#and while typing this I just saw a dead pigeon in the street and now I really wanna cry so badly tbh

[awek-s]

the ceo was in today and he was pissed that i didn’t acknowledge him while he was wandering around the store but as a rule I straight up don’t approach unapproachable people who look like they’d rather be left alone to shop & I was literally working on sales stuff and he went to my manager and complained and I think he was gonna rip me a new one too but my manager took the heat for me but it put him in such a bad mood that he snapped at me about other shit instead and atp I’m like is this job actually worth all of this in the end

[mirandapriestlyswife]

Mirandy Fanfic- Apocalypse AU; Chapter 2

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Hi! This chapters not that great, but I hope you enjoy anyways :) constructive criticism is welcome as this is my first fic! Enjoy!

Prologue https://www.tumblr.com/mirandapriestlyswife/747204446805704704/mirandy-fanfic-apocalypse-au-prologue

Chapter 1 https://www.tumblr.com/mirandapriestlyswife/747303362291286016/mirandy-apocalypse-fic-chapter-1

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“You wanna play 20 questions?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“….”

“What are you doing?”

“Work.”

“Work? What work?”

“Honestly Andrea, what does it look like im doing?” Miranda sighed exasperatedly and turned around in her office chair to face away from the brunette. Her office was a mess. Old copies of Runway were scattered across all surfaces, photos from shoots that go as far back as 1972 fluttered about. They interested Andy for about the first 20 minutes of arrival at Elias-Clark, as promised, at 7 AM. But now they just made her sad. It was like when she was going through her old high school yearbook after Lily passed. It made her smile to think about all the fun times they’d had… But then the realization that she would never hear her voice again settled in. The photos of past models gave her a similar feeling. Those people had lives. They had hopes and dreams. And now they were dead.

Miranda sighed and placed down her pen, rubbing her temples.

“You okay?”

“Oh…” She didn’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but at least she acknowledged the question. Andy sighed and got up to stretch. Shed been sitting on the floor close to Mirandas desk all morning. She was really desiring human contact. Sure they didn’t have to fall asleep in each-other’s arms, but a hug would be nice every once in a while.

“..Where are you going..?”

“No where. Just stretching.”

Miranda clicked her tongue. “Good.”

‘Good’? Did that mean she liked her presence? Andy smiled and leaned on the wall.

“So.. What do you do in your free-time?”

Miranda visibly rolled her eyes at this. It was fascinating, the woman looked so impossibly bored whenever Andy tried to initiate some type of conversation. Yet she looked over at her constantly, as if to make sure she was real. It was almost sweet… Almost.

“I work. Review old issues, critique. There isn’t much to do in an empty city.”

“Do you leave the building to get food or-“

“Upstairs. Theres a deep freezer. It somehow manages to keep things moderately fresh if I turn the power back on every few hours.” Miranda dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair. Gazing up at Andy.

She stood self consciously. “Do you ever leave the building..?”

“No? Why would I? I expect the streets are riddled with the smell of death.”

Andy shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. The bodies that weren’t relocated to mass graveyards at the beginning of the infection were in fact rotting in the last place they were before death. She walked past the gruesome sight of a homeless man with his eyes pecked out by pigeons every time she left the apartment. She ended up throwing up on the side of the road the first few times she saw it. But like most things, she just got used to it after a while. She kept reminding herself that theres no soul in that body, it was simply an empty shell. The sight still made her nauseas though.

“Yeah.. When I realized there was seemingly no one else left in the city I broke into The Plaza Hotel. I thought, ‘Hey if you’re the last woman alive, why not live a life of luxury?’” She chuckled. “Yeah.. That didn’t last long.. Walked in on some Wall Street guy that died in bed.”

Miranda closed her eyes momentarily, her lips forming a displeased expression.

“Why are there no body’s in this building?”

“Did you really just ask me why there are no corpses in this building?”

Andy sighed, was this woman trying to make her feel stupid? “Yes..?”

Miranda rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, “Theres no bodies because we underwent quarantine two weeks before the initial mass outbreak. Alike your job I assumed.. Wherever you ended up.”

Andy shrugged, “We stayed open for a while.. You know, the world of journalism was really booming at the beginning.”

“Why only at the beginning?”

“Well.. People stopped reading.” She sighed sadly then put on the upmost pitiful laugh, “They got sad reading the latest death poll I guess..”

Miranda nodded, her eyes still shut.

“So…”

Miranda opened one eye which made Andy chuckle. “You just work all day? Where do you sleep?”

An immediate eye roll followed by a response of, “Where do you think?” In which Andy had no answer to.

“I sleep here.”

“Well I knew that much.. But theres-“ She looked around just to confirm her suspicions, “Theres no bed-“

“Correct…”

“Then where do you-“

“Honestly Andrea, not everyone needs a bed to sleep.”

Miranda Priestly doesn’t sleep in a bed? What? “..So.. You sleep.. On the floor..? Really..?”

“I sleep on the couch.” The older woman rolled her eyes and when Andy clearly wasn’t understanding, she cocked her head in the direction of the couch, corner of the office.

“..That can’t be good for your back.”

“And why are my back issues of your concern?”

Andy scoffed. “Well incase you haven’t noticed you’re the only one around here to talk to, and I honestly would rather you not be dead.”

“How would a little back ache cause me to die?” Miranda raised an eyebrow as she leaned forward and went back to what looked like aimlessly making notes on old magazines.

“Well.. I don’t know but-“ Andy stopped herself when she caught Mirandas eyes, but to her own surprise, she continued, “I care about you and-“

“Oh did you care about me when you abandoned me in Paris? To be mobbed by paparazzi questioning my divorce now questioning why my assistant is running off with her tail between her legs like some wounded animal? Did you care, Andrea? Did you care when you threw your company phone in a fountain? Don’t think I didn’t catch wind of that.”

Andy was stunned.. Out of all things she expected to hear from Miranda, confrontation wasn’t one of them. “Miranda, please.. I was young-“

“You’re still young.”

“I was immature!”

“Seems like nothings changed, has it?” Miranda shut the magazine and stood up, glaring at the taller woman. Andy frowned, out of all the damn people to be left alive on Earth, why did it have to be her spiteful boss?! She took a deep breath, she couldn’t afford to ruin the one chance at some sort of companionship with Miranda.

“Look, I’m sorry for that… ‘Stunt’ I pulled in Paris.. I was young! My whole life outside of work was falling apart! My boyfriend had just left me and-“

“Oh yes ‘Nate’, let’s hear about ‘Nate’.”

Andy was about to fire back when she realized.. How did Miranda know Nates name? Did she have her phone wired or something?! “You.. Know about Nate..?”

Miranda’s mask slipped for a moment, she looked almost embarrassed as she pursed her lips. “I may have.. Overheard some conversations between you and Emily.” She straightened herself up, “Nothing of interest of course.”

Oh.. Lovely to know her old boss was probably listening to every complaint Andy made when she had the time. She raised her eyebrows and chewed her bottom lip, not knowing how to continue without resulting in an argument. “So you-“

“You should stay here tonight.”

Andy stared at the older woman, bewildered.

“Here…? With you..?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” Miranda took off her reading glasses and added on, “Unless you’re uninterested.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to.. She wasn’t sure she didn’t want to either. And what did she mean by ‘uninterested’? Uninterested in what exactly? In Miranda? In the idea of staying with her?

“I.. I kind of should go back to Lily’s apartment.. All of my stu- I- belongings.. Are there.” She sighed in relief that she caught herself from saying ‘stuff’. Somehow proper use of filler words was more important than figuring out what to eat for dinner that night. Andy almost smiled before she noticed the slight disappointment in Miranda’s complexion. “..Maybe you want to come back with me? I mean- I don’t have a lot of room but..” IDIOT! Shit! Shit! Shit! Why did she just invite Miranda over like that?! Of course she wouldn’t be interested in-

“Acceptable.” Andy was shocked. Miranda Priestly was willing to spend the night in the same building as her? Let alone the same room? She felt a blush creeping up her cheeks and swallowed hard. Those unresolved feelings from Paris seemed to be fighting their way through the deep corners of her subconscious she had them buried.

“Great.. We can head out-“

“Lets go now.” Miranda sighed, looking around with little interest and then looking at Andy expectingly. “Well?”

“Well? Well, what?”

The older woman scoffed, “Do I look like I know my way to your apartment, please Andrea lead the way.” She muttered as she grabbed her Prada bag that she had carelessly discarded on her dust ridden desk. Miranda Priestly was quite the mess without two full time assistants at her disposal 24/7.

“..Right- it’s a long walk..”

“Andrea, I’ve lived in this city since before you were born im sure, I know how to walk places.”

“Right.. But are you really going to do that in.. You know.. Heels-?”

Miranda snickered, or at least thats what it sorta looked like. Somewhere between an almost laugh and a downright hiss. “Trust me. I can walk fine, Andrea.”

“Yes, Miranda.”

The walk to the apartment was rather quiet. Except for Andys occasional attempt at making conversation.

“We should check out BloomingDales, you know.. Raid them of their designer clothes.” She tried to joke but Miranda simply put on her Versace sunglasses and acted as if she didn’t hear her. Of course.

“How much longer must we drag our feet for?”

“..Well we just passed the bagel place.. So maybe.. um.. 30ish more minutes?”

Miranda clicked her tongue at that. Andy wanted to ask her why the hell she had even agreed to come spend the night with her if all she was going to do was shoot her disapproving glares, but she kept quiet and instead focused on the sound of falling leaves.

The city stank. It always stank. Since it was built it was as if the founding fathers had decided ‘This shalt be the city that smell like shit’. But instead of sewage water, the place reeked of decomposing flesh. Andy covered her nose with her sweatshirt as they passed the body of what looked like a woman that had simply fallen asleep in the park when the infection had killed her. She heard Miranda gag behind her which would’ve made Andy chuckle under different circumstances.

“You don’t leave Elias-Clarke much?”

“I try not to.”

“Why not?”

“Why would I want to walk around a city of corpses?”

Andy didn’t respond as the two continued their walk in silence.

“It’s a nice day out..”

Miranda made a noise of approval in response.

Finally.. Fucking finally.. After a torturous walk in silence, they had finally arrived at Lily’s apartment. Of course, Lily didn’t live there anymore. But she still referred to it as ‘Lily’s apartment’, as if she were carrying out her best friend’s legacy by naming a crappy studio apartment in her honor. She jiggled open the door, which she had left unlocked. She lost the key months ago and only really locked up at night.. Besides, in the off chance that a psychotic murderer had broken into the apartment, she’s sure she’d welcome death with open arms.

“Well.. Here it is.” She shrugged as she made her way through the messy apartment. Books on top of books and magazines covered almost every available surface.

“So.. Do you wanna stay on the couch or-“

“I assumed there were two bedrooms? Did you and Lily not live here together?”

Andy cringed at the accusatory tone Miranda took, it almost sounded like jealousy..

“Um.. Yeah- well- the couch is a pullout.. I usually sleep there anyways.” She gestured to the mass of pillows and blankets on the folded up pull out couch. “I don’t touch the bedroom- that was Lily’s. I’d like to keep that door closed if you don’t mind while you’re here.”

Miranda nodded and turned her head towards the kitchen, observing the area. “If I take the couch, where will you sleep?”

“I don’t mind the floor.. I can take the pillows from the chair and-“

“We can share the pullout.” Miranda set her purse on the kitchen counter and looked to Andy to set up the pullout couch for the two of them. Andy stared at her in shock. It actually didn’t sound.. Unpleasant. God knows the fantasies she had about Miranda before Paris.. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad? She’s missed the physical touch of another person.

“Yeah that sounds.. Good.” She looked Miranda up and down, “You didn’t bring pajamas- did you?” That sounded a lot more perverted than she meant to.

Miranda seemed surprisingly unaffected, “No. I was a bit…” she clicked her tongue, “Spontaneous when agreeing to this.”

Andy shifted awkwardly on her heels, “Right.. Well.. I have some old shirts and sweaters you can go through if you want. Some of its clean.” Some of it was in fact clean. She had learned how to wash clothes with a jug of water, scrub brush, and soap, but it still didn’t seem that hygienic. Miranda pursed her lips and nodded.

“And what do you eat..?”

Andy’s face flushed in embarrassment. Food had always been a.. Sore subject when it came to Miranda to say the least. Being called the ‘fat, smart girl’ by the woman she quite honestly thought was hotter than the Ohio pavement on an August afternoon took quite a chip at her relationship with food. Pun not intended. “Oh.. You know.. Just cans of things I pick up- theres some apricots..” She walked over to the pile of canned goods she’d been hoarding in her kitchen, digging around, “Around here somewhere…”

“I’ll look myself Andrea, thank you.” She kept digging through the cans anyways. What would tonights meal be? A can of olives that’ll have her waking up in the middle of the night more dehydrated than a damn sponge? She heard Miranda shuffling around the apartment, probably going through the laundry pile. She heard Miranda groan in disgust at the sight of her clothes from Old Navy and the Gap. God, this was going to be a long night.

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Hope you enjoyed!

[oneofyatosfollowers]

Happy Yato Day!

Fanfic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13936397/1/The-Stray-Cowboy

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33158902

It was ironic that a little dusty down in the middle of nowhere would bear the name “Heaven,” especially since it’s been declining since her grandmother’s time. The town was built around a large natural spring that has been shrinking ever so slightly each year while the buildings only grew taller. Hiyori strolled down main street, her heels kicking up loose dirt which dusted the frills of her pink dress. Her father, the only doctor in town, had let her go for the day, giving her a break from replacing her run-away brother at the clinic. So, after visiting her friend, Ami, at the fabric store, and Yama out with the horses, Hiyori made her way to the saloon.

The building was two stories and housed a bar, a small stage, and tables with different games other cowboys could gamble on. Since this town held so much water and resources, it was a common place for vagabonds of all types to stop in and rest. The Inn was right next door, owned by the bar owner’s husband, it’s front often tied with horses. Hiyori’s eyes scanned the beasts for a familiar black mare with a short mane but was disappointed when she saw none. She entered The Lucky Lady, the batwing doors swinging behind her, eyes adjusting as she ignored the cat-calls.

“Hiyori!” The bartender called like they haven’t seen each other in years. The Lucky Lady, a spunky night-time-dancer named Kofuku, waved her friend over with a dirty cloth.

“Good afternoon, Kofuku,” Hiyori gave a short curtsy before taking a seat at the bar, “where’s Daikoku and Yukine?” She asked as her eyes scanned the bar, finally adjusted to the darker space.

“They’re tending to some of the horses behind the Inn. Yuki’s getting good at changing shoes you know,” Kofuku mused as she wiped down the bar, “although they’re not really who you’re looking for are they?” The comment shocked Hiyori out of her scanning. The teasing glimmer in the young woman’s eyes sparking a fire across Hiyori’s cheeks.

“Well! He did say he was coming back today and he’s supposed to be handling my job!” Hiyori sputtered. She crossed her arms with a huff and looked towards the door, waiting for the black silhouette of a certain hitman-turned-messenger-and-bounty-hunter. Unbeknownst to her parents, Hiyori had hired the man to find her missing brother. It felt off to put a secret bounty on her own brother, giving it to an enigma of a man recommended to her by Kofuku and Daikoku, but he’d stopped sending her letters almost a year ago and it had her worried.

