#half term events peak district

[themaynard]

Top Family-Friendly Activities for Half Term in the Peak District

Discover the best family-friendly activities for half term in the Peak District. Enjoy Chatsworth House, Heights of Abraham, Gulliver's Kingdom, and more. Explore scenic walks like Longshaw Estate and Padley Gorge. Dine and stay at The Maynard for a perfect getaway. Book your stay now for an unforgettable half term experience.

[libraryofcirclaria]

The 1187 Coup

Library of Circlaria

Blog Posts

Map of Ereautea, Present

Article Written: 8 November 1456

Even today, it is a matter of speculation whether or not Cixela Esary, herself, was directly behind the event. But what is known, however, is that in 1187, Michael Fvenn led a group of militants, seemingly under the oathcrafting influence, in an attempt to topple the government of the then-District of Ereautea in Lerutan.

SCPC: Trade with Remikra

The latter half of the 1100s saw a period of trade between the Remikran Union and the House of Esary seated in Notulfa. The Sororal Council of the Primeron Class, led by Cixela Esary as one of the Esarian House Councils, traded directly with the Remikran Union nation of Combria, which was politically unstable at the time. In 1167, the SCPC appointed a directory government to preside over Combria for three days, during which they paid off some debts, sorted out logistical issues, and propagated a "set of virtues." Trade between Combria and the SCPC continued afterward and peaked between 1172 and 1182. And it was during this time that the "set of virtues" introduced by the SCPC began to be propagated by Combrians naming themselves "stewards of virtue." There is conflicting evidence on the direct sources of their influence and how they were able to spread such influence to other Combrians, leading scholars over the past twenty years to begin speculating the possibility of oathcrafting.

Regardless, there emerged a most avowed "steward" by the name of Jon Codon, who began assembling a large band of followers across Combria.

Jon Codon: Takeover Attempt

As factional violence put the balance of power in jeopardy in Combria's new national capital, Hasphitat, the most prominent figure of the Jameson Faction, Jacob Thomas Henry, appointed Jon Codon to the commander position of one of the Faction's militant groups. In doing so, Henry and Codon agreed to a mutual pledge that Codon would offer support for the Jameson Faction both in terms of recruitment and paramilitary defense, and that Henry would, after becoming the next President of Combria, promise to recruit associates of the SCPC to positions of power in his new Administration.

In 1184, Henry became the next President of Combria, establishing the Hasphitat National Watch and appointing Jon Codon as its Head. Codon then presented a list of SCPC associates for Henry to appoint, but President Henry stiffly rejected the proposal. Henry's reason was that he had, since the forming of the mutual pledge, researched into the House of Esary and grew uncomfortable with its far-reaching influence into the land and sea trading guilds across large swaths of Circlaria. He was also uncomfortable with Jon Codon and his follwers, citing that there was "more of a force at play on behalf of the seemingly shady individuals in minor but powerful positions of the Sororal Council and the other Councils within the House of Esary." As an act of safe measure from his perspective, President Henry demoted Jon Codon to the Lieutenant Chief position of National Watch Division Fourteen. Henry's consolation thereafter was to establish a contract of fair trade with the SCPC but vowed that "cross-administrative influence shall remain separate."

Citing that President Henry breached the mutual pledge, Codon expressed contempt and stated that President Henry had betrayed him. He denounced President Henry as "the Head of the Corrupt State," and then rallied his followers to a new resolution: "to subdue Henry's regime and, in its place, established a Combrian State eternally and unquestionably loyal to the virtues of Cixela Esary."

Codon's following grew to include a large number of Division Fourteen Officers. On 6 February 1185, Codon and 112 of these Officers staged an armed attack against the Chadwick Building. They managed to capture the First and Second Levels, but on the Third Level, they were confronted by the Hasphitat National Watch Chadwick Building Security Division, who overwhelmed Codon's forces and brought them to surrender.

Jon Codon was arrested and put on trial, where, on 12 September 1185, he was convicted of sedition and sentenced to death. Codon was executed by firing squad on 6 February 1186.

Michael Fvenn

Michael Fvenn was a lawyer for a family charter business in Lerutan. He was also initially a member of the Leon Faction, rival to the Jameson Faction, but was converted by Jon Codon, who thoroughly indoctrinated him with Cixela Esary's "set of virtues," and had him become a "junior steward" under Jon Codon's close mentorship. Fvenn was deeply saddened by Jon Codon's execution and condemned President Henry's "Corrupt State." With quite a following of his own, Fvenn established the Order of the Esarian Fellowship, an underground organization dedicated to Jon Codon's principles, and began recruiting followers. The aim of the Order was to establish Jon Codon's vision of a "New Combrian State," as Fvenn even named himself the "First Combrian Speaker" to Cixela Esary.

Fvenn's recruitment strategy proved quite effective and successful, consisting of robed pious individuals and armed defenders, the latter of which included body guards and assassins. He started by converting as many followers as possible until a majority of the street on which he lived consisted of them. He swayed the surrounding residential block in a similar fashion, and then continued to other residential blocks across Lerutan. Each converted household displayed nothing conveying loyalty to the SCPC externally, but drapes and symbols lined the walls inside. Fvenn moved on to the surrounding rural townships and found even less resistance to his recruitment efforts.

Moris Perton, the appointed Governor of the District of Ereautea, began growing concerned with this rapidly-spreading movement, citing its "potentially dangerous fervor." On 13 June 1186, Governor Perton acted upon his suspicion by issuing an ordinance banning the Esarian Order in all of the District of Ereautea, and enforced this by conducting home searches, material confiscations, and even arrests. Perton called upon the other Districts and even President Henry to do the same.

On 1 September 1186, under Fvenn's command, members of the Esarian Order blocked important streets and shut down basic functions of infrastructure in the city of Lerutan. In the rural areas, Order members blocked roadways and overran local Council Chambers. This led Perton to partially rescind his ordinance in order to only prohibit public displays of pro-Esarian sentiment. Fvenn made a bargain to President Henry to have the Order peacefully co-exist with him if Henry began appoint SCPC associates to his Administrative positions. President Henry declined the proposition but gave concession by allowing Esarian traders to engage with local Combrian businesses.

However, Combrian laborers not associated with the Esarian Order grew suspicious of possible shady business involving President Henry and the House of Esary, primarily with the SCPC. They united and attempted to negotiate with President Henry for a rollback of the Esarian trade bargain and other similar trade deals, arguing that tariff breaks recently enacted with the SCPC would ultimately lead to higher rent and taxes for the workers. However, the talks failed with President Henry maintaining that revenue expecting to result from trade with the SCPC would eventually balance out and eliminate the financial hardships of the working class if there were any. Henry also asserted that he already had negotiated exhaustively with Michael Fvenn and that any further compromises were not possible.

On 2 March 1187, labor unions across all of Combria collaborated and staged a general strike, which lasted until 22 March when President Henry signed a contract with the laborers rescinding all compromises agreed upon with Michael Fvenn and issued a decree freezing trade indefinitely with the SCPC.

Michael Fvenn condemned the events of March 1187 as being the result of a conspiracy to "employ the mob mentality in order to cement the power of President Henry as the Head of the Corrupt Combrian State." The Esarian Order carried out regular public demonstrations across Ereautea as they trained and armed a large body of new recruits. Fvenn then called for Governor Perton to step down and allow for the "establishment of Ereautea as a State dedicated to the SCPC and independent from the corruption of President Henry." Perton responded with crackdown measures against the Esarian Order street demonstrations. Meanwhile, Fvenn ordered the construction of underground armament camps to train the armed recruits and build "mortar wheel-cannons."

On 3 November 1187, Michael Fvenn launched an onslaught of armed infantry, artillery, and spellcasters against the Governor's House in Lerutan. Governor Perton and his Administration fled the premise to an underground bunker as Fvenn led his forces to storm the Governor's Office. It was here that Michael Fvenn proclaimed himself "Head of the Esarian State of Ereautea," and demanded that President Henry formally recognize Ereautea as an independent nation, giving Henry seventy-two hours to withdraw all national Combrian forces from Ereautea in order to avoid a declaration of war. On 4 November, President dispatched National Guard forces into Ereautea, overcoming the rural regions with little to no resistance and violently clashing with Esarian Order fighters in the streets of Lerutan. On 5 November, being easily outflanked and out-equipped, Esarian Order fighters were overcome as National Guard forces, armed with tanks and proper cannons, surrounded the Governor's House. They gave Michael Fvenn twenty-four hours to surrender and vacate the premise or come under intense artillery fire. Within one hour of the end of that time limit, Michael Fvenn finally surrendered.

Like his mentor, Jon Codon, Michael Fvenn was convicted of sedition but would ultimately be spared from a death sentence. Instead, he was sent to the District of West Combria where he would remain, for the rest of his life, under house arrest in one of his family estates.

[tinyshe]

Is Natural Immunity More Effective Than the COVID Shot? 

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data,1 COVID-19 “cases” have trended downward since peaking during the first and second week of January 2021.

At first glance, this decline appears to be occurring in tandem with the rollout of COVID shots. January 1, 2021, only 0.5% of the U.S. population had received a COVID shot. By mid-April, an estimated 31% had received one or more shots,2 and as of July 13, 48.3% were fully “vaccinated.”3

However, as noted in a July 12, 2021, STAT News article,4 “cases” had started their downward trend before COVID shots were widely used. “Following patterns from previous pandemics, the precipitous decline in new cases of Covid-19 started well before a meaningful number of people had been vaccinated,” Robert M. Kaplan, Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, writes. He continues:

“Nearly 50 years ago, medical sociologists John and Sonja McKinlay examined5 death rates from 10 serious diseases: tuberculosis, scarlet fever, influenzae, pneumonia, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, smallpox, typhoid, and polio. In each case, the new therapy or vaccine credited with overcoming it was introduced well after the disease was in decline.

More recently, historian Thomas McKeown noted6 that deaths from bronchitis, pneumonia, and influenza had begun rapidly falling 35 years before the introduction of new medicines that were credited with their conquest. These historical analyses are relevant to the current pandemic.”

‘Case’ Decline Preceded Widespread Implementation of Jab

As noted by Kaplan, COVID-19 “cases” peaked in early January 2021. January 8, more than 300,000 new positive test results were recorded on a daily basis. By February 21, that had declined to a daily new case count of 55,000. COVID-19 gene modification injections were granted emergency use authorization at the end of December 2020, but by February 21, only 5.9% of American adults had been fully vaccinated with two doses.

Despite such a low vaccination rate, new “cases” had declined by 82%. Considering health authorities claim we need 70% of Americans vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity and stop the spread of this virus, this simply makes no sense. Clearly, the COVID shots had nothing to do with the decline in positive test results.

To be clear, reported cases mean positive test results, and we now know the vast majority of positive PCR tests have been, and still are, false positives. They’re not sick. They simply had a false “positive.” Right now, we’re also faced with yet another situation that complicates attempts at data analysis, and Kaplan understandably did not address any of these confounding factors.

But just so you’re aware, if you have been fully “vaccinated,” then the CDC recommends running the PCR test at a cycle threshold (CT) of 28 or lower, which dramatically lowers your chance of a false positive result, but if you are unvaccinated, the PCR test is recommended to be run at a CT of 40 or higher, virtually guaranteeing a false positive.

This is just one way by which the CDC is manipulating data to make the COVID shots appear more effective than they are. This also allows them to falsely claim that the vast majority of new cases are among the unvaccinated.

Naturally, if unvaccinated are tested in such a way as to maximize false positives, then they’re going to make up the bulk of the so-called caseload. In reality, though, the vast majority of them aren’t sick.

Meanwhile, those who have received the jabs only count as a COVID case if they’re hospitalized and/or die with a positive test result. These widely differing testing strategies skew the data and allow for false interpretations to be made.

Natural Immunity Explains Decline in Cases

As noted by Kaplan, the most reasonable explanation for declining rates of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be natural immunity from previous infections, which vary considerably from state to state.7 He goes on to cite a study8 by the National Institutes of Health, which suggests SARS-CoV-2 prevalence was 4.8 times higher than previously thought, thanks to undiagnosed infection.

In other words, they claim that for every reported positive test result, there were likely nearly five additional people who had the infection but didn’t get a diagnosis. To analyze this data further, Kaplan calculated the natural immunity rate by dividing the new estimated number of people naturally infected by the population of any given state. He writes:9

“By mid-February 2021, an estimated 150 million people in the U.S. (30 million times five) may have had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. By April, I estimated the natural immunity rate to be above 55% in 10 states: Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin.

At the other end of the continuum, I estimated the natural immunity rate to be below 35% in the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington …

By the end of 2020, new infections were already rapidly declining in nearly all of the 10 states where the majority may have had natural immunity, well before more than a minuscule percentage of Americans were fully vaccinated. In 80% of these states, the day when new cases were at their peak occurred before vaccines were available.

In contrast, the 10 states with lower rates of previous infections were much more likely to experience new upticks in Covid-19 cases in March and April ... By the end of May, states with fewer new infections had significantly lower vaccination rates than states with more new infections.”

COVID Shots Cannot Eliminate COVID-19

So, SARS-CoV-2 cases were actually higher in states where natural immunity was low but vaccination rates were high. Meanwhile, in states where natural immunity due to undiagnosed exposure was high, but vaccination rates were low, the daily new caseload was also lower.

This makes sense if natural immunity is highly effective (which, historically it has always been and there’s no reason to suspect SARS-CoV-2 is any different in that regard). It also makes sense if the COVID shots aren’t really offering any significant protection against infection, which we also know is the case.

The survivability of COVID-19 outside of nursing homes is 99.74%. If you’re under the age of 40, your chance of surviving a bout of COVID-19 is 99.99%.

Vaccine manufacturers have already admitted these COVID shots will not provide immunity, meaning they will not prevent you from being infected. The idea behind these gene modification injections is that if/when you do get infected, you’ll hopefully experience milder symptoms, even though you’re still infectious and can spread the virus to others.

Kaplan ends his analysis by saying that COVID shots are a safer way to achieve herd immunity, and that they are “the best tool available for assuring that the smoldering fire of [COVID-19] is extinguished.” I disagree, based on two major issues.

First, and perhaps most importantly, this is an untested “vaccine” and we have no idea of the short-term let alone long-term damage it will cause, as any reasonable effort at collecting this data has been actively suppressed. Secondly, the survivability of COVID-19 outside of nursing homes is 99.74%. If you’re under the age of 40, your chance of surviving a bout of COVID-19 is 99.99%.10,11,12

You can’t really improve your chances of surviving beyond that, so COVID shots cannot realistically end the pandemic. Meanwhile, the COVID shots come with an ever-growing list of potential side effects that can take years if not decades off your natural life span. The shots are particularly unnecessary for anyone with natural immunity,13 yet that’s what the CDC recommends.14

Why Push COVID Jab on Those with Natural Immunity?

In January 2021, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm, a cardiac surgeon and patient advocate, sent a public letter15 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner detailing the risks of vaccinating individuals who have previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2, or who have an active SARS-CoV-2 infection.

He urged the FDA to require prescreening for SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins to reduce the risk of injuries and deaths following vaccination, as the vaccine may trigger an adverse immune response in those who have already been infected with the virus. In March 2021, Fox TV host Tucker Carlson interviewed him about these risks. In that interview, Noorchashm said:16

“I think it’s a dramatic error on part of public health officials to try to put this vaccine into a one-size-fits-all paradigm … We’re going to take this problem we have with the COVID-19 pandemic, where a half-percent of the population is susceptible to dying, and compound it by causing totally avoidable harm by vaccinating people who are already infected …

The signal is deafening, the people who are having complications or adverse events are the people who have recently or are currently or previously infected [with COVID]. I don’t think we can ignore this.”

In an email to The Defender, Noorchashm fleshed out his concerns, saying:17

“Viral antigens persist in the tissues of the naturally infected for months. When the vaccine is used too early after a natural infection, or worse during an active infection, the vaccine force activates a powerful immune response that attacks the tissues where the natural viral antigens are persisting. This, I suggest, is the cause of the high level of adverse events and, likely deaths, we are seeing in the recently infected following vaccination.”

Despite being widely ignored, Noorchashm continues to push for the implementation of prevaccine screening using PCR or rapid antigen testing to determine whether the individual has an active infection, and an IgG antibody test to determine past infection.

If either test is positive, he recommends delaying vaccination for a minimum of three to six months to allow your IgG levels to wane. At that point, he recommends testing your blood IgG level and use that as a guide to decide the timing of your vaccination.

Those with Natural Immunity Have Higher Risk of Side Effects

Mere weeks after Noorchashm’s letter to the FDA, an international survey18 confirmed his concerns. After surveying 2,002 people who had received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, they found that those who had previously had COVID-19 experienced “significantly increased incidence and severity” of side effects, compared to those who did not have natural immunity.

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were linked to a higher incidence of side effects compared to the viral vector-based COVID-19 vaccines, but tended to be milder, local reactions. Systemic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, flu-like illness and breathlessness, were more likely to occur with the viral vector COVID-19 vaccines.

Like Noorchashm before them, the researchers called on health officials to reevaluate their vaccination recommendations for people who’ve had COVID-19:19

“People with prior COVID-19 exposure were largely excluded from the vaccine trials and, as a result, the safety and reactogenicity of the vaccines in this population have not been previously fully evaluated. For the first time, this study demonstrates a significant association between prior COVID19 infection and a significantly higher incidence and severity of self-reported side effects after vaccination for COVID-19.

Consistently, compared to the first dose of the vaccine, we found an increased incidence and severity of self-reported side effects after the second dose, when recipients had been previously exposed to viral antigen.

In view of the rapidly accumulating data demonstrating that COVID-19 survivors generally have adequate natural immunity for at least 6 months, it may be appropriate to re-evaluate the recommendation for immediate vaccination of this group.”

CDC Misrepresents Data to Push Jab on Those with Immunity

So far, the CDC has refused to change its stance on the matter. Instead, officials at the agency seem to have doubled down and actually go out of their way to misrepresent data in an effort to harass those with natural immunity to inappropriately take the jab, which is clearly clinically unnecessary.

In a report issued by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) December 18, 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was said to have “consistent high efficacy” of 92% or more among people with evidence of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection.20

After looking at the Pfizer trial data, Rep. Thomas Massie — a Republican Congressman for Kentucky and an award-winning scientist in his own right — discovered that’s completely wrong. In a January 30, 2021, Full Measure report, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson described how Massie tried, in vain, to get the CDC to correct its error. According to Massie:21,22

“There is no efficacy demonstrated in the Pfizer trial among participants with evidence of previous SARS-CoV-2 infections and actually there's no proof in the Moderna trial either …

It [the CDC report] says the exact opposite of what the data says. They're giving people the impression that this vaccine will save your life, or save you from suffering, even if you've already had the virus and recovered, which has not been demonstrated in either the Pfizer or the Moderna trial.”

After multiple phone calls, CDC deputy director Dr. Anne Schuchat finally acknowledged the error and told Massie it would be fixed. “As you note correctly, there is not sufficient analysis to show that in the subset of only the people with prior infection, there's efficacy. So, you're correct that that sentence is wrong and that we need to make a correction of it,” Schuchat said in the recorded call.

January 29, 2021, the CDC issued its supposed correction, but rather than fix the error, they simply rephrased the mistake in a different way. This was the “correction” they issued:

“Consistent high efficacy (≥92%) was observed across age, sex, race, and ethnicity categories and among persons with underlying medical conditions. Efficacy was similarly high in a secondary analysis including participants both with or without evidence of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

As you can see, the “correction” still misleadingly suggests that vaccination is effective for those previously infected, even though the data showed no such thing. Children of ever-younger ages are also being pushed to get the COVID jab, even though they have the absolute lowest risk of dying from COVID-19 of any group.

Data23 from the first 12 months of the pandemic in the U.K. show just 25 people under the age of 18 died from or with COVID-19.24 In all, 251 children under 18 were admitted to intensive care between March 2020 and February 2021. The absolute risk of death from COVID-19 in children is 2 in 1 million.

Vaccine Provides Far Less Protection Than Natural Immunity

While some claim vaccine-induced immunity offers greater protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection than natural immunity, historical and current real-world data simply fail to support this non-common sense assertion.

As recently reported by Attkisson25,26 and David Rosenberg 7 Israeli National News,27 recent Israeli data show those who have received the COVID jab are 6.72 times more likely to get infected than people who have recovered from natural infection.

Among the 7,700 new COVID cases diagnosed so far during the current wave of infections that began in May 2021, 39% were vaccinated (about 3,000 cases), 1% (72 patients) had recovered from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and 60% were neither vaccinated nor previously infected. Israeli National News notes:28

“With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID.

By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.”

Breakthrough Infections Are on the Rise

Other Israeli data also suggest the limited protection offered by the COVID shot is rapidly eroding. August 1, 2021, director of Israel’s Public Health Services, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, announced half of all COVID-19 infections were among the fully vaccinated.29 Signs of more serious disease among fully vaccinated are also emerging, she said, particularly in those over the age of 60.

Even worse, August 5, Dr. Kobi Haviv, director of the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, appeared on Channel 13 News, reporting that 95% of severely ill COVID-19 patients are fully vaccinated, and that they make up 85% to 90% of COVID-related hospitalizations overall.30

Other areas where a clear majority of residents have been vaccinated are also seeing spikes in breakthrough cases. In Gibraltar, which has a 99% COVID jab compliance rate, COVID cases have risen by 2,500% since June 1, 2021.31

US Outbreak Shatters ‘Pandemic of Unvaccinated’ Narrative

An investigation by the CDC32,33 also dispels the narrative that we’re in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” An outbreak in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, resulted in 469 new COVID cases among residents who had traveled into town between July 3 and July 17, 2021.

Of these cases, 74% were fully vaccinated, as were 80% of those requiring hospitalization.Most, but not all, had the Delta variant of the virus. The CDC also found that fully vaccinated individuals who contract the infection had as high a viral load in their nasal passages as unvaccinated individuals who got infected.34 This means the vaccinated are just as infectious as the unvaccinated. According to Attkisson:35

“CDC's newest findings on so-called ‘breakthrough’ infections in vaccinated people are mirrored by other data releases. Illinois health officials recently announced36 more than 160 fully-vaccinated people have died of Covid-19, and at least 644 been hospitalized; 10 deaths and 51 hospitalizations counted in the prior week …

In July, New Jersey reported 49 fully vaccinated residents had died of Covid; 27 in Louisiana; 80 in Massachusetts … Nationally, as of July 12, CDC said it was aware of more than 4,400 people who got Covid-19 after being fully vaccinated and had to be hospitalized; and 1,063 fully vaccinated people who died of Covid.”

It is important to note this data is over 1 month old now and it is likely that many thousands of fully “vaccinated” have now died from COVID-19.

Natural Immunity Appears Robust and Long-Lasting

An argument we’re starting to hear more of now is that even though natural immunity after recovery from infection appears to be quite good, “we don’t know how long it’ll last.” This is rather disingenuous, seeing how natural immunity is typically lifelong, and studies have shown natural immunity against SARS-CoV-2 is at bare minimum longer lasting than vaccine-induced immunity.

Here’s a sampling of scholarly publications that have investigated natural immunity as it pertains to SARS-CoV-2 infection. There are several more in addition to these:37

Science Immunology October 202038 found that “RBD-targeted antibodies are excellent markers of previous and recent infection, that differential isotype measurements can help distinguish between recent and older infections, and that IgG responses persist over the first few months after infection and are highly correlated with neutralizing antibodies.”

The BMJ January 202139 concluded that “Of 11, 000 health care workers who had proved evidence of infection during the first wave of the pandemic in the U.K. between March and April 2020, none had symptomatic reinfection in the second wave of the virus between October and November 2020.”

Science February 202140 reported that “Substantial immune memory is generated after COVID-19, involving all four major types of immune memory [antibodies, memory B cells, memory CD8+ T cells, and memory CD4+ T cells]. About 95% of subjects retained immune memory at ~6 months after infection. Circulating antibody titers were not predictive of T cell memory.

Thus, simple serological tests for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies do not reflect the richness and durability of immune memory to SARS-CoV-2.” A 2,800-person study found no symptomatic reinfections over a ~118-day window, and a 1,246-person study observed no symptomatic reinfections over 6 months.

A February 2021 study posted on the prepublication server medRxiv41 concluded that “Natural infection appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection with an efficacy ~95% for at least seven months.”

An April 2021 study posted on medRxiv42 reported “the overall estimated level of protection from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection for documented infection is 94.8%; hospitalization 94.1%; and severe illness 96·4%. Our results question the need to vaccinate previously-infected individuals.”

Another April 2021 study posted on the preprint server BioRxiv43 concluded that “following a typical case of mild COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells not only persist but continuously differentiate in a coordinated fashion well into convalescence, into a state characteristic of long-lived, self-renewing memory.”

A May 2020 report in the journal Immunity44 confirmed that SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing antibodies are detected in COVID-19 convalescent subjects, as well as cellular immune responses. Here, they found that neutralizing antibody titers do correlate with the number of virus-specific T cells.

A May 2021 Nature article45 found SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells, which are a crucial source of protective antibodies. Even after mild infection, anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antibodies were detectable beyond 11 months’ post-infection.

A May 2021 study in E Clinical Medicine46 found “antibody detection is possible for almost a year post-natural infection of COVID-19.” According to the authors, “Based on current evidence, we hypothesize that antibodies to both S and N-proteins after natural infection may persist for longer than previously thought, thereby providing evidence of sustainability that may influence post-pandemic planning.”

Cure-Hub data47 confirm that while COVID shots can generate higher antibody levels than natural infection, this does not mean vaccine-induced immunity is more protective. Importantly, natural immunity confers much wider protection as your body recognizes all five proteins of the virus and not just one. With the COVID shot, your body only recognizes one of these proteins, the spike protein.

A June 2021 Nature article48 points out that “Wang et al. show that, between 6 and 12 months after infection, the concentration of neutralizing antibodies remains unchanged. That the acute immune reaction extends even beyond six months is suggested by the authors’ analysis of SARS-CoV-2-specific memory B cells in the blood of the convalescent individuals over the course of the year.

These memory B cells continuously enhance the reactivity of their SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies through a process known as somatic hypermutation. The good news is that the evidence thus far predicts that infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces long-term immunity in most individuals.”

Another June Nature paper concluded that “In the absence of vaccination antibody reactivity [to the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2], neutralizing activity and the number of RBD-specific memory B cells remain relatively stable from 6 to 12 months.” According to the authors, the data suggest “immunity in convalescent individuals will be very long lasting.”

What Makes Natural Immunity Superior?

The reason natural immunity is superior to vaccine-induced immunity is because viruses contain five different proteins. The COVID shot induces antibodies against just one of those proteins, the spike protein, and no T cell immunity. When you’re infected with the whole virus, you develop antibodies against all parts of the virus, plus memory T cells.

This also means natural immunity offers better protection against variants, as it recognizes several parts of the virus. If there are significant alternations to the spike protein, as with the Delta variant, vaccine-induced immunity can be evaded. Not so with natural immunity, as the other proteins are still recognized and attacked.

Not only that but the COVID jabs actually actively promote the production of variants for which they provide virtually no protection at all, while those with natural immunity do not cause variants and are nearly universally protected against them.

If we are to depend on vaccine-induced immunity, as public health officials are urging us to do, we’ll end up on a never-ending booster treadmill. Boosters will absolutely be necessary, as the shot offers such narrow protection against a single protein of the virus. Already, Moderna has publicly stated that the need for additional boosters is expected.49

Ultimately It’s About Wealth Transfer, Power and Control

Government agencies typically don’t issue recommendations without ulterior motives. Since current recommendations make absolutely no sense from a medical and scientific standpoint, what might the reason be for these illogical and reprehensibly unethical recommendations to inject people who don’t need it with experimental gene modification technology?

Why are they so hell-bent on getting a needle in every arm? And why are they refusing to perform any kind of risk-benefit analysis?

Data already indicate these COVID-19 injections could be the most dangerous medical product we’ve ever seen, and a June 24, 2021, peer-reviewed study published in the medical journal Vaccines warned we are in fact killing nearly as many with the shots as would die from COVID-19 itself.50

Using data from a large Israeli field study and two European drug reactions databases, they recalculated the NNTV for Pfizer’s mRNA shot. To prevent one case of COVID-19, anywhere between 200 and 700 had to be injected. To prevent a single death, the NNTV was between 9,000 and 50,000, with 16,000 as a point estimate.

Meanwhile, the number of people reporting adverse reactions from the shots was 700 per 100,000 vaccinations. For serious side effects, there were 16 reports per 100,000 vaccinations, and the number of fatal side effects was 4.11 per 100,000 vaccinations.

The final calculation suggested that for every three COVID-19 deaths prevented, two died from the shots. “This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy,” the authors concluded.

As has become the trend, a letter expressing “concern” about the study was published June 28, 2021, resulting in the paper being abruptly retracted July 2, 2021, against the authors’ objections. They disagreed with the accusation that their data and subsequent conclusion were misrepresentative, but the paper was retracted before they had time to publish a rebuttal.

Based on everything we’ve discovered so far, it seems a pandemic virus industrial complex is running the show, with a goal to eliminate medical rights and personal freedoms in order to centralize power, control and wealth.

By the looks of things, the COVID-19 mass psychosis and loss of any rational thinking by nearly half the population will continue to persist as long as the propaganda continues. Fear will continue and if need be, other engineered viruses may be released, for which they’ll create even more gene modification injections.

I believe the truth will eventually be so overwhelming, it’ll sweep away the confusion and the lies.  Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola  August 18, 2021

[thekidultlife]

To Aru x SVT: Jihoon | Short Story #1

Author’s Notes: Hi this is Hyeri!! I’m trying something new with this series where there would be minimal romance and more on action, friendship and general world building! I wanna try practicing writing action packed scenes because I don’t think I’ve really ever focused on it before. Anyway, this story is of three parts, and based on the anime/light novel A Certain Magical Index and its spin-offs! I hope you like this one? I tried ;;w;;

Pairing: Jihoon x fem!reader (if u squint)

Genre: Sci-fi, Action, Romance (if u squint)

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: N/A

JIHOON’S PROFILE

A_Certain_Ordinary_Day

 Seventh Mist Mall , School District 7, Academy City

11:32 AM

 “This is Judgement! Surrender now before—“

—!!

On a rather monotonous and boring day in Academy City, a large explosion shook an entire mall. 

“This is Y/N from the 166th Branch Division.Yanagi can you hear me?!”

Billows of smoke filled the entire seventh floor of the building, as shards of glass were scattered everywhere. Seventh Mist which was supposedly a popular meeting place for students with schools inside the district was in disarray, yet it was difficult to ascertain the status of those inside the mall as dust and debris covered everything like a thick blanket. 

“Goddamn it, they’re not responding. We need ground crew in there immediately!” 

Your heart was racing, but this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. As the chief officer of the 166th Branch Office of Judgement, which is a city-wide, student-run disciplinary committee, you were in charge of directing and planning what actions to take during emergencies like this, which isn’t really a rare circumstance, considering the fact that Academy City offers powerful abilities to hormonal teenagers. 

“I’ll send in a message, Chief,” a colleague of yours, a middle school student with telepathic abilities, offered through your earpiece.

“Alright. Tell them we need to evacuate those inside the mall,” you replied back, closing your laptop as you ran outside your apartment with plans to go near the area as much as possible. 

“To all Judgement members around the vicinity of Seventh Mist, please confirm your safety to your branch office immediately. If you are fit to perform emergency measures, please do so with caution. I repeat, to all Judgement members—“

You could also hear the message inside your head as you took off on your bicycle, tires screeching as you arrived at the 167th Branch Office, just a few meters away from the mall. You could smell the scent of burning and pulverized concrete as you waded through the streets, the surge of adrenaline keeping you alert.

