. It has been a chain of events, one after the other. I think the reason why I’m at a loss of words is because they’re still at Castle Heterodyne.

In past volumes, Agatha was often travelling or doing something in a different place. New developments happened, and the story kept being built up. Here...well, they’re still at the Castle, they’re still trying to fix it, Wulfenbach is still trying to deal with the situation, Zola is still here...it doesn’t feel like much has changed. The most progress that has been done in these last few volumes is that Agatha got recognized as a Heterodyne – well, not officially, you know what I mean. Other than that, I can’t think of any major developments. That’s why I’m at a loss of words. This all has felt like a long volume, not like three. The momentum of the story has gone into a complete standstill. Frankly, it’s a bit tiring. Girl Genius is a fantastic story and I greatly enjoy it, but right now, I feel like it’s going in circles.

Let’s see what happens in this volume, alright?

Higgs is pretty damn sturdy! Even though Zola keeps attacking with all her might, he’s still daring to hold her and try to fight her. Violetta is too busy being entangled in vines and Gil is too busy inside a plant – golly, Gil, careful with the thorns! – so Higgs is the only person here who can fight Zola, and fight her well.

Oh, yikes! This is carnage! It’s a good thing Higgs is as tough as he is, or he’d be really dead! But the blood loss and the constant attacks are starting to wear him down, giving Zola the victory here – at least until Violetta hits her with a dart of...something.

Now that’d be quite the way to die! And I also like that Violetta is showing resourcefulness here. I certainly wouldn’t have thought of injecting more stimulants into Zola! Then again, I know nothing about Movit 11 because it doesn’t exist, so yeah. Still, it’s nice to see other characters doing their share of action here, especially if until now their track record isn’t top notch – although she changing Theo with a doll when Lucrezia was holding him hostage is still very impressive!

The effects are immediate, and Zola has to keep moving in order to not, you know, turn into a bonfire in middle of a conservatory, but Higgs holds her from her foot. Nice!

That’s a good sign! If she’s so distracted and jittery Violetta is able to do the ol’ switcheroo, then really is a chance Zola will be trapped for good—oh, no, she got out. Somehow. Damn it! With some luck Tarvek and Agatha will be far enough, but this ensures Zola won’t combust anytime soon, I guess. She’ll still be as big of a threat as ever, even with Higgs following her. Violetta will stay behind to take care of Zeetha and keep her alive.

Goodness, I like what I’m seeing here! Finding something must be a nightmare, and therefore I guess it’s unlikely they will before Zola finds them, but there’s potential here! I see potential for information. What better place than this library to find out stuff about the world and other secrets? And with some luck, the amount of death traps around here will be counted in only one hand. This will be good! Buuuut that for next time. Very soon!

Next update: next time

[ask-de-writer]

MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE! : Bizarre Borderland : (Part 1 of 2)

MAD IRRITATED SCIENCE!

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2488 words

© 2017 by Glen Ten-Eyck

written 2008

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

TUMBLR EXEMPTION

Blog holding members of Tumblr.com may freely reblog this story provided that the title, author and copyright information remain intact, unaltered, and are displayed at the head of the story.

Fan art, stories, music, cosplay and other fan activity is actively encouraged.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

I read an item in the SCI-NEWS that I personally found amusing.  A lot of people, especially the other Desert Rats like me, would have said, “So?”  For them, they'd be right.  Me, I'm the odd one, the duck that swims in the desert.

The item?  Somebody found and totally documented that the human brain's neurons use electrons to transmit information, which everybody already knew.  The new bit was that the neurons and the so-called white matter, the glial cells, also used protons to carry information.  The positive charge wasn't there just for balancing potentials.

Like I said, odd man out.  I already had a working headset that used passive electrical pickups to read brain activity.  In the past, and the reason that I built it, I used it to locate the speech processing center.  My plan for riches was simply to use the headset to read subvocal thought for controlling a computer or word processor.  Like many great notions, this one ran aground on the reef of reality.  It barely worked at all and was prone to massive errors.  Apparently it couldn't read the necessary brain center finely enough.

I looked over the equipment and began to rewrite my software to take into account the positive charges as information along with the negative ones.  Wow.  Dullsville, according to my few friends out here.  I shut up about my experiments.

