#fast growing timber trees

[missisjoker]

Into the Storm

Pairing • Cregan Stark x Wildling!Reader

Tags • mentions of violence, threats of violence, smut.

Rating: Explicit - 18+

The reader infiltrates the Night's Watch castle with a purpose, but it doesn't go according to plan.

Wind-swept mound of the Eastwatch-by-the-sea creeped up on the horizon, dwarfed by the solemn colossal of the Wall stretching as far as the eye could see as you steadied the swaying boat and stepped on the shore.  The grey and green waters of the Bay of Seals were snarling at your feet, treacherous whirlpools dancing and sea foam licking the salty rocks, and the horizon darkened in anticipation of a storm.

You dragged the dingy boat between the boulders ashore, fastened the knot to a nearby tree, and huddled your leather coat tighter around your chest. The soft sheepskin protected well from the summer chill, but the cold winter gusts bit right through it and gnawed at your bones. You downed a sip of water and started climbing up; there was no time to waste idly, unless you wanted to freeze to death and have your eyes picked by seagulls.

Track to the crows’ nest took less than half a day – the dirt road was still dry, pine needles making your walk springy and fast, and you met no stray fishermen or men of the Night’s Watch patrolling the coastline.

Your heart ached- the plan was borderline suicidal, to sneak into the Crows castle and steal the maps of the Wall – but you had no choice; the merciless King-beyond-the-wall deserved to die, and your resolve to see it through settled in your bones like cold settles in the dead of winter.

You waited until dusk, hidden away from the prying eyes and piercing winds behind rotten logs and piles of stone at the castle’s foothill, watching centuries on the walls change and working out the pattern.

When the moon came up, full and pale like goat’s milk, you climbed up the wooden walls past the sleepy guards and hid yourself in the overhead crawlspace above the pathways. The space was narrow, musty and muddy, but you were called the Wild Cat for a reason.

Stealing food from the kitchens was fun no matter how meager and disappointing the bread and stew was; but even more entertaining was taking a hot bath in the cellar while you could’ve been discovered at any minute- and then gleefully watching two young crows fight about the missing hot water.

The outlay of Eastwatch was simple to remember- four watch towers marking each side, training yard and stables in the middle, the great keep with an armory adjacent to the dining hall, a kitchen, a medicinal room, and sleeping quarters squared around them in the form of a horseshoe, all connected by the timber walkways. And, most importantly, the study. A vaulted room in the southern tower, full of dust, books, scrolls, and maps of all kinds.  

It took you three more days of lurking in the shadows like a ghost to learn the shifts and movements, the change of guards, and to single out the “Maester” – a fat, bald man with a flock of greasy white hairs sticking out of his double chin that spent most of his time looking through books and drawing maps in the study. He, too, was easy to learn- after days of work and bossing younger crows around, when the sun set beyond the sea, he’d take a cup of spiced summer wine and a bowl of stew and leave the study empty until the morrow, giving you enough time to roam through the piles of scrolls in search of your target.

You perched in your hiding space, tasted the salty air on your lips, and shivered; the unmoving stillness that stayed in the air for the past few days dissipated; the harbinger of the storm left, and in its place, the winds were picking up again, relentless. The thin, dark line on the horizon was rolling closer, growing and covering half of the sky; even the daylight seemed to dim a little as a winter storm slowly crawled in from the sea.  

A sound of horses neighing and men talking in the yard tickled your ear and your curiosity peaked, but you couldn’t see around the dark logs of your hiding space, and decided not to crawl closer to look – the walls of the castle were wet, century-old pine logs weeping under the prickly wind, and with each dewy tear the movements became more and more unforgiving. Likely, it was nothing to worry about- perhaps they all were feeling the approaching storm and, just like you, were uneased by it.

Finally, the twilight followed the grey, muted dusk, and when the first torches lit up the courtyard, you went in for your target.

The heavy wooden door of the study didn’t have a lock, just a hook from the inside- and the bald master brazenly kept a stick right below the step to pry it open. You creeped into the room and squinted, trying to see in the dark.  By this time, you already knew the room well enough to move around without a light, you could still make out silhouettes and shapes in the dark once your eyes adjusted; an extinguished fireplace at the furthest wall, a heavy table and chairs in the middle, shelves covering the perimeter, and a sleeping bench near the window. Something felt different though, wrong, and made the hair on your neck stand up. It wasn’t just the sweet and mushroomy smell of the old parchments, spiced berry whiff of master’s summer wine, and smoke from the dead fire; no - you felt a faint hint of fir, rosemary, cedar, leather and something unfamiliar that made your heart beat faster. You reached out for a flint when a pile of furs on the bench shifted slightly, and a voice rough from sleep grumbled,

“What are you doing here?”

You froze for a brief second, blood rushing to your face and throat, then took a deep breath and conjured the most soothing and lulling voice you could master, a sweet lullaby tone you heard from women putting their babies to sleep;

“I’m but a dream, my dear, a shadow in the moonlight. Pay me no mind, precious child, lay your weary head to rest and sleep.”

Your feet tip-toed backward toward the door, heart hammering at your ribs, and for a moment, you heard no movement; you breathed out, thinking that your little trick worked, until your back hit something solid and the same voice, clear and fully awake now, growled right above your ear, sending goosebumps across your skin,

“Do you think me a dimwit?”

You yelped and tried to bolt- but your arm was caught in a vicious grip.

You pulled and twisted, tried to wriggle yourself free, but it did nothing; the grip only hardened, surely to leave bruises by the morrow- if you were to live that long - and the man started to pull you closer. So, you twirled on your heels and swung your free arm to slap him - he caught it effortlessly, cuffing your wrist with his hand, but released your other arm in the process- and you gleefully clocked him with it. The impact him stagger backward a step.

All that rowing did make my arms stronger,

You chuckled to yourself, but the humor was short-lived, as the man launched forward and grabbed you again, harder this time;

“Do not hit me again, boy, or I will break your arm.”

You did what you were told and bit him instead.

He cursed and released you again, more out of surprise than pain- but that gave you the needed moment of freedom to dash for the door.

You almost made it when strong arms snatched you by the by the scruff of your neck and hauled you back as if you were a ragdoll; the bastard was too fast and too strong and seemed to see perfectly in the dark, like an animal.

 In desperation, you reached for a knife and put the blade to the man’s throat.

“Unhand me at once.”

“Nay,”

The man grabbed the blade and twisted the knife out of your hand with ease, as if he was prying a toy out of a babe’s grasp, kicked your feet from under you, and threw you on the floor.

Your back hit the hardwood; you winced at the impact and a cracking sound your head made, and then choked out a whine as you were pinned down, the heavy weight crushing your thighs while an iron grip forced both of your arms above your head.

One hand.

That heathen was holding you down with one hand.

You felt anger and fear swirl together into acid, setting fires to your veins.

“What is this, a toothpick?”

His voice was laced with irritation as he examined your knife and ran a thumb along its dull rigged edge,

“An arse scratcher, perhaps?”

Fury rushed through you like boiling oil, as you thrashed and tried biting him again,

“Release me, and you’ll find out.”

You heard him chuckle as he shifted his legs and pinned you down harder,

“Settle down, you little waif.”

You allowed contempt to seep into your voice,

“I’m do not fear you.”

You could hear a grin on the man’s face as he spoke in a low, husky, taunting whisper laced with a touch of amusement,

“Now that is foolish”.

The knife thudded on the floor as the man threw it away like a broken toy and put his free hand on your throat, not enough to strip you of air, but enough to keep you fully under control.

“How many of you are there?”

“Just me.”

The fingers on your throat squeezed harder, pushing you deeper into the floor,  

“How many more?”

“It’s just me! Why do you need more? You can’t even handle one.”

A thumb pressed into your jugular vein, blocking the flow of blood and sending the sound of your own heartbeat echoing in your ears,

“I’m handling you well enough”.

Your fingers twitched with want to free your hand and scratch that arrogance off his face.

“How did you get in here?”

“I walked…”

The man’s hand suddenly left your throat and started roaming your body. You let out a hiss through gritted teeth,

“That desperate, are you, for a free folk to warm your bed? Your crow brothers don’t pleasure you enough?”

The man tsked disapprovingly and continued patting you down.

“I’m looking for weapons.”

His hand was big and warm, and you hated how it burned a trail of heat through the thin leathery coat and pants, barely suppressing a shiver when it slid down your chest right across your tit.  

It suddenly stopped on your waist.

“A woman?”

Realization barely a whisper from him, but it made the blood in your veins run cold, and you coiled, bracing for an assault that never came.

The weight suddenly shifted off your legs, still restraining, but not enough to hurt, and the man flickered something in his pocket and threw it into the fireplace.

You turned your head on instinct at the crackling sound of emerging fire and watched as the first licks of flame ate away the darkness until a strong hand forced your face straight.

You stared at your captor and, oh, the bastard was handsome.  Strong, sharp features framed by a mop of silky brown hair tumbling down broad shoulders that looked like they could shrug off a mountain, corded muscles, soft lips, and piercing eyes that changed color from blue to the stormy grey.

In another life, you would’ve fought other spear wives for a piece of him.

He grabbed your chin and tilted your head to the side, then to the other, observing;  his eyes traced over your body, you felt a traitorous blush creep up your cheeks, as if you were laid out naked under him, at his mercy and under his touch, and you hated yourself for the reaction. Your body was a wild thing, just like you- and it wanted to live, even if your mind has made peace with soon being dead.

“By the sea, then.”

“What?”

“You have salt marks on your boots. Did they run out of the men to send up here, so they risk a woman?”

“Busy with important things,”

His brows furrowed,

“Like what? Getting piss-drunk and fucking wild goats?”

Your eyes narrowed in frustration as you stared into his steel blue ones,

“As if you’re any better, fraternizing with the enemy in the middle of the night.”

“Aren’t fraternizing yet, lass, just getting acquainted.”

Your stomach did a weird jump at the way words rolled off his tongue, and you noticed a faint blush dusting his cheeks.  

“How did you get across the wall?”

“By flapping my arms.”

He braced himself on the free arm and bent closer to you,

“Why are you here? And do not jest; you’re at the end of my patience, a woman that you might be.”

“I need weapons.”

“How much can you fit into your coat?”

“It’s more spacious than it looks.”

