#denios

[eopederson]

Denio Cemetery, Harney County, 2024.

Although the hamlet of Denio is in Nevada, its cemetery is just across the state line in Oregon.

All Souls Day

[burnsoregonphotoblog]

D. D. Defenbaugh General Merchandise - Denio, Oregon - 1910

[ask-sada-and-turo]

What's your team so far?

Turo: Glad you asked I’ll introduce you to them all

Turo: There is of course Hero he is my starter Pokémon. He’s sorta team leader of the bunch

Turo: Then Sumo he’s like a big brother figure to the team always very helpful

Turo: Zilla who uhh is of course playing on my gameboy once again. Trust me she’s hella strong just not really interested in sparing

Turo: Muppet they …. Bite me a lot like I don’t think they know any other way to greet people

Turo: Trot is such a happy little phampy she’s my biggest supporter.

Turo: Sunny my little angel she’s a real big snuggle buddy

Turo: Serp a rather small cyclizar but she doesn’t let that get her down.

Turo: And how could I forget Klaus. Klaus has been with me since day one. He’s not very good in battle but always there to provide moral support

Sada: Well you heard of that’s doofus team time to introduce you to the hard hitters themselves.

Sada: Echo is my starter I caught her before going the academy she’s definitely grown since her igglybuff days

Sada: Luna is a tank a force to be reckoned with once she evolves she’ll send shivers down the spines of ever mon and human

Sada: Ra is definitely trying to take a page out of Luna’s book always riding on the back of his teammate.

Sada: Kion is a big softy but can pack a punch. He’s great at collecting items for me

Sada: Socks they are one crazy trio socks has been a phenomenal member of the team taking down mons twice their level.

Sada: Tusk is my second strongest member of the team. He real recked havoc back in Quake Gan- I mean quake training area haha

Sada: And Brutus this little bugger is the newest member of the team he wouldn’t leave me alone till a caught him. So I am hoping good things

Turo: Don’t you also have a cyclizar?

Sada: Yeah uh-

Sada: But that’s my team ha

Link to the Pokémon community discord server

[scriptmyworld]

oh! she’s an unpaid intern!

[ask-professor-gible]

( @ask-sada-and-turo ) Turo: Hey by chance Prof have you seen Muppet he ran off down the hall to the art room. He’s a rather ditsy denio if that helps

“Don’t worry turo! Seems the two are having fun! Though they also found a tube of paint so I’ll have to clean them up later..but for now their having fun so no harm!” -hassel

[violettesiren]

A wide still valley, placid and deep, Where shadows, dream-like, gather and creep, And the sunlight lies like a smile asleep.

A gleaming mass of yellowing wheat, That runs through the green like a golden street, Trodden all day by light butterflies' feet.

A misty stretch of quivering corn, That stands adroop in the sheeny morn Like hearts with secrets too great to be borne.

Fair glimpses of flowers mid tangles of fern, With dazzles of dew-drops that shiver and burn, And brooks like bright fancies that turn and return.

Far over the whole an enchantment of peace— A light like the glint of the Golden Fleece— A glamour of beauty too perfect to cease.

Midsummer by Grace Denio Litchfield

[cristinad61]

One that got away

I seriously can’t believe it’s already been six months since I was out at Denio’s, wandering among the often crazy collections of miscellaneous used items. When I was there last in April, I brought home a small photo album that was like a treasure from 1966. But these photos are not from that visit; these are images I shot back in January 2023 and forgot to share. And even though it was January,…

[myastrouniverse]

June/2024🌘♉️I wasn’t raised to be fascist.

♃︎ < 🚑 Overturn Supreme Ct ruling Citizens United. It can be done IMMEDIATELY on several premises. First, it had ALREADY been ruled in the lower courts that political commercials are considered electioneering because we don’t CHOOSE to be exposed to their propaganda. Documentaries are different than political commercials, because we CHOOSE to and even pay to receive the information. Everyone seemed to understand this but Hitlery Clinton and the Clinton mafia, which brought the decision to the Supreme Ct. The Supreme Ct essentially determined that they could NOT understand the difference between being forcibly exposed to political propaganda via ads/commercials and choosing or even paying to be exposed to political information thru various channels of information. Since the Supreme Ct could not understand the nuance, or rather, overlooked the logic of the argument from the lower courts; they made an ACTIVIST decision to expand the rights and privileges of corporations, which in effect, deliberately violated the rights and freedoms of the individual. In particular, they defined money as speech. Meaning that those whom have the most money, determine what is true and what is false, if they can get the general population to believe their LIES. The Supreme Ct also went out of their way to define a group of corporate shareholders as an individual. Again, by defining money as speech and corporations as individuals, we have given billionaires in this country a free pass to do whatever the fuck shit they want to do to workers, without any consequences. UNDERSTAND? The Supreme Ct has used the CITIZENS UNITED (2010) ruling, as way of unraveling ALL our freedoms and protections as individuals, in their subsequent rulings for the past FOURTEEN YEARS. THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE. Okay? America is NOW, on paper, considered a corporation and yes, Obama made himself CEO. This what most of you do not understand. Obama made himself CEO under the irrevocable 24 chapters and provisions he set up for himself and his corporate buddies in TPP. The DNC is considered a corporate organization and its shareholders determine the outcome of elections now. That is why we haven’t had a REAL primary since Hitlery sabotaged Bernie in ‘16. Many local chapters of the Democratic Party took the DNC to court, which ruled that under Citizens United, the DNC had the legal right to steal the election from Bernie, because the shareholders wanted Hitlery to basically murder us all. Corporations have been murdering their workers and getting away with it. My coworkers were murdered at Spectrum in December of 2019. I was attacked in my home but survived. The PEOPLE of the USA, must DEMAND our political leaders REPRESENT THE PEOPLE, by overturning Citizens United. By doing so, again, all subsequent rulings based off Citizens United would also be reversed. The Supreme Ct justices and their allies must be charged with HIGH TREASON for participating in this charade. This is the ONLY logical way to save and preserve democracy. Otherwise, we are ALL going to die at the hands of deranged fascist billionaires and their herd of animal sycophants.

