#call me a vets the way i got that dog in me (being railed by a furry)

[rhoselacksthorns]

call me a cathedral the way my buttresses spread wide, kneeling before my altar can end with you seeing god and if you enter me far enough to push into my organs just right I make heavenly sounds

...although maybe Lincoln cathedral the way my spire isn't as long as it used to be...

...

and the way I reside in Lincolnshire...

*trying to call a woman beautiful but i've forgotten how to engage other humans in conversation* girl, you remind me of architecture

[quinncupine]

Hiiii quinn! I never realised you did requests but if it would be fine (and also because its my sole goal) could you do a boom boom boi and izubby with having their own cat or dog as a pet??? I'm seriously thinking that boom boom boi would be both a cat and dog person, don't u agree? (Ily lots and don't feel pressured to do this if you have a lot of stuff going on!)

Hi Dorki! I'm finally making my way through my requests and I was really excited to write this one! Okay, hope you like it!

Quinns Masterlist

Wanna request something?

The Boys with Pets

Word Count: 1,750

Featuring: Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo!

Warnings: dogs, cats, cursing

Izuku Midoriya

Now Izuku loves pretty much all animals, but I can totally see him getting a dog. Dogs are loyal and full of energy just like a certain green-haired hero. The perfect duo.

He would probably rescue one from the pound, the one with the biggest, saddest, cutest eyes because how could he not? But someone has to go with him because he'd try to rescue them all if there was no one there to stop him. Once a hero, always a hero I suppose.

I'm thinking for names, he would definitely pick a name that reflects his favorite heroes. Don't be surprised if he names his dog something super cheesy like Mighty or Rocky…

Wait, okay, I've decided, he names his dog Mighty and that is the hill I will die on.

The life of a hero is quite busy so when he goes off on long missions, he drops the dog off at his mom's house. Inko has fallen in love with this sweet pup, so much so that she sometimes begs him to stop by with the dog for a visit. It's the closest thing she's got to grandbabies at the moment, she'll take what she can get :)

Now, this cute pup draws in the attention of just about everyone so he's gotten an influx of attention and a few numbers slipped in his hand during their walks, much to his flustered surprise.

Best wingman ever.

This dog goes on regular runs with Izuku and sometimes even helps him with training. I'm thinking a Collie or an Aussie would just be the perfect fit for him to keep up with his personality and lifestyle. He needs an active dog!

I can see it now, he goes on his daily morning runs with this cute Lil furry training buddy and they race the whole way! A few regulars on the trail know about this and it's become sort of a tradition to cheer the two on as they pass.

 ...

The morning air was crisp with the slight scent of the coming autumn, the perfect morning for a run. Izuku, dressed in his usual training wear, had a steady rhythm going for the last forty minutes, letting out even, controlled breaths. This was the easy part of the run, a warm-up if anything, and he hadn't even broken a sweat yet. The canine jogging by his side was enjoying the dewy morning air as well, tongue happily flopping out the side of her mouth. The shared morning ritual between man and man's best friend: Mighty.

Her tail picked up speed, wagging uncontrollably as they neared the bend where the giant jagged rock towered over the path. It was the place marker to start the race. A three-mile run to the top of the hill located at the center of the park. It was also Mighty's favorite part of the morning.

"Ready girl?" Izuku grinned down at the ecstatic dog who barked in reply.

The instant the two of them passed the big rock, they both broke out in full speed, leaving behind a cloud of dust. Happy barks filled the air as she gained the upper hand. Izuku laughed as the dog turned to look back at him lagging behind her. He always did these races without his quirk to assist him. It was only fair and it helped him work on his natural stamina in case he was ever in a situation where he couldn't use his quirk. Always good to be prepared.

He watched as she bounded up the first steep hill on the trail. There were a few small hills on this route, but this one was the hardest to climb and Mighty had the advantage with her four legs so she always managed to pull ahead first. She stopped at the top and barked him on before quickly disappearing over the crest.

When he reached the top, he stopped for just a second to take in his surroundings. This part of the park was a heavily wooded area with numerous trails that many people used to hike or run. It also served as a great view of the city skyline and he couldn't help but stop and admire the rising sun from between the foggy buildings every time. Then Mighty barked to pull him out of his thoughts.

"It's not over yet!" He called after her and raced down the hill, putting on an extra burst of speed to easily close the distance.

Tail wagging, she nipped playfully at his feet as they sprinted along the path, side by side. There weren't many people out this early so he usually had the trail to himself. The only sounds were the wind in the trees, the leaves crunching under feet and paws, Mighty barking beside him, and his own unrestrained glee as they ran together.

These were the mornings he loved. Just the two of them, away from the stresses that came with pro-hero work. He wouldn't trade being a hero for anything, but sometimes it got to be too much so coming here to clear his mind with a little run was always a cathartic release, only made better by the furry companion by his side.

The short bridge that arched over the creek signaled the last mile. Getting more serious, Izuku pulled ahead of Mighty, not able to hold back the giant grin as he streaked across the bridge, startling a few birds off the railings which Mighty barked at as she came up behind him.

Up ahead was a large open meadow with a small duck pond near the center. A few benches were scattered about the path and he saw the same elderly couple sitting in their usual spot with a bag of rice and seed to feed the plethora of ducks waddling around their feet.

"You got him this time Mighty!" The old man looked up as the two of them zipped down the path towards the couple.

"Show 'em what girls can do!" The woman cracked a smile, waving her hands.

"Morning Mr. and Mrs. Fujino!" Izuku waved as he passed. "Don't count me out yet!"

Mighty barked her greeting and took a detour, herding some ducks closer to the couple then with a quick lick to Mr. Fujino's hand, she sprinted back to catch up to Izuku.

The Fujino's marked the last leg of the race. The only thing left was to climb the top of the largest hill in the park to the old oak tree at the top. That was the finishing line. It was always a gamble as to who finished first every day, but Mighty sure had a competitive spirit.

Izuku pumped his legs as he steadily made his way up to the dirt trail, Mighty just behind him before she suddenly veered left and disappeared into the shrubbery. He was so focused on the tree that slowly came into view just around the curve as he neared the top that he didn't notice.

Just as the path leveled out, almost to the finish line, he glanced back to see no sign of his dog. The tree was a few feet away when a furry mass ambushed him from the side, knocking him clean off his feet. The pro hero landed in the grass with a heavy Oof. Sitting on his chest was Mighty, looking quite proud of herself.

"Cheater!" He laughed, trying his best to hold back the slobbery licks she was determined to give him. "Okay, okay, I'll call it a tie!"

 Katsuki Bakugo

Now Katsuki on the other hand would totally be a cat person. Not that he has anything against dogs, but cats are more his style. They don't need constant attention and are pretty much self-sufficient. Just the way he likes it.

That being said, Katuski would go all out on toys and the latest gizmos to take care of his cat. Has a self-cleaning litter box, a waterfall bowl, an automatic feeder, etc. You get the picture.

Oh, and toys galore. If he has space, this cat is getting a personal jungle gym that lets him walk up to the ceiling. S.P.O.I.L.E.D.

Doesn't like to tell people just how much he actually loves this cat because he's never been one to express emotions, but this cat just gets him to his core. They share the same wavelength and he appreciates that. The cat is the only one he trusts to open up to, so sometimes you might catch him ranting to the poor thing who just stares back with big wide eyes and occasional meows. Yup, totally gets him.

I see him with a super chill cat, like maybe a Ragdoll or a Russian Blue. Something that tolerates his constant screaming and explosions.

This guy is just as bad at names. It'll definitely be something long and dramatic like Lord Cat Explosion Demon God of Furballs. Yep. He doesn't take criticism so most people call him Lord Furballs, much to his disdain.

Katsuki won't ask for attention from the cat, but the little furry feline is a total cuddler and will often find itself curled up in his lap or even on his neck if Katsuki's sitting on the couch. You better believe this guy won't be moving until that cat decides it's time to move. He's been late to meetings with friends because of this cuddly cat.

He's a hero so this cat is definitely being treated right. Katuski is no slacker when it comes to caring for his lil buddy. The vet is on speed dial should anything ever happen.

Did someone say a custom-made collar that matches his hero costume to a tee?

He's never loved anything more.

 ...

"Uh, hey Bakubro, why is your cat glaring at me?" Ejiro asked, staring down at the feline.

"What?" Katsuki didn't even bother to look up from his laptop.

"Your cat. It's giving me the evil eye. I thought it was supposed to be friendly." The red-haired hero frowned, not able to break eye contact with the cat. "I don’t think it likes me."

The small furry creature had lazily curled up in the sunspot next to Katsuki's feet, purring away without a care in the world. It seemed harmless enough, except for the heavy glare it was shooting Ejiro's way.

"Heh," Katsuki finally glanced down and crossed his arms. "He's not glaring. That's just his face."

"Ah," Ejiro nodded, "like father like son."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean!?"

Taglist: @thecindy @peachsenpie @awilddreamerwrites @miriobaby @kiyoobi @dragonsdreamoffire @amive2567 @justscar @kenmaskitten10 @freckledoriya

[13uswntimagines]

I Should Sleep With You More Often (Sam x Reader)

Sequel to Works Like a Charm  where Sam and Reader finally get together. It’s a very fluffy piece, with a little bit of late night breakfast making and a surprise kiss. 

special thanks to @literaryhedgehog​ cause this wouldn’t have happened without her. 

Hello?”

“Hey, I can’t sleep.” Sam’s voice comes over the phone, getting straight to the point with frustration.

“And you’re calling me about it? At 3 am. I could have been asleep you know.” You huff into the phone, pinning it between your chin and your shoulder. 

“Were you?” She asks, and you can almost see her eyebrow quirking up. 

You look down at the frying pan where you were about to pour your egg-cheese scramble. “No. But still.”

“Don’t worry, I appreciate the irony of the situation,” she says, with an attempt at humor. “can I come over?”

“Sure. You can split my omelet.” You hum, your tongue poking out as you make sure the entire omelet landed on the plate instead of the floor. 

“Omelette?” Sam asked, sounding amused. “I thought you weren’t supposed to --” 

“Eat anything after 9 pm I know, I know. But I woke up and was hungry, and couldn’t just ignore it to fall back asleep for two hours. I had to eat something or I was going to get nauseous.” You interrupted her, waving your hand dismissively. 

“What?” Sam asked entirely confused. 

“You know that feeling, where you’re like, so hungry that you get kind of nauseous?” You tried to explain again. 

“No…” She trailed off. 

“Oh, well it’s the worst. I like to try to eat something before it gets too bad because otherwise, the food won’t do anything. Anyway, I made enough you can have half of it, just let me know when you get here so I can send down the elevator for you.” You said, whipping your hands off and walking towards the door. 

“I’m actually just parking,” Sam’s voice came sheepishly over the phone. In the background, you heard the unmistakable sound of her car being locked. She always insisted on clicking the lock button twice so it would beep, like she didn’t trust it to lock the first time. 

You shook your head and left your apartment to buzz her into the building. “You’re telling me that at 3 am, before even checking to see if I was awake, you just decided to come to my apartment because you couldn’t sleep?”

“Yes?” 

“You’re insane,” you said, hanging up the phone as the elevator door opened to reveal her tall frame. 

She ruffled the hair at the back of her neck, grinning. “I knew you would be awake?”

“Bullshit.” You led the way back to your apartment and grabbed two plates from the cabinet. “You want soy milk?”

“What?” 

“Soy milk. I’ve got vanilla or dark chocolate.” For some reason, soy milk helped reduce the insomnia nausea more than anything else most days. Still, the omelet smelled amazing. 

“Um sure, vanilla please.” She shrugged, and you rolled your eyes. Vanilla was for the weak. 

You pulled out both cartons and two glasses, before cutting the omelet in half and handing her a fork. 

“Don’t I get my own plate?” Sam whined, cutting off a piece of the Omelet and popping it into her mouth. 

“People who come barging into my apartment at 3 AM have to share with the host. Unless you wanna do dishes?” You raised your eyebrow at her, pointing your fork in her direction, smirking when she emphatically shook her head no. 

She quickly changed the subject, avoiding your eyes as she ate. “So how are you liking your apartment, it’s new right?”

“Yeah, I moved in four months ago, you know when I suddenly got traded to North Carolina,” you said, a very bitter edge in your voice. How Mark could let you leave the thorns you would never know, but at least Hinkle was retiring. 

You took another bite “So why couldn’t you sleep? At camp, you’re usually snoring like a freight train by now.” 

Sam paused mid-bite, fork in the air. She looked like she was debating how to answer then, stuffed her last piece of omelet in her mouth. “I donb snowe.”

“You totally do. Rose even sent me the video evidence if you wanna see it,” you smirked, standing to go get your phone. 

“No!” Sam jumped up and you sprinted across the kitchen to get out of her reach, grinning. “You really don’t have to do that, it’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, but I really don’t mind,” you taunted, starting for your phone before Sam tackled you. Well, it wasn’t a tackle so much as a grab, but she had a good foot and a half on you, so same difference really. 

“Put me down. This is highly unnecessary,” you sputtered, laughing from Sam’s shoulder. “I’m not supposed to exercise within an hour of bed. My therapist would be unhappy with so much activity.”

“Yeah cause eating an Omelette at 3 am is totally something she would approve,” Sam rolled her eyes, as she tossed you onto your couch.

“Lies and slander. I won’t get the alleged snoring video, but seriously. Why are you here?”

Sam sighs, and slouches onto the couch next to you, dropping her head into your lap. You smile down at her, liking this new angle. While you certainly didn’t mind being the baby of the team, it was kind of nice to do the petting for once.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You were never a good liar. It’s why everyone catches you when you try to pull pranks. I hear it helps if you talk about it,” You murmured, using your thumb to smooth out the crease that formed between her eyes. 

“Fine, I couldn’t sleep because I kept having nightmares. It felt like, I was tossing and turning for hours, and then every time I dozed off, my brain came up with these fucked up images. Like, silence of the lambs shit. I could sell some horror film director the plotlines and make bank, I’m telling you. And since Rose and Wilma moved out, my place has felt so empty. It felt like, the panic attacks I used to have before games. When I had to always bring a bag with me to hyperventilate into before I could get my mind on the game.”

You frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“Once you became my bus buddy I didn’t have that problem. You got me out of my own head with fun word games and stupid jokes. Remember that time you gave me the sentence ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?’ You kept grinning telling me to stop stressing out, it would be alright, to just guess a letter.” 

“Because whatever you guessed would be right.” You hum smiling down at her. 

 “You couldn’t take that shit-eating grin off your face, you jerk, but like, it helped me stop second-guessing myself. Sitting on the bus with you, I’ve never felt more calm going into a season. And so I just thought. It’s dumb but I hoped coming here would help.” She shrugged. 

“It’s not dumb Sammy. You help me sleep too. Why do you think all the vets insist I sit with you?” You said softly, leaning down to kiss her forehead. 

“Because you used to fall asleep literally everywhere and they hoped I could get across the aisle and catch you before you hit your head?” She giggled and you snapped her shoulder lightly. 

“Wow. Thanks.” You said in a monotone, “Or maybe it’s ‘cause you’re my favorite teddy bear.”

“If anyone is the teddy it’s you. You’re like half my size,” She giggled. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you muttered, playfully pushing her head off your lap. “Come on you giant.”

“Where are you going?” She asked, allowing you to pull her to her feet. 

“To go grab you a toothbrush and a fresh pillowcase for the bed.” You said, your tugging getting a little more insistent. You really wanted to get to sleep tonight. You had been so good lately (ignoring the random omelet you cooked tonight).

“Oh, um. I was hoping we could just watch television on your couch and I would fall asleep,” Sam rambled, eyes wide. “I mean, not that I mind, but I didn’t want to like, invade on your--”

“Just come up to my room. It’s no big deal, it’s large enough for both of us, and I honestly don’t think that couch is even big enough to fit you. Besides, maybe it will help you sleep to be on a mattress actually purchased in this century.”

“Hey, I like my mattress!” She grumbled indignantly, crossing her arms. 

“You flip it twice a month because it keeps forming an indention where you’ve slept!” You said exasperated. That sleepover had been a terrible idea and you stood by that. At least your bed didn’t spit out feathers when you turned over too fast. 

“Well, I. um. No comment.” you hear her say as you go to take your turn in the bathroom. 

When Sam gets back from brushing her teeth you’ve done everything except turn out the lights. You look up from your side of the bed as she pauses in the doorway. 

“Is this… Welcome to Night Vale?”

“It helps me ignore my thoughts. Can you get the lights please?” 

You had to replay the podcast the next day after Sam left. You couldn’t remember anything after “Wednesday has been canceled due to a scheduling error” because within moments you were asleep.

