#i for one was very curious to see if either someone gave their billboard to katie or if she bought it herself

[pagesofkenna]

Ratfish pt 2 spoilers

we've truly come full circle

[darthspideys]

what does that make me? / one

bucky barnes x reader friends to lovers neighbor au

you’ve made it a point not to notice new things, that is until a stranger moves in across the hall from you. you think he’s keeping things from you, but it just makes you more curious about him. you can’t tell if the two of you are good for each other or if the whole thing is destined to implode.

chapter 1 - the stranger 

You notice him when he moves in. You notice a couple of boxes sitting outside the door across the hall, and even though you try not to think about it too much you do think a little about how it’s odd that there aren’t boxes lining the hall. When you moved in two years before, your boxes had all but taken over the narrow hallway (which the middle-aged woman three doors down made sure to tell you were not allowed).

Eventually, however, the boxes make their way inside and you only see a silhouette of a man through your peephole as he makes his way into his apartment. You tell yourself after that to stop thinking about it. You know that avoidance shouldn’t be the answer, but at this point, you don’t know what else to do. Everything is changing so fast, and there are new neighbors, new coworkers, new people at the bagel shop down the street.

You didn’t expect anyone to come back after the blip. It was a large adjustment, living in a world with fewer people, fewer people that you cared about, but eventually, you adjusted. You learned how to live life in a new way, you moved away from home, you got a new job and you made a new life for yourself. You never expected that everything would change again. You don’t think anyone else did either, when something big like that happens you think that at least then it’s over and you’ll get a break.

Now you're supposed to adjust again.

Which is why you’re not noticing any new neighbors, you're not noticing all the new billboard directing people who have been displaced to resources, you're ignoring all the news stories about the world trying to put itself together. You were already put together a month ago before any of this happened, and you're just trying to keep it that way.

The week after the mysterious brunette stranger moves in across the hall, you finally see his face for the first time. You’re about to head into work for a meeting, and just as you lock the door to your apartment he walks out into the haul and shuts his door. When you turn again to walk out, you bump right into him.

Normally, you’d keep your eyes trained on the floor and mumble an apology before walking out the door as fast as you can without looking weird. This time, however, you don’t, you inadvertently make eye contact with him. You look him right in the eyes and you freeze, getting lost in his deep brown eyes for a moment. “Oh,” You say, not knowing if it’s from the prolonged eye contact you're making or from the original moment that you bumped into him.

Neither of you says anything, and a moment that should be painfully awkward-isn’t for some reason. “Sorry,” He says suddenly, his eyes never leaving yours.

Your response is delayed by a second because you're just so caught up. “No, no, no, my fault I-” You shake your head, trying to form a coherent thought, “I didn’t see you, that's my fault.”

“It’s a small hallway,” He responds.

“Yeah,” You nod, “Painfully so.”

He clears his throat, then looks at the floor for a moment, the spell of eye contact suddenly broken. He shoves his hands in his pockets before saying, “Have you, uh, lived here long?”

You clasp your hands together, “I wouldn’t say too long, about two years.” Before he can respond, you add, “You just moved in though.” He gives you a curious look and you suddenly realize that you weren’t supposed to let him know that you were watching him. “I mean, you just moved in right? I haven’t seen you around.” You finish off with a small cough, and a glance down at the floor, knowing that your performance was less than convincing.

He shrugs, “I don’t know if I like it yet.”

“It’s a bit of an acquired taste,” You tell him, looking around the hallway. “The location can’t really be beat though, There’s something about Brooklyn.”

He looks at you wistfully when he says, “Yeah, there is.” He waits a little bit before adding, “Feels like it’s changed though.”

That makes you want to turn around and lock yourself in your apartment again. You know he’s right, but that’s one of the things that you're avoiding, and now that you're talking to the new neighbor you said you’d never interact with, you have to make sure that you're sticking to your word on one thing.

You don’t say anything, you don’t nod, or grumble: you freeze again, only this time it’s not pleasant, it’s that same kind of shut down you felt when you first heard that news that everyone was coming back. “I have to go,” You say, “But I’m sorry for running into you again.”

“No problem,” He replies when you're already off down the hall.

You wouldn't admit this to anyone but: you think about him the entire way to work, and for a little bit as you sit at the long glass table in the conference room for the pitch meeting you were nearly late for. There’s something about the way that he looked, the way that he looked like he wanted to smile at you but he was too nervous too. Your curiosity is going to get the better of you because as you scribble down thoughts on the meeting in your notebook, you're thinking about how you want to know everything about him.

“We need something big guys,” Your boss pontificates, stretching his arms out as he talks at the head of the table. “The story dominating the news right now is the blip, and we need to capitalize on that.” Someone down the line of writers surrounding the table begins to raise their hand, but Adam continues, “And I know what you're thinking: How Adam? How can we take a big story and make it even bigger? Well, guys, that's up to you. I want pitches, I want big ideas so that we can be the leader on this one.”

Small groans can be heard from just about everyone because everyone knows that Adam actually has no idea what he’s talking about but they’ll fulfill his big vision anyway. He’s the boss, and that’s just the way things work. You hope he doesn’t call on you, because a) you’re thinking about something else, b) even if you were you don’t know what to do and c) you’re not in the mood to match his nearly deranged energy on a Monday morning.

Luckily enough, he looks right at Lachlan who’s sitting across from you. The man's eyes go panicked as soon as Adam says, “Lach, tell me what you’re thinking.”

Lachlan stands up and looks across the entire room, clearly trying to buy himself more time. “What if, everyone-” Another collective groan, everyone is not looking forward to having to work under Lacklan’s idea, “does a story all under the same umbrella? A kind of anthology issue, where everyone brings a story of someone or themselves who’s come back from the blip, all kinds of different people, and all kinds of stories.”

It’s actually not a bad idea, but all the writers in the room do not like to be assigned the same story for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, Adam latches onto the idea immediately. “Lach, I love that, guys I think we’ve found our angle. Everyone comes to me in three weeks with a story just like the one that he described, and we’ll put them together in a spread that will be our next issue.” He waits for some kind of applause from the “audience” sitting in front of him, but no one is feeling particularly motivated. He doesn’t let it shake him though, with the same perky smile he says, “Meeting over guys! Get out there!”

People file out of the room, some pulling out phones to start doing research for their eventual stories. It seems that even Lachlan isn’t excited about the assignment that was his idea.

When you get to your desk for the first time that morning and turn on your computer you realize that you actually absorbed very little information from that meeting. You curse the cute neighbor guy in your head for causing you to slack on the job, and then you pause for a little too long when you realize that you just called him cute. You tap your fingers against your desk, trying to stop thinking about him for just a second enough to pull up something on your computer to look like you're working.

Just as you're about to type something into the search bar, Adam calls your name from close behind you and you spin around in your chair. “I’m on deadline for a story about the cult classic iced coffees in Soho next to the thrift store-” You say instinctively, “-or some kind of store. I’m aware.”

“And I’m sure you're well on your way to finishing it.”

You flash him a fake smile, “It’s a lot of iced coffee.”

“I was just checking in.”

“Uh-huh,” You narrow your eyes, “Well I’m good, on both pieces so-”

“Great because I have another one for you.”

You force the fake smile back on again, “Okay.”

“I’ll send you an email with the topic, and the tickets.”

“Thank you,” Before he can say anything else, you turn around and face your computer again finally able to have something to type into your computer. You hear Adam’s footsteps walk away and you shake your head, hoping that whatever it was he gave you isn’t too painful.

(it is painful)

(but you push it out of your mind because you have a lot of iced coffee to try)

The next day, you take off for that iced coffee place near the thrift store right after work (it’s actually a clothing store for some Japanese brand) and order the remaining four iced coffees you have to try. The more you taste the more you realize that you truly do hate the taste of ice coffee, and coffee in general. You can only bring yourself to drink two of the coffees so you end up bringing two of them home with the thought of putting them in the fridge until you can stomach them.

You get home, coffees in hand, and see that the hallway is clear. You haven’t seen a cute neighbor guy since yesterday, (you can’t decide if that’s good or bad), and you see that his door is both barren, closed, and locked. You unlock your own door, but before you can even think about stepping inside a bolt of pure white shoots out and runs right into the now open door across the hall. Your brain is racing as you raise your head to make eye contact once again with cute neighbor guy.

[rohad93]

Authority Online - Ch 15

“I’ve been thinking…” Celeste finally started as she picked at the remains of the food on her plate, prompting her sister to look up at her. 

It was Saturday afternoon and they were sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant having lunch. This was the first time the sisters had had a quiet moment alone together in weeks. 

Between work, their partners, and in Rose’s case, son, there hadn’t been a single quiet moment in weeks for the sisters to get together and while it took a few pulled strings they had made it happen finally.

Celeste had been rather insistent that they have lunch today and Rose had been waiting for her to finally speak up about whatever it was that was obviously weighing on her older sister’s mind. 

“Finally,” Rose threw up a hand. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me whatever it is you’ve been so twitchy about ever since we got here.”

“Am I that transparent?” she asked, setting down her fork and focussing her attention on her companion.

“I just know you.” Rose gave a shrug. “So, what is it?” she asked, leaning forward with a curious tilt of her head. 

“It’s about Jaune and I…,” she started after taking a deep breath.

“Oh no, are you breaking up?” The teacher frowned, sitting up straight in her chair and cutting off anything else the baker might have been about to say.  

“What? No.” Celeste waved a hand. “We’re not breaking up,” she assured. 

“Don’t scare me like that,” Rose huffed, slumping back in her seat. “So, what then?” 

‘If you’d let me finish…” Celeste huffed, rolling her eyes and ignoring her sister’s ‘go on then’ motion of her hand. “Jaune and I have been together over a year now and living together for six months and I think…, no, I’m sure, that I want to take our relationship further…,” she finished, twisting her fingers into the cloth napkin sitting in her lap. 

Rose narrowed her eyes, looking hard at the older woman.

“Like… anal?” she blinked, cocking her head and prompting her sister to jerk and turn red as a fire hydrant.

“NO!” She nearly yelled but her voice quickly lowered to a hush as she looked around at the crowded tables, people giving her annoyed side-eyes.  

“Not… that,” she hissed through clenched teeth and leaning forward to glare at her sister though the effect was lost to the burning red skin that stretched all the way from her neck to the roots of her hair. 

“Okay, okay, relax.” Rose chuckled, holding up her hands as if to contain Celeste’s impending explosion.   

“You live together, what’s le…” She stopped, eyes blowing wide as she stared back at Celeste who looked more nervous than before as the red faded from her face. “Oh my god!” She suddenly screeched, drawing the gaze of everyone in the restaurant and the color returned to Celeste’s face two fold.

“Rose!” She hissed.

“Are you going to ask Jaune to marry you!?” She ignored the warning call of her name and slapped her hands against her cheeks, though it did nothing to temper the manic grin plastered across her face. 

“Yes… I want to ask her... I realize it’s a big step but I’ve never been more sure about someone before.” She couldn’t help but smile to herself as she thought about the surly lawyer. She winced, broken from her thoughts by the sound of Rose squealing again.

“I’m so excited for you!” She bounced excitedly in her seat. “I love weddings.” Rose grinned.

“I haven’t even asked her yet,” Celeste smirked at her sister’s boundless enthusiasm. 

“Maybe, but come on, it’s Jaune. Anyone with eyes can see how head over heels in love with you she is.” Rose huffed, resting her arms on the table and rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of the idea that the blonde would say no to Celeste’s proposal and she could tell that her sister already knew this by the ever so slight tilt of her lips. 

“Be that as it may, nothing is set in stone yet. Speaking of though, I was hoping you would come with me this afternoon to look at a few rings?”

“Yes!” Rose was agreeing before Celeste could even properly finish the question. 

They quickly paid for their meals before Rose was practically pulling her down the street to the nearest jewelry shop she knew of.

"So, is there anything, in particular, you're looking for?" Rose asked over her shoulder as she peered into the glass cases at the bright, sparkling array of metals and gemstones.

"I'm not really sure��� other than her collection of wristwatches and the pin her father gave her, Jaune doesn't really wear much jewelry." Celeste pursed her lips and she peered into the displays. There was no shortage of options to be sure, it was a little overwhelming, to be honest. All different kinds of metals and stone in all different shapes, sizes and colors. 

"Ooh…what about this one?" Rose pressed a finger to the glass, despite the clear sign that asked that patrons not do that.

"Which one?" Celeste peered over her sister's curly head of hair. 

"That one on the far left, second row." She jabbed at the glass for emphasis, drawing the eye to a large gaudy ring with far too busy a pattern of tiny gemstones on a yellow gold band. 

She couldn't for the life of her see Jaune wearing the ring.

"Rose… it's ugly…," she finally said before moving down the row of glass and peering into each one briefly and ignoring her sister disgruntled noises.

“I like it,” she grumbled under her breath and followed the elder down the rows. Celeste just rolled her eyes at the teacher’s pouting. 

“Jaune has a very simple and elegant style.” She said as she peered at the jewelry in front of her. Rose snorted.

“She’d accept if you proposed with the tab off a coke can.” 

“She might very well accept if I asked her with it but she wouldn’t like it, and that’s what matters.” Celeste insisted as they continued to look through the store's offerings.    

“What do you think of this one?” Celeste asked, gesturing to a ring that Rose would definitely say fit the ‘simple’ aspect of Jaune’s requirements. It was a plain gold band with three, round center stones. 

“I think I’m glad I’m here to talk you out of it,” she deadpanned. Celeste made a sour face.

“I’m starting to regret asking you to come along at all,” She sniffed, glaring. 

“Oh yea…?” Rose started, but was cut off before she could finish the thought. 

“Ladies, ladies, I’m sure we can find something that will bring you both a lifetime of happiness.” a sales associate quickly stepped in to interrupt their bickering.

“She’s just so difficult sometimes,” Rose sighed loudly with a dramatic flip of her head before Celeste could open her mouth to correct the man. She glared at Rose before turning back to the man.

“We are not a couple…” She informed him. 