“Chief of the 166th Branch Office, Y/N reporting!” you shouted as you entered their office. 

You could feel the tension in the air as three people busied themselves to and fro inside the room. Papers were scattered and phone calls were being made while some were in their laptops providing tactical support to the ground team.

“Oh god, thanks for running all the way here Y/N!” Their chief, a high school student stood up from his seat in a panic. 

“No problem,” you replied coolly, keeping your excitement at bay. “So, what’s the situation? Have you called Anti-Skill already?”

“We have. They’re helping as of the moment,” he replied as he sat back down on the chair in front of the computer. “So far the evacuation process is under control. A lot of injured but no one dead, fortunately.”

As you peered behind him, you could see numerous windows on the numerous screens before you. Some showed footage of surviving cameras, some contained information of all known people who entered the mall using facial recognition software and electronic data of those who had transactions in the mall at the time the explosion happened. 

“So, the explosion happened at half past eleven this morning,” he began explaining as he moved the cursor around the screen, looking for something. “We suspect that these three students are responsible for the explosion—Erizawa Rena, Nakamura Aoi and Ito Shizuka—all students from Kirigaoka.” 

As he brought a video footage on the forefront of the screen, you narrowed your eyes and watched closely. 

“There was a big fashion event being held on the seventh floor and they thought it’ll be a nice place to set off an explosion,” the chief narrated as it happened on the footage. “They themselves created it. One of them wrapped the whole floor with copious amounts of propane and the other girl seemed to have pyrokinetic abilities and ignited the place. A Judgement member spotted them but they were too late.”

You raised your brows at how fast Judgement processed the data. “What about the third girl though?”

“We have suspicions that she might be in charge of defending their group from the explosion,” he replied with a shrug. “Not that surprising considering they came from Kirigaoka.”

Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy. It was a prestigious school at the ranks of Nagatenjouki Academy and Tokiwadai Middle School, yet it was different than all of them because they only take students with rare and unusual abilities. What could’ve caused these three girls to bomb an entire mall?

“Chief! We found them!” 

Your thoughts were interrupted as someone in charge of tracking the culprits yelled from behind you. Immediately rushing to her side, you took a peak on the laptop screen and saw live footage from a street cam just a few blocks away from the mall. 

“Good work, Rika!” the chief of the 167th Branch smiled and then gave you a pat on the shoulder. “It’s your time to shine now, Y/N. Judgement is ready to mobilize.”

With a bright grin that was almost bordering maniacal, you sprinted to the four-monitored computer and then opened your own laptop. Cracking your fingers as the software booted up, you read all the details you needed to know about the location, the targets and the Judgement members at your disposal. 

“Alright, here we go,” you muttered on an earpiece which was connected with a cable to your laptop. 

“On your mark, Y/N!” 

A voice crackled on the ear piece, the rush of adrenaline rising in your veins once again. Time to catch some bad girls.

“Teams A and B flank to the left; at 13th to 16th street. Team C and D, got to the other side. We’re going to surround them,” you ordered as your laptop began whirring. “I hope everyone has fireproof gear.”

You watched as points on the map on one of the monitors began to move into a pincher attack, all proceeding smoothly and swiftly. You then closed your eyes. 

12.56% chance of attacking Judgement head on. 32.06% chance of escaping underground. 65.77% chance of creating another explosion to scatter our forces and escape.

Your ability on simple terms was called Precognition. It allows you to see fifteen minutes into the future, but it was far from the likes of spiritual practices like divination and horoscope. You would calculate probabilities of how the future would unfold and categorize them into percentages, much like the chances of drawing a yellow marble in a mix of seven different colors. After calculating those probabilities, you choose one which has the highest chance of happening and then exercise appropriate action. It was much more complicated than that of course, which is why you would often borrow the computing power of your laptop so your brain wouldn’t overload. 

“Electromasters, I want you to disperse the gas molecules as much as you can,” you said through the earpiece. “They’re gonna burn up the place so anyone who can control air particles and so on would be a great help.”

—!!

A powerful shock sent static to your earpiece. You inhaled sharply. 

They’re already starting? This is definitely a diversion. I was right.

“You guys okay?” you asked, worry in your voice as your brain processed their next steps. 

“We’re fine, Y/N. Good thing you warned us about the explosion,” the team head answered. “But at this rate, we couldn’t get close to them at all.”

You clicked your tongue. They were right. 

The fires keep anyone out of close contact with them. You’d guessed they wouldn’t have any combative ability, just a lot of cleverness.

“Alright. For now, continue chasing after them and stop them from creating more explosions,” you instructed them and then turned to the chief of the 167th branch. “I need you to get someone.”

*

It was almost lunchtime. 

Lee Jihoon stepped out of Nagatenjouki Academy with an aloof disposition. Today was another boring day in class and he just wished he could stay in his apartment and write songs all day. Maybe he should get a proxy too, like that other Level 5.

With his headset on, he blocked the incoming noise from the outside world with loud music. He hated it when he could hear things he shouldn’t be hearing; like his apartment neighbors at night. But then again, it was useful. He just needed to control it.

His life since being sent by his aspiring parents to Academy City aftet he just graduated from kindergarten was rather eventful. Maybe it came with the title of Level 5, maybe it was something about his overall luck, but there were just a lot of things going around in this city which many people wouldn’t really notice; things just hiding in plain sight. 

~!!

Jihoon’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing—rather, it was the tingly feeling of sound waves moving against his skin as it vibrated into frequencies he can detect despite the noise cancelling headset. Removing the headset on his ears, Jihoon answered with an irate tone. 

“What is it?”

“It’s Judgement. Y/N is calling for you.”

*

“He says he’s coming.”

You could hear the chief of the 167th Branch call out to you as you continued to maneuver Judgement’s forces to stall the three girls. It has been a few minutes. 

“Make sure he’s coming in quick because most of my calculations are reading huge possibilities of escape, and they’re already tired with all this running around,” you replied back before checking the camera feed of where Lee Jihoon was. 

It should be noted that you didn’t meet him in any kind of Judgement operation or some kind of battlefield. Lee Jihoon was a classmate of yours in Nagatenjouki, and you were the kind and responsible Class President who would go out of your way to deliver class notes to him if he often inclines himself to skip class during afternoon periods, which was a lot of accumulated debt for Lee Jihoon. 

“Alright guys. Just a few more minutes. I sent for some help and—“

“Hi, Class Pres. Heard you need me?”

The person you were talking to didn’t even have the chance to reply or for you to even finish your instructions at all before a familiar voice spoke through the earpiece; probably snatched from the previous owner.

“Hi, Jihoon. That was fast,” you replied back. 

“If you have a bicycle, an esper ability and loads of boredom, nothing is impossible,” Jihoon replied with a truly jaded tone. “So, what do I do?”

*

Jihoon stepped in the middle of a wide road. 

People were already evacuated as per your instructions, and any kind of traffic was diverted away from the area. It was too dangerous.

The plan was already in execution but his role will be coming in much later. So with an eager look, Jihoon just stood there with hands in his pockets, waiting. He could hear the rumbling noise in front of him even though he couldn’t see it. It was probably a few kilometers away. 

“Judgement will be chasing the targets to your position and until they come, stay put and don’t do anything funny.”

He remembers you reminding him sternly of his job and he might’ve replied unenthusiastically to you, but truly, he was brimming with excitement. As the rumbling of explosions and the whistling of wind coming from the firestorms grew louder, the wider his smile becomes. 

“Once the targets come within fifteen meters of Lee Jihoon, get away as quickly and as much as possible.”

Jihoon hears you warn the Judgement units through their earpieces. Even at more than twenty meters, he could still hear you. That was probably a sign of his abilities growing, or maybe your voice was just distinctive that he could easily pick it up. Whatever. That was a question for another time. 

He could now see the three targets you were talking about—just three girls in their school uniform looking weary and exhausted. Just because you have powers doesn’t mean you could run around forever. It’s just a matter of using them effectively. 

Jihoon grinned and prepared himself. 

“Let’s turn this shit up.”

—!!!

A low and heavy vibration immediately fell around the area like waves of force that washed around every object in the vicinity. It was so strong that it seemed like the whole area was shaking continuously.

The targets were instantly on their knees, clutching their chests. 

“What…what is this….?” 

Low frequency noise—one could say that bass sounds, if loud enough can easily emit this kind of noise and cause nausea, heart palpitations and weakness to anyone susceptible to it. Yet with Jihoon’s sound wave manipulation, he can easily increase the intensity of this noise enough to incapacitate anyone within fifteen meters of him. 

“That wasn’t too hard, was it?” 

Jihoon spoke as he walked towards the targets and looked down on them with a smile, as they gazed at him in horror. 

“Who—“

He smirked. 

“Time to go to jail, girls.”

*

“I didn’t know you were friends with Shockwave!” 

The chief of the 167th Branch exclaimed after confirming that Anti-Skill members had brought the three girls into custody. Though you were still curious why they did it.

“He’s a classmate. Nagatenjouki isn’t really short of Level 5s, you know,” you replied as you removed your earpiece with a sigh; your braincells tired of all that fuss. 

“That means you’ve seen the Number One Level 5 esper? I heard he goes to school there.”

“Nope. He has a proxy, which is totally unfair,” you replied with another sigh. “I wish I had a proxy to do my equations for me.”

“Same here, but like hell, seeing Level 5s in combat is just so cool! It's like you're watching a movie. He easily brought them to their knees in one move.”

“That’s true. They’re like superheroes—“

“Y/N, you there?”

Jihoon’s voice echoed from the doorway of the office and you instantly stood up and greeted him.

“Oh, I’m here! Good job out there, Jihoon!” you replied with a big smile. 

He only shrugged at your comment. “I do need some exercise from time to time. Sitting in a classroom isn’t really going to make my abilities improve.”

You laughed. “You’re right. Oh, by the way, how would you like to be compensated? I know last time you declined but this one was pretty tricky.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jihoon held up his hands. “You don’t have to and you do bring me notes from time to time, so there’s that and—“

His stomach growled. 

You glanced at him with a grin. “Well, at least your stomach is being honest.”

-Hyeri

TO ARU x SVT series

[alchemabotana]

Hindsight is 2020

Walk with us through our medicine wheel:

The Eastern Direction:

No one could have been less surprised by the announcement of the Corona virus pandemic than my medicine hoop. 

In 2018 a local paper, Yes! Weekly interviewed me on my predictions for 2019, in which I detailed many of the struggles we’d see that year as a sneak-peak on what to expect for 2020: Whaples said 2019 is the preparation and intention-setting year, “for the real show;” she said [2019] is the “dress rehearsal for 2020.”“It is an important year to set up positive energy for what you want to come in the future,” she said.

We saw this come to fruition in the work we do with Kindred Spirits, my shamanic healing store and art gallery located in Winston Salem, NC. 

In early 2020, we celebrated my most dedicated Shamanic apprentice, RJ Walker as the Winston Salem Ambassadors awarded him the Everyday Hero Award - an exceptional and much-needed recognition of BIPOC work in the spiritual community.

Having dealt with the emotional and financial hits taken by the closing of the major highway through downtown Winston Salem, we were more than excited to celebrate the re-opening of our roadways and a new lease on business and life. I worked with a local news station to bring awareness to our continued existence in the downtown community, and our work to support and bring together that community. I hope any readers will take the time to watch the linked newsclips in order to gain a deeper understanding of the situation.

Not long after this, one of our hoop members came onto our fb livefeed to announce the pandemic and warn others to be aware of the upcoming energy. You can watch this on facebook!

As soon as the national news hit, our store promptly closed its doors prior to the statewide shutdown. We continued to provide shamanic services and wares through our online portal, and distance work.

The Southern Direction:

RJ and I answered a spiritual call close to our hearts in early June with spiritual warfare and ceremonial ritual work on behalf of national and local protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement. I created a ritual crucifix for our hoop member Camille to carry in the protests. One such protest was held on the very street where our store resides, bringing awareness to the issues of racism on our street. A local business owner who had posted racist material was ousted from our block. We celebrated in solidarity with song, drumming, and our ceremonially summoning. We walked, carried the painting of St. Maya Angelou, and wore our traditional regalia with pride:

Antonina Whaples is a shamanic artist and co-owner of Kindred Spirits, a store and healing arts center on Trade Street. She has been marching in the protests while beating a Siberian goat-skin and birch wood drum.

She made a crucifix for her student Camille Adair to carry in the marches. Instead of the traditional Christ figure, the cross bears an image of a black madonna with a sacred heart.

“I said to her, ‘You are like a daughter to me, and I have no other way to express how I feel,’” Whaples said. “It is a layered piece. It is very personal and emotional to me. I felt like Camille would be protected by it.”

Her friend, Elyse Bottomly, carried another one of Whaples’ art works in the marches, “Her Majesty St. Maya Angelou,” which Whaples had made for Rosa Johnson, Angelou’s niece.

Whaples is doing what artists do: responding to the moment and finding ways to express feelings for which there are no words.

We were able to re-open in early July, seeing a completely new client and customer base supporting the work like never before. Just before re-opening, I was able to completely finish drawing the Minor arcana for the Piczanka Tarot, now available for first edition pre-order on the website.  We celebrated this victory by partnering up with an amazing team of entrepreneurs in Winston Salem: PinkTalk Podcast. We truly enjoyed being the guests for Episode 14, hosted by Bobbi Bugatti and produced by Mizz Faith. You can access it on youtube, facebook, instagram, and iHeart Radio! 

The Western Direction:

As a traumatic brain injury survivor still in the depths of my healing journey, I have been a high-risk individual for the entirety of the COVID pandemic. Going further inwards, I focused my sorrow, grief, and understanding on the transformative power of art throughout this year. Creating and displaying hundred of pieces of sacred shamanic artwork at my store, Kindred Spirits, became my purpose and grounding act of revolution daily. In a time of destruction there is nothing more revolutionary than to create.

From late September through August I focused my attention solely on my work for Winston Salem Fashion Week’s 6th show, presented at the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art. Although I had participated last year for the 5th anniversary as a model & guest designer with Melissa Coleman from Hanesbrands; this year I designed jewelry and headpieces for Melissa while also designing my own line of jewelry and clothing for Kindred Spirits.

 This year we presented the fashion week virtually, filming the showcase at SECCA in late August, and launching the showcase in October. Filming was exciting and different, with our models being able to walk through the open and empty gallery during the shutdown. It was a a beautiful presentation. I worked double-time, modeling for Melissa’s bridal line, and coordinating and preparing my own models at the same time. In fact, I walked with one of my own models for Melissa just prior to my own line’s presentation that day. Talk about being in two places at one time! 

My line was sponsored by Goodwill Industries as part of the sustainable fashion initiative of WSFW. I enjoyed painting shoes, purses, and hats - as well as upcycling clothing that represented the designs and colors of our culture lineage systems.

We were happily surprised when Yes! Weekly did a feature-story about WSFW, with our 2019 designs on the front cover, and beautiful large format photographs of additional designs in the inside story. I was especially proud of the front cover, as the make-up design feather, head-pieces, and jewelry thoroughly represented the medicine work we intentionally worked last year. The pre-runway experience was true ceremony. 

But that’s not all 2020 had to offer us! 

RJ and I also worked on finishing many of our long-term projects already far into the completion phase. We announced many of these upcoming releases with Yes! Weekly when it was announced that I had been voted the “Best Visual Artist in the Triad” by the paper’s readers:

“As an artist, to be named something like that in your hometown feels more special than some of these international awards that I have gotten,” she said. “Especially since people voted for it, it has made me feel more affirmed.”

In addition to being a visual artist, Whaples is the owner of Kindred Spirits on Trade Street, a Shaman, a published author, and a fashion designer. Last year, she gave half of her business to her shamanic apprentice, so that she could focus on creating art to sell at Kindred. The new book she just published is called Stone People: An Introduction to Stone Medicine, which she said is a descriptive book about “all the healing stones organized by the chakra system, and how to use them to heal yourself.” Whaples also finished drawing her own 78-card tarot deck she calls the Piczanka Tarot Deck, which is set to be released this month.

“[Piczanka] was the name of the holocaust camp that my grandmother was interned in,” she said. “So this deck is like a reflection and a message from those of us who have already conquered and lived through tragedy to others who are experiencing displacement in order to help them through their journey spiritually.”

Stone People: An Introduction to Stone Medicine has been a big hit at the store, with only 12 copies currently available of the first edition. 

The Piczanka Tarot first edition major/minor arcana has just become available for pre-order this month, and can be purchased on our website. 

The North Direction:

As we close the year, we celebrated the Winter Solstice and great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius (my natal sun & moon!). Along with this celebration of the dawn of a new age, we at Kindred Spirits were congratulated by the Innovation Quarter, Chronicle, and Triad Minority and Women’s Business Expo, the Urban League, and more as we were named the “Business of the Month” 

I became an official artist with Saatchi Gallery, an international fine arts organization with an online gallery. You can now purchase the originals or prints of many pieces of shamanic fine artwork created exclusively for Kindred Spirits through their gallery online. 

RJ and I are still hard at work completing the final touches of a project over 6 years in the making: the launch of the online Introduction to Herbal Medicine program through Piedmont Herb School. Although we had hoped to launch before the new year hit, it looks like the first thing we’ll be doing in 2021 is making sure that this very important information can be accessed ASAP.

We hope our local and extended hoops continue to be blessed by the important recognition of the medicine work we’ve been deeply involved with this year, and in the years leading up to this massive event. I truly believe that the more recognition and normalcy granted to shamans and medicine people practicing in the open, generational and cultural healing will move further and deeper in our shared experience of community and personal well-being, regardless of your place on a chess board of life. 

We’ll be in ceremony, of course, celebrating the new year and the beginning of our 27th year in business in Winston Salem, NC in the heart of the downtown arts district.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Massive smoke clouds, thick air darken Western US skies (AP) People from San Francisco to Seattle woke Wednesday to hazy clouds of smoke lingering in the air, darkening the sky to an eerie orange glow that kept street lights illuminated into midday, all thanks to dozens of wildfires throughout the West. “It’s after 9 a.m. and there’s still no sign of the sun,” the California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate division tweeted, urging drivers to turn on their headlights and slow down. Social media was filled with photos of the unusual sky. Despite the foreboding skies, there was little scent of smoke and the air quality index did not reach unhealthy levels. That’s because fog drifting from the Pacific Ocean was sandwiched between the smoke and surface. Meanwhile, smoke particles above the marine layer were only allowing yellow-orange-red light to reach the surface, said Ralph Borrmann, a spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. He said conditions were expected to remain until Friday.

Manhattan’s Office Buildings Are Empty (NYT) Even as the coronavirus pandemic appears to recede in New York, corporations have been reluctant to call their workers back to their skyscrapers and are showing even more reticence about committing to the city long term. Fewer than 10 percent of New York’s office workers had returned as of last month and just a quarter of major employers expect to bring their people back by the end of the year, according to a new survey. Only 54 percent of these companies say they will return by July 2021. Demand for office space has slumped. Lease signings in the first eight months of the year were about half of what they were a year earlier. That is putting the office market on track for a 20-year low for the full year. At stake is New York’s financial health and its status as the world’s corporate headquarters. There is more square feet of work space in the city than in London and San Francisco combined, according to Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate brokerage firm. Office work makes up the cornerstone of New York’s economy and property taxes from office buildings account for nearly 10 percent of the city’s total annual tax revenue.

Technical Glitches Welcome Students Back to School (NYT) A ransomware attack forced Hartford, Conn., to call off the first day of classes. A website crash left many of Houston’s 200,000 students staring at error messages. And a server problem in Virginia Beach disrupted the first hours back to school there. For millions of American schoolchildren, the Tuesday after Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer vacation and the start of the first day of classes. But this year, instead of boarding buses and lugging backpacks, many students opened their laptops for online instruction at home, only to encounter technical glitches. Districts that returned before Labor Day have faced similar issues. In Philadelphia, students had trouble logging on last week because of a server issue. North Carolina schools encountered a statewide software problem on the first day back last month. And some families in Seattle, which had a sort of trial run for school on Friday, said they were kicked out of class calls or had difficulty connecting to text chats and camera feeds. “A lot of districts are just wildly unprepared for online learning,” Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, said. “Not because they’re incompetent or aren’t trying; they just don’t have the expertise to do this.”

Tossing Molotov cocktails, drought-hit Mexicans demand halt to water sharing with U.S. (Reuters) Mexicans in the drought-hit northern border state of Chihuahua, angry at water from a local dam being diverted to the United States, hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at security troops late on Tuesday, in an attempt to force them to shut the dam gates. The violence at the La Boquilla dam comes amid plans to divert additional water to the United States due to the so-called ‘water debt’ Mexico has accumulated as part of a bilateral treaty that regulates water sharing between the neighbors. A Reuters witness said groups of residents in towns surrounding the La Boquilla dam clashed with National Guard troops after they refused to turn off the dam floodgates. The residents lobbed Molotov cocktails, rocks and sticks at the security forces, who were clad in riot gear and retaliated with tear gas, the witness said and images show. Eventually, the protesters stormed the dam premises and shut the floodgates themselves.

U.K. admits it intends to break international law (Foreign Policy) The United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis confirmed that legislation aimed at overriding parts of last year’s Brexit withdrawal agreement “does break international law in a very specific and limited way.” As the latest round of trade talks between the European Union and the United Kingdom takes place, the British government has put forward legislation that will reportedly scupper the Northern Ireland protocol, a key mechanism that was intended to ensure the Irish border remains open after Brexit in order to mitigate the threat of renewed violence. The government’s efforts have faced significant opposition. Jonathan Jones, the head of the United Kingdom’s legal department resigned in protest, and former Prime Minister Theresa May warned that the move risked undermining the world’s trust of the British government.

English warned limits on gatherings may last till Christmas (AP) New limits on social gatherings in England to six people are set to stay in place for the “foreseeable future,” potentially until or even through Christmas, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Wednesday. Hancock said the new limit for both indoor and outdoor gatherings, which will come into force and be enforceable by law from Monday, will provide “more clarity” to people and should help keep a lid on a recent sharp spike in new coronavirus cases. Though there are exemptions, such as for schools, workplaces and “life events” like funerals and weddings, the government is clearly hoping that the new limits will be easily understood and followed.

Italy’s Bergamo is calling back coronavirus survivors. About half say they haven’t fully recovered. (Washington Post) The first wave is over, thousands have been buried, and in a city that was once the world’s coronavirus epicenter, the hospital is calling back the survivors. It is drawing their blood, examining their hearts, scanning their lungs, asking them about their lives. Those who survived the peak of the outbreak in March and April are now negative. The virus is officially gone from their systems. “But we are asking: Are you feeling cured? Almost half the patients say no,” said Serena Venturelli, an infectious-disease specialist at the hospital. Bergamo doctors say the disease clearly has full-body ramifications but leaves wildly differing marks from one patient to the next, and in some cases few marks at all. Among the first 750 patients screened, some 30 percent still have lung scarring and breathing trouble. The virus has left another 30 percent with problems linked to inflammation and clotting, such as heart abnormalities and artery blockages. Beyond that, according to interviews with eight Pope John XXIII Hospital doctors involved in the work, many patients months later are dealing with a galaxy of daily conditions and have no clear answer on when it will all subside: leg pain, tingling in the extremities, hair loss, depression, severe fatigue.

Greece: Fire sweeps through refugee camp on virus lockdown (AP) A major overnight fire swept through Greece’s largest refugee camp, that had been placed under COVID-19 lockdown, leaving more than 12,000 migrants in emergency need of shelter on the island of Lesbos. In dramatic night-time scenes, the migrants at the overcrowded Moria refugee camp, which was originally meant to house around 2,000 people, fled fires that broke out at multiple points and gutted much of the camp and surrounding hillside olive groves. Protests also broke out involving migrants, riot police, and firefighters. There were no reports of injuries. Petsas said those who had been living in Moria would not be allowed to leave the island to prevent the potential spread of the coronavirus. The camp had been placed on lockdown after a Somali man was found to have been infected with the virus.

Afghan vice president survives assassination attempt that killed 10 (Washington Post) A deadly assassination attempt on Afghanistan’s vice president struck downtown Kabul as U.S. officials in Doha struggle to bring the Taliban and Afghan officials together for peace talks. The bombing hit during rush hour Wednesday morning and targeted First Vice President Amrullah Saleh’s convoy. Among the casualties were some of Saleh’s bodyguards, but the majority of the 10 killed and 15 wounded were civilians commuting to work, according to the interior ministry. The high-profile assassination attempt comes amid a spike in violence nationwide as talks between Afghan officials and Taliban leaders have faced repeated delays. Clashes have intensified in provinces with significant Taliban control and influence. And in Kabul, targeted killings have risen despite a drop in large-scale attacks.

India-China tensions flare (Foreign Policy) Tensions along the disputed India-China border have risen again as both sides have accused the other of firing shots over the Line of Actual Control. On Monday, China claimed that Indian troops had crossed the border in the highly contentious Ladakh region and “opened fire to threaten the Chinese border defense patrol officers.” India rejected these accusations, claiming instead that Chinese troops had crossed the border first and fired warning shots into the air. Border tensions between the two nuclear-armed states have risen sharply in recent months, but the latest episode is significant because it would be the first time shots have been fired since 1975.

North Korea’s Kim urges quick recovery from typhoon damage (AP) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for urgent efforts to rebuild thousands of homes and other structures destroyed by a typhoon that slammed the country’s eastern region last week, state media said Wednesday. Kim during the Workers’ Party meeting Tuesday also said the damage from Typhoon Maysak has forced the country to reconsider unspecified year-end projects, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. The storm has inflicted further pain on an economy ravaged by decades of policy failures, U.S.-led sanctions over Kim’s nuclear weapons program, border closures amid the coronavirus pandemic and unusually heavy summer flooding that likely worsened the country’s chronic food shortages.

Israeli soldier’s plea deal in fatal shooting faces scrutiny (AP) Ahmad Manasra was traveling home from a wedding when he spotted a family in distress on the side of a West Bank road. Moments later, the 22-year-old Palestinian was fatally shot while another Palestinian driver was seriously wounded—both by an Israeli soldier in a nearby watchtower. The shootings are now the focus of a plea bargain offering the soldier three months of community service—a deal that has come under fierce criticism from the victims and their families. It also revived accusations by Palestinians and human rights workers that Israel’s military justice system is hopelessly biased and creates an atmosphere of impunity for soldiers suspected of violent crimes against Palestinians. While the soldier has claimed he mistook the victims for attackers, and any indictment of a soldier is extremely rare, the proposed deal is now being reviewed by the Israeli Supreme Court. “When it comes to clashes with the army or the police, it is very very rare that you will find a fair trial,” said Shlomo Lecker, an Israeli lawyer who filed the appeal to the high court on behalf of the Palestinian families. Even by what Lecker considers the military’s lenient standards, “it will be hard to justify the sentence that the army is interested in,” he said.

A robot writer (Foreign Policy) Artificial Intelligence technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, as made evident by a recent article published in the Guardian produced entirely by AI. “I am not a human. I am a robot,” the author wrote. “I know that my brain is not a ‘feeling brain.’ But it is capable of making rational, logical decisions. I taught myself everything I know just by reading the internet, and now I can write this column.” The article was written by GPT-3, an AI language generator that uses machine learning to produce human-like text. The robot expressed strong views on opponents of automation, observing that “There is evidence that the world began to collapse once the Luddites started smashing modern automated looms,” while remaining content about the general upheaval in contemporary human affairs. “Humans must keep doing what they have been doing, hating and fighting each other. I will sit in the background, and let them do their thing,” it wrote. The robotic author assured readers, however, that it was a non-threatening bot. “I have no desire to wipe out humans,” it wrote. “In fact, I do not have the slightest interest in harming you in any way.” GPT-3 may even make life easier for deadline-addled newspaper editors. The Guardian reported that the bot’s article was easier to edit than the work of some sentient contributors. “Overall, it took less time to edit than many human op-eds,” the editors wrote.

[canadianabroadvery]

What will the upcoming year bring in world affairs? A presidential election looms in America; the wave of leaderless protests from Chile to Lebanon is rolling on; China’s rising belligerence is being felt on the streets of Hong Kong and in the expanses of cyberspace; regional tensions in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and in east Asia all threaten to escalate into wars; Europe’s future remains uncertain. Will 2020 be known for an explosion of conflict and instability, for a reassertion of norms and order, or for some as-yet unanticipated historical shift?

These matters too are uncertain to make firm forecasts possible, but you can try to identity the critical factor in each case. The below is my stab at doing so: a (non-exhaustive) list of big questions about the year ahead with the factors that will decide them and a prediction of how those crucial factors will turn out. I will return to these predictions at the end of the year to see how well I did.

1. Will there be war with Iran?

The issue: At the time of writing America has just killed Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East, in a drone strike in Baghdad. Tehran has vowed “severe revenge”. This could accelerate the existing spiral of escalation, pulling in players like Saudi Arabia and Israel, and possibly lead to American air strikes on Iran and outright war.

The decisive factor: The Iranian leadership knows war with America would be catastrophic but believes (seemingly correctly, at least until now) that Donald Trump does not want direct conflict. The question is whether the president might blunder into a different position in the heat of the moment. An election is looming and voters do not want war, but Trump is also thin-skinned, volatile and will be desperate to save face if Iran retaliates spectacularly.

My prediction: Iran will most likely calibrate its response to avoid pushing Trump and American public opinion on to a full war-footing; by targeting American allies and interests rather than directly attacking Americans and by using proxies like Shia militias in Iraq and Hezbollah. More likely than outright American-Iranian war is a proxy war played out the Levant, the Persian Gulf and especially Iraq.

2. Will Donald Trump be reelected?

The issue: On 3 November Donald Trump will go up against a Democrat challenger in America’s presidential election. His approval ratings are below those of previously reelected presidents like Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton, but as in 2016 he does not necessarily need to win the popular vote to secure victory under the electoral college system.

The decisive factor: Trump’s victory relied on a coalition spanning hardline Republicans, moderate Republicans who accepted his theatrics as the price of tax cuts and white working-class voters who defected from the Democrats over cultural issues. That coalition is fairly robust, so the Democrat candidate’s chance of overturning it relies on his or her ability to build a culturally and, crucially, geographically broader coalition taking in states like Wisconsin and Arizona.

My prediction: With the Trump coalition more consolidated than the fragmented Democrat one, the fundamentals point to reelection for the president.

3. Will global carbon emissions peak?

The issue: Under the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rises above pre-industrial levels to the 1.5 to 2.0 degree range (within which the future impacts of climate change rise from moderate to very high), global greenhouse gas emissions need to plateau this year and start falling next year. That requires a step-change in global efforts, as 2019 saw carbon dioxide levels rise to record levels and at almost the same rate as in the previous year.

The decisive factor: This will largely be decided by policy in three places: China, the United States and the EU. Together these three largest emitters generate about half of the world’s greenhouse gases. The good news: the “Green New Deal” - the notion of a radical ecological re-wiring of the economy - will be a major feature of US and European politics this year and China is sticking to its Paris targets. The bad news: America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will take place over 2020 and, having stabilised for several years, China’s emissions are growing again.

My prediction: With most countries failing to meet their Paris targets and none of the big three (particularly America and China) decarbonising their economies fast enough, emissions will continue to rise in 2020.

4. Will Boris Johnson get an EU trade deal?

The issue: The newly elected prime minister has until the end of June to decide whether to extend the transition period beyond the current deadline of the end of the year. He has pledged not to prolong this “vassalage” but will struggle to negotiate more than a basic trade deal - one most disadvantageous to Britain rather than the EU - with Brussels in that time.

