#food land india

[kashmirichaiwithmehr]

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[thedaily-beer]

Drowned Lands Deep Terra Double IPA (Picked up at Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, PA). A 4 of 4. Tons of tropical and stone fruit in the nose, and the body is incredibly soft on the palate and creamy. Despite that, there's still a ton of juicy quality to the body with some candy-like citrus notes. Pretty excellent.

[lionheartlr]

Discovering Bhutan: The Last Shangri-La

Nestled in the Eastern Himalayas, Bhutan, known as the “Land of the Thunder Dragon,” is a country that beckons travelers with its pristine landscapes, vibrant culture, and profound spirituality. As one of the world’s last remaining Buddhist kingdoms, Bhutan offers a unique blend of ancient traditions and modern sensibilities. In this travel guide, we’ll explore Bhutan’s history, political…

[radiation]

I’m soooooooo hungry I want domios pizza I want talkoyaki I want anything. Get me some fettuccine alfredo gimme that uh, that spicy spaghetti that ramen noodles anddddd I’d like a glass of milk please and some peanut butter and crackers and strawberries and a grille cheese… don’t forget the red pepper flapes…. I have a sweet tooth a salty tooth a sour tooth, all of my teeth all the food all for me I’m the delightful foodie with so much to see gimme a little bit of rice and sushi I want it now… a burger of a medium size a side of cruspy yumbly fries give it to me as I please and I’ll show you the Foodie’s Fantasy I’ll eat anything for dinnerspiration….a fond milkshake a BLT even though I don’t care for bacon … hot dog you name it i crave it, I save it I’ll savor it with an open mind I’ll try and I’ll and find , my food joy , the hidden glee , I haven’t been able to see , and for the record I wanna say I’m sorry, for Eating that tomato past when I should, it wasn’t good but I’ve learned mh lesson I won’t be messin if it’s past its due date, I know I don’t wanna waste but there’s danger in that taste, so see me turning over a whole new leaf, spinach leaf, romaine , I’m back to real life again and I just wanna give a shout out to those who believed in me even when I made food mistakes, you gave me a break and I will forever appreciate the kindness it took to see me at my worst , But now I’m well versed so PASS THE BRATWURST shout out to German ancestry, shout out to every country everywhere reppping best foods, I’m talking india ethiopia a foodie’s utopia. Let’s make dinner let’s make a move let’s make a stand let’s go international hand in hand eating every dish we can and when the plane lands - back in america that freedom land they’ll look at me and say, what a truly Hungry man.

[travelkhana]

[mishalogic]

INDIAN TREE PIE

Native to India

Member of the crow family Corvidae

Likes open scrub, agricultural land, forests and urban gardens

Primarily arboreal

Feeds on fruits nectar seeds and grubs

Feeds on fruits toxic to mammals

catches and forages for food ... Wikipedia

[rimon40]

Amazing mango garden in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is an agricultural country. Mango is a profitable crop of Bangladesh. All the best mangoes are produced in Bangladesh. And these mangoes are very beautiful to look at and very tasty to eat. Mango cultivation is very good in the land of North Bengal of Bangladesh. And this mango is delicious to eat. Mango garden are growing at a high rate in North Bengal, Bangladesh. And mango plantation is profitable so farmers are choosing it as a profitable crop. This Mango garden is one of the best mango garden in Bangladesh.

[revolutionsingingintherainnn]

Khichdi ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺

Summary: y/n wants to surprise lando, but her health has other plans for her.

⇗ ln x desi!reader ₊˚ෆ

⇗ fluff + sickfic ₊˚ෆ

masterlist ☾☼

y/n had been the first woman that lando felt like he was truly ready to risk it all for. he was never a person who could date someone who lived on a separate continent, but somehow, with y/n, he wanted to make it work. after almost a year of long distance, and only meeting on some weekends or holidays, y/n had decided to surprise him by visiting him in monaco. lando had felt happier than he had in a while, and as soon as he saw y/n standing at his door with her suitcase, he had wasted no time gathering y/n in his arms and twirling her around, whispering just how grateful he was that she was there. 

unfortunately, y/n had a habit of always falling sick for at least a day or two after travelling big distances. as much as she had hoped that the flight from india to monaco wouldn’t lead to her falling sick, her prayers had not been heard. the very night that she had landed in monaco, she could feel a fever coming in. as desperate as she was to ignore it, lando wouldn’t let her, and forced her into bed. 

she had slept the entire night, and then, had slept through breakfast. finally, at lunch time, lando shook her awake and asked her if she wanted to eat something. sleepily, y/n mumbled, “khichdi,” 

lando was confused. he had no idea what khichdi was. but, he also did not want to trouble y/n any further. whispering an “okay”, he left the room and headed towards his kitchen, where he was already FaceTiming y/n’s mum. 

lando had met y/n’s mum multiple times through video calls, and the first time he had visited y/n in india was also the first time he had met y/n’s mum. it had been far too early in the relationship to be meeting each other’s parents, but somehow, it had felt right. so, y/n and lando never questioned it. 

“hi, lando,” y/n’s mum’s voice rang through the house, and he quickly put on his AirPods. setting his phone against a kitchen appliance, he took a step back and looked almost scared. 

“what’s wrong?” she asked. 

“um, y/n’s sick. has a fever. she’s been sleeping for almost 14 hours now.” he said.

“oh no,” 

lando nodded, “yeah. but, also, i asked her what she wanted for lunch, because i know she hates soup and i can’t figure out what she would want to eat right now. and, she said something called khich- khichdi?” 

y/n’s mum nodded, “khichdi, yeah. its basically rice and lentils cooked together.” 

“right. i don’t know how to make it, so i was hoping that you could teach me?” lando almost seemed shy in his request. 

y/n’s mum smiled brightly, and began guiding him through the steps. lando had a fair collection of indian spices or as y/n called them ‘masalas’. y/n had stocked his house with all kinds of appliances, food, everything that she would need or she has in india. lando never questioned it, because it just seemed easier to already have all those things for when y/n would eventually move in with him. 

lando was scared out of his mind for most of the part. pressure cookers were loud, and honestly, a little violent in his opinion. he didn’t understand how his girlfriend cooked most of her food in such a violent and scary appliance. every time the cooker went off, lando resisted the urge to hide behind the island. he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of her mother just yet. he could do that after he had married y/n. then, y/n’s mother won’t be allowed to have a problem with him. 

after the terrifying process of making khichdi was done, lando bid y/n’s mum goodbye, and quickly scooped a decent amount of rice from the pressure cooker and into a bowl. putting it on a tray along with a glass of water and some meds, lando made his way to his bedroom. 

gently opening the door, he said, “y/n, come on, i made you lunch,” 

“five more minutes,” y/n said, as she turned and faced the other way. 

smiling at his girlfriend, lando set the tray on his bedside table, and sat down on the bed. he gently ran his fingers through her hair that had become wet from sweat. but that was good, because her fever was breaking. 

“come on, i made you khichdi,” he said. 

y/n’s eyes opened instantly. had she heard him correctly? she turned towards him slowly and stared up at his face. “you did what?” 

“i made you khichdi. you said you wanted that, so i made it.” 

y/n immediately sat up, and lando propped up pillows behind her so that she was comfortable. 

once she was settled, lando picked up the tray and settled it on her lap, making sure that it wouldn’t fall. all that while, y/n stared at him in wonderment. she looked down at the bowl, and there it was. khichdi. looking the same way as her mum’s khichdi. 

he offered her a spoon, and she took it gratefully. taking a bite of her khichdi, y/n’s heart was overflowing. it was the same as her mum’s. it tasted exactly the same, with just the right consistency and everything. 

“is it good?’ lando asked hesitantly. it was the first time he had cooked indian food. he didn’t want to get his girlfriend sick. or, more sick than she already was.

y/n looked at him with a smile, “it’s perfect. thank you. i don’t even remember saying that i wanted khichdi. how’d you make it?” 

lando smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “i- uh- called your mum. asked her how i could make it, and she taught me.” 

abandoning her bowl, y/n wrapped her arms around lando’s neck, hugging him tightly. lando reciprocated the hug. “i love you,” she whispered. 

“oh, baby, i love you too. are you okay?” he asked, worried that maybe he had crossed a line somehow. 

she sniffled and pulled back, “i’m okay. you’re just perfect, and i love you so much.” 

lando smiled at her, and pulled her against his chest. the two settled against the headboard, with y/n’s head on his chest as she slowly ate the khichdi. lando had pulled out his laptop and put on brooklyn nine nine for her. 

eventually, after she had finished eating, and he had forced the medicine down her throat, because she really did hate taking medicines, y/n had fallen asleep against his chest, wrapped in his arms, with his chin tucked over her head. lando had somehow never felt more at peace before. 

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

i hope you guys enjoyed this! ive had this idea stuck in my head for a while now. i'd gotten sick a couple weeks ago, and I thought of this and I was finally able to write it! i really hope all my desi girlies love this! i've also got a link for my taglist that you can find here!

[reasonsforhope]

Study: Protecting the ocean helps fight malnutrition

"Protecting more of the ocean could slash the risk of malnutrition for up to 3 million people worldwide, according to a new study co-authored by Conservation International.

It found that fish catches in coral reefs could increase by up to 20 percent by expanding sustainable-use marine protected areas — that is, areas where some fishing is allowed with restrictions.

The benefits of marine protected areas in helping restore fish populations and ecosystems are well documented. However, perceptions persist that these protections come at the expense of local communities.

The new study challenges this view.

“It’s easy to think of protected areas as putting people and nature in conflict by restricting access to much-needed sources of nutrition for locals,” said Conservation International scientist Alex Zvoleff, a study co-author. “But what this study shows is that protecting nature isn't about walling off resources from people; protected areas can actually enhance what nature provides for people."

The study analyzed fish counts in nearly 2,500 coral reefs across 53 countries, focusing on the nutrients found in fish that are critical for human health. Researchers looked at sites with a range of protections — from complete bans on fishing to open access for fishing — and found that sustainable-use marine protected areas have on average 15 percent more fish biomass than non-protected areas.

The study pinpointed countries with the greatest potential to improve malnutrition through sustainable-use marine protected areas, including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nicaragua.

More than 800 million people face malnutrition worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. In many coastal communities, fish can be the only source of vital nutrients — particularly for children and pregnant women.

However, pollution, overfishing and climate change are severely degrading the coral reefs that support these fish. And though coastal communities make up a small portion of those struggling with malnutrition, the study shows that fighting food insecurity can go hand in hand with protecting nature, said Daniel Viana, the study’s lead author.

“There is often a push for marine protected areas to completely ban fishing — our goal is to show that it does not need to be all or nothing,” Viana said. “Allowing regulated fishing in marine protected areas can support healthy fish populations, while also having a positive impact on the quality of life of surrounding communities.”

The study’s findings are particularly significant as global efforts are under way to protect at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030. Currently, only about 8 percent of the ocean is protected."

-via Conservation International, September 17, 2024

[gguk-n]

Hi could please write one where the reader is bengali and celebrates Durga Puja with Lando in india ( ollie or kimi works too but I'm not sure if you write for them)?

I did a ‘spin the wheel’ and got Ollie.

Puja Vibes

Ollie was as white as white gets and his girlfriend was the embodiment of the Bengali culture prancing around. She had helped Oliver expand his horizon; taught him new experiences and delicious food. She will argue, that there’s no dessert like Bengali dessert.

So, when it was time for Y/N to return home for Durga Puja, Ollie would be joining her too since he had no races or prior commitments.

They hadn’t dated for long but Ollie had showered her with gifts on Christmas and taught her all his family traditions. Y/N just wanted to do the same for him.

At the airport, they landed together with Ollie in tow who was enamoured by the hustle and bustle of the city. He saw cows crossing the road like it was another Tuesday and no one batted an eye. Y/N pointed out all the building explaining the significance and the reason behind their construction during the colonial era on the way to her home.

At home, preparations for Durga Puja were in full swing. Y/N’s uncle and aunt had decorated their house ornately. Oliver greeted everyone.

The festivities would start the next day. Everyone was up bright and early for the invocation (bodhon) Oliver was mesmerised by the shining lights and the bright colours and the beautiful way Goddess Durga was dressed.

The main event was Maha Ashtami which Y/N’s father had great pleasure in explaining to Oliver. Oliver was like a kid in a candy store; eyes wide open and mesmerised by the events unfolding in front of him.

You would find the poor boy following Y/N around like a lost puppy. It was adorable watching him hold onto her saree palo as she walked in front of him. “Lemme hold your hand” Ollie whined. “Everyone is here for the festival. What will the elder’s think?” Y/N reasoned. In Indian culture, blatant show of affection was frowned upon especially in the older generations, the younger ones couldn’t care less. That’s why Ollie was walking around holding her palo.

