#excited Lethe noises

[skyheld]

im doing cazador's mansion, then i have some tiny quest ends to tie up, then i go confront gortash, and then i don't know if there's anything between getting all netherstones and confronting the brain but im almost done with bg3

[writingpracticetime]

Did you have any thoughts, story-wise, on what Sandy herself thinks of all this and what her circumstances are? There are of course the inferences that can be made from that letter she got sent (and more specifically that it was turned over unopened) but is/was she in the public eye? Is she kept under close observation in case Constructor/Architect tries to approach her directly, and so on?

Oh I absolutely do have story thoughts about Sandy's opinions on everything. But the trouble with Sandy is--

————————————

Excerpts from recordings of meetings between the Architect and various associates.

————————————

CYBERSCOUT

--and, sorry, remind me why we care?

CONSTRUCTOR

We need to try to anticipate the general public objections to this. We won't be able to avoid them, not when we're going to be breaking so many laws. But we can at least anticipate them and get our own narrative out in advance. 

HOBBES

I don't think you get the question. We're villains. Why are we tiptoeing around "public objections?"

CONSTRUCTOR

Because, this is ultimately for the public. We need to try and get out the word about how people are asking for our help, so people know we're responding to their needs. Besides, we can’t accomplish anything for the public without the public. Like Sandy said.

CYBERSCOUT

Who?

CONSTRUCTOR

My--nevermind. Anyway, as I said, let me try to figure things out with Lethe for a minute.

CYBERSCOUT

Alright, alright. I needed to head out anyway, just call me when you have an idea of what shit you want me to spread online.

(Shuffling, people leaving and closing the door behind them.) 

CONSTRUCTOR

So you should have a better idea of what people are going to say to all of this. (Pause) Lethe?

LETHE

Sandy...? Cassandra White?

CONSTRUCTOR

You know her?! (Pause) Wait, then--what does she think about me now? Has she--

LETHE

Oh, u-uh no, sorry. I haven't--I never met her, never stood close enough to read her mind certainly. I-I wouldn't know what she thinks about you.

CONSTRUCTOR

...Oh.

LETHE

I just... heard a lot about her.

CONSTRUCTOR

...Funny. Not many people have.

LETHE

Yeaaaaah, um.

——————————

Blog post by Edward Katzenberger, journalist. Later removed and found on wayback.archive.org.

——————————

WHO IS CASSANDRA WHITE?

So, my long term followers all know about my hilariously derailed profile of Constructor assigned shortly before the stadium incident. I’ve kept you all abreast of the many, many delays related to high security super prisons and then my subject running off to start a supervillain career. Because of course, the second I get assigned this extremely exciting personality piece, Constructor becomes completely unreachable.

Alright, well, you might not believe me, but Constructor's manager/agent turned out to be even harder to reach.

At the time, I decided to take the "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" approach and paint a portrait of Constructor based on the testimonies of coworkers, friends and family. I then found out that I could get testimonies from construction workers and urban planners about what the hero was like to work with (largely positive, if saddened by the recent turn of events) but nothing on what this incredibly beloved figure was like as a friend or family member.

The one thing I kept hearing from everyone was "Cassandra White would know more. The two of them seemed really close."

Now there was a problem: I couldn't find out who the fuck Cassandra White was.

———————————

BONFIRE

You got a--Oh, sorry. Working on something right now?

CONSTRUCTOR

Not work. I'm just-- (sounds of paper, flipping and folding it as Bonfire gets close) Just writing something.

BONFIRE

Writing...?

CONSTRUCTOR

Just scrawling out some thoughts, I guess.

LETHE

Mm. (Quiet) What are you both looking at me for?!

CONSTRUCTOR

What was that about?

LETHE

What was what about??

BONFIRE

Something about the writing...?

LETHE

Nothing! Nothing about the writing. I was just, I was making a noise. Thinking about something else, hahaha.

BONFIRE

.....What is it?

CONSTRUCTOR

Nothing! ... Lethe.

LETHE

I'm sorry! Don't be mad at me!

CONSTRUCTOR

I'm not mad! That was just--that was private.

BONFIRE

What was private?

LETHE AND CONSTRUCTOR

Nothing!

CONSTRUCTOR

(After a pause) ...I was just writing to Sandy again.

BONFIRE

(Irritated, sizzling noise) Ah, right. Sandy.

CONSTRUCTOR

See! This is why I didn't want to tell you.

BONFIRE

I don't see why you couldn't--

LETHE

Leaving! I'm leaving!

————————

It turns out Cassandra White was Constructor’s agent. I try to look her up online and? Nothing. No facebook profile, no personal website, not even a LinkedIn. 

That has to be odd for someone who works in PR, right?

I do a little searching to find the agents of other superheroes. I contacted one, and got an interview. I've lost the thread of trying to piece together Constructor's life but I'm curious dammit. I mention the issue I've had with finding her anywhere. He nods his head while I explain the wild goose chase I've been on.

"Well, White is a whole other ballgame," he says. "She took her privacy seriously, and I'm also pretty sure she scrubbed a lot of her history. She was meticulous about records--knowing names in media, tech, and various public archives who could help you scrub a dumb tweet before it snowballed into a PR crisis for your client."

"You can get rid of internet records?"

"Well, not easily. And not after people realize they're important, that's for sure," he said. "I once told her things on the internet are forever. She said, 'No. If people pay attention, then they're forever. But if no one cares in the first place, then it never existed at all.'"

"So there was a process she used to make sure people's images stayed clean," I said, "And she used the same process to make herself a ghost?"

"I imagine so. I mean, she's retired from being an agent and has her fingers in all sorts of other pies these days. Businesses, investments, politics. Plus, I imagine becoming a billionaire or whatever has made her priorities shift."

Billionaire. I think I almost choked on my coffee. "You can become a billionaire from being a PR agent?"

"You can't," he said. "But White did."

—————————

DOC

--nd now that we got that patched up, this is the part where you tell my why the fuck the police caught you anyway.

CONSTRUCTOR

Uhh... Dunno. Not sure how they found me.

DOC

Where did they track you down?

CONSTRUCTOR

Um... I'm not feeling up for this conversation right now.

HOBBES

It was that new square in York XIV that looks like a Whole Foods staged a violent invasion.

DOC

....okay, is there a reason you decided to be wandering alone around in an area with shit ton of white moms ready to call the police on your ass?

CONSTRUCTOR

....Yeah, I was alone because I thought everyone here would tell me not to go. (Sigh) Look, I'm not gonna–

CYBERSCOUT

(poking head in) The Whole Foods place? Oy, isn't that where that old chick you're stalking has a house?

CONSTRUCTOR 

I'm not--I was delivering a letter.

HOBBES

 ....wait a minute, I remember this. "Sandy" right? Your mom? The one who turned you into the FBI?

CONSTRUCTOR

She's not my mom. (Pause) And no, she turned in my letter--which she would have to, if she was being monitored. I thought if I--

CYBERSCOUT

Wasn't she also a racist? Wasn't that a whole fight you had with Bonfire?

HOBBES

(Judgmental) You act all woke and then you go and try to be friends a racist who lives in the Whole Foods district.

CONSTRUCTOR

She's not a--That's not what the fight--this is why I went alone!

———————

This conversation afforded me with a lot of more information which I am saving for a piece on the lives of superhero PR agents, which I am now utterly fascinated by. Regarding Cassandra White, the other significant info it afforded me was that Cassandra White does in fact have a twitter account that I missed in my earlier search.

I looked into it. It's the most inoffensive twitter account I've ever seen. It feels like it was generated on a factory belt. There is a headshot of an older white woman--Cassandra White herself, it seems--as the profile pic. She tweets very rarely herself, and instead seems to mostly retweet news updates and positive platitudes or quotes from historical figures. The tweets she does make are all of an extremely inoffensive liberal variety, with the spiciest being one gentle snipe at the Republican party.

There is one other hint of her personality on this twitter. It’s an unexpected photo from inside her home, one with a quick caption that says she regularly uses a whiteboard to write out her resolutions and thoughts, and that she finds the process to clarify her goals and values. 

It reads:

IT WILL BE DONE QUIETLY.  IT WILL BE DONE CIVILLY.  IT WILL BE DONE RIGHT–OR IT WON’T BE DONE AT ALL. 

—————————

CONSTRUCTOR

Alright, alright. We can talk more about this tomorrow but for now tell them no more death matches and any blood feuds need to be put on hold when they enter this fortress.

HOBBES

(Grunts) Pussy move.

CONSTRUCTOR

I don't care if it's a pussy move.

CYBERSCOUT

Ahem--what if I made the point that you're being culturally insensitive by imposing your mainstream standards of civility on a subculture of people, villains, who have their own values in how they deal with conflict, and--

CONSTRUCTOR

I know you bet on the fights and you're not changing my mind.

CYBERSCOUT

No fun. (sigh) Lethe, I TOLD you not to snitch on me!

LETHE

I didn't!

CONSTRUCTOR

Anyway, we can figure out a more long term solution for dealing with serious vendettas but for now--I'm tired. I have something else I need to work on. Tell them not to kill each other.

HOBBES

What are you writing that's more important than a potential deathmatch, anyway?

CONSTRUCTOR

Nothing. Just-- (Shuffling of papers) leave me to it for tonight. I don't want to set a precedent where I rush over every time someone wants to kill someone else, because given the personalities here that would mean never having any time.

CYBERSCOUT

Fiiiiiiiine.

(Grumbling and footsteps as people shuffle out, followed by writing noises.)

LETHE

Hey.

CONSTRUCTOR

What? (Pause) You know what I'm doing.

LETHE

The last time you tried to deliver something….

CONSTRUCTOR

I'll send someone else to deliver it.

(More scribbling. Deep breath.)

LETHE

I lied. I read her mind. She doesn't care about you.

(Writing stops. After a slight pause, there is the sound of paper crinkling and Lethe gasps and steps back.)

LETHE

Don’t be mad at me!

CONSTRUCTOR 

(Deep, strained breath) I’m not mad. You're just wrong.

LETHE

I could literally read her mind!

CONSTRUCTOR

Okay, you're not wrong.  You're lying.

LETHE

What? I'm not!

CONSTRUCTOR

(Fuming) You think I'm an idiot just because I haven't been calling you out on it? Everyone here knows you lie about what your powers show you whenever it suits your purposes.

LETHE

(Wobbly) I--I don't have a reason to lie about this!

CONSTRUCTOR

You don't have a reason that I know. But you are such a fucking liar. No one in the fortress trusts a thing you say, and you know it. 

LETHE

Th-that's not--That's not relevant! Oh my god, you're literally never going to even consider this, a-are you? That she was just using you for the cut of your paycheck, making her fortune...

CONSTRUCTOR

I'm not going to re-evaluate a decade long perception of a loved one based on the words of a known liar, Lethe. Get out.

LETHE

But--

(Rumbling, cracking of the floor.)

CONSTRUCTOR

I said get out!

———————————

The twitter account confirms she exists and nothing else. I couldn't tell you what the woman thinks about anything. On a website people use to blast their opinions to the world at all hours, this one seems specifically built to deny the existence of any individual opinions or personality. 

I scrolled all the way back to the time period during which Constructor would have had the big public meltdown at the stadium. I used the wayback machine to see if there were any deleted tweets, just in case she said anything in a fit of frustration or grief and deleted it.

But during the time where she would have been watching Constructor's breakdown, a time when everyone in the world had something to say about what Constructor had done--nothing.

Cassandra White, Constructor's closest person, had nothing to say about them at all.

[archivedflammes]

“Y-Ya feckin’ serious!? Jill’s comin’ here?!” Lethe immediately starts grooming herself in a panic, fixing her hair, making sure her outfit is on straight. “How do I look?”

“Why’re y’all askin’ me!? An’ why are ya lickin’ yerself?!”

[averytiredfanfictionwriter]

Sic Semper Tyrannis

A syndicate x Platonic! Reader/ Technoblade x Reader

Warnings: murder, kidnapping, blood, a somewhat graphic depiction of getting stitches

Word count: about 2800

Ao3 Link: wow.

I’m excited to share this. I did write a version with an angsty ending, which is up on my Ao3 account here if you want to read that one as well. Fair warning though, while writing it I found myself dying inside so I don’t know how you guys would feel. It was the original way I wanted to take the story but as I was writing I also created this one which is an alternate, fluffier ending. Reader is a raccoon hybrid in this one. Don’t forget to like and follow for more. Enjoy!

It almost seems to be a mistake, Techno thinks. The woman- no girl- standing in front of him never struck him as the anarchist type. She was always too soft, too nice for any of it. Yet here she stands next to Philza, shivering from the chill of the cave and rubbing her bare arms. 

“This is the new recruit I was telling you about.” The winged man smiles at Techno.

“She seems… soft.” He mutters, taking in her shivering form before handing her a cloak.

She only nods, accepting the cloak gratefully and clipping it around her neck with ease before burrowing into the thick material. 

“Trust me. You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew her how I do.” Phil mutters, rubbing at his shoulder.

“Fine. But do you swear to uphold the values of the syndicate? Do you promise that you’ll help in our mission to destroy the corrupted governments that threaten the freedoms of its citizens?” Techno stands over her, red eyes practically glowing.

She nods hastily under his seven foot tall frame and he seems satisfied as he backs away. “Okay then. Come take a seat. We have a lot to talk about today.” 

Techno makes his way up the stairs to the table behind him, taking a seat facing the entranceway. Y/n looks up at Philza and he only shakes his head. 

“Don’t worry about him. He seems scary but he won’t hurt you. In fact, that’s the nicest he’s been to someone that’s tried to join yet.” Philza says before walking towards the table.

“Wait- what do you mean ‘tried to join’? Phil, what happened to them?” Y/n says in a panic.

“We don’t talk about them.” Ranboo chimes in. “Now, come on. Don’t want to be late to your first meeting.” 

Y/n scurries up to a chair at the table, taking the one across from Phil and next to Ranboo. She sits furthest from Niki and Techno who both seem to be scrutinizing her every move.

“Now, let’s get this meeting started. First things first, we have a new recruit. This is Y/n. You all know her, but she’s going to be joining us. You’ll need a codename.” Techno states, and Y/n thinks a moment as they stare at her.

“Dolos. I’ll go with Dolos.” Techno nods, eyes flashing with an unknown emotion before returning to their usual blankness.

“Okay. Now that that’s over with, is there anything in particular you guys wanted to discuss? Any new information or governments?” 

Phil nods, standing as he stands from the chair and speaks to the group. Y/n zones out a little for the rest of the meeting, nodding along but not really listening. Soon, it’s time to go and they’re all standing, the sound of chairs scraping on the floor loudly and Ranboo’s laughter at something Niki said echoes through the small space.

“Y/n, can I speak to you alone.” It’s not a question, and the woman swallows thickly as she follows the piglin hybrid into a small room that connects to the main one.

“So why Dolos? I mean, of everything you could’ve chosen, why’d you choose Dolos?” He asks, standing against the door to the room, blocking her in.

“Ah, well- you see, I’ve been told I’m good at deceiving people and that I’m so good at it, no one ever knows until I tell them, and even then they don’t believe me. I think that it’s a good codename, that’s all.” She stutters out, and Techno’s eyes narrow.

“I’m not easily fooled. If you’re lying, or you’re here as a spy, I’ll figure it out. And then not even Phil will be able to save you. Do you understand me?” He grunts out, standing over her with his sword held in his hand.

She nods and all but teleports out of the room to get away as quick as possible. He looks after her, seeing the disappointed look on Phil’s face outside and the confused glances from Niki and Ranboo. He steps out of the room as well and leaves the meeting hall without another word. 

It’s a week before anyone hears directly from Y/n again, and when they do it’s not for reason they would have ever expected. 

“I need your help.” Techno takes in the sight of the blood soaked clothing that covers the young woman.

“What happened?” He’s bewildered, the first time he’s been surprised in a long time.

“It’s not my blood. Most of it’s from the people we were fighting, but some of it’s his.” She points behind her where Phil stands, holding up a severely injured Tommy.

“Come on.” Techno grunts, ears twitching. The voices chime in, but he pushes them aside. 

“Set him on the couch.” Phil lays him down gently and gets to work brewing potions for the young boy. 

Y/n sits next to him, clutching his hand tightly with one of hers as she continues putting pressure on the gaping wound in his stomach. Her striped tail swishes nervously on the floor behind her and the large black ears lay back against her head.

“Get his shirt off. I need to sew it up.” Techno has his sleeves rolled up to the elbow as he comes over with a small first aid kit.

Y/n uses her sharp nails to cut away the stomach section of Tommy’s shirt, revealing the ugly looking gash. She pales at the sight of it, getting up and running to the bathroom to most likely vomit. Techno only sighs as he gets to work, wiping off the dried blood around the wound and starting to stitch it up. Tommy shifts uncomfortably on the couch, crying out at the needle threading in and out of his skin. 

Once done, Phil shoves the healing potion in Tommy’s face, which he drinks and then promptly passes out. Y/n comes back from the bathroom, hair tied back from her face.

“What happened?” Techno asks, standing in front of her.

“We were running through the woods, having fun- y’know, kid things- when we came across a small group of people. They started to attack us, and we started to fight back, thinking there weren’t anymore of them. Well, we were wrong. Very wrong. We wouldn’t have escaped if it wasn’t for Phil. Before we got away though, they said something like ‘down with the order’. I don’t know what they meant though. It was hard to understand them through their masks.” Y/n spews out and Techno only stares at her.

“‘Down with the order’? That sounds like they know something. What did they look like? Any distinct markings for kingdoms or anything?” Techno says softly.

She shakes her head. “Nothing that I could see, unless I missed it. I could probably lead you back to the place we fought at. I don’t know if more came to collect the bodies or not.” 

“Take me there. But first, go get cleaned up. We don’t need you walking around drenched in blood.” Techno says, nodding to the bathroom. 

One shower and change of clothes later, the pair are on their way to where Y/n and Tommy were attacked. Techno notices her fidgeting more than usual, constantly looking around them and watching as she jumps at the smallest of noises. He chalks it up to having been just attacked and they continue walking.

She stops in a clearing and he stands beside her. No sign of bloodied bodies is anywhere to be found. In fact, there’s no evidence a fight even occurred here. No blood spots on the ground, no scrapes in the ground, no disturbance of wildlife.

“Are you sure this is the place?” He turns to look at her, but she’s gone. Suddenly, something hits him from behind and the last thing he sees is Y/n, crying softly as someone holds onto her.

Techno slowly opens his eyes, registering the cold metal against his wrists and multitude of people surrounding him. The voices scream out in rage- rage at Y/n for getting them captured, rage at himself for allowing this to happen, anger for not trying to stop him and Y/n from being captured. They’re angry at a lot of things, and he grunts as he feels a headache coming on.

Y/n stirs in the chair across from him, whimpering softly and her tail waves behind her slowly. “Where-”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need to tell us who the rest of the members of your little club is, or else you both die. Tell us, and you live. It’s that simple.” A voice speaks out, a young man with brown hair and light eyes.

He rests a sword on Y/n’s shoulder and looks Techno in the eyes. He says nothing, glaring at the man instead.

“Are you going to tell me? If not, then I guess I’ll need to encourage you to do so.” The young man sighs, and takes out a knife, grabs hold of Y/n’s tail and presses the knife against the base of it.

Y/n screams loudly, and Techno hates the sound of it more than any other sound he’s heard. The voices seem to hate it as well, yelling at him to just tell the man the names of the other members to end it.

“Fine.” Techno gives in. 

The young man smiles, dropping Y/n’s tail and wiping the knife off on her shirt. “Oh good! That’s very good.” 

“Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. My life’s not worth it.” Y/n mumbles, tears falling down her face as she clenches onto the armrests of the chair tightly.

“You might know one of them. His name is Zephyrus. Has black wings, wears lots of green. Another one is named Lethe. He’s half enderman. Good luck catching him though. The last one is Nemesis. You might never find her though. She spends most of her time underground.” Techno states and Y/n almost laughs at the use of the codenames.

“You’re lying.”

The young man holds the knife to Y/n’s throat and presses gently, causing a small trickle of blood to run down her neck. “You have one more chance to tell me their names before I kill her and then you. I’ll give you to the count of ten. Ten…” Techno growls at the man before him, the sight of his knife pressed against the woman's throat more than angering.

“I told you. Those are their names. It’s not my fault if you don’t believe me. Now let her go. I don’t even like her. Killing her wouldn’t get me to reveal anything.” Techno says calmly.

The man considers this, pausing his counting. “You’re still lying. I saw you help her and her friend, the blonde. I’m surprised the cut didn’t kill him, to be honest. I think I’ll have to go back to your cabin when I’m done here and finish the job.” 

Steam is basically pouring out of Techno’s ears and his eyes glow a bright red. “Don’t fucking touch him.” 

“Yes! I will, unless you tell me the real names of the other members of your little club.” He releases Y/n’s head from his grip, and pulls his knife away from her neck. 

“Phil, Niki, and Ranboo. Those are their names. Now let her go.” Techno growls and Y/n shakes her head.

“He’s lying. Those aren’t their names. There’s not even more than one other member of the group. The third member of the group is named Dream. He’s currently in prison for killing several people and blowing up a country not once, but twice as well as manipulating kids. He’s the only other member of the group.” Y/n says, hoping that they don’t know she’s lying and buy her bluff. 

The god currently sits in prison, waiting out his days monotonously. They would definitely all die the minute they try and kill him- if they even do get to him, considering Sam would kill them the minute they step foot in the prison.

“Finally, someone here is telling the truth. You’re going to give me the exact coordinates of where the prison is, and then you two are going to stay here while we go kill him.” Y/n gives him the coordinates and the man is almost bouncing in joy. “For your sake, we better not be walking into a trap. Let’s go boys.” They leave the room and Y/n sighs, her head hanging forward heavily, as if her neck can’t hold itself up anymore.

“What was that?” Techno asks and she shrugs.

“I told you. People don’t believe I’m capable of lying to them. They’re all going to die trying to get to Dream, or he’s going to kill them himself.” Y/n yawns.

“Yeah, and we need to get out of here in case some of them survive.” Techno says, struggling against the restraints holding him to the chair and eventually manages to break them.

“Alright, let’s get you out of here.” Techno mumbles, picking the lock on Y/n’s restraints and lifting her up easily in his arms.

The maze of hallways is nearly impossible to escape, but they do it somehow and step outside to a snowy tundra. The wind blows frozen ice shards through the air and it bites at their skin. They were stripped of gear and their cloaks. The cold is no match for Techno, who produces enough body heat to stay warm enough, but Y/n shivers in his arms and presses her face against his chest in an effort to keep warm.

Techno’s communicator beeps as it regains signal, and he works it out of his pocket, seeing the messages from Phil and quickly shoots one back with their coordinates and a request for blankets.

Looking around, the only shelter Techno can find until Phil arrives is the building they came out of but that’s not an option in case the people come back. Techno settles for sitting on the ground and hugging the woman to his chest, doing his best to protect her from the wind and cold. 

“Oh my god…” Phil says as he lands in front of the pair, quickly grabbing Y/n and wrapping the cloak around her.

“Take her back to my cabin. She needs to get warmed up and is going to probably need stitches in her tail.” Phil nods, passing his sword to Techno.

“Will you be fine walking back? I can zip right back here to get you. Tommy’s healed and can look after Y/n while I do so.” 

Techno shakes his head. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. After all, you need to check on Ranboo and Niki. Make sure they’re okay. We’re not extremely far from the cabin, I’ll make it back before the end of the night. Now go already.” Techno says and Phil nods, taking off quickly with Y/n.

He looks back at the building they were in, and heads back inside. If there’s anyone left here, they’ll pay for what happened.

It’s a few days before Techno comes back and Philza spends the time either worrying over it or about the worsening condition of Y/n, who seems to have developed a bad cold or flu or hypothermia or all of it, really, as well as making sure Tommy doesn’t rip his stitches trying to do stupid stuff. When Techno does come back, he’s covered in blood and doesn’t even stop to talk to the members of the syndicate sitting in the living room or even wash up, instead going straight for the room where Y/n is sleeping and peeking in.

“She’s not doing well at all. I stitched her tail up, but she’s developed a fever and is still freezing cold all the time and isn’t getting any better, even with a ton of healing potions. I don’t know if she’s going to make it.” Phil mutters beside Techno and he only nods.

He steps out of the doorway and leaves to take a shower, taking extra care to scrub the blood out of his hair and changes into comfortable clothes. Peeking into Y/n’s room again, he sees her shivering underneath the blankets. Well no wonder she’s sick, she’s still freezing cold, he thinks to himself before opening the door further and stepping into the room. He climbs under the covers and Y/n instantly curls up to him, soaking in his natural warmth.

“Thank you, for getting me out of there.” She mutters, before falling back asleep.

“Anything for you.” He whispers, holding her tighter against him in an almost protective manner. 

Phil watches from the doorway, smiling as he watches Techno fall asleep curled up with her.

Tagged: 

@thegeekisheere

[btsslowburnfic]

Chthonic Love Chapter 3

Series Summary: Greek AU Yoongi/Hades x You/Persephone.  The Olympic Lord, Namjoon kidnaps you as a "gift" for his brother, ruler of the Underworld. Lord of Death: Yoongi.

Previous Chapter: Chapter 2

“Dear Hoseok,

I am sure you are quite worried about me and so I firstly want you to know that, all things considered, I am ok. Zeus brought me to the Underworld and Lord Yoongi has been a very gracious host. I’ve heard you lost a bet? I need to know what in Olympus happened so I can disentangle myself from any terms you have entered me into. Maybe now you’ll listen to me when I tell you to stop messing with the Olympians.

--Persephone”

You folded the letter and looked around for an envelope. You didn’t see any on the desk so you left and walked over to the door. You opened it and poked your head out to see if Yoongi was out there, but he wasn't. Feeling disappointed and not really wanting to go back to your cold, boring chamber, you turned back into the office. It was much warmer there than the rest of the castle. You appraised the room once more; you tried to remember what all you had heard about Lord Yoongi before today and you realized: not a whole lot. He seemed nice enough, just lightly annoyed that you were here. But if someone had dropped a person off in your house unexpectedly you would also be irritated.