Al Martin was a particular thorn all the way through the paw.  After I caught him cutting my gate lock chain to come up “for a friendly visit”, I got a Protective Order put on him to keep him away.  He took to calling me Dr. Freakenstein and making 'hilarious' jokes about creating monsters and EVIL SCIENCE.

Al Martin aside, I kinda like it out here.  The natural silence of wind, bird, coyote howl and such like, combined with the sheer joy of waking to the desert sunrise and watching the day unfold, lets me have both the time and the peace to think.  Sometimes I  tinker with the things that I think about.  Unless Al finds a way to be a nuisance.

The last few months, he's been running a “neighborhood watch” scam.  He got a telescope and started trying to charge folks for keeping an eye on their places.  By a pure coincidence I'm sure (NOT), the places on his watch list get robbed by burglars more often than the ones that he doesn't watch.  He even watches my place, which isn't on his watch list.  Caught him in the act several times.  I have a telescope, too.

Sorry about the digression.  Back to my idea of fun stuff.  The result of looking at both sides of the charge equation was a complete surprise.  Much of the mystery of brain intercommunication simply fell apart.  Most, if not all, of thought was processed as fractal interfaces between “clouds” of positrons clustered about various brain centers.  Still sounds dull, I guess.

Point, set and match occurred when a rat wandered near, under my house.  The sensor setup on my head spotted the interference of ratty's little “mind clouds” at once.  I personally hadn't noticed.  The computer showed me why, too.  My mind was automatically blocking the signal.

It took both concentration and help from the computer to open up to it.  As the little critter moved about, I started to get a feel for it.  If I could feel it, could it respond to me?

That took quite a few tries and failures.  After somewhat over an hour, I got the rat to come out from under the house and sit up on my porch in full view.  He was a dusty gray with  lines of white spots down his back.  His tail was long but fluffy.  Some sort of ground squirrel perhaps.  Not really a rat after all.

Now that I had him in sight, I experimented more freely because I could see how Ratty responded.  I needed the computer for the first few hours while I was learning to use my 'clouds' to influence his 'clouds'.  I kept blocking the signal by old habit.  With some work, I finally got Ratty to stand up and do a little rat-dance on his hind legs.

When I realized that Ratty was hungry from all of my experiments, I gave him a chunk of a peanut butter sandwich.  A few curious little birds landed on my porch rail while Ratty and I were munching.  I tried reaching out with my 'cloud' and encouraged them to hop up close.  More of my sandwich disappeared into little birdie craws.

By the end of several days of practice, I knew that my maximum range was about fifteen feet.  Inside that distance, I could simply execute small vermin like fleas, mites, lice, ticks and flying bugs.  Larger critters were harder but not much.  I didn't harm many of them though, it was more fun to control them and simply send them away. Ratty was the exception, of course.  He was both a kick as a pet and a great little test subject.

/////TO BE CONTINUED/////

PART 2 is HERE

[arathoonabroad]

Chapter 3

In which Katie battles the wilderness, and then all her relatives flee the country.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

"What are these lumps in the bread?" "I think they're seeds, Biddy." "What seeds? The seeds of destruction?"

Biddy and I escaped the weeding and spent five days at Uncle Biv and Aunt Mo's beautiful house in Levin--five days marked by peace, tranquility, and delicious food. There was, however, one moment of peril, from which I was glad to escape with my life. On a pretense of "showing us the farm," Biv lured Biddy and me into the heart of the Otaki wilderness. High up a mountain we went, on a long windy road, to view his collection of trees--pine trees, to be specific; more than 85,000 of them, to be even more specific. After lulling us into a false sense of security by giving us a tour of his woolshed and dutifully plucking a few feathers for Biddy off of some rather indignant guinea fowl, Biv casually suggested that we might like to go and see a little bit of the bush. Of course, we foolishly assented; what could possibly go wrong?