They were stood next to each other while Y/N’s mother made the preparations for Maha Ashtami. “Your dress looks so beautiful. Red truly is your colour” Ollie said. “Thank you babe” she said. “How did you do this?” He asked playing with the folds. “My mum helped. I’m still pretty bad at tying a saree” she said. “Is that what it’s called? A saree” he said enunciating each word. “Yup, it’s an Indian traditional wear but everyone wraps the cloth around them differently, depending on the region of the country” she explained. His mouth formed an O in understanding.

They finished up the celebration with all the rituals being done and Oliver asking way too many questions each step of the way.

On the last day after Vijaya Dashami, after the immersion in the water everyone returned back home, exhausted by the events of the past days when Y/N’s cousin showed her a video; actually a few.

One video, had Ollie following her around like a lost puppy. The other one was of him holding her palo so as to not get lost. And the last one was straight out of a Shah Rukh Khan movie where Ollie’s watch had gotten stuck in her palo and he tried to free himself while actively trying to follow her and not let her know that he might fray her outfit. Eventually, he did free himself but his eyes never left her as he walked behind her.

She showed the video to Ollie and the Shah Rukh Khan scene from Om Shanti Om. Ollie was seen laughing, “didn’t know I would be getting my Bollywood moment this year during Puja” she said. “I’m happy I could be of service, m’lady” he said tipping his imaginary hat. “I would still have loved if it was Shah Rukh Khan” she teased. “Wow! I can’t believe this.” He acted hurt with his hand on his chest. “You are unbelievable.” She muttered pressing her lips on his cheeks. “Don’t try to bribe me with kisses” he huffed. “I’m not. I love you my cute little bear” she cooed. “I’m not cute” he huffed again. “Sure, my rasgulla” she laughed pinching his cheeks. “I like that dessert. Can I have some more?” He replied lost in thought. “I’m sure my mother will find great pleasure in feeding you” she said laughing. “Let’s go” she said pulling him along. “I love you Y/N.” Ollie called out while being dragged along. “I love you too” she replied turning to look at him.

Y/N’s family cooed at them, young love

Hope you liked it! I tried my best

[rippersz]

𝐄𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐬

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Zombie Apocalypse AU w/ Gwendoline Christie characters; (~9.2K words)

(Featuring: Larissa Weems, Brienne of Tarth, Jane Murdstone, Anna from WTM, Lucifer Morningstar, Miranda Hilmarson, Captain Phasma, and Jan Stevens) x Reader

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

It started about two months ago. Russia went down first, then Mongolia. China. India. And in the midst, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, down to the very southern tip of Africa. The Ocean is no killer of disease, frozen or not, and encouraged it to ravage South and North America, then Canada and Greenland. Until every place was overrun by dead freaks. Stinking corpses and moving gore. 

They traveled in herds, packs, whatever it was that people wanted to call them—murders, perhaps—and shuffled aimlessly across any land they could find. Eager for food, for sustenance, to fill the empty bellies that would never be full. Gorging themselves on creatures like you. 

Officially ‘the other’. Officially ‘the enemy’. The sole survivor of a good group that was attacked some days ago because an idiot forgot to shoot one of the creatures in the head. And by sunrise, it was over. Screams echoed into the silence and you soon found yourself alone… running for your life with a duffle bag over your shoulder (slowing you down) and a gun in your hand (low on ammo). Trekking through thick woods in a heavily-infested Vermont town was not a good idea, but you had no choice. The house you were camping in was left behind, ravaged by bullets that you put into your friend’s heads, and every other spot nearby had been looted. You couldn’t move all of those bodies yourself. You couldn’t do much yourself. There was no army background attached to your name, no conspiracy theorist survival-obsessed gene in your body, and not much training in fighting either. All you could do was run. Run and run and run until you were miles away and your lungs started to burn. Not the most useful skill considering most people could run, but if you were quick enough to speed past the shuffling bastards, you were quick enough to make it to safety. 

—

Safety…what a joke. A shit joke. A joke that was, quite honestly, the worst joke to ever exist. There was no safety. No place, nowhere. You’d been walking for a few hours, hearing nothing but the forest’s silence, and stumbling over leaves and branches. They ravaged the animals, took them into their mouths like they were people, and ate until there was nothing left. Not even a squirrel, or a fox, and the birds had grown weary of the vast number of hunters (both dead and undead) that found themselves in the woods looking for food. So no birds either. And no houses. And you were pretty sure, as you paused to catch your breath, that you were doomed. 

Only a few bullets left and your aim was never perfect. One knife tucked into your waistband but it was getting uncomfortable, digging into your skin, and caked in blood. Creature blood. Everything smelled horrible. Like burning flesh or dirty meat, raw and soiled. You probably didn’t smell too good either. It wasn’t like the world still worked without the people; only a few places had running water and you couldn’t trust the creeks and rivers. The undead enjoyed walking through shallow water, knowing somehow that there’d probably be prey nearby. 

But you hadn’t seen anything in a while. A long while. A suspiciously long while... 

Everything was green and brown around you, whisked by wind and soil, and you stood out like blood against snow. The last thing you saw was yesterday. Ever since? Not a single flash of undead flesh. 

You swallowed, throat embarrassingly dry, and tapped your fingers against your thigh. 

It wasn’t good when everything was still. You were vulnerable, out in the open, and without a good few rounds of bullets to spare. Every muscle and organ in your body screamed for mercy, crying with the effort it took to keep surviving even when you didn’t want to. 

You thought about it a few times; gave the gun in your hand a long look on several occasions, but ultimately decided that ‘opting out’ was only a last resort. Somehow, even amidst the chaos and hatred and swill of humanity’s nature, you managed to hold hope. And often wondered where it would get you. How it would get you. While you were sleeping? While you were already wounded? Fighting off the hands of a loved one? The twist of hope’s rope… would you feel it closing in around your neck? A literal metaphor for the eventual death you’d experience? 

Thinking about it gave you a headache. 

For where was the point in wondering? 

You had no one else. Whatever form of death awaited, it would end up being your fault. Probably because you couldn’t run fast enough. Probably because- 

Because-

Wait. 

Somewhere behind you, on the right, was a low sound. A hum. The smooth whoosh of something quick. The parting of wind… the low growl of… 

“Fuck.” 

You shot off in that direction, bag smacking against your shoulder blades, and instantly felt the exhaustion pull at your body again. It lingered like a plague, like the undead disease, and you yearned to fall to your knees - to give in - but it wasn’t the time for that. You had to at least try. You had to at least make it over the hill. Right over the hill. So close but so far. You leaned forward, threw yourself at the ground, and grasped onto gnarled tree roots. The Earth smelled wet with decay, sweet with promise - you huffed against dry leaves. They crunched and scratched at your fingers, eventually crinkling into nothing when your arms worked to drag you up. You probably looked a little mad, scrambling up a steep hill to reach something that probably won’t save you, but there was no other option. The hum grew louder, the quiet was broken, and you only had a few moments to get this right. 

“Help!” Your lungs caved around your scream, but the forest swallowed it instantly. Greedy trees with their greedy barks, wanting to keep you hidden from salvation. The hum grew louder. Your fingers grew clammy, sweating and slipping against rough wood. 

You’d be bruised to high heaven later, and probably exhausted, but the hum and the growl of an engine meant a road and a road meant civilization and goddammit you just needed to get over the stupid fucking hill. 

There was a loud ringing in your ears, nearly deafening, and making your voice sound fuzzy. 

“Help! Help!”

Was that you? Were you the one screaming like that? Why couldn’t you be quiet? Those things could have been lurking… wandering nearby… coming up behind you, eager to grasp at your ankles and drag you back down to Hell. 

A glance back over your shoulder, aching from the duffle bag, found nothing but blurred terrain and darkened leaves–a symptom of the setting sun. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. If the light went out, you’d be screwed. You couldn’t use the last of your matches and the world went black when evening struck. So there really was no choice. As the growl turned into a roar… there was no choice. Just a little higher- a little more. Your arms pushed, biceps straining against the cotton of your shirt, and your pants threatened to get caught on wayward sticks and tear into rags. The boots on your feet pressed hard against loose rocks, kicking them out of place, and gained just enough ground to push you up - over the ridge. The final stretch. Your chest pushed to the hard dirt and forced a grunt of effort from your tired body; the sound echoed through the woods, through the ground, and through the air that sat above the concrete road in front of you. Hard and vast, grey and long… you looked at it as though it were the holiest of grails, lying just beside it with your arms outstretched, your fingers still pulling at dirtied grass. Soil covered your skin, masked your features, caked beneath your fingernails, and when the roar of the speeding vehicle grew so close you had to close your eyes and wince, you knew raising a hand for help would not be enough. In the shade of the forest’s edge, half draped over the peak of the hill, you were inhuman to other survivors. Your dry mouth opened, your throat croaked, and your legs moved to push you up–closer–just short of the wind that caressed your hair when the car, the truck, ran past you with no second glance. You looked after it, watched it pass, and felt the burn in your heart grow into its own inferno. It licked at your insides, at your desperation, and had you hauling the duffle bag off of your shoulder and out onto the road. It rolled, a shuffling sound, and you followed after it with deep growls of effort and dwindling strength. 

“Please,” you wheezed, panting for breath as soon as you staggered up to your feet. 

In the distance, the car turned into a disappearing black spec. It drove and drove, out of sight, and you stood there, putting your arms in the air to wave it down and bring it back. To beckon it back. To beg and plead.

“Please please no-,” your voice was soft, weakened by days of rugged survival, “no…” rough and lost to the wind, it dissipated into nothing and you were forced to swallow again.  

The thick smell of car exhaust settled against the steaming road. You watched the horizon, tracking the space in the atmosphere where the gold traced into a deep blue, and felt your bones quake beneath your skin. Their final cry. The last hurrah as you watched your future, the tatters of it, drive away from you. 

Too late. 

You were too late. 

And you’d die there, on that road, and they may never come back and find you again in the morning. And your corpse would be chewed upon by undead bastards who would never give you a proper burial. And you’d be just another stupid human that found themselves trampled beneath the stinking feet of the walking dead. 

Tears teased your eyes, burning the dry lands of your irises, and you felt the heart in your chest lurch against its cage. 

 Too late. 

You were too late. 

You had a duffle bag, a handgun somewhere off to the side, and the clothing on your back. One lasting water bottle, the knife you felt poking your side, and small bags of food that wouldn’t last you long at all. The tent, too, was destroyed by animals the night before. The most you could go was perhaps one more day, but your feet were aching so terribly that each step was a journey within itself. And you couldn’t push yourself to go further. There was no further. There was nothing in the woods and there was nothing beyond the road and you were running on fumes that no longer existed. 

But you couldn’t just lie there and take it. You were about to reach over, bending at the waist, to grab your bag. To pull it up over your shoulder and trek on, even though it was pointless. But something stopped you. 

Something–a sound–made you freeze. 

It was faint. It didn’t sound like the undead, with their discordant groans and disgusting squelches, no… it was far. Getting closer. Closer. The hum and the growl. The purr of a motor. The hiss of pavement. 

Your head snapped up, eyes bulging wide as you looked over the horizon to see…. Yes. Yes! Yes, it’s them! The car! A grin pulled at your lips. Halle-fucking-lujah! You felt the anxiety ebb, slowly falling away from your body, as they got closer. The black spec turned into a black blob, then a figure that took shape, and finally you could make out a Vermont license plate and the dirt that stuck to big wheels. Up close, it was a sleek thing, tall and well-built. Midnight black and aside from the splatter on the rubbered wheels, it was polished and clean. The dark paint reflected the bright world around you, turning it into weird warped versions of a faux-paradise. You swallowed at the feel of warmth against your legs, the exhaust from the truck flooding over the smallest sliver of skin around your ankles. Suddenly fearing a changed mind and bad intentions, you stumbled back until your heels pushed against your bag. 

Tinted windows stared down at you, menacing and opaque. Not a thing to see behind them, even if you squinted. Nothing moved, nothing jumped, and you watched with bated breath for a window to roll down - until finally, it did. 

The driver’s side. It went whirr-ing down, sliding for the shortest period of time in the world until only a shadow met you - and then a flicker of movement. And then- 

“Oh my god! Jesus! Okay okay!” You flinched, not even hesitating to raise your hands above your head. You spread your fingers out, desperate to prove your innocence to the stranger in the car. And the gun they were holding, pointing at you, through the gap. 

“Were you bit?” A rough voice, muted and deep, broke the atmosphere. 

You shook your head.

“Words. Use them.” 

“No,” you licked your lips, instantly deciding to turn around in a slow circle. “Not bitten. Not scratched.” You tried to ignore the way your hands shook, even as you shifted all the way back to face the gun’s muzzle. 