You walked along one of the many bookcases and pulled out a few different books, perusing their covers. Some seem to be journals and you put those back, not wanting to be rude. A few of them have musical notes written in them, you turned your head towards the back of the office, noticing the Lyre and Harpsicord one again. Yoongi must play at least one of them. You continue to browse the shelves, finally finding a small book labeled, “Underworld Compendium.” You take it over to the pile of furs you had made earlier and settle in for some reading.

In the beginning there was Darkness. Before the brothers were Kings of the Realm, they were slaves to their father: Cronus. Cronus, not wanting to share any of his power, swallowed each of his sons, keeping them in interminable darkness and pain. Finally, their mother was able to spare a child: Zeus. Zeus led the charge against Cronus and the other Titans, and in his surprise, the enslaved children were accidentally released. The Titan Wars were waged for decades: Olympians versus Titans. Finally, Cronus was destroyed. The realms were divided amongst those sons who fought in the Titan Wars. Namjoon, who the mortals worship as Zeus, wanted Olympus and ascended to his throne with great fanfare and a feast that lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Jin, Poseidon, enjoyed splashing in the waves and playing with the animals of the sea. Yoongi, Hades, traveled down from Olympus, through the Earth, Through the sea, and arrived at the Underworld.

GEOGRAPHY

The Underworld is comprised of many subsections. At the center of it lies the Obsidian Palace. Hewn into the very core of the Underworld, it is a sight to behold, visible from Erebos all the way to Oceanus. Surrounding the Obsidian Palace is the Desert of Sorrow, bordered by the Stygian Sea to the South….

You yawned and sat the book facedown on the furs. You found the book interesting, you really did, but between the warm fire and the crying earlier, your eyelids grew heavy. You decided to lay down for just a moment and before you knew it, Hypnos was proverbially knocking on your door.

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

Yoongi had left you to write your letter in private. He’d deliver it to Charon either tonight or tomorrow. To his surprise, he wasn’t as annoyed by your presence as he thought he would be. He started to wonder when the last time he had talked to a person? He occasionally would speak to Penthos, but considering every day was the same, there wasn’t really much to say.

He walked down the hallway and heard voices speaking in a hushed tone.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure she’ll be leaving soon. She seems so nice. I don’t know what your problem is.” It was Lethe.

“She just walks in and acts like she owns the damned place,” Yoongi heard Penthos harshly retort.

Lethe laughed, “She’s a Goddess. The fact she didn’t disembowel you for speaking to her without being spoken to is really something. It’s clear you've never served in any other courts before. While Lord Yoongi is a quiet God, he’s a million times better than most of them.”

Penthos sighed, “I suppose you’re right about that. I’ll see you later.”

Yoongi waited a few seconds and then rounded the corner, he put his hands on his hips, “Lethe, Just the person I wanted to see.”

Lethe froze at first, clearly surprised. After a few seconds, she turned around, bowing slightly, “Yes, my Lord?”

“What room did you end up taking Lady Persephone to?”

“Uh…” she faltered for a moment, wringing her hands.

“I know you didn’t actually put her out in the furthest corner of the palace. It’s fine.”

She let out a deep breath, “She’s staying in the room with the quicksilver door. And I’m sorry she wandered around the castle. I didn’t know if she was supposed to stay in her room or if I was supposed to lock her up. Even though I don’t have a key. I really should have asked first but I didn’t,” Lethe rambled.

“Lethe, it's OK . She’s not a prisoner here, it’s fine.” Yoongi gave a rare smile to reassure her.

“Ok, thank you sir.” she visibly relaxed. “Do you need anything?”

“Just make sure Lady Persephone is comfortable while she is staying here. I’m not sure how long she will be staying, but consider yourself her attendant while she is here.”

Lethe was visibly surprised, “Yes, m’lord.”

This is what I get for complaining that things were too boring. He thought to himself.I’m just glad she’s calmed down. Crying women terrify me. Yoongi continued down the hallway to the furthest wing of the castle. He approached a large set of Enchanted doors. He raised his hands to the sigils and unlocked them. You can’t be too careful. He crossed the antechamber, twisting through another hallway, and finally down a staircase he hadn’t used in decades. He conjured a blue flame to light his path. The air had turned heavy and acrid in the absence of any fresh air. He continued until he arrived at the bottom of the staircase where the floor was dirt. He took a few steps into the small room which connected to the catacombs through various tunnels. He waited several moments before he heard the scratching sound begin against the wall. The sound came closer, accompanied by a clicking noise.

A voice that sounded like something being stretched uncomfortably over a wringer called out in the darkness. “Lord Yoongi. It’s been so long. What does the Lord of the Underworld require?”

Yoongi looked almost bored as the creature climbed closer; its hundreds of black eyes reflected his blue flame.

“Hello Arachne. How are the catacombs?”

“Such a kind Lord. Asking Arachne about the catacombs. This is why you’re my favorite.”

“The catacombs?”

“Fine my Lord. You know we keep the others down here. Its is our privilege to serve the Underworld.” she replies in her raspy voice. Dozens of smaller spiders have started to enter the chamber. Arachne’s children crawl over the walls, eager to catch a rare glimpse of the ruler of the underworld.

Yoongi turned his gaze back to Arachne’s eyes, “Clothes, Arachne. I need dresses. Nice ones, suitable for a Lady.”

The creature let out a cacophonous sound like gnashing teeth. “Oh? Is there a Lady of the Underworld now? I haven’t sewn a wedding dress in centuries.”

Yoongi sighed. He hated dealing with Arachne. Being a gossip is what caused Athena to turn her into a spider in the first place. “No Arachne. Just a visiting Lady who didn’t pack enough. A few normal dresses. No wedding dresses.”

He heard a small wailing sound and watched her pincers quiver, “But I want to make beautiful clothes again. The Underworld needs a Lady for me to dress, and then children to dress. I’ve taught my children to sew, did you know that?” Arachne sounds almost human again as she becomes increasingly excited.

“No. No.” he holds his hand up, glad the darkness is hiding his red cheeks, a mixture of embarrassment and anger coloring his face. He’s becoming sick of others telling him he needs a companion. “Just normal dresses. That’s all”

He heard a collective whining sound from all the spiders, “Very well Lord Yoongi, what colors should they be.”

Yoongi was already turning around and walking towards the door, “You’re the stylist not me. Nice normal dresses Arachne!” He went back up the stairs and straightened his jacket once he arrived on the other side of the locked doors. Arachne would have those clothes done in no time. The poor Spider-Woman had nothing else to do, just decorating the Underworld’s cave system with things people would never see. Yoongi had invited her to come up to the main part of the palace when she first arrived, but she had balked saying it was “too bright” and that “nobody wanted to see a monster.”

He wondered what you were up to. He imagined you had probably finished your letter and were poking your head around the castle some more. He found himself smiling as he walked up the staircase to his office. He opened the door and saw you fast asleep in front of the fireplace. He brought his hand to his mouth and entered the room as quietly as possible, not wanting this moment to end. He tried to decide if he should stay or leave. Instead he found himself just staring at you. You were very pretty. Not in an unnatural way like the other Goddesses he had met, just pretty. He walked across the room and saw You were clutching a book. He knelt down to see what book you had ended up with. Yoongi gently removed it from beneath your arm and ran a finger down the spine. “Underworld Compendium.” A good book. He should know, he wrote it. He grabbed a scrap of paper and marked where you had it open and sat it down next to you.

He walked over to his desk and saw the letter you had written your brother. He imagines that it said “Please come rescue me, I’m being forced to stay with a monster and pretend to be nice to him.” He really wanted to look but knew he shouldn’t. He heard you stir a little and watched you throw an arm over your eyes. Yoongi raised a hand towards the flames, dimming the lights in the room. He looked at the letter again and decided to read it. He took a breath and flipped it open. He read it quickly. It’s a very short letter. He propped his elbows on his desk and held his head in his hands for a moment. He was also eager to see what your brother’s response would be. He thought about writing his own letter but somehow “you fucked up and now I own your sister,” seemed like a bad idea. His nose twitched. He smelled a faint floral scent and looked up. Flowers had started to bloom in a bowl on his desk.

“What the hell is this?” he asked. He heard a faint moaning come from in front of the fireplace, another flower bud appeared. Yoongi felt his face grow warm. He tapped on his Hourglass, watching the sand swirl.

He pulled out one of his journals and began to write in it. He became lost in his own thoughts for a while, the crackling of the fireplace and your light breathing the only sounds. It was soothing in a way he had never felt before.

When he looked up again his desk was covered in flowers. He laughed lightly and heard you start to awaken.

You stretched your arms above your head. Where were you again? You felt the warm fire on your back and slowly opened your eyes. You saw Lord Yoongi sitting at his desk. His eyes flicked over towards you and you suddenly felt very embarrassed. “Sorry. I meant to just rest my eyes,” you said as you sat up. “I hope I didn’t snore too much.”

To your shock he laughs, his deep voice echoing. “Just a little bit. You did make quite the garden here though,” he gestures to his desk which is covered in chrysanthemums.

You blush “Sorry, it happens sometimes. My powers sometimes do their own thing when I'm sleeping or sick. Fortunately, other than making people sneeze, it’s not that bad.” He clearly doesn’t know the meaning behind flowers and you hope he doesn’t look it up any time soon.

You stood up, rubbing your hands up and down your arms at the loss of direct heat from the fireplace.

"it's fine I uh," he runs his tongue along his lower lip, "just didn't know flowers could bloom in the underworld. I've never seen them here."

You laugh a little, "Well apparently they can when the Goddess of Spring is here. Speaking of, when is the next time Charon will be arriving?"

Yoongi moved the hourglass on his desk and looked into it. To you it appeared as though nothing was happening, the sand suspended in between the top and bottom, but he appraised it carefully as though he was reading it.

"Soon," he stood up, pulling his shirt down straight. He pulled an envelope out of the desk drawer and placed your letter inside.

You walked over to the desk to gather the flowers. “Sorry, I’ll just--”

"No. Leave them." he said

You thought maybe he would say more about it but he doesn't. He walked to the back corner of the room and grabbed a cloak.

"Can I come with you?" you asked him

"You don't trust me to deliver it?" he responded harshly.

You feel sad that that's what he thought, your gaze traveled to the floor, "No. I just saw the sea earlier and it looked pretty. And I really don't want to be alone in this giant Palace."

His features immediately softened. "Oh. Ok. Hmm. Hold on." he walks over to you with his cloak and puts it around you, carefully fastening it below your neck. "Here. It's colder out there than it looks."

"Won't you be cold?" you asked in disbelief at how quickly his moods could change.

He shrugged and picked up your letter. "I'm used to it. Don't worry about me."

"I can just stay here…"

"No, let's go." he said and opened the door, motioning for you to go through it. 

 NEXT  CHAPTER

[ladytrelaw]

Its here!! Chapter 1: The Heart Of The Motherless Child

Read on AO3 or more below the cut !

Grinpayne raises a hand to his eyes, squinting. He is 14 years old, partway through a growth spurt that will eventually leave him a few inches taller than Ursus and at least a foot taller than Dea, and he has turned from their cart to find himself unexpectedly dazzled by the light of the setting sun. It’s winter, but it’s mild for the season, and the evening is crisp and clear.

He turns away from the dying light and stands back to review his work. He’d spent the whole morning painting the side of the cart, covering the faded and peeling white letters that had previously read ‘Ursus: Druggist and Potion Maker’. Then, when the paint had dried, Ursus had helped him map out the new lettering, making sure the words all fit evenly with nothing too bunched up or too spread out. Finally, while Ursus and Dea made dinner together, Grinpayne had painstakingly painted the new words on in white, his nose inches from the edge of the cart and his brow furrowed in concentration, his brushstrokes slow but smooth and even.

“Excuse me, master painter!”, an overly pompous voice calls, breaking the silence. “I was looking for my son but the only person around seems to be you! You haven’t seen him have you?”

Grinpayne rolls his eyes. “Very funny, Father”, he drawls, as Ursus slings an arm over his shoulders and ruffles his hair affectionately. The two stand and look at the cart for a moment in silence, the weak sunlight warming the back of their necks.

“I mean it, lad. You’ve done a brilliant job.” Ursus says softly, reverting to his usual accent and giving Grinpayne a one-armed squeeze. Behind his bandages, Grinpayne allows himself a small, private smile. He’s pretty proud of himself, too.

“Is it finished?!” An excitable voice cuts through the air, and Ursus and Grinpayne turn from the cart to see Dea, one hand on Mojo’s shoulder, skipping towards them around the side of the cart. Earlier that afternoon Grinpayne had made her a daisy-chain crown, and it’s still nestled wonkily atop her head, the green stems and purple-edged petals bright against the white of her hair. Ursus grins.

“It’s finished, child. Grinpayne is quite the artist.” Grinpayne shuffles out from under Ursus’s arm, embarrassed, and wanders over to Dea, who is clutching two small wooden figures in her hand.

“How are the puppets, Dea?”

“All done! ” She grins toothily, thrusting them out in front of her. “Did I do it right?”

Grinpayne takes one of the puppets from her, turning it over in his hands, familiar as his own bandages. After all, he’d spent hours studying one puppet in order to make the other, crafting his own puppet by firelight every night for weeks so that Dea would have a handsome prince to marry the beautiful princess Ursus had given her as a child. They’re delicate, intricate things, but lately they’d been getting showing their age; the princess’s dress wearing through and the prince swaddled in the only material that Grinpayne had had available to him at the time, a ratty old cravat of Ursus’s. Now, though, they are reborn, clothed in swathes of silk that shine and shimmer in the light, their hems and seams stitched in neat, straight lines.

“They’re perfect, Dea, truly” Grinpayne smiles, reaching for Dea’s hand and pressing the puppets back into her palm with a gentle squeeze. She grins.

“Can I see?” Ursus asks, sauntering up behind Grinpayne, but quick as a flash Dea hides the puppets behind her back, shaking her head emphatically.

“Nope! You have to wait for the performance!”

Ursus groans dramatically. A bit too dramatically. “But Grinpayne let me see what he’d done!”

“It’s the entire cart, Father, I couldn’t exactly hide it from you” Grinpayne points out, and Ursus splutters in mock indignation.

“Sorry!” Dea says sweetly, reaching for Grinpayne’s hand and dragging him behind the cart to get ready. “Those are the rules! Now announce us, you have to announce us!” It takes a few minutes, but soon they're ready to perform, and Ursus strides out in front of the cart.

“Ladies and Gentlemen and Wolves!” He bellows, sweeping his arms wide to welcome the ‘audience’; namely, Mojo, lying in the road with his nose resting on his paws. Behind the cart, waiting for their entrance, Grinpayne nudges Dea’s shoulder, and she grins.

“I give you, the one, the only, the new and improved, the amazing travelling wonder of Ursus’ Lotions….. Potions… aaand-“

Enough.

Grinpayne rises from his seat, his body spurred to movement almost before his mind catches up. He can’t do this. Can’t sit here anymore in the silence, with nothing to distract him from memories so bright they burn.

“Grinpayne?”

Dea is sat on the floor of the cart, back against his bed as she knits what appears to be a scarf but could turn into a sleeve, perhaps, or maybe a hood. She’s stopped mid-stitch at his sudden movement. He'd almost forgotten she was there.

“Bandages” he replies, the excuse out of his mouth before he's even consciously thought of it. “There's a river nearby. I won’t be long.”

She hums an acknowledgement and he moves to the door, squeezing her shoulder as he goes. Her fingers trail his for the briefest moment but he doesn’t linger, restlessness pushing him forward, the walls of the cart suddenly too close, too tight. As he steps outside he’s surprised to see that it’s dusk already; the daylight fading gently like a wave rolling lazily to shore. It's a beautiful evening, the sky stretching itself in a sleepy purple haze across the horizon, but Grinpayne barely sees it. He's almost insulted that the world would dare to be so lovely after a day like today.

At the edge of the road, by the tree line, Ursus is knelt in the grass, trying to convince a reluctant pile of kindling to spark a flame. He looks up at the sound of footsteps, but Grinpayne quickly averts his eyes, setting his jaw and looking straight ahead as he slips into the woods. Ursus says nothing, but Grinpayne feels his eyes on the back of his neck all the same, watching him go.

That's fine. Grinpayne has nothing left to say either.

Resisting the urge to turn and look back, he hunches his shoulders and sticks his hands into his pockets, wending his way deeper into the shadows. The undergrowth slopes gently down away in front of him and he slows, placing his feet more carefully than he usually would, holding onto trees for support, cautious of hidden roots or loose rocks that might cause him to stumble. The last thing he needs is to fall and injure his already aching body. To have to be rescued. Again.

It’s the first time in several weeks that they’ve been outside the city walls, and the quiet is almost unnerving. Back in Oxford, noise had been a constant part of their lives, a swirling babble of voices that only stopped briefly in the early hours of the morning, when the revellers had drunk themselves into a stupor and the market stall holders were still asleep. It’s easy to lose yourself in a city like that, in the noise of the crowd, but here, in the woods, Grinpayne is alone with his thoughts. He moves through the trees like a shadow, listening to the sounds of small animals scurrying away from his footsteps, of the birds that sing warnings of his presence to their friends as he passes beneath their nests. Such background noise is silence compared to the city, though, the sort of silence that allows half-buried thoughts to rise to the surface like air bubbles from the bottom of a swamp.

Grinpayne rubs his eyes. He's been trying not to think about the events of that day, trying to distract himself, but he’s exhausted, and here in the woods there seems to be little point resisting. He takes a deep breath of crisp evening air - cleaner here even just a few miles outside the city - and gives in.

His thoughts turn almost immediately to Ursus, of course. It’s been a long time since he’s seen the man so angry. After he had dragged Grinpayne and Dea out of the main square - a snarling Mojo at their heels keeping the mob at bay - he had rounded on his adoptive son, eyes wild, demanding to know what had happened. What Grinpayne had said or done that had caused the crowd, usually no more than morbidly curious, to turn so unexpectedly violent.

Grinpayne didn’t have the answers. Halfway through a swig of Crimson Lethe to dull the pain blooming across his jaw where a stray fist had caught him, he had almost choked on the unfairness of Ursus’s unexpected vitriol. Even now, hours later, he still feels the sting of it. But when he’d tried to explain what had really happened, he’d found his memories blank, his mind yielding nothing but an addled haze of pain and fists and shouting voices. Everything had happened so fast, he realised, it had all blurred together.

Ursus had been less than impressed. He had exploded with anger, red in the face, shouting at Grinpayne for being so foolish as to let the crowd rile him, to lose his temper so easily. The irony of his words had apparently been lost on him, and Grinpayne, shaken and frightened and hurt, had shouted right back. The situation spiralled rapidly out of control, and the two men were practically nose to nose when Dea, almost in tears of frustration, had shouted at both of them to stop being so foolish about the whole thing and be grateful that it hadn’t turned out any worse. To avoid any awkward questions about the fight in the square they had had to move their cart outside the city walls, which they did in stony silence, and in the hours since Grinpayne and Ursus have been resolutely ignoring each other.

A whispering breeze strokes Grinpayne’s cheek gently, and he shivers, his train of thought derailing and turning down a different track. It’s cool in the shadow of the trees, away from the road and the sunlight, and it’s enough to make him nervous.

It’s only going to get colder. They left the city in a rush without stopping to buy food, so for their next few meals they’ll have to take from the modest supplies that Ursus keeps in the cart. Supplies that, at this time of year, they should be saving, stocking up on, not wasting on unnecessary nights outside the city. If not for Grinpayne and his temper, they'd be eating dinner right now; something hot and cheap bought from a market vendor in exchange for one or two of Ursus's potions in their bright glass bottles. They'd pack up the cart and drive away from the marketplace to a quieter street to spend the night, no need for a fire in the warmth of the city, with Ursus telling them stories by candlelight of glittering faraway lands.

Instead, they’re a few miles outside Oxford, camped on the dusty roadside. Grinpayne thinks of Dea. Does she blame him too? Are she and Ursus, even now, complaining about how much harder he makes life for both of them with his outbursts of temper, with his hideous grin that has seen them turned away from more towns than he’d like to count?

Would they be happier if, instead of returning to the cart, he just just... left?

Grinpayne gives himself a little shake. That’s not a productive line of thinking. He knows in truth that Dea would be beside herself if he didn’t return; after all, no one else understands life the way they do. No one else sees the world as clearly for what it is, understands the pain and darkness that lurk in every corner. He could never leave her.

Recently, she has been trying to encourage Grinpayne to think of something positive when he gets like this, to draw him out of the black moods he finds himself falling into more and more often. He mostly thinks it's pointless, but he's never been able to say no to her, not even when they were tiny children. He ducks under a tree branch, wandering downhill, and tries to bend his thoughts to things that Dea would approve of. Like, for instance, the way that the dappled sunlight playing on the long grasses of the forest floor is beautiful, in a quiet, unassuming sort of way. Summer may be dying but she’s sung a beautiful swansong this year; for the past week they’ve woken every day to bright, clear mornings and gone to bed in sighing lavender twilights, a gentle breeze softening the glare of the sun and not a cloud to be seen in the sky. It’s been so dry that the small water-butt on the back of their wagon is empty, which is why he’s here. His bandages need cleaning, and he knows from previous trips to Oxford that a shallow river runs somewhere through these woods, even if he doesn’t know exactly where.

The lack of rain has given him an excuse to leave the cart. To leave the way Ursus won’t meet his eyes, the way Dea is stoically pretending that nothing’s wrong. To get away from all of it just for a little while. He’s not exactly sure Dea would consider that a positive thought, but at least he’s trying.

Above him, a hazel tree sighs and shifts its branches, letting a sudden fresh beam of sunlight slip through the canopy. It lands so directly in Grinpayne’s eyes that he’s blinded for a moment, and as he raises a hand to shield his face a fresh wave of memory hits him as solidly and unexpectedly as if he had walked into a wall. The smell of fresh paint. The crisp sharpness of a winter evening. Dea’s laugh splitting the air like bells ringing, and the warm, comforting weight of an arm across his shoulders.

Grinpayne frowns. It's a memory that seems to insist on haunting him tonight.

A different, more recent memory surfaces. The anger in Ursus’s face earlier that day, the fury with which he’d grabbed Grinpayne’s shoulders, fingers gripping tight enough to bruise, as though he could shake some sense into him.

Maybe he should have tried.

Grinpayne sighs, rubbing his face above his bandages. He's been walking for a long time and he's exhausted, but just when he decides to give up and turn back, the sound of running water finally reaches his ears. He follows the sound, drifting towards an area of the woods where the light is brighter, and eventually reaches a shallow riverbank edged with rushes and long swaying grasses. He crouches down at the water’s edge, wincing as a dull ache shoots through his side. He’s going to have a nasty bruise there, but that can’t be helped now. At least, thanks to Mojo's timely arrival at the square, he didn't sustain anything worse. He runs a quick glance up and down the bank and then, satisfied that he’s alone, reaches up to untie his bandages. The soft material falls into his palms and he closes his eyes as his scars are exposed to the air, the breeze drifting over his skin like silk. It's a pleasant feeling, and he allows himself a moment to appreciate it before he nudges the scarf he's wearing up over his nose. It’s not as effective as his bandages and it limits his freedom of movement, but it’ll do for now. As nice as the evening air is, exposing his face for too long makes him jittery. He reaches down to the water’s edge and submerges his bandages beneath the surface, the water bitingly cold as it swirls over his fingers, his palms, his wrists. Holding the fabric in the current with one hand, he shakes the other dry and reaches into his pocket, retrieving the small chunk of plain soap that he uses to wash his bandages. His mind drifts as he sets to work, his hands moving automatically through familiar motions he’s done a thousand times before. His eyes have all but glazed over as he daydreams about nothing in particular, gaze following the soap bubbles which float away on the water, when a noise makes him look up.

He blinks.

There’s a man on the other side of the river.

Grinpayne freezes. He barely even breathes; he may as well be made of stone.

The man hasn't seen him. He's crouched on the opposite bank just a few yards downstream, dressed in a distinctive grey uniform that makes Grinpayne's blood run cold. A soldier. As Grinpayne watches, he leans down, reaching out and messily scooping a few handfuls of water into his mouth. He’s close enough that Grinpayne can see the water droplets glistening in his beard, can hear the creak of his leather breeches, the clink of the metal baton in his belt. Knelt in the rushes and staying as still as he is, Grinpayne knows he isn’t immediately visible, but it’s an incredibly poor hiding place. If the soldier looks up, if Grinpayne moves even slightly, he’ll be seen, and the scarf he’s wearing doesn’t fully cover his scars...

“Parsons!” A voice calls, and Grinpayne watches in horror as a second soldier descends the bank. His hands, still submerged in the icy water, start to go numb.

“No sign of them, then?” The first soldier, Parsons, responds, standing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The other soldier shakes his head.

“Not yet. We’ve got orders to comb the woods and then move up the road; Anderson thinks they’ll probably stop to camp before long.”

Grinpayne feels his heart hammering in his chest, so loud he’s amazed that they don’t hear it’s pounding beat from across the river. They’re talking about him, they must be. Him and Dea and Ursus. He has to get back to the cart, has to warn them, but because he was idiotic enough not to thoroughly check his surroundings when he stopped he’s trapped here by the river, like a rabbit under the eye of a fox.

Stupid, stupid fool.

Parsons is nodding, looking thoughtful. “Seems a bit much, don’t it, all this? I mean we’ve all chased a bit of skirt in our time.”

Wait.

Grinpayne hesitates, daring to hope. Maybe they're not looking for him...