*****

You thought that sleeping with Sam was only supposed to be a one-night thing, but it wasn’t. One night turned into two, which turned into the two of you usually crashing at each other's places. 

If you were being honest, it was the best sleep you had ever gotten. It was nice to have someone there to hold onto, to protect you from the bad dreams. The problem was that your feelings were edging past the line of friendship, and you had no idea what to do about it. 

It started with a team party you both went to, where Sam offered to be the designated driver. After she dropped everyone else off, you told her she might as well stay the night at your place since it was already so late and she did. And you both slept great. And then you had your usual Saturday spa night the next night, and you were several shots in and it wouldn’t have been responsible to drive home. And you both slept a solid seven hours. 

Not that Sam was a magical cure to your insomnia. You still had nights where your brain was like a train running off the rails, unstoppable no matter how hard you tried. Yet, having her there helped. She made sure blue lights went off when they were supposed to, and your late-night breakfast-making was kept to a minimum. AND after the first few nights, you realized that she was amusingly clingy in her sleep. Which meant that occasionally if you woke up and tried to get out of bed, she would sleepily grab you and hold you in place murmuring about whatever was happening in her dream. Since you couldn’t get up you had to just lay there, which normally might have been boring, but with her was amusing as you listened to her rambling state of consciousness. 

You sighed, staring up at the ceiling. You really needed to get your shit together and just ask her out. But what if she said no, and you lost your cuddle buddy? That would suck royally, and if you lost your bus seat it might completely curse the USWNT. 

“Alright, I can practically feel the steam coming out of your ears, spill,” Sam groaned, rolling over and throwing an arm around your waist. 

“Isn’t it weird?”

“What?”

“Time. Like someone decided that seconds were a thing and a certain number of seconds equaled a minute and there were a certain number of minutes in a day. Like someone just decided it was a thing, and everyone went along with it and now we all have to plan our lives around this arbitrary system. I wonder if that asshole realized that people would use it to put kids in detention and force them to cram so they could regurgitate facts in a specified amount of his made-up system. And like the Romans made a Calendar and the Mayans did one too…” Your rambling was cut off by Sams’s soft lips touching your own in a quick peck before she collapsed back into the pillow. “Just blame capitalism babe.”

You stared at her for a minute, shocked, before she bolted upright. “SHIT. Sorry, I just. I forgot to ask for consent. I just forgot--”

“I consent, yes, more of this please,” you said, leaning over to kiss her again. Your hands cupped her cheeks and her fingers tangled into the baby hairs at the back of your neck. 

After a few minutes, Sam broke off the kiss, both of you breathing heavily. “Um, wow. You know, I’m not sure this is helping you get to sleep, love.”

You smirk, biting your lip and straddling her hips before you lean in to kiss her again, slowly. “You’re the one who said you needed to sleep with me more often.”

[anoutlandishfanfic]

The Alaskan Endeavor: Ch2 - Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

So, again, this chapter update (can I call them PUPdates? they’re now PUPDATES) is in celebration of another race that finished up yesterday morning -- the Kuskokwim 300 aka The Kusko300, which is one of if not THE most competitive middle distance race in Western Alaska. We’ll get to the pups and more about racing in the next chapter but HERE WE HAVE THE MEETING Y’ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.

You can find chapter one here or over at AO3!!

Claire That evening

The Murray’s residence wasn’t far from my flat above the Abernathy’s garage — nothing in this tiny hamlet was — and I decided to walk the four blocks, taking in a remarkable summer’s evening.

Joe had warned me that the shift in daylight hours was more extreme here in Kozebue — twenty-six miles above the Arctic Circle — than where we’d reconnected on Kodiak Island… and I had to admit he was right. I’d made good use of the black out curtains that were installed in the bedroom, shutting out the sun that insisted on shining well into the night and starting up again ungodly early in the morning. I knew I’d have no trouble making my way back on foot after dinner.

It would still be broad daylight.

I rounded the final corner and scanned the lane for my destination…

“It’s a blue house with white trim… second on the left,” Joe’s wife Gail had easily informed me, for the Abernathy’s and the Murray’s were old friends.

Gail’s eyes had held the same suspicious twinkle that Jenny’s had when she’d invited me for dinner and I had a sinking suspicion that I was about to be set up on a blind date, hosted by Jenny Murray herself. My new patient had mentioned she had a brother when she was in earlier and if I were the betting sort, I’d place my life savings on him being the man in question.

How on earth did you let yourself get roped into this, Beauchamp? I sighed ruefully to myself as I spotted the abode.

Crossing the street, I took a few deep breaths, trying to steady my pounding heart as I got closer to the Murray’s front door. It was no use, of course, for it had firmly lodged itself in my throat about a block and a half back, and I was left trembling slightly as I mounted the front steps.

Wiping sweaty palms on my pants, I lifted my hand and knocked. Once — twice — three times.

… Jamie

“Can you get that?” Jenny shouted from the kitchen, the usual clamor of my nieces and nephew interfering but not obscuring her words.

Passing the youngest back to her father, I stood and answered, “Aye, I’ve got it!”

I wiped at the deposit of crumbs that wee Katie had left behind on my shirtfront, tugging at the hem in an attempt to flatten out the wrinkles pressed into it by the same. I shook my head and gave it up, knowing it was useless and that it shouldn’t really matter anyway.

Rolling my eyes at the ridiculous concern for my own appearance, I turned into the front hall and padded quickly down the plush rug to the door.

I turned the knob and pulled — then stopped dead as the door opened.

Christ, she was beautiful.

Her pale cheeks were slightly flushed, which made the small smattering of freckles across her nose stand out like brilliant stars. The curls were coming out of a plait that was draped over one shoulder and it gave her a delightfully adventurous air. She was a brunette like Jenny, but not nearly quite so dark. The light streaming in from behind her set brilliant copper highlights aglow as she flipped the thick queue away, making it disappear behind her.

One perfectly arched brow rose in question of me — and I knew I was staring — but the ability to form coherent speech left me entirely as her eyes locked on to mine.

Brown would be a woefully inaccurate word to describe such a hue as hers. They were rich like a fine whisky, a deep amber that all at once soothed and pierced your soul.

Pull yerself together, you clotheid.

I cleared my throat, trying to regain some semblance of composure and took a step back, sweeping a hand to usher her in.

“You, ah, must be Dr Claire,” I stammered, my lips still not completely able to do my bidding. “I’m Jamie, Jenny’s brother.”

Comprehension lit her eyes and she chuckled softly.

God, that sound.

It sent shockwaves up and down my spine and stood the hair on the back of my neck on end.

What I wouldn’t do to make her laugh like that again.

“Tell me, Jamie,” she kept her voice low, a conspiratorial gleam sneaking into her eyes. “Have Jenny and Gail been playing matchmaker with us?”

Raking a hand through my hair, I confessed dryly, “They’ve been trying to set me up for years.”

She tipped her head back and laughed outright and freely at my confirmation, commenting, “I thought so, but then I’d only met your sister this morning.”

“I’ve known her my whole life,” I grinned back at her. “Once Jen gets an idea in her head, it’s best to let her have at it ‘til it peters out on its own... unless it involves that wee fiend of hers.”

Delicate, slender fingers lifted to her lips as the color deepened in her cheeks, amusement still high in her voice, “Are you talking about Roger?”

“Right! Yes!” It was my turn to laugh. “You’ve met the numpty yourself.”

She grinned, “I’ve had the pleasure, yes.”

“Did she tell you he’s a service dog drop out?” I shook my head in mock derision.

Her eyes grew as big as saucers, nearly dropping the bag in her hand as she burst, “No!!”

“Oh, aye!” I scoffed, but my smile crept back in and betrayed my amusement at the whole ordeal.

“Too friendly… and easily distracted.”

“Are you two done bletherin’ out here?” My brother in law Ian stuck his head into the hallway, succinctly interrupting us with a knowing look.

“The food’s gettin’ cold!”

… Claire

Tucked between Jamie and his seven year old namesake, dinner was far from a dull affair. Jenny proved to be a remarkable cook and the table conversation ranged in topics from a nuanced detail of racing — that is, mushing — to my favorite animal.

“Do you mean in general,” I tested the waters, assembling another forkful of roast and potatoes, “or in a specific class or order?”

The little boy’s eyes lit up and I knew I’d found a topic that he particularly enjoyed… which was a stroke of luck for me, being that animals and their care was my field of expertise.

Thank God it wasn’t dinosaurs.

“Mammals!” He eagerly narrowed the field, then zeroed in even further, “What’s your favorite African mammal?!”

“Oh, that’s easy! A giraffe!” I supplied, my smile matching his. “I got to see them in the wild, you know… in Tanzania.”

This caught the attention of the rest of the table and began to field questions left and right about my time on the Serengeti. I didn't mind, as they were happy memories, and soon won over both the younger Jamie and his five year old sister Maggie with tales of elephants and zebras and all of the animals they’d only read about in books or seen on television.

“Did you see any lions?” Little Maggie’s voice dropped into what I supposed was her version of a whisper — as if one were right beside us — and she nearly vibrated with excitement as she asked again, “Did you see any lions, Dr Claire?!”

I heard Jamie, the elder and my supposed date for the evening, chuckle beside me and I wondered just what sort of mischief this little one could get into when she set her mind to it.

“I did see lions too, Maggie,” I assured her, taking on her affected stage whisper. “We went in a truck at night and had big flashlights and saw them getting a drink of water.”

“Dey sirsty,” two year old Katie informed the table proudly, making all of the adults grin.

I bit my lip to keep from chuckling at her innocent attempt at being involved in the conversation, but agreed, “They get very thirsty.”

“How’d ye wind up in Alaska, then?”

This turn in conversation came from Jamie’s father, an older man by the name of Brian.

“I went to university with Joe Abernathy in Seattle,” I supplied. “We went separate ways after graduation but I ran into him again when I was visiting my uncle on Kodiak Island… Joe offered me a position at his clinic and I couldn’t refuse.”

“He’s done a lot of good wi’ that practice of his,” Brian commented. “Been a dream of his for some time now.”

Nodding, I smiled at the memory of Joe’s eager rants and rails, “He spoke quite a bit about it in school. I knew how much it meant to him and was eager to help him in his cause.”

“He almost worked himself to death before you came along,” Jenny snorted, then shot me an apologetic look. “Bein’ the only vet in the Northwest Borough made for long hours an’ no rest.”

“That’s why I wanted to come… to ease the burden a bit.”

“Well, then you’re a saint, Dr Claire,” she sighed, surmising with a shake of her head.

“No,” I assured her quietly. “I’m just plain old Claire Beauchamp.”

… Jamie. After Dinner.

“Wait just a minute,” I protested. “You walked here?!”

We were at the front door again, this time in full control of my faculties, but the woman before me was quickly turning out to be more of an complexity than I ever imagined possible.

Her brow furrowed at this, as if she hadn’t thought of the incongruity of her walking the mile from the Abernathy’s to here on foot.

“Yes… why?”

“Well, it’s… it’s just that…'' I stammered, flummoxed. “Don’t you have somethin’ to drive?”

“Of course,” she looked at me as if I’d sprouted five heads from my shoulders. “I have a perfectly good vehicle, but why drive it four blocks when it’s beautiful outside and I can walk?”

I opened my mouth to respond to this and found I didn’t have a reasonable answer. She found great amusement in this and crossed her arms, waiting for me to respond.

Shaking my head, I gave it up and couldn’t help but smile as I offered to walk her home.

This took her by complete surprise and her jaw dropped, “Why?!”

“Well,” I pulled at the back of my neck, trying to come up with something and shrugged helplessly, “like you said… it’s a beautiful evening.”

Her brows nearly rose to her hairline, not buying this for one moment.

“Look, it’s the polite thing to do, aye? I know you live at the Abernathy’s because Joe told me… I’ll leave just as soon as you’ve made it to the front door, I promise,” I insisted. “Nothin more.”

She contemplated this, then clarified, “Just a walk?”

I dropped my hands, swinging my hands away from my sides in a clearing motion and then against them again with a soft pat.

“Just a walk.”

[flightfoot]

We’re the Same Ch. 6

AO3/FFN

The Hawkmoth confrontation at last!

Disclaimer:  This is a Lovesquare fic, with Identity Reveal, Hawkmoth Reveal, and Hawkmoth Defeat. It is NOT a salt fic.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You remember the plan?” Damian asked.

Adrien, Marinette, and Ducard nodded. 

About an hour after he’d left Ducard, he’d seen reports that Ladybug and Chat Noir were running around Paris. Deciding that this probably meant they were done talking for now, he’d met up with them again. 

Ladybug had yelled at him about kidnapping them and stealing their Miraculous. He’d just stood there, bored. He’d had worse.

His mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile, thinking of when she asked about the position she and Adrien had found themselves in.

“And another thing!” she yelled, clearly trying to get out all her pent-up frustration and anger before they faced Hawkmoth, “you had no right putting us on top of each other like that!”

Chat looked hurt, eyes dropping to the ground, tail drooping.

Ladybug noticed immediately. Her voice softened. “I’m not complaining about the result, just that he put us in a somewhat intimate position like that without even knowing us, much less with consent.”

Chat perked up again, his tail doing a happy little twitch, and he nodded, agreeing with her.

Damian sniggered.

Ladybug scowled at him. “And what’s so funny?!”

“Ducard and I DIDN’T position you two on top of each other,” he said. “Both of you were a few feet away from each other, backs against the wall.”

Ladybug’s eyes furrowed. “Then how-”

She stopped.

And groaned.

“I crawled into his lap I’m guessing?” Ladybug said, resigned.

Damian nodded, still smirking.

She sighed. “I really shouldn’t be surprised. When I was little and stayed in Maman and Papa’s bed, I’d apparently end up sandwiched between them regardless of where I started out. Papa used to call me a heat-seeking missile.”

She glared at Damian again. “You’re still on the hook for everything else though.”

Damian leaned back, waiting for her to finish berating him. He’d survived Pennyworth’s lectures. This? This was nothing.

“What’re you smiling about?” Marinette asked him suspiciously.

Damian ignored her, checking the cameras instead. “Gabriel’s in the dining hall, so we should have a good window right now. I just started looping the cameras. We’re invisible starting… now!”

The four of them quietly snuck from Adrien’s room to Gabriel’s atelier, Damian quickly picking the lock. Child’s play for a former member of the League of Assassins, or a Robin for that matter.

Damian made his way over to the portrait of Emilie, pressing the sequence of buttons he’d captured Gabriel using to access the massive underground chamber.

He wanted to know where the second sequence he’d seen Gabriel enter on the cameras would lead, but now wasn’t the time. While he suspected that it had something to do with the other secret room, the one he’d been unable to gain access to, he couldn’t be sure. Even if it was, he didn’t know what to expect to find. He could handle anything Hawkmoth threw at him, he was sure. But his companions? Maybe not.

Plus…

He looked over at Adrien.

Truthfully, Damian didn’t need to visit that underground chamber again. He’d seen most of what he needed to for now.

But Adrien DID. 

He hadn’t asked, but… he needed to see his mother.

If Damian had a beloved family member he thought was dead, but turned out to be merely asleep, no force on heaven or earth would have been able to stop him from seeing them. Hell, when he’d discovered that Grayson had faked his death, had reunited with him - well, Damian didn’t initiate hugs often. 

But that day? He’d taken a page out of Grayson’s book and glomped him.

(Not that he’d tell anyone ELSE that, and if Grayson ever brought it up he’d just claim he must have memory loss in his old age)

When proposing entering the chamber, he’d justified it as having the kwamis take a closer look at Emilie, see whether they could glean more than he could. Which wasn’t a lie - they may be able to figure out what was going on with her even when he couldn’t - but it wasn’t the main reason. They could go back and examine Emilie after defeating Hawkmoth. 

He wasn’t going to make Adrien wait that long.

No one had questioned his proposal. Probably because everyone agreed - even if no one stated the true reason out loud.

The elevator activated. 

The four of them looked at the small hole in the floor that had opened up, then disappeared.

“...I thought maybe there was some sort of visual distortion with how small that hole looked,” Ducard said.

Damian grimaced. “Nope.”

“...This is gonna be cramped, won’t it?”

“Yep.”

And that’s how the four of them ended up crammed together within a circle maybe two feet in diameter, heading downwards.

While he had a feeling that Marinette and Adrien were enjoying being so close, he’d really rather not be shoved up against them.

Luckily, the elevator expanded slightly as they moved downwards. It was still cramped and small, but more “sardines in a can” and less “Grayson playing Twister”.

As they descended, the cavern opened up around them, the lights coming on.

A sharp intake of breath came from beside him.

Damian looked in the direction of the noise.