He considered you for a moment while you tried not to move, and definitely not to think how the heat of his body was warming you up from head to toe. You must’ve hit your head too hard, because all you could think of was how good he felt on top of your thighs, and how much better he would’ve felt between them.

“Why not trade with the townsfolk?”

 “They don’t have enough castle-forged steel. And yours are better, sharper. They sing when they hit other steel. They sing when they hit the ice. What’s the secret? What do you put in them, crow?”

“Virgin blood. And I’m not a crow.”

“Must be hard to come by.”

He nodded in agreement,

“Aye, very toilsome. And what do you want them for?”

 “Winters are unforgiving. Bet you know nothing of how hard the winters can get up north.”

His mouth tightened, voice sounded controlled, which made it frightening for the lack of emotion in it.

“I know enough, and your hardships are of your own making.”

The fury bubbled in your chest again as you hissed back at him, craning your neck so your noses were almost touching,

“Yes, we were banished beyond the Wall by the Starks simply because we didn’t want to live on our knees.”

He threw you a dirty look,

 “Instead, now you live on your back.”

Blood rushed to your cheeks, and in a newly found bout of strength, you bucked your hips violently enough to throw him off on the floor. 

He landed with a surprised thud as you scrambled to your feet and rushed to the door, but he was faster, again, and stronger - always has been. He grabbed you by the waist and pushed you into the wall, brought you face to face, his arms and his body caging you in. 

You felt goosebumps of fear crawl over your skin as he snarled at you,

“You think you can just prance in here, take what you desire and leave with impunity? Perhaps I should give you to the guards; they will whip the right answers out of you.”

You braced on the wall as your knees almost gave up under you;

“Please don’t” – barely a whisper.  

His sneer was taunting,

“Afraid of a little pain?”

You suppressed a shiver and looked him straight into those cold eyes, battling back treacherous tears,

“Half of your crows are rapists and murderers, whatever they do to me, it won’t be whipping.”

He froze for a second, then his features darkened as he straightened up, a full head taller than you, muscles rolling under the shirt, dwarfing you by his presence. His voice dropped lower,

“I would never allow that”, and for a brief second, you believed him.

Which gave you a crazy idea.

A violent roar of thunder rattled the glass window, and that was enough for you to slip from his hands and dash away, but not to the door.

You sprinted to the table in the center of the room, grabbed a piece of stale bread from the plate the maester left behind, and started vigorously munching.

The man stopped in his tracks and stared at you with undiluted confusion, 

“What are you doing?”

You chewed faster, and then grabbed a cup and gulped it down in one go.

 This is not summer wine.

Your throat burned, your voice coming out as a rough hiss,

“What’s in there?”

“That’s my chamber pot.”

You choked while the bastard had the audacity to laugh.

“I invoke the guest right.”

Now it was his turn to choke.

“You what?”

The incredulity looked funny on him, almost endearing, the crease between his brows smoothed, leaving behind a pleasant, handsome face of a young man as he tilted his head and looked at you like you’ve just grown a pair of horns.

“You’re uninvited.”

“I invited myself. “

“This is not my house.”

“And yet you move around like you own it. So, will you honor it or not?”

He mused on it for a moment,

“Alright. But it goes both ways. You will answer every question I ask of you truthfully, yes?”

“Agreed.”

“And, don’t try to run again,” – his voice dropped lower yet again, sending a shiver through your spine,

“Because I will catch you.”

There was a hint of a threat in the tone, but also something else – amusement, perhaps, or even enjoyment, as the corners of his mouth trended upwards in a barely concealed smile.

An unexpected knock on the door.

You jerked at the sound and looked back at the man, fear flooding your chest again, as he looked at you for what felt a very long second, then made a decision and motioned you to come forth;

“Here, now!”

You moved closer and allowed him to grab you by the shoulders and gracefully move you around the room as if in a dance,

“Not a word.”

He maneuvered you behind the doorframe while holding your wrist, shielded you out of sight with his body as he talked to the man on the other side.

“M’lord, the preparations are done. Stables locked; food lockers secured. Orders?”

“Double the centuries, wake up the captain, and send a patrol through the castle, we might have uninvited visitors.”

“Yes, m’lord”.

As the heavy door screeched shut, you stared at each other.

“M’lord? I’ve never been with a Southern Lord before.”

“Southern?”

“We are south of the Wall, yes.”

A lord, here, at the wall? The Eastwatch… Must be… Lord Umber? What a strike of luck.  

His hand was still on your wrist, thumb rubbing a careful circle on your pulse. You felt your cheeks color again under his gaze, and heard yourself speak before you could stop your own mouth, fighting to keep yourself from purring;

“I heard all southern lords are wanton, have some… strange pleasures, quirks even. Are you one of those? Or the opposite, boring and unbending?”

He leaned in, hot breath tickling your ear,

“I’ll gladly bend my knees for the right woman.”

You steadied yourself with a hand on his waist and gods be damned if that small contact didn’t make heat coil between your legs.

“What is your name?”

“Cregan.”

He didn’t resist when you pushed him into the wall… and thrust a dagger you kept well hidden from his curious hands into the wood right next to his neck.

“Impressive”, he gritted out a little less composed as he pretended to be.

“You should’ve checked better, my lord. “

 Steel bled into your voice as your knife traced a scar on his cheek, then went lower, blade scraping his jaw and following the line of the vein on his neck, pricking the skin just enough to make a dent but not enough to draw blood.

He watched you with an unreadable expression, eyes dark and gleaming. He could easily snap you like a twig, he’s fast and strong enough to do that with ease. Yet he stood there unmoving, like a living statue, steady deep breaths making his chest rise and fall, something akin to hunger burning deep inside the stormy eyes of his, following your every move like a wolf watching his prey.

Excitement thrummed through your veins as you saw his carefully crafted façade crack, little by little.

“You’re threatening me again, guest.”

You traced your fingers over his cheek and jaw and his lips parted in a quiet sigh.

“I have much more to offer.”

He caught your free hand and pulled you even closer,

“You’re going to play a wench now, while you hold a blade to my throat?”

“And what if I’m not playing? Why are men allowed to want and have but gods forbid a woman does the same?”

“Because men can fuck and forget about it the next morning while you might die on a birthing bed.”

There was pain and sorrow in his voice even though his stoic face betrayed almost no emotion, and you wanted to reach out and cup his cheek again to give him comfort.

“Fear of death shouldn’t stop you from living.”

You pulled the knife away from his neck,

“Now, please allow me to explain, I have a lot to tell you.  Think you can do that with a free folk, Lord Umber?”

You flipped the blade in your hand and offer him the hilt as he arched an eyebrow at you. It was a huge gamble, it could easily end up carved into your heart, but…

He took the hilt and nodded.

 “I can do that, yes. What is your name?”

“Y/N, but everyone calls me Cat.”

“A little feral Cat? How very fitting.”

“I’m not little.”

He tilted his head to the side and moved into your space, making you angle your head to look up into his eyes as he almost dwarfed you.

“But you are.”

You flinched, and he moved back, motioning you to move,

“Sit down, say your piece.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and moved to take a chair at the heavy oak table at the center of the room. Your heart was racing, trying to hammer its way out of your chest, and you had to take a breath to steady your voice. This Lord was a blessing sent by the gods, a strike of luck you never dreamed of getting, and you had to make it work no matter the cost.                

 You told him about your people and the new King-beyond-the-Wall Merzymir, the reason of your visit, and the target of your plan.  Merzymir was unhinged and violent man, cruel beyond measure who took pleasure in unrestrained and public brutality. You told Cregan About his sacrifices “to the Others” - gruesome and unforgivable, little suckling babies left in the carved-up mouths of the weirwood trees in the night, with nothing left of them by the morrow but some bones and a red paste. Whole families fed to rabid bears or left outside to freeze to death, doused in water. Men tied up to trees and ripped limb from limb for speaking up against him. About your own family and what he did to them, and how he made you watch. About his plan to find a tunnel under the Wall and cross South, spreading chaos and death wherever he went.  

Cregan remained silent, face betraying little emotion but his fierce eyes were now soft, with a certain gentleness to them, with a trace of sorrow hidden in the deep of the blue and grey. He was hard to read, this lord, so you pressed on with another argument to get him on your side.

“The King-beyond-the-wall has a farther reach than you think. He’s been negotiating with your own kin, and while you sit idly in your pretty castle and think you are safe, the war is coming to you.”

His brows furrowed as he leaned closer,

“I need names.”

“I don’t know the names, but when they met with him, spoke about flaying the Starks and making new coats out of them.”

You watched his lips twitch into a barely concealed snarl and his hands curl into fists; his lithe body twitching with barely restrained fury. 

Suddenly, your heart filled with dread,

“You’re not one of them, are you?”

“No, I’m the one they want to flay”.

You blinked.

Then you blinked again, and twice more, while the cogs in your brain turned faster and then screeched to a halt.

A Stark.

He is a Stark.

A fucking Stark.

He noticed your stare and chuckled,

“I never said I was an Umber.”

You finally closed your mouth,

“Right.”

“What do you want of me?”

“I need a map”.

“Of what?”

“The wall. The tunnels beneath it.”  

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

“I want to get him into a tunnel and kill him there. I want to watch him choke on his own blood, I want to watch his life go out in his eyes, and then I want to piss on his grave. Does that tell you enough? You should want the same, Stark, for he will get across one day, and on that day, your people will be in for rape and slaughter.”

“And you want me to believe you didn’t know I was coming here? That it was all a coincidence and not some wretched plan of yours?”

You let out a tired sigh,

“Some would call it fate. And no, you were not in any plans of mine, but I’m glad you were here.”

He looked at you with those eyes that changed color in the dim light of the fireplace, his fingers tapping on the blackened wood of the table, and you felt like you haven’t convinced him.

“You’re safe now; why risk going back?”

“I made a promise.”

“You promised the dead, they will forgive you for staying alive.”

 “He has my little sister.”

The silence thickened and draped around you like cold summer fog. He looked away for a long moment as the room fell quiet, silence broken only by cracking of the fireplace and your own heartbeat.

Finally,

“So, you were going to steal the map, and get him to cross the Wall, and then what? How would you escape?”

“I didn’t plan that far.”

He stilled.

“Your plan is shite. You’ll get yourself killed before you even reach him, and your sister won’t be any better off for it.”

“I’m not you, m’lord, I can only risk my own life to do justice. Don’t have an army to do my bidding for me.”

“You do now.”

