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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years ago

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Another One Bites the (Star)Dust pt2

Hey guys! Welcome to the next part of the newest installment of the Space and Everything In It series! Buckle up; its a fun one!

If you need a refresher, here’s the [previous chapter!]

Summary: Late at night, Virgil has a run in with the ship’s unfavored guest and Remus is rather insistent to turn it into a game of life and death.

Words: 8016

TW: Blood, Non-con drugging, Mentions of murder, forced attempted suicide

Quick Taglist: @alias290 @chelsvans @coyboi300 @dante-reblogs @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws @welovelogansanders

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

“Certainty” wasn’t something that Virgil had in excess of all the way out in Space. There were always so many things he didn’t know, didn’t understand, didn't think to think of. He was constantly having to rework his understanding of planets and governmental structures and alien niceties because he just didn’t know what he was doing. Roman, Patton, and Logan sometimes forgot that he didn’t grow up learning about interplanetary wars and peace treaties and trading policies and it always came as a shock to them when he had to ask what the hell they were talking about. Virgil lived and breathed by trial and error and tried his very hardest not to do the error part.

So certainty was hard to come by these days.

However, he was certain that if Remus didn’t let him go in the next five minsannu Virgil’s lungs were going to implode and his neck was going to snap and he was going to be a very unhappy ghost.

The dust was not grey, Virgil thought, even as he saw the flutters of it flash on the back of his eyelids, imprinted like scars on his brain that just wouldn’t heal over. The dust was not grey and it wasn’t real because there was no dust on Roman’s ship and-- oh god he was going to die and they weren’t going to find his body.

Remus’s tail jerked and Virgil felt where the muscle tightened and the half regrown bone plates rotated in return, like knives all on their own. Virgil was pretty sure that his hands were bloody messes from trying to get between the mass and his throat, trying to loosen it a bit, trying to get air to his lungs and his feet back to the ground and his body somewhere that wasn’t there.

His head felt like it was full of fuzz, full of buzzing and screeching and alarms. Even in the darkness he could make out Remus’s face watching him with deep dark eyes that were twisted paradies of Roman’s, because Virgil had seen Roman’s so often, so much and associated them with the driven determination that bordered on self sacrifice and these weren’t those eyes.

Despite them being the same murky brown, Remus’s eyes different; there was something in them that Virgil’s panicking brain was screaming about, something that made his grin sinister where Roman’s was always charming, something that told Virgil Remus would enjoy watching the light leave his eyes. Something that told Virgil his own dull reflection in those eyes would be the last thing he saw before he passed on.

And Virgil did not come all this way to die because of Remus-- fucking-- Prince.

Really! At this point it would be a fucking insult to die becuase of an Erefren in the middle of space because he was too stupid to just go back to sleep and pretend like he didn’t need to see a space therapist for the traumatic-borderline-stupid nightmares he kept having.

He’d survived the accusation of murdering his best-friend-maybe-more, survived the humiliation of being stripped of everything that he owned by aliens, survived the Welsor Fighting Rings six fucking times, survived the mercanaries, the bounty hunters, the government agents-- everything that had come after him and his family in the past two years. He survived the Pol’turs and he survived getting Janus back.

He survived that, and no one was ever going to know about it because in the end Remus was going to send his lifeless corpse out the airlock because it was that easy to get rid of the evidence when you lived in Space. No wonder the space police went around trying to catch them with illegal merchandise. It wasn’t like they could prove or solve murder--

He gasped for air that couldn’t fit in his fiery lungs, and his eyes felt a bit like they were going to pop right out of his head with the pounding pressure building up from a heartbeat that he couldn’t keep going. His vision blurred, bubbled and popped until all he could see were blobs in the darkness. Unrecognizable blobs. His legs kicked, jerked, swung...fell... and... his... hands…drop...pe...d….

Virgil gasped for air like a drowning man-- or a suffocated one. His lungs burned hotter than any star he’d ever had the pleasure of hearing Logan ramble about. His head swam in the agony, in the stimuli that screamed from so many places that he couldn’t even see what was in front of him. He was faintly aware of his shuddering chest, of his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and the raspy feeling of oxygen tearing through his esophagus like a pair of dull scissors through felt, handled by a second grader who’s fingers weren’t big enough to grip them properly.

His limbs were moving-- or rather being moved, but the moment the thought came to him was the moment he was also pressing his cheek against the cold polyfurnish flooring to alleviate at least one of the alerts in his brain. He thought he was crying, too. Crying over air that he didn’t think had ever been so sweet.

“Deathworlder, huh?” A voice said from over him, and Virgil tried to kick at it, only to find his legs weren’t moving quite right when the action jerked at his wrists and nearly dislodged his arms from their sockets and that was not good. “I used to think you guys were cool as fuck. Then I met one.”