Adrien stared forwards, eyes fixed on the distant capsule.

When the doors opened he stumbled out, quickly regaining his balance, and dashed towards the pod where his mother lay.

Marinette ran after him, seeming to not want to let more than a few feet separate her from her partner.

He and Ducard hung back, as Adrien reached his mother.

SHE WAS HERE.

He ran his finger over the pod, fighting back tears. Just a few feet away, his mother lay, ALIVE.

Frantically he glanced around, searching for a button or switch or something to open it.

“I’ve got this, kid.”

He glanced up.

Plagg flew out, entering the pod’s control system. A few seconds later, it opened.

There she was.

Trembling, he stretched out a hand, fearful that she would dissolve into mist.

What if she was an illusion?

But - no.

He touched soft skin.

She was cool, but- she didn’t feel dead.

His head snapped up, and he opened his mouth to ask-

There was no need. 

Plagg flew around Emilie, Tikki joining him as Marinette caught up.

“She’s definitely in a magical coma,” Tikki announced after a few tense seconds. “Caused by using a broken Miraculous I’m guessing.”

“Can… can you wake her up?” Adrien asked hopefully.

Tikki shook her head. “If it was that simple, Nooroo could’ve done it.”

“Then… how can we heal her?” he asked.

He desperately wanted her to be okay. To have her RIGHT HERE and still lose her…

He bit back a sob. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Tikki replied. “The last time this happened, I wasn’t privy to the details on how the victim was woken up.”

“But they DID wake up?” Adrien asked.

She nodded. “Unfortunately, the people who held that knowledge aren’t around anymore.”

“Even…?”

She shook her head, cutting him off. “ALL the people.”

“So it’s hopeless after all?” Adrien asked, heart falling.

He KNEW it was too good to be true.

“No. It’s not.”

Adrien turned around.

Robin looked at him, eyes weirdly gentle. “I know some people, many of whom are skilled in magic. Maybe none of them know the method that was used to wake up the other victim, but I bet at least one of them can come up with a way to bring her back.”

“You sure?”

He knew he sounded plaintive, like a small child asking whether the family dog would be okay after being taken to the vet for a severe injury, but at that moment, he felt like a small child.

He just… he just wanted his mom back.

Robin shook his head. “Nothing’s for sure. But I can give it my best shot. She WILL be taken care of, whatever happens; THAT, I can promise you. And this time, she won’t be hidden away. You’ll be able to visit her while I try to find a cure.”

Adrien bit his lip, tears filling his eyes.

There was hope.

Not much, but more than he’d ever had before.

Marinette placed a hand on his back, giving him a soft, sad smile.

He leaned against her, melting into her touch.

Most of his world may have been upended. But his partner was still here. 

An alert sounded from a device Robin was holding, the same one that had displayed the feeds from the cameras Robin had installed. He checked it, eyes widening.

“Down below, NOW!” 

Wait, what?

He didn’t get a chance to ponder it further. 

“Tikki, Spots On!”

Ladybug grabbed him and jumped off the edge of the railing, hooking her yo-yo on one of the supports. Before they descended out of sight, he saw Robin hit a button on the capsule, sealing it once more.

Adrien blushed. They did this kind of thing all the time as Ladybug and Chat Noir, but up close like this untransformed? He felt vulnerable, but… kinda in a good way? He knew that she was more powerful - WAY more powerful than him like this, but also that she would never hurt him. That she’d care about any discomfort he showed. That she’d never take advantage of him, or try to get him to do something he didn’t want to do. That she’d protect him.

He didn’t need to put up barriers with her to protect himself, didn’t need to pretend to be okay when he wasn’t. Not now.

He buried his head against her shoulder. Ladybug adjusted her grip, pulling him closer so she could stroke his hair comfortingly.

He fought back a purr. They needed to be stealthy now, and a purr might be a giveaway.

But damn was it tempting.

He felt a soft tap on his shoulder.

He lifted his head reluctantly.

Robin had apparently had the same idea Ladybug did, having fired a grappling gun at one of the supports. His friend had done the same thing, though she’d actually managed to find a small ledge to stand on.

Robin activated the display on his device, zooming in on one particular screen - the one pointed at the elevator shaft.

Someone was descending.

Adrien’s stomach twisted.

Hewasn’treadyhewasn’treadyHEWASN’TREADY-

Gabriel Agreste, fashion mogul, magical terrorist, and his FATHER, stepped out.

Adrien stopped breathing.

Eyes locked onto the display, he stared as his father strode to the pod.

To his mother.

Footsteps sounded overhead.

Adrien flinched, convinced that somehow his father would hear them. Would charge down and-

And do what?

He shuddered. Before this, he thought the worst he could do was yell at his friends and bar him from seeing them.

Now? Now he was worried his father would flat-out MURDER them if he thought it might help with his goals. He’d never seemed overly concerned with how dangerous his akumas were before after all, and didn’t give a crap that they were kids.

Oh no, wait. He DID care, but only because it made it easier to sneer at them about how weak they are. 

He really didn’t give a damn about anything or anyone outside of his goals, did he?

*kaCHUNKwhirrr*

Adrien shuddered as he heard the pod’s door open. Right now, his father was looking at his mother. His mother, who he’d been able to see and visit all along. Could have taken HIM to see her.

But he hadn’t.

“There were some new superheroes today.”

Adrien gasped slightly, restarting his breathing. Hearing his father’s voice - hearing HAWKMOTH’S voice - down here? Made it seem more real to him.

“Robin, from Gotham City, and some new girl, both riding atop a massive beast. Any one of them would make good prey for my akumas, though one seemed more susceptible than the others. There was much turmoil in young Robin, a deep undercurrent of guilt. I just need to figure out how to bring it to the surface, and I’ll have my most powerful akuma yet.”

A deep undercurrent of guilt? Robin was just a kid - he wasn’t even certain he was old enough to be in collège, he was so small. Heck, he still had baby teeth! What could’ve happened to him that made him feel so guilty?

He looked over at Robin, gauging his reaction. Robin had gone stony-faced, holding himself rigidly.

Adrien had a sudden urge to give him a hug. He may not have been too happy about being kidnapped - though he’d never regret the sleepy cuddles that’d resulted from it - but right now, he just wanted to tell Robin that whatever he was feeling so guilty about, it was okay. 

“Oh, Emilie… I miss you so much. My last plan may have failed, but soon, soon I will succeed and bring you back to us. I will destroy Ladybug and Chat Noir and take their Miraculous!”

Destroy.

That sounded an awful lot like ‘kill’.

“Until then, I’ll look after our son. He’ll never truly be happy until you come back. Everything I do, I do so we can be a family again.”

He- he thought- and for that he threatened MURDER- for HIS SAKE?!

For his HAPPINESS?!

NO.

“Plagg, Claws out!”

“No!” he heard Robin hiss.

He knew he shouldn’t do this.

That he should just sit still and quiet.

But hearing him talk about destroying - about KILLING - him and Marinette?

And that it was all for his and his mother’s sake? As if they wanted this - As if it EXCUSED this?

He’d sat quietly and done what he was told his whole life.

Now that he could fight back? When his father was THREATENING the people he cared about, and claiming it was for his sake?

He couldn’t hide any longer.

“Wha-? Nooroo, Dark Wings Rise!”

As Chat propelled himself onto the walkway, a light flashed over his father.

Leaving Chat facing Hawkmoth.

“How did you find this place?!” Hawkmoth spat at him, tapping on Emilie’s pod, sealing it shut.

“Because you’re an idiot.”

Chat glanced back, seeing Ladybug and Robin swinging over the railing. Briefly he wondered where Ducard was, then dismissed the thought. She was Robin’s friend, anyone who could keep up with him could probably take care of themselves.

 Robin continued, “Honestly, did you really think NO ONE would notice that the floor plans didn’t match the actual Manor? You wouldn’t have lasted a week in Gotham.”

His father scoffed. “This will be your undoing. You think that mere CHILDREN can defeat me? Or did you return for another beating?”

“How. Dare. You.” Ladybug hissed, looking like she dearly wished she was Kryptonian so she could murder his father with eye lasers.

“...Why.”

His father frowned. “Excuse me?”

“WHY?!” Chat yelled, clenching his fist. “Why would you DO this?! HOW could you do this?!”

“To bring her back to me,” His father gestured at the pod behind him, “I would do ANYTHING.”

Chat gritted his teeth. “She would HATE what you’ve done. Hate YOU. Mom wouldn’t want this!”

He froze.

OH NO.

“...Adrien?”

He didn’t answer, just intensifying his glare in response.

“You would let your mother stay like this? How ashamed would she be of you, of her SON, who should love her above all else?”

Ashamed?

No…

NO.

She wouldn’t be… Mom wouldn’t be… she cared. She was a GOOD PERSON. There’s no way she’d go along with father’s plans! 

She- she wouldn’t be ashamed of him… right?

Guilt gnawed at his stomach. 

He glanced over at Ladybug, still glaring daggers at Hawkmoth.

Even if she was… he couldn’t betray his friends. Couldn’t endanger people.

He may be a bad son. 

But he just… couldn’t do that.

His father rushed forwards suddenly, driving his cane into Chat’s stomach.

All air left his lungs as he was flattened on the floor. 

Leaving him motionless, unable to scrape together the energy to do more than twitch.

His father loomed over him, glaring down, angry and disappointed.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

Ladybug barreled into his father, sending him flying. 

Leaning down, she took Chat’s hand. “Don’t listen to a word he says. Don’t let him reverse the roles. HE’S the bad guy, NOT YOU. You hear me, Chat? NOT. YOU.”

He teared up, giving her a quick hug.

Wait.

Why wasn’t his father attacking?

“TOUCH HIM AGAIN AND I’LL KILL YOU!”

*sning* *sning*

Chat watched as Robin swiped at Hawkmoth with the long metal claws he’d just extended from his gloves.

Ok, how did ROBIN have retractable claws while he didn’t?!

Hawkmoth dodged most of the blows, though a few connected.

Mere metal couldn’t pierce a Miraculous-made suit.

But it didn’t need to.

Chat narrowed his eyes.

At first glance, it looked like Robin was simply swinging wildly in a rage, attempting to hurt Hawkmoth as much as possible. But looking closer, most of the blows were just below the neck area.

Right where the Butterfly Miraculous rested.

Unfortunately, his father realized it too.

He jumped back thirty feet, far out of range.

Cursing profusely, Robin attempted to follow him, firing off a zipline, swinging himself closer to Hawkmoth.

But to no avail. His father simply jumped out of range again.

Chat staggered to his feet, Ladybug slinging her arm around his shoulders, propping him up. “I’m- I’m okay. We have to-” he sputtered out. 

He glanced behind Ladybug.

“MOVE!”

He threw himself and Ladybug to the side, rolling them out of the way of Hawkmoth’s attack.

But that didn’t save him from the follow-up hit.

His father slammed his cane into Chat’s back. “You’d go this far for HER, for some girl, but not for your own mother?!” he sneered. “These friends of yours… they only want to drag you down, use you.”

Ladybug extracted herself from Chat’s embrace and threw her yo-yo, attempting to lasso his father. He knocked the yo-yo aside. “If Ladybug cared for you, she’d use her Miraculous and yours to revive your mother!”

He kicked Ladybug to the floor, leaving both her and Chat groaning. Slowly he walked towards Chat, seeming to savor the moment. “Oh Adrien… I gave you everything you could need. I raised you to be perfect. I gave you tutors, let you build your brand and influence by allowing you to model for me, even allowed you to hang out with your so-called friends, so long as they weren’t proving harmful to your education or reputation. I see now that was a mistake. They’ve poisoned you. The son I knew would never have done anything to endanger his mother. Would have obeyed his father.”

Chat turned over, attempting to crawl away - both from his father, and from Ladybug. 

His father was targeting him. If he could lead him away, then maybe His Lady could flee, get away long enough to come up with some sort of plan. 

Besides his… his father couldn’t really- he knew he was awful, but he’s his own son! He’d- he’d-

“Stop,” he forced out, attempting to put as much distance as he could between him and his father. His father stared down at him with cold, hard eyes. Same as he always did.

He reached for Chat’s hand.

“CATACLYSM!”

The black, destructive energy surrounded his hand. His father cursed, grabbing Chat’s wrist tightly enough that it felt like it was leaving bruises, lifting him off the ground.

A light dawned in his father’s eyes. He grinned.

“You want to keep the ring? So be it.”

He pressed a button on his cane, opening the top.

Chat watched, horrified, as an akuma fluttered out.

“ADRIEN!” 

He looked to the side. Ladybug ran toward him, a polka-dotted bag in her hand.

She was too far away. She wouldn’t be able to get to him in time.

She didn’t have to.

A figure dropped from above.

The butterfly entered Robin’s left glove.

“Well, this is unexpected,” his father mused. 

Robin clutched his head. “GET. OUT.”

“You believe that no one will forgive you for your past actions, that you’re irrevocably tainted, incapable of washing the blood off of your hands.” his father crooned. 

“Shut up…” Robin gritted out.

Blood on his hands? The kid hadn’t even hit puberty yet. 

What the heck was Robin’s past like?

“Your mother had you killed, your father and brothers only tolerate you because they don’t know the true depths of your evil.”

“YOU. DON’T. KNOW. ME.” Robin screamed.

“But I understand. I can help you. With my help, you can erase everything wrong you did, undo all harm. You won’t have to worry about the rest of your family abandoning you anymore, and finally you can be free of the guilt.”

“I… I don’t…”

Robin sounded… lost. Confused. Like a small child, wandering around looking for something, anything familiar to cling to.

From what his father was describing, it was no wonder. Seriously, what the HELL had this kid been through?

“Just bring me Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s Miraculous, and I can help you fix EVERYTHING.”

“I…”

*THWACK*

A red-and-black spotted bag rammed down on Hawkmoth’s head, using Chat’s staff as a handle. 

Which normally would probably be as effective as using a plastic bag on Robin had been earlier.

...Except that Ladybug had apparently learned from that and decided to do more than just temporarily blind Hawkmoth for two seconds. 

Namely, by using the make-shift butterfly net to scoop up several of the soon-to-be-akumas in it first.

And with his father already having his mouth open to continue monologuing…

He coughed and sputtered as several butterflies invaded his mouth.

Taking advantage of his father’s distraction, Chat quickly rolled to his feet, reaching out and touching Robin’s glove with his still-active cataclysm.

The glove disintegrated, freeing the akuma.

Ladybug quickly caught it in her yo-yo, before attempting to wrap it around his father again.

He stumbled back, spitting out butterfly wings - but still managed to just avoid the string.

The butterfly brooch pulled away, seemingly on its own.

His father froze, as Hawkmoth was replaced by Gabriel Agreste.

“Wha-” 

He tried to snatch the brooch out of midair where it floated, but it darted away.

The brooch zoomed off. His father tried to run after it, but Ladybug was having none of it. For the third time, she tried to lasso him.

This time, she succeeded.

He crashed to the floor, cursing.

The brooch floated towards Robin.

Ducard flickered into view, holding the Miraculous.

Oh.

So his memories of her appearing out of thin air weren’t delusions; she could turn invisible.

She must’ve been sneaking around the entire battle, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Shakily he walked over to his father.

He glared up at him, sneering - but with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Only a couple minutes ago his father had loomed over him.

Now their situations were reversed.

Looking down at him like this, he didn’t seem like the powerful, terrifying figure he’d been moments before - had been for most of Adrien’s life if he was being honest with himself.

But now? He was just a guy.

He wasn’t some overwhelming force, overshadowing everything Adrien thought or did. 

Nor a looming threat over all of Paris, waiting to prey on any negative emotion, any moment of sadness, anger, or fear.

He was just a man.

He always had been.

“Well?” his father spat. “Are you really going to do this, my son? Leave your mother in a coma? Strike back against me?”

“Stop calling me that,” he hissed. “DON’T call me your son - not after this. You never cared about me as a person, as your son - just as your property. You didn’t ‘allow’ me to model for you - you mandated it. I didn’t want to ‘build my brand’ - just have friends, go outside - be a regular kid! But that wasn’t something you cared about so it didn’t matter to you. 

And you’ve been doing the same thing as Hawkmoth! I love Mom, I want her back - but the price would be to submit someone else to her fate. I can’t do that. Even if I didn’t know them, someone else would still pay the price. Whether they were close to me personally, they still matter.

But not to you. You only place value on those you consider to belong to you. And even then only when they do what you consider ‘acceptable’. Everyone else is just… just tools for you to get what you want, or obstacles to get in your way!”

He turned away. “I won’t be your tool. Not anymore. I’m not yours.” 

“How COULD you! I gave you everythi-”

*CRACK*

Chat whipped around.