“What?”

“I won’t allow a savage to cross the Wall, nor would I fight on two fronts. You will have your map.”

He got up and dug a map from a pile of scrolls, rolling it out in front of you, and motioned you to come closer. 

“Here’s a tunnel we can lure Merzemir in. There is another tunnel ten miles to the west, but it is well-protected by the Umbers, stay away from there. I will not give you the others. But this one, this will be perfect. It is far enough from the manned castles to be watched properly, and it is not collapsed in, yet.” 

He guided your hand to a small dot on the parchment, and you burned under his touch. His hands were big, rough and calloused but warm and surprisingly gentle, and you wondered how they would feel like caressing your breasts, and thighs and what’s between them.

By the gods, I want to survive, I want to live.

You swallowed a lump in your throat and watched instead how his hair fell off his shoulders and blocked half of his handsome face. You barely restrained yourself from moving the hair out of the way,

 “You should braid that.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Pay attention.”

“So, this is where I kill him?”

“This is where you lead him.”

You threw him a confused glance as he started explaining.

 Cregan’s plan was so simple and yet so clever, and you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry- you shouldn’t have expected anything less; Starks didn’t hold the North for over 8 thousand years because it was given to them, but because they could keep it. You thought when you first saw his face that he was green as the summer grass and never seen the war- but now you knew there wasn’t a mere boy in front of you, but a ruthless and seasoned warrior, and it filled you with dangerous hope.

He sat beside you, the wooden bench creaking under his weight, explaining the plan further. You couldn’t help but steal glances, saving his face, his voice to your memory. The room was cold yet you feel burning, as if he were a furnace, enveloping the space around you into a warm embrace. It was almost suffocating, but you couldn’t get enough, you wanted to roll yourself in it, rub it into your skin until it seeped through your pores and became a part of you.

Was it because he was so easy on the eyes and his rough hands handled you with ease, making you feel alive? Or was it because he just threw you a lifeline and gave you hope that you could actually win?

Perhaps, both.

He broke you out of your daze by reaching behind him and putting a hunting knife next to your hand.

“What is this?”

“Your weapons are shite, but this is castle-forged steel. Take this with you to the Wall to protect yourself. Or, give it to your sister. You said she’s too soft for the wild space, too kind? Then send her to Winterfell with it so my men know who she is, and she will be safe there.”

The emotional turmoil in you picked up, promising to swallow you whole, and you barely bit back the tears.

“You would have her?”

“I would have both of you.”

He reached out and grabbed your chin between his thumb and index finger, and stared through your eyes down into your very soul.

“You’re a little feral Cat, are you not? Then use one of your nine lives and bring it back to me.”

The true meaning, the weight of it all, made you close your eyes to stop your head from spinning, and you can feel his thumb gently caress your jaw and trace along your lower lip.

You shifted back, and take a full breath of air, without looking at him,

“I will do my best, I promise.”

The moment was broken, Cregan lowered his hand and moved back, giving you space, as your body cried at the sudden lack of warmth. Hope was addicting. He was addicting, this Lord Stark.

“I will get going now,”

“The storm ‘s not over.”

A roll of thunder shuddered against the castle walls as if to give the truth to Cregan’s words, but you persisted;

“I’ve already overstayed my welcome,”

“Is everything going to be a battle with you, lass? You’d know by now I will not hurt you, so what are you afraid of?”

That if I stay much longer, I might not leave at all.

He considered you for a moment, then sighed in surrender,

 “Fine, here.”

A black wool coat wrapped around your shoulders as you threw Cregan a confused glance.

“It’s one of the watchmen’s, cover yourself and walk fast. I’ll lead you out.”

***

The mother of all bad ideas slammed into your face with the first gust of wind; the storm outside was raging, painting the whole world around you dark grey. The torches were all blown out and the rain slashed at the walls relentless. You hid behind Cregan’s back as he shielded you with his body, and followed him through the passage way.

You didn’t get far when the beams above you cracked and moaned and buckled under the weight of the storm, and crashed down onto you.

You threw yourself forward, pushing Cregan out of the way and down the stairs; you both tumbled and landed hard on the lower platform.

“Y/N!”

“I’m alright,”

And you were, except for your right foot that was now screaming in pain. You tried to move, but every time you put even a little of weight on it, a scorching bolt of pain shot through, making you hiss. Wind didn’t help either; you were swaying on your feet like a young silver birch, failing to find your balance.

“We’re going back.”

“I’m fine, just go, I’ll find my own…”

He hauled you up into his arms as if you weighted nothing, holding you so tight you couldn’t wiggle your way out of his grasp even if you wanted to,

“I wasn’t asking.”

His commanding tone left no room for arguing, so you kept silent and wrapped your arms around his neck instead.

He placed you carefully onto the bench and discarded both of your coats. You wheezed  in pain as he took off the boot and examined your ankle, kneeling in front of you and placing your bare foot on top of his thigh. You leaned backwards, allowing him to work his hands over the sensitive skin, kneading the muscles and soothing away the soreness.

“It’s just a strain, but you shouldn’t walk at least until tomorrow.”

Then he noticed a bruise from the rope sneaking and coiling around your calve, old and faded, already turning green and yellow, and traced it with his fingers up to your knee.

“He did this to you?”

“It’s almost healed.”

“He will pay for it.”

The silence thickened while his hands were firm on your thighs, your skin burning through the clothes under his touch. He hesitated,

“Do you…”

Your hand cupped his cheek and caressed his face, making him look up at you, and smiled,

“Do you want to take me up on my other offer?”

“And if I do?”

Your eyes flickered to his mouth and you felt like a desperate, starving woman, the need to touch and to taste crawling under your skin and curling in your chest; his hands rested on your waist now, caging you in, and you wanted to be caged, to be taken and devoured, you wanted him to place you underneath him and do whatever he desired, without mercy. And when your eyes met his, you saw your desperation mirrored in them; you were both starving animals that wanted to feast, so you finally snapped.

The first kiss was angry, but almost chaste; just pressing your lips into his, melting into the warmth. You let out a sigh and ran your fingers along the side of Cregan’s face.  That was enough to get him to move, to grab the side of you neck and maneuver you to deepen the kiss. His mouth ravaged yours, tasted your lips, your tongue, placed a careful nib on your lower lip, traced your jaw and the side of your neck. You felt ablaze, alive, by the gods, you were trying to survive so hard and so long you forgot how to live. You wrapped your arms around him, curling your fingers into his hair to keep you steady, and tilted your head, letting him kiss the other side of your neck down to your shoulder.

You gasped in protest when he suddenly pulled away and drew a steadying breath, avoiding your gaze.

His body vibrated with barely controlled restrain as he finally looked up at you,

“If you want me to stop, say it now.”

You grabbed a fistful of his shirt and leaned back onto the bench, wrapping your legs around his waist and tugging him on top of you, looking into his eyes with pupils blown with lust you were so eager to satiate,

“Don’t you dare.”

That’s all it took to break the last of his resolve. Cregan pressed his mouth into yours, much rougher than before, licking and biting moans out of you, your mouths molding into the shape of each other.  You sighed and arched into his touch, pride swelling in your chest for you just did the unthinkable- you set the stoic, composed Lord of Winterfell free from his lordly chains.

You didn’t have to be quiet, thank the Old gods, the storm outside drowning your moans from unwanted ears, so you let it pour out. Cregan’s hold on your waist tightened as he kissed you harder and nipped on your bottom lip, then pushed your legs open wider with his knee, rocking between your thigs with his arousal, creating perfect friction and stealing another moan out of you.

His nimble fingers made a quick work of your coat and shirt, and then your pants, and you were splayed bare, blushing as he ran his hands over your sides and looked over your body with something akin to reverence, taking it all in.

You grabbed onto his shirt and tugged,

“Take it off”.

He complied immediately, pulling the shirt off in one swoop and lowering himself back into another deep kiss, his chest rumbling with an approving groan as you whined into his mouth at the contact.

He’s burning hot, and your body curled into the heat and melted under it, nipples perking up at the friction of skin on skin as you ran your nails down his back.

He wrapped his hand around your throat and tilted your head, giving himself full access to your neck, kissing all of it, hot breath tickling your ear and lips sucking at your pulse. He pecked on the sensitive skin in the crook of your neck, making you whine and buck your hips, and went lower, cupping your breast as he slowly kissed his way down to the other one.

You wriggled underneath him, wetness pooling between your things and your cunt clenching at the emptiness so desperately it was borderline painful.

“Just fuck me already, what…”

Cregan ran his tongue over your nipple cut your protest short; sucked on the little bud, and wrapped his lips around it, making you whimper louder underneath him.

“Patience, my little cat, we have time.”

 His kissed a trail lower, to your belly, to the dips of your hips, to the sensitive skin of your inner thighs.  You shuddered as his fingers finally reached your folds, inquisitive, sliding through the damp heat as he cursed,

“Fuck, you’re dripping wet,”

“Damn, Stark, I’m not one of your blushing virgin maidens, I don’t need you to… “

His tongue lapped at your folds and you let out an obscene moan, hips involuntarily jerking up but he pushed them down and kept them in place as he licked and prodded and nibbled, circling your pearl in a teasing repetition, sending shock through your spine, making your back arch and hands desperately grab the furs.

You slapped your hand over your mouth to keep you from moaning louder as the pleasure crested and your body tingled in anticipation. Suddenly, he reared back, watching you whine and struggle at the loss of friction from between your thighs.

“Why’d you stop?”

You protested in an outraged whine, but he just smirked, lifted himself up and entered you in one move, the burn of the stretch and the sudden fullness making your mouth fall open and you letting out a string of curses. You buckled your hips against him like you couldn’t stop yourself, grinding and pushing yourself split open on his cock as he stilled your waist with a heavy hand and simply watched your desperate thrashes. The friction was enough to send you over the top, and you clenched violently around him, your thighs struggling to close around his waist while your heels kicked on the furs, riding your orgasm. As you came down, he rubbed your belly and kneaded your meaty thighs and buttocks.

’t was to your liking then?”

“you bastard!”

He was smiling, and it was the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in a long time.

He ran his hands over your body, thumbs playing with your nipples, caressing your waist, rubbing your thighs as you slowly adjusted to his girth inside you;  he was big, almost too big, but your cunt sang being filled up to the point of bursting.