“Ask where…” a voice, soft and feminine, came from somewhere beyond the driver’s seat. It was saying something, telling something, but faded into a whisper so quiet you couldn’t hear a thing. Your eyes shifted to the dark backseat windows, trying to see something- anything- and found no surprise in the lack of life. 

“Any weapons?” The driver seemed to ignore the other person, and instead held the gun steady. You watched it with weary eyes.

“Yes.” And before they could ask, you tugged the knife out of your belt and the gun out of your pants pocket. They were held up in the air, another white flag, and you twitched the hand that held the firearm. “At least three bullets left, but that’s it.” 

“And the others?” 

You blinked. “Others? What oth-”

“Where is the rest of your ammunition? In the skull of a human or scum?” The stranger spat, and you detected the hints of an accent. 

Scum… you’d never heard them referred to as that before. Your last group called them walkers, and some others claimed flesh-eaters. You were tempted to use ‘zombies’, but it felt rather silly. The world took that term too lightly, and the undead were nothing if not a very serious problem. But scum? Like they were beneath humanity and not its current destroyer? You’d ask about it later, you decided, if they deemed you well enough to take in. 

“Both,” you breathed honestly, dropping your weapons to your sides with a heavy sigh. “They um- weren’t quite there yet. Got ambushed overnight.” 

The gun still didn’t move. 

“They don’t ambush. What really happened?” 

Hm. They weren’t wrong. Animated corpses didn’t ‘ambush’, but when a herd of them went lurking about, it certainly felt that way. You didn’t think logistics were entirely necessary, but you understood the need for specifics. Trust among men was eviscerated in the face of danger, especially against those once living. You’d seen paranoia before, in others. Humans simply didn’t take each other in anymore… not without some level of severe mistrust. The second thought after seeing the truck drive off was that you probably wouldn’t be accepted anyway - you’d killed without technical reason. Could have just left. Run away. 

But you didn’t. 

You didn’t want to see them turn into those… creatures. 

So what else was there to say? You stared at the gun, willing a click and the shot of a bullet, as you opened your mouth. 

“A herd. A lot of them. Just… descended upon the place. Someone might’ve been walking around in the woods or something, and there was just not enough protection,” you paused, licking your lips, “...I was the last one alive. Had to shoot them and go.” 

“How long since?” 

“Few days, give or take,” you shrugged. The exhaustion only built as you stood there, trying not to sway and collapse in your spot. The truck was still running, hissing hot exhaust; it was the first genuinely warm thing you’d felt in so many days that you wanted to crawl underneath and take a nap. The world, turning to autumn, was growing chilly. There was no chance you could survive winter on your own. 

“...Give or take,” you heard the driver scoff and laugh, bitter and mean. You frowned. 

Then the window started going up, and you couldn’t help yourself. With a hard thunk, you pushed your shoulder hard against the car, and knocked on the thick glass with the butt of the knife. A look of utter desperation crossed your features, heavy and thick. Urgency, anxiety, fear forced any sense from your mind. There was no chance. There was no survival at all.

“No please- please I can’t be out here alone please- I’m smart and- and I can run fast and be an asset. Please,” you shook your head, searching with worried eyes, “please, please you can’t do this to me-” 

Something dark spliced through the corner of your vision, dragging a shadow with it, and you just barely dodged the sudden swing of the truck’s backseat door. It bounced with force and you glanced back at the driver’s window once before stepping back and hastily swinging your bag over your shoulder. The knife and gun were slipped back into your clothing, concealed, and you held yourself strong as the black leathered interior bore itself to the world. 

“-we can’t just leave them-” 

“-on’t be stupid. They could be a liability-”

“-not stupid. We need more people-” 

Voices, at least two, were rushed and tangled in an argument. You didn’t pay much attention to what you could hear, though the growing irritation was hard to ignore. It would be a hassle to be accepted, you knew, but you’d deal. There was no choice. The backseat door was open and there was a figure hustled back against the other window. 

“The offer won’t last,” the stranger murmured, somehow louder than the two people in the front seats, and you decided not to take any chances in the world alone. 

With a grunt, a push, and a final slam of the door, you found yourself in the truck. Your bag was pushed down by your feet, you tugged your knife out to rest it on your thigh, and you turned to say thank you- but was cut off by a cold blade at your throat. It grazed the soft dirty skin, less than a centimeter away from pushing, and you felt saliva pool in the back of your throat. Swallowing would have pressed you closer, so you fought the urge and only stared.

“Woah-” 

“Try anything and you die. I don’t want a peep, not a shuffle. Do I make myself clear?” 

The driver’s voice, clearer in such close quarters, was deep and mean. Accent, as you had clocked, from somewhere in the United Kingdom. It held a natural growl, a gruffness from years of smoking, perhaps, and you couldn’t help but sense the intimidation. It wasn’t fake confidence, you noticed, as you looked up and met the cool sharp grey gaze of a woman. Her hair, a deep blonde, was slicked back and short, ruffled slightly by the nape of her neck. A long neck… that led to strong looking shoulders. They were half covered by a jacket, but you could see the strength in the chords of her muscle. A force to be reckoned with. A leader, perhaps. She was pale, with a defined nose and lips twisted into a permanent sneer, and you probably would have thought she had some potential for post-apocalyptic modeling, if it weren’t for the scar that covered one half of her face. Slashed across the left eye, the wound was jagged and rough - it dragged from a point close to the exact middle of her forehead, right to the corner of her jaw. Thicker at parts and thinner at others, it split through a pale eyebrow and seemed to have permanently rendered her blind. The lid didn’t even move when one stormy eye shifted, and you suddenly felt extremely creeped out. Something about her was undeniably cold. Almost reckless, but her hand was so steady with control you knew not to make a move. She’d probably kill without hesitation, dump you back into the road, and drive off with the duffel. There was no choice but to answer, answer quickly, and do as told. 

“Yes, clear.” Your head shifted half an inch up and half an inch down, still cautious of the blade. 

But she didn’t move. 

It was a battle of wills for just a moment, with your hands in your lap, empty and docile. You weren’t looking for a fight, or a staring contest, but the stranger didn’t let up until the figure to your right decided to sit up and speak. 

“Ah they do not seem so bad. Look at them. Tired and scared, like sad city mouse,” another woman, one with a Russian accent and a voice a hint too loud, cooed. 

Silence followed, persisted, for only a minute- and then the blade was tugged back so quickly you swear it nearly cut the air in two. The driver tsked as she twisted herself around, murmuring as she went. 

“More like a rat.” 

And then you were thrown to the side with a heavy wheeze as the truck lurched and began moving, working into a turn so you could go back the way they’d come.

You glared at the back of the headrest, not feeling above a little bit of irritation for some poor handling, but eventually grew bored. With some apprehension, your eyes flicked over to the person in the passenger seat. Their profile was strong, feminine, and you noted the unbelievably well-kept head of snowy hair. She looked clean, just like the driver, and a spark of hope welled up in your tired heart. Running water and food existed where they came from, wherever they were camped out, and if you played your cards right, you could finally indulge in some good hygiene. Unless the woman in the passenger seat was stingy with her water… god her skin was so clear, and she seemed to be wearing makeup. No one wore makeup anymore. Not the people in your old group and not the few stragglers you’d stumbled across. It simply wasn’t a necessary luxury anymore, but the woman sitting across from you, back straight and hands in her lap, seemed to think it was of the utmost importance. You wanted to speak, wanted to ask her name, but found yourself turning to your right - and catching the gaze of the person that opened the door for you. 

“Anna,” your savior spoke, tilting her head to the left and regarding you with curious eyes. A pale hand, big and long-fingered, shot out and hovered above your lap. You glanced down at it, at the clean skin and the perfect fingernails, and knew that you hit the survivalist jackpot. 

With a nod and a quick clasp of her hand, you whispered your name in reply. She nodded before leaning back against the door and crossing her arms; she seemed quite comfortable there, with a rather large gun resting across her lap. Her hair, blonde as well, fell in gentle waves to her shoulders. She saw with deep blue eyes - a contrast to the cold steel of the driver - and didn’t hesitate to flick them over your body in some sort of analytical search. Weapons, you figured, is what she was looking for. And the knife in your lap, which she eyed with some interest. 

You wanted to say something, wanted to thank them, but it didn’t feel like enough. Nothing felt like enough those days. Asking something of someone was a risk every single time. And you’d asked—begged—them to take you in. You needed to pull your weight, no questions asked. 

“Um- thank you for-”

“Shoot them.” 

“What?!” You straightened up, eyes going wide as, in your peripherals, you saw Anna’s hand inch toward her gun. Through the rear-view mirror, you caught the way the driver’s brow twitched. 

“You heard me. Shoot them.” 

“Pha-”

“I said no talking,” the stranger growled, not even bothering to address the woman in the passenger seat. The white-haired woman looked frustrated, her red lips tugging into a frown, as she watched the driver double down on her focus. “Didn’t I say that?” 

“But I-,” you wanted to plead your case, wanted to defend yourself, but were cut off. 

“I am not going to shoot,” Anna said before you could speak. “Why do you expect her to be quiet hah, Phasma? We just saved her жопa. No need for fighting.”

You glanced at her, picking up on the Native tongue. Fresh off the boat, or perhaps visiting, with the way she said it so easily. Zhopa? Given the context, it wasn’t hard to tell what she meant. Yes, they had just saved your ass. And yes, you wanted to say thank you. Even if that Phasma person wasn’t too keen on a bit of gratitude. 

“I hardly think thanking us for a kind deed is worthy of execution, no matter how much silence you require,” the fair-haired woman across from you said smoothly, throwing a slight glare to the woman on her right. And finally, she took that moment to turn around in the seat and make eye contact. 

Something that proved to be far more difficult than you thought it would. Good lord, she was gorgeous. Pale skin, deep admiral blue eyes, and lips redder than blood. Not even a scratch on her face, not even a single spec of dirt - as if the apocalypse never happened and there weren’t dead people roaming every street in the world. In fact, she didn’t seem incredibly worried about the predicament the human species found itself in, and was looking at you with kind eyes, a furrowed brow, and a smile that she hoped was welcoming. 

“My name is Larissa,” her hand, gloved in white fabric as soft as silk, reached out as an olive branch. You wanted to take it, wanted to feel something so lovely for the first time in a long time and create some sort of bond, but your hands were very dirty. A part of you guessed that Larissa hadn’t put them on earlier that day with the hope to return to camp holding soft fabric smudged with dirt and dried blood, so you only looked down at your palm and then back at hers. 

“Oh uh- I don’t wanna get your gloves dirty-” 

“Oh,” she glanced down, realizing that she was, in fact, wearing hand-coverings. “Later, then,” a warm smile shone back at you - and you were helpless, instantly offering her a nod in return. 

“Finished?” The driver piped up, eyes cold as she stared at you in the rear-view. 

As if on cue, Larissa turned back around in her seat, rolling her eyes as she went, and you could only fall quiet. Introductions were over, you were warming up to the easy heat in the car, and Phasma–if you dared address her by name in your head–had a good handle of the wheel. You were safe. For now. And with one last suspended look at the gun on Anna’s lap, you reached over for the seatbelt, tucked yourself in with a click, and leaned back in the seat. It was so suddenly comfortable, such a huge contrast to the shit you’d dealt with recently, that you couldn’t help but close your eyes and revel. Even for a moment. Even for a second.

—

“Get up,” a mean grunt, paired with a quick rush of piercingly cold air, tugged you from the depths of sleep. 

Before you could even open your eyes properly, a shiver set itself into your bones. Eager to escape it, and the confines of the car, you jolted and scrambled for your seatbelt. Leaning against the open door, watching you grab your things, was the driver. Phasma? Weird name, but there was no time to dwell - especially not when she was looking at you like that. Eyes sharper than the knife on your lap, holding a polished chrome pistol in one hand, and waiting with some tension for you to hurry up. The duffel was pulled up onto your shoulder, the knife was tucked into your belt, and your hands scratched at the leather as you looked around wildly for your gun. 

“We took it. You’ll get it back when you prove you’re not a complete imbecile,” she spat, peering down her nose at you. Disgust danced in her expression, sparking flames of unwanted insecurity, and you felt compelled to look away. Her nostrils were flared, her pink lips curled into something disdainful and mean, and you couldn’t help but watch the way her jaw shifted as she tensed, watching you watch her. The hatred seemed a bit out of place, too strong for normal trust issues, and you briefly wondered if perhaps she’d always been that way - even before the end of civilization. She was clearly a bitch, and not interested in showing you kindness any time soon, so you decided to forgo a response, ignored her glaring, and slipped out of the car without a word. 