Gabriel lay on the ground, unconscious. Robin standing beside him, fist still extended. 

“What? Did you really need to listen to him rant on anymore?” Robin asked.

Chat shook his head. “No, I- thank you.”

 His Miraculous beeped twice.

Three paw pads left.

“Claws in.”

Light flashed over him, Plagg leaving the ring.

Adrien pulled out some cheese for him from his inside jacket pocket. 

Watching Plagg devour the cheese wedge, his stomach seized as he thought of something. 

“I’m- I’m going to have to give you back,” he stammered, his face green.

Plagg paused his eating. “What nonsense are you talking about? I thought we settled this before. I’m not leaving. You’re stuck with me, kid.”

“But - I don’t have a choice now,” his eyes watered. He fought to keep them down. He had a feeling that if he started crying right now, he wouldn’t be able to stop. “He knows I’m Chat Noir. He might not be able to do anything himself, but what’s going to stop him from just telling everyone? Even if the media refused to air it, he’s bound to run into people in prison he can tell.”

“He won’t tell anyone, because he won’t remember.”

Adrien turned towards Robin, worried. “You knocked him out so hard you gave him amnesia?”

Robin scoffed. “No. If I tried, he’d probably end up in the hospital for brain damage. I know of an organization with a special tool that can erase memories like that.”

“...Should I ask whether this is legal?”

“No.”

“Is it safe at least?”

“For this? It shouldn’t cause him any harm. There’s not much to make him forget.”

He breathed out. He was still trepidatious, but… well, some part of him wanted to trust Robin. And if it came between Gabriel’s safety and Plagg’s safety? (And he wasn’t going to kid himself, Plagg would try to follow him even if he gave the Black Cat Miraculous back to Fu.) He would choose Plagg.

Ladybug put a hand on his shoulder. “Adrien? Are you- of course you’re not okay, who would be? But…”

He shot her a small smile. It felt false. “I’ll be fine.”

Her eyebrows creased. She looked even more worried, but didn’t press the subject.

Ducard walked over to Ladybug, handing over the brooch. “I’m guessing you know what to do with this?”

She nodded. “We’ll make sure the Miraculous goes where it belongs,” she said, taking the piece of jewelry and stowing it in her yo-yo.

Adrien wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It was so… final. He kept on believing that in a minute he might blink and be back where he was, with Hawkmoth leering over him, winding up to hit him.

But… the brooch was gone now. He couldn’t just… wake up and grab it. It was out of his reach, even if he did wake up unexpectedly.

It just seemed unreal.

Ladybug retrieved her Lucky Charm, throwing it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

The ladybugs swirled around them, repairing what little damage had been done.

The raw ache in Adrien’s body disappeared. He hadn’t even realized how much he was still feeling his father’s beating until it was gone.

A ringtone sounded from his father’s unconscious body. Adrien blinked.

Mechanically he walked over, looking at the caller ID.

Nathalie’s face greeted him.

He stared numbly. In the excitement, he’d forgotten about her.

Robin checked his monitoring device. “She’s in Gabriel’s office, heading over to the painting.”

Heading over to-

His stomach seized.

She definitely knew.

He’d assumed she did, but-

“Everyone, HIDE!” Robin hissed.

Ladybug’s earrings beeped. He glanced at them. Only one dot left now.

She cursed, dragging his father into the foliage before crouching down herself.

Adrien followed her lead, crouching down beneath a bush.

“Spots off,” she muttered, detransforming.

The yo-yo string that had been wrapped around his father disappeared, leaving him limp on the ground.

Adrien froze, staring at him.

Marinette was right there, within easy reach if he woke up. 

He wasn’t moving beyond the slow, soft rising and falling of his chest.

But- what if he was faking?

He shook his head. No, no. Robin had knocked him out himself. And while his way of making friends was… questionable, his skill was not.

So why couldn’t he stop seeing images of him waking up? Of him grabbing her by the neck while she was looking away? Ripping her earrings out, and-  

His train of thought ground to a halt, refusing to contemplate what his father might do if Marinette resisted.

“Breathe, kid, breathe,” Plagg’s voice whispered. 

He took a breath, letting it out slowly.

Still, he couldn’t help staring, looking for the slightest twitch of movement.

*whirreeee*

Until the noise started up, that is. 

He looked over to the elevator, tensing. He wanted to keep watching his father, but with danger on two fronts…

*clunk*

The elevator landed, its doors opening.

Nathalie - his father’s assistant, the woman who’d been mostly parenting him since his mother... disappeared, who he thought might even become his stepmother - stepped out.

Hawkmoth’s accomplice.

She looked around. “Sir? You didn’t answer your phone, are you- AAAH!”

Tripping seemingly on thin air (though Adrien suspected it was rather more solid than that), she faceplanted onto the floor.

As she struggled to get back up, something seemed to be pinning her in place. 

“Wha- who-?”

Robin jumped down from where he’d been hanging, retracting his grappling gun’s line.

“This is assault!” Nathalie spat. “I don’t know how they do things in Gotham, but-”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to protest taking down Hawkmoth’s accomplice,” Robin sneered. 

Fear flashed across her face. Still, she did her best to maintain her composure. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Robin rolled his eyes. “Right. You just HAPPENED to wander down to Hawkmoth’s lair, filled with the butterflies he uses, Gabriel’s comatose supposedly-dead wife, while calling for Gabriel.”

She glared at him as best she could while face-down, pinned to the ground. “Our lawyers will hear about this.”

“You do that.” Robin put one of his gloved hands over her face. Within seconds she stopped struggling, going limp.

“You can come out now,” he called out.

Adrien emerged from the bush. He looked over at Marinette, making sure she was well out of Gabriel’s (potential) reach, before walking over to Nathalie’s prone form.

“What did you do to her?” he asked slowly. Intellectually he knew that Nathalie had helped his father, had helped Hawkmoth, but… right now, it was hard to see anything but the woman who’d taken care of him for the past several months. Even knowing what she’d done, he didn’t want to see her hurt.

“Same thing I did to you and Marinette. She’ll wake up in a few hours.”

“Wait, you had that stuff still on hand?”

“Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Then why didn’t you use that to knock my father out?”

“I wanted to punch him,” Robin said simply.

Adrien opened his mouth… and then closed it. He couldn't really deny that sentiment.

“What now?” he asked instead.

Robin looked at him. “You two can head home. I can take it from here.”

Marinette stalked up, seeming like she was about to protest… and then glanced over at Adrien. Her face softened. She looked back over at Robin. “DON’T hurt Nathalie, and make sure to give Gabriel back after wiping his memory. They’ll need to stand trial. And if you find the Peacock Miraculous, give it STRAIGHT over. No tests, no funny business. Got that?”

He glared at her a moment, but nodded. Ducard cut in, “I’ll make sure you get the Peacock back, don’t worry.”

She stared at them both, as if searching for their intentions, then nodded. 

Turning towards Adrien, she gave him a small smile, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Come on kitty, let’s go home.”

Home…? Where…?

With her.

She meant going home WITH HER.

Shakily he drew in breath. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

His father might be a monster.

His caretaker might be an accomplice.

His mother might be unconscious. 

But he still had people who loved him.

He still had places to call home.

[dansnaturepictures]

7/3/20-Fort Cumberland and Hill Head 

Including update on Ruby and additions to my lists of favourite birds, butterflies and mammals We were lucky to get out today as our youngest dog Ruby, who’s days may be numbered due to a tumour as part of her ongoing battle with lymphoma, appears to have been bitten by an Adder yesterday. She has a recovery from this ahead of her and I wish her all the best. She is in and out of the vets and on steroids, total rest has been ordered. I took the second picture in this photoset of her doing this before leaving today, and first picture in this photoset of a Goldfinch in the garden. 

I am writing this as it’s a part of the story of my day, but I must say I am in no way complaining about this wonderful and iconic snake species or their presence in the landscape as they are one of our and in particular the New Forest’s where the bite occurred best species. They are an integral part of wildlife so I am not anti-Adder at all or anything like that. But I am starting to wonder whether by life long snake phobia foreshadowed this and my Mum’s Adder bite seven year’s ago this summer. On both occasions things we said and did foreshadowed the event too so you never know about these things. 

We did go out with only our oldest dog and Ruby’s Mum Missy to Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth the lovely coastal area we last went in January I took the third and seventh pictures in this photoset of this place. Missy certainly enjoyed her walk as shown by the fourth picture in this photoset with her rolling over on the beach and with one dog (both of ours are ageing now) it sort of made me appreciate more as a lover of dogs having a dog and being able to enjoy time with them. 

Wildlife wise on a quite grey patch of the day the highlights were seeing two special gull species I had got at year ticks two weeks ago today at nearby Hayling Island. I heard the exciting call of a Mediterranean Gull and then some lovely ones flew over by the fort. Some were at the car park as we left too. I then saw a Common Gull on the water and saw one possibly the same later on flying over two cracking views of this bird I really admire. Great to see both species again. I took the fifth and sixth picture in this photoset of these birds respectively. 

This gives me a good opportunity for the first time to tell you about some additions I decided to make to my A and B lists of favourite animals last weekend. Every March and if needed September after last year I am gonna have some thinks about species I might want to add to my lists of favourite birds, butterflies, dragon/damselflies and mammals and score candidates against criteria on a spreadsheet to help inform my decisions. Mediterranean Gull was added to my B list of favourite birds so the first I’ve seen since making the additions, alongside Corn Bunting, Snow Bunting, Black Redstart, Greenshank and Water Rail. They joined Manx Shearwater, Shag, Little Tern, Spoonbill, Spotted Redshank, Barn Owl and Yellowhammer on this list. But two of the existing members of this list, Great White Egret and Short-eared Owl gained promotion and are now among my favourite birds on a list of 30. 

There were no demotions anywhere as I don’t think I really look to do that between the lists unless I come to feel I need to with increasing numbers on the lists. No butterflies were added to my list of favourites, but four species - Grizzled Skipper, Silver-spotted Skipper, White-letter Hairstreak and Brown Argus join my butterfly B list to mean there’s 11 on that so as many as my list of favourite butterflies. I don’t have B lists for dragon/damselflies or mammals and no additions were made to the former. Finally, one addition was made to my list of (now nine) favourite mammals in the form of the Sika Deer. 

Mediterranean Gull was added to my B list because it’s a bird I admire so much and red and black together my two favourite colours make my favourite rich colour scheme that’s why I like a lot of birds. Their call is so enchanting and quirky and they just make my heart beat a bit. They’re solidly my second favourite gull now behind one of my favourite birds the Kittiwake and ahead of Common Gull which just missed out on consideration for the B list in truth and may be in contention in 6 or 12 months. To be honest I hadn’t thought of Med Gull for the B list until seeing them two weeks ago and how good that was but this species sailed on to the list in the scoring somewhat so I am glad I had the idea. 

Wildlife Sightings Summary for Fort Cumberland: One of my favourite birds the Brent Goose, Mediterranean Gull, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Cormorant, Feral Pigeon, Woodpigeon, Carrion Crow, Magpie and I heard Great Tit. 

On the way home we stopped off at Hill Head as the sun started to come out a bit. I took the eighth and ninth pictures in this photoset of views here. It was great to see lots and lots of gulls on the shore here as the eighth picture shows such as Herring Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull and Black-headed Gull, I also saw here; Turnstone, Mallard, Mute Swan and Carrion Crow. 

When home I did a unique take on the sun setting from the window scene I photograph so much with a portrait one the tenth picture in this photoset. 

[pencils-and-ponies]

We Forget how to Walk 2018

Since I’m currently in the process of rewriting We Forget how to Walk, I figured I would post the original chapters (that I have, since I never finished the first draft...). 

I’ll try to tag things as needed when they come up, but do be aware this story will eventually have graphic injury description and animal death.

CHAPTER ONE

“You waitin' on the ferry?”

Looking up from the horizon, I saw an older man approaching me. He looked to be in his late seventies, and had a kind face that had been left lined and weathered by decades spend on the ocean. Jerking a thumb over my shoulder into the bed of my truck, loaded down with all my belongings, I nodded.

“Moving to Specter Island today.”

He turned the face the ocean and smiled faintly, a look that conveyed a sense of fondness that could only come from years of living in the same place without ever wanting to leave. For an almost uncomfortable length of time he stared out into the fog that stood like a wall between us and the island. Then he shook his head abruptly, frowning.

“I wouldn't”

Well if that's not a ringing endorsement, I thought wryly to myself. Of course I wasn't going to let one old man sway my decision. Growing up in a small town I'd learned pretty quick that the old timers weren't always as welcoming with newcomers, and would often try to come up with ways to convince people to live elsewhere. This likely wouldn't be any different. “I just got a job with Olsen Performance horses. I figure after 20 years of living in Wisconsin, there's nothing an island can throw at me that I can't handle.”

He gave a short, bark of a laugh and sat down on the tailgate beside me. “I don't mean the weather. I mean the name- Specter island. Ever wonder how it got it?”

“Not particularly, no. I guess the fog, now that I've been here.”

“Nah- you can't see it from the mainland anyway. No, there's something… off about it.”

“You mean like it's haunted?” I had to admit, he'd caught my interest. While horses had been my passion my entire life, taking me on the five year journey that had lead me here, I did have other interests. And ghost stories were right at the top of the list.

The man didn't answer for a bit, instead taking off his cap and scratching at a tuft of air clinging stubbornly to the top of his otherwise bald head. Then putting it back on he sighed and gestured to the ocean before us. “I've been sailing these waters a long time, and I ain't never seen anything like that place. An' I seen a lot, let me tell you.”

“What was it then?”

“Now I've never actually set foot there, an' I never will, but I've been off the coast more than enough times. There's something that appears on the shore. Not all the time, not even that often. But every time I see it, someone returns to the mainland in a wooden box.”

For a moment I was a little concerned. Ghosts were one thing, but death omens were a little bit more than I was hoping for.

“How many times have you seen it?”

“Oh, about three, maybe four times. Of course I don't see it every time someone dies, but if I do, within the month someone comes home for the last time. No one gets buried there.”

He'd just answered my next question. Superstition and coincidences, that was all there was to it.

“I think I'll take my chances then,” I said, nodding in the general direction of the island. Off in the distance, there was a low, almost mournful call from the ferry's foghorn. As if that was his cue to leave, the man got to his feet and held out his hand.

“I'm afraid I didn't catch your name, by the way.”

“Naomi Oxley- although most people call me Nox,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. He had a surprisingly firm grip.

“Well Nox, I wish you the best. Just don't say I didn't warn you.  If you're ever back on the mainland, look me up. I'm curious what that thing looks like up close. Benjamin Alda; most folks know me.”

“If I see it, I'll be sure to report back.”

He smiled again and, without another word, turned and walked off into the fog.

After parking my truck below, I made my way up to the passenger deck, and then out to stand at the bow and watch for my first glimpse of my new home. There weren't many people making the crossing with me, although I hadn't expected a whole lot. April was still considered the off season, and most tourists wouldn't be arriving until the middle of May. The few people who were onboard shot me mildly suspicious glances as I passed, and I assumed they were locals. My only company outside were a couple seagulls, hitching a ride on the railing a few yards away. They ignored me.

While it wasn't the friendliest of welcomes, I did not feel discouraged. There was something alive about this move in a way I hadn't found before. It was something I could feel, the same way I felt the spray from the ocean on my face, and tasted the salt in the air. I'd felt it the same thing the moment I'd started my interview with Keith on the phone.

My previous experiences with starting new jobs had been less than ideal. While I'd known going into this path that a career with horses took a lot of time, tears, and plain old hard work, I'd never imagined that the people would be the worst part. The barn that I'd grown up riding in had been like a fimily to me, and I figured that finding another place like it would be a piece of cake. However, my first job had been at a lesson farm that was starving their horses to death; the second had me living in her basement, which doubled as a bathroom for her dogs; the third was run by a woman who would be from praising you to hurling curses in your direction multiple times per day.  It had been an eye opener, to say the least.

This time would be different. It had to be. I'd done a lot of research on Keith, and on OPH, before taking the position. There was no record of him being accused of abuse, no one showing off the truth that he kept hidden behind closed doors. He was open and honest about his business and what was expected of me, and he even gave me a live tour of the place during our video interview. It was all so simple and yet so rare to find in the horse world.

That, and he just happened to be running one of the best ICTHA training facilities in the country. How could I turn that down.

The International Competitive Trail Horse Association hosted the most popular equine sports in the world, extreme competitive trail. A three day event that tested a horses stamina, bravery, and trust in it's rider, there was nothing else out there that could really showcase what horses are truly capable of. The first day was an endurance ride of varying lengths, although 30 miles was the standard. The following day was an arena course with some of the toughest obstacles imaginable, including rings of fire and the giant inflatable tubes typically seen outside of car dealerships. The final day returned to the outdoors for a much shorter race with obstacles along the way. The horse with the best overall time, performance, and vet scores took first place.