“If there’s someone you want found, dead or alive, he’s your man,” The Inn owner had growled, “just don’t get too close.” The gruff man scoffed when his bubbly wife waved off his warning. Of course Hiyori was the strong, intelligent daughter of a doctor, who practiced cattle roping with her brother. She didn’t judge just based on one reputation, Hiyori had to see for herself. Especially with the reputation that particular cowboy had. No, if it weren’t for Yukine then Hiyori would have never hired him.

“Yukine!” Hiyori called when the boy in question walked in from the back. The young teen pulled off a black cutter that was too big for him, and revealed a puff of blonde hair. His hazel eyes popped up and he smiled at the sight of her.

“Hiyori!” He greeted, giving Daikoku the hammer and nails before heading to the bar. Yukine was one of the few people in this town Hiyori didn’t know since birth. Now, she didn’t know the whole story- the boy in question refusing to tell- but she did know the place he came from was not a very kind one. That, for one reason or another, the cowboy she hired to track her brother was the same one that saved Yukine from that place as a toddler. They traveled together since then, Yukine being dropped off at Kofuku’s place so the man could go on more dangerous jobs. Just like now. It was during those times, Hiyori had gotten to know the boy. Even early on, when Yukine would throw tantrums at being left behind or run away from strangers.

“He’s still not here yet?” Yukine sighed as he took a seat next to Hiyori. The boy gave a curtsey scan around the saloon, knowing the man’s figure too well to miss it.

“Sorry Yuki, he said more towards the sun down,” Kofuku reminded them of the last letter the messenger pigeon brought them. The blonde, becoming more and more like a teenager each day, scoffed and crossed his arms.

“Yeah, well, he better get here before Sheriff Bishamon gets back from her trip to the city. Otherwise he’ll just get chased out again.” Yukine soured at the thought, ready to hit the open road again. Hiyori knew a bit about how he felt. She’s felt the need to leave this dusty place, to hop on a horse and ride off into the sunset with nothing but your wit and a couple bullets at your side. But she could never do that to her parents, not like her brother did. Instead she lived through the stories Yukine brought back with him, after the cowboy in black strolled into Heaven like he owned it.

“How long is the sheriff gone for?” Hiyori asked. If the sheriff caught the man sneaking into town there would be a shotoff on sight.

“Oh who knows. I asked Uncle Ebi to keep her there for as long as possible so,” Kofuku shrugged, “I’m sure he’ll buy you two enough time to catch up.” The pink haired woman winked causing the two younger patrons to sputter with disgust.

“Don’t be gross! Hiyori could do so much better than that dusty rattlesnake!” Yukine hissed, insulting the one man he deemed as blood family. Still, the statement jolted something within Hiyori. A boxed up secret that’s been locked up tight since the man in question last rode out of town.

“Hey yeah! Our little Miss Hiyori still has a courtship with that gun dealer from the city,” Daikoku suddenly walked behind the bar, giving his wife a kiss on the head.

“Ukk! You mean Kouto? Hiyori, don’t tell me you’re still seeing that as-donkey,” Yukine quickly muffled his cursing, remembering he wasn’t out on the open road with a not-so-great role model. Daikoku raised a brow at the kid, muttering out a mental note to have a word with the kid’s kidnapper.

“I am not ‘seeing him,’ it is a one-sided courtship at best! One that I do not plan on pursuing,” Hiyori stood suddenly, face red enough to pass as sunburn, “so if you’ll excuse me. I’ll be back after dinner to see if-.” The young woman stopped short, half way from the bar to the door, when she realized the saloon had gone silent. Someone was approaching the planked doors, the sun casting a shadow across a smirk that could steal a golden fiddle from the devil. The room fell into hushed whispers as he pushed open the door and approached Hiyori with careless saunter. The various weapons and coins hidden among his long black coat clinked as his brown boots thudded against the squeaky floor. Since his hat was left in the care of a blonde boy, there was nothing obscuring his sharp gaze from meeting hers. The white ascot around his neck covered his grin to the others in the room, helping keep up with his dark and bloody reputation. If only they knew how sweet he really was.

“Hiyori,” his drawl was rough from breathing in nothing but hot desert dirt but she found his dust-smudged cheeks just as endearing. His blue eyes and smile didn’t waver from her, even as the men closest to him raised their hackles and fixed him with narrowed eyes. The cowboy stopped directly in front of her, much too close for an upper class employer and some hired vagabond. But despite the towns and names he’s buried six feet under, Hiyori met his eyes with a straight back and a confident smile.

“It’s nice to see you again, Yato.”

“A pleasure, Hiyori,” he chuckled. The two shared a moment for less than a second before a barstool behind Hiyori squeaked with movement.

“Finally! About time you got here!” Yukine said. Regardless, the kid was off his stool and across the floor in an instant, arms crossed and hat off, waiting for Yato to ruffle his hair. Which Yato did. Until he pulled the kid into a large hug, encasing the small boy in his leather coat with a happy laugh.

“There he is! My baby Yukine! Have you gotten smaller? Or bigger? Definitely bigger, look at those arms! Turnin into a big strong man now! Gone for a season and look at you! Did you keep my hat nice and safe like always?” Yato gushed.

“Blegh! You smell like horse shit and sweat! You disgusting loser! Get off me!” Yukine hollered, squirming out of Yato’s hold and shoving the man’s hat back in his arms. Yatolet the boy go, satisfied that the bar’s paterons went back to their drinking and card games. Hiyori could understand, having a cute child by his side made Yato look a little less like the hitman he once was. The boy stomped back to the bar, Yato smiling after him.

“Ya heading out?” Yato asked, placing his hat back at home on his head.

“Um nope! No,” Hiyori said. Yato’s smirk quirked back on and he nodded his head to the bar, pouting when Hiyori declined his offered arm.

“Oh Yatty! We missed you!” Kofukue leaned over the bar, her corset popping a string, as she pulled him into a hug.

“Hey Kofuku! Glad to be back,” Yato squeezed her, “thanks for watching the kid again.”

“Yeah, well, the kid’s welcome here anytime. You, on the other hand, got a long tab to pay.” Daikoku grumbled by the taps.

“It’d be easier if you just let me go with you,” Yukine said, haughtily. The kid watched the man that saved him take a heavy seat on the bar, removing his iconic twin shotguns from his shoulders and laying them on the wood. Hiyori took a seat on the other side of Yato, eyeing the long, silver double barrel guns. Her gaze tracing tiny flowers engraved on the metal. She knew without looking that the wooden butt of the guns had the names “Sekki” and “Setsu” carved into them when he was Yukine’s age. Of course, Daikoku’s rule about weapons on the bar went ignored as Yato gave Yukine a side eye from over his pint.

“Death Valley is called ‘the underworld’ for a reason, kiddo. It’s too risky for a youngin.” Yato said.

“I’m not a youngin! I’m fourteen!” Yukine spun on the stool, “and you were even younger when you started out.”

“Not by choice, Yukine.”

“Okay but I’m choosing to.” Yukine’s eyes narrowed even more when Yato just scoffed and took a large swig of cheap beer.

“Come on, Yato! You said it yourself, I’m turnin’ into a man now. I’ve been traveling with you for nearly a decade! I know how to shoot and lasso and care for horses and where to look for gold and know when it’s gonna rain! You taught me all of that and you always say when I’m older you would keep me with you all the time! On all your jobs, so why?” Yukine almost pleaded, frustrated. Hiyori bit her lip and looked from Yukine to Yato.

“Because I thought this one was going to be particularly dangerous. You know I don’t want you seeing that,” Yato finally said, setting his glass down with a clink, “besides, I was just going to poke around and gather information. If there was anything solid I’d come get you.”

“Is that right?” Yukine asked, unconvinced.

“‘Course. It’s not like you missed anything big. I just went around, did the normal askin, followed a couple hollow rumors, then came back. You would have been bored anyway. Why? You think I would lie about it?”

“Do I think you would? Yes. Cause you lie to make me feel better. You do it all the time.” There was a beat that no one commented on. Hiyori couldn’t bring herself to see Yato’s reaction to that attack on a very recent wound.

“Well that clearly isn't the case this time is it?” Yato said, then sighed and softened his tone, “there really was nothing Yukine but I just wanted to be sure. There’s no law in the underworld and I don’t want you anywhere near that place.” The man finally turned and fully faced the boy he claimed as his own. Yukine regarded Yato for a couple moments longer, just as water started to rise over his hazel irises. Suddenly and harshly, Yukine got off his seat.

“If you don’t trust me to have your back and you don’t want me around just say so. Stop coming back already.” Snarled Yukine. He left the saloon and Hiyori knew he would be heading to the Inn where one of the rooms was permanently his and Yato’s. Beside her, Yato chugged the rest of his beer then slammed it back on the counter with a sigh. Daikoku chided him and took it, wiping it clean with disdain.

“Don’t worry, Yatty. He’s at that age. Yuki didn’t mean it, he just missed you and rather go on your adventures than stay here,” Kofuku offered.

“That’s what he doesn’t get. They’re not adventures,” Yato scratched his neck, “I’m out of bullets.” The implication silenced the young women.

“Still, the boy’s right about one thing, he’s growin up. Can’t tell him what to do forever,” Daikoku eventually butted in, placing a new mug of beer in front of Yato.

“Watch me,” Yato pouted. That got a small giggle out of Hiyori which might have quirked the tip of Yato’s lip just a little. Kofuku and Daikoku hummed and shared a look. Eventually, Yato downed the rest of his drink before getting up.

“Hiiro is out back. Needs a bath,” Yato said.

“Pay for your beer.” Daikoku answered.

“Put it on my tab,” Yato knocked on the bar.

“Like hell-”

“Okie dokie, Yatty! See you at dinner!” Kofuku waved. Yato pointed at her with a finger gun, clicking as his thumb mimicked the hammer. He grabbed both gunstraps and lazily swung the weapons over one shoulder. Taking two steps, Yato looked over his shoulder, one blue eye meeting hers from under his hat.

“You comin?” Yato tilted his head. Despite the looks their friends gave her, a large smile grew on Hiyori’s face and she happily hopped off the stool.

“Yeah!” She followed the cowboy in grungy clothes out the bar and into the Inn. Since it was still late afternoon, the place was just about empty. The wooden rooms and wool sheets too hot on a summer day. Hiyori took a deep breath, feeling free from the stares of others in town with nothing to do but spread rumors. Still, she was very aware of the man standing behind her, always a bit too close, and she turned to face him. Hiyori would have to wait until later tonight to hear his tales. Yato was too good at telling stories and always insisted on drawing to go with it. Once Yukine finishes reading and goes to bed, Yato and the rest of the town congregate at The Lucky Lady for drinking, dancing, and music. It was then that Hiyori- and sometimes her teasing friends- would get Yato to herself.

“How are the folks?” Yato broke the silence.

“They’re okay. Since the water’s been going, my father’s been trying to find ways to give strong medicine that uses less water.”

“What a coincidence,” Yato hummed, “every lead I tried to follow on your brother ended up being about the water crisis.”

“You think he’s following the drought?” Hiyori asked, urgently.

“Couldn’t say. He’s never struck me as the heroic type, to go galavanting off and save the world; but it is suspicious. Unfortunately, once I got deep in the drought debacle his name would vanish,” Yato shrugged, “it’s all anyone’s talkin about.” At some point Yato’s shoulders slumped and Hiyori sighed. This was the fifth time Yato came back with dead ends. It wasn’t his fault. Not only was he right- in that her brother was known to ride by the seat of his pants- but the job required him to stay away for long periods of time. Tracking someone like that kept him away from Yukine and other people who missed him. Still, disappointment hung her head.

“I’m so sorry, Hiyori. I promise I’m going to keep looking.” Yato put a hand on her shoulder and Hiyori took it in both of hers.

“What about Yukine?”

“I don’t know. I’m gonna to take him this time around but- I just don’t know where this leads. And you know how he is. You’ve seen him loiter around the school house in the past. I just don’t think it’s good for him to be growin up on the run.” Yato mumbled. He twinded their fingers together and the box inside her jolted again, but settled when he did nothing more.

“Daikoku’s right, you know, every day it becomes more and more his decision.” Hiyori offered him a small smile. He blinked at her before the cocky smile Yato was known for grew across his lips. He brought their hands up and pressed a light kiss to the back of her glove.

“I’ve missed you, darlin’,” he said. The box inside her was getting harder to keep closed, memories of his previous visits flashing across Hiyori’s eyes. Really, she wondered if Daikoku knew she failed to heed his warning. It was no wonder people caught her staring at that horizon and sighing with longing.

“Yato,” Hiyori tried, pulling her hand slightly but not letting go. A look of hurt flashed across Yato’s face- so familiar to her own when she watched him leave and come back with new scars- and Hiyori almost wanted to hit him. But instead his eyes quickly darkened and he squeezed her hand.

“Don’t tell me you’re not a filly anymore? That gun smith with the cheap products gotcha or are your parents makin you drag your rope?”

“None of that!” Hiyori huffed. She took her hand back and turned around, arms crossed.

“Not that it has anything to do with anything! Since I hired you to find my brother while-”

“While you stay here and take his place and care for the family business and not go off with Kouto because that would be leaving ‘em behind,” Yato repeated, “come off it, Hiyori. Your parents are adults and you have your own life. Just admit you want to have your own adventure.”

“And where do you suppose I go? Just to wander around by myself? Or were you planning on taking me and not Yukine?” Hiyori whirled on him, tired of this do-si-do of a conversation.

“It’s too dangerous with me,” Yato said through grit teeth, hat tilted to cover his knitted brows.

“So what then? You’ll drop us off in random towns while you go back and forth?” Hiyori threw out without much of a bite. There was a moment of Yato staring at the floor and Hiyori rolled her eyes. Of course the fool of a man would think that was a good idea. She stepped back in front of him and reached under his hat to pinch his cheek.

“Ow!” Yato flinched away. He rubbed his cheek like some little kid who got a light smack and Hiyori snorted. How did she once fear him? His pout was back but not for long, blue eyes softening at her laughter.

“I just want you to be happy. You only get one life you know,” Yato said, hand dropping from his cheek.

“And I’ll decide what I want to do with it. Just like Yukine.” Hiyori’s reminder quieted the cowboy down.

“I just don’t want to drag him into another one of my mistakes. He deserves better.” Yato said. Hiyori frowned, reminded of Yukine’s earlier comment.

“He doesn’t blame you.” She offered. About ten years ago, when Yato traveled with a group of bandits who’s name struck fear into the hearts of all who heard it, they rode into Yukine’s place of birth. Hiyori had met Yukine, seeing Yato in passing now and again, she came to understand Yukine’s memory of that night was hazy at best. That was until a year ago, Yato first took off to find Hiyori’s brother, and the boy’s memories resurfaced. He confronted Yato, learning the fate of his birth town.

“I know he doesn’t blame me but you saw how he was. How he gets when I pull the trigger. I worry he’ll grow to resent me.” Yato sighed, “you know, I remember that night like it was yesterday. I was young and he was so tiny, the town was burnin down all around us, his loved ones were bloody behind ‘im. Just as I turned Hiiro around to run, he ran after me with his little arms up. I scooped Yukine up without thinkin and took off in the opposite direction of the group.

“I don’t know how but Hiiro and I managed to run for an entire night and I didn’t put him down for one second. It wasn’t until Hiiro finally bucked us off that I realized he hadn’t moved. I- haha- I actually thought he was dead and I had been carryin’ ‘round a corpse. But when I looked down, his head buried in my chest, he peaked up at me with big doe eyes. No tears, no fear. We passed out right there in the dirt. I thought he’d be okay but he didn’t speak at all. I was gonna drop him off at the next town but I just-. He wouldn’t talk- barely looked at me- but was stuck to my side like he was made of molasse or somethin’.” Yato was staring off into the distance, not realizing he was still talking. Hiyori watched and listened quietly, as she often did. Something must have happened in the underworld and she wanted to let him cope. Twelve people was twelve too many for a kind man like him.

