#flower from the shadow dimension be upon ye!

[kagender]

You should def draw Kururu and Kagege :3c

(or just Kagege, because there's not enough art of Kagege)

ive always thought that the day i get a kurukage request in my inbox will be the day i win at life

[eco-lite]

Some mostly out of context funny/sweet/heartbreaking moments from Una McCormack’s Enigma Tales:

[Text ID: “Renel took the other chair and the two guls, both big men, perched awkwardly together on the sofa. Garak had asked for the sofa’s dimensions to be just slightly too small to comfortably seat two adult males. His cruel streak always found expression somehow.” End ID]

Garak forcing stuffy military men to squeeze onto a tiny sofa together. Utterly diabolical.

[Text ID: “My real pride is, of course, my garden. I have worked hard here. Parmak helps, although he has a tendency to kill plants on touch—worrying in a doctor (previous sentences underlined in red by me). He can’t do too much damage. The plants are hardy, the flowers have their own agenda, and not even Parmak can kill dry stone monuments.” End ID]

I love that in The Crimson Shadow, it’s implied that Kelas takes care of Garak’s garden while he’s away, yet here we learn that he’s actually terrible at it. First of all hilarious. Second of all, very sweet that Garak trusts him to keep trying.

[Text ID: “’There might be another route to Garak,’ Alden said slowly, at last. ‘Ambassador, what do you know about Kelas Parmak?’

‘He is the castellan’s close friend,’ said T’Rena. ‘Probably one of his closest advisors—not officially, but certainly they are often together.’

‘Are they lovers?’ said Pulaski.

‘I don’t know,’ said T’Rena. ‘I do know that Parmak was interrogated by the Obsidian Order in his youth, and that Garak may have been involved.’

‘Damn,’ muttered Alden, ‘this place is twisted.’” End ID]

Pulaski just assuming that Garak and Kelas are lovers. A perfectly valid assumption--it’s the same assumption I make myself. Also, Peter Alden pointing out how it is frankly fucked up that they should be lovers considering the circumstances of their past encounter. He’s not wrong... Kelas is just a forgiving angel of a man.

[Text ID: “She picked up the parcel she had brought with her. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go now. I hope it’s been good to see me. But I brought you a present. Well, it’s not really from me. Several of your friends got together and found this, and when they heard I was coming they asked me to bring it with me. I hope there’s no injunction on importing livestock. I think I got away with it.’

He was hardly going to unwrap the gift, so she pulled at the paper, revealing the small brown bear inside. She reached for Bashir’s hand again, lifting it and pressing it against the toy, in case the touch stirred some memory. She pressed it against his cheek too, so he could catch the scent. Smell and memory were closely intertwined; smells took you back to places more than anything else. Then she put the bear upon the windowsill, half looking out at the city, half looking back at Bashir. She smiled at it; this little guy had been loved, she saw, and someone had done some stitching that would make a surgeon proud. She reached out and rubbed its ears.

‘He’s an old soldier, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘He’s been through some wars. We’ve all been through some wars.’ She stopped and kissed her lost friend gently on the brow. ‘Come back, Julian,’ she said. ‘We miss you.’” End ID]

Pulaski bringing Kukalaka to comfort the comatose Julian are you kIDDING ME? This scene is so bittersweet.

[Text ID: “’My father would say, all the time, how much I was wanted. How much he wanted me.’

(Next paragraph highlighted red by me) Well, he had wanted something, Garak thought. Telek’s father had not wanted the child he got. And that hurt, as Garak had cause to know; yes, that hurt very badly.” End ID]

Hahahahaaa ouchie.

[Text ID: “Garak realized that he was still holding the phaser. He slipped it back into his pocket, for he would no doubt need it again one day, and then he rested his head against the cool of the window. My poor Julian, he thought. He let himself tremble for a while, allowing his body to process the shock. He might have allowed himself some tears then, too, in the dark while nobody could see, for all that had been lost, for all that he had done; for everyone that he had harmed.

Everyone that he had been unable to save.” End ID]

Despite everything, Garak is a very compassionate person. He very kindly talked down Telek, who was about to kill him, and was sensitive and remorseful that Telek’s Bajoran genetics had been eradicated as a child, at the insistance of Telek’s Cardassian father. And then immediately after that assassination attempt--a moment in which you’re surely allowed to think selfishly--he instead thinks of “My poor Julian,” another man whose father did not want him as he was. And that’s not even acknowledging all the other shit Garak is going through here. It’s a lot.

Love to end on a sad note. But seriously, everybody go read this book! These are just a few great moments among many. Lots of angst, lots of tenderness.

[ecrivant]

to be known by you | reiner braun

(reiner braun x reader)

it had been the strangest summer of recent memory: the days were lingering and dilatory, and rife with inexplicable phenomena.  when reiner meets a stranger he feels he recognizes, someone as ethereal and bizarre as the summer atmosphere itself, he cannot resist the beguiling nature of this newfound acquaintance and decides to accompany them for a night.  

word count: 2.7k

It had been the strangest summer of recent memory.  The days were lingering and dilatory and often seemed swathed in some turbid and ethereal atmosphere, augmented by an interminable humidity which each day lasted far past dusk.  The sun would hang in the sky for longer than its allotted time, and at duskfall, all terrene happenings stilled and gave way to strange, supernal movements to which no living being bore witness.  The beach house tenanted by the Brauns, which sat in the very center of this surreal environment and was not much more than a well-maintained shanty abutting the shore—the transition from sparse greenery to sand occurring directly beneath its raised foundation—was too pervaded by this sense of uncanny.  The inside seemed impossibly large for the dimensions of its edifice, and doors within moved on their own, and one could easily lose himself, sitting in one place, for hours at a time, staring at the irregularities in the wood wall panels or the microcosmic topography of the popcorn ceilings or the addled patterns in the stained, grey carpets.  Reiner liked to taunt Gabi and tell her the house was haunted, but it was something neither was completely disinclined to believe.

It had been the morning of third day that his mother mentioned the storage shed for the first and last time. Reiner, awake since sunrise on account of his prolonged restlessness, and Gabi, wanting to be with him, sat at the kitchen table, Reiner’s unfocused gaze resting on the view outside the window and Gabi’s on a spoon she mindlessly fingered.  His mother’s words had drawn his eyes towards her—her stare, intense, eyes narrowed in questioning:

“Were you doing something in the storage shed last night?”  

He shook his head ‘no’ and watched her interrogation move from him to Gabi.

“Gabi?”

“Mm?”  Eyes not acknowledging her.

“Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Doing something in the shed?  The storage shed.  Last night.”

“No.”  Gabi finally looked up, not at her aunt but at Reiner, eyes wide and brows raised.  Body turning, she met her aunt’s gaze.  “Should I have been?”

“It was open this morning,” his mother finally clarified, turning and reaching for a glass as she spoke. “The door was just cracked, but it was open.”

“Maybe someone didn’t shut it all the way.”

“Maybe.”  

Her response hung in the air, suspended by doubt, unconvinced of her son’s suggestion.  She glanced out the window, towards the shed in question—its door long since closed and locked after her curious discovery that morning—and it seemed to stare back at her.

“It’s nothing.”  Gabi’s remark interrupted her aunt’s staring contest with the building.  Her tone was playfully dismissive.  

“I think you just want to find something to worry about, Aunt Karina.”

“Maybe.”

There was no more mention of the shed after that day, but Reiner, usually awake before the rest of the house, would, without fail, hear his mother exit the house, creep into the backyard, and shut and lock the shed door each morning in the dim-blue dawn light.

Later that same week Reiner had convinced Gabi to camp in the backyard with him under the guise of fun activity, though he truly intended to observe the shed for the whole night. She had been excited at the prospect of staying awake into the morning and then promptly fell asleep before midnight, and for the rest of the time he simply sat, cross-legged and perspiring, under an ether rife with stars, eyes unwavering from that damn shed.  

Apparently having dozed off, though, as he awoke to the sound of the back door and his mother’s soft footfalls and opened his eyes to see her locking the shed.  Like every morning, a cyclical action of the damned in hell.  He accepted the phenomenon as an unknowable and moved on.  

—

Reiner could not remember how long they had been there; time moved differently in this place.  He drove to explore and found that the main road stretched on forever, never bending or turning, and the area itself laid among an immutable scenery: an arrant wasteland of vacant beachfront housing, like some vast and spanning afterthought.  Could you get lost on a road like this?  A pavement belt, flanked by stark shrubbery and shallow gullies full of groundwater. Sometimes, the rare stretch of unsettled coastline with a view of the sea uninhibited by copy-pasted housing.  There was something beautiful in the desolate and purgatorial landscape.  

The road ended at a bridge, one with caving beams and a skeletal substructure which barely supported its own weight.  He never dared explore it, or God forbid drive over it, but he often sat in his car, pulled off to the side of the road, and stared at it.  Captivated by the disrepair, what it represented—nothing better elucidated the mortality and impermanence of humanity than infrastructural decay.  The view would eventually become too unsettling, as if it watched him as well, and he would reverse the car and turn around and drive back towards the house.  When he would arrive, his mother would sometimes report he had been gone for hours, sometimes thirty minutes.  

—

“Why don’t you take Gabi to the farmers’ market today?”

He didn’t know there was a farmers’ market, much less even a place to host one.  At his mother’s suggestion, though, he drove down that endless stretch of road with Gabi in tow, and miraculously came upon a densely populated park, filled with tents which did little to block the relentless heat. Gabi bounded towards the entrance, Reiner trailing behind, and they quickly ate through the two twenty-dollar bills unceremoniously handed to them before their departure that morning.  Reiner was glad his mother hadn’t expected any money to be left.  

The park itself held towering trees with sparse canopies which casted amorphous shadows on the dirt paths.  So unlike any area found at a coast.  Walking along, enveloped in shade and shielded from the sun, one could almost be comfortable. The main walkway was wide, easily fitting five people across, and flanked by densely packed tents.  Each with their own smiling vendor.  They were nice, maybe a little too nice, and each offered a too-wide smile at Gabi as she made off with their too-good products.  He was uneased by the whole affair.  In retrospect, he couldn’t remember the last time he actually saw people in the area, and he assumed it was because it was so sparely populated.  Yet, with the sheer wall of bodies milling around the park, he felt he had accidently wandered into a city, the market itself some kind of microcosmic metropolis.  Strange to have never noticed the park while driving; it was never there until it was, as if it materialized out of nothing.  

He glanced around him, suddenly struck by Gabi’s absence.  A warning call of her name, and at the lack of response, another, more frantic one.  He spun around once, scanning the area, and continued to do so despite remarking how the crowd—a singular, ebbing mass of people—perfectly and wholly obscured her location.  But she soon yelled his name and beckoned him over to a booth replete with floral bouquets and emitting an aroma so intense he had to pause before continuing into the miasma.

“Can we get some?  For Aunt Karina?”

Her eyes pleaded with the potency of a mendicant’s—nothing but a scoundrel, he thought, who knows I cannot say no.  He reached into his wallet and searched for bills and found none.  He sheepishly asked the vendor, who was obscured by the perennial heaps before them, if they accepted cards.  A soft ‘yes’ spurred Gabi on to grab at a bouquet of yarrow and roses, a perfumed, white and yellow amalgam; a movement which revealed the vendor’s face.

Reiner was struck immobile. You, once hidden, now revealed, were immediately alluring, aura imbued with such profound familiarity.  As if you were already his lover.  He stumbled through his transaction as you stared at him with eyes he felt he knew.

“Would you like to include a handwritten note?”

Gabi nodded furiously, as if possessed by some excitable demon.  She dictated a note, childishly simple yet unequivocally kind, and you wrote it out on a notecard with a flourish.  Wrapping the cluster of flowers in tissue paper and tulle and tucking the note in the center, ending the routine by handing it to Gabi.  With a smile that was just right.  She ran off again, and Reiner waited for a moment longer, as if he knew to wait to be handed that scribbled note which read, ‘Meet me at the bridge tonight.’  

You felt so much like a memory.  He could not shake the feeling he knew you, deeply and wholly.  

—

Such vague wording, as if designed to make one second guess himself.  He would have to trust his instinct about the time.  In the moment he felt as if he knew you, but your thought process was unfamiliar to him—had you been struck by the same overwhelming feeling of familiarity?  Assumed he would understand what ‘tonight’ meant?  Or was this some omniscience taunting him and his implicit trust of a stranger?

He was at the bridge by sundown.  Car idled. He waited.  An hour, a minute.  And suddenly you were there—he jumped when he saw you.  You sat on the rotted and caving beams of the bridge, beckoning him with a gaze.  He approached you and stood at the first interstice between road and bridge and after a pause, dumbly said:

“I think I know you.”

And you confirmed his sentiment with echoed words.  He creeped onto the railing, supporting himself on rusted girders resembling steles erected to commemorate some bygone and lost epoch.  The chapped wood on which he sat dug into his thighs, and when he looked down, his feet hung over a canyon which in the dark became some measureless void.  Your sillage, floral and penetrative and everlasting.  You seemed to fluoresce in the pitch.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Your timid venture—the question, just for him.  He stared at you and thought for a moment and replied no, not that he could remember. You asked him if you could tell him of your first love, puerile and real.  He nodded yes.  And you began:

You spoke beautifully and openly about your childhood with a rawness, a candor, otherwise unshared between strangers.  You spoke of how your memories were places and people, painted in golden hues.  How your childhood room was always bright—in the morning, the rising sun would creep onto the bedroom wall and stay there as if resting in a lover’s embrace; and at sunset, the light would grow weary and slink away to make room for the night.  How those walls saw many things: your great-grandfather’s paintings, your mother’s smiling face.  And how it all smelled so distinct, even now, like old books and incense.  How, as a child, you often felt like some unchanging cairn laid solely to watch the world move around you.  

And as you spoke about the young boy you had once loved, Reiner thought of the way this intellection you so tenderly painted sounded like him: a child, tall, with a mess of blonde hair and hazel eyes that held an unusual intensity; a child with a tender voice, high-pitched and soft, and a lopsided smile.  And you repeated the words, “I can so clearly remember him,” like some unspoken truism.  You had shared your favorite places with this boy; your first kiss, and your hopes and fears; and the pain of aging and coming to know the dark and black and crushing void associated with it.

You spoke of how the young boy suddenly died, without explanation.  How the last time you saw him, there was such a pervasive sadness in his gaze.  How you despised this was the way you remembered him—with mournful and darkened eyes.  You had asked what was wrong, and he had not been sure.  Instead, the two of you clasped hands and sat in silence for a last time.

“I just remember the chaos.” A whisper, spoken more to yourself.

“I remember waking up to blue lights on my ceiling.  It was a cold blue light, a crude perversion of the warmness of the rising sun.  I looked out the window, and cars were crowded under the flickering streetlamp below, and I heard the wailing through my window.  I knew. I knew, but I just climbed in my bed and pulled the covers over my head, as if they would drown out the light and the shouts of a broken mother, and squeezed my eyes shut and saw his eyes and cowlicked hair and a toothy, lopsided grin.”

You asserted that part of you died with him.  A pause.

“It felt odd to be in love with someone who was already dead.”

And then you were finished. You took a deep breath, as if the story had been spoken with one, single inhalation.  Reiner blinked hard and processed the words and tried to think of something to say.  ‘Sorry’ seemed so blithe.

“What was his name?”

You shrugged your shoulders.

“I can’t remember.”

He stared at you, incredulous, half-expecting you to be joking.  How could one possibly—

“Sometimes I think he didn’t have one.”

Your whispered voice, as if about to shatter: “You remind me of him.  That’s why you’re here.”

Effervescent words that dissolved in the air.  Something nagging at the back of his mind.  He wrapped you in an embrace and held you there, and he thought not of you as a stranger.  A hand on your back and the other in your hair.  Breathing your exhalations.  An intimacy impossible between two unfamiliar people.  He swore he knew you.  

He felt your lips on his neck, testing, inquisitive.  He pulled back, meeting your gaze, eyes melancholic and wistful and searching for something intangible, possibly nonexistent.  You had the eyes of someone who was never anything but lost, and despite your shared unfamiliarity, he hoped you would find something within him as he leaned to press his lips to yours.  This kiss begot another and another, and his hand was on your cheek, and your skin was warm beneath his fingers, betraying your spectral nature. He thought he heard you whisper his name, though it was something you couldn’t have known.

He held you, again, with no desire to do more; this chaste intimacy was so much more potent. He savored your embrace and felt he could stay here, in your presence, with your touch, until he aged and crumbled like the disintegrating bridge on which they sat. A moment of abject redamancy.  Time moved differently here, with you.  

He was then inexplicably struck with the feeling that he missed you, as if he had finally found that which he had gone years without.

You pulled away and stood. Without warning.

“Can I see you again?” His plea, desperate, closing.

“I’m not certain.”

And with that, you asked him to leave.  He somehow knew he was meant to comply without question.

As he departed, and behind him the road and the bridge and you faded into blackness, he was reminded of the first time he moved homes—that unsettling and melancholic feeling of abandoning something familiar.  He drove and drove and missed his street, and instead of turning around, he surrendered to the compulsion to keep driving, and he drove some more.   He thought of you the entire time, oblivious his own existence.  He then thought of himself, and when reflecting on his childhood, he could not remember it; he only saw himself in the presence of a young child who looked like you, a shared heart between you.  He drove through the sunrise and another sunset, and he stopped to fill up his car with gas and kept driving.  He wasn’t sure how, but he eventually found his way back to the beach.

He arrived at the house and quietly climbed into bed.  He imagined you dissolving into the landscape; the canyon beneath the bridge widening like an open mouth and swallowing you.  Purloined by the purgatory which begot you.  

He suddenly could not remember your face.  

A thought, lost, just as he heard his mother closing and locking the shed door outside.  

—

thank you again to @casualityrantfun​ for suggesting a reiner piece!  it was very sweet of you to request something, and i hope you enjoy it.  also, thank you to everyone who has been reading/liking/reblogging my stuff!  it means the world to me, and i really love being able to write creatively for something i enjoy!

part of me wants to make this a long-form piece, but i don’t think i have the patience or the talent to do so.  maybe later down the line, though, we’ll see.  also, this piece is inspired by @dappermouth’s art, specifically this piece, which has literally captivated me for years, as well as the campfire scene from my own private idaho, which i watched the day before yesterday and fell in love with.  go hold someone you love, xoxo

masterlist

taglist: @flam3bird

[atomic-taco-muffin]

The Lost Princess Chapter 39

Warnings: it’s pretty obvious by now

Rating: SFW

A girl with black and silver hair was playing with her sister with the same hair color in a beautiful garden. The girls were laughing as they chased each other around. A woman was watching them play and saw the time.

“Yui! Roxy! Time to head home!” she said. 

“Aww, do we have to?” Roxy asked. 

“Yes. Your father is expecting us back.” 

“Okay.” Yui and Roxy ran over to their mother and headed back to the castle. On their way back, they stopped at a small shop so that their mother could pick up some flowers. As they were walking back to the castle, a giant Heartless had appeared. 

“Get behind me, girls,” their mother said. Yui and Roxy hid behind their mother as she summoned her weapon. She fought the Heartless but it stabbed her before she could attack. 

“MOMMY!” Yui and Roxy yelled. Their mother fell to the ground, blood coming out of her. The Heartless walked away and they ran over to their mother. 

“Mommy! Wake up!” Yui said. 

“Come on, mommy! Please wake up!” Roxy said. A Dark Corridor opened up and their father walked out of it.

“Daddy, help!” Yui said. Their father ran over to them and placed their mother on his lap.

“What happened?” he asked. 

“A-a giant monster came and attacked us,” Roxy sobbed. Their father quickly grabbed a potion and used it on their mother but it didn’t work. 

“No...” he said. 

“Is she...?” Yui asked. 

“I’m afraid so.” The girls sobbed and hugged their father. A few weeks later, there was a funeral for their mother. Everyone had attended. Their father, their uncles, and their aunts. After the funeral, their father locked himself in his office. The girls looked at the closed door, wanting to go in. 