🌘 < ♆︎ If you think AOC is going to be able to charge our Supreme Ct justices, without overturning Citizens United than YOU are an idiot. The ONLY reason she is speaking out against the Supreme Ct right now is to feign like she cares, but again, that mexi-scum cunt bar whore, won’t do a fucking thing.

🌘 ☌ ♂️If you want to make liberals racist, keep promoting ignorant unqualified women of color into high positions of power, in order to protect fascists with dementia; for their personal benefit. It’s dangerous when you consider how unstable people are at this time. Maybe the REAL racists are the people hiring and using ignorant whores, to shield old fascist politicians.

🌘 ☸︎ ♄︎ If you cannot find a solution, you don’t understand the problem. People need to start fucking doing their own homework.

🌘 ☍ 🎸 Yes, every time I see Kamala Harris or AOC, I think, these women are a bad example and should be in jail.

♀️ ☸︎ 🦚 I got a few early birthday presents today. I haven’t had a birthday party in nine years. It was nice. Any kindness comes at a shock to me, because I am almost never treated like a human being.

🌞 < ♅︎ I don’t have to participate with this corrupt corporation we are pretending is our government. Understand? No one has any authority over me, because our laws are made without the pursuit of justice. Understand?

Amy Denio - National Holidays

Jasper Johns, Flag, from Lead Reliefs, 1969

[redeyeswolfman]

Today was a good day #pokemongo #shiny #shinypokemon #hundo #12kegg

[maquina-semiotica]

Amy Denio, "Salvatore" #NowPlaying

[burnsoregonphotoblog]

Denio Cemetery by Johan Mathiesen Copyright All Rights Reserved.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 11: The Innocent Can Never Last]

A/N: Below are your guesses…let’s see how you did!!! 🥰😘 Only 2 chapters left 🥳

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.3k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“You could have gone to California with them,” Rio says as he flips open the fuel cap of a black Nissan Frontier, parked in the driveway of a two-story brick house on National Avenue, not far from where Route 95 branches north of Winnemucca like an artery from a heart.

You squint up at the cumulus clouds to avoid meeting his eyes. You keep thinking you’re going to cry and have to suffocate it, drown it, slit its throat. “I didn’t want to.”

“Sure you didn’t.” Sweat runs in rivulets down his face as he slides in the semitransparent siphoning hose, the one with the little pump on it that Jace had when you found him in Iowa. Aemond gave this to Cregan; he kept the hose without the pump for himself. A small, curious sacrifice. You are fanning Rio with a magazine, Bow International. You had grabbed it thinking of Daeron, then remembered he wasn’t here to give it to. “Jesus Christ, it’s so fucking hot…”

“Djibouti was hotter.”

“Djibouti had a beach. And an air conditioning unit in every window.”

Cregan is waiting by the Tahoe and leafing through a guidebook he found at the Maverik gas station. Ice is lying on the ground and panting beside him, her shaggy grey coat filthy with dust and sand. “The town was named for Chief Winnemucca, who was born in the 1820s in what would later become the Oregon Territory. It either means ‘the giver of spiritual gifts’ or ‘one moccasin,’ depending on the interpretation.”

Rio says: “Damn Cregan, you can read?”

Cregan frowns down at the guidebook with feigned regret. “I really wish Trump had built that wall.”

Rio guffaws. “Cregan, man, I told you. I was born here!”

He continues: “Winnemucca was a stop on the transcontinental railroad.”

“Great. Let’s get that up and running again.” Rio groans as he squeezes the pump on the siphoning hose with increasing frustration. “Absolutely nothing. Not a drop.”

“We probably have enough to get to Denio Junction,” you say gingerly, knowing he’s suffering. It has to be over 100 degrees.

“Yeah, and what if there’s no gas there? How the hell are we going to get to Adel, Oregon?”

“We could walk if we have to.”

“85 miles? In heat like this?”

“In basic training we had to run—”

“We had water in basic training, Chips!” he snaps; and Rio never snaps. “And real food, and corpsmen for if we passed out, and also there were no fucking zombies running around eating people, remember that part?!”

You stare down at the dirt. You can’t cry; you can’t waste the liquid.

“Wait, no, no, no, I’m sorry.” Rio lifts your chin so you aren’t able to hide from him. “I’m…you know…I should already be there. I could be in Odessa in six hours, I could be with Sophie and the baby before sundown, and instead we’re stuck here in the desert and I’m thinking…what if what should take hours ends up taking weeks? What if when I get there, I’m too late?”

You nod, you understand. Out on the road, Cregan keeps his face buried in his guidebook, trying to be polite and pretend he can’t hear you.

“And, I’m also thinking…” Rio says, soft and low. “That I don’t want to be the reason why you miss out on a chance at happiness when the world could literally be ending.”

You gaze up at him, dejected, pathetic. “I can’t handle any virgin jokes right now.”

“I know. I wasn’t going to make one.”

“I didn’t want to go with them to California,” you lie. And then a truth: “And I would never leave you. I promised.”