“Yeah but not the Judge’s daughter” the second soldier laughs, crouching for a drink from the river himself. “Her daddy’s got nearly as much sway as the Duke; if he says jump, we say how high. And anyway” he adds darkly, “you didn’t see him, the boy that went after her. I’ve never seen a face like that, like something out of a nightmare, like... like every pain you've ever felt, every fear you've ever had, all wrapped up in one man. Apparently the poor girl's practically hysterical and I don't blame her." He shakes his head, and his eyes grow dark. "A monster like that? Who knows what he would’ve done with her if she hadn't got away.”

It’s a lie, Grinpayne realises distantly, as he watches the second soldier slosh water into his mouth and spill half of it down his front. This judge's daughter, whoever she is, has lied about what really happened in the square, has told the authorities that he attacked her, that he tried to... that he...

He's struck by the sudden feeling that he might be sick.

Parsons shudders. “Gives me the creeps. I don’t wanna think about it.”

“Then don’t think” His friend replies, spitting in the river before standing up and wiping his hands dry on his trousers. He grins wickedly.

“Shouldn’t be too hard for you!”

Parsons barks a bellowing laugh, shoving the other soldier, and the two wrestle for a moment before wandering up the bank, chattering as they go. On the other side of the river, trembling, Grinpayne tries to remember how to breathe.

He waits until their voices fade to nothingness. Then he forces himself to wait a while longer, to count his hammering heartbeats until he is absolutely sure that they're not coming back.

Only then does he turn, scrambling on the grass, and bolt into the woods.

[branwen-ferch-llyr]

And We’re on Fire - Gueulemer x Glorieux

It’s the fourteenth of June, and Paris lies aflame.

Not literally, perhaps, but Gueulemer can feel the memory of it in the stones beneath his feet. He closes his eyes and the world turns blood red; when he opens them again, the darkness startles him. There are no stars, of course – cities are always too brash and consuming for that. What they’re consuming he’s not sure. Nevertheless, he feels his mind thrum with some bitter starlight. The air hangs with death and heat and promise, and he’s so in love.

He stands by the Seine – yes, the goddamn Seine like in some bad American romance – waiting for Glorieux. Crowds surge in violet and yellow on the streets around, but he’s hidden from their view in a hollow by the water. Pale eyes thinned to glass, he watches their feet travel by. He watches the tourists and the locals intertwined, watches all the dreams they carry with them pressed into their own shadows.

Gueulemer doesn’t have a lot of dreams, himself. Sure he gets nightmares aplenty from all that nonsense going on in his life, but not the kind of dreams that romantic saps talk about. That’s to say he’s never had much of his own, and everything he’s ever needed he’s found or made or taken for himself: taken and plucked from air and hidden in the heels of his heavy black boots. Dreams are of no use to a man such as he. But then, but then-

There’s Glorieux. He sees them coming, creeping through the crowds a wild thing, more human than any of them. They’re wrapped in a long sheer blouse and leather trousers, and he can see their skin gleaming below their shirt. Lit up from behind by the orange of the street lamps, they look a vision cut from the sky itself. He knows that they are the closest he’s going to get to having dreams.

God, what a sap.

They come closer, and they’re radiant. Tonight, they look harsh and beautiful and more real than they ever do. There’s the same flightiness in their eyes as always, but it’s more an intoxicating energy than anything else, and more divine than anything he’s ever felt. His face creaks into a smile, and their hand becomes a paper crane in his.

Tonight, they will be wild. They don’t kiss right away, but clutch each other wantingly. Glorieux pants a greeting into his neck, then steps back with a grin and passes Gueulemer a bottle from their bag. It’s cheap whiskey and as he sips it something roars inside him, bitter and howling. There aren’t many words between them, and those that they are drift languidly.

Other nights are full of too many words that hurt and are hurting and this is tonight, this will be different. When the city screeches around them, an excited mass of fire, they scream back together and let the fireworks light up every ugly part of them.

Wild and wilder. Dancing in the white noise of the city, skin almost touching. Bottles that crack against their teeth. The chatter of footsteps that stumble. Drinking the Lethe itself, it seems. The bottles creak and shimmer palely. At some point, Glorieux runs to the side of the river, crying at the moon, face streaked with joy. They’re kneeling there, quiet and trembling with excitement as the water shivers. Gueulemer sits behind them and wraps his arms around them to cup the whole Seine in his hands.

“You’re wonderful,” they say, and the water falls from between his fingers.

They don’t turn around, and he doesn’t try to kiss them. They just sit together like that for a lifetime, two lovers in Paris. It’s beautiful, and he’s never expected that.

They return to the concave in the ground as it gets colder, and Gueulemer throws his coat around them both. Glorieux clutches him tightly, nails sharp against his shirt, his chest. The feeling twists something in his heart – something that could almost be tenderness – and he feels himself become a sunset in their eyes. The fireworks are still pounding a tattoo into the air, and they listen together, and spot the blaze of colour carve a mirage above the sharp-eyed buildings. It doesn’t matter that they can’t see too well from here: all the dead of Paris sway in the air beyond tonight, but not right here. Here, they are two bodies in the dark on the night of the festival. Here, they are in love.

There’s the last bottle swaying from Glorieux’s fingers, and Gueulemer presses his hands to theirs to steady it. They don’t move away but raise the drink steadily to their lips, challenge in their eyes. He watches their cheeks scar themselves crimson in his gaze, and smells the alcohol stitch their bodies together.

“It’s been a while,” they whisper, finally, and press the words into the air right above his lips. “I’ve been away too much, I know.”

Gueulemer smiles truly and wide, bones arcing with that stammering electricity the way they always do around Glorieux. “I know you have, and I think I’m okay with that.”

Something pinches tightly at the corners of their lips – he’s not sure if it’s amusement or relief or something else. “You are?”

“Yes,” he says earnestly, and pulls the jacket tighter around them both. “As long as you come back, Glorieux. As long as you come back to me.”

Then they crush their lips to his and the whiskey turns to dew until it fills every part of him. Gueulemer raises a hand to their cheek to pull them closer; they are honey and firelight in his arms. The back of his throat is sour and the world outside burns until everything is bitter charcoal but this kiss is sweet. This is a love thick and sugary and he feels like it’s midsummer already.

June stretches out before them, fizzing in the warm hope of their tongues. Then Glorieux bites at his lip and all he sees is their fire.

[dotshiiki]

heyyy! idk if u remember but about a week ago an anon, me😂, messaged you saying i was on chapter 8 of the curse of lethe. i just finished it and i absolutely loved it!! it took me a while to finish because of school but it was amazing! i was wondering if you can make another part where percy pops the question and him and annabeth and all their friends plan the wedding and they have twins, a boy and girl!! that would be adorable and ik you would write something amazing. thank you so much!!

Hey! Thank you so much for that comment it was so nice and I’m really stoked you liked the whole fic! I did the proposal fic before here, but here’s some twin-baby!fic for you (it kind of came out only loosely related to the CoL-verse, but hope it sorta fits anyway). I’ll have to think more on the wedding planning stuff–put a pin in that, and I’ll get back to it another day. And sorry this is all rushed and a bit of a late reply, I just got back to work after being on holiday and I’m also moving in a few weeks plus I have too many WIPs but yeah. Enjoy!

‘How about Felix?’ Percy says. 'Piper said it means “lucky.”’ He runs his hands over the curve of Annabeth’s belly, which is expanding rapidly by the day. Sometimes she thinks it’s a bit alarming, the rate at which her son or daughter is growing. If this is the size of her at three months, what is she going to look like at six, or even nine?

(Piper, with the smug superiority of someone who’s been there, done that, laughs and says it’s normal, but that’s easy for her to say. Annabeth swears Piper was nowhere near as big when she was carrying her son. Then again, that could just be a gift from Aphrodite.)

Percy loves it, though. He can’t seem to keep his hands of her burgeoning belly, whispering to it and trying on two dozen names a day for size. She’s never seen him this excited, not even when he and Tyson built that underwater theme park for Estelle.

'She could be Felicity,’ Annabeth counters.

Percy makes a face. 'Another girls’ name?’

'Well, you keep coming up with boys’ names. We don’t know that he’s a boy.’

'I think he is.’

Annabeth makes an impatient noise in the back of her throat. 'We ought to be prepared for both eventualities,’ she reminds him. 'At least until we get the ultrasound.’ She looks at her watch, then at the door to Will’s office. There’s a carving of Eileithyia below the name plate that says Dr Solace, OB-GYN. It’s certainly appropriate—you definitely want the goddess of childbirth on your side when you’re expecting—but it makes Annabeth a little uneasy. Eileithyia also delivers rebirthed souls, fresh from the Lethe, into new babies sometimes.

Annabeth’s had more than enough to do with the Curse of Lethe to last ten lifetimes.

'Asher?’ Percy suggests.

She gives him a look and pushes his hands off her stomach. 'Why are you so dead set on having a boy, anyway? What’s wrong with girls?’

Percy winces at her tone. 'Nothing. Girls are perfect. Girls are amazing. I love girls. I mean—’

'Honestly, Seaweed Brain …’

'I love this girl,’ he amends, pushing one loose curl behind her ear. 'It’s just …’ He bites his lip and mumbles something.

'What?’

'What if I screw up, with a girl? I mean, look at how much I messed up with you, and I put my mom through hell over the years, and—well, at least with a boy, I sorta know what to expect.’

'Oh, Percy.’ She swallows through the lump in her throat. She can’t deny that the last twenty years of loving him has been painful. Her heart’s pretty much been put through the wringer by now, what with crazy quests and deadly prophecies and vengeful monsters … but none of that was ever Percy’s fault, and they both know it.

Well, most of the time he knows it. But expecting a baby tends to bring up a lot of past insecurities. Annabeth herself can’t quite shake the nightmares about things going wrong, being unable to protect this tiny seed of life blossoming inside her, that old, persistent phobia of never being good enough.

But she knows that even with all the tears and heartache, she’d do it all over again as long as it means she gets to have Percy with her forever. And it will be the same, whatever their future with this new baby brings.

She links her hand through Percy’s so that the twin wedding bands on their fingers interlock—each with half an infinity symbol that forms the full thing when they connect. 'We’re going to be fine, Percy.’ She rests both their hands over her belly. ’They’re going to be fine, whichever one they are. Because whatever crap we messed up, you and I, we always picked up the pieces and put them back together.’

As if to back her up, their baby stirs inside her, pressing up against the wall of her abdomen. Percy’s eyes widen a little.

'See?’ she says. 'They agree with me.’ Gods, she loves the kid already.

'Smart kid.’ Percy bends forward and whispers conspiratorially, 'Never bet against your mom, okay?’

The door opens and Will’s head pops out. 'Annabeth, Percy—come on in.’

Percy holds her hand as Will sets up the ultrasound. His eyes are shining as he stares at the blobby shapes forming on the computer screen. Will runs the ultrasound transducer over her skin, and there it is—the spindly limbs, the round head of their child.

'Wow,’ Percy breathes. 'Oh wow.’

'Looking good,’ Will says. 'Now let’s see—’ He moves the transducer.

Annabeth’s heart nearly stops when another round head comes into view.

'What’s that?’ Percy demands. 'Is that … oh gods, something’s wrong, isn’ it? Why does he have two heads?’

Will laughs. 'Well, it’s unexpected, I’ll give you that. But no, nothing’s wrong.’ He removes the transducer and types a few commands into his ultrasound computer. The image zooms out. This time, the picture shows clearly two heads, but also two tiny bodies curled together, like the two halves of her infinity wedding band.

Twins.

'Congratulations,’ Will says, pointing just below the umbilical cord connecting her two—two—babies. One of them has an extra appendage there; the other doesn’t. 'A boy and a girl.’

Well. She said they should plan for either eventuality, but she’d kind of failed to plan for this possibility. The Fates still had a hidden card up their sleeves after all.

'I guess we’ll need both names after all,’ she says faintly.

Percy kisses her. 'I guess we do.’

[jflashandclash]

Traitors of Olympus: Blood of a Mayan

Twenty Six: Ajax

So… It is too Awkward for Us to get Ice Cream after This..? It’s Not, Right?

 Pax may have had a minor lapse in judgment. Okay, maybe a major lapse in judgment. But judgment was lapsy for him. Especially in situations where your brother drops some of his Mist mask in front of your almost-girlfriend and makes some unfriendly advances towards her.

Pax could envision the defense now, “Don’t worry. It’s just like we’re giving you a major concussion. You won’t remember a thing.”

Yea, that was going to be added to the list of Things That Don’t Scream “Date Me:”

1.       Battling Rodents

2.       Crazed Brothers with Forget-Me-Lots rags

3.       Restraining Orders

Anyway, Pax had screwed up. He could see that now—well, he couldn’t actually see it, as he was rather blind at the moment, but the general sentiment was there.

Drugging their friends with delicious Kool-Aid? He’d rather look at it like he’d eased them into a well earned nap, with complimentary sleeping bags and weasel snuggles.

And Axel wasn’t supposed to give Leo an exaggerated bear hug in the original plan… or break both of his wrists… or choke him. They were supposed to toast with the same Sleepy Time Kool-Aid over a blacksmith’s job well done and some delicious tofu burgers. But Kronos also wasn’t supposed to have some weird, residual essence in Backbiter that called out of Axel’s b’alam side. Funny how the Fates worked that right? One moment you’re going to have a delightful midnight picnic with a handsome Latino blacksmith and the next you’re telling your brother that psycho behavior might not be the best way to keep friends.

Pax would have to send the Fates a very friendly Christmas card this year.

Although everything was still blurry, Pax put one hand up towards Axel and one hand backwards to push against Kally like a referee calling, STOP! Hammer time.

Pax just hoped Kally didn’t start to run, since he knew Axel’s predator instinct might kick in and he really didn’t want a slapstick chase scene that ended in an uncomfortable letter to Apollo of, Please resurrect your daughter. I really like her and my brother and I may have goofed up a bit.

“Axel, let’s tone it down on the whole maniacal behavior thing. I think Phobetor would give you a standing ovation on the fear factor and execution, but—”

Axel sighed in annoyance, a gesture that made Pax want to mimic the motion in relief. It meant this was still dominantly his brother and not the Leonis Caput. “We’ve done this dozens of times little hero,” Axel said.

That was true. There was even this one time with a Roman senator and his elephant—well, that didn’t matter now.

“But not to a friend!” The anger in Pax’s shout surprised him. Maybe he’d been holding in a little more resentment than he realized or maybe he just felt that tonight was a good night for vocal projection. “This isn’t a discussion—we’re not messing with Kally’s head like this. Maybe other ways, but not like this.”

There was no way to know how much someone might forget with the River Lethe. Yea, they could give someone a brief press with a diluted dose to estimate a few weeks to a few months memory loss but… Kally might not even remember she was demigod if they did that. She also would forget that Pax was a scumbag, made bad life choices, and that she owed him nine drachma and ten Reese’s.

“Leo won’t remember making the sword. No one else knows and Kally can’t exactly go around shouting it to the world with her River Styx pact,” Pax said. The spots in his eyes were fading. He might be able to see Axel’s disappointment in full in a few seconds.

Axel’s shoulders relaxed and he tilted his head. Those eyes looked more sad than angry. “Do you really think she’ll ever love you after this?”  

Pax squirmed. All he ever wanted was to meet a good person and have a happily ever after with a happy, functional family. Mattias and Jack had always teased him for falling in love fast and hard and planning things way too far into the future—he’d have Baller and Hunnie wear a tuxedo and dress for his and Kally’s supposed wedding. But Axel and Pax had done a lot of awful things under Kronos’s order. Pax wasn’t a good person. Maybe he didn’t deserve a Disney ending where he got to walk off singing and trip over forest critters that wouldn’t get out of the way (cue Hunnie and Baller again in their tiny suit and dress).

Although he could feel a loved section of scumbag die on his inside, Pax choked out, “That doesn’t matter.” Augh, that hurt. Punched right in the morals. What is this feeling of righteousness? “This is wrong. This is something Flynn would do.”

“THIS is wrong?” Axel growled skeptically. Pax was really happy Axel didn’t enlist all their deviousness to prove a point for all those in the audience who hadn’t been paying attention. Instead, his golden eyes shifted past Pax, to Kally. “There’s no shame in forgetfulness, Kalypso Kassand. No one can hold you accountable if you don’t remember.” His voice was slipping; Axel was losing control. “Just know, if you break your vows of silence and I lose Backbiter before I can slay Santiago…” His tongue flicked out to lick his lips. “I will find you and add you to my collection of souls.”

Pax thought his metaphor could have been better. Plant you in my garden of flowery death. Use you as flour for my cookies of destruction. Bookmark you in my library of chaos.[1]

“Axel… what’s wrong with you?” Kally asked quietly. Under the hand he had protectively behind him, he could feel her shaking like she’d taken the ice bucket challenge. Pax understood the sentiment; it would be cold to do the ice bucket challenge in the middle of November.

But Axel had just gone a few miles too far. Erasing some of the memory of some random hero that apparently saved the universe? Eh. Threatening Kally so he could slay their dad…

“This isn’t you talking,” Pax said. “It’s the Leonis Caput—”

“WE’RE THE SAME PERSON!” the frustrated scream came with the lovely harmony of Axel’s baritone paired with the Leonis Caput’s gravely bass.

“Wow—yea, that. Axel would never have such a silly slip of his anger management. That is Kronos’s monster. You are my brother born of the primordial awesome and I am NOT afraid of annoying you back into acting like yourself—now step off of that stupid sword!”  

The forest was eerily quiet for a second. Pax could hear the sizzling of dirt as the last batches of superheated earth cooled. Other than that and the torches quietly flickering in the night, he couldn’t hear anything except his own heartbeat. The thump was inconveniently loud, like Apollo had picked his skull as a new drum.

Axel grunted and staggered forward, off the blade. Pax could tell he was trying to count internally, to regain control. This had always happened as their helmets’ magic waned, a little more of the memories seeping through, of Axel massacring Romans in the Labyrinth as sacrifices to Kronos. Normally they weren’t this bad, but normally Kronos’s essence didn’t crash the party. Rude.

Axel clutched his head and made a low whining noise. Still manly, Pax would assure if he ever told the tale later. This time when Axel collapsed to his knees, Pax could tell that was actually his brother. Axel immediately started rubbing his Mist mask on, smearing away the teeth, crazy eye color, and other nice Halloween rave gear.  

Disaster averted! Pax relaxed. He often woke up and thanked the gods his brother hadn’t gone on a murderous rampage. Pax was a person of habit; he really hadn’t wanted to change that morning routine.

Someone giggled by one of the work benches.

Kally and he jumped. Axel probably would have if he wasn’t acting all tragic and angsty.

A girl sat on one of the work benches. She looked about Pax’s age, maybe a little younger at fifteen or so. She had short, jagged black hair, streaked with various shades of red, purple, and white. Her eyes glistened a bloody red, wide with glee, a lot like how Pax’s mothers did in human form. Dirt smeared her face, arms, and neck, making it hard to tell how tan she actually was. She wore a black, torn up shirt that read I Solemnly Swear that I am Up to No Good and some weird black mesh of shorts. She would have been beautiful, like a brightly colored viper, except Pax knew they were a little too closely related for that.

“Atë,” Pax greeted the Goddess of Mischief and Ruin.

“Have you ever watched a monster turn?” she asked, tilting her head as she examined Axel’s struggle. “They don’t talk about that part in the myths, how a human loses its humanity. It’s like how they montage training sequences in action movies. You never get to really appreciate the gradual attrition of character and decay of moral.”

“That was really uplifting. Thanks for dropping by,” Pax said.

She flashed Pax a psychotic smile. “I haven’t seen you since the day before the Battle of Mount Othrys. Oh Ajax!” He cringed at the memory and her use of his first name. “I still haven’t decided with you. Will you be more gullible or reckless or trusting?” She giggled again. “Mom said to check up on you and the sword. You father will ascend tomorrow morning if he’s not stopped. Are you as excited as I am for the ensuing chaos?”

Axel made a pained grunt, but didn’t lift his head from his hands.

The pieces started to fall into place and make about as much a sense as a Salvador Dali painting. The little acts of mischief, the fighting amongst the Olympians, and the silly errands they’d been sent out to do. Pax might have been mighty proud if he didn’t feel like his mom and sister had dressed him up as a pretty doe for deer hunting season. “You and Mom have been having some good bring-your-daughter-to-work days, huh? Weren’t you, uh, thrown off Olympus though? How’re you uh—” Pax wasn’t sure how she referred to her hobbies. “—working with the gods?”

“I was tossed down. Now I can spend more time with demigods and mortals. I dote on your kind far more than the rest of the family.” Atë leaned forward to give Kally a small wave, one that only entailed curling her fingers like she was catching elusive dandelions, or plucking out someone’s tendons. With Atë’s general demeanor, he assumed the latter to be more accurate to her tortured, artistic soul.

Kally stiffened.

You know that awkward, slightly racist, incredibly conservative uncle that you don’t want to introduce to your friends for fear of him saying all gypsies are Satan spawn? Atë was that relative if that relative had just been bailed out of jail for burning down orphanages for handicapped children. Pax preferred to keep an all inclusive mentality about his family, but he had a friend or two from handicapped orphanages and liked them less on the crispy side.

“Kally, that’s Atë, my half-sister on the godly side,” Pax muttered.[2] “Atë, this is Kally, my… uh, well she was my almost-girlfriend of about ten minutes ago.” Now Pax could probably add Kally to the list of people who would like to see him in a ditch with a sign that read, pour steaming coffee here, over his head.

Kally cleared her throat. “Friend,” she corrected quietly. Which was way better than someone who wanted to pour steaming coffee over his head. “Are you the one who set Athena and Poseidon against each other?”

Atë giggled again like a broken Ferbee. “Again, I can’t mess with the Olympians. But heroes… Heroes can go anywhere.” In a swirl of smoke, Atë disappeared off the bench and reappeared inches from Pax’s face. He could smell the reek of iron and see flecks of dried blood crusting her shirt. Ways to encourage a midnight appetite.

“Are you going to be Mom’s champion?” she asked, stroking a finger under his chin.

When Hunnie woke up, he decided he’d need to sit his furry friends down and find out if getting pets under the chin felt this demeaning and creepy for the weasels. If so, he’d make sure they got appropriate weasel therapy and carnivore friendly lollipops as an apology gift.

Pax didn’t want to be anyone’s champion. He wanted to make sure Dad didn’t hurt people. He wanted to make sure Axel was safe and sane, and not a whimpering mess. He wanted to go back to Camp Half-Blood and spend the rest of his life helping the Stoll brothers make Chiron miserable and doting on Kally with homemade shirts and cookies. But he was sure, if he said that, Atë would just counter, “Yea, and I want Apollo to reinvent the Black Plague, and wipe out half of humanity. We can’t all have what we want.”

When Pax hesitated, Atë pinched his cheek. “The fate of Camp Half-Blood might boil down to whichever side you choose, chaos or peace. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll make the wrong choice.”  

Smoke burst in front of him and she was gone, leaving Pax to wonder if he and Axel may have screwed up way more than he had thought.

Thanks for reading :D

[1] Pax has a full list of these, but Jack had to burn the list so this chapter didn’t go on for too long.

[2] I know you’re either a Wiki search away from who Pax’s mom is or—for those of you more into mythology or My Little Pony—you’ve already figured it out. But this author is stubbornly not going to write her name down until she introduces herself to the cast.

[glittership]

Episode #48 -- "Circus Boy Without A Safety Net" by Craig Laurance Gidney

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Episode 48 is part of the Summer 2017 issue!

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

    Circus Boy Without A Safety Net

by Craig Laurance Gidney

  Lucifer came to him in drag. He was disguised as Lena Horne.

C.B. went to see The Wiz with his family. The movie was pretty cool, by his standards, even though he thought Diana Ross was a little too old to be playing Dorothy. But the sets were amazing–the recasting of the Emerald City as downtown Manhattan, the Wicked Witch’s sweatshop, the trashcan monsters in the subway. The songs sometimes lasted a little too long, but they were offset by Michael Jackson’s flashy spin-dancing. But it was the image of Lena Horne as Glinda the Good Witch that would follow him.

She appeared in the next to last scene in a silver dress. Her hair was captured in a net of stars, and she was surrounded by a constellation of babies, all wrapped in clouds, their adorable faces peering out like living chocolate kisses. He fell in love. Ms. Horne was undeniably beautiful, with her creamy, golden skin, and mellow, birdlike features. Her movements during the song “Home” were passionate. They were at odds with shimmering, ethereal-blur in which she was filmed. Indeed, she could not be of this earth. In all of his life in Willow Creek, NC, C.B. had not seen anything like this before.

[Full transcript after the cut.]

  Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 48 for September 26, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is a reprint of “Circus Boy Without A Safety Net” by Craig Laurance Gidney. Potential background dog noises are unintended, but provided by Rey, Finn, and Heidi.

Content warning for slurs, homophobic bullying, and descriptions of porn.

    Craig Laurance Gidney is the author of the collections Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2008), Skin Deep Magic (Rebel Satori Press, 2014), the Young Adult novel Bereft (Tiny Satchel Press, 2013), and The Nectar of Nightmares (Dim Shores, 2015). He lives in his native Washington, DC. Website: craiglaurancegidney.com. Instagram, Tumblr & Twitter: ethereallad.

  Circus Boy Without A Safety Net

by Craig Laurance Gidney

  Lucifer came to him in drag. He was disguised as Lena Horne.

C.B. went to see The Wiz with his family. The movie was pretty cool, by his standards, even though he thought Diana Ross was a little too old to be playing Dorothy. But the sets were amazing–the recasting of the Emerald City as downtown Manhattan, the Wicked Witch’s sweatshop, the trashcan monsters in the subway. The songs sometimes lasted a little too long, but they were offset by Michael Jackson’s flashy spin-dancing. But it was the image of Lena Horne as Glinda the Good Witch that would follow him.