He whispered, “spread ‘ll more for me, love” and you immediately spread your legs wider, allowing him to sink deeper in you. He moaned quietly, sheathing himself fully in your body, and it’s the sweetest sound you’ve ever heard.

His hands grabbed your waist and lift your butt up to rest your thighs on his. He picked up an achingly slow pace, savoring every moment, making you feel every inch of his cock sliding in and out of you, sweet torture with each claiming roll of his hips. You tried to mirror his movements, arching your back and pressing into him, as he let out a soft appreciative laugh,

 “Such an eager thing,”

 He picked up his speed, sinking himself into you with fast, powerful thrusts, reducing you to a moaning, whimpering, withering wench fully under his control.  You dragged your nails over his bare chest, his arms, his back, as the sound of wet skin slapping skin filled the room. The sensation was maddening, but you couldn’t get enough of it, of him, of being filled up and being alive.  

Cregan dipped his body onto yours and caged you between his arms, kissing your mouth, your jaw, your neck as he continued  to thrust inside of you, until the pleasure coiled and burst and your vision whited out. You felt his hips stutter, losing the rhythm, shortly after, as he chased his own pleasure, cursing and moaning your name into your ear.

He dragged his nose along the line of your neck, inhaling deeply, voice rough and raw,

“You’re here to steal my sanity, aren’t you?”

You ran your hand on the side of his face, looking into his eyes,

“Would it be such a bad thing?”

He looked at you almost in awe, the sheen of sweat glistening on his brow, and then pressed his forehead to yours,

“No, it would not.”

You curled closer to him, soaking his warmth and feeling his heartbeat echo under your skin, as he caressed your face and your jaw,

“You have to stay alive, y/n.”

The softness of his voice clawed at your heart and made it bleed,

“Cregan, I…”

Your eyes met his, full of understanding and resolve, as he whispered against your lips,

“I know.”

He said nothing else for a while, just tracing his fingers along the lines of your body, rubbing his thumb over a spot where he sucked on your skin just before.

“Admiring your work?”

Your tone was teasing, but he replied in absolute seriousness,

“And what if I am?”

That prickled you and your brow arched at his shamelessness, as you pushed him down and crawled on top of him,

“You know, two can play this game.”

His hands instinctively grabbed your waist while you wasted no time and started kissing his mouth, his jaw, down to his neck, and then sucked a hickey onto it.

A deep sigh he let out encouraged you to continue,

“You shouldn’t”.

“What? You don’t like it?”

You felt him writhe under you and knead your ass as you peppered his body with kisses and small nibbles in revenge,

”Kitten, stop.”

You persisted, kissing and sucking as his hands roamed your body, and then found the tender skin in the crook of his neck, and bit down, not enough to draw blood but hard enough to leave a mark by the morrow,

“Fuck!”

Cregan suddenly surged up, lifting your hips and lowering you on his hard cock, drawing a maddening moan from both of you,

“Oh, so you do like it”.

 “I do.”

His voice was rough as he started fucking you face-to-face, at a frantic pace, almost desperately, hands gripping your waist as he moved you back and forth on his cock.  You mirrored his movements, griding down on his hips, grabbing a fistful of his hair, cupping his face to kiss.  He fucked you like he owned you, or like you were out of time- and he was right at both.  You threw your hands around his neck and brought the two of you even closer, bracing on his arm and pulling his head down to your shoulder, letting his soft moans fill your ears as his hardness mercilessly filled your cunt.

“You are as feral as I am,” you whispered, realization hitting you hard and his hot breath tickled your ear,

“You’re right in that”.

The admission was open and vulnerable, and you forced yourself to look into Cregan’s eyes, at his face, beautiful and disheveled, and thought for a second that maybe he was as much gone for you as you were for him, even if only for just one night.

Cregan lifted you up once more and lowered you on your back, pushing your legs to your chest, allowing him deepest access. Your toes curled as he fucked you senseless, each stroke getting harder and faster, and you came with his name as a prayer on your lips.

When his movements became erratic once more, you wrapped your legs around his waist and pushed him deeper into you, grabbing him by his hair,

“Spill in me, Cregan, I want ALL of you. Make me yours.”

He groaned at the sound of it and closed his hand around your neck as he slowed down his hips and savored every thrust, filling you with his hot seed and sending you over the edge, again.  

You’ve never been on such a high before, body floating, mind whiting out in euphoria like an open field shining in the sun under the first cover of snow. Cregan draped over you, keeping you caged in and warm, and you curled into him, soaking it all in, taking his warmth, his smell, his voice to memory for future cold-biting nights, catching them in your mind like you’d catch fireflies to keep you company in the dark.

You knew by then, that whatever the future held for you, he ruined you for any other man. It would never be enough; nobody would ever be enough - and you made your peace with that.

As you both drifted to sleep in each other’s arms, your fingers found their way into his hair.

“’t are you doin’”

“Braiding your hair.”

“Hmm… I’ll allow that.”

You barely stopped a laugh as he nuzzled into your neck and let your fingers do their job.

***

You left at dawn, while he was still asleep, taking a moment to look over his peaceful sleeping frame and take his handsome face to your memory, placing a soft kiss on his brow.

The storm had lifted up, but the gusts of wind swept through the air, making you stumble.

You hid in the forest for a while, waiting for the last whirls of the storm to dissipate and yearning for… what?

Him.

You finally saw him ride out the castle with a small group of men, with your braid still in his hair. It made your throat itch and eyes sting, but then you took a deep breath and straightened up.

You were the Cat of the North. You were going to do what you planned, you would survive it, and then you would make your way to Winterfell.

[fatehbaz]

Despite its green image, Ireland has surprisingly little forest. [...] [M]ore than 80% of the island of Ireland was [once] covered in trees. [...] [O]f that 11% of the Republic of Ireland that is [now] forested, the vast majority (9% of the country) is planted with [non-native] spruces like the Sitka spruce [in commercial plantations], a fast growing conifer originally from Alaska which can be harvested after just 15 years. Just 2% of Ireland is covered with native broadleaf trees.

Text by: Martha O’Hagan Luff. “Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests - here’s how to bring them back.” The Conversation. 24 February 2023. [Emphasis added.]

---

[I]ndustrial [...] oil palm plantations [...] have proliferated in tropical regions in many parts of the world, often built at the expense of mangrove and humid forest lands, with the aim to transform them from 'worthless swamp' to agro-industrial complexes [...]. Another clear case [...] comes from the southernmost area in the Colombian Pacific [...]. Here, since the early 1980s, the forest has been destroyed and communities displaced to give way to oil palm plantations. Inexistent in the 1970s, by the mid-1990s they had expanded to over 30,000 hectares. The monotony of the plantation - row after row of palm as far as you can see, a green desert of sorts - replaced the diverse, heterogenous and entangled world of forest and communities.

Text by: Arturo Escobar. "Thinking-Feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South." Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana Volume 11 Issue 1. 2016. [Emphasis added.]

---

But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees [...] [because] planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. [...] [But] ill-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species [...]. [In India] [t]o maximize how much timber these forests yielded, British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region [...] and introduced acacia trees from Australia [...]. One of these species, wattle (Acacia mearnsii) [...] was planted in [...] the Western Ghats. This area is what scientists all a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become invasive and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands. Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and displaced native oak trees while teak has replaced sal, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for [...] fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss [...] impoverished many [local and Indigenous people]. [...]

India’s national forest policy [...] aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure. Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. [...] The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family. This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests. [...] Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too.

Text by: Dhanapal Govindarajulu. "India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years - here are the results." The Conversation. 10 August 2023. [Emphasis added.]

---

Nations and companies are competing to appropriate the last piece of available “untapped” forest that can provide the most amount of “environmental services.” [...] When British Empire forestry was first established as a disciplinary practice in India, [...] it proscribed private interests and initiated a new system of forest management based on a logic of utilitarian [extraction] [...]. Rather than the actual survival of plants or animals, the goal of this forestry was focused on preventing the exhaustion of resource extraction. [...]

Text by: Daniel Fernandez and Alon Schwabe. "The Offsetted." e-flux Architecture (Positions). November 2013. [Emphasis added.]

---

At first glance, the statistics tell a hopeful story: Chile’s forests are expanding. […] On the ground, however, a different scene plays out: monocultures have replaced diverse natural forests [...]. At the crux of these [...] narratives is the definition of a single word: “forest.” [...] Pinochet’s wave of [...] [laws] included Forest Ordinance 701, passed in 1974, which subsidized the expansion of tree plantations [...] and gave the National Forestry Corporation control of Mapuche lands. This law set in motion an enormous expansion in fiber-farms, which are vast expanses of monoculture plantations Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus species grown for paper manufacturing and timber. [T]hese new plantations replaced native forests […]. According to a recent study in Landscape and Urban Planning, timber plantations expanded by a factor of ten from 1975 to 2007, and now occupy 43 percent of the South-central Chilean landscape. [...] While the confusion surrounding the definition of “forest” may appear to be an issue of semantics, Dr. Francis Putz [...] warns otherwise in a recent review published in Biotropica. […] Monoculture plantations are optimized for a single product, whereas native forests offer [...] water regulation, hosting biodiversity, and building soil fertility. [...][A]ccording to Putz, the distinction between plantations and native forests needs to be made clear. “[...] [A]nd the point that plantations are NOT forests needs to be made repeatedly [...]."

Text by: Julian Moll-Rocek. “When forests aren’t really forests: the high cost of Chile’s tree plantations.” Mongabay. 18 August 2014. [Emphasis added.]

[feldsparred-mo-reblogs]

I need to settle this once and for all or I will scream

Timber Hearth's (and OW's) trees grow much faster than normal trees, do not follow Earth tree logic and it is fully canon supported

1. The quantum affected trees on TH are regularly uprooted when not observed and have not died of root shock yet (yes they technically exist in all these places at the same time)

2. Fires lit from these trees are water- and space vacuum proof

3. The concept of emergency saplings. That's why every traveler carries them. They need to grow fast to be able to produce the oxygen needed to be useful in an emergency

4. They take root on solid bone without breaking it apart

5. However long you think Feldspar was on DB, I think it was less than 25 years, which would be about the time needed to grow that tall under normal circumstances

6. With wood being a major building material, TH would already be facing a deforestation crisis if regrowth took as long as it does for us

7. Have you...seen the absolute size of the tree stump used for the landing pad? ...the tree that was around when the Nomai first visited?

