#for now i live on moonlight chicken scraps | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

practically-an-x-man · 11 months ago

Note

By the time night falls, they're still in Summerville. It was longer than they originally planned to stay, but the moonlight-charged stones already appeared to be working their magic - with the was pendant secure around Ahk's throat, he claimed to feel just as well and lively as any full moon back at the museum. Katherine, too, had seen no ill effects from him even after hours away from his tablet.

That alone was proof that the stones worked - whatever the pendant was made out of, it seemed to be charging Katherine's magic beyond its usual limits. The last time they'd visited Summerville, her enchanted bracelet had lasted a few hours before Ahk started feeling achey and fatigued - the first signs that they were due back at the mansion before worse things set in. But here, now, twice as long away, he was still the pinnacle of health.

"Sun's down. Ready to test out part two?" Katherine asked, standing just inside the doorway to Rose's room. She'd have wanted to do this outside, with a bit more space to work with (and lesser chance of destroying something valuable if things went awry), but with Rose still bedridden she'd moved her experiment here instead. It was her gift, after all, she deserved to see what became of it.

"Ready." Rose agreed, a faint grin crossing her face in anticipation. Abi shared a similar grin, perched in her armchair with a look of excitement. There wasn't enough space in the room for the gentleman, though Katherine was sure they were having just as much excitement in trying to keep the twins entertained.

Katherine took a deep breath and lifted her hands. Normally, she kept her magic use to a minimum, especially so far from the tablet, but she could feel the cat-shaped pendant at her throat buzzing with moonlight.

Gold light arced down her arms, flooding the room with a warm glow the color of the sunrise. It brought with it a feeling of warmth and security, a vaguely nostalgic feeling like sitting down with a cup of tea and a bedtime story. At the other end of the house, Rowan and Willow yawned almost in unison.

From the bed, Mefkat and Fidget suddenly sat bolt-upright, looking almost statuesque as they stared at a space in the center of the room. Gold light drifted in ribbons from Katherine's hands and coalesced there in a vaguely humanoid shape.

Her hands were beginning to tremble. Even charged as she was, both from the necklace and Summerville's ambient magic, she was attempting something wildly ambitious here.

The sensation of comfort intensified, and images flashed through Katherine's mind: baking cookies with her grandmother, sharing a barbecue with her neighbors, easing a stray cat out from under her porch with a scrap of chicken. In the center of the room, the figure solidified in a spray of sand.

Katherine fell against the doorway as the gold light faded, her energy spent. Another time, she thought, Abi would've reached to help her, but both women were distracted by the figure in the center of the room. Thin and lithe, dark skin spattered with the same patches of lightness as Katherine herself, with arched brows and sharp, catlike eyes.

"It's been a long time since my feet have found such solid ground..." the goddess mumbled, gazing fondly at the room around her. She smiled as she found Fidget and Mefkat at the end of the bed, and reached to scratch both cats behind the ears. They purred so loudly the whole bed seemed to rumble. "Thank you for doing such good work, my darlings."

"You're..." Rose started, but seemed to lose the rest of her words. Bastet bobbed her head once, a fittingly catlike gesture.

"Thank you for inviting me." she said, her voice a low and gentle purr, "May I meet the children?"

It takes Kat a moment to realize Misty is looking at her patiently, primly, with an awkwardly braided ribbon around their neck with a note attached. An inspection of the note will show a scribbly crayon drawing of a black cat and a white cat snuggled together with suspiciously blue magical hearts and stars surrounding them. It says TO KAT in careful but haphazard all caps, in crayon, FROM WILLOW

"Aww, look at this," Katherine said, holding out the letter to Ahk, "Looks like Rose has a little artist."

He came up to her side in an instant, lacing one arm around her waist as he took the note with his other hand. A faint smile grew on his face as he looked it over.

"That's our Mefkat and their Fidget?" he guessed, "With... an awful lot of filigree."

"C'mon, she's a toddler. That's how toddlers draw. I'm sure you made little doodles like this when you were a kid."

"Hm. I was more fond of terrorizing our cats, I think," Ahk responded, shooting her a brief and amused grin as he spoke. Katherine snorted.

"Let's be grateful Willow doesn't feel the same. I'm not sure that one would turn out very well, pulling the tails of two magically-inclined animals."

"I'm sure Mefkat would be very patient with her."

Katherine shot him a look.

"Have you met these gods?"

"Can't say I've had the pleasure," he shot back as he bared her a wide, teasing grin. Katherine bit her cheek to hold back her laughter, though she couldn't help leaning faintly into his side.

Ahk looked over the note once more, tilting his head at the little drawing.

"Do you think we should send something back?" he asked.

"We should..." Katherine agreed, honey-colored eyes flicking back and forth across the drawing. After a moment she snorted, shaking her head, "I have the worst idea right now."

"Hm?"

"Sending a drawing back. Like a kid drew it," she said, biting back a swell of mischievous laughter, "I mean, she'd freak. Her mom-instincts would kick in so hard, I swear."

"My dear..."

"C'mon, it's not like she'd really believe it! Not for any longer than a moment or two, at least," Katherine argued, "I mean, we're both young, you know I'm ace, and you're technically dead half the time- it's not like we're becoming parents any time soon."

Ahk was silent, looking at the letter with a strangely intense expression on his face. Katherine frowned.

"Okay, so... maybe it's not as funny as it was in my head," she said, shifting on her feet a little, "We can just send her a 'congrats' instead."

"You know that I would do my best, Katherine," Ahk mumbled, seemingly out of the blue. Kat opened her mouth to respond, to ask for clarification, but his eyes darted up to hers and he spoke again, more intently, "If something were to... to happen. Even if it wasn't mine by blood. I would raise your child as my own, as well as I could in my situation. I hope you do know that."

"Well, I- I know. But nothing's going to happen, nothing can happen."

"I'm sure," Ahk agreed, "But... just in case. If something happens, even if Bastet decides she'd like another heir and works some strange magic on you, I'll always be here. Perhaps not entirely prepared, but... here."

"Bastet is not going to be turning me into the Virgin Mary," Katherine huffed, half-amused and half... a little frightened at the thought, "But thank you."

Katherine turned her thoughts inwards, directing them at the desert and the shimmering veil that lay just beyond the confines of her mind.

That wasn't an invitation, by the way, she thought, the words echoing in dual languages in her mind. She felt the presence of the goddess slink in on gentle paws, could almost see bright amber eyes watching over her.

I did not take it as such, Bastet replied in the same canary-song, Though I will ask Mefkat to deliver your response with care.

The following afternoon, the cat returns to Summerville, carrying a small basket with odd focus and strength. Inside can be found a short note of congratulations, alongside a few plush toys... and a lot of coffee.

12 notes · View notes

readyplayerhann · 4 years ago

Text

King of the World.

Starring... Bang Chan & Y/N Y/L/N

Mentions... other Stray Kids

Warnings: threats of violence, prostitution, and death. explicit language

Universe: mafia!bang chan, gang!bang chan, mob!bang chan

Word Count: 1.5 K

Last week, you stole from gangster Bang Chan unknowingly. This week, he has came to your house twice, this time coming with a favor to ask.

...

"Hello, princess." Chan's voice greeted you as soon as you stepped into your dimly lit home. You remembered that you turned off your lights before going to work so the sight of the lights when you pulled up to your house in your beat up car caused dread to flood your system, stilling the movements of your body.

You could've driven away, chosen to postpone the inevitable, avoid Chan, but you knew the man would just chase after you. Whatever patient feelings he had toward you vanishing and leaving him with a bitter taste in his mouth and a finger on the trigger. You wanted to avoid trigger happy Bang.

You don't say anything for a few moments, just shrugging your bag off, your jacket following suit. As you moved, your brain restricted most of your body's motion, moving slowly during your tasks. You could sense the heat of the gang banger's gaze on your back, but you take your time trying to collect yourself, not wanting him to see you sweat. That decision could prove faulty if the intruder in your outside became impatient. Still, you slowed yourself as you took off the over-garment.

"What? You're not going to greet me?" He taunted in a raspy deep-tone. You caught rustling over your shoulder as he moved him his seat in your dining room. The chair scrapped across the hardwood of your floor as he shoved the seat into place. You cringed at the sound before tensing up against your command as he sauntered closer.

"And you said I'm the one who doesn't have manners." He goaded before a light scoff drawled from his mouth, his body coming to invade your space from behind. Your body locked immediately, your heart rattling away in your chest as he helped you escape the confines of your jacket. He handed the fabric with such care that the juxtaposition of that and him being a harden criminal you knew him to be was apparent. Rugged, scarred fingers grazed your arm, slowly, gently before stopping on your upper arms before dropping to his side. You straightened, back becoming stiff which only pressed you closer to Chan.

If Chan noticed your reaction he doesn't say anything, he just pulled away taking your jacket along with him and throwing it on top of your tiny dining table. It grazed the table top before falling uselessly to the floor.

You turned completely towards him, no more hiding yourself away.

"Minho," His voice was stern as he spoke to the man unknown to you. You hadn't even noticed him when you walked in. He turned to the other man standing in the corner, silently, his face a mask devoid of any emotions, his eyes black and soulless, "Go take a walk. I want to talk to princess alone for a second."

The man made a grunt of agreement, his dark eyes trailing over your frame as he walked pass you. He flashed you a quick smile, a bloodied and cunning one if you had to describe it. It's only true purpose was to draw out the fear within it's desired victim and it worked, dragging the dead corpse that was once your carefully hidden fear out for them both to see. You breathe caught in your throat and you have to fight to breath again.

The male closest to you leaned forward again, allowing his lips to press against the shell of your ear. You wanted to pull back knowing it was futile, but you tried anyways but Chan caged you in against a nearby counter with his face so close, his breath ghosting over your lips.

Chan had a naturally kind face, soft eyes that might've held the world if he wasn't burned by it and a gentle smile if he allowed himself to do so. The dimples of his cheeks sat there like the perfect imperfection they were. If you both were in a different situation, where you didn't owe him money and he wasn't willing to kill you to get it back, you might've been into his advances. Or, rather his close proximity.

You turned away, thinking your eyes lingered too long on the face of the home invader.

"Look at me." Chan ordered, one his hands coming to grasp at your jaw to force you to meet his eyes. His hands are rough as he forced you to look at him and you jostled in his touch. His eyes pierce yours as you're made to take him in. Twinges of anger swirl in his dark brown, almost black eyes in the night and you shivered at the reach it has on your body.