Rio smiles. “You promised not to let me die alone, and I don’t plan on dying. You’ve gotten me most of the way already.” He glances towards the Tahoe. “I think Axe Boy would have rather stayed with them too. When he was asleep last night I heard him mumbling something about Helaena.”

Cregan? Helaena? Interesting. “Aemond doesn’t want me.”

“Oh, come on. You know he and his one eye are sobbing into a can of SpaghettiOs right now.”

“Be nice,” you murmur morosely.

“Why? He can’t hear me,” Rio says. “Look, Aemond’s fucked up. And of course he is. He went from learning how to save lives and deliver babies to watching his friends die horrible, preventable, completely meaningless deaths. That’s gotta suck. It sucked for me, and I barely even knew them, and no one expected me to be able to do anything about it. Aemond’s the one people trusted to protect them, and he couldn’t. So why would he be able to protect you?”

I never wanted Aemond to protect me. I just wanted him to take me away from here, even for a minute, even for seconds, one hushed stolen moment at a time. “I wish I had said something different back in Battle Mountain.” I wish I had told him I love him. But I didn’t, and now it’s too late.

“You deserve to have the whole wholesome normal family thing, the husband and the kids and the warm fuzzy holiday traditions. I know you’ve always wanted that.”

“If I choose the wrong person, I’m going to end up alone and miserable. And I’ll turn into a monster like my mother.”

“Hey,” Rio says, like he’s ready to fight you. And then he uses your real name, something he’s done maybe five times since you met him, just like you almost never call him Bryan. “You will never be like your mother. Okay? It’s not possible. You don’t have it in you. You’re not a parasite, you’re not mean.”

You want to believe him. “Okay.”

Then Rio chuckles. “Actually, you’re going to end up like my mom. Living in the middle of the woods, making your own soap out of goat milk, growing weed and knitting sweaters.”

You smile wistfully. “I have no idea how to knit. I want to build things.” Then you remember something from when you were fishing on Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. “Aegon said I look like someone who knits. Whatever that means.”

“It means you’re from Kentucky.” Then Rio asks, tentative: “So…what do you think about Aegon?”

This seems random. “He’s cool. I like him, obviously. He’s, um…I don’t know how to describe it. He’s so sad but so warm. It’s impossible to feel nervous around him, which is nice.”

Rio nods, giving you a teasing smirk. “Alright then.”

“Why?”

“Well I was just thinking that if he grows up a little more, he might be good for you.”

“Rio, he’s thirty.”

He bursts out laughing. “So give it another decade and he’ll finally be baby daddy material.”

“I’m sure he’ll be preoccupied with his drug dealing and brothel empire by then.”

“You aren’t even the tiniest bit intrigued?”

“I’ve never really thought about him that way.” And there’s another dimension to it that wouldn’t occur to Rio: Aegon is an addict. You know what it’s like to have to depend on somebody like that. You would never allow yourself to fall in love with him, not the way he is now.

Rio sighs and pivots. “You want me to give you a baby?”

Now you’re giggling. Of course, he’s not serious, just like he wasn’t serious when you were trapped on that transmission tower together back in Pennsylvania. “Stop.”

“I’m super tall and charming, and I was a great electrician back when electricity existed, and I have luscious curly hair that you can readily observe since the U.S. Navy isn’t around to make me shave it off anymore.”

“Sorry, I don’t reproduce with Enrique Iglesias fans.”

“You are so racist, and yet I’d still be willing to help you out with a sperm donation. I’d blindfold myself and struggle through it somehow.” He’s grinning, but his dark eyes are kind. “As long as I’m alive, you will always have a family. And Sophie gets that. Her parents were fuckups too. That’s why she’s so close with mine even though they’re insane.”

“They’re exactly the right kind of insane for the way the world is now.”

“Remember when my dad went through his ‘wifi gives you cancer’ phase and would only communicate with me via Republican-president-themed postcards?”

“The Ronald Reagan one was neat. So many eagles.”

“Truly an excessive amount of eagles.” Rio goes for the porch. “I guess we’ll scrounge whatever we can inside and check the rest of the cars on the street before we head north.”

“I ain’t seen any others without the fuel cap already open,” Cregan says from the Tahoe, dispirited but trying not to show it.

“If we end up having to walk, we’re going to need water or Hawaiian Punch or something. A lot of it. Maybe we can find some of that Pedialyte stuff Aemond got for Jace when he was sick.” Rio pounds one closed fist against the front door. “Hey! Anybody home? We’re looking for supplies. Not trying to cause any problems. If somebody’s in there, just give a shout and we’d be happy to keep moving.”

You’ve followed Rio up onto the porch. “If there’s no water inside, canned fruit will work. You can drink the syrup for hydration, and all the sugar gives you calories.”

Back by the Tahoe, Cregan is leaning down to pet Ice. She’s still panting hard, foamy saliva dripping from her muzzle. “Y’all, we gotta get moving,” Cregan says. “Princess needs to be back in the truck with the AC, and I don’t want to waste gas by letting it idle.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re working on it.” Rio kicks the door once, hard enough that you hear the wood split near the hinges, dry and cracking. He backs up to prepare to give the door another blow, which is all it will take. Then there is a muffled voice from inside the house.

“Get the hell off my property!”

Immediately, you are stunned by the boom of an explosion, shards of wood flying like shrapnel, the steel barrel of a shotgun jutting from the fresh hole in the center of the door. Rio is scrambling off the porch and dragging you with him. With your free hand, you grab your M9 from its holster and begin shooting before the man inside can fire again, before he can kill Rio or Cregan or you. Your bullets pierce through the blackness of the gaping wound in the front door. You hear shrieks of agony; you see flecks of blood painting the wood. Now there are people shooting from the second-story windows, and you feel the wind of bullets clip by as Rio pulls you towards the Tahoe. The engine starts; Cregan is already in the driver’s seat. You return fire until your M9 makes only small, hollow clicks when you pull the trigger. And by then Rio is shoving you into the truck.