8. Trees usually need. you know. sunlight. and an atmosphere

So yeah go wild with tree ideas!!

[mutant-distraction]

Vestige, four of an installation of six mirror sculptures that reflect the forest, by Scottish furniture designer , sculptor and, in his own words, environmental artist, Rob Mulholland, born in 1962.

First installed at David Marshall Lodge, Aberfoyle, Scotland in 2012.

Stainless steel, mirror polished, each figure 1.85m, 6' 1" tall

Mulholland's eerie, mirrored sculptures create the uncanny illusion of blending into their surroundings, at times almost completely camouflaged, and at others suddenly materialising as your perspective shifts around them.

Artist's statement

'The essence of who we are as individuals in relation to others and our environment, forms a strong aspect of my artistic practise.

'In Vestige I wanted to explore this relationship further by creating a group, a community within the protective elements of the woods, reflecting the past inhabitants of the space.

'Before the First World War, this area of Scotland was open hillside with small sheep farming crofts (farms) and rural communities. The crofters were moved to other land by the government as there was a desperate need for timber after the war. The area was planted with fast-growing conifer trees suitable for harvesting softwood, and the landscape altered once again.

'You can still see the faint outlines of the crofts and past settlements within the forest. This intrigued me and I wanted to find a visual form that would represent the past inhabitants of this land.

.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“The bottom line is you got a lot of emissions coming from wood harvest, and we don’t pay attention to that,” said Tim Searchinger, senior fellow and technical director for agriculture, forestry, and ecosystems at the World Resources Institute and a co-author of the paper.  The emissions associated with timber harvests mainly come from burning logs and pellets for fuel and from rotting branches, leaves, and roots left in the forest or tossed in landfills, where they decompose and release carbon into the air. 

[...]

Searchinger argues that researchers and policymakers haven’t accurately estimated the climate cost of wood use in part because they’ve counted carbon-capturing forest growth as an “offset” — as if new trees compensated for the missing ones — even when that growth would happen naturally. When trees are in the ground, especially when they’re young and growing fast, they absorb carbon. Many of the forests in the Northern Hemisphere were cleared in past centuries and are now regrowing and accumulating carbon on their own, whether or not they’ve been logged recently. Even for older forests that aren’t regrowing as quickly, “you’d be better off” leaving them unharvested, said Houghton, noting that we’ve got a “long way to go” before our use of wood is efficient enough — say, by not burning so much of it — that the emissions from logging could be fully offset by forest regrowth.   Still, Searchinger said there’s a silver lining to the study. His team’s findings don’t mean that more carbon dioxide is getting into the atmosphere than scientists had thought, just that some of those emissions are coming from an activity that hadn’t been accounted for. 

[soqueroumnome]

Imagine you work as an ecologist and is part of a committee that judges witch companie will receive licence to cut down trees and produce timber. The other two judges already voted and it's your turn. You decide to inspect the place first and talk to the upper manager of the company. When you get to the place, you see that they already started cutting the trees with heavy machinery. You obviously get pissed, after all, they still don't have the license, so not only it is illegal, but it's a utter disrespect to your person. What? They thought you would be okay with the operation starting early and give the thumbs up to continue?? So, visibly angry, you go after the person in charge. Three men come towards you, the one in charge smiling at you. You begin to yell everything that's wrong with what's happening when suddenly the man slaps you across the face so hard that you fall to the ground. Still confused, you feel the other two man holding you down in a kneeling position. You think "that's it. I'm gonna die today". Then, you hear screams. Both the lider and one of the guys holding you are attacked by birds. The one left puts your head against the ground, but is promptly attacked by a tiger. All around, you can see the development of a strange fight between the employees of the timber company and random animals (many who shouldn't even be found in this forest). Then, as you see one of the birds that helped you beeing shot in the wing, one of the employees hits you in the head with the back of their gun, and you fall unconcious. When you wake up, still a little dizzy, you realize that they put you inside of crate *with* the almost dead bird. In your semi-conscious state, you see the body of the bird changing, getting bigger, until it's not a bird anymore, but a girl. As fast as she appears, the girl starts shifting again, growing shining black fur and getting to the size of a big cat. But it's not a cat. It's a possum. Someone opens the crate and you only have a glimpse of the group of men pointing guns to the animal, before it begins to spray them with the skunk odor. The smell is so strong that you fall unconcious again. Finally, you wake up in the hospital. You start questioning if any of that was even real, till you feel the bruise in your head and the terrible smell that had remained on you.

That was the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day of Farrand, a minor character from the 9# book of Animorphs: The Secret. I've laughed so hard while reading, thinking about how confusing it must be to be just a random person in the Animorphs universe lmao. Poor Farrand...

[badolmen]

Saw a post and just want to say: yeah ‘carbon offsets’ are usually bullshit. Sure some smaller land owners might actually be planting diverse native trees in proportion* to their carbon emissions. But as someone who’s worked with The Big Ones? Absolutely horseshit.

8/10 times they find a landowner with a crappy high graded beech-birch thicket and say to the owner: ‘Hey. We’ll pay you to not cut these trees you weren’t planning on/won’t be able to cut for a profit for the next 20-40 years anyway, and you’ll get a kickback.’ Ofc the owner says yes and the Big One can pat themselves on the back and show their stockholders ‘see we’re sooooo interested in reducing our carbon footprint’ when they’re straight up Doing Nothing.

When a Big One does engage in actual tree planting it is always a monoculture. There is not an economically viable way to plant the number of trees needed to proportionally offset their emissions* without it being a thoughtless monoculture without regard for site specificity and seedling survival rates.

How about instead of doing fuck all or wasting time and resources planting monocultures these big companies actually reduce their emissions instead of using their near infinite well of wealth to increase their emissions because they can always buy more crappy stands or pay a little more to plantation owners?

*Fun fact: we are barely at the cusp of carbon research being able to answer the long term + actual potential of carbon storage of different stands based on their age and species composition. We know that younger stands grow faster and therefore capture carbon at an increased rate compared to older stands. Realistically, a large older stand will capture comparative levels of carbon to a small younger stand. You just did a huge clear cut? Congrats that’s now a massive carbon sink you can get paid to ignore it the way you would be anyway for the next 50-60 years. Unsurprisingly this does information does not incentivize the conservation of old growth stands, because the most Carbon Efficient thing to do would be to cut all the old growth for timber (preserving it from decomposition and releasing carbon in most cases) and let new, young, fast growing forests replace them. Who cares about ecological nuance? We’re storing more carbon this way!

[wellhalesbells]

Tagged by @piratefalls for wip wednesday. Thanks, lovely!

Okay, so, hopefully we can see what I was working on (a continuation of a thing!) when my attention span blooped away a bit to the left. 'Cause I'm always like: magic should have rules and take training and have a cost, like any skill set - practice and toil, y'know? Definitely my preferred camp but, also, what if you were a necromancer and shit just lived and died all around you and kind of... naturally cantered towards balance just because your presence gave it the opportunity to organically find its fate? HOW WEIRD/COOL WOULD THAT BE, RIGHT? *rabid breathing* Anywhoozles... anyone who lives and breathes magic like that should also totally have a familiar, yeah? Yeah.

The undergrowth parts and sways around his ankles with his every step, the dirt tills beneath the heel of his sneaker and life burrows down but not away from the pressure of his footfalls.  Flowers bloom and leaves unfurl and the sun’s rays are warm and constant. The trees creak and groan, shearing branches, finding their angles, contorting to stretch into their best sun spots without blocking out any others.  A loud crack echoes in the rustling air as a tree’s trunk splits, bark sliding, roots unmooring.  It hits the loamy floor with a soft thud and moss and mushrooms sprout, wood going sunken, decay taking place in mere moments rather than years. Nature forever loud and mobile all around him. He didn’t exactly mean to grow a forest out here, where burnt timber and soot covered the ground, the smell of decomposition and rot overwhelming, but he’s not upset about it either.  He’s no longer tripping over broken boards and covered in grime up to his shins when he walks out here. Now vines have tangled around the old wood, created their own trellis amongst the trees. He senses rather than sees the bones, almost finds them with a crunch before he realizes what’s beneath him.  He takes a careful step backward and the skull shimmies the dirt off to peer at him.   The bones are small, bleached white in the blanket of sun, and waiting.  It feels natural to fit them and feather them and bring them back. The layers all fold together so fast - muscles and circulation and skin and feathers - that it’s nearly impossible to see the order of them but a raven stands looking at him, head cocked, feet lightly dancing back and forth after only a moment.

Low pressure tagging: @rosieposiepuddingnpie, @kikiroo, @wolfspurr, and @andavs and anyone else who sees this and wants to share!

[warriors-rewritten-chaos]

Warrior Cats Prefixes- H

I had a WC Name Generator on Perchance that I made but I don't seem to have access anymore, so I'm remaking it here as just a simple list. The definitions used are the ones that Clan cats have for those things, and thus are the origins of the names. Definitions used are whatever I found when I googled it.

