#but y’know we’ll see what can be repurposed at least

[adelaidedrubman]

rewrote the intro to hl&s chapter 4 so they at least get over that damn fence in under 1k and coming to terms with the fact i shall probably have to kill the jestiny roasting up a campfire fish for john

[lephilodi]

Settling In (D&D RP Ch. 3)

We set out shortly after I had gathered what was important to me, namely my books and the various pieces of literature I had...kept in my possession from home. I tried to get them to wait until dark, but they were rather insistent on leaving as soon as possible. I suppose I will have to come back for my aquarium, mushrooms, and other belongings.

It was today I learned that Luciel is actually a bard of the College of Creation, as he produced a parasol for me out of thin air. Very courteous of him. It was only a few hours to get to their town thankfully, but upon my insistence, they took me to a relatively safe place in the forest not too far away, where they had stashed some strange vehicle of theirs and covered it in vines. Then they were off to celebrate their victory, leaving me alone again in the ever-darkening wood.

I watched as the stars slowly began to appear from the skies. Some of my people despised them, but I always found them to be beautiful. After all, life has no color without light, leaving creatures pale and blind...

Pale and blind, just like the one who had ruined my life. Erebossk.

I truly try not to let my thoughts linger on him. I chose to leave that life behind, thanks to help from a friend. I try to reminisce on what he taught me, rather than what I had lost.

Thankfully, sometime after the midnight hour had passed, Kala and Luciel emerged from the shadows between the dark trunks. I floated down from the top of the vehicle to greet them, but something was clearly bothering them. <I didn't expect to see you back already.>

It was Luciel who spoke first. "Heyyyy Lephi. We have a question for you."

Something is definitely off. What happened in town? <Alright... go ahead.>

Luciel hesitates for a moment again before speaking. "What's a spelljammer?"

I immediately straighten up, rooted to the spot. <Well, I know you can't read or understand Qualith. And I doubt you knew that word before. Can you tell me where you learned it?>

Both the elf and the firbolg simultaneously answer, "No.”

Okay, this is immensely suspicious, and I don't like it. I'm praying to Ao that I won't have to wrestle away Luciel's bag of holding, as it currently had my books, star maps, and schematics inside. <Very well. Spelljammers are ships designed to travel between planes and through realmspace. Even to other crystal spheres. Does that satisfy your curiosity?>

Kala spoke, "For now, yes."

“We were also told some...things, some negative things about you. But we don’t believe they’re true.” Luciel looks up at me, but I can still see some uncertainty in his eyes.

<Well, in that case, it’s probably all true.> I won’t deny what my people are, what we do. What I did.

Kala steps forward again. “Well, we don’t believe them. Not when it comes to you.”

<I appreciate that young ones. But I can see you are tired. You should go and get some sleep.>

The pair eventually went back into town to rest after checking on me. I got as comfortable as I could in the seat on top of...whatever this device is, and decided to rest with one eye open tonight.

Thankfully the next morning, the whole party seemed much more chipper, though Galvar seems to be suffering from a bit of a hangover. Kala removed the plants and vines from the strange conglomeration of devices below me, revealing some sort of crab tank with a set of four ballistas attached to the top, and I realized with some concern that I had been sleeping in the hot seat. Luciel crawled into the tank portion to pilot it, while Kala crawled up to the seat where I was sitting and deposited herself in my lap. She had in hand what appeared to be two halves of a coconut and began clapping them together as we began moving, somehow accelerating the pace of the whole group. Must be some strange magical item. We set off before the sun gets too high in the sky, headed north into Neverwinter Wood.

By mid-afternoon we arrived at a very run-down manse in the middle of the forest. Pumpkin patches surrounded a large house completely covered in ivy. It looked certainly worse for wear, especially with a boar's head carved into the front door. I close my eyes and open up my psionic field to get familiar with the small region around the manse as the others go over their plan on how to get rid of the gulthias tree in the manse's well, sensing four beings of low intelligence within the manse, likely the vine blights they speak of.

I follow as they head inside, floating over the broken wood of busted down doors, and out into the courtyard of the manse. Before me was indeed a well, from which great, thick vines erupted, spreading out across the flagstones. I readied my whip just in case, as I could sense the creatures down inside the well.

Luciel created a great length of chain from thin air with his magic, slowly lowering it in a circle all the way around the tree. And... Ilsensine above, Crete is flying.

I look over to Galvar to see him grinning up at the minotaur. I suppose he learned a new spell. Kala has her flame scimitar at the ready, and they begin the attack.

Combat with the blights is mercifully short and swift, leaving only the tree in their wake. The caster's flame-based spells making short work of the tree, even if Crete's halberd sent blood-like sap spraying everywhere. Finally, Kala casts her own Blight spell, and the tree withers away to dust, leaving the well empty.

<Well, I think this place could use a serious clean-up.> I pull the dehydrated cleaning cubes from inside my sleeve, going to the kitchen to submerge them in water and set them to work.

I come back out to the courtyard to the other four discussing what to do next.

"I think it would make the most sense for Crete and I to go to Neverwinter, so we can sell our loot and see what we can have made with the dragon parts," Luciel explains. “And we’ll look for some builders to fix this place up and maybe set up some outbuildings. Plus I have this sweet stuffed winter wolf head we found to give to Falcon, since he seems to really like stuffed heads of sentient beings. Y’know, just a nice gesture from the new neighbors.”

Oh I really don’t like that. I’m all for keeping repurposed skulls for pots, but at least those were once my food. I lessened the amount of waste from my kills. But I’d rather not have my own head on this...”Falcon’s” wall.

Kala’s also speaks up, “And I’ve got that spider silk weave I commissioned at the Coster to go pick up in town.”

“Then I’ll get started on that secret room for Lephilodi that we were talking about at the bottom of the well!” Galvar says cheerily. “Is that alright with you Miss Lephilodi? We thought it would be the best way to keep you safe when the builders are here.”

<Oh, I see. Well, as long as I have a bed and some space, I suppose it can’t be much worse than Axeholm. And I prefer to be awake at night anyways.>

“Aye! And we’ll set up a hidden door as best we can so no one can bother ye!” exclaimed the dwarf.

<I suppose that will do for now. Thank you.>

“In that case, we’re off!” shouts Luciel jubilantly, as he turns Crete into a giant eagle in front of my very eyes.

Crete plucks up Luciel in his claws and they soon are out of view beyond the trees.

Well that was interesting...

Kala shape-shifts into a wolf and heads for town while Galvar lowers himself into the well to start excavating. I decide to make myself busy and check on the cleaning cubes. They’re not too far along yet, but this will give me time to look around the house.

Unfortunately, the roof of the kitchen is caved in, and the doors on the lower level are all broken for the most part. Most of the furniture is broken, so I do my part and toss all the unsalvageable wood outside with telekinesis. This feels like settling into Axeholm all over again. However, I am delighted to find a laboratory, a library, and a bathing room that still has warm, running water. That’s good, I’ll need a bath later once this room is cleaned as well. There is one master bedroom along with what likely used to be an apprentices’ bedroom, though the latter had a giant hole in the floor and was even more filthy than the prior rooms. Thank goodness the cubes work quickly.

Towards the end of the day, I sense Kala return from town, and I go out to meet her. Galvar comes back out of the well and goes inside to wash up for a moment. Good, I’ve been wanting to ask Kala about something.

I try to speak with my gentlest voice. <Kala, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Are you...okay? You seemed even more upset than Luciel last night, and...when we first met I could tell you were trying to hide a secret from me. But I did not pry because that is not my place.>

Kala looks up at me swiftly. “Oh! Yes, well...I’m not a firbolg. I’m a changeling. I’m fine now, I promise. It’s just that some things that we were told about you, I’ve also heard said about my kind. That’s why I was upset.”

Ah. So that’s what this one has been hiding. <I see. I know little of your kind personally, but I can assure you I have no qualms against you. After all, that would be rather hypocritical of me wouldn’t it?> I project some amusement to help put her at ease before Galvar comes trotting back outside.

With Kala’s help and her Stone Shape spell, they are able to work a bit longer. I decide to head up to that much needed bath as they do so. Thank Ilsensine, the cubes are finished in here. I draw the warm water and strip out of my cleric’s robes. Even with the ivy blocking the windows, I can still see just fine in the darkened room...and I can still see the scars that criss-cross my light skin. Some were accidentally self-inflicted, learning experiences on my body from my time studying how to use a blade-whip. Others...were not. I try not to dwell on them as I sink into the tub of warm water, and I let out a physical sigh of relief. It’s so hard to stay hydrated when you don’t produce your natural mucus anymore. A symptom of my strange diet, but maybe after eating the dragon’s brain, my skin will start slicking down again. But until then, lotions will have to suffice. I soak myself for a while, occasionally shifting to get everything in contact with the water despite my height, before getting out and doing my skincare routine. I put my dampsuit back on afterwards and then my robe, stepping back out of the steam-filled bathing room only to be met by Galvar.

He snapped and pointed his forefingers and thumb towards me, shooting me a wink before he drawls out, “Lookin’ good.”

I immediately feel my face flush white. Was that a compliment???

Galvar immediately started freaking out. “I am so, so sorry, it was supposed to be a joke! I didn’t mean to freak you out!!!”

<G-Galvar, it’s just blush. We blush white, it’s okay. I just...I think it’s time we all get some rest...>

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

me: i don’t have anything to post ughhh also me: has 10 95% finished drafts i could literally take an hour to finish and upload but won’t me: lemme start a new analysis

aaaaaa the mural of mayhem looks so good (source)

tl;dr: bunches of new environment shots. also i wanna time travel So Bad, just so Bad,,, gearbox, please, time travel??? i wanna meet The Man Typhon Deleon just *clenches fist* so bad and slap him for leading to the opening of the first vault. also for some reason tina is the only one of the good guys with the fabric stuff the twins are wearing. be warned. oh, also, there might be some ursa mechs? i saw like 3 robos that look like iron bear but aren’t colored like it so who even knows. oh and we see the scientist (?) dude in color next to Tannis from the MoM. he seems cool evil.

i don’t even know where to begin here so let’s start with the middle and work our way towards literally whatever catches my eye next. i have no method, im a disaster

OwO

nothing too special about our VHs here, they seem to be using the gold gun skins that are offering in either the early adopter pack or the other pack u get i think for signing up to be a VIP. so that’s neat. also shows off the good guys = blue/yellow theme we see throughout the mural.

there is this weird square shape in the sky/clouds above them? idk what it’s supposed to be, though. a logo? a ship? a building? i can’t tell!

i could be wrong/seeing things though lol

zoomer isn’t colored in! probably didn’t want to detract from the main 4 VHs. additionally, Amara’s arms don’t have their patterns across them. 

Moze is also the only VH here with a hint as to what her Action Skill is. IB is elsewhere on the mural, though. We’ll get to him.

the Vault behind them!

moving down below the VHs, we see this ship

I’ve spoken about it before, so i won’t go into it here

bandits? i think! looks like at least one of them is wearing power armor... or just a suit of armor in general. it looks like power armor to me tho lol

another set of silhouettes in the foreground on the right there. can’t tell who/what they’re supposed to be unfortunately, but im going to assume more bandits

interestingly, we see the ruins of helios SUPER close and, even more interestingly, what appears to be a Vault in front of it! Which could very well be the Vault of the Traveler? since the Traveler itself can’t teleport it anymore (cause y’know... it ded.) It has a weird shape at the bottom, idk what that is supposed to be. it looks like a curvy outline of an arrow tbh lol. i wonder if the Vault actually did teleport Rhys and Fiona somewhere. I also wonder if the thing on the bottom is meant to help ‘visitors’ or something idk use/see/extract whatever was in the Vault. there was like some stairs and then a chest..? thing? idek. 

but yeah, looks like the Vault by Helios is doing well. Also, Vaughn apparently knows Rhys is on Promethea (soon) after the end of tales so I wonder if that actually is a portal... either way, i hope this means we’ll get to go visit 👀 We’ve visited the ruins of helios already in commander lilith, so hopefully this isn’t too much of a stretch.

to the right of that we see Lorelei knockin the shit out of a goliath that seems... kinda small compared to her? idk maybe it’s cause he’s lying down (and out).