“The little bastard grew on me. Starin at me while I babbled, sleepin on my tummy, clutchin my coat and tuggin to sit up front. Honestly, when I stretched, he stretched, I pissed, he pissed, I cleaned my guns, he’d use a stick, when I held onto the reins, he’d grabbed ‘em too,” Yato sighed again, voice wavering, “But he was so nervous around me, jumpy. Always looked at me to make sure he could move even an inch- wouldn’t even eat until I told him to. He deserved better. I figured Kofuku and Daikoku would want him to raise as their own. When I got here and I thought he was comfortable enough, I mounted to get ready to go but he came running out crying. Sobbing even. His arms up at me. That was- that was the first time I heard him speak. He said ‘don’t leave!’ And I just couldn’t. Sure I stayed for a year or so but I couldn’t keep out of work that long. And he used to be okay- happy even- when I’d give ‘im my ascot or hat to keep safe till I came back.” Yato’s eyes were covered but his lip trembled before he bit it, trying to control his breathing.

Yukine’s recent confrontation about that day- the accusations and disappointment Yukine regretted saying- scratched every wound of guilt Yato felt. It was hard to smile for a child that looked up to you while you blamed yourself for his circumstances. It was even harder to keep leaving. They did make up, as they always did, but it had been a painful experience that Yato still hasn’t forgiven himself for; no matter how much Yukine reassured him.

“Yukine remembers everything and still choose you. He looks up to you, Yato, and loves you just as much. Yukine’s not going to suddenly regret everything and leave,” Hiyori put a hand on his chest, “and neither will I.”

“I don’t know about the ‘look up to’ part but uh,” Yato swallowed thickly around a wobbling smile.

“It’s true, I can tell,” Hiyori leaned in to whisper, “you know he calls you his dad when he talks about you.”

“He does not!” Yato gasped.

“We promised not to say anything.”

“Uh-huh,” Yato looked down quickly then back, “and what do you call me when I’m gone.”

“Saddle Bum,” Hiyori stated.

“Yeah,” Yato sighed, “you got me there.” He huffed out a laugh which only got stronger the more they looked at each other.

“We should probably get Yukine,” Hiyori suggested.

“You’re right,” Yato said, “as usual. Bested again by Miss Iki. Just can’t argue with you, the lush oasis saving me from my weary travels.” They made their way up the stairs and down the hall of bedrooms.

“That’s right, you can’t. So stop trying.” Hiyor playfully huffed.

“Yes ma’am,” Yato swooned. Turns out Yukine wasn’t in their room and instead was around the back of the saloon to tend to Hiiro. By the time the two moseyed around the two buildings, Yukine had washed down the horse- the mare really loved water- and was cleaning her hooves. Hiiro was a short, exceedingly loyal, black horse who hated when her mane got too long and had the most fickle personality even with people she liked. Her ears twitched as her rider walked towards them, shifting back and forth, as Yukine leaned against her hindquarters and scrapped at her back hoof.

“You were right, you really do have the hang of that,” Yato whistled. Running his hand along her clean hair. She snapped at Yato but nickered when Hiyori patted her pink nose.

“She doesn't like it when you do it,” Yukine shot after a couple beats.

“Of course she does,” Yato said, skirting around the horse. Hiyori chose to stay by Hiiro’s front, watching Yukine give Yato a quick glare over his shoulder.

“So, when are you leaving?” Yukine growled. Hiyori tried not to suck in air too loudly as Yato’s wide eyes flickered to hers then back.

“N-not for a while. Gotta go over the clues and make a more solid plan,” Yato’s boot kicked the dirt, “I’m gonna need your help with that. Like always,” he tried. Yukine was not impressed, hardly sparing Yato a scoff.

“Why bother? It’s clear you don’t trust me to watch your back.” The blonde muttered. Finally, Yato’s hands fell out of his pockets and his attitude grew into something more serious.

“What gave you that idea?” Yato followed the kid around to the other hoof, brows knitted. This time, Yato was ignored and the cowboy tapped the kid with his boot.

“Yato,” Hiyori warned under her breath.

“Hey,” Yato tapped Yukine’s side again, “would I have given you twin pistols if I didn’t trust you with them behind my back?” The tip of his boot nudged one of the revolvers at Yukine’s hip, silver twins just like Yato’s, named “Blessed” and “Burial.” That got the teen to look up at Yato, frown still in place.

“No,” Yukine mumbled.

“And you know why? Cause you only give-”

“Cause you only give weapons to those who have your back and disarm those who don’t, I know,” Yukine parroted.

“I need to get more phrases,” Yato muttered as he scratched his head.

“But giving weapons is not the same! I want to be with you! I want to do all the same things you do, by your side! I mean I’m supposed to be your-!” Yukine bit his lip and quickly refocused on Hiiro’s hoove. Yato’s eye brows rose to his hat for a moment before a grim expression took root.

“I killed twelve people in the last four months,” Yato stated. There was a beat of silence as the wind pushed a tumbleweed across the ground. Yukine tried to hide the shock- the horror- that shot across his face, but Yato caught every inch of it.

“So what?” Yukine spat weakly, “you act like I’ve never seen someone die.”

“I don’t want you to see anymore.”

“Well that isn’t your choice is it? Or do you not want me to be like you that badly? I was there too, you know.” Yukine finally snapped, whipping around to glare at Yato. There were tears in his eyes, boiling with frustration, but no one commented on it. Yato couldn’t think of anything to say and Hiyori clenched Hiiro’s reins. The mare was getting restless with her rider’s change in attitude.

“I know you were there and I’m sorry,” Yato confessed, “I’m not anyone you should strive to be. You don’t have to be anything for me, you don’t owe me nutin.” He kicked at the ground again and Hiyori wanted to roll her eyes. Honestly, such a fool of a man.

“I know that,” Yukine muttered too, now just as embarrassed, “I’m not trying to owe you. I just think-” the boy’s face rose in temperature and neither man could look at each other or address their feelings. Eventually Yato let out a huge sigh mixed with a groan.

“Well, everyone’s telling me what a man you are now and that I gotta let you make your own decisions. Can’t keep you caged forever or that won’t protect you in the long run,” Yato finally relented.

“So I can come? With you?” Yukine sprang to his feet, “and you’ll stop dropping me off here? I can be with you for every job?” Fists balled Yukine stood on the tips of his matching boots to stare wide eyed at Yato. The man blinked again, something fragile crossing his eyes before he smiled.

“Suppose so. Unless you want to come back, which you can any time,” Yato said.

“Yes!” Yukine suddenly remembered he was supposed to be an adult and straightened out, “and you promise this time? No tricks? No lies? No gimmicks?” He pointed up at Yato who finally snorted out a laugh.

“Nothin of the sort, o partner o’ mine,” Yato held up a hand, “honest.”

“Both hands,” Yukine narrowed his eyes. With a scoff Yato held up both hands like he was at gunpoint.

“I swear it,” Yato vowed, “on my only son.”  Finally the dam broke and Yukine went back to his beaming smile.

“Yes!” Yukine pulled at his own ascot, “I won’t let you down! I promise!” The boy crouched to gather his materials only for Yato to crouch with him.

“I know you won’t, you’re my kid after all,” Yato took off his hat and put it on Yukine’s head, smushing it down with a laugh, “and I’m mighty proud of ya.” The two boys shared a laugh and Hiyori finally turned and gave them their space.

“But chu-know, we gotta get you your own hat. The tips of my ears are all crusty,” Yato gripped.

“Just get a different hat!”

“It’s my hat!”

“Then don’t leave for so long!”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just get your own hat.”

“I had one! Before you made me drop it in the river!”

“Oh I made you, yeah okay, and who made you that hat in the first place?”

“Well you should-” Yukine continued to argue, back with his old spunk. Hopefully they would get to spend some time together before she watched the two of them leave this place behind. That painful tug in her chest was getting harder to ignore.

Until a gunshot sounded across the desert and embedded itself in the dirt. Hiiro reared into the air, letting out a cry of alarm as Yato and Yukine readied their arms. Hiyori immediately ran to the back of the buildings and hid behind a small pile of crates. While shoot outs didn’t happen as often as they did in other towns, they were enough for her to know what to do. A tall figure stepped gracefully off of a blonde, raggedy stallion, high heel boots crusting the dirt beneath. Another couple figures in matching law uniforms dismounted but didn’t ready their weapons. Instead they eyed the standoff with wariness and annoyance. Hiyori sighed and stepped out from her hiding spot but stayed several feet away. Bent at Yato’s side, Yukine stood but kept one gun pointed, sharing a nod to the deputy sheriff across the way, who did the same. Meanwhile, Yato’s smile shifted to a dangerous grin which was replied with a snarl.

“Skank.” Yato greeted Sheriff Bishamon.

“Vermin.” The blonde growled in return. Deputy Kazuma tried to calm her, reminding her that Yato’s previous transgressions have been pardoned and he has yet to cause another. But his pleas went unheard. The two took slow steps forward, guns steadily aimed right between the eyes.

“You got nerve showin’ your face in my town,” Bishamon said.

“Why’s that? Don’t tell me it’s not big enough?” Yato joked. This didn’t go over well, the woman took a shot in front of Yato’s feet. The man yelled some sort of curse as he stumbled back, pushing Yukine behind him despite the kid’s protests. Yato’s gun remained pointed, trained by experience. Though the cowboy was clearly at a disadvantage, the sheriff having two bands of bullets criss-crossing over her chest.

“Come on, I’m just here for some good drinks, a fun time at Kofuku’s,” Yato said, “besides, shouldn’t you be on vacation? Aren’t you back a little early?” The man took another step. Hiyori’s fists tightened as she saw the hand signals Yato was giving Yukine from behind his back.

“That deviersion you had Miss Kofuku do? To have me run to her uncle while you tried to sneak around in my town? Not a chance.” Her eyes hardened but Deputy Kazuma already had a hand on her gun. It wasn’t until Yato’s eyes slid to meet Hiyori’s- the question clear in his expression- that the box from deep within shook and burst open. The confirmation she gave was with the tiniest of nods and their eye contact was over just as fast as it started. In an instant the situation changed; Yukine had mounted Hiiro who rose to her hindlegs with a loud cry and soon Yato was up too, shooting at the law’s horses to scare them. While Bishamon was distracted, Yato took the reins from Yukine and drove Hiiro towards the young lady.

“Wha-? What are you doing? You idiot!” Yukine was already turned around, guns pointed behind them, watching Yato’s back. The kid went ignored, Yato had his eyes trained on Hiyori’s, intense stare eclipsing his grin.

“Come on!” Yato held out his hand. Hiyori moved without another thought, grabbing his hand and letting herself be yanked on the thundering black stead. Her body fell roughly across the blackened cowboy.

“Wait!” Hiyori cried as they dashed around the corner and down the main road, “what about our-? My things?” Her concerns were covered by wisps of her hair and Hiyori had to brush them aside to see Yato throw his head back and laugh.

“Relax! We’re just taking a stroll until the armadillo-woman cools off,” Yato looked down at her and winked, “we haven’t danced at Kofuku’s yet right?”

“Gross! Stop being such a creepy old man! You’re lucky Daikoku even lets you back into that bar!” Yukine yelled at them. Yato’s laughter was contagious and soon it spread to Hiyori, the young woman clinging to the cowboy as he took her on an adventure.

[frstbiitten]

cw: death mention, funeral, homophobia mention.

Neither a single drop of rain fell from the sky, Frost could only think about how unfair it was that the sky wasn't crying, just miserable clouds is all that they got that day. Everyone who assisted in the ceremony was dressed in black, all of these people she didn't know about except for Kit and Violet, Frost preferred to keep her distance from them deal with her own mourning process, it seemed more appropriate for her. Around 30 people attended the funeral, there were more than what she had imagined, but neither of these people seemed to have some reminiscence with Jasper, her family wasn't here.

Heard some quiet prayers from the priestess, her face covered by a black veil, violet flowers adorned her wrists and rings of silver surrounding her boney fingers, she didn't seem to be real or from this world. Her attire was so odd to the sights, with layers and layers of vaporous cloth that formed a dress. She threw salt and petals of roses onto the coffin, Frost has never assisted to a funeral before, were they all like this? Never had the curiosity enough to know more about this kind of ceremony, even if death has been part of her life, so present and yet she never imagined how painful it was the echo of someone's existence in others.

To see the coffin descend was somehow perplexing, inside of it the pale and lifeless body of Jasper laid in until the end of time, seemed so unreal that she was no longer by her side, wouldn't she have to be accustomed to this already? The feeling was overwhelming in all the senses, didn't stop hearing the quiet lamentations of sadness in those who were close to the deceased woman. it was denying  The tears, was denying the tremor of his fingers, the cold that ran by his arms, followed like this until the earth had covered the coffin completely, the priest gave by finished the ceremony.

Frost didn't pretend to remain in the cemetery for too long, needed space to think, left the others to continue with their mourning she needed her own process to go on. It was impossible not to feel uncomfortable by the statues and the marble, the symbols and the birds, especially the pigeons and the ravens that lived in that depressing environment. The cold air, although it didn't affect her in the slightest, it played with the long locks of white hair, it's better to focus on a silly movement from nature right now. She listened to the shy steps come from backward approaching little by little, Frost turned around and saw Violet coming closer with the arms across her chest, hiding her hands under the armpits, had dark glasses on and an elegant black suit, however, the elegance didn't fit with how she truly felt

"It didn't want to bother you Frost but I needed to be away from all of that for a moment." Violet removed her glasses with trembling fingers, her eyes were reddened from the tears, her difficulty to breathe because of the imminent hollow in her chest was too obvious to ignore.

"I understand you, I didn't wish to bother you or Kit there, I just... feel guilty for what happened." She wished to avoid the brief memory of those seconds in which Jasper abandoned this world, the sole memory was accompanied by a wave of nausea and hatred towards herself. Would never get used to the invisible shadow of death, although it already was something common for Frost.

"No, no, it wasn't your fault, trust me... It wasn't the fault of anybody." She laid her hands on of the shoulders of the cryomancer, forgot sometimes how cold she could be to the touch. "One forgets that nobody is durable and we all have to abandon this planet... But jeez, it hurts, Jasper was a woman like no other."

There were some trees not so far away from them, they decided to walk to one of them and sit on the grass, for Violet the floor was a little bit cold but not uncomfortable, for Frost only the last thing mattered. Both laid on the thick and old trunk, noticed in the cracks how ancient the tree was, although by the appearance it didn't seem so old

"I wish I knew her better, was nothing but kind to me, and helped me more than I thought." Frost mentioned while her fingers tangled between the locks of her hair, somehow it was reassuring to know that the blue had gone forever by now.

"Believe me, I liked her, she was one of a kind of woman, but she explained to me once, around the time we met I believe, she had started working as a stripper when her dream to study in a university seemed impossible, having an abusive father didn't help either... Jasper's family was trash, I can tell you that, any member wasn't especially brilliant, much less good, however, she was an exception." When finishing, Violet took some dead fallen leaves from the tree, stroked them as if they were still alive, almost didn't want to look back at Frost, or the sky either.

"You never told me about your past." It was almost a suggestion to help her forget Jasper, although if those were some mere seconds.