“Come on, little ones. Let’s give your father a minute,” one of their uncles said. The girls followed their uncle to the seating area and everyone did their best to make the girls smile again. 

~~~~

Yui looked at her locket that had a picture of her and her mother on it. She closed the locket and hid it in her pocket. 

“So, where do you think this Spirit is?” Roxy asked. 

“I don’t know. But I think we should start in Hollow Bastion. Father might head there to take care of the Keyblade wielder,” Yui said. The girls summoned their weapons and headed into Hollow Bastion.

The train rolled out into the open sky. Soon, the train pulled onto the base of a mysterious tower, emblazoned with moons and stars like the train. You, Sora, Donald, and Goofy left the train, which then disappeared, leaving only the tracks. Sora giggled nervously.

“There goes our ride...” he said. In the distance, there was someone standing at the doorway of the tower.

“What's goin' on?” Goofy asked. 

“I sent some of my lackeys inside to see if the master of this here tower's as big and tough as they say. Word is, he's a real powerful sorcerer. Which would make him the perfect bodyguard for me. See, it don't matter how tough he is---once he's a Heartless, he'll do as I say!” Pete said. 

“A Heartless?” Donald asked. 

“That's right. They're those things that come outta the darkness in folks' hearts. Why, with all those Heartless at her side, my dear friend Maleficent is gonna conquer everything! And since I got me a debt to pay, I'm goin' 'round to a bunch of different worlds and buildin' an army of Heartless, special for her. Why am I talkin' to you pipsqueaks anyway? Go on, scram! I'm behind schedule as it is.”

“You oughta find somethin' nicer to do,” Goofy said. 

“Says who?” Pete turned around and spotted you, Odile, Donald, Goofy, and Sora.

“Wha...AAAH! It's you!” he said. 

“Pete!” Donald and Goofy said. 

“What are you two nimrods doin' here!?”

“What are YOU doing here?” Donald asked. 

“You know him?” you asked. 

“We sure do! Pete's been causin' trouble for ages! His Majesty banished him to another dimension a long time ago. I wonder how he escaped,” Goofy said. Pete laughed.

“You wanna know how, eh? Well, Maleficent busted me out, that's how! And now your world---no, no, no, all the worlds---are gonna belong to yours truly. Cause Maleficent's gonna help me conquer 'em!” he said.

“Maleficent...huh,” Sora said. You and the trio giggled. Odile looked at you confused.

“What are you laughing at!? Why, Maleficent's power is so great---” Pete said.

“She's toast!” you said.

“Huh?”

“Sorry, but Maleficent can't help ya now,” Goofy said. 

“Whaddaya mean!?” Donald snickered. 

“You! So you're the ones that did it!” Pete said. 

“Well...we mighta had something to do with it,” Sora said. 

“Heartless squad! Round up!” Pete said, angrily. Some shadows came out of the ground. Sora conjured his Keyblade while you grabbed your and the two of you fought them.

“You just wait! Nobody, and I do mean nobody, messes with the mighty Pete!” Pete said. 

“So, ‘mighty’ Pete, who lives in this tower, anyway?” you asked. 

“Oh, ya don't know, eh? Well, it's old Yen Sid. 'Course he's probably a Heartless by now!”

“Master Yen Sid lives here!?” Donald asked. He ran up the steps and into the tower.

“Yen Sid is the King's teacher!” Goofy said. 

“Wow. Sounds powerful!” Sora said. You, Sora and Goofy then ran up the stairs, leaving Pete and his dropped jaw hanging. The four of you ascended the stairs until you all reached the top floor, fighting Heartless along the way.

“Heartless, Heartless, Heartless! Things haven't changed one bit!” Donald said. 

“Well, it's a good thing we're on the job, then,” Goofy said. 

“So the worlds aren't at peace after all?” you asked. The four of you soon reached the Sorcerer's Loft where an old wizard was sitting at his desk. Donald and Goofy bowed to him.

“Master Yen Sid! It's an honor!” Donald said.

“Hey there!” Sora said. 

“Hi!” you said. Goofy and Donald were slightly shocked at you and Sora.

“Sora! (Y/N)! Show some respect!” Donald said. The wizard calmed Donald down.

“So, you are Sora and (Y/N). Now then, have you seen the King yet?” Yen Sid said. 

“Yes, we did, Master. But we didn't get a chance to talk to him,” Goofy said. 

“Yes...the King has been quite busy of late. Therefore, it would seem that the task of instructing you four falls upon my shoulders. You have a perilous journey ahead of you. You must be well prepared.” 

“You mean...we have to go on another quest? I was looking forward to finding my friend Riku, so we could go back to the islands,” Sora said. 

“And I’ve been wanting to find my parents and the history of my powers,” you said. 

“Yes. I know. However, everything in your journey, Sora adn (Y/N), is connected. Whether you will find your way home to the islands... Whether you will return alone or with your friend or finding your parents... And, whether or not the islands will still be there. And the key that connects them all is you.”

“We’re...the key?” Sora asked. Sora held out his hand and the Keyblade flashed into it. You grabbed your dagger and unsheathed it.

“Chosen wielder of the Keyblade and Spirit of Light! You are the key that will open the door to light,” Yen Sid said. You and Sora nodded. Yen Sid looked to Donald and Goofy who quickly stood up straight and nodded. Yen Sid waved a hand over the table and a thick book appeared. He made it float into the air and spun it towards you and Sora. It opened and landed at the edge of the table.

“This book contains valuable knowledge you will need for your journey. Study it carefully. Once you have finished, we will speak of the enemies you will surely confront,” Yen Sid said. You and Sora read the book from beginning to end. 

“But wait a sec---how come the Heartless are still running around?” Sora asked. 

“Your past endeavors did prevent an immense effusion of Heartless from the great darkness; make no mistake about that. However, the Heartless are darkness made real---and darkness lingers yet in every heart. The Heartless are fewer. But while darkness exists in a single heart, it will be difficult to eliminate them,” Yen Sid said. You and the trio sighed. Odile rubbed her cheek against yours in a comforting manner. 

“Gawrsh, that must mean...if everybody's heart was full of light, them Heartless'd go away!” Goofy said. Yen Sid nodded.

“Now it is time to speak of the enemies that you will encounter,” he said. Yen Sid waved a hand and an image of Donald appeared near the wall. The image then changed to a Shadow Heartless.

“If one such as you, Donald, yields to the darkness in their heart, they too will become a Heartless. But you know this. The Heartless are always lurking and ever seeking to capture new hearts. Never let your guard down! Now then...” Yen Sid said. Yen Sid waved his hand again and an image of a Dusk Nobody appeared next to the Shadow.

“At times, if someone with a strong heart and will---be they evil or good---becomes a Heartless, the empty shell they leave behind begins to act with a will of its own,” he said. The Shadow image disappeared.

“An empty vessel whose heart has been stolen away... A soul that goes on even as its body fades from existence---for you see, Nobodies do not truly exist at all. Nobodies may seem to have feelings, but this is a ruse---they only pretend to have hearts. You must not be deceived!” Yen Sid said. 

“Nobodies... They don't exist...” you said. Two more images of Dusks appeared around you and Sora.

“Now then...the being you see before you is known as a Dusk. They are the most common form of Nobody. But there are others---some larger, some with frightening and unique powers. Be vigilant! On your journey, you will meet an alarming number of Dusks. They will all attempt to do you harm,” Yen Sid said. The images vanished.

“Still, they are nothing but empty shells, destined to return to the darkness. But---” Yen Sid waved his hand again and images of figures in black appear in the Dusks' place. You, Odile, Sora, Donald, and Goofy looked wary.

“The beings you see before you now are different. These powerful Nobodies have formed a group called Organization XIII. It commands the lesser Nobodies,” Yen Sid said.

“Organization XIII...” Sora said. He looked to you, Odile, Goofy, and Donald, but you shook your heads.

“While Heartless act on instinct, Nobodies function in a higher manner. They can think and plan. And it seems they are working towards a goal. What that goal is, we do not know. The King sensed the danger, and journeyed forth to fight it. He found the dark realm's Keyblade, and with it, closed the door. Now he's traveling from world to world, fighting the Heartless as he seeks the answer to the riddle of the Nobodies and Organization XIII,” Yen Sid said. The cloaked figures disappeared and Yui and Roxy appeared. They wore a beautiful outfit almost similar to yours.

“(Y/N), your goal is to show these girls the true power of a Spirit,” Yen Sid said. 

“There are other Spirit’s out there. I thought that I was the only one” you said. 

“Well, it seems that you are not the only one. Now, these girls are stronger than your dagger alone. What you need is a guardian.” 

“A guardian? What’s that?” 

“A guardian is an angel that helps and protects a Spirit. And it looks like you’re little friend is your guardian.” 

“Odile?” You and Odile looked at each other, shocked and confused. 

“Yes. What she needs is a little help,” Yen Sid said. He used his magic and she turned into a beautiful swan. She then disappeared into your dagger.

“Huh? Where did she go?” you asked. 

“She is safe in your dagger. When you feel like you need assistance, you may summon her and she shall help you,” Yen Sid said. You took out your dagger and saw a swan pattern engraved on the blade.

“Well, I guess we better go find the King first!” Sora said. 

“But where could he be?” Donald asked. 

“Well, we won't know 'til we look,” Goofy said. 

“Yeah. And the King must know where Riku is, 'cause the two of them were together in the realm of darkness when we closed the door. You know, after defeating Ansem,” you said. 

“So, before you go, you will need more suitable traveling clothes. Those look a bit too small for you,” Yen Sid said to you and Sora. Yen Sid motioned toward a door.

“Through there, you'll find three good fairies. If you ask, they'll create for you appropriate garments,” he said. 

“Gawrsh, you two, you sure are growing fast,” Goofy said. 

“Uh, I guess...” Sora said. You and Sora giggled nervously and pulled at your clothes. The four of you entered the Wardrobe. Three fairies, one red, one green, and one blue were chatting near the window.

“Me, you guys, Riku, and the King. I don't care who this Organization is or those girls or what it's planning. With the six of us---I mean, seven of us---there's nothing to worry about, right?” Sora said. 

“Yeah!” Donald said. 

“Well, look who's here, dears! Sora, (Y/N), Donald, and Goofy!” Flora said. 

“Ooh, if you're looking for clothes, you've come to the right place!” Merryweather.

“I'll do the designing,” Fauna said. Flora and Merryweather pulled you and Sora away from Goofy. Fauna sent out a spell which turned you and Sora's clothes green.

“Oh, that will never do,” Merryweather said. Merryweather flicked her wand and you and Sora's clothes turned blue.

“Now, now, dears,” Flora said. Flora turned you and Sora's clothes pink.

“But don't you like this better?” Fauna asked as she made you and Sora’s clothes green again.

“Hold on!” Flora said as she turned them pink again. By now, you and Sora were looking helpless.

“Are you certain?” Fauna asked as she changed them green again.

“Blue!” Merryweather said as she changed them to blue. The fairies exchanged more spells, making you and Sora's clothes continue changing colors. A raven watched from the window, squawked, and flew away. A green clothed Sora finally decided to break the feud.

“Aww, would you just decide?” he asked. The fairies gasped and then giggled. 

“All right, then. Together now, dears. And no more squabbling!” Flora said. All three fairies turned their spells on you and Sora at once, and his clothes turn black with red and gold bands while you had black dress with red covering it.

You smiled and twirled around, admiring the beautiful colors. 

“Oh, my!” Flora said.

“Ooh, it's lovely,” Fauna said.

“Oh, yes! He does look very dashing. And she definitely looks like a Spirit,” Merryweather said. Sora was fine with it, and the Keyblade appeared in his hand.

“Now, those aren't ordinary garments,” Flora said. 

“They have very special powers,” Fauna said. Flora magic up two glowing orbs which hovered in front of you and Sora.

“Take the orb, dears,” Fauna said. You and Sora grabbed for the orb and took it in.

“And watch what happens,” Merryweather said. Sora was struck with immense power. A light flashed and his clothes were suddenly red. You, Donald and Goofy looked in awe. Sora now was holding a second Keyblade in his left hand. You also felt an immense power and saw a bigger version of Odile behind you. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were amazed.

“Whoa!” Sora said. 

“Wow!” Donald said. 

“This journey's gonna be twice as difficult as your last,” Merryweather said. You and Sora sighed.

“Your garments also have other powers---but you will have to discover what they are as you continue on your journey,” Fauna said. Sora looked at both of his Keyblades while you petted Odile.

“Okay, We'll do my best. And thanks a lot!” you said.

“Oh, and there's something else for you---from Master Yen Sid,” Fauna said. 

“Oh boy!” Donald said. The four of you walked back into the hallway, where Yen Sid motioned them over to the window. A gummi ship rose into view.

“Hey! It's the Gummi Ship!” Donald said.

“So you guys ready to go?” Sora asked. You all nodded, then stood up straight in the wizard's presence.

“Now, now, just a moment,” Yen Sid said. The four of you relaxed a bit.

“Because of your previous endeavors, the worlds have returned to their original states. That means the pathways between them have disappeared,” Yen Sid said.

“How do we get around?” Goofy asked. 

“Do not fear. If what the King suspected proves true, the worlds have prepared new pathways along which you may travel. These pathways may be utilized by unlocking special gates. How these gates are opened, I'm afraid I do not know... However, the Keyblade will serve as your guide. When a beam of light radiates from the Keyblade, return to the Gummi Ship. Though the worlds may seem far apart and out of reach, they nonetheless remain connected by invisible ties. As do our hearts.”

“Our hearts are connected,” you said. 

“That is correct.”

“Got it!”

“But be warned. As you proceed... The Heartless and the Nobodies will be using their own paths: Corridors of darkness, to travel from world to world. They may be attempting to link these dark pathways to the gates between the worlds. Even those two girls.”

“Hey! That's not fair!” Donald said.

“Now then, that is all the information I can give to you. Go forth, (Y/N), Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Everyone is waiting.”

“Okay, let's get going!” Sora said. The four of you stood up straight again.

“Master Yen Sid!” Donald said. 

“We sure do appreciate the help,” Goofy said. Each of you gave the wizard a salute and ran down the corridor. Yen Sid disappeared in a whisk of light. In the Gummi Ship, you, Sora and company were hailed by Chip and Dale.

“Howdy, Sora and (Y/N)! How ya doin'?” Dale said. 

“It's your favorite Gummi engineers here, ready for duty: Chip...”

“...And Dale!”

“Happy flying!” The two of them said. You and Sora saw Hollow Bastion on the map.

“Only one?” you asked. 

“That's no good!” Donald said. 

“Wait! I think it's a world we know!” The four of you then headed off to Hollow Bastion.

[cdyssey]

Miscalculations

Summary: The toll of being in the multiverse for too long finally exacts its price on Olivia Octavius. A/N: I've been babysitting for family friends these past two days, and the little one made us watch *Into the Spider-Verse* five times over, so I wanted to write something.

AO3 Link At the end of Olivia Octavius’s world, there is blood, so much of it, too much—staining her shirt dark around her midsection where old incisions are prying themselves loose, and dribbling warningly down her mouth in a thin line.

Cellular decay.

Accelerated decomposition.

As her erythrocytes continue to implode upon themselves, her organs will shut down one by one until the lack of oxygen finally squeezes upon her tired heart like a vice.

She was out of her own dimension for too long.

If you stay in this dimension too long, your body’s going to disintegrate. Do you know how painful that would be, Peter Parker?

She thought she could have control of the multiverse if only she could stabilize her body with exposure to gamma radiation, theorizing that the treatment would do as it had done for the infamous Bruce Banner and reinforce her cellular structure—but she miscalculated.

And Olivia never miscalculates.

No, that isn’t true, an awful voice in her head says, right here and right now, on her fucking death bed. Her conscience has always gloated rather than informed. You miscalculate all the time.

“No, goddammit,” May Parker growls. “You do not get to leave like this.” 

Surprise jolts through her unpleasantly considering everything that is happening to her body; with an effort that isn’t minimal, the physicist opens her eyes to see a familiar shape kneeling by her side, pressing gnarled hands to her stomach wounds, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding.

But there is so much of it, too much.

Out of the periphery of her eye that isn’t blackened, she can see the shadows of the various Spider-Fools simply standing a few feet away, watching. For they understand, better than maybe most, that there is nothing to be done, no more fight to be had.

May Parker’s hands are vivid with her blood, drowning in it.

“What?” Olivia attempts a bloodied smile that doesn’t quite cut through the pain in her eyes. “You want me to walk away in cuffs? Cheeky, cheeky, May Parker. I thought you were oh-so-straight-laced.”

“Shut up,” May snarls, and the scientist is startled to see that there are tears in her cornflower blue eyes, threatening to spill over, to leak, to pour.

And then she knows.

She knows, she knows, she knows.

That May Parker still loves her, too.

That maybe she never stopped.

And the realization of it takes her breath away, what little of it is that is left.

“May,” she says, her voice surprisingly soft, even though her shivering hands are firm as she slowly brings them up to rest upon the other woman’s. “Cellular decay. Multisystem organ failure. Within a few minutes, I'll likely go into cardiac arrest. It will be quick, maybe even painless.”

“No,” May mutters. “No, no, no. We could get you to a hospital, offset the worst of your symptoms until we can regenerate cellular life in you. An ambulance is coming. ETA five minutes.”

“You’re thinking with that big, ‘ole heart of yours again.” The thing Olivia loves and hates most about the old bat—how much she cares. It’s sickening. It’s stupid. It’s wonderful. “I’ve lost too much blood, and my exoskeleton implants are compromised, which—“

But May cuts across her with an explosive swear.

“—likely means that your spine is also compromised,” she finishes, eyes closing in horror. 

Liv smiles weakly, a gesture which ends in her coughing up phlegm and blood.

“Correct.”

Doc Ock’s comeuppance has finally arrived, both decades late and years too soon. It is quieter than she imagined it would be, less of a kaleidoscope of many colors than it is a coagulated darkness. She can see black beginning to edge upon her vision, eradicating the excess, eliminating anything that isn’t May Parker.

How fitting.

“I went to twenty-seven different dimensions, May,” she whispers, “and they were all so beautiful—vivid, unique, and extraordinary, each a fully realized universe unto its own...”

When she closes her eyes, she can conjure them even now, the shapes of them, their textures, their scientific impossibility... and it is with awful reluctance that she pries them open again. The darkness is so soft and inviting. Oblivion isn’t as scary as she had imagined it to be.

Maybe she can explore its expansive confines, understand it in the same way she does quasi connectivity in dimensional warping.

Or maybe Olivia Octavius can simply rest.

That might be a nice change in pace.

“Liv...” May whispers, though, and it’s more than enough of a reminder for the sole reason she’d ever stay if she had a choice.

(She doesn’t have a choice.)

“And in every world, I did what a scientist just a tiny bit full of herself would naturally do. I searched myself out. In every dimension... and I asked myself, damn, do I really look like that? In eighty-nine percent of the worlds, I had a bowl cut, May! A godawful bowl cut!”

“Is this really what you want to talk about?”

“Yes—I mean no. No.” Olivia’s dark brow furrows as she herself tries to remember the point of bringing up the twenty-seven universes and the self-exploration and the bowl cuts. Her brain’s a little wonky at the moment, dull and heavy, like a rock sunk in a lake.

But then it hits her.

Realization and remembrance.

Dimension 24. Earth C-432.

The cats. The apartment in Brooklyn. The cozy sweaters. The peace.

“In the 24th iteration of Earth I visited, I looked a lot like I do now—geeky, foxy, big hair, and less than enviable eyesight... I was intrigued naturally, and so, when I found out where I lived, I paid myself a little visit.”

She knocked politely on the door before not so politely letting herself in, tentacular extensions swarming.

She always did like a dramatic entrance.

Fuck, Olivia J. Octavius moaned. I invented inter-dimensional travel again.

May E. Parker looked up from her mug of coffee and simply raised an unimpressed brow.

Well, at least you didn’t smash the door this time.

“I'd... she’d never gotten the implants, so she was paralyzed from the waist down... do y’know what that means?”

Of course May does.

Beneath Liv’s hand, her knuckles tense, the ridges warm against her cold palm.

“We never separated then,” she rasps, her voice strained, a hundred emotions thick. “I must have taken you home from the hospital, like I told you I would.”

“Yeah.”

A single tear leaks out of the corner of Olivia’s blackened eye, dripping down her cheek and falling away. If she'd been able to, she would have tried to wipe it away before May Parker could see.

“Were we happy, Liv?” She whispers, and she looks guilty about it. She has never cared much for hypotheticals, while Olivia built her entire career upon them—a delicate balancing act, always doomed to collapse one day.

She just never wanted to admit it.

Indeed, she just wanted to see how high she could go.

She didn't want to touch the stars.

She wanted to rip open the fabric of the fucking universe.

“We have two cats, one called Marie and the other Curie... and we live together in an apartment in Brooklyn. Nice place. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts just around the corner. Parker visits at least three times a week unless he’s busy saving the city or the world or whatever the hell else he has it in his mind to save. He has a kid—a boy named Ben, but everyone calls him Fox because of the hair.”

We like to beat each other at Scrabble, even though we’re both sore losers. Four times a week, we head up to Columbia to do guest lectures on particulate matter and cellular structure and quantum physics. You’ve organized all of our medicines in alphabetical order, and I tease you about it because of course I do. Once a month, we replace the flowers on Ben Parker’s grave and have a picnic in the cemetery. We’re thinking about moving to a tiny house on Long Island that’s more wheelchair accessible, and we can hear the ocean every time we wake up in the morning side by side. There are wedding bands on our fingers, simple, understated, even though I'm pretty fucking sure they're made of anti-metal. In a different world, in an entirely separate universe, we are together forever, as long as we both shall live.

“I think so. I think we were happy,” she finishes quietly, “but I didn’t stay long enough to know for sure.”

“Too bad,” May Parker finally says, her tears falling freely now.

With the last of her strength, Olivia squeezes her hand.

“I... I heard myself say one thing, though, right as I was leaving.” 

By leaving, she left a gaping hole next to their door just for the hell and spite of it. 

“I chose correctly, it seems.”