Before your feet were completely on the ground, and your bag was out of the way, the door slammed closed behind you, quick and sharp. The speed of it nearly clipped your shirt, and you whirled around to face the stranger’s irritation. She seemed to have lost interest in you and side-stepped your figure without another glance. One finger on the trigger, a shit-ton of audacity-filled swagger in her walk, and a back broad and strong. She looked like an outlaw, tall, mean, wearing grey with a belt around her strong hips and a leather jacket over her shoulders. You wanted to throw your gun at her and watch it hit the back of her head, but there was no way in Hell you’d be able to run away faster than she could catch you. 

“Come,” you heard Anna speak, interrupting your train of thought as she trudged up to your left. You turned, seeing the way she cocked her head. “I’ll introduce you.” The gun swayed in her grasp as she turned, making little shuffling sounds in the grass. 

The grass. 

You went to go forward, but stopped. The grass. It was… terribly neat. Very well maintained. Not like apocalypse grass, which was flat and bloodied and mudded and dusted, but like rich person grass. Striking green grass, healthy, it bounced back behind you when you stepped on it. And the air… you took a deep breath and closed your eyes. It was fresh. Pure. Free of the smell of death and free of gunpowder and spraying blood. Just where on Earth were y-

oh.

Oh. 

You looked up, finally, and found yourself in a courtyard. On all sides was a wall, sections of it made of brick, others of stone, and the rest of wrought iron fence, bolted hard into the ground; and across the way, piercing the sky, was a manor. Or what looked like a manor. No - what was definitely a manor. Dark, illuminated slightly by the deep blue of the atmosphere and the torches that littered the ground in neat paths, splitting off into cobblestone sections. You swallowed. It was gorgeous. Untouched. A world that seemed to run on and on while the rest of the globe went to shit. 

How fucking lucky were you? 

“Come! I must say twice?!” Anna called, giving you an exasperated beckon as she started disappearing behind the dark stone brick of the main entrance. 

Sparing a quick glance behind you, you found a fortified gate and short stone walls - reinforced and built upon with barbed wire, wood, and sheets of metal. It must have opened up for the truck when you were still asleep, but was very much firmly shut and impenetrable once closed. You wanted to explore it more, wanted to study the mechanism and the layout and come to understand just how they managed to get the place so protected, but you didn’t want to leave Anna waiting. And a low rumble of thunder, far but rolling quick, told you that rain was eager to make her appearance - and you did not want to get caught in that. 

After adjusting your bag and patting the knife in your belt for reassurance, you set off after the Russian stranger. 

—

“So I am Anna, this you know already,” she pointed to herself, tapped her chest twice, then rolled her hand over to gesture to the clearing ahead. 

It was beautiful, outlined against a dark wood. Rocky paths led to a big circle in the middle, and the ruins of stone benches and statues littered the camp. You could definitely see what it used to be - a beautiful place for the elite to sit, to bask, to enjoy the nice air and the wind. But the end of the world had gotten to it, not with the bearings of total destruction, but with the promise of change. A big spruce shelter had been built to the far left, reinforced with four beams and no walls - clearly just meant to keep the rain at bay while they worked outside. Beneath it, there were wooden benches and designated spots for farming equipment, guns, and even a water purifying system from the looks of it. If you assumed that sleeping quarters and showers existed in the castle, then they seemed to be in the best shape anyone could be in.

Even the people, who were busy going about their evening and tending to their duties, while you watched by Anna’s side and felt your excitement grow.

“Phasma was woman driving. Not so kind,” she tsked, giving you a knowing look, and you found yourself unable to ask about the strange name. You figured she wouldn’t have known the answer anyway. Then her hand moved, stealing your attention. “That is Jane,” she pointed to a pale woman sitting on one of the large stone benches. 

Her back was turned, but you could see the severity of her expression in the reflection of a hand mirror. She was handsome, free of makeup, with jet-black hair. The strands fell from between her fingertips, spilling like water, as she threaded them into a braid around her head. Her movements were slow, methodic, and you watched, sort of hypnotized, as the long sleeves of her hooded dress stretched across her slim back. Tight along her arms and resting over the black pants covering her thighs, leading down to knee-high leather boots. Fit for an apocalypse, but somehow still chic. You watched her hands for a moment more, and turned slightly to her right when Anna gestured to the woman beside her. 

“Miranda. Good girl, but way too skinskie,” she nodded to herself while crossing her arms. 

The stranger in question–Miranda–was holding up an antique hand mirror for Jane to look into while doing her hair. They seemed to be the same height, though Miranda’s build was lankier and toned. The sleeves of her white top had to have been torn off, leaving freckled shoulders free to the air, and around one wrist was a black watch. It nearly matched the same leather as her belt, which held an attached holster and a sleeve for a walkie-talkie. Its antenna stood out against the baby blue of her uniform pants; tight by the hips but baggier toward the ankles, tucked into dark laced boots. Her hair was styled into a fair blonde bob, probably recently cut by the sight of such clean edges. It looked unbearably soft kissing the back of her neck.

“She was policewoman. Strong.” Anna commented, gazing at her from your spot by the castle wall. 

You nodded absentmindedly, looking over the two strangers and the chess board that sat between them on the bench. Jane had black and Miranda white. The latter seemed to be focusing quite hard on the game, holding a pawn loosely in one hand, as the dark-haired beauty tsked and adjusted the hand mirror that slowly slipped to the side. You watched Miranda jump and offer what you assumed was a sheepish apology, as she tried to multitask. Her small smile was pink and soft, warm and welcoming. A friend, perhaps. 

“Very…domestic,” came your soft murmur, sparked by the surprise of such a peaceful camp. In the past group, everyone was too busy trying to sleep, find food, or talk themselves through panic attacks. Maintaining sanity with comfort was not a priority. 

“Da. Comfortable,” your companion nodded. “Jan is there, washing.” And you turned, yet again, to find a figure standing in front of a clothesline. 

The combat boots made her seem tall, though they were a bit out of place—not really matching the long white sleeved shirt and full red skirt combo. Immaculate and clean, you noticed, though that was to be expected from a woman trying her hardest to get blood out of a white blouse. Her hands were covered by blue rubber gloves, with one clutched around a sponge and the other around the neck of a bottle of white wine vinegar. On the ground by her feet was a large pale jug of hydrogen peroxide and a bucket of what you assumed was water. And the blouse in front of her, held up by wooden clothespins, rippled from the breeze. It seemed to get colder and windier the longer the night went on, probably bringing the rain with it at some point. With any luck, it would clear up the light splotches of pink that covered most of the shirt’s chest up to the collar, but ‘Jan’ didn’t seem too patient and satisfied with that. She got back to her scrubbing a moment later, the strict waves of her blonde hair bumping gently against her neck. 

“Jan is very chic. You go to her for fashion advice, no?” Anna tilted her head at you, dragging dark blue eyes over your face. The lawn lamps stabbed into the grass lit everything up with a sweet warm glow, bringing out the flames in her expression as she peered at you curiously. Very handsome, in her own sharp-featured sort of way. You couldn’t help the snort that bubbled up. 

“Respectfully, I think fashion is the least of my concerns right now, Anna.” 

“Hm. Maybe,” she hummed, shrugged, and gave you a once-over that set your heart racing before turning her attention back to the group. 

“Brienne!” You jumped, flinching away as Anna’s loud voice carried into your ear. In the distance, a hulking figure shifted and unfolded, moving to look up at the call. They were sitting on a big pile of cut logs, holding a stone cylindrical sharpener in one hand and a… sword… in the other. Anna waved, talking to you gently as you both watched the figure’s expression change into one of suspicion. She was handsome. Pale, with the lightest blonde lashes and brows, and eyes that sparkled even from that distance. They squinted, drawing frown lines across her face, as she straightened up in her spot. You tried desperately not to stare at her figure, but it was impossible. The deep blue ribbed shirt clung to her torso like a second skin, wrapping tightly around strong biceps and broad shoulders. It was tucked into muddy green cargo pants, offsetting the brightness of the steel that covered the toes of her dark boots. You tilted your head and watched as she glanced between you and Anna before she finally decided to shoot the woman a firm nod. Anna’s lips quirked up into a smile. “She was once soldier. Good woman - she will protect you if you’re in trouble. Saved me many many times.” Her blonde curls swished as she nodded to herself. 

That was good to know, you reasoned. Everyone seemed quite strong. Tall, too. And pale. The camp was gorgeous, the people seemed mundane enough, and the company was… well. Your eyes drifted over to Anna’s side profile, a silhouette of soft dips and curves, and you couldn’t hide the attraction you felt even if you tried.

“Larissa, you know too. She is leader, xорошо?” You didn’t really know what ‘harasho’ meant, but the light intonation of her voice had you saying ‘Yeah’ anyway. 

Then an arm was winding itself around yours, jostling the bag on your shoulder and the gun slung around Anna’s body. It rested against her back, hitting her thighs, and you were suddenly powerless to the way she steered you further down the gravel path. Toward the right, there was a makeshift driveway; a patch of land ripped up from the grass and replaced with gravel, soil, and rocks. The black truck made an appearance again, probably having been driven up from around the back, and you watched with curious eyes as Phasma busied herself with a few bags and boxes from the trunk. Jesus, she was fit… tall and lethal. A small grunt left her lips when she hauled two boxes up into her arms, never faltering or pausing. Damn. You found yourself getting lost in the sight of her legs in those cargo pants, filling them out, until Anna clicked her tongue. 

“Lucifer is strange, but ultimately harmless. Do not worry, they are not naked under the robe.” 

Lucifer? Naked under the what? 

You were going to take a quick glance around, to find whatever the hell Anna was talking about, but there was no need. Some feet in front of you, lounging on a red and gold velvet chase, was a lithe figure. They were almost glowing in the reflection of the walkway lamps, with the deep crimson of a flowing silk robe offsetting the smooth pale planes of soft skin. One elbow was propped up on the arm of the chair, and you traced the folds of flowing sleeves up to a slim forearm, wrist, and a delicate hand. Slender fingers were curled under the curve of a pale cheek, and you felt your heartbeat speed up at the sight of soft features and  crystal eyes. And their hair, curled so perfectly into handsome shining ringlets of spun golden-web… goodness, they were… 

“Luxurious,” you murmured, tilting your head as you watched the stranger chat with Larissa. She was standing over them, in front of the chase, and even at that height, you had a feeling that the one laying down was somehow a little bit taller. “Is Lucifer their real name?” 

“Da,” Anna nodded, “little strange, no?” 

“Yeah,” you gave her an odd look. “Strange as fuck.” 

“Don’t get comfortable,” a voice growled from behind you, making you slip away from Anna’s hold and turn around. Phasma was walking past, holding a big bag under each arm. Her muscle was impressive, but dear god she was an asshole. You had to sort out that situation as quick as possible.

“Hey what’s your problem, man?” You spread your hands out at your sides before letting them slap against your thighs. “You picked me up, and while I’m grateful for that, I am, you didn’t have to-”

“Exactly,” she bit out as she whirled around and marched right back to you. Her breath was cool, washing lightly over your face, and she stood so close that your foreheads nearly touched. From that angle, looking up, you could reach out and trace the jagged line of her scar. It was quite attractive actually, even if her eyes narrowed as she watched you look at her. They were cold. Not an ounce of care.

“Don’t. Get. Comfortable.” Her lips twitched, carrying a silent threat.

“Okay,” Larissa’s voice, sing-songy and weary, cut into the conversation. “Why don’t we all take a moment to calm down, hm?” Her smile was blinding as she turned to you. One gloved hand hovered above Phasma’s right shoulder, but was instantly shrugged off the second it made contact. Her sneer didn’t fade even when she stepped back, eyes still flaming with anger. Larissa cleared her throat. “Y/n, you’re new here. Why don’t you and I have a little chat?” 

Her expression, although kind, hid a sharpness that you didn’t think was wise to fuck around with. If Larissa was the leader, according to Anna, then it was her you had to charm. You didn’t really know why she was the top dog, especially because some of the other group members seemed more… abrasive… but clearly something about her was good enough to be the one in charge. And pissing her off, messing around with her people, was a one-way ticket to possibly turning into those fuckers lurking in the woods. So you didn’t really have a choice - and you didn’t really want one. No matter what, you’d stay. You’d be of some help. You’d stay on the soft grass, smelling the clean air. You’d become best friends with Larissa, the group would learn to like you, and you’d try not to combust when any of them looked your way.

Easier said than done though, of course. Especially when Larissa’s smile knocked down all of your reservations at once, in one big swing, and coaxed an obedient nod from your body. 

“Okay. Yes. Sure.” 

“Perfect,” Larissa’s grin, somehow, grew even wider. 

“It’s getting late,” were Phasma’s parting words before she turned away and headed off toward two big wooden double doors. 

You watched her strut without much thought, and found yourself on the other end of a staring Larissa. Her eyes were utterly striking in the evening light, and the outline of her face… a sight to be seen for a person as weary as you. 

“So… is your group considered women only?” You murmured, peering up at her through your eyelashes. 