There were no shortcuts in extreme trail. You couldn't focus all your energy on one thing and expect to win, and you couldn't use drugs to mask lameness or pain for the sake of winning a trophy. It took years to train a winner at the top level. And Keith had managed to have one of his horses place in at least the top three ten years running. If he lost, it was to one that he had sold. That kind of success didn't come from training with force or starving your horses, that was for sure.

The call of the foghorn, deafeningly loud now that it was directly behind me, startled me out of my thoughts. And then I heard the reply, surprisingly close but still just out of sight

The island emerged from the fog a couple minutes later like a ghost ship, a solid beam of light swinging around from a lighthouse on the coast to welcome us in. There were other lights in the distance as well, houses and other buildings in town, the docks. I tried to imagine it on a clear day, with tourists and vacationers at every corner.

Someday, I would see it that way for real.

[vetisntdead]

Murder, By Internet

From the vets behaving badly blog

Feb 24, 2014

I apologize in advance for the length of this, but the story is a bit involved, and I believe illustrative.

Blood ran down my arm, across the back of my hand, and dripped onto the exam table. I stood there quietly taking the verbal abuse from an outraged pet owner, my hands resting on the metal surfaced table. It's better to let them rave themselves breathless rather than trying to interrupt. Ya learn this after a while. Once they've spewed their piece, they eventually stop to take a breath. Then they are not talking. No one can listen when they are talking. It's an A/B switch kinda thing.

I'm pretty thin skinned. Don't mean by this that I'm overly-sensitive. Far from it. Nah, I'm just old. Skin gets thinner when you get old, so when the dog rakes you with those front toenails little furrows appear, followed shortly by that red stuff. And when you follow the physician's advice and take those little aspirin daily, this inhibits platelet aggregation. Oh sorry. Big words, This means you bleed with enthusiasm from little furrows.

I learn from such encounters, even after all these decades of playing this game. I listened intently to the young man, occasionally glancing over at his embarrassed wife. I wanted to learn what he thought I'd done incorrectly. She was dumbfounded by his tirade. I was a mite taken aback myself, but I too stood there taking it in.

By the time he finished, it was completely obvious that I need not try to respond. Why waste the oxygen? This guy had it all figured out, and reality had nothing to do with our little predicament. The first words out of his mouth when he had entered the exam room with his dog, “We didn't like the last vet”, would be the first words out of his mouth at the next veterinary practice. Nothing I had to say was going to change that.

I shook my head and turned away, ignoring that little bit of his spittle hanging off his lower lip. I left him puffing in the exam room. Time to bandage the arm again.

“We should have listened to your internet reviews.”

Yeah, you should have. Thought it but didn't say it. I don't read my reviews, No point in that. But someone, (the mayor of our little city) had mentioned those reviews just the week before. Apparently next to all the good ones were two rather nasty ones. I figured I knew what those were about, and when I replied the mayor simply nodded.

One was a young woman who was incensed when I excused her dog before my exam could even begin. It had something to do with not being able to touch her vicious little dog. Her boyfriend had screamed into my face that I get paid to get bit, and I took some small exception to that bit of misinformation.

The second bad review concerned another client who announced as she entered the exam room, (yep, another who didn't like her last vet) that she was dissatisfied with the dose of the pain killing drug the last doctor had prescribed for her cat, so she had raised the dose without asking if this was appropriate.

The second sentence out of her mouth was to demand from me more of the drug, long before I had the opportunity to become familiar with the animal's condition, the history and the physical exam. I didn't jump at this opportunity for a fast sale, in as much as this was a controlled substance, and prudence suggests we not simply supply these to the public .

Numerous other demands poured from this woman's mouth with each new statement she made. And then the complaints as I began my exam. I was to do it the way she required and how dare I do it my way. I smiled and continued my exam. She continued to rail against every single thing I did. I smiled again.

Goodbye.

The mayor has been a client of mine for roughly thirty years, so I don't know why he consulted those on line reviews, but I'll get back to this thought later.

Anyway, the young couple and their dog entered my exam room. It was a busy Saturday morning and we were completely booked. We'd set aside the usual 15 minute slot for what should have been a routine visit. The chart hinted at an ear problem, and they needed a rabies vaccination. I greeted them in my usual ingratiating fashion. I'm a heck of a nice person after all. The dog was about 45 pounds of one and a half year old mix-breed.

Warning #1: “We didn't like the last vet.”

#2: Dog is wearing a harness rather than a collar. This is where self-preservation kicks in. It's kinda like how you feel when the guy walks into the convenience store wearing a ski mask. Maybe he just has bad acne, but ya still watch em closely.

#3: I get down into my squat that I use to greet every dog that comes into my exam room. This is diplomacy in the dog world. It invites the dog to come over and make friends. It often begins the process that defuses doggie anxiety in the vet's office. It makes the job easier. The friendly dogs just love it. The clients love it. And I really enjoy the dogs. This dog approaches to a four foot distance, stares at me, raises it's lip about a half inch, and then runs behind the man.

#4: “The last vet took a foxtail out of his ear.” When was this? “Last July.” OK, that's foxtail season. Seems reasonable. “But it didn't get better.” (Seemed he intimated that the other vet faked taking a foxtail out of the ear. Heard that nonsense before, too)

OK, how long has he had this ear infection? “I don't know.” Well, how old was he when you first noticed it? “He was about 7 months old.” So, about last February. And it's been infected ever since? “Yes. It didn't get better after the last vet treated it.”

Small wonder. Ears infected for a year, treated once, didn't get better. We gonna need more than 15 minutes for this.

Dog had erect ears, so from across the room I could see a bit of the inside of the ears. They were pigmented black. Bad sign. Usually takes years of neglect before the ears turn black. Turning black is scaring from chronic inflammation, and it portends other damage that is not only permanent but often requires what we call salvage surgery to keep the dog from suffering needlessly. Poor dog's owners clearly lacked the clue.

The young woman showed me the crinkled flattened tube of ear infection medicine. It contained plenty to treat the ears for the usual 10-14 day treatment. “We've been using this ever since, and he didn't get better.”

Sigh.

Without understanding the reasons for chronic or recurring ear infections in dogs, the poor owners who are treating these ears are unlikely to get it right. No knock on owners ( this time), but when not handled correctly such infections often turn into disasters, and even when handled correctly they are often not cured, but merely managed. The sun comes up in the east, and some dog ear infections are extremely challenging to treat. That's just how it is.

Educating pet owners is the single most important thing veterinarians do. This is how we best help the animals. It is critical. It prevents a lot of the preventable disasters. It is also the most challenging aspect of the job. (there he goes, picking on pet owners again) So I spent a half hour explaining the basics to this young couple. My receptionist stopped by to wag two fingers in my face. The next two clients were already waiting. But I was getting somewhere with these two and I didn't want to stop. They seemed to be learning.

Now you might wonder why I still hadn't examined this dog. Normally, this would precede the education part, but I like to give the fearful dogs time to become accustomed to the room and me, and it gives me time to defuse some of the anxiety or hostility residing in the owners, for they set these dogs off by how they react. So I laid on the whole lesson, going back over each concept in different ways when they didn't understand. I'm good at this. Done it for decades. Most clients thank me once they figure things out. I made my other clients wait while investing important time with this couple. It began to feel as if we might make this work.

The time arrived when I would try to examine the dog. Prospects for this hadn't improved much. The dog still would not come over to sniff me. It had sniffed the entire room, wandered out of the room when the owner didn't pull him back by the leash, but never once approached me. You don't simply reach for a dog behaving like this.

I got into my squat again, and it approached to that same 4 feet, and then headed for the other side of the room. The man holding the leash stood right beside me. His dog was over there, giving me the eye. Silly veterinarians often wonder why the owners don't simply use the leash to pull the dog to them so we can actually do our job. Rarely happens. So after a bit, I reached up and took the leash from his hand, and gently pulled the dog toward me. He stopped at that magic 4 foot distances. A bit more tug on the leash as I entreated the dog to come. Harness goes up and over head, landing limply on the floor. Dog hurries over to stand beside the woman, over there.

I held up the useless and turned to the man. “This is why you don't use a harness. They give you no control over your dog.”

Woman stands next to dog. Doesn't grab his collar. Doesn't try to bring the dog over to me. Man does nothing. Woman speaks, “Maybe I should leave the room. He gets real protective of me.”

Ah...warning #5. I shouldn't need to explain this one.

I turn to look at the man standing next to me. Why don't you go over there, take the dog by the collar, and bring him over here? A novel concept he had apparently not considered.

He squats next to me, dog cradled between his legs, biting part facing out. Perfectly wrong set up for dealing with an untrained fearful dog.

I take collar and pull dog in front of me. He lunges left, he lunges right, he lunges left again. I hold collar. He stops lunging and I turn him to face away and induce him to sit. Soft calming voice, praising him for a sit, petting and scratching his back. He settles a bit. I touch an ear.

Dog lunges left, dog lunges right. For expedience I will not repeat this part over and again. The dog did. Take my word for it. After some considerable time, I give up on examining ears. I turn to look at the man who is still squatting right next to me. No attempt whatsoever to control his own dog.

Your dog really needs a good obedience training course. Not only will it teach him to behave, but it will impart him with some badly needed confidence so he won't misbehave like this. Nothing.

OK, enough wasted time. I give the dog his rabies vaccine, and go to stand up. Dog launches one more time, spinning in a circle, which locks my hand in the collar. Not a good thing if he begins to nibble on my arm. Manage to untangle my hand without injury, but dog rears on his hind legs and rakes my arm with his claws. I know that feeling. I'm done with dog and turn him loose.

I'm washing the blood off my arm when the man launches on me. He doesn't like how I held his dog by the collar. Really? How else does one hold a dog by the collar? Silly me. Took me a bit before I realized that he didn't want the dog held at all. That thing where I always say that the use of a harness is the owner's concession that he has no desire to control the dog at all. That's this guy.

So I stood beside my exam table, bleeding, while he assailed me. And then I walked out of the room, bandaged my arm, and then put on my smile for the next client. Excuse me for trying to help. The day went on, as they have for all these decades.

Will this guy put up a bad review on line? Don't know. Don't care. I don't read reviews. I don't defend myself when a bad one shows up. Don't care. My practice has been growing for decades because satisfied clients send their friends to me, and people who don't like how I try to help their animals are welcome find someone who does it differently. Lot's of ways to skin a cat. (sorry cat lovers)

Does it hurt my feelings after all these years of dedicating my life to helping people and their pets to have someone scream at me like that. Yeah....a little. I got into this profession to help, and I've sacrificed a lot to continue doing this for a lifetime. Mostly it is rewarding. Sometimes it breaks my heart.

So why the longs story? Well, last week a few people killed a veterinarian I know.

Oh, they didn't poke her with a knife or shoot her with a gun. But they killed her.

Shirley was in practice for over thirty years, and although a bit unconventional at times, she was always compassionate, up to date, hard working. She finally got the chance to start her own little practice. On a shoestring, she opened a small place in the city of New York. As all start-ups do, it was a struggle. The economy still sucked. The weather sucked. The likely illegal collusion between landlord, banker, contractor and maybe even organized crime nearly bankrupted her. But it took crazy cat ladies to kill her.

A feeder of feral cat colonies in the city adopted a cat from a shelter and then turned it loose in a city park, in the snow and the 2014 winter, to struggle on its own. This lady thinks this is good for cats. Some friends of hers brought the sick cat to Shirley for a medical problem, but of course declined most everything necessary due to cost. So as she had done in the past, Shirley asked them to surrender their cat so she could care for it and then try to find it a nice home. Because they could not provide properly for the cat, they agreed. Later, the woman who had turned the cat loose in the park showed up to claim the cat, and Shirley refused. She didn't want to see the cat abandoned again. And she didn't at that point even know who owned the cat. For she had been duped into believing the first two people owned it.

That's when it started. Vicious evil people have the same voice on the internet as the rest. An organized assault on Shirley began on the net. An on-line blog that specializes in character assassination zeroed in on her. Protesters with signs lined the street in front of her hospital, and had to be removed from her clinic by the police. People who had no idea of the facts hopped on board with the mob because the evil rich veterinarian deserved it. They were vicious, conscienceless, and evil. But they got their wish.

Shirley killed herself the other night.

And the vermin on the blog celebrated, cheering her death in their posts.

Ask any veterinarian out here. This hurts us. So I guess they win.

[shimmershaewrites]

Random bits and lines from Caryl fics that could have been.  Still maybe could be, if I ever get rid of this big ball of hurt and disappointment in the pit of my belly.

1.   

 Merle's all hyped up when he busts through the trailer door.  Dumps the six pack in his arms on the lumpy sofa and just grins at him. 

 It's not the coat hanger grin Daryl's so used to suffering when his brother's at his most obnoxious or the manic baring of teeth that usually accompanies one of his drug-fueled spirals.  No.  This one's full of...wonder?  "Hell's wrong with you?"

 "Ask me what I just saw off Mile Marker 73.  Go 'head.  Ask me," he all but begs, bending down to free a beer from its plastic necklace.  Liberates another one and tosses it at him with no warning. 

 Daryl grunts.  Rubs at the sore spot on his chest through the sweat-dampened cotton of his wife-beater.  Scowls at the asshole as he pops the tab.  Shit ain't even cold.  It's lukewarm at best and goddammit do they need a better place.  A place with a working air conditioning unit and a couch that doesn't try to probe him in the ass every time he has a lapse in judgment and sits down in it. To be honest, he could really care less what Merle saw and he tells him so.  Plain to his face.  "Fuck do I care?"  His brother cares even less that he doesn't care, though.  Just blurts it all out like Daryl didn't even say nothing. 

 "Just saw Julia Fucking Roberts with a baby hanging off her tit.  Right there on the side of the road." 

 Daryl scoffs into his beer.  Looks up and peers into his brother's eyes, his earlier assumptions in doubt.  They're bright and his pupils are normal, but still.  "You high?"

 "That any kind of question to ask your big brother?"

 "Merle!" Daryl barks. 

 2. 

  "Tomorrow isn't a promise, Daryl.  It's a wish.  A dream.  And those?  They don't always come true." 

  3. 

  "Been watching tv with your ball busting daughter.  Kid's 14 going on 40." 

  4. 

  He hesitates again and her fingers curl into her palm.  Press until she can feel the little crescent moons branded on her skin.  She tries to bite her tongue--she really does--but the part of her that came roaring back to painful life seeing him there on her doorstep the first time, so much loss mixed with longing in his blue eyes, it rushes headlong into salvation or Hell.  She doesn't know which.  She can't say she even cares anymore. 

    5. 

  He’s got her panties stripped down to her ankles, her tee shirt shoved up around her neck, and his greedy mouth mapping out each rib beneath her satin skin, two fingers buried knuckle deep when the bedroom door opens without warning, and it’s every parent’s nightmare; not that he

is

a parent, but Carol is, and she does what he figures any rational, self-respecting parent would do in this particular panicked situation:  she shoves his head further down her body and yanks the comforter they’d kicked to the foot of the bed during their

extracurricular

activities over his bare ass all the way up to her chin, calls out her little girl’s name in a voice that’s a little higher pitched than normal but welcoming all the same.  “Sophia.” 

  6.  

    Kid’s eyes get bigger with each swirl of the butter knife through the bowl of chocolate icing and Daryl don’t blame her one bit because it’s the good stuff.  Thick and rich, enough cocoa in it to jumpstart a dead man’s heart, and

damn

.   7. 

  Daryl eats his fill of pasta.  Soaks it all up with a little too much wine because the company’s good but he ain’t used to the talking no more or the carefree laughs.  The shared looks between the two men are too much.  Too happy in the middle of this hell on earth, too intimate, and eventually, well.  It starts to get to him—being the third wheel. 

  Aaron doesn’t even seem surprised when he pushes back from the table and mumbles his goodbyes. 

  He sees himself out.  Stumbles just the slightest bit on the next to last step before he grabs the railing, looks up at the Virginia moon so big and so bright and lets the crisp night air wash over his flushed cheeks while he gathers his thoughts and his equilibrium. 

  8. 

 Really not sure if I posted this one or not.  Anyway, it's an unfinished challenge fic, so. 

  Off your rocker

     “Draw the short end of the stick again, Son?” 