“Go, go, go!” Rio yells at Cregan the second he crawls in behind you and slams the door shut. Cregan swerves away from the curb and barrels down the street, tires squealing, gunshots still ringing out from the house. Ice is barking franticly.

“Rio, I’m out,” you say, terrified.

“What?”

“Bullets. I’m out of bullets.”

“We gotta go,” Rio concedes. There are scratches on his cheeks from splinters of wood, sweat turning from clear to blood-tinged pink as it drips down onto his shirt. “We gotta get out of Winnemucca. If we have to walk, we’ll walk. At least there’s no one north of here to worry about for a hundred miles. Not living and not dead either.”

From the backseat, you glance over at Cregan. “Oh my God, Cregan, you’re hurt.”

“I know.” His right forearm is covered in blood. It’s a graze wound, but deep; when he turns the steering wheel, you can glimpse the white of bone as his shredded muscles open like a mouth.

“You need stitches!”

“Oh yeah?” Cregan replies as the Tahoe bumps over corpses in the street, bodies mummified by the wind and the sun. “And which of you two would be better at that, you think?”

“We’ll get supplies to patch you up,” Rio says, peering out the window, searching for someplace to stop. “And enough food and water to last us through the desert. Right there, hop on Route 95, and we’ll find a store at the edge of town before we’re in No Man’s Land.” Cregan jerks the wheel; the Tahoe veers onto Route 95 heading north. Boarded-up houses and graffitied overpasses and gnarled bristlecone pine trees and lifeless traffic lights and looted storefronts pass by in a blur.

You turn to Rio. “What if those people try to follow us?”

“It’ll only take five minutes.”

“Rio…”

“We don’t have enough to drink. If we get stranded in the desert, we’ll die. I’m not dying out there. I didn’t cross 3,000 miles to drop dead just a few hundred away from Sophie.”

He’s right. There’s no other option. North of Winnemucca is a wasteland, a boneyard. “Okay,” you surrender, helping him look for stores. “But we have to be quick.”

“I can be real quick, baby. You’d know that if you took me up on my very selfless sperm donation offer.”

Cregan raises his eyebrows; you can see his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Y’all have a mighty strange relationship.”

Rio is pointing. “Right there, Riverside Grocery & Liquor. Let’s give that a try. Cregan? You see it? By the Taco Bell.”

“Of course you’d be attracted to Taco Bells,” Cregan says as the Tahoe zigzags across the parking lot, but his voice is woozy. Blood pours from the gash in his arm. What if the bullet severed a major artery? What if he’s bleeding to death?

You ask: “Cregan, do you feel okay?”

“I’m alright. Don’t you worry about me, Miss Chips. You got enough worries already.”

“You don’t look alright.”

His eyes meet yours in the rearview mirror; they are fearful. “I think I need to get pressure on it.”

“We’ll take care of you, buddy,” Rio says. And as soon as Cregan shifts the Tahoe into park, Rio is out the door and striding into the small grocery store, his Remington 12 gauge in his hands. It’s unloaded, but still good for blunt force trauma. The glass of one of the front doors has been shattered. Rio steps inside, his boots crunching on broken glass. You are right behind him; Cregan lifts Ice with his uninjured arm so she can get inside without cutting her paws.

Harsh desert sunlight streams in bright enough that you can see reasonably well, dusk or dawn instead of midday. The air tastes like dirt and decay. The shelves of alcohol have been picked clean, but cans and bottles and cardboard boxes have been left strewn haphazardly around the rest of the store. There are several circular racks of souvenir t-shirts: horses, mountains, pine trees, I was a buckaroo on the Cowboy Corridor, #DesertLife, Straight Outta Winnemucca. You yank a white shirt with a rattlesnake on it off its hanger and tie it tightly around Cregan’s bleeding forearm, closing the ragged ends of his wound.

Ice is whining and nudging at Cregan. “There’s one in here,” he warns.

“Yeah, I got it,” Rio says. She staggers out of the stockroom hissing and growling, the flesh on her face almost completely gone, her exposed skull stained with clotted blood, her teeth chattering. Long strands of blonde hair hang in patches from the back of her head. She is wearing a red vest with a nametag on it. Once upon a time, her parents called her Jasmine. Rio strikes the zombie with his Remington so hard it is decapitated, and the corpse crumples to the filthy tile floor as its head rolls over towards the cash register. Then he slings the shotgun over one of his shoulders and begins shopping.

Cregan is tall enough to see the tops of shelves where items have been missed; he pulls down bottles of Snapple, Gatorade, Yoohoo, Jarritos soda and stuffs them into his backpack. You are on your hands and knees sorting through the debris on the floor, everything coated with a layer of dust and sand. You find cans of mandarin oranges, boxes of graham crackers, tuna pouches, and packets of Tylenol. Cregan will need them. He needs more than that, but you can’t give it to him. You’ve never been to medical school. You grab more souvenir shirts to use as bandages later.

Maybe there are doctors in Odessa.

Rio says excitedly from the other side of the store: “Chips, they got Cheddar Whales!”

Maybe there’s a life worth living in Odessa.

“Just hurry up so we can go.”