We also see another instance of Mystery Girl up at the top there, though she’s in the exact same pose as the mask of mayhem which makes me kinda sad. i was hoping to see another angle of her or something. I do hope she’s actually in the game and isn’t just a statue. be wild if tyreen gave her the suck or something to turn her into a statue to preserve her in the hopes that doing the reverse succ/getting the ultimate power would let ty bring her back to life at a later point lmao

below lorelei we can see a crimson raider in the ash cloud! i have no idea why he’s there but he’s lookin baller.

next to to lorelei is a titan (unsure if that’s the official name for these big guys or if the one in the showcase was unique) a skag and clappy! I can’t tell if clappy is holding something in his left arm or not

also the background looks like a city. i think that is promethea? i can’t really tell tbh

next to clappy we see part of a ferris wheel which im pretty sure is part of the circus area we’ve seen in the trailers. the one with the circle emblem thing above the door/entrance.

below clappy/marcus we see what i think is part of Eden-6

the bridge/road has me going like 🤔 but the foliage pretty much confirms it. might be related to that research base looking area. might be related to jakobs manor (maybe they have a bridge to keep bandits out) idk

above that we see marcus looking some cash to a bunch of psychos. I think he has an ECHO skin? i can’t really tell. not really much to say here tbh, is marcs.

behind him we see this landscape which i don’t think we’ve seen before. the tree is screaming Athenas at me but tbh i think we’ve only seen red trees there, haven’t we? also is that the handle of a sword near the bottom there? wtf is that?

maybe a new planet? or a new biome on one of the planets we haven’t seen yet. it looks like a savanna tree to me. you know the ones?

yeah. possible new planet/new biome we haven’t seen yet?? i would ADORE a savanna type area. 

next to that we see a tink and a skag in front of the HBC. I thiiink the tink is holding a flamethrower? not sure, though. maybe a miniboss like midgemong? that’d be neat asf

i can’t tell if this is a suit of power armor/a robot or just part of the environment lol, i can see the helmet up top and a big bulky body. i would love to fight power armored enemies like that, be so cool! maybe these are modified suits of the ursa corps project? or something. idk about the helmet.

above the tink/skag combo we can see more silhouettes in the foreground. i seriously can’t make out who they’re supposed to be :( maybe some maliwan troops? i feel like they’d be more recognizable, though. hmhmhmhm

in the background we see another robo/power armor suit (???? i think????), this one seems to have a flamethrower, which is kinda reinforcing my theory they might be repurposed armor sets. this one doesn’t appear to have a helmet. kinda get the feeling they’re either repurposed or completely different cuz the helmet on the other one is throwing me off a touch. IB doesn’t have a helmet. 

for reference.

above that weirdly confusing collection of entities, we have hammerlock!

my boiii

and finally to the left of hammerlock we get to the big boy of this side of the mural

the god queen herself.

first thing i noticed? her jacket seems to be warping into that weird fabric we see clinging to other baddies throughout the mural and covering her right leg. 

She seems to be holding up a grenade/molotov cocktail/smoke bomb?

pretty sure it’s a molotov cocktail though

i love how the smoke merges into the roses above her. really cool detail. you can also see the recruitment center to the right there! and a crane which makes me double down on the idea that the ‘vault’ we see in the booth thing had been excavated by dahl (considering the main building of the RC is a dahl building)

we also see a fire rakk? ?? i think? be cool if we got badass elemental rakks. i’ve only ever seen normal badass rakks. i wonder if this is a play on the fact there’s a psycho in the MoM with rakk wings and the twins stole lily’s firehawk powers... probably not, right? probably not...

ty’s tattoos are lookin kinda green for me here, might be the close proximity to all those browns and reds, though. it’d be really cool if she could pull an amara and swap her succ elements LMAO

a bunch of psychos! all with wings! which is weird cause the sirens don’t have wings here. weird chunk of symbolism i guess. we can see a tubby on the top there which makes me happy to know they’re coming back. there’s one with 

a glowing nose

and there’s this figure on the very left

who doesn’t appear to be a psycho at all

also, note that all these psychos have a ‘normal’ brown/gray buzzaxe

the one at the bottom here, on ty’s left has a more golden-colored buzzaxe. im p sure that corresponds to rank in cult. i also feel obligated to point out that, while im 90% sure that flame is coming from the flamethrower on the right there, it does kinda look like the bottom psycho is shooting a blast of flames out of his palm. 

moving right along

the whole entourage seems to be laying across a statue of roses, which match the ones at the top of the mural AND the ones on the cover art.

we see a shot of Pandora and Elpis here (I’m pretty sure. the purple light at the top right makes me believe that’s the eridian scar, but.... may not be)

looks very volcanic...

we see one of those lil video game dudes from the demo, forgot their names but they’re Maliwan

below them we see this scene

which is an area i don’t recognize. eden-6 maybe? the buildings seem a bit close together, though.

tbh i thought this was another city at first, maybe it’s Promethea from ye olde days? you know, before Atlas took over and modernized it. Maybe we’ll get to go back in time to stop the first Vault from ever being opened. that’d be pretty cool. man time travel would be wild. i wonder if we’d be able to combine the Vault of the Traveler and the Vault of the Sentinel to do that. now that’d be cool.

but it’s probably eden-6 lmao

quadruple threat here. from top to bottom: Rhys, Zer0, Vaughn, Aurelia? i think. 

her hair seems spikier in the mask bit... maybe that’s not her? she also doesn’t have the earrings. idk who else it could be, though. 🤔

anyway. Vaughn seems to be climbing a cliff or something lol. at least he’s got a cape and his relic of strength on him.

rhys and zer0 are in the same poses as their poses on the Mask of Mayhem, just colored in.

biggg statue of ty. noticeably missing her facial scars. not much else to say, pretty sure this is just a different(ish) angle of her MoM statue during the pan around.

back to the bottom center of the mural, let’s move left

someone with a jetpack! i can’t make out who, though. i thought it was Moze at first but... she needs her digistruct pack for iron bear.

Also a bunch of psychos all fighting each other. over the buzzaxes maybe? if they really are a symbol of rank in the cult. that or they’re just being psychos. 

this area with a waterfall and also a drainage pipe. i think this is also eden-6, but i am not 100% sure. probably an area we haven’t seen yet.

lily!! her right (our left) wing looks really weird to me, idk what it is. it’s a lot redder/yellower than her left one. Also, the tattoos near her wrist look like they’re coming off her arm. 

to the left of lily we see ellie!

holding a whole-ass street sign. insane.

next/behind her is promethea! which we’ve seen before. it looks like one of the buildings in the middle there is getting blasted by something, but idk what. maybe something Maliwan? 

also, on the left there we can see what i thought was iron bear

but now i am second guessing myself due to the other robos/armor suits we saw on the right of the mural. 

maybe they did not color in IB fully like Zoomer? it looks like there is someone/something where the turret mount would be. maybe that is moze standing up there? it would be really interesting to see other Ursa Corps soldiers coming in. I know they mentioned in the Commander Lily ECHO log that Vladof was at war with Tediore, and we know through their advertisements for bl2 that Vladof is also at war with Dahl. It’s possible we’ll see some of their troops in the game! especially since Moze’s echo actually talks about the troop as a whole and not specifically her, unlike the others.

next to the mystery mech or iron bear (you decide) we see Mystery Girl/Little Blue/Nope Girl

and, yeah, starting to think she may not actually fit into the timeline of Steele’s death. she looks older than 12 to me (for reference, in bl2 tina was 13). but we haven’t quite seen enough of her so who knows. im getting ‘way too tall’ vibes. maybe 14-15? maybe mystery MoM girl is her little sister. i would not be surprised if we saw another sibling relationship to juxtapose the twins (considering mystery girl looks like a CoV bandit, they’d be distant at the start and close at the end of the game while the twins are close at the start and distant at the end of the game- we know Danny Homan said their relationship would start to warp). 

below her we see this area

i think that’s a water tank at the bottom there? this looks kinda like a garden/courtyard area to me. Maybe another place on Athenas? i want to say Athenas bc Little Blue is directly above it. may be another new planet/biome/region we haven’t seen yet.

Above L.B we see this car

which is interesting to me bc it appears to have a closed top? I could be wrong though. would be fun to see Vasquez’s car make a return, tho lol (and then everyone gets mad the fuckin car is making an appearance but Gaige isn’t)

above that we see Tina and Mordy (and Talon) making an appearance. Tina appears to be in the same pose as her Mappearancence, including the huge launcher behind her which has me like :O Talon is a girl now in bl3, right? unless their gender changed again after the commander lilith stuff.

Also, I’m hesitant to note that Tina is the only ‘good guy’ character to have the fabric on. Everyone other character with it is either a psycho or one of the twins. I hope that’s just artistic choice and nothing more because :(

also she has bows on her shoes. fucking ace

to their right we see 3 very interesting things so we’ll go in order from the bottom counter clockwise

another mystery dude who seems to match the one we saw by tyreen, and those silhouettes again. It looks like they’re reaching down to save their falling teammates. i hope they’re alright. (unless they’re evil. then, oof, crash and burn)

at the top i can see a bunch of men with guns pointed at what i think is a jabber? but the lower bit i can’t make out. someone’s falling at the very bottom, it looks like a second falling figure has been caught with rope? idk.

above that scene we see

tannis! and the mystery guy to the bottom right. the one we’ve seen standing next to her in the MoM. does he have red eyes for anyone else or is that just me? might just be the lighting. Do I think he’s evil? you know the fuck i do. I trust nobody lol. Since I’m a fan of the “the twins are the product of a weird experiment” theory, it’s possible he is the experimenter. Tannis could’ve been feeding him information. maybe she didn’t even know what was going on- though, knowing her disregard for ethics, maybe she did. 

this guy btw

it looks like tannis is holding an eridian artifact?

maybe?? it looks like she’s holding it horizontally, if it is an artifact.

to her right and our left we see a familiar shot of Promethea. I’ve seen this exact frame before, iirc that building is smoking bc it’s Rhys’s office. actually, that could explain Rhys joining us on Sanc-III! maybe Lorelei, too.

above Tina and Mordy we see Brick

and to the right of him, Moxxi and her bar sign

she has a new megaphone, i wonder if that is hinting we’ll be getting more circles of slaughters/underdomes. It would be nice to have her commentary return, i actually really enjoyed that in the bl1 dlc and I did actually enjoy her dlc. The wave combat was fun. I’d love to have an endless wave version to see how long i could survive.

it also looks like there are a bunch of psychos (?) hanging out around the bar. and this character at the bottom right who i don’t recognize

to the far right of moxxi we see Maya

i think this is a new pose, but tbh i don’t see anything noteworthy here. I do think it’s interesting she’s using pistols instead of smgs, but oh well. might just be for the poses lol

Troy’s statue. one interesting bit i gotta mention is that it looks like the cut on the right side of his face (our left) is visible here! iirc it was not visible on his portraits in the MoM. so that’s new!

the big boy of this side of the mural!

none of the psychos on this side seem to have golden buzzaxes, plus their drapes? wtf are these? they don’t look like robes to me. anyway, they’re darker in color than the ones on Ty’s side. might be artistic direction, might be showing they’re not as high rank as the ones with the god queen (vs the right hand man lol)

i also only see 2 psychos with wings here, the one on the very left and you can see part of a wing on the bottom right. They also don’t appear to be resting/climbing on a statue like Tyreen’s are. There is ALSO a lot less of them. 

some interesting stuff about Troy: his stomach tattoos don’t seem to be around, but that could be because of the detail level required- would probably look like a big ol smudge. it is cool seeing Troy with a gun, is this the first time? i can’t remember, but i know we always saw him with his sword. i find it kinda funny they decided on the gun considering this is supposed to be renaissance, the sword would (kinda) be more fitting in that regard. it is also a giant glowy tech sword, so maybe not.

Also, Ty’s side of the mural is the only one with the roses. idk if that’s to signify something or just to balance out colors, though you’d think the red clouds on troy’s side couldve been easily converted to roses as well. hmmm 🤔

anyway, this is all i’ve got. if i missed something/if you think of something new please tell me! i wanna know 👀

[sirkkasnow]

12 Finer Points Of Damage Control

Ao3 link

07/20/13-07/25/13 Saturday - Thursday

Stan didn’t say anything when he got home, because the slumber party crew had arrived and there were people underfoot everywhere. Clary coordinated dishwashing duties in the kitchen, passing silverware off to Candy and lifting plates out of Grenda’s towel as soon as they were dry. “Did you get dinner?” she asked as he stuck his head warily through the door. “We have leftovers.”

“Uh - I’ll wait until you guys’re done, thanks.” Mabel teetered atop a stepstool to put away glasses. She managed a shameless wink over Clary’s head. Pacifica sat at the kitchen table looking bored and vaguely hostile, fingertips busy flicking across her phone’s screen. “If you got a minute later, Clary, could we have a word?”