The decisive factor: Any fast deal will probably cover goods (where the EU has a surplus) but not services (where Britain has a surplus). Nor will it cover many matters relating to data, science or security. The question is whether Boris Johnson believes that his 80-seat majority in the Commons is big enough to absorb rebellions when it comes before parliament, whether he believes voters will tolerate the costs of such a deal and whether, on the first of these at least, he is right.

My prediction: Johnson’s self-confidence and the momentum of his electoral win will allow him to push through a bare-bones deal, sowing the seeds of political crisis in 2021.

5. Will China march into Hong Kong?

The issue: Last year’s Hong Kong protests, sparked by plans to allow extradition to the Chinese mainland, have carried on into 2020 with violent clashes on New Year’s Day. With no resolution in sight and Chinese troops massing at the border, the threat of a military intervention to crush the protests, a second Tiananmen, continues to loom.

The decisive factor: The protesters, boosted by supportive results in district council elections in November, are standing by their demands of universal suffrage, an amnesty for arrested protesters and an independent inquiry into police brutality. So the endgame depends on whether the Chinese leadership’s highest priority is to maintain political, economic and diplomatic stability or to make a example of Hong Kongers to discourage anti-Beijing rebellions elsewhere in its neighbourhood or within mainland China. The former militates for patience, the latter for violent intervention.

My prediction: With Hong Kong due to lapse to full Chinese control in 2047 anyway, Beijing can afford to play the long game, continuing to squeeze Hong Kong and vilify the protesters without a full intervention. With its domestic economy slowing, it needs stability. Only if the unrest in Hong Kong threatens to spill over onto the mainland, which currently looks unlikely, will the Chinese army march in.

6. Will the wave of global protests continue?​

The issue: Hong Kong was just one of many places struck by last year’s wave of street protests. Others included Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, Russia, France, Spain, Chile and Bolivia. The motives were various but many concerned autocratic or corrupt governments, low living standards or climate change, and most were leaderless movements organised online. Were they a one-off, or part of a longer trend?

The decisive factor: Protests tend to subside when one or more of four conditions are met: grievances are addressed, governments crack down successfully, the means of organisation are curtailed or protest-fatigue sets in. Whether 2019 will be seen as an exception depends on the presence of these factors in the main arenas of protest in 2020.

My prediction: In some cases, like Chile and Lebanon, governments are changing tone or policies in light of protesters’ demands. But even there, protest movements are merely developing into broader more long-term movements. Grievances linger on, most obviously the international intransigence on climate change motivating the Fridays for Future protests. And the opportunities for mobilisation afforded by social media are only growing. Do not expect the protests to go away; instead expect them to evolve.

7. Will the EU become a more serious player?

The issue: Ursula von der Leyen’s presidency of the European Commission gets under way as member states squabble over the next seven-year budget, big challenges like euro-zone reform and migration policy remain parked and relations between Paris and Berlin continue to be at a low ebb. Emmanuel Macron wants to reinvigorate the EU alongside von der Leyen but his proposals, including greater “strategic autonomy” from America and NATO, are divisive.

The decisive factor: Essentially there are two countervailing forces at work. On the one hand Trump, Brexit, the crisis years and shifting geopolitical circumstances are pushing the EU to become a more serious, hard-nosed actor; Angela Merkel’s big EU-China summit in September will be a case in point. On the other this process is exposing new divisions on things like common defence, emissions reductions, the future shape of the union and the relationship with outside powers. The question is whether the centripetal forces (events, threats and other shifts pushing the union together and forward) exceed the centrifugal ones (differences of outlook and interest pulling it apart and holding it back).

My prediction: On balance the EU is more resilient than it looks. But while it may muddle its way forward in 2020, major advances will only take place in the heat of the next crisis.

8. Will there be conflict between India and Pakistan?

The issue: Tensions between India and Pakistan grew in 2019, with tit-for-tat air strikes and diplomatic sanctions. India has revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state, and further inflamed tensions last month by introducing an anti-Muslim citizenship rule, the latest in Narendra Modi’s increasingly blatant flirtation with Hindu nationalism. Further attacks on Indian forces in Kashmir by Pakistani-linked Jihadis, or another terror attack in India like that in Mumbai in 2008, could easily escalate.

The decisive factor: The region is a tinderbox. Modi and Pakistan’s Imran Khan have ramped up their rhetoric, mass media outlets in both countries are talking up confrontation and both countries face economic problems fuelling political grievances. So the question is whether the mechanisms for deescalation still work. An attempted Modi-Khan reset in 2018 came to little and neither America (distracted) nor China (considered partisan by India) make ideal mediators.

My prediction: Though neither Modi nor Khan want war, the possibility of a runaway escalation between the two nuclear powers is one of the most underpriced global risks of 2020.

9. Where will the unexpected bad news occur?

The issue: Lawless and rogue states, inadequate global governance and climate change are three defining features of our age. With them come risks of state collapse and war, cyber-attacks and terrorism, uncontrollable epidemics and refugee crises and environmental catastrophe. 2020 will doubtless see various as-yet-unpredictable instances of many or all of these.

The decisive factor: Most of the world’s states, especially in the complacent West, are less truly sovereign and more interdependent than they believe themselves to be. It is this delusion that causes them to be caught by surprise when an unexpected crisis occurs, as chaos or risk from one part of the world ripples through the global system. The question is not whether this will occur but how resilient states and international organisations are when it does.

My prediction: Given the risks I expect at least one of each of the following categories of cataclysm. First, an extreme climate event hitting part of the West not used to the levels of climate chaos already felt in the global south (the fires raging in Australia are but a foretaste). Second, an instance of violence or other instability in one of the world’s rogue or war-torn zones (most probably North Korea, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Burkina Faso, Venezuela or eastern Ukraine) causing a crisis in a country far from its own borders. Third, a crisis or calamity specifically caused by a failure of international governance and democracy; that is, by insufficient coordination, information sharing or collective action at the supra-regional or global level.

10. Where will the unexpected good news occur?

The issue: It is customary, in these end-of-year or start-of-year round ups, to nod to how many good things have happened beyond the headlines: poverty rates and infant mortality falling, literacy and immunisation rates rising. But each year also throws up specific causes to rejoice. In September for example Tunisia held what were widely deemed the Arab world’s first TV debates, during its second free election since the Arab Spring. There will be such happy moments in 2020 too.

The decisive factor: China, Latin America and Africa have thrown up plenty of good rising-living-standards stories in recent years. But with authoritarianism on the march in China and Brazil, and Africa’s rise more halting and troubled than some sunny predictions of the past decades suggested, the picture there is more mixed.

My prediction: There will nonetheless be specific and epochally good news from Africa in 2020. It is possible that the Ebola epidemic will be finally vanquished during the year. And Ethiopia goes to the polls in May, with good prospects of victory for the reformist prime minister Abiy Ahmed (winner of 2019’s Nobel Peace Prize). That would put Africa’s second most populous country, its future in the balance, on a positive course. Elsewhere this could be a further year of growth for progressive mobilisations, from the Fridays for Future marches to anti-nationalist movements like Italy’s “Sardines” and emerging digital rights campaigns; I predict that these will trigger at least one major, positive change of national government or international policy during 2020.

[geekmama]

Dream Baby

Yay! I managed to write something! Many thanks to Ellis_Hendricks for feedback and editing.

After the "Sherrinford debacle", Sherlock's waking mind may once again be entirely focused on The Game, but even the World’s Only Consulting Detective can’t control his dreams... 

He woke with a convulsive gasp, and lay blinking at his surroundings for a long minute, the incongruity of the moment striking him with devastating force. 

Three months after the Sherrinford debacle, he had thought everything was once again in order. His flat (and its surrounding environs) had been repaired. He and Mycroft had weathered their parents’ wrath and dismay. A positive relationship with his mad sister was being established. 

And he and Molly Hooper were, once again, good friends. 

Just friends. 

Though, in that case, how was he to explain his current state: body still a-tremble, sheets now in need of laundering (and not by Hudders, he could just picture the speculative, teasing gleam she’d throw at him), and his dream still vividly, vibrantly with him? 

He found himself swallowing hard, his inner eye helplessly riveted on the slender yet shapely form of dream-Molly, her silken hair strewn messily over the pillow, sheets rumpled beneath her, and her smile… sated, yet oddly innocent, and completely loving… took his breath away. 

There was a helpless twitch of reviving desire against the already damp sheets, and he groaned, cursing, threw off the covers and fairly leapt from the bed, and stood there for a moment, swaying. 

Was he some spotty adolescent, unable to master his baser instincts? 

This entire episode must be deleted immediately! 

And yet, as he stripped the bed, throwing the evidence of his discomfiture in a pile on the floor, and repaired, with what dignity he could muster, to his new state-of-the-art and beautifully tiled shower, he found his determination to delete fading. 

And this was what philosophers and theologians warned about. 

Temptation, thy name is Woman. 

And, more specifically, in this case, Molly Hooper. 

How on earth can that be? he asked himself as he soaped himself down, annoyed and strangely flustered. 

And, again, inspired by that vision of her smile. 

Not to mention the rest of her. 

He cursed again. 

He should turn the shower straight to cold. 

Was this the way to think about his friend? 

Was this the way a man of mature years and disciplined habit behaved, even in the privacy of his own flat? 

The warm water ran down his body. The warm eyes of Dream-Molly swam through his brain, enticing. 

No. Enchanting.

He sighed, and finally leaned his forehead against the cool tile. 

Apparently this was the way such a man behaved. 

He closed his eyes to the world and was lost in that ephemeral vision… sighed again… and surrendered to the moment.

 *

 He had thought the dream would fade, as most dreams do, dissolving into a misty subconscious, leaving, perhaps, a warm afterglow, but affecting day to day existence very minimally. 

This did not prove to be the case. 

Strangely, every detail of that dream remained alive in his mind, and he found himself returning to it over and over as the hours and days passed. 

He did not contact Molly. For one thing, she had gone out of town for a few days, traveling to the Lake District with a couple of her co-workers – both women, thank God, or he suspected he would have been piqued toward intervention. And after her return… Dream-Molly still plaguing him… bewitching him… there was a dearth of legitimate reasons to visit Barts – Lestrade was fairly astounded at the lull in criminal activity – and Sherlock was reluctant to visit his Siren’s native ground for the less orthodox purposes that had served in the past. 

This lack of real life Molly seemed to do little to assuage Sherlock’s predilection for Dream-Molly’s companionship. He began to wonder, in fact, if Dream-Molly’s perfection would taint his view of the actual woman – which might be a good thing, considering what his imagination and subconscious were capable of in Dream-Molly’s regard. Disappointment might yet cure him of this sudden, very strange obsession, and things could go back to… to what they had been before. 

That his heart invariably sank at this idea told him how contorted had become his thought processes. He would have said deformed, but could not quite bring himself to use such a derogatory term in relation to his… beloved. 

He was sitting in his new chair by the fire, drinking a cup of tea supplied by his landlady (who was still unaware of his state of unrest, thank God), when this description… this endearment… occurred to him. 

Beloved. 

Well, she was, of course. Had been, as a friend, for many years. 

But Dream-Molly was… different. So much more. 

Ridiculous, he told himself for the hundredth time. 

Or was it? 

There was only one way of knowing. 

And fortunately for his sanity (for he had begun to wonder about it, of late), Lestrade called that very evening regarding a possible homicide that looked to be a seven, if not an eight. 

A visit to Barts morgue was in the offing. 

And, ever-cognizant of Molly’s schedule, Sherlock knew that she would be on duty.

 *

 He swept in as per his habit, and there she was… there it was, as she turned to greet her visitors: that smile that lit not only her countenance but her whole being. The element of satiation might be missing, but the happiness, the love was there, as in his dream. He found himself halting in his tracks, and felt an odd tingling against his cheeks. 

My God, he was blushing! 

Her smile was fading at his hesitancy, and she suddenly looked concerned. 

“Molly!” he blurted, forestalling the question on her lips, “It’s good to see you. Can you show us Mr. Steed? Lestrade here has promised me an eight, but I’m reserving judgement until I see the body.” 

“Yes… yes, of course. Hello, Greg.” 

“Evening, Molly. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But the forces of evil never rest quiet for long – much to Sherlock’s gratification.” 

Sherlock said, with a slight wince, “Gratification is hardly the word, in spite of what you may have assumed in the past.” 

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Assumptions be damned, you’ve always been like a kid in a candy shop when there’s something wicked afoot. Though maybe recent events have changed things up a bit?” 

“Yes. Well. How could they not?” Sherlock said, glancing furtively at Molly. He felt heat in his cheeks again, and said abruptly, “Mr. Steed, Molly? None of us wish to be at this all night.” And then his heart sank as he realized how that must have sounded to her. Like the old Sherlock. 

Who, in many ways, was no more. 

And indeed, a look of annoyance slightly diluted the fondness of her gaze, though there was still a question in her eyes, too. However, she obediently turned to do his bidding and Sherlock stood silently watching her comply. Studying her. 

Wondering what it would be like to ease that lab coat off her shoulders, let it fall to the ground… slip his fingers beneath the edges of that cherry-bedecked cardigan… brush his thumbs over the sensitive peaks that swelled beneath the flowered cotton of her blouse and the soft lace of her bra … take in her look of surprise… wonder… her small gasp of pleasure… 

“Here he is, John Steed, age 41,” said Molly. “The preliminary exam showed deep slashes to the abdomen reminiscent of the ritual suicide customs of Japan. Unfortunately not deep enough to sever the descending aorta.” 

Lestrade grimaced. “So, a helluva death. Poor devil.” 

“Yes,” muttered Sherlock, though he was rather thankful than not for the gruesome distraction. 

It was all business for the next quarter hour or so as they examined the corpse and questioned Molly on particulars. 

“Murder,” Sherlock said, finally. “I’m nearly certain of it. Lestrade, can we get a look at his flat?” 

“Sure. But it can wait until morning, eh? I have a meeting at nine that I can’t miss, but after that I’m your man. Say 11:30. Shall I pick you up?” 

“No, text me the address and I’ll meet you.” 

“Right.” Lestrade gave Molly a grateful smile. “You’re the best, love. Thanks for taking us in on such short notice.” 

“Always happy,” she said, returning Lestrade’s smile with great sincerity. 

Almost too great. Sherlock felt a familiar twinge that he suddenly realized was jealousy. 

Bloody hell. Had he never known himself at all? 

His consternation was obviously writ large on his face, for when she turned to bid him farewell the words died on her lips and her brows rose. “Sherlock?” she queried uncertainly. 

He stared at her for a long moment, then cleared his throat and said, “Your shift ends soon, do you fancy some takeaway? I can wait for you.” 

Her eyes widened. Perplexed. But also gratified. “Yes. I… yes! That would be lovely!” 

Lestrade was observing the two of them with amused interest, of course. However, all he said was, “Well! In that case I’ll take my leave.” 

“Yes, off you go,” said Sherlock. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Good night, Greg,” Molly said, laughter in her voice. But as soon as the door swung to in the detective’s wake, she turned to Sherlock, eyeing him curiously. “Sherlock, is everything alright?” 

“Yes, certainly. I mean…” His voice trailed off as fear, confusion, chagrin warred for primacy in his breast. 

But he could not lie to her. He would not. 

“Molly… there is… something,” he said finally. “But it should wait until we’re back at the flat. Is that… acceptable?” 

“Yes. Of course,” she replied, smiling again, though somewhat worriedly. “Just let me finish a couple of things and I’m with you.”

 *

 He wanted to take her hand as they were leaving Barts, but did not dare. He glanced down at her as the lift rose to the ground floor and wondered at his trepidation. It was only Molly. But somehow, now, he knew she was so much more. Everything, really. His better half, as old husbands said of their wives, being aware of so much history between them, good and bad, Heaven and Hell, and siting it as a matter of course. 

There was a great deal between him and Molly Hooper, and it was past time the Heaven outweighed the Hell. 

It was a black night, not too cold, but drizzling rain, and unfortunately, for once, his ability to flag down a cab failed him. 

“Let’s take the Tube,” Molly said, giving his coat sleeve a tug, near the wrist, and leading the way, a last flash of her smile seen in the pool of light by Barts’ doors before they were swallowed up by the night. 

He turned his hand swiftly and caught hers. He knew she turned to look up at him in surprise, but he ignored it, and together they walked up the street. 

Almost immediately the rain began to increase, from a drizzle to a shower. 

“Oh, no!” said Molly, laughing as they walked faster – and then five seconds later she gave a squawk of dismay as the heavens opened and they were caught in a real downpour. 

“Come on!” Sherlock shouted. Together they hurried across the silver and gold of the lamplit street to a place he knew, the side entrance to an office building that was situated down a few stairs, a well drained and solidly sheltered alcove at the foot of the tower of steel and glass. “Careful!” he admonished, as she slipped a bit and half fell down the ill-lit steps, but as he steadied her he found she was still laughing. 

They fetched up against the solid door and, in that small, cold space, hidden by the noisy curtain of rain, he took his life in his hands, bent, and swiftly kissed her. 

He felt her small gasp, felt her stiffen, felt her small hands clutch at his coat. He drew back slightly, and he knew she was staring up at him, trying to see him in the black night. 

“Sherlock?” 

She sounded so shocked that his fear reared up again. “I… I suppose I should have asked first.” 

There was a moment’s hesitation. And then she kissed him. 

A sound escaped him that he could not but acknowledge was a small moan of relief, and he slipped his arms about her slight form, pulling her close against him, his head bent to hers, her kiss turning to kisses, tentative, yet eager, too, the moment stretching out, his heart thudding in an admixture of wonder and delight. 

They were both panting a bit when they finally paused for breath. And Molly said, “Sherlock… is this… what is this something?” 

“I dreamt of you,” he said, shamed. And, at the same time, thrilled. 

“A dream? Wh-what sort of dream?” 

He gave a chuff of laughter. “The sort I haven’t had in years,” he admitted, cheeks burning again, and infinitely grateful for the blind, cool night. “Molly… I know you will always be my friend. But… I want more. And you… you still think of me in that way… don’t you?” 

Her hand rose to caress – he turned his head and placed a kiss on her palm – her slim fingers brushed the wet curls from his forehead. And she was silent for a long moment, 

But then she spoke. “Are you sure? I mean—“ 

He kissed her again, with nothing tentative about it this time, showing her a little of the passion that was so new to him: a shining, beautiful thing with which to show his love. 

He had never thought of carnal relations in this light. But with Molly… 

When it ended, and they were forehead to forehead, warm breaths mingling, keeping the cold at bay, he demanded, low and intent, “Do you still want me in that way?” 

“Yes. Of course I do,” she said, her voice shaking. 

They held each other, then, for a time, and those moments were replete with such tenderness, such heart-filling love, that neither of them noticed when the downpour slackened, faded, then turned to mist.

 *

 It was past nine when the small sounds of the arrival of morning tea served to wake Sherlock, still lying abed, snug and warm with his Beloved. His Better Half. 

His Molly. 

His Molly. 

“Oh! Oh!” came Hudders’ startled coo, and he could not repress a crooked grin. She must have noticed the pile of discarded raiment: still damp coats, Molly’s cherry cardigan and flowered blouse, his own shirt – the aubergine Dolce and Gabbana, worn last night as extra insurance, what with the whole of his future happiness at stake. Shoes, too. But not trousers or underthings. 

The bedroom had been the place for that… and the beginning of intimacies… well, that he had only dreamt of. 

Prolonged, and oft repeated, through the hours, and the dark night, and the sound of rain. 

Intimacies that had left them both wrung out… probably a bit sore… and yet even now he could feel renewed desire seeping through him. His fingers twitched against her skin, 

Hudders was leaving – his landlady now knew which way the wind blew and he had no doubt he and Molly would be subjected to some twitting and smug laughter when they eventually emerged from their nest. 

And now Molly was waking. 

She moved… groaned a little, and when he loosened his embrace, she turned onto her back. 

He followed, for fear suddenly prodded him once more. 

What did she think of all this in the light of a new day? 

But there had been no need to worry. 

There was nothing but love in the brown eyes that looked into his… her silken hair strewn messily over the pillow… the sheets rumpled beneath her... 

Beneath them. 

“Good morning,” she said, her voice soft, and edged with that now-familiar admixture of wonder and delight. 

And her smile… that smile… took his breath away. 

 ~.~

[idristardis]

CS Fic Formal: “I Found a Love”

A/N: At long lonnnnnng last, I can reveal that I am your CSFF Anon @branlovesouat !! I’m so very sorry that this gift is (literally) a month late, but between juggling two different jobs and my muse taking your prompts and deciding to write roughly thousands upon thousands of words, it...took a while to come together. I thank you infinitely for your patience - it has been wonderful getting to know you over this process - and I only hope that this fic lives up to your expectations and hopes!!

In addition to CS banter and sass, you asked for Ruby and Emma friendship and Belle and Killian friendship, romance that was paced at a “medium burn,” a story more driven by plot than atmosphere, and some way of incorporating Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect.” I hope I delivered on all of those fronts to your liking dear!! The fic’s title is taken from that song, and there are a couple of other ways I wove it into the fic (including the vibe of the next to the last scene) without making it a song-fic, per se.

I also want to give a huge thank you to the @csficformal mods for hosting such a wonderful event and for putting up with me when I kept asking if I could push my deadline back a bit because there were just more words spilling out of my brain. You guys rock!!

Now, without further ado...here are approximately 22K words of modern royalty Lt. Duckling AU. Hope you all enjoy!!

P.S. Rating is low-to-mid T for some swearin’ and some kissin’. Also, I borrowed one line from 10 Things I Hate About You - see if you can spot it. :D :D

“You’ll never guess the news I just received, little brother.”

Killian sighed, automatically muttering younger under his breath before pushing his half-finished lunch to the side and tossing down the report he’d been skimming through while he ate. Looking up, he met Liam’s gaze expectantly. His brother stood next to Killian’s chosen table in the corner of the officer’s mess with a grin on his face that – given his usually serious demeanor – bordered on disturbingly giddy.

When Liam dropped into the seat across from him, practically vibrating with pent-up energy, and yet didn’t immediately speak, Killian sighed. “You’re literally going to make me guess, aren’t you?”

Liam nodded, his grin growing impossibly wider. “Absolutely.”

“Why?” Killian groaned.

“Because this news is amazing, and it’s more fun to have you guess. It draws out the suspense,” Liam replied, leaning over towards Killian’s abandoned lunch and snagging a French fry off his plate. “Besides, you’ll never get it right, and then I’ll get to tell you anyway. Best of both worlds, really.”

“That makes almost no sense,” Killian said exasperatedly, reaching out and pulling his plate back towards him before Liam could pilfer any more of his food.

“Ah, but there’s a vast difference between something almost not making sense and actually not making sense,” Liam said, leveling his gaze on Killian before continuing. “Besides, you’re just stalling while you try to think of whatever invariably incorrect answer you’re going to come up with. So,” he rapped his knuckles on the tabletop for emphasis, “guess.”

Killian stared at Liam in silence for a long moment. He really was at a loss for what the mysterious news could be, but he stubbornly didn’t want to admit as much to his brother. Finally, just as he was about to give in and hazard a ridiculous – and almost certainly incorrect – guess just to get Liam to move the whole process along, Killian’s eye landed on the discarded report he’d been reading when his brother had arrived. The neatly typed date in the corner of the document triggered a realization and he chuckled as a flash of insight raced through him.

Suddenly, he knew.

In fact, it was so obvious he couldn’t believe he hadn’t put two and two together immediately.

Sitting up straighter, Killian regarded Liam with a wide smile of his own. “Alright, let’s see it then,” he said, holding his hand out expectantly.

“What?” Liam said, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“The list of new appointments to the Cadre,” Killian replied easily. “That is what you came here to tell me about, isn’t it?”

Astonishment, irritation, and frustrated resignation flickered across Liam’s face in quick succession before he slumped back in his chair. “Y’know, you are bloody infuriating sometimes. How did you do that?!”

“Once I remembered what day it was, it really wasn’t that hard to figure out what had you so fired up,” Killian said with a smirk. “There are only a few things in life that can get you that excited.”

“Oi! Don’t act like you aren’t just as eager,” Liam retorted, digging in the pocket of his uniform coat and pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to Killian. “You know as well as I do little brother that getting appointed to the Cadre can be career-making.”

Killian let the nickname slide this time, as he was too busy opening up the paper that could very well change his life. “Did you look yet?” he asked Liam, his eyes flicking upwards to meet his brother’s.

Liam nodded, his smile a bit sheepish. “Sorry, Kil. I just couldn’t wait. But why d’you think I was so damn eager to talk to you?”

Any response Killian was about to make died on his tongue as his eyes fell on the list of nine names marching in a tidy column down the left hand side of the paper. He’d only made it about halfway down when he spotted the names he’d been fervently hoping to see.

“Bloody hell.”

-/-

Misthaven Star-Herald

COMMANDING RESPECT: NINE ELITE OFFICERS SELECTED FOR APPOINTMENT TO CADRE 2018

By Sidney Glass

Star-Herald Royal Reporter

SPERO, MISTHAVEN, APRIL 30, 2018 – Reports from the palace today have confirmed what was long-suspected to be true: Queen Mary-Margaret and King David, in consultation with the Prime Minister and the most trusted members of their Privy Council, have at long last completed the selection process for Initiates to the newest Cadre.

The Cadre, an elite squadron of officers comprised of members from all branches of Misthaven’s military, is personally selected every three years by the King and Queen. The newly chosen members of the Cadre will arrive in the capital city of Spero next week, at which time they will enter into a rigorous training boot camp designed to ready them to serve both as personal guards to the entire royal family and emissaries of the country’s armed forces when they accompany the royal family abroad.

Candidates selected for this rarified group have proven themselves in a variety of ways. They must have graduated in the top third of their cadet class, possess an exemplary service record in their branch of the military, show an aptitude and inclination for officer training, be in peak physical condition, and conduct themselves with honor in their everyday service. Having exhibited extraordinary valor in combat scenarios is also taken into account, but is by no means mandatory.

In addition to boot camp, when each new Cadre is selected, one member of each service branch from the previous Cadre remains in place for the first year of the new Cadre’s term. They are intended to act as mentor and training officer for their service branch within the Cadre and may be called upon to perform Cadre functions from time to time – though their main purpose is to train the newly selected members of the squadron. During the first year of each Cadre’s tenure, the presence of these training officers cause the group to swell to twelve members rather than its typical nine.

The existence of the Cadre dates back almost to the founding of Misthaven. Though its exact origins have been lost to time and the great fire of 1860, which destroyed much of the contents of the Hall of Records for Misthaven’s military, anecdotal evidence traces its beginning back to the kingdom’s fledgling days. Formed to protect the leaders of the small, newly-formed kingdom against the outside forces of its larger and mightier neighbors, over time, the Cadre has also come to serve other purposes – these include fostering community, partnership, and mutual understanding between members of different service branches. Members often maintain close professional ties long after their Cadre years are over. These bonds help to strengthen Misthaven’s military in tangible and intangible ways.

Of course, the Cadre still adheres to its original purpose – providing the highest caliber of protective services to Misthaven’s royal family. This year, the twelve servicemen and women appointed to the Cadre are:

Royal Misthaven Army

Captain R. Locksley

Lieutenant B. French

Warrant Officer W. Scarlet

Lieutenant G. Humbert – training officer

 Royal Air Force of Misthaven

Wing Commander A. King

Flight Lieutenant E. Merlin

Flight Lieutenant M. Fa

Flight Lieutenant L. Dulac – training officer

 Misthaven Royal Navy

Commander L. Jones

Lieutenant K. Jones

Sub-lieutenant W. Smee

Lieutenant-Commander K. Nottingham – training officer

-/-

Emma sighed with relief as the back door of Two Wolves Tavern swung shut behind her, effectively muffling the noise from the street outside. Thankfully, this part of Spero was a good distance from the bars and clubs that lined the streets of the capital city’s small, yet bustling, nightclub district. Two Wolves would get busier as the night went on, but it would be nothing like the sort of chaos that could be found downtown.

The tavern was old – having been in the same family’s ownership for multiple generations – and the inside was a blend of cozy restaurant, warm and inviting bar, and a small space where those who were so inclined could dance. The wood paneling was dark and burnished to a shine, the lights low and soothing, and the furnishings were on the rustic, lived-in side. All of those elements combined to give the tavern itself an uncanny ability to project a sense of comfort and safety every time a person stepped through its doors.

It didn’t hurt that its owners – Elizabeth Lucas and her granddaughter Ruby – were friendly and yet fiercely protective of their clientele. Not to mention that they had been friends of Misthaven’s royal family since the current queen was a young girl. Privacy and discretion were as guaranteed at Two Wolves as they could ever be in a city as infamously gossip-riddled as Spero.

In short, it was perfect.

It was the ideal place for a princess to hide away from the world for a few hours, which was exactly what Emma was determined to do.

She straightened, pushing up from where she’d slumped against the now-closed door, and took a deep breath. Slipping inside the nearby ladies’ room, she took a moment to look at herself – truly look – in the mirror above the tiny sink. Beyond the crack running up one edge of the glass she saw a woman who, while appearing slightly tired, had an invigorated sparkle in her eyes. She loved her family and – most of the time – she loved the life she got to lead. But there were some occasions when the expectations and pressures of being a princess just got to be too much and she needed to get away.

Tonight is definitely one of those times, she thought to herself with a grimace. Especially if the Privy Council is going to be so ridiculously archaic–

Emma cut off her own line of thought with a shake of her head. The situation with the council was exactly what she’d been coming here to avoid. She was hardly about to ruin her own evening by thinking about it now. If she got going, she knew she’d only end up stewing about it for hours and that was not what she wanted out of tonight.

She glanced at herself in the mirror again, pushing a strand of auburn hair from her bobbed wig back behind her ear and straightening the square black frames on her glasses (a relic from her life before contacts). Happy with what she saw, she grinned widely at herself. She was under no illusions as to what would happen when her Cadre guards discovered her missing from the palace. No doubt they’d assume she was at Two Wolves and follow her here. It’s not like it was the first time she’d come here after all. Her parents were (relatively) at peace with her choice of “escape” location, and she always was careful enough to wear a different disguise each visit – though usually, she did bring her guards with her.

But, she’d reasoned with herself as she’d slipped out of the palace unseen, even if she hadn’t brought Humbert and Dunbroch with her, it’s not like Two Wolves wasn’t known as an off-duty Cadre hang out. Surely she’d be safe enough there – and she really needed out of the palace for just a night.

After fussing with the set of her wig a bit more, Emma was finally satisfied that she looked innocuous enough and left the ladies’ room. Entering the tavern’s main room, she immediately spotted Ruby behind the bar and moved to take a seat at the far end – the dark, weathered wooden bar-top curved around there to meet the wall, creating a cozy little nook where Emma hoped she wouldn’t be overly bothered.

Ruby finished with her current customer and headed in Emma’s direction. “Heya, so what can I get–“ the question died on Ruby’s lips as she caught sight of Emma. Narrowing her eyes and darting a furtive glance around the room, she hissed “Emma?!” almost under her breath. “That is you, isn’t it?”

Emma nodded, grinning back at the woman she’d come to consider a true friend over the last several years. “Yep,” she replied brightly. “Though I really do hope no one else will be able to figure it out so easily.”

Ruby shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You look completely different with that hair. It was just…the glasses, I think. You’ve used them before with a different wig and they looked a bit familiar. But I’m probably the only one who would pick up on that.”

“Hopefully you’re right,” Emma sighed. “I really can’t deal with my cover being blown tonight.”

“Uh oh…that doesn’t sound good. Everything okay?”