“Yeah, yeah…” He’s filling his arms with boxes and bottles, making a lot of noise. Ice is pacing and whimpering, panting like she can hardly breathe, drooling gluey strings of saliva. The grocery store is an oven. Cregan pops open a can of Arizona iced tea and pours it into her mouth to be gulped greedily down. Still, Ice’s yellow wolfish eyes dart around the room, vigilant, rattled.

“I think there’s another zombie,” you say, watching her. You reach for your M9 before remembering it’s unloaded.

Cregan replies: “Sure she ain’t just overheated?”

Somewhere close, less than a mile away: gunshots out on the streets of Winnemucca.

“Ready, kids?” Rio says, his arms overflowing, half a Slim Jim hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette.

“Yes sir,” Cregan agrees. The t-shirt you knotted around his forearm is splotched with crimson, but the bleeding appears to have slowed. Fragments of glass shatter as he crosses through the doorway and out into the parking lot, carrying Ice as she struggles and barks.

Rio pauses as he passes one of the other t-shirt racks, circles of metal that gleam like halos. He’s rearranging his supplies so he has a free hand to grab a shirt he likes. There are more distant gunshots outside, and the squealing of tires. In the parking lot, Cregan is starting the Tahoe.

You say distractedly, noticing an empty Twizzlers wrapper on the floor and thinking of Jace: “Rio, let’s go.”

“Hold up, this one has an elephant on it—”

The hand juts out from below the rack and seizes his ankle, claws up his legs, rips and tears at him, grey flayed flesh and screeches from rotting vocal chords, something that used to be a man or a woman and is now only a monster, half a body, nothing from the waist down but shred of black necrotic muscle, skin, intestines, too close for Rio to push away, already clinging to him like graffiti on concrete, like a pair of stainless steel dog tags hanging from his neck. Without thinking, without hesitating, you are across the store and trying to get it off him, screaming as your fingers rake through disintegrating gore, so deep you can feel the zombie’s ribs like rungs of a ladder, trying to get a grip on it, trying to kill it. Now Cregan is back with his axe and he’s hacking at the skull as best he can without hitting Rio, and Ice is barking, and Cregan is yelling for you to get away before you’re bitten, but you don’t listen, you don’t care; all your life you were homesick until you found homes with Rio thousands of miles from where you were born, and if he’s gone then so is the only place you’ve ever belonged. There is a surge of blood, hot and metallic, rot and iron in the air, and you don’t know whose it is.

He can’t be gone. If he’s gone, who am I?

An arm hooks around your waist and drags you backwards, so roughly you lose your breath for a moment and cannot fight them; over your right shoulder, you see a hand holding a Glock. Aemond pulls the trigger and the zombie falls to the floor, a mangle of decomposition and exposed bones, because wherever the others ended up they found bullets and gasoline…and then they came back for you.

Aegon is stumbling over the rubble that litters the floor to get to Rio. You can hear Daeron and Rhaena’s voices out in the parking lot, and the blasts of Rhaena’s Ruger, the revolver she once didn’t know how to use. Cregan is trying to help Rio up, but he can’t stand. He is slumped against bare shelves and holding a hand to his throat, where he’s hemorrhaging from a gaping, ragged wound, torn arteries and lacerated veins. He’s been bitten, but his transformation won’t take long. He’s bleeding out. His dark eyes are on you, and beneath the glassy sheen of catastrophic blood loss is disbelief and fury and grief. He will never see Sophie again; he will never meet his child.

Your voice is a whisper, a phantom. “Bryan…”

“It only takes once, right?” he says, weak and guttural, already fading, blood on his lips. Then his eyes drift to Aemond. “Get her out of here.”

“No!” you shriek as Aemond pulls you towards the door, his arms locked around your waist, his lips to your ear as he begs you to come with him, that you have to leave, that it’s not safe here, that Rio doesn’t want you to see what has to happen next. Aegon is sobbing as he touches Rio’s face. Cregan bows his head; but he’s already looking at the Marlin .22 that hangs by its leather strap from Aegon’s shoulder. “No, I promised, I promised! I promised I wouldn’t let him die alone!”

“He’s not alone,” Aemond tells you, and he doesn’t let go when you struggle, when you scream. Burning sunlight floods over you, and you are in the parking lot. Rhaena and Daeron are shooting down zombies as they lurch towards the grocery store, drawn by the commotion, the symphony of the dead and dying. Luke is using a siphoning hose to fill the Tahoe’s tank with the remaining fuel in the Ford Expedition. Helaena is moving their supplies into the Tahoe, weeping softly to herself, her long ghost-pale hair flowing in the desert wind.

The racks, you think, you remember. You can see Helaena shining the flashlight into your eyes like you’re back on a living room floor in Iowa. I forgot to remind Rio to check under the racks. And now he’s gone.

You’re screaming that it’s your fault as Aemond forces you into the Tahoe, and you don’t care what anyone says to you: Luke trying to tell you that’s not true, Rhaena swearing that you’re safe now. There is a gunshot from inside the grocery store. Your heart and lungs have turned to iron like the anchor of a ship, cold and still and heavy, unmovable, unbearable. You cannot breathe through your sobs; you cannot see, cannot speak. You curl up on a seat and wish you were dead. All your life you have been compelled by a blind belief that there are better places even if you cannot imagine them, that sometimes when it feels like the world is ending the only way out is through. For the very first time, you want to give up. You want to let all the poisons of this earth seep into your bloodstream until they stop your pulse and everything goes quiet, quiet, quiet.

Aemond is pouring bottles of water over you so he can wash away the blood and sand and gore. He is searching your skin for bitemarks. People are climbing into the Tahoe and a key turns in the ignition. The wheels are spinning; shadows fall over your face through the windows as you sail beneath overpasses. You hear voices but not words. You feel Aemond’s hands on you and do not flinch away.