“You bet, Stan, I’ll come looking for you.”

There was really no time at all to talk. Clary chased after the four girls like a harried mother goose, hopping over Waddles when necessary. Stan could not believe the amount of chatter they generated - commentary on the guest list, the likely menu, Ford’s relative hotness - he winced at that one.

They spent a good hour in the living room huddled around Mabel’s phone, watching videos and arguing over the party soundtrack. Clary was pushing for classic tunes, forties and fifties stuff. “Lowest common denominator. Everyone can dance to that.”

“My grunkle’s got pretty light feet,” Mabel shot back. “Seventies or bust! Let’s give the old man a chance to strut his stuff!”

“Every time Stan struts his stuff, something gets broken.” Pacifica was leaning in, still looking a little bored but at least engaged. “Which might be fun to watch.”

Stan hovered within earshot for a little while, hoping Clary would pull herself free, but he gave up after one too many intense debates over boy bands. He’d have to wait them out. The cash was burning a hole in his pocket anyway. He stomped off to the old office, flicked on a lamp, cleared a space on the desk and buckled down to work.

He couldn’t really enjoy the whole process with the sense of impending doom winding tight in his chest. The old answering machine’s red light blinked angrily from across the room; he threw stuff at it - Gold Chains For Old Men from last April, a Lil’ Gideon promo t-shirt, a ratty coonskin cap he’d never repurposed - until something stuck and covered it up.

By the time he had the guest list and the cash bundled up and packed away in the safe it was well past midnight. Stan crept through the darkened house, reflexively avoiding all the creakiest spots in the floor. Dipper, he knew, was crashing on the study couch downstairs.

Indistinct girlish voices and the steady thump thump thump of muffled bass were still trickling under the kids’ door. The narrow line of light painted onto the floorboards was dim, at least, so things must be winding down by now. Stan paused and raised his hand to knock, then thought better of it and slunk off towards his own room.

He was on the verge of tucking himself in when he heard the soft creak of hinges down the hall. Cracking his door open a sliver revealed a bare glimpse of Clary tiptoeing out and downstairs in pajamas and kerchief. Eventually she returned with the plastic pitcher and a few old tumblers.

Stan just watched. She glanced over as she made to slip back in, spotting his silhouette against the faint light of his room, and with a tiny conspiratorial smile held a finger to her lips.

He closed the door, flopped flat on his back in bed, and stared at the ceiling that was too far away to actually see until he tumbled unwilling into restless sleep.

Come morning the yammering traffic of teenage girls throwing together a full-on Mabel-style breakfast was too much to bear. There wasn’t a chance in hell of extricating Clary from the chaos, so he headed straight for the museum.

Soos had rigged construction curtains across the space they’d blocked out. The ‘Coming Attraction!’ sign sported a cheerful, toothy, horned-and-winged weasel with wide cartoon eyes, probably Melody’s work.

Stan had argued for scaling the whole production down a little, but Soos had been adamant in his laid-back way. By hook or by crook it was going to be a walkthrough with hidden lighting, surround sound and special effects, whatever that meant.

He spent most of his time slathering black paint over the framework that had already gone in. The blackout shell that would eventually enclose it all would at least cover up any number of construction sins. Positioning marks for lights, showpieces and electronics got chalked in according to the elaborate plans he’d been handed.

Morning tours swung past his sheltered corner and Stan listened in pleased bemusement. There was already a snappy line of patter for the new exhibit. Soos had a gift for this - the style had changed but the appreciative giggling and gasps from his audience were familiar.

After all, Stan had fallen into the role. Soos had aspired to it.

It was easy to lose himself in the work for a couple of hours, but eventually his stomach’s vague grumble and the angle of sunlight through the windows warned him that he had other things to worry about. Soos stuck his head in between curtains and tapped at the framework. “Time for lunch, Mr. Pines! The girls have all gone home and I think Miss Clary’s got sandwiches made up.”

“Yeah, yeah, comin’.” Stan rubbed at a few flecks of black paint on his fingers and emerged squinting into the main room. “Sounds like a nice busy mornin’. Everythin’ all right with plans for the dance thing?”

Soos tugged a notepad out of his jacket. “Oh, yeah, we’re selling a ton of tickets! I guess they all saw your posters. Lots of messages came in last night. Took a while to get through them all before we opened up. And we had a bunch of people asking about dinner tickets?” He flipped a couple of pages while Stan cringed internally. “Yup, about fifteen of those. Couple more calls today, too, and a few people asking at the gift shop.”

“Uh. Yeah. About those. Didja get phone numbers an’ names?”

“Oh, sure. Looked like you settled on eighty-five bucks apiece for those, so that’s what we charged.”

“What you - Soos, did you actually sell them tickets?!”

Soos blinked. “Well, sure! I saw the envelope in the safe and that ticket book, so I figured you and Miss Clary worked something out. It’ll be one big party!”

“Sweet Moses.” Stan squeezed his eyes shut, slapped a hand to his brow, and started to pace. Surely there was still a way to contain the damage. “Okay. Okay, you got contact info, all we gotta do is call people - “

He swung around to look out across the exhibit space, spinning possibilities in his mind - reschedule, shift the venue, anything but issuing refunds. His focus flicked blankly from point to point, then settled on the woman standing with arms folded right behind the Sascrotch.

Ah, fuck.

“Stan,” Clary said gently. “May I have a moment of your time, please.” It wasn’t a question.

Stan held out a hand. Soos laid the notebook in his palm and backed away until he was out of her line of sight.

Clary turned and walked with measured strides through the museum and then the house until she’d arrived at the porch. Stan followed with feet dragging as though they were already encased in concrete.

She set hands to her hips and looked out into the distance - he wasn’t sure if she even saw the trees. As the silence drew out he thumbed through Soos’ notebook and mentally counted up tickets, arriving at a number large enough to make his stomach flip in delight and dread.

“The girls and I came up with a guest list of eighteen people,” Clary said at length. “Am I to understand that we are expecting more, now.”

Stan cleared his throat and launched in. “So, funny thing, I stopped off for a coffee down at Greasy’s an’ Susan’s the one who brought it up, since you’ve been lookin’ to get this whole thing organized for the last couple days, said you asked about cherry pie, good choice by the way - “

Not a word. Her fingers were drumming out a restless rhythm against the khaki of her shorts.

“So yeah. Yeah, people were startin’ to get the wrong idea ‘bout dance party tickets so I thought maybe we’d, y’know, sell some dinner tickets since they’re so hot on it, we’ll make enough - more than enough! - t’offset all the expenses an’ then at least we know who’s comin’, we don’t get a buncha people bustin’ in uninvited - “

“How many?”

He had a good head of steam up and had to fumble around for a second. “Uh - what?”

“How many tickets?” She hadn’t raised her voice but there was an edge in it like the wind of a January blizzard and he nearly shivered.

“Looks like about fifty - “

“Fifty!” Clary barked it out and turned to glare at him full on. Her face was pale, a hard spot of angry pink high in each cheek. “Stan, that’s seventy people. I can’t cook for seventy people out of the house, there is no damn way and the minute money’s involved you need a certified commercial kitchen! How in the hell - “

Stan knew he’d gone red in the face and hell if a direct challenge wasn’t making his temper start to flare a little, too. “Well - well, fine, we have Greasy’s make it all! We shuttle it up an’ make sure we have plenty of paper plates, no problem!”

Clary scoffed. “There is no way you didn’t sell this as a home-cooked meal from your very own resident lawyer.”

Okay, so she wasn’t entirely wrong. “No one’s gonna care about the food. They just wanna meet you - “

“So you’re telling me I make a decent roadside attraction?”

The last syllable rose and broke. She clapped a palm over her mouth. Stan looked at her, his jaw gone slack, a sharp little sting lodged in his chest. Tears of fury or frustration had welled up at the corners of her eyes and one made a break for it as she pulled a shaking breath.

“I need a minute,” she said, rough-edged.

“Clary. C’mon.” He reached out, hoping to lay a hand on her shoulder. She twitched away, then slipped past him with fluid ease, making no contact. In three long strides she’d thrown a leg over her bicycle. One foot found a pedal and she took off at speed down the path that’d eventually get her to town. “Oh, come on!”

Both of the kids clattered out onto the porch, standing to either side of him.

“Grunkle Stan?” Mabel looked up to him in wide-eyed concern. “What’s going on? Is she okay?”

“She forgot her helmet.” Dipper folded his hands, thumbs twirling awkward loops. “Uh, so the dinner thing got - bigger?”

Stan set a hand to his chin for a long moment, breathing through his fingers to steady himself.

“Yep,” he said. “She’s headin’ out to work on logistics an’ supplies an’ so on. We’ve only got a couple days to pull it all together, yeah?” Stan scraped up a smile and lightly patted Mabel’s hair. “You know how this town is, things get outta hand pretty quick. We’re all gonna have to pitch in, got it?”

Mabel looked on the verge of tears for a moment, then her back straightened and her jaw set in determination. “I don’t know what the heck just happened but we are gonna fix it. Right, Dipper?”

“Right, Mabel! Come on, we’ll go track her down!”

“Kids. No.” He shook his head when they looked up at him in surprise. “She wants peace an’ quiet, she gets peace an’ quiet.” Mabel looked briefly mulish, Dipper troubled, but he put on the stern look and eventually they nodded.

She didn’t reappear that afternoon. Stan did his best to stay busy with piecing the exhibit together, focused more sharply than usual in service of not thinking about anything else. He was genuinely starting to worry along towards dinnertime when his phone chimed with an incoming one-line message, then more in rapidfire sequence.

Rented out Greasy’s kitchen. Add’l food lined up. Updated menu. Pls send guest list when complete. Still need: tables & chairs, linens, serveware. Suggest asking McGucket. Manor might have garden party supplies.

Hesitant, Stan tapped in: You okay?

The reply was near instant. I’m fine. Will see you at dinner.

He’d about finished off the wiring, packing away tools and electrical tape, when Mabel came dashing in out of breath and yanked aside the construction curtain. “She’s back! C’mon, c’mon, you’ve gotta clean up!”

Ford had been on dinner duty that evening, which meant it was heavy on vegetables and light on anything interesting. Dipper and Mabel were buzzing around Clary. She looked freshly scrubbed, maybe a little drawn, tossing together a salad at the counter. Her head came up as Stan entered; she set down the dressing, marched right over and offered her right hand. “I apologize.”

Stan accepted her clasp immediately and squeezed in what he hoped was reassurance. “Hey. Ah, glad you’re all right, real sorry about the inconvenience an’ all.” Grateful though he was to see her, the smile she wore was surface-slight, her eyes cool.

“I’ve run fundraisers before. It’ll all be under control in a day or two.” Clary’s fingers slipped from his and she pivoted to collect the salad bowl. “All right, you lot! War council time! As you know we’re running the biggest party of the summer here at the Shack and I am going to need help from all of you.”

Ford dished up brown rice and poached salmon. Clary laid out the menu, jotted in several additions and got quite serious with Mabel about desserts, settling on ‘Fireworks Krispy Treats: They’ll Light Up Your Mouth!’ in addition to the cherry pies and lemon bars she’d apparently negotiated with Susan.

“You,” Clary said, pointing her pen at Stan. “Logistics. The exhibit and the seating are yours to manage. Remember that at this rate we may have to set up an outdoor dance floor. You,” indicating Ford, “please keep working on my car. I’m going to need both of you early on the morning of this thing to knock out the chicken.”

Stan watched the whole process with trepidation - she was a monster of efficiency and it was a far cry from the laid-back approach she’d been taking for the last couple days. “Yes ma’am.”

“We’ve got less than a week to knock this out of the park.” Clary took up her fork and saluted the table at large. “Let’s make this legendary.” She tucked briskly into her dinner and finished well before everyone else, dropping off her plate at the sink and ducking out of the kitchen before Stan could catch her.

It went like that for the entire following day. Clary disappeared before anyone was awake, communicating only in an endless series of texts. Most of those hit a broadcast group including Stan, Soos, Ford and the kids, friendly if brisk updates on the state of the picnic.

A few of them came only to Stan, and those were ...terse.

Status on tables etc?

Updates to guest count?

Pls keep any receipts for supplies. Will collect them later.

An argument about who was going to pay for what would be coming down the pike soon, he was sure of that.

Got time in the morning? he tapped in.

Working to clean Greasy’s kitchen up to code. Will probably finish tomorrow. A pause, then: Wouldn’t want to poison half the town.