Even with your head positioned to look at him, your eyes bounced everywhere except for the man before you. Upon your avoidance of the man, you noticed the money stacked high over your table, the one with the fallen jacket beside it. The money that you stole. He had found it or what was left of it. You wouldn't expect anything less from someone who had broken into your house twice.

"Oh," He grinned, following your line of sight to catch a glimpse of the paper bills stacked neatly, "You see the money? You see I counted it, but it's a little short. Like a hundred grand short." Chan turned back to you, dropping his hand from your face and returning to cage you in, "Have you figured out how you're going to get my money back, princess?"

"I-I-" It's the first time you try to speak and you realize immediately how fucking dry your throat his. Chan's lips twitched slightly at your hesitance and offered a mockingly encouraging brow, "I'm t-taking extra shifts at work. I'll get you your money, I just need time."

"Something tells me it'll be a while before you get that hundred grand from your job." He remarked, pulling away from you and walking towards the dining table. He took in your dingy, broken down, one story home, a note of distaste in his eyes as he inspected the place. It was rugged, yes, but it was one of the only places you could afford that was decently away from major crime hot spots. Turns out that didn't matter because crime fucking showed up anyways.

The absence of his presence allowed you to breathe for a moment, before a glint of metal on Chan's hip caught your eyes.

"You know," Chan drawled quietly, taking his seat at the head of the table like he was the king of the world. He flicked his eyes in your direction as he reached for his hip, revealing a gun dipped in sterling silver and your heart dropped to your stomach, "I usually don't do house calls. I would normally leave that for to the others. Minho for example should've been the one to visit you and your partners maybe along with Hyunjin or Changbin, but when I heard it was a single person who stole half a million bucks from me, I just had to see the fucker who was confident enough - no stupid enough to steal from me."

"Imagine my surprise when I'm told a suburban rat with no priors was bold enough to take from me."

"I needed the money." It was all you can say. It's the truth, but it didn't mean jack shit to the man in front of you. Chan's face remained unimpressed, plump lips thinning into a line as he regarded you.

"Desperation is a funny thing, princess. It can be in response to many events. Heartbreak, finical standing, the need to succeed but the result is always the same. Selling yourself. Whether that be your mind, body or soul. Something has to be exchanged for your errors to right themselves." Chan took his eyes away from you for a moment, brown eyes dragging across the paper in front of him, "Now which one are you willing to sell?" His brow was peaked again, no longer taunting, just plain questioning. It still managed to raise a bit of stress within you.

You spluttered, lips closing and opening as you try to gauge his question with a heavy heart. Your eyebrows furrowed as you stare back at the man eyeing you.

"Y'know, some are lucky enough to end up dead from the their desperate attempts to salvage their lives. Others in prisons and a few manage to come out unscathed only to realizing the mirror will remind them of the scars of their past. But you?" He left out a harsh laugh, dark eyes shining, in the pale moonlight seeping in, embracing your shivering body, "You got the worst fate of all. You're indebted to me."

Chan moved to his feet, swiftly gathering himself and calling for Minho. He stepped forward and you take a step back. His lips curled into a pleasantly cunning smirk at your frighten features.

"There's a shipment coming in at the doc five, downtown. I need you to be there at eleven pm to pick it up and drop it off as this location." He pulled a card with his chicken scratch on it and slide it in front of your face, giving your eyes a break from staring at the hauntingly handsome man in front of you.

Chan shoved the card into your hand, impatient as you just stared at him in disbelief. He turned to leave.

He paused to call your name, "And Y/N?"

"Y-yes?"

"You die the moment you're late. Don't disappointment me , princess."

#stray kids #stray kids angst #stray kids au #bang chan #bang chan au #kpop #kpop au

38 notes · View notes

schnees-and-schnugs · 4 years ago

Text

I’m going to create a canon divergence that is so self indulgent- *insert willow-whitley and kitty AU*

This is a concept I want to write in multiple short parts until I get bored and wear it out- so consider this just a pt. 1

I also wrote this with these last few fics in mind, so you can think of this as a continuation of those. Or not. But a lot of the same themes do apply.

This is probably going to be first fic that I don’t write in one/two sittings but my classes are a pain in the ass ;_;

tw: eating disorder, alcoholism

_______________________________________________________________

“I want a cat.”

Willow blinked. “What?”

Her son fidgeted nervously on his feet. “A cat. I want to adopt a cat.”

Well this is a... surprise.

Despite her and Whitley having lived on their own in Patch for a few months, he’s hardly spoken a world to her since the fall of Atlas. Or spoken a word to anyone, really. She put it up to the radically new environment, and well, the fact that Atlas is gone, the SDC is in shambles, and Jacques had been MIA (probably dead) since the fall. Winter and Weiss had insisted that Willow and Whitley settle down somewhere quiet and safe, and the islands off the coast of Vale weren’t exactly next on Salem’s attack checklist.

It was two of Weiss’ teammates who suggested they head to Patch, even offering to let their father know about their arrival. Willow had gently denied the kind offer, saying that Tai Xiao Long didn’t need to bother with them. They’ll be fine. She pretending not to notice the look on all their faces: a depressed alcoholic and her previously isolated, emotionally traumatized son? Fine on their own?

She had then turned around, gathered Whitley (who was sitting on the bench behind her, ignoring attempts made by a few of Weiss’ companions to cheer him up even a little), and bought tickets for the next ship going from Vacuo to Vale.

Yet when the ship docked on the shore of the island, there stood a blonde, muscular man with a sign that read: Willow and Whitley Schnee, Welcome! in sharpie. He must have saw the confusion (and honestly a little fear) on her face from his standpoint on the harbor because he had quickly flipped the sign over and scribbled on it before holding it up again. My name is Tai Xiao Long. Yang and Ruby’s Father.

It seems that Weiss’ friends didn’t listen to me.

Nevertheless, Willow had breathed a sigh of relief. She had quite a few run ins with people on the journey east who recognized her and/or Whitley. The interactions have ranged from stares that were a little too long to pure hostility. It also didn’t help that some people thought it was okay to just grab any well known person they see- she almost broke a man’s arm after he had suddenly seized Whitley’s wrist and jerked him around. He’d probably be dead if Winter and Weiss were there, but Willow had settled on ripping the mans arm away with a glyph and dragging Whitley off quickly.

And now here they are, three months later and Willow was drinking a can of soda while enjoying the afternoon breeze on the front porch of their little cabin when Whitley approached her.

“A cat. I want to adopt a cat.”

She looked up at her son’s face and saw a familiar look of apprehension that everyone in their family had when faced with the prospect of having to ask for anything. Of course, before it usually involved asking Jacques, or begging more so. Willow had to approach this carefully or else Whitley is just going to recede back into his shell and not speak a word for another three months.

“Well... we can ask Mr. Xiao Long about it. He surely would know about any animal shelters around here.”

He scrunched up his nose, a face that she knew in Whitley Terms meant yeah okay... but I’m not happy about it.

Willow knew better than to suspect that Whitley disliked Mr. Xiao Long specifically. He avoided everyone these days- friendly neighbors, SDC businessmen, etc. Tai had made sure they were comfortable every step of the way. He had shown them around, introduced them to soon-to-be friends, brought them into his home for meals until Willow figured out her way around a kitchen, even invited Whitley to study at Signal Academy. He refused, but Willow appreciated the offer. And she knew Whitley appreciated it too, but he’s having a hard enough time coming to terms with Willow’s protectiveness of him, much less accept the fact that a stranger may also care slightly about him.

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Willow couldn’t help but to smile at his childish apprehension. She relished any show of adolescence in her son these days. After years of walking on eggshells and maintaining a facade just short of perfection, he needed to clumsily blunder around like any young teenager would do.

Whitley tugged at his long red sleeves. “There’s a stray kitten that comes around here at night...”

“You have that one in mind?”

He nodded. “I always hear it meowing outside my window. I want to try to bring it inside- I leave scraps outside my window but it always disappears by the time the sun rises. Maybe if I could get it to come to the porch... In Atlas, they said in the animal shelter that it takes a few weeks to socialize a kitten.”

He started at her expectantly. Willow had forgotten that Whitley would occasionally volunteer at one of the few animal shelters in Atlas. Jacques only allowed him to go just so he could milk all the PR he could out of it, obviously. But to this day, she had never actually heard Whitley speak about it unprompted. It must have been something he genuinely liked if he was so quiet about it. He knew full well that any hobby that he actually outwardly enjoyed was the first on Jacques’ chopping block if Whitley ever slipped up.

Willow stood up on the porch steps and faced her son. “Very well then. Tonight we’ll leave food out on the front porch and watch to see if it comes by.”

Whitley’s face brightened for the first time in months. “Really?”

“Mmhm.” She hummed. “Hopefully soon enough the kitten will like us and come inside...”

Willow’s chest ached at the overwhelming surprise on his face. Asking Jacques for anything always came with a catch, a quid pro quo. Looking back, Willow always knew love was a transaction to him. But being young and blinded by the man- she just accepted it as a slight character flaw. Whitley didn’t know anything other than this.

She was going to get him this kitten even if she had to crawl in the shrubbery at midnight looking for it.

For the next few hours he assisted Willow in the kitchen for the first time since they got to Patch. Mostly because he wanted to get the kittens food out as fast as he could, but she wasn’t complaining. She watched as Whitley cut up a cooked chicken breast into bite sized little pieces, his tongue slightly sticking out as he concentrated. She wondered, briefly, if it was safe to allow him to handle a kitchen knife. Willow shook the thought away. He isn’t a child. She wouldn’t insult him by treating him like one. But she still had to be a mother... if it wasn’t too late.

She tried to be as hands off as she could in these last few months while trying to muster what parental authority she could without scaring Whitley away. He was free to spend his time to do whatever he liked just as long as it was safe and he went to bed on time. Eating three solid meals a day was also a requirement, but that was a sensitive issue that Willow didn’t know how to approach with conviction. He has been cooperative for the most part in this aspect- which came as a surprise since Whitley has spent years trying to maintain whatever little control he had over his own life by strictly regulating what went inside his mouth and when. Which often meant very little eating.

Willow didn’t want to name the condition out loud. If she did, then it would become a problem. Then she would have to admit that all of this still wasn’t enough to fix everything. Then she would start wanting a drink-

Maybe everyone was right. Maybe her and Whitley were simply too broken to be able to live on their own.