Virgil coughed and curled in on himself, but his arms were trapped behind his back, and his shoulders cried weakly at the movement while his bloody fingers twitched. He shoved his face into the floor again, in a move that he thought probably looked really pitiful-- like if he couldn’t see the blob towering over him with a too-sharp-too-many-teeth grin, then Remus would just stop being there altogether.

Instead Remus’s foot came out and nudged his face. And then he kicked at Virgil’s knees and forced his body to twist until he was mostly facing upwards with his soft insides ready for plucking straight out of his stomach. His chest shuddered again, and his wrists yanked against whatever it was that Remus had bound him up with-- Virgil didn’t recognize the feeling of the material, but he was only used to being bound by polyfurnish chains that could absorb heat from an imploding star itself and metal handcuffs rom when the police wanted to pick him up for questioning for the second time in a week for something like jaywalking and ended up asking what he did to Janus Ekans anyway.

Whatever this was, it felt more like… like… fabric. Roman’s sash, or a T-shirt, but strong enough that there was no give, or knotted enough that Virgil’s stupid monkey brain couldn’t figure out how to undo it before Remus decided how to undo him.

Remus for his part just watched him for a minsannu, quisannu, phisannu-- Long enough that Virgil’s breath didn’t get any stronger and he couldn’t scream for help because of it. Remus crouched at his knees, draping his arms over his kneecaps, watched Virgil’s chest shake with a fascination while his fucking tail wagged in the background. Virgil caught sight of a dark liquid on one of the bone plates when it crossed into the line of red light and his entire body wracked with attempts to put distance between himself and Remus.

“Not so tough now, are you?” Remus said.

“Pl...eas…” Virgil gasped. “Fu..ck…Remus…”

Remus smiled wider, his lips cracking apart his face to show off all three rows of teeth that encircled his mouth and throat, sharpened like daggers. There was a chasm where his face should have been and Virgil tried to shove with his feet again, but they just yanked on his hands and forced his shoulders farther back like some type of back-fucking-bend.

“Roman loved hearing tales about creatures like you,” Remus said casually, like his voice alone wasn’t causing complete terror to crawl up Virgil’s throat and yank out his tongue. “They always made you guys sound like juggernauts. Unkillable beasts. Gods. When Roman was ten revolutions old he said he was going to exterminate all the Deathworlders so that no one else would be scared anymore.”

Remus looked down at Virgil and his eyes were empty abysses larger than black holes and colder than them too.

“Doesn’t look like he did too well on that front,” Remus said. “Guess I oughta help him with that.”

Remus’s hand reached out suddenly-- but Virgil’s brain saw it in slow motion, like Remus was reaching through a bowl of Shishdouble to wrap his claws around Virgil’s throat again. Virgil babbled out something, begging, pleading, and his bruised and sore body writhed against his bonds and the floor in desperate, hopeless movements.

((Virgil never wondered what worms felt like when they were plucked out of the ground and suspended in the air. He wasn’t pleased to know.))

Remus’s fingers were cold-- cold like ice that Janus had once shoved down his back in the middle of the night while they were sneaking food from the kitchen, cold like the metal chair he’d been forced to sit in while police officers and detectives asked him the same questions over and over and over again, cold like the endless expanse of space that surrounded their very tiny ship in the perfect graveyard for souls no one would remember to miss.

Virgil could feel each of Remus’s fingers pressing over his heaving throat. His claws were close to breaking Virgil’s tissue paper skin and his thumb sat right on Virgil’s pulse feeling for the way his hummingbird heart struggled to keep Virgil functioning. Just a squeeze and Virgil would be gone, just a curl of fingers and his blood would be all over the floor, just a twitch and Virgil would never have to think about the difference between grey and blue or what the last thing he said to Janus was.

“But you know,” Remus said. “I’m a pretty generous guy! I’ll give you one chance to convince me not to!”

“Fu..ck…” Virgil managed. “You.”

Remus brought up his other hand, and Virgil reactively squeezed his eyes closed. His heart stuttered, stuttered, stopped in his frantic chest, holding and waiting for the pain from whatever Remus was going to do to him for that; his claws were sharp enough to drag down Virgil’s cheeks, to cut out his tongue, to carve out his eyes--

But in the end all he did was use a finger to lift one of Virgil strands of hair off his sweat drenched forehead.

“That’s not very convincing at all.”

Virgil wanted to hiss at him, something threatening and violent like the Deathworlders of all the tales Remus was thinking of. But his mouth was dry, and all he could see was the last row of teeth in Remus’s mouth. He had never wished so badly that he was bad at math: because surely if he wasn’t able to count every inch between Remus’s pointed teeth and his own throat, then it wouldn’t be happening, right?