Red lips twitched. 

“Not intentionally. Though we have had the discussion before,” she contemplated her next words carefully, looking all over your face before resuming, “and we think it’s best if it’s just women. And Lucifer.” 

“And Lucifer?” You still can’t get over that being their real name. Probably just picked out in a moment of edginess when they were a teen. Lucifer did sound cool, sort of bully-worthy. Like they were emo kid once upon a time.

“Lucifer is what many would refer to as non-binary. Not a man and not a woman. I hope that won’t be a problem?” Something flashed behind her eyes. Not a threat, but a warning. You couldn’t help but smile.

“Not at all. They and I are… one and the same,” you shrugged and adjusted the bag on your shoulder. 

“How lucky I must be…,” someone purred from over your shoulder.

You tensed up, surprised by the closeness, and felt yourself grow a little weak at the tone. Like spiced honey, their voice was intense and smooth. You wanted to lap it up. 

“Ah right on time for a proper introduction,” Larissa, ever the most efficient woman from what you could tell so far, found herself a golden opportunity. One hand shot out and gestured over to you, then to the person slinking around to your right. “Y/n this is Lucifer, one of the strongest members of our group. Lucifer and I make most of the big decisions, with the necessary input from everyone else. And Lucifer,” Larissa’s grin relaxed into a smile, “this is Y/n. Depending on our discussion of the rules, they may become a familiar face, so I suggest you play nice.” 

You found that you couldn’t look to the side without short-circuiting. There was something.. something… about their aura that had you wanting to shy away and cower. It wasn’t the explosive intensity of Phasma or the consuming strangeness of Anna, or even the gentle but strong hand of Larissa… but instead a subtle sort of consumption. Utterly intriguing and fascinating - like they were put on the Earth to confuse humans. You didn’t even look at them and you could feel that. Didn’t even know them and you could feel that. Standing so close. So much body heat. 

“It’s a pleasure,” they murmured, turning to you fully. 

You swallowed, braced yourself, and looked up to your right. 

Sweet holy Jesus. They were even more handsome up close. Just absolutely soft and glorious. And carrying the faint scent of… firewood? You cleared your throat. 

“Um yeah- likewise. Hi.” 

A flash of black, followed by measured footsteps in the grass, had all three of you shifting to see Jane walking past. Miranda was not too far behind, taking her time to cross the yard. 

“Dinner is being prepared. Show face in the next 20 minutes or go to bed hungry.” Jane didn’t even spare you a glance before she disappeared behind the same doors Phasma had gone through. 

“Thank you, Jane,” Larissa managed to call just before they closed behind her with a dull bang. 

“Three moves…,” Miranda was muttering, holding the box for the chess set in one hand. “She beat me in three moves.” 

“Oh it’s not hard. I would’ve beaten you in two,” another voice entered the fray, polite but amused. Jan, you recognized, as she sidled up between you and Larissa with a small smile on her deep red lips. 

Miranda scoffed and turned to look at Anna, only to find that she was gone. One glance behind you revealed that she’d wandered over to Brienne, probably prompting her to go inside for dinner. You hummed, hiding the amusement of friendly banter. It had been so long since you felt even the smallest sense of normalcy. If they were so comfortable with each other, then it must have been a bit since they were all alone out in the world. You’d probably ask Larissa about that later - once everything was said and done. 

“I would’ve beaten you in one,” Lucifer smirked as they pulled away and went walking inside. Had they been barefoot the entire time? 

“That’s not even possible!” Miranda yelled, but the door was already shut. “...Is it?” She turned to Larissa, then to you, then back to Larissa. 

“I don’t think so, Miranda,” Larissa smiled before looking at you. “Any chance you’re good at chess?” 

Dear lord, having two sets of beautiful blue eyes on you was nerve-wracking, but you ignored the flush building up on your cheeks and nodded. 

“Um yeah- it’s possible to beat someone in two moves. But it’s only black, I think.” You gave Miranda an apologetic smile and a shrug as she pouted. 

“You will beat her next time Miranda,” Anna returned with Brienne in her wake. The sword she was sharpening earlier was still in her hands. “She cannot win forever.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Brienne cut in, her voice strong and deep. Her mouth was pulled into a light frown, and you noticed the scar that cut through the upper lip on the right. From the time before, you suspected. Otherwise she’d be turned. “She beat me and Phasma one after the other.” 

Miranda sighed, tsking beneath her breath. 

“Then there’s no hope…” Goodness, she looked like a sad puppy.

“Why not?” It slipped out of your mouth before you could grab it. 

And of course, all of the attention then dragged itself over to you. Five sets of sea-blue eyes, all gorgeous in the glow of the evening lamps, traced lines over your tired body. In comparison to them, you looked a sight. Obviously having been picked up from the side of the road, unclean and awkward, somewhat detached from society. In your bag? Not enough clothing and not enough supplies. In your belt, peeking out from beneath your shirt? A knife, dirty and growing dull. And in your eyes? Lurking sadness and horror - the same which probably lived in the women that were observing you. 

Larissa, thank goodness, finally broke the lull of silence. 

“Brienne and Phasma were in the military,” she said gently.

“Oh. That makes sense.” And it did - Jane must have been an intellectual force if she beat people that used to be in the military before the world ended. Though that made you wonder… “What branch?” You turned to Brienne, not really surprised that you had to look up to meet her eyes. It seemed you’d been adopted into a camp of skyscrapers. Though the sharpness of her eyes had you swallowing. “I mean- if you don’t mind me asking.” 

She seemed to consider it, sizing you up, before saying, rather shortly, “SAS. Then Delta Force.” 

You couldn’t hide the way your eyes widened. 

“Oh.” 

“Oh, indeed,” Larissa hummed. “But I think now would be a good time to head in, wouldn’t you say?” She spared her smile for everyone, meeting the gaze of each woman, before finally looking at you and raising her eyebrow. 

It wasn’t really up to you, so you just shrugged and waited for Anna to say ‘Da, da, xорошо’ before heading in. Brienne followed after her, then Miranda, who was studying the back of the chess box, and Larissa, who started taking off her gloves. Jan, meanwhile, stayed where she was and kept her eyes on you. They were curious and deep, never-ending, and lined with mascara and eyeliner. Mascara and eyeliner that… well it suited her, but goodness it was certainly intense. Dark and shadowed, but beautiful nevertheless. You couldn’t look away. 

“Jan Stevens,” she breathed and gave you her hand, elegant and admittedly quite charming. Her nails were painted a deep cherry red. Utterly flawless.

At the sight of it, you weren’t entirely sure what to do. Your palms were still dirty, and sort of calloused, and you didn’t want to… ruin her. So you hesitated, stared at it, looked back up at her, and found her kind smile to be unwavering. 

“Go on,” Jan finally whispered, giving her hand a pointed look, and you fell prey in an instant. 

Quickly, you shot out to gently cup her hand into your own, and gave it a gentle shake. You felt strangely compelled to bring it up to your lips, but you weren’t sure that meeting a stranger in an apocalypse really called for such formalities. Even though you yearned to feel her skin beneath your mouth. It wasn’t proper; though you did think that Jan’s expression fell just a little bit. Like she was excited. Like she wanted you to kiss her hand. 

“Y/n. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Likewise,” she purred, looking you up and down, before turning toward the door. “Come quickly now. If we’re late, Jane will send us off to bed without dinner. And we wouldn’t want that.” 

It probably would have been wise to consider and contemplate the fact that you were in a stranger’s camp, with a stranger’s group… but the saucy little wink that Jan threw over her shoulder sent a deep blush crawling up your cheeks. And just like that, without fail, you were one of the flesh-eaters… caught in the pretty paws of eight different beasts. 

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Please let me know if my characterization is okay and if you'd like to see more. Be safe, darlings. - Rip x

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Far too many names to tag. Find it as you come.

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

[fatehbaz]

What it meant to "do geology" in Hutton's time was to apply lessons of textual hermeneutics usually reserved for scripture [...] to the landscape. Geology was itself textual. Rocks were marks made by invisible processes that could be deciphered. Doing geology was a kind of reading, then, which existed in a dialectical relationship with writing. In The Theory of the Earth from 1788, Hutton wrote a new history of the earth as a [...] system [...]. Only a few kilometers away from Hutton’s unconformity [the geological site at Isle of Arran in Scotland that inspired his writing], [...] stands the remains of the Shell bitumen refinery [closed since 1986] as it sinks into the Atlantic Ocean. [...] As Hutton thought, being in a place is a hermeneutic practice. [...] [T]he Shell refinery at Ardrossan is a ruin of that machine, one whose great material derangements have defined the world since Hutton. [...]

The Shell Transport and Trading Company [now the well-known global oil company] was created in the Netherlands East Indies in 1897. The company’s first oil wells and refineries were in east Borneo [...]. The oil was taken by puncturing wells into subterranean deposits of a Bornean or Sumatran landscape, and then transported into an ever-expanding global network of oil depots at ports [...] at Singapore, then Chennai, and through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. [...] The oil in these networks were Bornean and Sumatran landscapes on the move. Combustion engines burnt those landscapes. Machinery was lubricated by them. They illuminated the night as candlelight. [...] The Dutch East Indies was the new land of untapped promise in that multi-polar world of capitalist competition. British and Dutch colonial prospectors scoured the forests, rivers, and coasts of Borneo [...]. Marcus Samuel, the British founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, as his biographer [...] put it, was “mesmerized by oil, and by the vision of commanding oil all along the line from production to distribution, from the bowels of the earth to the laps of the Orient.” [...]

---

Shell emerged from a Victorian era fascination with shells.

In the 1830s, Marcus Samuel Sr. created a seashell import business in Houndsditch, London. The shells were used for decorating the covers of curio boxes. Sometimes, the boxes also contained miniature sculptures, also made from shells, of food and foliage, hybridizing oceanic and terrestrial life forms. Wealthy shell enthusiasts would sometimes apply shells to grottos attached to their houses. As British merchant vessels expanded into east Asia after the dissolution of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade in 1833, and the establishment of ports at Singapore and Hong Kong in 1824 and 1842, the import of exotic shells expanded.

Seashells from east Asia represented the oceanic expanse of British imperialism and a way to bring distant places near, not only the horizontal networks of the empire but also its oceanic depths.

---

The fashion for shells was also about telling new histories. The presence of shells, the pecten, or scallop, was a familiar bivalve icon in cultures on the northern edge of the Mediterranean. Aphrodite, for example, was said to have emerged from a scallop shell. Minerva was associated with scallops. Niches in public buildings and fountains in the Roman empire often contained scallop motifs. St. James, the patron saint of Spain, was represented by a scallop shell [...]. The pecten motif circulated throughout medieval European coats of arms, even in Britain. In 1898, when the Gallery of Palaeontology, Comparative Anatomy, and Anthropology was opened in Paris’s Museum of Natural History - only two years after the first test well was drilled in Borneo at the Black Spot - the building’s architect, Ferdinand Dutert, ornamented the entrance with pecten shell reliefs. In effect, Dutert designed the building so that one entered through scallop shells and into the galleries where George Cuvier’s vision of the evolution of life forms was displayed [...]. But it was also a symbol for the transition between an aquatic form of life and terrestrial animals. Perhaps it is apposite that the scallop is structured by a hinge which allows its two valves to rotate. [...] Pectens also thrive in the between space of shallow coastal waters that connects land with the depths of the ocean. [...] They flourish in architectural imagery, in the mind, and as the logo of one of the largest ever fossil fuel companies. [...]

---

In the 1890s, Marcus Samuel Jr. transitioned from his father’s business selling imported seashells to petroleum.

When he adopted the name Shell Transport and Trading Company in 1897, Samuel would likely have known that the natural history of bivalves was entwined with the natural history of fossil fuels. Bivalves underwent an impressive period of diversification in the Carboniferous period, a period that was first named by William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822 to identify coal bearing strata. In other words, the same period in earth’s history that produced the Black Spot that Samuel’s engineers were seeking to extract from Dayak land was also the period that produced the pecten shells that he named his company after. Even the black fossilized leaves that miners regularly encountered in coal seams sometimes contained fossilized bivalve shells.

The Shell logo was a materialized cosmology, or [...] a cosmogram.

Cosmograms are objects that attempt to represent the order of the cosmos; they are snapshots of what is. The pecten’s effectiveness as a cosmogram was its pivot, to hinge, between spaces and times: it brought the deep history of the earth into the present; the Black Spot with Mediterranean imaginaries of the bivalve; the subterranean space of liquid oil with the surface. The history of the earth was made legible as an energetic, even a pyrotechnical force. The pecten represented fire, illumination, and certainly, power. [...] If coal required tunnelling, smashing, and breaking the ground, petroleum was piped liquid that streamed through a drilled hole. [...] In 1899, Samuel presented a paper to the Society of Arts in which he outlined his vision of “liquid fuel.” [...] Ardrossan is a ruin of that fantasy of a free flowing fossil fuel world. [...] At Ardrossan, that liquid cosmology is disintegrating.