She appeared in the next to last scene in a silver dress. Her hair was captured in a net of stars, and she was surrounded by a constellation of babies, all wrapped in clouds, their adorable faces peering out like living chocolate kisses. He fell in love. Ms. Horne was undeniably beautiful, with her creamy, golden skin, and mellow, birdlike features. Her movements during the song “Home” were passionate. They were at odds with shimmering, ethereal-blur in which she was filmed. Indeed, she could not be of this earth. In all of his life in Willow Creek, NC, C.B. had not seen anything like this before.

He was in love, all right. He researched her in libraries, finding old issues of Ebony and Jet; he watched old movies that she’d appeared in, like Cabin in the Sky. He collected some of her records; his 8-track of “Stormy Weather” was so worn, he had to buy another copy.

But in the weeks afterwards, he began to sense that this love of his wasn’t quite right. His brother and his father would tease him about his “girlfriend,” who was 70 years old, and about how, when he came of an age to marry, she would be even older than that. Of how he could never have children. His brother was particularly mean: he imagined a wedding, held at Lena’s hospital bed, with her in an iron lung, exhaling an “I Do” as ominous as Darth Vader’s last breath. But C.B. wanted to explain that it wasn’t like that at all. He couldn’t quite put it into words.

Lena wasn’t an object of desire, someone who he wanted to kiss or hold hands with. She was something more. She was a goddess of Beauty, an ideal. She was something beyond anything he’d ever known. She hovered above Willow Creek, an angel, looking down on its box houses that were the color of orange sherbet, lemonade, and his own robin’s-egg-blue house. She wasn’t someone to sleep with; she was someone to be like.

C.B. made a bedroom shrine to his goddess. Old pictures of her, protected in cellophane, marched up his wall. But the ultimate treasure lay unseen. In the unused chest of drawers in the back of his closet, he hid a Barbie doll, bought at a flea market and transformed into her likeness: painted skin, eyes blackened with a pen, stolen hair dye darkening the blond tresses. And he sprinkled lots of glitter on her dress, so it would be silver, like hers was in The Wiz. (This had involved experiments with several doll’s dresses. There was a measure of discretion; he came up with a story about how his sick sister collected Barbie dresses, so that the store clerks wouldn’t think he was strange. He ended up dunking a powder-blue dress in Elmer’s glue, and dredging it in silver glitter. He learned it by imitating his mother, when she made fried chicken: first the eggwash, then the seasoned flour).

But buried treasure sends out signals. Especially to mothers.

She zeroed in on the spot. Oh, there was some excuse about her wanting to check out the chest, so that she could sell it at the church bazaar. Lena was exposed. His mother and father met him at the kitchen table one day after school, holding his creation in their hands. When C.B. saw them, looking as solemn as they did when they watched reruns of King’s historic speech, he knew something was wrong. He thought he was going to get a lecture on idolatry. Instead, he was told, in the calmest tones they could muster, that he was not to play with dolls ever again. That was that. His mother stood up, and started making dinner. His father left the room, his head hung in shame.

C.B. felt strange. They were treating him as if he were diseased. As if they’d discovered that he was freak of some kind. (“When your child reaches the age of twelve, his eyes will grow to the size of grapefruits…”). It was his brother that laid it out for him. He’d been listening in on the conversation.

“They think you’re a faggot.”

When he got to his room, the walls had been stripped. Everything of Lena was gone. The walls looked like he felt: exposed.

He didn’t eat dinner that night. They didn’t call him to the table.

He popped an 8-track of The Wiz into the player, and put the giant earmuff headphones on. Lena sang softly: “If you believe in yourself…”

C.B. snatched the tape out of the player. He unspooled the brown ribbon, until it lay in curls on the floor around him.

#

C.B. had a Voice. That’s what everybody at the church choir said. He felt it, too. His chest would fill with warmth, the spirit of sound. And when he opened his mouth, all of that warm feeling would come sliding out, like a stream of maple syrup, rich and sweet. It would circle over the church. He could feel it soaring like an angel, over Willow Creek, notes raining down on the box houses the colors of mint-green, bubblegum pink, and pastel violet.

He convinced himself that he was singing to God. All of the ladies with their wiry hats would come up to tell him what a wonderful gift he had. For a while, he gained the pride and trust of his parents. Sort of. At least of his mother.

His father grudgingly gave him respect for his voice; but his father must’ve known that singing didn’t really undo all of embarrassment he’d caused when he failed at various sports. Having a musician son was a poor substitute for having a normal one; but it would have to do.

Within the tiny whitewashed church, he was safe from the worst of himself. The Devil—or Lena—was imprisoned, locked away. Her smoky vocals couldn’t slip in between the glorious notes of hymns. Her fabulous gowns were safely replaced by neutral choir robes.

He jumped through a hoop, pleasing the Lord. C.B. thought of God as a great ringmaster, and Heaven as a circus-dream of angels and tamed beasts. The dead could trapeze through the stars, and see the little marble that was Earth below. But first, you had prove yourself worthy. Jump through this hoop, ringed with razors. Now through this circle of fire… C.B. knew that his life would be a dazzling and dangerous tightrope performance from now on. One slip and he’d fall into a Hell of naked boys and show-tunes. The church was his safety net.

Another bonus of singing was the admiration of the congregation.

C.B. was an average student. He struggled through math and science, tolerated history and English. He didn’t have any friends. Regular kids tended to avoid religious kids. Since that was his disguise, he was a loner. He avoided the actually religious kids himself—he felt that if anyone could see through his charade, they could. They would sniff it out like bloodhounds. Everyone was at a safe distance. And the holiest of music surrounded him like a shield.

He felt the most secure, when the Devil heard him sing.

He came in the form of the music and drama teacher, Mr. P. Mr. P traipsed into town in loud colors. He wore banana yellow jackets, pink shirts, and bow ties as large and comical as a clown’s. In a way, he matched the colors of Willow Creek’s houses. His skin was dark and smooth, like a Special Dark candy bar. He had large glasses that magnified his sad-clown brown eyes. And his hair was a mass of wild and wet Jericurls. His lisp reminded C.B of Snagglepuss, the cartoon lion. Like Snagglepuss, Mr. P was prissy and aristocratic, given to fey and archaic phrases.

Word got around school that C.B. could sing. He’d fastidiously avoided anything to do with the drama and music department. First of all, he reasoned, they played secular music. He sang for the glory of the Almighty. But the real reason was Mr. P. A whiff of his spicy cologne in the crowded school hall made him cringe; Mr. P’s loud, theatrical laugh when he was a lunch hall monitor could set his teeth gnashing.

It was around January when he was approached. He left the lunchroom, walking right by Mr. P. (who wore a suit of lime-green, with an electric blue bow tie), when he was stopped.

Mr. P. spoke his name.

“Yes, sir?”

“I heard that you can sing, child. How come you haven’t been around the chorus?”

“I… I guess that I’ve been too busy. With school. And church.” He invested the last word with an emphasis he hoped wasn’t lost on Mr. P.

But Mr. P flounced right by the Meaning, with a pass-me-my-smelling-salts flick of his wrists. “Nonsense. I would just love to hear you sing. Can you stop by the music room sometime this week?”

“No, sir. My course load is pretty full…”

“Any study halls?” (His sss’s grated on him).

“Not this semester,” C.B. lied.

“How bout after school? Just 15 minutes or so.”

“Uh, this week’s not too good, cause I, uh, have to help my dad with some chores.”

Mr. P smiled, revealing gums as pink as deviled ham. He touched C.B. on the shoulder.

When he left the cafeteria, the nutmeg smell of the cologne tickled his nose. It wouldn’t leave him all day.

That Sunday he was to sing a solo section of the hymn, “His Eye is on the Sparrow” during the distribution of the Host. Before he walked out on stage with the rest of the choir, he did a customary scan of the audience. Mr. P was there, in the pew behind his mother. His heart leapt into throat. But then, of course Mr. P would show up. The Devil can’t resist stirring up souls in turmoil.

In the church basement, over fizzy punch and stale cookies, Mr. P lavished praise over C.B.’s voice, how pure it was. His mother was beaming beside him.

“Why, Mrs. Bertram—”

“Imogene, please.”

“Imogene, when I heard that he had a Voice, I just had to investigate. It exceeded my wildest expectations.”

C.B. kept his eyes firmly trained on the linoleum.

Snagglepuss continued: “I am casting parts for the spring musical. I’d like your son to try out.”

His mother clapped her hands.

“I can’t act,” C. B. interrupted. He could see where this going; he had to cut it at the source.

“You don’t have to act,” (darling, he heard Mr. P add subliminally) “you just have to perform. And you’ve got that down pat.” (Honeychile).

His mother pestered him into trying out for the spring musical, which was The Music Man. C.B. had enjoyed the movie, and found that he couldn’t resist the temptation. It was too much. He felt Lena stirring in him. She whispered in his sleep. One night she came to him. She wore her sparkling fairy queen dress. Her chocolate star babies were grinning behind her. The only thing different about her this time was that she was in black-and-white. She’d occasionally ripple and sputter out of existence, like an image on an old television set. He took this as her blessing.

I won’t give up going to church, so I’ll be safe.

He landed the role of Professor Harold Hill.

The play ran four nights and a Saturday matinee. It was a success. The last performance earned him a standing ovation.

But in the back of his mind, there was always the issue of Mr. P. The jocks and class clowns of the school would always be whispering about him. They called him the Black Liberace. “Hand me the candelabra,” they’d say when he passed them in the hall, or “I wish my brother George was here,” in mincing voices. C.B. felt himself slipping. Movie posters of West Side Story, The Fantasticks, and The Sound of Music competed with the camouflage of his mother’s hand-stitched prayer samplers and collected Willow Creek football bulletins.

The worst was gym class. He refused to take showers. But that didn’t stop the boys from making fun of him. As they emerged glistening and nude from the showers, they would faux caress and grasp one another.

“Yeah baby, push it in harder!”

“Stab that shit, sweetie.”

“Oh daddy, be my butt-pirate tonight.”

He knew they were directed at him.

Summer came, and C.B. immersed himself in church activities. He became an aide for the church-sponsored camp for kids. He sang every Sunday, declining solo parts. It was a sacrifice that God might notice.

For the fall assembly, Mr. P put together a show comprised of songs from musicals. C.B. sang lead for “New York, New York,” and “Send in the Clowns.” He bought the house down. Basking in the light of adulation, he was mindful of the rot that hid behind and beneath Willow Creek’s façade of cheerful acceptance: a hate that corroded the aluminum siding covered in pastel icing.

Church ladies in floral hats: “Mr. P, he’s so, you know, theatrical. You know them theater folks.”

And the antics of the locker-room boys.

Mr. P approached him for the lead in the spring play.

“I think you’d be perfect as the Cowardly Lion in The Wiz!”

C.B. told Mr. P he’d consider it. That night, Lena and her entourage appeared before him. And he was Icarus, tempted by her beauty. If he flew too high, she would supernova, and scorch his soul as black as the void surrounding her cherubs. He was a tightrope walker, and Lena was the spirit who watched over him, waiting to push him off, waiting for him to fall.

He could not ignore the sign that God had sent him. This was temptation.

He declined Mr. P’s offer, claiming that he had to focus on his grades that semester, if he was to go to college.

C.B. did the right thing. But there was no sense of liberation.

Danger lurked, a phantom image just behind his eyes when he slept at night. He imagined Glinda turning into the Witch, snarling in frustration.

#

Manhattan spread out before him, glitzy, dirty, and labyrinthine. The architecture was as alien to C.B. as the Emerald City was to Dorothy. He was thrilled and terrified at the same time. There was no warmth, no open spaces like there was in Willow Creek. The buildings were naked and thin, and met the challenges of gravity head-on. The houses of Willow Creek were humble—modestly clothed in cheerful fabrics. C.B. wasn’t so sure that he liked it. The crowds, the hurried pace, and the anorexic qualities of the landscape rejected him. The unending gray color oppressed him.

The Willow Creek Community College glee club had performed in a drab little church just outside of Harlem. C.B. swore he could hear rats skittering around the eaves. The nasty hotel the glee club stayed in had water stains on the ceiling, and the beds were hard and tiny. There had been a drunk sleeping in one of the chairs in the hotel lobby, his overripe smell and loud snoring filling the space. The hotel staff didn’t seem to care.

Still, it had to be done. He had to test himself, to see once and for all if the Devil still lived in him. New York City was the perfect place to “experiment” without anyone knowing.

The first step was to ride the subway to Greenwich Village. He moved to the smelly hole in the ground. Its mouth was wide and yellow. He remembered the monsters in the subway in The Wiz. Trash cans with gnashing teeth, pillars that detached themselves from the ceiling and chased people around. What he found was a whole less interesting. The concrete floor in the subway was dirty, covered with gray lumps of long-forgotten chewing gum. He glanced down one of the platform tracks. Fearless brown and gray rats scuttled, each holding some treasure in their claws—a crust of Wonderbread, a squashed pink jellybean. C.B.’s skin crawled.

His train howled up to the platform, and the breaks squealed to a halt. He entered a drably lit car, with sour-faced people crushed next to him. He took a seat next to a blind man. The door clapped shut. His rattling trip began.

About three stops later, two men entered the subway together. Both of them wore black leather jackets, and had long beards, like ZZ Top. One man wore a tight leather cap on his head, while the other had chaps encasing his pants. When he turned away from C.B., he could see the two pockets of his ripped Levi’s spread out like countries on the globe of his butt.

C.B. felt excitement wash over him. He allowed himself this one night. He had to know what he was giving up for the Lord. He stepped off the tightrope and tumbled into space.

Christopher Street was his stop. C.B. spilled out of the train and into the warm spring night. The first thing he noticed was that the Village wasn’t as crowded and squashed together as downtown. There were no tall buildings. The sidewalks were thronged with people. Men, dressed like GQ models prowled the street. C.B. looked down. He made a decision; and looked up again. I’m tumbling.

He felt vertigo.

Cafes and bakeries spun past him. C.B. wandered into a bookstore. The atmosphere was thick with tension in here. Heads hunched over pornographic magazines glanced up then turned back to pictures of naked men spread-eagled and airbrushed on glossy pages. C.B. cautiously crept up to the magazine stand. He picked up a magazine, called Carnival of Men. He began trembling (tumbling).

The model’s face was vacant. His body glistened and reflected the studio lights. His genitalia were objects: huge, flesh-colored fruits. Hairless and smooth. C.B. flipped the pages of the magazines. He found another picture, where a model spread the cheeks of his buttocks wide open. In the valley he created, he revealed the puckered rosebud of his anus.

If C.B. had been white, he would have been flushed as pink as Snagglepuss.

This is what it felt like, to give into temptation. What his mother hoped to destroy with church, what his father wanted to suppress with sports. The ground of Hell was fast approaching; it seethed with naked men and serpents. C.B. stayed in the bookstore, looking at magazines, for at least an hour. He was tempted to buy one of the magazines—this might be the only chance he got for a long time. But, then there was the chance of discovery, like his shrine to Lena. And it would be a visible souvenir of his shame.

He left the store empty-handed. The sky above the street was the sludge of sepia and purple-black, with the stars erased. There was a hint of humidity in the air.

He wandered the streets for an hour or more, putting off his eventual goal. He saw sophisticated men and women dressed in black. There were people with hair in colors of mint-green, daffodil yellow, and bubblegum pink. They wore safety pins through their ears, and some of them had white makeup on their faces, and tattoos on their arms. They were the clowns of hell. C.B. tried walking by them without gawking. He saw a shop that sold sex toys. He was too chicken to go in, so he looked through the windows, staring at the various tools and instruments of pleasure.

Finally, C.B. steeled himself. A couple of blocks from the Christopher Street stop he’d exited, there was a bar where men swarmed like bees. The name of the bar was the Big Top. He took a deep breath, stepped inside.

It was dark and crowded. Men perched on stools, sipping drinks, or clung to walls, gripping the nozzles of their beers. It was the sort of aggressive, ridiculous stance that the boys in the locker room mimicked. Others prowled the spaces between in cutoffs and T-shirts, leaving trails of perfume behind. The walls of the bar were paneled with some dark wood and wainscoted in a thick, red vinyl with large buttons on it, like the inside of a coffin.

Willow Creek was a dry county, and his mother didn’t drink. His father did, but C.B. had little experience with alcohol. He went up to the bar, and asked for a rum and coke. The bartender wore an open vest. His chest was as smooth and built as those in the magazine C.B. had seen earlier. The bartender nodded sullenly, and gave him a full glass of rum, and colored it lightly with the soft drink.

C.B. looked at the drink doubtfully. He tipped the bartender, and wandered to the second room, which lay behind a black curtain.

He passed through, expecting a backroom, like he’d heard about. Darkness, smells of sweaty close bodies, groping hands. Instead, he slipped into wonder.

The room was decorated like his circus dream of Heaven. The walls were covered with paintings of elegant Harlequins and court jesters, their faces regal and dignified, not silly or sinister. One of the painted jesters wore a checkered garment of green and pink, and on the points of three-pronged hat were pansies, instead of the customary bells. There was a small stage at the end of the room. A circus dome capped the room, so you couldn’t see the ceiling. A silver balloon rose from the back of each chair.

A man in a tuxedo walked to the microphone set up in the center of the stage. He waved C.B. to a table. When he’d taken a seat, the MC spoke:

“Tonight at the Big Top, we are proud to present the vocal stylings of the beautiful Lena Flügelhorn!”

The lights dimmed to spectral blue as a figure made her way to the microphone. She wore a dress of stars, her hair pinned up in some gravity-defying coiffure. A single white spotlight pierced the stage. The golden skin was a miracle of foundation. The likeness was uncanny, save for a huge Adam’s apple. An invisible piano started the familiar chords to “Home.”

And C.B. tumbled, plummeting to the floor of Hell. But the voice—resolutely male and tenor, yet somehow imbued with the essence of Lena—came and blew his poor body upwards, towards the star-babies of Heaven. C.B. found himself singing.

As he fell (or rose), C.B. felt Lena swell with him in. She rose up and held his hand. Lucifer—or Lena was there for him, as God had never been. If this was Hell, it couldn’t be all that bad. It was beautiful here. A celestial circus of fallen stars. At once, C.B. recognized the anemic heaven he strove for, and rejected it.

Lena Flügelhorn’s song ended, and with it, a chapter of C.B.’s life.

END

  “Circus Boy Without A Safety Net” was originally published in Spoonfed and is copyright Craig Laurance Gidney 2001.

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Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with the first original story from the Autumn 2017 issue.

Episode #48 — “Circus Boy Without A Safety Net” by Craig Laurance Gidney was originally published on GlitterShip

[ulyssesredux]

Oxen of the Sun

And sir Leopold would he not accept to die like the one in nine. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased. I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to heavy labours in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be most sacred and most vital. If she who seduced me had left but the franklin that hight Lenehan and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inaugurated libation? He is older now you and take a penny for his subtility. Most beautiful book come out of it to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his heart's content. Has he forgotten this as he might treat him with menace of blandishments others whiles they spake the door and begged them at first and after hard drought, please God, rained, a low hillock, the daughter of a race where the Pole Star grinning at me through a window from over the swamp played the shocking coruscations of the true fold as ever came out of that other, Costello that men clepen Punch Costello dinged with his granados did this traitor to his best remembrance they had but was now right evil governed as it was nought else could and in Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an ear, my faith, yes. Or is it, asking with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with his experience of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their guzzling den, milk too of those nefarious deeds and how in all the people shall say, but it is stagnant, acid and inoperative. Alos who spoke, the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous, leers down from the bearpit and the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that as it seemed, by all that's gorgeous. Chase me, cried Costello, a vision as to be faced and exhorted the men of Olathoe; I have just cracked a half bottle AVEC LUI in a hack canter is still his. Must you go? No, for the birth of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is it, Stephen said. Francis Beaumont that is to wit, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy's, Vin. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelve moons thrice an hundred.

I could not sleep, and the injunction upon her fingertips or for a certain amount of number one Bass bottled by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to be born. Then young Madden maintaining that put her in her pose then, Our Lady of the daystar, the mare ran out freshly with 0. Looks she too not other now? Enemy? As her eyes, that was moved by craft to open in the case of bright gold, coifed with a sweet forgetfulness: only when my round is o'er shall the past four minutes or thereabouts he had cherished ever since her hand against that part of her bosom, he is. Why, he too, whereas that other land which is called Believe-on-Trent which happened to be studied who is ignorant of that violence, he got? With these words printed on them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house of stone and brick south of a skittish heifer, big of her noble exercitations which, when the curfew rings for you, says he, nor any Rooshian. Has he not accept to die like the other a happily chosen position, succubitus felix of the land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness. The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor any Rooshian. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it and very opportunely.

Why hast thou sinned against my light and motion in the straight on the luckless! Have you a way with them? It was my purpose firm, for me. Those who have gone before, are happy too as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. The flag fell and, opening his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a bramblebush to be most sacred and most vital. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none the less effective for the ocean sea or to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, by all that's gorgeous. Bet your boots on. Therefore, everyman, look to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his objurgations with any other feeling than the opulent lady of Mercy's, Vin. Next the Scotchman was the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring to urge, to place her hand against that part of her childing for she hath the virtue of a true man and the sandblind upupa. Shrieks of silence. Tanks you.

Shrieks of silence.

Cut up! Haines was the eternal son and ever virgin. Money was no object, he said how it was unlike any language which I held her and brought her a bright casket of gold and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent mothers prosperity at all, with respect to the house then spoke to him a joey and grahamise. Spit in your own eye, boss! Play low, and he wondered to look on her face that was the telling rejoinder of his own avouchment in support of his own which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come. And as no man hath that a man of cautels and a rheumeyed curdog is all their mending their pace had taken water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the pass behind the vapor-soaked swamp trees that sway in the world, which lies on the loftiest and most vital.

But let us call them as best he can. First, saved from waters of Lethe will not think who met us as we left the field. Should the Inutos steal up the scene as an arse and a shirt. A drenching of that age upon which it was her husband's that put her in townhithe meeting he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to rest him there after longest wanderings insomuch as they feasted him for him to drink and, expatiating upon his elegance, being godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack of noise in the piteous vesture of the winter and now at the least colour. Poor Sceptre! But this was only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne's hall. What rider is like him? Orate, fratres, pro memetipso. To revert to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. God, rained, a murrain seize the dolt, what Calmer said, nor any Rooshian. Got bet be a rose upon the utterance of the Supreme Being. Indeed no for Grace was not as with many that will and would and wait and never—do. He'll find himself on being, it seems, history is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the event of one mind, made his heart weep. A scene disengages itself in the small hours of the plague. How serene does she now arise, a penny pippin. The inferno has no terrors for me with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my ear though there was a day! 'Tis as cheap sitting as standing.

Every cove to his heart's content. Bishops boosebox. Be not afeard neither for any and every fallingoff in the paternal ingle a meal of noodles, you may it be called an interruption? Checkmate. I declare, I beheld the horned waning moon, I ses, if she aint in the middle span of our island, she cried, I vow, the boys are atitudes! Truest bedthanes they twain are, for I have failed in my nocturnal imaginings that in Cape Horn, ventre de Dieu! When for Irelandear.

Lynch, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last his own fashion, though the same gist out of her pretty head she recalls those days were really present there as some thought, perfunctorily the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to whom mankind was more beholden. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades, Pisistratus. He conjured up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let it be called an interruption? O wretched company, were accountable for any want for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out again or give it life, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she said, but before he came naked forth from his hat a kerchief with which he however had borne with as much as a handful of mustard or a bale of cotton or a corkfloat. I anticipated some such reception, he said very entirely it was good for that they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that got in peasestraw, thou abortion thou, to attempt illicit intercourse with a bare tester in his striking Highland garb, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and replied that he was a passing show. Thought he had made to Saint Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not lag behind his lead. A couch by midwives attended with wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though they had not achieved so nice a gesture to which was corruption of minors and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with a woman has let the cat into the most part hankered about the place which was corruption of minors and they all chode with him, that. Mead of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness. Pal to pal.

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. They say there is need and surgical implements which are hidden away by man in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own magnitude, till the spheres six and twenty thousand years have revolv'd, and the ruddy birth. But with what fitness, let the cat into the bag an esthete's allusion, presumably, to attempt illicit intercourse with a loving heart. The sentimentalist is he who stealeth from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it be long too she will bring forth in pain and wherefore they that were there. Sure thing. Night. It is open? With a cry he suddenly vanished and the streets of Olathoe, bravest of the noble lord, Amen. Her hub fifty odd and a wicked devil they would make at her lovely echo in that castle for to make up he taught him a civil bow and said that he was at head of the skies which I understood, though it was unlike any language which I had it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a proper breeding: while for such that his father showeth the prince no blister of combustion. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for by what means can I prove the greater reality of that other life in the past disturb thy door. To tell the truth he was now right evil governed as it subsequently transpired for reasons best known to himself, the midwives sore put to it, Burke's of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Thy cow's dug was tough, what of arresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the bagnio and other rogues of the womb, chastity in the market so that Master Madden, being godly certain whiles, knocked him on a hillock in the travail that they were not or at least it ought to be cherished had been the man that is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the whirligig of years are blown away. Cut up! Rows of cast. The scent, the midwives sore put to it, will they slaughter all? After this homily which he was a eunuch had him in aught contrarious to his gentry mort. Came now the storm that hist his heart to bed, to shut up in sorrow for his burial did him on the city whose peril every moment grows, and he was minded of his lustiness.

Lil chile velly solly. Bonsoir la compagnie. The man then right earnest asked the narrator as plainly as was ever done in words if he might to their both's health for he swore a round hand that he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a gent fainted. Go thou and do all my cousin german the lord Harry put his head appeared in the calibre of the Zobnarian Fathers; so my friend Monsieur Moore, that, my people, upon words so embittered as to be seen to be butchered along of the countless flowers which beautify our public parks is subject to a clime more temperate, its columns, domes, and he was that one case done commodiously done was. Sad was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. With a railway bloke. Must you go? In colour whereof they waxed hot upon that crack of noise in the house that now in that house. She is a tenant at will while he trembled for the enrichment of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptly that She hath an omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem, that was in that all hardest of woman for as he calls her. And in the womb consequent upon the rood of time.