“Hmmm,” Remus said, possibly delightedly when Virgil’s voice failed him and his lungs begged for a mercy that Virgil couldn’t provide, because breathing means movement and the dumb rabbit part of his brain kept insisting that if he didn’t move, Remus wouldn’t see him. “Maybe I’ll just leave you here, Cikeriy-tied. Can you squeal, little Cikeriy? Squeal for me?”

Virgil didn’t make a sound, and honestly he wasn’t sure if that was the best move or not: angring Remus when he was already so close to death by not playing along with his sick-as-fuck game verses keeping what little diginity he had managed to retain after the Welsor Fighting Rings. Virgil’s throat tasted like blood coated dust and the bonds around his wrists and ankles dug into his skin the same way the chains at the Rings would, before Logan had come and freed him.

Instead he squeezed his eyes closed, counted to a frantic, unprovable five, and then he lunged straight up with all of his might. Remus didn’t have time to drop him, or move back and Virgil gladly took the blossoming pain in his forehead as payment for at least wiping that smug grin off the alien’s face as he hit the floor again.

Remus cursed in Erefreian, sounding a lot like Virgil’s Spanish Teacher when she saw the results after her quizzes and realized that bar Perfect Janus Ekans, no one was going to be passing her class that year. Remus pulled away and the red dulled light from the hall painted him in an astonishingly terrifying light. Virgil snarled at him the best he could when his heart was pounding in his ears and all he wanted was to scream for help but the words choked in his throat.

((Because if he screams, he thinks someone might come. And that would be a sight to see, wouldn’t it? Patton or Logan or Roman throwing open the door just in time to see Remus slice his throat open and spray his blood all over the Computer console? Virgil could forgive himself for a lot of things, but causing his family to think “if they had only been a little faster” was where he drew every single line every single time.))

Remus’s claws came back from his forehead, shamefully lacking any blood, though there might have been some type of bruising. Not that it would matter much considering the thickness of Erefreian skin; Remus wouldn’t even feel it in a few quisannu and no one else would ever know. He laughed, short, quick, and breathy and Virgil almost thought that he might be surprised.

“Oh,” Remus said and Virgil didn’t know what that meant, and didn’t think he wanted to find out.

He twisted his fingers and grabbed a hold of the knot tying his feet to his arms with the little give that there was. His hamstrings whined at the pull but Virgil only needed a minasunnu to create the 3D model in his head so that he knew where to wriggle and where to pull and where to curl-- like the worst kind of interactive puzzle and if he failed, he was going to die.

No pressure.

Virgil yanked his arms free just as Remus lunged for him again. He rolled and the alien hit the floor heavily where he’d been, with his tail already swinging at where Virgil was going, which was hilarious on some level because not even Virgil knew where he was going, but Remus seemed to predict it anyway. The bone plates on the edge of his tail were sharpened and they carved violent arcs into the wall in front of Virgil forcing him deeper into the room and farther from any sort of help.

He blocked the way to the only exit and Virgil scrambled backwards until he felt the floor vent that circled about two feet from the escape pods under his shoes. His chest heaved, and his vision danced between being hyper focused on every detail about Remus and being blurred so badly Virgil couldn’t have seen his own hand in front of his face. Distantly his fingers were aching with the cuts from the bone plates already, his blood made it hard to concentrate on the here-and-now and not the there-and-then.

((The Dust is not real. The blood is his own. There were no screaming crowds, no beaming sun, no grit under his nails--))

The floor was clear, he was empty handed, and while Virgil’s handprint, however bloody, could probably open the doors to an escape pod behind him, he didn’t think he’d be able to close them before Remus could follow after. Virgil’s head rang from the earlier impact, turning his carefully cultivated plans to fragments in his head with nothing to do. He was cornered in the worst part of the ship, with the worst person to be cornered with.

Remus was grinning again, crouching on the floor like a lion about to pounce, but wanted to have his fun first.

“What’s your plan here?” Remus asked. “Gonna call for help, little Cikeriy? Go on! I’d love to see the look on your face when you realize no one is going to come for you.”

“What… did… you do?” Virgil said between gasps. The chill of the ship cut through his thin sleep shirt, and made his skin feel too small, too little, not enough. Roman had been okay at dinner earlier, he knew-- a little more tired than normal, a little more snappish but he’d been that way since he had taken to keeping Remus away from anything important around the ship all day every day, because he didn’t trust Remus around any of the rest of them. Patton had made ten puns, which was one less than usual but Virgil had thought it was just because Logan had been excitedly telling them about--something fuck, a star? A research paper? Janus had kissed him like a nebula exploding and wished him a good night.