  Hitching the worn strap of his crossbow higher over the round of his shoulder, Daryl merely grunts in response.  It’s neither an affirmation nor a denial, but if the old man is bothered by it, he doesn’t let it show.  It certainly doesn’t shut him up anyway.  Ain’t much of anything can do

that,

he reckons.  Might’ve taken the retired vet a while to warm up to the whole lot of them—warm, weren’t that a nice, fine, foreign concept these days—but now that he has?  He hasn’t looked back.   

  Unperturbed, Hershel steers the one-sided conversation forward in his rambling drawl.  “While I appreciate the continued pleasure of your company, I’m perfectly capable of handling such delicate matters on my own.” 

  Daryl snorts. Ain’t nothing delicate ‘bout these trips just beyond the tree line and they both know it. 

Still

.  Could be worse.  Could be partnered up with Dog if he hadn’t developed a predilection for playing nanny to that little shit Carl in the misguided notion that he was going to keep the boy out of trouble.  You ask him, the kid’s middle name started with a big ass T.  “Ain’t my rule.  Rick’s.  Think I wanna…” 

  “Play babysitter to an old man?” 

  Daryl huffs.  “Now you’re just puttin’ words in my mouth.”  Briefly glancing back, he shakes his head.  “Y’ain’t old.”  Without missing a beat, he mutters a clarification, one corner of his mouth turning up so slightly even

he

wasn’t sure if it was a smile or not.  “You’re ancient.  Bit of a difference.” 

  Far from being offended, Hershel chuckles.  “That so?”

  With a shrug of his broad shoulders, Daryl nods.  “Way I see it, you got experience.” 

  “Experience?”

  “Life experience.  Lots of it.  Them assholes back at camp?  Don’t have much if they have any.  Least not the kind that’s going to help them survive in this world.  You do.”  He might lack in table-taught manners—he’s a Dixon, after all—but he’s got common sense in spades, and he don’t ever say something he don’t mean.  Following in his wake, the old man falls uncharacteristically silent, likely digesting his words.  It ain’t often Daryl doles out words of praise and they both know it. 

  Nearing a fallen log, Hershel slows.  “Here.” 

  Scanning their immediate surroundings for any hint of unwanted company and finding none, Daryl looks up and squints into the pale Winter sun.  With much of their food source in hibernation or holed up in whatever bit of shelter to found, the dead were decaying and sluggish in this dick-shrinking cold. 

Still

.  “Here?” 

  “Here.” 

  “Alright.  Good a place as any.”  Putting his back to the nearest tree and averting his narrowed gaze, he shoulders his crossbow and tries not to cringe at the telltale clink of the old man’s belt.  Ain’t no such thing as privacy anymore and it’s a damn shame because he can think of a hundred and one other things he’d rather be doing right about now.  Like hunting.  Too bad the only squirrel he sees, skittering from tree to spindly tree, is too scrawny to be worth the effort.  Knowing Carol, she’d probably fork it over to the little parasite taking up residence in Lori’s womb anyway.  Thoughts of the woman’s foolish disregard for her own well-being over others make him shake his head to himself.  He wonders would it have been different.  If he had walked out of those woods with her little girl, would she treat herself with as much care as strangers not even worth half her salt?  He’s pulled from that line of thinking by the old man’s nonchalant request. 

  “Mind handing me some of them leaves over there, Son?” 

  Carefully avoiding any eye contact, Daryl doesn’t draw out the task.  That would only make the situation even more embarrassing.  He hands over the leaves and straightens, clearing his throat uncomfortably as he delves beneath the cover of his poncho for a pack of cigarettes he knows isn’t there.  Smokes might not be a necessity for survival, but fuck if he don’t miss them. 

Damn

meddling

woman

, he thinks, peering through the trees at the way they’d come, barely able to make out Beth and the woman in question.  Course, the gesture doesn’t go unnoticed.  Old man’s smart enough not to poke a stick at a bear, though.  Least Daryl thinks he is, ‘til he hears what comes out of his mouth next and nearly swallows his own tongue because of it. 

  “Girl’s sweet on you.” 

  He says it like they’re two coworkers enjoying a smoke break.  Not two would-be strangers doing what they’re…doing and hackles raised, Daryl sputters.  Because it’s easier to spit outrage at an unmade accusation than admit a truth that’s too close for comfort.  He might not be well-versed in the ways of women, but like he’d once told Andrea, he’s observant and Carol’s got a soft way ‘bout her anyhow.  Been more than once the look in her pretty blue eyes made him ache for something he ain’t never had.  “The hell.  Ain’t into kids.” 

  “Good to know,” Hershel says conversationally.  “Wasn’t talking about my daughter, Son.  Neither one of them.  But we both know

that

.  Besides.  You walk this earth long enough, anybody younger than you becomes a kid.”    

  Daryl lifts his thumbnail to his mouth and gnaws, piercing the abused skin with blunt teeth.  “Off your rocker, Old Man.”  The quip he gets in return is quick and expected. 

  “Comes with the territory of being ancient, I imagine.” 

  “Man, you got your pasty white ass hangin’ out in the wind and you wanna gossip?”  Flustered as he is, he keeps his voice low, his agitated footfall just as quiet as he whirls around to jab his finger right beneath the old man’s nose.  He hasn’t made it this far being a dumbass.  “You don’t know nothin’.” 

  Taking a moment to rezip his fly and wipe his hands on a rag, Hershel calmly stands to his full height and looks down at him.  He doesn’t bother to hide his smirk when he uses Daryl’s own words against him or the knowing twinkle in his eyes.  “Said it yourself, Son.  I’m old

and

experienced.  Been around the block a time or two.  Might even say I’ve picked up a few things.  I stand by my word.  That girl’s sweet on you.  Judging from your reaction?  The feeling’s mutual.”  Parting shot fired, he walks away. 

  It takes Daryl but a few seconds to match his easy, deliberate stride.  “Naw. 

Naw

.  The hell you think you’re goin’?” 

      9.    

“We really doing this silent treatment shit?” Daryl grumbled.  Carol’d been giving him the cold shoulder for the better part of the evening, and fuck if he knew why exactly.  Sure, he might have gotten them (just a little) lost—playing cross country navigator in his brother’s borrowed truck wasn’t exactly the same as tracking a buck in the Georgia woods.  And wasn’t she, as a Lit-loving nerd, always preaching that the best roads weren’t always the most traveled ones anyway?  No.  He was reasonably sure the hundred-mile detour from their actual destination point wasn’t the cause of her black mood, and that led him back to square one.  “S’not my fault they only had one room.” 

  She didn’t bother answering him.  She just huffed and marched across the room, heaving her overstuffed duffel bag on top of the dingy bed and starting to dig through it like it held the secrets of the fuckin’ universe. 

  He

wished

because he was floundering.  Some last hurrah this was turning out to be.  Stuck in Bumfuck, Nowheresville in this Bates Motel wannabe with a best friend who’d sooner rip his nuts off than utter a civil word.  Tired and working against developing a foul mood of his own, he tossed his own pack to the foot of the mattress and sighed.  “Got a beer in there?” 

  Carol only paused long enough to roll her eyes at him and glare. 

  “Guessing not,” he muttered.  “Shit.”  When her only reaction was to continue to freeze him out, he sighed again, even deeper than the last time, and dropped to the hard, lumpy mattress.  If she thought he was going to be all chivalrous and shit and offer to sleep on the floor, she had another thing coming.  The carpet was filthy, half the stains defying categorization.  Besides.  Weren’t like they hadn’t shared a bed before.  Course, all those times had predated puberty, but still.  “Sorry, alright?”  She softened for about a second before he unwisely tried to choke himself with his own foot in a dick, Dixon move.  “

Jesus

.  What crawled up your ass?”    10.     Carol hadn’t taken much with her when she’d packed up and left home.  Ed hadn’t allowed it.  Hindsight being 20/20 and all, she should have dug her heels in and demanded an annulment right then, right there.  But she hadn’t.  She’d been numb.  Mired in the fog of a broken heart.  She let her new husband drag her clear across the state of Georgia, hundreds of miles from her mama, her friends,

Daryl

, and she hadn’t said a blessed word.  Didn’t utter a word of protest ‘til her baby girl was born and it became clear that she had fallen

head over heels, hopelessly

in love for the second time in her life, and by then it was too late. 

Story

of

her

life

, she thought, recalling Daryl’s frozen, unreadable expression in

Mary’s

, Jessie’s awkward split-lip smile as the children were formally introduced to each other.  Nanny Sarah always

did

tell her she’d be late to her own funeral. 

[justanartsysideblog]

Old God, New Tricks

Old Dog Sanctuary AU

I finally managed to finish the first part of the Old Dog Sanctuary AU! I’m sorry this took so long, writer’s block has not been kind. This is mostly just setting the scene for what’s to come, but I hope you enjoy! 

This version of Dirthamen, Fear, and Deceit (mention) belong to @feynites.

Eda (mention) belongs to @palindromekomori.

Olwyn's alarm goes off at 4am and it takes all her willpower not to turn it off and roll back over. Her blankets seem especially warm and inviting this morning, and one of the sanctuary dogs is curled up at the foot of her bed and it would be cruel to wake them, wouldn't it?

But then she feels something pecking at her head and sighs.

Fear is not going to let her sleep in.

“I'm up,” She grumbles, reaching up a hand to pat the raven that's tugging on her curls. She tries her hardest not to disturb her bedmate—correction bedmates, there's two other dogs sprawled out on the other side of the bed—as she crawls out from under the covers in the darkness of early morning.

The dogs barely stir as she fumbles into a pair of jeans; one lifts her head, lets out a tired boof, and settles back down. Lucky girl, Olwyn thinks wryly, pulling on a pair of socks.

First things first...time to feed the dogs.

It's almost mechanical, as she fills food bowls on the porch, deftly maneuvering around wiggling bodies as the dogs crowd around her feet. The early autumn air is cool, especially this high up in the mountains, but nothing a sweatshirt won't fix; it'll warm up by early afternoon anyway. She administers the proper medicine to the ones that need it, and then heads out to the kennels to feed the rest, Fear flying overhead to perch atop the old barn beams.

Some days are harder than others.

The dogs keep her from drifting; from slipping into uthenera where she doesn't need to feel the guilt of all she's done and left undone. The world doesn't need her anymore, and it was getting harder and harder to keep awake. But the dogs help. If she does not get up in the morning no one will be there to feed them, or give them their medicine.

She needs the dogs as much as they need her.

And then, of course, there are the wolves.

Olwyn doesn't own the mountain, per se—such a strange concept, when thousands of years ago she had, and had no need for deeds to show it. She has a rather gargantuan chunk of land in her name though, enough that some would call it a nature reserve rather than a private residence. And even the parts of it she doesn't own are heavily warded and legally are counted as a national forest. It keeps the loggers away, and Haurshos keeps away the rest.

She's always felt responsible for the wolves, with the steady decline of their numbers; it isn't their fault they're associated with a disgraced god. There's a few packs in the area that she'd introduce to the mountain; enough territory between them to keep them all satisfied and out of each others' hair...and away from the locals in the towns on the eastern side of the Hunterhorns.

Not all of the wolves sent her way are those that can make it in the wild. Some were pets, or rescued from haphazard zoos and exotic animal shops; wolves that were raised as dogs until the owners saw that they wouldn't be cute and cuddly and domesticated the way they wanted, or wolf hybrids that people thought were tame enough to keep as pets, only to learn otherwise.

People know to call her when there's a wolf problem, and all the local vets have her number.  

The wolves remind her of Adahlan's hounds to a painful degree. They remind her of her Emerald Knights, and of their namesake that emerged when the Dalish held onto the remnants of culture that had been stolen from them through no fault of their own.

She tried her hardest to help, and failed all the same. At least she can give the wolves a fighting chance.

Olwyn steps into the 'wolf barn' and immediately finds herself the recipient of several enthusiastic greetings. Mossfur, the resident alpha male of the domestic pack, trots forward and gives a play bow, tail wagging.

Olwyn laughs, “Should we play for a bit?”

---

The first thing she notices when she enters the kitchen two hours later is that she's out of coffee.

Olwyn lets out a small, defeated sigh as she looks down at the empty coffee canister. She thought she'd bought some on her last trip into town, but apparently she'd forgotten to pick it up. This is why you should make lists, she thinks. Maybe she hadn't had a coupon for any at the time, and had thought she'd be able to stretch her stores until then.

The sanctuary is closed today, which means Eda won't be coming in. She can't call her and ask her to pick some up with the cleaning supplies she'll be bringing tomorrow morning.

It isn't that Olwyn likes being alone. She's always been a social person, and isolation can be suffocating at times. But seeing the passage of time, walking among those that live and die because of her own folly...that is worse. It chips away at her, bit by bit.

It's hard, especially when her brother sleeps. Isolation suits him more than it does her, and so does silence. The span of time between his visits varies, and each time a bit of her thinks he is not going to wake up this time. She knows better, of course. They are two parts of a whole, and he would not leave her, not after everything they've lived through and done.

Their brother is dead, Dirthamen would not subject her to that loss a second time.

Still, it is...it is maddening, to not know, even with either Fear or Deceit flitting around, making certain she has physical reassurance of Dirthamen's presence. But it is not the same as seeing her brother sitting at the kitchen table, clipping coupons from the newspaper as rain pelts against the windowpane.

Fear catches on to her thoughts, and lands on her shoulder and begins to preen.  

“I'm heading into town,” Olwyn decides, “You're in charge while I'm gone, Fear, but no answering the telephone, you know what happened last time.” Fear glances at her, the picture of feigned innocence, and Olwyn shakes her head as she heads for the front door, grabbing her keys as she goes.

She finds Hopper, a ten-year-old bloodhound, lounging in a patch of sunlight on the porch. His tail begins to wag when he spots her, thumping loudly against the wood. She always takes one of the dogs with her when she goes into town; it's a nice little adventure for them, to go somewhere new, and to meet other people aside from herself and Eda.

“Wanna come to town with me, hm?” Olwyn asks, and is rewarded with an increase in tail wags and thumps, before Hopper gets to his feet and slowly follows her off the porch.

“Here we go,” She lifts the old bloodhound into the passenger's seat of her jeep and gives his ears an idle scratch, earning a slobbery kiss in return.

The small town of Haven is a forty five minute drive down the mountain. It's got one main street and a population in the triple digits; she's lucky it's even got a local grocery store and a post office. 

It's become a bit of a tourist trap as of late, due to the old ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Someone had thought it would be good for business to make a historic sector, with everyone in period dress from the Dragon Age; it's a bit tacky, and more than a little historically inaccurate, but it means that every summer there's an upswell of visitors, and far too many souvenir shops. There'd even been talk of putting in a hotel to handle the growing seasonal crowds.

There are lots of things she can't get at the local grocery, of course. Supplies for the dogs, medicine, clothes...for that she takes a day trip to Redcliffe. But all she needs is coffee today.

So Haven it is.

Hopper gives a low woof and leans his head out the window as Olwyn pulls away from the house and down the long and winding driveway to the main road. Getting radio reception this far up the mountain is hit or miss, so after a minute or so of hiccup-y static she turns it off and drives the rest of the way in silence.

There's very little traffic this time of year, and plenty of empty parking spots along the main street. Olwyn manages to snag one right in front of the general store, and comes around to the other side to help Hopper out, and is greeted with another kiss that has her smiling brightly as she walks into the store.

The bell at the front jingles, and Seggrit, the owner, looks up with a surprised smile, “Serah Olwyn! What a pleasant surprise!”

“I needed some caffeine,” Olwyn holds up a coffee canister from the nearby shelf, “So I thought I'd make a short run into town.” She glances around and picks up a coke and a bag of barbecue chips before placing it all on the counter.

Seggrit nods, “Just be sure to steer clear of the main square on your way back, unless you want to get dragged into Grand Chancellor Roderick's latest tirade.”

Olwyn tries to hide her grimace as she watches Seggrit ring up her items. She and Grand Chancellor Roderick were not on good terms. With such a small community, it was very obvious who worshiped the Maker and who didn't, and her absence at Chantry gatherings is noted and remarked upon frequently.

There is also the fact that Grand Chancellor Roderick had strongly railed against her wolf sanctuary. He said it was too close to Haven, and that the wild beasts were dangerous and would only cause trouble. He'd cited several over-inflated and easily refuted stories of wolf attacks in Ferelden, and the rising number of tourists during the summer months. There'd been about five town meetings and several petitions, but in the end enough of the residents of Haven had refused to take his outcry seriously.

Olwyn has a feeling the majority of them were apathetic, and had taken Olwyn's side for the simple reason that she hadn't gone door to door trying to get residents to sign a petition for the local government to take action.

Besides, Olwyn has all the proper paperwork and licenses needed, none of the sanctuary wolves had ever escaped the grounds or had any reason to, and the wild nature reserve packs don't come anywhere near the local towns. They and Olwyn have an understanding, and the wards keep them as safe from people as they do the people from the wolves.