“You’re no fun.” Rose folded her arms and huffed under her breath. Celeste ignored her, trying her hardest not to roll her eyes. 

“My apologies, ladies. Can I help you find something?” He asked. 

“Yes, I’m looking for an engagement ring for my girlfriend. Simple and elegant.” 

“Boring” Rose coughed under her breath and Celeste inhaled deeply but didn’t turn around to look at Rose.

The man hummed and walked over to a case they hadn’t gotten to yet.

“I think these might be closer to what you’re looking for.” He gestured to the pieces inside the glass. 

There were a number of bracelets and necklaces arranged on racks, but sitting on the bottom-most shelf was a row of rings much closer to what Celeste had envisioned. 

They were all beautiful in a simple and clean way but one stuck out to her immediately. 

“Can I see this one?” She tapped lightly on the glass and he seemed to know which one she meant as he unlocked the case and pulled out the ring in question. Rose peaked over her shoulder.

“Oh!”

It was a simple white-gold band with a bright yellow, radiant cut, solitaire diamond sitting prominently atop it. 

“This piece is three-fourths a carat with a vivid yellow solitaire…” He rattled off a few other numbers about cut and clarity but Celeste wasn’t really listening anymore. She could perfectly imagine Jaune wearing this ring.

The lawyer’s favorite color was yellow after all.  

 “It’s perfect,” she mumbled, more to herself than anything, though Rose seemed to hear the quiet proclamation.

“It’s pretty,” she agreed.

Celeste flipped over the tiny tag attached and pursed her lips.

“Yikes…” Rose guffawed, also getting a look at the numbers.

“it... is a bit more than I wanted to spend..but…” she hummed, prompting Rose’s head to whip toward her.

“A bit?” she questioned. “Are we looking at the same numbers?” she asked, even as she looked at Celeste’s face and knew that she wasn’t going to be swayed from this ring. “Do you do payment plans?” She asked the smiling man behind the display.

~ ~ ~ 

Celeste hummed happily to herself as she walked into the house later that evening with her purchase tucked away safely in her bag. She’d need to find a good place to hide it for the time being. 

She’d been thinking about how and when would be a good time to ask Jaune ever since she and Rose had left the store.

Her sister had been full of grand and romantic suggestions and as much as she enjoyed those ideas, she knew Jaune and knew how easily embarrassed and flustered she was by public displays of affection, so as amusing as the idea of putting it on a billboard was, the lawyer would have a stroke. 

No, something simple and private. She didn’t fancy the idea of making a big to do out of it either, much as she enjoyed the idea of such grand gestures. 

She would have to think about it, it would take some planning to get the two of their schedules cleared at the same time, and Jaune had a tendency to work too much at home as well. Unless she was in the middle of an important case she sometimes hid the blonde’s laptop after seven in the evening and would set it back out when she got up at three. 

Speaking of…

The goldenrod Mercedes had been in the driveway and the living room lights were on but the room was empty, meaning Jaune was probably in her office. She moved quietly down the dark hall toward the door in question that was sitting ajar, letting pale light spill out into the hall. 

She peeked through the crack. The main light was turned off but the lamp on her desk was turned on, casting a dim light in the room, allowing her to see the blonde hunched over her laptop, fingers flying across the keys at a rapid pace and a frown maring her lover’s face, not that there was anything so unusual about that. Anytime Jaune was working on her computer on having a business call she was usually frowning, if not outright scowling.  

One thing that was out of place was the soft music that filtered through the room from the laptop. 

Musical soundtracks. 

Jaune, much to her surprise, and everyone else's as well, was a theatre buff of incredible proportions and her near entire music collection consisted of various original musical soundtracks

She was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice Celeste slip in through the door or slink quietly around the room till she was standing behind the hunched over form of the blonde. She leaned down till her lips were just beside Jaune’s ear.

“Busy?” she breathed.

“God!” Jaune yelped, nearly coming out of the chair while Celeste burst into laughter. “Where did you come from?” she gasped, a hand pressed to her chest as she swiveled around to face the giggling baker.

“I just got back from having lunch with my sister.” She said as she leaned down to kiss the startled lawyers cheek. 

“That was a very long lunch,” Jaune hummed as she glanced at the clock and saw the time, hell, it was nearly dinner time.

“She insisted on dragging me around to shop with her for a while.” Celeste lied easily, having planned her excuses well in advance for the extra long outing. 

Jaune hummed in acknowledgment, that sounded like Rose. 

“What are you working on?” Celeste peered at the open files on the laptop but all the legal jargon just blurred together in her eyes. 

Jaune grunted as she swiveled back around to the desk.

“I’m just going over this deposition for court next friday.” She grumbled as she stated scrolling through the document again and immediately her shoulders were bunched back up around her ears.

Celeste clicked her tongue in obvious disapproval. It was Sunday and as much as Jaune would protest this could wait till tomorrow morning, that was what her office hours were for. 

Positioning herself directly behind the chair, she dug her fingers into the blondes' tensed up shoulders and kneaded the tight muscles. Jaune made a sound in her throat that made the baker smirk.

“Can this not wait until tomorrow, it’s Sunday.” she reminded, working on a particularly tough knot in the left side of the blonde’s neck. 

“I just want to give it a cursory look and make some notes about things I’ll need to look at more in depth later…” she said, but her rapid scrolling of the document had slowed.

“I know, but I know you’ve probably been sitting here for hours already…” Celeste said knowingly, digging her thumbs a little harder into the taut, corded muscle of Jaune’s shoulders, eliciting a low gutteral noise from her.

“You need a break.” She said as she slowly, but surely got those bunched up shoulders to lower back down. Her scrolling stalled as she leaned back toward the bakers expert, kneading hands, eyes sliding closed and Celeste smiled victoriously to herself.

If she’d learned anything over the last year, it was that Jaune worked entirely too hard. She’d thought herself to be a bit of a micromanager but now realized that in comparison to her girlfriend she was just fine at doling out tasks for others. 

“Feel better?” She asked after a few minutes. The wordless, throaty noise Jaune made was answer enough. “Take a break now?” 

“Alright, alright…” Jaune breathed as she leaned forward, pulling out of Celeste’s grip to stand, stretching briefly as she stepped around the chair and snatched Celeste up in her arms, making her yelp in surprise but it quickly turned into quiet laughter as she let the blonde pull her in close and set her chin on top of her head. 

“Happy now?” She asked, squeezing the baker closer for good measure. 

“Yes,” Celeste mumbled, eyes closed and tucking her face further against the lawyer’s neck, she could smell the faint scent of the citrus soap she liked to use on her skin.

They stayed there, quietly swaying to the low playing music still filtering out of the computer into the room. 

Seering affection for the woman wrapped around her filled Celeste’s chest with a burning heat that made her squeeze harder. 

Jaune huffed, the low, amused way she often did and all Celeste could suddenly think about was the ring, hidden in her bag on the kitchen counter. 

“I love you.” Jaune mumbled, moving to lay a kiss against platinum locks

“Marry me.” She suddenly blurted out and she felt Jaune go still in her arms.

“What?” She pulled back to stare down at her with wide amber eyes, like she couldn't have heard what she thought she had. 

Celeste’s mouth opened to say something, but words refused to leave her lips as she looked up at Jaune, staring back at her with a shocked look that surely mirrored her own. 

“What did you just say?” Jaune asked, still blinking down at her owlishly. 

“I… wait... wait here!” She managed to shake herself out of her stupor as she pulled herself out of Jaune’s grip and took a step back toward the door.

“Celeste...” Jaune stepped forward, brows furrowed worriedly between her eyes, but Celeste held up her hands, stopping her advance.

“Please, just… stay here,” she pleaded.

Jaune frowned but took a step back. 

Celeste dashed down the hall and into the kitchen, frantically digging though her bag till her fingers wrapped around the box she was looking for and quickly ran back to Jaune’s office.

The blonde was standing just where she had left her, looking just as confused as ever, she looked up as Celeste came back in, box clutched tightly in her hands and dark blonde brows shot up into her hair. 

Celeste stopped in front of her and took a deep breath, suddenly so much more nervous now that Jaune was looking at her with those wide amber eyes. 

“I said…,” she started, running her tongue over suddenly dry lips as she popped open the box. “Marry me” 

Jaune blinked, wide eyed and speechless at the ring glinting back at her in the low light of the office. Her eyes drew back up to Celeste as she spoke. 

“I know this is sudden… and I didn’t mean for it to happen this way… but I’ve never been as sure of something as I am of this, of us. Jaune, will you marry me?” 

~ ~ ~

Rose was standing in the kitchen cooking dinner when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled out the device to see a text from her sister.

She flicked it open and read the brief message typed in all caps before she dropped the spatula she’d been holding and screeched.

A few seconds later Greg bolted into the kitchen.

“What, what’s wrong!?” He asked, looking around frantically for the cause of his wife’s scream just before she threw herself into his arms.

“She said YES!” the teacher squealed loudly.

[icosmohunters]

chapter eight : master of puppets

chapter eight of cosmo hunters!

word count : 8.2k words

synopsis : the pirates have opted to help hope out properly in an attempt to get their hands on the puppeteer, a cyber mastermind capable of sick atrocities. after touching down on the m-colony, hope can’t help but feel uneasy, in worry that somehow this infamous criminal would hurt her. or worse, someone else.

the m-colony was perhaps one of the few human bases in the solar system that touches solid ground. though smaller than the earth, mars held a behemoth city on its surface, capable of withstanding some of the conditions normal architecture wouldn’t be able to handle. this includes the slight earthquakes and sandstorms that occur on the surface of this red rock.

out of all the planets in the solar system, hope has never had the chance to visit mars, the earth’s smaller but stranger brother, the red planet, often suspected of harnessing life, harnessing magma and active volcanoes underneath its soil, capable of supporting life if the earth were to end tomorrow.

mars was not only colonized with methods of living to support human life, but it was also taken in as extra space for agriculture, and the endless fields of dust and mahogany dirt that seemed to stretch on forever were often used as a method of sport; racing. 

even whilst entering the atmosphere now, hope could see the hoverbikes speeding past each other in a series of turns and jumps over cliffs and fields and hills, the riders wearing suitable equipment like helmets and specific suits.

“ after this is all over, remind me to book a seat to one of these things, i was never fond of formula one ”, the bounty hunter told her a.i. she had been given clearance soon upon entering the atmosphere, and now she followed a set of floating lights positioned as guidelines towards the nearest base. “ but that, i can definitely get behind. ”

“ we can do so after we finish what we’ve come here for ”, a.j stated and hope couldn’t help but mimic his voice before rolling her eyes. nevertheless, a.j always made sense, they did have to finish what they came here for. 

according to her artificial intelligence, the puppeteer has been hiding out within the human m-colony, somewhere within a run-down version of the apartments the humans first built after they entered the planet. the structures were left to rot and many building companies gave up on bull-dozing the place. so now, it was there, a ghostly sight.

and home to a potentially conspiring force of evil, and hope had to stop them.

m-colony was covered by a massive, almost dome-like shield harnessing the oxygen required for humans to breathe. the city was perhaps as big as beijing back home, but nowhere as big as the j-colony. nothing could reach the size of that monolith of a city. 

skyscrapers, roads, billboards, and marketing spread all around her. she peered out through nebula’s window and inhaled deeply. it was all perfect, the systems were complicated but safe and not the types that could be breached. however, this might not stop a particularly nasty person from ruining it all.

and by this nasty person, she meant the puppeteer. not much was known about them as a person but they were capable of doing things that could potentially kill millions. all that they’ve done is steal money from global banks, leaving people with little to no money in accounts and sending the earth in a financial crisis a couple of years back.

upon landing at the docks, hope let out a sigh of relief. ever since she left the headquarters, she’s felt like she was being closely followed by the very company she’s been working with. so far out into space, they couldn’t exactly trace her location nor her status nor log into the camera feed of her ship, not without her permission. but she still felt odd about it, worried.

maybe it was nothing to worry about but she would constantly think back to beatrice yoh, standing on that stage with a proud smile on her face announcing the strict regulations that had implemented to avoid a mutiny or a coup. it was a haunting memory, ironically the worst thing hope has ever witnessed.

a powerful woman imposing a regime that was going to put people in their places, people who disobeyed. as someone who was breaching at least a dozen protocols, hope was beyond anxious. all for the sake of keeping these pirates somewhere safe before taking them to where they had to be.

removing her seatbelts from her, hope took the elevator down and found the pirates gathered in the lounge once more. there was a proper meeting room somewhere in the nebula but hope never used it, especially since she rarely had visitors. besides, the lounge made her feel less worried about all of this, convincing her to brush it off like it was a family gathering of some sort.

“ we felt bad for taking some of your weapons so we managed to store some new ones after a shopping spree at j-colony ”, enzo announced, loading a firearm that seemed to be a ray gun of some sort, but it looked like it was capable of so much more.

hope shook her head, “ i usually stack up on my weapons when i go back home. dad keeps huge storage of them in the garage, he’d lend me some. but i don’t know when i’ll be going home, so i appreciate it. thank you. ”

something she’s noticed within the coming days is growing used to the presence of these strangers. she grew used to quinn and enzo bickering during a game, she grew used to the rattling of pans in the kitchen from vivienne and dawn. she wasn’t so used to dom making any noises but she grew used to seeing him about.

she never thought she would get used to it, but she was getting there. it was still unfortunate to have to wait for someone to finish showering or for her to eat within a close range of people. but then again, baby steps.