They’d been fine. Virgil had made sure of it. There was nothing that Remus could have--

And yet Remus’s grin etched wider, crueler, violenter. “Do you know the main difference between me and your lovely little Prince of the Stars? Other than the fact that I’m just the sexier twin, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know. Roman doesn’t like to talk about the family disappointment.”

Virgil took a step back and Remus took one forward, like a game of tag. His tail swayed behind him looking deceivingly lackadaisical for a murder weapon.

“You see little Crikeriy--” Remus said with his eyes glinting at the nickname. “Erefrens like to fight, and your little Princey over there is the perfect little soldier! A killing machine when he isn’t so concerned about messing up his hair! Those toxins of his? Wowza! They’ve always packed a punch. Even when we were kids!”

Virgil didn’t like how he said punch. He didn’t like the way that Remus talked about Roman. He didn’t like the implication that Roman used those toxins on Remus before. He didn’t like the idea of anyone screaming the way that Orlen thief had back when he’d first seen Roman use it effectively.

He didn’t like the way Remus’s head tilted, like he was remembering the feeling of all his atoms igniting on fire and wanted to see if Virgil could feel that way, too.

“The pack was so proud the first time his toxins came in,” Remus said. “Much less proud when mine came in; after all what is causing immeasurable pain to your enemies compared to simply putting them to fucking sleep?”

Virgil jerked back another step and Remus took a generous one forward.

“It’s not glamorous enough,” Remus said, something slipping into his tone, dark and heavy and bloody. “That’s what they told me, my pack. There’s no honor in killing someone who’s asleep. No honor gained from resisting the pain when there’s no pain at all. It didn’t matter who I could knock out with just a drop of my toxins; I was always going to be nothing compared to Roman. He took my pack from me-- so I told myself I’d take his from him too. And I’d use my toxins to do it.”

“You…put them…?” Virgil dug his nails into his palms, his fingers sticking together in the excess of blood. “When... ?”

Remus laughed, “What, you think that anyone on this ship pays attention to what they’re eating? Roman is so wrapped up in his little fantasy that nothing can go wrong for him that he never notices when I put things in his drinks. Patton and Logan were child’s play. The only hard one was Janus-- ya never know with you Deathworlders what’s gonna work and what’s just gonna make you drowsy.”

“You drugged them,” Virgil said, and fought not to think about Janus on the Pol’tur ship struggling to keep his mind focused and so out of it that he nearly knifed Patton when the Reytin was trying to help him, about Janus’s disbelieving eyes when he saw Virgil there and thought it was more likely he was a figment than real, about Janus clinging to him afterwards when they were back on their own ship and Janus didn’t want to fall asleep lest Virgil disappear before he woke back up. “You-- You--!”

Remus looked immensely pleased with the fact, with his wording, with his anger, which made Virgil’s stomach roll all over again. Remus drugged his friends, his family, Janus. He drugged them and didn’t seem to look in any way sorry about it.

“Why not me?” Virgil choked out around the way his head was ringing, the way his blood was singing, the way that his fingers were curling and imagining the thump of a pulse under his thumbs, preferably Remus’s.

Remus flexed his fingers, his claws clinking together in a way that made the hair on the back of Virgil’s neck stand on end, even more than before. “Weren’t you listening? It’s not very fun talking to someone who’s dead asleep, now is it? Asleep people don’t scream the way awake people do.”

Wasn’t that ironic? Virgil’s heart thundered and he took solace in the idea that at least Remus had never been near him when he slept.

“I’m not going to scream,” Virgil said.

“That’s what they all think,” Remus said back.

“I’m not going to scream,” Virgil said, this time with more confidence than he thought he’d ever had before in his life. Stronger than when he’d told Janus that they were going to be friends regardless of what their parents thought, stronger than when he told the police that Janus was not dead, stronger than when he swore to Logan that he was happy here, with them. He wasn’t certain of a lot in space but he was certain of this.

“I’m not going to scream, and you’re not going to get away with whatever the fuck it is you think you’re doing right now.”

He planted his feet on the ground and squared his trembling fists into something that resembled a fighting stance-- not that it was anything official, not that it was anything good, but it was the stance that he had picked up from the Fighting Rings and if he survived that, he was going to survive Remus Prince with it, too, regardless of what his lungs and throat and brain were telling him.

Remus didn’t say anything for a quisannu. In the ruby light and the surplus of shadows it was hard to make out exactly what expression he was holding in his eyes, but Virgil hated how eerily similar it looked to Roman when he was trying to outsmart Logan with wordplay.

“Boorrringgg,” the Erefren decided suddenly, drawing out the syllables until they grated around Virgil’s brain and didn’t sound like actual Common at all.