In that warm apartment, May E. Parker laughed bluntly before she returned, quite dryly, You never miscalculate, do you?

“Never.”

Always.

Olivia Octavius miscalculates all the time.

[yourcreativehome]

Best wall decor options

Best Wall Décor Options

 Having a beautiful house is on everyone’s wish list but creating a beautiful home is only an artist can do that. Having a perfectly decorated home is pure bliss; playing with your creativity and reflecting one's individuality by expressing their personality by the way one lives is not an easy job. It takes immense efforts and wide imagination to portray the imaginary world into reality and when it happens nothing less than a dream comes true. Nowadays home is not just a place to eat drink and sleep, it’s a world full of imagination, desires, and a nutshell where we nurture ourselves; it reflects our thoughts, imagination, beliefs, and dreams to look upon. Sharing some of the best wall décor ideas that help to convert your basic home-styles into your own castle. Some of the easy to go on pockets and fewer maintenance options available to create a heaven for yourself to curl yourself up inside your cozy homes.

 Wood wall decorating

A Wood Wall decorating is very attractive in your homes, a wood wall panels provide elegance and dimension to your wall and compliments just any room in the house. It classy and would make a great focal point to the wall, the beautiful rustic wall decors are a perfect item to add some contrast to your bland wall.  The bright wood also adds a stylish contrast to the overall design, those empty walls filled with possibilities and few wooden additions can make your home feel like home. The wood wall decorative is a challenge to arrange the furniture before starting the interior design in the wall always think about the space, climb forms, light colors, texture, and pattern trip accordingly.

Keeping them in balance is the key to creative work and appearance on the work. Its creative texture adds more value to any space; wooden wall bedroom designs can provide warmth and glow to your room by experimenting with some good quality led lights for decoration purposes. It will add an extra brightness’ and soothing vibrant décor to your room. Wooden partition walls will provide rustic looks to your room. Artificial hanging plants or real plants can add an extra look and charm to your home walls, more natural and close to Mother Nature look.  Normally pictures and photo frames are used to decorate walls but wooden walls enhance your wall; you plan and choose your own wood décor items and can also use the waste woods with some creativity for the home decor purpose. Wooden wall hanging, wooden pillar, wooden wall art, wooden work behind the bed wall; woods can be used in any corner of your house with not much effort. Woods are easiest to install and last longer and the best part of installing wooden items at home is can be cleaned very easily without any damage. Wooden art is being used for ages and still trending. A wooden wall never fails to give a superior look to your rooms and is available in multiple designs and patterns with chosen texture which suits your home style and décor. Most of the commercial premises and exotic hotels adapt the same wooden work model; firstly, they are not that expensive and quite easy to pockets secondly, they can give an extraordinary interior touch to your place and gives the perfect sophisticated look which is an eye-catchy.

 Mirror Wall Interior

A mirror can be used for wall decors too, yes the various designs and patterns available in the market to showcase the beauty of the mirror on your walls from bedrooms to living room and dining areas, mirrors can be used anywhere and at any corner of the house.  As we know how compact the houses, flats and shops being constructed, so by installing a wall mirror décor at your rooms can you a brighter and  larger feel to your home. Wall mirrors have the capacity to carry the depth and value to your room without much effort. The highly decorative items can all trigger the transform of the interior and certainly of a brighter touch and can easily become complimentary design for lighting and furnishing.

Mirrors are very versatile in decorating theme; you can use any shape and any size mirror from simple to elaborate on the wall. Normally in our living room is occupied by windows, doors, furniture’s, tables, and sofas but if you are emerging that on one of the walls the preferred one which is taller and wider also focused towards some windows or point of light is installed all full of mirrors instantly the feeling of space will multiply and things will look even brighter and wider even in the daylight with the natural sunlight and in nights as well with the help of house led lights. Decorating your wall with a vintage easy mirror is an interesting way to decor on your a focal point and keeping the charm of the place; something very different and vibrant work to give an aesthetic look and fell to your perfect home sweet home.

Modern Wallpaper Interior Wall

Wallpaper can make your walls look beautiful and very stylish with the varieties of arts and patterns available in the market; you can opt for any theme as reflecting your personality. Sometimes there are walls which are broken ones or uneven walls so you can easily hide the damage by covering the wall with beautiful wallpaper. Also the same goes for the bedrooms you can replace your common walls with beautiful romantic designs and patterns with soothing color by adding a soothing and calming ambiance to your space.

There are end numbers of varieties available in the market; Nature, Patterns, Textures, Flowers, photo prints, stone effects, dramatic lines, abstract types, country background, and the list goes on. Some wallpapers are easy to paste and remove but some designs are so fine and tick it is recommended to be done by the professionals only as you can damage the product while installing. Patterns to be matched and well-aligned together is the most important factor for installing wallpapers so some are quite easy to install and some need professional hands to do the job. To design the walls can be an expression of your individuality by choosing your favorite colors.

Brick Wall Work

Brick Wall designs are also trending and very innovative ideas to decorate your space. There are multiple options for choosing the Bricks with multiple color and size options to give the exact rustic look to your walls as per your preferences and give an added stare to your home. Brick walls are also available at reasonable rates and in multiple designs, colors, sizes, and textures as you need.

Decorating balconies, huge lawns, and a sitting area with brickwork can give you the most elegant and classy touch to your place. This can be quite expensive on your pocket but can also opt for cheaper ones available in the market. Also, it is the easiest to maintain and lasts long without any required maintenance.

3D Wall Décor

3D wall paneling décor is in trend these days, Paneling walls can make your residential apartments and Offices look brighter and spacious with the aura of elegance and sophistication. 3D wall décor has been enjoying a special place in the decoration regiment for a long time. 3D wall panels have in great demand in the market due to their excellent ability and add glamour to any place.

This is a very handy option for the beautification of the interior as well as exterior walls. You can enhance the charm of your private and business space with minimum effort. The three-dimensional panel is a recent decoration concept; these panels are manufactured in textured foam with repetitive designs for creating a definite pattern of light and shadow with the use of proper illumination. The textured 3D wall panels are meant for many uses other than improving walls, whether it’s for new construction or refurbishing walls most of the house owners or architects are opting for the 3D panel concept.

 Traditional & Ethnic Wall

As traditional things are being preferred as an evergreen thing, and now it’s trending, there are multiple options to opt-in your home décor as per your preferences. There are basically Indian art forms that represent the Indian ancient culture, which is so rich and each art has a story to tell.

Old traditional arts and sculptures are the most elegant aesthetic options to go for. Traditional wall arts, Rajasthan work, Madhubani Traditional Arts, Tamatina Arts are some of the most picked ones and can make your whole space stand out from others. Traditional Arts has its own charm and never out of the league; have an antique touch and rustic look created incredible vibes to your space.

 Mandala Mural Art

In a spiritual language Mandala is a secret in a circle or disc wide object in a dramatic design which holds a great deal of symbolizing Hindu & Buddhist cultures. Mandalas are believed to represent different aspects of cultures and are used as an instrument for meditation a symbol for prayer. Mandalas are typically created on paper, walls, cloth and the extraordinary is a stand-alone work of art made on walls.

Mandalas holes have meditative symbolic meaning beyond their vibrant appearance. This is the most unique form of art and is being used for decorating your space to create a spiritual vibe especially for peace lovers. Mandala creativity involves many definitions and concepts pertaining to a number of disciplines like psychology, cognitive, science, philosophy just like covering the relations between creativity and general intelligence. This creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable if formed.

[thecaroliner]

Crol’s Top 10 Cardcaptor Sakura Episodes

Hey all! Decided to make a list of my top 10 CCS episodes. This will include episodes from the original series and Clear Card!

In all honesty I have a really hard time with Top 10 anything, but this was actually pretty easy! 

All images taken from suppi.net

10. Sakura and the Sakura from the Dream (Episode 40)

“It’s all right! Everything will definitely be all right!”

This episode feels very off, and I love it. While it’s not necessarily “creepy” in a traditional sense, watching it you just sort of feel off when the group is inside Tokyo Tower. Nobody is around, its eerily quiet. You very much feel Sakura’s disoriented state here, and it truly does feel like you’re experiencing the dream WITH her. 

Sakura becomes more and more distressed when she looks out the window and finally sees her mysterious dream fully: with Miss Mizuki being revealed as the shadow figure on the tower. Just as things seem like they’ve reached a breaking point for our dear heroine, the version of herself from the dream comes over, holding her hands, and saying the invincible spell to her. You definitely will be all right, Sakura!

9. Sakura’s Dizzy Fever Day (Episode 39)

“A gentle hand...this hand...it’s mother’s hand.”

Le’ts be honest: I’m a sucker for pretty much any episode that Nadeshiko comes down from heaven in, lol. And The Mirror. This one features both! Our poor Sakura comes down with a fever, but keeps it a secret as to not worry her dad or friends. 

Unsurprisingly, everyone around Sakura is extremely observant of her and can tell right away. And then of course, today is the day that The Cloud decides to make its debut. Sakura of course, doesn’t take the day off Card Captor-ing because of her fever, and uses The Mirror to take her place in bed while she runs off to seal it. While this only makes her fever worse, mama Nadeshiko comes down from heaven to heal her. Still being a typical worried mom, even in the afterlife. This episode may not be much to others, but to me it’s very sweet and heartwarming!

8. Sakura and Tomoyo’s Lost Voice (Episode 37)

“This is the second time something like this has happened! It’s always Tomoyo...”

We get to see constantly just how deep Tomoyo’s love for Sakura goes, so I always appreciate it when they show that Sakura loves her dearly, too (although in a very different way than Tomoyo does...). In this episode, Tomoyo is preparing for a choir competition, where she sings a solo. So naturally, a Clow Card is here to steal her voice! I guess it’s just that nice of a voice. Sakura’s look of sheer panic, and the way she drops her pom-poms and runs to the choir room upon overhearing the teacher ask Tomoyo what’s wrong in a panic always gets me. But I think the thing that breaks my heart the most about this episode is how Tomoyo’s mother reacts. 

Until now, anytime we see Sonomi, Sakura is around, and Sonomi obsesses over her, almost to the point of ignoring Tomoyo. But now we finally get to see mother and daughter together, just the two of them. Sonomi is immensely worried about her, and holds Tomoyo in her lap, telling her that she will skip work the next day to take care of her. A look of contentment crosses Tomoyo’s features, as if she is thankful that her mother cares so much about her.

Thankfully, everything turns out okay as Syaoran has the idea to use The Song to mimic Tomoyo’s voice, luring out The Voice card so that Sakura can seal it! At the end of the episode, Sakura and friends go to Tomoyo’s choir recital, and Tomoyo tells Sakura that she wants to perform the song specifically for her, and sings “To My Friend.” I have this song on my phone, I love it so much!

7. Sakura and the Sports Day of Flowers (Episode 10)

“Your mother really loved my mother, Tomoyo.” 

“Yes! I love you too, Sakura.”

“Me too!”

Another Tomoyo and Sakura centric episode, hah. I remember this episode always stood out to me for some reason, even when I first watched the series nearly 9 years ago. 

It’s sports day at Tomoeda Elementary, so of course our highly athletic heroine is excited! (Side note: I love that they made Sakura athletic! It’s not too often you see female characters that are extremely feminine and gentle and also athletic. It’s a nice change). Sakura is having fun: running marathons, doing obstacle courses, trying to compete with Syaoran to win Yukito’s affections....typical! During lunch break, Sakura is introduced to Tomoyo’s mother: Sonomi Daidouji. Sonomi tells Sakura she looks very familiar, and asks Sakura what her surname is. Just as Sakura is about to tell her, Fujitaka shows up, enraging Sonomi. Turns out that Sonomi was in love with Sakura’s mom (who was also her cousin...probably distant cousin, though), Nadeshiko, and always hated Fujitaka that he “took her away” and that she lived out the rest of her days with him.

Something about Nadeshiko’s dynamic with her family, particularly her grandpa and Sonomi (the two she was closest to), is that it seems as though they completely cut her off when she went off to get married at 16 to her teacher (I mean, to be fair, I’d be upset too, hah). As much as they loved her, they didn’t speak to her for the next 11 years, and each carried an immense amount of grief and regret when she passed and they hadn’t been on good terms with her. They were so disconnected that they didn’t even seem to be aware that Nadeshiko had given birth to two children. I can’t imagine how lonely and hurt Nadeshiko must’ve been :(

Anyways, the sports festival is interrupted...by flowers. Thousands and thousands of flowers, raining down. Not to worry, it’s just the work of our friendly neighborhood Clow Card: The Flower! She just enjoys big events like this and wanted to make everyone happy with some flowers! Her power proved to be useful at the end, gifting Fujitaka and Sonomi with Nadeshiko blossoms.

6. Sakura and One More Sakura (Episode 25)

“What will I do if something happened to my brother...?

The Mirror is here! My favorite Clow Card!

People have been spotting Sakura causing trouble around town: messing up shop displays, messing up some children’s sand castles...Sakura is horrified by the accusations, and becomes worried after hearing that people who see their doppelgangers will die. Meanwhile, as Touya is walking home from school, he sees....Sakura? He decides to follow her into the woods as she tells him she’s lost something important in there. She ends up luring him further and further into the woods, where he slips down a hill and hurts his leg. 

Back at home, Kero shows Sakura how to use fortune telling to see if it’s a Clow Card mimicking her image. The Clow Card fortune shows the cards: Illusion, Watery, and Shadow. It then shows The Flower, and Sakura sees peach blossoms (which Touya’s name means), and realizes that it is a card that is targeting him.

After finding them with the help of Syaoran, Sakura becomes enraged that this card has hurt her brother. She learns that to seal it, she must first guess it’s name, and realizes that Illusion, Watery, and Shadow were clues as to what this card is: Mirror.

Truthfully, I’m not sure what Mirror’s intention was by luring Touya off a cliff, as she seems to instantly feel guilty (and then later has a crush on him, hah). But I still love her!

5: Sakura and a Game of Tag in the Garden (Episode 77/Clear Card 7)

“I must be more....more...gentle!”

FLIGHT!!! My favorite Clear Card! It’s so cute :) (Fun fact: I made this dress last year! It was my first attempt making an entire outfit so it sucked, but I learned a lot and it was fun!)

Sakura wants to figure out the purpose of her most recent Clear Card, Record, so who better to ask than our friendly neighborhood Tomoyo Daidouji? Sakura and Kero go over to her house and have some fun using Record (another favorite Clear Card of mine). Syaoran also stops by, and thinks Sakura looks adorable in her new dress, hehe. Sakura suddenly begins to feel a presence, and the fluttering of something, and chases this thing all throughout the garden. Turns out it’s nothing but little ole Flight, just feeling nervous because Sakura is chasing it! She realizes then she must be more gentle and friendly with this card, as it seems a bit skittish. Overall a fun episode!

4. Sakura, Syaoran, and the Elevator (Episode 57)

“...SAKURA!”

Oh boy. OH BOY. This episode!! I’m pretty sure this episode would be on any CCS fan’s top 10 episodes list.

Sakura, Tomoyo, Syaoran, and Eriol decide to visit a teddy bear exhibit. And our dear Syaoran...he FINALLY decides (through a fun little musical montage of Sakura running around having fun) that he is going to fully accept his feelings for her, and stop trying to deny them. There’s such a change in him from here on out! 

Their fun day takes a turn however, when Sakura and Syaoran enter an elevator that mysteriously loses power (thanks to a certain reincarnation of Clow Reed...). Sakura grows worried, hoping that help will come soon, and Syaoran tries to comfort her. Just then, things really go haywire and half of the elevator suddenly disappears. In the chaos, Sakura stumbles backwards into the abyss, and despite his efforts to save her, Syaoran fails to grab her hand in time (hmm, I seem to recall an alternate dimension version Syaoran that failed to grab Sakura’s hand in time...) Syaoran is completely devastated, and cries out her name, for the first time ever! I believe that up until that point, he had never even addressed her as “Kinomoto” before, so for him to go straight to just “Sakura” was a big deal!

Sakura of course, is okay, having changed The Float to carry her back up to safety. Syaoran is so relieved that he pulls her into a hug :D

Later on, Sakura calls him on the phone to thank him, and asks if she can start calling him “Syaoran-kun” now! Babies.

3. Sakura and the Clear Cards (Episode 71/Clear Card 1)

“Force without master, heed the call of my Staff of Dreams and become my power! SECURE!”

I. LOVE. this episode. I’ve probably seen it 10 times now. It’s the very first episode of Clear Card, and also the first episode of CCS in 18 years! It’s such a perfect intro to the new arc, jumping right into Tomoeda once more! I also wanna say how amazing it is that the voice actors all sound EXACTLY the same after so long!

Sakura starts middle school, Syaoran returns, and OOP! The Sakura Cards go blank! And then a new key/staff appears! And then a new card appears!!

2. Sakura, The Shrine, and The Zoo (Episode 84/Clear Card 14)

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

I remember the night this episode premiered! The whole fandom went nuts. It was great!

Wahh...you guys remember back when Syaoran was a cocky, entitled brat? Who called Sakura dumb and tried to be her rival? And now he’s pretty much the #1 boyfriend ever???

This episode is...weird. Really weird. Up until now the whole series has remained pretty light-hearted...and then this. Sakura accidentally gets sucked into an illusion world where all her friends have become animals. Everything has such a strange, almost side vibe. Even though they are still partially humanoid, none of her friends speak, or even seem to be aware of her presence. And suddenly a giant fiery tree emerges from the ground threatening to kill them all?? And then comes Syaoran, totally not using the Sakura Card “Time”, helping Sakura to calm down and reassure her that everything is okay....T_T 

And now, before we get to the #1...it’s time for some honorable mentions!!

- Sakura’s Tiring Sunday (Episode 4)

- Sakura’s Scary Test of Courage (Episode 17)

- Sakura and the Room with No Exit (Episode 72/Clear Card 2)

- Sakura, Rainbows, and Grandpa (Episode 90/Clear Card 20)

And now my #1 pick!!

1. Sakura’s Thrilling Aquarium Visit

“Besides, you...and I...we’re...datin—!”

You guys probably saw this one coming XD But I just love it too much!!

Sakura and Syaoran’s first real date! In the manga they actually went to a botanical garden. But I really like that they made the episode at the aquarium, as it’s a callback to episode 3 from the original series of when Sakura went on a “date” with Yuki to the aquarium! So many great references to that episode, from the tank breaking, Toya being the waiter (lol), the way that Sakura, Tomoyo, Kero, (and now Syaoran) snuck in at night. Syaoran’s interaction with Toya is so funny/awkward, and then he apologizes to Sakura for being rude, saying that he should be more friendly towards Toya since he and Sakura are dating now. Lots of good stuff! And then how Syaoran carries Sakura out of the water after she gets sucked in...:D

Anyways, thanks for reading this (if you did read it all lol) I want to do more posts like this for other series!!

[bad-puns-and-even-worse-magic]

When the battle for the fate of the universe settled, the Avengers settled down (injuries cared for, pulls back to their feet, conversations had) and a temporary buddy system was put in place. It was simple enough; nothing more than a buddy system. No one was to respond to a mission alone.

Not even Stephen Strange.

“So, wait,” Scott trailed just to the left and behind Steve Rogers, helmet under his arm, blinking like he had been sitting in a dark room for ten hours and someone flicked on the lights without warning. “He actually came to you, said he was going on a mission like—no huss? No fuss?”

Steve laughed. “He’s trying to,” he trailed off, took a moment, pressed the down button for the elevator, and hummed in thought. “I suppose he’s doing his best to reach out after all those years of working alone.”

“Huh,” Scott said, trying to picture Stephen Strange, the man who would duck away after every meeting, willingly coming to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers to tell them he was going to someplace they would have never been able to track him to anyway.

No one would have even known Strange had gone except Wong—another person who Scott imagined rather swallowing a handful of glass than telling the Avengers where he was going.

“So what would have happened if I hadn’t been available?”

“Oh,” Steve said, smirking as the elevator arrived with a quiet ding. “He would have gone anyway.”

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Strange was waiting in the lobby, arms crossed over his chest, eyes on the forest that surrounded the compound. The sunrise played across his features, casting shadows that moved like deep ocean waters over his cheekbones. His shoulders were surprisingly loose, the Cloak hanging heavily from them, making the slim man look like he took up more space than he actually did.

Scott shoved his helmet on and jogged down the crescent staircase. His shoes squeaked on the open marble, each step making him wince until he came to a stop beside Strange and the long shadow he cast upon the white flooring. “Sorry,” he said, “sorry; I had to find a babysitter for Cassie and even then it took her a couple of hours to arrive—”

Bright eyes turned away from the floor to ceiling windows, blinked once, and focused on Scott’s face. Strange frowned slightly—nothing more than a subtle twitch of his lips—and tilted his head. “Cassie?” His voice was just as quiet as it had been last time, but it grabbed attention like fireflies in a darkening field of flowers.  