When first I came to this country, I was under the impression that, as far as flora and fauna were concerned, New Zealand was like Australia with the poison removed--a harmless, defanged wilderness. I was about to be proven wrong. We were happily trundling along the windy lane, taking pictures of Not-Quite-Silver-Ferns-But-Jolly-Similar, when suddenly Biv screeched to a halt and leapt out of the car. "Do you see this?" he asked, wrapping his sweatshirt sleeve around his hand and carefully pulling a branch of something prickly over to us. Biddy and I leaned back. "This plant is called Bush Lawyer, and it's a devil," Biv explained. "The thorns stick into you and it's impossible to untangle yourself. It's an awful beast." And that was not all, for as we continued on our way Biv pointed across the road and said, "Can you guess what that is?" We gazed up at the plant, a six-foot tall bushy green thing, and could not. "That," said Biv impressively, "is a stinging nettle! People have died from falling into stinging nettles in this country!" He spoke with pride, as if scorning all lowly English stinging nettles for merely providing mild agony to the shin regions.

There was more. "Lupines," said Biv gloomily, pointing. "I'm so allergic to them they've put me in the hospital, and they're everywhere." And, when I jumped out of the car, "That's a deadly nightshade by your foot." I looked down in horror at the terrifying little plant that towered almost a full centimeter above my ankle. "They're everywhere too."

Then, with a distinctly mischievous look in his eye, Biv announced: "Oh dear. It seems I have forgotten the code to the last gate. You two stay here while I just pop over this mountain and ask the neighbor what it is."

Off he strode. Biddy and I leaped back into the safety of the car. The sounds of twittering birds and sadistically swishing plants filled the air. I rolled up the window. The sun sank a little. The air in the car got hot and stuffy, but we did not dare open the doors.

"What happens if he doesn't come back?" asked Biddy.

"I'm afraid we'll have to chop off your leg and roast it," I said sorrowfully. Biddy didn't seem to mind, as her ankle was swollen and causing her grief anyway.

After about half an hour Biv returned. Clearly, his plan to dispose of us had failed, so he had to drive us home, hopes shattered. Still, I now have a healthy respect for the New Zealand outback.

Proving that New Zealand has not changed me too much, I've approached my new- non-vegetarian lifestyle with a typically complete lack of moderation. I am outrageously carnivorous now. I can scarcely go two days on end without bacon, and have tried all manner of other charred animal flesh: cows, sheep, chicken, quail, and deer have all fallen into my mighty maw. The concept of being able to eat everything on a menu--rejecting things only because I don't like them--fills me with a new delight. I feel no guilt, I feel no squeamishness. In Wigs's field there gambols the fluffy white sheep Butter, whose former friend Einstein I eat on a regular basis without the slightest compunction. Sometimes as I look at Butter, sweetly munching on grass, I think happily, "Oh, sweet little sheep--if I wanted to, I could rip your head off its neck and feast on the gory innards that leak out." On my gloomier days all I have to do is remember that this Thanksgiving (if I'm back home) I will get to eat Real Thanksgiving Turkey, and I cheer right up.

Biddy's last week in NZ was spent back at Wigs's house. Together we stripped a little wallpaper and avoided weeding, and generally did Not Much aside from complain about how much work we were being forced to do. Jemma—my sophomore year roommate, and the only person in the world who can look sexy while wearing a combination of socks, sandals and shorts—and her boyfriend Kyle, showed up to keep us entertained (and take me out for St. Patrick's Day debauchery). In the final days, Wigs threw a few lovely tea parties so that the people who had met Biddy could come and enjoy her company one last time. At one of them, Biddy was handed a glass of one of her favorite drinks, Campari with soda. The rest of us had tried Campari early on in her trip, and found it to be possibly the most bitter and revolting stuff ever devised by human hand. I'd rather drink pigswill, frankly. Much to our surprise, Wigs's friend Glenda had not only heard of the drink but liked it. Biddy waved her glass magnanimously at Glenda and announced, "When I go home, I'll leave you a present: a half bottle… well, a quarter… well, an eighth of a bottle of Campari!"

She is a frequently maddening woman—picking away for hours at wallpaper, for example, to clear a space that could be cleared in a few minutes if she would just allow the removal solution to sit for long enough. Her cigarette butts litter the garden, and, while she did eventually stop calling Wigs "Joan," her nickname for me stuck, and we all took to calling me "That Girl." Still, as Wigs, Brian and I clung to the chain-link fence and watched her little form climb up into the aeroplane and away, tears streamed down my cheeks without the slightest regard for avoiding cliché. My constant companion of the last month is gone, and the gods only know when I'll see her again.