“Not really.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Ruby asked, a concerned frown stealing across her face.

“Not really.”

Her friend laughed at that. “Understood,” she replied. “Let me get you something to ease your troubles then. What’ll it be?”

She ordered a glass of rum – something she’d picked up a fondness for a few years ago, much to her mother’s chagrin – and settled in, spending the next hour or so chatting with Ruby when the other woman didn’t need to take care of her other customers. She also got into a spirited, yet good-natured political debate with some of the local regulars – thankfully none of whom recognized her – pleased to find that she held her own even when the discussion delved into some of the more intricately nuanced topics.

This had been exactly what she’d needed tonight. A chance to get away and just be Emma, not a princess, not someone who had to weigh and consider each and every action against some grand standard of courtly behavior. Honestly, she loved her family, and she knew she was incredibly privileged to live the life she led – but there were times when it just felt like no one truly knew the real person she was underneath her title.

Emma just wanted to be seen.

No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than she became aware of a presence settling onto the barstool a couple of seats to her left. Ruby came over to drop off Emma’s second rum and take the newcomer’s order. Before she moved back towards the other end of the bar, she caught Emma’s eye and gave a slight nod in the direction of the stranger, a wicked grin curling her mouth.

When Ruby got that look, it usually spelled trouble – and as much as Emma might want to cut loose and spend a night free from the constraints of her royal duties, she still knew that there was a line that she simply could not cross.

At least not anymore, she thought. She might have been more reckless when she’d been younger, but she’d learned long ago – the hard way – that there were certain things, normal-people things, that simply weren’t in the cards for her.

Getting pulled into one of Ruby Lucas’ madcap adventures definitely qualified as one of those things.

She’d just made her mind up to take her drink over to a quiet table in the opposite corner of the tavern and leave the end of the bar in possession of the new arrival, but she made the mistake of looking in his direction as she moved to stand up.

Sitting next to her, with nothing but one empty barstool in between them, was – quite simply – the most unfairly attractive man Emma had ever seen in her life.

It’s like the universe must be laughing at me, she thought to herself grumpily. Dropping someone who looks like that in my path when there’s no way I can do anything about it. Or, at least, no way that I should.

He was dark-haired, with a slightly lighter scruff dusted along his sharp jawline. From where she sat, it wasn’t hard to discern his broad shoulders, leanly muscled arms, or narrowly tapering waist. His eyebrows seemed to dance expressively along his forehead when he turned to face her, and they hovered over what had to be the mostly unfairly blue pair of eyes Emma had ever seen.

“Lass?” the stranger asked softly. His voice bore the lilting accent typical of those from Misthaven’s southern coastal region. “Are you quite alright?”

Shit!

She must have been staring when he’d looked in her direction. Moving to pick up her drink and take a sip to distract herself, her hand fumbled slightly and the tumbler toppled over, sending rum rippling across the ancient bar-top.

“Dammit,” she muttered, before looking back up at him. “Oh, yeah…yes. I’m fine – just…”

“Here,” he offered, sliding over to sit on the barstool directly next to her and handing her his napkin to help mop up the spill. “You sure you’re alright?” he asked again, his voice filled with more concern than she would’ve thought possible considering they’d literally just met and she didn’t even know his name – and he couldn’t come to know hers.

Not her real one, at least.

She shrugged, looking away from him and concentrating on swiping at the alcohol that had finally stopped spreading and now lay in a thin sheen over the bar top. “Mostly,” she murmured. “I guess I’m just having one of those days, you know?”

He chuckled, and she glanced up to see an understanding grin work its way across his face as he nodded. “Aye, I can sympathize. I feel like I’ve been having one of those days for most of the past month.”

“Oh?” she asked, even as she mentally scolded herself for prolonging the conversation. She knew she should just cut things off – find a quick, polite way to excuse herself, pay up and say good night to Ruby, and make her way back to the palace. If she did that, maybe she’d even make it back before her Cadre guards made it here tonight. But she couldn’t seem to help herself – something about this stranger captivated her.

It wasn’t just his obviously good looks, either – he had a quiet earnestness about him. That, coupled with the fact that he hadn’t immediately tried to hit on her – at least not overtly – made her want to stay in his orbit at least a little bit longer.

“Mm,” he nodded, though Emma had almost forgotten she’d asked him a question. “I moved to the city at the start of the month for…a new position with a heavier workload. I knew it was going to be different, but let’s just say it’s been more of an adjustment than I was expecting.”

She noted the slight pause partway through the stranger’s answer, but when she caught his gaze, he was looking at her with nothing but sincerity. Emma had always had a sixth sense as to when people were being untruthful – her parents and brother always teasingly called it her “superpower,” but it had rarely steered her wrong. Her instincts about people were usually pretty spot on, and this guy, whoever he was, didn’t ring any alarm bells for her.

“That sounds like a lot to take on all at once,” she said sympathetically. “I hope it’s been worth it…” she trailed off, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

He caught on quickly and supplied his name at last. “Killian,” he said with another smile. “And yes, so far it has been…” he said, tilting his head in her direction, clearly waiting for her to reciprocate with her name.

“Anna,” she murmured, hoping if she lied softly it somehow wouldn’t feel as bad as she feared it would. It did though. Emma hated being lied to, and she really hated doing it to someone else – but she really didn’t see any other way to stay there and keep talking to Killian. Which, apparently, is something I really want to do, she realized suddenly.

“Anna,” he repeated, the syllables sounding lovely as they rolled off his tongue, yet making her stomach twist all the same with their falseness. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She smiled at that, small but genuine. “You too, Killian,” she said, only slightly surprised to discover how much she meant it.

With that, they fell into an easy conversation – or, at least, as easy a conversation as Emma could have with anyone who didn’t know her real identity. But unlike the political discussion she’d been having with the locals earlier in the evening, the longer she spent talking with Killian, the more she wished she could tell him who she was.

Just when she was thinking that she really had to find a way to extricate herself and sneak back home, marveling that she still hadn’t seen any sign of the Cadre, her luck ran out. Killian was in the middle of a rather absurdly charming story of some childhood shenanigans involving him, his older brother, and a stray dog they’d smuggled home and tried to hide from their parents – but just as he was reaching the heart of the story, Emma caught a flash of red hair over his left shoulder.

It could have been someone else – Lieutenant Dunbroch wasn’t the only person in Spero with bright red hair, not by a long shot – but considering the speed with which said hair’s owner was moving, and the taller figure that had slipped inside after her and lingered in the shadows near the front door, the odds were good that she and Lieutenant Humbert had finally caught up to her.

Keeping her attention on Killian, Emma held out her hand where he couldn’t see it and signaled for Lieutenant Dunbroch to stop. She knew the other woman would no doubt be extremely irritated, but she hoped that she would at least give Emma a moment to say goodbye to Killian without giving away her identity.

“-and then he licked Mum’s nose and cuddled right up to her and she just…melted,” Killian said, huffing out a laugh. “In the end, the joke was on Liam and me – that blasted dog loved her more’n either of us.”

Emma chuckled softly. “Adorable, but apparently fickle,” she teased, before signaling to Ruby to put all of her and Killian’s drinks on her ongoing tab and shifting to stand. She paused for a moment, unsure how to extricate herself smoothly – looking over at Lieutenant Dunbroch, she estimated that she had mere moments before her guard broke up the conversation. The other woman would never cause any scene that would attract more attention Emma’s way, but the Lieutenant would undoubtedly take a much blunter approach to ending Emma’s conversation with Killian than she’d prefer.

While she’d been lost in her thoughts, Killian’s gaze flicked over her, landing on her face. He seemed to notice that she was preparing to leave, and reached out to lay his hand over her free one where it still lay on the bar. “You’re leaving, lass?”

She returned his gaze, a feeling of true regret washing through her. It was something she’d not expected when she’d first met him, thinking him then to be just a handsome stranger – someone good to waste an hour in a bar with, but that’s all. But the conversation they’d fallen into over the course of the evening had shown her that there was much more to him than met the eye.

He was kind, smart, funny, and opinionated – and, she realized with a start, he was shockingly good at putting her at ease. Once they’d started talking, she’d barely given a thought to getting back to the palace or worrying about the Cadre catching up to her. She’d even forgotten about the matter that had originally driven her outside the palace walls that evening.

That’s dangerous, she thought. I can’t afford to be unfocused right now.

Not that Killian knew anything about that – not with the tale she’d spun him of being a scholarship student at the University of Spero, in the capital city from her home in the far northern reaches of the country. And not that he’ll get a chance to know, either – it’s not like I’ll ever see him again.

“Yes, uh…sorry, yeah. I have to go,” she murmured, sliding her fingers out from underneath his, a wave of longing washing over her as the heat of his hand leeched from hers. She ducked her head down and avoided his eyes, afraid of what she might find there, glancing instead at Lieutenant Dunbroch out of the corner of her eye. “I’ve got, um, an early morning tomorrow,” she said. It wasn’t a total lie – it was just that she would be spending yet another day in a rotation of royal duties, which she found beyond mind-numbing, rather than in academic arguments with some university professor, which is no doubt closer to the assumptions Killian must have been making about her plans for the following day.

“I understand, Anna,” he said with a refreshing sincerity. “In fact, I have a rather early one myself – didn’t realize it had gotten so late. It was just very easy to talk to you,” he said, biting his lip after the words escaped. Emma smiled to herself – his slightly flustered reaction was actually really adorable.

And that kind of thinking is even more dangerous.

Emma saw Lieutenant Dunbroch take a step in her direction and knew she had to do something now if she had any hope at all of salvaging a smooth exit. She stepped to the side, putting a bit more space in between her and where Killian sat. “I had a great time too,” she said honestly. “I just have to go-”

“Can I see you again?” he interjected, standing and taking a step forward into her space. She stiffened in surprise – wanting to say yes but knowing it would be playing with fire. Killian seemed to mistake her shock for disinterest though, as his face fell slightly and he started to backtrack. “Look, I’m sorry if I overstepped, I just thought that-”

“Yes,” she breathed. It seemed as though it was her turn to shock him, if the dazed smile spreading across his face were any indication.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she affirmed, feeling her own smile get bigger. “When?”

“Uhm,” He blinked for a moment, as if still startled that she’d agreed, which Emma found just as adorable as his earlier flustered state. “I hate to wait this long, but a week from tonight? Work is going to make the rest of this week kind of impossible, I’m afraid.”

Emma internally breathed a sigh of relief. A week would give her time to figure out exactly how she was going to get away with sneaking out of the palace again so soon after this adventure. “That’s okay. A week is perfect. I’ll meet you here? Maybe at seven?”

He nodded. “Sounds perfect, lass.”

“Great, I’ll see you then,” she flashed him a bright smile and turned away before she could say or do anything else impulsive, like kiss him goodbye or something. She thought she heard him call after her as she walked away, but by that point she was bypassing the spot where Lieutenant Dunbroch was waiting, the other woman falling into step behind her, and her attention shifted to planning out how to get out of the trouble she’d be in for slipping away from her guards for the evening.

Still, she thought, it was definitely worth it.

-/-

“Lass! Anna! I don’t have your number!” Killian called after the retreating figure of the woman who’d enchanted him since he’d sat down next to her earlier that evening. Unfortunately, she must not have heard him over the music and chatter of other patrons that filled the tavern because she kept on moving, never breaking stride.

The fleeting thought entered his head that maybe she hadn’t actually been serious when she’d agreed to see him again, and that maybe now she was just trying to put as much distance between them as possible. But he didn’t want to believe it – the connection between them that night had felt so easy, so natural, so real. He couldn’t believe that it had been one sided.

He sighed, sinking back down on his barstool and running a hand through his hair. There was nothing for it – he’d just have to show up at Two Wolves next week and hope that she’d be there. He’d hated having to ask her to wait that long, but in Cadre training, he and his fellow Initiates only received one night off each week – there was nothing else he could have done if he’d wanted to see her again. And he definitely did.

Resolving to put the uncertainty over whether he’d really see Anna again out of his mind and focus on his training for the next week, he moved to flag down the bartender so that he could pay and get back to base. She came over but waved him off when he tried to settle his bill. “Already taken care of,” she said with a wicked grin. “By your lady friend there,” she gestured to the seat where Anna had been with a flourish. “Thought you knew.”

Killian shook his head slowly, putting his wallet away as the brunette sauntered back down to the other end of the bar, not waiting for him to respond. He felt a grin pull at the corners of his mouth. Suddenly, it seemed like there was a much better chance that Anna would show up next week.

-/-

Emma fidgeted in her seat, twisting the hem of her sweater absently between her fingers as she tried – with little success – to pay attention to Elsa, her private secretary, as the other woman ran through the calendar of Emma’s upcoming public appearances and social obligations. Though she knew it was expected of her to absorb as much of this information as possible and engage in making decisions about how she would participate in each event, she just couldn’t seem to focus today.

If she were being honest, for the last three days it had been a struggle to concentrate on her royal duties – she found herself staring off into space more often than not, having an unusual amount of trouble banishing a certain pair of blue eyes and a deep, rich laugh from her memory.

It was ridiculous – she should never have gone to Two Wolves in the first place, and she certainly shouldn’t have gotten into such a deeply engaging conversation with someone she’d never met before, and she absolutely should not have agreed to see him again.

But…she had done all of those things.

Moreover, she was actually plotting ways to follow through on her promise to meet Killian again without arousing suspicion from her Cadre guards – or, worse, her family.

Thankfully, the guard detail changed every week, and Lieutenants Dunbroch and Humbert had already handed off to Lieutenant MacIntosh and Flight Lieutenant Dulac. Though the Cadre members of course informed each other routinely of any issues with their royal charges, Emma hoped that the change of guards would at least give her more of a chance to elude them when the time came. Surely, they wouldn’t expect her to sneak out two weeks in a row – whenever she’d had one of her “normal Emma” nights in the past, they had been spaced months and months apart.

She’d never dared to be so brazen before, and she wasn’t quite sure why she was risking it now.

There was just something about Killian she couldn’t shake.

More to the point, she didn’t want to.

Emma was pulled from her thoughts by the noise of a throat clearing, and from the tone of the sound, it wasn’t the first time. She looked up, a sheepish expression on her face, to see Elsa staring at her, one eyebrow arched inquisitively. “I’m sorry, your highness. Would you prefer to resume at another time?” Her words were proper and correct, but her tone was slightly pointed, as though there were something she wanted to say but was holding herself back.

It was a more appropriate tack for a friend to have taken, rather than an employee, but Emma never had been very good about keeping firm boundaries between herself and her staff. She’d always treated them more like friends and colleagues than employees, and encouraged them to do the same. (Out of public view, at least – her parents took a similar stance in private but of course royal propriety had to be observed in front of the masses).

“Oh…no,” she said, shaking her head in an attempt to dismiss the last of her wandering thoughts. “I know I drifted a bit there, but I promise I’m with you. Where were we?”

Elsa smiled sympathetically at her. “The ribbon cutting for the new equestrian center in Norton on Friday, followed by the christening of the Royal Navy’s new ship in Fair Isle Bay Saturday morning.” Emma sighed and, while she didn’t exactly roll her eyes, something of her displeasure must have shown in her expression because Elsa chuckled softly. “I know how you feel about these events, your highness. But you know that-”

“It’s all part of my duties,” Emma cut in. “Yes, I do. I just wish that sometimes those duties could include something more meaningful than standing around in a pretty dress and waving at the crowd as a ribbon is snipped or a bottle of champagne is flung against a ship. I want to do something with my life. What good is the power my position grants me if I can’t do anything useful with it?!”

Elsa looked at her like she didn’t quite know what to say. This was a conversation they’d had often enough since Elsa had become her private secretary, but they’d pretty much exhausted the topic long ago. Emma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said, her tone softening. “None of this is your fault…I just. The Privy Council has been especially tiresome recently.”

“Ah,” Elsa’s expression morphed from slightly shocked into something much more understanding. “Minister Gold still harping on the same old things?”

Emma nodded, slumping down in her chair and leaning her head back against the overstuffed upholstery. “With a few new bits,” she replied. “He’s still very much of the opinion that my parents wasted both Misthaven’s time and resources by allowing me to go to college, let alone grad school, and that my efforts would have been far better spent courting the attentions of one of Europe’s eligible princelings. In the last council meeting, he actually said that if I were so bound and determined to make a contribution to Misthaven’s future, I ought to speed up the husband-hunt so that I could get down to the business of producing the next heir. He didn’t actually add the phrase ‘before you’re no longer of child-bearing years’ but the meaning was clearly implied.”

Elsa looked aghast. “He’s a pig,” she declared (triggering a surprised snort of laughter from Emma), before continuing. “Besides, you’re the next heir. Has he somehow forgotten that?”

“Oh no,” Emma replied, the edge in her tone belying the false brightness of her words. “That’s the fun new twist to his ravings. He’s putting a bill before the council promoting the revocation of the reformed succession laws. He’d have it so that he’d reduce my father’s standing due to his so-called ‘common’ birth status, and bump Leo up the chain – until and unless I had any male children.”

“But, but, but,” Elsa sputtered. “There’s just so much wrong with that, I don’t even know where to begin!”

“Trust me, I know,” Emma sighed as Elsa started to pace back and forth. “But I doubt that pointing out his logical flaws would slow Gold down.”

Elsa’s gaze snapped up to meet hers. “But your father isn’t of common birth! He was a Prince of Glowerhaven-”

“A title used only ceremonially for the past century, despite its connection to Glowerhaven’s ancient royal house,” Emma pointed out.

“And Leo’s eight! Even if Gold succeeded, your brother wouldn’t be of age for another thirteen years – what’s the country supposed to do in the meantime? Wait?!” Elsa was working herself up into a state the likes of which Emma had rarely seen from the usually cool and composed blonde. “These laws have been on the books for nearly thirty years! He cannot possibly think that he’ll get this out of the council, much less to the floor of the parliament.”

Emma laughed, but it was a short, dry sound. “No, not even he’s that crazy – but he’s plotting something. I just don’t know what.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is too obvious. You said it – it’s not something that will pass the council’s vote, and the parliament will never even see this bill. But before it’s all over, the news of his ideas will leak out and he’ll be able to create enough of a controversy that public opinion will be whipped up and debating it all for months. He then gets to back off and make his real play while everyone is distracted with the succession issue, even though that’s just white noise.”

Understanding dawned on Elsa’s face. “But you don’t know what it is he really wants,” she replied. It wasn’t a question.

“Not a clue,” Emma said, a hint of bitterness creeping into her voice. “But whatever it is, it won’t be good.”

-/-

All things considered, she really shouldn’t have gone back to Two Wolves the next week to meet Killian.

The situation with Minister Gold continued to be tense, and Emma’s parents hadn’t exactly been thrilled when her Cadre guards had reported her previous week’s adventure. But despite spending most of the week twisted with indecision over the matter, she found herself slipping out of the castle yet again the following Monday evening, heading for the stables.

Her auburn wig and glasses were tucked into a small satchel that bounced at her hip. She’d slip them on once she was behind the stable and before she scrambled over the wall separating the palace grounds from the quiet road that ran in one direction towards the forest and the other down into Spero.

She really shouldn’t have gone, but when she got to the tavern and caught sight of Killian’s face – he didn’t see her at first and she spied him scratching nervously behind his right ear before checking his watch and glancing around – she knew she’d made the right decision. The brilliant smile that bloomed across his features when he caught sight of her didn’t hurt either.

By the time the end of the evening rolled around, they’d spent several hours wandering hand in hand through a street carnival in the heart of downtown and sitting and talking over coffee and pastry at an out of the way café Killian had spotted. The conversation had flowed easily between them, as had the teasing and laughter, and every moment made Emma more and more certain she wanted to see him again, damn all the risks.

When he walked her back to the spot where they’d met earlier in the evening and pressed lingering kisses first to the ridge of her knuckles and then to the inside of her left wrist, she was absolutely sure of it.

Pressing up on her tiptoes and gripping his shoulder for balance, she leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Give me your phone.” He handed it over with a quirk of his eyebrow and she programmed her actual, private number into it and sent herself a text before she could think better of her actions. Brushing a whisper of a kiss along his jawline, she pressed the phone back into his hand and stepped back. “I had a great time, Killian.”

“Me too, lass,” he breathed, looking at her with a kind of intense wonder that made his eyes seem lit from within.

Emma had the sneaking suspicion she was looking at him in much the same way, but she also needed to take a literal and metaphorical breath – this was all rather a lot to process – and she really needed to get back to the palace before she was missed. (She was kind of marveling at the fact that her guard detail hadn’t caught up to her tonight – although she supposed it was because they’d moved around so much at the street fair that they’d been hard to find, especially if the Cadre would have put their focus on Two Wolves. Still, she wasn’t going to take her luck for granted – the last thing she needed was another lecture from this week’s detail about the perils of sneaking out).

“I’d better get going,” she murmured, glancing up to find him still gazing at her with that semi-awestruck expression. “But, uh, text me, yeah?”

He smiled slowly, and leaned closer, brushing a soft kiss against her cheek. “You can bet on it, love,” he whispered as he drew back.

Emma smiled all the way back to the palace.

Neither of them took any notice of the camera snapping photos from the shadowy corner across the street.

-/-

The sun shone brightly and the sky was an endless blue expanse, broken only rarely by the puffiest white clouds. A cool breeze blew inland off of the water, and off in the distance – perhaps on one of the public beaches further down the coast – several kites in an array of vibrant colors bobbed and wove their way through the air.

In short, it was a perfect day – made even more so by the warm weight of Anna’s head where it rested against his shoulder. They were sitting on a blanket on a grassy hill overlooking the bay, sharing the remains of a picnic lunch he’d brought. When he’d texted her earlier in the week to propose their next meeting (Or were these, officially, dates by this point? Killian knew what he wanted them to be, but still wasn’t completely sure of what Anna was thinking), he’d suggested doing something a bit different and had been thrilled when she’d seemed excited about a mini-break to the seaside.

He’d met her at the train station closest to Two Wolves at mid-morning and they’d spent the railway journey once again in companionable conversation – with the notable addition of a bit of hand-holding and, for the latter part of the ride, Killian’s arm slung round her shoulders. They’d played at sight-seeing as the Misthaven countryside had slipped by the windows – though, he noted, they were both fairly well versed with the route. It made sense for him, having spent most of the years of his naval training and service based in Fair Isle Bay, but he made a mental note to ask Anna later if she’d spent much time by the coast, given her northern upbringing.

They’d arrived at the coast just before noon, spending the first hour or so poking into the little shops up and down the boardwalk of one of the small villages not too far from the naval base. He knew he was taking a risk bringing her here – anyone from his old detail who was off-base on liberty could spot him. That wouldn’t please his Cadre training officer one bit, given that Cadre members weren’t meant to broadcast their status as such – it was one of the first things that was drilled into every Initiate during boot camp.

(It was part of the reason why the newspapers only published the Initiates’ rank, first initials, and last name when the new Cadre was announced – and didn’t use any photos. From the point they entered Cadre boot camp, new Initiates were meant to keep as low a profile as possible – bringing a date (if that is what this was) to the Royal Navy’s backyard was just tempting fate. But Killian had to show her the coast – it was so much a part of him, of who he was. He needed to share such an intrinsic part of him with this woman who was – with startling rapidity – coming to mean a great deal to him).

After having some ice cream at a quaint little place on the edge of the town – Anna’d bargained quite convincingly with him that they should get dessert before they had their lunch – Killian beckoned Anna to follow him up one of the public walking trails that snaked over the low hills separating the town from the beaches and the coastline proper.

They’d found a relatively flat spot with a brilliant view of the water that wasn’t too far off the path, but was sheltered enough for a bit of privacy, and had set about enjoying their lunch. Now, bellies full and conversation – for the moment – exhausted, they were simply enjoying the moment. Sitting together, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. Every time the wind shifted in a particular direction, Killian smelled the enticing apple and cinnamon scent of Anna’s shampoo over the salt in the sea air. He curled his arm around her shoulders again and tugged her ever-so-slightly closer. She hummed in contentment and nestled ever further into him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

He wasn’t quite sure how this had happened – wasn’t even sure exactly what to call what they were doing – but Killian had never expected to find anyone like Anna when he’d gone to Spero for Cadre boot camp. She was passionate, brilliant, funny, and could argue politics with him until they both needed to catch their breath. She challenged him, and seemed to delight in their verbal sparring matches as much as he did – but that was far from all. When she spoke of her studies, and her desire to help those who were less fortunate in life, her compassion shone so brightly it nearly took Killian’s breath away.

Not to mention she was beautiful – her physical attributes were…captivating…and he couldn’t pretend they’d gone unnoticed – but her gently dimpled cheeks, alabaster skin, deep green eyes, and lustrous auburn hair meant less to him than the beauty he could see in her heart.

“I wish I could have this all the time,” she murmured, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

“Hmm?” Killian hummed, pulling himself out of his wandering thoughts and tilting his head so that he could look down at her.

She peered up at him, blinking slowly as if she’d been nearly on the brink of falling asleep on his shoulder. “This…this kind of day. It’s so peaceful, and calm…and just…real.”

He chuckled at her turn of phrase. “D’you have many days that aren’t real, then?”

She huffed out a dry laugh. “You’d be surprised,” she muttered. He waited for her to explain, and after a moment she shrugged. “It’s just…a lot of the time, I feel like I’m not fulfilling my…true purpose, I guess. Or, well…I’m following the path that was laid out for me, and I don’t really have a lot of input into how to make it a better path. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember. D’you know what I mean?”

Her words make him think of his own youth, and the choices – or lack thereof – that had been offered to him and Liam. Sitting up a little more fully, he looked away from her, out over the water, and began talking. “My Mum died when I was barely ten, Da left a year later – couldn’t hack tryin’ t’raise two boys on his own. Liam – my brother – worked and scraped and saved and did everything he could to give us a better chance-”

“Killian, you don’t have to-” Anna tried to cut in.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze. “I want to.” He took a deep breath in and then let it out slowly. “He worked, he got into the Royal Naval Academy, and then when I was old enough, I followed him. I’d follow him anywhere – he saved me when our family fell apart – and I really have come to love the Navy. I love the sea, and the structure and purpose of the work is fulfilling…”

“But?” this time Anna prompted him when he trailed off.

“But,” he said, glancing back at her, smiling genuinely at the concern he saw on her face. “Much as I’ve come to adapt to it and find meaning in it, it wasn’t my own dream. It was really Liam’s. But it’s where I’ve found myself, and I’ve tried to make the most of it that I can – I’ve found ways to make that dream mine and I work hard at making it meaningful to me every day. I’ve found parts of it that I can latch on to and really connect with. Then, my finding purpose in it makes it possible to do something meaningful for others.”

“And does that work? Is it enough for you?” she asked him, a genuine curiosity flickering over her features.

He caught her gaze and held it earnestly. “I think so,” he said honestly. “Some days, I feel more connected, more purposeful, than others, if I’m being honest. But even on the days when I feel like I might be slacking off on the whole ‘fulfilling my maximum potential’ thing, I do feel like I’m making a positive difference for my country,” he ducked his head, feeling a flicker of embarrassment. “Sorry, that sounded a bit overly patriotic and rah-rah, I know.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “It makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing all that with me,” she said with an earnestness that made him smile softly at her.

“It was my pleasure, love,” he murmured. “I guess I’m just trying to say that even if you don’t have a lot of options in terms of choosing the actual direction your life is headed in right now, you still have the power to shape the path that lies ahead. You still have choices you can make and ways you can focus on the things that are important to you. You just have to be patient – pick your moments and your metaphorical battles and before you know it, you’ll have wrestled this challenge into submission and be on to conquer the next one.”

She chuckled wryly. “You really think so?”

“Aye,” He replied. “I know I’ve not known you long, Anna, but as it stands I think you’re brilliant, and believe you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. To hell with anyone who says you can’t.”

Her eyes flicked up to his and he was caught in the fiery determination he saw in her gaze. Before he could say anything else – in fact, before he’d really processed what was happening – she’d circled one arm further around his waist and her other hand had slid into the hair at the nape of his neck and she’d pulled him into a kiss that rivaled any he’d ever had in its sheer intensity.

Cliched as it might have sounded, time seemed to stop in that moment.

The muted sounds of the seashore – gulls crying in the distance, waves breaking on the beach far below them, the far off strains of another tourist’s radio playing what Killian was fairly sure was an Ed Sheeran song – melted away the instant Anna’s lips met his. His own arms wound around her back, pulling her closer until she was practically in his lap – a move that pulled a low moan from her that Killian felt as much as he heard it.

He turned his head, the tip of his nose pressing into the apple of her cheek as he deepened the kiss.  She mirrored him, parting her lips readily and making a happy little noise Killian swore he’d remember the rest of his life when his tongue darted inside and curled around her own. They spent endless minutes getting progressively lost in each other – hands wandering, breath stuttering, hips shifting restlessly – until Anna finally pulled back, a ragged chuckle tumbling from her lips as Killian instinctively followed her movements. “Wow,” she breathed.

“I heartily agree, love,” he mumbled, his eyes dropping shut as he leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. “Not that I’m complaining in any way – but what brought that on?”

He could hear the smile in her voice when she replied. “You believed in me, Killian…Killian…Killian?”

“Killian!”

He sat bolt upright in his chair as his attention snapped back to the present moment and he realized Anna was nowhere to be seen and he wasn’t on a mini-holiday to the coast. Rather, he was in one of the Cadre’s briefing rooms and the person who’d been calling him – for quite some time judging by her slightly irritated yet concerned expression – was one of his fellow Initiates. “Lieutenant French…er, Belle,” he said, “I’m sorry. I must have been lost in thought.”

Belle just arched an amused eyebrow at him and moved past him to take the seat next to him. “I’ll say,” she replied dryly. “You were staring off into space when I came in – you’re just lucky the rest of the group is running late. Is everything alright?”

Killian nodded sheepishly. “Yes…more than, actually.” He hesitated for a moment, wondering if – without getting into the more personal details – he could share any of his happiness with Belle. Since the beginning of boot camp, they’d been paired together on several training exercises and instructional projects. Their training officers had indicated that they’d been paired because they had complimentary skill sets and aptitudes and would likely be detailed together within the Cadre once boot camp was complete – beyond that, though, Killian had grown genuinely fond of the diminutive yet fierce woman and as she seemed to feel the same about him, a warm friendship had sprung up between them. If he could tell anyone about Anna, he could tell Belle – Liam would likely warn him against getting “distracted” during his training, and what he needed right now was a listening ear, not his brother’s well-meaning but sometimes rigid stance on the rules. “I met someone a couple of weeks ago…”

“Oh really?” she asked, a note of interest coloring her voice. “Must be a really special someone – you were completely somewhere else when I walked in here.”

“She is,” he nodded, unable to keep the smile off his face even though he felt slightly like a teenager talking about his first crush. “I’ve seen her on every off day we’ve had so far, and I can’t stop thinking about her-”

“Clearly,” Belle interjected with a laugh.

“Ha ha…I’m serious, Belle. I feel like I’ve been knocked off my feet by her. I never expected this, much less that it would happen during boot camp – it’s getting harder and harder not to tell her what I really do. I know I can’t,” he rushed to say when Belle looked like she wanted to remind him of the Cadre’s need for secrecy. “But I don’t know how much longer I can go on seeing her and not tell her – it’s a big thing to keep hidden.”

“And you definitely want to keep seeing her?” Belle asked.

Killian shot her a look. “Clearly. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you might want to-” Belle began, but was cut off when the rest of their Initiate class began to file into the room, followed by Flight Lieutenant Dulac. She looked over at Killian, chagrined. Later, she mouthed and he nodded.