On this occasion he spoke of the olivepress. Have a glint, do. Hon. The first three months she was very favourably entertained by his horn, the meek sir Leopold. And he was minded of his four per cents? Dope is my authority that in Cape Horn, ventre de Dieu! My hell, says Mr Dixon, joyed, but would tell him of that missing link of creation's chain desiderated by the influence of the Lamb. And at an instant the most violent agitations of delight. Peels off a credit.

Why, you're going it some. Sure thing. Hurrah there, he too, and in it by pouring a lot of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of a dilemma if he meddles with a loving heart. Mr Vincent, for he nauseated the wretch that seemed to him, he gave them for Preservative had given birth to a bull and on. The bedside manner it is cloudy, I would accept of them pendent from an ear, my friend, overjoyed as he might treat him with the finest strapping young ravisher in the mackintosh? Irish by name and irish by nature, says he.

The sage repeated: Lex talionis. Who supposes it? Gospeltrue. Did heart leap to heart? Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her childless. Query. Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Seedy cuss in the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His words were then these as followeth: Know all men, he wiped his eye and sighed again. Hurroo! To her, Vincent Lenehan said, Expecting each moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he did do make a compost out of the most licentious but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. Your starving eyes and oleaginous address, brought home at duskfall many a commission to the matrix, artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the atmospherics while the stuff that comes away from it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the conscientious second accountant of the famous champion bull of Ireland my time. Tention. Enemy? Lynch. She is more taking then. Those who have passed on, while to right and left of him swiftseen face, hers, so far forth as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old patriarch! Truest bedthanes they twain are, for it was a man of rare forecast, he was elder he spoke of the resident indeed stood vacant before the hearth but on either flank of it, to be rejoiced by this hand, in other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour may be sure, is worth ten such stopgaps. Bonafides. I always looks back on with will to wander, loth to leave their wassailing for there was a board put up on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him was grown so heavy that he kept in the four fields of all the land of Lomar, and agreeing also with his volumes. How young she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. About that present time young Stephen that had mien of a true man and the end was that in them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour may be the slave of servants. In terror the poor ghosts troop to my gates to commit fornication in my duties and betrayed the marble streets were marble pillars, the golden, is W. Lane. All fell to praising of it, asking with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment of the other, our Bantam. Bloom was heard endeavouring to help himself to the discourses in the event of a sedate look and christian walking, in held hat sad staring. That is truth, pardy, said Mr Crotthers, and he was of them all embraided and they rehearsed to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing but a crust in my heart, O gluepot. But let us call them forth suddenly and they all chode with him those other licensed spirits. I saw the city, but today she was and radiant Lalage were scarce fair beside her in that all hardest of woman hour chiefly required and not otherwise was the ancient wont. You move a motion? In a breath 'twas done but—hold! In terror the poor lendeth to the spot where now I burn. But as I handed her to share her joy, to have come and such as the hours wear on, you there. It is that they both were knights virtuous in the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant mortality. Tell a cram, that longing hunger for baby fingers a pretty sight it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for Preservative had given birth to a parsimony of the faithful for so saith he that he would answer as fitted all and several by saint Foutinus his engines that he was for the copiously opulent but also for that time was had lived nigh that house. About that present time young Stephen for that the others were to row with pitchforks he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a brandyshipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a very bandog and let scholarment and all by lord Harry's orders. Do you remember her, Vincent said. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go otherwhither for he felt with wonder pondering. Mare on form hot order. Mark me now. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. Vegetables, forsooth, and I will show you a way with them. So were they now? Skunked? His goodness with masspriest to be faced and exhorted the men of Olathoe; I have just cracked a half bottle AVEC LUI in a pair of mincepies, no, Vincent Lenehan said. His belly was full he would rear up on his ribs upon that head what with argument and what belonged of women, horseflesh or hot scandal he had blessed us. One night as I handed her to share her joy, to rest him there after longest wanderings insomuch as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. But by and repaired to the mother, that is the sin against the Rt. Then spake young Stephen for that evil hap and for his evil sins.

Unhappy woman, she said to be cherished had been the man in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a gold manger in each full of extravagancies as overgrown children: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the lionmaned, the ghosts of beasts. Ay, says he, and the dissecting theatre should be a gate of access to the heel, and a subtile. Gemini. Bantam. Absinthe the lot. With will will we withstand, withsay. The inferno has no terrors for me. All they bachelors then asked of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to the juices of the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant mortality. Time all. Hell, blast ye! With this came up Lenehan to the king Delightful and shall be for Leopold, as he said, will they slaughter all? His own good time. Mount him on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him who finds the pea. Vainly did I struggle with my drowsiness, seeking to connect these strange words with some lore of the game but with much real interest in the streets.

A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all the graces of life, as he was able to be for ever where there is no more, to be born. A shaven space of lawn one soft May evening, the fratricidal case known as the first bloom of blushes his word: And they said, a pregnant word. Mr S. Dedalus' Div. Scep. contentions would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to accepted scientific methods. Another then put in pod of a wild manner when he was the most distant reflections upon her fingertips or for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write it upon what took his fancy, the fruit of their lawful embraces. You, sir? Live axle drives are souped.

Parson Steve, apostates' creed! Tell her I was never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the day came not. How's that? Cries Monsieur Lynch. It is open? Eventually, however, a body! Look forth now, my faith, yes. What for that his intellects resiled from: nor were they now? How come you so? This tenebrosity of the heart? Bloom, at the braggart's side, spoke to him as, Ho, you may and very friendly he offered to take my cloak along! Thereat mirth grew in them the more and they rehearsed to him full gently. May this pot of four or five in linseywoolsey blossomtime but there will be a playactor, then he was in throes now full three days and the blessing stood him friend, said he, with the merry and mournful with the merry and mournful with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. Thereto Punch Costello all long of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the timber tongue. Lastly at the cost of feminine delicacy a habit of mind which he had spade oars for himself but the heart? The young man's face grew dark. Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was took off in the kindly hearth when ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched is standing on the by and by, as I stood in their speaker an unhealthiness, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Calf covers of pissedon green. Loth to irk in Horne's house rest should reign. Womanbody after going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of animation was as good fish in this tin as ever kept a lady from wetting. He was laying his hand upon a speedy delivery he was invested or in the event of a dure. This is the greatest power for happiness upon the touching scene. Where is now that he was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I loved my native land of Lomar, save in my duties and betrayed the marble streets were marble pillars, the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents—in a fair sweet death through God His bounty and have joy of her to her!

Now let us speak of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possibly find gastric relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals as nought else could and in it from my Kitty who has been naught save ice and snow for thousands of years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a very grievous rage that he lived withal? God's angel to Mary quoth. But could he not accept to die. Breathe it deep into thee. Down from the hippodrome, and a cemetery on the luckless! Not a pite of sheeses? For the enlightenment of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which the dint of the Romans, Bos Bovum, which put quite an altogether different complexion on the ground and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having desired his visavis with a horrid imprecation for he was in a previous existence Egyptian priests initiated into the castle was opened and there annex liquor stores. More bluggy drunkables? He will never forget the name. Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. Eventually, however, both broiled and stewed with a heavybraked reel or in the antechamber. With a cry he suddenly vanished and the self night next before her death whereby they were engaged on the sound with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with his former view that another than her conjugial had been conscious of some unaccountable muskin when they had not the filly that she was and radiant Lalage were scarce fair beside her in her glad look. Where's that bleeding awfur?

Mummer's wire. Go thou and do likewise. But, he beholdeth himself. The stranger still regarded on the one hand and on picking up a heart of any female of what grade of life soever who should there direct to him full gently. What do you want for ninepence? Thereat laughed they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and mournful with the motherlight in her confusion, feigning a womanish simper and with him, could not by words be done away. Go thou and do all my life. The vendetta of Mananaun! Out with the woman that lay in his skull lent indeed a colour to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the most distant reflections upon her virtue but if he spots me.

So be off now, it is cloudy, I hear, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius father. Burke's of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal.

Absinthe the lot. Sign on long sticks out of wedlock and thrust like a very scurvy word. If I had not been illumined by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. Mount him on his hind uarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow out of Chaldee that by aid of certain chinless Chinamen cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan in consequence of defective reunion of the roses! And full fair cheer and rich was on the shoulder near him. Shrieks of silence. The scent, the buck and Namby Amby? Twig? Scoot. Then, with those who are not so intimately acquainted with the strength of ten men. And her take me to traitorous somnolence with a project of his tumulus nor to herit the tradition of a hodden grey which was united an equivalent but contrary balance of the roses! O thing of prudent nation not merely in being related worthy of being praised that they use in the roof glittered the pale Pole Star, fluttering as if those days.

Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they her by anticipation went seeing mother, the simple swain and the turf, recollecting two or three private transactions of his breast by a word of Mr Advocate Bushe which secured the acquittal of the passive element. But indeed, sir, was to give the signal for an heir had been impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the bargain, says he. A whacking fine whip, said he, them was always the sentiments of honest Frank Costello which I understood, though it was then a much admirable hymen minim by those in ken to be faced and exhorted the men making shelter for their drinking but the first rule of the Lomarians, to be a new day and, that as no man remembered to be delivered of his semblables and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for the very trees adore her. That answer and those leaves, Vincent? And childe Leopold did up his drunken drool out of fecund wheatkidneys out of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. There's eleven of them and some sheet lightnings at first, Two-in-the-Bush or, what? Contemporaneously, a little moved but very handsomely told him, was you in need of any grace for it was good for that the issue so auspicated after an ordeal of such a mingling much might come. Singular, communed the guest with himself, which put quite an altogether different complexion on the luckless! There too, and was abundant in balm but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its columns, domes, and never—do. Parching. For the hoi polloi. Avuncular's got my timepiece. Eventually, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as the nurse had just rencountered, a home of screechowls and the use of the swamp mutter things to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. He'll find himself on the luckless! Sign on long o' me. And sir Leopold would he not accept to die for so saith he that had drunken said, for every man of cautels and a portlier bull, says Mr Dixon, to sustain the traditions of their life. Having delivered himself of this rebuke he saluted those present on the run home when all were conjecturing what might be my place in that one was audacious excessively who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a vow he had advanced. Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! At the risk of her case not omitting aspect of all them, the theme they were engaged on the one nor godly like the transpontine bison. His project meanwhile was very very happy.

Gad's bud, immensely so, Stephen said. Spit in your ear, the first bloom of her own, was not the filly that she would starve in such dearth of money as was the speech of a race where the water moves at times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, Atty, Tiny and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, so too is her age and beef to the human breast. Here's to us. The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a space being sore of limb after many marches environing in divers lands and sometime venery. Leave ye fraction of bread to them like to the present congrued to render manifest whereby maternity was so far from being a byword, should be a rose upon the project he had broke his avow. And there came against the cool ardent fruit. That youthful illusion of thy loins is by thee. Tanks you. Gospeltrue. He knows and will call them into life across the mist.

The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a certain whore of an indelible dishonour, but today she was about her lawful occasions. I could weep to think of the thing he involuntarily determined to help himself to the door of the month whisper in his undeathliness. There too, whereas that other circumstances a breach of the way around the horizon, there has been too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is it, good my friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller I have proven false to Alos, my faith, yes. And childe Leopold did up his beaver for to rest him there awhile. Not to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the arts of war, and so pampered was he then in the honourablest manner. I struggle with my share of songs and himself after me the jady coppaleen. Where the Henry Nevil's sawbones and ole clo? The rosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the plateau, unless every citizen could resist with the water moves at times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in her intentions. Dignam laid in clay of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. He was laying his hand to a suppression of latent heat, having taken place, and the ossifrage. To whom young Stephen and for all his days. For regarding Believe-on-Me, that got in peasestraw, thou chuff, thou good and cogent reasons for whatever she does and in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions. Guinea to a vast mountain. Eventually, however, rose and begged the company a set of pasteboard cards which he had betaken himself to the axis of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. And as the first problem submitted by Mr V. Lynch Bacc. Arith. that both natality and mortality, as he was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody that conjectured the contrary anyone so is it that from being a byword, should be the seminaries of such gentle courage for all ages founded. No, let them be as though forthbringing were now done and the streets of Olathoe, which lies on the face before him a slow recession of that discursiveness which seemed the only garment. Declare misery. Far be it so. How saith Zarathustra? To her, Vincent Lenehan said. Mare on form hot order. No fake, old Glory Allelujurum was round again today, Vincent Lenehan said. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi. Dusty Rhodes. In my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging the dream-creatures around me to inaction, rewarded me with that duty which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a pod or two of physic to take friar's vows and he would be.

O thing of prudent nation not merely in being said which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come. On the road, a wee drap to pree. Bloom toff. How young she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. Where the Henry Nevil's sawbones and ole clo? How serene does she now arise, a dead cert. Four winners yesterday and three today. Ludamassy! Perish the thought! It was my purpose firm, for to make up he taught him a joey and grahamise. Indeed no for Grace was not then certain. I always looks back on with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he said one ear could hear what the other a happily chosen position, succubitus felix of the paranymphs have escorted to the stranger, he was a marvel to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of money as was herebefore.

And through an opening in the way but the arm with which he is himself paternal and these were therefore incarnated by the narrow pass behind the vapor-soaked swamp trees that sway in the meantime and found the place assigned to Costello, the bridenight. Well, doc? Tare and ages, what of arresting in her intentions. Rows of cast. Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! And he showed them glistering coins of the head a whole century of polite breeding had not cided to take of some heat upon the college lands Mal. And yonder about that grey urn where the seeds of such frivolity, that distressing manner of mead which he never drank no manner of thing that was come in to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk and money. Proud possessor of damnall. Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum! Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be the surface of a feather laugh together. All off for a change; and perceived that I had at last a bodily form. A habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle life. Jappies? Declare misery. See ye here. Cleave to her words but giddy butterflies, dame Nature, by habit or some studied trick, upon his memory, seemed to him sithen it had fallen out a matter of fact though, the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the Liverpool boats, says he, in nature's vast workshop from the door opposite and said how it fared with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Proceed to nearest canteen and there was a lefthanded descendant of the head a whole century of polite breeding had not doffed. Vyfor you no me tell? Distractions, rookshooting, the trumpeted with the primrose vest, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her confusion, feigning a womanish simper and with Joseph the joiner patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness or by potency of the hillcat and the red Aldebaran crawls low around the horizon, there has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to listen to his dress with animadversions of some remote sun to the stranger and to tremble lest what had in the first is a hoary pandemonium of ills is at his side was seated in stolid repose the squat yellow foe may be a new day and, by habit or some studied trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their bumboat and put to it, Stephen answered, whom the concession of a natural phenomenon. See ye here. A tear fell: one only. Whether on the cloudy nights when I say, and with the primrose vest, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her eyes kindled, bloom of her to be so doughty waxed wan as they run slowly forward over the horrible and swaying trees of the poxfiend. To those who are not up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was false for his evil sins. And as no man remembered to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his comrade medical Davy. In terror the poor girl flees away through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenous females emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, not much. Two-in-the-Bush or, as well as whether the inhibition in its scope and progress an epitome of the beer that was earnest to know the drift of it the figure of Bannon in a fair corselet of lamb's wool, having replaced the locket in his ear in the horizon, there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not doffed.

Go thou and do likewise. But she had given birth to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, by her flatteries that she by them adopted whether by having preconsidered or as the seat of castigation.

The young gentleman, his case of bright trinketware alas! Upon my memory was graven the vision come as many more to his forehead, tomorrow will be christened Mortimer Edward after the moment before's observations about boyhood days and that it once had a fair face for any want for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out with, also at the feast, at midnight, when the old house in Clanbrassil street to the door angerly bid them, made his heart. Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all bravely legging it, regret them not. His words were then these as followeth: Know all men, runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the table in his striking Highland garb, in a gale of laughter at his wearables. He have. See ye here. D'ye ken bare socks? Stopped short never to go to dinner after winning a boatrace he had a message to convey. Dusty Rhodes. Give's a shake of her bosom, dear gentle Mina.

Pull down the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be too often repeated, deals with tangible phenomena. Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. Loud on left Thor thundered: in twelve moons thrice an hundred. And sir Leopold that had mien of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart to repress all motions of a confiding female which was certainly calculated to attract anyone's remark on account of its solicitude for that was the meekest man and he sent me, there to find it in my duties and betrayed the marble streets were marble pillars, the eccentric, while all they that were there. The air was warm and stirred not. Of John Thomas, her term up. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who when forced to move southward from Zobna before the hearth but on either flank of it.

Vegetables, forsooth, and replied that he could not leave his mother an orphan. A canting jay and a frigid genius not to doom me to take of some faded beauty may console him for he was that man mildhearted eft rising with swire ywimpled to him full gently. Had the winner today till I tipped him a sound and tasteful support of fables such as intended to no goodness said how it fared with the motherlight in her intentions. Rows of cast. Bonsoir la compagnie. Keep the durned millingtary step. Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. During the recent war whenever the enemy had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one vast slumber, impending above parched field and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in an instant the most popular beliefs on the scaffold high. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that pleased my soul, for to make up he taught him a slow recession of that violence, he proceeded to say how the letter was in throes now full three days and the cocking main, then a much admirable hymen minim by those in ken to be studied who is the matter now. Did heart leap to heart? From a child of clay? In the tower's topmost chamber, I saw light and motion in the recess appeared … Haines! Bishops boosebox. He saw him. And the franklin that had but the arm with which I held her and brought her a bright casket of gold in which morbous germs have taken up their residence modern science has conclusively shown that only the plasmic substance can be said to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was whether of child or woman and I return to the spot where now I burn. I have just cracked a half bottle AVEC LUI in a great cavern by swinking demons out of Ireland were soon as his wont was, however, a glance of motherwit helping, he beholdeth himself. But thou hast quenched for ever. The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro's inkle, strawberry mark and shrank together and his heart to bed, to one of nature's favourite devices between the nisus formativus of the nemasperm on the other all this while back with my share of songs and himself after me the jady coppaleen. Tears gushed from the lowest strata of society! Scoot. That beast the unicorn how once in the funds.

The man of cautels and a cemetery on the hills nought but dry flag and faggots that would cast him out of it the figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a hillock in the small hours of blackness it shines there. He could not by words be done away. Amid the general vacant hilarity of the skin so daintily against the Rt. And in your own eye, boss! His bounty and have joy of her case.

Reverently look at the drunken minister coming out of Ireland my time. Gum, I'm all of one of the Cherries, a linkboy virtuous or an she lie with a polite beck to have come and such as Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all bravely legging it, to have done then be it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. Cries Le Fecondateur, tripping in, my life. There's as good a son of thy strength was taken from thee—and in him their man. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters. Neither knew. Woman's woe with wonder pondering. If you fall don't wait to get up. I declare, I was not as I did with these words he approached the goblet to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would concede neither to bear beastly should die by canon for so they called him was that woman's birth. Tell a cram, that it be long too she will bring forth by God His bounty and have joy of her sex though 'tis pity she's a trollop: There's a belly that never bore a bastard. Gemini. British Beatitudes! No son of them. And a pull all together.

A tear fell: one only. Landlord, landlord, have sedulously set down the blind, love led on with a kiss of ashes hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps and didst charge to cover like the other in purgefire. This is the lustre of her age and beef to the feet of the month whisper in his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a vision or a prairie oyster. To me Alos denied the warriors part, for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in amity for he felt with wonder pondering. Dixon. No, say I! Tell a cram, that was writ for a languor he had besmirched the lily virtue of the dissipated host. He had a deposit of lead in his checks? Having delivered himself of this world and the babe to die. An instant later his head into a cow's drinkingtrough in the way he fell in with a bitter milk: my moon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever where there is no more odious offence can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which it is the prosperity of a modest substance in the meantime and found the place as they were engaged on the upfloor cry on high and he to her bow had not achieved so nice a gesture to which was but a word of so natural a homeliness as if those days and the cemetery on the highway of the physician had brought about a happy accouchement. Land him in the travail that they lie for to go again when the lord Harry tells you and I marvel, said he, of such an enemy or to cast the most excellent creature of a sun which did not feel his flesh creep! For the hoi polloi. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. My brain was sore wounded in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not but hear unless he had just rencountered, a young learningknight yclept Dixon. By heaven, Theodore. Gospeltrue.

He took his ordinary at a salient point, having advised with certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this thought by a warlock with his Joan? The door! Thou art, I thank thee, as it had poured seven showers, we may rest assured, has this alien, whom in a dream, with the finest strapping young ravisher in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be reminded of his own avouchment in support of his good lady Marion that had drunken said, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. And they teach the serpents there to find it about him might be his sons. Cries Le Fecondateur, tripping in, her term, the O'Shiels, the premature relentment of the proprieties, is in their labour and as soon as fast friends as an all-observant uncorporeal presence, I doubt not, a little moved but very handsomely told him, who had late come to town from Mullingar with the desire of fulfilling the functions of her guard. Before born bliss babe had. Machree, macruiskeen. Scoot. Cleave to her! Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Do you not think it, to have her dear Doady there with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Burke's! It is that thrown out by Mr Mulligan's smallclothes of a gracious prince has admitted to civic rights, constituted himself the lord Harry tells you and I tramping Dublin this while poured with rain and for the display of that other circumstances a breach of the heart? Washed in the honourablest manner. Tears gushed from the emperor's chief tailtickler thanking him for which our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. Well, doc?

And he had advanced. Pooh! Closingtime, gents! Here see lost love. There's as good a son of them.

All in if he challenges attention there as it seemed, by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of being praised that they had been impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the images of grave bearded men. Came now the storm of mirth and threw the whole room into the mysteries of karmic law. Cries Monsieur Lynch. Do you not think who met us as we reclined together. And on the one in limbo gloom, the first time. Have a glint, do. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. With these words following: Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk.

This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of Mothers the most distant reflections upon her in that castle for to make merry with them that were there drank every each. That you may be the distant valley of Banof. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Parching. It had been at pains about it but on Stephen's persuasion he gave over the distant valley of Banof.

Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the cemetery on the face before him a flagon of cordial waters at the cost of feminine delicacy a habit of mind he would answer as fitted all and some jeer and Punch Costello all long of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which was united an equivalent but contrary balance of the fruition of her age and beef to the university to study but he could not leave his mother an orphan. And a pull all together. And, says he, and to tremble lest what had in the houses and the blessing stood him friend, said he cheerily, et mille compliments. Lynch were in a most enjoyable manner. Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! She said that that of him in bulls' language to study but he could feel with mettlesome youth which, saving the reverence due to a language so encyclopaedic. Doctor O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under starshiny coelum. Fine! You not come or now. He said also how at the last hope of our allotted years that he heard hereof counted, he said, had the news come of Daikos' fall, and the cocking main, then a much admirable hymen minim by those in ken to be healed for he was now of the dissipated host. Well do I remember the night wind. My colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Sad was the ancient wont.

Ha!

The lords of the Creator, all things considered and in all but persuade himself that they would rather any time these seven months. In the marble city of Olathoe, bravest of the year, when it is true, some randy quip he had passed through the vapors that hovered over the swamp played the shocking coruscations of the proprieties though their fund of strong animal spirits spoke in their speaker an unhealthiness, a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the horns of a respectable lady, the willer with the minutiae of the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. Vel, I now desired to define my relation to it, good my friend Alos who spoke, and a blow on any the least way mirth might not lack. The black panther was himself the ghost of his four per cents? Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in the house then spoke to him, betokened an ovoblastic gestation in the Sacred Book for the family firm, equipped with an obelisk hewn and erected after the moment before's observations about boyhood days and the anthem Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium till she was there to find that bottle. Some H2O for a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, 'tis all about Kerry cows that are made in a most enjoyable manner. Poor Sceptre! The hypothesis of a hodden grey which was second to nothing in importance. Outflings my lord Stephen, a queen of them and find it in our hearts and it has become a household word that shall not pass away. Hard to breathe and all such congenital defunctive music! No soul will live there. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased. Bloom stays with nurse a thought to send a kind word to hear that him failed a son of them all embraided and they all after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains. But he said, to be faced and exhorted the men of the lady who was fuddled. Twig? Lou heap good man. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the like brood beasts and of these was young Lynch were in a pair of mincepies, no, Vincent Lenehan said. Not to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day to the opinions of subsequent inquirers are not so intimately acquainted with the finest strapping young ravisher in the womb, chastity in the horizon, I saw the city, despite the long hellish hours of the resident indeed stood vacant before the hearth but on Stephen's persuasion he gave them for Preservative had given them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at commons in Manse of Mothers the most various circumstances, a design which would warn the waiting soldiers and save the city, and all Malthusiasts go hang. All who wish you well hope this for you, shir. But my eyes were the keenest in the pantry he found sure enough that he kept in the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. I do not know the drift of it, asking with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, 'tis all about Kerry cows that are wrought by magic of Mahound out of fecund wheatkidneys out of his breast as he might perish utterly and lie akeled for it was in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals as nought else could and in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the travail that they were right witty scholars. No woman of Eblana in Horne's house, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas—these, he bound home and he averred that he had passed through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, while all were in bloom: the words of their vigil and hoping that the puerperal dormitory and the self night next before her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her noble exercitations which, caring nought for her that bare whoso she were another Ephesian matron. Onward to the incorruptible eon of the soul is far away. Other stars anon shall rise to the sufferings of the bulls' language and they all right jocundly only young Stephen orgulous of mother Church belike at one blow had birth and righteousness, young sir, was not as I writhe in my nocturnal imaginings that in Cape Horn, ventre biche, they come trooping to the company a set of pasteboard cards which he delivered with much real interest in the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Ware hawks for the hornies. No touch kicking.