“ oh, it’s not a problem ”, vivienne spoke. “ besides, you just said yourself you don’t know when that would be. but it’s good to have weapons in case another name pops up on the list. ” hope nodded, looking down. “ this puppeteer . . . are you sure you’re confident in going after him? ”.

the captain rose her head once more with a chuckle, “ well, i have no choice. voyage gives me the targets and i either accept it or pass it on. and i’ve never passed down a challenge, not a single one in my years as a bounty hunter. “ besides, this is not the kind of person we want wandering around. something needs to be done about them. ”

“ you say that and yet you’re letting us go along with you ”, dom said and hope looked over whilst adjusting her wristband. “ sure, enzo can be quite manipulative when he wants to be. but why not just let us stay here? ”.

quinn called from the other side of the room, “ scared to die out there, dominic? we’re safe in a larger group. besides, we might not even need to attack if this person is a cyber mastermind rather than, you know, a physical one. ” he looked over his shoulder and towards dawn. “ besides, the medic’s staying behind. ”

hope snapped her head towards dawn quickly, “ you sure you’re okay with guarding the ship by yourself? i mean, nebula is safe and all but you might get bored quite easily. ”

“ i-it’s fine! ”, dawn squeaked, waving her hand to dismiss the statement. “ besides, i only ever come to use when someone’s hurt. and going in a large group, you might find yourselves injured. i can somehow sense it. so i’ll stay here, preparing anything in case someone comes back hurt. ”

vivienne snorted, “ knowing everyone, i bet it’ll be enzo. ”

“ rude! ”.

after a small gathering, hope went and got changed into something appropriate for the mission and this time, she made sure to lock the door in case someone with curious eyes came in to peek at her again. slipping her jacket on, she looked into the mirror and noticed her hair. “ fuck, you’re going to bother me ”, she cursed and grabbed a hairband before taking to leave her room.

in terms of weapons and ammunition, she had plenty in her backpack, it was heavy because of that but she could persevere. besides, comfort was the last thing on her mind when she had a person to hunt down. but her preferred weapon of choice remained with the band resting on her shoulder, the rifle she’s spent years protecting.

“ you look like you’re going to war ”, quinn commented when she came out of the ship. the items felt heavy on her body but the sooner they got to hunting, the less she would have to worry about carrying the damn thing around.

“ i might as well be ”, she said and grabbed a handful of her hair into her hands and then tied it up into a semi-neat ponytail. her hair’s never been an issue but this was a serious matter and if she missed her shot because of a brown lock of hair, she was going to lose it. 

dawn grinned brightly behind them, “ good luck, guys! and stay together, don’t split up! ”.

m-colony was fuller today than most days, people spreading into the streets with excited beams on their faces. they didn’t seem to be aware of the armed group of people walking among them, but then again, the blinding lights may capture someone’s attention and then cause a frenzy, a daze. hope would have been lost in it herself if she hadn’t been focused on the matter at hand.

the place where the puppeteer’s lair was possibly located was some miles from the main city, the outskirts of the deserted lands that were of no use to the human civilization at that moment.

“ how are we going to get there? ”, vivienne called over her shoulder towards hope. since she was at the front, and the cacophony of noise was enough to cloud their voices slightly, she had to yell.

“ there’s a car service not far from here! all we need to do is hire one! ”, hope called back and looked around, checking her location on her wristband. the location was a good half hour drive from them, but perhaps the drive would be enough to calm her nerves. she doesn’t like going into missions tense.

the car service was definitely not far, it was cross the street. now that she thought about it, based on the positions of these billboards and the streets lined up, she recognized times square back in new york. she chuckled and shook her head for a moment, humans bring their brand everywhere. it’s quite cute.

“ alright, we can hire it for four hours. after the time limit, it shuts down and we won’t be able to get back inside it ”, quinn warned after they had gotten the car they acquired. it was a hovercar, like most, with a beige, suede interior. “ so i suggest we hurry it up. ”

“ hah, four hours is more than enough to find a man and kill him. well, knowing how insane space can be, i might just have to take that back ”, enzo put in a lighthearted tone, before shrugging and pulling the door open for vivienne and hope. “ ladies first! ”.

the car was similar to that of a jeep, except it was incased with glass windows holding the oxygen required for the drivers to breathe. a snoop around and hope found it to be in good condition to drive, so she threw the coordinates onto the gps and then adjusted her seat-belt.

dom had chosen to drive, so hope remained in the back seat and gave a quick look around them before the car started moving. she saw the billboards, the skyscrapers, and many cameras. cameras that the puppeteer could potentially be peeking through, being the sneak he was.

always observing but never courageous enough to step in and actually act. a coward in a way but an ironically brave one, considering he was capable of committing crimes with the mere click of a button on a control panel. a hivemind, smart enough to never had to step out a confined space hidden somewhere in mars.

well, hope was going to blast that confined space to pieces.

the ride out onto the quiet zone was, well, quiet. racing through martian landscapes, seeing the mountains and valleys up close. it was like a ride through the old deserts back home, but even deader. the sky wasn’t particularly blue, it was gloomy and the sandstorms in the distance were horrifying but the car persevered.

“ so, should we play a game ‘i spy’? ”.

“ i can only see s and i ”, quinn muttered under his breath. hope looked up at him with a raised brow. “ sand and an idiot. ” this time, the bounty hunter couldn’t help but chortle, the kid was too good. he could be a comedian if being a pirate ever got boring. 

“ i’ll punch some sense into you, kiddo ”, enzo warned with a glare, but it was passive. hope chuckled and looked out of the window as the car continued moving.

the ride couldn’t have lasted more than twenty minutes with how fast dom was driving. after ten minutes, they seemed to have exited the main part of the city and entered fields and large, vast structures which she assumed held cattle and livestock. perhaps even the farms needed to feed these people.

and after another five minutes, these structures soon faded and it was just sand and hills for a while. but then hope began to see something on the horizon, something tall and saw it as an apartment building of some sort. rotting and falling apart. another one followed briefly after. and then another.

checking the gps a minute later, hope’s eyes flickered to the terrain of abandoned buildings and she felt a chill run down her spine. “ well, this is it. hear that? ”, she questioned and it seemed like everyone held their breath. 

all that could be heard outside was the cries of the wind, sound traveled solemnly over a landscape of nothing but what was once a lovely place, lush of life and the humans that once lived there but now it was sleeping. dormant. not completely dead, not with a single human being there. but it most certainly looked like red limbo, something that caused hope’s breathing to tremble. despite seeming dead, it felt like something slept beneath the soil. sleeping. or very much awake. waiting. an eye peering through somewhere, looming over every stretch of the landscape in search of . . . something. a watchful beast.

quinn exhaled, “ sounds like my literal nightmare. ”

“ the quiet zone. well, now it’s quiet, didn’t use to be. once home to about a million humans, apartments and accommodation scattered everywhere. the first establishment of life on mars, and now it’s a ghost town ”, hope explained in a grave tone before reaching into her backpack. “ everyone, put your masks on. ”

“ the humans migrated, didn’t they? moved to the big city? why would he be hiding out here of all places? ”, enzo questioned mostly to himself before he seemed to figure out the answer himself. “ oh, he’s arrogant. ”

“ well, try stealing a hundred billion dollars from every global bank on earth. that’s a self-esteem boost ”, dom said before pulling his oxygen mask on. hope bit back a smile, she couldn’t help but agree. 

after putting on the masks, it was time to head out. hope remained cautious because upon entering a territory of a prying animal, you wouldn’t want to wake it up or even piss it off before you get the chance to come within single proximity of it. so she warned the pirates to keep quiet and to stick close together.

stepping on martian soil, it’s perhaps the most thrilling experience hope has felt. she’s been to titan, europa, io, even to jupiter but nothing felt quite surreal like stepping on the red planet. she paid a glance around her, seeing the absence of people, people she thought would be living happily.

but not a single one in sight. not a single one.

“ alright, in which direction are we going? ”.

hope looked towards a puzzled vivienne and then pointed northwards. the base was said to be located somewhere beneath the ground. where? she didn’t know. and she didn’t have the equipment to dig down. so she prayed that perhaps these apartments had a basement that this monster could be living in.

so they went north. crossing these structures, seeing them up close right from the very bottom, hope realized just how behemoth they were, craning her head back to peek at the very top. doors had come off their hinges, windows broken, the little playground area deserted and scattered with graffiti.

to think that normal people once lived there. biting her lip, she looked back just once. it felt weird, then again this is the first time she’s doing something like this, approaching the devil’s lair with hardly any preparation. all she knew is that she had to be the one to murder this guy. the pirates could injure him, but she needed that final bullet to be fired by her. no else but her.

“ you know, for a planet that was supposed to be earth’s sister, it does a good job in being anything but that ”, enzo commented before kicking a pebble not too far away from him. it rolled over and then paused. “ just . . . rock and dirt. is anything alive? ”.

hope looked around before she continued leading the way. “ well, first off, correct yourself. it’s earth’s brother, more like. ares, god of war, male, one of the twelve olympians, get it right ”, she corrected him. “ second off, they believe this is what an early planet earth would have looked like. magma flowing underneath the ground, sleeping mountains and volcanoes burning up all the elements of life. ice being melted by this heat, generating water, generating the incubators for life . . . except mars hasn’t changed that much. they believe it’ll be a few years until it’ll be like the earth. ”

“ i think it’s quite a shame. it’s so similar to back home ”, quinn mumbled. “ minus the sandstorms and earthquakes that could happen. it’s why some people are scattered to build on the surface and choose to do it beneath the surface. ”

hope chuckled, “ i watched the documentary. yeah, mars is great but it’s one angry planet that hasn’t settled in just yet. the black sheep of the family, if you will. then again, so was ares. ”

“ well, at least it’s not venus. ”

“ weren’t they in love? aphrodite and ares? ”.

“ i don’t want a history lesson on god sex, thank you very much. ”

after about ten minutes of pacing, hope’s gps beeped and the map on the right side of her helmet showed the red dot blaring. they’d arrived. but there was nothing. they were pretty much there but there was nothing, nothing but red dirt and painful silence.

“ well, looks like you got the wrong coordinates ”, dom voiced and turned to hope. “ are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be? we can’t dig down, we don’t have the tools for it. ”

enzo kissed his teeth, “ stop annoying her, dom and let her think. maybe this guy is using a field of some sort to blind us, invisible. like the cloaking feature, the one we had on our ship before we left it! or perhap— ”.

“ enzo, step back! ”.

the captain of the pirates let out an echoing gasp and took a major step back and the ground beneath him seemed to crumble slightly. and then for the first time, hope heard a sound. like something falling on the ground and so she advanced forward towards enzo and saw what he could have fallen into.

a ravine of some sort. except it wasn’t a natural one, it was artificially made, hope noticed the balconies and the doors and windows and the walls and noticed that some apartments had been built inside a huge ravine on the ground. and it was deep, at least a hundred feet in depth.

if enzo had dropped in, he could have died. not even the slightly weaker gravity could have cushioned his fall. hope took a straight glance down and winced before turning to the captain and patting his shoulder, “ nice reflexes. ”

enzo sighed nervously, “ y-yeah, well, i try. ”

“ so, i’m assuming this is it. a giant hole on the ground, of course, the base would be here, it’s where the red dot is. now, it’s a matter of tracing this fucker down ”, dom said and crouched down slightly just by the edge. hope anxiously moved closer to ensure nothing bad happened. she didn’t want him toppling over the edge. “ should we take a dive inside? ”.

of course, there was only one answer to his question. they had to go in. there must have been at least ten different levels of these apartments and they managed to get into the top one. it was like council estates in the united kingdom, with a balcony shielding the drop down. and below, a basketball court. desolate.

on the top floor, hope looked and saw nothing but doors and doors and broken windows and some other doors. all of them appeared to be broken down or scratched in some way. she frowned and started to walk slowly down the hall.

“ this is something of silent hill, this is creepy and i don’t want to be here ”, enzo muttered under his breath before calling out. “ uh, hope! can we hurry it up a bit? ”.

“ shut up ”, hope snapped and listened out for another sound. the only sound she heard was the pebble hit the ground, nothing else. just utter silence and it was grinding her gears with how cold it was, how desolate and lifeless it was. not even her ship was as lifeless as this . . .

but that’s when she sat it. a door at the very end of the hall. seemingly polished, not at all damaged like the surrounding ones, like the rot didn’t affect it like it wasn’t even supposed to be there. not a hint of rust in the hinges. nothing at all. an ordinary, new, polished door. 

hope hurried her steps and motioned over her shoulder for the group to follow her and they did, so when she reached the door, she set her hand on the handle. and then pushed it down. 

the door beeped.

hope flinched back in fear there was an explosive behind it but it was nothing, it was only the door which slid slowly open. the noise it created was ghastly, like a creature crying out. a creature so bizarre she can’t even compare it to anything. “ that’s definitely gonna wake someone up ”, vivienne uttered. 

“ well, then we should hurry. ”

stepping inside, it was unlike anything hope suspected. she thought it would have been at least cozy, similar to the vintage decorations back home. the way her grandmother used to arrange her furniture. a sense of home. but no, it was like she had stepped inside a spaceship. gulping, she grasped her riffle and nodded to the group after scouting around. 

they had landed in a hall of some sort, a hall going left, right, and forwards. and she didn’t like that. it suggested the idea of splitting up and she was exactly against it. but they were definitely in the puppeteer’s lair, there was no doubt about it.

“ i always say go forward. we’d be going deeper into the ground and away from the apartments in themselves. he’s dug deeper, anyone can see that ”, quinn muttered and stood beside hope for a moment. “ what do you think? ”.

hope rose her brows slightly after sighing, “ well, forwards is the only way to go. no turning back now, not when we’ve come this far. ” she nodded forward and proceeded, hearing the footsteps continue behind her. 

the halls were similar to that of the nebula, silver with lit lines dug into the walls, no lamps required to keep it lit. the floors were polished, some sort of marbles and it was making her footsteps echo, something she didn’t need at that moment. at the end of the hall, there seemed to be a sealed door. 

“ well, that was fun until it lasted ”, enzo snorted before raising his gaze up before humming. “ there’s an opening above us. and judging from these designs, there’s something for us to crawl through. like shafts. anyone want to do the honors first? ”.

hope shrugged and adjusted her backpack and riffle, “ fuck it, why not? ”. enzo reached up quickly and gave the shaft entrance a tap with the butt of his gun and it budged, it could be removed. he pressed harder and the hatch opened completely, more than enough space for her to crawl through.

“ need a hand u— ”.