After Biddy's departure, the rest of us dispersed. Brian took off on a business trip. Wigs packed for Kenya. I myself am currently hitching a ride to Wellington with Kyle and Jemma, sitting in the backseat of their wonderfully derelict and now somewhat overloaded Mazda. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in Wellington, and I still haven't told cousin Cleo that I'm coming; I have no place to sleep lined up, no idea of how long I'm staying in town, and no idea what I'm going to do with myself during the day.

I guess the traveling part of my trip has finally begun.

[ask-de-writer]

MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE! : Bizarre Borderland : (1 Part)

MAD IRRITATED SCIENCE!

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2488 words

© 2017 by Glen Ten-Eyck

written 2008

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

TUMBLR EXEMPTION

Blog holding members of Tumblr.com may freely reblog this story provided that the title, author and copyright information remain intact, unaltered, and are displayed at the head of the story.

Fan art, stories, music, cosplay and other fan activity is actively encouraged.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

I read an item in the SCI-NEWS that I personally found amusing.  A lot of people, especially the other Desert Rats like me, would have said, “So?”  For them, they'd be right.  Me, I'm the odd one, the duck that swims in the desert.

The item?  Somebody found and totally documented that the human brain's neurons use electrons to transmit information, which everybody already knew.  The new bit was that the neurons and the so-called white matter, the glial cells, also used protons to carry information.  The positive charge wasn't there just for balancing potentials.

Like I said, odd man out.  I already had a working headset that used passive electrical pickups to read brain activity.  In the past, and the reason that I built it, I used it to locate the speech processing center.  My plan for riches was simply to use the headset to read subvocal thought for controlling a computer or word processor.  Like many great notions, this one ran aground on the reef of reality.  It barely worked at all and was prone to massive errors.  Apparently it couldn't read the necessary brain center finely enough.

I looked over the equipment and began to rewrite my software to take into account the positive charges as information along with the negative ones.  Wow.  Dullsville, according to my few friends out here.  I shut up about my experiments.

Al Martin was a particular thorn all the way through the paw.  After I caught him cutting my gate lock chain to come up “for a friendly visit”, I got a Protective Order put on him to keep him away.  He took to calling me Dr. Freakenstein and making 'hilarious' jokes about creating monsters and EVIL SCIENCE.

Al Martin aside, I kinda like it out here.  The natural silence of wind, bird, coyote howl and such like, combined with the sheer joy of waking to the desert sunrise and watching the day unfold, lets me have both the time and the peace to think.  Sometimes I  tinker with the things that I think about.  Unless Al finds a way to be a nuisance.

The last few months, he's been running a “neighborhood watch” scam.  He got a telescope and started trying to charge folks for keeping an eye on their places.  By a pure coincidence I'm sure (NOT), the places on his watch list get robbed by burglars more often than the ones that he doesn't watch.  He even watches my place, which isn't on his watch list.  Caught him in the act several times.  I have a telescope, too.

Sorry about the digression.  Back to my idea of fun stuff.  The result of looking at both sides of the charge equation was a complete surprise.  Much of the mystery of brain intercommunication simply fell apart.  Most, if not all, of thought was processed as fractal interfaces between “clouds” of positrons clustered about various brain centers.  Still sounds dull, I guess.

Point, set and match occurred when a rat wandered near, under my house.  The sensor setup on my head spotted the interference of ratty's little “mind clouds” at once.  I personally hadn't noticed.  The computer showed me why, too.  My mind was automatically blocking the signal.

It took both concentration and help from the computer to open up to it.  As the little critter moved about, I started to get a feel for it.  If I could feel it, could it respond to me?

That took quite a few tries and failures.  After somewhat over an hour, I got the rat to come out from under the house and sit up on my porch in full view.  He was a dusty gray with  lines of white spots down his back.  His tail was long but fluffy.  Some sort of ground squirrel perhaps.  Not really a rat after all.

Now that I had him in sight, I experimented more freely because I could see how Ratty responded.  I needed the computer for the first few hours while I was learning to use my 'clouds' to influence his 'clouds'.  I kept blocking the signal by old habit.  With some work, I finally got Ratty to stand up and do a little rat-dance on his hind legs.