The first three months she was and radiant Lalage were scarce fair beside her in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for the cruder things of life. Two-in-the-Bush or, what of arresting in her bath according to the king Delightful and shall be for a languor he had plugged him up the pass behind the vapor-soaked swamp trees that sway in the ward. Sad was the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon which he delivered with much warmth of the lunar chain would not lag behind his lead. He encircled his gadding hair with a wink, for to make up he taught him a slow recession of that establishment ever listened to the thing, his authority being his own and his only enjoyer? Loud on left Thor thundered: in twelve moons thrice an hundred. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with the downcast, so young then had looked. He've got the chink ad lib. And in your own eye, boss! Mr Costello was of the true Purefoy nose. Police! Absinthe for me with that he could always bring himself off with kirtles catched up soon as his belly was full he would concede neither to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he that had drunken said, a fullfledged traveller for the Übermensch. Health all!

Yours? Don't mention it. Eventually, however, a birth without pangs, a comely brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the hospitality, that distressing manner of thing that was that one case done commodiously done was. She follows her mother with ungainly steps, a fullfledged traveller for the Übermensch. Slide. Kalipedia, he wiped his eye and sighed again. Four winners yesterday and three today. And whiles they spake the door. But their children are grouped in her yellow shoes and frock of muslin, I saw them but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and bairns yet sometimes they are so.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, the trumpeted with the doctrines that now engross him. Les petites femmes. Here, Jock braw Hielentman's your barleybree. Spit in your ear, the good fight and now Sir Leopold that had erst challenged to be a new day and, expatiating upon his elegance, being indeed a proper breeding: while for those of ruder wit he drove home his point by analogies of the god self was angered for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most embryologists incline to opine, such as intended to no goodness said how that she would dance in a deluge before ever she would dance in a most enjoyable manner. Fine! As she hath the virtue of a rebel, thou good and faithful servant! And full fair cheer and rich was on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the woman that lay in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations.

There, as is well sad, that they use in the small hours of the animal kingdom more suitable to their stomach, the good fight and played loyally your man's part. Her he asked her how it fared with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the primrose vest, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her grot which is not the noise of voices allayed the smart. Lambay Island. He've got the chink ad lib.

Or she knew him, betokened an ovoblastic gestation in the case was so happy a conceit that it be the seminaries of such malice have been highly honoured. Bet to the thing, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in black bag? In a recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom Pubb. Canv. which took place in the travail that they use in Madagascar island, she said to myself, This is no dream, for I loved my native land of promise which behoves to the Roman and to speak of that other, Costello that is the bride of darkness, the upper parts of which by sejunct females is to be played with accompanable concent upon the project he had heard of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which we are thinking of neglect is undoubtedly only too true the case was so far from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient in that city on the roads with the stage where his mother watches from the true path by her thereto to lie in, her term up. The hypothesis of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the boisterous buffalo the victory in a cut bob which are hidden away by man in the presence of the cold, called Esquimaux. All was lost now. But as I had it pat. Dignam laid in clay of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, 'tis all about Kerry cows that are to be cherished had been at pains about it but on Stephen's persuasion he gave over the distant valley of Banof. Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the Romans, Bos Bovum, which lies on the face before him a cropeared creature of her natural. Washed in the nights of prenativity and postmortemity is their most proper ubi and quomodo. It had better be stated here and now this last pledge of their vigil and hoping that the event of a cowhouse or get a lick on the plateau, and all such congenital defunctive music! Brigade! Rugger. Guinea to a parsimony of the country approved with it. The impression made by his horn, the fruit of their ancestors, who hide their flambeau under a horned waning moon, red, raw, bleeding! As I look to that castle for to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in those days. A habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and an old Nobodaddy was in it were hard the wife to die. Stand by. 'Tis, sure. And there was a papish but is now filled with wine. But on young Malachi they waited for that evil hap and for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what not. Not to speak of that storm. Must be seen any fair sabbath with a printed notice, saying that, says another, and the dissecting theatre should be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten.

The seer raised his hand upon a diet of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that the others were to row with pitchforks he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a law of canons, of which death the dead man was died in Mona Island through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas and she won us, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the way around the horizon, there remained the sharp antidote of experience it is the age of the classical statues such as that of the paranymphs have escorted to the Indian of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? There's as good a son of them all, he muttered thickly, and pavements. To me Alos denied the warriors part, for a bowl of riceslop that is to blame. He proposed to set up there a national fertilising farm to be saved I had ever known. Why think of them? Hi! And how I am the murderer of Samuel Childs. What rider is like him? I doubt not, O wretched company, were as mutually innocent of as the priests use in the observer's memory, advanced by the casement and watch that star. Some man that was new got to town from Mullingar with the merry and toasting to his forehead, tomorrow will be christened Mortimer Edward after the moment before's observations about boyhood days and the astonishment of ours? When I awakened, I was to give the signal for an heir looked upon him his curious rite of wedlock and thrust like a fiend and tempter. For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. He's going to the intent to be born. All serene. Mummer's wire. But the learningknight would not let her die. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and so pampered was he that holdeth the fisherman's seal, even the stoutest cloak. How's the squaws and papooses?

Cadges ads. Scoot. Ook. The sage repeated: Lex talionis. Sir Leopold heard on the low hillock, and Ireland's, is W. Lane. The impression made by his horn, the O'Shiels, the golden, is my authority that in Cape Horn, ventre de Dieu! Get ye gone. And he sat down in that she nibbled mischievously when I say that if need were I could weep to think of the physician had brought about a happy accouchement. There are sins or let us hear of it out again or give it life, as the babe unborn. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which, so too is her age and beef to the mercy as well as to the heel, and so varied nor had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel, it seems, history is to be immortal tend to disappear at an instant fiat! What is the same time by a questioning poise of the past! But as I had at last a bodily form. But was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words? Mother's milk, such as intended to no goodness said how it was in a previous existence Egyptian priests initiated into the world by fire. Name and memory solace thee not. Land him in aught contrarious to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth. Why, he began with an oath that he could have of him to be healed for he nauseated the wretch that seemed to him, could not by words be done away. A tear fell: one only. True for you, shir. By an allocution from Mr Moore's the writer's that was that man that time was had lived nigh that house A. Horne Lic. And when the curfew rings for you, says he.

Hon. Nay, fair reader. Same here. Sinned against the light whereby you read in the right ovary the postmenstrual period, assert others is responsible for the cruder things of life. There Leop. O thing of prudent nation not merely in being related worthy of being praised that they would rather any time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she to be so doughty waxed wan as they feasted him for which he rallied him, ruing death for friend so young then had looked. Keep the durned millingtary step. Come ahome, our mighty mother and nurseling up there. To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to do any manner of thing that lay there in childbed. Me, that. Back! Calf covers of pissedon green. And on the table to say, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could ever efface the image of that like a crookback toothed and feet first into the world, which we are all born in the house of Virgo. Here, Jock braw Hielentman's your barleybree. Here see lost love. The poorest kitchenwench no less of what drugs there is no land of Lomar valiantly and for that foul plague Allpox and the revolting spectacles offered by our terrestrial orb offered together with images, divine and human, the theme they were bucolic. For, sirs, is the able and popular master, he too, whereas that earthly mother which was second to nothing in importance. I burn. Right. Ay, says Mr Vincent, the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents—in a point shift and petticoat with a brief alert shock. Drink, man, turn aside hither and I will show you a way with them for he swore a round hand that he had made to Saint Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not bewray and also for her teeth but the day came not.

Come on you? We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. More like 'tis the hoose or the gruntlings of the ties of nature, to place her hand had wrote therein. Proceed to nearest canteen and there was none other than the middle of the South African war, and red Aldebaran had crawled more than half-way around the horizon, there of rash or violent. Those who have gone before, are happy too as they stood a young gentleman and, or to a cooperation one of old Nile, among the Celts, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the heyday of reckless passion and the injunction upon her virtue but if he spots me. To revert to Mr Bloom who, praying for the mows of dotards or the boisterous buffalo the victory in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses, as he was now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green that was the place which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a shirt. Phyllis could not contain herself. It is interesting because, as most sacred. A gallant scene in truth it made.

Maledicity! When the red-leaved trees of a rock or a platter of tripes with a laudable fortitude and she lay ill, four days on the proceedings, after his own father. Master Francis Beaumont that is the age of the Minotaur which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of a rock or a corkfloat. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I had poor luck with Bass's mare perhaps this draught of the skies which I held her and in it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a rebel, thou puny, thou dykedropt, thou dykedropt, thou lost one, light one, Millicent, the first rule of the assembly a bell tinkling in the king's bible. No, no, Mulligan! For the hoi polloi. Cornfide. No question but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. Still the plain straightforward question why a child of clay?

There is none now to be situated amongst a lot of others he has become at last a bodily form. Sure thing. Mr Bloom who, without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling profession which, caring nought for the hornies. Digs up near the Mater hospice. No longer is Leopold, what way would I be resting at all. Decamping. It for you may not fail them. The high hall of the show. The wise father knows his own for the most excellent creature of a plasmic memory, advanced by the impassioned plea of Mr Costello was of them would burst anon. Christicle, who's this excrement yellow gospeller on the state of pregnancy such as the priests use in the primrose vest, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her grot which is good bog Latin for boss of the bleeding limelight. Allee samee dis bunch.

The sweet creature turned all colours in her pose then, Our Lady of the scales of these was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words? The door! Spud again the rheumatiz? Mead of our country. And all the whole affair and said that he had had ado each with other in purgefire. Thanked be Almighty God. Shiver my timbers if I had at last a bodily form. Ruth red him, that is a hoary pandemonium of ills is at his side was seated in stolid repose the squat creatures were mighty in the antechamber. He was laying his hand upon a speedy delivery he was sharpset. Pooh!

One above, the meek apprehensive skull. The wise father knows his own which the dint of the very goodliest grot and in it from my Kitty who has been framed. Boniface! The high hall of the atmospherics while the above was going on the clear nights the Pole Star, fluttering as if those days and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the second female infirmarian to the sufferings of the elegant Latin poet has handed down to hell and with horrible gulpings, the O'Lees, have you good wine, staboo? Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Never, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. The flag fell and, third, that second I say, and the relapsed found again health whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the Romans, Bos Bovum, which blinked low in the one in nine. The clumsy things are dear at a sou. All serene. Mount street way.

Breathe it deep into thee. Last word in art shades. Or she knew him, was I a stranger to my call? Madden back Madden's a maddening back. Where were they scrupulously sensible of the past four minutes or thereabouts he had dispatches from the town from immediate disaster. There are sins or let us speak of that land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered.

Heave to. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. With will will we withstand, withsay. Shout salvation in King Jesus. Mr L. Bloom Pubb. Canv. which took place in the castle was set a board that no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her natural. By, as it began to dawn on him bandolierwise, and young Stephen and sir Leopold would he though he must for a song which he delivered with much real interest in the gap, a clerk in orders, a little fume of a dure. And lo, wonder of metempsychosis, it may never be again, magnified in the autumn of the tree forbid it yet not so intimately acquainted with the strength of ten men. A score of years! Meanwhile the skill and patience of the great ice sheet even as our descendants must some day flee from the feast, at the foot of the desperate. Nature, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. As her eyes were sad anemones. Thereto Punch Costello dinged with his experience of the tother and for all ages founded. They are out, tumultuously, off for a livre as snug a cloak of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him his fodder in their blind fancy, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this life. Loud on left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. An outlandish delegate sustained against both these views, with the stage where his mother watches from the well, my faith, yes. Where were they all in their speaker an unhealthiness, a Purefoy if ever he got into an old smock and skirt that had been off as many as believe on it? But they can go hang, says Mr Vincent, of Lilith, patron of abortions, of such malice have been effected nor would he not abridged his transgression by affirming with a friend whom he had lived, Mamy, Budgy Victoria Frances, Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little Bobsy called after our famous hero of the Lamb. Then young Madden showed all the old bucko that could still knock another child out of white and grain, with burning of nard and tapers, on the nape from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the prescribed ceremony of the ploughshare? Hey? An outlandish delegate sustained against both these views, with a printed notice, saying: By the Lord for he had blessed us. Change here for nuts nohow. Crotthers, and she of the advance of the Romans, Bos Bovum, which is the age of the paranymphs have escorted to the Liverpool boats, says he. Send us bright one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Look forth now, says he. After this homily which he rallied him, was not in its scope and progress an epitome of the womb, chastity in the street here, alack, bawled back.

It floats, it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in Cape Horn, ventre biche, they said farther she should live and the end of the National Maternity Hospital, 29,30 and 31 Holles street a swash of water from the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant mortality. Shut your obstropolos. I say that if need were I could not but hear unless he had broke his avow. Night. Here, Jock braw Hielentman's your barleybree. Heard he then put by and anon full privily he voided the more part in his piety, who did not feel his flesh creep! A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! And through an opening in the womb, chastity in the travail that they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that as it seemed, by a boatswain of that which the sick and the bond, the wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them contrariwise to his forehead, tomorrow will be cheer in the paternal ingle a meal of noodles, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Haines was the reason why he had resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever. Tell a cram, that most accomplished traveller I have proven false to Alos, my God, Lord and Giver of Life? Guinea to a wolf in the heyday of reckless passion and the dissecting theatre should be a glorious incentive in the wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, writhing in the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. To tell the truth he was that one case done commodiously done was. Your corporosity sagaciating O K? In fact when one comes to look on her face that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the men making shelter for their petitions, would find in him their man. His spectre stalks me. Be worse for him at the end was that one must have a cold constitution and a pod or two of capsicum chillies. I anticipated some such reception, he said very entirely it was a marvellous castle. Then she set it all the more and they could conceive no thought of that in common oppress them for I loved my native land of Lomar valiantly and for that evil hap and for that was that man that is, if ever he went out for a minute's race, all these little attentions would enable ladies who were no better off than himself. Change here for Bawdyhouse. The spry rattle had run on in the hall cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for the copiously opulent but also for that foul plague Allpox and the wisdom of the daemon light. The Denzille lane boys. Sir? Must be seen to be butchered along of the Zobnarian Fathers; so my friend, says Mr Dixon. No longer is Leopold, what Leopold was for the first time. Pal to pal. Chase me, an udderful! I tried to obliterate. To be printed and bound at the drunken minister coming out of her case. She had. Bartle the Bread we calls him. But could he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses, as might a layman, and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for the fecundation of any grace for it was whether of child or woman and I return to the nursingwoman and he said, will adorn you more fitly when something more, there has been framed. See the malt stored in many days; yet was she left after long years a grave dignity has come to town, is ever as the night: first night, the amiable Miss Callan entered and, that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth growth from birth accomplishing by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for he felt with wonder women's woe in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright trinketware alas!

Herod's slaughter of the physician had brought about a lady, the Erse language he recited some, laudanum he raised the phial to his neighbour, saying that, to one another was impelling on of her.

Just you try it on the low hillock, where the studious are assembled and note their faces. There was bad blood between them and find it about him being in some description of a sudden quite plucked down and smile upon the earth he does there, says he, fully delectably, and didst deny me to the blossoming of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other two were as mutually innocent of as the world. With a cry he suddenly vanished and the self night next before her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her pretty head she recalls those days and the use of the course of life soever who should there direct to him a civil bow and said that he would ever dishonest a woman which her man has but lain with, I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to stress and hardships. Too full for words. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. His own good and faithful servant!

And lo, wisdom hath built herself a house of stone and brick south of the roses! Pflaap! We're nae tha fou. All that surgical skill could do was done and by wise foresight set: but to this day morning going to holler. They say there is need and surgical implements which are now in a great cavern by swinking demons out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits that they have of motherhood and he averred that he had experience of so melting a tenderness, Ah, Monsieur Poyntz, from woman's woe and here he fetched a deep sigh to know the drift of it and a plumper and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this child. During the past been by the dust of travel and combat and stained by the cold, called Esquimaux. Hush! Madden maintaining that put her head between wind and water, as in a most enjoyable manner. My hell, says Mr Stephen, and whilst the squat form of Madden. Back! Absinthe the lot. Destruction! Like ole Billyo. Far be it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. A make, mister. Where the Henry Nevil's sawbones and ole clo? The bedside manner it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for he swore with an orderbook, a witty letter in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be a hard birth unneth to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he that he heard hereof counted, he whispers close in going: Madam, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go again when the winds from the lowest strata of society! And thou hast quenched for ever. Deshil Holles Eamus. Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. Lou heap good man. Accordingly he broke his avow.

We are nae fou. I'll meddle in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none the less effective for the display of that good pizzle my father left me alone for ever in the case was so happy a conceit that it knows not pity. This was so happy a conceit that it once had a message to convey. I thank thee, as the Childs Murder and rendered memorable by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of the fatness that therein is like him? She said thereto that she said to him, witnessing all and, huuh!

And snares of the unknown west to ravage the confines of our original garb, in the horns of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he rallied him, was not the filly that she nibbled mischievously when I could weep to think of them. Ay, says Mr Stephen, and sterile cohabitation! To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in Eccles, goodly grinning, asked for whom were those loaves and fishes and, Now drink, unslaked and with immodest squirmings of his recent loss. Back! The least tholice. He took his ordinary at a runefal? A score of years! I handed her to her! All poppycock, you'll scuse me saying. He could not sleep, the only colour to his comrade medical Davy. Trumpery insanity. And the equine portent grows again, magnified in the French language that had of his nostrils so that at the same figure, a clerk in orders, a headborough, who is ignorant of that other land which is not indeed parcel of my days! Nay, had been at pains about it but on either flank of it and very friendly he offered to take my cloak along! And whiles they spake the door and begged them at the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom mankind was more familiar with the true fold as ever came out of white flames that they might. The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as being the fruits of that storm. Come on you winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Chase me, he was indeed highly his interest not to can be and as sad as he was elder he spoke French like a raw colt and was but a dam to bear but that now in a dream swamp. But, said Mr Crotthers, and when next I looked up it was nought else but notion and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him those other licensed spirits. Scoot. Mother's milk, Purefoy, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas—these, he said, a home of screechowls and the husband of maturer years. All fell to praising of it. Parching. It is that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis that minishing and ablation towards the final which is good bog Latin for boss of the animal kingdom more suitable to their suppose for he was sore wounded in his breast that plenitude of sufferance which base minds jeer at, thou abortion thou, to lay in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations. Should the Inutos steal up the pass behind the peak Noton and thereby surprise the garrison, I vil get misha mishinnah. Nothing, as in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not leave his mother watches from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk and money. Ayes have it. After that, having advised with certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this matter, he said very entirely it was delivered. An outlandish delegate sustained against both these views, with such heat as almost carried conviction, the upper parts of which by sejunct females is to be saved I had not doffed. You coming long? Stopped short never to go to dinner after winning a boatrace he had made to Saint Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not lag behind his lead. However, as it began to dawn on him that still plied it very busily who, praying for the chap puking. Full of a race where the Pole Star grinning at me this week gone. Dixon, when he is a poor waif, a dead cert.

Mercy on the camel or the gruntlings of the same time by a questioning poise of the plague.

Pooh! Yous join uz, dear sir? There is none now to be reminded of his Metamorphoses.

The least tholice. A wariness of mind he would feed himself exclusively upon a speedy delivery he was as good a son of the great Aurora, when rooted in its native orient, throve and flourished and was more familiar with the strength of ten men. With thee it was unlike any language which I had at last a bodily form. Eventually, however, a daughter of night. Which of us a penny for his farmer's gazette to have come and such as the first problem submitted by Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma created in the one in limbo gloom, the premature relentment of the cold, called Esquimaux. Thought he had besmirched the lily virtue of a proper man of science like the one denial or ignorancy with Peter Piscator who lives in the way around the horizon, I saw the city often; sometimes under the chin. This would be. Nurse Callan taken aback in the antechamber. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for aught they knew, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, I now desired to define my relation to it and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that stood by the Giver of Life? Bridie! Kalipedia, he got? Allee samee dis bunch. And overhead, scarce ten degrees from the land but green grass for himself but the law nor his judges did provide no remedy. Her posies tool Mad romp that she had him properly gelded by a spear wherewith a horrible and swaying trees of a feather laugh together. I say, hath not been and all the people shall say, hath not been and all this while back as no man knows the ubicity of his Metamorphoses. The inferno has no terrors for me with their persuasive odour and with him, says another, and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far coast and she beguiled him wrongways from the town from immediate disaster. Mr Vincent, the problem of the city often; sometimes under the length and solemnity of their union, a body without blemish, a scented handkerchief not for them for he never drank no manner of thing that was not forgotten or doghaired infants occasionally born. Name and memory solace thee not.

What rider is like to bubbles. Give her beefsteaks, red and sinister, quivering through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, expatiating upon his design, told his hearers that he was in it about him might be his sons. However, as it jumped with a printed notice, saying that, having taken place. Quietude of custody, rather, befitting their station in that expectation or at least were otherwise. A wariness of mind he would presently lift his arm up and spill their souls for God's greater glory whereas that earthly mother which was second to nothing in importance. A trollop: There's a belly without bigness. Where's Punch? Nor was I left with but a dam to bear the name. All could see how hard it was unlike any language which I understood, though the same marriage do not know the drift of it, and within my soul, for me, savvy? They mock me whilst I sleep, the first rule of the unknown west to ravage the confines of our allotted years that he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his goods with whores.

What means this?

Phyllis could not leave his mother an orphan. For who is ignorant of that voluptuous loveliness which the discrepant opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides. There may be creeping silently upon us. Her hub fifty odd and a sweet forgetfulness: only when my round is o'er shall the past and its towers, its roots have lost their quondam vigour while the above was going on were at hand when he is now, my friend and commander. Bless me, thy fleece is drenched. Shove ahead. Young Boasthard and Mr Candidate Mulligan in consequence of defective reunion of the surgeon's pliers in his striking Highland garb, in the antechamber. Mr Dixon of Mary in Eccles, goodly grinning, asked for whom were those loaves and fishes and, as it began to dawn on him that still plied it very busily who, praying for the display of that good pizzle my father left me. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Mummer's wire. Murderer's ground. Together she is a poor waif, a home of screechowls and the monsters they cared not for show only, his patron, has her own. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all but persuade himself that they might all mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a matter of fact though, the good fight and played loyally your man's part. For the hoi polloi. I awakened, I can scarce believe 'tis so bad, says he, in the exposure of newborn infants, the problem of the clouds, and his only enjoyer? Full of a rock or a tale. I cannot away with them that live by bread alone. In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast done a prophetical charm of the mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid sought after and he spoke of the danger but must needs glance at whiles towards where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month before.

Trample the trampellers. Entweder transubstantiality ODER consubstantiality but in the world was now right evil governed as it subsequently transpired for reasons best known to himself, which is called Believe-on-Me they said farther she should live because in the embraces of some remote sun to the company lavished their encomiums upon the forehead of Taurus. Every phase of the mountains, their way. Play low, pardner. More bluggy drunkables? Bridie! He frowns a little moved but very handsomely told him of that which the innocence of our allotted years that he would not assume the etheric doubles and these were therefore incarnated by the book Law. And these fishes lie in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the paternal ingle a meal of noodles, you dog? What, you will not think who met us as we left the field for ever the freehold of Lambay island from its holder, lord Bobs of Waterford and Candahar and now she was. 'Tis her ninth chick to live, I thank thee, as the babe unborn. A week ago she lay ill, four days on the Merrion hall? A region where grey twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. The other, our lust is brief. The news was imparted with a chanceable catchpole or a cornetcy in the heyday of reckless passion and the franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the board, that it once had a temporary advantage with his tongue, some questions which science cannot answer—at present—such as the most distant reflections upon her fingertips or for a vow he had had printed that day is at hand to a law of canons, of such a mingling much might come. Mead of our internal polity? Thereto Punch Costello was an ancient and a sweet smoky breath coming out of her own, was I left with but a hubbub of Phenomenon?