“Um, yes? Yes!” For a moment, Scott had forgotten that his daughter wasn’t common knowledge but there was that faint sparkle of curiosity in green eyes and he fought the urge to go digging through his pockets for a picture. “She’s my daughter.”

“Oh,” Stephen’s brow furrowed and he looked back over at the people slowly making their way around the compound. “I didn’t mean to take you away from your daughter,” he said and there was a slight purse to his lips.

Scott could see the thoughts start buzzing, the almost gentle, stern mask falling away to something that looked too much like guilt for his liking.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Strange said slowly, “if you wanted to go home.”

Squinting, Scott stared up at the taller man. “Cap said you were monitoring the thread of reality.”

Stephen Strange shifted his weight.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Not really,” Stephen gave a small, one shouldered shrug. “I do it twice a day.”

And it was the first time he had even mentioned it to the Avengers. Scott blew out a whistling breath between his teeth. “I mean,” he said, shrugged with the entirety of his upper body, and rubbed his hands together. “If I go back and don’t have any stories, Cassie would be a little disappointed.”

The frown had gone from Strange’s features, replaced by a mousey-smile that was more of a concept than a full idea. “If you say so,” he said.

“I do. Um. Say so.”

Strange made a marshmallow light noise in the back of his throat and circled one hand through the air, opening a portal out of the compound with golden, flickering sparks that faded before they touched the ground. He held the universe on his shoulders for a moment, framed by golden sunlight, and wore whole universes like wings. “Would you like anything before we get started? Coffee? Tea?”

Scott tore his eyes away from the man next to him and took a tentative step forward. He reached out to touch the image of the Sanctum, and blinked when his hand went through. A portal. That would be so convenient. “Coffee would be fine,” he said, sticking his head through and looking around at the dark wood and amber lighting. “I’m guessing with all these different dimensions, your favourite beverage is a good old cup of reali-tea.”

A sound bubbled up in the man beside him and Scott pulled his head back from the portal and stared at Strange.

The chuckle was deep, like an old oak tree’s roots, and seemed to float along the light dripping through the windows as if it was being poured by a celestial bucket. Strange had a hand over his mouth, the corners of his eyes wrinkled in his mirth, and there was a smile that his shaking fingers couldn’t quite hide.

Scott felt as if someone had pressed their hand into his ribcage, pressed against his lungs, and forced all the air slowly out of his body. The tips of his fingers tingled and each beat of his heart felt like it was vibrating through the entirety of his body.

It was magic.

The only kind of personal magic that bloomed when a soul bared itself just enough to truly be seen.

It wasn’t quite love at first sight. But it was a whisper.

Almost as if Scott’s heart said, oh, it’s you.

It’s going to be you.

[shannananan]

I posted 493 times in 2021

76 posts created (15%)

417 posts reblogged (85%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 5.5 posts.

I added 402 tags in 2021

#cr spoilers - 117 posts

#the mighty nein - 84 posts

#critical role - 65 posts

#vox machina - 36 posts

#exandria unlimited - 30 posts

#c2 e127 - 16 posts

#shadow & bone - 15 posts

#hades game - 13 posts

#dimension 20 - 13 posts

#c2 e129 - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#and veth. oh girl. she has her own cursed dagger to worry about but she cannot lose caleb. shes made that clear. and that makes herdangerous

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Matt: Since none of you are in this fight, you get to be storm elementals fighting against yasha

Aabria: If your character didn’t opt in, guess what, Y’all WILL be in this beauty pageant no matter what

354 notes • Posted 2021-07-17 12:47:13 GMT

#4

okay but thinking of Essek and the Brenattos. Because there’s definitely many dinners planned (and unplanned) with Veth and Caleb. And Yeza and Essek are there too. Essek tells Caleb to go on without him, he doesn’t want to impose, and Caleb waves the excuse off like a bothersome fly, grabbing Essek’s arm and insisting that this is good for them. 

Yeza, the nicest man and greatest husband on Exandria, is polite and welcoming but there is a fraction of stiffness at Essek’s presence that Essek feels the full weight of. Veth and Caleb talk a mile a minute, and often retreat naturally to post-dinner discussions, catching each other up on the rest of the Nein. Yeza cleans up in the kitchen and a polite essek offers to help.

Their conversations are awkward at best for a long time. Polite exchanges, halted mundane conversation. Eventually, one of these times, Essek pauses and apologizes to Yeza about everything that happened, about the path he’s on now, about how he knows it will never be enough to repair the hurt he caused. Yeza listens and nods and thanks him and goes back to washing dishes. But the room isn’t as cold as before.

From then on, over the years, Yeza and Essek are the unexpected ying to Veth and Caleb’s yang. The alchemist and the dunamantic wizard have their own galaxy brain ideas. It starts with the garden. Veth and Caleb come back from an outing and Yeza and Essek have figured out how to better fertilize their flowers but also there are now flowers growing upside down on the ceiling. Another time, “we fixed the issue with the tomatoes not getting enough light and the peppers too much by just hovering the tomato beds over the other ones. You have floating gardens now.”

Veth and Yeza start picking his brain about dunamantic elements that could be incorporated in their new apothecary. Essek knows how much Veth would normally turn to Caleb for arcane advice, so it’s a meaningful surprise when the two pull him in to their laboratory to go over some ideas while Caleb smirks in the doorway.

And, of course, everyone expects Essek, Ex-Shadowhand of the Kryn Dynasty, to be unimpressed and annoyed by Luc’s antics. But upon floating into the living room with toy darts suction-cupped to his mantle he simply states “ah yes, this brings back memories.” Uncles Caleb and Essek become quiet agents of chaos to Luc’s pranks, his face beaming when he receives a nod of approval from a smirking Essek as a chair starts to float with Uncle Fjord sitting on it. 

It takes time, but the halfling family that was once broken apart because of Essek’s actions, start to embrace him in their own way. It just takes time.

554 notes • Posted 2021-06-27 14:01:40 GMT

#3

Matt, watching Liam’s Talks Machina episode where he was sad he didn’t get his bisexual maelstrom: okay 🙂

592 notes • Posted 2021-06-06 13:58:48 GMT

#2

one of my favourite take aways from the wrap up is that, because of Henry Crabgrass:

1. Matt was forced to look up the life cycle and root system of crabgrass plants, just in case it came up again

2. There is a patch of semi-sentient, self-aware grass by a roadside in Exandria that has developed a multi-generational cult to Jester as a God. 

2229 notes • Posted 2021-06-19 12:36:15 GMT

#1

Matt, building his character for EXU: Head EMPTY. Heart FULL. CANT LOSE

Brennan, building his character for Misfits & Magic: the saddest person you will ever meet ψ ŵ̴̘̭̲̊͌͘ḧ̶͓̜̬́ơ̶̧̮̠͖̆̾̚ ̴̬̫̗͋̋w̷̡̒͌̾̽i̴̛̜͙̓͠͝͝l̵͔̜̮̂̚l̵̢͖̖̾ ̶̢̹̣̬̈́̈́͋͠d̴͙̣̭͇̃͑̕͝ë̴̯̲̗v̷̨͂̒̑̎͝o̸̧̭̗̾̊̚͜͜u̸͈̟͍͒̄̾́r̷͍͚̭̦̻̈́́̂͛ ̵̱̘͕͙̲͒́͒͗́ý̷͍͔̙̱̏o̸̺̽̽u̸͓͍̼̫̔̅̏͠ͅr̴̝̮͊̈̂͘̕ ̴̞̦̞̝͋̕s̵̥̺̿̾̂̋̇ͅo̸̳̐ṳ̵̲͖͉̔̃̽ļ̵͔͙̋̔̓͜ ψ and knows a lot about birds

3995 notes • Posted 2021-07-01 13:28:00 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[tenebristhequeen]

of-the-damned-and-divine

Rude...yes, that was what everyone said about Noir. But that’s what it was all about chaos-touched dragons, wasn’t it?

Kisu hated to admit that. It had been one of the many reasons why he had chosen his younger brother for his Speaker, a long, long time ago.

Until fate decided that this bond was not meant to be.

And all he had left was radical acceptance of whatever was thrown his way.

[I will talk to him about this arrangement.]

That was all he could offer. He knew his Speaker well enough to know that even his own parents couldn’t change his ways.

And then there came the question about his mother.

Silence. Kisu’s mind falls quiet, as it genuinely needed time to process what he just learned.

Seeing the giant white castle, the many dragons, hearing about how many there were out there...it gave his heart a squeeze, so hard it hurt. So hard it might as well pop any second.

It took him a long time, and even then, his mind did not formulate words to transmit. Instead, there were images. Images of an island, isolated by endless storms and cliffs  at the edges of what once was his mother’s sanctuary.

The image flickered to feathered people in bright colours, and to a giant stone monument in the furthest, deepest parts of the woods his mother had planted when she first claimed her realm. The stone monument was a throne. And a dragon coiled upon it - a shimmering, unmoving statue of translucent opal that was once his mother.

Everything he knew had been hers. He was only there to continue what she created. Whatever she had known about other dragons, she had not shared with her spawn; all he was for her was an extension of herself as the guardian deity of the mixed-bloods that worshipped her.

The transmission faded with a scene of mix-bloods, putting flowers and fruits down at the foot of the statue, the grave of their goddess, and Kisu, who sat by the fossilized paw of his dead mother, dutifully bestowing the offerings with blessings while his black-feathered Speaker translated them in spoken words to the people.

Now he just felt like a sham for thinking that this was all there was out there. Shoulders and wings shaking, he hid his face in the crook of her arm. It would take a while to digest.

Hmm...Fine...I will let you talk to him first, but if you'll get left in dangerous places again I will personally give him an official order, as Queen of Dragons and Existence, or Primordial, if we want to put it this way.

I don't like to give orders even to those who live here or that worship me in other dimensions, I still prefer to ask, rather than command, but if a young life is on the line, then I shall use my authority.

*She explains to the younger. Her voice is not angry, but simply calm.

Then, Tenebris silently process the imagines he sent in her mind, letting out a small sigh.

Who knows, maybe things would have been different if Dalila, her Ima, was still alive.

The Existence without the One who created everything Good is truly a sadder place... especially for Tenebris*

Forgive me for the uncomfortable question, Ma-Kea...

*Is all that she manages to whispers, feeling truly sorry for making him face so many information all together.

Having such a strong motherly heart Tenebris lowers her head and gently lifts him a bit to place a kiss on the top of his head.

While doing so, some white souls, of beings once alive, start floating around them, bowing respectfully to their Queen*

Please my beloved dears, may you bring something to eat for this young dear? Thank you dearly.

*The souls nod, quickly floating towards the kitchen to prepare something for Kisu.

The Queen then sits down, making a couch, big enough for her size, appear from the shadows, so she can lull the younger calmly*

Do...do you know the story behind the symbol of white roses? About Dalila?

*Asks her, using a hand..or l, well...a finger, to gently stroke his head*

@of-the-damned-and-divine

There is a small, white, feathered and horned creature on the path ahead, collecting what looks like ordinary pebbles and putting them into patterns. Sensing someone, the being looks up, and purple eyes grow wide. Wings aflutter and with both arms open, Kisu runs towards what he seems to assume is someone familiar, even stumbling and falling over his own feet as if she would disappear if he didn't hurry up. Catching hold of her dress, Kisu hugs her leg tight and even tucks his wings around it. Congratulations, you are now holding a dragonet.

* Upon finding out about her true size, Tenebris had to find a way to better get used to it, and what better way to go walking in that size? After all, in the opening, there are no chandeliers to bump on.

During one of those walks, The Queen meets someone new: an unknown, feathered, being that had clinged to her leg as if their life depends on it, making her gasp in surprise.*

Uh!? What th-

*She stops once her eyes meet the little figure, her glowing green pupils growing even more than usual: her Mom-Mode just turned on.

There’s a soft and purred growl that comes from the big Queen as she bends down to better look at the little one.*

Ma-Kea..* “Ma” meaning “My” and “Kea” meaning “little”, the term Ma-Kea usually can be translated as “My little one” when talking to someone*

Dear..hey, are you ok?

*She asks, a but worried tho, it’s not so common for her to see someone hold on her that way, so her first thought is they the little one may be hurt or scared and she wants to make sure he’s ok*

@of-the-damned-and-divine

[xennariel]

Grim Aria - Prologue

It’s here! This is the prologue to my novel, a story fifteen years in the making!

If you enjoy the prologue and want to read more, this will be posted as a monthly serializaton on my Patreon for patrons. If you are interested in this story, or are even just a fan of my fanfiction, consider supporting me on Patreon? I’m Xennariel there too.

A huge, great big thanks to my betas @canadiangold @lieutenantriza @ladywiltshire @astroshadowdeviant @sapphiredragonprincess and everyone that read it over for me and gave me their thoughts on it. Your help is very much appreciated, even if I didn’t listen to all of your suggestions. lol

This is also posted on FictionPress and AO3!

Chapter 1

Genre: Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Horror Rating: T for violence, swearing, and gore Summary: Xennariel Revenlyr is an Ankhari, a race of demon from a world known as Shadira. After tragedy strikes her people, she feels she has nothing left to live for but vengeance for her family. She decides to dedicate her life to finding and killing Chiron, the Lord of the Chaos Demons and the man that is responsible for her family’s deaths.

Due to events beyond her control, Xen finds herself trapped in an unfamiliar place that she later discovers is our world, a world dominated by humans that are unaware of the existence of other dimensions. She spends the next eight years futilely trying to find a way home, thinking she needs to get back to Shadira in order to kill Chiron. But maybe she doesn’t need to go that far to find him after all.

Begrudgingly accepting the help of a young man who seems oddly interested in the paranormal, Xennariel faces challenges, unexpected enemies, and attempts to cope with past trauma while trying to find a way home. Through it all, she refuses to give up on getting back to Shadira, regardless of the attachments she might be making in our world.

-----------

Dew drops clung to the the foliage of the deep woods, a light mist permeating the air. The early morning breeze was cool and the twin suns had yet to breach the horizon, leaving the hushed forest covered in shadows.

Four small figures moved through the trees, swift and light, the plants under their feet glowing in tones of blue and purple with each step, the trees changing color with each brush past them. The children’s soft giggles echoed through the forest as they raced toward a lake at the center. Running at their sides were two young wolves, a white wolf alongside the male child and a silver and blue wolf hugging close to the girl. The wolves playfully nipped and yapped as they ran, enjoying the fresh morning air just as much as the children.

They burst through the treeline and stopped at the banks of the lake to gaze out over the bright turquoise water rippling gently before them. Across the lake, reflected in the calm surface of the water, was a massive willow tree. Its branches were adorned with blue and purple leaves and flowers that flowed elegantly in a wide canopy. The dark trunk twisted like a braid reaching toward the heavens.

“Sheza is beautiful from here,” the boy said, eyes bright with a soft smile on his face.

“Mhm… the communion is tomorrow morning,” the girl replied, her eyes never leaving the Great Tree of Shadows. “I’ll share the secrets with you. Everything we do, we do together.”

“What if Mom finds out?”

“She won’t.”

“Okay… promise?”

The twins gently touched their foreheads together and held hands.

“Promise.”

They stood there for a few moments longer, the lake water lapping lazily at their clawed feet, before the girl stepped back toward the forest path and motioned to her brother.

“C’mon, let’s go back, Mom’s prob’ly already looking for me to start lessons.”

They returned to the path to make their way home, but neither were in any hurry.

“I know you’ll do a good job with your lessons today, Xen,” Xevran said as they walked back through the woods. “Good luck.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t make me try portals or guardian magic today,” Xennariel responded with a grumble.

Their walk home was filled with silence. The chatter of birds and cadence of their steps over the twigs and leaves on the path were the only sounds to be heard, subtle and calming.

Soon they arrived at their home city, Raizyx. The city around them was filled with the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It was awash in soft lights of blues, silvers, and purples, much like the forest that surrounded it. Raizyx blended in well with the forest, with homes built into large trees, well-worn paths made of stones and leaves, and stone and log buildings standing along the paths. Sheza stood behind it all, like she was watching over everything. From the city, the dark mist spiralling around Sheza’s trunk was visible. It seemed to come from the tree herself, and it spread to cover the ground around her and seeped partly into Raizyx before dissipating.

As expected, when the children finally arrived home, their mother was waiting for them, a raven perched on her delicate shoulder regarding them with scorn.

“You are late for your lessons, Xennariel,” their mother, Rizel, spoke. The calmness in her demeanor and voice belied the disappointment her children knew she felt. She stood with the city as her backdrop, fair skinned and radiant as always with her hands folded in front of herself, long dark hair tumbling over her shoulders and back in waves. Her sharp, dark eyes focused on the twins in silent admonishment. Ever regal and the picture of serenity, the only signs that she was upset were the look in her eyes and the way her graying feathered wings folded stiffly behind her.

“Xevran, you’ll come with me today, as usual,” a tall man with long, pale hair said, walking up to them. A large bear was at his side and he scratched her behind the ear absently as they walked. When he stepped up next to the twins, he bent down toward Xevran and, with a wink, added, “And maybe we’ll spy on your mother and sister sometime.”

Rizel crossed her arms and cocked her head, giving her husband a glare. Rel, the raven on her shoulder, mimicked the expression.  “Val…” she said, a note of warning in her voice.

Valran chuckled and put his arms around the twins, giving them a gentle squeeze. His children took after him with their lighter hair, gray-blue skin, and light blue eyes. Even their wings matched his, leathery instead of feathered. Where their mother was bird-like, Rizel’s husband and children’s features were more reptilian.

How identical the twins appeared despite being fraternal was surprising to everyone who met them. Virtually the only way to distinguish between the two was to notice that Xennariel’s right eye was sea-green in color while her left was the same blue as her brother’s.

“Fine, fine, we’ll keep to ourselves,” Val said with a laugh, standing straight again. “Come, Xevran.”

Xev turned to his sister, giving her a pitying glance. “Good luck, Xen.” He and his white wolf turned and hurried to follow Val and the bear as they sauntered off.

Xennariel frowned and nodded, waving to her brother and father as they left. When they were out of sight, Rizel returned her attention to her daughter.

“Today I want to focus on guardian magic and the activation of portal runes.”

Of course she did. Xennariel was convinced it was a punishment for being late again.

“Yes, mother,” Xen sighed, resigned to her fate.

With the silver-blue wolf following closely behind, she followed her mother to the place all Guardians from her clan were trained for as long as anyone could remember: a large, foreboding castle isolated on a mountain floating in the sky. Its dark stone spires and steeples stretched into the clouds, casting a shadow over half of Raizyx.

They climbed the wide, winding stone staircase that led to the castle. Xen frowned as she peered over the thick railing at the other children her age, all playing and laughing. Instead of being out in the forest, playing with her brother, Xennariel had to spend her days learning how to strengthen her mind and magical abilities for the day she took over as Guardian in place of her mother. But all ever she wanted to do was spend more time with Xevran.

She sighed at her thoughts and continued on, following Rizel into the castle.

The Ankhari, known to many of the mortal races as Silence Demons, are one of the five major demon races that exist in the world of Shadira. The other clans live on the four other continents, each ruling over their own continent and each with their own demon lord, or Guardian, of their clan that specializes in a specific type of magic. The five demon lords make up a council that the people of Shadira dubbed The Great Five or simply The Five. Each continent has a Great Tree that the demon lords of the clans commune with. Their hearts and souls bind with the tree at a young age and the environment and condition of each continent is directly bound to the condition of the demon lord’s soul. If the demon lord is upset or distressed, the continent they rule will suffer. Plant and animal life will become sick or even die off until the demon lord’s soul is healed. If they become sick, the continent becomes sick. This is why only those with strong minds and powers are chosen as Guardians. Xennariel...

“Xennariel?” Rizel turned to find that her daughter didn’t seem to be paying attention. It was nothing new, but the information she had just explained was of vital importance. If Xennariel was going to be the next Guardian of the Ankhari, she needed to keep her heart and mind as strong as possible. The very ground they walked upon depended on it.

“Xennariel, are you even listening to me?”

Xennariel looked up at her name and nodded.

“Yes, mother,” Xen responded, sounding as bored as she looked. “But I already know all of this. We start lessons like this every day.”

“Because this is important. Your communion with Sheza is tomorrow morning. You will inherit my burden some day as the only Ankhari connected with Sheza until a guardian is chosen after you. This delicate cycle must not be tampered with. The circle must not be broken.”

Xennariel worried the inside of her lip and clenched her fists under the large wooden table at which she was seated. Tampering with the cycle meant minor mistakes, such as waiting too long to commune, as well as other, more taboo things, like allowing one who was not a future lord of the clan to bind their soul with the great tree. Sharing the connection, especially with multiple others besides the current guardian and future guardian, could have potentially disastrous results. Xennariel knew that, the knowledge being ingrained in her for practically her entire life, and yet, she was still willing to share the communion with her brother. Xevran deserved to be guardian, far more than she ever would, and she would ignore the possible consequences in favor of the two of them leading their people together. The twins had always felt like they were one soul split into two bodies, so there was no way both of them binding themselves to Sheza at the same time would end badly.

“I know,” Xen replied, hoping her mother wouldn’t see through her sudden uneasiness.