When I realized that Ratty was hungry from all of my experiments, I gave him a chunk of a peanut butter sandwich.  A few curious little birds landed on my porch rail while Ratty and I were munching.  I tried reaching out with my 'cloud' and encouraged them to hop up close.  More of my sandwich disappeared into little birdie craws.

By the end of several days of practice, I knew that my maximum range was about fifteen feet.  Inside that distance, I could simply execute small vermin like fleas, mites, lice, ticks and flying bugs.  Larger critters were harder but not much.  I didn't harm many of them though, it was more fun to control them and simply send them away. Ratty was the exception, of course.  He was both a kick as a pet and a great little test subject.

Had to wonder, you know, if folks learning to do this sort of thing wasn't the basis of the tales about witchcraft.  Thinking it through a bit more, after destroying a few persistent vermin in my garden, I realized that if this was the foundation of witchcraft, those fears in the general population could be well founded.  It took almost no imagination at all to see how someone with this sort knowledge could be a very real danger to the community at large.  Especially if the general population treated the “witch” badly.  I didn't intend to find out what would happen in a case like that.

I'd just got a pair of deer up close and doing a bit of a step-dance for a big flake of hay when I noticed the dust cloud of a truck barreling along the road from Al's place.  I sent the deer away, cursing Al under my breath.  Bad news only got worse when Al's pickup roared up my drive, scattering gravel as he skidded to a stop.  Al bailed out with a rifle in hand, starting to aim at the retreating deer.

I glared at him.  Al's rifle fell to the dirt from hands gone nerveless.  Wide eyed with anger, he demanded, “Damn you, Art! What did you do to me?”

Not bothering to get up from my seat on the porch steps I replied tartly, “Me?  I'm here on my porch.  You are ten feet away.  From here, it looked like you managed to drop your gun just in time to avoid poaching charges on top of the Felony Trespass and Protective Order violation.”

Frowning in a black faced rage, he flexed his now almost functioning fingers and retorted, “Poaching?  No way!  This is private land so its legal.  No hunting without permission your signs says. Wasn't no time to ask first, so's I was gonna ask after I blasted 'em.  Would'a given me a whole Winter's meat.”

Lips pulled into a tight line I snapped, “Only problem, Al, is I would have said NO.  Those signs allow me to get game from my land.  Desert game is spread thin and I don't share mine.  At least not with you.  I heard from Joe Sanderson how well you share yours.”

Al was looking down at his hands and flexing them.  Still pissed off, he spit out, “Joe had it coming!  Bastard wouldn't pay me for Neighbor Watch.”

I raised one eyebrow and pointed out, “Neither will I.  Looks like your hands are better.  Get into your truck and shove off.  Don't come back, either.”

Al stared to bend over to get his rifle and just kept on going down. He landed in a heap on the scattered gravel of my drive.  “Don't try to take that gun, Al, unless you want to leave here in a hearse.”

Twitching on the ground, Al yelled, “I knew it, you asshole! You've used some sort of evil witchcraft on me.  I'll have the law on you for this!”

I smiled down at him from my vantage point on the steps.  A sensible wolf would have stepped away from that smile.  “One:  Killing Felony Trespassers is legal, and that's what you became when you hauled out that rifle.  Two:  You have a Protective Order that requires you to stay at least a hundred fifty feet from my property line and do nothing to compromise my property, including discharge firearms on or across it.  I can legally kill you for that violation, too.  Three:  Witchcraft IS legal.  Four:  I just sat here and watched you apparently have some sort of seizures.  Five:  I am calling the Sheriff's Office on your Trespass and and Order violations.”

I got on my phone and called the situation in to the County Police. I fixed a sandwich and went back out on the porch to watch Al.  He was staying down.  I knew that he would.

As I started to eat, Ratty popped up from his nest under the house. He did his little rat dance and got his chunk of sandwich.  He settled down by my feet and happily nibbled his bread and cheese.

Al looked on in what I believe was genuine fear.  Trying to point, he exclaimed, “There's the proof!  You are a witch-man!  That's your familiar!”

Amused, I replied, “Ratty?  A familiar?  The worst he could do is nip your nuts while you're down.”

Ratty squeaked firmly.

I laughed, “Right Ratty!  Why should you risk lice and other crawling vermin just to bite Al's privates?”