Clary didn’t even make it back for dinner that night. When he went looking for her the next morning she was already gone, and her phone went unanswered. Stan lasted until just before lunchtime before pure frustration drove him to start working his way through local contacts to track her down.

“Greasy's diner - we have food!” That was Susan for sure, sounding slightly manic.

“Heeey, Susan. listen, is Miz Merrick down there? She headed out early this mornin' and I was wonderin' where she landed.”

“Oh, gosh yes!” Susan giggled against the background racket of customers. “You should've seen her. She's been hauling stuff out of that old walk-in fridge that I didn't even know existed! We've got some pretty weird specials for lunch, let me tell ya. She’s helping with the rush while she's stocking up all this stuff for the big picnic - ooooh, it's all going to be delicious! I can't wait!”

Stan squinted. “Wait, what, you're comin'?”

“Oh, sure! She traded me a ticket and got me the ingredients for all those pies!” Her cheerful tone dropped a little into rusty affection. “I can't wait to take a spin around the dance floor with you.” He thought that over, then shuddered faintly to himself.

“So, ah, she free to come to the phone? Guess she's set hers on silent or somethin'.”

“Gimme a minute, sweetie, i'll go check.” The rattle of industrial-grade china and indistinct conversation went on as she left the receiver on the counter, calling out towards the back of the place.

Eventually she wandered back. “Sorry, Stan, she's in the middle of juggling like eight trays of biscuits. Says she'll see you back at the Shack tonight.”

Stan propped himself against the wall and managed not to sigh. “All right, Susan, thanks. Glad she's gettin' out ahead of it all.”

“You bet, sugar. See ya in a couple days!”

He'd been too engrossed to notice company in the hallway, and when he glanced up glumly it was right at Mabel perched on the bottom step with Waddles leaning into her side. Stan jerked upright but she was already shaking a finger at him.

"Don't you give me that look, Grunkle Stan. She's too ‘busy’ - “ Biiiiiig air quotes around that one. “- to talk to you, right?"

“Ah - um - “ He juggled a couple of possible deflections, then shoved the phone in his pocket and looked at her in naked desperation. “I swear this is not what I meant to happen!”

Mabel heaved a theatrical sigh. “All right. This is something I can fix. Clary and I have an appointment with Soos' Abuelita tomorrow morning.” She waggled her eyebrows. “A secret appointment. When we get back at around lunchtime you better be ready to shake your moneymaker, got it?"

“Shake my what now?”

“You two are gonna host this thing, so you better dance. And since the spotlight's gonna be on you, you'd better be good! Everyone will be watching!”

Oh boy. He was probably a dead man walking as it was and this wasn’t gonna help.

“And that means,” Mabel said, cheerfully oblivious, “That you two need to practice. Don't worry. Mabel's on the case and I'll make it happen.” She zapped him with the finger-guns and shoved Waddles aside enough to get to her feet. “I'll let you know where you need to be and when. Make sure you’re tidy, okay?”

‘Where’ turned out to be the old storage room he’d converted to a ramshackle boxing ring, the ropes downed and folded up in a corner. ‘When’ was late morning the following day, and ‘what’ - well. That was answered when Mabel came in, dragging the karaoke machine in her wake. Clary stepped in right after, a bandana at her neck and another binding back her hair, bleach spatters dotting her old t-shirt.

Stan stuffed hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders back, doing his level best to meet her eyes without a twinge of guilt - because, come on, they were going to make a ton of money on this picnic thing - and found himself mostly failing. He was really starting to hate the polished, faint, impenetrable smile she had for him.

Mabel’s voice was a vague buzz through the tangle of his self-justification but he caught the gist of it - dazzle the rubes, make it look easy, inspire swooning jealousy in the audience. “All right,” she wrapped up, as rah-rah as he’d ever heard her. “Let’s you and him dance!”

Clary pinched her lips, unfolded her arms, and stalked out across the floor to join him.

“So,” Stan said.

“Mmhm.”

“Carved some time out of the schedule?”

“Barely. Your young lady over there makes a good argument.”

This was worse than her trying to punch him. Clary settled into the arch of his arm with professional precision, a frosty six inches of space between them, the six inches his mother had lectured him about a billion years ago and that he’d promptly ignored at the first opportunity to get up close and personal.

Stan maintained that six inches like his life depended on it because maybe it did.

“My waltz is all right. My samba’s shaky. Meet in the middle with foxtrot?” Clary looked up to him with clear, fearless eyes, the faintest of curves drawn along her lips. Her fingers were chapped and rough in his.

“Might as well start off easy. Mabel, whatcha got, pumpkin?”

“Got it!” There must have been some consultation beforehand because what came out of Mabel’s hot-pink speakers was honest-to-god big band music. Stan nearly protested and stifled it when Clary looked at him askance.

“Come on now,” she said sweetly. “We should really start with the lowest common denominator, shouldn’t we? If you would.”

He inhaled, flexed his hand at her waist and rocked back for the first step.

Their first pass around the room was dismal. She obviously had some formal training and he could barely remember what the hell went into a foxtrot, it’d been so long since he had done anything more than improvise on a foxtrot theme. There were a few near misses with her feet before she clicked her tongue and murmured. “Slow, slow, quick quick. I can tell you know this.”

One brassy number blended into the next as they paced and whirled, Mabel razzing them or calling encouragement by turns. “Clary, stop looking at him like you want to stab him! Dance is the language of love! You gotta sell it better than that!”

“Maybe I want to stab him.” Clary glared somewhere off over his left shoulder.

“No you don’t. You want to knock the socks off everyone at this party, right? I know you two can do it.”

Stan gritted his teeth and fought to earn back her trust with the respectful press of his palm, honoring whatever distance between them she wanted. By the third pass the six-inch block of ice had softened a little. “Spin?” he suggested, and at her faint nod he tried some fancier footwork.

They were uncoordinated, discordant, his feet clipping the edges of her sandals, frustration building between them as they lurched and wobbled. Mabel’s face was a worried glint in a corner of his eye. When Clary went off balance she caught herself with the awkward combination of a foot jabbed down out of sequence and his hand tightening at her waist in support.

He couldn’t quite look at her, but he hissed out, low as he could, “This is not gonna work if you can’t trust me a little.”

“Should I trust you?” she breathed back at him in a near-subsonic murmur. Her fingernails pricked at his shoulder.

Stan snorted softly. “Hell, no, you shouldn’t.”

There was a little pfft, pure disbelief, and a direct sidelong look of complete exasperation. The music spun to a stop as they stood interlocked and distant, then finally, mercifully, launched into the next tune. Something in her ramrod spine trembled, then snapped; he felt her make herself relax and sway into his grip.

“Fine,” Clary said dryly. “Honesty I can work with.”

This one was easy, a big swinging number with a nice solid four-square beat, nothing but a framework to whirl around the room to. Stan took it slow at first. She’d stopped fighting him so much, still hesitant but at least responsive to the little nudges that offered guidance, and as they moved he felt the tension in the room dissipating. The next time he signaled a spin she took the cue, pivoting neatly through and landing back in the crook of his arm with a quirked brow.

After a couple minutes he chuckled in surprise. “You’re not terrible at this.”

Her heel came down square on his toe, deliberate, he thought. “I suppose you’re not terrible either.”

Mabel relaxed too, flashing him a hasty thumbs up when Clary was looking elsewhere. The next track she cued up was overtly sappy, loaded with layered strings and lyrics dripping with longing. “Mabel,” snapped Clary. “Next please.”

“Sorry, wrong song!” Mabel wasn’t the least bit repentant but she did skip this one.

Time pressure was sort of a foreign thing for Stan - he had no problem putting his head down and plugging away, but was used to more open-ended projects. Possessed by grim determination, assisted by Soos through a couple of late nights, he got the Dreaming Denizens exhibit up and running in the nick of time.

They’d moved the cannibal pixie village over to hang in the rafters above the disguised darkroom. Melody had rigged a couple ragged little bits of LED-centered tulle mounted on wires to flutter around in the shadows. The effect was surprisingly creepy and convincing once they’d tweaked the lighting in that corner.

The ticketed picnic crowd had swelled to nearly seventy before Stan managed to shut it all down. Fortunately the Northwests had abandoned enough folding tables, chairs and lawn tents to handle twice that, easy, in the cavernous manor basement. At Clary’s direction they’d also hauled out enough stainless steel chafing dishes to serve a small army. Of course, they were serving an army.

“You could do weddings,” Stan mused to Soos as they stacked folding chairs in the lee of the Shack. “Bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, hell, just rent this stuff out. Be a shame to just let it molder in storage.”

“Set up a chapel?” Soos wiped his brow and grinned. “Might be fun, Mr. Pines. There’s still plenty to do around here.”

“I’m retired, y’know that. I’m only willin’ to crank out brilliant new merchandisin’ concepts for free because I like ya, kid.” Stan plucked off Soos’ cap and ruffled his hair before pivoting to haul down the next stack of chairs.

Dance practice with Mabel became an urgent matter for the last couple days before the event. Clary and Stan carved out half an hour at a time between projects. Mabel played all kinds of music at them - big band, BABBA, a smattering of 80s stuff, one or two classical waltzes - and they worked to adapt.

All of it was still professional. Polite. The impulse to pull Clary close for the slower bits was ever-present, but like hell was he going to screw things up any further. At least she was starting to pick up a familiar glow of satisfaction as they got the measure of one another. As partners they were really beginning to click. He regretted on some mercenary level that there wasn’t a contest or something around to game.

Thursday of that week was a whirlwind of setup and anticipation. Tents popped up like mushrooms across the summer-bleached lawn, the entire Shack crew bustling to get it laid out with time to spare. Clary was either helping move tables into place or tapping into her phone with a frown of focus, tracking the thousand things that needed to get done.

By late afternoon they were as close as they were going to get - the audio equipment would go up in the morning. Mabel and Dipper had been hovering around the edges of the fracas in anticipation, and as things slowed, they pounced.

“Clary, c’mon, we need to let the others finish up out here. I’ve got a couple of drink concepts in the kitchen I really need you to check out..” Mabel caught Clary’s hand and tugged, heading for the house. Clary was still thumbing through some checklist as she allowed herself to be hauled along.

Dipper waved frantically from the porch. Stan took the hint and headed off at a trot down the Shack’s long drive. By the time Clary was back outside, sipping warily from a tall glass of some sparkling pink concoction, he was rounding the corner in the purring Fairlane wagon.

Clary shrieked. She managed to fumble her glass down to the ground and dashed over to the car, running hands along the freshly rechromed grill, then flopping over to stretch her arms out along the polished hood. “I can’t believe it! Look at this thing, it’s like brand new!”

Stan killed the engine, hip-checked the door closed and held out the key, the finest of the Mystery Shack’s souvenir keychains dangling from its ring. “Ford an’ McGucket finished up late yesterday. I still want t’go over the insides one last time, but she’s runnin’ like a champ now.”

The first unrestrained smile he’d seen on her all week lit up her features. With great delicacy Clary hooked a finger into the keyring and plucked the key from his grip. “Thank you. All of you.”

“Nothin’ left to do but get through this party and then you’re finally on the road, huh?” Stan hooked thumbs through his belt loops and gave her the best of his showman’s grins, papering over the regret twisting hard in his gut with practiced ease. Her eyes flicked to his.

“We’ve still got a ton of work to do.” Clary reached out with a fist and cautiously nudged him in the shoulder with her knuckles. “I’ve got to go finish up a last round of prep at Greasy’s. You and Ford be ready to go at quarter to six, got it?”

“Got it.”

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“Should I trust you?” You’ve seen midwinter storms friendlier than the icy glint of those eyes.

Of course you can trust me!

We said we’d get the car fixed, we’re getting it fixed!

Honestly? Nope.

[askbensolo]

Journal #34: Mom Gives Me a Talking-To

“You are in huge trouble, mister,” Mom fumed, pacing furiously around her office. “Seriously? You’ve been spreading rumors about some girl you didn’t like? And not just rumors—blatant falsehoods, based on what—some dreams that you had? I raised you better than this!”

I grimaced, rubbing my sweaty palms against my pants. I wanted to explain that it hadn’t started that way; that it had all just spiraled out of control. Most of the newest rumors I hadn’t even heard of, and couldn’t possibly be held responsible for.

“It didn’t start with just the dreams, Mom,” I protested. “I would never have started telling people stuff just because I had a silly dream! I had the suspicions first, and then the dreams seemed to—“

“All right, then tell me how your suspicions began,” Mom interrupted, twirling around to face me and spreading her arms in an exaggerated gesture. I was stunned into silence.