But they haven’t been living on their own, have they? Mr. Xiao Long still came by a few times a week to “check up on how y’all are adapting”, as he says. More like to make sure I’m not passed out drunk and Whitley hadn’t taken the opportunity to jump off a cliff, Willow thought bitterly.

She still didn’t know how much Weiss and her friends told him - but they must have been pretty honest if he was going to be this concerned. Willow cringed at the thought of how he must see her - a failure of a mother. Not only that, but one who’s too afraid to confront the fact that her son is sick and needs help, but she can’t help because she’s not enough-

“I’m done.”

Willow blinked out of her increasingly chaotic thoughts to see Whitley holding a small bowl of chopped chicken, staring at her expectantly.

Maybe I should stop thinking so much.

“Lets put it out on the front porch then,” Willow grabbed both their plates of spaghetti off the kitchen counter. “We can eat by the window and watch for the kitten.”

Whitley frowned. “Can we keep the front door open? Maybe if it sees us enough times then it will get used to us eventually.”

“Whatever you want darling,” She replied, already on her way to the living room.

And so they sat eating dinner, she on the edge of the couch and he on the floor on front of the open door. They sat in silence, but it was a comfortable one - Whitley watching the outside intently for the kitten and Willow watching him absentmindedly eat. A few minutes turned into an hour and she began to wonder if the kitten was going to show tonight, but a tiny scampering sound brought her and her son back to attention.

The kitten emerged from the shrubbery.

It was beautiful.

It was small, only about a few weeks old. Its pitch black fur made it almost impossible to see without the aid of the moonlight. Its little white socks on its paws and glowing eyes gave it away as it inched slowly towards the now cold bowl of chicken.

Willow held her breath, and she knew Whitley was too. The kitten tentatively ate from the bowl, unaware of the two humans watching it. It seemed about half way through when Whitley, unknowing, leaned forward- causing his now empty plate to slide off his lab and hit the wood floor. The sound wasn’t loud, but in the silence of the night it was like a gunshot.

The kitten’s head snapped up, ears perked in attention. For an almost comical millisecond, the kitten stared at the two of them and they stared back, everyone wide eyed. Then it turned and ran off back where it came, leaving behind nothing but a bowl of half eaten chicken.

Willow braced herself for Whitley’s inevitable disappointment. But instead, when she turned toward him she saw an expression of joy. His eyes are brighter than she had ever seen them, not since he was a child.

“She’s a girl,” He said.

She furrowed her brow. “How do you know that?”

“When she turned around and ran - I saw her backside. I think she’s a girl.”

Willow smiled. “Very well then. One discovery is good enough for tonight.”

Standing up, she reached for both of their used dishes and softly closed the front door shut. “Time for bed.”

Whitley didn’t complain. He headed off the bed while Willow cleaned up the kitchen- a menial task that she never had to do back in atlas. But she found a peace in it. If given the choice, she would take a lifestyle of chores over the decadent one she had before. Ten times out of ten. This felt real.

In the back of her mind, she remembered the chicken left outside. After considering, she decided to leave it out in case the kitten came back. She would make sure that Whitley would have this kitten eventually. It was the least she could do.

#rwby #my fic #willow schnee #whitley schnee #its 2 am and i barely proof read bear with me

56 notes · View notes

fakefeltflowers · 3 years ago

Text

Howdy, I rewrote Sam's back story for something unrelated and though to put it on here. Sam's full name is Sam Orion and they live in a small town known for it's spooky happenings. Also, warning for animal death, namely chickens and cattle.

---

The Orion estate is a patchwork quilt of crops and fields for livestock, passed down from generation to generation, growing like a benign tumor.The estate itself was just about as old as Sarton itself and became a fixture of the community, for better or for worse, and with the estate came the hunters. Back when the estate was little more than a ramshackle hut that leaned at a 45 degree angle, there had been hunters. When Sam was a child, they only had a vague understanding of the family’s history and the rumors. They knew that ‘back in the old days’, whenever that was, their family had been known for being reclusive and cagey. The old family shot at any animal or person that had the gall to come too close to the fence that encloses the scraggly wheat fields or to the miniscule coup. But that was back then, not like that was something that happened now. Then Sam turned 16 and the chickens began to die.

During the dog days of that summer, Sam was supposed to take care of the chickens. As far as anyone could tell, Sam had done a fairly good job, they even managed to raise a few chicks themselves. You could understand why they’d be concerned at the sight of a dead chicken just outside the coup. Fearing the worst, Sam rushed to survey the damage, but instead there was nothing. The remaining chickens were stressed and refused to come out of the coup, but otherwise fine.

Confused, Sam went back to observe the carcass, eyes raking over claw marks and feathers matted with a sticky black substance that burned their eyes. There were bite marks but there wasn’t anything eaten. It wasn’t the kill of an opportunistic predator, it was too sadistic and there was too little eaten. But the other chickens were fine and the carcass was disposed of. Still, Sam couldn’t stop themselves from crying all morning.

“Kiddo, they’re just chickens. We still have eight of them left, just leave it be. I’ll take care of it,” said their father, Arthur. He said to himself that it would just go away on its own, of course he was lying to himself and Sam.

8 chickens became 7, 7 became 5, 5 became 2. The cattle followed suit, one by one their blood mingled with the poisonous black fluids and smeared a trail through the grass leading to the woods that stood on the edge of the estate. It was a mocking trail of bait made specifically for the impatient and the naive Sam. So, they resolved to fix the problem, like they would ‘back in the old days’. Armed with a hunting rifle that had been just a little too big for them, they clambered out of their bedroom window. Following the trail of dead grass to the entry into the Whispering Woods. Then Sam waited, refusing to let the tiredness that weighed their eyelids down over take them. Eyes glazed over, Sam watched the warm wind shake the leaves that obscured their forum. They watched bugs lazily flutter by. They watched the unmoving dark lines of trees. They watched and they watched and they watched-

Sam woke with a start at the sound of snapping twigs. The moon hung high overhead as they scanned the tree line for the source of the sound. Hidden among the towering trees, a shaggy beast with a pale face paced along the forest floor, it’s long body blending in with the tall grass that bordered the treeline. Of course, not that Sam was paying much attention because at that point Sam had fired the rifle in the woods, shattering the nighttime silence. In response the beast galloped into the dark of the night, a taunting laugh echoing behind it. The hunt had begun.

‘How long has it been?’ thought Sam, a thought that had at first started as a dim whisper that only grew louder as Sam’s legs began to protest and thorns had cut through their jeans, staining their calves a rust color. The trees had managed to weave together so that barely any of the moonlight was able to illuminate the forest floor. Sam’s knuckles were white from clutching the rifle, the cold steel of the barrel sapping any residual heat from their body. They realized that they had begun to shiver despite the warmth of the summer air.

‘It’s too dark out here. I shouldn’t even be out here, what was I thinking-’

“Sam?” a voice called out, cutting Sam’s clarity short. Who was that? It almost sounded familiar, but it was hard to make out.

“Sam?” the voice repeated. Sam unconsciously began to follow the voice, it was their father after all. They needed to go home, they were so tired.

“Sam?” the voice called out, even deeper into the woods.

“Sam?!” the voice became panicked, ‘He’s hurt,’ Sam thought as they started running. The voice repeated their name over and over, becoming shrill and panicked, to a certain point it barely sounded like Sam’s father, but at that point it didn’t matter. At that point Sam was too scared to rationalize, too scared to think of anything but home.

“SAM!” the voice called out one last time before it suddenly stopped. Sam found themselves at a clearing with a creek running through it that was otherwise empty. A dawning realization was replaced by fear as they heard the rustling of leaves above them, shortly followed by the sound of something heavy softly landing behind them. Sam whipped around and locked eyes with the beast, its hollow eye sockets swimming in a sea of dirty white canvas and sharp teeth. Sam knew that they were too close to aim the rifle but nonetheless the barrel belched out a wisp of smoke with a pop of light. The bullet that was haphazardly spat out whizzed by the beast and lodged itself into a tree just right of the beast. Momentarily distracting the beast, the shattering wood gave Sam enough time to twist their body so that the beast’s long claws only managed to graze the flesh underneath their sweater.

The icy water that soaked through their jeans would be shocking if the gun hadn’t slipped from their grasp. Then the icy fear in their veins was replaced by a burning hot pain that radiated from Sam’s chest. Their vision began to blur as Sam saw their blood began to oxidize into a thick black substance that burned their skin and eyes.

The beast began stalking towards Sam, that familiar mocking laugh fell out of a maw filled with sharp teeth as Sam began to choke on the taste of hairspray and apple seeds.

Suddenly, the maw of teeth shattered with a deafening gunshot, abruptly jerking the beast’s head to the side. Sam scrambled to their feet, grabbing the rifle and aimed at the beast, shooting wildly until they ran out of bullets. Then they realized that there was still another gun firing, attached to their father, who was entirely focused on the beast. Of course, at that point the beast was little more than a shadow of its former self, it’s jaw hanging loosely by a scrap of canvas and its fur was slick with the stinking black that seeped out of Sam’s chest. Eventually, Arthur’s gun had run out of ammunition, causing the beast to chuckle lowly and began to back away.

“‘I’ll take care of it,’” the beast said in Arthur’s voice, though that didn’t distract him from reloading. But before the shooting could resume, the beast had already disappeared into the woods.

---

The sound of fizzing hydrogen peroxide was the only thing disturbing the dense silence in the kitchen. Sam did their best to not cry out as Tayna gently blotted the reddish-grey foam off their chest, instead they hissed in reply.

“I’m gonna clean this out with some alcohol, this might sting a bit,”

“Fuck!” Sam jolted away as the throbbing pain sharpened into a stabbing pain, “just, lemme do it,” they said as Tayna muttered an apology. As Sam gingerly blotted away at the claw marks on their abdomen, Arthur stared them down with an indiscernible mix of anger, disappointment and something else Sam couldn’t quite place.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he said as Sam began to dress their wounds.

“Arthur-” Tanya began, but was cut short.

“No, really Sam, what the fuck is wrong with you? Sneaking out at night with a gun like a moron, I told you I’d take care of it!”

“But you didn’t,” Sam said, avoiding eye contact with their father.

“What?” The clock above the stove top read 3:52 am, but Arthur’s voice continued to rise, “You have no right to go out in the middle of the night like that. Not only did you disobey your curfew-”

“No, you don’t get to make me the wrong one here, you knew damn well that what was killing the animals wasn’t normal!”

“And it would’ve killed you-”

“What if it went after Jack?”