“ mars has weaker gravity for a reason ”, hope uttered and then jumped, feeling her feet touch the ground. it was like she was lightweight for a second, she grabbed her hands onto the edges and then hauled herself up with the strength she had. she crouched in fear of hitting her head, but she never did. she looked about and blinked. “ uh . . . it’s another hall. ”

enzo scoffed before jumping through himself and climbing onto this new level and looking around. “ well, so much for my james bond movie moment. i always watched to climb through a shaft ”, he complained. hope snorted and rolled her eyes. “ alright, you lot, come through, it’s safe. ”

after the other three had crawled through, hope looked at the two ends of the hallway she could take and bit her lip. “ usually this should be easy, but it’s one way or the other ”, she uttered before standing properly, despite the quiver in her legs that she couldn’t hide. she was shaking, worried. 

ever since she had arrived, it felt like something was digging into her head, telling her to turn back even though she’s never been the type of person to give up halfway. no, she’s never even been the type of person to give up at all. so why was she so willing to drop her weapon right now and run back to her ship like a coward?

“ well, we could split up ”, vivienne suggested whilst crouching to adjust her shoes. “ i know, terrible strategy but we have each other on a call. we can trace each other down and send locations easily. it’ll be easier to trace him down. ”

enzo groaned but then ran a hand through his brown locks and clenched his jaw. “ right, well, not a bad idea at all. i’ve just seen too many horror movies to know how it usually goes down. but we’re capable, w-we’ll be fine ”, he decided and looked towards the captain of the nebula. “ i’ll go with y— ”.

“ no ”, hope interrupted. “ if this guy really forgot to turn his security on today, i’ll get lucky with one shot. one bullet. but if there’s anything else out here, at all, i’ll be able to protect myself from it alone. i can fight, but only alone. you guys work better as a team. if you find him, you can fight together. we have equal chances like this. it’s just better that i remain alone. ”

enzo opened his mouth to say something but seemingly closed it and glared down. he cursed under his breath and moved away. dom stepped up, looking at her with a puzzling look. “ you sure you’re okay going alone? ”, he questioned. 

“ yeah, of course ”.

it took some convincing. in fact, it took a lot of convincing. enzo was hesitant on letting her go by herself but there wasn’t really an element of choice available considering the circumstances they were in. for all she knew, this place was a maze and her memory was better when alone. her senses were better when alone. her fighting was better when alone.

she needed to this alone. so whilst she went forward, they moved back. and even if they went opposite ways, they could potentially end up on opposite sides of the quiet zone. and she wasn’t going to risk it too much, so she paid attention. she gripped the rifle in her hand, ready to use it when the time came.

the door slid open when it sensed her. it really felt like a spaceship, or like she was walking through a voyage base buried deep underground. the end of her rifle rose immediately as she carefully aimed and tiptoed in, and found herself in a wide opening. it was dark, but then a sound beeped and the lights snapped on. just like that. 

hope held her breath.

this was horrifying, but it felt like she was in a storage room. no, a lab. no, a huge hall of some sort with tubes scattered all around, displays of . . . robots. it felt like she had walked into a hall of fame, in which display housing a robot. robots whose models she’s never seen before. it felt like walking through a museum. alone. at night.

but there was a sense of familiarity in these robots. she’s seen something similar to them before, a long time ago, perhaps when she was a kid. or older than that. she looked around, but her guard never dropped. who knew if these things were sentient, aware of her and ordered to get rid of her.

when she thought about it, looking at the models of these robots, built to resemble humans, covered by traces of glowing blue lights over a black, armored body of some sort, she felt like she’d seen them somewhere at least before. perhaps during a meeting with voyage or a picture her father had shown her. 

hope gulped, aiming at them and seeing that there was no other exit nor entrance other than the very one she’d walked through. the door remained wide open and she could very much retreat but something told her to wait. with furrowed brows, she began to look around.

there were military crates stacked around, some laying down on their sides which someone used as a desk, based on the papers scattered and the lamp shining over them. who even uses paper anymore? hope, being a curious soul, picked one piece of paper and saw what appeared to be rough sketches of robotic models drawn. similar to the very ones around. they were all the same, though, and the one on the paper looked a lot more . . . intimidating.

whatever the puppeteer did on a regular basis, she wasn’t aware of. but she most definitely knew that he was fond of making weapons of mass destruction. why else would he make so man—

hope’s heart dropped. she gasped and dropped the piece of paper and bolted for the door but it closed firmly before she even got the chance to reach it. she let out a yelp and started to bang her curled fist into the metal in hopes that it would echo, in hopes that someone, any of the pirates, would hear it.

“ g-guys, guys! come back, guys! don’t go down there, please! come back! ”.

“ well, what do we have here? ”.

hope didn’t turn around at first. every muscle in her body seemed to freeze into ice, stone, whatever. she froze completely, paralyzed with fear. fear. she wasn’t accustomed to being scared, nothing in the universe could make her scared. perhaps death scared her. an early death, to be more specific but she still felt fearful. very fearful.

“ hope, the bounty hunter. top twenty on the list. i mean, you’re on the eleventh place! one more kill and boom, you might end up in the top five ”, the voice continued. hope gulped, feeling her previously frozen muscles begin to tremble. “ oh, don’t avoid my eyes, hope! look at me, let’s see that pretty face. ”

what could she do? if she wasn’t careful, this guy could potentially disintegrate her. fry her. freeze her and then pushed her frozen body to the ground. so she turned, reluctantly but she still turned. her bottom lip quivered and her breathing became erratic. but she still dared to look.

the puppeteer’s face appeared on the screen in front of her, a huge screen tucked into the other side of this enormous room. his face, far from ugly, was ironically terrifying. because he was a beautiful man with dark hair and oval, pale, clear face. lips pouty and jawline sharp. but his eyes . . . oh, his eyes.

they weren’t human, hope wanted to say. they looked far too unreal, far too artificial; two glowing, purples eyes looking right back at her. purple, of all colors, her favorite. it was like staring into an android of some sort, the ones used in modeling. he didn’t look real. but then his lips rose into a sickening grin that left her stomach aching, the food daring to come out.

“ beautiful. at least you’ve got that going for you, good looks. good looks, a decent wit, you also pack quite the punch ”, he uttered softly before paused and smirking. “ but you’re rotten on the inside, aren’t you? oh, i’ve heard all about it. the ice princess, the ice queen, lonely assassin. rubbish names, but i like the one i picked for you. wanna hear it? ”. he laughed suddenly, rather maniacally. “ hopeless. ”

she felt like she was going to faint but she battled to remain awake or at least aware of her surroundings, of the things around her. of her intention and why she was here. wherever this guy was, he most likely wasn’t near her. unless if he was behind the screen . . . literally behind the screen. 

but she didn’t dare to aim and shoot to try, especially as he regained his composure and his expression fell stone-cold once again. “ and now you’re here. all alone. right into my trap. i heard what you said, i’m insulted, actually. i’m quite capable of getting to you myself. but where is the fun in that . . . when i can do, this? ”.

at this, hope felt the ground shake. and the floor not too far away from her, with a circular frame attached to it, began to slide open. and from the ground, a figure seemed to have emerged. ascending. hope held her breath when she saw it was one of the robots. almost identical to the ones on the displays.

except it didn’t feel like it was just a dummy. the helmet it wore seemed to show an led light, lighting up within the shape of a puppet. a normal puppet, a circus puppet. a puppet you would see in the movies. but it was horrifying, the cheeks were large and the smile was crooked and the eyes were wide and staring right into her soul.

it was like something out of her biggest nightmare.

“ oh, this is so exciting! ”, the puppeteer cried and clapped his hands happily. “ marvelous, isn’t it? say hello to the juggernaut. handsome fellow, ain’t he? made him myself. he’s quite fond of games. especially one that includes, let’s say . . . a boomerang. ”

gulping, hope watched as the robot rose its metal arm, letting out small wiring noises as an object came into view. a circular object with inside cut open, it looked like a full boomerang. or like a flying disk of death, especially at the spikes suddenly poked out.

the puppeteer squealed, “ i love it when he does that, he looks like a superhero! eek, i can’t wait to watch this. hope versus the juggernaut. ” he clapped and whistled. “ let the match begin! ”.

hope’s eyes scanned the area and soon she grabbed her rifle as soon as she boomerang was thrown, lunging forward and ducking for cover behind a crater. thank god there was a fuck load of them around the hall. she ducked and saw the bladed boomerang dig into the door it had been thrown towards. seeing how much it had dug into the metal, her stomach dropped.

no, no, she couldn’t die here!

harnessing the courage, hope rose and slammed the rifle over the crate, looming over until she saw the juggernaut. it extended his hand out and the boomerang reeled back, ending up safely in his hand once again. oh, great, magnetism!

rolling her eyes, hope fired one bullet and it managed to see right through the range of the bullet and cut it. cut the bullet in half. “ oh come on! ”, the girl cried and threw her rifle over her shoulder before bolting to the sides, remaining behind the crates at all times.

the impact of lasers being fired in her direction hit the wall in front of her, so she tried to keep her head down unless if she wanted to get it cleaned from her head completely. she peeked once again and the juggernaut aimed its metal arm towards her and throw the boomerang. when it was thrown, before she could duck, she spotted something. something interesting about the object.

and then ducked before she could get her head chopped off. she rolled on her stomach after coming to a clearing and fired another kind of bullet, a stun bullet. and he wasn’t able to cut through it this time, especially with the boomerang gone. “ take that, motherfucker! ”, she yelled when the bullet met its leg. and then it beeped. and then it blew up.

oh, nevermind, that wasn’t a stun bullet, that was a mini grenade.

the leg had been completely blown off and yet the robot managed to remain firmly on its feet, and then it looked at her as if to growl or frown and drew the boomerang back. the juggernaut suddenly lunged and hope threw herself back when it jumped and smashed its fists into the ground.

like some sort of hulk-like move, the ground shook beneath her feet. hope cried out when the grip from the rifle was lost, it ended up flying out of her grip and over to the side of the room, which she wouldn’t be able to reach without getting a limb cut cleanly off. 

“ alright . . . let’s try it another way ”, hope growled and picked herself up from the ground, watching the robot approach slowly. it was heavy, heavy because of its armor so taking a step would take long enough for hope to jump away. and jump, she did. 

on top of a crater and onto another, leaping on top of one and then another, hearing the beams just barely missing her head. grunting, she fought her way across the room and then lunged up and forwards, and a beam just right past a strand of her brown hair, burning it off. 

but she managed to jump back to where her weapon was, leaping, gripping the rifle and rolling back over her shoulder until the soles of her feet met the ground again and her arms rose to aim. and then she fired another bullet. another mini grenade, rather.

it hit one of its arms but it only managed to burn the hand off, not the complete arm. hope growled and rose her rifle once again whilst rushing to take cover, but then the juggernaut threw the boomerang once more and it didn’t hit hope, but it pretty much chopped the top end of her rifle clean.

she gasped, ducking when the boomerang withdrew and a laser struck on the ground just beside her. throwing herself behind another crater, she looked at her rifle, well, what remained of it, and she swore she teared up at that moment. gnarring deeply, hope threw the rifle to the side. 

“ you’re gonna have to pay for that, dipshit ”.

she was going to have to do this properly. and in a potentially suicidal way but it was the only way out of this duel.

“ you know what i love about robots? ”, she dared to ask, and it seemed like even the robot had paused, staring at her. “ that anything they drop, anything at all, ends up being a weapon! ”.

in her grip now was the very leg the robot had lost, which she threw towards the boomerang and instead of reacting, it seemed like he let it happen. when it dropped, they both lunged at the same time for it, but hope had enough power in her to sweep her aching legs beneath the robot’s feet, tripping him up. she cried in pain, forgetting he was made of metal.

but she rolled forward and caught the boomerang. the handle was firm and free of spikes, which was a relief. hope let out a sigh and picked herself up, but grunted when it seemed like the weapon sprung up with a life of its own. and that’s when she realized the juggernaut was reeling back once more and if she got close, it could potentially be the death of her. 

so she caught hold of something and brought herself closer to it, knowing that if she weakened her grip she would end up chopped in half. grunting, she saw the robot pull harder for its boomerang, but at this point, hope’s genius struck again.

“ you want it? ”, she questioned through a strained voice. she smirked painfully before laughing. “ alright, here you go! ”.

she did let go, but not before pulling it and then letting it escape from her fingers. the impact, of course, was like a catapult effect. the harder you pull, the harder and higher it goes. and when the boomerang came back, it struck the robot instead of ending in its grip again.

he cut his own arm off. and without both hands, the boomerang was no use. smirking properly now, hope rose a cocky brow. “ so, should we end this? ”, she questioned, bowing her head in respect before sweeping under his feet and grabbing the boomerang, take advantage of his slowness.

gripping the handle, hope breathed and rose it, before cutting it into the robot’s waist. she cringed at the way the weapon shook at the impact and the gross sound it made, of metal against metal. but she pushed harder until she left a great cut on its back.

kicking it forward, hope watched it stumble and then kicked herself off the ground once again before throwing the boomerang. it cut into the robot’s hip, and then came back to her. she inhaled deeply, avoiding the spikes before going in for the final blow. 

grunting, hope sent the boomerang hunting for the robot’s head. and before it could fall, soon after it was sliced cleanly off, the bounty hunter turned and roundhouse kicked the head across the room. she didn’t care what the head hit. but she liked the sound the impact made.

it was dead, unmoving. staring at its fallen body, the bounty hunter then blinked back into reality. panting for a moment and hunching over to press her hand over her chest, it felt like her heart would give up on her.

“ i-i think i win that one. ”

looking up, hope saw the doors slide open and bolted. she didn’t think to look back at the puppeteer if he had come online once again. she ran for the door and down the hall she had come through and to the other end and when those doors slid open, she let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her shaking hand.

smaller androids, so many of them, with bodies mangled over the ground, bits, and pieces all over, ripped cords and wires spilling onto the marble floor. even if it was nowhere human, hope still felt sick to her stomach.

the pirates were fighting, they looked as if they’d been fighting for hours. she saw enzo stab the blade of his rifle into the chest of an android, she saw vivienne lead some of them into incinerators where they cried out as they burned. she saw dom shooting one of the ground before smashing his boot onto its head. 