Mom put her hands on her hips. “Go on: enlighten me. Tell me how you first became convinced Luke’s student was an evil Sith apprentice.”

“Well...I was, uh...I was talking to...”

It was then that I realized I was screwed.

“Talking to who, Ben?”

“Talking to...” My face flushed. “Talking to some people on the HoloNet...”

Mom looked at me like a handful of her neurons had just died on the spot—I swear I saw one of her eyelids twitch. I felt my cheeks grow hotter and I looked down at the floor.

“Unbelievable. Just...unbelievable. Anonymous strangers, Ben. On the HoloNet!”

“I...I’m sorry, Mom,” I said quietly, chewing at a hangnail on my left thumb. “The more we talk about it, the more I realize how stupid I was. It all seemed so real in my head... I was scared. And excited. And panicking. You know that’s a bad mix for me. And after that...well, I guess I just felt I was too far gone to back up anymore.”

“Hm,” Mom clucked, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’re apologizing to me for, bud. I’m not the one whom everyone thinks is a Sith lord, or whatever those kids are saying about her. I understand you’re a bit jumpy, after what Snoke did to you. But that poor girl, Ben! Think of what you’ve done to her! And all because of strangers on the HoloNet.”

“Yeah...” I mumbled awkwardly.

“Well...this wouldn’t be the first time HoloNet strangers led you to make a poor life decision,” she sighed.

“It’s not their fault. It’s my fault. I just have terrible judgment,” I said anxiously.

“I won’t argue with that. You do seem to have a hard time knowing when to keep your mouth shut,” Mom agreed flatly. “And while we’re on the topic...I don’t suppose you’re to blame for the fact that every major news outlet in the galaxy suddenly knows the Organa-Solos have a foster child in their care? It’s plastered across all the headlines; featured in every holozine. We’ve had twenty requests for interviews in the past twenty-four hours. Heck, the girl hasn’t even been in our home for that long.”

“Okay, Mom, that one is not on me,” I protested. “I haven’t said a single word these last two months since we found her. You can comb my blog if you want—I’ve never mentioned the kid once. If I mentioned her right now, no one would know what I was talking about. Someone probably just saw you and Dad taking the certification classes, or saw you taking the kid home, or maybe pulled off a heist to steal the foster adoption records or something. But...”

I bit my lips with my mouth closed, and gave her a hopeful look. “...Since she’s not really a secret anymore...does that mean I can post about her now? There’s so much I’ve been wanting to say about my new tiny human buddy, and my thoughts on becoming a foster brother, and it’s super ironic, ‘cause right before we found her I was answering a bunch of questions about how much I didn’t want a sibling—”

“Well...yes and no, Ben,” Mom cautioned. “While it’s true that everyone already knows she exists and that she’s living with us, you’re still not allowed to disclose any of her personal information—not for now, at least. No holos of her, and no mentioning her name or her age or talking about where we found her.”

“Oh, c’mon, Mom! How am I supposed to talk about her without ever saying her name?”

“Make up a nickname.”

“Okay. Like...Kid? Or maybe Foster Sister? Or Fosister?”

She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Actually, scratch that last one,” I muttered.

“Generic, but functional,” she remarked. “Any of those are fine...except maybe that last one.”

Mom finally stopped pacing and sat down in the chair at her desk, taking a sip from the cold mug of caf that had been sitting there all day. “Since we’re hoping to reunite her with her family again, Ben, we don’t want her stay with us to follow her around for the rest of her life,” she explained. “We want to protect her.”

She paused and gave me a pointed look over her mug. “For example, to protect her from gossip like the kind you’ve been spreading.”

“Mom...” I pleaded.

“Besides,” Mom went on, “even if she’s only your sister for a little while, you ought to be a good example. And I don’t know about you, but gossipmongery is certainly not my idea of—”

“Is Ben in trouble, Ms. Leia?”

We both turned. There was Kid herself, standing in the doorway, her hair tangled across her shoulders. She was wrapped in a blanket, and she had tied it around her neck to form a cape. Her favorite doll was held tight against her chest.

“Well, speak of the emperor,” Mom said warmly, her expression softening. “Can’t sleep, sweetie?”

“I just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” Kid said, looking at us carefully. “I heard loud voices.”

“Sorry. We’re a loud family. You’ll get used to it,” I apologized. “Everything’s cool though. I promise.”

Kid nodded and started to leave, but then she hesitated, peeking her head back into the doorway. “After you get out of trouble...will you read me a bedtime story, Ben? Like you said you would?”

I smiled at her. “Of course, kid.”

The response was immediate—her face lit up like a sunbeam. She jumped up and down a couple of times and then skipped down the hallway. “I’ve never had a bedtime story in my entire life!” we heard her chirp, and we both chuckled. But it was kind of sad, too.

Mom turned to me and smiled.

“That was sweet of you, Ben.”

“I wanted to make her feel at home,” I replied modestly, wondering if maybe Mom would go easier on me now that I had reminded her I was at least a decent person.

“But back to your less-sweet behavior.”

I groaned.

“...Actually,” Mom mused, “I feel a little responsible for this incident as well. If you remember, I said I was going to be monitoring your HoloNet activity and your messages so that things like this don’t happen. But I’ve just gotten so busy, especially with the little girl on board.”

She combed through her loose hair thoughtfully. “If I had been keeping better track of your blogging, I would have talked to you sooner, and you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into such trouble. We’ll have to figure out a better system in the future—and I’ll have to keep my guard up, so I know you’re not publishing all of Kid’s personal information for the galaxy to see.”

“I’m almost eighteen, Mom,” I reminded her. “I’m not a child anymore. Don’t you think I’m, y’know...old enough to be independent?”

“Judging from recent events, not particularly,” Mom answered dryly. “And as long as you’re under my roof, using the HoloNet service that I’m paying for, on a device that I bought—we’ll play by my rules. Does that sound fair, son?”

I sighed.

“Yes. Mother.”

“Good,” she nodded with satisfaction. “Now...as for the situation at hand...I hope you realize that I fully expect you to apologize to Amalia.”

If I had been drinking a glass of water, I would’ve spit it all out. Instead, I choked on my own saliva and almost burst into a coughing fit. She wanted me to apologize? To Amalia? Amalia would tear me to shreds before I ever said a word!

“But Mom!” I cried.

“But nothing, mister,” she said coolly.

“She’s gonna kill me!”

“Then you’ll die doing the right thing,” she shrugged.

“You’re giving me a death sentence, Mom! You are sending me to the grave!”

“It’s what a mother does,” she quipped.

“I hear loud voices again!” Kid called down the hallway.

“Everything’s okay!” Mom and I called back simultaneously. We looked at each other.

Then she exhaled deeply and scooted her office chair closer. She took me by the hand (mine was so much bigger than hers now, I realized) and gently brushed my hair behind my ears. At once I felt like I really was a child again.

“I love you, Ben,” she said softly, leaning close enough for me to see my reflection in her eyes. “That’s why I care so much about you and your actions. You did something wrong, even if it was out of fear, and you need to set it right. No getting around it. We’ll talk more to Luke about this tomorrow, and he’ll help you figure out the best course of action for making amends. But tonight, I want you to reflect on what you’ve done, and try to put yourself in Amalia’s shoes. Do some deep self-searching. Really think about the consequences of all of this.”

I swallowed hard and nodded at the ground.

“But before that…” She squeezed my hand and smiled. “...why don’t you go read your new foster sister that bedtime story, okay?”

“Okay,” I muttered. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus. The idea of apologizing to Amalia for what I’d done seemed like the worst thing ever. Either she’d take my apology as an even bigger insult, or she’d just get so smug about it and make me grovel at her feet! I almost wished she really was evil, so we could just face off in a battle to the death instead of having to navigate reparations.

“Ah! The pictures pop out! And move!” Kid suddenly cried from her room (a repurposed storage closet), breaking the tension and eliciting another laugh from both of us.

“She’s never seen a holobook before?” I whispered incredulously.

“I guess not,” Mom murmured, then gave me a wink. “That means you, sir, get to read her her first one.”

I grinned.

“Also, you’re grounded,” she added sweetly. “Write a public apology for your blog, queue it up for tomorrow, and have your holopad turned in to me by the end of the night, please and thank you.”

[ask-me-about-datlof]

Thank You, Friend - Prologue 4

Hhhhhhh I struggled so much with this chapter, it was awful to write!

On another note, a new character is introduced this chapter so yay! You can also check out this chapter on AO3 along with the previous chapters.

Another small note, I added about 1,000 extra words to the last chapter and while it’s not important to plot it makes the whole think flow more smoothly so check out Chapter 3 too.

Lewis wasn’t particularly happy at Simon’s suggestion that he started learning how to fight today. After all, it was still raining and after yesterday he really didn’t fancy getting soaked again. But Simon had persuaded Lewis that it was better to practice in the rain, firstly so that neither of them would get too hot; the rain would keep them cool as they practiced, and secondly they weren’t likely going to do anything else that day. So Lewis had grudgingly agreed. And now they were both stood outside in the rain, Simon holding out his pickaxe and Lewis gripping tightly to the sword that Simon had given him. The rain was just as heavy as it had been yesterday and while yesterdays rain had started out refreshing, by this point Lewis just found it cold and miserable.

“You’re pretty good at this, y’know.” Simon said, encouragingly as he wiped rain from his face. Lewis smiled but it was more like a grimace. Simon grinned back at him. “But you know what they say, practice makes perfect.” Simon readied himself into a defensive stance.

“They also say there’s no such thing as perfection.” Lewis mumbled under his breath. But he also readied himself into a defensive stance and the pair slowly started circling each other.

Despite complaining about this whole situation, Lewis was focussing on the task at hand, an almost determined expression on his face as he carefully watched Simon’s movements, waiting for a moment where he could strike. Simon’s guard dropped for a moment and Lewis lunged forward, striking hard and fast towards the dwarf. Simon brought up his pickaxe in time to block Lewis’s strike and the pair backed off from each other for a moment before returning and swinging their weapons towards the other. The clang of metal on metal rang through the trees as they fought. And although Simon was good at using his pickaxe to fight, very good in fact, it was becoming more and more clear to the dwarf that Lewis was a much better fighter. Lewis had claimed that he didn’t know how to use as sword but as the two parried and blocked each other’s blows, Simon began wondering if Lewis had been taught to fight, and then forgotten that he’d been taught after the accident. After all, fighting with a sword seemed to come so quickly to Lewis, slightly too quickly to be just naturally good at fighting.

Both Lewis and Simon were breathing hard from the exertion as their fight continued, although as Simon had promised the rain was keeping them cool. However the rain was also making the ground under their feet muddier and more slippery as their feet continued to churn up the dirt and as Simon swung at Lewis, he slipped on the ground. Lewis was swinging his sword to Simon and although he noticed the dwarf tumble down, he wasn’t able to slow his sword in time and the blade sliced through Simon’s arm, drawing blood. Simon gasped in pain, skidding to a stop in the mud as he knelt, placing his pickaxe down to place his hand over the injury. Lewis dropped his sword to the ground and knelt down by Simon, worry clearly written on his face.

“Simon! Friend! Are you alright?! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Simon took his hand away from the cut momentarily to flap it at Lewis, causing him to fall silent. Red blood was trickling down his arm, mingling in with the rain.

“I’m alright. It’d take more than that to take me down properly. I just wasn’t expecting it that’s all.” Simon said. He squinted up at Lewis through the rain. “You’re a bit too good with that sword to just be a beginner, you know.” He chuckled slightly. Lewis frowned slightly.

“What do you mean?”

“Only that no beginner is that good when it comes to fighting.” Simon lifted his hand to wave it in the air, dismissing the matter. “But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I think you’ll probably be able to hold your own against anything that comes to attack you.” He grinned. Lewis was still frowning, looking at Simon in concern.

“That really doesn’t matter now, friend. Come on, we need to sort you out.”

Lewis helped Simon to his feet before he grabbed his sword and Simon’s pickaxe. Once Lewis had picked them up, the pair headed the short distance back to their little camp. Once out of the rain, Lewis started bustling about, laying the sword and pickaxe to one side and quickly getting a fire going as Simon sat down with his back against a tree, his hand still pressed tightly to the cut in an effort to stop the bleeding. The fire began to burn, warming the pair and Lewis turned to Simon, concern still clear in his face.

“Alright, let me have a look, friend.” Simon rolled his eyes but moved his hand away from the cut as Lewis knelt down beside him. Blood was still slowly seeping out from the wound but a quick inspection revealed that it was rather shallow. Lewis sighed slightly in relief.