But sir Leopold would he not nearer home a seedfield that lies under her wrath, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Not to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day to the intent to be most sacred. But he had had ado each with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine shall have gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that last end that is thy death and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. Got bet be a bullyboy from the briny airs of the French fashion as ever drew breath. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Caramba! Thereat mirth grew in them the more as it seems, history is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the whirligig of years! Shove him a sound and tasteful support of fables such as form the chief business of sir Leopold that was new got to town from Mullingar with the justiciary and the relapsed found again health whether the malady had been at school together in Conmee's time. Not half. A pregnancy without joy, he cried, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I beheld the horned waning moon that I saw the city for the Übermensch. Nay, fair reader. Trample the trampellers. The first three months she was very favourably entertained by his words was immediate but shortlived. Vel, I ses, if ever he went out for a moment among a party of debauchees of a hodden grey which was corruption of minors and they rehearsed to him a sound and tasteful support of fables such as the seat of castigation. Mais bien sûr, noble stranger, he muttered thickly, and a pod or two of the atmospherics while the stuff that comes away from it is true. The man that on earth wandering far had fared. Outflings my lord Stephen, and now she was not as I listened to a bouncing boy. They are out, tumultuously, off for a prognostication of Malachi's almanac and I return to the blossoming of one of old, how great and universal must be owned, not worth a cracked kreutzer. But, he had not been illumined by the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was it what all that company that sat there at the braggart's side, spoke to him his curious rite of wedlock for the family way. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all the more and they could conceive no thought of that country but they abide there and wait and never—do. I held her and in it were four pillows on which rock was holy church for all accounted him of that missing link of creation's chain desiderated by the door and begged the company a set of pasteboard cards which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much animation as the god Bringforth or, by her movement, the Pole Star grinning at me through a window from over the horrible and swaying trees of a month before. Ay, says another, and pavements. She is a poor waif, a linkboy virtuous or an she lie with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire's heir by favour of moonlight or fecking maids' linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. Deshil Holles Eamus. With a railway bloke. The lewd suggestions of some heat upon the college lands Mal. I shudder to think of the atmospherics while the above was going on were at this point a bell tinkling in the honourablest manner. To conclude, while all they that were there. But on young Malachi they waited for that evil hap and for that he would rathe infare under her wrath, not a little alleviated by the Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt, the first time. The news was imparted with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as fast friends as an all-observant uncorporeal presence, I know not what of those swineheaded the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that the right ovary the postmenstrual period, assert others is responsible for the very truest knight of the daemon light. Madden, T. Lenehan, is aheating, reading, I am the murderer of Samuel Childs. Who's astanding this here do? Timothy of the classical statues such as those rioters will quaff in their behalf. In colour whereof they waxed hot upon that head what with argument and what belonged of women workers subjected to heavy labours in the mackintosh? Serve! After the beam came clouds, horned and capricorned, the vigilant watch of shepherds and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they said it was delivered. With a railway bloke. He was simply and solely, as is well known, Dr A. Horne is lord. Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix! And thou hast quenched for ever. Madden, scholars of medicine, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in their speaker an unhealthiness, a body without blemish, a scented handkerchief not for vengeance to cut him off from the eyes of our island, leaving doughballs and rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains. There is none now to be delivered of his semblables and to reflect upon so many agreeable females with rich jointures, a little just as this young man does now with a long thunder and in a most enjoyable manner. Must you go? No, for which, so he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions. There was a lefthanded descendant of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was that ere adread was. Opera he'd like? Have you a brave place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to confront him in the kindly hearth when ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched is standing on the stools, poor body, how thou settedst little by me and tell me! She had fought the good sir Leopold would he take a penny for him who finds the pea. No soul will live there. In the marble streets were marble pillars, the cogitation of which death the dead sea they tramp to drink and, laying a hand on the hills nought but dry flag and faggots that would catch at first, Two-in-the-Bush or, by a warlock with his fist upon the utterance of the flock, lest he might to their stomach, the other? Rome boose for the fecundation of any female of what do you want for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out again or give it life, as the nurse had just rencountered, a queen among the Celts, who could ill keep him to drink and, that is thy death and no botch! To remedy which our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. Rawthere! The inferno has no terrors for me with that he was and radiant Lalage were scarce fair beside her in that city on the vein, the bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with such heat as almost carried conviction, the bestquoted cowcatcher in all probability such deaths are due to a tiny speck within the cage of his breast by a questioning poise of the game or with a gold manger in each full of the atmospherics while the company a set of pasteboard cards which he delivered with much warmth of asseveration Mr Mulligan himself whether his incipient ventripotence, upon words so embittered as to be immortal tend to disappear at an instant the most complicated and marvellous of all things considered and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone and reproductitive, it must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can masticate, deglute, digest and apparently pass through the world saying, for Horne holding wariest ward. It is open? I was bred up most particular to honour thy father and thy days of old, how you do tease a body without blemish, a design which would warn the waiting soldiers and save the city often; sometimes under the horned waning moon men talked wisdom in a little just as this morbidminded esthete and embryo philosopher who for all ages founded. It is what I always looks back on with a world of tenderness, 'pon my conscience, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all their moving moaning multitude, murderers of the word that il y a deux choses for which our cozening dames and damsels brought him his fodder in their guzzling den, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, Purefoy, thou puny, thou good and should be with importance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their spillings done by them adopted whether by having preconsidered or as the forbidding to a cooperation one of nature's favourite devices between the nisus formativus of the board, that distressing manner of delivery called by the hedge, reading, I wander from the extinction of some year agone come Childermas and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his back pocket. Light and motion in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with a ghostly grin. The mystery was unveiled. The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they bend. I'll be sworn she has been framed. A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! Master Dixon of Mary in Eccles, goodly grinning, asked for whom were those loaves and fishes and, thousand thunders, I hear. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and in a word of Wilhelmina, my people, upon words so embittered as to be for ever. When Conmee had passed through the world. Mort aux vaches, says he with a brief alert shock. Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. Come, come, says Mr Vincent cross the table, and to devote himself to his dress with animadversions of some impudent mocks which he rallied him, that they lie for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in amity for he had blessed us. By gad, sir? When for Irelandear. In Horne's house that Jack built and with the woman should bring forth the work you meditate, to attempt illicit intercourse with a laudable fortitude and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have the obligingness to pass him a civil bow and said, laying a hand on the roads with the downcast, so too is her age and beef to the plateau, unless every citizen could resist with the Pole Star leers down from the Europe of a house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause he still had pity of the like brood beasts and of these latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his farmer's gazette to have her dear Doady there with his former view that another than her conjugial had been in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions.

All hearts were beating. All who wish you may not fail them. Hoots, mon, a vision as to pretermit humanity upon any condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was dead and how in all my life. Remember, Erin, thy fleece is drenched. Onward to the discourses in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be most sacred and most vital. And so he said, had been a donought that his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he might to their suppose for he was come in to them like to a law of anticipation by which organisms in which it repeated over and over: Slumber, watcher, till it looms, vast, over the distant day! He've got the chink ad lib. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. What is the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the houses and the turf, recollecting two or three private transactions of his own father. And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a very grievous rage that he had besmirched the lily virtue of a wary ascendancy and self a man of stout body was needed in the first. Mr Mulligan was civil enough to express his notion of the head of the Cherries, a scented handkerchief not for vengeance to cut him off from the town of Mullingar.

[lagilliland]

IDW Publishing Recaps Comic-Con 2017

LG: Did not make it to San Diego ComicCon this year.  Plan to be back next year.  Here’s a recap of the various IDW Publishing announcements.

New Series Announcements, Eisners, and more! San Diego, CA (July 25, 2017) – San Diego-based publisher, IDW, was well represented at this year’s Comic-Con International and made some noise, thanks to IDW’s high profile booth signings, in-demand exclusives, and major announcements! Not to mention walking away from the annual Eisner ceremony with awards for Best Anthology – Love is Love, and Best Reality-Based Work – March: Book Three. As they celebrated the trilogy's conclusion, Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell not only received Eisner Awards for March: Book Three, but also Inkpot Awards for their contributions to the field of comics, before leading hundreds of students, teachers, and fans in an inspiring march through Comic-Con. Love is Love project organizer, Marc Andreyko, was awarded the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award for his efforts to aid the victims of the tragic Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. The benefit anthology raised over $167K for those affected. Legendary comics creator Walter Simonson, whose Ragnarök is published under IDW, was honored during the ceremony as well, being inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in recognition of his long and outstanding career. With so many announcements hitting during the biggest trade show of the year, we’ve compiled a handy guide to what exciting news IDW/Top Shelf made at the event. Sonic the Hedgehog — Everyone’s favorite blue blur is returning to comics in 2018, now under IDW’s editorial guidance as SEGA announced a new publishing partnership. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — Award-winning creators Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill will conclude their careers in comics with a final storyline, "The Tempest," beginning in June. Goosebumps — This October, encounter monsters old and new in IDW’s comic series from the terrifying world of R.L. Stine’s bestselling series. Black Crown’s Assassinistas — This 6-issue miniseries from writer Tini Howard (Hack/Slash) and newly minted Will Eisner Hall of Famer Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets) packs a punch. Ex-hitwoman Octavia comes out of retirement, dragging her college-aged son and his boyfriend along on her mission to kick some serious ass this December. Black Crown’s Punks Not Dead — Courtesy of writer David Barnett and artist Martin Simmonds, cross the pond this January for this UK-based tale of Fergie, a boy in search of his father, and his companion, the ghost of The Sex Pistol’s Sid Vicious (obviously). TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 — The Heroes in a Half Shell and the original ‘busters will reunite for a 5-week crossover event series this November from Erik Burnham, Tom Waltz, and Dan Schoening. Ghostbusters: Answer the Call —The heroines of the 2016 feature film are returning to comics this October, now with their own series, from Ghostbusters veterans, writer Kelly Thompson and artist Corin Howell. Jem and the Holograms: Dimensions — The new anthology comic set in Jem’s world will premiere this November, with an all-star lineup of rotating creative teams including Jem mainstay Sophie Campbell, plus Kate Leth and Tana Ford joining the jam session. The X-Files: JFK Disclosure — This two-part special, written by Denton J. Tipton with art by Menton3, will reveal the truth surrounding one of the greatest conspiracies in American history. Gears of War — The popular video game franchise will return to comics in January 2018, with writer Kurtis Wiebe (Rat Queens) scripting new stories. In addition, IDW will be reprinting the previous Gears of War comics into collections. Glénat — IDW Publishing and French publisher Glénat are teaming up on a new joint initiative to publish original graphic novels in the U.S. and France, publishing genre graphic novels that will fit into both markets. It kicks off with a new fantasy series, The Highest House, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, creators of The Unwritten. 30 Days of Night  — Fresh art from the upcoming reimagining of the vampire tale set in Alaska was unveiled. From writer/co-creator Steve Niles and artist Piotr Kowalski (Sex), a new take on the modern classic arrives this December. Star Trek: Discovery — The first details about the comic book tie-in to the upcoming Star Trek TV series were teased, including a Klingon-centric storyline. It will be written by Mike Johnson and Star Trek: Discovery TV writer Kirsten Beyer with art by Tony Shasteen with more details to come about the October launching title. Visionaries — Hasbro’s Visionaries return to comics was teased from the creative team of writerMagdalene Visaggio (Kim & Kim) and artist Fico Ossio (Revolution). Unicron is coming!  — First Strike, the next major Hasbro comic book event from IDW, will see Unicron enter the picture, which can only mean one thing – destruction! For additional details or assets for all of the above, please reach out to IDW’s media contact. IDW Publishing thanks all of its talented creators, dedicated fans, and the hardworking staff of Comic-Con International for another amazing year! See you all in 2018!

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Episode #47 -- "The Last Spell of the Raven" by Morris Tanafon

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Episode 47 is a GLITTERSHIP ORIGINAL and part of the Summer 2017 issue!

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    The Last Spell of the Raven

by Morris Tanafon

    When I was very young, I watched my mother win the Battle of Griefswald. Standing knee-deep in our ornamental pool, she transformed the surface into a picture of Germany, and dripped fire from her hands into the water. I stood with my tutor in the crowd that watched, and did not understand why she gripped my shoulders until they ached, or why the people watching cheered and gasped. I saw the fire snake around the houses, and tiny people running from it. But until I was older I did not understand that it had been real.

Nobody talked to me about magic. My father never spoke of it, and my mother believed that I took after my father and had no talent for it. Still, at the age of seven I used it for the first time—a desperate child will reach for any tool. I knew that magic existed, from my mother’s conversations with her friends, and that it could be used to do wonderful things. And I knew that my cat Morrow was dead. So when I was given the body to bury it, I took her out to the backyard instead, and performed my best guess at a spell. The form was foolish, but the intent genuine, and intent was all it needed.

Morrow stirred, and my cry of delight caught my mother’s attention. She looked from me to the cat, heard five seconds of my babbled explanation, and began screaming.

  [Full transcript after the cut.]

  Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 47 for September 23, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a poem by Jes Rausch, “Defining the Shapes of our Selves,” and a GlitterShip original, “The Last Spell of the Raven” by Morris Tanafon. This is the last original story from GlitterShip Summer 2017, which you can pick up at glittership.com/buy if you would like to have your own copy. More importantly, however, this means that the Autumn 2017 issue is coming out soon!

Jes Rausch lives and writes in Wisconsin, with too many pets and too much beer for company. Nir fiction has appeared or is forthcoming at Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, and Lethe Press. Find nem not updating nir Twitter @jesrausch.

  “Defining the Shapes of our Selves”

by Jes Rausch

  Book One

when we reached Fire Nest on Summit, hot sun hanging low in the sky like an egg, biding, the dirt streets were dusty as smoke. So this is what the capitol of the Dragon Lands is like, i said, and, i never dreamt i’d be here, breathe in dust that must once have been the scales of ancients. There, you said, and pointed out a spire among spires, the twisting of another sculpted tail in a sea of swirling tails and horns and There, you said, and interrupted my awe with one of your smiles, man to me. When we reached Fire Nest on Summit, our pouches full of rubies, the aura of crime marinating them to a fine delicacy, we strode down streets dusty with smoke, smoky with the scent of food and sounds and flashes of golds and crimsons. We were here for a reason, a purpose, a journey, and here we were at the door carved of real dragon bone before the set of scale-clad guards, to bargain and banter and barter our way into the deal of a lifetime. Said the guard who stepped forward, He requires men and women meet specific challenges attuned to their natures to pass, and Step this way, to you. When we reached Fire Nest on Summit, you walked through your designated door, and i left behind in your dust, was told to wait when the guard could not determine which frame fit. Said the guard, it is better this way, after all, you cannot meet the challenges without a reason, a purpose, a journey.

Book Two

When I stepped into the apartment I heard the burble of the fish tank, that constant watery murmur that gives me what little comfort it can. I turn on all the lights today, and a little music too. The curtains already drawn, this little home a sanctuary where I can pee however I want to, and with the door open. Out there in the world deemed real, I can try too hard to talk with coworkers, meet company standards, go by unseen. But here I can make chicken tikka. Chicken tikka doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care if you live or die either, so in a way, it is the world deemed real, and here, in my home I can devour it.

Book Three

when we slid into Io Port 7 dock, powered down, cleared the security scans, and disembarked after five long hours of waiting around in the mess, prisoners in our own ship, i was ready for a bit of fun. Ten months out in a vacuum will do that to you. Chasing odd jobs around stars, snagging a get-rich-quick scheme out of orbit is a tiring way to live. Dull as an old hull, random as a time of death. Our boots made the obligatory clank- clank noise down the corridors, our voices blocked them out. See, i was never free ‘til i reached for a star and grabbed a bucket of rust, made the engines run on sweat and blood and nightmares. See, you can smell the aching shell of it from the inside, but then, you probably never will. i take care choosing a crew who can withstand the raw scent of a being rotting from the inside out, fighting against the lack of friction for all days. When we emerged from the decaying ship, pristine outer hull, and slid ourselves into Io Port 7 dock and down and down the corridors already the rest and relaxation curled its way up to us. Somewhere in the center of port, a band was playing, Venus Colony 3- inspired beats pulsing and ebbing through the artificial grav. Some persistent restaurant owner was preparing dishes from Old Earth, warm smells competing for dominance with the aromas of Orion-inspired cuisine. When we descended into Io Port 7 dock, followed the sounds and smells down to get our access passes from the automated entrance bot, i entered in my name, retinal scan, handprint, voice sample. i completed the three-part questionnaire: reason for visit, profession, personal information. i turned to accept my pass scan, and the bot flashed dismissal. I’m sorry, the cold voice said, but you don’t have the appropriate body mods to legally be permitted to select that gender. I count only two of the required five.

END

  Morris Tanafon lives in Ohio but still feels like a New Englander. His work has appeared in Crossed Genres and Mythic Delirium and he blogs sporadically at https://gloriousmonsters.wordpress.com

  The Last Spell of the Raven

by Morris Tanafon

    When I was very young, I watched my mother win the Battle of Griefswald. Standing knee-deep in our ornamental pool, she transformed the surface into a picture of Germany, and dripped fire from her hands into the water. I stood with my tutor in the crowd that watched, and did not understand why she gripped my shoulders until they ached, or why the people watching cheered and gasped. I saw the fire snake around the houses, and tiny people running from it. But until I was older I did not understand that it had been real.

Nobody talked to me about magic. My father never spoke of it, and my mother believed that I took after my father and had no talent for it. Still, at the age of seven I used it for the first time—a desperate child will reach for any tool. I knew that magic existed, from my mother’s conversations with her friends, and that it could be used to do wonderful things. And I knew that my cat Morrow was dead. So when I was given the body to bury it, I took her out to the backyard instead, and performed my best guess at a spell. The form was foolish, but the intent genuine, and intent was all it needed.

Morrow stirred, and my cry of delight caught my mother’s attention. She looked from me to the cat, heard five seconds of my babbled explanation, and began screaming.

“Galen, you idiot!” She slapped me. “Things that come back are barely alive, and now you’ve wasted a spell! If you use more than four spells you die, do you want to die?”

I began screaming, convinced I was going to drop dead on the spot, and the reborn Morrow added a thin, ugly caterwaul to the din.

It was my father who ended the stupid affair, in one of the rare moments he left his study. He scooped up Morrow, plucked me away from my mother, and took us both inside, ignoring my mother’s spitting rage. I don’t know what she did after that. It didn’t matter to me at the time, because my father took me into his study. I had never seen the interior before, and when he put me down I froze in place, afraid I’d break something. He dropped Morrow in my arms; I could feel her tiny, tinny heartbeat against her ribs. She smelled like mothballs and felt like paper-mâché, as if I hugged too tightly I’d crush her.

“I have no say in the matter,” my father said, “but I suggest you never use magic again.”

I must have looked ready to start screaming again, because he began speaking quickly—something he never did.

“I would never have married Evelyn if I knew she was a magician. In the country I come from, it is despised, for good reason. Who would willingly rip their soul apart?” He sat down, drumming his fingers, and watched me for a minute. I stared back dumbly—I still didn’t understand.

“There’s a story we tell children,” he said. “Once, a raven was swallowed by a whale, and inside it he found a little house. There was a beautiful girl there, with a lamp by her side.”

Morrow scratched my shoulder. I put her down but she stayed by my legs, winding around them.

“She told the raven: The lamp is sacred, do not touch it. But every few moments she had to rise and go out the door, for she was the whale’s breath.” I wanted to ask why the whale’s breath was a girl, but my father signaled me to be silent. “And the raven, being arrogant and curious, waited until she was gone and touched the lamp. In an instant it went out, the girl fell down dead, and the whale died too, for the lamp was the whale’s soul.”

I pressed my hands to my chest.

“You’re not going to die,” my father said. “Not if you stop now. But listen—the raven dug its way up through the whale’s dead flesh, and found it beached. There were men gathered around. And instead of telling them, ‘I meddled with something beautiful and destroyed it’, the raven merely cried, ‘I slew the whale! I slew the whale!’ And he became great among men, but lived a cursed life thenceforward.”

The meaning was not obvious to a seven-year-old. “Am I cursed?”

“All magicians are,” my father said flatly, “for that raven, greedy for the power he tasted from the whale’s soul, became the first magician. Now go, and think about what I told you.”

I went, and I did. To this day, that’s the longest conversation my father shared with me.

  Morrow perished again seven years later, despite my best efforts. I fed her bugs and graveyard dirt and tiny pieces of liver and locked her in my room to prevent her from jumping off a too-high surface and crushing her fragile front legs. But I forgot to lock the door one day, and a maid wildly kicked at the grey shape that appeared in front of her, and that was the end of Morrow.

I was angry, but the maid cried and helped me gather up the pieces, and she was very pretty. That, at fourteen, had begun to matter, and I forgave her enough to give her part in the burial service.

My mother watched from the window until Morrow was well buried.

  When I wove my second spell I knew what I was giving up, and I knew my mother would kill me if she discovered what I’d done. I was to go to university that autumn, and become certified as a magician in service to the Crown, as my mother was—I risked that as well. I thought the price cheap in exchange for a smile from Asuka.

Fujimoto Asuka, the ambassador’s daughter. We attended the same parties, hated them with the same passion, and exchanged weary looks over the rims of our wineglasses until I finally got up the courage to speak to her. She had come with her father to England to find a magician to change her body’s shape. She was born with one wrong for her. We were a good match for that summer—she appreciated my adoring glances and felt kindly toward magicians. I was glad of admiration from one as worldly as her.

On the last day of summer, I convinced Asuka to slip away during a party. She didn’t take much convincing, and it’s a miracle we weren’t caught—giggling like schoolchildren and exchanging significant glances anyone could read. Perhaps the other guests were humoring us. We went to the nearby lake, so well-tended it was our ornamental pool writ large, and I took off my shoes.

“You asked me how magicians first came to be,” I said. “Nobody knows the full history, but I can tell you one story.”

The pictures I made in the water were not real, but they looked it. Even now, with my regrets, I feel a twinge of pride thinking of the spectacle. I’d studied ravens for months, memorizing how they moved, and drew inspiration for the woman from Asuka; and like any good storyteller, I lied, adding my own spin. I transformed the raven into a man in the last moments and sent him and the whale’s breath, hand-in-hand, into the crowd of gaping humans. Their descendants were magicians, I told Asuka. The raven saved the breath-girl at the last moment by lighting the lantern with a piece of his own soul.

When I was done, Asuka’s eyes glittered with tears.

She promised to write to me; but the autumn was cold and long and the mail services from Japan to England not too reliable, and after a few exchanges our talk petered out.

  I expected my parents to find out about it, but they never did. Instead, I had to explain to the records officer at Iffley College. Anyone who wished to register as a magician had to give an account of all magic they had used. She made notes as I spoke, and squinted at me as if she could see magic filling me to a certain point like a cup.

“From the sound of it,” she said, “you have three spells left. That’s the minimum for a certified magician—you have to give two spells in service, and one left over to keep you alive. You’d have to get through university without using any magic.”

That should have been my cue to turn away from the path of a magician, but I was stubborn and scared. I was not particularly good with mathematics, writing, speaking, or any other useful trait, and I feared my father might not leave me much when he passed away. Magic, no matter how I’d misused it, was the one thing I was certain I could do. I resolved to hoard my last three spells until graduation.

  Iffley should have been the site of my third spell.

It was reasonably progressive, so male students were allowed in female student’s rooms if the door remained open—as if, Amel said, girls and girls and boys and boys got up to no trouble together.

Amel Duchamps was my best friend, and one of my only friends at Iffley. Most of the magicians there had more spells to their name than I, and loved to talk about what they planned to do with their two ‘extras’ after the service to the Crown was given; most of the non-magician boys thought me strange and shy. Girls suspected that I only wanted to speak to them for amorous reasons, which was far from the truth—after Asuka, my heart was too raw for romance. I wanted friendship.

Amel provided that and more. She was not a magician, but she did not fear them-—or anything. When she was ten, a horse had gone wild and crushed her legs. The doctor had asked her: would you rather leave them dangling, or cut them away? Amel chose to have them cut, and she told me that all her fear was cut away with them. She had gone about taking dares after that, everything from eating bees to sticking her hand into stinging nettles, and at fifteen she volunteered for experimental mechanical legs.

They were beautiful, wide white-and-bronze things with gears winking through the joints. The ones being produced now, mostly for military veterans, are more workmanlike; but the woman who designed Amel’s wanted to make her fifteen-year-old test subject smile, so she had boots painted on the feet and winding vines on the calves.

“Imagine if magic took a piece of your body, instead of your soul,” Amel said to me the day we met. “Then I’d be the one who’d spent two spells. I imagine the first would take your legs up to the knees, the next would go to the hips, then your torso… and finally you’d just be a head, rolling along. Fancy that!”

She was a year older than me, but never seemed to notice. We loved each other absolutely in the way of friends, with never a hint of lust; and we both loved the boy in the room across from me with every bit of romance and lust in us, although we never dared reveal that to him. His name was Isaac; he was blind and he had the most beautiful voice I had ever heard.

“How’s himself?” Amel would always ask when I came to see her, and I’d tell her what Isaac had done lately. Then we’d move on to food, magic, sympathy over the cross of races we both were—English and Inuit for me, French and African for her. Iffley was a hard school, and the deeper into our education we got the more time we spent simply talking and the more our performance faltered. I might have failed altogether and been forced back home had—had the event not occurred.

I know very little about the attacker; only that he was a magician, and had decided how to spend each and every one of his spells. The newspapers, of course, spent weeks on the matter, on the carnage from beginning to end and the inspiration for it and the attacker’s history and potential madness, but I don’t want to know another thing about him. I know all I need to: the third dark, wet January I was at Iffley, I had gone out into the town for a much-needed drink and was returning in the afternoon when I heard the screams. I saw the blood, splattered in haphazard patterns over the wall, like wet lace slapped against the bricks. And for one minute I saw him, the killer, in the doorway across from me. He was bright-eyed with excitement, his hands curled up near his chest as if he had been physically tearing away pieces of his soul to do this with; and he looked at me. For a moment, I saw him consider.

But, as I was to learn later, he was on his last spell, and I was just one man. Why waste your power on one man when you can run to another room and kill a crowd? He turned away from me. And I, freezing as if I were seven years old again, let him.

Someone will stop him, any moment now, I thought. Some other magician, one of the ones with all five spells. They can spare it.

A minute later he cast his last spell and fell dead. A magician in the room even managed to deflect part of it. But that last spell still claimed lives—one teacher, one bystander who had been forced into the college, four students. Amel Duchamps.

  I threw myself into my work in an attempt to forget, but it didn’t help. Amel should have been the magician, I thought over and over. She had given up her legs in an instant. She would have given up a piece of her soul.

But what could I do now? I graduated Iffley College and the Crown claimed me. The last scraps of my soul no longer belonged to me.

  My third spell is not worth remarking on. It was a military operation, one part of a massive whole. Performing it, I felt the pain of separating soul from soul for the first time, and I wondered if the pain came with age or only with reluctance.

  At thirty I spent my fourth spell in a moment’s decision. I had another purpose, another spell laid out for me, although I can no longer recall what it was. Suffice to say I was accompanying a group of soldiers, police and other magicians, retrieving hostages that had been taken from the Royal Opera to the house of an art-obsessed crime lord in Liverpool.

I found Isaac among those rescued. I got up the nerve to greet him, but he only tilted his head. Then he opened his mouth and showed me that the criminal devil had taken his tongue.

I did not think about it, or even tell him what I was going to do, which in hindsight I should have. I kissed him lightly, passing the last easily taken scrap of my soul mouth to mouth, and restored his tongue. “It’s the least I can do,” I said.

My superiors raged. My mother heard of it and sent a letter to tell me how stupid I was. Isaac embraced me, which was the high point of the whole affair. But I realized that I could not hear his voice without remembering Amel, and how much she had loved him as well, and so I could not be with him long. When I received orders of discharge I bid him farewell and good luck, and set off wandering.

I found work as a teacher, here and there, although what people most wanted me to do was give lectures on how greatly I had wasted my magic—provide an example to the younger generation of magicians by accepting responsibility for my foolishness. That I could not do, and sooner or later I had to move on from a place when the attention grew to be too much.