Ratty expressed his opinion of Al by taking his part of the sandwich and retreating back under the house.  With his tail up to show Al his ass.

Not too much later a deputy arrived.  I greeted him, “Hi, Deputy Mustic.  'Fraid your cousin Al's in a spot of trouble.  Seems to have not only broken the Protective Order, he brought a firearm onto my place.  Trouble is, unless he's faking it, he seems to have some sort of paralytic neurological event.  He's even trying to blame me for it.  Witchcraft, no less.  Can you believe it?”

Deputy Mustic closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  “Of Al?  I'd believe near anything.  I gotta call for a backup and let him do this one to be sure that everything's done right.  If I try to do the arrest, Al's lawyer is sure to try for a conflict of interest or some such because we're related.”   The deputy got on his radio and I overheard him giving dispatch a piece of his mind for sending him out to deal with a relative.

Soon both the backup, Deputy Jorgen, and an ambulance were on the scene.  Al was duly informed of his rights and placed under arrest while the ambulance crew verified with a pin that Al really was paralyzed.  Deputy Mustic took me aside, day book out and asked, “Art, why didn't you call the ambulance?  Even if he is my family, we both know that Al is slime.  Still, you should'a called.”

I nodded, while watching Al being loaded into the ambulance to be hauled away, “I would have, Deputy.  Thing is, he pulled that stunt on Sadie Halloway where he faked an injury on her place.  Since she called the ambulance, she wound up getting stuck for near enough a grand.  Al did it because she wouldn't pay into his neighbor watch scam.  I won't pay him either and just figured he was doing the same to me as he did to her.”

Writing in his day book and flipping a page to finish, Deputy Mustic nodded, “I heard about that.  Thought it might be the reason. Needed it clear for the record is all.”

More anxiously, now that he was done being official, he asked, “Any idea what is wrong?  I mean, scum or not, he is family and I'm worried for him.  Believe it or not, the kids like him at reunions. He does slight of hand coin tricks and card stunts really professional.”

I shrugged, “The slight of hand for entertainment is something I'd not have guessed.  Slick as he is at lifting small tools and such, I should have known something like that was behind it.  As for this, no idea at all.  I am sure that it's not sunstroke.  The AC in his truck was on and it works.  I would guess that it might be an oddball stroke of some kind.  Maybe an aneurysm or bleed in the upper spine could do it.  Just a guess, though.

“Al appears to be sure what it is.  I heard him telling both Deputy Jorgen and the paramedics that it's witchcraft.  If it is, I don't think that I'm the one.  Frankly, I hope he's right.  Witchcraft is legal.”

Three days later, Deputy Mustic was back.  It was an unofficial visit.  Looking sad, he said, “Al died in the hospital, last night, 'bout midnight, Art.  The doctors did find what it was but there was nothing that they could do.  Doctor Collins said that it was the fastest growing neurological tumor that she's ever heard of.  It was just near to the top of his spine.  Inoperable.  Al died swearing to everyone there that you cursed him.”

I watched a hawk soar overhead  for a moment before I replied, “Not to speak ill, but if I could have, I would have.  Didn't like him at all.

“You, on the other hand are one of the best.  Never heard a single bad word about you, even from folks you've arrested.”

Deputy Mustic smiled but only slightly, “Thanks for that, Art.  I didn't expect any sympathy for Al but I figured that you'd want to know.”

“Indeed, Deputy.  My condolences to your family.”

As Deputy Mustic drove away, My mind was in high gear.  I liked it out here, but it did get pretty lonely on occasion.  The ease with which I influenced animals and settled Al's hash led to an interesting line of thought.

The next time that I was in town, I spotted a pretty young lady. Checking her out by 'feel' I found that she was not only available, she didn't like being tied to one guy.  She enjoyed having a variety of lovers.

All that I planted was the urge to drive out my way.  The weekend was fun for both of us.  Besides bed, Sally hiked around the hills with me and even liked watching a hawk or buzzard fly.  We took a bunch of pictures of her around my house and up in the rocks and hills.  Nice cheesecake, barely risque.  Good memories.

It turned out that Sally knew a fair number of other like minded friends.  After she introduced me to her buddies, neither my days or nights stayed lonely.

---The End---