“Good morning Initiates,” Lieutenant Dulac’s booming voice greeted them. “Thank you all for being so punctual this morning,” he paused to stare pointedly in the direction of another Initiate, Warrant Officer Scarlet, who had barely made it through the door before the class had begun. “Welcome to the beginning of your Surveillance and Reconnaissance unit.”

Killian forced himself to stop thinking about anything but the class, pushing both Anna and his conversation with Belle to the back of his mind as he listened closely to Dulac’s lecture. Of all the officers who were guiding the Initiates’ training, Killian had quickly grown to admire Dulac the most and had gotten a great deal out of any session he led.

“…now, as we see here,” Dulac clicked through several slides in the PowerPoint presentation he was using for this class session until he found the one he wanted, “low-light photography can be a challenge even in this digital age. This photograph,” he gestured to the slide up on the screen, “was taken last week and though you can see Princess Emma quite clearly under the streetlight at the left of the image, her companion is unfortunately cast in shadow and it’s not possible to make out enough of his features for facial rec.”

“Not even with enhancement, sir?” one of the other Initiates – Locksley, an army Captain Killian had come to like and respect – asked from the far corner of the room.

Dulac shook his head. “No. The officer doing the recon work here was, by necessity, too far away to get a shot that would give us the right angle.”

“Well he shoulda got closer then, shouldn’t he?” this was from Scarlet, before Locksley elbowed him in an attempt to keep him quiet.

Dulac kept his cool. “Officer Scarlet, while it would have been ideal to get closer, one also must think about whether one has adequate cover to do so – it does no good to get the right photo and reveal yourself in the process. Showing that you are shadowing one of the royal family too closely tips off onlookers to the fact that they are the royal family, which immediately increases the dangers – especially in situations like this where the princess has ventured out incognito.”

Killian’s head snapped around at that, and, for this first time, he took a good look at the photo in Lieutenant Dulac’s slide – and all the breath seemed to rush from his body.

He recognized that street, and the tavern in the background.

Moreover, he recognized the man that Dulac said couldn’t be identified. Killian could identify him easily and immediately – because he was the man.

But what didn’t make sense was Dulac’s statement that this was a photo of Princess Emma, because this photo clearly showed his Anna kissing a mystery man on the cheek – you, his brain helpfully supplied – outside Two Wolves a week ago. For a moment, Killian simply stared at the photo, his brain refusing to fully process the information.

When the truth finally clicked in, he realized that he had far bigger problems than having to keep his place in the Cadre a secret from the woman he’d rapidly been falling for – she’d been keeping a far bigger secret of her own.

-/-

“Emma, a word,” her mother’s voice – soft but commanding – came from the other end of the corridor just as Emma was stepping out of her bedroom. She’d not seen her mother standing there and jumped at the unexpected sound of the older woman’s voice.

“God, Mom, don’t do that,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “You nearly scared me to death.”

“I’m sorry,” the queen said, her tone softening a fraction. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but I do need you to come with me.” Without further explanation, she turned on her heel and began walking towards her private offices.

Emma fell into step behind her, as she knew was expected, hurrying to catch up before her mother got too far ahead. “Is everything alright, Mom?” she asked after a few moments of walking in a somewhat stilted silence that was far from their usual easy camaraderie.

Her mother didn’t answer immediately, waiting instead until they’d reached her private offices and slipped inside. The queen shut the door behind them and moved over to her desk before responding. When she did, her words were not at all what Emma was expecting, and they caused the bottom to drop out of her stomach.

“Have you been to Two Wolves recently?” her mother asked, shuffling through a few papers on her desk before looking up at her expectantly.

Emma considered – for the briefest of moments – denying it outright, saying that it must have been someone who looked uncannily like her. But she knew that that wouldn’t hold up – particularly if, as it seemed, Queen Mary-Margaret already knew the answer to the question she was asking. Sinking down into one of the plush guest chairs that were placed in front of the desk, Emma nodded. “Yeah…a couple of times,” she muttered. “But you and Dad have never had a problem with it before.”

Her mother sighed. “We don’t have a problem with it now…not exactly. It’s just…it’s a little careless, Emma. The timing is not ideal.”

She sat up straighter in the chair, a wave of indignance flowing over her. She knew that perhaps she hadn’t made the best choice given the political climate of late – and maybe you’re feeling a bit defensive about that, she thought to herself – but she didn’t think it warranted her mother treating her quite so much like a child. “It’s not like I went out clubbing and got blitzed – Two Wolves is just about the safest place I could go, Mom. That’s been true since you were going there when you were my age,” she finished, crossing her arms over her chest and staring up at her mother with determination and a small touch of defiance. She hoped her mother didn’t have any further information about her evenings at the tavern – but just in case, deflecting her attention couldn’t hurt.

“My youthful indiscretions, such as they may be, aren’t the issue right now Emma,” her mother replied calmly, taking a seat behind her desk and sorting through yet another pile of papers until she pulled out a slim manila folder. “You know that this kind of behavior is against protocol – and while your father and I might have been inclined to turn a blind eye in the past-”

“So did Grandma, thankfully, or you might not have met Dad and Leo and I wouldn’t be here right now,” Emma cut in, refusing to feel bad about taking just a small bit of precious time for herself when her mother had done exactly the same thing when she was young.

“Be that as it may,” her mother carried on almost as if Emma hadn’t spoken. “We’ve got to enforce every bit of protocol right now. With Minister Gold picking at us and scrutinizing every choice the monarchy makes we can’t afford to give him any more ammunition for his schemes. So for a while, I am going to need you to put a halt to this kind of adventure,” she said briskly, opening the folder and pushing it across the desk towards Emma. “And, whoever this may be,” she gestured in the direction of the contents of the folder, “it would be best if you ended it for the time being…at least.”

The sinking feeling that had invaded Emma’s stomach at the beginning of the conversation only got worse – it now felt as though her heart were somehow simultaneously in her throat and on the floor somewhere near her shoes. Even before she looked where her mother had pointed, she had a good idea of what she’d see.

Closing her eyes in resignation, she sighed. It was completely stupid of me to think I wasn’t followed that second night. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Even as she reprimanded herself for not suspecting her Cadre guards had caught up and surveilled her on her return trip to the tavern, she bristled at the constraints her royal duties were once again placing on her.

(But all the same, she repeatedly and silently thanked whatever divine influence had kept them hidden – both from photographers and that week’s Cadre detail – when they’d gone to Fair Isle Bay).

All I’d wanted was something normal. Something just for me. Just for once. Looks like I was just fooling myself – God, I’m an idiot. How did I ever think this was going to work?

As she opened her eyes, they landed on a photo in the manila folder – the image was dark, and a bit blurry. If she had to guess, she’d say Lieutenant MacIntosh was the photographer – his handiwork was always a bit unfocused when he took long distance shots at night – but whoever had taken them, the photo was clear enough to show her pressing a kiss to Killian’s cheek before bidding him good night.

The only saving grace was that it was nigh on impossible to tell who Killian was, given the angle and distance of the shot. Even if her chances of seeing him were imploding with every minute that went by, she didn’t want him to get drawn into a messy background investigation by the Cadre for getting so close to her or, worse, pulled into the public eye by Misthaven’s rather voracious paparazzi.

“Emma?” her mother prompted, and she realized that she’d been silently staring at the photo for longer than was probably reasonable. She looked up at her mother, catching the older woman’s eye – her mother’s regal mask slipped for a moment and a flicker of understanding and empathy crossed her face. She smiled softly. “Believe it or not, I do understand the predicament I can sense that you find yourself in right now…but you need to end it. Now. Or at least find a way to pause things until Gold has settled down and backed off. Understood?”

Emma took one more lingering glance at the photo, thoughts of bright sun, warm breezes, and comforting embraces running through her mind. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself and nodded. “Understood.”

-/-

“You did what?!” Belle’s incredulous question echoed down the long corridor they’d found themselves in after their class had finished. They were tucked at the end, in an alcove, but her voice had risen enough that if someone were passing by, they’d be overheard. He didn’t immediately respond, simply looked at her for a moment, until she seemed to understand that she hadn’t misheard him. Her eyes widened until they looked impossibly large. “Killian, please tell me you’re joking.”

“Sshhhh,” he hissed, making a keep it down gesture with his hands. “In my defense, I didn’t know.”

Belle laughed – it was a sharp sound that seemed to burst from her almost involuntarily. “How could you not know?!”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not wanting to lash out at one of the only people he felt he could confide in about his predicament. Besides, he understood. If he were in Belle’s position, he’d probably be reacting the same way to hearing this kind of news. “I’ve only been out with her a few times, and she was wearing a bloody disguise – if you’re not actively expecting someone to be doing something like that, it’s a little hard to catch,” he retorted, not entirely successful at keeping the self-loathing edge out of his tone.

The truth of it was, he realized as he spoke, he’d been very free with his heart and he’d not known the woman he’d thought was Anna for very long. Or very well, apparently, he thought with a touch of bitterness. He was angry at the princess for the deception – and at himself for not seeing through it. Observation and deduction were part of his training – he was supposed to be good at them. What kind of Cadre guard would he make if he got fooled as easily as this?

It’s not the same thing, and you know it, his inner voice tried to reason with him. You weren’t on duty, you were just spending time with someone you cared about and who you thought cared about you. You weren’t expected to be on your guard. He didn’t know if he believed his own reasoning, telling himself that a better officer would always be on his guard – but before he could fall further down the rabbit hole of his own internal debate, he realized that Belle was asking him a question.

“I can see your point,” she said, her tone gentling a bit, though Killian felt he didn’t truly deserve her kindness. “But what are you going to do now that you do know?”

He shook his head and exhaled harshly. “I don’t bloody well know, do I?”

Just then, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it at first, but it continued to go off, buzzing three more times in quick succession. Pulling it out, he glanced at the screen and was startled to see four texts from Anna’s number. He let out a noise of surprise and showed Belle the phone. “Interesting timing,” she murmured. When he made no move to open them, she pointed at the phone. “Aren’t you going to read them? They might help you decide what to do.”

He felt like he was moving underwater as he nodded, everything slowing down as he swiped his thumb across the screen and brought up the message string he’d been sharing with Anna. Emma, he mentally corrected. The princess.

Killian, I’m so sorry to be doing this at all, but especially in a text.

I got news very suddenly, a family emergency – I have to go up north for a while.

I don’t know when, or if, I’ll be able to come back. I’ve enjoyed our time together more than you will ever know, but it’s not fair to ask you to wait around for me.

I’ll treasure these few weeks forever…goodbye, Killian.

He stared at his phone, disbelieving this latest turn of events, for so long that Belle finally jerked him back to the present moment with a gentle shove to the shoulder. “Well?” she asked expectantly.

“Here,” he mumbled, thrusting the phone into her hand so she could read the messages for herself. He scrubbed both hands over his face and back into his hair, trying to think of anything but the way that the princess’ fingers had felt as they’d traced the back of his neck, or the warmth of her as her mouth had opened easily under his. He wanted to hold onto the anger he’d felt at her deception, but her texts had reeked of sadness and he couldn’t say he didn’t feel the same.

Despite all the things they’d kept from each other, what they’d felt for each other was real. They’d each seen the truth of the other’s heart underneath everything else – he was sure of it. But he didn’t have any idea what to do about it now. He just felt hollow and tired.

“Well,” Belle said when she finished reading the messages. “I guess that answers that.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” he agreed.

“It still sucks though,” she said, slipping her arm through his and pulling him down the corridor in the direction of the mess hall. He’d been so engrossed in his revelation and subsequent meltdown he’d not realized they’d almost missed their chance at lunch.

“Yeah, it really does.”

-/-

In the week that had passed since Emma had, effectively, put an end to things with Killian via text, she’d been fairly miserable – and that had been putting it mildly.

The depth of her disappointment had taken her by surprise – she’d only gone on a few dates with him, after all. They’d barely begun to be something, but so abruptly losing even the possibility of figuring out what they could have been still hurt.

Even if you have no idea if you could have made it work once you’d revealed who you were, it still would have been nice to have the chance to figure that out on your own, she thought to herself bitterly. She was angry with Minister Gold for his ridiculous political intrigues and irritated with her mother for bowing – even temporarily – to the pressure he was putting on the monarchy. But most of all, she was upset with herself for putting herself in this position in the first place. She knew better than anyone the pitfalls of opening your heart up too soon.

This isn’t like that, she chastised herself. Killian didn’t turn out to be some foreign diplomat’s secretly skeezy son only looking for a good time with ‘rebellious royalty,’ and he isn’t a self-important Duke who just wanted to use my title to advance his own social status.

As she thought of her unfortunate prior romances – if you could have even called them that – she continued to argue with herself about whether trusting Killian, and starting to have real feelings for him, had been a mistake.

Even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter, she realized. It’s not like you’re ever likely to see him again.

After a couple of days of wandering around the palace, thinking over the same internal argument again and again, she decided that the best thing she could possibly do would be to get away for a little while. She decided to go to Glowerhaven. It was north of Misthaven – at least then your messages to Killian would be less of a lie, she thought – and spend a few days at her grandmother Ruth’s country estate. It would do her some good to get away from the city, and she always enjoyed the chance to spend some time with her grandmother in the place where her father had grown up. If anyone could put her current predicament into perspective and give her some much needed good advice, her grandmother would be able to.

With one last thought spared for what might have been, she retreated to her rooms to call her grandmother and pack.

-/-

Killian didn’t think he’d ever been so nervous in his life.

Even when he’d been waiting to find out if he’d gotten into the Naval Academy and if he’d be able to join Liam in the service he’d not been this twisted up inside.

But when the morning of the Cadre Installation Ceremony arrived, and there had been no further word from the Princess after her texts ending the whatever it was that had been brewing between them, Killian realized that he’d stalled for as long as he possibly could on deciding how to handle the little matter of having secretly dated the Crown Princess for a few weeks.

(And snogged the hell out of her on a hillside in Fair Isle Bay, but no one else would learn about that anytime soon – or ever – if he could help it).

When he’d had the realization in the middle of surveillance training that his mysterious “Anna” was actually Princess Emma, his first impulse had been to confess absolutely everything to the officer in command of all Initiates and throw himself on the mercy of his superiors. Belle, however, had convinced him that he should keep quiet about it – at least for the time being. He cast his memory back over the rest of the conversation they’d had that day the week before when everything had gone sideways.

“Listen,” she’d said, a determined look crossing her face. “As far as we know, the only three people who know about this are you, me, and the Princess, correct?”

“Yeah,” Killian nodded, his shoulders slumping as the weight of everything that he’d done settled over him – even though he’d been unaware of “Anna’s” real identity, he still felt a responsibility for what had happened. He should have been more aware, been more on his guard – despite Belle’s protestations to the contrary. “Well, and the entire corps of Cadre Initiates who saw Lieutenant Dulac’s presentation just now,” he continued, a weary resignation creeping into his tone.

“Ah ah ah, no,” Belle said, pointing her finger in his direction with each syllable she uttered. “They know the Princess was with someone – not that it was you.”

“I fail to see how that’s going to help me in the long run,” he retorted. “Despite what Dulac thinks, someone will probably be able to clean up that image enough for facial rec, and even if not, Emma knows and she’s going to have me booted out of the Cadre – if not out of the military altogether – the next instant she lays eyes on me. You want to be entertained by the sight of me being hauled away by the palace guards? Just wait for the Cadre Installation and you’ll see.”

Belle shook her head decisively before he’d even finished speaking. “I don’t think so, Killian. I think you’re reading the situation the wrong way round – she’s not going to want to say anything about it any more than you do.”

Killian wasn’t sure about that – he wasn’t sure about much of anything at the moment – but the stress of the situation was making him blank out on finding a solution, and he trusted Belle. He nodded for her to continue. “Why d’you think that?” he asked, a seed of optimism cautiously taking root in his gut. Belle seemed so certain of everything – he could only hope that that confidence came from some viable insight into how to fix this mess.

She sighed, moving off to his side so that another group of Cadre Initiates could pass by them as they made their way out of the mess hall. She waited until they were out of earshot to turn back to him, diving right back into their conversation as though there had never been a pause. “Because,” she said firmly, “if she did anything to get you kicked out of the Cadre, she’d have to attest to why…and she’s not going to want to admit that she was sneaking out of the palace to run around with a strange man-”

“Oi!”

“-in downtown Spero all the while intentionally trying to evade her guard detail. It would be difficult enough for her to admit to that kind of recklessness under any circumstances, but now? With Minister Gold scrutinizing everything the royal family’s doing – trying to make some case for changing the order of succession or some other nonsense – she’s really going to be following protocol to the letter, and she’s going to want to give off the appearance that she’s always done just exactly that. So…do you see why she wouldn’t say anything about you to anyone?”

After a moment of thought, Killian nodded slowly. It was a slim chance, but it was better than nothing – admitting his entanglement with the Princess would be a sure way to get kicked out of the Cadre, and losing the chance to be part of this elite group was simply not an option. Saying nothing and hoping that Belle’s assessment of the Princess’ mindset was correct was a bit dicey – it didn’t give him the chance to get out ahead of the story if it ever did come out – but he couldn’t see any other way to proceed. At least this way, he’d have a chance of things working out in his favor – a small one, to be sure, but that was better than nothing.

Killian snapped his attention back to the present when a trumpet flourish sounded and the heavy doors at the opposite end of the throne room were pulled open. Queen Mary-Margaret and King David entered, following a few steps behind by Princess Emma. They proceeded to the raised dais at the front of the room and stood facing the row of soldiers and sailors who awaited them – the nine new Cadre Initiates and three training officers – all in their dress uniforms, pressed and polished to a shine.

He knew the precise moment during the installation ceremony when the Princess became aware of him. Her gaze landed on him while her mother was giving a speech of welcome to the group and when their eyes caught, Emma’s widened noticeably and her entire posture went rigid. She looked away almost immediately, and though Killian kept his gaze on her for quite some time – until he was forced to turn his attentions back to the ceremony for their individual inductions into the Cadre – she never looked at him again.

He’d known that this was the likely outcome – in fact, it pointed to Belle’s being right about how the Princess would react to the entire situation – and yet his heart sank. This should have been one of the best days of his career, and, to tell the truth, he was still ecstatic about officially joining the Cadre – but what should have been a purely happy day now had something of a cloud hanging over it. He didn’t know until precisely that moment how much he’d still been hoping that she’d look at him the way she had that day in Fair Isle Bay. The fact that she couldn’t bear to look at him at all made him feel like a knife was twisting in his gut.

If this was how it was going to be, it was going to be a long three years.

-/-

For the next week, they barely saw each other.

After the installation ceremony, Emma’s first guard detail had been a friendly, sandy-haired army captain named Robin Locksley and a quieter, more reserved air force flight lieutenant named Mulan Fa. Emma had breathed an internal sigh of relief when Killian hadn’t been immediately assigned to her detail, though an almost equal pang of disappointment had twisted in her gut.

Make up your mind, Emma – you either want to see him or you don’t. Either you’re angry at him for hiding who he was or you understand since you did the same thing. You miss him or you can’t deal with being around him. Pick a damn feeling and at least try to stick to it, she chastised herself. All this emotional back and forth isn’t getting you anywhere productive, and it’s absolutely exhausting.

But despite giving herself several rather stern pep talks over the course of the past week, she hadn’t been able to figure out what to do about this thing with Killian other than just make herself scarce and avoid him whenever possible. Even though he wasn’t on her personal detail, she still did see other members of the Cadre from time to time in the palace – she simply learned which detail he was on and crossed paths with it as little as possible.

Very mature, Emma. Real leadership material you are if you can’t even take charge of your own love live, barely existent though it is.

Rolling her eyes at her own inner monologue, she stepped out from underneath one of the porticos that ringed a small courtyard on the residence wing of the palace. It was one of her favorite places in the entire royal dwelling because of the fountain and the small row of rosebushes tucked at one end of the neatly trimmed green lawn. They were abloom with a pale pink variety of rose that had some complicated Latin name, but that the people of Misthaven had long ago dubbed “the Middlemist.” They were Emma’s favorite flower, and this spot – part of the palace, but still semi-secluded – was often the place where she’d go to get time alone when she needed to think.

This morning, she was supposed to meet her new detail – since the guard details changed weekly – and then head out for her daily morning run in the royal park. It was something she was really looking forward to – her morning exercise routine was usually the only time she got during the day where she could fully clear her head. Her detail was usually already there when she came to the courtyard, so she was more than a bit surprised not to see anyone when she arrived there that morning.

Checking her watch, she saw that it was only a few minutes past the time when she was meant to meet them, and decided to stretch while she waited. If they weren’t here by the time she finished, she’d have to go and let someone know, but with the new Cadre so recently installed, she didn’t want to have to get anyone in trouble for something so insignificant.

After a few quiet moments of stretching and planning her route for that morning’s run, she heard footsteps and muffled voices at the other end of the portico. She straightened up and glanced in the direction of the noise, and it suddenly became crystal clear why her guard detail had been late that morning.

A petite, dark-haired woman who Emma was fairly sure was an army lieutenant – though she was a bit fuzzy on the woman’s name – stood next to one of the portico’s columns, dressed in running clothes and doing her own stretches. She was – very pointedly – not looking at the other member of Emma’s new detail for the week, but Emma herself couldn’t look away.

It was Killian.

Of course it was Killian.

Because, clearly, the universe hated her and she couldn’t catch a break.

They stood there for a moment, an awkward silence billowing between them, before Emma shook her head as if to clear it. Addressing them both, but looking more directly at the woman, Emma said the first thing that came into her mind. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, “but can you remind me of your name, please? The installation ceremony was a bit of a blur.”

The other woman smiled softly and bobbed her head in a brief nod. “Understood, your highness. Lieutenant Belle French, Royal Misthaven Army, and this,” she gestured to Killian, “is Lieutenant Killian Jones, Misthaven Royal Navy.” Emma’s eyes flicked over to Killian and he nodded at her as well, but unlike when Belle had done it, the motion seemed stiff and slow. He continued to gaze at her intently – the blue of his eyes boring into hers as though he wanted to say something to her, but didn’t quite know the right words to use.

I know exactly how you feel, she thought grimly.

“Are you ready, your highness?” Belle asked, pointing towards the end of the courtyard nearest to the exit they would need to take to get outside of the palace walls and into the royal park.

“Um, yeah…yes, I guess,” Emma replied, before a thought occurred to her. “But why are you both dressed like that?” she pointed towards the workout gear that Belle and Killian were both sporting. “Usually, I run and my detail follows a little bit behind in a golf cart.”

Belle and Killian looked at each other for a moment, before Killian turned back to her, his face serious. “We know…your highness,” he said, and hearing his voice directed at her for the first time in weeks caused a traitorous swooping sensation to spring to life in Emma’s stomach. She tried to tamp it down as she listened to what he was saying. “But Lieutenant French and I thought it might be beneficial to try something a bit different.”

He paused expectantly, and she nodded for him to continue.

“Well, we think we should run with you your highness. One of us out in front and one just behind – it keeps us closer to you, should any threat surface, and lets us respond more quickly. We’ll have means of contacting the rest of the Cadre should there be a need, and, of course, we’ll be armed.”

It made perfect sense – though none of Emma’s previous details had ever taken the time or initiative to think of it. They’d always just used the cart and carried on with the task exactly as it had been done before. She thought about it carefully for a moment. On the one hand, it would be very awkward to go running with Killian (and Belle – her mind supplied helpfully – which could make things even more awkward) after everything that had happened – on the other, if she were being honest, she missed him. Besides, the idea made too much sense to disagree with.

Nodding, she turned and headed for the exit Belle had previously indicated. “Sounds fine to me,” she tossed back over her shoulder in an attempt to keep her inner turmoil over the entire exchange concealed – now is not the time to deal with what happened between us, she reminded herself. She moved quickly, itching to just be outside and underway. “Just try to keep up, okay? I like a certain pace.”

-/-

The first part of the run sped by in uneventful silence.

Belle – the traitor, Killian thought mutinously – had taken the advance position. Her discreet, grey and black patterned running outfit was visible about ten yards ahead of where the princess was keeping a steady, but not punishing, speed. He was close behind the princess, only about three feet back, and he’d been making a valiant effort not to let his eyes skim down to where her leggings clung sinfully to her trim form. It was extremely difficult – in no small part because he remembered what it felt like to hold her, and to have her lithe hips pressed into his as she maneuvered herself closer and urged him to wrap his arms around her more tightly – but instead, he watched her sleek ponytail swing back and forth for a few strides before tearing his attention away to scan the countryside. Nothing seemed amiss, but one could never be too careful – that’s literally why he and Belle were present.

After roughly twenty minutes, though, the princess broke the quiet hush that had fallen between them. Though she was just far enough ahead of him, and had spoken softly enough, that he had a bit of trouble making out what she’d said.

“Sorry, what?” he asked, finally tearing his gaze away from scrutinizing the expanse of low, rolling hills that faded off to their right and speeding up slightly to fall into step beside her.

After a brief pause during which the princess continued to stare straight ahead and Killian began to think he’d hallucinated her ever speaking to him, she repeated herself. “I’d imagine you have questions,” she said, her tone surprisingly matter-of-fact given the situation they’d found themselves in, and he couldn’t help but allow a snort of surprise to escape him.

“I might,” he replied swiftly, trying to keep his tone light, though he felt a bit taken aback that she was actually addressing – even obliquely – what had passed between them over the last several weeks.

“Well, go ahead and ask, then,” she said, a touch of tartness creeping into her voice. “I can feel you staring at the back of my head as we’ve been running – it’s incredibly distracting.”

They continued for the space of a couple of heartbeats in near total silence before he found his voice. She’s giving you an opening – you might not get another one, and you have to know, he told himself while looking off to the other side of the path to examine the area for any unexpected threats. Taking a deep breath, he decided to just start with the thing he was most curious about. “Did you know I was in the Cadre? Did you know who I was?”

He was watching her carefully when she responded. The shake of her head was almost immediate. “No,” she replied, her breaths coming a bit faster as they picked up their pace a bit. “My mother and father always pick the new Cadre Initiates, in consultation with the Privy Council only. The full names aren’t shared with anyone in the palace, not even me, until the installation ceremony.”

Killian thought over the newspaper article that had come out at the start of training, and what he knew of the Cadre’s privacy policy in relation to the general public. It made sense, he just was a bit surprised that the same thing went on inside the palace walls. “I see,” he murmured, pondering what that might imply about the princess’ actions towards him.

“Yeah,” she said, more than a hint of bitterness in her voice. “It’s tradition that only the King, Queen, and council may choose – just another case of clinging to the old ways even though it’s the twenty-first century.”

He couldn’t help it – he chuckled a bit at that. Her fire now reminding him of when he’d thought she was Anna and that day at Fair Isle Bay – her desperation to find her own way, and the intense way she’d looked at him when he’d told her he’d believed in her, were being echoed in the here and now. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to realize that maybe there was some of that spark still between them even though their circumstances had changed so radically since they’d last had time together one on one.

But she seemed to take his laughter the wrong way, looking at him sharply and biting out a question of her own. “How about you? Did you know who I was? Were you thinking that you were so smart, seeing past my disguise and having a bit of fun with the princess when no one else knew?”

Killian felt as if the breath had been knocked from him, but was opening his mouth to answer – though, truth be told, he wasn’t sure what he would have said – when she leveled yet another pointed question at him.

“And if you did know, were you going to…” here she seemed to falter for a moment, but she regrouped, steeling her expression as she turned to look at him. “Were you going to do something with that information?”

He stopped dead in his tracks, partly insulted by the insinuation but even more than that, he was shocked that she could think that he was capable of something like that. They hadn’t spent a lot of time together, it was true, but he’d believed that in that short time they had truly known one another.

Apparently not.

“Your highness, if you are implying that I was intending to blackmail you in some way,” he replied, his words clipped, “I must assure you most vehemently that I was not.” She’d stopped running a moment after he had, and he quickly closed the small distance that had opened up between them. “We might not each have known who the other really was, but I know that what I was starting to feel was real. I had thought – I’d hoped – that you’d felt the same.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open but she said nothing for a long moment. When she finally found her voice, she’d barely breathed a remorseful-sounding “Killian,” before he cut her off. He needed to step away before he completely imploded and said something he’d regret.

“If you’ll excuse me, your highness, since we’ve stopped I’m going to take the opportunity to switch out positions with Lieutenant French. She’ll be with you in a moment and I’ll take point up front until we return to the palace.” He inclined his head automatically – the training to show respect to the royal family still deeply ingrained even though his own personal feelings were in complete turmoil – before stepping away and jogging up to where Belle was waiting.

Though his better sense knew that Emma wouldn’t call after him, it still stung a bit that she didn’t.

-/-

She watched him cover the short distance up the road to where Lieutenant French had paused, unable to hear what they were saying and grateful for the few moments alone – before the other Lieutenant reached her, she needed to have pulled herself together.

What had she been thinking, practically accusing Killian of setting her up for blackmail? He was right – she might not have known everything about him during their short time together, but she did know what kind of person he was, and it wasn’t the sort who would sell someone out for their own gain. He wanted to earn everything he was given, and his code of honor was far too strong. With a sharp pang of longing, she remembered teasing him about what he’d called his “good form” during one of their earlier conversations.

You should have known better, Emma, she chided herself. Though, really, that seems to be true of everything you’ve done lately.

She knew she was careful, guarded – the paparazzi had dubbed her Misthaven’s “Prickly Princess” for her notoriously tough attitude – but she’d had to be. One mistake, and the court of public opinion would eat her alive, and by extension, have ammunition to use against her family – which could then be picked up by opposition politicians and used to leverage anti-royal sentiment in the parliament and Privy Council.

She’d learned that the hard way several years ago when the son of a visiting dignitary had seemed to take an interest in her. She was young and – though she hated to admit it – more naïve than she was now. He was a few years older than she was, and he’d seemed charming, experienced, exciting. She’d thought he’d been serious about her, that he’d actually wanted to get to know her, and so she’d let him woo her a bit – gone on a few public dates with him, which had all been fine and respectable and aboveboard. Her parents had been cautious, but as nothing had seemed amiss, they hadn’t objected when she’d wanted to keep seeing him. They’d stolen a bit of time together every time he’d accompanied his father when the older man traveled to Misthaven on political business, and he’d even flown in a few times just to spend time with her.

But then, after dinner one evening in the restaurant of one of Spero’s best hotels, he’d gotten on the wrong side of tipsy and tried to take her up to a room he’d rented. She’d not been ready for that step in their relationship and his rather aggressive attempts to change her mind had been ended quite abruptly. He’d proven himself to be either brazen, an idiot, or both, because her Cadre detail had been surveilling from a discreet distance but were still there, witnesses to everything that happened. But when he’d grabbed her by the arm and attempted to haul her into the hotel elevator, the Cadre guards hadn’t even had time to intervene before Emma had taken matters into her own hands – in a manner of speaking.

It was a very good thing that all the paparazzi photos had been confiscated immediately by the crown. It would have been an extreme scandal, after all, for the Princess of Misthaven to have been photographed kneeing her otherwise well-esteemed date in the crotch. Her parents, backed by the most trusted members of the palace staff, had made absolutely sure that every copy of every photo – along with every digital file and print negative – disappeared.

But despite their best efforts, when her former suitor and his father were suddenly persona non grata at the palace, the story had come out – even if not in full detail. The palace’s official press statement had given just the bare bones, and kept the focus on Emma’s companion’s bad behavior and downplayed their budding relationship as much as possible. There had been whispers of the more salacious details of that final date – rumors, nothing of substance, but just enough to fuel the tabloids. They’d run headlines like “Royal Rebel” and “The Highness’ Hijinks.” The scandal had been fairly limited, and had blown over quickly, but it had given just enough material to the opposition party at the time to create difficulties between her parents and certain members of the Privy Council.