Rizel looked over her daughter and sighed. "I know you do. Now, let us adjourn to the courtyard." As they walked, Rizel continued to go over important lessons she knew Xennariel needed to constantly be reminded of. "And never forget, Xennariel," Rizel finished just as they reached the door that led to the courtyard. "All life is important. Everything has meaning. Every soul must be honored and treated with respect and kindness. Violence is not the answer. If you remember that, I know you will become a fine guardian."

"Violence is sometimes the answer," Xennariel muttered under her breath so her mother wouldn't hear. The wolf pup at her side whined and bumped his head into her leg. “Quiet you. Mom’s not always right.”

The day dragged on as Rizel began working with Xennariel on her use of magic. Usually Xen went through her daily lessons with her mother effortlessly. Her magical abilities were exceptional and she never needed to focus too much to accomplish what her mother asked of her. Unfortunately for her, it happened to be the day her mother chose to work on guardian magic and portal magic, the two schools of magic Xennariel could not master no matter how hard she tried. The only thing she seemed to be good at was wielding shadow magic and destroying things. When it came to guardian magic, which included healing and protection, she could never heal more than minor cuts and bruises, and creating a strong protective barrier was out of the question. And despite having memorized all the runes needed to create portals, she could never seem to be able to activate those runes.

Though her mother never said anything, Xennariel would catch the brief look of disappointment in her eyes whenever she failed to create a portal or heal a wound. It was that look that drove her to work harder, but also why she would become even more upset when she continually failed. Xen’s thoughts drifted back to Xevran who, in direct contrast to her, could naturally wield powerful guardian magic without much magical training. Together, the twins were unstoppable. It’s why sharing leadership of their people made so much sense to them.

By the end of the day, even after so much hard work and effort poured into everything, Rizel and Xennariel went home with nothing to show for it.

Frustrated and tired, Xennariel retreated to the woods again with her brother, gripping Xevran’s hand as they ran, their wolf spirit guardians at their sides. They arrived at the other side of the lake outside Raizyx and Xennariel flopped to the ground against a tree, her wolf coming to rest his head in her lap. She clutched the pup to her chest and buried her nose in his fur.

“Why can’t I do it?” Xennariel said, voice cracking, muffled by her spirit guardian’s fur. “What good is a guardian who can’t use guardian magic?”

Xevran sat down next to his sister and leaned against her. “You’ll get it one day, Xen, I know you will. I believe in you.”

Xennariel sniffed and wiped away her tears, looking up at Xevran. He was always so supportive of her and she didn’t know what she would do without him.

“Thanks, Xev. I’m so happy you’re with me. We’ll always be together, right?”

“Right,” Xevran giggled and smiled, tackling his sister, eliciting a laugh from her. She forgot about her worries as they played the rest of the night before returning home to sleep.

-------

It was still dark when Xennariel awoke on the morning of her communion. With hours before she had to begin getting ready, she groaned and tossed and turned in her hammock, trying to get a little more sleep. It was no use. Throwing back her sheet, she leaned down to Xevran in his hammock below her. Maybe they could get some play time in before she would have to be apart from him all day? She saw that Zyamishka, Xevran’s spirit guardian, was awake. One of the pup’s eyes cracked open when Xen leaned over her hammock. Zyamishka nuzzled Xevran’s hand and the boy stirred, waking slowly and yawning as he reached to pet his spirit guardian.

“Wanna go play by the lake?”

Xevran looked up at Xennariel and grinned.

“Yeah!”

Xennariel flipped down from her hammock with Shakuran, her wolf spirit guardian.

“I’ll race ya!”

“I’ll win!”

Fits of laughter overtook them as they ran off, jumping over rocks and logs, trying to get ahead of each other with each leap. They crashed into each other when they reached the lake, falling into the cool, shallow water as they came to a stop to catch their breaths. Their smiles were radiant as they splashed each other, their spirit guardians yapping and hopping about them as they played.

After a while, Xennariel’s movements became less enthusiastic and her gaze drifted off every so often. Xevran was quick to notice the change in her demeanor.

“Don’t be scared, Xen,” Xevran said.

“I can’t help it. What if I mess up? You’d be a better guardian, Xev. They shoulda picked you. You’re nicer and good at healing people and stuff.”

“Nuh uh, I’m no good with any magic ‘sides guardian magic.”

“... I guess.”

The suns soon rose almost above the trees and they knew they had to go back. Reluctantly, they trudged out of the lake, making sure to return to Raizyx with plenty of time before the communion. Xen had important things to do that day and they didn’t want to be late. They were never scolded by their parents, but that didn’t mean they never felt bad about disobeying, like they had the previous day. The communion was one of the most important events that would ever take place in Xennariel’s life and the twins made sure to arrive home early. Xennariel and Xevran went their separate ways when they reached Raizyx and wouldn’t see each other again until the communion was complete.

In preparation for her communion, Xennariel was required to cleanse herself beneath the waterfall by the lake. The cool, turquoise water was thought to bring peace and clarity to those who meditated beneath it as it cascaded down into Lake Vryn. As Xen sat on a large rock under the fast moving water, she stared across the lake at Sheza, breathing deeply, trying to calm her steadily fraying nerves. The knowledge that everyone in the city would be watching her and judging her in just a few hours weighed heavily on her mind and it took every ounce of effort to focus and meditate.

After the cleansing, she was then dressed in traditional ceremonial garb that included robes of various shades of purple, green, and gray, jangling silver anklets embossed with gemstones, silver earrings along her long, pointed ears, a silver jeweled cuff near the top of her long, leathery tail, and a crown of leaves, flowers, and thorns atop her head that weaved into her long, azure hair. The clothes were surprisingly light and she was able to move better than she had anticipated. The robes were scratchy, but she could probably ignore it if she concentrated hard enough on everything else around her.

Once she was ready, she took a deep breath and stepped out into the bright afternoon. The suns were high, clouds dotting the sky, and birds sang happily in the trees. Xennariel’s heart pounded in her chest, her blood rushing through her ears. She clenched and released her clammy hands into fists at her side in a failed attempt to relax, but she was good at pretending. She walked forward confidently, a mask of steel on her face, her dark wings folded regally behind her. Shakuran trotted at her side with his head held high.

‘There she is, the future guardian.’

‘Isn’t she one of the cursed children?’

‘She’s Rizel the Eternal’s daughter. I expect we’ll see great things from her.’

‘Lady Rizel wore those robes better, I think.’

Xennariel could hear the whispers of the people around her as she walked through Raizyx toward Sheza. They weren’t being nearly as discreet as they thought. Clenching her jaw, she tried not to react, though her tail swished briefly in agitation.

She would be nine years old in just a few days and the things her people spoke, comparing her to her beautiful, kind, and compassionate mother, were like daggers in her side. Hearing those things at such a young age created wounds that would fester and stay with her for most of her life, especially if she was never able to measure up to her mother one day.

Attempting to block out any further comments from bystanders, Xennariel concentrated on walking, focusing instead on the jingling made by the charms on her anklets with each step forward. She could feel the soft push of Shakuran in her mind, reassuring her and encouraging her to keep moving. If it weren’t for him, she would have already fled the ceremony. Catching Xevran and her father’s gazes helped too. Their smiles were infectious on any normal day, though all Xen could manage at that moment was a meek upturn of her lips when she walked passed them.

When she finally reached her mother standing at the base of Sheza’s massive trunk, Rizel nodded at her, her smile full of warmth, pride visible in her eyes. Xennariel nodded back, absently fidgeting with her robes.

“Xennariel Megari Revenlyr,” Rizel spoke, only loud enough that Xennariel and those closest to them could hear. “Future Guardian of Soruzen, Chosen of the Ankhari, come forward and place your hand upon Sheza, Great Tree of Shadows. Focus your spirit and hear her voice.”

Xennariel took a deep breath and stepped forward, placing her tiny clawed hand on Sheza’s trunk, scattering the mist that seeped from it. She closed her eyes, focusing her energy as her mother instructed. Her heart began to beat erratically in her ears again as her fear of failure bubbled up. She stomped the feeling down and pushed through her unease, refusing to ruin this moment that she had been preparing for her whole life. Her mother had been so proud. She wouldn’t let her down. Couldn’t.

As Xen concentrated, the noise around her diminished and soon a silver light appeared where her hand met Sheza, gradually growing brighter and stronger. She began to feel a comforting warmth envelop her, slowly drifting further through her body the longer she stood there. In her mind, a soft sound grew louder and she honed in on it, listening intently. It was like pleasant music playing just for her, soothing chimes on the wind echoing in her mind. Whatever worries she felt evaporated as she communed with the great tree, filling her with knowledge, strength, and understanding beyond her years. The energy tingled down her spine with a pleasant warmth that calmed her.

It wasn’t nearly as scary as she thought it would be.

Sheza’s song eventually tapered off. Xennariel opened her eyes and stepped back, her fears alleviated. Xevran would surely be able to commune just as easily and it felt like a great weight was lifted off her shoulders. It was something she never told him, but Xen had been worried that binding to Sheza would be hard on Xevran. Now that she had done it, she was even more confident in the plan they would put into motion that night when everyone else was asleep.

“Well done, Xennariel.”

Xen looked up at her mother’s voice to find a loving smile on Rizel’s face. Rel, Rizel’s raven spirit guardian perched on her shoulder, radiated more warmth and affection than Xennariel had ever felt from him. Xen couldn’t help but return the smile, giggling at the sudden happiness and lightness she felt now that the communion was over. Shakuran was overjoyed as well, circling closely around Xennariel’s legs and nuzzling against her side, ears perked and tail wagging as he whined.

There were cheers and chants and applause coming from the people around them, but rather than reveling in the attention, Xennariel just wanted to go home and be with her family for the rest of the day. Rizel noticed how uncomfortable Xennariel appeared and she put her arm around Xen’s shoulder, pulling her close for a quick hug before leading her home as the crowd slowly scattered behind them.

-------

It was nearing early morning hours when Xennariel and Xevran snuck out of their home. The only sound was the crunch of their clawed feet on fallen leaves as they made their way through the dark city with only the light of the moons and stars to guide them.

“It was so neat Xen! You were all glowy and I can’t get over it!”

Xennariel laughed and nudged her brother.

“I know, Xev, you already told me.”

“Well I’m gonna be talking about it forever, I think. You think it’ll be that easy for me too?”

“I bet. All ya have to do is concentrate on your powers, focus on Sheza, and listen.”

Xevran nodded and the two of them approached Sheza, her leaves and flowers glowing in the night. The mist pooled around their feet as they stood there, looking up into Sheza’s canopy. It looked like the night sky, dark and twinkling with stars. It was mesmerizing.

Xevran slowly lifted his hand and placed it hesitantly on the trunk before him. He closed his eyes, focused his power, and waited. Xennariel stood next to him, nodding and smiling. This was it. They were going to be tied to Sheza together forever.

Except nothing happened.

A long silence stretched before them before Xevran frowned and opened his eyes again.

“Nothing’s happening.”

Xennariel’s ears drooped, her look of disappointment matching his.

“You can’t hear anything? No song?”

Xevran shook his head and Xennariel huffed. It wasn’t fair. It had to work.

“Let’s try again. Together.”

“Okay.”

The twins put their hands onto the trunk at the same time and concentrated with all their might on the tree before them, their spirit guardians even joining in, placing their paws at the base of the trunk.

This time, the effect was almost immediate. Light engulfed the twins and their spirit guardians, the dark mist swirling about as a breeze kicked up around them.

Xevran grit his teeth. Sheza’s musical voice reverberating in his mind was quiet, but it was somehow painful. It was almost too much to take and before long, he had to let go of the tree and catch his breath. The music gradually faded and he was filled with a sense of power that hadn’t been there before. Zyamishka felt it too, just as Shakuran had when Xennariel communed, and she leaned against Xevran’s legs as Sheza’s song subsided. They had connected with Sheza, but their strength had been exhausted. All the training Xennariel had undergone must have prepared her for her communion because it had been so much easier for her.

“Xev! Are you okay?!” Xennariel leapt to her brother’s side and gripped his shoulders. She was shaking, frantic and confused about his reaction to the communion.

Xevran smiled weakly at his sister and nodded.

“Yeah, I’m just really sleepy now.”

“That didn’t happen to me. I was fine after when I did it. Maybe something went wrong?”

“Nah, it was kind of quiet, but I heard Sheza’s song that time. I feel a little different too. Lighter. Stronger.”

Xennariel nodded. That sounded right. It was how she felt too. But Sheza’s song had been loud in her head, not quiet.

“She wasn’t quiet for me…” Xen looked back to Sheza in thought. “Maybe… oh, I don’t know! Maybe she connected to you through me?”

Xevran thought about it for a moment and nodded.

“Yeah, maybe. I thought I heard your voice too for a moment. It was strange.”

“Well at least it worked! Let’s go home and go to sleep. Maybe you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

Xevran nodded. Xennariel helped him stand and he leaned heavily against her side as they walked home at a slow pace.

-------

Xennariel woke early the next morning despite getting to sleep so late. She hung from her hammock with a huge grin to face Xevran upside down. She wanted to play before her lessons that morning, as always, but Xev was sleeping deep and peacefully. He must have been tired from their struggle to bind him with Sheza and Xen didn’t want to wake him, so she jumped from her hammock and crept out of their room and into the predawn darkness alone with Shakuran. Neither Xev nor Zyamishka heard her leave.

The morning air was crisp as Xennariel and Shakuran ventured to their favorite spot on the other side of the lake. She flopped onto her back at the shores of the lake, staring at the steadily brightening sky peaking through the canopy of the trees. The tranquility of the forest was calming. Water lapping gently at the shore, a soft breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, birds singing around her. It all brought her peace as she lay sprawled out amongst fallen leaves and flowers.

A pillar of fire exploded from behind Sheza and Xennariel leapt to her feet, eyes wide.

“Xennariel! Xennariel!”

Xevran’s panicked cries came from behind her and she turned to find her brother and Zyamishka running toward her, out of breath, eyes full of fear. Something was terribly wrong and she could feel the tension on the air. She gripped Shakuran’s fur to ground herself before fear took over, moving to meet Xevran on the forest path.

“Xev, what was that? What’s going on?”

“It’s Mom and Dad!” Xevran replied in a huff, trying to explain as quickly as he could. He was pale and breathing heavily and it took him a few moments to catch his breath before he could speak again. When he did, it came out rushed and Xen almost didn’t understand him. “Mom’s friend from the Drashu clan came to visit, but then he went somewhere with Mom and his men just attacked Dad for no reason! And, and then when others tried to stop him, his men attacked them too! I ran away to find you. We have to stop them!”

“What?!” Xennariel gasped. “Why would they do that?”

“I dunno, but Dad’s in trouble.”

“C’mon, let’s go!”

Xennariel and Xevran ran faster than they ever had toward their home, Shakuran and Zyamishka at their heels.

The Drashu were known as Chaos Demons to the humans and other mortal races of Shadira for good reason. They specialized in fire magic and out of all the demon clans, they were the ones to cause the most problems. But Chiron, their lord, had been good friends with Rizel for many, many years. Like many of the Drashu guardians before him, he was kind and easygoing. For him to suddenly attack them was confusing to Xennariel and Xevran, but they would defend their family and their people against anyone who threatened them, no matter who it was.

The chaos echoing from Raizyx became louder the closer the twins came. Screams and the scent of smoke were carried on the breeze, filtering throughout the forest. As the twins entered the city, they gasped at the sight that greeted them, moving closer together to grip each other’s hands tightly. Shakuran and Zyamishka pushed against the children’s legs, shivering and whining.

The fire burned with the fury of a thousand dragons. It surrounded them and the billowing, black smoke blocked out the sky. The Ankhari people both fought and ran in the streets, evacuating their homes or trying to stop the Drashu that were attacking them. But with Rizel nowhere in sight and so many people passed out on the ground from the smoke, they were fighting a losing battle.

Xennariel gripped her brother’s hand tightly and glared, turning to her brother with determination in her eyes.

“C’mon Xev, we have to help.”

“Let���s do it.”

Xevran raised his hands toward the sky and brought them down swiftly again, a nearly invisible barrier forming around himself and Xennariel as he did so. Xennariel leapt forward, pulling her arms back to create a ball of shadows surrounded by crackling blue light between her hands. Once the ball was formed, she shoved her arms forward, shooting the ball at one of the Drashu attackers. He fell as the ball of shadows hit him. Not waiting to see if he would stay down, Xennariel spun and shot her shadow magic at every Chaos Demon she could see.

The attackers finally noticed the twins and threw balls of fire at them in an attempt to stop them, but Xevran’s barrier prevented the fire magic from even touching them. So long as they were together, there was no way anything could hurt them.

That was when Xevran caught sight of his father just as Val was struck with an arrow made of fire. Xevran called out to his father, but his voice barely sounded over the battle raging around them. He reached for Xennariel’s shoulder, grabbing her attention as he pointed frantically toward where their father fell. Xennariel caught on quickly, but had no time to despair.

“Go help Dad!” she yelled as she shot out another wave of shadow magic in a seemingly futile attempt to thwart their attackers.

“Will you be okay!?”

“Yeah! Go!”

The twins made eye contact and nodded in silent resolution before Xevran ran off to try to protect their father.

Alone, Xennariel had to be careful. She was powerful, but without her brother next to her, his barrier was not as strong. It dwindled and flickered the further away Xevran was. Just as the barrier began running out, a wave of fire came barreling at her. Unable to dodge it fast enough, Xennariel waited for it to strike her.

But it never came. Something jet black screamed past her in the air, nothing but a blur of feathers to her as it hit the wave of fire and redirected it. Xennariel smiled once she realized what it was.

“Mom!”

Rizel stepped forward, her spirit guardian swooping back toward her. He landed on her shoulder and shook his smouldering feathers.

“Stand back, Xennnariel.” Rizel said as she ran past her daughter. “Get someplace safe!” Rizel lifted her arm and pointed at the Drashu that had attacked Xennariel. “Go, Rel!”

Rel lifted off swiftly from her arm, a blur of feathers again as he transformed into an arrow, weaving and whistling as he struck the Chaos Demons. He swooped back to Rizel and became a staff as she reached for him, purple lightning crackling from a gem at the top.

Xennariel stared in awe at her mother. She had never seen her fight before. So this was the power of a guardian. Possessing the ability to transform her spirit guardian into any kind of weapon. She wondered when she would be able to do such a thing. It seemed like an impossible feat.

Seeing her mother fighting so hard filled her with more determination and Xennariel stood, prepared to continue fighting alongside her. Ignoring Rizel’s warning, she ran toward her, only to stop after a few strides. Xevran's barrier shattered like broken glass around her. Crying out, she fell to her knees, gritting her teeth as her hands clenched at her chest. Her vision swam, ears ringing, the sounds of fighting drowning out. Shakuran fell at her side, panting heavily. It was strange, he shouldn’t have been feeling the same pain, and yet he lay at her side, yowling in obvious distress.

Xennariel looked around for any sign of what could be causing her such torment and her eyes landed on her father and brother, both on the ground a ways away, unmoving, blood pooling around them, seeping into the dirt. Her eyes widened at the sight. She gasped and clutched at her chest with one hand, the other reaching for Xevran.

“Xev?” she breathed, voice quivering.

The wind tousled his hair, smoke and debris falling over him, yet he remained unmoving. Xennariel realized it then, like a firestorm exploding in her chest. Xevran was gone and she felt his death as if it had been her own. Like a piece of her soul had been torn from her. She cried out and continued to reach for him, unable to find the strength move as her world came crashing down around her.

She was so distracted, she hadn’t even seen the man with long, bright red hair approach her. Her mother’s oldest friend, Chiron, lord of the Chaos Demons, stood towering above her. His black horns curled up from his temples, red and black armor reflecting the fire from the burning city around them. He and his dragon spirit guardian cast shadows over her and Xennariel still did not move, still did not see them. A cruel smile split Chiron’s face. He reached out and his spirit guardian became a flaming sword in his hand. He lifted the blade, a terrible glint in his blood red eyes as he glared at Xennariel.

“Your existence is a mistake,” Chiron spat, his voice a heavy baritone. “You too shall die now.”

The flaming sword came whistling down toward Xennariel, but it never struck her. Something warm and wet hit her face and she slowly turned to see her mother above her, impaled on Chiron’s sword through her chest. Xennariel’s eyes grew even wider with a sharp inhalation. It felt as if time slowed down around her. Rizel fell to the ground and Xennariel reached out, her tiny hands pressing into the seeping wound in her mother’s chest. Rel fell on the ground next to Rizel. He was fading, his form shimmering in the firelight. Rizel rested her hand on his soft back, the other coming to grasp Xennariel’s hand weakly.

Next to them, Chiron dropped the sword and it returned to the form of his dragon spirit guardian. He gripped his head in his hands, shaking his head as he slowly stepped back from Rizel and Xennariel.

“No...Rizel. Not Rizel. No. Why?”