“Don’t you dare bring up your brother in this,”

“I can’t believe you hid this shit from me after refusing to do anything about this, you’re supposed to take care of us!”

“I can't believe you have the gall to come into my house after nearly getting your ass killed, acting like I’m the bad guy,” the two’s voices overlapped, escalating into a shouting match. At this Tanya has joined, attempting to be a peacemaker, but it only added to the chaos, eventually waking up the whole house.

Every family member that lived in the house stood in the kitchen, tired, angry and confused. Even littlest Jack, who was only 5 years old at that point, stood at the bottom of the stairs that lead into the dining room with bleary eyes. They all stared expectantly at Arthur and Sam, who was beginning to put their shirt back on so they could avoid making eye contact with anyone in the room.

“Listen Sam, we’ll discuss this in the morning proper. Go to bed, all of you.” Arthur finally said, and people began to filter into their bedrooms, with Sam being the last one to fall asleep at the ripe hour of 5:30.

---

The sound of croaking magpies woke Sam up the next morning, though at this point it was closer to noon. Every fiber of their body screamed in protest as Sam rolled out of their bed. Not to mention the feeling of their bedsheets clinging to their still sticky body as residual sweat and blood coated their body. Unfortunately, the shower and the new set of clothes did little to ease the nausea.

The rest of the morning was less a blur and more a haze of events, a confirmation of some rumors, a disproving of others. Some monsters were real and others were made up to sell t-shirts and keychains and others were a little bit of both. A vague introduction to a house on the edge of the estate, a bed, a wall of weapons. Something about never trusting strangers and that the monsters would keep coming.

“Are the monsters ever gonna stop?”

“No, Sam, they aren’t. But you have to try,”

#yeah the quality is low but that's okay #i'll also publish this on wattpad or something for archival purposes #so yeah this version is a bit different #I originally imagined Sam meeting Splendor right off the bat but I think it's more interesting this way #also sorry for the anti climatic ending I was getting really burnt out plus I was using this for a rp fourm backstory #crunch and all that #sam scraps #creepypasta oc #creepypasta au #eyestrain #kinda #red #oc #writing #animal death #creepypasta

3 notes · View notes

cloudbattrolls · 6 years ago

Text

Once It Is Spoken, I Ask Her No More

Ancient Alternia, One Millennium into Her Imperious Condescension’s Reign

Miruka picked up the troll child and held it, examining it from each angle squinting as much as a creature whose eyes were decorative emeralds could squint.

Nearby, Chimera tossed hers into the air with her tail, and grabbed it again with both hands as it whooped and hollered.

The wyvern gave her an irritated look as her own squirmed and struggled to be put down. It tried to bite her, but only found tough green scales its small fangs had no hope of piercing. It hissed.

“Have it your way, then.” She grumbled, and put the small creature back down in its cocoon full of green slime, where it settled it and closed its eyes.

“Chimera!” She called sharply, looking across to her irritating companion, now on the crest of another sand dune. There was a perfectly good city nearby, too, but they were out in this featureless wasteland. It was just like her.

“Hmm?” said the furred creature absentmindedly, now balancing her child on one foot as she floated upside down, wings beating occasionally, not that they strictly needed to.

“Stop playing with that; do you really want to go find a new one?”

“The blue ones are tough.” She replied, still sounding like her mind was half in a different galaxy. Knowing her irresponsible tendency of splitting herself, it very well could be. “Besides, it likes it! Don’t you, little buddy?”

The child was clutching the webbed foot with wide eyes, its curly hair bouncing as it shook.

Miruka counted to ten, and then exhaled as a gesture of impatience.

“Chimera.”

“Mm?”

“How long has it been since you’ve dealt with mortal children?”

“I want to say it was that empire of multiple eared people? Taor?”

“It was the Sylvites. That was only eight hundred and - “

“You do know that if I damage it I can fix it. Put it right back in its egg! Then speed it through developing.”

“A waste of power.”

Miruka still wasn’t used to the two different colors of moonlight shining on her idiot companion’s golden fur and her own green scales. It was ridiculous, but then, this whole universe was patently absurd. Even if the creatures lurking at its edges were anything but.

Chimera put the child down gently in its own cocoon before spreading her wings wide and leaping over, sitting down on the cool sands. A scorpion scuttled past them, and she scooped it up, admiring the creature whose tail her own resembled. Miruka humored her for a few breaths, and then teleported it out of her palm, somewhere out of sight.

“Do you really think we’re going to die soon?” she said, looking up at the stars as a breeze ruffled her fur and the feathers in her ears.

“Even we cannot cheat death forever. We were both mortal once, and we have debts to pay. Perhaps a thousand years, likely less.”

“That used to seem like so long. Now it’s hardly enough time to watch a civilization grow.”

“Is that why you’re even more irritating about using our power? Because, if so, you just - “

“I am trying to get you to focus.” She spoke over the protest. “I am better at conserving my energy regardless.”

Chimera rolled her eyes.

“Sure, Jan. Anyway...I’ve been calculating, if I age them about three more years they should start developing their powers. They won’t miss it, we can just give them implanted memories to make the transition easier on everybody.”

Miruka missed the expressive luxuries of ears and eyebrows at times like these. She settled for pulling her clay mouth back in disapproval.

“Oh, don’t give the ‘that’s immoral’ look, you’ve killed thousands of people for less. I remember the puddle incident, don’t test me.”

“Don’t dodge the subject. If they turn out psychologically unstable, they will be hunted down by others of their kind, and they will be no use to us. We’ll have to reset the timeline, again. I remember the ‘Chimera let the blue one get eaten’ incident.”

“Every single time! That was not my fault, that...whatever it was...popped out of a hole in the ground and before I knew it, bam!”

“Very convincing. No, we let them grow up naturally. It was prudent to age them past pupation, but I spent far too long ensuring the stable mix of genetics in the green one for it to wind up with issues before it’s even an adolescent.”

Miruka’s tail coiled and uncoiled, the arrowhead drawing lines in the sand as Chimera grimaced but nodded.

“We must also avoid attracting too much attention from our...neighbors.”

“We’re nowhere near the ocean, what do we have to worry about?”

“You know as well as I that the Rift’s Carbuncle is far from the only threat on this planet.”

“She keeps the rest of them in line, as long as we don’t piss her off we’re golden.”

“Mm. Do you regret coming here?”

Chimera looked down at the endless shifting grains, toying with a strand of fur.

“Kind of. It’s definitely not ideal. I can’t help but think that was sort of the point, though.”

“It likely was.”

The universe worked in stranger ways than even they could imagine, despite having been to so many worlds across so many times and dimensions. Alternia was one of the most hostile they had ever been to, and had been chosen primarily because it was already claimed by an entity far greater than either of the pair, forcing them to cooperate.

Forcing them to work with what they had, or die with no hope of return from the grave.

Perhaps it was a judgment on both of their meddling in countless lives and planets, of reshaping solar systems at their wills. They could command time and space, but they answered to the cosmic forces of judgment no matter where or when they were.

“Who do you think judges us? We never found out, and I know you investigated for ages.”

Miruka ground her emerald teeth. It had always been a source of ire that by gaining her powers, she had also become subject to whatever strange force put limits on Chimera’s actions as well.

“All I ever found were scraps and half-truths, some of them contradictory. Whatever manner of being they are, they have no desire to be known. Some kind of star creature, perhaps. There were a dozen other potential leads.”

“Why didn’t you chase them?”

“I had to keep an eye on you. I had already been gone too long.”

“How sweet. My people were doing just ducky until you turned up out of the blue.”

“That’s irrelevant now.”

“Easy for you to say. I buried all of them myself.”

“Including the ones already suffering from your plague?”

“It was nonlethal until you decided oh, hey, let’s poison the water! That’ll REALLY help the situation of trying to keep them from starting a war peacefully!”

“Regardless of the war, they were fundamentally corrupt, as their treatment of the other species showed. There was nothing left to salvage.”

Chimera was now growling in her face, having edged closer after every word.

“That wasn’t your choice to make.” She said, voice dangerously low, devoid of humor.

Miruka stared her down with gemstone eyes.

“You’d choose to abbreviate the lives of two children for your own convenience.”

The furred creature hissed, threw up her hands, and moved back, getting up and pacing as her stinger tail lashed back and forth.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Is that somehow a bigger crime than modifying them for our own needs? I didn’t realize we were debating chickens and sheep now!”

“You’re overreacting.” said the wyvern flatly, her wings shifting slightly. “This isn’t a disagreement, Chimera, it’s a comparison of motives.”

“I disagree with your bloody comparison. I’m trying to get this over with, and to do it as painlessly as possible for them. Are you any good at raising children, Miruka? I had a son once. I had to leave him. Even his mother didn’t want me to stay, and she was right. We are not meant to be parents. So yes, I’m choosing for them because they are literal infants and this is for their own good.”

Her hand lit up with a pulsing ball of green energy.

“So you’d have them believe we were?” Miruka replied softly. “I remember when you told me that your entire purpose was to undo the lies I let my people live.”

The energy was extinguished with a whoosh of air as Chimera’s green eyes welled up with a haunted sort of hatred.

“I don’t want to die.” she said softly.

“We will not.” Miruka said firmly. “Now pull yourself together and stop acting ridiculous.”

Chimera turned her back on her old enemy, picking up the cocoon her child slept in, shielded from the planet’s psychic tide of troubled dreams.

“I’m going somewhere else. Don’t follow me.”

Miruka watched as she vanished, and stayed unmoving until the red sun began to peek over the horizon.

She picked up her child, extended her batlike wings, and flew away into the shimmering heat of day.

#cloud writes #an old plot relevant drabble?#on MY blog?#it's more likely than you think #I can allow this one since it's more pre-plot than anything #chimera #miruka

1 note · View note

samanthasroberts · 6 years ago

Text

The Side Hustle Is Real: 19 Real Ways People Make Money Outside of Their Jobs

For many people in today’s economy, having one job isn’t enough.

It’s the sad state of the world today, but some people have come up with pretty creative ways to make money outside of work.

We call that the side hustle.

And while some romanticize the idea of the side hustle, it’s not the best that we have to resort to it. Maybe you’re looking to make a little dough, or maybe you’re just curious. Either way, here are the ways 19 different people make some extra cash.

The Human Science Experiment

via: Shutterstock

I’m poor but I participate in clinical studies for the NIH as a healthy volunteer. Pay is pretty decent ($150-$250) per session, and since I’m too poor to afford health insurance it comes with the added benefit of providing me with free physicals and STD testing. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me and for many of the studies you only need a functioning human body to qualify.