Haddock-: "[noun] a silvery-gray bottom-dwelling fish of North Atlantic coastal waters, related to the cod"

Hail-: "[noun] pellets of frozen rain which fall in showers from cumulonimbus clouds"

Happy-: "[adj] feeling or showing pleasure or contentment; [adj] having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with (a cat, arrangement, or situation)"

Hare-: "[noun] a fast-running, long-eared mammal that resembles a large rabbit, having long hind legs and occurring typically in grassland or open woodland"

Harpy-: "[noun] a large crested eagle"

Harrier-: "[noun] any of the several species of diurnal hawks sometimes placed in the subfamily Circinae of the bird of prey family Accipitridae. Harriers characteristically hunt by flying low over open ground, feeding on small mammals, reptiles, or birds"

Haven-: "[noun] harbor or port; [noun] a place of safety or refuge"

Hawk-: "[noun] a bird of prey with broad rounded wings and a long tail, typically taking prey by surprise with a short chase"

Hawthorn-: "[noun] a thorny shrub or tree of the rose family, with white, pink, or red blossoms and small dark red fruits (haws)"

Hay-: "[noun] grass that has been mown and dried for use as fodder"

Haze-: "[noun] a slight obscuration of the lower atmosphere, typically caused by fine suspended particles"

Hazel-: "[noun] a temperate shrub or small tree with broad leaves, bearing prominent male catkins in spring and round hard-shelled edible nuts in autumn; [noun] a reddish-brown or greenish-brown color"

Hazy-: "[adj] covered by a haze; [adj] vague, indistinct, or ill-defined"

Heath-: "[noun] an area of open uncultivated land, especially in Britain, with characteristic vegetation of heather, gorse, and coarse grasses; [noun] a dwarf shrub with small leathery leaves and small pink or purple bell-shaped flowers, characteristic of heathland and moorland"

Heather-: "[noun] a purple-flowered Eurasian heath that grows abundantly on moorland and heathland"

Heavy-: "[adj] of great weight; difficult to lift or move; [adj] of great density, thick or substantial"

Hedge-: "[noun] a fence or boundary formed by closely growing bushes or shrubs"

Hedgehog-: "[noun] a small nocturnal Old World mammal with a spiny coat and short legs, able to roll itself into a ball for defense"

Hellbender-: "[noun] an aquatic giant salamander with grayish skin and a flattened head, native to North America"

Hemlock-: "[noun] a highly poisonous European plant of the parsley family, with a purple-spotted stem, fernlike leaves, small white flowers, and an unpleasant smell"

Hen-: "[noun] a female bird, especially of a domestic fowl"

Heron-: "[noun] a large fish-eating wading bird with long legs, a long S-shaped neck, and a long pointed bill"

Herring-: "[noun] a silvery fish that is most abundant in coastal waters"

Hibiscus-: "[noun] a plant of the mallow family, grown in warm climates for its large brightly colored flowers"

Hickory-: "[noun] a chiefly North American tree of the walnut family that yields useful timber and typically bears edible nuts"

Hidden-: "[adj] kept out of sight and concealed"

Hill-: "[noun] a naturally raised area of land, not as high or craggy as a mountain"

Hive-: "[noun] a container for housing honeybees; [noun] a colony of bees"

Hog-: "[noun] a domesticated pig"

Hollow-: "[noun] a hole or depression in something; [adj] having a hole or empty space inside"

Holly-: "[noun] a widely distributed shrub, typically having prickly dark green leaves, small white flowers, and red berries"

Hollyhock-: "[noun] a tall Eurasian plant of the mallow family, widely cultivated for its large showy flowers"

Honey-: "[noun] a sticky yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers"

Honeybee-: "[noun] a stinging winged insect that collects nectar and pollen, produces wax and honey, and lives in large communities"

Honeycomb-: "[noun] a structure of hexagonal cells of wax, made by bees to store honey and eggs"

Honeysuckle-: "[noun] a widely distributed climbing shrub with tubular flowers that are typically fragrant and of two colors or shades, opening in the evening for pollination by moths"

Hoot-: "[noun] a deep or medium-pitched musical sound, often wavering or interrupted, that is the typical call of many kinds of owl"

Hop-: "[noun] a hopping movement; [adj] (of a person) move by jumping on one foot"

Hope-: "[noun] a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen"

Horizon-: "[noun] the line at which the earth's surface and the sky appear to meet"

Hornet-: "[noun] a large stinging wasp that typically nests in hollow trees"

Hornwort-: "[noun] a submerged aquatic plant with narrow forked leaves that become translucent and horny as they age"

Horse-: "[noun] a large plant-eating domesticated mammal with solid hoofs and a flowing mane and tail"

Hound-: "[noun] a dog of a breed used for hunting, especially one able to track by scent"

Howl-: "[noun] a long, loud, doleful cry uttered by an animal such as a dog or wolf; [verb] make a howling sound"

Howling-: "[verb] producing a long, loud, doleful cry or wailing sound"

Hum-: "[verb] make a low, steady continuous sound like that of a bee; [noun] a low, steady continuous sound"

Humid-: "[adj] marked by a relatively high level of water vapor in the atmosphere"

Humming-: "[verb] make a low, steady continuous sound like that of a bee"

Hummingbird-: "[noun] a small nectar-feeding tropical American bird that is able to hover and fly backward, typically having colorful iridescent plumage"

Hurricane-: "[noun] a storm with a violent wind, in particular a tropical cyclone in the Caribbean"

Hush-: "[noun] a silence"

Husk-: "[noun] the dry outer covering of some fruits or seeds"

Hyacinth-: "[noun] a bulbous plant of the lily family, with strap-like leaves and a compact spike of bell-shaped fragrant flowers"

Hydrangea-: "[noun] a shrub or climbing plant with rounded or flattened flowering heads of small florets"

Hyssop-: "[noun] a small bushy aromatic plant of the mint family"

[dailyanarchistposts]

E.3.1 Will privatising nature save it?

No, it will not. To see why, it is only necessary to look at the arguments and assumptions of those who advocate such solutions to our ecological problems.

The logic behind the notion of privatising the planet is simple. Many of our environmental problems stem, as noted in the last section, from externalities. According to the “market advocates” this is due to there being unowned resources for if someone owned them, they would sue whoever or whatever was polluting them. By means of private property and the courts, pollution would end. Similarly, if an endangered species or eco-system were privatised then the new owners would have an interest in protecting them if tourists, say, were willing to pay to see them. Thus the solution to environmental problems is simple. Privatise everything and allow people’s natural incentive to care for their own property take over.

Even on this basic level, there are obvious problems. Why assume that capitalist property rights are the only ones, for example? However, the crux of the problem is clear enough. This solution only works if we assume that the “resources” in question make their owners a profit or if they are willing and able to track down the polluters. Neither assumption is robust enough to carry the weight that capitalism places on our planet’s environment. There is no automatic mechanism by which capitalism will ensure that environmentally sound practices will predominate. In fact, the opposite is far more likely.

At its most basic, the underlying rationale is flawed. It argues that it is only by giving the environment a price can we compare its use for different purposes. This allows the benefits from preserving a forest to be compared to the benefits of cutting it down and building a shopping centre over it. Yet by “benefits” it simply means economic benefits, i.e. whether it is profitable for property owners to do so, rather than ecologically sensible. This is an important difference. If more money can be made in turning a lake into a toxic waste dump then, logically, its owners will do so. Similarly, if timber prices are not rising at the prevailing profit or interest rate, then a self-interested firm will seek to increase its profits and cut-down its trees as fast as possible, investing the returns elsewhere. They may even sell such cleared land to other companies to develop. This undermines any claim that private property rights and environmental protection go hand-in-hand.

As Glenn Albrecht argues, such a capitalist “solution” to environmental problems is only “likely to be effective in protecting species [or ecosystems] which are commercially important only if the commercial value of that species [or ecosystem] exceeds that of other potential sources of income that could be generated from the same ‘natural capital’ that the species inhabits If, for example, the conservation of species for ecotourism generates income which is greater than that which could be gained by using their habit for the growing of cash crops, then the private property rights of the owners of the habitat will effectively protect those species … However, this model becomes progressively less plausible when we are confronted with rare but commercially unimportant species [or ecosystems] versus very large development proposals that are inconsistent with their continual existence. The less charismatic the species, the more ‘unattractive’ the ecosystem, the more likely it will be that the development proposal will proceed. The ‘rights’ of developers will eventually win out over species and ecosystems since … bio-diversity itself has no right to exist and even if it did, the clash of rights between an endangered species and multi-national capital would be a very uneven contest.” [“Ethics, Anarchy and Sustainable Development”, pp. 95–118, Anarchist Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 104–5]

So the conservation of endangered species or eco-systems is not automatically achieved using the market. This is especially the case when there is little, or no, economic value in the species or eco-system in question. The most obvious example is when there is only a limited profit to be made from a piece of land by maintaining it as the habitat of a rare species. If any alternative economic uses for that land yields a greater profit then that land will be developed. Moreover, if a species looses its economic value as a commodity then the property owners will become indifferent to its survival. Prices change and so an investment which made sense today may not look so good tomorrow. So if the market price of a resource decreases then it becomes unlikely that its ecological benefits will outweigh its economic ones. Overall, regardless of the wider ecological importance of a specific eco-system or species it is likely that their owner will prioritise short-term profits over environmental concerns. It should go without saying that threatened or endangered eco-systems and species will be lost under a privatised regime as it relies on the willingness of profit-orientated companies and individuals to take a loss in order to protect the environment.

Overall, advocates of market based environmentalism need to present a case that all plants, animals and eco-systems are valuable commodities in the same way as, say, fish are. While a case for market-based environmentalism can be made by arguing that fish have a market price and, as such, owners of lakes, rivers and oceans would have an incentive to keep their waters clean in order to sell fish on the market, the same cannot be said of all species and habitats. Simply put, not all creatures, plants and eco-systems with an ecological value will have an economic one as well.

Moreover, markets can send mixed messages about the environmental policies which should be pursued. This may lead to over investment in some areas and then a slump. For example, rising demand for recycled goods may inspire an investment boom which, in turn, may lead to over-supply and then a crash, with plants closing as the price falls due to increased supply. Recycling may then become economically unviable, even though it remains ecologically essential. In addition, market prices hardly provide an accurate signal regarding the “correct” level of ecological demands in a society as they are constrained by income levels and reflect the economic pressures people are under. Financial security and income level play a key role, for in the market not all votes are equal. A market based allocation of environmental goods and bads does not reflect the obvious fact the poor may appear to value environmental issues less than the wealthy in this scheme simply because their preferences (as expressed in the market) are limited by lower budgets.

Ultimately, market demand can change without the underlying demand for a specific good changing. For example, since the 1970s the real wages of most Americans have stagnated while inequality has soared. As a result, fewer households can afford to go on holidays to wilderness areas or buy more expensive ecologically friendly products. Does that imply that the people involved now value the environment less simply because they now find it harder to make ends meet? Equally, if falling living standards force people to take jobs with dangerous environmental consequences does than really provide an accurate picture of people’s desires? It takes a giant leap of faith (in the market) to assume that falling demand for a specific environmental good implies that reducing environmental damage has become less valuable to people. Economic necessity may compel people to act against their best impulses, even strongly felt natural values (an obvious example is that during recessions people may be more willing to tolerate greenhouse gas emissions simply because they need the work).