“Well I’m pretty sure my arm’s not going to drop off.” Simon commented as Lewis knelt back, reaching for Simon’s pack.

“Simon, I might’ve really hurt you.” Lewis replied, although there was a slight trace of laughter in his voice. Simon grinned.

“Yeah, yeah.” Lewis tried to frown at Simon but failed, smiling instead. He held out Simon’s pack.

“I don’t suppose you could find any bandages for me?” Simon wiped most of the blood from his hand before he grabbed hold of the pack and pulled it closer to him. A quick rummage around yielded nothing and he quickly remembered that he’d used the little amount of bandages he had on Lewis when he’d first found him. He pushed the pack away slightly and looked up at Lewis.

“I don’t have any left. I only had a couple to begin with and I used them on you.” Simon grinned mischievously. “Greedy, spaceman.” It was Lewis’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Well maybe we’ll be able to find something on the spaceship. Come on, friend.”

Both Simon and Lewis clambered to their feet before they headed back out into the rain and headed in the direction of the spaceship. They quickly reached it, the area around it lighter without the canopy of branches overhead blocking what little light came through the clouds.

“Here, Simon, I’ll give you a boost up.” Lewis said, linking his fingers together to create a step for Simon to climb up on. Simon placed his foot in Lewis’s hands and steadied himself against the spaceship as Lewis hoisted Simon up so he could easily clamber into the spaceship without using his injured arm too much. Lewis pulled himself in afterwards and found Simon staring at a young man who appeared to be pulling apart the console.

The young man had long blond hair that was slightly damp from the rain and while it had been drying had frizzed out slightly. He was rather skinny and looked like he hadn’t eaten properly in a few weeks. He was wearing a pair of old faded denim jeans and an equally old black t-shirt and around his neck was a pair of green goggles; the only article of clothing he wore that seemed looked after despite the occasional scorch marks that could be seen on the plastic.

“Hey!” Simon called out and the young man turned, startled. Now that he was facing the pair, it became clear that he was still probably just a teenager. He had pale blue eyes and a scruffy half-grown beard.

“What the hell? Who are you? What are you doing here?” Lewis asked, staring at the young man.

“Uh…” He glanced about the spaceship awkwardly, obviously looking for a way out. Finding none he looked back at Lewis and Simon. “Well, why are you here?” He asked, folding his arms and trying to appear tough. Simon and Lewis glanced at each other.

“This is our spaceship, friend.” Lewis frowned over at the console. “And you appear to be dismantling it.” The young man glanced behind him at the console, shuffling to the side to try and hide it from view.

“Your spaceship? If it’s yours then how come it looks abandoned? And I wasn’t dismantling it. I was, I was going to repurpose some of the electronics.”

“Repurpose? Sounds a lot like stealing if you ask me.” Simon said, eyeing the young man suspiciously who shuffled uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Look, I thought this thing was abandoned and I thought I might as well take some of the electronics, or at least see what it has in it, alright? I didn’t know it belonged to you guys.” He said defensively, refusing to look either of them in the eye. Lewis felt a pang of sympathy for him. Despite being younger than them, he was only a couple of years younger and clearly felt rather awkward about this whole situation.

“Alright. Admittedly we haven’t really made it very clear that this is our spaceship and that it’s not just been abandoned.” Lewis moved away from the door and picked up the medical box before he gestured for Simon to come over to him and glanced over at the young man. “So, friend, what’s your name?”

“Lalnable.” He muttered quietly. There was a long pause. “What about you?”

“I’m Lewis and this is Simon.” Lewis had found some bandages in the medical box and he started drying off Simon’s cut. “So why were you walking through the woods?” Lalnable shrugged.

“No reason.”

“How old are you anyway?” Simon asked, peering around Lewis as he stuck a bandage down on the cut.

“Seventeen.” Lewis finished tending to Simon and turned to face Lalnable.

“And you understand things like complex electronics?” He shrugged again.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not that complicated.” Lewis was impressed, that was if Lalnable was actually telling the truth. Lalnable eyed the pair more closely now that some of the tension had left. The air between them was still highly awkward though. “You look like you’ve both been rolling around in the mud.” Lewis looked down at himself and sure enough he was covered in dirt and rain, coming together to form a rather thick layer of mud over his clothes. Beside him Simon also glanced down at his mud-splattered torso and grinned.

“Well you’re not far wrong. I was training this lanky spaceman here to use a sword.” Lalnable frowned.

“Training him to use a sword? Why not just use a gun or something like that? And why the fuck would you train in the rain?”

“Training in the rain wasn’t my idea.” Lewis muttered, glaring out at the rain that was still pouring down heavily. Simon walked over to Lalnable and elbowed him in the legs.

“Well, you see, we don’t have many supplies at the moment, and we certainly don’t have any weapons like guns.” Lalnable just raised his eyebrows, almost like he couldn’t quite believe that they didn’t have any weapons better than swords.

“But, but you have a spaceship! How do you not have a gun? Or a laser or something?” Lewis and Simon both looked at each other and shrugged.

“We just don’t.” Lewis supplied, still shrugging.

An awkward silence fell again and Lalnable shuffled around, glancing behind him at the partially dismantled console.

“So…” Lewis said after the silence grew too awkward to bear. “I don’t suppose you live anywhere nearby, do you? Only, it would be nice to have a shower; as you pointed out we’re a little dirty and could do with a wash. And it’d be nice to have a proper sleep too.” Lalnable looked slightly awkward and Lewis was suddenly reminded that he was talking to a teenager. “Not that that means you have to tell us where you live, or even let us go there, I mean we still are strangers and I’m sure that you might not feel comfortable letting us know where you live or anything like that, friend!” He blurted out, slight traces of panic in his voice. Simon suddenly burst out laughing, bending over and leaning on his knees as he wheezed. Both Lewis and Lalnable stared at him.

“God, you sounded so worried there, Lewis, like you though he’d mistake us for kidnappers or something!” Simon managed to gasp out once his laughter had subsided a little. At that, Lalnable chuckled slightly as Lewis’s cheeks went slightly red.

“I mean I’m not really worried about being kidnapped or anything like that, I mean, looking at you,” he gestured towards Lewis, “you look like I could beat you up without a problem.” He glanced down at Simon. “And I’ve never fought a dwarf before but I reckon I’d be able to put up a pretty good fight.”

Simon was still laughing too hard to properly form any kind of response to defend the honour of people. Lewis seemed to relax slightly as he realised that Lalnable didn’t really see either of them as a threat. Simon was beginning to calm down, and he was straightening up, wiping a couple of tears from his eyes.

“But you do look like you need cleaning up, so I guess I could show you my castle.” Both Lewis and Simon stared at Lalnable.

“Castle?!” They exclaimed in unison.

“Yeah. Come on, I’ll show you where it is.”

Lalnable moved towards the door and jumped down, disappearing from sight. Simon and Lewis looked at each other in confusion before Simon shrugged and moved towards the door after Lalnable.

“Well I guess we’ll never know what he means unless we follow him.”

The walk to Lalnable’s castle took a shorter amount of time than either Lewis or Simon expected, and it explained why Lalnable had stumbled across their spaceship so easily. However, the term ‘castle’ was a slight over exaggeration as Lalnable’s home came into view. Rather than being a large towering castle with turrets and battlements, instead they found themselves staring at an old stone manor house, ivy clambering over most of the walls. It was two stories high and looked rather ominous in the dark grey daylight with the rain pouring down. No light was coming from any of the windows and both Simon and Lewis felt a shiver of apprehension as they drew into the shadow of the building. The front door was a large wooden door and as Lalnable approached it, they expected him to pull out a key, however he just stepped up to the door, lifted the latch and walked right inside. Despite the slightly unnerving feeling the manor house gave them, the pair were eager to get out of the rain and quickly stepped inside. Lalnable pushed the door closed behind them with a bang and flipped a switch on the wall, turning on the lights.

The hallway that they found themselves in was rather impressive with double staircases winding up to a balcony on the second floor that overlooked the entrance hallway. There was a large thick rug that stretched across the span of the hallway and an overly decadent chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting a warm yellow light over the room. There were doors off to each side of the hallway, all closed and hiding whatever was in the rooms on the other sides. Despite the grandeur of the hallway, there was an air of neglect about the place with thick layers of dust coating most of the available surfaces. Simon whistled as he looked around.

“I mean, this isn’t exactly a castle, but it’s not to shabby at all.” Lalnable grinned as he walked so he was in front of the pair and looked at them.

“Nah, I know it’s not actually a castle, but that’s what I’ve always called it from when I was little.” He gestured over to the stairs. “There’s rooms and bathrooms and stuff upstairs if you want me to show you.” Lewis nodded eagerly.

“That would be great, friend. We’d really appreciate that.” Simon nodded along with Lewis.

“Yep, although I don’t particularly mind dirt, it’d be nice to get myself warm and dry.” Lalnable nodded and headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time with his long legs.

“Yeah alright. Come on this way and I’ll show you.”

Lewis and Simon followed after him, Simon having to almost run to keep up with the other two, grumbling quietly about humans all being stupidly tall and how you didn’t have to be tall to get things done and being short was just as good, if not better than being tall because then you didn’t hit your head on things. Lalnable turned left down a corridor at the top of the stairs, flicking more light switches as he went. He stopped at a door and opened it up, revealing inside a rather lavish bedroom with a large double bed, covered in cream sheets, and a beautiful wooden dresser along the left hand wall. Opposite the dresser was a doorway and in the middle of the room, there was a large sheepskin rug over the dark blue carpet. Lalnable gestured into the room.

“This is one room, the bathroom’s just through that door.”

He started heading along the corridor again, leaving the door to the bedroom open, Lewis and Simon trailing behind him after having had a good look into the room. Lalnable stopped at the next door down the corridor and opened it up. This bedroom was just as nicely furnished as the first one, however it was painfully clear that someone had been living in it and hadn’t really cared about what it looked like. Dirty clothes were scattered across the floor and the dresser had draws pulled completely out. The bedsheets looked clean but were half on the floor and the bin sat beside a desk which was in the far left corner of the room was overflowing, mostly with scrunched up pieces of paper. The desk itself was buried beneath a mound of paper and resting precariously on top of the mound was a laptop. Lalnable went into the room and started collecting up clothes off the floor, shoving them unceremoniously into drawers.

“This is my room, but one of you can use it. I mean I mostly sleep on the sofa anyway.” Simon elbowed Lewis, grinning mischievously.

“Hey, Lewis, I bagsy the other room.”

“Simon.” Lewis frowned disapprovingly down at the dwarf but didn’t say any more to him. “Are you sure it’s ok for us to use this room?” Lalnable shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I really don’t use it all that much anyway.”

“Who uses the other room?” Simon asked curiously.

“That was my parent’s room, but they died so it doesn’t get used any more.” Lewis and Simon looked at each other awkwardly.

“Ah…”

“Oh, we’re sorry, friend.” Lalnable shrugged.

“It’s not an issue. It happened quite a few years ago now.” He had finished clearing up most of the clothes from the floor and was standing in the middle of the room at a loss of what to do.

“Well… uh, I think I’ll be cleaning myself up.” Lewis looked down at his clothes as he spoke. “I don’t suppose you have any clothes lying around that I could wear? Only I don’t really fancy putting these back on after a shower.” Both Lalnable and Simon grinned.

“You could always try some of mine? But if not there’s always my parent’s old clothes. They might fit you.” Lalnable glanced over at Simon. “Although I’m pretty sure I won’t have any clothes that will fit you, both my parents were pretty tall, and I’m pretty tall too.” Simon shrugged.

“Don’t you worry about me, I’ll sort something out.”

“Alright. Well, cool, I guess. I’m going downstairs, so just sort yourselves out?” Lalnable awkwardly moved past the pair and out into the hallway. He looked back at the pair, gave them an awkward smile and then disappeared down the corridor.

“Now, I know you claimed the other bedroom, friend, but I just need to see if I can find any clothes that might fit me.” Simon grinned.

“Well, you’d better not take too long about it, spaceman, otherwise I’ll start my shower with you in the room.” Lewis pulled a face as he followed Simon down the corridor back to the first bedroom.

“Oh don’t worry, friend. I’ll be out of there before you can start stripping.”

The skies had turned dark by the time the pair had completed their showers and suitably clothed themselves. Although what Simon counted as suitably clothed wasn’t the same as what Lewis thought suitably clothed. The dwarf was sat on the bed, completely naked aside from a towel wrapped around his lower half. Lewis glared at Simon, his own borrowed clothes hanging awkwardly off him.