---

All text above by: Adam Bobbette. "Shells and Shell". e-flux Architecture (Accumulation series). November 2023. At: e-flux dot com slash architecture/accumulation/553455/shells-and-shell/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticisms purposes.]

[probablyasocialecologist]

Within this sacrificial cosmology, no single hierophant or high priest needs to wield the fatal blade, and no one need bear witness to the horror. The sacrifice transpires in the clinical anonymity of market relations. An increase in demand for snack food in India triggers a chain of market decisions that see the forced displacement of an indigenous community in West Puapa and, with it, the liquidation of their entire lifeway and cosmology. The anonymous demands of shareholders in a cosmetics firm for greater returns leads to land grabbing by entrepreneurial smallholders or their hyper-exploitation of migrant workers. A subtle shift in policy to encourage markets to turn to biofuels triggers a wave of peatland burning that releases massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to murderous impacts on global human and non-human populations via the vicissitudes of climate change.

Max Haiven, Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire

[gothhabiba]

In the years before the [Indian] Mutiny, when utilitarians like Macaulay and James Mill were busily trying to assimilate India into the British Empire and Anglicizing it through educational and legal reforms, British women undertook an analogous task. They incorporated Indian food, which functioned metonymically for India, into the national diet and made it culturally British.

Nupur Chaudhuri has already detailed the material practices of Victorian memsahibs who helped to diffuse curry and rice into the national diet, thereby functioning as "agents of cultural exchang between colonizers and colonized." However, Victorian women were not only "agents of cultural exchange" but were invested by domestic ideology with the powers of moral agency, which [...] allowed them to undertake the ideological work of domesticating imperialism. It is the "good" Victorian woman's moral agency and figurative power to domesticate the foreign that this essay traces through cookbooks and curry recipes. [...] [N]ineteenth-century domestic cookery books are self-conscious cultural documents in which we can locate a metaphor for nineteenth-century British imperialism, in which the Other presents itself not as a source of threat and contamination but of nourishment. By virtue of their own domesticity, Victorian women could neutralize the threat of the Other by naturalizing the products of foreign lands.

Susan Zlotnick, "Domesticating Imperialism: Curry and Cookbooks in Victorian England." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 16.2/3 (1996), pp. 51-68.

[ichorai]

i was just a kid ; marc spector.

track one of BROKEN MACHINE.

pairing ; marc spector x vigilante!gn!reader

synopsis ; khonshu wanted you dead. marc just wanted you.

words ; 6.6k

themes ; action, mild angst/fluff, vigilante au, thief au

warnings / includes ; blood/injury, cursing, mentions of human trafficking/sexual assault but not at all graphic, marc is basically chasing after reader for half the fic, we're traveling the world in this fic baby !!! khonshu being Annoying, reader doesn't know marc has DID and thinks he's crazy, a steven cameo !! and one (1) mention of spider-man and daredevil <3

main masterlist.

NEW DELHI, INDIA.

The street market was crowded, bustling with chatty tourists, loud salesmen, and traveling vendors. The air was heavy with the sweet, saccharine smell of fresh mangoes, intertwined with the faintest trace of turmeric, ginger and garam masala from other stalls you hurriedly passed by. You would’ve given anything to stop and try some of the food, if not for the terrifying white-suited fucker hunting you down.

The bleeding cut on your cheek he’d given you from when he threw his crescent-shaped boomerang in your direction throbbed. You’d barely been able to duck away in time. At least here, in the busy street, he couldn’t risk hurting anyone else by striking you long-range. 

At least, you hoped so. You weren’t entirely sure how far this bastard was willing to go to get you. Sure, you’d made a lot of enemies in the past, but, to your recollection, you’d never met any moon-caped supers keen on taking your life before.

You were quick to duck through the tight-knit throng, panic setting in when you realized the market was thinning away—you were near the end of the street, and you no longer had the advantage of cover on your side. 

With agile steps, you sprinted into an alleyway, glancing up the side of an apartment.

Then, you began to climb. You scaled the small grooves in the bricks, expertly balancing your weight just right so you wouldn’t fall. You’d done this a million times before, with much smoother surfaces to climb—after all, that was the bare minimum required of a thief. 

You hauled yourself onto the rooftop, laying low so he wouldn’t be able to spot you from ground level. 

Only—he wasn’t on ground level.

A shadow loomed over you just as you crouched by the rusted air conditioning unit, and you had but a millisecond to roll out of the way before his foot came crashing clean through the metal.

Well, fuck me, he can fly, you wryly thought. 

“Glide!” the man behind the mask gruffed as he grabbed your arm and shoved you against the crumpled AC unit, the searing hot metal digging painfully into your skin. “I glide, I don’t fly!”

“I said that out loud?” you panted with a hoarse chuckle, before quickly twisting and kicking his knee, brandishing a sharp dagger from the utility belt loosely secured around your hips. Up close, his suit appeared to be fashioned from a multitude of bandages, not unlike the cheap mummies from old nineties halloween movies. “Sorry, would it be weird for me to ask why a toilet paper cosplayer is trying to murder me?”

The man offered you no response, only diving forward and landing a good punch to one side of your jaw, which made your vision go blurry with disorientation for a moment. 

There was no way you could best him with strength—you needed to get away from him. 

With quick, nimble fingers, you pulled two smoke bombs from your belt and threw them onto the ground. Large plumes of ashen white immediately ate up the space between you, and he was left blinded for a couple of seconds. You tugged a grenade out a moment later, pulling out the pin with your teeth before tossing it in his general direction and throwing yourself off the opposite side of the building, where you’d spotted a plastic-woven tarp over one of the stalls by the edge of the market.

You’d crashed straight through their booth, fruits and drinks spilling all over the street’s asphalt. The vendors started cussing at you in a language that was foreign to your ears, but you knew they were saying foul things nonetheless. With a groan, you pushed yourself up, ignoring the searing pain that ran down your leg and began running back into the crowd. 

The explosion on the building had blown Marc back several meters, and he cursed beneath his breath as he pushed himself back up. Just as he was about to set back off to track you down, Khonshu’s bellowing voice made him halt in his motions.

“Let them go,” the God rumbled. There was an undertone of mild disappointment that laid stagnant beneath his voice, as if he’d just lost a game rather than a target. “We have more pressing matters at hand. Ammit’s followers are stealing more souls in Cuba.”

Marc’s brow furrowed. “Let them go? You want me to go to Cuba? That’s halfway across the world! I can finish the job, they can’t have gotten too far—”

“We have more pressing matters,” he repeated himself, this time with an edge to his voice. A headache pulsed angrily through Marc’s temple. 

“Why’d you want them dead so bad? This target—that person, were they a follower of Ammit? Huh?” 

Much to his frustration, Khonshu ignored him completely, merely brushing past his avatar. “Go to Havana,” the bird-skull rumbled over his shoulder. “I’ll meet you there.”

And with that, he disappeared.

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN.

A final stream of smoke fell from Elena’s lips as she pulled the cigarette away, dropping it into the floor to stub with her boot. She fixed you with a neutral expression as you made your way to her, though the unmistakable affection in her molten brown eyes gave her away. 

“Took you long enough,” she said, glancing at the large black cloak you were wearing. Her demeanor gradually shifted into one of a more somber variety. “Verdict’s been decided. The court decided not to charge—all those police that beat my friends to death… they’re walking away free of consequence. The government’s gone to shit. Everything is more expensive now—riots are breaking out over fuel prices, which means more people are getting killed. Nobody is willing to help anymore.”

You nodded grimly. “What can I do?”

There was a dark glimmer to her eyes as she squared her jaw. “You’re going to help me burn down government buildings. I don’t know how many, but… as many as it takes for them to change.”

A hint of a grin graced your lips as you regarded your past-lover with a nostalgic kind of fondness. “It’s the first time I see you in years and you’re already throwing me headfirst into war.”

She offered you a shrug and a wry smile. “Don’t kid yourself. You live for this kind of shit.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” you hummed distantly. “Where do we start?”

It was pandemonium. 

Everybody was yelling—the protestors, the police, the civilians watching from the sides, the sparse firemen as they tried to put out the massive, roaring flames that were greedily swallowing the government building in its entirety. You had to admit, you were rather proud of your handiwork—absentmindedly wondering if Elena would be happy with it, as well.

Before you could dwell on it any longer, a foreign hand tightly seized around your wrist and began to drag you back away from the crowd. Your gaze wildly swiveled around in confusion to the man yanking you along, noting his heavy-set furrowed brows and his frustrated scowl. With as much strength as you could muster, you dug your heels into the ground and halted his motion, pulling against him with all your might. He didn’t relent, only staring you down with dark eyes that held the warbling reflections of the fire you set behind you. 

“Who the fuck are you?!” you barked, starting to get more frantic as you fruitlessly attempted to get him to let go of you. 

And when he spoke, it finally dawned on you.

Well, fuck me. It’s that bitch that chased me down in New Delhi. Wonder why he isn’t wearing his super suit… probably not to attract attention like last time. The news was all over him.

“You’re just getting more people killed,” he husked, clearly talking about the fire you’d caused, before brandishing a dark karambit knife, one that you swore gave you a cut just by looking at it. “No wonder he wants you dead.”

Fear wove down your spinal column when the blade poked your lower stomach in warning. “I’m sending a message,” you growled in reply, lips curled over your teeth in a snarl as you bristled. “And what about you? You’re gonna fix the problem by killing me? I don’t even know you! Some hero you are—those people protesting out there? They’re better than you will ever be.”

For a moment, his pupils darted back to the rioting crowd, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features, and you used the short-lived distraction to your advantage. You expertly kicked the knife out of his hand and landed a quick blow square in the center of his face, feeling his nose break beneath your knuckles. 

Not wanting to push your luck—you remembered how fast he was during your last encounter—you gave him one final shove, sending him sprawling into a trash can with a groan and a muffled curse.

By the time he forced himself back onto his feet a second later, you’d already disappeared into the shadows.

Fuck. Khonshu was gonna kill him.

PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO.

Marc still wasn’t sure why Khonshu wanted you dead so badly. Then again, he wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Khonshu. 

But he knew one thing for certain—if Marc truly wanted you dead, then you would’ve been six feet under weeks ago. Which meant… he wasn’t actively trying to kill you because he didn’t actually want you dead. All the others that he’d killed for Khonshu felt like they’d deserved it—rapists, abusers, pedophiles… and though Marc didn’t know you very well, he knew you weren’t anything like the people he’d killed before.

Marc didn’t know what he was doing. 

Jaw clenched, he pulled the cap lower down his face, shoving his fists into the pockets of his jeans. He followed not too far behind you, silent as a wraith, watching as you merrily strode down the streets of Podgorica. 

Finally, when you stopped by a little coffee truck to order an iced latte, Marc stepped forward to stand beside you.

For the first minute, you idly tapped away on your phone, smiling down at the screen briefly before pocketing the device. You glanced at him, thinking nothing of the person beside you, assuming they were just another civilian—

Then you froze.

You knew that face.

After all, you’d broken that very same nose less than a week ago. Strange, it looked just fine now. 

Immediately, you hunkered down into a defensive position, backing away from him with quick steps. Then, you ran, sprinting away so quickly that Marc could’ve sworn a trail of dust kicked up beneath your feet.

The man in the coffee truck incredulously yelled out after you, followed by a string of what Marc could only assume was a creative litany of Montenegrin profanity. 

Dropping a few shillings onto the truck’s counter, Marc grabbed your coffee and ran after you, shocked at how far you’d managed to get in such a short amount of time. 

There was no denying that you were a fast runner—but as the old tale went, the quick hare would always get overly confident. You slowed down to a moderate jog when you glanced behind you, Marc nowhere in sight. With a relieved sigh, you turned the corner and slumped against a building, wiping the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand. 

Damn, you’d kill for that iced coffee right about now.

As if on cue, Marc rounded the corner, catching you by surprise. You were just ready to turn tail and run away again, but his hand shot out and held onto your wrist, not unlike he did in Astana. 

You spewed out a myriad of curses, ranging from calling him an ‘insufferable cucumber-dicked motherfucker’ to ‘smooth-brained, butt-faced swine’, wildly trying to get him to let go of you. If you weren’t violently bucking against him with all the grace of a panicked mare, he would’ve laughed at the creativity of your insults. 

“Stop, I just want to talk!” exclaimed Marc, dodging when you pushed yourself forward to try and wrap your hands around his throat. 

“Last two times I saw you, you tried to kill me!” you breathlessly spat. “Sorry if I don’t quite trust you now!”