"Oh well, let's get started with this." Violet threw the leaves away and sighed, didn't know how she could sum up everything in simple words. "Back in the days, my mother took the awful decision to be with my father, I arrived into their lives at a moment in which everything was crumbling down for them, and both started to blame me for their disgraces at an early age." She breathed deeply before continuing. "It is a bad idea to be like I am with parents like those, back then, when I was a teenager I realized I was a lesbian, something that tried to keep a secret with my first girlfriend when we were 16, sadly, you can imagine you what happened afterward." No, Frost didn't have an idea of what could happen, was it something like that supposed to be penalized?. "My parents caught us, threatened my girlfriend so she would never come back, and gave me 1 hour to take my things and leave. Those weren't easy years, you also come from a harsh background, you know how the world of the outcasts is: you die or you adapt. Some years passed,  did my best to be somebody, as you could say, adaptable to the other people, but I was completely homeless, didn't have anywhere to go besides the spots I knew were mildly safe, there were days however my luck was against me. Time passed, but I found this work a little better than begging in the streets, but I cannot bear sometimes that they touch me even if my only job is being a dancer, some don't have a problem with this but Jasper was the one who has seen me dealing with difficult moments behind the stage... Sometimes they were too much for me, and she was there with Kit..."

Frost couldn't feel the same harsh emotions as Violet at that very moment, maybe if she had known Jasper that much she would have left a deeper print in her soul. But Violet was a different story, her mourning process will take months, years maybe and less than 5 in the best case, she carries grief in her heart as well, a type of grief so difficult to let go of. She began to cry without fear of doing it for a while, embraced her legs, and hid between her arms, those were authentic tears that something was being missed and it will never return to Violet's life. Frost was unsure about what to do in that place, could even confess that she has forgotten what crying feels like, leave that those emotions emerge and burst into tears. Did she even cry when her mother died? Could hardly remember what it was like, but leaving that moment in oblivion was the best for now. Her cold hand touched Violet's shoulder, it was impossible to ignore the bursting tears from her brown eyes embraced with red veins. Although Frost had no idea what to say or do in this situation, could only allow Violet to pull her into a tight embrace, ignoring how cold the cryomancer was, even if they were simple acquaintances, for Violet it was enough.

The time moved slower than usual, Frost didn't have any intention to leave so soon, even after Violet had left her alone after some minutes of silence, her behavior was comprehensible. Whereas Kit and those who have been invited have left long ago, Frost preferred not to following them, her place is not with them.

Remembered that day in which both visited one of the temples of the Elder Gods, and during the rest of the day, Jasper shifted into a strange behavior for some who's more talkative. Something inside the cubicle had a certain effect on her, a premonition of her death perhaps? The curiosity grew more with each second. Would allow this idea to be done. The temple was not so far from the cemetery,  some meters to the North direction, and could arrive there without problems, but the sky was starting to look greyer than before. The temple seemed more immense than a few days ago, the energy emanating from the structure overwhelmed her, however, it seemed so familiar to when she was younger, more naive, and in search of answers, until today the gods are in debt, and today more than ever. 

It didn't surprise her upon noticing the emptiness of it, the light that reflected a pale rainbow on the statues, the water that ran by the stones in the wall behind the altar was a simple whisper, the almost dreamlike scent of the incense couldn't catch Frost's attention, the wooden cubicle was what matters the most right now. She knocked on the door 3 times, didn't listen to anybody say "Pass", the door itself opened. There was a wooden seat inside, didn't need another sign to sit on it, once she was comfortable inside, the door closed automatically, leaving her in totally to dark.

"Who is the one who urges the answers of the ElderGods?" 

Heard the sputtering of a match provoking sparks, a light burst in the shadows from a candle and by the fault of a wooden panel with holes in the shape of pentagons. The voice was calm but at the same time made Frost feel defenseless in front of that presence, she almost jumps off the seat by that sudden voice.

"F-Frost..."

"That is not your name."

"That's... That's my name."

"It is not ... Which is your true name?"

The flame of the candle didn't allow her to see the one who or what was behind the panel but instead could smell this aroma of jasmines and poppies, could only listen to the voice until those two eyes hid behind a veil observed directly at her. It was the pressure on her shoulders the one that was suffocating her lungs.

"No... I don't have a name."

The girl had her good reasons to not say her real name aloud, the presence of that woman accepted the insistence to keep the anonymity. Hor old hands adorned by bracelets of pearls and malachite appeared from a hole in the panel that allowed her to interact with the consultant, she was asking for her hand. Frost Did not have an alternative but to laid her hand upwards over the priestess's palm, she knows this, she has done it before.

"I know who you are, you are the girl of ice." That affirmation was precise. "It has been a while since you abandoned the Elder Gods." Frost had very clear that the situation was on the other way, the gods were deaf to her prayers, was there a good reason to go back? "We thought you perished."

"Obviously, I'm still alive, a miracle don't you think?”

No answer to this comment.

The priestess took a spherical stone with wavy white and green lines in its majority and let it sit on Frost's palm, listened to the deep breaths of the woman whereas she noticed that the sphere began to move on its axis little by little. Frost observed the movement become more obvious with each breath, the lines of the stone disappeared due to the speed it began to spin, her hand began to weigh more than it should although it was supported by the priestess. Tried to keep calm but the weight increased with each second, it became torture to keep her hand in place and with the fingers open. In a desperate attempt for making the pain stop, her hand closed abruptly, freezing the sphere of malachite before it could crush her bones. When opening her fingers, the stone was wrapped in ice.

"I'm sorry."

"Fear is natural, child."

She gave her back the stone but the priestess didn't want to let go of Frost's hand, not yet.

"Who are you looking for?"

"I seriously can't tell you that."

"Yes, you can tell me."

Hiding this information to a lady with psychic powers wasn't going to be helpful.

"I am looking for a betrayer... It's already been more than a month or two, I no longer can remember it well when it all started, but I simply can't find him... And others around me are paying for this."

There was a spectral silence from the priestess, left Frost's hand in peace and retrieved the sphere for herself, her hands returning to her lap.

"I know this."

"It doesn't surprise me."

"And where do you think that he could be right now."

Didn't have an answer to this question, knew that Lewis has been keeping an eye on her, the more danger she has been exposed, the closer she's been to find it, or at least is what she believes. An idiot like him hiding in the shadows from a girl, but he was hiding too from what he created with his manipulation and poor plans.

"I have no idea." Her head moved to the sides as well, nothing came to her mind.

"Maybe you should be careful to look in for the details the next time you visit his place."

"... Excuse me?"

" You have a problem with your left eardrum too."

It was like playing a game of pulling the rope, but without the entertainment that comes with the excitement.

"Your intuition is failing you and so is doing your hearing, breaking apart with the days, one day will be your ego, another day your bones, and your nose and the sense that comes with it. Your death will not be peaceful, but will not be today, neither this year, and neither the following. There are so many challenges and changes ahead of you, I can see it, but if you want to know where is the one you are looking for, he hasn't left his cave yet."

Each word that went out of the mouth of the priest left Frost exalted but fueled her with anger, almost like receiving several slaps on her face without even knowing the reason behind it. Left her hands to rest on her lap, still feeling the pressure of the sphere on her palm, the thumb of her other hand pressed the skin and massaged it in circles where she felt the energy push it downwards. What more mattered to her was the place where Lewis could be. So he never left his cave after all this time? It wasn't a code that needed to be studied, he has been controlling her footsteps and making her walk in circles.

"... Thank you..." A simple thank you was enough.

She abandoned the cubicle and decided that it was more than an ideal evening to visit Lewis' apartment, it would take her some hours and some mental preparation, but what has to be done, needed to be done today.

[whats-the-story-tc]

31st of January, 2020

"The One Where Atlas Stumbles"

[LONG POST WARNING]

Another day, another flannel.

Dreaming with her the second night in a row, I really bloody hoped they hadn't changed the supervising schedule and I'd see her when I come in. And I did. What with my impending two-hour rehearsal instead of my first two classes, Debate Friend and Art Friend being outside and just plainly the sight of V, I was way too giddy. Teasing Debate Friend about me and Art Friend not having to suffer in Physics, making jokes, laughing way too loud. I noticed V turning in our direction, I think I might even have seen her watching us.

As we leave, Debate Friend to class and us to look for the always late A, we pass V and I flash her my biggest smile to greet her. Art Friend and I are back soon enough, chatting, and I tell her "Something always happens when I'm having a good morning." This time it's V passing us. There is something gentle about the way she looks at me. You know that particular look on someone's face when they aren't smiling, but they still look happy? Content is the word for it, maybe. That's the look. Oh, how I wish I wasn't right about what I said...

Break between rehearsals, I'm outside chatting to my friends, most of them about to have class with the new (foreign) English teacher. Bookworm Friend is gushing, what if he's young and just out of college (either of which he isn't), cuz then she's gonna be really good at English. I automatically tell her "he's a whole ass adult and you're a minor, you can't do that" before I realise what I just said basically contradicts what I call my current love life. "Though I am one to speak" I add frowning, and everyone laughs. I really am a bloody clown, aren't I?

English with V, in the very same classroom where I spent two hours crossing my arms, yelling at and threatening one of the boys in my year (that's my character, don't be scared), and falling on my knees over and over again until we got the scene right. V is quite visibly a little worn down, still in the process of finishing what I assume was probably coffee, but powering through class. Metaphors, synesthesia, symbols and the such, what they are and how they work grammatically. After spending two hours the previous night deciphering Biblical parables and breaking them down to metaphors and meanings for a test we didn't even write, I felt ready.

Cynical Twat has his finger bandaged, I think he cut it or something, and thus he can't write. V asks him about it, and when he tells her all that, she's just like "Well, I was never allowed [not to write]." in this half surprised, half jealous kind of way.

The words for pigeon and dove are interchangeable in my mother tounge, as the actual word for dove is quite outdated. And although the metaphor was about a dove, V specified "When we call someone a pigeon, we don't mean that they smell and spread diseases." At the end of class, when somebody asked her how specific we will need to get about recognising these things in writing, she mentioned we will need to know which example is a metaphor or which one is, for example, a symbol, and added "but you will only need to know the exact subtype if you're preparing for an A level", and briefly glanced straight at me before taking a sip of her coffee. I smiled. Challenge accepted.

First lunch break, two people from the other class are rushing towards me the moment they see me, to ask for my Literature textbook. V told them if anyone doesn't have theirs, they're going to have to answer some questions for a grade. Me being me, I gave it to them because, as I told Pocketwatch Friend, "I love V to bits, but I wouldn't want anyone having to answer the questions she asks." Got my book back the next lunch break, as they forgot everyone's having homeroom, and getting their first term report cards.

V and I have a bit of a similar way of walking—long and fast strides, shoulders straight, head held high—so it was a bit funny, both of us heading towards the same door from opposite ends of the corridor. (Though I only really walk like this when I'm confident in myself. It's funny, apparently I do it often enough for it to be noticeable, cuz admittedly, V recognises this walk of mine. It's something she told me at the end of last year, when she mistook someone on the street for me, but realised our hairs were different and that I walk differently.)

As I'm sat in my usual place, head on Pocketwatch Friend's shoulder as I was really tired, I notice that there is something off about V as she's typing away on her laptop. I couldn't exactly pinpoint what, but I felt that something wasn't quite right. The feeling further strengthened when she started the lesson, and I saw her eyes. They looked years older than they did merely three hours before. There was this... deep-rooted exhaustion and sorrow in them, and at first glance, I thought she had cried. She did smile a couple times as far as I remember, and by the end of the lesson, when she showed us some romanticism-period music and art, and we all cracked up on how the cable connecting our projector to her laptop constantly malfunctioned and kept colouring everything to pink, she seemed to be in a lot better mood. That's something I noticed about her in the past two months or so, that she's usually a bit off when she starts class with us, but by the end of it, she's much more calm and feeling better. Not to brag, but I think she likes being with us.

On my way out, as she was telling everyone to put their chairs up, I told her to get some rest as I passed her. She usually doesn't hear these kind of comments because she doesn't want to, but I tried. But, while her "thanks" was probably addressed to the others, she did look me in the eye as she was walking out, me already being outside. There is something gentle about the way she looks at me. Maybe she did hear it, after all. Maybe she was glad. These looks of hers are the reason I never know for sure how she feels about me. That's the one thing I never learned how to read about her.

After I spent an hour and half with six little girls clinging to me every other minute of training, I went home feeling great. That's how I know I'm doing my job well. My boys aren't quite so physical, naturally, but I like to think they like me, too. They laugh at my jokes. Anyway, I was in a good mood, ready for dinner, having a good time... then I get a text from Bandana Friend, saying "Look at V's [SNS account]."

Private account.

I immediately got dead scared. What if she found out I was there? What if she saw? Oh God, what if I fucked up? I immediately lost my appetite, and I was in a rather intense state of fear and panic, not at all able to think the situation through rationally and spamming both Bandana and Pocketwatch Friend about the situation. Now, I am aware that I overreacted quite a bit, to the point of nearly crying, and that the situation is nearly not as dramatic as I thought, but I really felt like I betrayed her and invaded her privacy, which, especially after all the shit she's done for me, felt like quite the dick move.

Why was her account public before if she didn't want anyone finding her, you may ask. I actually haven't got an exact answer for that. The best I can say is that—she's human. She made a mistake, and I trust her enough to feel that she did. She was careless, but I'm in no position to throw the first stone at her. After all, I was, too.

For long hours after that, I felt hollow. Disappointed in myself. I could only cry later as well, once my mum was gone. Quite tragic, that. One Friday I'm crying in her arms, the next I'm crying because of her. This is why it took me so long to sit down and tell you this, even just writing all this took me 4 whole ass hours. As I thought it over and over again, I realised V isn't someone I should be fearing. That if she ever confronted me about it and I admitted to it, she would be hurt, but she'd understand. She wouldn't hold a grudge, and I could surely make it right by her, were that the case.

But both my friends offered an explanation that made even more sense. After all, it was my cousin from the other class who found it, and surely all of his classmates know. My friends both said that maybe someone over there let the cat out of the bag—honestly, some people there are the type. If you read things back, the fact that she had class with them between our two classes with her, and that she started class with us really disoriented and worn quite add up. I don't think I'll ever know if she saw I was there. I don't think she'll ever mention it. I still feel a little guilty, and something tells me all this isn't quite over yet, not until I see her again and see how she acts. But spending an hour last night, jumping around barefoot in my PJs while listening to Queen and Abba and lip-synching into my phone worked wonders to get the depression out. You should try it.

We'll see how things go. Maybe I screwed up, maybe we both did, maybe neither of us has. Whatever happens, I'll tell you next time. Promise I'll be on time from now on.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]

[lostinfic]

6. Boston, Fall

Summary: He’s photographed devastated war zones, refugee camps and child soldiers. She writes for magazines about luxurious resorts in exotic places and five-star hotels in glamorous cities. For both of them travel is an escape, but he’s had enough of this grim reality, and she’s had enough of this disconnected fantasy. Perhaps together they can find something in between, something real, and stop running from themselves. Each season, a new destination and a chance to grow closer.

Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter Rating: Mature~ish (for now) Word count: 5k

A/N: Many thanks to those who commented on the chapter addition I posted this week, it felt really good to see people still interested in this story despite my absence. You’re the best!

Tumblr  |  Ao3

He couldn’t believe he was doing this again: waiting for her, unannounced, in front of the cruise terminal. In Boston, today. But it was different because she’d gone to his exhibition in New York and wrote a message in the guestbook, and that knowledge emboldened him.