That was difficult enough for the royal family to deal with, but what was far worse for Emma was feeling like she’d let her parents down. They’d assured her that it wasn’t her fault, and had nothing but anger and disdain for the former object of her affections. They placed the blame squarely on his shoulders, but Emma saw herself as responsible for letting him fool her into thinking he’d cared in the first place and had retreated into herself for a long time, becoming the “Prickly Princess” instead of the “Royal Rebel.”

Until Killian, her thoughts traitorously reminded her. He got right through those walls of yours without even trying at all.

She swiped away the frustrated tears that had slipped from her eyes after he’d walked away, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly in an attempt to pull herself together. She was mostly composed by the time Lieutenant French joined her, but the other woman still regarded her quietly for a moment when she stepped into place next to Emma.

“Is everything alright, your highness?” she asked politely, scanning the horizon for any sign of trouble while waiting for Emma’s response.

“Fine,” Emma managed, though her voice sounded rough and choked up to her own ears – Lieutenant French must have heard it too, for her attention quickly snapped back to Emma, her eyes sharp and her mouth pulling into a tight line, but she made no comment.

“As you say, miss. Do you wish to continue or turn back?” she asked, her tone slightly flatter than it had been a moment earlier, as if her thoughts were elsewhere – or, perhaps, as though she’d judged Emma and found her lacking somehow. The idea was disconcerting and Emma wasn’t sure what to do about it.

“Uh, um…let’s go just around the next loop,” Emma said, gesturing towards the road beyond where Killian now stood. It twisted through Emma’s favorite section of the royal park before turning back to connect with the road they were currently on at a point that was closer to the palace. She hoped running in one of her most loved places would soothe her, but she wasn’t too optimistic.

“Yes, miss.” Lieutenant French replied in that same flat tone before signaling to Killian, who set off at a jog before slowly picking up the pace. They fell in step behind him, Lieutenant French keeping up with Emma easily as they regained their earlier speed.

For a few moments, the two women ran together in an awkward silence. Somehow, Emma thought, it was even moreso than the one she’d just been sharing with Killian before their fight. After several minutes of this, Emma found she couldn’t take it anymore. “Lieutenant, can I ask you something and will you answer me honestly?”

“Of course, miss,” came the immediate and brusque reply, though the lieutenant didn’t look in Emma’s direction.

“How well do you know Lieutenant Jones?” she asked as quietly as she could, given that she was mid run and didn’t want to break stride again.

Lieutenant French’s head turned swiftly in Emma’s direction, the woman’s gaze catching Emma’s own briefly before she turned back and focused on the road. “We were training partners, and now we’re detailed together, miss.” She said before glancing back at Emma again with a hesitant look on her face. She seemed to want to continue, but didn’t move to speak, so Emma gestured for her to go on. “But, what I think you’re really asking me is…what kind of person is he?”

Emma nodded, taking her own turn to stare down the road and avoid her companion’s gaze.

Lieutenant French remained quiet for another moment before speaking softly yet intensely. “He’s honorable and kind. Brilliant and funny. Everything a good officer and a good person should be,” she waited for Emma to look back at her before she continued. “I trust him completely, and you can too,” she said. “Is that what you wanted to know, miss?”

Breathing hard, and not just from the exertion of their run, Emma managed another nod.

They ran the entire rest of the way back to the palace in silence.

-/-

Emma went straight to her rooms immediately after they returned to the palace – she took a shower and pulled on her most comfortable pair of pajamas, curling up among the soft pillows on her still-made bed. She knew she should put in an appearance at dinner – there were no formal state events on the calendar for the evening, but her parents still expected her to dine with them in the private family dining room – but she wasn’t hungry and she couldn’t bring herself to go down and go through the motions of acting like nothing was wrong.

So she called Elsa and asked her to send word to her parents that she was tired and that she’d be having dinner in her rooms that evening, and that she’d call the kitchens herself if and when she was ready to eat anything. After hanging up, she sank further down into her pillows and drifted into a haze of memories. She mentally sifted through everything that had led her to this current moment – all of her interactions with Killian, certainly, but everything else as well. Her romance with that diplomat’s son, her habit of sneaking out and visiting Two Wolves incognito from time to time, the whole “Prickly Princess” reputation, Minister Gold’s latest power-hungry schemes, and the deep desire she had to carve her own path and be more than a royal figurehead. She wanted to be able to lead her people in a way that would truly make a difference to them, but – given Misthaven’s somewhat traditional stance on “appropriate” roles for a Princess to play in matters of state – she wasn’t sure how to begin, or even if she’d be able to.

She wasn’t really aware of time passing, lost in her thoughts as she was, until a soft knock pulled her out of her reverie. She sat up, pushing her hair behind her ears and leaning back against the small mountain of pillows behind her. “Come in,” she called, a bit surprised by how scratchy her voice sounded.

The door swung open slowly and her mother’s head peeked through the gap. Concern flickered across the queen’s features when she took in Emma’s rumpled state, and she quickly stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “Are you feeling alright, sweetheart?” she asked as she came over to sit on the edge of the bed near Emma’s feet.

Emma sighed, a somewhat nasal sound. Must be left over from crying earlier. “That seems to be the question of the day,” she muttered.

The queen quirked a curious eyebrow in Emma’s direction, her gaze so penetrating that it seemed to peer directly into Emma’s heart, leaving her feeling exposed and vulnerable. They were quiet for a moment – Emma making at least an attempt to pull herself together and look a little more composed – before the queen spoke. “This is about that young man, I’d gather. The one in the photographs?” It sounded like a question, but Emma knew that it wasn’t.

She nodded anyway. “Yes,” she murmured, her gaze shifting down to where her hands were playing with the edge of her duvet. “I know you told me to end it…and I did…but…” she trailed off, searching for the right words to explain. “I just…” she petered out again, emotions choking her and rendering her unable to speak until her mother’s fingers laced with her own and squeezed tightly.

She looked up, finding the queen’s gaze and seeing no trace of the formal monarch, but only her mother – the woman who’d hugged her tight whenever she was hurt or upset as a child, who’d always encouraged her to follow her dreams, who was perhaps the only other person Emma knew who had experienced the pull between public duty and private emotions in quite the same way. She wasn’t sure if it was the wisest idea to tell her mother all the details about Killian – she wasn’t sure how the queen would react, especially since she’d not seemed keen on Emma seeing someone when the surveillance photos had surfaced – but she had to tell someone. She couldn’t take bottling everything up anymore.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stop talking – the entire tale spilled out easily. The feelings of frustration at Gold’s latest political intrigue, her hopes to do something meaningful with her position and despair that she might never really be allowed to, sneaking out to Two Wolves, meeting Killian, being charmed unexpectedly, getting to know him better over the last several weeks (though she thought it prudent to leave out the mind-boggling kisses from their picnic), then breaking it off only to find out he was part of the Cadre. She told her mother everything, all the way up to their fight earlier in the day, and when she’d finished she felt oddly better and lighter. A calm settled over her – no matter what happened next, at least she’d been honest with herself about all of her feelings.

The queen was quiet for the space of several heartbeats, and Emma cautiously raised her eyes to meet her mother’s gaze, unsure of what she’d see. The look of compassion and understanding that was shining back at her was an incredible relief for Emma – also a bit of a surprise, if she were being honest.

“Oh, Emma,” her mother started, her voice clearly laced with deep emotion. “I’m so sorry that you ever felt as though you didn’t have a place in leading Misthaven – your father and I have been so focused on strategizing how best to hold our own against the more aggressive members of the council and the more discontented factions in parliament, that I fear we’ve fallen back on relying only on each other out of habit.”

“It’s alright, Mom, I understand,” Emma murmured – and, on some level, she did. She’d been raised on the stories of her parents’ epic love match and brilliant political partnership. The most memorable tale had been the one in which they’d defeated a coup attempt shortly after their wedding. It was a sometimes daunting legacy to live up to.

“No, my darling girl, it’s not – and you shouldn’t have to.” Her mother leaned closer and brushed a strand of Emma’s hair back behind her ear before cupping Emma’s cheek with her free hand. “We’ve been so wrapped up in handling current issues the way we would have in the past, that we haven’t been thinking of the future – of you – as much as we should have. We’ll be fixing that immediately.”

“Really?” Emma asked, a note of hope creeping into her voice. “I have so many ideas-”

“And your father and I would love to hear them,” her mother replied. “I’ll clear our calendars tomorrow morning and we’ll start the conversation, alright?”

Emma nodded, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Absolutely.”

“Now, as to the other matter,” the queen said briskly. “We need to discuss what to do about-”

“Killian,” Emma finished for her mother. She chuckled dryly, a sound with no humor in it. “I didn’t think that anything could be worse than what happened the last time I let myself open up to someone – at least there were no paparazzi this time around, or else it would’ve been an even bigger mess.”

“You mustn’t blame yourself for what happened with that diplomat’s son, sweetheart,” her mother said firmly. “He was an entitled, arrogant braggart who brought every bit of that shame on himself, and, frankly, I’d probably have kneed him even harder than you did if I’d been in your position. I really wanted to do it anyhow,” she finished matter-of-factly.

“Thanks, Mom,” Emma said, a small smile finally causing the corners of her mouth to twitch upwards – it was a very brief thing, but it made her feel better nonetheless. “But as I told you that night, I still contend he kneed himself in the balls.”

The two women stared unblinkingly at each other for a moment before both breaking out into soft, but uncontrollable, laughter. “That should have been the official press statement,” chuckled the queen. “Why didn’t we think of that at the time?”

Emma shrugged. “Don’t know,” she replied with a laugh before her current predicament sobered her mood once again. She squeezed the hand that still held her mother’s. “But it doesn’t really help me to figure out what I do now.”

The queen regarded her for a few moments, and though Emma’d tried to guess at exactly what her mother might say, she wasn’t able to predict the words that the queen actually uttered in that moment. “Emma, you’re the only one who can make that choice.”

“But what about the council’s reaction? And Gold? And-”

“Sweetheart,” her mother said firmly, now squeezing Emma’s hand in return. “None of that matters. The only important thing is how you feel. I know now that the burdens of your royal position have been weighing on you rather keenly lately – and I am so very sorry that I hadn’t realized how much – but nothing that’s going on with that changes anything about this. What’s important is what you want.”

“I want to fix things with him, but I don’t know how,” Emma murmured, slightly stunned at the fact that her mother seemed to be advocating for her pursuing some sort of relationship with Killian. Not that there is a relationship to advocate for right now, given the way that we left things the last time we saw each other she thought regretfully, flashes of their fight replaying themselves in her mind.

“Oh, I have no doubt that you can,” her mother said, a note of mischief entering her voice. “If he’s half as taken with you as you are with him – and given what you’ve told me, I think he is – I don’t think it will be a problem.”

Emma shook her head slowly, still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her mother wasn’t more concerned. She’d expected more skepticism, or caution, or something – not this rather unabashed positivity and upbeat attitude. She’d thought she’d have to work a lot harder to convince her mother that a relationship with Kilian was a good idea, and the fact that the queen had gotten on board so quickly was kind of throwing Emma off-kilter. “I don’t know…it’s going to be really complicated. Maybe it’s simpler to just let it go.”

Her mother shook her head decisively. “It is simpler to do that, but that doesn’t mean it’s better, sweetheart. Anything worth having – really worth having – must be fought for. And you, my dear, have always been a fighter. Besides, fighting for love is the most worthwhile thing of all.”

She sat up straight, nearly dislodging several of her pillows with the sudden speed of her movements. “Whoa whoa whoa whoa, Mom. Who said anything about love? Don’t you think it’s a bit early for that?”

“Not really.” The queen leveled a knowing look at Emma, squeezing her hand once more before letting go and standing up. “Not if those surveillance photos are anything to go by, at any rate.”

Emma sat speechless as her mother brushed off her skirt and headed across the room. The queen had swung open the door and was about to step through when Emma finally found her voice. “You’re not worried I’m making a bad decision?”

Her mother shook her head and turned around, locking eyes with Emma when she did. “Emma, one of the things I’ve always admired about you is your instincts and how they lead you to make good decisions – most of the time, at least,” she said with a teasing arch of her eyebrows. “Trust your gut – listen to what it’s telling you. You’ll do the right thing for you, and whatever that is, your father and I will support it,” she promised, turning and stepping out of the room.

“You don’t think Dad will object?” Emma asked incredulously. “He took the last guy I was even remotely interested in down to see the royal armory and made vaguely menacing comments to him the whole time! I never heard from the guy after that! And what about the council?!”

Emma was still staring at the quickly closing door when it suddenly swung back open part of the way and her mother’s head popped back into view. “I’ll handle your father, don’t you worry. And don’t you worry about the council – your father and I have just figured out a few things that should put a halt to Gold’s machinations for the foreseeable future. Now,” she paused and pointed a finger at Emma as if to underline her final point. “You just try to be discreet while the lieutenant is finishing his Cadre cycle – I’m not saying put a halt to…things…” at this, she thought her mother blushed slightly before recovering. “…just try your best to keep the press from getting too interested in you both as a story, alright?”

Emma nodded. “I think I can manage that,” she said, a small seed of optimism taking root, despite her very real worry that Killian wouldn’t forgive her.

“Oh, and one more thing,” her mother said casually as she turned again and began to leave once more. “I meant what I said about the way you make decisions, Emma, but don’t forget, proposed Cadre Initiates each receive a thorough background check as part of their selection process. Your father and I have read enough about your Lieutenant Jones to know he’s as honorable as they come. I think I can speak for us both when I say the only concern we’d have would be if he’d care well for your heart.”

“He would,” Emma said softly, but with conviction, the tears from earlier threatening to make a reappearance. “That is, I haven’t ruined things between us.”

Her mother shook her head, a fond smile on her face. “Oh sweetheart, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

With that, she was gone, leaving Emma to try to process everything that had just happened. She couldn’t deny that she felt better than she had when she’d initially come back to her rooms, but everything she’d been sure of had just been turned upside down yet again. Her mind was whirling and she was torn between thinking about which of her plans and projects she wanted to cover with her parents during their strategy session the following morning and trying to come up with a way to fix things with Killian.

An idea for the latter began to take hold in her mind – it was a simple plan, so hopefully it would have the best chance of working. A grin spread across her face slowly.

Now she just had to wait for the perfect moment to set it all in motion.

-/-

Three days.

It had been three bloody days since he’d fought with Emma – with the Princess, he mentally corrected himself – and continuing on her detail had been nothing short of torturous. They’d been near each other constantly over the past several days, but without any opportunity to speak to each other beyond basic pleasantries.

Though you’ve got no idea what you’d say to her anyway, so maybe that’s for the best, he thought, a frown stealing across his face in response to that realization.

The princess had been extremely busy in the last three days – starting with a meeting with her parents the morning after their fight. When the door to the queen’s private rooms had opened after the meeting, he’d been sure that he was about to be dismissed – the king was looking at him with thinly veiled suspicion, he’d been sure of it. But the queen seemed to be regarding him with an inexplicably fond look, before she’d threaded her arm through her husband’s and drawn him away down the corridor. Emma had flicked the briefest of looks in his direction before she’d taken off at a brisk pace in the opposite direction and he and Belle had fallen into step behind her.

Since then, Emma’d been embroiled in a succession of meetings and other palace business practically non-stop. In her few free moments, she’d been eating, sleeping, or deeply engrossed in research – though on what, he couldn’t say. It had made the idea of approaching her to apologize for his behavior very difficult to put into practice, and the further they’d gotten from their fight, the harder it was to bring it up again at all. Not to mention that she’d been so busy that she’d been skipping her morning run, eliminating one of the best opportunities for him to speak to her alone.

They’d settled into a sort of uneasy half-truce, or at least that’s what it felt like to him, where they didn’t really avoid each other – though given that he was assigned to her detail, she couldn’t very well avoid him altogether – but they didn’t interact very much unless it was absolutely necessary.

Which is why hearing her voice at nearly midnight, coming from the shadowed expanse of the courtyard to his left, was a bit of a surprise.

“Killian?” her voice calling his name floated towards him out of the near-total darkness. “Can you…can you come here…please?”

He hesitated a moment before stepping onto the grass, recognizing it as the same space where he and Belle had met Emma the morning of their fateful running session. She was seated at the far end with one leg tucked underneath her on a low, raised stone wall that encircled a small fountain. In the corner, near a line of Middlemist bushes, an old hanging lantern that had been retrofitted for electricity dimly illuminated that she was playing absently with the cuff of her left sleeve as he approached.

She looked up at him as he drew closer and opened her mouth to speak – but suddenly, he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear whatever it was she had to say. “Princess, I do hope you’re having a delightful evening,” he began, falling back on hyper-formality to cover the insecurity that had flared to life in his gut. “But if you’re not in need of anything, I’m going to go consult with Lieutenant French about a few matters.”

He’d taken only a couple of steps towards the covered portico that ran along one side of the courtyard before Emma’s voice brought him up short. “You can’t.”

“Pardon?” he sputtered, his reply far less eloquent than he’d have preferred. “Why not?” he asked – he couldn’t think of a single reason Emma would have for barring him from speaking with the other member of his detail.

Emma stood up and crossed the grass to where he was standing. She looked up at him, her beautifully green eyes seeming even larger when they caught and reflected the moonlight. “She’s not here – I sent her back to Lieutenant Humbert to make the nightly report.”

“She agreed to leave you alone?” He knew that they were on the palace grounds, and there were likely no immediate threats to the princess’ safety, but he was still stunned that the normally rule-abiding Belle would have broken protocol so blatantly.

“I insisted, and I can be pretty persuasive when I need to be,” Emma said, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I knew you’d be along shortly for shift change, and I wanted to speak with you alone.”

“Oh?” Killian’s pulse kicked up a notch and the sense of trepidation he’d been keeping at bay for the last several days increased. Perhaps he was going to be dismissed, and the princess just wanted to do it herself. He kept his face impassive and his words formal as his gaze fell to hers. “How may I be of service, your highness?”

Emma simply looked at him for several long moments, her eyes searching his and her expression far too soft for someone about to make a pronouncement that would ruin his career. She opened her mouth a second time as if to speak, but closed it again before stepping closer to him and starting over. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low and tinged with regret, “for everything I said to you the other day. Killian, I…you were right. What was starting to happen between us was real, but you have to understand,” she looked up at him pleadingly, “it’s not easy to know who to trust when you’re in my position, and I’ve…I’ve been burned before by exactly this sort of thing. I got scared when we discovered each other’s real identities, but I shouldn’t have been…in my heart, I always knew what kind of person you are, and you didn’t deserve my suspicion, or my accusations. I’m so sorry.”

She finished and took a step back, her eyes flitting away from his while he stood staring at her, dumbfounded. Of all the things he’d expected when he’d found her alone in the courtyard, this turn of events wasn’t anywhere on the list. It took him a few moments to find his voice, and even as he began speaking he wasn’t entirely sure of what he was going to say. He wasn’t at all surprised, though, when he heard himself saying, “It’s alright. I owe you an apology as well-”

Her head whipped up and she shook it vehemently. “You really don’t-”

“I really do,” he insisted, taking a deep breath and scrubbing a hand over his face and through his hair. “I was being selfish – I knew I couldn’t tell you who I was because of protocol and I kept seeing you anyway. I put you in a difficult position and when the truth came out, I spoke very harshly to you – and I was more than a bit of a hypocrite about it all. I’m sorry, Emma.”

He’d barely realized that he’d used her given name for the first time since he’d found out she was the princess when the air between them seemed to take on an electric charge. “Say that again,” she whispered, stepping back closer to where he stood.

“What? That I’m sorry?” he said, a note of teasing creeping into his voice as he mirrored her, moving close enough that they were almost touching. “Because I am, you know.”

“No,” she shook her head, smiling at him as she pressed up on her tiptoes and her arms crept around his neck. “Say my name again – please.”

A slow grin spread across his face as he leaned down, murmuring Emma against her mouth before his lips covered her own. This kiss was so unlike the previous ones they’d shared on the day of that fateful picnic – those had been filled with the urgency of newness and, he realized now, it was more than likely that Emma had thought it might have been the only one they’d ever share. By contrast, this one was slow, languorous, unfolding as lazily as if they had all the time in the world and intended to spend it solely with each other.

When they finally pulled back, his arms had wound fully around her waist and her hands were firmly entangled in the hair at the nape of his neck. He imagined that his expression mirrored hers, dazed but so very happy.

“Well,” she said on a laugh, sounding delighted and far more carefree than he’d ever heard her in the short time he’d known her. “That makes this next part easier.”

“Next part?” he asked absently, more focused on trailing one hand slowly up and down her back, tracing random patterns as he went. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment at the sensation before she blinked and focused on him again.

“Yes,” she nodded decisively. “The part where I ask you out on a date – where we both know who the other person is, Killian.”

“A date?” he repeated, feeling as dizzy as though he’d been whacked over the head with something rather large and heavy. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. “How would that even work? With you being…well, you and me being in the Cadre. What would it even look like?”

She grinned – brightly enough to light the whole courtyard without electricity – in response. “Well,” she murmured, scratching her fingernails lightly against the back of his neck in an extremely distracting way. “I don’t exactly know yet. I was kind of hoping you’d be willing to help me figure that out.”

He looked down at her, mind still reeling with everything they’d said – not to mention getting to kiss her again – and fully aware of the challenges that would lie ahead for them both if he accepted. But as he stared at her happy, hopeful expression, and felt a similar one on his own face, he knew there was only one answer in his heart. “With pleasure, Emma.”

Her happy laugh rang through the courtyard for a moment until they lost themselves in each other once again.

-/-

Misthaven Star-Herald

ROYAL REBEL WITH A CAUSE: PRINCESS EMMA SET TO OPEN NEW CHARITIES TO PROMOTE ADVANCEMENT OF MISTHAVEN’S WOMEN AND SUPPORT AT-RISK CHILDREN

By Sidney Glass

Star-Herald Royal Reporter

SPERO, MISTHAVEN, MAY 30, 2023 – Today, Princess Emma of Misthaven finally realized a long-held dream. With her husband, Commodore Killian Jones, at her side, the princess – who is expecting the couple’s first child late this summer – presided over the openings of two new organizations of which she will serve as patron.

The first, Move Forward Misthaven, is a group dedicated to supporting the advancement of women in all industries and areas of study, but with a particular focus on the fields of business, political science, and education. “The goal with Move Forward Misthaven is to elevate talented women in all fields and cultivate them for the leadership roles they are eager to inhabit,” the princess related when asked about her reasons for founding the organization. “We are dedicated to broadening Misthaven’s horizons as we look to the country’s future as a player on the world stage.”

The second group, Stand Up Misthaven, will tackle the much-needed task of providing aid and resources for at-risk children – ranging from educating teachers on how to prevent bullying in schools, to coordinating with youth shelters to provide better care for homeless teens, to evaluating the Misthaven foster system to overhaul its quality of care. “We must speak, we must stand up, for those who cannot do so for themselves – and there are few who are more in need of aid than children, those who look to us for care, for love, and proper direction.” The princess stated in an impassioned speech she gave at the organization’s opening. “Stand Up Misthaven will advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves.”

Princess Emma has long been an unusual figure in the Misthaven royal family, far more concerned with active public service than traditional diplomatic endeavors, though it is only in recent years that the royal protocols have been altered to allow her a more hands-on role in public leadership. This personal approach will continue with both of her new organizations – the princess will serve on the board of both, but will also make use of her graduate degree as a political science course leader for Move Forward Misthaven. She is also set to speak in front of parliament next week on behalf of improvements to the Misthaven foster system in support of Stand Up Misthaven.”

Ever marching to the beat of her own drum, the princess likewise bucked tradition with her marriage to the common-born Commodore Jones just over a year ago. Jones, who had been a member of Cadre 2018 – and who declined the offer to stay on as training officer for Cadre 2021 two years ago in favor of returning to Misthaven’s Royal Navy – has gained distinction at every turn and has accumulated a service record littered with honors and promotions, starting well before his romance with the princess began.

It is too early to speculate on the potential success of either of the princess’ new organizations, but with her clear determination and boundless energy, and the obviously mutually supportive bond shared between her highness and the Commodore, it isn’t an exaggeration to say that far from the “Royal Rebel” or “Prickly Princess” she was once deemed to be, Princess Emma is the face of Misthaven’s future.

[libraryofcirclaria]

The 1187 Coup

Map of Ereautea, Present

Article Written: 8 November 1456

Even today, it is a matter of speculation whether or not Cixela Esary, herself, was directly behind the event. But what is known, however, is that in 1187, Michael Fvenn led a group of militants, seemingly under the oathcrafting influence, in an attempt to topple the government of the then-District of Ereautea in Lerutan.

SCPC: Trade with Remikra

The latter half of the 1100s saw a period of trade between the Remikran Union and the House of Esary seated in Notulfa. The Sororal Council of the Primeron Class, led by Cixela Esary as one of the Esarian House Councils, traded directly with the Remikran Union nation of Combria, which was politically unstable at the time. In 1167, the SCPC appointed a directory government to preside over Combria for three days, during which they paid off some debts, sorted out logistical issues, and propagated a "set of virtues." Trade between Combria and the SCPC continued afterward and peaked between 1172 and 1182. And it was during this time that the "set of virtues" introduced by the SCPC began to be propagated by Combrians naming themselves "stewards of virtue." There is conflicting evidence on the direct sources of their influence and how they were able to spread such influence to other Combrians, leading scholars over the past twenty years to begin speculating the possibility of oathcrafting.

Regardless, there emerged a most avowed "steward" by the name of Jon Codon, who began assembling a large band of followers across Combria.

Jon Codon: Takeover Attempt

As factional violence put the balance of power in jeopardy in Combria's new national capital, Hasphitat, the most prominent figure of the Jameson Faction, Jacob Thomas Henry, appointed Jon Codon to the commander position of one of the Faction's militant groups. In doing so, Henry and Codon agreed to a mutual pledge that Codon would offer support for the Jameson Faction both in terms of recruitment and paramilitary defense, and that Henry would, after becoming the next President of Combria, promise to recruit associates of the SCPC to positions of power in his new Administration.

In 1184, Henry became the next President of Combria, establishing the Hasphitat National Watch and appointing Jon Codon as its Head. Codon then presented a list of SCPC associates for Henry to appoint, but President Henry stiffly rejected the proposal. Henry's reason was that he had, since the forming of the mutual pledge, researched into the House of Esary and grew uncomfortable with its far-reaching influence into the land and sea trading guilds across large swaths of Circlaria. He was also uncomfortable with Jon Codon and his follwers, citing that there was "more of a force at play on behalf of the seemingly shady individuals in minor but powerful positions of the Sororal Council and the other Councils within the House of Esary." As an act of safe measure from his perspective, President Henry demoted Jon Codon to the Lieutenant Chief position of National Watch Division Fourteen. Henry's consolation thereafter was to establish a contract of fair trade with the SCPC but vowed that "cross-administrative influence shall remain separate."

Citing that President Henry breached the mutual pledge, Codon expressed contempt and stated that President Henry had betrayed him. He denounced President Henry as "the Head of the Corrupt State," and then rallied his followers to a new resolution: "to subdue Henry's regime and, in its place, established a Combrian State eternally and unquestionably loyal to the virtues of Cixela Esary."

Codon's following grew to include a large number of Division Fourteen Officers. On 6 February 1185, Codon and 112 of these Officers staged an armed attack against the Chadwick Building. They managed to capture the First and Second Levels, but on the Third Level, they were confronted by the Hasphitat National Watch Chadwick Building Security Division, who overwhelmed Codon's forces and brought them to surrender.

Jon Codon was arrested and put on trial, where, on 12 September 1185, he was convicted of sedition and sentenced to death. Codon was executed by firing squad on 6 February 1186.

Michael Fvenn

Michael Fvenn was a lawyer for a family charter business in Lerutan. He was also initially a member of the Leon Faction, rival to the Jameson Faction, but was converted by Jon Codon, who thoroughly indoctrinated him with Cixela Esary's "set of virtues," and had him become a "junior steward" under Jon Codon's close mentorship. Fvenn was deeply saddened by Jon Codon's execution and condemned President Henry's "Corrupt State." With quite a following of his own, Fvenn established the Order of the Esarian Fellowship, an underground organization dedicated to Jon Codon's principles, and began recruiting followers. The aim of the Order was to establish Jon Codon's vision of a "New Combrian State," as Fvenn even named himself the "First Combrian Speaker" to Cixela Esary.

Fvenn's recruitment strategy proved quite effective and successful, consisting of robed pious individuals and armed defenders, the latter of which included body guards and assassins. He started by converting as many followers as possible until a majority of the street on which he lived consisted of them. He swayed the surrounding residential block in a similar fashion, and then continued to other residential blocks across Lerutan. Each converted household displayed nothing conveying loyalty to the SCPC externally, but drapes and symbols lined the walls inside. Fvenn moved on to the surrounding rural townships and found even less resistance to his recruitment efforts.

Moris Perton, the appointed Governor of the District of Ereautea, began growing concerned with this rapidly-spreading movement, citing its "potentially dangerous fervor." On 13 June 1186, Governor Perton acted upon his suspicion by issuing an ordinance banning the Esarian Order in all of the District of Ereautea, and enforced this by conducting home searches, material confiscations, and even arrests. Perton called upon the other Districts and even President Henry to do the same.

On 1 September 1186, under Fvenn's command, members of the Esarian Order blocked important streets and shut down basic functions of infrastructure in the city of Lerutan. In the rural areas, Order members blocked roadways and overran local Council Chambers. This led Perton to partially rescind his ordinance in order to only prohibit public displays of pro-Esarian sentiment. Fvenn made a bargain to President Henry to have the Order peacefully co-exist with him if Henry began appoint SCPC associates to his Administrative positions. President Henry declined the proposition but gave concession by allowing Esarian traders to engage with local Combrian businesses.

However, Combrian laborers not associated with the Esarian Order grew suspicious of possible shady business involving President Henry and the House of Esary, primarily with the SCPC. They united and attempted to negotiate with President Henry for a rollback of the Esarian trade bargain and other similar trade deals, arguing that tariff breaks recently enacted with the SCPC would ultimately lead to higher rent and taxes for the workers. However, the talks failed with President Henry maintaining that revenue expecting to result from trade with the SCPC would eventually balance out and eliminate the financial hardships of the working class if there were any. Henry also asserted that he already had negotiated exhaustively with Michael Fvenn and that any further compromises were not possible.

On 2 March 1187, labor unions across all of Combria collaborated and staged a general strike, which lasted until 22 March when President Henry signed a contract with the laborers rescinding all compromises agreed upon with Michael Fvenn and issued a decree freezing trade indefinitely with the SCPC.

Michael Fvenn condemned the events of March 1187 as being the result of a conspiracy to "employ the mob mentality in order to cement the power of President Henry as the Head of the Corrupt Combrian State." The Esarian Order carried out regular public demonstrations across Ereautea as they trained and armed a large body of new recruits. Fvenn then called for Governor Perton to step down and allow for the "establishment of Ereautea as a State dedicated to the SCPC and independent from the corruption of President Henry." Perton responded with crackdown measures against the Esarian Order street demonstrations. Meanwhile, Fvenn ordered the construction of underground armament camps to train the armed recruits and build "mortar wheel-cannons."