People can be far more dangerous.

“Who is the current target?” Olwyn asks, reaching down a hand to scratch Hopper behind the ears.

“Flissa,” Seggrit shakes his head, “He's mad she won't close The Singing Maiden on Sundays.”

Olwyn finds herself shaking her head as well. Chancellor Roderick can be persistent, she'll give him that. Still, she hopes nothing comes of it; Flissa always has dog treats to give out when Olwyn stops in for a drink. “Some people aren't happy unless they're complaining about something. Thanks for the warning.”

Seggrit nods as he closes the register and pauses, “Hey, when is that brother of yours visiting again?”

Olwyn blinks, trying to shove down the hollow feeling that comes when she’s reminded of his absence. “I'm not sure. He's been busy with his research.”

Seggrit shrugs, “Just wanted to ask. Last year my cousin came to visit for the summer and won't shut up about him. She keeps asking me if I know if he'll be back next year.”

Olwyn grins, “I'll be sure to tell him he has an admirer. See you next time, Seggrit.”

---

The drive back to the sanctuary is a little more lively than the drive down the mountain. Olwyn puts on an old CD—Eda has commented that Olwyn's taste in music is, to put it kindly, dated—and Hopper drools out the window, and Olwyn only has to stop once; a small herd of deer comes bounding out of the trees severl yards up, but she's going slow enough that she has time to slow without slamming on the brakes, and Hopper's tail thumps against her arm as his nose twitches and he watches the deer disappear back into the forest.

She lets Hopper down from the Jeep, and heads into the kitchen to start some much-deserved coffee. Fear is in the living room, watching reruns of an old tv show that Olwyn's forgotten the name of. Fear doesn't seem too interested, but when he spots Olwyn he flies to the counter and lets out a loud greeting.

“Just taking a small break before I go clean the kennels,” Olwyn explains, throwing a few pieces of bread in the toaster. She contemplates making some scrambled eggs, but decides against it. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

It's meant as a joke, so she's surprised when Fear squawks a yes and flies into the front office. Olwyn follows, intrigued. Fear hops down next to the phone, and Olwyn sees the answering machine light flash.

A message? She presses the button, and heads back into the kitchen to check on her toast. The recording filters in as she grabs the butter from the fridge.

“Hello, I am Keeper Deshana, of Clan Lavellan. I was given this number to call by Keeper Marethari, of Clan Sabrae. A wolf has been spotted within our reservation, and I fear it is becoming used to people and will soon come into contact with my clan. I would like to see what could be done for it, as it seems to be without a pack, and I was told you were the leading authority for such things...”

There isn't much more; a mention that Keeper Deshana is calling from a landline from one of the few permanent structures on their lands, and that she will be staying for several days, to wait for Olwyn's response, and the number to call to contact, just in case Olwyn doesn't have caller ID.

It's an interesting situation.

Lone wolves in the wild are rarer than most people think. They are pack animals by nature, and it is dangerous and counter-intuitive to their survival to go at it alone. But if it is the case and there is a pack within the area of Clan Lavellan's lands, then the lone wolf would likely be driven closer to the populated areas of the reservation in order to avoid an aggressive alpha. It happens sometimes; an omega wolf or a sickly alpha wolf that can no longer lead its pack may be picked on or physically challenged to the point of leaving the group. Especially when food is scarce, the weaker wolves may not receive adequate nutrition and leave out of necessity.

Olwyn has been able to...maintain a stable growth and weather pattern for the mountain to make certain her wild pack finds no reason to venture further toward civilization. The hunting is good, enough to support them and keep the population stable. But she doesn't know how scarce food is up north.

Clan Lavellan's lands are in the northern Free Marches, if Olwyn's knowledge is correct. That's quite a distance to go for a lone wolf. She'd need to have Eda stay at the Sanctuary while she was away, and the paperwork for transporting a wild animal over that many borders...the best way to go about it would be by boat, but Kirkwall is a city Olwyn would rather not visit anymore than she has to.

No need to make plans yet, you need to call Keeper Deshana first and see the scale of the problem, she thinks, picking up the phone.

Fear gives an encouraging caw.

Well, no harm can come from a phone call.

---

[fuckinsavior]

It has been a weird as fuck day, you guys. I wish I could fully explain, but here’s the spark notes.

1) Dog had a seizure this morning. He has a heart murmur and a cough caused by the meds he’s on. The cough caused the seizure, I’m sure of it.

2) Went to call the vet and found a review stating the same drugs my dog is on killed another dog when given a steroid the same doctor was telling me my dog should get.

3) Coffee maker exploded coffee all over the kitchen, decided today I was just drinking water

4) Forgot to bring in my monthly score card again (basically, a self review and my goals) and had a total moment of ‘ahah. I’m gonna have a panic attack.’ in the parking lot when I realized

5) Talked to my supervisor and we decided tomorrow was going to be coded as mental health day (YES, OUR COMPANY DOES THIS THING!!!) because she saw how freaked I was getting, tried to send me home for today too, but I declined because I had to get a bunch of shit handled, since I do two and a half people’s jobs AND train our new team member (which is another thing entirely, but she’s the one that stops me from doing three people’s jobs, soon it will be two, or even one and a half because she’s amazing.)

6) Got ahold of the vet and talked for about 30 minutes in the stairwell with shitty reception, made an appointment for tomorrow, and then got him to make an appointment for me with a specialist for an EKG and Ultrasound on my dog’s heart. Panicking about how I will be able to afford the specialist

7) Confirmed I wasn’t coming in with my supervisor to make sure I didn’t get an ‘occurence’ for not calling in with enough noticed (that’s a new thing that’s fucking wild, but it’s okay)

8) Didn’t take lunch and just powered through because fuck it, I wanted to go home an hour early

9) got an email from HR saying they wanted me to come down, minor panicking ensues as I immediately start chronicling everything I have ever done wrong

10) 4th Floor lobby doors were busted (we call it the hamster wheel), couldn’t take elevators, took stairs instead. Made it to the second step past the 3rd floor and decided to try my hand at finding a missing step and legitimately sliding down 12 stairs on my left knee, barely grabbing the railing to not cartwheel my way down instead. Left knee, right hip and left butt cheek bruised.

11) Get to HR and they hand me two $250 pre-paid cards (how to get away without being taxed on it so we get the full amount as a bonus) and a certificate as a bounty fee for my friend making it past 100 days at the company (I now have money to hopefully cover the specialist?)

12) Make it back up to the 4th floor, on the elevator, without incident. Go to sit in my chair, miss it and bust ASS.

13) Almost was given a free Apple watch (s3) off one of the Managers, but I told him, honestly, it was a free Christmas present he didn’t have to buy and he saw reasoning in that and thanked me for reminding him that his wife’s birthday was in two weeks. High fived him for the get out of the doghouse free card.

14) Got a call from a pissed off reseller, because their order was never delivered. Calmed him down and figured out the order was never placed with us but one of our competitors. He ate some humble pie and apologized. 

15) Made it home without further injury or death. To another check from my insurance company, reimbursing me for my upfront pay at my doctor’s office.

[theforce]

this is gonna be all over the place but... 

thank you guys for all your messages about nova, she was only 5 years old and she should have had more time to spend with us, we’re all really struggling with her loss since we didn’t think it would be this way, we thought it was as simple as her eating something outside and not being able to pass it but after a few days it wasn’t getting better, she was becoming really thin, not eating and while her personality (which was a big one) was still there, she was sleeping a lot more, not running up to us when we got home, not howling or barking at us (her favorite activity) and not wanting to eat we even tried giving her a mcdonalds cheeseburger which she had no interest in and she started panting a lot, i knew she wasn’t panting bc she was hot which is usually a possibility especially since she’s was a husky and it’s july but even in the AC with a fan blowing on her she was breathing pretty fast in a way lola was not, she started throwing up so i knew i had to leave work and take her to the animal hospital, there we found out her whole chest was filled with fluid and the vet thought it could have been pneumonia caused by pancreatitis but even that was a stretch bc it wouldn’t have been as severe there was a shadow on one of the x rays that could have been a possible mass (cancer) but there was so much fluid in her chest the doctor couldn’t give me a definite answer but we started her on antibiotics and fluids to treat the possible pancreatitis bc we knew if she got better that was the answer, we also knew if she didn’t get any better, she probably had the late stages of cancer but they tapped her lungs trying to get her to breathe a little easier which worked for a little while but within a few hours she was breathing really heavy again and they had to put her on oxygen, she wasn’t getting any better and in the middle of the night the vet called me to tell me she was worsening and i should come in to make a decision because she was really struggling of course i wanted to cover every possibility, i wanted her to stay on that oxygen for as long as it took her to get better but she just wasn’t getting better, she was requiring more and more oxygen to be able to breathe and i drained my savings trying to do everything that i could to keep her here. 

at 3am we made the decision to stop her suffering and put her to sleep because she didn’t deserve to be in pain, she was the best dog and friend i could ask for she helped me when i was feeling down she knew how to make me feel better and she supplied my whole family with endless laughs and kindness, we got nova because our dog luna passed away at 4 months old and we were all so sad we drove to PA to pick her up and as soon as she came home she was a little ball of positive energy lifting up the spirits of everyone who came in to contact with her, she deserved to go out the way she came into our lives surrounded by love and affection border lining on obsession

and i KNOW this sounds silly, she was just a dog and i know people die every single day but she was a special dog who forged her own special place in my heart, i have lola who i love to the moon and back and who is suffering just as much as all of us right now but nova was my girl, she was everything to me, she really helped me on my worst days she really brought me back from going off the rails multiple times and i feel like my heart is gonna fall out of my chest but i know we did the right thing for her

i’m gonna remember nova running around in the backyard, making friends with deer and ferrel cats, saving baby raccoons from the jaws of my other dog lola, i’m gonna remember her protecting her stuffed animals in the back of her cage and hiding her treats in my boots, i’m gonna remember her giving me the paw as soon as i walked into the door bc she’s been bad while i’ve been gone, i’m gonna remember her following me around the house for a week after my uncle died and resting her head on my lap as i just cried and cried all night long, i’m gonna remember her as my best friend forever and ever and i’m gonna keep her in my heart until i meet her again bc if there is an afterlife she’s there sleeping and eating and loving and playing and waiting for us to arrive i’m just gonna miss her so bad forever i’m sorry if this seems overdramatic. 

[tallsamjones-blog]

Frozen Snot: A dedication to the Train Kids of Spokane, Washington.

When I arrived in this town, I was homeless. I said a quick thanks, hopped out of my friend’s minivan and bounded across First Avenue with everything I owned on my back. Though I had previously spent some time exploring downtown, and had even made a brief appearance in this curious Northern squat since heading out on the road, I now faced the potential of sleeping outside here in February. Crusty, sloshy snow and ice. Not that White Christmas Hollywood bullshit, either. The stuff they’ve got here is gritty and gray. It comes down in piles in November and it doesn’t go away. Walking barefoot is hell. You can’t even snipe reburnt cigarettes because they’re wet. Everything is wet. You’ve gotta walk on the left side of the street so you can dodge the puddles that jump out at you from under uncaring truck tires. 

One of the first things I noticed as I randomly wandered downtown was the train. Spokane does this thing where they run the freight lines straight through the middle of town and out West to Seattle or Portland. Elevated on imposing steel supports, there she sat. Big fat deep wells. Unguarded IM’s heading toward open rail freedom. All one had to do was scale a 20-foot vertical wall and get over some razor wire. I’m not being sarcastic. An obstacle like that is pretty imposing to a normal person. Most Train Kids I know could do it in the dark after half a fifth of whiskey. Actually this is their secret. Whiskey gives homeless people superpowers that they have to pay for the next day.

I had one advantage over many of Spokane’s edge-dwelling street warriors: I had somewhere to go. My aimless wandering eventually led me to the bus stop. I happened to have two bucks in my pocket. Beside that was an address to a house on The South Hill. The circumstances of my day were a result of everything else that came before it, just like everyone else. Beck, an old buddy of mine from Music School, had invited me over to hang out and catch up.

I rode up to 37th and thanked the bus driver on my way out. Taking a guess as to which way the street ran, I started walking and immediately headed a mile in the wrong direction. There were some kindred spirits smoking on the back porch of their shitty apartment. “Not that shitty.” I thought. “They’ve got a dog and a heater.” Sloshing through the suburb took longer than it should have. I eventually gave up using the sidewalk and just hoofed it directly in the street where there was less snow. I heard the muffled tones of a lone trombone from inside as I approached the house.

This is where my impeccable Luck synergizes with a little bit of musical wit. I met Beck and his roommates and we all headed down to their basement. Besides a busted dryer and a ghost, they kept a multitude of instruments and amplifiers down there. 

My belief, especially when interacting with people for the first time, is that one can make everyone more comfortable by putting it all out there. By doing something that makes you uncomfortable and doing it confidently, your spirit defeats Inner Fear in a public way which invites others to do the same. With this in mind, I sat down behind the drum kit with a pair of brushes. The four of us jammed out on successively weirder and more improvised tunes, pounding on busted banjos and bass guitars and wailing away on an exotic arrangement of horns and household objects. The gang eventually invited me to stay.

Over the next few days I came into the fold with these people. They all have a Ska band called Ragtag Romantics and the band’s saxophone player very conveniently went AWOL around the same time I showed up on their doorstep. Rather than scrounging to find a sleeping bag and hiding under a bridge, I’ve been sleeping in a blanket nest on the floor of “The Ragtag Romansion.” Rather than busking in the cold, I’ve been recording sax parts for a zanney and wonderful upcoming album.

And yet I still see the trains. I still notice the elusive “scruffy guy on a bike smoking a cigarette.” I still see liquor stores and I know the grungy clientele that keep them open. After spending a year out among Combat Vets, Wizards, Skaters, and Self-Oppressed Free Thinkers, I cannot simply forget that these members of society exist everywhere. While the Normal Heads watch Netflix and sleep safe in bed, the toughest humans brave the night, filling dark public spaces with the warmth of their defiantly beating hearts. Dream Warriors, Romantic Artists, Goodhearted Tweakers... Whether you know it or not, these people walk the streets and protect you, and they do it in a way that you can’t really understand until you’ve had to do it yourself. 

Thank you, Train Kids. Stay Schwilly, Spange On, Good Luck hopping the fuck out of here.

[cutshawsnidowoa]

Was Your Cat Stung by a Wasp, Bee, Snake or Spider? What to Do

The post Was Your Cat Stung by a Wasp, Bee, Snake or Spider? What to Do by Dr. Eric Barchas appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

Was your cat stung by a wasp? Let’s check out one question from a Catster reader about a cat being stung by a wasp — and look at how to handle a cat who’s been stung by a bee, snake and spider, too, while we’re at it:

A cat dressed as a bee might be cute — but a cat getting stung by a wasp or bee is anything but. Photography © Asurobson | iStock / Getty Images Plus.

I need to know info on cat emergency help, for future reference. Lizzie is a dilute calico cat and she is fine now, but just in case it should happen again, I need to know what I should I do if we have a repeat incident. Yesterday she was sitting on the porch railing watching the three of us chatting. My friend was standing near her when he was suddenly attacked by a wasp. He waved it off and got off the porch. Lizzie was not so lucky. The pissed-off wasp nailed her nearly in the eye. Bless her heart, her eye swelled shut immediately and teared horribly. We kept a very close watch on her the rest of the day ready to drive like the proverbial bat to the vet if necessary. I know with dogs I can give them Benadryl and I know the dosage for dogs. But we have six cats and I vaguely remember you aren’t supposed to give it to cats. Is this true? If you can give it, what dosage? Children’s? If not, what can I do if my cat is stung by a wasp or bee? We also give Benadryl for snake bites. What do you give cats for snake bites?

Was your cat stung by a wasp or bee? Here’s what happens.

Bees, wasps, hornets and yellow jackets have complex venoms that cause pain and histamine release. In addition, histamine itself is a component of many bee, wasp and yellow jacket venoms.

Histamine, in case you’re wondering, is a molecule that occurs naturally in the body. When it is released by the cells containing it, it causes swelling, itching and redness. Histamine is what makes a mosquito bite itch. Histamine is what causes noses to run and eyes to water in cases of hay fever. Severe release of histamine into the bloodstream can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, intestinal ulceration, low blood pressure, anaphylaxis and death.

How does a cat stung by a wasp or bee react?

A cat stung by a wasp or bee reacts in one of two ways. Most cats suffer from localized pain and swelling at the site of the sting, such as poor Lizzie developed after the wasp stung her. This is normal, and may last for a day or two. Although Lizzie was stung on the face, cats are most frequently stung on the foot when they hunt for or step on stinging insects.