“ hope, watch out! ”.

the bounty hunter yelped and snapped back into her senses, throwing the weapon she still held in hand and watching it sweep through four of five androids at the same time. reducing them to scrapes and fillings. the girl exhaled uneasily and then ran to the others when danger seemed to reduce. 

“ what the hell happened?! ”, she cried and then spotted quinn wincing in the corner and gripping his waist. the girl’s eyes widened, throwing herself forward and rushed to the boy before grabbing a hold of him. “ f-fuck, you’re hurt. h-hey, look at me! t-that’s right, keep looking at me! ”.

quinn squinted at the girl and winced. hope frowned and looked at the others quickly whilst trying to keep quinn on his feet. “ he needs immediate help, we need to get out! ”, dom declared, shouting over the mayhem. 

“ but the puppeteer, we haven’t gotten him! ”.

“ quinn’s bleeding out! ”.

enzo seemed willing to keep going, dom was against it, vivienne just ran over to hope and quinn to attempt to help. “ it’s up to hope ”, the young woman said. oh, hope hated that. she hated calling the shots.

she was close to getting to the puppeteer. if they persevered, they would be able to find him in no time. but this place was a maze. they would get lost and quinn would bleed out by the time they got out of here. she was so close to killing the man she had come here for and yet . . .

was she really going to let a kid die for the price of bounty points?

firing a painful look at that boy, hope grimaced and then nodded. “ we’re leaving! get back to the car immediately. hang in there, quinn ”, she told the boy and with vivienne’s aid, she pulled him towards the door and towards the hatchet, the gravity would cushion his descent so not a lot of damage would be done. they needed to hurry back. 

enzo and dom stayed behind briefly to get rid of any more androids that just kept coming like an army of ants. insects seeping through openings and prying their hungry hands towards the humans they’d been ordered to kill.

by the time they were on the surface, quinn could barely stand. so hope did the thing she did best, being strong. she grunted and put the boy on her back, and as painful as it was with some of her own injuries, she fought through. because she wasn’t the one dying, it was him.

the car door opened and hope slid quinn through, sitting him down. “ w-we need to get him to dawn immediately, he needs to get patched u— enzo, dominic, hurry the fuck up! ”, hope screamed, seeing the two bolting towards them. she went inside the car herself and watched vivienne attempt to calm quinn down, he looked fit to throw up. and hope couldn’t blame him.

by the time the car was moving, hope’s breathing was erratic. but she had to stay calm, especially for quinn. the boy was grunting and wincing, hope saw the tears spilling down his now pallid face. he was losing too much blood. “ stay with us, kiddo ”, hope prayed, grabbing his bloodied hand and ignoring the disgusting smell and sensation of the red substance. breathing deeply. in and out. trying not to think of it.

because quinn needed support right now. and all of her past grudges towards the pirates were not relevant at this point. quinn had gotten injured because of her mission because he had come along. and the others could have been hurt as well. what happened? how did the boy get struck?

looking at his injury, through her lightheadedness, hope could see it was a stab wound. so he was stabbed. and it was a deep stab. and she just prayed to god that he hadn’t struck a vital organ.

as the car rushed, hope furrowed her brows into a grimace and squeezed her eyes closed, praying, wishing, hoping. demanding safety, demanding peace. and that this boy would keep breathing and living as soon as he heals.

“ p-please god, i’m praying just this once. please, please keep this boy safe. ”

[paullicino]

The Tower

The first time I saw the tower was from the highway. I don’t judge distances so well, but it must’ve been less than a mile away.

We were speeding off to some hellish department store or other, the sort that stock everything without any of it being any good, because Catherine wanted to bring popcorn to the party we were crashing.

The highway offers views of very little between concrete overpasses and pro-life billboards, because it cuts into the hills like an asphalt ravine. There isn’t exactly scenery along that route, either. It’s all condos or woodland still petrified by the winter.

The party was bad. Catherine and I dug ourselves into one corner of an apartment that we could tell hadn’t been properly cleaned for over a year and I sneezed over and over. It was the sort of place where you find the table has just been cleared, but there’s layers of dust or grime under the furniture, behind the television or around the toilet. Catherine really wanted to go because she had a serious crush on the woman who lived there, or did until she ran her finger across a shelf and showed me what it had collected.

The second time I saw the tower, I asked about it. We weren’t taking the same route, but we were headed about the same way, off to collect some secondhand furniture I’d offered to help load. Catherine said it was an old lookout tower, something for visitors to scale, but I couldn’t imagine what it would look over. It barely topped the trees around it and would only offer views of somnambulant suburbia. It was only as we were driving back the other way that I realised we’d probably been along a few of these roads many times over. I asked why we’d not seen it more but Catherine shrugged and said that her eyes were always on the road anyway. I tried looking past her during what I thought was the right part of the journey, but a thick fog was settling and the most I got to see was an ad telling me how large a foetus was after six weeks.

I wasn’t from around there, but being on the road is good for someone who writes travelogues. “Find curious nuggets of local history while you’re out there,” my agent had said. His voice crackled on the phone like he was broadcasting through an old time radio.

I asked Dani about it. She’s lived in that town all her life and knowing everything about the area is a point of pride for her. She said it might well have been part of the old state park or fairground or something. She said the place had been a huge deal when she was young, that Goldwater had visited it at some point, but that it closed sometime in the early eighties. A bunch of similar things had opened out of town and they were all bigger and better. Then, a gang of kids had broken in and burned the whole place down a few years later, leaving only the tower standing.

I said that the tower didn’t look fire damaged to me, but I suppose it must have been lucky. Dani mentioned that there’d been one of those classic, entirely wooden roller coasters close by and that there’s absolutely no trace of it now.

I couldn’t imagine anything catching light in that place. I’d watched winter crawl on like an alabaster purgatory, to eventually be replaced by an eternally dribbling, gurgling thaw. The overwhelming sense that you get from this place is of dampness.

--

It was Tom who confirmed for me where the tower stood, on a slight rise on the edge of where the interstate meets the new route into town. It’s dead land nowhere near anything any more, unless you count a water treatment facility as interesting. It would also explain why it’s only visible from certain approaches, thanks to several dips in the highway and the height of the shivering trees.

I loved the roof of the thing. It was the kind of mottled green that copper turns when you drench it in time. When we were finally passing by once more, I tried to point this out, but Catherine was keeping her eyes simultaneously on a tailgater and a truck that wouldn’t stay in its lane. I took a picture, knowing I only had about a fortnight left in town, but it came out blurry and streaked, all greys merged together.

Then I got caught up in this damn public reading thing and my life become some real stupid bullshit. The faculty couldn’t work out first what time of day my reading was, even what days of the week I should be there. Then some crow-voiced man from the accounting department told me they weren’t sure if the university could pay foreigners or pay into foreign bank accounts. All of this after they booked me as one of the festival headliners.

The literary festival was also where I met Gary. I have a particular prejudice against anyone called Gary, on account of their being called Gary, and this man further justified that. He began the final day’s party (which he constantly referred to as a soiree) with a homophobic opener, then started disparaging travel writers, before arguing with a bunch of us on very petty points of style. He was desperate for me to write a blurb or a quotation for his next book and he would not leave me alone.

He was also local, and when he spoke on how deindustrialisation had radically altered the town, I thought to use all the energy he was hurling at me to find out something about the tower.

He erupted, babbling about some gothic or neo-gothic thing, something probably built before the First World War, and how terrific it was, before I could properly explain what I’d seen and where. He told me I was referring to the old water tower and then insisted that there was a Victorian folly on the spot that I described. Yes, it was a wonderful civic curio, he said, maybe his favourite, but it was dilapidated and all but cut off from any kind of public access now.

I wasn’t convinced and this produced more offence than I expected. He began a flustered effort to find photos to show me, but it was fruitless. At the same time, I tried to find anything that would show what I was talking about, but made no progress either, even when I was able to get some old photos of the state park. His persistence combined with my rapidly-waning patience spoiled what was supposed to be an enjoyable end to the festival and by the close of the evening I was convinced that Gary and I truly hated each other. Still, as the taxis lined up outside, I saw him framed in the faculty doorway, saluting me with a highball in one hand.

“I’ll call you for that blurb, yeah?”

--

I was working in a neighbourhood café when I saw it again. It was my last day in town and the first clear day in a month, the kind of day where you can see for miles.  I’d looked up from my proofs and there it was, as tiny and meek and distinct as a baby’s toenail. Its green top crested the trees and its off-white body, narrow and cylindrical, made it a faux fairytale thing teleported from a foreign, fantasy land.

I worked for a while longer before taking a walk. I went a few blocks in the direction of the tower, but the incline of the street and a few hulking warehouse conversions meant I lost all sight of it very quickly. I tried a couple of parallel streets, but they didn’t offer quite the right perspective. Then, Gary called.

“I read your essay on Anchorage,” he said. “It’s great, except I’m not sure your gold rush dates are right. Actually, a gold rush might not be the right description of it.”

He sounded as didactic as his critiques of Woolfe. “I’m looking at the tower right now,” I lied. “It’s green and white.”

“I’m not sure what that is,” he said. “Maybe it’s the top of the false facade on that Mexican restaurant? I wanted to talk about that blurb.”

“It’s definitely by the water treatment plant.”

“The tower is stone, square and grey,” Gary said. “It wasn’t part of the fair. They incorporated it into the grounds as they built around it, later. Did you know that a bunch of kids tried to burn it down? Why would you try to burn down a stone tower?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. It was cold, the sky had clouded and drizzle was beginning to fall.

--

“I don’t know what that is,” said Tom, when he met me for a beer later. “Gary is talking about some sort of crumbling Victorian thing, sure, which is or was part of some rich dude’s estate. But I don’t know any green tower.”

“White.”

“The state park fair thing is brown. A sort of sandy brown and half wood, half stucco. I don’t know what it is that you’ve seen, but yeah, that guy is full of crap. Did you ask Dani about it? Hey, we can drive round there now if you want, but you won’t see anything in the dark. Unless you want me to park on the highway and then have us climb the fence into the sewage place.”

“It’s okay, I’m flying out tonight.”

“I broke into a power substation once. That was fun.”

“What happened?”

“I got arrested.”

--

Catherine gave me a ride to the airport and a surprise story to go with it. She said she had been dating the untidy apartment woman “against my gut’s better judgement.” Rene, her name was, and she designed magazines. Catherine had started dating her and then she’d almost immediately stopped dating her. It beat any gossip I had.

“That woman’s insecurities are a rudder that steer her away from facing anything. I could see her piloting us both into the rocks of ruin because she was so damn scared, right off the bat.”

I said that someone else’s insecurities are a reef that tears out your keel before you even get to the obvious rocks anyway, before telling her that she should hurry up and finish her damn novel so that Gary and I could call up and pester her for blurbs. Then, Gary called again to ask for his blurb and Catherine damn near died from trying to laugh silently while keeping the car on the road.

“I’ve found your tower,” he said, in that rolling cadence that rarely gave any room for reply. “And once I get a bit closer, I’m going to send you a photo. Then will you send me a blurb?”

“Where are you?”

“I went through an old pedestrian underpass. You wouldn’t know it. So, will you?”

“I’m getting on a plane, Gary,” I said. Shortly after, I got on a plane.

I landed and crawled into a taxi and the book tour that everyone else was excited about started.

--

I slept in a motel that smelled like sour milk, missed my alarm and Catherine woke me with a call at ten the next day.

“Gary’s dead,” she said.

She told me he’d been found at the water treatment place, face-down in the middle of open ground. His phone was in one hand, half-smashed, and the first responders on the scene said it looked like he’d fallen from a great height. She said that everyone at the faculty was very sad. I sat on the end of my bed and failed to invent a good excuse to avoid the day’s signing.

I got a text from Gary a few days later, probably as someone switched his phone back on to examine it. It was a picture message that my phone said was corrupted. The officer who called to clear up some details told me not to worry about it. He asked me lots of things I didn’t know about Gary’s agent. He said there was no tower in the area, but he knew a steeple nearby that had long outlasted its church.

I’ve been driven around to readings and signings the last few days. The weather has thickened and they say it’s unseasonably cold. I’m waiting for everything to hurry up.

I saw the tower from the road again today. I’m two states south.

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[kariachi]

That feel when you suddenly pump out 1k words of college au with Manny and Mike as drama major rivals who totally aren’t in any way friends no, never.

Emanuel Armstrong and Michael Morningstar were rivals. Not in love (Manny had been surprised to learn Mike liked men at all) nor in athletics (no matter how many times he walked passed the weight room and saw him in action, Mike was always going to be blown away by how much Manny could lift) but in theatre. Nobody was quite sure how it had happened, it felt like one day everything had been fine, they hadn’t even known each other’s names, and the next was glares meeting across classrooms and stages, discussing grades more loudly than need be, and competing for roles they didn’t even necessarily both want purely in an attempt to show each other up. The going theory was that since both were Drama majors they got more than enough time to see each other in action and had each silently decided the other was the second best actor in the school, and since both had a competitive streak they each were striving to keep it that way.

Really it was pretty mild as far as rivalries went. There were no fights, no flying fists, and a surprising amount of ‘only I get to give you shit’. It was like something out of a lower key anime.

Needless to say, a good quarter the Drama department shipped it.

~~

“Morningstar?”

After a year taking all the same core classes with someone you began to get a feel for them and how they did things, especially when said kept insisting they were better than you and so had to be proven very very wrong on a regular basis. So when Manny had walked into the auditorium to no initial sign of the little blond stain on his life he had been… curious. Not concerned, curious. Yes there was still a good fifteen minutes before their class started, but normally Mike would be there before anyone else, flirting with members of the last class and being incredibly smug about getting there before Manny despite knowing it was only because Manny had an elective beforehand. The only times he wasn’t early were when he was having some health concern.