“Simon, what the hell?” Simon grinned, swinging his legs as they dangled from the bed.

“What’s the matter, Lewis?” He asked sweetly, grinning up at Lewis.

“A towel?!” Simon flapped his hand in the air.

“It covers the important parts and that’s all that matters, spaceman.” He replied, still grinning. Lewis placed his face in his hand and sighed.

“I just hope that Lalnable cares as little about what you wear as you do.” Simon laughed.

“I think he’ll be pretty impressed with my creative thinking skills.” Lewis snorted.

“Sure thing, friend. Come on, let’s find Lalnable and see if he has any food because I’m starving.” Lewis started walking out of the room and Simon leapt off the bed.

“Now that’s an idea I can get behind.”

The pair found their way back downstairs where they started searching through the rooms on the bottom floor looking for Lalnable. They were both surprised to see that most rooms had been converted into labs and filled with scientific equipment and chemistry sets, and Simon found he had to drag Lewis away from each new room that they found. Lewis was amazed and overly excited by all the high tech scientific equipment in the house and if it hadn’t been for Simon, he would’ve started experimenting with it all there and then. Eventually they found Lalnable in what appeared to be the kitchen, although there were so many dirty pots and pans lying among the paper and other scientific equipment that they weren’t quite sure. There was a large stove on one wall which was supplying the room with warmth. Lalnable was sat hunched over a laptop at a table, frowning at the screen as he typed a couple of things down before rummaging around in a paper stack and pulling out a graph from the middle which sent the rest of the pile toppling to the floor.

“Lalnable?” Lewis asked tentatively as the pair stood in the kitchen. Lalnable jumped and looked up in surprise at them.

“Oh! I’d forgotten you were here.” His eyes slid over to Simon’s towel and he smirked. “Nice towel.”

“Thanks! You see, Lewis? Lalnable has an excellent taste in fashion!” Lewis rolled his eyes and chose to ignore Simon.

“I don’t suppose you have any food? We’d be happy to cook if you don’t want to cook for us.” Lewis asked.

“Speak for yourself, spaceman.” Simon mumbled quietly. “I’m fed up of cooking.”

“Uh, well…” Lalnable ran a hand through his hair awkwardly as he stood up. “I’m pretty sure the only food I have is cereal.” Both Simon and Lewis looked crestfallen as Lalnable headed over to a cupboard and pulled out a box of cereal. “Yeah… this is all I have. But you can have as much of it as you want.” He walked over to them and handed the box out to them. Simon took it from him and peered inside.

“What about you?” Lewis asked as Simon shrugged and shoved his hand into the box and pulled out a handful. Lalnable shrugged.

“I’m not really hungry?” He suggested, not really appearing too confident about his statement. Lewis took the box from Simon as he grabbed another handful and looked into it himself.

“There’s plenty in here for all of us, so we might as well share it out.” Lalnable shrugged again.

“Sure why not. I don’t really have any clean dishes though.”

“We can eat with out hands.” Simon said, mumbling around a mouthful of cereal.

“Yeah, I mean sit down if you want.” Lalnable returned to where he’d been sitting before as Lewis found another chair and pulled it over to where Lalnable was as Simon sat down crosslegged on the floor.

As the three ate, there was a slight awkward silence, but that quickly melted away as Lewis started talking to Lalnable about all the equipment he owned and the two started talking about things that Simon had never heard of in his life. As their conversation grew more animated, they forgot about the food they’d been eating, leaving Simon to have as much as he wanted, something he considered a fair trade-off for not understanding a word of what they were talking about. Eventually Simon yawned loudly, cutting into their conversation. Lewis glanced at the time on Lalnable’s laptop.

“Christ, it’s got a bit late.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed. Normally I just go to sleep whenever I remember.” Lalnable also looked over at his laptop. Simon yawned again, triggering a yawn from Lewis.

“Well, I’m pretty tired, so I might go get some sleep. Thank you for letting us use your bed and showers, friend.” Lewis got to his feet and stretched. Simon also stood up.

“Eh, it’s nothing.”

“Mm, yep, thanks for all this, Lalnable.” Simon said. “We’ll pay you back somehow. But first I’m exhausted so I’m going to go to sleep.”

“Me too, friend. I guess we’ll see you in the morning then, Lalnable?” Lalnable nodded.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“See you later!” Simon called cheerily as he and Lewis left the kitchen.

The pair made their way back to the entrance hall and headed up the stairs.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, friend.” Lewis said as Simon opened the door and walked into the bedroom he’d claimed.

“Night, night, spaceman. Sweet dreams!” Simon blew a kiss to Lewis who laughed slightly before he headed down the corridor to the bedroom he had been given.

Mercifully that night sleep was quick coming and it wasn’t long before Lewis was fast asleep, the rain gently pattering against the glass of the window.

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

12: Sea Dog

“I feel like we have had this conversation before, McGuire. But why go through all of this to just piss it down our legs for a little play?” “Cuz it’d save us some fuckin’ time and trouble, that’s why. Plus, let’s be honest with ourselves. We’d be doin’ the world a favor.” “Oh, you’re right. It would save us time alright because we’d be shot to shit by the lawmen who post themselves right inside.” “Details, details,” he tugged at the brim of his hat, and tapped the ash from his cigar into the air,“Fine. We’ll play nice.” Church just nodded. He had kept his eyes on the path in front of him. In the distance he could start to see the outlines of buildings on either side that surrounded the main thoroughfare. The two horse stagecoach was unwieldy to drive because it was painstakingly recreated to look just like theirs. It’s body was completely made of steel and it lacked the charm of the carriages one would see carrying someone of importance. Their cargo hold was empty. And there were only two of them. One was a tall drink of water in a bafflingly unruffled pearl-grey outfit that, much to his partner’s consternation, wasn’t picking up a speck of dust. Also unarmed. The other was smaller and slighter and certainly grungier, all in black, with a long duster, a pair of bandoliers across his chest, and a face-obscuring hat that seemed at least a size too big. A pair of long barreled revolvers hung off either side of his belt. John Bishop Church and … “You never told me your first name. We’ve been scheming this ordeal for quite some time. Now I was just trying to be polite because I don’t like being spied on in the bushes either. No problem with it. Partner is a partner.” 
He seemed hesitant, then sighed, “You’re right. Fair’s fair. Hold this a second,” he handed his cigar over and reached up with both hands, removing his low-slung black hat and shaking out an uneven mop of red hair, revealing a face that wasn’t really masculine at all. She huffed, “It’s Michelle.” Church raised the cigar to his lips, took two brief inhales, and blew smoke out of his nostrils, “Nice to meet you. But you may be misunderstanding me and that isn’t on the account of how you think,” he handed the cigar back to him, “I have a feeling that God’s got himself a sense of humor and all of this is just your way of balancing the scales to something of your liking. So how about you put that hat back on, McGuire, otherwise sun’s likely to bake you good.” He did, and took his cigar back to boot. Somehow he looked more at ease than before, like letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “Thanks, partner.” John had just handed Mike’s luggage over to her before snatching up his matching black rolling case. Mike had insisted that his gym bag, which he carried onto the flight with him, was not enough for the nearly three week excursion from the United States. It made him feel uncomfortable at first to break away from minimizing his footprint but more times often then not, Mike was right. She just seemed to know how to convey what to do next and even through the peaks and valleys he trusted her judgment. No one in his life, before or after, seemed to break through the glass like she could. All she had to do is put a gentle hand on his shoulder and every obstacle put in their way fell by the wayside. In the literal sense even because every stop and change in the near thirteen hour transcontinental flight would have grated on his nerves if it weren’t for Mike. They were just moments from the exit of the terminal. One last line. “Okay. Passport? Good, awesome. Bags? Fuckin’ A. We’re good. We’re super fuckin’ good. I looked over that dictionary you loaned me, I think I can maybe say at least mandatory shit, y’know, hello, goodbye, thanks, where’s the crapper. Oh my fuckin’ baby Jesus I’m like vibrating right now. You got anything you wanna do? I think I saw some shit in the guidebook. Aw geez, we should probably check into the hotel first, huh?” John simply nodded, “I think freshening up would be nice,” he was out of his comfort zone as there was no opportunity in this long trip to shower, “I think in all of the excitement, you booked just one room. I can get my own.” “Huh? Aw, shit,” she tapped her chin, and then shook her head, “nah. If you’re good with it, I don’t mind. Pretty sure it’s a double, anyway. Save us both a couple bucks.” “Can I have the bed near the window?” “Yeah. You can even man the AC. Maybe not in tundra mode, though?” If there is one thing they seemed to still butt heads on, but never in a mean-spirited way, is the temperature of the room. John conceded that when you shared a space that compromises needed to be made,“Sure.” “Next in line!” “You ready?” “Yeah, I’m ready.” Church pulled up on the reins and the pair of chestnut horses clambered to a stop adjacent to a wooden platform. They were now in front of the tall wooden door of the brick building that served as this town’s bank.  They were on schedule and they were expected. He stepped off the driver’s side. It was very busy this afternoon. All the folks going about their business and they were paying them no attention. But they could. At any moment. Especially with McGuire fidgeting with the iron in his holster. “Remember who we are.” “Right, right,” he willed himself to take his hand away from the gun. The taller man took the lead and entered the bank - followed by McGuire. The interior of the bank was well lit by a chandelier hanging above them. Directly in front of them were half a dozen people in line to conduct business with the two tellers. Those bank employees were behind metal bars with a small opening to take and receive business. In front of an obviously repurposed jailed cell was a rather obese man propped up in a chair. The guard, most likely a deputy because of the shiny badge tacked to the front of his leather vest, had a shotgun laid across his lap. “Pssst,” McGuire leaned over, his voice barely audible, “Just one tubby fuck. I could make this real easy.” And back to him in a whispered tone, “Easy as this?” John retrieved a folded piece of paper from his front vest pocket. “What’s that? How’s that gonna be easier than one pow-pow right to the melon?” Church walked to the reclined man, “Afternoon.” The big man, previously in a daze, snapped to attention, “Who are you?” And he eyed them both up and down, “Line’s that way.” “Oh, we aren’t customers. We are here for a scheduled pick up,” John handed over the paper. The deputy looked over the sheet with a suspecting eye, “You Garcia’s boys?” “Most certainly.” There was a long uncomfortable pause and then the big man and all of his heft stood up, “You,” he pointed at McGuire but addressed his concern to Church, “What’s got you all jittery?” “No worries, sir. My friend hasn’t taken his tonic today. We’re on a tight schedule. No time to waste. You know all about that, don’t you?” Before McGuire could retort, Church stepped lightly on the toe of his boot. The rotund man looked back at the sheet, “You’re early.” “Isn't that a blessing,” John proclaimed, “We’re making great time!” McGuire suddenly muttered, “Pow-pow…” “Excuse me?” “That’s the new tonic he uses. It’s a miracle worker if I say so myself. Even makes you more potent for the ladies if you catch my drift.” At this point, the deputy must have read the letter a dozen times over before he looked up one more time at them, “Alright,” and handed the letter back over. He snatched the key ring from a hook on his belt and turned to the locked cell door, “You know I had a cousin who was all twitchy like your friend. Donkey kicked him in the head one day. Never was too smart to begin with.” “Oh my. Well, we will be out of your way in just moments.” Church tipped his hat at the fellow and stepped into the cell. McGuire stepped past him into the cell as well surveying all of its contents. The shelves at the far end of the cell were packed with stacks of paper money of various denominations, open crates full of silver coins, and various valuable pieces of jewelry. McGuire lightly nudged Church with an elbow to the side and whispered, “Jesus Mary and fucking Joseph. Look at all of that loot.” “It’s not ours.” “You are really no fun sometimes.” Church knelt down in front of the shelves and pulled out two crates. They each had a pair of cherries painted on them. He peaked inside each and then shoved one of them back into its spot. With a grunt of effort, he lifted the crate up into arms and stood up right. “Hey, what about the other one? Look at all this stuff. This fucker don’t need both crates, we can take a little extra.” John shook his head, “The other one’s worthless.” “It is? What, it’s empty?” “Might as well be. Fool’s gold.” “Pfff. Idiot. Alright, let’s vamoose.” They walked past the armed guard, “Have yourself a wonderful day, friend.” And they were out of the bank with ease. After all, they’re a pair of hired couriers and they just completed their pick up. McGuire hurried ahead and opened up the steel hatch of the stagecoach’s cargo hold. Church slid the box in and closed it up, “Whew, see? Effortless. Now let’s get on the road.” “Church?” “Yeah?” Church turned around slowly and realized that an identical two horse steel stagecoach that also had a pair of cherries painted on its side had just stopped behind theirs. The real couriers. And they see these two imposters. One yelled, “Where the fuck do you two think you’re going?” McGuire, quick as a cat, drew onto them both barrels, “My turn!” Mike underhand tossed the cellphone to John and he grabbed it out of the air. He fiddled with the camera on the touch screen as Mike stood at the foot of stairs leading up to the Victory Square obelisk. She flashed between a couple of goofy poses before John took the snapshot on a wave. They moved up towards the base of the monument where they observed the ‘the eternal flame’. “Alright, sweet. Hey, c’mere, let’s both do one. Hey! Hey, you there, dude with the hat!” she flagged over a passing individual, “you mind snapping a pic of us real quick? Cool, thanks.” Whoever this person seemed to be, he looked to be local, because he spoke the language. Well, one of them. After John and Mike huddled together for the impromptu photographer, he said, “поздравления!” In fact, they had been hearing that a lot as they walked around the different spots in this central area of Minsk. Actually, for the last few days to be honest as they hit up various tourist spots, museums, and local restaurants. “Why does everybody keep sayin’ that, d’you think? You got any idea what it means? My Russian ain’t near that good.” John shrugged but was already flipping through his translation dictionary to find something that began with that distinct ‘poz…’. He wasn’t sure but finally found something that fit the context of the tone of their voices, “I think they’re saying congratulations.” “Congrats, huh? Wow. Wonder what for. On being the awesomest tag team on the fuckin’ planet? Or maybe just being awesome in general? I dunno.” John shook his head, “So this,” he motioned behind him, “is meant to commemorate the Soviet victories in World War 2. We walked through the museum earlier under all of this. But also,” John hesitated, “And I was just going to let it be but all of these locations - it’s a tradition for newly weds to be photographed at them.” Mike paused, looking somewhat agape for a second before bursting out into a rather merry sounding peal of laughter.