On 3 November 1187, Michael Fvenn launched an onslaught of armed infantry, artillery, and spellcasters against the Governor's House in Lerutan. Governor Perton and his Administration fled the premise to an underground bunker as Fvenn led his forces to storm the Governor's Office. It was here that Michael Fvenn proclaimed himself "Head of the Esarian State of Ereautea," and demanded that President Henry formally recognize Ereautea as an independent nation, giving Henry seventy-two hours to withdraw all national Combrian forces from Ereautea in order to avoid a declaration of war. On 4 November, President dispatched National Guard forces into Ereautea, overcoming the rural regions with little to no resistance and violently clashing with Esarian Order fighters in the streets of Lerutan. On 5 November, being easily outflanked and out-equipped, Esarian Order fighters were overcome as National Guard forces, armed with tanks and proper cannons, surrounded the Governor's House. They gave Michael Fvenn twenty-four hours to surrender and vacate the premise or come under intense artillery fire. Within one hour of the end of that time limit, Michael Fvenn finally surrendered.

Like his mentor, Jon Codon, Michael Fvenn was convicted of sedition but would ultimately be spared from a death sentence. Instead, he was sent to the District of West Combria where he would remain, for the rest of his life, under house arrest in one of his family estates.

For more content, subscribe here:

https://libraryofcirclaria.substack.com/

Subscription Options:

Free Subscription: receive emails and view public content.

Paid Subscription: receive emails and view public content as well as content for paying subscribers.

Paid Subscription Level Options: 

Monthly Subscription: 8.99 USD per month

Yearly Subscription: 89.99 USD per year 

[andrewuttaro]

Catechetical Cat (Week VI) Togetherness

Nobody heals themselves by wounding another.

St. Ambrose

           There are certain experiences in life we all fix in time. Sure, there are the dark moments: everyone knows where they were when Princess Diana died or when 9/11 happened. But then there are also the positive moments that pull us together for more joyous reasons. I always thought of those things as “Campfire events”. A generation or two older than me may be familiar with the term “Appointment television”. You guys remember this rugged time before DVRs and any kind of TV recordings when one had to actually schedule their evening around their favorite show. The series Finale of M.A.S.H. in 1983 was one of those massively viewed appointments. These Campfire events pull us together across the divisions we normally use to curate our free time. The most regular Campfire event here in America is the Superbowl. Stateside advertisers can generally depend on close to 100 million (!) people tuning in during the first half.

           I started thinking about these moments a lot after I graduated from High School. Now that I’m almost six years out of college as well it really resonates that much more. When you go through thirteen years of a formal education all in one school district like I did you tend to naturally develop some endearment for your classmates even if you have nothing in common with them. Then all of the sudden one day when you’re eighteen the world is swung open to you, and you’re scattered to the wind. Surely this is a joyous occasion with the promises of adulthood beckoning but even if you didn’t peak in High School there is a certain reminiscing about those years together that happens if you ever attend a reunion. There is no denying, no matter how introverted we maybe, that group togetherness is something that warms us deep within. Being together is one of those essential human aspirations.

           It’s foolish to think the whole world can always be like those golden moments early in the 2nd quarter of the Superbowl when everyone is together in eating junk food and enjoying the highest quality commercials. But that kind of togetherness is not a foolish thing to aspire to for the world at large. It requires us investing a great deal of trust with zero or negative returns for a while but if enough people do it that’s the beginning of a revolution. The real foolishness is that we’ve made ourselves believe in the cynical lie that human beings will always hurt one another and think only of themselves. The togetherness all humanity longs for requires we look to ourselves for the patience and compassion to slowly make the world a better place.

[patriotsnet]

How Many People Are Registered Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-people-are-registered-republicans/

How Many People Are Registered Republicans

Polling Data Shows Republican Party Affiliation Is Down As Independents Leaning Toward The Democratic Party Surge

Democrats have a nine-percentage-point affiliation advantage over Republicans at the moment.

Resize icon

The GOP is losing its grip, according to the latest Gallup poll. 

The number of Americans identifying as Republicans or as independents who lean toward the GOP dropped to 40% in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the number of Democrats or independents leaning toward the Democratic party hitting 49%. And that nine-percentage-point lead is the greatest Democratic advantage that Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012, when former President Barack Obama was re-elected. 

Gallup routinely measures U.S. adults party identification and the political leanings of independents. The latest poll surveyed a random sample of 3,960 U.S. adults by phone between January and March of 2021. And while Democratic Party affiliation actually dropped by one point from the fourth quarter of 2020, to 30% where it has hovered for most of the past eight years the number of Americans identifying as independent rose to 44% from 38% last quarter. And this growing number of independents came at the expense of the Republican party, as 19% of independents said they lean Democrat, compared with 15% leaning Republican. Most of the remaining 11% of independents didnt swing either way. 

And several events have happened during those three months that could position the Democratic Party more favorably in voters eyes, the Gallup report noted. 

Read more:

Opinion:

Past Jumps In Party Affiliations

The bump in Democratic affiliation following Biden’s inauguration mirrors that of former President Barack Obama’s first term, Jones said.

“That was really the high point that we’ve seen; kind of the 2006-2009 period, when really the majority of Americans either identified as Democrats outright or were independents but they leaned toward the party,” he said. “Our data on this only goes back to the ’90s, but it’s pretty much the only time we consistently had one party with the majority of Americans on their side.”

Republican advantages, though rarer and more short-lived, followed the Gulf War in 1991 when George H.W. Bush was in office and the 9/11 terrorist attacks during President George W. Bush’s term, according to Gallup. More people also reported GOP affiliation after the 1994, 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.

Whether the Republican Party can regain advantage during the 2022 midterm elections may rely on the successes of the Biden administration, according to Jones.

“A lot of it is going to depend on how things go over the course of the year. If things get better with the coronavirus and the economy bounces back and a lot of people expect Biden can keep relatively strong approval ratings, then that will be better for the Democrats,” Jones said. “But if things start to get worse unemployment goes up or coronavirus gets worse  then his approval is going to go down. It’s going to make things a lot better for the Republican Party for the midterm next year.”

Since Democrats And Republicans Appear To Have An Inexhaustible Appetite For Political Friction In The United States The Words Democrat And Republican Are Widely Used To Mean The Two Major Lets Take A Closer Look At Where These Two Words Came From And How They Came To Be Used In The

Altogether, there are 31 states with party registration; Eric rauchway, professor of american history at the university of democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: How many wars were initiated by democrats since the beginning of the usa? Republicans were able to fend off challenges from democrats trying to flip control of state legislatures in key states. Results seemed to follow what was set out by prediction polls, with the democrats seizing control of the house of representatives and the republicans maintaining the majority in the senate. Republicans who worked with democrats were traitors in the war for seats in congress. Since democrats and republicans appear to have an inexhaustible appetite for political friction in the united states, the words democrat and republican are widely used to mean the two major lets take a closer look at where these two words came from and how they came to be used in the. Republicans opinions carry less weight. How many democrats, republicans, and independents are registered? Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the us government to provide fair representation. So, perhaps i should start with a story. Democrats did see a boost in 2008 when former president obama was elected, hitting a peak of 43.62 percent of registered voters. Democratic supporters accounted for 35% of the electorate.

Voter Registration And State Political Control

This section needs additional citations for . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

The state or Party controls the governorship, the state legislative houses, and U.S. Senate representation. Nebraska’s legislature is , i.e., it has only one legislative house and is officially non-partisan, though party affiliation still has an unofficial influence on the legislative process.

The simplest measure of party strength in a state voting population is the affiliation totals from voter registration for the 30 states and the District of Columbia as of 2019 that allow registered voters to indicate a party preference when registering to vote. 20 states do not include party preference with voter registration: , , , , , , , , , , , North Dakota, , South Carolina, , , , , and . The party affiliations in the party control table are obtained from state party registration figures where indicated. Only has a majority of registered voters identifying themselves as Republicans; two states have a majority of registered voters identifying themselves as Democrats: and .

For those states that do not allow for registration by party, Gallup’s annual polling of voter party identification by state is the next best metric of party strength in the U.S. states. The partisan figures in the table for the 20 states that don’t register voters by party come from Gallup’s poll.

If Joe Biden Loses It Probably Wont Be Because Of An Increase In Gop Voter Registration

Election night is fast approaching, and even if its quite possible we wont know who the winner is on Nov. 3, recent state and national polling suggest that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is the clear favorite.

In a search for data points that might suggest a different outcome, some analysts have turned to looking at voter registration numbers. Particular attention has been given to registration numbers in Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania three hugely important swing states that register voters by party, and recently released numbers show that more people have been registering as Republicans than as Democrats.

In Florida, Republicans have shrunk their voter registration deficit from 2.5 points in 2016 to less than a point now . In North Carolina, the gap has shrunk by 3.8 percentage points. And in Pennsylvania, it has shrunk from 10.4 points to 7.8 points.

But thats really only part of the story. President Trump may overcome his polling deficit to win reelection, but the voter registration numbers in those states are not necessarily a sign of some significant underlying shift.

A lot of the net registration change in all three of those states are people changing their voter registration to reflect their long-standing partisan inclinations shifts that Trump may have facilitated and/or solidified in White, working-class areas, but arent completely new.

Aaron Blake contributed to this report.

As A Successful Republican New Mexico Governor 2016 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson Pronounced That He Had Slashed Taxes More Than A Dozen Times Balanced The There Are Many On The Left Who Support The Libertarian Partys Proposals To Legalize The Liberal Use Of Marijuana

39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a d+11 advantage. Even if youd rather not commit to any particular party, you may find yourself wishing to support a specific democrat candidate when primaries come around. Once you know which party you belong to, it will be easier to decide which candidates to vote for during elections. This quiz will ask you questions about your political beliefs. However, registered republicans outnumber democrats in six of the states 21 counties, and there several other counties that are pretty evenly split. Over 60% of black voters are registered democrats compared to just 3% that are registered in surveys, more than half of seattle voters identified as democrat or leaning democratic. The answer may surprise you. Are you a democrat or a republican? Are there more democrats or republicans who top that list? The election of 2010 gave republicans the majority beginning in january, 2011. These are broadly generalized opinions; There are still way more registered democrats;

The election of 2010 gave republicans the majority beginning in january, 2011. Hello and thank you for registering. It was a more natural association. related: Are there more democrats or republicans who top that list? The republican party has waxed and waned in popularity and membership over the years, never quite having as many registered partisans as the democrats.

In 2021 Republicans Will Have Full Control Of The Legislative And Executive Branch In 23 States

Democrats and independents grow more diverse since 2008. According to gallup.com about 42% of voters claim to be independents. There is a big difference between a state, for example with 7000 registered greens, which had a net increase of plus 200 where 201 new voters registered in to the greens and only 1 left, compared to a situation in the same state where 5000 voters newly registered green but at the same time 4800 left the party. Currently, republicans have 51 seats, and democrats have 47 with two races still undecided. San francisco 62.61% modoc 54.46% santa clara 29.92% Their partisan affiliation was roughly split between three groups: How the county has changed since this time last year: Democrats will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 15 states. There are roughly 55 million registered republicans. There are 517,562 registered democrats this year in allegheny county, compared to 520,135 in 2016. The counties with the 10 highest percentages of democratic party, republican party, and no party preference registered voters are: According to data from ballot access news, independents make up 29.09 percent of registered voters, while republicans make up 28.87 percent and democrats make up 39.66 percent. In 12 states, there are more registered republicans than democrats.

Political Party Strength In Us States

Jump to navigationJump to search

Political party strength in U.S. states is the level of representation of the various political parties in the United States in each statewide elective office providing legislators to the state and to the U.S. Congress and electing the executives at the state ” rel=”nofollow”>U.S. state governor) and national level.

Map 1 And Table 1: Party Registration Totals By State July 2018

Democrats no longer control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or for that matter most of the governorships or state legislatures. But they still maintain a toehold in the political process with their edge in the realm of voter registration. At least that is the case in the 31 states and the District of Columbia that register voters by political party. As of this month, 13 of these states boast a Democratic plurality in registered voters, compared to eight states where there is a Republican plurality. In the other 10 states, there are more registered independents than either Democrats or Republicans, with Democrats out-registering the Republicans in six of these states and the GOP with more voters than the Democrats in the other four. They are indicated in the chart as I or I. Nationally, four out of every 10 registered voters in party registration states are Democrats, with slightly less than three out of every 10 registered as Republicans or independents. Overall, the current Democratic advantage over Republicans in the party registration states approaches 12 million.

Poll Finds Startling Difference In Vaccinations Among Us Republicans And Democrats

FILE Two men talk as crowds gather on L Street Beach in the South Boston neighborhood of Boston.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll has found a startling difference between Democrats and Republicans as it relates to COVID-19 vaccination. The poll found that while 86% of Democrats have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, only 45% of Republicans have.

In addition, the survey found that while only 6% of Democrats said they would probably decline the vaccine, 47% of Republicans said they would probably not be inoculated. 

The poll also found that 60% of unvaccinated Americans believe the U.S. is exaggerating the dangers of the COVID-19 delta variant, while 18% of the unvaccinated say the government is accurately describing the variants risks.

However, 64% of vaccinated Americans believe the government is accurately describing the dangers of the delta variant.

Iran fighting COVID 5th wave The variant is having a global impact. Irans President Hassan Rouhani has warned that the country is on the brink of a fifth wave of a COVID-19 outbreak. The delta variant of the virus, first identified in India, is largely responsible for the rising number of hospitalizations and deaths in Iran, officials say.

All non-essential businesses have been ordered closed in 275 cities, including Tehran, the capital. Travel has also been restricted between cities that are experiencing high infection rates.

Reports say only about 5% of Iranians have been vaccinated. 

  Daniel Rivero

At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison on The Daily Beasts . Gallup reported Wednesday that, at least relatively speaking, the Democratic brand is doing pretty good.

In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points.

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

Thats the largest gap since 2012:

Greg Sargent April 7, 2021

Party identification, polled on every Gallup survey, is something that we think is important to track to give a sense to the relevant strength of the two parties at any one point in time and how party preferences are responding to events,Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told USA Today.

More stories from theweek.com

Immigration Policy Is About A Lot More Than Just Border Enforcement Or Ice Raids

Glancing at the graph above, it looks like the number of unaffiliated might even be higher than the number of democrats by the 2020 election (the triangle markers along the top edge of the graph denote the. For decades, the word conservative have been synonymous with orange county. Orange county, long a republican stronghold, has officially turned blue. Short answer, more democrats than republicans, but the largest group, by wide margins, is neither. The county that nurtured ronald reagans conservatism and is the resting place of richard nixon is now home to 547,458 registered democrats, compared with 547,369 republicans.

Party Affiliation By State

Party affiliation by state Switch to:State by political party

% of adults who identify as

Democrat/lean Dem. Sample Size

Sample size = 511. Visit this table to see approximate margins of error for a group of a given size. For full question wording, see the survey questionnaire.Sample sizes and margins of error vary from subgroup to subgroup, from year to year and from state to state. You can see the sample size for the estimates in this chart on rollover or in the last column of the table. And visit this table to see approximate margins of error for a group of a given size. Readers should always bear in mind the approximate margin of error for the group they are examining when making comparisons with other groups or assessing the significance of trends over time. For full question wording, see the survey questionnaire.

Alabama

How Many Democrats How Many Republicans

I want to follow up on my last post regarding how variations in poll results are often due to differences in how pollsters construct their samples. The previous post talked primarily about whether pollsters were sampling likely or registered voters. Obama, I suggested, polled better among registered voters.  Today I want to look at another decision pollsters must make: whether to weight their sample by party identification and, if so, what weights to use. We know that whether one considers oneself a Democrat or a Republican is the biggest single determinant of how someone will vote. Not surprisingly, people tend to vote for the candidate who shares their party identification. So a poll that includes 40% Democrats in its sample is likely to have more favorable results for Obama than one that includes 35% Democrats, all other things being equal. Ditto for McCain and variations in the number of Republicans sampled.

To see how this makes a difference, consider two  respected national polls that came out yesterday. CBS/NY Times came out with their monthly national poll that has Obama up 49-44, with 6 undecided.

Rasmussen, meanwhile, has the race tied, 48-48% in its latest tracking poll.

I show you these numbers to give you an idea of what it means to weight by party.  But why does it matter? Compare the CBS weighting to what Rasmussen calculates when they weight by party.

Are You Surrounded By Democrats Or Republicans How Jersey Breaks Red And Blue In All 21 Counties

Here is a county-by-county breakdown of which political party rules in each of New Jerseys 21 counties and how much each party gained since this time last year.

Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

New Jersey is a Democratic-leaning state, and its getting bluer by the month.

Democrats have registered voters at a faster pace than Republicans in the Garden State. But the GOP still maintains pockets of control in some counties.

Republicans are outnumbered by registered Democrats by nearly 1 million people , according to the latest statistics from the states Division of Elections. As of the end of September, New Jersey had 2,307,937 registered Democrats and 1,331,102 Republicans.

Over the past year, Democrats added more than double the number of registered voters compared to the GOP , according to the data.

However, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in six of the states 21 counties, and there are a few other counties that are pretty evenly split. Also, Republicans out registered the number of new Democrats in six counties from this time last year, including in three counties where the number of Ds outweigh the Rs.

The largest number of New Jersey voters 2,378,040 to be exact have not formally claimed any party affiliation.

Twelve years ago, Democrats had a 290,000 vote plurality over registered Republicans statewide, said Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan Universitys Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship.

A Group Of Friends And A Few Acquaintances Were Having A Politic Many Of You Guys Can Add It Up In One Minute So Please Tell Me:

Eric rauchway, professor of american history at the university of democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: There were nine new senators and a minimum of 89 new representatives , as well as one new delegate at the start of its first session. During this time, african americans were largely disenfranchised. Get more help from chegg. The us political parties, now called democrats and republicans, switched platform planks, ideologies, and members many although what happened is complex, in many cases there was no clean sudden shift, and some voter bases and factions never switched, you can see evidence of the. How many new democrats are there? Voter registration is the requirement that a person eligible to vote registers on an electoral roll before that person is entitled or permitted to vote. Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the us government to provide fair representation. Republicans who worked with democrats were traitors in the war for seats in congress. Ive seen a lot where it says theyre a registered democrat . A group of friends and a few acquaintances were having a politic many of you guys can add it up in one minute, so please tell me: Republicans and democrats after the civil war. In the others, such as virginia, voters register without.

Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere

In the rest of the country, there was much more consistency between party registration totals and the 2016 election outcome, with only three non-Southern states voting against the grain. On election eve in Pennsylvania, there were 915,081 more registered Democrats than Republicans; Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. In West Virginia, there were 175,867 more registered Democrats; Trump won by 300,577 votes. And in New Hampshire, there were 24,232 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the fall of 2016, but Hillary Clinton took the state by 2,736 votes. Thats it. The other 22 party registration states outside the South were carried in the presidential balloting by the party with more registered voters than the other.

And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.

The registration trend line in California is a microcosm of sorts of party registration in the nation as whole. Democrats are running ahead and the ranks of the independents are growing. Yet registered voters in both parties appear to be widely engaged. That was the case in 2016, and likely will be again in 2018, with Trump flogging issues to rouse his base. In short, this is a highly partisan era when party registration totals, and the trends that go with them, are well worth watching.

Gop Registration Drop After Capitol Attack Is Part Of Larger Trend

WASHINGTON In the weeks since the January riot at the Capitol, there has been a raft of stories about voters across the country leaving the Republican Party. Some of the numbers are eye-catching and suggest that the GOP may be shrinking before our eyes, but a closer look at the numbers over time shows that a larger change has been working its way through the party for some time.

In fact, when one takes into account shifts in the composition of the Democratic Party, the real story seems to be more about a deeper remaking of the nations two major political parties.

To be sure, the headlines from the last few weeks have been striking, with multiple states reporting large declines in Republican voter registrations.

In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 Republicans dropped the “R” from their registrations in January. In North Carolina, the figure was close to 8,000. In Arizona the figure was about 9,200 through late-January. And in one county in California, San Diego, more than 4,700 Republicans left the party last month.

Those are sizable changes and they are much larger than the moves away from the Democrats in those places, but they come with some caveats. There are always some losses and gains in registrations for the Democrats and Republicans. Partisan identity can be fluid for a large chunk of the voters, and remember: just because a voter is registered with one party doesnt mean he or she always votes for its candidates.

[covid19updater]

COVID19 Updates: 08/19/2021

World:  The effectiveness of the #PfizerBioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 declines faster than that of the #AstraZeneca jab but after greater initial effectiveness, according to a new UK study published on Thursday 

Singapore:  Singapore to launch its first #COVID19 vaccinated travel lanes with Germany and Brunei; fully vaccinated travellers will not have to serve a stay-home notice LINK

UK:  The decision to not recommend children wear masks to primary schools - referred to in the Dept of Education Covid19 Response Plan - is based on HPSC 'Interim Guidance' from *AUGUST 2020* It is based on what was known about Covid & children in *JULY 2020* This is scandalous.

Mississippi:  More than 20,000 students in Mississippi are in quarantine after first week of school LINK

Australia:  Australia reports their most cases in a single day during the entire pandemic.

World:  ASTRAZENECA COVID-19 VACCINE 61% EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING INFECTION 90 DAYS AFTER 2ND DOSE - OXFORD STUDY PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE 75% EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING INFECTION 90 DAYS AFTER 2ND DOSE - OXFORD STUDY

Israel:  Israel: PM Bennett declines to confirm school year will open September 1

New Zealand:  Up to 100 may already be infected in New Zealand Covid outbreak, modelling says Authorities have warned more cases are expected, given the activity of those already diagnosed with the virus. LINK

Japan:  "Home recuperation" is writing sad stories in #Japan, with members in infected families dying at home. Hospitals have no treatment beds left. Kyoto and Tokyo now improvise "waiting stations". Walls are built low, so few staff can observe the entire space. LINK

Alabama:  ‘Critical Mass Level Zero’: Ambulances In Mobile, Alabama, Stop Taking People To Hospitals Amid Covid Surge. LINK

US:  All the school reopenings are particularly dangerous because infected kids end up exposing their vaccinated parents to extremely high viral loads continuously for several weeks. Their vaccinated parents act like selective filters for every new vaccine-resistant mutation.  This coupled system of unvaccinated infected kids and vaccinated parents continuously co-infecting each other  with very high viral loads will let the variants evolve rapidly under the selective pressure from the vaccines with the kids and parents acting like two Petri dishes.

World:  How SARS-CoV-2 Evades And Suppresses The Immune System (Part 5) LINK

Oregon:  Oregon ICU occupancy ‘reaching crisis levels’ LINK

Mississippi:  Today MS is reporting over 4000 additional cases. BYERS, state epi, says "It seems like everyday this gets higher -- we have far exceeded our previous peak in the winter months in 2020 and the holidays of 2021."

Australia:  NSW Customer Services Minister Victor Dominello diagnosed with Bell's palsy -Bell's palsy is a known side effect of the Pfizer COVID vaccine LINK

World:  Croatia and Austria have become the first countries to set vaccination 'expiry dates'. The new rules mean you are only considered immune from Covid-19 for 270 days after your 2nd vaccine. LINK

Florida:  A record 17,295 people are being treated for COVID-19 in Florida hospitals right now. Only 6.8% of our ICU beds are still available. We can't afford for any more people to be hospitalized. Get vaccinated. Mask indoors.

Mississippi:  EXPLOSION of #COVID19 in first 2 weeks of schools, Mississippi—2021 vs 2020: Student Cases 2021: 5,993 30x more vs 2020 Teacher/Staff Cases 2021: 1,496 6x more Students Quarantined 2021: 24,769 12x more

World:  Plastic anti-Covid barriers now common in public places have little effect on the virus, and in some cases could help it spread, research suggests. LINK

Israel:  Almost 60% of hospitalized patients w/Covid in Israel are fully, Science Mag reports, despite 78% of those 12 and older in Israel being fully. The experience of Israel thus makes clear that so-called “breakthrough” cases aren’t such rare events, as implied by term;

South Africa:  South Africa is seeing vaccine “apathy or fatigue,” Nomafrench Mbombo, a Western Cape Provincial Health Minister warned. Since mass vaccination of the  public began in May, only 11% of nationwide adult population has been fully vaxxed and many  sites standing empty, despite 100s of daily covid deaths;

Japan:  Japan hit record 23,917 new cases, critical care beds in Tokyo near capacity, less than week Tokyo hosts Paralympic Games. Osaka, Hyogo reported record cases Wed. Tokyo recorded 5,386 cases today. 80% of Tokyo’s ICU beds are occupied, rate is already 100% Kanagawa prefecture;

Mexico:  Mexico has recorded a record 28,953 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 3,152,205. It also reported 940 more deaths and the total confirmed death toll now stands at 250,469;

Mississippi:  GOP Sen. Roger Wicker tests positive in COVID-19 'breakthrough' case LINK

Maine:  Sen. Angus King also announces a positive COVID test despite being fully vaccinated.  Sen. King announced today he has tested positive for COVID-19. “Despite all my efforts, when I began feeling mildly feverish yesterday, I took a test this morning at my doctor’s suggestion, and it came back positive,” King said in a statement.

UK:  UK Covid vaccine booster scheme likely to start in September, Health Secretary Sajid Javid says LINK

World:  A team led by researchers at UCSD have discovered how glycans act as infection gateways for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. LINK

Colorado: Sen. Hickenlooper:  I've tested positive for a breakthrough case of COVID-19. I feel good but will isolate per docs instructions. I’m grateful for the vaccine (& the scientists behind it!) for limiting my symptoms. If you haven’t gotten your shot—get it today! And a booster when it’s available too!.  John Hickenlooper is the third US senator to announce today that he has Covid.

Florida:  Hospital  in Tampa Florida cry for help—“Cases have exploded”—now ~2x last year’s all time #COVID19 peak. Current #DeltaVariant situation— “overwhelmed” “Our ICUs are full” “Don’t call 911 unless it’s a serious emergency” “Ambulance shortage”

World:  The global shortage of semiconductors will cut worldwide auto production by as many as 7.1 million vehicles this year, and pandemic-related supply disruptions will hobble the industry well into next year, IHS Markit said. LINK

World:  Vineet Menachery, of @TheMenacheryLab, was studying coronaviruses before the world made the acquaintance of SARS-CoV-2. Back then a meeting of coronavirus researchers didn't need a conference center-sized space, as it would now. This is his take on 3rd doses of vax at this point:  After an hour of looking, have not found convincing data that booster are needed for the majority. My worry, is that even with a booster, breakthrough will still happen, especially with #DeltaVariant . Some musings on the need for #COVID19 vaccine boosters

Tennessee:  BREAKING: For the 2nd straight day, Tennessee sets a stunning new daily record for #COVID19 cases among school-age children (ages 5-18). 1,850 in today's report, up from 1,495 the day before. Previous high of 1,478 was on Dec. 15th. It has NEVER been this bad.

Mississippi:  Only 7 ICU beds are available in Mississippi, and 96 patients need them, according to the state Dept. of Health. “We are clearly at the worst part of the pandemic that we’ve seen throughout, and it’s continuing to worsen,” a state health officer said. LINK

World:  CDC director: Annual COVID-19 dose after booster not anticipated LINK (Right...)

World:  "We can't guarantee - I doubt seriously, but I don't know for sure - that we're gonna be able to say we're going to no longer need boosts every 'x' number of months," says Dr. Anthony Fauci.

World:  “It’s not one and done or two and done but three and done,” Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development's Dr. @PeterHotez says about COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. “It’s not impossible that we’ll need annual boosters, I just don’t see us heading that way for now.”

Florida:  Half of Florida hospitals turning away patient transfers

Georgia:  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed an executive order allowing businesses to ignore mask or vaccine mandates issued by local governments: “The executive order I signed today will insure that businesses cannot be forced to follow local government ordinances regarding COVID-19.” (IDIOT)

Texas:  Texas school districts must now notify teachers, staff and families of all students of a positive COVID-19 case in a classroom, the Texas Education Agency announced Thursday. LINK

Israel:  Israel says people over 40 and teachers will now be eligible to receive #COVID19 booster shots.

US:  Despite having high statewide vaccination rates, hospitals in Hawaii, Oregon and Washington are reaching capacity as COVID-19 cases spike LINK

Texas:  Rice University is shifting classes online for the first two weeks of the semester as Covid-19 cases increase in the Houston area and on campus LINK

Jamaica:  Updated COVID-19 Measures: Jamaica announces seven no-movement days (Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays) over the next two weeks starting this Sunday: Aug 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, 31 and Sep. 5. On these days, there is a 24-hour curfew.

Tennessee:  Fairview Middle School doesn’t even have enough staff to open the doors tomorrow, despite the demands of ⁦@GovBillLee⁩. The virus is in control. #COVID19

Louisiana: LSU:  Testing ordered for some Greek chapters after high COVID-19 levels detected in wastewater LINK

[jobsearchtips02]

Philadelphia coronavirus updates: Green phase date, Six Flags reopen, July 4th fireworks, NJ boardwalks

Latest 3: 00 PM – 06/24/20

Latest Penn to expand its free virtual summer academy to rising seniors in parochial schools

The University of Pennsylvania will open its free four-week virtual summer academy on career and college preparation and academic enrichment to rising seniors in Philadelphia’s parochial schools. The university will also open to parochial school seniors its free self-paced “How to Apply to College” course.

Penn previously said the program was for rising seniors in the Philadelphia’s public schools, including district schools and charters. Penn created the program in recognition of the losses students experienced this spring, including not being able to go on college campus tours and transitioning to online learning.

Pennsylvania does less coronavirus testing than almost every other state

MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

Nurse Practitioner Nina Marell administers a coronavirus test to a a subject in his car on April 28, 2020, at the Family Health Center at 11th and Parrish.

Pennsylvania has performed 5,215 coronavirus tests per 100,000 people — fewer than all but seven states, counting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, according to an analysis by Johns Hopkins University.

New Jersey has conducted the third-most tests of the states, at 14,227 tests per 100,000, while Delaware is not far behind, at 11th.

Will Pennsylvania’s low rate of testing prevent policy makers from determining if the state has reopened too soon?

Epidemiologists say the answer is not simple, and that in one key respect — the percent who test positive — Pennsylvania’s low level of testing may be adequate.

Testing has been a hot topic lately after President Donald Trump’s remarks at a campaign rally Saturday in Oklahoma. Without providing evidence, he said the numbers of COVID -19 cases were up in some parts of the United States not due to any real increase in illness, but because the country was performing too many tests. Aides later said he was being sarcastic, but he repeated the claim Monday, insisting he was serious and saying the country was doing “too good a job” of testing.

Concern in Philly that cases are plateauing

TIM TAI / Staff Photographer

A mask covers the face of the Rocky statue in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday, April 17, 2020. People are encouraged to wear masks or face coverings to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Philadelphia announced 108 new cases of the coronavirus Wednesday — a number roughly in line with the average daily cases the city has reported in the past week.

“The drop in new cases per day has definitely slowed and that could be indicative of a plateauing,” Health Department spokesperson James Garrow said in an email.

Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said Tuesday he was concerned about what a rise in new cases of the virus in many areas of the country could mean for Philadelphia. But Garrow said Wednesday that it was still too soon to determine whether Philadelphia’s cases are plateauing, noting that “it’s tough to say until we’re past it.”

“Whether it picks back up and we continue moving toward zero, or continues at this level, or starts to rise again is something we won’t know for a bit,” he said.

Officials also confirmed seven additional deaths of Philadelphia residents related to COVID-19 Wednesday, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,570 since the beginning of the pandemic.

A total number of 25,433 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Philadelphia residents as of Wednesday. The city is planning to allow pools and hair salons to reopen Friday, and to fully move into the “green” phase of reopening July 3.

But Farley has warned that the continued easing of restrictions will depend on a continued reduction in new cases of the virus.

“This epidemic is definitely not over,” Farley said. “The risk right now is rising.”

Museums and aquariums can reopen in N.J. next week. But gyms and movie theaters will remain closed.