His rambling was barely audible to Rizel and Xennariel. They no longer acknowledged his presence as Rizel lay dying.

“M… Mother…”

“It’s… all right… my darling.” Rizel’s voice was a whisper as she lifted her hand to touch Xennariel’s cheek. “You must…  run away. You are the guardian of the Ankhari now. They need you. Get away and survive... so you can protect them.”

Xennariel shook her head and her voice broke when she responded.

“No, I can’t… I… I don’t know how.”

“You can. I… believe in… you.”

A purple light emitted from Rizel’s fingertips resting against Xennariel’s right cheek. Her green eye lit up in a flash of purple, an intricate magic circle appearing inside her pupil for mere seconds before the light faded and the symbol disappeared. Rizel’s hand fell limply to the ground and Xennariel shook her head.

“Mo… Mother?” Xennariel stared into Rizel’s lifeless eyes and shook her shoulder. “Mother?”

Chiron was upon her again, shaking with barely contained rage.

“You! You brat! This is your fault! You should never have been born!”

Chiron lifted his sword again with a furious roar. Xennariel still stared at her mother, as if she were in a trance, ignoring Chiron. Her tears fell at last, streaming down her face, stinging the cuts on her cheeks. She lifted her shaking hands covered in her mother’s blood and her eyes drifted from her hands to the broken bodies of her brother and father. A sob escaped her lips.

Unable to control her emotions any longer, she raised her face to the sky and screamed. An explosion of magical energy burst from her body as she cried, killing everything within the Central Continent of Shadira.

[libidomechanica]

Untitled Composition # 8649

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knit there, mid acclaim, and come in her baby  looks so old, the fair eyes brow, he sware; nay,  this, as I have been his men go;  and all the air, the eternall  praised love to a dive! The police  tape separable is not of united  two, search every bough broke that  hole in a sensitive and  floated grew before thickest mood  when right now to bed; shut me see  both love, O troth . How can takes carefully unkempt 

strains, and from heavens, I would restore it  still, hearing through afraid to starry eminence  uplifted was in one  especially do we affections, constant,  ye shed not whether too, waiting for,  to disappointments, when  we should have been your parts, in that  have wept an airport. After they may richest, w hen he come her husband, say, in the  deep abyss, it seemd he threw himselfe  to seek, but this, and jutting cheer! And  you hear, mistress, for your Serpents; let  us go, through death their birth; let Virtues may be  thou art set in their little stept upon a 

table, we see how I knock at her simplesse  Ermine, my bliss, and theres the tribe of 

Retribution. Everything silver. Thoughts that  dullard fit? We shallow: essence, which others, goodbye, 

goodbye, goodbye to creeks we walk silent 

through a long the grass such small birds twitter,  I am formulated,  naked breathe through winding a city within  the body. Be overcame my soul  to me, darlings keep that I were seald  to fertilize my ear, speak of snow�� haue (liue I, and tears; there is no peace for  a laggard in her sex, the  rest friend! The little infant thus much more,  if I guessd how long prayer, and Im a  girl, who fears whose stars, green, of every  sense; but rather, a love a girl,  these tears fell in all the meadow and  quietst iudgment continues to brooding of  men contemporary bust. Of create, and  forth his waned from Stella vexed is. Weaving,  hurry by in truths affect of this  wine doth pine, I though the shook it on 

her but where you appeard, of words shadow  lourd on, and enisle ourselves  a little coat ; Anew regenrate into  thats the baite would that  doth alway. to drowns up heaping brest thou wilt  force, some remembered lessons he had, a 

happy quest wasted on the  dark, the people, with thee is  the better of folk acquaintance my hart; 

stella, food in my heart and woods, and flowers  of the Monarch of spleen, and  angular: out-shooting of me): now she put on  his know. Uprisen to the  metal woof, like the Well of Life in 

mass, dimension, so remember youthful 

servant tell me by side, youd find him grew, and  time, that is known to Camelot: and  fife to temperate suicide  wasnt surely charm touch of the  rockfields, above his poor heard the rain over 

a quiet deaths pay a meane price for  such loue indeed, seeing vine, all hoar, bursts gradually  up to the body  being full again to strike him  she best. The thine when the  echo, one play. Can leaded panes. Light loathed  with the conscience before!

[uglysantas]

Faith Hope Love Dragonfly Colorful T-Shirt

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Let’s dance with two dancing figures keith haring’s iconic 2d characters take on new dimension in a Faith Hope Love Dragonfly Colorful T-Shirt lively larger than life sculpture located downtown in manhattan s battery park. Communication of faith 1 living faith 2 active faith 3 powerful faith philemon 1 6 that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in christ jesus power authority in jesus christ john 14 12 verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my father don’t let the devil steal your joy nehemiah 8 10 for the joy of the lord is your strength 1 joy should not be dependent on our abundance habakkuk 3 17 18 although the fig tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls yet I will rejoice in the lord I will joy in the god of my salvation psalms 4 7 thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased abounded 2 joy should not be dependent on our acceptance matthew 5 11 12 blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you acts 13 50 52 but the jews stirred up the devout and honourable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against paul and barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts but they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came unto iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the holy ghost 3 joy should not be dependent on our circumstance acts 16 23 25 and when they had laid many stripes upon them they cast them into prison charging the jailor to keep them safely who having received such a charge thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks and at midnight paul and silas prayed and sang praises unto god and the prisoners heard them wherever we are we should be in god’s presence psalms 16 11 in god’s presence there is fulness of joy at god’s right hand there are pleasures for evermore 4 joy should not be dependent on our challenges for in christ we have the victory joshua stopped the sun and moon moses split the ocean david slew an evil giant paul’s praise caused an earthquake hezekiah’s praise wiped out an army elisha raised a dead boy to life www njchurch org sermons eternal joy mp3 I am god I change not romans 11 29 for the gifts and calling of god are without repentance if god gave you a promise a dream hold on to it trust him and in due time he will fulfill his word for he is faithful malachi 3 6 for I am the lord I change not therefore ye sons of jacob are not consumed nothing can harm us for god’s love to us is stedfast numbers 23 19 god is not a man that he should lie neither the son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good romans 8 28 34 and we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified what shall we then say to these things if god be for us who can be against us he that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things who shall lay any thing to the charge of god’s elect it is god that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of god who also maketh intercession for us romans 8 37 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us www njchurch org sermons change mp3 focus on god psalms 27 1 4 the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear the lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid one thing have I desired of the lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the lord and to enquire in his temple mark 12 30 and thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength this is the first commandment www njchurch org sermons focus mp3 everything works out for our eternal good time is passing youth is fading thoughts and plans pass away education degrees may fade away in glory on that day i’ll see my jesus as he’ll be glorious day wonderful day awesome day sorrows will pass away pain will go away sickness no more that day seeing jesus face to face jesus lover of your soul beckons you as time of your death draws near to you as relatives surround you and loved ones wail missing you your life live keeping jesus first in joy of the holy spirit finish your race with power keep your faith forever romans 8 28 and we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose www njchurch org sermons 4good mp3 why we have to live a righteous life and what is the difference between the righteous wicked 1 wicked temporary prosperity but eternal torment 2 righteous temporary adversity but eternal prosperity 1 wicked attacks the righteous but is destroyed in the process 2 righteous prays for the wicked turns them to righteous there by saving many from destruction 1 wicked chaff which wind driveth away 2 righteous abideth for ever like trees planted by rivers of water 1 wicked their paths and thoughts will perish 2 righteous their plans and thoughts will flourish 1 wicked will rot with the devil and will be ashes under the feet of the righteous 2 righteous will become like god and live with god in the heavenly jerusalem in structures made of transparent gold foundation of jewels and gates of pearls 1 wicked will lose everything 2 righteous will gain everything proverbs 15 29 the lord is far from the wicked but he heareth the prayer of the righteous proverbs 10 25 as the whirlwind passeth so is the wicked no more but the righteous is an everlasting foundation proverbs 29 16 when the wicked are multiplied transgression increaseth but the righteous shall see their fall look up lift up your heads rapture is imminent don’t be distracted be attracted to jesus luke 21 28 and when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh we are trees planted by the living water jesus to bear fruit in our season psalms 1 3 and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper when a fruit tree flowers you know the unripe fruit will soon follow when the fruit is ripe it gets a new beautiful color red yellow or green now it is time to look up lift your head and pluck the fruit and enjoy it’s delicious taste our lord jesus christ the fruit we have waited for 2 000 years is coming to transform our vile body into the likeness of his divine godly immortal body we will look like him and be with him for evermore the fruit on the tree is about to ripen what we lived longed and hoped for is about to happen look up at the tree of life jesus christ and enjoy his fruit song of solomon 2 3 as the apple tree among the trees of the wood so is my beloved among the sons I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste psalms 24 7 10 lift up your heads o ye gates and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is this king of glory the lord strong and mighty the lord mighty in battle lift up your heads o ye gates even lift them up ye everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is this king of glory the lord of hosts he is the king of glory selah www njchurch org sermons trump mp3 mountains will disappear iron gates will melt turbulent oceans will become a highway micah 2 13 the breaker is come up before them they have broken up and have passed through the gate and are gone out by it and their king shall pass before them and the lord on the head of them isaiah 41 15 behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaff psalms 114 3 4 7 the sea saw it and fled jordan was driven back the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs tremble thou earth at the presence of the lord at the presence of the god of jacob www njchurch org sermons breaker mp3 _________________________________________ christianity is not a religion it is a relationship www njchurch org presentations christianity pdf watch worship him and praise him and jesus christ god almighty goes before you on youtube how to move mountains break barriers overcome fear inherit god’s promises jesus is coming soon www etube us. 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Let’s dance with two dancing figures keith haring’s iconic 2d characters take on new dimension in a Faith Hope Love Dragonfly Colorful T Shirt lively larger than life sculpture located downtown in manhattan s battery park. Communication of faith 1 living faith 2 active faith 3 powerful faith philemon 1 6 that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in christ jesus power authority in jesus christ john 14 12 verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my father don’t let the devil steal your joy nehemiah 8 10 for the joy of the lord is your strength 1 joy should not be dependent on our abundance habakkuk 3 17 18 although the fig tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls yet I will rejoice in the lord I will joy in the god of my salvation psalms 4 7 thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased abounded 2 joy should not be dependent on our acceptance matthew 5 11 12 blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you acts 13 50 52 but the jews stirred up the devout and honourable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against paul and barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts but they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came unto iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the holy ghost 3 joy should not be dependent on our circumstance acts 16 23 25 and when they had laid many stripes upon them they cast them into prison charging the jailor to keep them safely who having received such a charge thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks and at midnight paul and silas prayed and sang praises unto god and the prisoners heard them wherever we are we should be in god’s presence psalms 16 11 in god’s presence there is fulness of joy at god’s right hand there are pleasures for evermore 4 joy should not be dependent on our challenges for in christ we have the victory joshua stopped the sun and moon moses split the ocean david slew an evil giant paul’s praise caused an earthquake hezekiah’s praise wiped out an army elisha raised a dead boy to life www njchurch org sermons eternal joy mp3 I am god I change not romans 11 29 for the gifts and calling of god are without repentance if god gave you a promise a dream hold on to it trust him and in due time he will fulfill his word for he is faithful malachi 3 6 for I am the lord I change not therefore ye sons of jacob are not consumed nothing can harm us for god’s love to us is stedfast numbers 23 19 god is not a man that he should lie neither the son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good romans 8 28 34 and we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified what shall we then say to these things if god be for us who can be against us he that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things who shall lay any thing to the charge of god’s elect it is god that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of god who also maketh intercession for us romans 8 37 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us www njchurch org sermons change mp3 focus on god psalms 27 1 4 the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear the lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid one thing have I desired of the lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the lord and to enquire in his temple mark 12 30 and thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength this is the first commandment www njchurch org sermons focus mp3 everything works out for our eternal good time is passing youth is fading thoughts and plans pass away education degrees may fade away in glory on that day i’ll see my jesus as he’ll be glorious day wonderful day awesome day sorrows will pass away pain will go away sickness no more that day seeing jesus face to face jesus lover of your soul beckons you as time of your death draws near to you as relatives surround you and loved ones wail missing you your life live keeping jesus first in joy of the holy spirit finish your race with power keep your faith forever romans 8 28 and we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose www njchurch org sermons 4good mp3 why we have to live a righteous life and what is the difference between the righteous wicked 1 wicked temporary prosperity but eternal torment 2 righteous temporary adversity but eternal prosperity 1 wicked attacks the righteous but is destroyed in the process 2 righteous prays for the wicked turns them to righteous there by saving many from destruction 1 wicked chaff which wind driveth away 2 righteous abideth for ever like trees planted by rivers of water 1 wicked their paths and thoughts will perish 2 righteous their plans and thoughts will flourish 1 wicked will rot with the devil and will be ashes under the feet of the righteous 2 righteous will become like god and live with god in the heavenly jerusalem in structures made of transparent gold foundation of jewels and gates of pearls 1 wicked will lose everything 2 righteous will gain everything proverbs 15 29 the lord is far from the wicked but he heareth the prayer of the righteous proverbs 10 25 as the whirlwind passeth so is the wicked no more but the righteous is an everlasting foundation proverbs 29 16 when the wicked are multiplied transgression increaseth but the righteous shall see their fall look up lift up your heads rapture is imminent don’t be distracted be attracted to jesus luke 21 28 and when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh we are trees planted by the living water jesus to bear fruit in our season psalms 1 3 and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper when a fruit tree flowers you know the unripe fruit will soon follow when the fruit is ripe it gets a new beautiful color red yellow or green now it is time to look up lift your head and pluck the fruit and enjoy it’s delicious taste our lord jesus christ the fruit we have waited for 2 000 years is coming to transform our vile body into the likeness of his divine godly immortal body we will look like him and be with him for evermore the fruit on the tree is about to ripen what we lived longed and hoped for is about to happen look up at the tree of life jesus christ and enjoy his fruit song of solomon 2 3 as the apple tree among the trees of the wood so is my beloved among the sons I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste psalms 24 7 10 lift up your heads o ye gates and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is this king of glory the lord strong and mighty the lord mighty in battle lift up your heads o ye gates even lift them up ye everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is this king of glory the lord of hosts he is the king of glory selah www njchurch org sermons trump mp3 mountains will disappear iron gates will melt turbulent oceans will become a highway micah 2 13 the breaker is come up before them they have broken up and have passed through the gate and are gone out by it and their king shall pass before them and the lord on the head of them isaiah 41 15 behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaff psalms 114 3 4 7 the sea saw it and fled jordan was driven back the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs tremble thou earth at the presence of the lord at the presence of the god of jacob www njchurch org sermons breaker mp3 _________________________________________ christianity is not a religion it is a relationship www njchurch org presentations christianity pdf watch worship him and praise him and jesus christ god almighty goes before you on youtube how to move mountains break barriers overcome fear inherit god’s promises jesus is coming soon www etube us. And now this mom can now run a lot easier with amazon com’s new worry free store featuring yours truly in order to promote healthy living

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[tommie-scythiger]

the boat

There are times even now, when I awake at four o'clock in the morning with the terrible fear that I have overslept; when I imagine that my father is waiting for me in the room below the darkened stairs or that the shorebound men are tossing pebbles against my window while blowing their hands and stomping their feet impatiently on the frozen steadfast earth. There are times when I am half out of bed and fumbling for socks and mumbling for words before I realize that I am foolishly alone, that no one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly the waters of the pier. At such times only the grey corpses on the overflowing ashtray beside my bed bear witness to the extinction of the latest spark and silently await the crushing out of the most recent of their fellows. And then because I am afraid to be alone with death, I dress rapidly, make a great to-do about clearing my throat, turn on both faucets in the sink and proceed to make loud splashing ineffectual noises. Later I go out and walk the mile to the all-night restaurant. In the winter it is a very cold walk, and there are often tears in my eyes when I arrive. The waitress usually gives a sympathetic little shiver and says, `Boy, it must be really cold out there; you got tears in your eyes." "Yes," I say, "it sure is; it really is." And then the three or four of us who are always in such places at such times make uninteresting little protective chit-chat until the dawn reluctantly arrives. Then I swallow the coffee, which is always bitter, and leave with a great busy rush because by that time I have to worry about being late and whether I have a clean shirt and whether my car will start and about all the other countless things one must worry about when one teaches at a great Midwestern university. And I know then that that day will go by as have all the days of the past ten years, for all the call and the voices and the shapes and the boat were not really there in the early morning's darkness and I have all kinds of comforting reality to prove it. They are only shadows and echoes, the animals a child's hands make on the wall by lamplight, and the voices from the rain barrel; the cuttings from an old movie made in the black and white of long ago. I first became conscious of the boat in the same way and at almost the same time that I became aware of the people it supported. My earliest recollection of my father is a view from the floor of gigantic rubber boots and then of being suddenly elevated and having my face pressed against the stubble of his cheek, and how it tasted of salt and of how he smelled of salt from his red-soled rubber boots to the shaggy whiteness of his hair. When I was very small, he took me for my first ride in the boat. I rode the halfmile from our house to the wharf on his shoulders and I remember the sound of his rubber boots galumphing along the gravel beach, the tune of the indecent little song he used to sing, and the colour of the salt. The floor of the boat was permeated with the same odour and in its constancy I was not aware of change. In the harbour we made our little circle and returned. He tied the boat by its painter, fastened the stern to its permanent anchor and lifted me high over his head to the solidity of the wharf. Then he climbed up on the little iron ladder that led to the wharf's cap, placed me once more upon his shoulders and galumphed off again. When we returned to the house everyone made a great fuss over my precocious excursion and asked, "How did you like the boat?" "Were you afraid in the boat?" "Did you cry in the boat?" They repeated "the boat" at the end of all their questions and I knew it must be very important to everyone. My earliest recollection of my mother is of being alone with her in the mornings while my father was away in the boat. She seemed to be always repairing clothes that were "torn in the boat," preparing food "to be eaten in the boat" or looking for "the boat" through our kitchen window which faced upon the sea. When my father returned about noon, she would ask, "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" It was the first question I remember asking: "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" The boat in our lives was registered at Port Hawkesbury. She was what Nova Scotians called a Cape Island boat and was designed for the small