“I’m unarmed,” he gritted out, stepping back slightly to allow you to scan your gaze over him. Though you didn’t want to admit it, you knew that if Marc really wanted to kill you, you would’ve been dead long ago. “I just want to ask you a couple things. And look—I brought your coffee!”

A low hiss fell from your lips. “I’m not answering jack shit.”

With that, you lunged forward and shoved him hard—so hard that he stumbled into the jagged brick wall behind him with an oomf. The iced latte sloshed right out of its cup and spilled all over his chest. His head struck painfully against the stone and his vision went blurry for a moment, expression faltering. 

You stepped away, watching him with cautious, narrowed eyes. 

After a long, pregnant pause, the man blinked in a dazed fashion, seeming confused. 

“What? Where am I? What’s going on?” he said, accent suddenly… British. He fixed you with a genuinely miffed gaze, appearing slightly frightened at your withering glower. 

You didn’t stay to answer his question. 

As you were turning on your heel to run away, you faintly heard him mutter to himself, “Where the bloody hell am I?”

Crazy bastard.

VALENCIA, SPAIN.

Your knuckles were split. Blood dribbled down your fist, a mixture of yours and the man whose face you were caving in.

One of your hands was bunched into the collar of his shirt, holding him down as you rained punches on him. The sickening sound of his bones giving way with your strikes didn’t deter you, and you only snarled and hit him again as he blubbered out prayers in Spanish. Blood-flecked spittle dripped from his busted lips. 

“Who are you praying to?” you hissed, releasing his collar in favor of wrapping your hand over his throat, squeezing tight. The dull green of his eyes flashed with panic, legs flailing weakly. “The gods will not listen to the likes of you—I’ll make sure of it.”

A strangled wail erupted from him. 

And just as you were about to land another punch, you found yourself being shoved away from the man, and promptly lifted off the floor with the scruff of your shirt collar, shoving you against a wall. You began kicking and twisting blindly, cursing furiously when you saw the man you were beating up scurry onto his feet and haggardly sprint away.

Your struggling was of no avail, and you weren’t at all surprised to see the same person that’s been trying to track you down for months now. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, brows heavily furrowed and dark eyes stormy with anger. “You were about to kill that guy!”

“He deserves it,” you bit out, glaring back at him with just as much intensity. “The fucker’s been stalking a friend of mine and sexually assaulted her daughter.”

There was a beat of silence. Marc’s cross expression seemed to drain away, but he still bore a stern face as he slowly let you go. You slid down the wall and got back onto your feet with a wince. 

“Why have you been following me?” you huffed, dusting off your pants. “You think I don’t know that if you really wanted to kill me, I would be dead by now?”

Marc squared his jaw and leveled his gaze on you. “Someone… close to me wants you dead. I want to know why first—he won’t tell me.”

“Sounds like you shouldn't be all that close to him, then,” you snorted derisively. 

“Not for a lack of trying,” the man dryly replied. 

With a scoff, you stepped forward and wiped your bloody knuckles onto his shirt, leaving a damp trail of darkening crimson. “There’s way too many reasons a person would want me dead,” you whispered, one hand patting his chest. The other trailed down, down, down…

To the high-rise potted plant beside you. You grabbed a fistful of dirt.

“See, he’s not exactly what you’d call a person—”

Before Marc could finish his sentence, you chucked the dirt straight into his face. He inhaled some of the soil and doubled over, pounding on his chest as he coughed it out. With a growl, he frustratedly swiped the remaining flecks of dirt out of his eyes, blearily looking back up. And, to none of his surprise but much of his dismay, you were already gone.

OSLO, NORWAY.

“Why aren’t they dead yet, Marc?” grumbled Khonshu in that grating, gravely tone of his. Even though the God had no eyes, Marc could still feel his stare burning straight through him. 

With a frown, Marc was quick to respond, “Because you haven’t told me why yet.”

“You’ve never needed a reason before—always blindly following my orders,” the bird-skull crooned. “What makes them so different?”

There was a bitter taste to the back of Marc’s throat. What made you so different?

“Because I don’t know if they deserve it, alright?” he retorted, crossing his arms to glare up at the tall figure. “You can’t just expect me to kill everyone who mildly inconveniences you.”

Harrumphing, Khonshu snapped back, “They are naught but an inconvenience—they are a disruption to the very balance of nature. Y/N has taken justice into their own hands, and that is a very dangerous thing for a simple mortal to do.”

Marc cast his gaze away in frustration, pacing back and forth. “But that’s exactly what you make me do.”

“Yes, because you are my avatar,” deadpanned the God. “And Y/N is not. Though, they might as well be because you are being a fool.”

He could feel one of his eyes twitch. There wasn’t ever a conversation Marc could remember where Khonshu didn’t insult him. 

“They’re doing what they think is right,” defended Marc. “They’re not hurting people just for the sake of it.”

“That is not for them to decide!” bellowed the God, which made him step back just a bit. “They have done terrible, unimaginable things in the past—though mistakes some may be—and they will continue to make them. Take a look for yourself.” With that, Khonshu swept his arm out, gesturing to the large bank across the street, large windows giving him a clear view of what was going on inside.

His heart dropped down to his stomach when he saw you. 

You were wearing a mask that covered the entirety of your features, except for your eyes and your mouth. The rest of your body was shrouded with simple, dark clothing, suitable for running. 

And, most notably, you had a gun in your hand, pointing straight at the trembling woman working behind the counter. Your mouth was moving and you gestured with lax, calm movements, despite the explicit terror written across the woman’s face.

Marc’s brow furrowed. Damn it. 

He watched as you snatched the bag of money the woman slowly slid over, and hightailed out of the bank with the gun still gripped tightly in your hand. You ran the opposite way, before disappearing down another block. Glancing over at Khonshu, only to see that he was nowhere in sight, Marc huffed out a sigh and began sprinting after you.

One downside of Oslo was that their buildings weren’t exactly the easiest to climb—which meant that you had to stick to the ground and trust your speed. 

Marc wasn’t as fast as you without his suit, that was for certain. But with his suit—he could glide. 

And so that’s how the white-caped figure dropped straight down in front of you out of seemingly nowhere, which elicited a shriek of surprise from you, nearly dropping the bag out of shock. You had pulled your mask off long ago, shoving it into the knapsack shrugged over your shoulders, along with the gun. 

This clearly wasn’t your first time doing this.

“You,” was what you incredulously breathed out, eyes wide. “You must be obsessed with me or something.”

Not in the mood to play around, Marc growled out, “Why are you doing this? Give the money back. It’s not yours.”

“Who said it was for me?” you countered, upper lip curled in contempt. You tilted your head at him, eyeing his suit with interest, before returning back to your scathing disposition. “Not that it’s any of your business, but this money’s for the small orphanage a couple miles from here. They’re barely getting by with the money the government gives them. I have a kid there I know.”

With bated breath, Marc willed the suit away, leaving him in a dark sweatshirt and a pair of woolen pants. He eyed you suspiciously, still not too sure if he should trust you.

Sensing this, you rolled your eyes and unzipped your bag. “If you don’t believe me—check my gun. It’s blank.” You fished out the small weapon and handed it over to him with the end pointed towards you so he wouldn’t think you were going to shoot him. “No bullets.”

Marc didn’t need to check it—by now he knew you were telling the truth. But he looked into the chamber anyway, finding it void of any ammunition. 

“Can I go now? We both know you’re not going to kill me. The cops will be looking,” you said, voice a bit more gentle than before. He noticed that the anger on your face had melted away, leaving only urgency and another tumultuous emotion that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

When he offered you no response, finally relenting, you nodded once to him, a glimmer of gratitude behind your irises. And with that, you began running again, effortlessly disappearing into the shadows.

“Fool,” thundered a rumbling growl from somewhere above him. Marc looked up, but the bird-skulled God was nowhere to be found.

COLUMBUS, OHIO.

Damn. Nothing hit harder than classic, greasy, American cheeseburgers with a side of curly fries and a milkshake. You shifted eagerly on the sticky red leather of the booths, shooting the waitress who’d handed you your food a flirtatious smirk and a ten dollar bill, which she took with an equally salacious wink.

You grinned down at your food before taking the first bite into the burger, a muffled noise of content falling from your throat.

“Am I interrupting something?” said a frustratingly familiar voice, the man sliding into the seat across from you. “It sounds like you were just about to have the greatest sex of your life—with a cheeseburger.”

You pointedly glared at him, though it lacked any true heat. After about a dozen deliberately slow chews, you finally swallowed down the food. Marc looked like he wanted to say something else, but you merely held up a finger, slurping on the paper straw of your milkshake. He pursed his lips with a mildly aggrieved look.

Finally, you tilted your head at him. 

“Is there something you want from me?” you asked him casually, reaching to the end of the table to grab a napkin and wipe at the corner of your lips. “Because I’m not in the drug business anymore, if that’s what you’re looking for. Or is it something else, hm?”

It seemed that Marc hadn’t completely thought this through. Sure, he’d planned out what he roughly wanted to say to you, but now that you were right in front of him, he found his tongue running dry. He fumbled for words, fists clenching and unclenching by his knees. 

“I don’t want to kill you. Or hurt you at all, for that matter.”

You scoffed, remembering the instances in which he’d hurt you plenty.

“I just… I want to know your side of the story. I want to know why you do what you do,” he said, a bit quieter. 

For a moment, Marc thought you’d just tell him to piss off. But there was a gradual shift to your features, going from obvious irritation to gentle curiosity. 

“Alright. I’ll cut you a deal,” you said, popping a curly fry into your mouth. “I tell you about my tragic backstory, and you tell me all about this… thing that’s been wanting to kill me. And before I start—I’m gonna need your name. I can’t keep mentally cataloging you as the toilet paper man.”

And for the first time since you met him all those months ago—Marc laughed. It was deep and gratingly genuine, coming from the very bottom of his chest.

“Well, first of all, it’s not toilet paper. It’s the ceremonial armor of Khonshu’s temple. And second, it’s Marc. Marc Spector.”

“Ceremonial armor of whose what now?” you balked. 

A hint of a smile graced the corner of Marc’s lips. “Khonshu—Egyptian God of the moon. I’m his avatar. He’s the one that wanted me to kill you. He called you a disruption to nature—said that you were wrongfully taking justice into your own hands.” As he spoke, the smile began to wane away, and he regarded you in a more serious light. “I want to know why he thinks that.”

You stared down at your plate of fries, stunned. An Egyptian God wanted you dead? You knew you pissed people off, but Gods too?

“And if you don’t like what you hear?” you quietly asked, lifting your gaze to meet his. “Will you drag me out of the diner and strangle me to death?”

Though you could tell he didn’t like saying it, Marc’s face was set in stone when he leveled with you. “I’ll give you a head’s start.”

Another beat of silence. You picked up another fry and popped it into your mouth. The plate slid across the table as you nudged it towards him. 

“Alright, Marc. Settle in, have some fries, order a milkshake—it’s a long story.”

And you told him everything. You told him about your childhood—rumbling stomachs, nimble thieving hands, falling off of buildings when running away from cops. You told him about your teenage years—pulling off heists, brokering deals with gangs, breaking nearly every bone in your body being reckless. You told him about your early adult years—falling in love with Elena, getting more comfortable as a vigilante, as you liked to call yourself, meeting other superheroes and helping out on occasion. Marc seemed to recognize Spider-Man and Daredevil’s names when you mentioned them in passing, his eyebrows arching up closer to his hairline. 

You told him that you now spend your days traveling around the globe helping people. 

By the time you were done spilling your entire life story, your fries and burger were cleanly polished off. 

Marc was silent for a long time, as if unsure what to say. 

“I was in love once, too,” he said in a tentative manner, gaze trained on the table. “Her name was Layla.”

“Oh, yeah?” you curiously said, sipping on the last frothy remnants of your milkshake at the bottom of the glass. “And how’d that work out for you?”

There was a sad glint to his eyes. “Not so good. We’re divorced now.” He cleared his throat before you could press him about it. “What happened with you and Elena?”

It was now your turn to stare out the window in a despondent manner. “Same as you. Except we were never married. My lifestyle was… too much for her.”

Marc nodded in understanding. “Yeah, me too.”

The two of you stared at the glossy table in silence.

“You still in love with her?”

You lifted your gaze to meet his. “I love her, yeah—I always will. I’m just not in love with her anymore.”

The man across from you hummed. There was a newfound understanding between you two—unspoken, but the both of you could feel it. 

“Do you still love Layla?”

A ghost of a smile graced his features, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. “Not in the same way I used to. But I do.”

With a final slurp of your straw, your drink glass was emptied. “Seems like we’re a lot more similar than first meets the eye, huh?” 

Marc fixed you with a loose, awkward smile. Without another word, he pulled the bill of his cap lower down his face, and slid out of the booth. It seemed that he wasn’t going to be strangling you tonight. 