He zipped his North Face jacket up to his chin against the cold sea breeze. And waited.

Finally she came out, leather jacket, pink travel mug and hair in lazy curls.

“Baxter,” he shouted, his voice betrayed his excitement, and he immediately buried his hands in his pockets, affecting a casual air. With a head tilt, he beckoned her closer.

Her eyes widened at the sight of him then narrowed to a furrowed brow. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t look as happy to see him as he’d hoped. His stomach clenched.

“I hitched a ride with a mate,” he said.

“To come see me?”

“Nah, I’m a Red Sox fan.”

Sarcasm to muffle his beating heart.

A small smile appeared on her red lips which she hid behind her thick tartan scarf.

“Miss Baxter!” An Asian man jogged up to them. In his white and aqua tracksuit, the cruise line colors, he looked like a figure skater. The too-wide smile and forced eye contact betrayed his marketing position even before Hannah introduced him.

“Jeffrey Allen, the marketing liaison on board. And this is my— photographer, Alec Hardy.”

“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Hardy.” Jeffrey shook his hand with too much enthusiasm. “Now, Miss Baxter, Mr. Hardy, Festival Cruises is happy to provide its esteemed guests with complimentary shuttles to the heart of historical Boston. You will be boarding one, yes?”

“Actually, we—” Hannah began, but Jeffrey pushed her towards a big charter bus. With mild panic in her eyes, Hannah grabbed Hardy’s sleeve and tugged him along.

He followed her to the very back of the bus. She slouched down, pressing her knees against the seat in front of her. She apologized for yawning, she hadn’t slept well.

“Sea sick?”

She shrugged. “How did you know I was here?”

“Your whole life’s online.”

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet?”

“That’s right, you didn’t post about seeing my expo yesterday. Not good enough for you?”

She toyed with the lid of her travel mug, twisting it left and right, then taking a sip.

“So you saw my message in the guestbook.”

“I did.”

“There was a photo of me in your exhibition.”

She sought his gaze. She wanted him to say more about the photo. One photo out of fifty. Aesthetically pleasing. That’s all. Or so he tried to convince himself. Her eyes mirrored his own anxious expectations. He wished she’d say more about his exhibition. What did she think? Why did she feel shaken?

She looked away first, bit the corner of her thumb nail. She flipped back to teasing.

“Besides, you need to pay if you want exposure on my blog.” She bumped him lightly with her shoulder.

He had this feeling again, of something on the tip of his tongue, something about her that escaped him every time.

Jeffrey came on the bus too, and they both groaned at the sight of him.

Yesterday, she’d skipped a special shore excursion to visit the World Press Photo event, she suspected Jeffrey would try to oversee her work today.

The man sat beside her across the aisle and monopolized her attention with talks of museum discounts. She listened with a tight, polite smile.

Hardy observed the other passengers, most of them silver-haired, carrying canes and walkers. It wasn’t adding up. He and Hannah may be very different types of travelers, but from her articles, he’d gotten the impression they both preferred to avoid the main tourist attractions to experience local culture. She ate street food, talked to people, danced to their music. This didn’t seem like her no matter how much they paid. But then again, he shouldn’t believe everything he reads online.

“Didn’t think you were the senior cruise type,” Hardy said, interrupting Jeffrey.

“I’m looking for a husband,” she joked.

“Preferably one on the brink of death?”

“And who loves to travel.”

She grinned, and his stomach unknotted.

“Well actually,” Jeffrey began, unprompted and unwelcome, “the average age of cruise passengers is lower than you would think.” He lectured them on the advantages of sea travel for the whole family.

Hardy rolled his eyes.

“I like to think of it as sampling the best of each port of call,” Hannah summed up.

“While dumping a ton of waste in the harbor,” Hardy said.

Jeffrey squinted his eyes at him. “You’re not one of our esteemed guests,” he realized.

He would have thrown Hardy off the bus if it weren’t on the highway. Hardy couldn’t care less, but Hannah’s glare stopped a lecture of his own.

“Don’t make me lose this job too,” she whispered to him.

Soon, the shuttle stopped near a visitor center. Mid-morning Boston was busy and cloudy. the scent of last night’s rain hung in the air, pigeons bathed in puddles. Shop windows sported pumpkins, real or painted or fashioned into garlands.

Hannah wanted better coffee than the one on board and headed for a coffee shop chain to refill her mug. Hardy coaxed her instead towards a local place advertising Fair-trade coffee.

Seven years ago, he’d photographed children harvesting coffee beans in terrible conditions. Seven years later people still didn’t care. Perhaps if he’d stayed in New York he could have convinced a few more people to choose their coffee brand wisely.

He’d meant to pay for Hannah’s beverage— an indication of his intentions— but work had clogged his mind again, and he found her handing him a cup instead.

They stood on the cobblestone pavement, unable to settle on an activity to do, neither wanting to make a decision the other might dislike. They had both been to Boston before. “As you wish,” was uttered more than once without any action following.

Hardy ran a hand through his hair and shifted his weight. Now that he was in front of her, he didn’t know what to say. It had seemed so easy in Singapore.

“I should probably get some work done,” Hannah said. “Check out a few landmarks, take some photos… “

“Right, yeah, don’t want you to be in trouble with Jeffrey. Sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

Jeffrey interrupted them once more, coming out of the visitor center with a handful of brochures. He was really pushing for Hannah to join one of their guided tours.

Hardy opened a rideshare app on his cellphone. He had to drop by his friend’s place first, get his overnight bag back, but he might make it to New York City in time for Alys Tomlinson’s conference.

“Are you alright?” Hannah asked with a frown.

He hadn’t noticed Jeffrey’s departure.

“I know it’s not your thing, if you’d rather go…” she trailed off.

“Do you want me to?”

“I suppose not. Look, once that’s out of the way—” she waved the brochures— “we can go somewhere nice, yeah? Hang out.”

Maybe it was the caffeine finally kicking in, but there was a light dancing in her eyes as she said this, things promised but unspoken. His heart sped up like a puppy’s tail.

Hardy grabbed a random brochure out of her hands: the Freedom Trail. He studied the map. “This way.” He hurried away with long strides. “C’mon, Baxter, before Jeffrey comes back.” She laughed and caught up to him.

The trail started in Boston Common. In the park, ancient elm and oak trees fanned out their shades of red and orange. Dead leaves crunched under Hannah’s ankle boots as they walked among morning joggers and giggling preschoolers. They picked the shortest way across the park, took a wrong turn and ended up at the Frog Pond. The water surface reflected the cloudy sky, still but for the brush of weeping willow branches. Their pace slowed to a stroll.

“What did you mean earlier, about losing your job?” he asked.

“Well, I lost my job at Elite Travelers because of you and your bloody work ethic.” She poked him in the chest, and he crossed his arms.

After she’d followed his advice and exposed the magazine’s censorship, she was fired. That was only the beginning. Every other media part of the same conglomerate shunned her too. Magazines, newspapers, websites and TV shows she’d worked with before, now didn’t reply to her emails and phone calls. A secretary she’d befriended finally explained HR had blacklisted her.

As for hotels, anything part of Group Peregrine, the Mahal Kita Resort owners, became off-limits too.

“Don’t blame me for your shitty boss,” Hardy replied, though he did feel a smidge guilty.

“I know, I was taking the piss. I thought I could be like you, you know. That it’d be good for my reputation, I’d be credible, get more interesting assignments.”

“You did it for the wrong reason.”

“Alright, don’t worry, I did it for the people of Pulau Kesuma too. It can be both. I just mean I thought good deeds were supposed to be rewarded.”

“Give it time,” he replied lamely.

The cruise line’s offer was the first she’d received in weeks. They needed her to rejuvenate their image. “And I’m always up for a challenge,” she said, and he smiled at her determination.

“But you don’t like it.”

“I prefer to focus on the positive aspects.”

“Thought you were a journalist.”

“Exactly. I’m neutral. Just because something doesn’t appeal to me, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t appeal to someone else.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“Really, I thought you’d argue more.”

He would have, but he was trying to make a good impression.

He told her he’d sent her article on Pulau Kesuma to Ellie who had translated it in Indonesian for the island population. “The maids you interviewed asked about you. Did you stay in touch?”

“They did?” She smiled, genuinely touched. “I haven’t… I meant to… did you stay in touch with anyone?”

“I try… I’m not great at it. I tell people letting me take photos will help, I give them hope. I have a responsibility to see that help through.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that. The responsibility…” She blew out a puff of air.

“It’s not all bad. I lived with this family in Kuwait, about— well, early in my career. I was young, the mother she fussed over me. She still writes to me. Yesterday, the youngest son had his first child, and they sent me a picture.”

He showed her the picture, saved on his phone, of Omar with a baby in his arms. Hannah leaned closer until their shoulders touched. Her weight against him made him forget what he wanted to say. She glanced at the photo, then looked up at him.

“You’re a good person,” she said.

He shrugged, embarrassed. He never helped as much as he wanted to, but it felt like false modesty to say so. In fact, the retrospective of his work in New York made him uneasy, and he was relieved to escape it for a day. But he knew he should have stayed to talk about the issues he’d photographed rather than go and have fun.

He was about to offer they sit on a bench and he’d buy her a pastry to apologize for her lost job, when he spotted Jeffrey, in his bright suit, on the other side of the carousel.

“I bet he’s spying on me,” Hannah said in a whisper. “We have to shake him off.”

They slowly backtracked and hid behind the trunk of a large tree.

Hardy looked at the Freedom Trail map. “We need to head that way, but he’ll see us. So we take this road to go around and exit the park.”

“Ok. Got it. Ready?”

Hannah grabbed his hand, and it surprised him so, he froze. She tugged on his arm. His legs remembered how to move, and they made a run for it. They dashed from tree to tree, laughing.

He’d once done the same to dodge bullets. This was much more fun.

Once they’d put enough distance between Jeffrey and themselves, they slowed down and Hannah let go of his hand.

They exited the park and reached the next stop on the trail, the Granary Burying Ground. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere were both buried somewhere beneath the time-worn tombstones. Neither Hardy nor Hannah could remember what made these men famous. As they kept walking, Hannah read out loud about the landmark while Hardy guarded her from colliding with anyone.

Two more landmarks and Hannah realized she’d forgotten to take photos for her blog. Hardy took hold of her camera and swiftly snapped photos of her in front of an old brown-brick building.

“Oi, I wasn’t ready.”

“It’s called street photography.”

They strode the streets, still looking over their shoulders for Jeffrey. The imaginary threat pushed adrenaline through their blood. They slalomed between tourists. Their breaths came quick and cloudy.

Old State House.

Quincy Market.

Hardy took shortcuts through private properties. “The trick is to look like you know where you’re going.” She found it thrilling. Their eyes gleamed, their cheeks flushed.

Paul Revere’s House.

Old North Church.

Inevitably, they talked about US politics, but also about history and their work. What they said didn’t matter. They were like two dogs sniffing and chasing each other. A test of sorts. A trial run.

The few women he’d been with since his separation— accidents, convenience— they didn’t feel like this. The gravitational pull of Hannah threw him off course. She tugged at the very center of him. He knew, and perhaps she did too, that they were on the edge of something great. Something all-encompassing. There would be no going back. But parts of her were wild and unknown. Like a wounded beast hides in the shadows. And so he photographed her, as she walked, as she curled her hair around her finger, as she looked at the city. Moments, seconds, like puzzle pieces that might reveal her heart to him. A hint to give him the courage to step over the edge.

In an hour, they reached the last stop on the trail: the Bunker Hill Monument. They stared at the towering granite obelisk.

“I prefer the ones in Egypt,” Hardy said.

Hannah wanted to climb the 295 steps leading to the top. The view would be worth the effort, but a sign by the door warned people with heart conditions. He stalled.

“What are you afraid of, old man?” Hannah teased.

He bristled at that. He couldn’t tell her about his pacemaker precisely so she wouldn’t overthink the age gap and see him as old and sick.

“I’m not old, I’m experienced.”

She snorted a laugh. “At least you’ve still got all your hair… For now.”

“I’ll show ye, Baxter.”

He opened the door to the obelisk and let her go first under the pretense of chivalry.

A narrow spiral staircase led to the top. Humidity beaded on the cool stone walls. By step 60, they started building up a sweat and gradually shed layers: scarf, coat, jacket, collars were opened.

Over the weeks, Hardy had grown accustomed to the foreign object in his chest, but now his hand flitted to his heart every minute.

“Are you alright?” Hannah inquired, noticing the gesture.

“Fine. Keep going.”

“I need a rest anyway.”

Pity. He gritted his teeth. How could he hope to ever get back in the field if he couldn’t even climb a couple hundred steps. No one would pause for him Syria.

“You’re wearing a suit.” Hannah observed now that he’d removed his windbreaker.

“That bad? I had it for the conference.”

“No, I like it. You made an effort.”

She slid her fingers along his collar to straighten it.

“I almost brought you flowers too,” he said and immediately regretted it— she would think he’s old-fashioned.

“Next time,” she replied with a teasing smile.

That affirmation spurred him on. He resumed climbing before he’d caught his breath. Two steps at a time. Proving a point. His heart raced but at a steady rate. The pacemaker held on.

“295!”

The top of the obelisk was a tight space of gray brick, with only four tiny windows under a high, peak ceiling.

Hardy sagged on the sill of the closest window, and Hannah squeezed next to him. She raked her hair back from her forehead, sending a whiff of floral shampoo his way.

Their panting breaths on the glass fogged the panorama. Hannah drew a smiley face with her fingertip and gave it a little beard. She grinned at him.

The fog faded and they stared at the Charles River and its cable bridge beyond the tiny squares of brown bricks. There were other windows with a different vista, but Hannah was here, honey eyes on the horizon, skin flushed with exertion, warm against his sleeve.

They talked in low, dreamy voices about the highest places they’ve visited: the Petronas towers, a volcano in Hawaii, Lake Titicaca, a rooftop bar in Hong Kong, a suspension bridge in the Alps. Up in the clouds, where humans seem small compared to nature and one’s life inconsequential.

They shared a bottle of water, and only moved when other people arrived.

Hannah begged him to let her take a good photo this time. She meant one over which she had control.

“The light’s rubbish in here.”

“I trust your skills. Just let me fix my face, must be all shiny.” She pulled a pocket mirror out of her purse and dabbed her forehead. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have washed my hair.”

“Don’t worry, you look great.”

“Really?” she asked coyly.

“You know you do.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you agreed.”

“I came all the way here, didn’t I?”

“For my pretty eyes?” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“So, are we ever getting to Fenway Park?” he asked with feigned impatience.

“Knob.”

He’d been called that before, but never this fondly.

Hannah reapplied red lipstick. As she smacked her lips together, she glanced at him over the mirror. A sultry look that roused butterflies in his stomach.

He couldn’t tell whether she was serious or messing with him. She’d been straightforward about sex in Singapore, if she still wanted him, she would simply say so, wouldn’t she?

He raised the camera, and, with practiced ease, she flashed the smile he’d seen many times before on Instagram. He didn’t care for it. After a few poses, she asked him to join her for a selfie and his indulgence stopped there.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Starving.”

Hannah had a list of trendy restaurants in Boston, and he already dreaded the place she would choose. He scowled when she guided him towards a tiki bar, but the restaurant she wanted was at the back of it.

“Half my job is knowing the coolest restaurants.”

“At least Jeffrey won’t find us here.”