Either way, it was not a relief to find him strewn across the seats in the back, staring pensively at the ceiling and passing a small ball of energy between his hands.

“Armstrong.” Manny’s eyes narrowed. There was no smirk, no smug. Mike was upset. Mike was never upset. Okay, Mike had been truly upset a few times, mostly because bigots, but that was loud upset. This was quiet upset and it wasn’t right.

“Did someone die, what’s wrong?” If anything Mike’s expression fell further and Manny immediately knew he’d hit the axe on the head. “I’m sorry-”

“Don’t. It was my mother and…” Mike sighed. “Let’s just say she wasn’t happy what she had.” As if to ensure the point came across, he stopped with the energy ball and waved a now-free hand, teeth flashing. “Just, not sure how I feel about things.”

“That, makes sense I guess?” Fuck. Manny wasn’t good with feelings and helping people deal with them. Fuck there were times anymore he struggled to have them. Still, he took a seat and patted Mike’s calf. “Is there anything I can do?” That was what you were supposed to say at moments like this, right? Even if the person maybe-mourning was your mortal enemy? Mike was quiet.

“…a pizza would be nice.” With a snort Manny pitched forward, breaking into laughter, and when he managed to look up again a small smile had crept onto Mike’s face.

“Dude, do you have a life outside your next meal?” Mike clapped a loose fist to his chest, not even bothering with anything more than blatantly fake affront.

“It’s not my fault I have the metabolism of a nursing shrew! Besides, family drama is hungry work.”

“Uh-huh.” With a sigh the other man could probably see through, they were both good at that, he shoved himself to his feet and put out a hand. “Come on then. Apparently if we wait through class you’ll starve to death.”

“Aw.” Mike took the offered hand loosely and pulled himself up. “You care.”

“I just don’t want you haunting my ass. Anyway, if we’re getting pizza then you’re paying, Richboy.” Manny actually had to pause when Mike brightened that smallest bit.

“Oh, yes, positive, I’m richer now!” He stopped, he stared, he let Mike shove him along out of the rows, before sighing and shaking his head.

“Something is wrong with you, Morningstar.”

“Did you figure that out all on your own?”

~~

On Valentines Day in their first year Manny had ended up going on a twenty-three minute rant about how ubiquitous flowers were to the holiday, and how big a deal everyone made over the scent of them, and the odd looks they gave him when he didn’t sniff offered flowers or didn’t react ‘right’ to them. It had shocked the rest of the class into silence and force their instructor to have his group start the scene they’d been performing over from the top.

Mike, being the observant sort, could see another such rant building this year and had every intent of heading it off at the pass.

“Armstrong!” He felt a trill of pride in his chest when Manny jumped, just managing to catch his falling fork before it hit concrete. A familiar glower was leveled at him.

“Morningstar. What do you need.” The glower was immediately moved to the package in Mike’s hand when he waved it, and Manny carefully moved his lunch out of the way so it could be dropped unceremoniously in front of him.

“Happy Valentines.” A flash of confusion spread over Manny’s face, followed by suspicion.

“Thanks?” Carefully, like there might have been a bomb in there and really, Armstrong, which one of them was the drama queen, he tore away the paper, pausing just long enough to glare at the glitter left behind on his fingers, before the confused look came back. Nose crinkled, eyes narrowed, mouth hanging a little bit open, it was a face Mike very much enjoyed seeing on him- right up there with ‘put out because Mike was better at something’ and ‘smug at people not-Mike’. “You bought me a painting?” !?!? The audacity-!

“I painted you a painting, thank you very much! Because you whine about people expecting you to smell flowers so I thought I would be a nice person and get you some nobody could expect you to.” Manny raised a brow at him in clear disbelief. The big problem with dealing with him was that he was slowly working his way up to Cooper and Elena’s level on the ‘can see through Mike’s bullshit’ scale. After a good twenty seconds, just long enough to make it abundantly clear that he was not falling for it, he turned back to the painting, running a thumb over the frame’s glass like he’d be able to feel each 2d petal.

“Thanks. Why ever you did it, that’s really nice of you.” …okay, maybe that little smile was nice too.

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t, ever.” The toothy smirk that spread across Manny’s face at that though? Most unattractive thing ever.

“So, what I’m hearing is, I should rent a billboard-”

[fangirlingnextgen]

Wronged Schreave

Fitz

"Hemophilia. A genetic disorder where the person is missing a protein needed to clot blood and so they can have excessive bleeding or hemorrhage," I mumble to myself once again. The stacks of books are spread around my desk, I even left my door half open, afraid to drop a book, and too excited to start one right away. As a result however, I hear the sounds coming from the hall. It's been quiet for hours actually, a lot of guys are in the Man's room and both of the Beauchamp Ladies are apparently not around to grace us with their presence. But it's not screaming I hear in between my soft muttering, it's a small sniffle. Once something catches my curious mind, I can't let it go. Instinctively, I make my way to the sound, turning my chair away from Theoretical Cardiology Volume 1, standing up, taking exactly 5 steps to the door, turning my head around said door to spot whoever made the sound. My next semi-patient is not yet in sight, but sniffle could suspect a cold, maybe a flu? It takes just a brief turn of my head to spot her. Princess Galice Schreave. 