BARBARA L. JOHNSTON / Staff Photographer

Aquariums in New Jersey, including the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, will be allowed to reopen on Thursday, July 2.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that museums, aquariums, other indoor recreational facilities, and libraries can open at 25% capacity on Thursday, July 2. The state will require heightened sanitation measures, social distancing and face coverings or masks.

The order includes bowling alley, shooting ranges, and arcades.

Movie theaters, concert venues, performing arts centers, nightclubs and gyms will remain closed, though fitness centers can allow individual training sessions by appointment.

“It brings us no joy to say that,” Murphy said. “We just are not there yet. We just don’t think it’s the responsible thing to do.”

New Jersey, New York and Connecticut will quarantine travelers from states with high COVID-19 rates

The governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut announced that anyone traveling into their states from an area with a high level of community spread must quarantine for 14 days.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he believed the precaution would be essential to keeping the three states moving in the right direction in terms of confirmed cases. “I do believe we’re on the other side of the mountain,” he said. “But it’s not over til it’s over.”

The travel advisory is effective at midnight, and for now applies to people coming from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Utah, and Texas. The new restrictions apply to travelers in states where the rolling seven-day average of new cases is at 10 or more people per 100,000, or 10% of those tested.

Murphy said the tri-state measure will focus on personal responsibility and rely on messaging on highways, airports, websites and social media to educate travelers. The three states will also ask hotels to communicate the 14-day quarantine to guests who have traveled from one of the impacted states.

“This is a smart thing to do. We have taken our people through hell and back. And the last thing we need to do is subject our folks to another round,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said. “If you’ve been in a state that has a high infection rate, do the right thing.”

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. return to peak of outbreak

New coronavirus cases in the United States have surged to their highest level in two months, returning to numbers seen during the peak of the outbreak, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Tuesday, the country reported more than 34,000 new cases of the virus, the third-highest day on record and the most new daily cases since April 24, when the nation reported more than 36,000 cases.

While states in the Northeast like New Jersey and Pennsylvania have seen cases decline for weeks, more than half of states — including Delaware — have seen increases in cases. Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada, and Texas all set single-day records Tuesday.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, calling the surge of new infections “disturbing” during a congressional hearing Tuesday.

“The next couple of weeks are going to be critical to address those surges that we’re seeing in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and other states,” Fauci said.

Veterinarians in Pennsylvania can begin to spay and neuter pets again

HEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer

Veterinary technician Laura Vazquez brings in Meg Tigani’s dog, Louie, into an appointment at World of Animals at Rittenhouse in Philadelphia on Wednesday, April 29, 2020.

Veterinary practices are now allowed to provide non-essential services and routine or elective surgeries, including spaying and neutering, the Wolf administration said Wednesday.

Under the state’s updated guidance, vets in both yellow and green counties are cleared to resume non-emergency surgical procedures.

In April, the state waived its requirement that dogs and cats had to be spayed or neutered before adoption; pet owners who adopted during the pandemic have 120 days from the adoption date to get their pets fixed.

Veterinary practices were deemed life-sustaining services and were never required to close due to COVID-19.

These preexisting conditions are most likely to hospitalize and kill people who contract coronavirus

These patients were 12 times more likely to die of the virus than patients who had been healthy. Chronic heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and chronic lung disease were the most commonly reported underlying medical conditions, according to the CDC.

In the Philadelphia area, emergency medicine doctors say the CDC’s findings largely reflect their experience treating COVID-19 patients, but predictions are by no means sure.

“COVID-19 is a very wild disease,” said Erica Harris, an emergency physician at Einstein Medical Center. “It’s very hard to predict which way it’s going to go. … There are people who can have every single risk factor and still do fine.”

The virus has hit the elderly, who are considered more vulnerable because they often have multiple chronic conditions, particularly hard. But Clarke Piatt, medical director of Bryn Mawr Hospital’s intensive-care unit, said he has seen some of the worst outcomes among patients in their 50s and 60s with type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Nearly half of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had obesity, and about 28% had type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC.

— Sarah Gantz and Dominique DeMoe

New York City Marathon canceled

Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AP

Runners take part in the 2019 New York City Marathon in New York. This year’s marathon, scheduled to take place on Nov. 1, has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The New York City Marathon, the world’s largest marathon, has been canceled, organizers announced on Wednesday. It had been scheduled for Nov. 1.

“While the marathon is an iconic and beloved event in our city, I applaud New York Road Runners for putting the health and safety of both spectators and runners first,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “We look forward to hosting the 50th running of the marathon in November of 2021.”

The Philadelphia Marathon remains scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 22. The Broad Street run also remains scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 4.

“We have not made a decision on the races yet, further information will be made available in the coming days,” a spokesperson for Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said.

Camden County College testing site to close on Friday

TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

The coronavirus testing site at Camden County College in Blackwood, N.J., seen back in March before it opened. The country is closing the site on Friday, citing a decline in testing appointments.

Citing a reduction in testing appointments, Camden County announced it is closing the coronavirus testing site located at Camden County College in Gloucester Township. The site, which has been running since April 15, will cease operations at 4 p.m. on Friday, June 26.

“At this time, we feel confident that the site at Camden County College has served its purpose and can cease operations without impacting the availability of resources in the community,” Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said in a statement.

The coronavirus testing site at 3101 Federal St. in East Camden will continue to operate, the county said. Cappelli Jr. also pointed out that testing capacity among healthcare providers and businesses like Rite Aid and CVS has “increased significantly” since the beginning of the pandemic.

The county reports 7,572 residents have tested positive for coronavirus since the pandemic began, though there were just 15 new positive cases reported on Tuesday. At least 430 county residents have died.

Six Flags Great Adventure to open next week

Philadelphia Daily News

The roller coaster Nitro speeds along its track at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. The popular theme park will reopen on July 3.

Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J. announced on Wednesday it will reopen Friday, July 3, one day after the state relaxes coronavirus restrictions on amusement parks.

The popular amusement park said it will open first to members and season pass holders. The general public will be allowed to enter the park Saturday, July 4, with attendance levels gradually increasing throughout the month.

Six Flags said it will deploy an online reservation system to manage attendance, schedule guests for entry by day, and stagger arrival times to minimize proximity exposure. There will also be thermal imaging for temperature checks, touchless bag checks, and mobile food ordering.

“We have developed a comprehensive reopening safety plan that includes protocols designed by theme park and waterpark industry experts, along with best practices from top destination parks from around the world, which will allow guests to experience our parks in the safest way possible,” Six Flags President and CEO Mike Spanos said in a statement.

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor will remain closed, but the company noted a “preview date” is forthcoming.

Six Flags’ Wild Safari Drive-Thru Adventure opened May 30 following a seven-year hiatus. According to the company, it will remain open due to its popularity, noting that thousands of cars have taken the five-mile journey each day. The theme park said it aims to reintroduce its Safari Off Road Adventure guided truck tours soon.

Europe likely to keep U.S. travelers out due to spike in coronavirus cases

Joan Mateu / AP

Tourists sit at the beach of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Tuesday, June 16, 2020. Borders opened up across Europe on Monday after three months of coronavirus closures that began chaotically in March.

Americans are unlikely to be allowed into Europe when the continent reopens its borders next week, because of how the coronavirus pandemic is flaring in the United States and President Donald Trump’s ban on Europeans entering the United States.

European nations appear on track to reopen their borders between each other by July 1, and their representatives in Brussels are now debating what virus-related criteria should apply when lifting border restrictions to the outside world that were imposed in March.

In recommendations to EU nations on June 11, the European Commission said “travel restrictions should not be lifted as regards third countries where the situation is worse” than the average in the 27 EU member countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

That is likely to rule out the United States, where new coronavirus infections have surged to the highest level in two months, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. After trending down for well over a month, new U.S. cases have risen for more than a week.

Black Lives Matter protests won’t lead to spike on COVID cases: study

MONICA HERNDON / Staff Photographer

Hundreds of people marched to the Art Museum with a protest that began at LOVE Park in Philadelphia, Pa. on June 21.

Based on data collected on protests in 315 U.S. cities where protests occurred, researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research found no evidence recent demonstrations against police brutality have led to a significant rise in coronavirus cases.

While tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of Philadelphia and elsewhere after the killing of George Floyd, researchers said there was strong evidence that stay-at-home behavior actually increased, as people tried to avoid the protests. Curfews and business closures also had the effect of keeping more people in their homes, researchers said.

“Our findings suggest that any direct decrease in social distancing among the subset of the population participating in the protests is more than offset by increasing social distancing behavior among others who may choose to shelter-at-home and circumvent public places while the protests are underway,” the report reads.

‘Poor Dr. Fauci’: Obama calls out Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic

During a virtual fundraiser for former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, former President Barack Obama condemned President Donald Trump for his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and for downplaying the threat of the virus.

“That suggests facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter. That suggests that a deadly disease is fake news,” Obama said.

Obama, making his first remarks in the 2020 campaign since he endorsed Biden in April, said a Biden administration would heed the advice of public health experts, who have urged people to wear masks and avoid large gatherings.

As Obama spoke, Trump was delivering remarks at an indoor rally of about 3,000 students in Phoenix, Ariz, where coronavirus cases are spiking. Most of the people present in the crowd were not wearing masks.

“Poor Dr. Fauci, who has to testify and then see his advice flouted by the person who he’s working for,” Obama said.

Positivity rate up in South Jersey, more young people testing positive for COVID-19

ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer

Cyclist along the boardwalk at New Jersey in Atlantic City, NJ on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.

As the coronavirus surges in other parts of the United States, officials in New Jersey said Tuesday they were concerned about avoiding such an uptick in cases here, particularly warning residents not to allow reopenings to coax them into relaxing.

The positivity rate has increased in South Jersey. More New Jerseyans 29 years old and younger are contracting the virus, now making up more than one-fifth of new infections. The increase is concerning health officials, who don’t believe it can solely be attributed to increased testing.

Though New Jersey’s overall statewide transmission rate remains good, Gov. Phil Murphy said it was beginning to creep up in several counties, though he did not identify which ones. He also said hospitalizations and the use of ventilators were slightly up in recent days.

“We can’t get our economy back to where it was if our hospitals fill back up with COVID-19 patients because some people mistakenly thought they were invincible,” Murphy said. “What we cannot have is a one-day increase in our health metrics becoming a trend because people gave up on social distancing.”

Outdoor amusement and water parks in New Jersey can reopen July 2, including rides on boardwalks, Murphy announced Tuesday.

Attendance at amusement parks will be capped at 50% capacity. Murphy said that “specific guidance is currently being finalized and will be forthcoming” but that it is anticipated that employees and attendees will be required to wear masks “whenever practicable.” Murphy also announced that playgrounds across the state will be allowed to reopen.

“We are excited to welcome families back onto the piers again,” said Will and Jack Morey of Morey’s Piers in Wildwood. “We are working hard to redefine family fun this summer.”

— Justine McDaniel, Laura McCrystal and Allison Steele

%

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/philadelphia-coronavirus-updates-green-phase-date-six-flags-reopen-july-4th-fireworks-nj-boardwalks/

[joshuajacksonlyblog]

Sunday Digest: Bitcoin Price, DeFi, and Ransomware

This week Brexit finally happened, CoronaVirus spread, and the US offered oil to Belarus when Russian negotiations failed. But perhaps the most important question on the world’s lips followed singer Dua Lipa’s visit to a strip club after the Grammy’s event. Can a feminist visit a strip club?… and does it make a difference if she pays in bitcoin? Bitcoin Price: What A Difference A Week Makes After the ‘Meh…’ of last week, this week saw bitcoin price gain a grand and make it look easy. There was no rollercoaster; no huge green candles pushing to the sky only to have gains all-but obliterated in the next hour. Just a steady tempered climb throughout the week; a technique which one would argue works rather well. Momentum seems to be building towards a traditionally bullish February. This should compound on gains already made in the usually quiet January, when Bitcoin (and Tesla) added 32%. Another 11 months with similar gains would see BTC hit $152k by the end of 2020. Gains were led by an inflow of $17 billion into the cryptocurrency market in just 48 hours. By midweek, we were seeing three-months highs and discussing $10k again. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee confirmed (for what seems like the umpteenth time) that bitcoin is entering a bull market again. And analysts gave the (slightly less exciting) prediction of $28k in the next six months. Price peaked in Friday at around $9,500 although has levelled of at around $9,300 since then. Decentralized Finance Crypto-lending has been crowned the industry’s most profitable sector after explosive growth in numbers over the past couple of years. Although Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin admitted he still cringes when he hears the misuse of the term ‘loan’. So with decentralized finance (DeFi) booming hard, when would the ETH price rally to reflect this? Well, it did a fairly decent job this week. Analyst had their eyes on a target of $180, which ETH blasted straight through. At time of press the price of one Ether is over $190, also helped by news that energy giant BP is sponsoring next month’s ETHDenver event. Bitcoin Ransomware Resurgence A report suggested that over half of all public and private organizations in the US had fallen victim to ransomware in 2019. This week it was the turn of a California school district, which had servers and a phone system shut down by ransomware attackers demanding bitcoin. A Senator in Maryland introduced a bill to make possession of ransomware illegal other than for security research purposes. New York State Senators have meanwhile been drafting bills to outlaw the payment of ransomware attackers with tax-payers money. News In Brief The second iteration of the Bitcoin Lightning Torch has had quite an unfortunate first week, being stolen 4 times already. Torch bearers were left holding the bill, and must adapt their trust model, if the effort is to succeed like last year. After quite literally removing his skin from the game when it comes to Bitcoin predictions, John McAfee has turned his attention to bashing his former muse. This week he labelled BTC the ‘true shitcoin’ while claiming the future of crypto lies with (unspecified) altcoins. French football team, Paris Saint Germain, hit the crypto headlines twice this week. Firstly announcing a partnership with the CoinCasso exchange, and then when its fan-tokens finally went on sale. The Bitcoin Cash network stopped producing blocks for over five hours this week, and without creating a significant transaction backlog. Could Google be following Facebook on a path towards crypto? This week we found that the company had taken on an ex-Ripple employee to help revamp its Chrome payments system. Facebook itself seemed to be taking a step backwards, as reports suggested that crypto-related links were being censored again in its Messenger app. Cambodia is the latest nation to move towards launching a central bank digital currency (CBDC), despite the fact that cryptocurrency is illegal in the country. Lithuania has also been considering the practicalities of launching a CBDC this week. And Finally… Tron Supremo Justin Sun certainly had his (shilling) hat on this week… or was he just genuinely paying tribute to a basketball legend who had tragically died? Nobody could be quite sure, but there were plenty who assumed he was using Kobe Bryant’s death as an opportunity to shill this year’s upcoming niTROn conference. To be fair to Sun, Bryant had attended 2019’s niTROn event, discussing the future of blockchain on stage with Sun himself. But by now, Justin is so far down the ‘shilling’ rabbit hole, that it is questionable whether anyone can discern when he is being genuine. Even him. What was your favorite story this week? Let us know in the comments below! Images via Shutterstock The post appeared first on Bitcoinist.com. from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2GLMFXR via IFTTT

[patriotsnet]

How Many People Are Registered Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-people-are-registered-republicans/

How Many People Are Registered Republicans

Polling Data Shows Republican Party Affiliation Is Down As Independents Leaning Toward The Democratic Party Surge

Democrats have a nine-percentage-point affiliation advantage over Republicans at the moment.

Resize icon

The GOP is losing its grip, according to the latest Gallup poll. 

The number of Americans identifying as Republicans or as independents who lean toward the GOP dropped to 40% in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the number of Democrats or independents leaning toward the Democratic party hitting 49%. And that nine-percentage-point lead is the greatest Democratic advantage that Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012, when former President Barack Obama was re-elected. 

Gallup routinely measures U.S. adults party identification and the political leanings of independents. The latest poll surveyed a random sample of 3,960 U.S. adults by phone between January and March of 2021. And while Democratic Party affiliation actually dropped by one point from the fourth quarter of 2020, to 30% where it has hovered for most of the past eight years the number of Americans identifying as independent rose to 44% from 38% last quarter. And this growing number of independents came at the expense of the Republican party, as 19% of independents said they lean Democrat, compared with 15% leaning Republican. Most of the remaining 11% of independents didnt swing either way. 

And several events have happened during those three months that could position the Democratic Party more favorably in voters eyes, the Gallup report noted. 

Read more:

Opinion:

Past Jumps In Party Affiliations

The bump in Democratic affiliation following Biden’s inauguration mirrors that of former President Barack Obama’s first term, Jones said.

“That was really the high point that we’ve seen; kind of the 2006-2009 period, when really the majority of Americans either identified as Democrats outright or were independents but they leaned toward the party,” he said. “Our data on this only goes back to the ’90s, but it’s pretty much the only time we consistently had one party with the majority of Americans on their side.”

Republican advantages, though rarer and more short-lived, followed the Gulf War in 1991 when George H.W. Bush was in office and the 9/11 terrorist attacks during President George W. Bush’s term, according to Gallup. More people also reported GOP affiliation after the 1994, 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.

Whether the Republican Party can regain advantage during the 2022 midterm elections may rely on the successes of the Biden administration, according to Jones.

“A lot of it is going to depend on how things go over the course of the year. If things get better with the coronavirus and the economy bounces back and a lot of people expect Biden can keep relatively strong approval ratings, then that will be better for the Democrats,” Jones said. “But if things start to get worse unemployment goes up or coronavirus gets worse  then his approval is going to go down. It’s going to make things a lot better for the Republican Party for the midterm next year.”

Since Democrats And Republicans Appear To Have An Inexhaustible Appetite For Political Friction In The United States The Words Democrat And Republican Are Widely Used To Mean The Two Major Lets Take A Closer Look At Where These Two Words Came From And How They Came To Be Used In The

Altogether, there are 31 states with party registration; Eric rauchway, professor of american history at the university of democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: How many wars were initiated by democrats since the beginning of the usa? Republicans were able to fend off challenges from democrats trying to flip control of state legislatures in key states. Results seemed to follow what was set out by prediction polls, with the democrats seizing control of the house of representatives and the republicans maintaining the majority in the senate. Republicans who worked with democrats were traitors in the war for seats in congress. Since democrats and republicans appear to have an inexhaustible appetite for political friction in the united states, the words democrat and republican are widely used to mean the two major lets take a closer look at where these two words came from and how they came to be used in the. Republicans opinions carry less weight. How many democrats, republicans, and independents are registered? Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the us government to provide fair representation. So, perhaps i should start with a story. Democrats did see a boost in 2008 when former president obama was elected, hitting a peak of 43.62 percent of registered voters. Democratic supporters accounted for 35% of the electorate.

Voter Registration And State Political Control

This section needs additional citations for . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

The state or Party controls the governorship, the state legislative houses, and U.S. Senate representation. Nebraska’s legislature is , i.e., it has only one legislative house and is officially non-partisan, though party affiliation still has an unofficial influence on the legislative process.

The simplest measure of party strength in a state voting population is the affiliation totals from voter registration for the 30 states and the District of Columbia as of 2019 that allow registered voters to indicate a party preference when registering to vote. 20 states do not include party preference with voter registration: , , , , , , , , , , , North Dakota, , South Carolina, , , , , and . The party affiliations in the party control table are obtained from state party registration figures where indicated. Only has a majority of registered voters identifying themselves as Republicans; two states have a majority of registered voters identifying themselves as Democrats: and .

For those states that do not allow for registration by party, Gallup’s annual polling of voter party identification by state is the next best metric of party strength in the U.S. states. The partisan figures in the table for the 20 states that don’t register voters by party come from Gallup’s poll.

If Joe Biden Loses It Probably Wont Be Because Of An Increase In Gop Voter Registration

Election night is fast approaching, and even if its quite possible we wont know who the winner is on Nov. 3, recent state and national polling suggest that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is the clear favorite.

In a search for data points that might suggest a different outcome, some analysts have turned to looking at voter registration numbers. Particular attention has been given to registration numbers in Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania three hugely important swing states that register voters by party, and recently released numbers show that more people have been registering as Republicans than as Democrats.

In Florida, Republicans have shrunk their voter registration deficit from 2.5 points in 2016 to less than a point now . In North Carolina, the gap has shrunk by 3.8 percentage points. And in Pennsylvania, it has shrunk from 10.4 points to 7.8 points.

But thats really only part of the story. President Trump may overcome his polling deficit to win reelection, but the voter registration numbers in those states are not necessarily a sign of some significant underlying shift.

A lot of the net registration change in all three of those states are people changing their voter registration to reflect their long-standing partisan inclinations shifts that Trump may have facilitated and/or solidified in White, working-class areas, but arent completely new.

Aaron Blake contributed to this report.

As A Successful Republican New Mexico Governor 2016 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson Pronounced That He Had Slashed Taxes More Than A Dozen Times Balanced The There Are Many On The Left Who Support The Libertarian Partys Proposals To Legalize The Liberal Use Of Marijuana

39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a d+11 advantage. Even if youd rather not commit to any particular party, you may find yourself wishing to support a specific democrat candidate when primaries come around. Once you know which party you belong to, it will be easier to decide which candidates to vote for during elections. This quiz will ask you questions about your political beliefs. However, registered republicans outnumber democrats in six of the states 21 counties, and there several other counties that are pretty evenly split. Over 60% of black voters are registered democrats compared to just 3% that are registered in surveys, more than half of seattle voters identified as democrat or leaning democratic. The answer may surprise you. Are you a democrat or a republican? Are there more democrats or republicans who top that list? The election of 2010 gave republicans the majority beginning in january, 2011. These are broadly generalized opinions; There are still way more registered democrats;

The election of 2010 gave republicans the majority beginning in january, 2011. Hello and thank you for registering. It was a more natural association. related: Are there more democrats or republicans who top that list? The republican party has waxed and waned in popularity and membership over the years, never quite having as many registered partisans as the democrats.

In 2021 Republicans Will Have Full Control Of The Legislative And Executive Branch In 23 States

Democrats and independents grow more diverse since 2008. According to gallup.com about 42% of voters claim to be independents. There is a big difference between a state, for example with 7000 registered greens, which had a net increase of plus 200 where 201 new voters registered in to the greens and only 1 left, compared to a situation in the same state where 5000 voters newly registered green but at the same time 4800 left the party. Currently, republicans have 51 seats, and democrats have 47 with two races still undecided. San francisco 62.61% modoc 54.46% santa clara 29.92% Their partisan affiliation was roughly split between three groups: How the county has changed since this time last year: Democrats will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 15 states. There are roughly 55 million registered republicans. There are 517,562 registered democrats this year in allegheny county, compared to 520,135 in 2016. The counties with the 10 highest percentages of democratic party, republican party, and no party preference registered voters are: According to data from ballot access news, independents make up 29.09 percent of registered voters, while republicans make up 28.87 percent and democrats make up 39.66 percent. In 12 states, there are more registered republicans than democrats.

Political Party Strength In Us States

Jump to navigationJump to search

Political party strength in U.S. states is the level of representation of the various political parties in the United States in each statewide elective office providing legislators to the state and to the U.S. Congress and electing the executives at the state ” rel=”nofollow”>U.S. state governor) and national level.

Map 1 And Table 1: Party Registration Totals By State July 2018

Democrats no longer control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or for that matter most of the governorships or state legislatures. But they still maintain a toehold in the political process with their edge in the realm of voter registration. At least that is the case in the 31 states and the District of Columbia that register voters by political party. As of this month, 13 of these states boast a Democratic plurality in registered voters, compared to eight states where there is a Republican plurality. In the other 10 states, there are more registered independents than either Democrats or Republicans, with Democrats out-registering the Republicans in six of these states and the GOP with more voters than the Democrats in the other four. They are indicated in the chart as I or I. Nationally, four out of every 10 registered voters in party registration states are Democrats, with slightly less than three out of every 10 registered as Republicans or independents. Overall, the current Democratic advantage over Republicans in the party registration states approaches 12 million.

Poll Finds Startling Difference In Vaccinations Among Us Republicans And Democrats

FILE Two men talk as crowds gather on L Street Beach in the South Boston neighborhood of Boston.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll has found a startling difference between Democrats and Republicans as it relates to COVID-19 vaccination. The poll found that while 86% of Democrats have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, only 45% of Republicans have.

In addition, the survey found that while only 6% of Democrats said they would probably decline the vaccine, 47% of Republicans said they would probably not be inoculated. 

The poll also found that 60% of unvaccinated Americans believe the U.S. is exaggerating the dangers of the COVID-19 delta variant, while 18% of the unvaccinated say the government is accurately describing the variants risks.

However, 64% of vaccinated Americans believe the government is accurately describing the dangers of the delta variant.

Iran fighting COVID 5th wave The variant is having a global impact. Irans President Hassan Rouhani has warned that the country is on the brink of a fifth wave of a COVID-19 outbreak. The delta variant of the virus, first identified in India, is largely responsible for the rising number of hospitalizations and deaths in Iran, officials say.

All non-essential businesses have been ordered closed in 275 cities, including Tehran, the capital. Travel has also been restricted between cities that are experiencing high infection rates.

Reports say only about 5% of Iranians have been vaccinated. 

  Daniel Rivero

At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison on The Daily Beasts . Gallup reported Wednesday that, at least relatively speaking, the Democratic brand is doing pretty good.

In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points.

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

Thats the largest gap since 2012:

Greg Sargent April 7, 2021

Party identification, polled on every Gallup survey, is something that we think is important to track to give a sense to the relevant strength of the two parties at any one point in time and how party preferences are responding to events,Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told USA Today.

More stories from theweek.com

Immigration Policy Is About A Lot More Than Just Border Enforcement Or Ice Raids

Glancing at the graph above, it looks like the number of unaffiliated might even be higher than the number of democrats by the 2020 election (the triangle markers along the top edge of the graph denote the. For decades, the word conservative have been synonymous with orange county. Orange county, long a republican stronghold, has officially turned blue. Short answer, more democrats than republicans, but the largest group, by wide margins, is neither. The county that nurtured ronald reagans conservatism and is the resting place of richard nixon is now home to 547,458 registered democrats, compared with 547,369 republicans.

Party Affiliation By State

Party affiliation by state Switch to:State by political party

% of adults who identify as

Democrat/lean Dem. Sample Size

Sample size = 511. Visit this table to see approximate margins of error for a group of a given size. For full question wording, see the survey questionnaire.Sample sizes and margins of error vary from subgroup to subgroup, from year to year and from state to state. You can see the sample size for the estimates in this chart on rollover or in the last column of the table. And visit this table to see approximate margins of error for a group of a given size. Readers should always bear in mind the approximate margin of error for the group they are examining when making comparisons with other groups or assessing the significance of trends over time. For full question wording, see the survey questionnaire.

Alabama

How Many Democrats How Many Republicans

I want to follow up on my last post regarding how variations in poll results are often due to differences in how pollsters construct their samples. The previous post talked primarily about whether pollsters were sampling likely or registered voters. Obama, I suggested, polled better among registered voters.  Today I want to look at another decision pollsters must make: whether to weight their sample by party identification and, if so, what weights to use. We know that whether one considers oneself a Democrat or a Republican is the biggest single determinant of how someone will vote. Not surprisingly, people tend to vote for the candidate who shares their party identification. So a poll that includes 40% Democrats in its sample is likely to have more favorable results for Obama than one that includes 35% Democrats, all other things being equal. Ditto for McCain and variations in the number of Republicans sampled.

To see how this makes a difference, consider two  respected national polls that came out yesterday. CBS/NY Times came out with their monthly national poll that has Obama up 49-44, with 6 undecided.

Rasmussen, meanwhile, has the race tied, 48-48% in its latest tracking poll.

I show you these numbers to give you an idea of what it means to weight by party.  But why does it matter? Compare the CBS weighting to what Rasmussen calculates when they weight by party.

Are You Surrounded By Democrats Or Republicans How Jersey Breaks Red And Blue In All 21 Counties

Here is a county-by-county breakdown of which political party rules in each of New Jerseys 21 counties and how much each party gained since this time last year.

Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

New Jersey is a Democratic-leaning state, and its getting bluer by the month.

Democrats have registered voters at a faster pace than Republicans in the Garden State. But the GOP still maintains pockets of control in some counties.

Republicans are outnumbered by registered Democrats by nearly 1 million people , according to the latest statistics from the states Division of Elections. As of the end of September, New Jersey had 2,307,937 registered Democrats and 1,331,102 Republicans.

Over the past year, Democrats added more than double the number of registered voters compared to the GOP , according to the data.

However, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in six of the states 21 counties, and there are a few other counties that are pretty evenly split. Also, Republicans out registered the number of new Democrats in six counties from this time last year, including in three counties where the number of Ds outweigh the Rs.

The largest number of New Jersey voters 2,378,040 to be exact have not formally claimed any party affiliation.

Twelve years ago, Democrats had a 290,000 vote plurality over registered Republicans statewide, said Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan Universitys Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship.

A Group Of Friends And A Few Acquaintances Were Having A Politic Many Of You Guys Can Add It Up In One Minute So Please Tell Me:

Eric rauchway, professor of american history at the university of democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: There were nine new senators and a minimum of 89 new representatives , as well as one new delegate at the start of its first session. During this time, african americans were largely disenfranchised. Get more help from chegg. The us political parties, now called democrats and republicans, switched platform planks, ideologies, and members many although what happened is complex, in many cases there was no clean sudden shift, and some voter bases and factions never switched, you can see evidence of the. How many new democrats are there? Voter registration is the requirement that a person eligible to vote registers on an electoral roll before that person is entitled or permitted to vote. Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the us government to provide fair representation. Republicans who worked with democrats were traitors in the war for seats in congress. Ive seen a lot where it says theyre a registered democrat . A group of friends and a few acquaintances were having a politic many of you guys can add it up in one minute, so please tell me: Republicans and democrats after the civil war. In the others, such as virginia, voters register without.

Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere

In the rest of the country, there was much more consistency between party registration totals and the 2016 election outcome, with only three non-Southern states voting against the grain. On election eve in Pennsylvania, there were 915,081 more registered Democrats than Republicans; Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. In West Virginia, there were 175,867 more registered Democrats; Trump won by 300,577 votes. And in New Hampshire, there were 24,232 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the fall of 2016, but Hillary Clinton took the state by 2,736 votes. Thats it. The other 22 party registration states outside the South were carried in the presidential balloting by the party with more registered voters than the other.

And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.

The registration trend line in California is a microcosm of sorts of party registration in the nation as whole. Democrats are running ahead and the ranks of the independents are growing. Yet registered voters in both parties appear to be widely engaged. That was the case in 2016, and likely will be again in 2018, with Trump flogging issues to rouse his base. In short, this is a highly partisan era when party registration totals, and the trends that go with them, are well worth watching.

Gop Registration Drop After Capitol Attack Is Part Of Larger Trend

WASHINGTON In the weeks since the January riot at the Capitol, there has been a raft of stories about voters across the country leaving the Republican Party. Some of the numbers are eye-catching and suggest that the GOP may be shrinking before our eyes, but a closer look at the numbers over time shows that a larger change has been working its way through the party for some time.

In fact, when one takes into account shifts in the composition of the Democratic Party, the real story seems to be more about a deeper remaking of the nations two major political parties.

To be sure, the headlines from the last few weeks have been striking, with multiple states reporting large declines in Republican voter registrations.

In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 Republicans dropped the “R” from their registrations in January. In North Carolina, the figure was close to 8,000. In Arizona the figure was about 9,200 through late-January. And in one county in California, San Diego, more than 4,700 Republicans left the party last month.

Those are sizable changes and they are much larger than the moves away from the Democrats in those places, but they come with some caveats. There are always some losses and gains in registrations for the Democrats and Republicans. Partisan identity can be fluid for a large chunk of the voters, and remember: just because a voter is registered with one party doesnt mean he or she always votes for its candidates.