Nor can it be claimed that all the relevant factors in ecological decision making can take the commodity form, i.e. be given a price. This means that market prices do not, in fact, actually reflect people’s environmental values. Many aspects of our environment simply cannot be given a market price (how can you charge people to look at beautiful scenery?). Then there is the issue of how to charge a price which reflects the demand of people who wish to know that, say, the rainforest or wilderness exists and is protected but who will never visit either? Nor are future generations taken into account by a value that reflects current willingness to pay and might not be consistent with long-term welfare or even survival. And how do you factor in the impact a cleaner environment has on protecting or extending human lives? Surely a healthy environment is worth much more than simply lost earnings and the medical bills and clean-up activities saved? At best, you could factor this in by assuming that the wage premium of workers in dangerous occupations reflects it but a human life is, surely, worth more than the wages required to attract workers into dangerous working conditions. Wages are not an objective measure of the level of environmental risks workers are willing to tolerate as they are influenced by the overall state of the economy, the balance of class power and a whole host of other factors. Simply put, fear of unemployment and economic security will ensure that workers tolerate jobs that expose them and their communities to high levels of environmental dangers.

Economic necessity drives decisions in the so-called “free” market (given a choice between clean air and water and having a job, many people would choose the latter simply because they have to in order to survive). These factors can only be ignored which means that environmental values cannot be treated like commodities and market prices cannot accurately reflect environmental values. The key thing to remember is that the market does not meet demand, it meets effective demand (i.e. demands backed up with money). Yet people want endangered species and eco-systems protected even if there is no effective demand for them on the market (nor could be). We will return to this critical subject in the next section.

Then there are the practicalities of privatising nature. How, for example, do we “privatise” the oceans? How do we “privatise” whales and sharks in order to conserve them? How do we know if a whaling ship kills “your” whale? And what if “your” shark feeds on “my” fish? From whom do we buy these resources in the first place? What courts must be set up to assess and try crimes and define damages? Then there are the costs of defining and enforcing private rights by means of the courts. This would mean individual case-by-case adjudications which increase transaction costs. Needless to say, such cases will be influenced by the resources available to both sides. Moreover, the judiciary is almost always the least accountable and representative branch of the state and so turning environmental policy decisions over to them will hardly ensure that public concerns are at the foremost of any decision (such a move would also help undermine trial by jury as juries often tend to reward sizeable damages against corporations in such cases, a factor corporations are all too aware of).

This brings us to the problem of actually proving that the particles of a specific firm has inflicted a specific harm on a particular person and their property. Usually, there are multiple firms engaging in polluting the atmosphere and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to legally establish the liability of any particular firm. How to identify which particular polluter caused the smog which damaged your lungs and garden? Is it an individual company? A set of companies? All companies? Or is it transportation? In which case, is it the specific car which finally caused your cancer or a specific set of car uses? Or all car users? Or is it the manufacturers for producing such dangerous products in the first place?

Needless to say, even this possibility is limited to the current generation. Pollution afflicts future generations as well and it is impossible for their interests to be reflected in court for “future harm” is not the question, only present harm counts. Nor can non-human species or eco-systems sue for damage, only their owners can and, as noted above, they may find it more profitable to tolerate (or even encourage) pollution than sue. Given that non-owners cannot sue as they are not directly harmed, the fate of the planet will rest in the hands of the property-owning class and so the majority are effectively dispossessed of any say over their environment beyond what their money can buy. Transforming ecological concerns into money ensures a monopoly by the wealthy few:

“In other words, the environment is assumed to be something that can be ‘valued,’ in a similar way that everything else is assigned a value within the market economy. “However, apart from the fact that there is no way to put an ‘objective’ value on most of the elements that constitute the environment (since they affect a subjective par excellence factor, i.e. the quality of life), the solution suggested … implies the extension of the marketisation process to the environment itself. In other words, it implies the assignment of a market value to the environment … so that the effects of growth onto it are ‘internalised’ … The outcome of such a process is easily predictable: the environment will either be put under the control of the economic elites that control the market economy (in case an actual market value be assigned to it) or the state (in case an imputed value is only possible). In either case, not only the arrest of the ecological damage is — at least — doubtful, but the control over Nature by elites who aim to dominate it — using ‘green’ prescriptions this time — is perpetuated.” [Takis Fotopoulous, “Development or Democracy?”, pp. 57–92, Society and Nature, No. 7, pp. 79–80]

Another key problem with using private property in regard to environmental issues is that they are almost always reactive, almost never proactive. Thus the pollution needs to have occurred before court actions are taken as strict liability generally provides after-the-fact compensation for injuries received. If someone does successfully sue for damages, the money received can hardly replace an individual or species or eco-system. At best, it could be argued that the threat of being sued will stop environmentally damaging activities but there is little evidence that this works. If a company concludes that the damages incurred by court action is less than the potential profits to be made, then they will tolerate the possibility of court action (particularly if they feel that potential victims do not have the time or resources available to sue). This kind of decision was most infamously done by General Motors when it designed its Malibu car. The company estimated that the cost of court awarded damages per car was less than ensuring that the car did not explode during certain kinds of collusion and so allowed people to die in fuel-fed fires rather than alter the design. Unfortunately for GM, the jury was horrified (on appeal, the damages were substantially reduced). [Joel Bakan, The Corporation, pp. 61–5]

So this means that companies seeking to maximise profits have an incentive to cut safety costs on the assumption that the risk of so doing will be sufficiently low to make it worthwhile and that any profits generated will more than cover the costs of any trial and damages imposed. As eco-anarchist David Watson noted in regards to the Prudhoe Bay disaster, it “should go without saying that Exxon and its allies don’t try their best to protect the environment or human health. Capitalist institutions produce to accumulate power and wealth, not for any social good. Predictably, in order to cut costs, Exxon steadily dismantled what emergency safeguards it had throughout the 1980s, pointing to environmental studies showing a major spill as so unlikely that preparation was unnecessary. So when the inevitable came crashing down, the response was complete impotence and negligence.” [Against the Megamachine, p. 57] As such, it cannot be stressed too much that the only reason companies act any different (if and when they do) is because outside agitators — people who understand and cared about the planet and people more than they did about company profits — eventually forced them to.

So given all this, it is clear that privatising nature is no guarantee that environmental problems will be reduced. In fact, it is more likely to have the opposite effect. Even its own advocates suggest that their solution may produce more pollution than the current system of state regulation. Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal put it this way:

“If markets produce ‘too little’ clean water because dischargers do not have to pay for its use, then political solutions are equally likely to produce ‘too much’ clean water because those who enjoy the benefits do not pay the cost … Just as pollution externalities can generate too much dirty air, political externalities can generate too much water storage, clear-cutting, wilderness, or water quality … Free market environmentalism emphasises the importance of market process in determining optimal amounts of resource use.” [Free Market Environmentalism, p. 23]

What kind of environmentalism considers the possibility of “too much” clean air and water? This means, ironically, that from the perspective of free-market “environmentalism” that certain ecological features may be over-protected as a result of the influence of non-economic goals and priorities. Given that this model is proposed by many corporate funded think tanks, it is more than likely that their sponsors think there is “too much” clean air and water, “too much” wilderness and “too much” environmental goods. In other words, the “optimal” level of pollution is currently too low as it doubtful that corporations are seeking to increase their costs of production by internalising even more externalities.

Equally, we can be sure that “too much” pollution “is where the company polluting the water has to pay too much to clean up the mess they make. It involves a judgement that costs to the company are somehow synonymous with costs to the community and therefore can be weighed against benefits to the community.” Such measures “grant the highest decision-making power over environmental quality to those who currently make production decisions. A market system gives power to those most able to pay. Corporations and firms, rather than citizens or environmentalists, will have the choice about whether to pollute (and pay the charges or buy credits to do so).” [Sharon Beder, Global Spin, p. 104]

The surreal notion of “too much” clean environment does indicate another key problem with this approach, namely its confusion of need and demand with effective demand. The fact is that people may desire a clean environment, but they may not be able to afford to pay for it on the market. In a similar way, there can be “too much” food while people are starving to death simply because people cannot afford to pay for it (there is no effective demand for food, but an obvious pressing need). Much the same can be said of environment goods. A lack of demand for a resource today does not mean it is not valued by individuals nor does it mean that it will not be valued in the future. However, in the short-term focus produced by the market such goods will be long-gone, replaced by more profitable investments.

The underlying assumption is that a clean environment is a luxury which we must purchase from property owners rather than a right we have as human beings. Even if we assume the flawed concept of self-ownership, the principle upon which defenders of capitalism tend to justify their system, the principle should be that our ownership rights in our bodies excludes it being harmed by the actions of others. In other words, a clean environment should be a basic right for all. Privatising the environment goes directly against this basic ecological insight.

The state’s environmental record has often been terrible, particularly as its bureaucrats have been influenced by private interest groups when formulating and implementing environmental policies. The state is far more likely to be “captured” by capitalist interests than by environmental groups or even the general community. Moreover, its bureaucrats have all too often tended to weight the costs and benefits of specific projects in such a way as to ensure that any really desired ones will go ahead, regardless of what local people want or what the environmental impact will really be. Such projects, needless to say, will almost always have powerful economic interests behind them and will seek to ensure that “development” which fosters economic growth is pursued. This should be unsurprising. If we assume, as “market advocates” do, that state officials seek to further their own interests then classes with the most economic wealth are most likely to be able to do that the best. That the state will reflect the interests of those with most private property and marginalise the property-less should, therefore, come as no surprise.

Yet the state is not immune to social pressure from the general public or the reality of environmental degradation. This is proved, in its own way, by the rise of corporate PR, lobbying and think-tanks into multi-million pound industries. So while the supporters of the market stress its ability to change in the face of consumer demand, their view of the alternatives is extremely static and narrow. They fail, unsurprisingly, to consider the possibility of alternative forms of social organisation. Moreover, they also fail to mention that popular struggles can influence the state by means of direct action. For them, state officials will always pursue their own private interests, irrespective of popular pressures and social struggles (or, for that matter, the impact of corporate lobbying). While it is possible that the state will favour specific interests and policies, it does not mean that it cannot be forced to consider wider ones by the general public (until such time as it can be abolished, of course).

As we discussed in section D.1.5, the fact the state can be pressured by the general public is precisely why certain of its secondary functions have been under attack by corporations and the wealthy (a task which their well-funded think-tanls provide the rationales for). If all this is the case (and it is), then why expect cutting out the middle-person by privatising nature to improve matters? By its own logic, therefore, privatising nature is hardly going to produce a better environment as it is unlikely that corporations would fund policies which would result in more costs for themselves and less access to valuable natural resources. As free market environmentalism is premised on economic solutions to ecological problems and assumes that economic agents will act in ways which maximise their own benefit, such an obvious conclusion should come naturally to its advocates. For some reason, it does not.