Daughter of-- The whole spread of information seems to hit play immediately, yet I make it stop as soon as I see the expression on her face. Red eyes, colour in her cheeks, perhaps some red spots on her neck, a runny nose. Not good. "Princess, are you okay?" She looks up at me a little surprised. She's smaller than I am, I've noticed before, the first time we talked, and the times I greeted her in the hallways after that, or when I secretly tried to find hints during dinners that might suggest she's still suffering from the stress. But the way she wipes her eyes, which are slightly watery, as she tries to put up a smile, is the biggest hint one can get. "Oh ... Hi there..." she says. I form a frown (a combination of the Frontalis, Corrugator Supercilii and the Procerus), taking in her features. “Hey there…” I respond as I look into her eyes that still show to be glassy enough for a tear to form any moment, “I see you're not okay... what happened?” I tilt my head and try an encouraging smile, hoping that will convince her to tell me what’s bothering her. I feel responsible for my patients, I guess. A smile forms on her lips, but it’s a sad one, which will probably be followed by an excuse on how she’s fine, something people tend to do. She takes steps that are too small to be called steps, while I count her breaths, noticing it seems like a breath is stuck in the back of her throat. Symptoms. “Nothing, it's fine... Sorry I interrupted you,” she lies. She lies, I know. “No...You shifted on your feet, you blinked less, your breathing changed... I'm sorry but you're lying,” I counter, it taking two seconds before I realise how rude I am being. I avoid my gaze. I barely know this girl, this Princess. Stop being a smartass, Fitz. She looks down, perhaps matching my embarrassment, which is understandable in this situation. Yet, I still wonder what’s wrong with her. I need to know, somehow. She rubs her arm awkwardly, around the height of the upper arm, above her cast. The humerus, says my database of anatomical knowledge. “I…” she lets out, before shaking her head, “It's fine.” “It's clearly not, but I get if you don't want to tell me I guess…” I can’t force her, even if I feel the urge to help. She’s not fine, and even if she smiled at me politely in the halls ever since I bumped into her, I wonder for the reason behind the dread on her face I think to notice.   “Sorry…” she apologises, still not meeting my gaze, even if I lifted it back up to her face now. “Don't apologise…” I say with a smile. I should cheer her up. I don’t know why, it’s utterly ridiculous to try and do so, but I should. “You uh… Maybe you want to show me the best places around here you photographed?” I am not particularly interested in photography. Maybe an X-ray, but I’m not artistic at all. However, the Princess finally looks up again, a small light twinkling in her eyes. Hopeful, perhaps. “You want a palace tour?” she asks. I smile in victory. I tend to love to hold on to my victories. I blame growing up with my brother. Live is a continuum of winning arguments and fights, I’m not kidding. Good thing I am mostly smarter than him, and less reckless, and less determined to try every stupid thing that could get me in trouble.    “Yes!” I reply enthusiastic, “The gardens, the palace, the whole thing! Who better to ask than at someone who likes to capture its beauty?” Her lips form a genuine smile at my words. I suppose I complimented her, perhaps hoping again to cheer her up. I’m getting invested in this patient-thing, it seems. “Fair enough.” She wipes her eyes again, the last traces of any sorts of tears disappearing, “It'll be a long afternoon though.” I dismiss the worry with a shrug. “The books won't walk away from my desk.” She leans slightly on her left leg to look past me and into my room. I wonder how she sees it. “I see you got more…” The temperature in my cheeks seems to rise somewhat. I try to place it immediately. Embarrassment? Could be.   “Well uh... someone told me it was allowed so…” A smirk appears on my face as I dare to slightly tease her. Next, I close the door behind me. Hemophilia will have to wait, it seems. A short giggle escapes from her mouth, remembering me once again I perceive it as a pleasant sound, pushing the thought of vocal cords away this time.  “Right.” She starts walking, seeming sure where to go take me on this made up tour. I assume she expects me to follow, so I do, easily catching up since my legs must be twice the size of hers. Okay, that’s unrealistic, but you catch my meaning. She’s not tall. “There's a lot of things to see I'm not sure where to start…” she speaks, before quickly correcting herself, “Ok, not true, I've always wanted to give a tour.” I fold my hands behind my back, something I’ve noticed more than once as something that’s turning into a habit. I haven’t figured out why yet, and I certainly won’t figure out now, because instead I am chuckling at her words. “Well I'll just follow then miss,” I answer. “We need to start with the art gallery,” she says determined. I nod in agreement. “I'll need a lot of explanation on that field, I admit.” “Not a fan?” I shake my head in response. “No, just not an expert. But it's always nice to learn new things, don't you think?” She nods, “I'm not the most informed either though. Photography is more of my thing...but I love staring at art,” she explains, “That's probably what the artist made it for anyway. For someone else to see what he saw.” She tilts her head, getting caught in her own thoughts. “Or maybe to let them see something completely different. Or just to be admired…” I wait till she’s finished, admitting I’m pleased to get her mind of the things that were bothering her, whatever it may be. I need that confirmation that I can do this, that I could take care of people, even if I might not have the degree for it yet. I want to excel at this, it almost feels like I have to, like because I want this, that I have to be perfect in it. I have to know every little thing about it. Every detail.   “Maybe all the above? Maybe it can have a different meaning for everyone. For you a picture you take can mean something different than for the person who's in the picture, right?” She seems to think about my opinion for a moment, making me hope I said the right things. Yet, even if she disagrees, it shouldn’t matter, of course. “Yeah, that's what makes it so meaningful,” she starts, “And you can see a lot of different things if you pay close attention.” I turn to see her face, since I find it surprising she has interest in that as well. Maybe, just maybe, I am not a creep for analysing people so much. “It's the same with people…” I try her perspective, and put one and one together. “Is that why you like photography?” “Well... yeah? I like noticing things, capturing moments...keeping them and analysing them.” You, Princess, are not original at all. Just saying, I’m older, meaning I was the analyser first. Okay, this is a ridiculous thought. “Find out any interesting things yet?” “Depends on what you find interesting,” she says mysteriously. “Very well,” I answer with a grin I can’t help. Mystery is amusing to me. “Myself I think it's interesting to see the body language of some of the Selected concerning Raena. Whereas it's also interesting to notice the little things between people here in the Palace.” Body language meaning: it’s like a dating season. Hormones are flying around like airplanes, and most of the times neither of them notices they are into each other till it is practically written on a billboard and shoved into their faces. Someone like me, however, would probably need more clues than that, so I guess I can’t judge. “Oh!” she suddenly exclaims, placing a hand on my arm in excitement. I stare down at it, but decide to ignore it. “I have a bunch of pictures from the masquerade! They're really insightful on that matter, it's actually fun. I've been trying to use them to help Rae out.” Her smile widens as she talks about it, helping her cousin. My lips copy it. Princess Raena has been polite to me so far, and I would want her to find the right person in this. I’m afraid that person most likely won’t be me. “What insights? Did it help her?” “Tastes, personality traits, dislikes. There's a lot of things one can learn,” she answers with a grin, definitely misschievous, “It helped Raena a bit so far.” I raise an eyebrow, curiosity getting the better of me like so many times. “I'm not on them, am I?” “Hmm,” she lets out as she tries to remember, “I'm afraid you were.” I sigh, remembering how I didn’t even dance with the Princess, yet once again, was looking at people like a creep, or touching some random lady’s sprained ankle, and of course, eating a lot of food. That must be flattering. “Great…” “It was a good one though, gave you some points,” she says. “Points?” I question, raising an eyebrow as I do, “You're doing points?” I got points? For what? Tasting two desserts at the same time? “Why not?” She smirks teasingly. “I don't know,” I shrug, “It just feels weird that I'm secretly graded.” She returns a sympathetic smile, “Relax, that's not how it works.” “And how does it work then, may I ask?” “I have your names and I add personality traits accordingly. Those give you negative or positive points. If you have negative points you get to be in Collin's blacklist and he'll keep an eye on you. If you have positive points then basically I'll tell Raena what good info I have on you,” she explains. I had no idea I had been watched. Yet I wonder if I’d changed at all if I did know. “So as you see, no real grading.” “Damn... that's organised. And here I was thinking love was about feelings,” I smirk, jokingly. She hits my arm playfully, smirking as well. “Shush, this is just to narrow it down.” “Sure, sure, I'm thinking you're just turning this into your own research.” I grin, once again amused. She, however, narrows her eyes at me, sure there’s some explanation behind my words. “Meaning?” “No..just joking, I just see that you enjoy the whole observing thing.” Like I do as well. “Because it's interesting,” she says, “And people don't pay enough attention to things.” “I know, most people are focused on their own problems too much.” “Humanity tends to be like that.” “Not all of them,” I start, using the opportunity, “Some forget to take care of their own problems in an attempt to look after others," I speak, raising an eyebrow in her direction. If my previous diagnosis was in any way correct, this should get a reaction of some sort. She pauses, spares me a glance and then looks away, confirming my thoughts.  "Maybe their problems are just stupid." I can't help but smile a little at that, at her, trying once again to be encouraging.  "Someone's problems are rarely stupid." "They're stupid if they're unreasonable," she mumbles, with a clear sad undertone in her voice. I sigh slightly in response, realising this is actually how she thinks about herself. She has no reason to, from what I've seen.  "If it was all unreasonable, they wouldn't bother you like they do," I reply. "It's something I should be over by now," she says, rubbing her arm again, the one with the cast. It makes me focus on it. Somehow those two problems seem linked.  "Everyone does things at their own pace," I say, continuing to look at the cast as we walk. She is silent. I wonder if she's going to change the subject or perhaps tell the truth.  "I shouldn't be thinking so much about it." That makes me frown even more. There's something going on, I'm sure of it. I need to figure it out. I want to help.  "How did you break your arm?" I nod in said direction nonchalantly, so if I turn out to be wrong, it could still be a stupid change of the subject. She doesn't look at me.  I'm not wrong, then, sadly.  "By accident..." she lets out.  "Accident how..." "I fell," is all she answers. I shake my head. "Please, I can't help you like this."  Assuming she wants my help, that is. She shuts her eyes, as if to look away from the true reason.  "I-I fell because someone pushed me," she speaks, her voice trembling. I clench my jaw in result. Someone pushed her. Someone deliberately tried to hurt her? Who would do that? I softly place my hand on her shoulder, hoping not to startle her, turn her towards me, then put the other hand on her other shoulder, making us stop walking. I have no doubt my expression holds concern as I look at her. I may not know her well, but this is not good, to say the least.  "Why? Did someone talk with the person?" I ask. She avoids my gaze yet again, looking down at the ground.  "It's ok... It was an accident and we're good now," she answers. Thank goodness it was an accident. I take my hands of her shoulder, putting them behind my back again.  "Good... Then what isn't good yet?" "He's someone I care about... A lot. And he's hard to deal with, but I never minded...However, some people seem to think that's stupid of me because he doesn't really care about me," she answers, somehow trusting me with all of this as she starts to tear up, "And I thought they were wrong, he cares, he's just not the best at showing it and is dealing with some things, b-but then this happened and I don't know what to think." She wipes away a few escaping tears while I stand frozen, unsure what to do. "And I know I should be over it and he apologised and I believe him, but maybe I'm wrong and everyone else is right about me a-and..." Tears are no longer held back, she's crying now, and I feel useless. I can't fix this, what was I thinking? "I-It's stupid, I don't know why I'm telling you this, I'm sorry," she says eventually. I look away, noticing my own discomfort with this situation. I should comfort her somehow but I don't know how. A hug seems inappropriate.  "No, it's good... it's uh..." I shake my head, "I don't believe you're wrong. Look, I'm not an expert and I don't know you that well or your friend, but I know people with mental health issues can have trouble with showing empathy, even if they don't mean to. So actually I don't think you're wrong at all... I think you're right." She turns back to me, wiping her tears away.  “You think so?” “Well it's basically facts that when the brain--...I mean, yes, I think so,” I let out. Crap, stop sounding like a smartass! This is not at all the time to make myself look smart, how would this help her? I scratch the back of my neck, yet again looking away from her eyes that still seem somewhat glassy.  Empathy, Fitz, it’s called empathy and you should show it right about now. She laughs, though I have no idea why, again wiping away tears, the last ones, I hope. Her eyes are still red, which is simply caused by the vessels providing the fluid for the tears so they dilate and-... My mind feels like it’s in a panic mode. Stop the thinking! “What were you going to say about the brain?” she asks softly with a faint smile. She honestly wants to know? Why is she smiling? What did I say? Books and theories are less confusing than real life, that becomes evidently clear once again. “Well... the brain is in control of your whole body right, but then your thoughts are also controlling your brain, in a way, so our thoughts and mental health can control our bodies more than you might think. I think it can also change the things our eyes see, and what they filter out, whereas it would mean...That I'm rambling.” I smile awkwardly, as to apologise. She just told me what’s bothering her, I am supposed to find better words than ‘Medical facts with Fitz’. “Sorry.” Her head is tilted, as she actually listened to my talking. “No, no, that's interesting, please finish.”I clear my throat. “Well uh... I don't know if this is true, but I think since the brain and body are so connected, what if people with mental health problems really can't see the good happening around them? The brain can decide what the eyes do and don't see, I mean, we actually see upside down, but the brain corrects that, and our ears can ignore some sounds too, so... Uh, yeah.” I suppress the urge to rub my neck again, or avoid my gaze, shift on my feet, all of it. In wanting to help so desperately, I feel like I’m not helping at all. “I don't know if it's that they can't see it.. but maybe it’s that they unintentionally decide to ignore it. The good happening around them.. it gets placed in the background. Just like you say sometimes our ears can ignore some sounds,” she says after thinking about it, then she clears her throat, perhaps feeling slightly nervous as well, “Not to say that I'm an expert on this though…” I smile, my nerves calming down to see she’s actually thinking about this with me, and more importantly, not thinking about how she broke her arm. “Me neither, but it's still interesting to consider... for your friend as well. I hope he will be okay,” I say, laying my hand on her arm comforting. Crap, that might also be inappropriate? I should know better than to deliberately touch someone who was just hurt by a person. She looks at my hand on her arm for a second, before I take it away, putting it behind my back in its usual posture. Gladly, she ignores it. “Yeah.. hopefully he'll listen to me one day,” she answers. For a couple of second, neither of us says a thing. It wouldn’t be uncomfortable if I wasn’t still feeling stupid for how I handled helping her. “So.. art gallery?” the Princess says eventually. I nod as to agree. “Art gallery.” The art gallery is even bigger than I expected, filled with works of art I have faintly heard of, yet I’m impressed either way. Knowledge always grasps me in a way I can’t describe, and these paintings just seem to hold a type of knowledge I don’t know yet. The Princess however, does possess that knowledge, showing me around the whole gallery, telling me about each piece. Where it came from and such. I stop in front of a painting. It shows a small bridge going over water. The water is covered with lilies. Original as this Monet is, he called it Waterlilies, as I read on the plaque beside it. “You have a favourite?” I ask over my shoulder.   “Hmm,” she starts, “Yes, a couple...but this one is my favourite.” She takes my arm, pulling me through a hallway I can’t remember if we passed or not. I don’t resist to follow her. She stops in front of a painting that in the corner of my eyes just seems white. But when I turn to look at it, it’s more than that. It’s a winter forest, trees with a clear bark, which seem to be growing straight towards the sky. They’re surrounded by snow, and even the sky matches it, mixing the white with blue and grey. “It's beautiful…” I let out after staring it for a couple of seconds. She admires it with a smile on her face, matching the paintings beauty. “Some people don't like it since it 'lacks color' but I say they're missing on a lot,” she says. Yes, it’s white, but it’s more than white. There’s a depth in it, the sky, the trees in the background, even the snow is not just plain white. It’s more than it seems, showing me yet again of how much I still could learn. “Everything we see white actually reflects all colours back to our eyes so…” I cough, awkwardly stopping myself from going down this road again, “I'll let you do the art talking…” She shakes her head in response, a hint of a grin showing. “Why do you always do that?” “What?” I ask in confusion. I did something? I do it always? “You know... start saying something really smart and then dropping it,” she replies. “It's not-- I don't know?” I stutter, a heat creeping up, looking away. I would want to control those blood vessels in my cheeks if I could. In the corner of my eyes, I see I’m in luck that she’s not looking at me. She’s staring at the painting still, biting her lips still, so I decide to find the painting extra interesting as well. “Well you should stop doing that. There's nothing wrong with what you're saying.” I let out a sigh, wondering how we got here on this subject. “I know that... I just don't want it to seem like I only want to talk about that, I guess…” She smiles, maybe encouraging me like I did with her before. “Is that the only thing you talk about?” “No,” I answer immediately, but then I think about it a little longer, “No, I don't think so, it's just the first things that come to mind? I mean, not in all conversations, I can have normal conversations, just not- not today apparently.” I shake my head in confusion. Where are my words? What is the reason for my blundering and stuttering? I don’t like things I don’t understand. The Princess in front of me presses her lips together, clearly trying not to giggle at my failure. “Very well, that's alright. I like your little fact moments.” “You're making fun of me!” She has even more trouble not to laugh now, so I guess me acting stupid turns out to be for a good cause. “Not true!” she replies, though it’s clearly true. “She says while she tries very hard not to laugh,” I say with a grin. “I just think it's cute is all.” She hold a grin of her own now, trying to tease me back. It would work, if it didn’t also result in that heat again. This is ridiculous, embarrassing and wrong. I decide to walk away to the next painting. “Don't call me that Princess,” I say, not looking at her as I do. “Why not?” I hear behind me. I look shortly, seeing her pout and coming to walk towards me. I clear my throat to get control of my words. Can’t risk another stutter fiasco, I’m supposed to be good with words for goodness sake. “It's inappropriate.” I frown at the painting, focussing on it instead on whatever is happening. Next to me, she raises an eyebrow and tilts her head. “Why?” “Because..Because it is,” I counter, as to put an end to it, and pause for a few seconds, “I like this painting.” It could come in my new list of favourites, which of course holds Rembrandt The Anatomy Lesson and now the winter scenery she just showed me. But this one, this is a still-life with food. Still-Life with Fruit, Nuts and Cheese, it says on the sign next to it. Well, curse you Floris van Dyck for making me hungry, yet at the same time I might want to bless this painting for being the distraction I need right now. “What do you like about it?” she asks, gladly ignoring my previous stupidity. “I might be a little hungry…” She laughs at that, the pleasant sound filling my ears again. “You want us to stop by the kitchen and eat something?” “Let's say I certainly wouldn't mind miss,” I respond. “Let's go then,” she says, before she leads the way, practically skipping. It’s such a contrast from how we started this tour, and I smile at the positive change.

After a made her a grilled cheese, which she gladly enjoyed, and after she showed me the music room, where she gave me a new definition of music itself, I asked if I could call her by her name. She agreed, thank the heavens, and now the name is on repeat in my head, pushing out any Latin name for bones and muscles. Galice, meaning fountain. Fountain? But I don’t care. I like the sound of it as I say it. And chances are I get to say it again, as we just enter the gym, where she usually does her fencing. She smiles.

“So... you know about my siblings, do you have any?” she asks. I nod.

“One annoying brother yes.” I can’t help but chuckle.

“Oh,” she laugh like a melody, “Older or younger?”

“Older, more annoying.”

“Is it?” she asks, smiling, “Interesting.”

“Interesting why?” I wonder, tilting my head.

“Because my big brother isn't that annoying,” she says, “I think I'm more annoying than he'll ever be.”

“Then he must never be annoying at all,” I answer, then continue in a mumble, “Non-annoying siblings...the miracles this world captures.”

The melody of her laughter is soft this time. “So it seems.”

She stops in front of fencing equipment and takes out a foil. In a single elegant movement, she swings it up and points it at me. “En garde!” she exclaims. I jump back instantly, my heart racing in my chest. Adrenaline. I assume.

“Whoa! I'm unarmed!” She grins, mischievous. More adrenaline seems to be pumped through my veins, as she gently pokes my chest with the foil.

“Disappointing.” A smirk appears on my lips. “There's no point in fighting a fight I won't win.” “There is if it's fun,” she responds, taking the foil back. I notice the fast beating doesn’t slow down. She makes me chuckle.

“Fine, hand me one of those things,” I say, as I hold my hand up to receive one. She hands me one, while I try to remember if I ever read anything about fencing. I’m afraid I didn’t. Galice in front of me takes the same stance in before, clearly knowing how this works. I try to copy it, shifting my feet into some kind of position.

“I feel like this will be the end of me,” I speak as I pull a face.