Large garage-style doors opened on a courtyard, ensconced in climbing ivy, where small fireplaces and blankets kept the clients warm. It smelled like Guy Fawkes night and camping, green and smokey.

They arrived past one o’clock, tail end of the lunch rush, so a table was available. They sat at the corner of the table to see through the archway offering a view of the river.

The sun had come out, Hannah traded her scarf and leather jacket for a blanket loosely draped over her arms. She wore a tunic underneath with a wide boat neckline, and he was struck by the desire to cover her neck with kisses.

He pulled himself together while the man-bunned waiter explained today’s specials. Hannah asked the waiter what he recommended, and soon they were talking about the creative process behind the menu and his vision for the future of catering. She was fishing for some quirky details to share on her blog, and it fascinated Hardy, her easy smile, the effect of her charm on other people. And on himself. He was just one of many. She returned her attention to him, and the misgivings evaporated.

“Sorry about that. I’m all yours now. What will you have?”

Wherever he traveled, he ate the food laid out in front of him, pigeon stew or roasted guinea pig, he made do and thanked his hosts, and yet in Western restaurants, he became picky. Here, the menu offered only six meals, each one elaborate. Hannah couldn’t decide between duck arancinis and wild boar noodles, and thus his dilemma was solved; he ordered one of the two so she could taste both. They ended up eating out of each other’s plate, a level of intimacy he hadn’t expected to reach so fast.

The coziness of the setting enveloped him. The excellent food, the laughter. He wished the afternoon would never end, but she had to be back aboard the ship at 4pm.

The ticking clock boosted his courage. He touched the tattoo on her inner wrist, a simple black outline of a star or flower, he couldn’t tell. “What’s the story?” he asked. It was a blatant excuse to touch her, and they both knew it. Keeping his thumb there, stroking the delicate skin, filled him with a heady sort of audacity.

“It was supposed to be a compass. Never pick the cheapest tattoo parlor, it’s cheap for a reason. The bloke got bored halfway through, didn’t even write the cardinal points. I used to add them by hand.” She laughed then lowered her eyes. “My best friend, Erin, she got the same so I never had the heart to have it changed.”

“Erin? Is that your friend who passed away? The one you wanted to travel with.”

“Yeah… I was just thinking about her yesterday, your photos they… stirred things up.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, she stroked her collarbone as her eyes flitted between him and the river. He wanted to take a photo to study later and decipher.

“Anyway, how do you know about that?” she asked.

“I read your blog.”

“All of it?”

“You sent me a link.”

“To one article.”

Her knees rested against his under the table.

“You’re a great writer.”

“Really?” she asked, this time no coyness colored her voice.

He leaned on his elbows, towards her, and told her about the articles he’d preferred. The things he’d learned even about cities where he had been. He didn’t feel as out of his depth now, it was professional almost, except her legs were brushing together and it sent a thrill up his spine.

She had written less in-depth articles in the last year as her followers favored shorter pieces with many pictures, and affiliated links generated revenue. She confessed she missed it, sitting with one person and having a real conversation and then finding the words to convey the moment to her readers.

They ordered deserts, despite feeling full; it was a day for gluttony. She insisted on feeding him a piece of pumpkin pie.

She was a great conversationalist, always a funny quip or an unexpected question. She wanted to know people. Yet, when the tables turned, she used humor and flirting to deflect.

He thought of developing photos in a dark room. She revealed herself slowly, like an image in the tray of developer chemical. But if a photo was left in that chemical too long, it turned black, and so did Hannah eclipse herself if pressed too much. However, it was in Hardy’s nature to persist, to question, to get to the heart of things. Of people.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to New York?”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming to Boston.”

“Fair enough.”

“Kind of silly, isn’t it? I mean we obviously— I think— wanted to see each other. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Hannah’s hand was so close to his. Her pink fingernails scratched at the buttons on his cuff. He opened his hand: an invitation.

“I’m glad I came here today,” he said.

“But you haven’t seen the Red Sox.”

“I’ve seen everything I wanted to see,” he answered, looking into her eyes.

His hand was still splayed opened, and he waited with a lump in his throat. She looked at him as if assessing his honesty. Finally, she slipped her fingers into his palm, and he closed his hand over them. Hannah smiled and tucked her chin in her shoulder closest to him, as if trying to hide her joy.

“I’m glad you came too,” she admitted in a quiet voice.

Affection overwhelmed him, and he impulsively kissed her forehead.

They ordered cups of tea, and continued holding hands as they drank. Her touch warmed him more than Earl Grey.

Clouds drifted in front of the sun and a cold breeze swept the courtyard. Hannah shivered, and he pulled the blanket higher up her shoulders. She caught his hand so his arm remained around her.

He glanced at her lips, within reach, parting delicately, her half-closed eyelids, and he knew she was going to kiss him.

“I’m not…” he began, compelled to warn her but not sure what about.

“You’re not what?” she asked with an amused lilt.

I’m not good at this. I work too much. I shut myself off to the people I care about. I fucked up my marriage. I can’t give you what you need.

Hannah’s expression turned to one of concern, so he pretended to have forgotten what he wanted to say.

His cell phone rang. “I have to get this, it’s my daughter.” He rose and stepped away from the table. His thoughts were scattered. He took a second to regroup before answering. Daisy was coming to join him in New York in two days, and she had some last-minute questions about packing.

While he talked on the phone, Hannah went to the restroom.

*

He was a dad. She’d imagined him as this free spirit, roaming the world, hurtling towards danger to save women and orphans. But he was a dad. She didn’t want to be a step-mother. They were ugly or cruel or evil. She wasn’t ready for that. She couldn’t deal with a teenager. No way. And with the ex-wife— no fucking way.

Why was she even thinking about being a step-mother? This thing with Alec, it was just a fling. Would be a fling. Nothing more. Whenever she slept with a man abroad, she made a point never to see him again after. Hardy was no exception. She wouldn’t see him again and certainly never meet his daughter.

An impatient knock on the door startled her. She quickly pulled up her pants, though she couldn’t remember if she’d peed or not.

As she walked back to the courtyard, Hannah observed Alec who was lost in thoughts. Why did his sad eyes make her want to blow him so much?

She could have kissed him hours ago— should have— but she’d enjoyed the slow blooming of it. The way her touch rippled through him. He was so starved for it, he didn’t even know. Yet he held back, and she couldn’t understand why.

“I’m not with her mum anymore,” he said as soon as he saw her. “Divorced. There’s no going back after what happened.”

If she asked what happened he would tell. He would open up to her. She didn’t ask.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I just didn’t know you have a daughter.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to keep it from you. Can’t believe I haven’t mentioned her.”

“So you’re a daddy, that’s kind of hot.”

“No.” He inspected her, a wrinkle deepened on his brow. “Did you want to go?”

She was still standing up behind her chair.

Alec paid for both their meals, and then there was nothing to do but leave. She asked him to walk with her to the visitor center where she would catch the shuttle bus back to the ship. She wasn’t ready to part from him yet. The closer they got to the visitor center, the heavier her heart felt. Alec’s eyes were on the ground with serious dimples in his cheeks. She wanted to say something clever and flirty to lighten up the mood.

They rounded a corner and saw the big white charter bus, with Jeffrey standing beside it. They backtracked a little, just out of his sight, under an old-fashioned lamp post.

Once again, they stood face to face on the pavement, without knowing what to say, but for entirely different reasons now.

“I should let you go,” he said even as he stepped forward, closer to her.

Those eyes of his were on her now, wide, almost pleading. He made her feel so warm and soft inside, pliant, in a way she didn’t recognize about herself.

She stepped closer too.

She’d made her desire abundantly clear, twice he’d turned her down now, the ball was in his court.

Hesitantly, he brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered on her jaw, and she could have melted in that touch.

He straightened his shoulders, and she sensed he’d come to a decision.

“I can’t leave without kissing you...”

“Go on, then.”

He laughed at her impatience. A deep breath, and he dipped his head to kiss her. Just a brush of lips at first, enough to send sparks through her blood. The day’s energy finally released. His fingers carded through her hair, her arms wrapped around his waist. The kiss deepened, and she felt it to her toes. People walked around them and leaves twirled in the wind, and they kept kissing. It was a day for gluttony. She gorged herself on every bit of lust, sadness and hope.

Hannah kept her eyes closed and Alec rested his forehead on hers. She felt peaceful and high-strung all at once. She relaxed her fists that were clenched into his jacket.

He sought her mouth again, with more confidence, hands splayed over her ribs, wide and steady.

Engine noises alerted her to the shuttle about to depart. Hand in hand, they walked over to it. In front of the door, he pulled her into a hug.

“I wish I could take you on board,” she whispered against his neck.

“I can be a stowaway, I’ve done it before.”

She chuckled and they kissed again, holding each other close. Jeffrey cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Where are you going next?” Alec asked.

“Portland, Maine. Why? Do you have another mate you can hitch a ride with?”

“I could find one.”

“It’s a date, then.”

#

Chapter 7: Portland

[calling-gull]

Hope

(From an RP in Discord) ( @tirasiansails @atc-wra (And I don’t know if Nallaen has a tumblr XD)

A conversation of sensitive topics had gone on weeks before, and Daniel was excited with the idea that it just might be possible.

A long stretch of silence passed from the arcanist until late one evening, a letter would find its way to Captain Conaroy. The method of delivery, a medium sized, dour looking Raven fluttered to the window of the man's residence, pecking insistently at whatever window or method of entry there was to Daniel's quarters until it's presence was acknowledged and it's missive delivered. Upon delivery, the black corvid would tarry, almost ensuring that the man read the letter right then and there before taking wing again and disappearing into the Stormwind streets. 

The letter itself was a small, rolled piece of parchment that read thus: "Captain Conaroy, I believe suitable enough progress has been made for me to reveal the fruits of my labor. Please join me in a small warehouse at the end of the docks. #185. Knock Thrice. -N" A 30 minute walk away, in the above mentioned warehouse, a disheveled looking  warlock mumbles to himself as he scratches out a series of runes onto the stone floor in charcoal, often looking over to a journal of notes seated some ways away to his right. His clothes are stained with soot, some sort of weird ichor, and Light knows what else. Apparently, Nallaen had been through the ringer on this one. Not far from him on a table, sat a mess of supplies, an empty pot that once held a steaming pool of Koda Bean Brew and a half consumed bottle of bourbon.

Daniel rolled over with a groan at the sound of the incessant tapping on his window. Brushing hair out of his face, and rubbing the sand from his eyes, he manages to open one of them to see what's causing the ruckus. "Huh. That's new." Opening the window, he looked the bird over, a bit taken aback when he saw the small paper rolled and tied to one leg. Interesting. he'd seen plenty of pigeons carrying missives, but a raven? Tentatively, but with calm ease, he reached for, and retrieved the note, reading it immediately. If someone had sent him a message with this unconventional courier, then it must be important. Ah, his meeting with that one. Good, he was eager to see what the man had devised. 

It didn't take him long to throw on some clothes, grab up a few things, and head out with a skip in his step, and a whistle on his lips. The walk wasn't onerous, and he enjoyed it. Arriving at the warehouse, he did knock the three times, and waited. In his hand, a string-bag of various fruits for Nallaen. He knew how the magicky folk got when they were working on something, and thought the man could probably use something to help refresh and restore energy.

The door creaks open just enough for someone to peek out of it to see who was there for a moment before opening fully and greeting Daniel with a full look at Nallaen Ravenstone. It was a quite a different look from when he last saw him, and his suspicions were in fact correct. To say that the warlock was a fucking mess was, in fact, a kindness. His hair, normally pulled back into a that tight ponytail, was completely untied and hung messily down to his shoulders, adding more depth to an already gaunt face. "Good. You made it." Nall says, stepping back to let Daniel in before hastily shutting the door behind him and locking it. "This way." Leading Daniel back to the workspace, Nallaen picks up a piece of charcoal that he had set down on the table (along with the bottle of bourbon) and turns to face the captain. "How much do you know about magical theory?" He asks, pulling the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and spitting it out before taking a pull from the bourbon.

Daniel followed the man with a shake of the head. Yep. One of those obsessed types. He'd seemed that way when they'd met, even as stoic as he'd been.  It was just a feeling you got once in a while. "Not a damn bit of it." He reaches out with the bag of fruit, "Here, eat somethin' while ya talk." That's it, Danny, be eloquent. "Tell me what you've discovered. Somethin' new?"

Nallaen eyes the bag of fruit suspiciously, seemingly weighing the decision between eating and paranoia. Obviously, Daniel really wasn't ever really going to profit off of Nallaen's death but that didn't mean the warlock was going to worry about it. Reluctantly, Nallaen takes the bag of fruit and mumbles a 'Thanks' before tossing it onto his workspace and digging out a piece of it, taking a bite and swallowing before speaking again, wiping away some juice from his chin with a dirty sleeve. "Without getting too deep into the specifics, what you originally asked for is an incredibly complex task for a number of various reasons, the least of all being the fact that these will probably be used in active combat." Nall takes another bite, speaking through a mouthful of mulch. "Nowuh. When you're moving somthink through a poortal, it's kinda lyke a dour." Swallow. "Problem is we don't need a door. We need a hook."

"Like fishin'. Ya need somethin' ta grab, an' pull through the other side? Somethin' like that?" He watched the Warlock munch the fruit with satisfaction. Sabine would be a little miffed at him if he let this man die of neglect while working on this project. He hummed and had a beard-strokey moment before nodding. "Alright. Makes sense." He gestured for the man to continue, and eagerly awaited the rest. It didn't show, however. Only the calm, quiet demeanor was shown. For now.

"Precisely. Just like fishing." Nallaen replies taking another bite and leaning back against his work station. "What are some things you need to consider when casting that hook? Speed? Distance? Wind? Other hooks, aye? " He asks. "To continue with that analogy, these are things to consider when moving items or people through temporal space. Not to mention the fact that we are on a giant moving target itself. Once you start factoring variable, the magic required becomes mindbogglingly intricate. However..." Nallaen turns and picks up a small stone before moving towards Daniel and pressing it into his hands. "A week’s worth of sleepless nights have produced what I believe to be a viable solution to our little fishing problem." The stone itself is a small, round orb hewn from obsidian, perfectly smooth save for various etchings that have carved into it's surface. On those etchings, a faint, glimmering substance can be seen when it catches the light at just the right angle. "You're going to help me test it."

Danny holds up the stone, inspecting it with interest for a few moments. He'd been growing ever more intent on the explanation as it went on, and felt a small surge of excitement, though it never showed. "How'm I gonna help ya test it? And are ya gonna tell Sabine what's happened if ya send me ta the other side'v the world? Or worse, if ya turn me inside out?"

Nallaen shakes his head. "I mean, yes, if for some reason my calculations are off, there are any infinite number of possible outcomes that could occur, including wearing your organs on the outside, but if you consider that as one out come out of well...infinite...the odds are extremely low." Nallaen replies, taking another bite from his fruit. "My tests thus far have been successful on inanimate objects, no harm done." Nallaen says, very slowly sliding a bit to the right to block a pile of charred looking rocks from sight. "I need a living breathing thing the size of what we will be moving to know that I am successful. This is for all the marbles, Daniel."

Danny sighs, and shakes his head. "We needa find another livin' thing ta try it on first. Then I gotta let Sabine know. If I were ta vanish again without a word..." He shrugs, shaking his head. "I can't do it to the gal again." He paces back and forth for a moment or two, and then stops. "Let me find a bunny or somethin'. Somethin' living that we can say came out alright in the end." He knew, though, she'd likely explode at him and demand he not put himself in danger. After all, he had airships to build. and, maybe, a life with her like they'd wanted so long ago.