–papigrande

The Mystery Shopper

via: Shutterstock

Mystery diner/evaluator for upscale restaurants. I saw this on one of these threads a couple years back and it became one of my favorite things.

Doesn’t pay super well ($15 per gig) but I get reimbursed for mine and my guest’s meals + drinks. Just did a mystery shop at a really fancy steakhouse and spent about $200 on food and drinks. I have to write a full-on essay afterward scrutinizing every detail but it’s totally worth. I love fancy food and I’m a pretty fast writer. –Malchicky

The House Sitter

via: Shutterstock

Being a 22-year-old that doesn’t have much time for anything other than school and work, I house sit for people while they’re out of town.

You just have to go home to someone else’s house for awhile, and for me, I love it. I live in a tiny apartment and staying at an actual house with a full sized kitchen is like a vacation that I get paid for. –SadHurry

The Nude Model

via: Shutterstock

I moonlight as a nude model for the local life drawing class. I originally freelanced for the local college, but since I’m currently taking one of the art programs, ehhhhh. …..The only big requirement is you have to be okay being naked in a room full of strangers.

And usually, you’re the only one. The nice thing about this is A0, you’re not expected to be a perfect specimen of the species, a good artist will want a variety of body types for reference. Plus it puts the whole “having a nightmare about being naked at work” in a whole new light –Blue_Moon_Rabbit

The next one is a pretty good gig…

The Dog Walker

via: Shutterstock

Here in Spain, dog walking. I just moved here and miss my dog dearly(staying with parents for next 8 months while I go to school), so I randomly messaged a dog walking FB page. Told them I would love to walk dogs for them once in a while.

Met with the lady who started the company and she said 100% I can. I’m not under contract or anything, but whenever she is overwhelmed with dogs, she calls me. I take them for a walk for a couple hours and play with them, and she pays me 25 euros(she charges the customer 30 and keeps 5 as her commission). Honestly, I would have done it for free but the extra money is cool for beer and food funds.

I walk and play with a dog for a couple hours 3-4 times a week and make 80-100 euros for it. It helps me cope with missing my dog, and playing with dogs is just f**king awesome on its own. Just msg some dog walking company on FB or whatever, and I’m sure they could use extra help. –Yoinkie2013

The Disney Shopper

via: Shutterstock

My sister lives near Disneyland and has a season pass. She takes peoples orders for exclusive shit from the park and she goes there and picks it all up and uses that time to get her steps in for the day walking around and also making money getting stuff for people and then sells/ships it to them.

people will pay a lot of money for the Disney shit that you can only get in the park… now this is obviously not possible for everyone but build on this idea. If you live in an area with baller ass thrift stores or good garage sales buy some shit and flip it online –savvyxxi

The eBay Reseller

via: Shutterstock

I’ve sold stuff on eBay…. whether it was things lying around the house to actually going to flea markets and finding stuff for sale.

Found an N64 with 10 games for 5 dollars. Sold 1 of the games for $27 dollars alone. –atticuslodius

The Yard Sale Ninja

via: Shutterstock

I’m a 23-year-old dude and I love going to yard sales and buying things then reselling them. The trick is to just buy things that interest you and slowly branch out to learn what certain things sell for. –amcge122

The Computer Repair Man

via: Shutterstock

Computer repair. You’ll be surprised how bad people are with these things and how much they are willing to spend to get their s**t fixed. –smartass09

The next idea isn’t half bad…

The House Painter

via: Shutterstock

I paint. It’s an incredibly dull thing that people hate doing. It’s not hard. A steady hand and decent angled brush for cutting and your pretty much good to go. I do other handyman things if needed except drywall. I do not have the talent for it. –PM-ME-XBOX-LIVE-GOLD

The YouTubers

My wife and I made some cute dog videos on YouTube. The licenses for some of them were bought. In total, we made about $2,500 from companies wanted to share the videos on their own sites. –AnotherDrunkCanadian

The Micro Tasker

via: Shutterstock

Amazon Micro Tasks is also a good bit of passive income. It’s basically a marketplace for small jobs that require human intelligence. Tasks can include, identifying objects in a photo or video, performing data de-duplication, transcribing audio recordings or researching data details. –Decent_Sauce

The Referee

via: Shutterstock

If you have a thick skin, referee or umpire rec sports. Games are always outside of normal business hours since the players work too. I used to do soccer refereeing. I figured I was being paid to exercise (and be yelled at). –whatIreallythink4

The Pot Brownie Baker

via: Shutterstock

I sell pot brownies. Pretty simple and discreet and I can make 500-600$ a month with the cost subtracted –ChirurigalDrug

The next one isn’t as, well, illegal in most places…

The “Whatever” Gig

via: Shutterstock

Not me but I met a girl who charges $30 an hour for whatever.

She’ll take your car to get the oil changed, she’ll pick you up groceries, she’ll go to your house to sign for a delivery or meet the HVAC guy, etc. –elmiller2

The Tutor

via: Shutterstock

tutor children in something you are good at. Right now I tutor elementary kids in chess get paid around 80 dollars an hour. It helps with college costs and the flexibility in hours makes it a nice part-time gig.

Another way is mining cryptocurrencies. I have made a nice amount of money just using my gaming laptop and desktop. It does increase your electricity bill but I have come out ahead like 300 dollars in the last 3 months. –loli333

The Chicken Coop Builder

via: Shutterstock

This is somewhat late and more relevant to my area (Texas) but my coworker and I build chicken coops, garden beds, etc. Usually out of scrap wood and it brings enough beer money for a fun weekend project –BohemianJack

The Artist

via: Shutterstock

Sell your own artwork on Etsy. Seriously, anyone can do it. I’m a hobby painter and have been selling 1-2 paintings a week for a few years now. Find what people love and capitalize on it.

–zoeyaneliz

The Focus Group Member

via: Shutterstock

Focus groups. I’ve made over $1k in the past month alone from signing up for focus groups and user testing/usability interviews. –thatonespicegirl

Share this with someone who could use some ideas for a side gig!

Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-side-hustle-is-real-19-real-ways-people-make-money-outside-of-their-jobs/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/the-side-hustle-is-real-19-real-ways-people-make-money-outside-of-their-jobs/

0 notes

ecotone99 · 6 years ago

Text

[HR] Little evil yellow butterflies

Phil Linson had a laugh like a braying jackass and was treating everyone within earshot to a healthy dose of it now.

"Hawr Hawr Hawr!" he bellowed. "You don't even know what kind of animal it is? Hawr Hawr Hawr!"

Mr. Hodges didn't see the humor. Something had been having its way with his chickens for weeks, and last night whatever it was had killed a particularly virulent rooster that had been, judging by the signs of struggle and violence, trying to protect his harem at the time.

It would be expensive to replace that cock. And chicks are not free either. It was enough to sour Mr. Hodges' disposition.

"You, sir," Mr. Hodges addressed Phil, "have a ghoul's sense of humor."

Phil blanched. He looked around at the group of men gathered on the stoop of the general store. He stammered, "Why... I... you can't say that to me, I don't care who you...,"

"He said ghoul," Hank Granger, Mr. Hodges' man, explained. "Not girl."

"Oh," Phil said. "That's okay then. Isn't it?"

Hank shrugged. Mr. Hodges said, "Please take the traps to my wagon, Mr. Granger. We're leaving."

"Ha! You won't catch anything with those shoddy traps," Phil continued running his mouth. "Hawr Hawr Hawr!"

Mr. Hodges descended the steps and stood before Phil. The gentleman farmer was a half-head taller than the unemployed cowboy. He was dressed in clean clothes instead of ratty denim and was shaven but for a neatly trimmed mustache. "Pray tell," he said, "How would you deal with the situation then?"

"Hell," Phil thrust out his chin. "I'm part Indian. I can track, trap and kill anything that crawls or slithers. Wouldn't be no situation for me in the first place."

"Then I will give you ten dollars, sir," Mr. Hodges said, "if you bring me the dead carcass of whatever animal is killing my chickens."

"Hawr Hawr Hawr!" Phil cried, stepping back, his bluff having been called. "Look at the fancy farmer! Trying to buy his way out of trouble. Well this ain't Chicago, Mister! You can't just throw money and have people fall at your feet. "Hawr Hawr Hawr!"

Mr. Hodges dismissed the cowboy with a wave of his hand and joined Hank at the wagon.

"He'll show up tonight with a dead raccoon," Hank told his boss. "Try to sell it to you for ten dollars."

"If he does, I may ask you to shoot him for a trespasser."

Hank nodded. He took the reins of the lead horse and got the animals moving.

On the street, behind in the dust, a ten-year-old boy named Timmy Conway - a true Indian half breed, with the inscrutable dark eyes and straight, black hair to prove it - watched them leave.

***

"He won't pay you," Rebecca told Timmy. "You're wasting your time."

Timmy ignored his sister and continued preparing a pack - a water skin, dried beef, and extra bullets for the rifle. He had decided to spend the night in the woods just beyond Mr. Hodges' farm to track and, hopefully, kill the animal responsible for the missing chickens.

"Leave it," Rebecca said. She held a book in her hands and turned the page. "Stay home. I'll read to you."

"We need money," Timmy replied.

"We do; but you won't get it that way."

Their father had supposed to been back from his trip to California in July, but he hadn't come yet and leaves were beginning to fall from the trees. The old man had left them a purse to see to necessities, however, now that pouch barely had enough left to jingle when dropped on the table. They weren't likely to starve; what with Brazos so close and Timmy's developing skills as a hunter, but cold weather was coming, and it would be smart to stock up.

"He said ten dollars," Timmy explained. "We could buy enough flour and sugar for the winter. And maybe a side of beef."

"You'll never see that ten dollars, Timmy. He'll just say you didn't catch the right animal."

"Well, I'll tell him he doesn't have to pay if another chicken goes missing."

"Until when? The end of time? He won't pay."

Timmy considered that, then said, "He will. He's an honorable man."

"Ha!" Rebecca turned another page. "Tim-buck, I myself will give you ten dollars if you can show me an honorable man. Leave it. Here, sit with me and I'll read to you."

Timmy looked at his sister sitting by the window for light. Also a half-breed, she had the same straight, black hair but hers came all the way down past her waist. Her eyes, too, were dark and wide. She was six years older than Timmy; taller and more coordinated. They used to play and hunt together in the wilderness by the river, but now all she like to do was read and comb her hair.