“What?”

“You’re boring,” Remus said, flicking his tail. “I’m bored.”

“It’s the worst when he’s bored,” Roman had said once upon a time so long ago when Virgil had first asked what the hell a Remus was and why they seemed to like sending waves of assassins and bounty hunters and pirates after them. “Things tend to get… bloody when he’s bored.”

Virgil whose fingers were pulsing from cuts, who’s throat was aching, who could taste copper in his mouth and see specs of scarlet in the dim hall light whether they were real or not, thought that maybe things were already a little bloody. And if that was what it was like before Remus was bored, Virgil really wasn’t going to like whatever was coming.

“I’m not here for your entertainment,” Virgil spat.

“Aren’t you?” Remus grinned again and Virgil flinched at the sight of it. His head screamed at him to get away, get out, get help. But the exit was blocked and Virgil didn’t want to know what Remus would do to anyone who came running to help him, if they came at all. “I can’t think of another reason to keep a little Deathworlder around, you know. You’re all like dangerous little pets no one else wants to get close to. I was thinking when I go off again, I’m gonna take Janus with me-- he’s pretty funny you know, especially when that Sblorp bit him and he was begging us to get it off him.”

((“It was my fault,” Janus had said in a medical bay on the floor, trusting Virgil’s shaking hands to touch when he had no logical reason to. “I didn’t even see the thing until it was two inches from tearing out my large intestine.”))

And Remus was saying that was funny? That he let that happen? That if Remus hadn’t taken pity and helped get it off of Janus Virgil would have never found him again because he’d be dead on some forgotten planet?

Virgil’s nails dug into his palms, just to keep his brain focused on the present and keep himself from doing something extremely stupid, like lauching himself across the room at the smug Erefren and removing each and every bone from his body as painfully as possible.

“No,” Virgil said.

“No?”

“No!” He said again, “I’m not letting you take Janus.”

Not Janus who still smiled like Virgil hung the stars in the sky, who kissed like he wanted the whole cosmos to know Virgil was his, who had always been the strongest person Virgil had ever known. He didn’t care who Remus thought he was, didn’t care if Janus had been coerced to be part of Remus’s crew before, didn’t care at all. That was Janus and Virgil would not let Remus do anything else to him.

He was certain of that.

“Oh? And what if he wants to go with me?” Remus asked, like there was dimension out there where Janus might say yes anyway, where Janus had lost all his sense of self preservation among the nebulas, where Virgil wasn’t ready to claw through the fabrics of space and time and life and death just to make sure Janus didn’t have to.

Virgil tasted blood in the back of his throat, felt the grit in his teeth, smelled the burning of flesh in the air.

“Why would he ever want to go with you? If this is the shit you pull on him? If you’re going to get him killed just because you’re not being entertained? His life is worth more than that and I won’t let you convince him otherwise.”

Remus’s eyes narrowed: dark and dangerous and Virgil’s chest ached with the need to breathe but he ignored it. Alarms rang in the back of Virgil’s mind, singing out warnings that Virgil himself couldn’t even make out because if he took any of his concentration from Remus for a minsannu, everything around him would implode.

“Oh? Well, what about this, little Cikeriy,” the alien said, speaking deliberately slowly so that Virgil couldn’t misunderstand him even if he wanted to. “Let’s play a game, just you and me. I’ll leave Janus all alone, I’ll leave Roman and Patton and Logan all alone, too! When we touch down on TS-625, I’ll take my lovely bag of tricks that you just found and I’ll disappear completely and none of them will have to see me again! Your perfect little pack here can sleep safely knowing that I’m not going to send anymore mercenaries or bounty hunters or government agents after all of you! Doesn’t that sound nice, Cikeriy? I’ll even swear to the great god Disney to never bother them again-- on one condition.”

Virgil’s heart thudded so loudly in his chest he almost couldn't see. Remus’s smile was sharper than a knife, sharper than any of his bone plates, sharper than anything that Virgil had even felt and it cut right through his flesh like it was made of melted butter.

Remus splayed out his hands and wiggled his claws in the darkness.

“You just turn right around, get into that escape pod, and eject yourself into space.”

His lungs screamed as he became violently aware of the presence of the silent escape pods bearing witness to all this behind him. The pods that weren’t furnished with any provisions, that didn’t have any of his stuff because it was all in a bag that was behind Remus, that Virgil suspected weren’t made for humans at all and wouldn’t be capable of regulating the right amount of oxygen for his body for an extended period of time. The pods that Virgil had practiced piloting on a million times but had always flown right back here within the phisannu, because this was where he belonged. This was home.

Remus wanted him to purposely leave that? He wanted to watch Virgil cast himself into the empty expanse because it would be entertaining somehow? Virgil’s knees felt weak, his stomach offered up hints of the dinner they had all eaten together phisannus ago.