Someone is putting pills in your mouth and telling you to swallow. “What is it?” you ask.

“Tramadol,” Aegon says. “It will take you somewhere else.”

And it does, this poison he doesn’t know you are starving for; it erases the future and the past until you don’t exist, you never have, and this is a relief.

~~~~~~~~~~

Glimpses through fogged vision, disjointed flashes like dreams: Aemond cleaning and suturing Cregan’s arm, Helaena’s fingers threading through Ice’s shaggy grey fur, smoke from smoldering Marlboro Golds billowing from Aegon’s lips and out through an open window, coyotes watching the Tahoe pass from the shoulder of the highway, mountains and barbed wire, clouds and useless power lines, land that turns from flat and vast and vacant to steep hills thick with pine trees, so many they block out the sun.

You are dimly aware that the Tahoe is stopping frequently, long lulls to hunt for gasoline in small towns, one gallon here, three gallons there, discussions over which routes to take as Aegon scrutinizes his map. Aemond is always with you, coaxing you to take sips of Gatorade and nibbles of Ritz crackers, feeding you spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup straight from the can, and each night when you fall into numb unconsciousness in a dead stranger’s bed he sleeps on the floor in case you need him, and eventually you do. You jolt awake from a nightmare, not death but cursed immortality, a bite he missed somehow that turned you into a monster, into a murderer, your raw skin and muscles sloughing off your bones.

“You’re fine, you’re fine, look at your hands,” Aemond says, taking your wrists and holding them gently. “No bites. You’re going to be okay, I promise. Hey, hey…” He cradles your face, he pleads for you to believe him. “I swear to God, you’re going to be okay.”

“It should have been me,” you whisper in the red glow of the candlelight. “I don’t have a family that would miss me if I was gone.”

“Yes you do,” Aemond says fiercely; and it takes your drugged, horrorstruck mind a moment to realize who he means.

The next day the Tahoe runs out of gas, and you know this because Aemond wakes you with a palm resting lightly on your forehead and an apology sighed through your hair. “What’s wrong?” you murmur.

“We have to get out and walk for a while. Can you do that?”

You force yourself to sit up, blinking at him. “Where are we?”

“Kingvale, California. In the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

“We’re going to the beach house,” you realize.

“Yeah,” Aemond says, smiling a little. “Yeah, we are. We’re going home.”

On Donner Pass Road, following in the centuries-old footsteps of doomed westward migrants, someone always walks with you as you shuffle along in a daze. Aemond tells you about California, Rhaena reads aloud from Mockingjay, Ice licks your knuckles, Aegon talks endlessly about golf and yachting even when you can’t respond. His burned leg is still bandaged, but healing, and he’s found a Converse sneaker a few sizes too big to wear on his left foot; Aemond treats and wraps his wounds each morning and night, and Rhaena observes and takes notes so she can learn how to do it.

One afternoon just north of Beale Air Force Base, Daeron sneaks a Marlboro Gold out of Aegon’s backpack when no one is watching and lights it as he lingers in the back of the group. Aegon smells the smoke immediately and whirls, runs to him, snatches the cigarette from between Daeron’s lips and stomps it into the pavement.

“You’re not going to be like me!” Aegon shouts at him in the middle of the road. “Goddammit, you’re going to be safe, and you’re going to be happy, and you’re going to know that people care about you because I’ll break your fucking arm if I ever see you smoking again. You don’t get to poison yourself. You’re going to live to be a hundred years old. Got it?”

“Got it,” Daeron echoes, startled, petrified; and then Aegon hugs him, hanging on for a very long time.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is midnight in Meridian, a miniscule town founded in the 1850s on the banks of the Sacramento River, a relic from a time when travel meant ferries and railroads and wagon trains. Here, well outside the state capital, there are no sounds except the breeze through the trees—blue oaks, sycamores, willows, white alders—and the hoots of owls. The house is old, built in the 1950s or 60s, creaking steps and a screened-in front porch where Cregan and Daeron are playing Uno while keeping watch. The moon is new and invisible. The stars are bright.

Aemond appears in the doorway of your room. You are on the edge of the bed and staring at the wallpaper, flickering candlelight and scenes of galloping horses. Aemond is not letting you have any more Tramadol. He’s also not letting anyone load your Beretta, although you saw a box of 9mm bullets in Helaena’s burlap messenger bag. Maybe he’s worried you’ll try to shoot yourself. Maybe he’s not too far off.

He closes the door, crosses the room, and sits down on the bed beside you. In the firelit quiet, Aemond says: “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to help you.”

“I can’t stay here. Take me somewhere else.”

At first, he doesn’t understand what you mean. Then you reach for him—for a life raft, for something to tether you to the earth—and the lines of your palm press against his scar, flesh he stitched back together himself, proof he can heal people, a reminder of how temporary any of you could be. Aemond lays his hand over yours and closes his eye, holding you there against his face, feeling your warmth and your forgiveness, your need to be close to him in a way that is suddenly so uncomplicated. There is no fear left in you. Perhaps there’s nothing left at all.