She lifted her eyes from the book and smiled at her brother. "It'll be cold tonight. Stay home; don't waste your time in the cold, dark night."

"We need money," he repeated.

"Don't worry about money," she said. "I can get money if we need it."

That decided the boy. He finished packing and said on his way out, "I'll be back in the morning."

***

Safely hidden in the underbrush of the woods, Timmy watched from a distance as Hank and another man set the traps just outside the fence of Mr. Hodges' property. He couldn't hear their words, but from the way they circled and pointed at the ground, he figured they were looking for tracks. Occasionally, they would hunker down and run their hands over dirt, then set a trap nearby.

Timmy waited.

Finished with the choir, the two men stood in the twilight, smoking. Timmy heard their laughter and watched the glowing embers of their cigarettes. Eventually, they tossed the butts down, ground them with boots, and walked back to the farm.

Timmy crept along the edge of the woods to the fence where the men had been. He stayed low, moving from shadow to shadow. On his belly, he reached out and touched one of the cigarette butts. He brought that finger back to his nose to smell the tobacco. A mistake, he thought, this would scare the animal. They shouldn't have dropped them next to the traps.

Still on his stomach, he crawled around looking for the same tracks the men must have seen. The sun was mostly hidden behind the horizon and the sky a dark azure blue. Timmy relied on touch as much as eyesight as the light was poor.

There, his fingers found scars marked in the dirk. Claws.

Timmy covered that print with one hand, found another, and covered it as well. He stayed that way, still and silent, holding his breath and trying to muffle the beating of his heart.

A young boy laying in dirt can call upon magic. Timmy did so. Willing his hands to turn to paws and his mind to become pure animal instinct, he imagined the path of the beast. He saw with the predator's eyes; smelled with its nose. Through underbrush and tangle-weed it traveled. It stayed away from open spaces and off man-made foot paths. It lived in a burrow by the river.

Timmy opened his eyes. It was dark now, almost completely save for a half moon and scattering of stars.

No matter. He knew where to go and how to get there.

Like a snake, he slithered on his belly towards the thickest part of the foliage and plunged into the woods.

Had there been any light, he might have noticed the animal tracks actually went in the opposite direction.

It wouldn't have made a difference.

***

Filthy and scrapped, Timmy came upon the bank of the Brazos river. The moon was high. Night birds, frogs and insects cried out alarms. The world had become a dark place of mystery; dripping with shadows.

Timmy had never felt so alive.

Guided by instinct and belief, Timmy had tracked the animal here, to its lair, and now it was time to dispatch the creature and claim the prize. He sat Indian, held the rifle in his lap, and checked to make sure it was loaded and ready.

As he was about to reset the barrel, he heard noise and saw motion at the water's edge. Slowly, carefully he prepared the rifle - wincing at the unavoidable click it made - and settled flat on his stomach. Using elbows and knees, he crept forward towards the river.

There, off to the left in the sand below, a dark-haired animal with its head at the water. Drinking? Hunting fish or turtle? Whatever its business, it was distracted. Timmy took advantage. He positioned himself on the ridge, aimed, and fired.

The sound and flash of the gun tore away the unreal calm of midnight in the wild. Timmy leapt to his feet, heart racing. He whipped his head around, looking to see if the world had caught fire, but everything had returned to darkness and silence. The night birds, frogs and insects momentarily scared into silence.

The body of his prey lay at the river's edge. Timmy barked out a quick laugh and slid down the bank to inspect it.

As he approached, he noticed something wrong. The animal appeared to be laying on top of a small body; there were bare feet - toes curled - next to claws and an arm sticking out from a tangled mess of fur. The fingers of the hand stiff and cupped, pointing at the sky.

Timmy stopped, scared. His mind could make no sense of this. Had the animal killed a child? Was it some kind of man-eating monster?

Was it really dead?

He knelt down and moved slowly, aiming the rifle again. When he was within touching distance, Timmy slung the gun over his shoulder and reached out. He grabbed the leg of the beast, tugged, and then jumped back.

It did not move.

But the paw hadn't felt right in his hand. It was flat; lifeless. Like a piece of cloth.

Timmy then tried the human foot. He grabbed it, let go, took it again. It was very real, fleshy and warm. Timmy stood and looked around. Something was very wrong here.

He knelt at the side of the creature. He saw now that it wasn't, in fact, an animal. It was an animal's skin. When he lifted it, underneath was the body of a child. He rolled the body over on its back.

A young girl. The whites of her dead eyes luminous in the moonlight.

Timmy fell on his backside. He knew the girl - her blond hair and fair skin unmistakable. This was Mr. Hodges' daughter, Sally, who had once, when she'd met him at the general store, asked Timmy why she'd never seen him at church. She had complained there were no other children their age at church and he should go sometime.

Now she lay in the mud of the Brazos with a gaping hole from Timmy's bullet in her narrow chest.

Timmy sat and stared for a long while. The animal skin looked to be mostly badger, but there were other pelts sewn together as well. None of the paws, for instance, were of the same kind. It had been affixed to the girl with leather braids, many of which were still tied around her arms and legs; hips and torso. The face mask was definitely fox. She'd worn it like a hat, but now it was off; tangled in her long, golden hair.

Why? Why?

When Timmy finally realized he was weeping, he stood up and furiously wiped his eyes. He had to get rid of the body. He didn't have the tools to dig a grave, but the river....

Timmy lifted Sally by the arms and drug her towards the water. He carried the body in, gasping at the freezing temperature. Soon, his feet lost bottom and he had to swim. The current grew stronger and his burden heavy as the pelt submerged.

When he'd gone as far as he dared, Timmy pushed the body towards the river's center. The current caught it, twirled it, dunked it, and then pushed it into a tangle of post oak roots about twenty yards away where it got stuck.

Timmy tread water and sobbed openly. It was impossible. The body would be found. He would be accused. Nobody would believe it was an accident.

And they would execute him for murder. Place a rope around his smooth neck and hang him from a tree.

Then the river sucked Sally's body from the branches and fed it to the current. Timmy watched it - flashes of white skin and clumps of animal hair - bob up and down, drifting further and further away.

Soon it was out of sight.

Timmy left the water. He still wept, but silently now. He returned to the place where he'd shot her and tried to cover up the blood by kicking dirt over the dark, wet spots, but soon grew tired.

He collected his rifle and pack and started for home.

submitted by /u/virgiltempleton [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/2PDiaHb

#Blogger #Story

0 notes

adambstingus · 6 years ago

Text

The Side Hustle Is Real: 19 Real Ways People Make Money Outside of Their Jobs

For many people in today’s economy, having one job isn’t enough.

It’s the sad state of the world today, but some people have come up with pretty creative ways to make money outside of work.

We call that the side hustle.

The Human Science Experiment

via: Shutterstock

–papigrande

The Mystery Shopper

via: Shutterstock

Mystery diner/evaluator for upscale restaurants. I saw this on one of these threads a couple years back and it became one of my favorite things.

The House Sitter

via: Shutterstock

Being a 22-year-old that doesn’t have much time for anything other than school and work, I house sit for people while they’re out of town.

The Nude Model

via: Shutterstock

The next one is a pretty good gig…

The Dog Walker

via: Shutterstock

The Disney Shopper

via: Shutterstock

The eBay Reseller

via: Shutterstock

I’ve sold stuff on eBay…. whether it was things lying around the house to actually going to flea markets and finding stuff for sale.

Found an N64 with 10 games for 5 dollars. Sold 1 of the games for $27 dollars alone. –atticuslodius

The Yard Sale Ninja

via: Shutterstock

The Computer Repair Man

via: Shutterstock

Computer repair. You’ll be surprised how bad people are with these things and how much they are willing to spend to get their s**t fixed. –smartass09

The next idea isn’t half bad…

The House Painter

via: Shutterstock

The YouTubers

The Micro Tasker

via: Shutterstock

The Referee

via: Shutterstock

The Pot Brownie Baker

via: Shutterstock

I sell pot brownies. Pretty simple and discreet and I can make 500-600$ a month with the cost subtracted –ChirurigalDrug

The next one isn’t as, well, illegal in most places…

The “Whatever” Gig

via: Shutterstock

Not me but I met a girl who charges $30 an hour for whatever.

She’ll take your car to get the oil changed, she’ll pick you up groceries, she’ll go to your house to sign for a delivery or meet the HVAC guy, etc. –elmiller2

The Tutor

via: Shutterstock

The Chicken Coop Builder

via: Shutterstock

The Artist

via: Shutterstock

Sell your own artwork on Etsy. Seriously, anyone can do it. I’m a hobby painter and have been selling 1-2 paintings a week for a few years now. Find what people love and capitalize on it.

–zoeyaneliz

The Focus Group Member

via: Shutterstock

Focus groups. I’ve made over $1k in the past month alone from signing up for focus groups and user testing/usability interviews. –thatonespicegirl

Share this with someone who could use some ideas for a side gig!

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-side-hustle-is-real-19-real-ways-people-make-money-outside-of-their-jobs/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183658980137

0 notes

allofbeercom · 6 years ago

Text

The Side Hustle Is Real: 19 Real Ways People Make Money Outside of Their Jobs

For many people in today’s economy, having one job isn’t enough.

It’s the sad state of the world today, but some people have come up with pretty creative ways to make money outside of work.

We call that the side hustle.

The Human Science Experiment

via: Shutterstock

–papigrande

The Mystery Shopper

via: Shutterstock

Mystery diner/evaluator for upscale restaurants. I saw this on one of these threads a couple years back and it became one of my favorite things.

The House Sitter

via: Shutterstock

Being a 22-year-old that doesn’t have much time for anything other than school and work, I house sit for people while they’re out of town.

The Nude Model

via: Shutterstock

The next one is a pretty good gig…

The Dog Walker

via: Shutterstock

The Disney Shopper

via: Shutterstock

The eBay Reseller

via: Shutterstock

I’ve sold stuff on eBay…. whether it was things lying around the house to actually going to flea markets and finding stuff for sale.

Found an N64 with 10 games for 5 dollars. Sold 1 of the games for $27 dollars alone. –atticuslodius

The Yard Sale Ninja

via: Shutterstock

The Computer Repair Man

via: Shutterstock

Computer repair. You’ll be surprised how bad people are with these things and how much they are willing to spend to get their s**t fixed. –smartass09

The next idea isn’t half bad…

The House Painter

via: Shutterstock

The YouTubers

The Micro Tasker

via: Shutterstock

The Referee

via: Shutterstock

The Pot Brownie Baker

via: Shutterstock

I sell pot brownies. Pretty simple and discreet and I can make 500-600$ a month with the cost subtracted –ChirurigalDrug

The next one isn’t as, well, illegal in most places…

The “Whatever” Gig

via: Shutterstock

Not me but I met a girl who charges $30 an hour for whatever.