You didn’t look back when he walked out of the diner, the bell hooked by the doortop tolling with his departure.

YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA.

The bird skull was saying something. His bony beak was moving. You could feel the vibrations of his thundering voice beneath your feet. And yet—you had no fucking clue what he was talking about.

You blinked up at the God with wide eyes. 

“Could you repeat that?” you winced out, having not picked up a single word Khonshu had said in the past three minutes. The God grumbled, and somehow glared at you despite having no eyes within his bony skull. Beside you, Marc let out a muffled snort.

“You insolent buffoon,” the bony figure snarled. “Have you not been listening?”

Despite the bristling God in front of you, you found the entire situation to be amusing. “Sorry, it’s just… your head’s really big. It’s kinda distracting. Just paraphrase yourself—I don’t need all the terms and conditions.”

Marc’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, but he immediately sobered up when Khonshu rounded his pointed beak to him, back straightening. 

“This is a gravely serious matter—!”

“You know what else is serious?” you snapped, pulling your thick woolen coat closer to your quivering body. “Catching hypothermia! Did you really have to pick Russia of all places? We couldn’t have met on a warm beach in the Caribbeans, or something?”

If Khonshu had eyelids, you were sure they would’ve been twitching with repressed agitation by now.

A deep baritone of a sigh fell from the lanky God. He leaned his weight against his crescent-tipped staff, as if willing his own patience to hold steadfast. 

“I said—” he started again, watching you cautiously, “—that I will be letting go of your past sins. But only because my avatar is so keen on you, and because you show a consistent effort to rid the world of evil. However, if you slip up so much as once, I will personally see that to an unkind descent into the afterlife. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal!” you harrumphed, tucking your frigid nose into the collar of your fur coat. “And I did those things to people who deserved it—which is exactly the same as what you do, you bony hypocrite! Can we go inside now?”

The God grumbled something unintelligible, though you suspected it had something to do with your impertinence, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“You’ll get used to him,” assured Marc, placing a hand on your back to lead you back inside. “He doesn’t get any better but—you’ll get used to it.”

“That’s reassuring,” you dryly responded, teeth beginning to chatter. As soon as the two of you started to walk back to the small little city hotel, you elbowed his side with a playful grin. “So… you’re keen on me, huh?”

Marc gave you an unimpressed look. Snowflakes danced with the wind and landed in his neatly-combed curls. “Khonshu had to believe that I liked you—the last thing he’d want is a sloppy, grieving avatar.”

“Mmh, I don’t know…” you said, tapping your finger against your chin in thought. “He’d probably like that, considering he’s one manipulative son of a bitch. Maybe he just secretly likes me and wants to keep me around.”

“Yeah,” snorted Marc. He halted in his tracks, forcing down a smile. “That, or I blackmailed him.”

Your eyes widened, frost clinging to your lashes and brows. “You blackmailed an Egyptian God?”

“Let’s just say that he’s had a sticky romance with the Egyptian Goddess of love—ironically, she’s one of the few beings that he’s genuinely terrified of. I threatened to get in contact with her avatar if he didn’t absolve you.”

You kicked at a small build-up of snow by the sidewalk, an excited gleam to your irises. “Crazy how even the Gods have petty dating drama to gossip about,” you commented, turning to him. His nose was tinted a faint shade of red from the cold, bits of white frost freckling his hair and his clothes. “Thanks for not killing me, by the way,” you added as an afterthought, fixing him with a warm smile. 

“Just keep out of trouble,” he gently reminded, mirroring your soft grin. The two of you were now standing in front of your dingy little motel—and Marc apparently had something to attend to halfway across the world in Cuba. 

So this was goodbye. 

For now, at least.

Without thinking, you leaned forward to press your cold lips against the warmth of his cheek, the tip of your nose grazing his cheekbone as you laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“Thanks,” you whispered when you pulled away slightly, breath misting into an opaque fog. Marc was regarding you with an expression that bordered on fondness, which was certainly a new look that you found yourself craving for more. “I haven’t really properly talked to anybody in ages so… this was nice. Goodbye, Marc.”

With that, you turned on your heel and headed into the hotel, grateful for the blast of warmth from the overhead heater, though you could still feel Marc’s burning stare bore holes into your back, even as you turned the corner and disappeared from his sight.

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA.

Blood, everywhere.

Gunshots in the distance.

Snarling men rounding the corner—human traffickers.

Your dagger glinting beneath the hot Ethiopian sun.

A man screaming as you sliced his throat. 

Gurgling.

Red on your hands. On your clothes. On your shoes. 

Two successive punches—one to your stomach, and the other to your face.

Pain blooming beneath your skin.

A fist around your throat.

Squeezing. 

Choking.

Dark spots dancing about your vision.

Your nails clawing into their eyes. 

Air.

Gasping for breath. 

Wheezing.

You desperately parried away another assailant’s knife.

A song of steel against steel.

More gunshots flying every which way.

You dove behind large metal crates. 

Sand in your shoes.

Copper on your tongue.

Crashing. Yelling. Cursing.

Your fingers flexing around the hilt of your dagger.

Bated breath.

You looked around the crate.

Marc fucking Spector.

A ghost of a smile on your lips.

Your name being called out—surprise in his tone.

“Fancy seeing you here!” you shouted.

Marc’s fist curled into one of the traffickers’ collars.

“It’s been a while!” came his mildly amused reply.

A grunt. A punch. A groan of pain.

His white cape fluttered with the wind. 

“You down for a burger or something later?”

You spoke calmly, as if you weren’t currently strangling someone with a long power cord. 

The man fell limp in your hold. 

“Sure—I could go for a burger,” he called out, 

Blood trickled down your nose and grazed your lip. 

You wiped it away with the back of your hand.

The last of the traffickers was struck down with Marc’s crescent boomerang. 

A breath of relief. 

Drenched in blood (most of which was not yours), you made your way to Marc.

“You clean up nice,” he joked.

A roll of your eyes.

“Oh, shucks, Marc,” you simpered with a mischievous grin, dragging a bloody hand down his face once he retracted his mask. 

He grimaced in disgust, but didn’t push you away. 

A laugh fell from your throat, hoarse and echoing.

You looped your aching, bleeding arms with his. 

“Let’s go get that burger.”

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND.

“Ow—ugh, Marc, could you go any faster?” you barked through the dirty cloth wedged between your teeth, glaring up at him with watering eyes. You’d endured pain far worse than this, sure, but Marc was taking twice as long stitching you up than when you’d do it yourself. Though, admittedly, whenever you had to patch yourself up, it was a rather shoddy job and often left a much larger, gnarled scar than it would’ve, had you properly taken care of it. 

The man above you shook his head, dark curls hanging loosely over his forehead. “Stop moving and maybe it’ll hurt less,” he replied, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he worked on your stitches. “You know, just because we work together now and I heal quickly doesn’t mean you do, too.”

With a grimace, you tore the cloth from your mouth, chucking it somewhere across the small motel room to freely speak to him. “It was just a mistake,” you replied, nearly doubling over with a strained groan when he punctured the skin of your abdomen with a small needle, where the deep gash resided, one last time. “I timed myself wrong. Happens sometimes.”

Marc let his eyes roam over your exposed skin, brows divoting ever so slightly upon seeing the multiple other scars littering your body. They were memories of your past, and you weren’t ashamed of them. 

“Doesn’t look like it only happens sometimes,” he murmured, tying off his sutures and cleaning off the last bits of flaking, dried blood on your stomach before binding the open wound with thin bandages. 

“You worried about me?”

Marc didn’t spare you a response. He busied himself by putting away the medkit and tossing the discarded, bloodied clothes into the bathroom sink. When he came back to sit on the bed beside you, you had gingerly moved positions so that you were propped up against the creaking bed’s headboard. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” you whispered. “England fucking stinks.”

Marc chuckled, a small smile curling his lips upwards, though you noticed that it didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

The two of you sat in silence for a while. 

“Thanks for stitching me up,” you told him.

“Thanks for not dying on me,” he replied. His hand sought yours and your fingers laced with his. “I know we’ve only been working together for a month by now, but I’m starting to really like you.”

With one last painful shift, you moved so that your faces were only inches away. You paused when your lips were just a hairsbreadth from his, giving him time to yank you away if need be. 

But he didn’t. 

His lips met yours with a tender sort of sadness, pouring months of frustration and anger into the embrace. A warm hand came up to cradle the back of your head, angling you closer, wary of your newly-stitched wound. 

Forehead resting against his, you gently pulled away, finding solace in the fact that he chased after your lips just a bit, before cracking his dark eyes open. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” he mumbled, gaze darting back down to your parted mouth. 

“Okay,” came your broken reply.

And despite it all, he threw all caution to the wind and kissed you again. Again, and again, and again—far into the night, until the two of you passed out on the stained sheets of the motel bed, limbs intertwined and your nose pressed against his throat, where you could hear the soft thrumming of his heartbeat. 

Unbeknownst to the two of you, Khonshu was hovering on the rooftop, finding himself rather glad that his avatar had finally found someone he could trust—even if that someone was the very bane of his existence. 

“I need a new avatar,” the God harrumphed to nobody but himself, knowing full and well that he wasn’t letting go of Marc Spector and his… counterparts any time soon. 

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 20, 2023

🌱 - Okra to the Rescue and Other News You Can't 'Lettuce' Miss This Week

1. 4 day work week being pushed in Congress

Progressive Democrats, led by Rep. Mark Takano of California, are pushing for a four-day workweek to give Americans more time for leisure outside of work. The proposed Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to require overtime pay for any employee working more than 32 hours in a week at a rate of time and a half.

More than 70 British companies have started to test a four-day workweek, and halfway through the six-month trial, most respondents reported there has been no loss in productivity.

2. Governor Walz signs universal school meals bill into Minnesota law

Minnesota just became the fourth state in the US to provide breakfasts and lunches at no charge to students at participating schools! The bill was signed into law by Governor Tim Walz on Friday, and it's set to ease the burden on parents who struggle to provide meals for their children.

The new legislation will cover the cost of meals for all students, regardless of household income. This means that families who don't qualify for free and reduced meals but who struggle to pay for food will also be covered. The bill is also meant to prevent "lunch shaming" practices, where children are denied food or given substitutes that indicate their family is struggling financially.

3. Texas Researchers Use Okra to Remove Microplastics from Wastewater

Researchers from Tarleton State University in Fort Worth, Texas discovered that food-grade plant extracts from okra have the power to remove microplastics from wastewater. Polysaccharide extracts from plants like fenugreek, cactus, aloe vera, tamarind, and okra were found to be effective non-toxic flocculant alternatives to remove microplastics from water.

Polysaccharides from okra and fenugreek were best for removing microplastics from ocean water, while a combination of okra and tamarind worked best for freshwater. Furthermore, plant-based flocculants can be easily implemented in existing water treatment facilities.

4. In the northern California snow, stranded cows are getting emergency hay drops

The recent wave of unprecedented snowfall in California has left cattle stranded and starving. When rancher Robert Puga ran out of hay, neighboring Humboldt County officials put together an emergency rescue operation called "Operation Hay Drop." State, federal, and local officials airdropped stranded cattle bales of hay to feed them.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal went to the Coast Guard with the idea of a helicopter rescue, and by midday Sunday, March 5, Operation Hay Drop was underway. So far, Operation Hay Drop has been a success, said rancher Puga. The mission covers about 2,500 head of cattle over several miles.

5. Make-A-Wish Foundation no longer considers Cystic Fibrosis to be automatically qualifying due to improvements in life outcomes for patients

Given the ongoing life-changing advances in cystic fibrosis, beginning in January 2024, cystic fibrosis will no longer automatically qualify for a wish.

6. 1st woman given stem cell transplant to cure HIV is still virus-free 5 years later

In 2017, a woman known as the "New York patient" underwent a stem cell transplant to treat both her cancer and HIV. Now, about 30 months later, she has been virus-free and off her HIV medication, leading some researchers to suggest that she may have been cured of HIV.

The New York patient, received stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood that also had the HIV-resistance genes. However, it's important to note that there is no official distinction between being cured and being in long-term remission, and the medical team is waiting for longer-term follow-up before making any definitive statements.

7. Cheetahs Back in Wild in India After Seven Decades

Namibian cheetahs have been successfully reintroduced to India after the world's fastest land animal was declared extinct in the South Asian country more than 70 years ago. Two cheetahs, Obaan and Asha, were released into the wild of Kuno National Park after being brought to India last September.

The species is being reintroduced on an experimental basis as part of a major prestige project for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India aims to bring in about 100 of the big cats over the next decade. The African cheetah is a different subspecies from the extinct Asiatic cheetah, which once roamed the sub-continent in great numbers.

Lastly, I recently opened a Youtube channel. Subscribe for a weekly compilation of feel good videos.

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