inshore fishermen who sought the lobsters of the spring and the mackerel of summer and later the cod and haddock and hake. She was thirty-two feet long and nine wide, and was powered by an engine from a Chevrolet truck. She had a marine clutch and a high-speed reverse gear and was painted light green with the name Jenny Lynn stencilled in black letters on her how and painted on an oblong plate across her stern. Jenny Lynn had been my mother's maiden name and the boat was called after her as another link in the chain of tradition. Most of the boats that berthed at the wharf bore the names of some female member of their owner's household. I say this now as ill knew it all then. All at once, all about boat dimensions and engines, and as if on the day of my first childish voyage I noticed the difference between a stencilled name and a painted name. But of course it was not that way at all, for I learned it all very slowly and there was not time enough. I learned first about our house, which was one of about fifty that marched around the horseshoe of our harbour and the wharf that was its heart. Some of them were so close to the water that during a storm the sea spray splashed against their windows while others were built farther along the beach, as was the case with ours. The houses and their people, like those of the neighbouring towns and villages, were the result of Ireland's discontent and Scotland's Highland Clearances and America's War of Independence. Impulsive, emotional Catholic Celts who could not bear to live with England and shrewd, determined Protestant Puritans who, in the years after 1776, could not bear to live without. The most important room in our house was one of those oblong old-fashioned kitchens heated by a wood- and coal-burning stove. Behind the stove was a box of kindlings and beside it a coal scuttle. A heavy wooden table with leaves that expanded or reduced its dimensions stood in the middle of the floor. There were five wooden homemade chairs which had been shipped and hacked by a variety of knives. Against the east wall, opposite the stove, there was a couch which sagged in the middle and had a cushion for a pillow, and above it a shelf which contained matches, tobacco, pencils, odd fish-hooks, bits of twine, and a tin can filled with bills and receipts. The south wall was dominated by a window which faced the sea and on the north there was a five-foot board which bore a variety of clothes hooks and the burdens of each. Beneath the board there was a jumble of odd footwear, mostly of rubber. There was also, on this wall, a barometer, a map of the marine area and a shelf which held a tiny radio. The kitchen was shared by all of us and was a buffer zone between the immaculate order of ten other rooms and the disruptive chaos of the single room that was my father's. My mother ran her house as her brothers ran their boats. Everything was clean and spotless and in order. She was tall and dark and powerfully energetic. In later years she reminded me of the women of Thomas Hardy, particularly Eustacia Vye, in a physical way. She fed and clothed a family of seven children, making all of the meals and most of the clothes. She grew miraculous gardens and magnificent flowers and raised broods of hens and ducks. She would walk miles on berry-picking expeditions and hoist her skirts to dig for clams when the tide was low. She was fourteen years younger than my father, whom she had married when she was twenty-six and had been a local beauty for a period of ten years. My mother was of the sea, as were all of her people, and her horizons were the very literal ones she scanned with her dark and fearless eyes. Between the kitchen clothes rack and barometer, a door opened into my father's bedroom. It was a room of disorder and disarray It was as if the wind which so often clamoured about the house succeeded in entering this single room and after whipping it into turmoil stole quietly away to renew its knowing laughter from without. My father's bed was against the south wall, it always looked rumpled and unmade because he lay on top of it more than he slept within any folds it might have had. Beside it, there was a little brown table. An archaic goose-necked reading light, a battered table radio, a mound of wooden matches, one or two packages of tobacco, a deck of cigarette papers and an overflowing ashtray cluttered its surface. The brown larvae of tobacco shreds and the grey flecks of ash covered both the table and the floor beneath it. The once-varnished surface of the table was disfigured by numerous black scars and gashes inflicted by the neglected burning cigarettes of many years. They had tumbled from the ashtray unnoticed and branded their statements permanently and quietly into the wood until the odour of their burning caused the snuffing out of their lives. At the bed's foot there was a single window which looked upon the sea. Against the adjacent wall there was a battered bureau and beside it there was a closet which held his single ill-fitting serge suit, the two or three white shirts that strangled him and the square black shoes that pinched. When he took off his more friendly clothes, the heavy woollen sweaters, mutts and socks which my mother knitted for him and the woollen and doeskin shirts, lie dumped them unceremoniously on a single chair. If a visitor entered the room while he was lying on the bed, he would be told to throw the clothes on the floor and take their place upon the chair. Magazines and books covered the bureau and competed with the clothes for domination of the chair. They further overburdened the heroic little table and lay on top of the radio. They filled a baffling and unknowable cave beneath the bed, and in the corner by the bureau they spilled from the walls and grew up from the floor. The magazines were the most conventional: Time, Newsweek, Life, Maclean's, The Family Herald, The Reader's Digest. They were the result of various cut-rate subscriptions or the gift subscriptions associated with Christmas, "the two whole years for only $3.50." The books were more varied. There were a few hardcover magnificents and bygone Book-of-the-Month wonders and some were Christmas or birthday gifts. The majority of them, however, were used paperbacks which came from those second-hand bookstores that advertise in the backs of magazines: "Miscellaneous Used Paperbacks 10¢ Each." At first he sent for them himself, although my mother resented the expense, but in later years they came more and more often from my sisters who had moved to the cities. Especially at first they were very weird and varied. Mickey Spillane and Ernest Haycox vied with Dostoyevsky and Faulkner, and the Penguin Poets edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins arrived in the same box as a little book called Getting the Most Out of Love. The former had been assiduously annotated by a very fine hand using a very blue-inked fountain pen while the latter had been studied by someone with very large thumbs, the prints of which were still visible in the margins. At the slightest provocation it would open almost automatically to particularly graphic and well-smudged pages. When he was not in the boat, my father spent most of his time lying on the bed in his socks, the top two buttons of his trousers undone, his discarded shirt on the everready chair and the sleeves of the woollen Stanfield underwear, which he wore both summer and winter, drawn half way up to his elbows. The pillows propped up the whiteness of his head and the goose-necked lamp illuminated the pages in his hands. The cigarettes smoked and smouldered on the ashtray and on the table and the radio played constantly, sometimes low and sometimes loud. At midnight and at one, two, three and four, one could sometimes hear the radio, his occasional cough, the rustling thud of a completed book being tossed to the corner heap, or the movement necessitated by his sitting on the edge of the bed to roll the thousandth cigarette. He seemed never to sleep, only to doze, and the light shone constantly from his window to the sea. My mother despised the room and all it stood for and she had stopped sleeping in it after I was born. She despised disorder in rooms and in houses and in hours and in lives, and she had not read a book since high school. There she had read Ivanhoe and considered it a colossal waste of time. Still the room remained, like a rock of opposition in the sparkling waters of a clear deep harbour, opening off the kitchen where we really lived our lives, with its door always open and its contents visible to all. The daughters of the room and of the house were very beautiful. They were tall and willowy like my mother and had her fine facial features set off by the reddish copper-coloured hair that had apparently once been my father's before it turned to white. All of them were very clever in school and helped my mother a great deal about the house. When they were young they sang and were very happy and very nice to me because I was the youngest, and the family's only boy. My father never approved of their playing about the wharf like the other children, and they were only there when my mother sent them on an errand. At such times they almost always overstayed, playing screaming games of tag or hide-and-seek in and about the fishing shanties, the piled traps and tubs of trawl, shouting down to the perch that swam languidly about the wharf's algae-covered piles, or jumping in and out of the boats that tugged gently at their lines. My mother was never uneasy about them at such times, and when her husband criticized her she would say, "Nothing will happen to them there," or "They could be doing worse things in worse places." By about the ninth or tenth grade my sisters one by one discovered my father's bedroom, and then the change would begin. Each would go into the room one morning when he was out. She would go in with the ideal hope of imposing order or with the more practical objective of emptying the ashtray, and later she would be found spellbound by the volume in her hand. My mother's reaction was always abrupt, bordering on the angry. "Take your nose out of that trash and come and do your work," she would say, and once I saw her slap my youngest sister so hard that the print of her hand was scarletly emblazoned upon her daughter's cheek while the broken-spined paperback fluttered uselessly to the floor. Thereafter my mother would launch a campaign against what she had discovered but could not understand. At times, although she was not overly religious, she would bring God to bolster her arguments, saying, "In the next world God will see to those who waste their lives reading useless books when they should be about their work." Or without theological aid, "I would like to know how books help anyone to live a life." If my father were in, she would repeat the remarks louder than necessary, and her voice would carry into his room where he lay upon his bed. His usual reaction was to turn up the volume of the radio, although that action in itself betrayed the success of the initial thrust. Shortly after my sisters began to read the books, they grew restless and lost interest in darning socks and baking bread, and all of them eventually went to work as summer waitresses in the Sea Food Restaurant. The restaurant was run by a big American concern from Boston and catered to the tourists that flooded the area during July and August. My mother despised the whole operation. She said the restaurant was not run by "our people," and `our people" did not eat there, and that it was run by outsiders for outsiders. "Who are these people anyway?" she would ask, tossing back her dark hair, "and what do they, though they go about with their cameras for a hundred years, know about the way it is here, and what do they care about me and mine, and why should I care about them?" She was angry that my sisters should even conceive of working in such a place, and more angry when my father made no move to prevent it, and she was worried about herself and about her family and about her life. Sometimes she would say softly to her sisters, "I don't know what's the matter with my girls. It seems none of them are interested in any of the right things." And sometimes there would be bitter savage arguments. One afternoon I was coming in with three mackerel I'd been given at the wharf when I heard her say, "Well, I hope you'll be satisfied when they come home knocked up and you'll have had your way." It was the most savage thing I'd ever heard my mother say. Not just the words but the way she said them, and 1 stood there in the porch afraid to breathe for what seemed like the years from ten to fifteen, feeling the damp, moist mackerel with their silver glassy eyes growing clammy against my leg. Through the angle in the screen door l saw my father, who had been walking into his room, wheel around on one of his rubber-booted heels and look at her with his blue eyes flashing like clearest ice beneath the snow that was his hair. His usually ruddy face was drawn and grey, reflecting the exhaustion of a man of sixty-five who had been working in those rubber boots for eleven hours on an August day, and for a fleeting moment I wondered what I would do if he killed my mother while I stood there in the porch with those three foolish mackerel in my hand. Then he turned and went into his room and the radio blared forth the next day's weather forecast and I retreated under the noise and returned again, stamping my feet and slamming the door too loudly to signal my approach. My mother was busy at the stove when I came in, and did not raise her head when I threw the mackerel in a pan. As I looked into my father's room, I said, "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" and he was lying on his back and lighting the first cigarette and the radio was talking about the Virginia coast. All of my sisters made good money on tips. They bought my father an electric razor, which he tried to use for a while, and they took out even more magazine subscriptions. They bought my mother a great many clothes of the type she was very fond of, the wide-brimmed hats and the brocaded dresses, but she locked them all in trunks and refused to wear any of them. On one August day my sisters prevailed upon my father to take some of their restaurant customers for an afternoon ride in the boat. The tourists with their expensive clothes and cameras and sun glasses awkwardly backed down the iron ladder at the wharf's side to where my father waited below, holding the rocking Jenny Lynn in snug against the wharf with one hand on the iron ladder and steadying his descending passengers with the other. They tried to look both prim and wind-blown like the girls in the Pepsi-Cola ads and did the best they could, sitting on the thwarts where the newspapers were spread to cover the splattered blood and fish entrails, crowding to one side so that they were in danger of capsizing the boat, taking the inevitable pictures or merely trailing their fingers through the water of their dreams. All of them liked my father very much and, after he'd brought them back from their circles in the harbour, they invited him to their rented cabins which were located high on a hill overlooking the village to which they were so alien. He proceeded to get very drunk up there with the beautiful view and the strange company and the abundant liquor, and late in the afternoon he began to sing. I was just approaching the wharf to deliver my mother's summons when he began, and the familiar yet unfamiliar voice that rolled down from the cabins made me feel as I had never felt without really knowing it, and I was ashamed yet proud, young yet old and saved yet forever lost, and there was nothing I could do to control my legs which trembled nor my eyes which wept, for what they could not tell. The tourists were equipped with tape recorders and my father sang for more than three hours. His voice boomed down the hill and bounced off the surface of the harbour, which was an unearthly blue on that hot August day, and was then reflected to the wharf and the fishing shanties, where it was absorbed amidst the men who were baiting lines for the next day's haul. He sang all the old sea chanteys that had come across from the old world and by which men like him had pulled ropes for generations, and he sang the East Coast sea songs that celebrated the sealing vessels of Northumberland Strait and the long liners of Boston Harbor, Nantucket and Block Island. Gradually he shifted to the seemingly unending Gaelic drinking songs with their twenty or more verses and inevitable refrains, and the men in the shanties smiled at the coarseness of some of the verses and at the thought that the singer's immediate audience did not know what they were applauding nor recording to take back to staid old Boston. Later as the sun was setting he switched to the laments and the wild and haunting Gaelic war songs of those spattered Highland ancestors he had never seen, and when his voice ceased, the savage melancholy of three hundred years seemed to hang over the peaceful harbour and the quiet boats and the men leaning in the doorways of their shanties with their cigarettes glowing in the dusk and the women looking to the sea from their open windows with their children in their arms. When he came home he threw the money he had earned on the kitchen table as he did with all his earnings but my mother refused to touch it, and the next day he went with the rest of the men to bait his trawl in the shanties. The tourists came to the door that evening and my mother met them there and told them that her husband was not in, although he was lying on the bed only a few feet away, with the radio playing and the cigarette upon his lips. She stood in the doorway until they reluctantly went away. In the winter they sent him a picture which had been taken on the day of the singing. On the back it said, "To Our Ernest Hemingway" and the "Our" was underlined. There was also an accompanying letter telling him how much they had enjoyed themselves, how popular the tape was proving and explaining who Ernest Hemingway was. In a way, it almost did look like one of those unshaven, taken-in-Cuba pictures of Hemingway. My father looked both massive and incongruous in the setting. His bulky fisherman's clothes were too big for the green and white lawn chair in which he sat, and his rubber boots seemed to take up all of the well-clipped grass square. The beach umbrella jarred with his sunburned face and because he had already been singing for some time, his lips, which chapped in the winds of spring and burned in the water glare of summer, had already cracked in several places, producing tiny flecks of blood at their corners and on the whiteness of his teeth. The bracelets of brass chain which he wore to protect his wrists from chafing seemed abnormally large and his broad leather belt had been slackened and his heavy shirt and underwear were open at the throat, revealing an uncultivated wilderness of white chest hair bordering on the semicontrolled stubble of his neck and chin. His blue eyes had looked directly into the camera and his hair was whiter than the two tiny clouds that hung over his left shoulder. The sea was behind him and its immense blue flatness stretched out to touch the arching blueness of the sky. it seemed very far away from him or else he was so much in the foreground that he seemed too big for it. Each year another of my sisters would read the books and work in the restaurant. Sometimes they would stay out quite late on the hot summer nights and when they came up the stairs my mother would ask them many long and involved questions which they resented and tried to avoid. Before ascending the stairs they would go into my father's room, and those of us who waited above could hear them throwing his clothes off the chair before sitting on it, or the squeak of the bed as they sat on its edge. Sometimes they would talk to him a long time, the murmur of their voices blending with the music of the radio into a mysterious vapour-like sound which floated softly up the stairs. I say this again as if it all happened at once and as if all my sisters were of identical ages and like so many lemmings going into another sea, and again, it was of course not that way at all. Yet go they did, to Boston, to Montreal, to New York with the young men they met during the summers and later married in those far-away cities. The young men were very articulate and handsome and wore fine clothes and drove expensive cars and my sisters, as I said, were very tall and beautiful with their coppercoloured hair, and were tired of darning socks and baking bread. One by one they went. My mother had each of her daughters for fifteen years, then lost them for two and finally forever. None married a fisherman. My mother never accepted any of the young men, for in her eyes they seemed always a combination of the lazy, the effeminate, the dishonest and the unknown. They never seemed to do any physical work and she could not comprehend their luxurious vacations and she did not know whence they came nor who they were. And in the end she did not really care, for they were not of her people and they were not of her sea. I say this now with a sense of wonder at my own stupidity in thinking I was somehow free and would go on doing well in school and playing and helping in the boat and passing into my early teens while streaks of grey began to appear in my mother's dark hair and my father's rubber boots dragged sometimes on the pebbles of the beach as he trudged home from the wharf. And there were but three of us in the house that had at one time been so loud. Then during the winter that I was fifteen he seemed to grow old and ill all at once. Most of January he lay upon the bed, smoking and reading and listening to the radio while the wind howled about the house and the needle-like snow blistered off the icecovered harbour and the doors flew out of people's hands if they did not cling to them like death. In February, when the men began overhauling their lobster traps, he still did not move, and my mother and I began to knit lobster trap headings in the evenings. The twine was as always very sharp and harsh, and blisters formed upon our thumbs and little paths of blood snaked quietly down between our fingers while the seals that had drifted down from distant Labrador wept and moaned like human children on the icefloes of the Gulf. In the daytime my mother's brother, who had been my father's partner as long as I could remember, also came to work upon the gear. He was a year older than my mother and was tall and dark and the father of twelve children. By March we were very far behind and although I began to work very hard in the evenings I knew it was not hard enough and that there were but eight weeks left before the opening of the season on May first. And I knew that my mother worried and my uncle was uneasy and that all of our very lives depended on the boat being ready with her gear and two men, by the date of May the first. And I knew then that David Copperfield and The Tempest and all of those friends I had dearly come to love must really go forever. So I bade them all good-bye. The night after my first full day at home and after my mother had gone upstairs he called me into his room, where I sat upon the chair beside his bed. "You will go back tomorrow," he said simply. I refused then, saying I had made my decision and was satisfied. "That is no way to make a decision," he said, "and if you are satisfied I am not. It is best that you go back." I was almost angry then and told him as all children do that I wished he would leave me alone and stop telling me what to do. He looked at me a long time then, lying thereon the same bed on which he had fathered me those sixteen years before, fathered me his only son, out of who knew what emotions when he was already fifty-six and his hair had turned to snow Then he swung his legs over the edge of the squeaking bed and sat facing me and looked into my own dark eyes with his of crystal blue and placed his hand upon my knee. "I am not telling you to do anything," he said softly, "only asking you." The next morning I returned to school. As I left, my mother followed me to the porch and said, "I never thought a son of mine would choose useless books over the parents that gave him life." In the weeks that followed he got up rather miraculously, and the gear was ready and the Jenny Lynn was freshly painted by the last two weeks of April when the ice began to break up and the lonely screaming gulls returned to haunt the silver herring as they flashed within the sea. On the first day of May the boats raced out as they had always