"I need something of similar size and shape, my friend. A bunny isn't going to do the trick." Nallaen replies, taking another bite from his piece of fruit, which has been an apple this entire time. "Listen, I wouldn't even be asking if this wasn't ready for this phase of testing. If this works, the only question becomes range extension and then mass production."

A frown crosses Daniel's lips, and he says, "Hold up a moment. I do need ta let her know. After all, she is in charge after the Duchess and admiral, and I report ta them." He touches the comm in his pocket, and thinks of Sabine. "Gal, are ya there?"

Nallaen sighs and waves a hand, indicating is his acquiescence for permission. As he waits he finishes what’s left of the apple and tosses the core aside, moving to his desk and sitting down with a soft grunt, picking up his bourbon bottle again and tipping it back.

There was a heavy grogginess to her voice, laced with a near whine on complaint as she mumbled sleepily," It's latteee and I just got to sleep for fucksake. This better be important."

"Sorry, gal, but I gotta do somethin', and the outcome's uncertain. I didn't want ta do it without tellin' ya. Here with mister Ravenstone. He thinks he's got a solution ta the problem'v brinelings an' others takin' folk off our ships."

There was a long moment of deathly silence as her sleep hazed mind took its sweet time absorbing this information. When she finally spoke again there was a hint of venom in her voice. 'Whatever it is you are doing, you best come back to in the same shape you left me. Otherwise, inform Mr. Ravenstone I will make him wish he were dead."

Hiding a chuckle, Daniel resoponds. "I'll tell 'im, love. Don't worry. I've faith in the man. I'm not leavin' ya again. Not for anythin'." He turns back to Nallaen, and repeats Sabine's threat word for word. "Alright, man. I'm at yer disposal. Jus' try not ta dispose of me, eh?"

Nallaen rolls his eyes and mumbles something about granting wishes and then he stands, moving over to Daniel and patting him on the shoulder. "Trust me, Captain. If that was my intent this is not the way I would do it. If you would be so kind as to move to end of the warehouse and stand on the 'x' I've marked there. Once you've done that, simply crush the stone in your hand."

Without a word, Daniel nods, and does just that. With the ground-eating pace that came naturally to him, he moved to the X, and stood there. With a bit of a prayer to keep him in one piece, he crushes the stone in one large hand.

Nallaen's obsidian stone, while seeming quiet solid is actually crushed quiet easily in Daniel's hand and the moment it turns to dust, there's a brilliant purple glow from the clenched fist. From there, there is a massive surge of energy and the captain is enveloped by a cloud of that brilliant purple glow. Next thing he knows, Daniel suddenly feels himself lurched forward as if suddenly the whole of Azeroth took off, the strange sensation of being pulled apart molecule by molecule and then hastily recombobulated all at once but yet taking an eternity.  Needless to say, it wasn't an entirely pleasant sensation. A few moments later, the strange dilation of time and space would suddenly come to a harsh halt, Daniel being dumped right above the strange circle Nallaen had been drawing on the ground before the captain had arrived, the runes glowing bright and hot as he's unceremoniously spat out of the ether and back onto the floor. 

"Okay. Might be just a tad off coordinate wise, but none worse for the wear I think." Nallaen says, striding back over to the man and holding out the bottle of booze for him.

The sensation was not the least pleasant thing he'd ever felt, but it came close to the top. Inside the 'portal', his body tried to react to the feeling, but couldn't, as he was held still. Probably a good thing when one was being ripped from one place, and spat out at another. As he was deposited in the circle, he staggered a bit, catching himself on something soft. When he looked, he realized it was Nallaen's arm. Oops. He took the bottle, and then handed it back, several gulps later. "Well. I seem ta be in one piece..."

"And there are certainly worse fates." Nallaen replies, taking the bottle back and moving to his workspace, scribbling something down on his notes as he takes another pull from it. Nothing like drunken rune work. 

"So the only things to do now is re-write the runes to account for larger distances and then figure out a way how we're going to -pay- for all of this to be made."

"We'll figure a way. If this can save even a few who're dragged off ship. or cast overboard in a storm, then it'll be worth it." He offers his hand with a rarely-seen grin.  "Well done, sir. No matter the success of this in the future, well done."

Nallaen takes his hand and gives it a squeeze and three pumps. The appropriate amount for any handshake, yes. "Aye, you're right. Can't put a price on life I suppose." He says with a small, and somewhat relieved sigh. The warlock plucks out another piece of fruit, a peace this time and bites into it, his first real sustenance in a few hours. "That's all I had for you, Captain. Unless you had some questions of your own."

"Na, not yet, though I'm sure the Duchess an Harbormistress will. Enjoy the fruit. Send ta me again if ya need anythin'. And uh..." he gestures to the fruit bag. "Want me ta send up summor food?"

Nallaen shakes his head, sending his tangle of grey hair swishing from side to side. "No, this should fine, thanks." He says, flipping open his notebook again and marking something down. "If you do inform them of the progress, please make them aware that they will have a demonstration sometime later in the week. After a few days worth of sleep."

"Aye. I'll do that. Enjoy yer sleep." With those few words, Daniel simply turns and walks out,  planning on crawling back into bed with Sabine and sleep some more.

[lightraker]

Albada: Pigeons on pink

Albada: Pigeons on pink

To understand this poem I think you need to know two things.

Firstly Don Jose Ruiz y Blasco was the father of Pablo Picasso. He was himself an artist and taught art. He painted lots of pictures of pigeons. So much that he was known as “El palomero” (the pigeon fancier). Legend has it that he saw young Picasso drawing some pigeons and they were so much better than anything he ever did that he gave Pablo all his painting materials and never painted again.

Eric’s dad, the poet R F Langley, (I was going to say famous, but maybe admired is the better word), wrote a poem called Jack’s Pigeon. In that poem, a coffee bowl breaks and a pigeon “thuds to the gutter in convulsions”. Jack, who is, I’m bit nervous of defining what Jack is, I think he might be a kind of alter ego for R F, and maybe like a Jack the Lad or man of mischief. Jack sees the probably dead pigeon and checks his “scratchcard”. There are lots of Hamlet references in the poem. I’m thinking there’s a link to the line about “there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow”. Is God keeping an eye on even the smallest things?

Eric must have been pretty pleased with himself when he made this connection. He’s starting out as a poet, under his father’s shadow. His father wrote a poem about a pigeon. Picasso’s father painted pigeons until Picasso made a better version. Will Eric be Pablo to his father’s Don Jose? I think also, Don Jose’s pigeons look rather lovely. Eric seems to have specifically in mind the one that google throws up which is five pigeons on a pink background. You won’t be surprised that in the end, Eric/Pablo sees that his father’s stuff was better than his.

The Hamlet allusions also work brilliantly with this theme because of course Hamlet is all about a son and the ghost of his father.

Albada means a morning love song in Spanish. I didn’t know the word. But I do recognise Aubade, the French version. Eric says he’s riffing on a number of aubades / albadas in this poem but I can’t help you there. The only Aubade I know in any detail is the Philip Larkin poem. I wonder if there may be an allusion in the description of the blurry outlines in section 2, that become sharply defined in the last section, which remind me a bit of Larkin seeing the blurry outlines in his bedroom becoming sharper at the end. If so, there’s a hint about mortality and fears of death which would fit. Wikipedia tells me that Albada Finder is something in optics, which seems a nice link to themes of the collection.

Orpiment, masticot, Oker de Luce, lac of carmine are all painting materials. Don Jose in the morning is planning some painting.

“Rayleigh… Mei” this is something to do with scientific theories of how light scatters. Like me, you’ll presumably be cringing at the obvious error that the scientist Eric meant is Mie.

“Scumbles" - give a soft effect

“Envious” foreshadows how he’s going to feel about his son.

“civil” - this word sticks out to me. Does it mean polite, ordinary, from the city?

“Dimly” - keeping to the light.

“tender… extension” - Eric is obsessed with words with this root. It’s all to do with reaching out, connecting with another, making yourself vulnerable.

I think we can see that the dawn of the new day is mirroring the coming talent of his son.

“Maria” - is the name of Jose’s wife and Picasso’s mum.

“Jill” - this is the first inkling, I think, that the poem is alluding to Jack’s pigeon. Jill is Jack’s lady (of course).

“Croodling” isn’t this a great word! It means cooing.

“El Palomero” - the pigeon fancier. Apparently Spanish doesn’t have a different word for pigeon or dove. But Jose paints pigeons. However, Picasso as well as drawing pigeons has a famous painting much later in life of a dove of peace. And he called his daughter La Paloma which people seem to translate as “The Dove”. You can imagine she might have preferred it that way. I feel like there’s a lot going on with the idea that the workaday pigeon of the father becomes transformed into the symbolic, beautiful dove of the son.

“Spink” - brilliantly this word means “the cry of a finch”. I wonder how many other birds have a word just for their cry. Did Eric have a moment of serendipitous excitement when he found out it rhymed (hell, contained!) pink? Or did he know this all along?

Senna bush - my botany and the internet lets me down on the connotations of a senna bush, but there is one in “Jack’s Pigeon” by Langley senior, so we’re starting to get more references to that.

���Booby” - idiot, breasts, type of bird. (Also, tit!)

“Jug jug” is the noise a nightingale makes. Also, means breasts! Even I recognise this as a line in the Wasteland. But I’m not sure if it helps specifically to think of that poem, or just that both Eric and Eliot are referring to an earlier tradition of writing about nightingales going jug jug. Apparently it was big in the renaissance.

“full-throated.. god! o god!… shoot.. plum” Something something sex. Perhaps also a little Keats nod. In “Ode to a Nightingale” the bird sings with “full-throated ease”.

“Pomegranate tree” - this introduces, I think, a reference to the Song of Solomon. There’s something about Solomon and pomegranates. “My love, my dove, my fair…” is a quote from that.

“Ignition spark… apples’ pips”. Sex… babies.

“Piz piz” Apparently Picasso’s first words - short for “lapiz” - calling for a pencil. I hope you’re ready for some Freudian penis stuff. Father and son are going to be engaging in some willy waving.

“Pipion” - pigeon. 
“Master at the Bellas Artes” - Jose’s job teaching art.

“Kids” childish / jokes.

“Plucks his nib” - masturbation / makes art. Who can tell the difference?

“Squab” - a young pigeon. The word is used in “Jack’s Pigeon”.

“real these really real pigeons” - it seems like we’re back to Zeuxis here. Picasso rivals Zeuxis’ achievement.

I’m not sure at what point we shift from Dad to Son. As of Section 5 we get first person not third. But this seems to be from the dad’s point of view. While I think by Section 7 we’re from the son’s. But I could be wrong.

“the shock that shook” - so this is the dad seeing his son is a better artist.

“Mummed me” - acted as me (mummer) / became my mum / shut me up.

“Barbels” - little beard hairs (on fish? - I got a bit confused by wikipedia here, do fish have beards? and I thought we were talking about pigeons). Anyway, appropriate for the developing youth.

“Crappers” - not sure about this. Is this just because pigeons do a lot of pooing?

“Jacobines” - Jacobins of course are the ruthless revolutionaries - is that the role the son takes? I’m not sure if there’s a reason it’s feminine plural. Obviously links us to Jack.

“gall-free” - I wondered if this removal of gall from the pigeons, suggested the transformation of pigeon to dove (symbolising peace)?

“cheaply” - what sound do birds make?

“blackjacked” - knocked out / gambled away / Jack is now Black.

“here come have them then” - this is when the dad gives away all his painting materials to his son.

“throbbing vanes” - “vane” is the flat part of a feather. It’s nice how the paint brush becomes like a wing - so that the young boy can take flight like the pigeons. This feels like an Icarus allusion. I’m not sure if it’s a direct quote from Ovid, but it sounds like the kind of thing you’d get in translations of Ovid. That’s another model for Father / Son relationships we’re presented with. Let’s hope Eric doesn’t get too carried away with his wings of poetry unlike his wise and crafty dad Daedalus. Also, masturbating.

“Big head” - the arrogance of Eric comparing himself to Picasso. And also, penis.

“Rachis” - stem of grass.

“Filoplume” - hair like feathers.

“Barbs” - suggesting insults / stings. Poor old dad.

“Erleben” - experience (German for having lived).

“Avitrol” a bird deterrent.

Section 6 describes favourably the early pigeon sketch by Picasso.

“Gutter” - this word crops up a couple of times. And strikingly near the end of the poem. A candle gutters meaning it goes out or is about to go out. Is Pablo a “gutter” because his dad is now “gutted”? And remember the pigeon in “Jack’s Pigeon” “thuds to the gutter”.

“This one’s for remembrance”. We’re now entering Hamlet rich territory. This line is from Ophelia. I feel like this marks the moment when the son/Eric/Pablo speaks. He’s remembering his dad. Who, like him, knew his Hamlet! (Ophelia’s the name of the pigeon who dies in “Jack’s Pigeon”).

“Old mole” is what Hamlet calls his father’s ghost.

“Sweet Lady” - “Sweet Lady Street” is where the pigeon dies in Jack’s Pigeon.

“Pau Gargallo” - sculpture friend of Picasso, art school in Barcelona.

“Wash Lane” - not sure of the relevance of this - it is a street in Birmingham sort of in the same part of Britain as where Eric grew up. But I’m probably missing something.

“Penfold” - I really really hope this is an allusion to Dangermouse’s helper. A keeper of pens, the tool the poet needs.

“where the two thousand sad souls go” - this is from Hamlet as he sees the army heading off for war - and Jack’s Pigeon has the bowl breaking like “twenty thousand souls”.

“Over-rounds” - this is something to do with gambling - and so I think is linking to Jack going to the betting shop.

“Polish day trip” - Hamlet reference - “Polack”. And in Jack’s Pigeon the coffee bowl called “Part of Poland”.

“eggshells” - Hamlet: “all that fortune, death and danger dare, Even for an eggshell”.

“Rosemary” - Ophelia gives this “for remembrance”.

“pyggion” - If you google this word, you get Eric’s poem and an academic book called “Bare Ruined Choirs” talking about the moat at Crowle. This seems like a cool coincidence. Shakespeare Sonnet talking about growing old. I think there’s something to do with language changing and in the next couplet we get squib instead of squab.

“An old man of Daulis”. Daulis is where Oedipus didn’t go to when he ended up killing Laius. So I think this is a reference to a key father / son rivalry. (Daulis is also where Tereus lived as in the Philomela, cutting out tongue, eating his own child, turning into a bird, Tereus, so maybe there’s a bird link too). But I think Eric is saying: I’m not killing my dad “this time”. It feels like we’ve got a long way into a poem about father/son rivalry without an Oedipus reference.

Pichon - Spanish for little pigeon

Pijon - French for pigeon.

Paloma - spanish dove / pigeon. I think again there’s something here about language changes, transitions between language like the transitions between generations.

“Haunts” - ghosts.

“How pale they glare” - Hamlet says of his dad’s ghost: “How pale he glares”.

“between the lines” - Looking for his father in his writings.

“street lamps, gas lamps” - again thinking of time passing.

“Clayton’s spirits” - I’ve come up a bit of a blank on what this means. Wikipedia has something about Clayton’s being Australian for fake.

Madeleine - think of Proust having his memory brought back.

“Reverbere” - French for streetlight. But also the idea of the memory reverberating.