She’ll take your car to get the oil changed, she’ll pick you up groceries, she’ll go to your house to sign for a delivery or meet the HVAC guy, etc. –elmiller2

The Tutor

via: Shutterstock

The Chicken Coop Builder

via: Shutterstock

The Artist

via: Shutterstock

Sell your own artwork on Etsy. Seriously, anyone can do it. I’m a hobby painter and have been selling 1-2 paintings a week for a few years now. Find what people love and capitalize on it.

–zoeyaneliz

The Focus Group Member

via: Shutterstock

Focus groups. I’ve made over $1k in the past month alone from signing up for focus groups and user testing/usability interviews. –thatonespicegirl

Share this with someone who could use some ideas for a side gig!

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-side-hustle-is-real-19-real-ways-people-make-money-outside-of-their-jobs/

0 notes

patricia-von-arundel · 6 years ago

Text

Pas de Deux - Part 1/7

I don’t have a summary for this. I don’t have anything, except I needed to escape for awhile. I started this almost two years ago, but haven’t finished it - or shared it.

This one’s Fire Emblem Awakening. Sorry about that.

It’s about Severa. And Inigo. It’s not a romance, though romance is involved. It’s about... well, moments in time, I guess.

I’m not sure I should even post it. I don’t know that I’ll finish it. But here’s the first part.

I’ll give it a T rating, just to be safe, and warn that there is a character death (besides the expected ones).

I: Severa

The first time she saw him, he was kicking, struggling, fighting in the arms of the three guards it took to hold him. She saw him catch one of them across the cheek, hard enough the man winced and jerked his head back, though the boy was no more than a skinny little scrap of a thing.

“I can’t leave her!” His voice was ragged and hoarse with tears. “No, no, no, I promised, I can’t!” He was still fighting as the guards kicked the door shut. “Please. Please!”

Cynthia, beside Severa, moved a little closer, but Severa shoved her away, because she needed to grow up. They all did, because Gerome had been right, when he finally said it: soon, they would be the only ones left. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t fair, but it was true.

Door secured, the guards unceremoniously dumped the boy on the stone floor, and left him to the care of the rest of them: children, just like he was. He crawled to a corner and curled into a tight ball, shivering and crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Cynthia again, because she was stupid - it was obvious what was wrong. It was the same thing that was always wrong. The thing that brought them all here - all except Lucina and Owain and Cynthia herself, who called it home.

Until last year, Severa had lived nearby, in a normal house, doing normal things. She knew there was a war, she knew her parents fought in it, but that was normal, too - she couldn’t remember a time when anything was different. Ylisstol was safe, it had walls. The war was outside the walls.

But last year, Exalt Chrom was killed. She remembered the day her parents came home, her father’s face hard and set, her mother disappearing into her bedroom, the sound of her sobs. Severa had been confused until her father told her. Then it all made sense. Severa was nine years old then, and even she knew her mother loved the exalt - the married exalt - more than she loved Severa’s father. More than she loved Severa too, probably.

It was only a few weeks later when the walls were breached, and the war finally came to the city. Then her father didn’t come home. And there would never be normal again. Something in her mother hardened, but it seemed a brittle hardness - fragile. And there was no one now to explain it to Severa. She wanted to fix it - she was younger than, and still thought she could, she just didn’t know how. She was helpless. She was afraid. And she watched her mother leave again. Leave to fight for a memory. A shade .

The new exalt - well, kind of; Lucina should have been exalt, but she wasn’t old enough - did not fight, and she offered the royal palace as a refuse for the children. Severa knew Lucina and Cynthia - her mother and their mother had been best friends for practically forever - but not Owain, their loudmouth cousin. Kjelle came around the same time as Severa, and Severa liked her; then Laurent, who was too much like Lucina - always so serious - but all right. Better than Cynthia and Owain, anyway, who were just irritating.

They were kept busy as first with tutors and lessons and training, and while Severa hated it then, now she kind of wished for it back. Now, there seemed mostly endless, empty hours, interrupted only occasionally by times like today: someone in pain. Another parent lost. Severa hadn’t seen her mother for over a month, and the dread of her own moment like this was a slow, constant pulse, just beneath her skin.

The more recent arrivals were the orphans: Gerome with his sad eyes and long silences. Noire, who sometimes took to following Severa around like a meek puppy desperate for any hint of affection, but other times flying into violent rages even Owain’s mother could not quell with her endless, gentle words. Brady with the scar across his eye and his sharp tongue; Owain’s mother had brought him herself, tears making shiny tracks down her cheeks.

And now, this boy who fought and begged and cried: another orphan of Grima. Owain and Brady had joined Cynthia; they were peppering the boy with questions, but he ignored them, eyes squeezed shut. Finally, he rolled away from them, and Severa smirked - it was just what they deserved. None of them knew how to take a hint; it was infuriating.

Severa left the new boy alone - he’d get used to the constant, dull ache of the loss, just like they all did. She sometimes woke with her father’s voice still echoing from her dreams - or with nightmares of her mother still etched upon her mind’s eye. Both left her shivering and miserable, huddling beneath blankets on a bed that would never truly be her own.

Lucina joined them at dinner; she spent most of the day training, always training. Being busy, occupied - Severa envied her ability to order it, and have those orders obeyed. Severa and Kjelle had sparred with broom handles, until one broke and they couldn’t find a replacement. Everyone unessential had gone to fight, or had attempted to flee Ylisstol. There were no more tutors, no more trainers. Lucina trained with the guards. Owain’s mother said the war would be over before they were old enough to fight, but Severa didn’t think she believed what she said. Severa didn’t believe it, either. Not anymore.

Dinner was bread and stringy chicken - meat was rare, even for the royal family, but there was always bread. Lucina tried to talk to the new boy, but he just shook his head to everything. He looked dazed, Severa thought. He didn’t touch his food.

“Can he even talk?” Owain asked around a mouthful of food.

“Yeah,” Brady said. “Ma was friends with his mother. He’s good.”

“I want to make him feel better,” Cynthia said.

“Leave him alone,” Kjelle said. “He needs some space.”

“Lucina isn’t.”

“Lucina isn’t like the rest of us.”

She wasn’t sure what woke her, but there was something, in the hallway outside her room.

Severa rubbed her eyes awake and sat up, sat still, listening intently. There was definitely something - someone? - out there. It wasn’t a guard; there weren’t enough left to man all the gates at once, much less patrol the halls.

Risen?

She’d never seen one, but nothing she’d heard made it seem like they were stealthy. Maybe one of the adults had come back, and was trying not to wake anyone?

Maybe... her mother?

It had been so long - it must be her. Because she did care about Severa, even if not as much as Exalt Chrom - right?

Severa slid off the bed, slipped on her boots against the cold floor. She wouldn’t allow herself to run, but she walked quickly, her breath catching as she pulled open the heavy door.

In the shadows, a small shape froze. A shape far, far too little to be her mother.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” she said, so maybe her disappointment wouldn’t show. It had been a dumb thought. Of course it wasn’t her mother.

“I don’t care.” She didn’t know the voice, but it was obviously the new boy. “I have to keep my promise.”

“To what, get eaten by Risen?”

“No.” He sounded surprisingly chipper, after earlier.

“Then what?”

“Just something that... that my mother taught me.” He started down the hall again, but when she followed him, he looked back and added: “Alone.”

“Huh? Where, though?”

He shrugged. “Not here. I’ll come back when I’m done.”

“That’s stupid. And you’re not allowed out. Especially alone.”

He smiled at her. He had come in screaming only hours before, and now he was smiling at her. “Are you offering to come with me, good lady?”

“What? No. And my name is Severa.”

“I like your name. I’m Inigo.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I just need to go. I promised.”

“Where?”

He shrugged again. “I’ll find somewhere. I just some space to... move around.”

She took a deep breath - and made a decision she was pretty sure she would come to regret: “I know a place, but you have to let me come with you.”

He regarded her for a long moment, and she took the opportunity to do the same, really looking at him for the first time. He was small and skinny, with floppy hair that fell across his forehead and - to her surprise, when she caught sight of the glint of it in the moonlight - a pierced ear. She had never seen a boy with a pierced ear. And why only one?

“I accept,” he finally said, then smiled again. “But no peeking.”

“Sure, whatever. C’mon, before we get caught.”

“You lead the way, Lady Severa.”

“Never say that again.”

“What?”

“Lady. It sounds stupid.”

He was walking beside her and grinning. “Sorry. Severa.”

“Just be quiet.” She was kind of wondering what would happen if she hit him. He sure wasn’t acting like someone who’d just lost his parents.

They made it out without being spotted, but getting past the walls was trickier - she knew Lucina had mentioned a hole big enough to squeeze though, but Severa had only a vague idea of where it was, and the walls were patrolled at night.

“Over here,” she whispered, grabbed Inigo’s sleeve and pulling him into the shadows of a grove of trees.

“This is where we’re going?”

“No, idiot. Shh!”

They watched as the uniformed men passed, three of them, pikes held high. When they disappeared around the palace, Severa tugged at Inigo’s sleeve again. “C’mon. Quick!” He ran with her, and he could at least keep up, which was better than Brady and Cynthia could do.

It took less time than she had feared to find the chink in the wall; it would have been harder during the day, but a glimpse of the few lights left in Ylisstol when there should have been only stone was an easy giveaway. She climbed through and jumped to the uneven ground beyond, Inigo wriggling through after her, landing neatly at her side with another broad, inexplicable smile. She pretended not to see it.

But it was hard to suppress a smile of her own when the reality of it all hit her: they were outside, all alone, at night. It was dangerous here now; Risen were mostly kept under control within the city, but not always, and roaming bands of thieves and mercenaries were happy to take hostages - or, if rumors were true, anything they might be able to cook and eat. And now Severa, and this strangely happy boy, and her heart was pounding and her eyes felt wide and bright.