He’d have no food. He’d have no water. He’d barely have oxygen if he went.

And if he didn’t starve out there, or dehydrate, or run out of oxygen, and if the SOS system worked, then he’d be found by someone out there. If they weren’t pirates or smugglers that would sell him without a second thought, they’d be with the Universal Space Police Force and humans were illegal on this side of the universe.

If he did this it would be a suicide trip.

“It should be an easy decision for you, right? You or the others,” Remus said. “You or Janus?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Virgil hissed, and it felt like he was choking again, like Remus’s tail was hoisting in him to the air by his neck, like there was something in his throat that was blocking all the oxygen from making it to his chest. His hands were shaking and there was no hiding that.

Remus stood at his full height, and he looked like he was having the time of his life all of a sudden. The red light made his smile look insane.

And for the first time, Virgil thought that maybe that wasn’t entirely wrong.

Virgil didn’t know what growing up as an Erefren was like-- Roman was staunchy with the details and Logan and Patton were insistent that it was only Roman’s story to tell, despite them knowing it entirely. Virgil had wondered quietly, why someone whose species was supposed to travel in packs--teams-- families-- why Roman was floating out in space as a swashbuckling starlit hero without anyone else of his kind. Virgil had wondered.

He thought maybe he understood now, if Remus was the type to play this kind of sick game with people close to Roman, that Roman had left those people behind on a planet that Remus probably wouldn’t go back to. He understood why Roman had nearly begged them not to uphold the Oath of Brothers that Remus had enacted to get himself saved. He understood now, if it had been someone else with their backs to the escape pods being asked to make a decision like this.

He understood Roman not wanting to talk about Remus when Remus was asking him to choose between the people he loved and himself like the answer was something he had to even think about in the first place.

“Come on, Virgie,” Remus said. “Entertain me a bit. You know not even I will risk going back on an oath to the Great God. Unless, of course, you really don't care about your friends all that much after all.”

“Make the oath first,” Virgil said.

“Open the pod first,” Remus countered, like he was waiting for it. His tail twitched, flicked and danced in the air like a creature all of its own. Remus tilted his head to the side, letting some of his wavy hair fall over his eyes, and once upon a time Virgil might have thought that made him look a bit like Roman.

Instead it made Virgil’s stomach clench and twist and crawl up his throat real slow like it’s own little horror movie. It was deceptive, it was cruel; he didn’t look like someone who would kill anyone and everyone for his own entertainment, who took joy in making Virgil bleed late at night when there was no one but them to see.

He didn’t look like that guy they saved on the Pol’tur ship who could barely keep his eyes open, but demanded that they also save what was left of his crew. Virgil didn’t know where that person went, or if he’d been real at all. But the terror in his chest and the bruises on his neck told him the Erefren in front of him was as authentic as it got.

Virgil took the last step back and his shoulder blades hit the outer door to escape pod Alfie-- Alpha. Virgil vaguely remembered that first time that he and Roman had done their driving practices out there in the middle of an empty quadrant, in the middle of nowhere and nothing. It had been just like Janus and him picking out some empty parking lot at two AM for Janus to go through teaching him how to drive because his own parents couldn’t have been bothered. Patton had affectionately named the little pod Alfie, and gone through the trouble of renaming the pod in the computer system with an alien-like flower emoji to make Virgil smile. Logan had rolled his eyes, but had yet to change it back.

The memory tasted like his own stomach acids now, burning its way up his throat, and making his whole body feel feverish. He thought that if he closed his eyes and took a break from staring at Remus, he’d see Patton and his bug eyes staring up at him with a question on his lips and “Oh kiddo how could you?”

Virgil reached up and crossed his body to slam his palm on the palm reader without giving Remus access to his spine, without trusting Remus enough not to slam his tail into Virgil’s lower back when he was already complying, without letting his eyes close because he wasn’t going to cry after all this.

He survived the fighting rings. He survived Earth. He survived to find Janus again and see that smile that Virgil breathed every breath for. He survived this much.

He’d survive Remus too and he wouldn’t let Remus think otherwise for a quisannu.

The scanner was warm under his palm. For a moment there, Virgil was afraid that it wouldn’t recognize his human shaped hand amidst all the blood. ((He remembered when Logan first dragged him to the room to get his hand put into the system, an induction to the crew, back before Roman trusted him and Patton was still skittish and Virgil’s grasp of Common was barely more than the basics of conversation and necessity. Logan had been blinking lights a million ways, shining like a star all on his own, and it had taken Virgil too long to realize the dancing of his lower arms was because he was excited and happy and thrilled and that Virgil had made him that way. So different from the yesterday morning when Logan’s voice had dripped with an emptiness and “Did we make you unhappy?” ))

The scanner beeped. The doors slid open. Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat like it was a chunk of a meteor and the edges were carving into his esophagus.