“Really? No kiddin’? Heh, I gotta tell my dad. Whelp, I guess I could’ve done a whole lot worse for myself,” she gave him an affectionate cuff on the shoulder, still snickering in amusement. “That’s alright,” John returned the laughter with a slight curve of his mouth which Mike learned to be his version of an outright belly busting guffaw nowadays. He turned to the flame, “But I guess this is a fitting symbol of that commitment, isn’t it?” He felt a twinge at the notion of that idea. Did he really understand the idea of what that traditionally entailed? Or was it just what he would have gone through? He gave and gave and gave and never once was it reciprocated. That doesn’t seem right. He was only sure that he rushed into the idea of it because it was an opportunity that he could play the part of what society expected of him. John’s gaze got lost in the dancing hypnotic movement of the flames and a reassuring touch to his arm startled him. “Hey,” she looked up at him, still smiling, “this’ a pretty good setting. You wanna do the thing while we’re here?” There was a moment where he could feel himself approaching that gate with the padlock on it. He could go inside to get away from this feeling. It frustrated him that for months now he had lived in relative peace and one insignificant thing in the grand scheme of things brought back a rush of these thoughts. They had plagued him for so long and his only respite was inaccessible. John looked down at his partner. That barrier was her doing. The singular instance where someone was able to cut through all of this muddle and deliver one clear message, “Everything is going to be alright,” he mumbled softly, but then directly to her, “Yeah, sure.” “Yeah,” she concurred softly. She didn’t know why, it was almost automatic, “Everything’s gonna be okay.” She reached out slightly toward him, but instead reached into her bag for the trusty selfie stick, “Say hey, EWC faithful! It’s ya boys, NSFW, and here we are in gorgeous Minsk. Belarus, you’ve been abso-fuckin’-lutely lovely. We’ve had a great time this week in all your interesting museums, and gardens, and your balls-out awesome lookin’ library, but now? It’s almost time for Da Bidness.” “I think I could stay there for days,” John admitted. Mike couldn’t avoid a fond chuckle, but moved on, “So. Cherry Garcia an’ Cap’n Kangaroo. One lazy puss with no nuts, and one morally schizophrenic pirate. What can we say about these chuckleheads that we ain’t fuckin’ said already?” As if he were seemingly having a different conversation, “I don’t get it.” “Morally schizophrenic, y’know, he can’t seem t’ decide if he’s an asshole or— oh, y’meant somethin’ else. What is it y’don’t get, partner?” “I’m supposed to be sympathetic to his plight. A good man forced into doing bad things. That sound about right?” “Yup. Poor keelhauled pirate, boo hoo,” Mike rubbed at her eyes, milking the fake tear act for all it was worth. 

“The thing is, it doesn’t make sense. On the surface, it seems to be made apparently clear that this is all against his will. That this unscrupulous man has him, as you would say, by the short hairs. He wants to solicit these feelings. He wants that ‘why, captain, why’ sentiment. He wipes away his transgressions with a wave of his hand. He excuses the assault of a man he called a friend as a business transaction. He is the unwilling conduit of one man’s petty revenge fantasy.” He steps forward. Mike willingly gives way. “Morgan Darkwater. This is not how this works. You do not get to break and bloody a man in that manner that you did and write it off as your master’s will. Morgan Darkwater. Loyal dog. Man’s best friend. Mangy cur - begging for scraps from under the table. Unwilling partner, right? That gleam in your eye as you took hold of the tag champ championship says otherwise. Your expedition’s goal is capture more gold, yes? This is your latest gain. It may not be official but possession is 9/10ths of the law for your kind,” he paused, “Morgan. Darkwater. You will protest and you resist but at the end of the day, you will do your owner’s bidding. Sit. Lay down. Attack, Morgan Darkwater. You could have refused. A real pirate would let no piece of paper bind his soul — but you’re false. Strip away the costume, the ship, and the vernacular, and you’re another opportunist jumping at any chance to put yourself over.” Mike gave a low whistle, “Yep. You’re definitely givin’ a whole new meaning to the term ‘sea dog’, ain’cha? Sea dog run, sea dog fetch. Church here is totally right. If what you did t’ Nostalgia wasn’t malicious, it was fuckin’ cold and frankly that’s kinda worse.” “You can not, you will not claim the moral high ground as you stand before us. Monday night, Morgan Darkwater, we are the will of the people. You hear them, don’t you? They still want to love you. But there is a hesitation in their reaction. There is a thought that runs through their minds: just who is this man? You could turn it around. You could still make things right. You won’t though. Because your belly is full so it doesn’t matter that he just rubbed your nose in the mess you made. Bad dog, he says. Even a vagabond like you knows that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. You stand before us an imposing force but you don’t seem to understand what you’ve really gotten yourself into. This is tag team wrestling. And Mike and I - are a tag team.” Mike held up two fingers, lowering one as she spoke, “Two in fucking one. One team, one unit. Everything I do in that fuckin’ ring benefits him, and what he does benefits me. I trust him with my fuckin’ safety an’ I’ll do my fuckin’ damnedest to ensure his. There’s nothin’ we can’t do together, an’ there’s nothin’ we won’t do to have each other’s backs. Can you two numbnuts say the same? Cuz from the looks’a things, coercion- if that’s actually a thing here- don’t make for good partnerships.” John nodded, “We don’t have the resume that you two have but you know what? Sometimes that doesn’t seem to matter,” John hesitated in his next words because he still felt reservations about the aftermath but in the eyes of the public he knew this to be true, “On paper a man who had done virtually nothing in this business versus a woman who had done it all. NSFW has said it plenty of times now. This isn’t about redemption. We are taking what was ours. The television championship. That’s pretty nice. There is a magnificent history behind this and I am honored to now be a part of that legacy but I guess NSFW and Morgan Darkwater have something in common. Not the lack of conviction. No, that desire to become champion. As I said to Ruthann, to become a champion is in part self-actualization. Those championships you tarnish as every day passes, those are ours.” “And one day or another, probably sooner than you’d fuckin’ like, we’re coming to get ‘em. And No Shit, them’s Fighting Words.” “There’s no need for this,” Church exclaimed, “This is all a big misunderstanding.” People started to gather around the commotion. Two identical stagecoaches. Four folks in an old fashioned stand off. McGuire had handed a revolver to Church and even though he knew he wouldn’t pull that trigger at least the guy had it pointed at one of the other drivers. “Bullshit,” one of them said, “You got our payload. You robbin’ the wrong people, boys.” “And your partner just called me a hoople-headed son a bitch. Nobody talks about my momma like that,” the other said. “This was after you said my friend here has soft lips,” Church corrected. “An’ the back’a your head’s gonna be paintin’ the saloon wall ‘afore you ever find out if that’s true,”he sneered, one eye twitching under the brim of his hat. “No. No. We don’t have to see anyone’s grey matter today, McGuire. You see, I think,” he chuckled, “I think something got twisted up, isn’t that right?” Still seething, trigger finger still itchy, McGuire slowly lowered his iron, but seemed to have every intention of raising it again at the slightest provocation. His eyes flicked to his partner as if to convey this fact, “Prolly weren’t no grey matter in that melon to splatter anyways.” The bank door flies open and the fat deputy stepped out from his lazy post, “What in the hell is going on here?” “Oh! Deputy, sir. You’re witnessing some confusion between honest businessmen,” Church brings out the forged letter, “See, now I know there is a huge misunderstanding. Sirs, if you will, what is your purpose here?” “Two crates yielding bars of gold. Owners Robert Garcia. Hey, Mitchell, what’s that other guy’s name? Real surly fella. Dresses all funny.” “Darkwater, he says,” Mitch remembered. “See. Ours is much the same but well, as the deputy can attest to, we’ve been contracted as you know for an amendment to the deal,” Church unlatched the back of the stagecoach and tapped on the wooden crate,“You see, your boss and ours, he had himself a change of heart when he realized that this very item in our possession was not the genuine article. Isn’t that right, my lawful friend?” The deputy nodded, “Pick up one crate of fool’s gold. To be disposed of at the courier’s discretion.” “And here it is. This illusion of wealth is right here safe and sound. Imagine the horror if you fulfilled your outdated mandate." The two drivers concurred that it wouldn’t be a profitable venture. Their guns lowered. The deputy’s shotgun lowered. Church’s borrowed piece of iron lowered. And eventually, with an audible reaction of disgust, so did McGuire’s. The crowd dispersed from the deflated conflict. “Another great day on God’s green earth, isn’t it, McGuire?” “Yep. Shinier’n a greenhorn’s spurs. Let’s get goin’, ‘m sure Garcia’s itchin’ to get rid’a this stuff,” he masked his obvious disappointment with a charming grin. Moments later, they were back on the road. Church had handed the revolver back to McGuire real glad that he didn’t have to pull the trigger. More happy that McGuire didn’t. Every bullet used in that gun made an impact that there was no real idea of the cost until it was too late. They made sure to circle around the buildings and go back the way they came. “Diversion or not. My feeling is that they’ve just found out that we played an awful mean trick on them.”

 “Serves ‘em right for bein’ fuckin’ rubes,” he spat on the ground, and pushed a stray lock of red back under his hat, “But it worked. You got a right fuckin’ silver tongue in your head, Church. Cost me a bit of fun but I reckon it made everything easier in the long run.” “Being dead isn’t fun, McGuire.” “Hey now, for all you know the fuckin’ afterlife’s a goddamn hoot,” he smirked, then sighed, “I’m a gunslinger. I sling fuckin’ guns. But you… maybe you ain’t put together that way. Probably for the best. World might be better of with more people like you than me.” “You could always stop straddling that fence and come on over,” Church hitched the reins so the horses picked up the pace on the dirt path, “You already possess most of the virtues you pretend to abscond.” “Maybe. I kinda like it on this fence though. Nice view.” Church laughed a little, “Nicer over here. Not asking you to not be you. We already settled that. Asking you to maybe like being you. That’s the struggle, isn’t it? Easier said than done but it is what it is. When we started, I had a feeling we were worlds apart but here we are. Right now, not just in the physical sense, but right next to each other. Got each other’s backs. Concerned for each other’s well being and what not. Isn’t going to matter if you can never come to terms and strip away that bluster and bravado when its just between two honest folks. That’s a wall and I know all about those. They don’t have no place in this world. It’s meant to be free and so are we. Free to be who we really should be. You understand, McGuire?” He sat stubbornly, arms folded, for a moment. Just a moment. Then, with only a grain of hesitation, he tilted his hat back, revealing their face in earnest, “Yeah. I get you.”