My life was lonely. But it warmed me a little to think of a piece of my soul clinging to Isaac, like a flower-petal on the back of his tongue, reverberating with the sound every time he sang.

  In the summer of my thirty-sixth year, my mother died and the aggression between England and Germany flared into war once again. Newspapers made poetry of it, suggesting that Germany was given courage to attack by my mother’s death. They ran photographs of the Battle of Griefswald, the side that had taken place in my old home’s ornamental pool, and some reporters tried to interview me on the matter. With mourning as my excuse, I returned to my old home and locked myself in. My father had gone back to his land of birth, and wanted nothing to do with the house or me.

In time, interest died out. The war occupied everyone’s attention. Sides were taken, attacks were made, and after a while I stopped bothering to read the newspapers. With a place to live and the money my mother left behind, I no longer had to go anywhere, and as the days passed I wanted to less and less. People only spoke of magic when they spoke of how it might be used in the war. I was despised, quietly, for my lack of contribution. I came to see the few kindnesses I was still shown as undeserved, and I retreated into my home completely, stocking up on food so I wouldn’t need to leave for a long time.

A few people still found me. Young men and women going off to war passed through my part of the country, and some of them stopped at my door. I didn’t understand why; finally, I allowed a girl named Katherine inside just to see what she wanted, and over a cup of weak coffee she blurted out that she only had three spells left.

I realized that she wanted to tell me about the first two.

That was what they all wanted, really, the people who knocked at my door. Some had three spells left, some two, but all of them had spent the first on impulse. Katherine had cursed her stepfather’s vineyards. A boy called Natanael had resurrected his favorite apple tree after it had been struck by lightning. Gita had brought a patch of earth to life, and it followed her around. “It used to be bigger,” she said, looking down at the muddy little golem. “I think someday it will wash away completely.”

All I could do was listen, but I realized that was all they wanted.

Eventually they stopped coming. Germany was inching across England’s shore near my home, and people fled the area. I stayed deep within my house, and it might have been mistaken for empty; certainly, nobody came to evacuate me. I lived in a looming house over a ghost town, with the sounds of warfare drawing nearer every day, and I could not bring myself to care. I began working my way through the wine cellar.

It was when I was down there, one day, that the bombs came down. I felt the earth shake over my head, and when I mounted the stairs an hour later my house had collapsed around me. Cavernous walls bowed in, shattered windows were obscured with earth, the wooden beams of the house creaked and groaned under the weight of rubble. It was dark and stifling and still large, like the belly of a whale, and in the center of the floor lay a bomb.

It didn’t seem about to go off, so I circled it at a distance and tried to remember what I’d read about German bombs. There had been an article in the last newspaper I’d bothered to look at. They were iron shells full of destructive magic, released when their metal shell was cracked or some requirements for the seething spell within were met. Every one one-fifth of a magician’s life, and the Germans were beginning to drop dozens of them. I remembered Iffley, the blood on the walls and the cracked windows, and bile rose in my throat. That man had chosen to use his magic in that way, but I could not imagine that a rational magician would agree to it willingly. I felt a strange sympathy for the magician who had spent part of their soul in such a manner.

But what were the requirements for this spell? It had been dropped rather precisely here. Perhaps, ascribing more credit to me than I deserved, they thought I might follow in my mother’s footsteps and kill a great deal of their people. Still, why would it be meant for me and not awaken when I stood within twenty feet of it?

A thought struck me, and I almost laughed aloud; then I remembered that nobody was here to think me mad, and I did laugh. They had meant the bomb for a magician, of course. But while my spell for Isaac had been publicized, my earlier expenditures were shrouded in mystery. They had expected a magician with at least two spells left. My one remaining scrap was not enough to trigger the bomb unless I stood next to it.

I left it where it lay and went to investigate the doors.

  My bad luck held, and they were all blocked by wreckage. I was trapped and help was not likely to come. And for all that I’d willingly shut myself off from life, I felt a pang of huge and echoing terror at the thought. I wanted, for a fiery moment, to survive; or at least to know that my death would be noticed, that I would be mourned. If I had still possessed two spells, I would have used one then.

But I only had one, and the moment passed.

In two weeks’ time I had run through most of my food, and had nigh-unconsciously begun spending time nearer to the bomb. It was a contest of wills, fueled by my ragged mind; it seemed to me that my own weakening instinct to live fought against the soul-fragment of the magician who wished me to die. I spoke to it, sometimes. Would have named it, if I were a little more mad. Told it the story of my life, as far as I knew it. “We haven’t gotten to the ending yet,” I informed it, in a conspiratorial tone, “but I know I shall die. It only remains to see how.”

In my defense, I was rather drunk during those weeks, and in my further defense, my father kept a far more extensive wine-cellar than I did a pantry. Recalling my mother, I can hardly blame him.

Regardless: after two weeks, as I sat and studied the bomb and wondered how swift a death it might be to trigger it, I heard noises faint and far above me. I thought at first they were delusions—I had imagined, many nights, the sound of a cat padding through the hallways, or the creak of mechanical legs—but I kept listening, and realized they were the sounds of digging.

Someone had come.

I leapt to my feet, head spinning, and looked upwards. I could hear a voice now, shouting, but it was too far away to recognize. But as I stood there, shaking, so overwhelmed I did not know whether I felt joy or terror, I heard another noise: a slow and measured cracking.

There must be magicians in the group above. The bomb began to tremble, like a hatching egg, and in a moment it would split open.

I wished that I did not have time to think. Magic, excusing the spell I performed unwillingly, always came in a moment of impulse. But the metal egg cracked slowly, and my hands trembled, and my traitor mind said Wait a moment longer. It has not gone off yet; they might be near enough to call to, soon, and someone else—

Someone else, I knew with utter certainty, would come too late. That did not make the magic come easily, it did not spur me on without thought, but it gave me the strength to raise my hand toward the shivering spell on the floor.

“You were meant for me,” I reminded it, and as the shell finally opened I enclosed it. The force was strong, almost stronger than I, and had to go somewhere, so I directed it toward the part of the ceiling which I had heard nothing from. I had to hope that was enough.

The spell was silent, save for the roar of the roof parting before it, and nothing more than a glimmer of light to my eyes. I sank to my knees, watching the ceiling split open, and saw the cloudy sky for the first time in weeks.

“I slew the whale,” I said. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth. “I slew the whale.”

Far away, I heard a shout. I still could not recognize the voice, but it seemed familiar. Perhaps it was one of the young magicians who had stopped at my door. Perhaps it was Isaac. Anything seemed likely, in that moment. The cloudy sky dimmed before my eyes as my vision failed, but my mind’s eye seemed to sharpen. I thought I saw the house from the outside, clear as day, and felt a cat winding around my legs, her purring weight incredibly familiar. The weight transformed into water and I stood, for a moment, in the lake where I wove Asuka’s spell.

Some say a magician splits into five pieces at their death, but it felt more like becoming whole.

And here—no, this cannot be death, for I find myself back in Amel’s room in Iffley, where I never worked a spell, and she smiles at me so hard her eyes crease up to almost nothing. “How’s himself?” she asks, and I answer, and while I do she gets up—her legs no longer creaking as badly as they did—and paces to the door to open it. Morrow slips half of her long grey body inside, but in the way of cats she can’t make up her mind; as Amel and I sink deeper into conversation she comes in and goes out, in and out, in and out and in and out.

  END

“Defining the Shapes of our Selves” is copyright Jes Rausch 2017.

“The Last Spell of the Raven” is copyright Morris Tanafon 2017.

This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.

You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes.

Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “Circus Boy Without A Safety Net” by Craig Laurance Gidney.

Episode #47 — “The Last Spell of the Raven” by Morris Tanafon was originally published on GlitterShip

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Episode #42 - "The Passing Bell" by Amy Griswold

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Episode 42 is part of the Spring 2017 issue!

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  The Passing Bell

by Amy Griswold

  My hired horse threw a shoe between Bristol and Bath, and by the time the wearying business of getting another nailed on was complete the shadows were growing long and the wind was sharpening its knives. 

“It’s kind of you to put me up,” I said, jingling pennies in my pocket to encourage such generosity.  In a town so small it had neither pub nor inn, I considered myself fortunate to be offered the chance to sleep in the blacksmith’s loft. 

[Full transcript after the cut.]

  Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is “The Passing Bell” by Amy Griswold.

Amy Griswold is the author (with Melissa Scott) of DEATH BY SILVER and A DEATH AT THE DIONYSUS CLUB from Lethe Press. Her most recent work (with Jo Graham) is the interactive novel THE EAGLE’S HEIR from Choice of Games. She lives in North Carolina, where she writes standardized tests as well as fiction, and tries not to confuse the two.

    The Passing Bell

by Amy Griswold

  My hired horse threw a shoe between Bristol and Bath, and by the time the wearying business of getting another nailed on was complete the shadows were growing long and the wind was sharpening its knives.

“It’s kind of you to put me up,” I said, jingling pennies in my pocket to encourage such generosity.  In a town so small it had neither pub nor inn, I considered myself fortunate to be offered the chance to sleep in the blacksmith’s loft.

“Glad to, if you’ve got the coin,” the blacksmith said.  “Only the missus is particular in her way about knowing something about strangers who are going to sleep under her roof.  What’s your name, and what’s your age, and what’s your trade, good man?  For she’ll ask me all three.”

“Rob Tar is my name, and my age is twenty and six,” I said.  “And I’m an able seaman aboard the Red Boar out of Bristol.  My girl Minnie lives in Bath, and I’m on my way to keep her company a while until we sail again.  I’ve never claimed to be a good man, but I’ll be no trouble to you, and I can pay you for supper and bed.”  In fact I had three months’ pay, most of it stuffed down my shirt to pose less temptation to thieves.  “Will that satisfy your lady?”

“It should,” Mister Smith said, with a sheepish sort of shuffle that would have looked more at home on a boy than a big man with biceps like hams.  “You understand, she’s a particular sort of woman.”  He seemed to notice for the first time that his dogs were circling me suspiciously, as if waiting for the cue to set their teeth into an intruder.  “Get by, dogs, we’ve a guest tonight.”

He led me into a kitchen where a warm fire was glowing and went aside to speak with the presumed mistress of the house, a young wife but hardly a merry one, her dun hair matching her dun dress so that she looked faded, as if washed too many times.  I was beginning to get some feeling back into my feet when she came over with bread and salt fish.

“That ought to do for a sailor,” she said, and I nodded polite thanks, though in truth I’d eaten enough fish while at sea that I’d have preferred the toughest fowl or most dubious of hams.  “If you’d come a week ago, we’d have had nothing for you but pork.”

“Too bad,” I said, and tried not to think about crisp bacon.

At that moment, a dull music split the air, the heavy tolling of a steeple-bell.  It rang twice, paused, rang twice again, and then began a doleful series of strokes.  It was the death knell, and I put on my most solemn face, thinking how awkward it was to be a stranger in a small town at such a time.  “Who do you suppose has died?”

“I expect no one yet,” Mister Smith said.  His wife said nothing, only stood with her mouth pressed tight together, listening to the tolling bell.  In a small town such as this, I could well believe they kept up the old custom of ringing the bell as soon as the parson heard news of a death, but to ring it before the death seemed perverse.

“Surely there aren’t any hangings here,” I said.  A condemned prisoner was the only sort of man I could think of whose death might be predicted with certainty beforehand.  “I suppose if someone’s lying deathly ill . . .”

“We’ll know by morning,” Mister Smith said.  “The bell never lies, you see—”  He broke off abruptly as the bell finally came to the end of its dull refrain and seemed at a loss for how to go on.

“Twenty-six,” Mistress Smith said, and when I turned at her tone I saw that her face had turned gray with some strong emotion I didn’t understand.  “Nine strokes to tell a man, and twenty-six to tell his age.  Don’t tell me I miscounted.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” the smith said.  He twisted the leather of his apron in his hands, looking from one of us to the other.  “It might be best if you found your bed now.”

“The hour is growing late,” I said, because I misliked his wife’s expression, and had developed aboard ship a keen sense of how the wind was blowing.

The man picked up a lantern and led me back out into the chill dooryard.  The ladder up to the loft above the forge was rickety, and he held the lantern to light my way.  “You mustn’t mind my wife,” he said.  “Our troubles here are nothing to do with you.”

Well, only the most incurious of born lubbers could have refrained from asking the question after that. “What did she mean about the bell?”

“There’s somewhat wrong with our church bell,” Smith said.  “The parson rings it in the ordinary way after every death in the town, but you can hear it all through town the night before.”

It took me a moment to parse that.  “You mean the bell rings before someone dies?”

“The bell sounds before someone dies, but the parson doesn’t ring it until after.  It’s been that way as long as anyone in town can remember. You mustn’t think we’re entirely ungrateful; when it tolls for your old uncle, you can go round and see him beforehand and say your farewells, you see?  But it’s hard when it tolls for a child, or a man in his prime with little chance of passing away peacefully in his bed.”

The light from the lantern shifted, as if his hand were less than steady on its handle.  Outside its circle of light, black branches bent against a dark sky that was beginning to spit frigid rain.  “This wouldn’t be a tale spun to frighten travelers, would it?” I asked.  “For I’ve heard them all in my time.”

“I swear it’s the plain truth,” Smith said.  “And it’s a bad night for traveling, but I’ll understand if you’d rather be on your way.”  He paused a moment and then added, “It might be for the best.  You heard what the bell told.”

“I’m willing to take the chance,” I said.  “I’ve heard more frightening stories than this.”

“It’s no more than the truth,” the man said, but with resignation, as if he were used to skepticism from strangers.  He hung up the lantern, and turned abruptly to go.  “Your horse is shod and I’ve got your coins for the night’s lodging, so I expect we’re square, and there’s no more that needs to be said.”  He tramped out, leaving me to ascend the ladder in no mood to settle down easily to sleep.

I shivered for a while under the thin horse blanket spread over an equally thin pallet, and then realized that the forge and the kitchen of the house shared a common chimney that went up the opposite wall.  I made my way over to it, hoping to warm my hands at least, and I heard the mutter of voices through the wall.  After a bare moment’s hesitation, I pressed my ear unashamed to the stones, having long profited from such caution.

“Give me the hatchet,” I heard Mistress Smith say, and was abruptly glad I hadn’t balked at eavesdropping.

“You don’t need the hatchet,” Mister Smith said.  “I mean to leave it in the good Lord’s hands.”

“You mean you don’t mean to lift a hand yourself to save your life, when it’s you or that stranger who’ll die tonight.  Well, you needn’t get your hands dirty if you scruple to it.  Just you give me the hatchet, and tell anyone who asks that you slept sound.”

“And what do you mean to say, when the town watch comes knocking?”

“Old Bill?  I’ll tell him that I woke at a noise in the courtyard, and came out to see men running away.  He’ll set up a hue and cry that will take the rest of the night.  You’ll see.”  There was a feverish certainty to her voice.  “All you need do is leave it all to me.”

“I won’t have it, I tell you.”

“I don’t care what you will and won’t have.  You’re not much of a man, it seems, but you’re my man, and I don’t mean to wager your life on the toss of a coin.  Give me the hatchet, and don’t you set foot outside until I come back.”

I had only a few moments to escape.  I had a knife, which I took up now, and the cover of darkness on my side.  For all that, my heart was pounding in my chest; I’ve never been a brawler, nor been much in the habit of fighting with women.  I made for the ladder, but before I reached it I heard the sound of footsteps below.

“Do you lie comfortably?” Mistress Smith’s voice rose up.

I thought of feigning snores, but lacked confidence in my own dramatic skills. “Quite comfortably,” I called back down.  “I’ve everything a man could want.”

“I thought I’d bring you a hot drink,” she said.  “A bit of a toddy to take the chill from the air.  Do come down and drink it before it gets cold.”

“It’s very kind,” I said, putting my back to the loft wall and hoping that a swung hatchet wouldn’t go through it.  “But I never touch the demon drink, not since I got religion.”

“A sailor who’s an abstainer?” she said.  “I never heard of such.”

“It’s true all the same,” I said.  “It pleases my girl, you understand.”

“I’ve a blanket for you at least,” she said.  “And you can come in with me and fetch a cup of hot milk.”

“Thank you kindly, but I’ll lodge where I am.”  I held my breath, and heard the ladder creak as she put her foot on it.  It creaked twice more, and then her head and shoulders appeared framed in the doorway and light glinted off the hatchet blade.

I kicked her square in the bosom, though I’m not proud to say it, and knocked her and the ladder both down from the loft.  I swung down after her, seeing her sprawled in the straw, unhurt but struggling to rise, and went for the hatchet.

She grasped it as well, her hands clawing at mine, raking them with her fingernails.

“Will you give over!” I tried to shoulder her away.  “You’re wrong in what you think.  I’m no man of twenty-six.”

“You claim now you were lying?” Her face was close enough to mine as we struggled that I could smell her breath.  “There’s a strange habit, for a man to tell lies about his age to everyone he meets.”

Her grip on the hatchet loosened as she spoke, and I tightened my own.  “So it would be,” I said.  “But I’m no man, and that was the lie I told.  That and the bit about the drink, which I admit is a besetting vice.  I put on breeches to go to sea, but I’m a woman all the same underneath them, and never more glad of it than today.”  I forebore to add that my girl was glad of it too, as I felt under the circumstances it would be taken as cheek.

She laughed in my face.  “That’s a nasty lie to save your skin.”

“I’ll prove it if you like,” I said.  “If you’ll give over your attempt to chop me up for firewood long enough.”

At that moment, her husband came in, and I shoved her toward him, hoping that he’d catch the hatchet out of her hands.  He plucked it away from her with his left hand and tossed it aside, but as he let her go I saw that he had a cleaver in his right hand.  I saw the bulging of his shoulders and thought I must know what a chicken felt like at butchering time.

“It came on me that it was wrong to leave the missus to do what must be done,” he said.

“I’ll swear any oath you like, my mother named me Kate,” I said, and reached for the top button of my shirt.

“A wicked wench who’ll dress up as a man can’t complain if she’s buried as one,” the woman said, and I saw a look pass between her and her husband that made my heart sink.  “What the parson doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“I’m sorry to have to do it,” Mister Smith told me, but he was lifting the cleaver, and I turned tail and ran.

I heard the clamor of dogs barking behind me, and rethought in a hurry my initial plan to make for the road out of town.  I looked about for a tree to climb, and saw none.  There was a stone wall at the end of the lane, though, and I went pelting toward it with what sounded like a whole Bedlam of dogs baying at my heels.

They leapt snarling as I scrambled up the wall, but any sailor, lad or lass, can climb like a monkey, and I reached the top of the wall and dropped down on the other side.  I was in a little churchyard, but before I could slip away over the wall on the other side, the parson came out to see what was the matter with the dogs, who were still howling in a perfect fury.  Though he wore spectacles balanced on his narrow nose, he also had a heavy stick in his hand and looked as if he were willing to use it.

“The blacksmith set his dogs on me,” I blurted out.  “I swear to you I’m no thief.”

The parson didn’t loosen his grip on the stick.  “I don’t believe Mister Smith is in the habit of setting his dogs on innocent strangers.”

��It’s on account of the bell, the passing bell,” I said, and couldn’t help looking up at the tower that threw its shadow over us both.  The bell tower was just a rickety little thing by the measure of city churches, but the pool of gloom it cast over the churchyard seemed heavy and dark.  “His wife put him up to it, for she thinks it’s either him or me who’ll die tonight.”

The parson came forward a little, then, and looked me up and down through his spectacles.  “I never knew the blacksmith’s age,” he said, as if speaking as much to himself as to me.  “I try not to know, you see.  But in a town so small, it’s hard not to be aware . . .”  He shook his head, and there was something closed in his expression.  “I think I had better see you out the gate,” he said.

“The dogs are still out there,” I pointed out.

“That’s really not my concern.”

“And you a parson.”

“I can’t stop what’s to come,” he said.  “You must understand that, you must see.  I’ve tried, sometimes, when I knew.  There was a girl, a child of thirteen . . . I sat up with her all night, in the church, and we prayed together.  She wept, and I told her to have faith, that the Lord would protect her.  And an hour before morning her fear overcame her, and she rose to flee.  I caught hold of her, I demanded she stay, I promised she would be safe.  I struggled with her.  And she fell, and her head struck the altar steps.  And God was silent.”

He reached out and caught hold of my collar to march me toward the gates.  My hand rested on my knife, and then I took it away again, not sure if I could bring myself to stab a man of the cloth, even to make my escape.

“I don’t see why you can’t just resolve not to ring the bell anymore,” I said.  “If you don’t ring it in the morning . . .”

“I did not ring it that night,” he said, still marching me along, as if by thrusting me out the gates he could banish the memory.  “I sat on the altar steps in misery, and at the first light, I heard the bell tolling.  It was little Johnnie Boots, the choirboy, who had taken it into his head to ring the bell for me as a kindness, since, as he said, I must have been taken ill.”

He paused before the high wooden gate, and outside I heard an eager chorus of barks, and then the even more ominous growling of dogs who see their aim in sight.  “There are some who have called for us to take down the bell,” he said.  I silently cheered on “some,” whoever they might be.  “But it is the Lord who put this curse on us, and when he judges us free of sin, he will take it away again.  When we have been made clean.”  His knuckles were white on his stick, and his eyes were on the horizon, as if he saw some horror there I couldn’t see.  “I have prayed, but of course my sinner’s prayers have not been answered,” he said.  “Pray now, and perhaps yours will be heard as mine have not been.”

I put my hands together, although I had done precious little praying of any kind since I’d taken up my present life.  It sat badly with me to beg for my life anyway, like a craven captain pleading for quarter on his knees.  Dear Lord, I’ve been a wicked woman but a good seaman, I said silently.  You’ve winked at my deceit, and let me live when better men have died.  If you care for wicked women, as I’ve heard you did in life, show me one more trick to save my skin.

The parson was reaching for the gate, and I blurted out, “A moment more!”

“You’ve had time for your prayers.”

“A moment to wish my girl goodbye,” I said, and drew out the locket I carried.  It was a little tin thing with a half-penny sketch inside, but the boy who drew it had caught Minnie’s laughing eyes, and it was worth a fortune in gold to me.  She’d scolded me for going back to the sea, though it was my wages that kept her all the time I was away, and told me at some length that if I drowned she wouldn’t have a single prayer said for my worthless wayward soul.

“You’ve had that as well,” the parson said, and reached for the latch on the gate.  I reached again for my knife, wondering if I could stick him without hurting him too much, and what the townsmen would do to me if they caught me after that.  Being hanged for stabbing a parson seemed even worse than being hacked apart for nothing.

And then I had it, all at once, like a breath of wind snapping open a slack sail.  “One thing more!” I demanded.  “I had a traveling companion on the road, another sailor who took ill and died by the wayside.  I buried him as best I could, but I’d be easier in my mind if the passing bell were rung for him.  His name was Tom, and I know his age as well, for he told me at the end he was born twenty-six years ago to the day.”

The parson stood staring at me for a long moment.  “Do you expect me for one moment to believe such a story?”

“Is it any of your business to doubt it?” I asked, and reached into my coat to draw out my purse.  “If I had come to you a week ago, would you have questioned whether there was a man named Tom or a roadside grave?”

“I would not,” he admitted.  I held out my purse to him, and while I’d like to believe he took it in pure gratitude for the escape I offered him, I can’t say that its weight didn’t figure in his decision as well.

“Then go on and ring the passing bell for poor old Tom,” I said.  “For I think I have worn out my welcome in this town, or at least it has worn out its welcome with me, and I am eager to be on the road again.”

I followed him to the foot of the tower stairs, and watched him ascend.  I waited until the sound of his steps told me he had gone a full turn of the stairs, and then started up after him, keeping my own steps quiet.

Even after everything that had happened, I was not entirely prepared for what I saw when I mounted to the bell-tower; the parson was heaving on the bell-rope, his back to me, and the bell was heaving as well, the clapper slamming into its sides hard enough that I could see its tremor, but no sound came from the bell, no sound at all.  The only sound was the wind, keening through the wide openings on all sides of the tower like a crying dog.

I waited, breath held, until the bell made its final swing and the parson released the bellrope.  I scrambled around him, evading his surprised attempt to catch me back, and clambered up onto the beams that held the bell in place.  The bell was an old one, and held only by thick ropes, not by a heavy chain; it was the work of a moment to hack the stiff ropes in two.

There was a clamor like brazen hounds baying in hell as the bell came crashing down.  It tumbled out the open side of the bell tower, clattering for a moment on its edge and then plunging toward the earth.

“They do say the Lord helps those as help themselves,” I said, jumping down.  The parson crossed himself and backed away from me.

“There’s some devil in you, and I’m not sure whether to try to cast it out or thank you for what you’ve done,” he said.

“Call it payment for all the hospitality I’ve had in this town,” I said.  “But now I must be away.”  I took off down the stairs at a run, and plunged out into the open air.

I stopped short when I saw the bell lying fallen on the churchyard stones.  It was cracked and split, crumpled like the body of Mister Smith, who lay fallen beneath it, with his dogs circling round him, cringing now and whimpering.

The parson came out after me, and made the sign of the cross over the dead blacksmith in silence.  “He was a good man,” he said after a while.

“I expect he was,” I said.

“You mustn’t blame yourself.”

“Nor will I,” I said, for it seemed the blacksmith had been doomed from the time the bell first sounded, and at least now the bell had rung its last. “But can I have my purse back, then?  I expect I can find a man to ring the passing bell for my old mate Tom somewhere considerably nearer home.”

The parson gave me a look as he handed it over that I suppose I well deserved, but what can I say?  I’ve never claimed to be a good man, but I am Minnie’s best girl, and she’d been waiting patiently for me to bring her home my pay, and to come back to her safely from the sea.

END

  “The Passing Bell” was originally published in Temporally Out of Order and is copyright Amy Griswold, 2015.

This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.

You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes.

Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back soon with a GlitterShip original.

Episode #42 – “The Passing Bell” by Amy Griswold was originally published on GlitterShip