Remus didn’t take the step forward to push him into the pod with his aura like Virgil expected. His tail froze motionless in the air beside him, more like a cardboard cut out prop than the weapon that shredded the wall to his right. The alien raised his left hand slowly, in something that looked so normal, so familiar, so human, that Virgil had to swallow the hysteria before it gained a hold on his tongue.

“I, Remus Prince, Denounced of the Prince Pack, Leader of None and Follower of Less,” Remus said, and the air in the room rang with his voice. Virgil willed back the weakness in his knees that threatened to send him to the ground at the rumbling of his tone. “I invoke the Great God Disney, Beholder of Oaths and Judge of Heroes, to witness here and now this vow: I swear to abandon my pledge to destroy all that my brother, Roman Prince, holds dear and resolve not to take human Janus Ekans with me when I leave, should human Virgil Storm press the eject button on the escape pod while inside it.”

Remus turned his palm upwards and tilted his head ever so slightly with a smug expression, nearly hidden in the shadows. “Does that work for you, Cikeriy?”

((“Does that work for you, Virgil?” Roman had said, when Virgil was frantically trying to wash blood off his hands in the bathroom and not crawl out of his skin. Virgil hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than getting the alien fluids off of himself, getting the feeling of a pulse dying under his fingers to fade, getting his breath to stop hitching at every inhale. There were a million other things that Roman should have been doing at the moment: helping Patton from where he was nearly shish kabobed, checking on Logan who they had to forcibly put to sleep because he couldn’t stop screaming at the brightness of the world around them once his visor broke, getting the blood off himself, getting rid of the bodies in the hall… but Roman was here talking to Virgil about everything and nothing and reaching out to turn off the water when Virgil wouldn’t stop scrubbing at his hands. “Listen to me Virgil. You’re okay here. You’re safe. I’m not going to let anything happen.”))

Virgil was shaking so much he wasn’t sure that he actually nodded at Remus’s non-rhetorical question. It felt barbed, it felt cold and vicious of him to ask, and Virgil thought that maybe that was the point of it. Remus’s teeth bared in a parody of something comforting.

It was the same smile that Mayor Ekans had been holding when he had Virgil forcibly ejected from the mansion the first time, the same smile that his teachers had when they gave him yet another detention, the same smile that the police officers gave him when they thought they had caught him in a lie about what had happened to Beloved Perfect Janus Ekans.

There were less than two halls between him and Janus’s bedroom, less two quisannu to get from here to that room where Janus was sleeping unaware of anything that was happening, less than eighteen days that he got to spend with Janus in the grand scheme of things.

It felt like a blink, like a mirage, like a dream that Virgil just woke up from and was feeling the blissfulness dissipate like he’d faced so many times before. The Hope had always been the worst thing about those first eight months: the hope that Janus would appear somewhere unconscious but alive, the hope that Janus would show up to clear his name, the hope that Janus would come back just to fix everything that had gone wrong with Virgil’s life when he was gone.

Virgil, ever the fool, had fallen into the trap that was Hope again and let himself get comfy with the idea that this time he couldn’t lose Janus again.

“Tick Tock,” Remus said.

“You know, Remus,” Virgil spit out, “I feel sorry for you.”

“That’s nice.”

“You clearly never learned what the fuck it was like to care about anyone other than yourself, and I as much as I would like to hate ever fiber of your being, the only thing I can feel is pity that you--”

“Really, these are gonna be your last words?” Remus cut in with an undertone of something far less entertained.

“There are a billion civilizations out there!” Virgil said over him. “And you couldn’t find one person in there that you could care about? You couldn’t let go of such a stupid hatred of your brother-- for a pack that didn’t deserve you-- for a life that you don’t even know if you would have liked! You had all of Space for yourself and you chained yourself up just to get a chance to get back at Roman? How the fuck are you so stupid? Do you know what I would have given to be you?”

Remus wasn’t smiling.

Virgil thought that he was. Grinning full of adrenaline and shaking with rage and wondering if he would ever taste Janus’s lips again because certainty in Space was a fickle thing.

“You had a spaceship. You had a crew. You could have gone anywhere and done anything with your life,” Virgil said. “And yet you chose to constantly come back to Roman. Dumbass.”

Remus made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a grumbling, a rumbling, a growling. Virgil flinched back into the pod, and he could already feel the artificial gravity loosening its hold. It took him another blink to realize that Remus was laughing at him, something darker and more dangerous than before.