She knew the way, though it was a longer trip than it had been from home. A place she had gone hundreds of times with her parents, to buy vegetables and fruits and bread, wool and nails, to see performers - singers, dancers, jugglers - and to beg for cakes or the pretty flowers her mother said were a waste of money. There’d been a bracelet she had seen and longed for and chattered about, and on her birthday her father had taken her there, bundled up tight against the cold, and the vendor clasped the delicate thing on her wrist and proclaimed her the prettiest girl in all Ylisse.

She had heard Lucina’s mother and Owain’s mother discussing it: the necessity of closing down the market square. it was just too dangerous, that many people in an open area surrounded by shops, only narrow, ancient lanes leading in and out. it didn’t matter if they had closed it or not, though; this late, no one would be there.

“This way,” Severa said, and Inigo followed her.

The streets of Ylisstol were dark and silent. Any others out moved as furtively as they did. Once, she could hear two men arguing in low, furious voices, but they were not visible, and she just kept to the shadows until they were out of earshot. Inigo didn’t ask where they were going; he didn’t say anything at all. That meant he was trusting her. She liked that.

They made their way down the last, pitch-dark lane, looming buildings blocking wan moon- and star-light both, and then were there, clambering over the wooden fence that enclosed the square.

“What is this place?” Inigo was looking around, at the empty booths and animal pens, his eyes lingering for a moment on the raised wooden dais at the center of it all.

“Market.”

“Oh. Uh, well...” He offered her yet another smile, this one a little embarrassed. “Promise you won’t watch?”

“I said I wouldn’t already. I’m going over there." She sat cross-legged on the ground where she could lean against a fence post, her back pointedly turned away from him. “Do what you need to do, I’m tired.”

She tried not to look - she really did. She yawned and traced doodles in the dirt with her fingers and yawned again. Behind her, for a long time, there was only the rustle of clothing, rhythmic footfalls.

It was only when she heard a harder, heavier sound - was he jumping? - that she broke her word and gave in to her curiosity. She turned slowly, carefully - and her eyes widened.

Inigo was dancing.

She had never seen anyone move like he was, like he was no longer tied to the earth, a small creature of flowing, powerful grace. He was muttering to himself, eyes squeezed shut, but he seemed somehow sure of where he stood on the dais, in no danger of the edge. He spun and leapt and bent and rose before an invisible partner.

And he was crying.

Not the desperate, choked sobs of earlier in the day - these were silent tears, catching in the moonlight on his cheeks. Still, he never paused, never hesitated.

Severa couldn’t have said how long it lasted - it seemed an instant and an eternity, both at once - but the end was curiously abrupt: a finished twirl, his arms out for another, and then he just... stopped. He went still, covered his face in his hands, and wept.

She pushed up and went closer, not sure of the right thing to do. “Hey - what’s wrong?”

His shoulders shook; his voice was muffled under his fingers. “I just... I... I miss her...”

“It gets easier. Really. My... my father died last year. It was... a lot harder at first.” She’d never tried to talk about this, and she didn’t really want to, and she didn’t know the right thing to say to make anything better.

He shook his head. He was looking at the sky now, wiping his cheeks with his palms. “It was almost six months ago. I... I don’t know if it’ll get better. Maybe if I figure out the ending...”

She had no idea what he was talking about. But... “Six months? Did you live really far away or something?”

“No. I... I was only my own. For a long time.”

“For six months?” He couldn’t be much older than her. It didn’t seem possible.

“I promised her I wouldn’t leave.” A single, final tear, and he scrubbed it away almost angrily. “I promise I’d keep dancing for her. But the army found me, and... and they made me leave.”

“You’re a really good dancer. I guess.”

She rarely offered compliments, and maybe this was one reason why - the anger in his expression when he turned to her, the deep flush across his face, visible even in the dim light. “You promised not to look!”

She shrugged. “I changed my mind.”

He just looked at her for what felt like a very long time. Then he turned and started to walk away. He was over the fence before she found her voice: “Uh, where are you going?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he started to run.

“Hey! Wait! You idiot-!” She took off after him, but he was fast - and he had a good head start. It was hard to keep sight of him, darting in and out of shadowy streets. But she had one advantage: this was her city, not his. She ducked down an alley, and another, putting her back on the same street just in time to tackle him.

They went down in a tangled heap, and she heard his breath knocked from him. He tried to wriggle away, but she held tight - and when he continued to struggle, she pulled her leg up and kneed him, hard, in the stomach. He finally got the message then.

She pulled away, brushing hair out of her face. “What is wrong with you?”

He had curled himself into a ball again. “I’m going home.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“I am.”

“Have fun dying, then.”

“I won’t. I know how to fight. My mother taught me.”

Severa felt a sting of jealousy; her mother had never had time to teach her to use a lance, and she’d gotten in trouble for trying to teach herself. When there had still been training at the palace, she’d picked swords instead.

She tamped down the feeling. “If you can fight, you need to stay here with us.”

He sniffled. “Why?”

“Because... because it’s going to be our war, soon. That’s what Gerome said, and... and I think so, too.” She had never said it out loud, but now the words settled on her shoulders, cold and heavy and permanent.

He was staring at her again, then seemed to realize and quickly looked away. “Yeah.” He didn’t need to say more. She knew he was agreeing to stay.

She felt funny, all of a sudden - exposed and uncomfortable. “We should get back, before they realize we’re gone. I’m not going to get in trouble because of you.”

He got up first, and offered her a hand. She ignored it. He was smiling again. He was ridiculous.

But he was also, she thought as they walked back, really pretty all right. Better than Cynthia, anyway.

And a really good dancer.

“Why didn’t you want me watching you?”

He grinned at her. “Your eyes deserve only to see things as beautiful as they are.”

“What?”

Kind of all right, then. He’d have to earn more than that.

0 notes

baby-born · 8 years ago

Text

How to survive in the decree, if there is no money

It so happens that, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was left with a small child with little or no money. We had to somehow survive until that time, until the child goes to nursery - in our area I was able to write it in the garden, which take 2 years. A lot of luck that I had my, albeit very modest, housing. In addition to child benefit up to 1.5 years, I almost did not have any income.

One-time part-time work (took home sewing seamstress in a familiar, dirty work on overcast and brooms) were quite irregular, so rely on them as a permanent source of income, I could not.

Year without cash: Is it possible to live while spending no money?

youtube

As soon as I received child benefit and housing subsidies, I have to pay utility bills, and then I have remained very limited amount of money, which I could buy the products at least. Usually my list of purchases that I made once a week, looked like this: 1 kg of buckwheat, semolina 1 kg, 1 kg of rice, 1 kg weight inexpensive pasta, chicken quartered, 2-3 kg of potatoes, a few Morkovin, 1 beet. Sometimes I was able to carve out money for a couple of apples, oranges 1-2, a pound of bananas. For tea, I took galetnoe cookies. Back in the list included yogurt, milk, 5 eggs. Every 2-3 months, had to buy a bottle of sunflower oil. If unexpected earnings fell - I just bought a stock of canned food: peas, corn, canned meat, condensed milk, canned cheap vegetables and fruits, which are stored for a long time. Razzhireesh not, of course, but it was possible to live.

Since the child was breastfed, I drank a lot of tea. Welding while I would put at least the same basic weight of herbs, which are bought in the pharmacy: oregano, mint, chamomile. I gently whiten the milk tea.

In this mode, I lived more than six years.

Another invention of this desperate time - the "skin" of the diaper. Used disposable diaper had to hold it under running water from the tap, then swelled gel filling and soft inner layer is easily torn. The gel and the remains of the inner layer removed, and I remained a wonderful "skin" with Velcro. I washed it, Dried, invested in her gauze diaper - and this design is a perfect substitute my diapers, which I just do not have the money. Ten "skins" enough to Deh long as not completely worn Velcro, then it had to be thrown out. Marley and the skins themselves, I washed a small amount of baby powder. When the powder to an end - in the course of shaving soap was soap, which I rubbed on a grater. Thanks to this focus (gauze diaper waterproof "cover"), my son quickly realized what a "wet", began to ask for a pot, and all the floors and clothes were dry.

All the baby clothes I gave a friend from their children. I myself continue wearing their clothes, which they bought before pregnancy, from time to time get yourself some "new thing" in the second.

More difficult it was when the child needed a lure - just canned pyureshki no money. She did it all herself, grind in blender boiled vegetables, cereals, chicken white meat in small quantities. Cooked curd of yogurt.

SURVIVE IN A CITY WITH NO MONEY - A day in Copenhagen !

youtube

Toys for the son I did myself, of auxiliary materials: cardboard, empty containers out of yoghurt pots, from pegs, ropes and other things. Son liked to play with rags - scraps of fabric. I sewed him a few dolls, soft little animals, and they loved it much more than store bought, which we gave to my girlfriend. Toys, by the way, we also passed a lot of inherited from her friends, whose children have grown up.

Male friend who worked at a small furniture company, sawed a large number of "cubes" of different shape and size, turned out just a huge box. House I "finalized" their sandpaper and get the best designer in the world, which the son played for many years - built towns, towers, castles. From wooden spools, which I still remain from the old times, making cars. And I play them with great pleasure, than those which have been purchased.

I also moonlighted (the Internet did not yet exist, so all online income excluded):

1. Soap floors and its next door, and his son came to sit a girlfriend at this time.

How to live without money

youtube

2. She took orders for knitting, mainly hats and scarves. I did manage very well lush pompons, but they took a lot of threads.

3. I sat with other people's children - not for long, not full-time, only if the parents have to go somewhere to absent himself for a few hours. I found the ads that I hung in neighboring yards. It was more or less constant earnings. With more parents of such children I talk so far, has a friendly.

4. Make a large order for the garden, which recorded a son - sewed new sheets and duvet covers, to repair old ones.

5. still found an elderly neighbor who paid me a little because I'm 3 times a week buys her products. The same neighbor several times rescued me when I had to absent himself, and his son did not have to bring your possibilities and friends were also busy.

Take the time to regret or condemn me from my own experience I know that you can be in an instant, in such a situation. Those who, like myself, to survive without money in the decree, I want to say - do not give up.

It was many years ago. Now, thank God, I have long been a well-paid job. The son grew up, went to school - wooden toys did not hurt his intellect, he is a good student. Those days are gradually forgotten. But recently, when I told him about the "skin" of disposable diapers, it turned out that many of whose children grew up in the 90s, remembers them! Pampers then were very expensive, they are put on the child only to the clinic, visit, well, or for a walk in the cold. A son still remembers the homemade constructor of wooden cubes and rectangles of various formats, and says it was the best toy in the world for him.

#survive #decree #there #money #absent himself

0 notes