Ultimately, privatising nature rests on the ridiculous notion that a clean environment is a privilege which we must buy rather than a right. Under “free market environmentalism” private property is assumed to be the fundamental right while there is no right to a clean and sustainable environment. In other words, the interests of property owners are considered the most important factor and the rest of us are left with the possibility of asking them for certain environmental goods which they may supply if they make a profit from so doing. This prioritisation and categorisation is by no means obvious and uncontroversial. Surely the right to a clean and liveable environment is more fundamental than those associated with property? If we assume this then the reduction of pollution, soil erosion, and so forth are not goods for which we must pay but rather rights to which we are entitled. In other words, protecting species and ecosystem as well as preventing avoidable deaths and illnesses are fundamental issues which simply transcend the market. Being asked to put a price on nature and people is, at best, meaningless, or, at worse, degrading. It suggests that the person simply does not understand why these things are important.

But why should we be surprised? After all, private property bases itself on the notion that we must buy access to land and other resources required for a fully human life. Why should a clean environment and a healthy body be any different? Yet again, we see the derived rights (namely private property) trumping the fundamental base right (namely the right of self-ownership which should automatically exclude harm by pollution). That this happens so consistently should not come as too great a surprise, given that the theory was invented to justify the appropriation of the fruits of the worker’s labour by the property owner (see section B.4.2). Why should we be surprised that this is now being used to appropriate the rights of individuals to a clean environment and turn it into yet another means of expropriating them from their birthrights?

[bristolianbackpacker]

Day 27 - Puerto Maldonado and Lake Sandoval

This hotel has been such a lifesaver for us! Jack is still in the depths of the symptoms when we wake up. We grab some brekkie and I pack up our stuff as we need to move to our next hotel today.

I get picked up at 12:45pm for the trip to the lake. It’s a 10min taxi, 40min boat ride, 1 hour hike to the lake. Marco is my guide again which is a relief. He greets me with his usual directness “Benjamin, vamos!!”. Nice to see you too Marco, yes I’m feeling better thanks for asking 😂

Along the hike Marco explains a bit about this area. About 80 years ago a family moved in around the lake. They were involved in timber trade and cleared the area of a lot of its most valuable trees. They also participated in collecting tropical fruits to sell, fishing and farming. This has left the area looking quite different to Chuncho - much less primary forest here due to the clearing. The secondary forest that remains can eventually return to primary forest now that it is protected but it will take a longgg time naturally. The only big trees that remain are figs as nobody wanted their softwood. It was only made a national reserve about 20 years ago and the family have been allowed to remain. They now all work in the tourism industry (the five children of the original parents that moved in each have their own lodge on the lake). It feels a bit like this family have managed to monopolise the lake.

Before we even get out of the creek in the canoe Marco spots a caiman. This one is a black caiman which grows much bigger than the white caiman we spotted the other day at Chunchos. It’s only a juvenile though so 60-70cm long. It takes me so long to even spot him despite Marcos detailed instructions on how to find him. They camouflage so well and don’t move a muscle.

The lake is huge and so beautiful. The main aim is to spot one of the giant river otters that live here but there are only 6 (one family) so it’s difficult.

We spot a bunch of different birds - the Squirrel Cuckoo, two Stinky Birds, a Snake Birds (with its wings open to dry out after fishing), a Ringed Kingfisher and an eagle that nearly caught another bird.

Marco spots a huge 4m caiman through his binoculars. He theorises that it might be hunting the baby otters. Interestingly, the otters are the apex predators on the lake and will kill the caimans so it tries to kill off the babies whilst it still can before it becomes the prey. Unfortunately no luck spotting the otters, but I spend quite a while just watching it through the binoculars - it moves so fast but stealthily.

Aguaje palm trees surround the lake, there are home to macaws so later on before we leave we see them all returning from their days activities to nest for the night.

Time to paddle back, it’s starting to get dark so we briskly walk back through the jungle to get to the boat.

Whilst I’ve been away Jack has moved our stuff to the next hotel so I meet him there. It’s another fancy place compared to where we’ve been - hopefully we will be feeling well enough to actually enjoy it. We have dinner at the hotel as it’s a little outside of town and we need something convenient. It’s a three course set menu that is vegetarian only but it gets good reviews so we go for it. The food is nice but again it’s all so salty.

[paldean-ranger-brandy]

Brandy I need your opinions on hoenn's biomes as soon as physically possible

- Tea

(@pokemon-teacology)

Fortree city / route 120 number one forever!!! 🤘🤘🤘

Did you know that those massive and beautiful puddles are actually the side effect of a huge deforestation effort that cut Fortree's population nearly in half? They should not be there!

That is floodwater besties. Stop posting about it on ur pinchurinest like it's some #aesthetic natural wonder. We have been trying to reforest that area to prevent these floods but nooooo everyone on social media has to scream about how ~pretty~ it is.

Anyway that's neither here nor there. Rainforest biome of Northeastern Hoenn is number one. We have some of the most impressive bioversity in our pokemon and the REMAINING trees. Beautiful. All natural. Nature, wow 🖤

I'm also not an oceanologist or whatever, but I did one time get to try out the Union's marine equipment to help out some marine rangers and wow holy shit the ocean floor is stunning. Its basically a different type of forest, all that plant life and pokemon and the coral. Wow.

I also would be remiss if I didn't mention meteor falls. I wasn't afraid of caves back in Hoenn so I did get to see them on a couple stretch assignments. I'm even less of a...rock person than I am an ocean person so I truly have NO clue what is going on there but they are stunning and unique. Everyone say thank you to the Draconid people for saving it from Devon Corp.

Also shout out to Petalburg woods. They are also trying to recover their forest after the old growth was cut down and replaced with fast growing timber pines. Admittedly not a ton going on in that forest, comparatively, but she still deserves her flowers.

The desert, volcano, meadow, beach, and marsh lands are also all cool. They're no rainforest or ocean or massive grotto, but they are also all beautiful and unique. Hoenn 🖤

[fatehbaz]

Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored.

---

But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees. The reasons are obvious: planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. This is helpful if the objective is generating a lot of timber quickly or certifying carbon credits which people and firms buy to supposedly offset their emissions. [...] [I]ll-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species [...]. For more than 200 years India has experimented with tree plantations, offering important lessons about the consequences different approaches to restoring forests have on local communities and the wider environment. This rare long-term perspective should be heeded [...].

Britain extended its influence over India and controlled much of its affairs [...] from the mid-18th century onwards. Between 1857 and 1947, the Crown ruled the country directly and turned its attention to the country’s forests. Britain needed great quantities of timber to lay railway sleepers and build ships in order to transport the cotton, rubber and tea it took from India.

Through the Indian Forest Act of 1865, forests with high-yielding timber trees such as teak, sal and deodar became state property. To maximise how much timber these forests yielded, British colonial authorities restricted the rights of local people to harvest much beyond grass and bamboo. [...] Meanwhile plantations of teak (Tectona grandis), a species well adapted to India’s hot and humid climate and a source of durable and attractive timber, spread aggressively. [...]

---

[G]rasslands and open scrub forest gave way to teak monocultures.

Eucalyptus and other exotic trees which hadn’t evolved in India were introduced from around 1790. British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region as a source of resin and introduced acacia trees from Australia for timber, fodder and fuel.

One of these species, wattle (Acacia mearnsii), first introduced in 1861 with a few hundred thousand saplings, was planted in the Nilgiris district of the Western Ghats. This area is what scientists all a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become invasive and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands.

Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and displaced native oak trees while teak has replaced sal, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for fuel, fodder, fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss [...] impoverished many.

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India’s national forest policy [...] aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure. Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. The result is that afforestation harms rural and indigenous people who depend on these ecosystems [...].

In the Kachchh grasslands of western India communities were able to restore grasslands by removing the invasive gando bawal (meaning “mad tree”) first introduced by British foresters in the late 19th century. [...]

The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family. This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests. [...]

Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too.

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Text by: Dhanapal Govindarajulu. "India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years - here are the results." The Conversation. 10 August 2023. [Bold emphasis, some paragraph breaks/contractions, and italicized first line in this post added by me.]

[creemstal-sage]

Writing Rambles, Setting pt. 1

I should really do something with this blog before it becomes another lurker acc for me, huh? Well, here's a shot:

Aldenbalm Marsh - Saltweller Remains An estuary marshland littered with mangroves and shallow sandbanks. vibrant mangrove trees hold fast in the sandy foundation they have, strengthening the sandbeds into formidable ground should anything try to wash it away. The shallows are teeming with salt water fish majorly, easy food if you know how to catch them. The canopies made are sparse but the rare respite you find offers a fantastic view. At least it once did.

Once a populated area, prominent habitation occuring in what was once known as Saltweller, a rivertown capitalising on the fish and forage, it now lays decaying and eroding from the washing tides. Once expansive boardwalks that made a grid of traffic from residential to commercial, all rooted in the mangrove reinforced sand, now lay buried and under the water, growing algae and kelp if not splintered and taken by the tides.

This change in population was sharp, a steep decline over the span of a year thanks to one underlying problem: the nymphs. Water nymphs had made a habit of occupying local rivers that ran through the inland traveling waters behind Saltweller, and thus were at a sort of natural competition with the residents of Saltweller for supplies and space. This competition was no stranger to ramping up, ultimately spilling into a nymph-led raid on the town, leaving no survivors from those who stood and fought.

What is seen now is salt-washed timbers, ruined plantations grown wild and uncouth, and only backed by the melancholic wash of the waves. The town was lost and destroyed, but still sits as a site of nymph infestation. Infestation is a strong word to be used, but its what they call it, the survivors.

If only they could have existed in peace...

[felagund-fiollaigean]

My father says I have English hair, English hair, English hair. Brown like the bark of an oak somewhere, like the bed of a lake where the hemlock grows, like the thorn on a stem of an English rose.

My father says I have English hair, Gold like the summer barley there, like the timber of an ash tree, tall and strong, like the honey from the bees buzzing their sweet song. 

My father says I have English hair, Red like a fox in the hills somewhere, like the forest in autumn, bright and bold, like the spark of a flame burning in the cold.

My father says I have English hair, black like the soil of our garden there, like the wing of a crow flying fast and light, like the ice on a lake on a winter’s night.