“How strong is stillness?” - this quotes from RF Langley’s journal entry of April 1977. He talks about going to a church and the children playing, naming Ruth, Eric’s older sister. The line before is “Gestures of children must stay.”

“Conning” deceive or study carefully.

“Hundred good hellos” - this is a phrase from RF Langley’s poem “Il Redentore” which is a church Venice. I got excited by the thought that it sounds like the returner / reviens. But actually it’s Italian for Redeemer. But something about giving back, right? Giving back the paint brushes?

“Frame that”. Guilt. Painting. Setting.

“Attention… tentif” more of the ten…

“Complex feet” - is this a reference to Oedipus whose name means swollen foot? And has his own complex.

Towlines - a nautical rope.

“Pigeon-toed, dove-tailed”. This is clever, isn’t it!

“Da!” - dad, ta da! and maybe also Russian for Yes!

“Fetch” - bring back, grasp, trick, jerk off, resurrect.

“Mirrors… rage” - I can’t help but think of the rage of Caliban seeing himself in the mirror but that doesn’t seem very relevant here. Hamlet holds up a mirror. Eric reflects his dad. As a “compound compliment”.

“Bearded” - old men have beard, but also means “confronted”.

“Bound about” - jumping / tied up.

“Charged” - attacked, energised, accused.

“screwed in your bedclothes” - are we thinking of sex and Gertrude (Hamlet’s mum)?

“swipe” - rushing stroke / steal.

Here is where Eric / Pablo acknowledges the greater ability of his dad. “It’s all still yours, still yours to say”.

“Passing” - going by or pretending.

“Cyclist” - Eric rides a bike / he recycles poetry.

“Pillar” - a symbol of tradition? (Also penis).

“Well outlined” compare the blurred figure of the dad in the early dawn.

“plastic guttering” - see above. Dad becomes different parts of a building: chantlate- piece of wood holding rafters, in other words a protector. But also chant = sing and late = dead. “Flash line” - part of building or a fancy poem. “eavestrough” gutter.

“Bowl” now the broken bowl of Jack’s pigeon seems to be mended.

“Rings” - sounds out and comes round again.  

[aramkrikorian-blog]

10-9-2018

waking up. tired. rain. rain on the boots. the boots are torn. shoes. are wet. leather shoes. uncomfortable shoes. comfortable shoes. the daily walk. walking in uncomfortable shoes. ears clogged. not sick. ears jammed up. sticking fingers into ears with toilet paper when in the bathroom. library. salvation army. need to take a piss. need to take a shit. bathrooms. looking for bathrooms. embarassed. look like shit. haven’t showered in a bit. lighters are dead. no flame for cigarettes. the rain. it ruins the cigarette shorts i collect off the ground. talking to myself. not really. lots of people doing real life following. they want me to participate in interactive games with the audience. im not a star. im not taylor swift. she shouldn’t do politics yet. she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. democrats. republicans. green party. lame . parties. people. birthdays. rain. dogs. leashes. masters. slaves. negative conditioning. positive associations. flashbacks. larissa. lory. jessica. ashkhen. hasmig. who and what happened and where am i. did the babies really get aborted. are people messing with my mind. the information. is it true. not true. ears clogged. i can barely hear sarcastic remarks. god is watching over it all. proverbs. Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife. peacock in the desert. seattle. pike street. pike market. prospect park. GAR cemetary. ducks. weird tattoo store. weird tattoo aesthetic. cornish college. security guards. smoking cigarettes. asking for cigarettes. not comfortable. SEATAC. orcas. the oceans. pier 70. pier 66. starbucks. starbucks reserve. st james church. gospel mission. millinair club. tweakers. not that many. many or not. not known. know nobody. alone. thoughts. suicide. Virginia Mason hospital. lutheran church. food. food under the bridge. housing help. library on 4th street. newspapers. news. 90 minutes of internet time. homeless resource guide. backpack stolen. all work gone. no more work to look over. wanted a house on frontenac. didn’t get it. went to ferrari dealership - you say you’re a gangsta but you never popped nothing. you’re a real wanksta. songs. curses. nirvana. cause i’ve found god - rethinking what i said about kurt cobain. he is dangerously not well in Lithium. sounds llike the psychiatrists put pills in him and he blew his brains out or heroine or the pain of his wife... she breaks mirrors. weird flashbacks. lorys brother was administerered lithium wh en i was administered seroquel. psychopharma DEATH TOLL. bodies keep stacking. kurt cobain. lithium. lake washington blvd - curt cobains house. i didn’t know. i did a free navigation of the city. i felt things, bro. now i regret what i said about kurt cobain. lady was wearing a nirvana song list tshirt. bruce lee and brandon lee’s graves. crows. bible... scarecrows. 3-6 mafia lord infamous used to call me scaRECROW what is this... where am i. same motifs. same symbols. used by different people at different times. 1 big symbolic soup. trying to make sense of it. untangle it. which came first the word crow or pigeon. beautiful pigeons. appearance of pigeons in ones timeline over time. typing in the library. ‘the kind of kind guy that won’t take no for an answer’ - wanting to buy a house on frontenanc and give it to brent and tim ... tim gave me an umbrella. brent hooked it up with cigarettes - lighter. they were good guys. lyft people circling around. feel guilt and shame resentment everywhere. saved by the dell poster. PRIVATE PROPERTY everywhere - including the seattle sports stadium ... safeco field? seahawks lose to larams - kendrick lamar. lemurians of mt shasta. greyhound... buses. the animals. a great dane takes a fat piss on 700 7th ave...  the courthouse night, doing a speech. finding weed on ground smoking it. speaking at the school ... getting more weed. fed a larabar. ara. ara gets funding again in march. rosenstein is out? cohen is out? melania is in africa - visits a former slave in ghana. beautiful work. thank you mr and mrs trump. kushner? scooby dooby doo. airbnb ... valuations. memories. pains. people. upgrades and promotions. growth. new ideas. scholarships. college. essays. schools. making sure the kids are going to be safe. at least putting a line on the older ones and going to go back and ensure the road is well paved for the younger ones. newspaper room 6th floor. bathrooms on floor 7 of library also on floor 1... and maybe on 3 and 4.. .but not sure. haven’t been higher than floor 7 as far as i recall. lady in front of library - obese with lighter and cigarette - i ask her for a light she says “why are you chasing me?” - not a question. it is a question. it is something inside of a question. an accusation. a false accusation. a controversial, extremely controversial false accusation. it implies more. profile equivalent of a stalker. im not a stalker. a chaser. but i will become one if she wants me to. if the shoe fits ill wear it. or ill just wear it once and throw it away anyway. copy and paste this text and put it into a text to speech application and just listen to it ... let me know if it sounds good. borrow phrases from it. let it brainwash you. because it’s all real. really really really really real. kim and kanye. blessings. armenians. what the heck. little children in library walking around... happy looking. global warming. will it kill all the little children that look so innocent to my eye. and to my eye the world looks ok. but to the instruments... they’re reading something else. that’s how gas kills doesn’t it... it didn’t smell. it just killed. mount olympia. sculpture garden at the pier has a lot of gardners but a lot more dog shit. its impossible to sit in the grass. there was SO MUCH dog shit there. mcdonalds sued for a million dollars. dont do it. all these ridiculous articles on Medium. i joined medium but i cant even press a button to write. ridiculous. double daniels. daniel lives here. so does erin treg. ill try to not mention too many names i guess. maybe they can comment on posts and take them out. fuck ilya golub. fuck olga. fuck all those people. nikolai and m8s and ara and etc etc. let them live their lives but these are weenie people. someone should keep a permanent weenie hat on their heads. stop stuffing dicks into everyones head aram. stop it. note to self. exercise more discipline in the language that i use. lockwood... he was an author who blew his braINS OUT. but he was typing like an animal in the family garage. he released a book. i wish one day i can get back to literature reading again. i miss pynchon. i miss delillo. did they write any new books. are they still alive? im going to check google right now and trust the answer. dellilo alive. i heard roth died. 5-22-2018. wow . the number 22. number of hebrew characters in the alphabet. the number of arab league countries. 22 is a heptagonal number. which means 7 sided polygon number. who knows what that means. its just important. who knows. philip roth died on 5 - 22 - 2018. wow. i miss his work. american paradise or something or portnoy’s complaint. who was that guy. i remember being in oregon 4 years ago and digging deep into literature. is my brother dead? did shant eat a heroine shot? people on the bus were saying weird things. is my father dead? i don’t even know. i remember jolie writing things on the wall. like prophecy that turned into reality. maybe the whole thing was a joke. the name. keith. she used names. she said things. JR JR JR> what is JR.. it’s on the inside of larissa lip . who knows. maybe real or not. nick. wtf. heroine. fresno. people talking to me. gangs this that. greatful dead family. where are we. what is this. acid. meth. heroine. crack brillo pads. what is all this. what happened. where is everyone. dope shooters. not a lot of people left around - “ Cage The Elephant - Shake Me Down - YouTube “ urban dictionary. JR> some caring guy. larissa’s boyfriend. hope they’re still together. been talking out loud to her. sometimes i feel her. saw a lookalike of Lory. or i actually saw lory. maybe when larissa and i were in santa cruz.. we were being watched and played for fools. she kept saying she saw nicole. the aramark logo. the mark from seattle. the people out there. here. chris while. erin triggie. daniel ex of jessica. who knows what people do. say. where am i. what has happened to me. how am i homeless. what is this. what happened to me. i used to be an OG. lol. what am i now. can i even handle it. unlikely candidate. why do people even half respect me. what is going on. scholarships. colleges. high school kids applying for colleges. stanford early application this year is november 1... and the regular is january 2. i remember 2004 applying for fafsa and all that. scholarships. this that. getting accepted. man. SAT scores are still going. its insane how out of touch you get despite trying hardest to stay in touch. eventually the kids evict you themselves. couple library rats tried to trade me bluetooth headset for some molly in front of library and for some crystal. i said no to both. i saw mad guy tweaking dancing fuckin hard at millionair club today - i looked at him and said “brother i love you so i dont want to see you here, like this, ok?” - where is HOMIE RESCUE TEAM - what are we going to do? should we just laugh at this guy. should we just let him die off. should we kill him? what do you think? i have to read news... china and america. usa. and china. and korea. and russia. and some games and calm down and 110 billion dollar pump into USA. turkey and saudi arabia ... and pushing and shoving and ghana and america visits and angola 500 million president running to london who knows... where are we.. like flies buzzing around on The Blue Marble. what happened to sitting at home and enjoying one another in peace. where is my wife. why do i call her my wife. im forgiving people. im rescuing people. im saying im going to quit cigarettes. people look so shady. they look so protective over their assets. ive lost more than i think or know or can count or i dont know whats going on. 

i wanted a ferrari 812 a portofino i saw was pretty i like the color rosso and i wanted a 488 spider and a home on frontenac and i wanted a powerboat like 70 footer or 77′ and i wanted to go to bahamas or caribbean and have sex with my wife and procreate and have children and relax and sleep and rest and have a home on 18 acres in snoquamish and all that stuff and have a Dodge ram 2500 

just read about Satyrs for the first time. rams and satyrs and greece and dionysus and debauchery and Pan and apollo and challenging gods and losing and winning and secretive & lustful and wanting to fuck and permanent erection (piss boner) - very interesting. 

also very interesting is the PT Barnum effect ... basically .. .have you ever had a boner? have you ever wanted to have sex with many women? have you ever flirted with a woman? h ave you ever challenged someone bigger than your own size (like David?) - who knows. Ram. Aram. Random Access Memory. bighorn ram. it was in a shooting game i played on hunting game on computer a long time ago. 

gods .. shoot downs. being destroyed. FLAYED Alive. the Flaying of Tarsus. hubris. arrogance. humility. cold. hot. 

there is this fucking idiot laughing in the library. this fucking tool idiot. he is in the library and he laughs like a clown. i wish joe pesci were here so he can jam and smash on the guy. but he’s not so if i do it. in front of the cameras. it will pr;obably get me into some sort of toruble. who knows. anyway. 

iris murdoch. philip roth. thomas pynchon. all these people. time passes. pynchon delillo still alive still kicking. 

birth days were the worst days. slowly getting over the doldrums. what is it called. weighing yourself down . idioms. expressions. the power of idioms. lists of idioms. lists of ethnic slurs. lists of sociological terms. lists of profiling terms. lists of lists. endless lists of words and referrents and objects and feelings. 

Jimmy hendrix park seattle. the numbered avenues. Ballard. the draw bridges. the seaplanes. the boeing. the SAM . art museum. the fountains. the trees and parks. the lake washington. the lake union. the puget sound. the alaskan viaduct project. 4 months. all the little pieces of seattle. the 4 seasons. the goldfinch bar. the bars. the loyal inn. mark matthews park. he was a presbyterian minister. here we are. some guy still laughing so i told him to shut up bro that hes fucking annoying. then another guy joins in... he does a little goat laugh. so i fucken do a sheep laugh too. fuck these guys. play whack a mole all day. 

seattle is amazing. minus these idiots in it. can someone genocide them. or get rid of their bodies tonight and feed them to the orcas k25 and k13 ? .. k13 is dead. k25 is getting skinny. 

The latest official count is 77 orcas among the three pods. That reflects the death of K-13, a 45-year old female named Skagit.

the count of orcas is 77 orcas. i wanted a 77 or 70 foot yacht. i wanted to call it Septuagint. there are al ot of 7s in the bible. 

oh Gosh. oh man. david reigned for 7 years 6 months. 76. 67.  6s and 7s. 42s. wow. and 7 male descendants of Saul hung before the lord. 7s. the 7 times 77 forgiveness.. yesterday the sevenfold punishments in leviticus. i like stuff like this alot. 

7 for all mankind - i remember such days. the time is 12:12 Pm on 10/9/2018. 

who knows these things ... the Lord is playing on all tracks concurrently. im less annoyed. i see all these defective personas in one day. i dont know why. but its getting better. people getting chin checked. a lot of people getting tagged. 

the rats are getting smashed on worldwide. Meng. etc etc. interpol. this that. internationally. locally, domestically. the Great Awakenings. when we enter into slumbers and turn into zombies turn into psychic vampires. we need to clean the algae every once in a while or else there’s just bodies and piles of bodies of humans. we dont really care about the dead of the past. we really dont’ give a shit or dedicate any time to remembering or researching the dead of the past. a list of wars by death toll. largest natural disasters by death toll. 

to have faith. to try to pray to God. to say im not here to destroy the catholic church. people say and come up with the worst and weirdest things. if you can only see this writing post you will see i hop around so many places. 

a poison dart frog, a dog, a porcupine, a snake, a cow - i’ve been compared to such animals. after a while all the terms of endearment eventually get to me.. its annoying its not cute. people speak they did the worst things to me and im pretty done for trying to recover. maybe i will maybe i wont maybe someone will kill me or ill magically die.. it wont matter - i see that kurt cobain and bruce and brandon and jimmi hendrix theryre all dead and the stars are all dead the “stars” ... revelation says 

Revelation 6:13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, like unripe figs

and the woman and the dragon and the red dragon ... and ir ead revelation and imagined myself as satan last year but i dont think so. i think the others are satan becasue they twisted my brains in and out.. and i cant wait for the rest of revelation to be carried out so that i can witness the end of the world. im very tired of how twisted and disgusting things have become.. im not just angry or wrathful.. i would like to actually see the end of the world... i would like to see Jesus im going to try and be ok until that happens. .. and its so sad that people are just.. .its so sad. 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+12&version=NKJV

love, 

aram krikorian