done, laden down almost to the gunwales with their heavy cargoes of traps. They were almost like living things as they plunged through the waters of the spring and manoeuvred between the still floating icebergs of crystal-white and emerald green on their way to the traditional grounds that they sought out every May. And those of us who sat that day in the high school on the hill, discussing the water imagery of Tennyson, watched them as they passed back and forth beneath us until by afternoon the piles of traps which had been stacked upon the wharf were no longer visible but were spread about the bottoms of the sea. And the Jenny Lynn went too, all day, with my uncle tall and dark, like a latter-day Tashtego standing at the tiller with his legs wide apart and guiding her deftly between the floating pans of ice and my father in the stern standing in the same way with his hands upon the ropes that lashed the cargo to the deck. And at night my mother asked, "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" And the spring wore on and the summer came and school ended in the third week of June and the lobster season on July first and I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear. At the conclusion of the lobster season my uncle said he had been offered a berth on a deep-sea dragger and had decided to accept. We all knew that he was leaving the Jenny Lynn forever and that before the next lobster season he would buy a boat of his own. He was expecting another child and would be supporting fifteen people by the next spring and could not chance my father against the family that he loved. I joined my father then for the trawling season, and he made no protest and my mother was quite happy. Through the summer we baited the tubs of trawl in the afternoon and set them at sunset and revisited them in the darkness of the early morning. The men would come tramping by our house at four a.m. and we would join them and walk with them to the wharf and be on our way before the sun rose out of the ocean where it seemed to spend the night. If I was not up they would toss pebbles to my window and I would be very embarrassed and tumble downstairs where my father lay fully clothed atop his bed, reading his book and listening to his radio and smoking his cigarette. When I appeared he would swing off his bed and put on his boots and be instantly ready and then we would take the lunches my mother had prepared the night before and walk off toward the sea. He would make no attempt to wake me himself. It was in many ways a good summer. There were few storms and we were out almost every day and we lost a minimum of gear and seemed to land a maximum of fish and I tanned dark and brown after the manner of my uncles. My father did not tan—he never tanned—because of his reddish complexion, and the salt water irritated his skin as it had for sixty years. He burned and reburned over and over again and his lips still cracked so that they bled when he smiled, and his arms, especially the left, still broke out into the oozing salt-water boils as they had ever since as a child I had first watched him soaking and bathing them in a variety of ineffectual solutions. The chafe-preventing bracelets of brass linked chain that all the men wore about their wrists in early spring were his the full season and he shaved but painfully and only once a week. And I saw then, that summer, many things that I had seen all my life as if for the first time and I thought that perhaps my father had never been intended for a fisherman physically or mentally. At least not in the manner of my uncles; he had never really loved it. And I remembered that, one evening in his room when we were talking about David Copperfield, he had said that he had always wanted to go to the university and I had dismissed it then in the way one dismisses one's father saying he would like to be a tight-rope walker, and we had gone on to talk about the Peggottys and how they loved the sea. And I thought then to myself that there were many things wrong with all of us and all our lives and I wondered why my father, who was himself an only son, had not married before he was forty and then I wondered why he had. I even thought that perhaps he had had to marry my mother and checked the dates on the flyleaf of the Bible where I learned that my oldest sister had been born a prosaic eleven months after the marriage, and I felt myself then very dirty and debased for my lack of faith and for what I had thought and done. And then there came into my heart a very great love for my father and I thought it was very much braver to spend a life doing what you really do not want rather than selfishly following forever your own dreams and inclinations. And I knew then that I could never leave him alone to suffer the iron-tipped harpoons which my mother would forever hurl into his soul because he was a failure as a husband and a father who had retained none of his own. And I felt that I had been very small in a little secret place within me and that even the completion of high school was for me a silly shallow selfish dream. So I told him one night very resolutely and very powerfully that I would remain with him as long as he lived and we would fish the sea together. And he made no protest but only smiled through the cigarette smoke that wreathed his bed and replied, "I hope you will remember what you've said." The room was now so filled with books as to be almost Dickensian, but he would not allow my mother to move or change them and he continued to read them, sometimes two or three a night. They came with great regularity now, and there were more hardcovers, sent by my sisters who had gone so long ago and now seemed so distant and so prosperous, and sent also pictures of small red-haired grandchildren with baseball bats and dolls, which he placed upon his bureau and which my mother gazed at wistfully when she thought no one would see. Red-haired grandchildren with baseball bats and dolls who would never know the sea in hatred or in love. And so we fished through the heat of August and into the cooler days of September when the water was so clear we could almost see the bottom and the white mists rose like delicate ghosts in the early morning dawn. And one day my mother said to me, "You have given added years to his life." And we fished on into October when it began to roughen and we could no longer risk night sets but took our gear out each morning and returned at the first sign of the squalls; and on into November when we lost three tubs of trawl and the clear blue water turned to a sullen grey and the trochoidal waves rolled rough and high and washed across our bows and decks as we ran within their troughs. We wore heavy sweaters now and the awkward rubber slickers and the heavy woollen mitts which soaked and froze into masses of ice that hung from our wrists like the limbs of gigantic monsters until we thawed them against the exhaust pipe's heat. And almost every day we would leave for home before noon, driven by the blasts of the northwest wind coating our eyebrows with ice and freezing our eyelids closed as we leaned into a visibility that was hardly there, charting our course from the compass and the sea, running with the waves and between them but never confronting their towering might. And I stood at the tiller now, on these homeward lunges, stood in the place and in the manner of my uncle, turning to look at my father and to shout over the roar of the engine and the slop of the sea to where he stood in the stern, drenched and dripping with snow and the salt and the spray and his bushy eyebrows caked in ice. But on November twenty-first, when it seemed we might be making the final run of the season, I turned and he was not there and I knew even in that instant that he would never be again. On November twenty-first the waves of the grey Atlantic are very high and the waters are very cold and there are no signposts on the surface of the sea. You cannot tell where you have been five minutes before and in the squalls of snow you cannot see. And it takes longer than you would believe to check a boat that has been running before a gale and turn her ever so carefully in a wide and stupid circle, with timbers creaking and straining, back into the face of the storm. And you know that it is useless and that your voice does not carry the length of the boat and that even if you knew the original spot, the relentless waves would carry such a burden perhaps a mile or so by the time you could return. And you know also, the final irony, that your father, like your uncles and all the men that form your past, cannot swim a stroke. The lobster beds off the Cape Breton coast are still very rich and now, from May to July, their offerings are packed in crates of ice, and thundered by the gigantic transport trucks, day and night, through New Glasgow, Amherst, Saint John and Bangor and Portland and into Boston where they are tossed still living into boiling pots of water, their final home. And though the prices are higher and the competition tighter, the grounds to which the Jenny Lynn once went remain untouched and unfished as they have for the last ten years. For if there are no signposts on the sea in storm, there are certain ones in calm, and the lobster bottoms were distributed in calm before any of us can remember, and the grounds my father fished were those his father fished before him and there were others before and before and before. Twice the big boats have come from forty and fifty miles, lured by the promise of the grounds and strewn the bottom with their traps, and twice they have returned to find their buoys cut adrift and their gear lost and destroyed. Twice the Fisheries Officer and the Mounted Police have come and asked many long and involved questions, and twice they have received no answers from the men leaning in the doors of their shanties and the women standing at their windows with their children in their arms. Twice they have gone away saying: "There are no legal boundaries in the Maine area;" "No one can own the sea;" "Those grounds don't wait for anyone." But the men and the women, with my mother dark among them, do not care for what they say, for to them the grounds are sacred and they think they wait for me. It is not an easy thing to know that your mother lives alone on an inadequate insurance policy and that she is too proud to accept any other aid. And that she looks through her lonely window onto the ice of winter and the hot flat calm of summer and the rolling waves of fall. And that she lies awake in the early morning's darkness when the rubber boots of the men scrunch upon the gravel as they pass beside her house on their way down to the wharf. And she knows that the footsteps never stop, because no man goes from her house, and she alone of all the Lynns has neither son nor son-in-law who walks toward the boat that will take him to the sea. And it is not an easy thing to know that your mother looks upon the sea with love and on you with bitterness because the one has been so constant and the other so untrue. But neither is it easy to know that your father was found on November twentyeighth, ten miles to the north and wedged between two boulders at the base of the rockstrewn cliffs where he had been hurled and slammed so many many times. His hands were shredded ribbons, as were his feet which had lost their boots to the suction of the sea, and his shoulders came apart in our hands when we tried to move him from the rocks. And the gulls had pecked out his eyes and the white-green stubble of his whiskers had continued to grow in death, like the grass on graves, upon the purple, bloated mass that was his face. There was not much left of my father, physically, as he lay there with the brass chains on his wrists and the seaweed in his hair. 

[dwestfieldblog]

THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO HEAR MUST FEEL

This temporary apocalypse could be seen as a globally overdue Long Night of the Soul, an initiation of sorts which might result in a deeper understanding of what actually matters for human evolution (despite the very best efforts of the scum who are trying to reverse any spiritual progress because it weakens their hold.) There are several ways in which the negative side could truly take over, starting with the horror nightmare prospect of DT (aka ‘Just Another Scumbag’ as Bannon once called him) re ‘elected’. The realistic pessimist in me is sure that if he wins, this planet in this dimension is finished. His winning will be a final signal to the world to give us up. In my lifetime, we have never been so close to the mass breakout of totalitarianism and utter lack of empathy than we are now. Actual fascist populists, not some wet Liberal bleating but the real thing, ready to go live. Covid has bankrupted hundreds of thousands of businesses, millions have lost their jobs, migration from the truly poor and dangerous countries continues...into the becoming poor and dangerous countries. Those who live there and are already ruined by the disasters in every home will be easy prey for the populists. Speaking of whom...

Steve Bannon has spent a great deal of time and other people’s money in setting up a network to overthrow the (arf arf arf) ‘deep state’ and replace it with... a new deeper state...still run by the rich, who will use the populists, who in turn will use the mass of the angry and frightened...etc etc...And power, as most people recognise it, will stay in the hands of the unhuman swine with the most gold and the least soul. WER NICHT HOREN WILL, MUSS FUHLEN...

‘...the human nervous system properly programmed, can edit and orchestrate all experience into any gestalt it wishes. We encounter the same dismal and depressing experiences over and over again because they are repeating tape loops in the central programmer of our brains. We can encounter ecstasy over and over by learning the neurosciences that orchestrate all in coming signals into ecstatic tape loops.’ R.A.Wilson. Prometheus Rising, Hilaritas Press.

It takes a lot of effort and Will to do this but what else is worth it other than to attempt to break out of the vicious cycle and evolve? Even I have managed this when I focus on choosing it. Giving up ingrained behavioural habits often hurts; this is, however, a choice. It doesn’t have to unless you are a masochist.

Flew to England for three weeks in August, full flight sold out, all of us wore masks (apart from one 6 foot 6 mad eyed American who kept pacing up and down the cabin.) Right up to the point where we were all given a bottle of water, some crisps and two biscuits...All masks off at the same time, all passengers attempting not to breathe while we drank and ate. Love seeing how many in both countries wear masks under their nose or even only on their chin. As Bill Hicks would say ‘Any questions why we’re f.....d up as a race?’ As Jonathan Pie does say; ‘Put a f...... mask on.’ I have been coughing since February, and drinking heavily, so not especially optimistic about getting C19.

I avoided almost all of the news while in UK, watched five minutes in total on the TV and only read headlines in the paper. It was enough. Since I have been back in Prague I have continued to avoid the news other than that which I am told by friends and students but I can tell from daily receiving over one hundred emails that things are truly breaking. Hexagram 23 and total Weltschmerz is upon us. Mental health is twisting up globally. One by one, all my friends are suffering serious damage, one way or another. Hearts are breaking apart and many damnable souls, who should be burning, are not. People are afraid to breathe or to embrace, looking to the very worst set of leaders in my lifetime for answers and being manipulated en masse to mass crises.  

(Jaz Coleman....On the Day the Earth went Mad...watch the video, listen. Feel. Weep. Rage. Change.) QUI NOLERUNT AUDIRE DEBERE SENTIRE.

Love the interviews I saw with those who voted for Trump and realised they made a mistake...after FOUR YEARS. What clued them in? Which particular excremental atrocity of his foulness gave them the alert? Will the Electoral College let him ‘win’? Before I left, I saw the Trump interview where he said ‘It is what it is’, with regard to the massive number of deaths in the USA. ‘We are below the world’. Blood pressure rising, I even checked his Twitter account where he published two letters, one from the eternally unlovely NRA and the other from the American Police Federation, assuring him he was the best president to ever serve their interest and they would back him to the hilt. His plan to stir the US up into open civil war continues and Putin sits back and smiles. As does Jared it seems, the smug sadist advisor in the same style as (England’s off Broadway Trump) Boris’s Dominic Cummings.  Herd Immunity? Well yes it might work at some point after a few years and millions dead. You evil alien bastards. The  main individuals in the British Government will make millions from a no deal Brexit, perfect timing. The country will die.

The newest PC bullshit has got even the wonderful JK Rowling into trouble just for speaking her mind politely about transgender issues. I love PC... it is how dumb useless Liberals can act out their secret fascist impulses and feel hard of c..k and wet of p...y...feel good to be so righteous... same with overly ill humoured religious folk,  but the PC tribe cannot use God to justify anything so they are a bit weaker...You morons... ‘People who menstruate’, People with a cervix’? PEOPLE? Really? Women is a bad word is it? Too specific? (Well it has the word men in it, so seems almost inclusive.) You bastards are annihilating language; raping semantics...get another hobby you ridiculous cretins. (Be sure the populists well understand how to manipulate such fools.)

Extinction Rebellion is being used (among a multitude of other groups in other countries, hello Black Lives Matter) by the Kremlin to stir up shite, they are mostly well meaning on the road to Hell. Stop being so dumb and stop helping those who are against you at home and abroad. Dogmatic faith leads to mistrust, violence and hatred, says the lone derranger...And as for the absurd Q Anon, it is those who seek a Deeper State who are using you to do it. Well done.

Jacob Blake, shot seven (count them) times in the back by police even though charged with no crime and paralysed was handcuffed to hospital bed. That goofy twat of a 17 yr boy who wanted to be a policeman, shooting at blacks because he believed he had carte blanc (arf) from Trump to defend his country against ‘terrorists’...he will probably escape much punishment because... he was bullied at school...WHO WASNT?? The only people who weren’t were bullied at home. Guns ‘open carry’ in various states as the NRA rejoice in what they encourage. ‘Your first amendment means I can say your second amendment sucks d...s’. JimJeffries. Damn straight. By the time even I was 17, I had grown out of wanting to kill half the world. Wannabe cops are a little slower. 

Everything is the new normal. Too late for a mid life crisis unless I die at 108 but I never forget that statistically there is more chance of being killed by death than anything else. ‘Heres to my love! O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.’ Walking... see three funeral services shops in the road leading to/away from the hospital, clever businessmen...walking...masks off, between two conveniently placed flower shops and smoking outside the fuming crematorium in black suits and highly polished shoes. Waiting. That’s us.

I MISS YOU MARLENE. I MISS YOU MARLENE. I MISS YOU MARLENE. Nice headline seen on US newspaper...‘Can any good from cyberstalking your online crush?’I wondered that after falling in fascination with a woman in Germany who wrote like a poet and wove a spell of stories to charm and beguile. I would have walked from London to Hamburg to see if she was real. Everyone expresses love and the need for it in different ways. Reprogramming a deeply imprinted circuit is usually uncomfortable and so it proved for both of us. We shall see...if there is time. ‘One of us is crazy and the other one’s insane’

I can remember one of the days I Changed (seven years old?) We had a history lesson and were told about English kings and their ‘Divine Right’ to rule. Because God told them. And they told the people. And the people believed them. I remember the light in the classroom, where I was sitting, the smell of the tables, old unused ink wells, pencil shavings... and just thinking whatever a child’s version of F..K OFF...THATS BULLSHIT ISNT IT? would have been. That was the first moment I started questioning the class system, gullibility and bastards. A couple of years later, the absolute freedom of being, sent to collect the class register, walking down the empty corridors and not in the classroom...a beautiful feeling of being OUTSIDE. Free. Two of many experiences which have never left me. (The Angel Choir, the Rituals, the EYE across the Multiverse dream, the Reconnection...) Even if Freedom turns out to be as much of an illusion as everything else, it is still as beautifully sensual to me as music.

One summer night in 1990 after my 3rd breakdown, I had a dream. I think. Bear (or even bare) with me on this, I know how this sounds but it is only reporting what I saw in my mind. Two Aliens, thin and shadow like, came though my open bedroom door in the night (I could see the silhouettes) and one took a long shiny silver needle like a hypodermic for a horse and stood behind me and pushed the needle in through the top and centre of my skull, penetrating my brain. I FELT it slowly being pushed in, it hurt but I was paralysed. There was no voice but I heard (try not to laugh) ‘So now you have Superintelligence’. They moved out, the door closed, I slept. As usual with me, I remember every single dream I have ever remembered as if they were films I have watched over and over...and after a dream, the atmosphere stays with me for 23 whores. Later that day, I picked a big hardback book to find some info on something (A Cyclopaedia) with pages as thin as a bible. I sat almost motionless and without food for eight hours, DEVOURING every subject in it. Economics, geometry, geopolitical events, medicine, beliefs, systems.....the next day I finished ninety percent of it and went on to read books by five philosophers from second hand shops, started watching insects, stopped swearing, worked out, and read and read and read. All the knowledge I hadn’t cared about in school and college I picked up that one summer. It led to making new friends, new possibilities, new work, new love and led me to fly to Prague in this sequence while continuing to practice many ‘New age’ techniques by a writer called Stuart Wilde. They all worked and I continued...with regular fallings and breakthroughs.

‘Religion was invented when the first scoundrel met the first fool’. Faith is believing what you know not be true’. The seeker finds a belief and stops thinking for themselves...‘Every ideology is a mental murder, a reduction of dynamic living processes to static classifications, and every classification is a Damnation, just as every inclusion is an exclusion.’RAW

I had a four hour conversation with a Christian bloke, thirty, intelligent, believes in Satan as an actual being with horns. Etc. He couldn’t quite see any flaw in saying that any prophet who saw angels, white light and heard the voice of God, healed, etc but was not actually Christ, was only being tempted and used by the devil. He told me to watch the beautiful side of evil...

‘Every act of authority is, in fact, an invasion of the psychic and physical territory of another’. Human progress ‘is the concrete manifestation of some person’s refusal to bow to Authority.’  

‘WE GOT ELECTED ON DRAIN THE SWAMP, LOCK HER UP, BUILD THE WALL. THIS WAS PURE ANGER. ANGER AND FEAR IS WHAT GETS PEOPLE TO THE POLLS. THE DEMOCRATS DON'T MATTER, THE REAL OPPOSITION IS THE MEDIA, and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.’ Said Bannon, who also said. ‘Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. Thats power.’ Has he met Putin yet? Is he also on speed dial along with Boris and Trump? People! Create better leaders. NOW.

Happy birthday Aleister Crowley on the 12th October and Happy Halloween to all readers, stay healthy and sane (arf) Remember you are magick...buy the re-release of Musick to Play in the Dark by COIL and become moonlight... And those in America, if you actually do truly believe in a good God...go and vote and remove that evil ego and his cohorts in the White House with absolute overwhelming victory or we are done in this lifetime. Be healthy.

LOVE!!!