Some cats are especially sensitive to bee stings. These cats develop the generalized histamine release that can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, collapse, anaphylactic shock and even death.

Treatment for a cat stung by a wasp or bee.

Since histamine plays such a crucial role in bee, wasp, hornet and yellow jacket stings, it is not surprising that diphenhydramine (also known as Benadryl), which is an antihistamine, is used to treat them. When I treat a cat for such a sting, I administer roughly one milligram of diphenhydramine by intravenous or intramuscular injection. I also sometimes prescribe the same dose orally. (In cases of shock, epinephrine or steroids may also be necessary.) Such treatment usually leads to resolution of symptoms within hours.

Don’t do anything illegal while treating a cat stung by a wasp or bee!

Here’s the rub for our anonymous questioner when it comes to treating a cat stung by a wasp or bee. Unless your vet has specifically prescribed diphenhydramine for you to use in your cat, its use in the cat is illegal. Furthermore, it is illegal for your vet to send you to the pharmacy to pick up Benadryl, or for me to recommend that you administer Benadryl to any of your pets at home (and I therefore admonish you not to do it). Granted, if a person were to administer 1 milligram of diphenhydramine per pound cat weight after a bee sting, it likely would prevent symptoms from developing. And that person probably wouldn’t get caught. But it’s illegal, so it must not be done.

Why is it illegal? There are some valid reasons. For instance, many products that contain diphenhydramine also contain pseudoephedrine or acetaminophen. If a person were to accidentally administer such a product to her cat, then life-threatening toxicity would develop.

But the illegality actually stems primarily from a more basic issue: bureaucracy. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits the use of any medication in a manner that is not consistent with its labeling. If you read the label on a bottle of Benadryl, you will see that there is no mention of its use in cats. Therefore, for Benadryl (or any medication) to be used legally in cats, a new label, i.e., a prescription label, must be provided. Veterinarians are required by law to issue a prescription for any medication, including human over-the-counter products, that is to be used in cats. Believe it or not, most vets don’t know this, and many of them risk their licenses on a regular basis as a result.

Treatment for a cat stung by a snake

But I have digressed. We have discussed the treatment for bee, wasp, yellow jacket, and hornet stings. What about envenomation from snakes?

I am happy to say that snakebite is relatively rare in cats. In those rare instances, rattlesnakes are most likely to bite cats in the U.S. Although dry bites are possible, cats that suffer envenomation may develop swelling, tissue necrosis, blood clotting abnormalities and neurological irregularities. Antihistamines such as Benadryl do not directly treat snake envenomation, and there is nothing that can be done at home for cats who are bitten by rattlesnakes.

Treatment for rattlesnake bites includes supportive care, intravenous fluids, pain killers, and sometimes antibiotics. These treatments should occur at a veterinary facility. Antivenom use is controversial. One recent paper recommended its use in cats. Another, published at almost exactly the same time, found that antivenom did not significantly affect mortality, but did predispose cats to a condition (called type 1 hypersensitivity) that increased mortality tenfold. Fortunately, both papers found low mortality rates for cats afflicted by snakebite.

Treatment for a cat stung by a black widow spider

Sadly, cats bitten by black widow spiders generally do not fare as well. They are extremely sensitive to the spider’s venom. Black widows are found throughout the U.S. (except for Alaska), and they are prevalent in areas of human habitation. Their bite leaves almost no mark, so it can be difficult to diagnose cats who have been envenomated unless the owner witnesses the incident.

Black widow spider venom is a neurotoxin. Benadryl has no direct impact on cats bitten by black widows, and no home treatments are effective. Symptoms of black widow spider envenomation include severe pain (with marked vocalization), severe GI upset, paralysis, drooling, seizures, and staggering. Death often occurs as a result of respiratory paralysis. Treatment must occur at a veterinary facility and is symptomatic: pain control, antiseizure medications, and intravenous fluids are administered. There is an anti-venom for black widow spiders that is considered safe for use in cats, but it is not commonly available.

How to prevent stings in the first place.

Is all this information on treating a cat stung by a wasp, bee, snake or spider a little frightening? Prevention is better than treatment for all of the bites and stings discussed in this post. Indoor cats are much less likely to encounter bees and wasps, and almost certain not to encounter snakes. Black widows are most common outdoors, but may spin webs inside under furniture or appliances. Such areas should be checked regularly for evidence of the spiders.

This piece was originally published in 2015.

Thumbnail: Photography © SetsukoN | iStock / Getty Images Plus.

About the author

Got a question for Dr. Barchas? Ask our vet in the comments below and you might be featured in an upcoming column. (Note that if you have an emergency situation, please see your own vet immediately!)

Learn more about cat health and care on Catster.com:

What to Know About Congestive Heart Failure in Cats

Kick These 5 Senior Cat Health Problems to the Curb

What You’re Doing Wrong With Your Cat’s Litter Box

The post Was Your Cat Stung by a Wasp, Bee, Snake or Spider? What to Do by Dr. Eric Barchas appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

from Catster https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-health-snake-bites-bee-wasp-stings-black-widow-spiders-fda-ask-a-vet via IFTTT

[chasing-fruitloops1-blog]

Where To Begin

Where To Begin? I really don’t know. It’s been a whirlwind between my book being done getting ready for publishing and this radio show taking off. Trust me, I’m one tired girl! It’s been a hectic week for me with blogging on many different sites as well as prepping for the show along with my regular job. I’m excited about my Sat Night’s and I get a kick out of the responses I’ve been getting about how funny we are as well as how fast we come up with stuff. I mostly love when people rag on my $4.00 Kmart Tiara. I only have one response about it ‘GET OVER ME, I’M THE PRINCESS.’ This Week The 2 dildo’s don’t blog and I wonder if they can read sometimes because what I have seen from their text messages. These two kill me. While I’m sitting in the fat man’s porch blogging, these two are carrying on in the yard, throwing tools at each other and trying to get the house whore going (the house whore is their pet name for me). I’ve come, to the conclusion that I’m surrounded by pure stupid entertainment which, is right up my alley: 3 Stooges, Benny Hill and slapstick comedy I'm down. People falling and animals doing stupid shit to each other I can watch forever . What’s To Come This week we have Monkey Boy coming on. This guy kills it. He’s a caddy at a golf course and he work’s with this Illegal English Fuck-Tard. Monkey Boy is relentless on ragging on this guy as well as my house mate Drunk Joe. He comes up with full skits on these two morons that will make you fall off your chair. He said to me this morning: we need to get a t.v. show then, we can get puppets and saw John in half. I replied what about my X can we throw poison darts at him too? He said to me yes after we buy Dracula’s Castle and renovate it for our freak show! I don’t where he comes up with some stuff but I usually start laughing, snickering or spitting something out of my nose (it’s usually at work with my head in my locker and not on my 15 minute break either).  I LOVE MONKEY BOY HE DOES BRING LAUGHTER INTO MY LIFE. Can wait to ask him where he got the name Monkey Boy? What To Expect This Week We are 3 Sidesplitting Idiots that poor Jim has to wrangle in, constantly ragging on each other and trying to give real advice when we do get serious questions in. I still have, to check chasingfrutiloops@gmail.com account. I’ve been taking a breather from typing and checking things for personal reason of being shot. I realized, I need to slow down a little bit, I feel as if I'm going in 3 different directions still aimed at a beeee-rick wall. I can actually, at this point have some alone time with myself and get pampered because, I am a Princess. Things To Come As I’m plugging away I’m still begging for sponsorship as well as weekly guests. I tell people about the show, they want to come on but then chicken out. WTF! It is not a hard gig at all to be a guest, you get to dog on the clown show around you, laugh and then go out for drinks. If you are not me in the hot seat plugging blogs, grabbing questions, coming up with things to do to the guys and tracking music you are ok!! This Weeks Secret Word As always, every show we make a bet on a certain word we can’t use and the loser has to cough up money to my autistic nephew’s school. The first one gets charged 10 bucks and another 1 dollar every time you use that word. This week since I do the opening to the show, I’m going to announce it so fast they won’t know what hit them. But I will tell Jim and Monkey Boy so we can egg them on! Jim is delightfully evil and Monkey Boy is just the devil himself when it comes to annoying people. With these two on my side I can’t lose!! The Sponsors We’d like to thank Rolling Thunder Inc, Chapter 6. Rolling Thunder is a non-profit organization and are dedicated to working on issues such as government affairs for pow/mia issues. They seek financial support for our troops, veterans along with their families and work with our homeless vets. If you know someone seeking some help call: 516-765-0905 ask for Bill Byrne. ** Rob Riccardi of Complete Professional Services, he strips and waxes floors. Commercial and residential, monthly maintenance, paste wax wood floors, clean/seal ceramic tiles and much more call Rob at 516-242-6959 the number again is 516-242-6959 ** We have a sponsor who would like to remain anonymous. Shhhhhhhh we thank you!! ** Craig Electric operating in the Electrical Business, they’ve been around for 20 years are reliable and have very welcoming annual revenues, call 631-261-5758 ** All Music Inc: A retail music shop with new, used, rare instruments, plus lessons and repair. Located at 397 South Oyster Bay Road in Plainview 516-433-6969 **The Crooked Rail: 61 Larkfield Road East Northport NY: this is a live venue with a kickass stage and full lights. If you’re a band and looking for a rocking place to play get in touch with them 631-239-6082 (Tell Mike The Princess sent you). Listeners ** We need to thank our listeners for tuning in and calling us: Our Regulars: Monkey Boy, Tara, Lexi, Brian, Carly, Peggy, Rhyleigh, Angry AJ, Joeys Mom and Herbie from NC!! Monster Hugs ** A very big thank you to Jim for believing in us, taking a chance to let us rip up your air waves and anything else in our way. Live, Learn, Laugh Geri ~ Head Fruitloop, woman in charge!

[jezabellgirlandfriends]

Don't Speak by Katy Regnery is now LIVE and FREE with #KindleUnlimited!

"Swoon. Sigh. Beautiful, gorgeous love story. You renew my faith in true love, Katy Regnery. And a brilliant take off on the little mermaid. People are going to love this one." --Mia Sheridan, New York Times bestselling author of Archer's Voice

BUY NOW

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2m2vPdR

Amazon Universal: myBook.to/DontSpeakKatyRegnery

Blurb:

From New York Times bestselling author Katy Regnery comes a new twist on a beloved fairytale.

In this modern retelling of The Little Mermaid, a fisherman's daughter from an Outer Banks island untouched by time, meets the son of the North Carolina governor at a fancy party where she is working.

Laire, who wants more from life than her little island can offer, is swept away by wealthy, sophisticated Erik, who is, in turn, entranced by her naiveté and charm. The two spend a whirlwind summer together that ends on the knife-point of heartbreak and forces them to go their separate ways.

Years later, when fate finds them together once again, they will discover the terrifying depth of the secrets they kept from each other, and learn that shattered hearts can only be healed by a love that willfully refuses to die.

All novels Katy Regnery's ~a modern fairytale~ collection are written as fundraisers. 10% of the e-book sales for in March and April 2017 will be donated.

Review by Sherry: Don’t Speak by Katy Regnery

Don’t Speak by Katy Regnery My rating: 5+++ of 5 stars

I’m breathless after reading this!

I have two confessions I must make. ONE: I may have played hooky yesterday because I couldn’t fathom not finishing this book. Having to wait until I was home to pick it back up just was not in my sights. YES this was that GREAT! And TWO: Katy- I’ve got a serious Author Crush!!! This Modern Fairytale series is life!!!

This was one of the best books I’ve read in quite some time. It was the most exquisite of slow burns

that I have had the pleasure of reading. The ebb and flow of this story was like one of the romances you watch in the movies. Knowing its going to be epic. Waiting for the crash of this sweeping tale of love like all the best love stories have. Then the ultimate gift for a romance junkie: the healing of a heart (or two). These hearts of our hero and heroine that have been battered and bruised by separation and secrets and woven back together in a second chance romance. The HEA that is going to steal your breath away.

This, dear readers is what Katy has given us in Don’t Speak. Laire our mermaid, sheltered from the outside world and her dark haired prince Erik, worldly and well to do. Two worlds so opposite but they come crashing together when these two meet.

The sweetest of romances is budding right before our very eyes. BUT, they are building this love with secrets. You know what they say, that a relationship built on secrets is destined to fail… well whoever they are, are only half right.

I cannot tell you how entranced I became with these two. How devoted they were to being in love. Erik was the quintessential leading man in this one. Totally swoon worthy. AND Laire, sweet naïve Laire blossomed before our eyes as she was put through circumstances that could break a weaker person. Her strength of grace made her that much more of a beautiful character. I adore when authors give us a strong heroine.

I could gush for what is much longer than necessary on how much I LOVED this story but my final parting words for you is this:

I implore you to pick this story up. It is what all GREAT romances strive to be: WISTFUL, HOPEFUL, AND EPIC.

Happy Reading~ Sherry

Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/G-dQC9j_Zas

EXCERPT:

(Excerpt from DON’T SPEAK, a modern fairytale by Katy Regnery. Inspired by “The Little Mermaid.” All rights reserved.)

“Hey!”

   She heard his voice before she saw him.

   Had she known the ultimate cost of that simple glance heavenward, maybe she wouldn’t have stopped. Maybe she would have just kept on walking with her head down. But fate held no warnings for Laire Maiden Cornish.

   Shielding her eyes, she looked up at a deck wrapped around the second floor of the mansion, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust as he came into view.

   There, in the glittering sunlight . . . a boy.

No, a man.

A young man, a little older than she, tall and muscular, with jet-black hair and a square jaw, dark brown eyes, and a deep tan. He wore a robin’s-egg blue bathing suit with Kelly green palm fronds in a small repeat and a pair of sunglasses buried in his thick hair. In one hand, he held a phone up to his ear, and in the other, he slowly swirled a glass filled with ice and clear liquid. He stared out at the sound, concentrating on his call.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Can you hear me now?” He huffed with annoyance, pulling the phone away from his ear and squinting at it before trying again. “Pete? It’s Erik. Can you hear me?” He set the glass down on the balcony’s wooden railing and gave his phone his full attention. Staring down at it, he muttered, “Shit. No reception.”

It’s Erik.

Erik.

His name is Erik.

Feeling a sharp burn in her lungs, Laire realized she’d been holding her breath and sucked in a huge gulp of air as she stared up at him, frozen in the moment, utterly mesmerized.

She had never seen a more perfect, more handsome person in her entire life.

The sun glinted off his dark hair and wrapped his body in gold, making him appear godlike so very far above her. Were she the type to swoon, Laire imagined she would have been a puddle of goopy longing on the ground below him, content to sacrifice her pride for a glimpse at his beauty.

Don't Speak is part of the ~a modern fairytale~ collection, which includes six standalone, completely unrelated novels inspired by beloved fairy tales:

The Vixen and the Vet (Beauty & the Beast) - available now

Never Let You Go (Hansel & Gretel) - available now

Ginger's Heart (Little Red Riding Hood) - available now

Dark Sexy Knight (Camelot) - available now

Don't Speak (The Little Mermaid) - new release!

Swan Song (The Ugly Duckling) - available late-2017

About the Author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Katy Regnery started her writing career by enrolling in a short story class in January 2012. One year later, she signed her first contract and Katy’s first novel was published in September 2013.

Twenty-five books later, Katy claims authorship of the multi-titled, New York Times and USA Today Blueberry Lane Series, which follows the English, Winslow, Rousseau, Story, and Ambler families of Philadelphia; the six-book, bestselling ~a modern fairytale~ series; and several other standalone novels and novellas.

Katy’s first modern fairytale romance, The Vixen and the Vet, was nominated for a RITA® in 2015 and won the 2015 Kindle Book Award for romance. Katy’s boxed set, The English Brothers Boxed Set, Books #1–4, hit the USA Today bestseller list in 2015, and her Christmas story, Marrying Mr. English, appeared on the list a week later. In May 2016, Katy’s Blueberry Lane collection, The Winslow Brothers Boxed Set, Books #1-4, became a New York Times E-book bestseller.

In 2016, Katy signed a print-only agreement with Spencerhill Press. As a result, her Blueberry Lane paperback books will now be distributed to brick and mortar bookstores all over the United States.

Katy lives in the relative wilds of northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, where her writing room looks out at the woods, and her husband, two young children, two dogs, and one Blue Tonkinese kitten create just enough cheerful chaos to remind her that the very best love stories begin at home.

Author Links:

Website/Newsletter Signup: http://katyregnery.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7211470.Katy_Regnery

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2dqySsy

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatyRegnery

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KatyRegnery

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/katharineregner/