Aemond kisses you, and there are blooms of golden light through your darkness like what you call lightning bugs and he says are fireflies. You are entangled on the bed together, and all the sounds still ricocheting in your memory—screams, gunshots, bloodlust, hunger, anarchy—fade until they cease to exist. He is touching you, and you can feel lost pieces of yourself returning to you like rain soaking through parched earth, faith and resolve and desire. And now, and now…

Now Aemond is taking you far, far, far away, to bottomless blue water you can drown in, to where Diego Garcia lies marooned in the middle of the Indian Ocean, to the sun-glinting waves off the coasts of Chinhae, Corpus Christi, Key West, the Horn of Africa. He is between your thighs, and you want him through the pain, a razor-sharp fullness that seems so immaterial and so fleeting; and you lie to him over and over again because if he knows he’s hurting you he’ll stop, and in this world one cannot assume there will be second chances. Aemond stills once he’s inside you, giving you time to adjust but also overwhelmed by the intensity of it, his hands in your hair and trembling all over, kissing your face as the pain bleeds away and leaves a shade of craving you’ve never felt before, something deep and indistinct, something intangible like a spell or a myth. You move first, rolling your hips with a slow, cautious rhythm, and only then does Aemond follow you. It’s in his voice, in the reverence of his hands, in his iris like a clear secretless sky; you have taken him far away too.

“I love you,” Aemond says afterwards as his head rests on your belly, your fingers tangled in his damp hair and your skull hushed like calm seas. “And I can’t pretend I don’t anymore.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to.”

And in the morning, there is something different about the world: a hopefulness that makes you want to wake up, a radiance like moonlight on the wave crests of the Indian Ocean.

[jackhkeynes]

Can I ask about the history of your boral language? Like, how has it evolved over time? What's the worldbuilding behind it?

Absolutely! :D

For a brief introduction to the worldbuilding, check out this introductory I wrote recently. For the language development, this seems like a good opportunity to actually write up my sound change notes from Vulgar Latin to Borlish! Everything below is written from an in-universe perspective.

Sound Changes from Vulgar Latin to Borlish

The dialects of Borlish are the only surviving descendants of the Insular variety of Vulgar Latin, which comprised Borlish Latin and British Latin. This variety was not overly divergent from the contemporary (ca. 3rd to 5th century) Latin of the continent, with the following exceptions:

The loss of intervocalic /w/, as evidenced in inscriptions by e.g. clam "key" (continental clavem) and denio "I reach" (continental devenio).

The loss of wordfinal /s/, probably preceded by a period of debuccalisation where final was pronounced /h/. The dating of this sound change is controversial; cf. fifth-century *a femna* "the women (acc.)" (Classical hās fēminās "these women").

The second of these local changes was grammatically significant, as it weakened the distinctions between forms in noun declensions. Indeed, already by the Old Borlish period all number and case distinctions in nouns have been lost.

Posttonic vowel loss V > ∅ / "VC_CV

Final syllable simplification m > n / _# if stressed m s > ∅ / _# otherwise

e.g. amictate /ˌa.mikˈta.te/ "friendship" < amīcitātem

Palatalisation part 1 [t k]j [d g]j > tʃ dʒ k g > tʃ dʒ / _[i e] k > j / _C except [r l w j]

Fortition w > β /#_ j > dʒ / #_, V_V

e.g. iazo /ˈdʒat.tʃo/ "I lie down" < iaceō

Consonant lenition part 1 p t k b d g s > b d g β ð ɣ z / V_[V m l r n j w]

Palatalisation part 2 nj lj > ɲ ʎ Cj > Cʲ > jC except w or word initially

Final vowels reduce to schwa (unless stressed) V > ə / _# unless stressed

e.g. sabe /ˈsa.bə/ "he knows" < sapit; saibe /ˈsaj.bə/ "I know" < sapiō

Weak consonants lost [β ð ɣ] > ∅ / V_V

Mid-vowels break in stressed open syllables ɛ e ɔ o > je e o ow / stressed open ɛ ɔ > e o / elsewhere

Lenition part 2 p t k b d g > b d g β ð ɣ / V_V C: > C

Loss of much final schwa ə > ∅ / except after consonant clusters

e.g. liei /ljedʒ/ "halt" < Insular laedicum "collision"

Affricate shift tʃ dʒ > ts ʒ

sk palatalises (fills gap with ʒ), β shift sk β > ʃ v

Vowel u is fronted u > y

Mid-vowel rhotic shift e > a / _rC e > i / _r#

Full loss of schwa ə > ∅

Epenthesis before r ∅ > d / [n ɲ]_r ∅ > b / m_r

e.g. cendre /ˈtsen.dr̩/ "ash" < cinerem; puðir /pyˈðir/ "rot" < pūtēre

Vowels become lax in closed syllables i e o y > ɪ ɛ ɔ ʏ / closed syllables

Final consonants devoice b d g v z ð ʒ > p t k f s θ ʃ / _#

l-vocalisation and y-diphthong shift [l y] > w / _[C #]

Front vowels merge in weak position [ɛ ɪ ʏ ɛj] > ɪ / #_sC [ɛ ɪ ʏ] > ɛ / _w[C #]

Diphthong shift part 1 ai ɛi ɪi > e i əj aw ɛw ɔw > o əw u

Palatals and ɣ are lost (regenerating some diphthongs) ɲ ʎ > n l / #_ ɲ ʎ ɣ > jn jl j

e.g. aut /ot/ "had" < awt < ayt < ayd < aud < aˈβu.də < aˈbu.tə < aˈbu.to < Vulgar *habūtus; ismargre /ɪsˈmar.gr̩/ "arise" < ɛjsˈmar.grə < ejsˈmer.grə < ɛksˈmɛr.gre < Vulgar *exmergere

This is the stage, around the turn of the thirteenth century, usually referred to as late Old Borlish:

…sovravnt il deft nostre saȝntaðesem eð atavalesem n iȝ atrevre golfhavn seȝ hamar dont y verb divin ismetre ac povre paian. peðev soul ez font istovent por vn nov cliȝs d istroienz istablir… /soˈvront ɪl dɛwt ˈnostr̩ ˌsajn.taˈðɛsɛm ɛð aˌta.vaˈlɛsɛm nəj aˈtrəwr̩ gɔlfˈhon sej haˈmar dɔnt i vɛrb diˈvɪn ɪsˈme.tr̩ ak ˈpovr̩ paˈʒan ‖ peˈðəw sul ets fɔnt ɪs.toˈvɛnt pɔr yn nu cləjs dɪsˈtrɔjənts is.taˈblɪr/ …uphold our most sacred and ancient duty to let Gulfhaven be the centre from which we will send the Word of God to pagan lands. We ask only for the necessary funds for a new teachinghouse…