“But it'll be fun,” she answers, not even trying to hide her amusement. I sigh, yet with a smile, not denying to myself that I’m amused as well. “ 'The young man died while having fun', well, it might look good on my tombstone,” I joke, looking awkwardly down at the sword in my hands. “I'll give you an advantage,” she says, “Try to get a hit.” I shake my head. Just the thought of possibly hurting her? Hurting anybody for that matter?“ I'm not going to hit you Gal.” “I meant with the tip of the foil,” she counters. “Still!” She laughs again. My patient is doing well. “But that's how you play,” she says. “Sure,” I mumble, “You look cute, but actually it's all aggression huh?” I look at the foil in my hands again, trying to find out how to use it without the slightest chance of hurting her. It’s not sharp, but why risk it? “So just like...point at you?” “I'm not aggressive! It's a sport!” she claims, “It's an art!” “An aggressive kind then!” “Not true!” I lift the foil and point it at her, “Yes, it is,” I say. She dodges it so easily I almost feel embarrassed. Before I know it, she hits my side with the tip of her foil. “You don't deserve to hold a foil!” To be honest, she’s right. I have no idea what I’m doing. And that’s not just the fencing. But I play along anyway, pulling a face as if hurt. “I can't help it I'm not aggressive!” I move the foil forward again, yet softly. Gal dodges this one as well.   “Fencing traces its roots to the development of swordsmanship! It was for self-defense as much as duels! Not aggressive,” she says. “Swords. Aggressive. They don't use swords to pick flowers Gal,” I reply with a chuckle, scanning her stance as if could tell me how to do this. The only thing it tells me is that I like this dress on her, but that’s beside the point. Focus Fitz. She raises her eyebrow at me before continuing, lowering her ‘sword’ somewhat. “What if I cut my flowers with a sword?” “Then you'd look marvellous while doing so, but it's not how most people do it,” I answer, smirking. “Shush,” she replies, sticking out her tongue at me, “Also, foils are blunt. It's not a sword.” I chuckle as I point the foil at her again, almost feeling like a knight, but more like a fool. An amused fool though. “I feel more blunt myself.” She switches from her stance to another pose, light on her feet, dodging once more. Immediately after, she lunges to take another hit, but stops right before the tip can touch my chest. Just an inch away from it. From the loud beating heart it holds. “Nothing wrong with that,” she says as I am holding my breath. I stare down at it for a couple of seconds before I can let out my breath again, as she takes down the foils and stands normally again. “As long as you're not rude.” This is a lot of adrenaline for one day. “I never thought you could be scary,” I say with a nervous laugh. If I wasn’t impressed with her musical talent before, I would be impressed by this now. It’s a shame she doesn’t seem to see it herself. Gladly, she laughs. “You should see my older siblings, they're a lot better.” Of course she’d say that. “After this, I'd rather not, thank you very much,” I joke. Her eyebrows turn into a frown, as tilts her head slightly to the right. “I didn't hurt you though, right?” I chuckle. I don’t think it’s in her nature to hurt a living soul. “No Prin-Galice, no, it was just a- a surprising side of you...which seems reasonable since I don't know you that long yet.” I realise that fact as I say it, scratching the back of my head. It feels like more time has passed. And it feels like I know her well enough to find this side of her surprising. That’s weird. Unusual even. She nods, a small blush on her cheeks. “A good surprising side?” she asks, extending her hand for me to give her the foil back. I have yet to find a bad surprising side, a voice says as I give her the foil.   “That is my surprise to keep,” I tease instead, ignoring the thought. I’m just polite. Mom raised me good? She glares at me, almost as if she’s annoyed, but the corner of her lips go up slightly, giving her amusement away. “Not fair,” she says. “ 'It's an art' I think,” I joke again. She nudges me before turning around, feigning offence as she takes a few steps away from me to put the foils back in place. I fold my hands behind my back, standing up a little straighter for a reason I do not know, and feel excited for presumably the same reason. “Okay tour guide, what's next!” “Ok,” she starts, “So now you know the library, kitchen, art gallery, music room, gym…I think Gardens should be next.” I nod in agreement. She goes to stand behind me, and gently pushes me in the direction of the door so I should have no other choice than to start walking. “Come on,” she says. “I’ll follow, after you.” I gesture with my arm outstretched for her to lead the way. “What a gentleman,” she teases over her shoulder as she walks past me. I take a little bow, a grin on my face. “I’m still scared of you, that’s all.” She playfully rolls her eyes, or at least I assume it’s playful. After all, that’s why I asked for the tour, so she could get her mind of things, to help. I watch her open the door, and follow. I seem to be succeeding in the task I took upon myself for today. My lips form a smile without my knowledge.

The weather is pleasant, not to say perfect. Judging by the location of the sun, I would say it’s around four o’clock. She said it was going to be a long afternoon, and she wasn’t wrong it seems. “You’ve probably been here at least once,” she says, “But this is it.” She points at the gardens, showing what seem to be endless rows of flowers, bushes, and in the distance trees that secure their privacy, and at the moment, I suppose, our privacy. “Yes once, I had very original ideas for my first date with the Princess.” I shake my head, just at the memory. She was polite enough, and I guess she didn’t send me home right away, so I must have done something right. I have yet to find out what that something was. Galice laughs in front of me, while she starts to walk down the path, surrounded by flowers as the afternoon sunlight reflects on her hair. “The gardens aren’t that bad,” she says, “Did she like it?” I follow, looking at all the different types of flowers. “The gardens? Sure. Me? Not so sure,” I answer with an awkward chuckle. She giggles in response, slightly hiding it by covering her mouth with her hand. If there’s anything she shouldn’t hide or be insecure about… “You’re not that bad either,” she compliments. Perhaps just as polite as the Princess, yet different somehow? “Tell her that, I think she yawned,” I say, pulling a face as to express the awkwardness. In return I get a sympathic smile. “Raena wouldn’t do that.” Well, no, not openly, but she was definitely tired of something. Could I have mistaken that for boredom? She is the Princess after all, she’s probably busy enough without having to date a bunch of guys. Part of me tells me to help her, just tell her to eliminate me, surely if I have been too ignorant to only realise now she just must have been tired. I don’t think we’re compatible, but even so, I get slightly restless at the idea of leaving. “I can take that as a challenge,” I joke. “I meant because she´s too nice,” she chuckles in response. “I don’t know why she hasn’t eliminated me yet honestly…” I don’t know why the idea scares me all of a sudden. Gal pushes me playfully as we walk on slowly. “Stop being so dramatic, I can totally see why she’s keeping you,” she says. It results in a blush on my cheeks. Why? It’s just a simple compliment. But maybe it’s not simple. Or maybe I’m getting feverish. Even if this is Angeles, with high temperatures and sunny days. However, one of the boys could have given me some kind of virus. In these circumstances it wouldn’t be uncommon. That is, if a fever was one of the first symptoms, which it usually isn’t. I raise a questioning eyebrow in her direction. “You– No, I just mean that she-And I? It’s not–” Stuttering. That’s not a symptom, that’s just stupid. She seems to agree, tilting her head to the side, waiting for a normal sentence to leave my mouth. I shake my head. “Never mind.” As a distraction, I decide to walk over to the bed of flowers I noticed when we entered, away from Gal, who’s frowning. I hesitate, just to make sure I won’t look like a fool again when I open my mouth. “My mom likes these; yellow roses.” As a result, our whole family likes them. She shows up beside me, closely beside me, as she leans forward to smell the roses. Perhaps I’m not dressed for the warm weather. Or perhaps I need to watch that fever.   “Why yellow?” she asks. I scoff slightly at the memory, though she’s explained it more than once. It has became a tradition, one that depends on how much money we make that week. “She denies that it is because they’re cheaper, she says it’s because they’re overlooked against the red ones but are just as pretty.” The smile on her face is sad as she stands straight again. “Maybe it’s both,” she says. I smile at her kindness and at the scent. It smells like home. “Probably,” I reply without looking up from them. Mom said it’s not even the first flower dad gave her, but it is the one that he still gives. So when Ben found a girl he thought -at that moment- he would be serious with, it was the flower he gave her when he asked her to become his girlfriend. Later, he did the same with his first boyfriend, and one more time after that. It started a new tradition. Or more of a question, in my case. ‘So Fitz, when are you going to give someone a yellow rose?’ Instead of answering, I usually flip the next page in my book, letting that action answer for me. Galice beside me takes a flower head from one of the roses and traces the petals delicately. “They are pretty.” I stare at the flower in her hand, the movement of her elegant fingers over the soft rose. “Dad brings them home whenever he can,” I speak with a faint smile, “I hope I can get some for her when I come back home.” She smiles back at me, just slightly. “That’s really sweet of him… Feel free to take as many flowers as you wish if the time comes.” She says 'if’, not 'when the time comes’, I notice. Does she really think I could stay here? Not that I mind being here. Maybe I could get to know her better while I am. Hypothetically, of course. “Thanks...You are very sweet,” I answer, smiling. I know it’s the truth, but as I say it, and as I see how her face, or basically everything from cheeks to ears, blushes at my words, I wonder if I wasn’t too bold. Perhaps I should be more careful with my behaviour around Galice. I don’t mean to embarrass her. “Thanks, you too…” she says with the pink covering her face. It’s actually quite cute. “I mean, you’re nice and smart…not to say you aren’t sweet! You already know I think you’re cute…not that it means anything though!” The words come out in a flow, leaving her mouth too quickly before she can properly debate them in her mind, it seems. I don’t know what to make of it. She sighs deeply. “I’ll just shut up now,” she lets out in despair. It makes me chuckle at her awkwardness, even if this compliment again makes the feverish feeling occur. I should watch that. Yet at the same time, I feel obligated to watch her. Come on Fitz, she said it doesn’t mean anything. “Thanks…I think?” I look around hesitant, definitely showing ambivalent behaviour, as I decide to pick one of the roses and analyse it. I hold it up slightly, the petals catching the sunlight, making them seem more orange than yellow. It’s just a reflection of the light that gets into our eyes, making us 'see’ it as such, but still. It’s beautiful.   “I have to go…” I speak, “But I had fun, you were a good tour guide.” I smile at the rose, even if I obviously wasn’t talking to the object instead of her. The goal was to cheer her up, and for a second I wonder if giving her the rose would cheer her up even more. But that’s wrong. Even if she doesn’t know about our family tradition, it would be very inappropriate nonetheless. “Don’t worry, I had fun too…” she answers, staring at the rose with me, meaning I can’t read her expression. If I would now I would probably make it inappropriate still. Instead, I shake my head at my thoughts. Why would I even consider such an idea. I put the rose in my blazer, clearing my throat while I dare to look up at her again. “Yes, I-I’ll see you around Princess,” I say with a nod, my hands behind me as usual. “Galice,” she corrects with a sheepish smile. I simply nod. If I would comment on my mistake, I would have to think about the fact that I might have done it on purpose. Then I leave. There is important knowledge and books waiting for me in my room, after all.

Wronged Schreave- Bonus

It got worse. During dinners mostly, when for example I look at my patient to she how she's doing, and at the end of the evening there's still food left on my plate. Odd. Or sometimes in the hallways. And often enough during the times I spend in the library, finding myself looking at nothing in particular, instead of at the pages. Absurd even. I would say I feel sick, terrible, but occasionally during these two weeks, I actually would describe it as positive. It's confusing, yet I would hate for it to end. All the reason for me ask a second opinion at the hospital wing.

"I've looked up all the symptoms but I can't figure out what's wrong, nurse. I-I have occasional fevers, but not very high, I'm losing my appetite, which is very weird for me. I'm also nauseous sometimes, and distracted from my usual readings," I say, while the nurse looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I shake my head, as I can't figure out what is wrong, I don't really feel sick? "Do you think it's a virus? The beginning of just a flu? I don't want to get any others sick-" "Sweetheart," she starts with a plain voice and a little grin playing on her lips, "I've got nothing that can help you. But maybe the Princess can," she replies with a small chuckle at the end. "The-the princess?" "Mister Fitz, I am very sorry to tell you, you've got a bad case of a crush." She smiles at me, after all, I'm a Selected. This is supposed to happen.

But not for the wrong Schreave.

[mingmagazine-blog]

Backfire Effect: You're Probably Angry Because You're Wrong

Backfire Effect: You're Probably Angry Because You're Wrong

We’re chock full of cognitive biases.  We covered how we’re prone to believe things that aren’t real just because they appear real.  Knowing that fact does nothing for the mind of the person who is confronted with the fact that they believe something that isn’t true, though.  In fact, it usually backfires and causes them to double down on the nonsense they believe.  It’s called the backfire effect.

The Backfire Effect

No one wins online arguments

Doubling down in the face of contradictory evidence is known as the backfire effect or as ‘belief perseverance.’1  Remember when Luke Skywalker, with his one good hand, clung to the platform as Darth Vadar told him who his real father was?  His reaction was classic backfire effect.  He rejected the information and got pissed.  Adam Savage, of Mythbusters, made the quote, “I reject your reality and substitute my own,” famous.  Even though he’s joking when he says it, this is another example of how the backfire effect works.

People have an innate need to be right.  We need to think we understand the world.  We need to know that what we believe is true, actually is.  When new evidence comes along that shatters the illusion that we’re smart, our first reaction is usually to get angry and resist.  The more well-adjusted among us let the new information seep into our brains and slowly squeeze out the bad information we used to believe.  The rest, however, have a wildly different reaction.

Take the curious case of Harold Camping

It never happened

If you recall, he was the guy that predicted the rapture would happen on May 21, 2011.  He bought billboards, radio ads, even TV spots on Christian stations.  He was so persuasive that the bulk of his followers sold all their possessions and impoverished themselves to pay for the ad campaign.  They truly thought they were doing the lord’s work by saving as many people as possible before the big day.  May 21st came and went, so one would assume they’d all get angry and realize they got swindled.  One would assume wrong.

Quite the opposite of what we expected, his followers doubled down and asked him for a new prediction.  He died in 2013, and still no rapture.2

Scientific Heresies

Noted Physicist Max Planck – 1933

In science, when a new and revolutionary theory is proposed it’s usually met with tremendous resistance.  Noted physicist Max Planck once said,

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.3

Even in his day, the truth never made inroads until those who hated it died off.  Incredible thinkers have butted heads for generations because of this cognitive need to stick with the status quo.  What can you do when even the most intelligent people in the world, those with specific training in seeking the truth, have a hard time accepting it?

How to prevent it

The reality is, we all experience the backfire effect to some extent.  If you believe a thing, it will be very difficult to convince you, even with overwhelming evidence, that it’s not true.  Charts, graphs, books, and lectures won’t change your mind.  The only thing that will is allowing yourself to accept the truth.  You can do it over a long period of time like most do, or you can try to adopt the band-aid approach and just rip out the old information and replace it with the new stuff.  Either way, it’s going to be painful.

The factory of sadness

Ask any die-hard Cleveland Browns fan how hard it was to admit to themselves that their team sucks.  You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who says otherwise on either side of the fandom fence right now,4 but 20 years ago it was exactly the opposite.  A fan would fight you for uttering those words.

Long and short, facts don’t change minds.  Only painful introspection does.  If you find yourself angry because someone shows you, clearly, how you’re wrong, you’re in the grip of the backfire effect.  The only thing you can do is listen to that voice in the back of your head that says, “Hey. He makes a valid point.”

Citations

1.

Experimental Studies of Belief Dependence of Observations and of Resistance to Conceptual Change: Cognition and Instruction: Vol 9, No 2. Taylor & Francis. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532690xci0902_1. Accessed February 22, 2017.

2.

D. McFadden R. Harold Camping, Dogged Forecaster of the End of the World, Dies at 92. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/us/harold-camping-radio-entrepreneur-who-predicted-worlds-end-dies-at-92.html. Published December 17, 2013. Accessed February 22, 2017.

3.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Edition. Pravni Fakultet u Zagrebu. http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf. Accessed February 22, 2017.

4.

D’Andrea C. Browns give Steelers 2 free chances to score. SBNation.com. http://www.sbnation.com/2016/11/20/13692130/browns-fans-showered-field-with-trash-after-the-team-gave-the-steelers-2-free-chances-to-score. Published November 20, 2016. Accessed February 22, 2017.