Moving into the Middle Borlish period:

Rhotacisation of syllabic l l > r / C_# except [j w]_#

This gives Borlish its signature pairs like capabr "competent"; capablessem "more competent".

Aphæresis of initial isC ɪ > ∅ / #_sC

Like IRL Italian, this means that many words gain an initial vowel only to lose it a millennium later: Latin stannum "tin" > Old Borlish istan "tin" > Modern Borlish stan "tin". However, this process also deletes initial vowels that were there from the start: Latin historia "story" > Old Borlish istoir "story" > Modern Borlish stoir "story".

Break-up of sr clusters and hiatus ∅ > t / s_r ∅ > v / [ɔ o u]_V uv > ov

The second of these rules is particularly interesting, since it regenerates some <v> which had been lost in the time of Insular Latin. For example, Latin novellus "new" had Insular form noellus "new" > Old Borlish noel "new" > Modern Borlish novel "new"

Front rounded vowels are lost y ʏ > i ɪ

This provides Borlish with another of its signature features, namely <u> /i ɪ/: tu /ti/ "you (sg)"; prun /prɪn/ "plum". The loss of front rounded vowels led to some homophonous pairs like lun lin /lɪn/ "moon; flax". In many cases this led to one of the pair falling out of use (in this case the latter was replaced with the competing form linsc).

Voicing of final s s > z / _#

The precise timing of this sound change is hard to determine, since it does not interact with any nearby sound changes. Likely this originated as a sandhi effect before a following vowel-initial word, e.g. tu es un /ti ɛ‿zɪn/ "you are a...", before being extended to all contexts.

Diphthong shift part 2 aj ej ij > ɛj i aj əj əw > aj aw

Borlish's answer to the IRL Great Vowel Shift, these changes are somewhat more modest (and take place a little later, between 1600 and 1800). In combination with the loss of front rounded vowels, however, these changes determine much of Borlish's least intuitive orthographic behaviour. For example, we have muy /maj/ "crumb", where <uy> underwent the changes /yj > ij > aj/.

The previous shift reflects the outcomes in the Damvath Standard dialect of Borlish; these recent changes differ greatly in applicability across the island. We clos with an 1800s sound shift:

Late consonant backing ʃ r > x ʀ

The latter of these appears to be part of a general areal phenomenon of backing rhotics. A single word reflecting both these changes is scuir /xajʀ/ "boy".

[cristinad61]

Memory Monday: Salmon River, 1966

It’s been awhile since I did a Memory Monday post, mostly because I haven’t felt greatly inspired. But today I’m excited about it, because I went out to Denio’s on Sunday afternoon and found a wonderful little photo album that I just had to bring home. I don’t know who the people in the photos are, but as soon as I saw these prints I knew the Big Guy would appreciate them, and hopefully other…

[blueiscoool]

A 294 A.D 10-Aurei Gold Medallion of Roman Emperor Diocletian

A unique gold 10-aurei medallion of Roman emperor Diocletian sold for $2.3 million in Classical Numismatic Group’s Jan. 10 and 11 auction.

The medallion measures 38 millimeters across and weighs 53.65 grams, or about the same diameter as an American Eagle silver bullion coin, but nearly twice as heavy.

According to CNG, “This magnificent medallion of Diocletian ranks among the largest denomination Roman Imperial gold medallions in existence and is a masterpiece of late classical portraiture. A gold multiple of this size and artistry, termed a denio in numismatic circles, represented vast wealth at the time of issue and must have been created for a special occasion.”

Gaius Valerius Diocletianus instituted many reforms, including in 294 the implementation of a new system of coinage. The year 294 also marked the 10th anniversary (decennalia) of Diocletian’s reign and the enlargement of the ruling class.

As part of the coinage change, to accommodate the flood of new coinage, new mints opened, including one at Aquileia, where this medallion was struck.

It is graded Choice About Uncirculated by Numismatic Guaranty Co., which assigned it a 5/5 for strike and surface.

“Here, then, is the historical context for the striking of this impressive denio, no doubt intended as a handout to a military officer of high rank,”.

At least four other 10-aurei medallions of Diocletian alone are recorded, all in museum collections. This includes two other examples of the same type and similar weight, but struck at the Alexandria mint.

This was the only denio offered at public auction since 1922, according to the firm.

Diocletian (242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed "Jovius", was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia. Diocles rose through the ranks of the military early in his career, eventually becoming a cavalry commander for the army of Emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on a campaign in Persia, Diocles was proclaimed emperor by the troops, taking the name Diocletianus. The title was also claimed by Carus's surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus.

Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on 1 May 305, becoming the first Roman emperor to abdicate the position voluntarily. He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to his vegetable gardens. His palace eventually became the core of the modern-day city of Split in Croatia.

[eopederson2]

Henricks gravestone with model horse, Denio Cemetery, Harney County, Oregon, 2024.

The hamlet of Denio is in Nevada, but its cemetery is in Oregon.