He was insane and having fun before. Virgil thought that he might have just taken out the “having fun” and substituted in the “pissed off”.

“You know how long I’ve been thinking about this, Virgil?” Remus asked. “I went over a hundred different ways that I could have done this: I could have had you hang yourself, snapping your own neck. Could have given you the knife and told you to slit your own throat. Could have tossed you a Kochfas and told you to blow your brains out. I thought about making the others watch. And I wanted to see you do it so badly. Do you know what a pain it was to walk around these past disannu and see you with your guard completely down? To think of all the ways I would have killed you myself? I could have slit your throat and laughed as Patton screamed. But you know those rumors about Deathworlds say that you might have gotten up from that and I don’t ever want to see your stupid face again.”

Virgil’s chest heaved. He couldn’t tell if it was the thinner oxygen concentration in the pod, or just the rapid fire words in Remus’s mouth. The words that confirmed a suspicion that Virgil hadn’t realized he’d had this whole time. That this whole thing was too complex, too focused, too targeted.

“Oh? Nothing else to say?” Remus asked. “You were almost entertaining there for a moment.”

“This wasn’t about Roman, was it?” Virgil said. “This was about me. You hate me.”

Remus stuck out his tongue and pressed a claw to it-- some type of motion that Virgil only recognized from the number of times that Roman had done it to Logan’s back after he stated something incredibly obvious and Patton had batted his thigh over.

“Oh, is the little deathworlder getting the hint?” Remus asked. “What tipped you off? The drugging of all your friends or when I told you to eject yourself from the ship?”

“What…” Virgil shivered with his whole body. “Why…?”

“Don’t chicken out now, Virgie,” The alien said. “I’d simply hate to have to go through the trouble of stabbing out each of Patton’s hearts because you got cracked bone plates.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, a fake expression that made Virgil’s stomach twist in on itself. “Or maybe I’ll just start with Janus, and see how much pain a human can actually take.”

“Don’t,” Virgil’s voice comes out as its own growl, sounding damn near inhuman.

Virgil didn’t think about the Pol’turs, didn’t think about Janus on that table knowing that no one is coming for him, didn’t think about the scars on the side of his face that Janus pretended didn’t bother him, but Virgil had caught him pointedly not looking in the mirror so many times-- He didn’t think about it, but his brain screamed at him anyway.

“I don’t know what I did to you,” Virgil said. “But leave him out of this. All of them. Roman included. Look I… I’m sorr--”

The Erefren’s tail struck through the air and before Virgil knew what he was doing he slammed the button on the door lock and forced them shut. He stumbled deeper into the pod, nearly falling to the ground as the sound of Remus’s barbed tail spikes carved into the thick heavy metal separating them. The ship was so cold that Virgil could see his breath in the air, but all he felt was a feverish as he stared through the foggy window at where Remus was standing with an expression that was possibly more murderous than anything Virgil had ever seen before.

Janus’s mother had been vile and sadistic when she thought that Virgil had killed her perfect son, the police had been cold and merciless when they called him a suspect, the people Virgil hadn’t even known had become ruthless and brutal when they glared at him doing anything out in public. His own parents had looked at him with hatred when they realized that the rest of the world would shun them just because Virgil was their son, but even that had been nothing compared to the look in Remus’s dark eyes.

It was bloodlust. And it was directed at Virgil with no regard for anything else.

Remus sneered, almost loud enough for Virgil to hear through both the sets of doors and the static screaming in his ears. His mouth tasted like Dust, his skin prickled with a heat that wasn’t real, his fingers dripped with blood and ached in all the ways that his hands always did after he killed someone with them. He felt like if he took a single step he’d float right off into Space with or without the walls around him

Remus’s mouth moved, words or curses or whatever, but Virgil couldn’t hear them and cared even less.

“I don’t know what I did to you,” Virgil said with his hands shaking over the square red eject button. Last words for only him to know and no one else to ever find out. He thought of Janus asleep in his bed, safe and sound and not knowing anything that was going on. He thought of the feel of Janus’s lips on his, the featherlight touch and sweet honey-eyed look he reserved just for Virgil. He thought of those words he last said to him, “Later Loser, Sleep well” and thought it was ever so poetic that they mirrored those last things that Janus had said to him before he disappeared off the Earth three years ago.

Virgil hoped that Janus wouldn’t take them to heart too much-- not like Virgil had when he agonized over them and wouldn’t believe that Janus had run away without telling him and the rumors had first started their rounds. He hoped that Janus would forgive him for being stupid in the middle of the night. He hoped that Janus would wait for him to find a way back to them.

Out in Space, he wasn’t certain of much, but he was certain that he meant it when he gritted his teeth together, and said, “Remus, I hope you rot in Hell.”

Virgil slammed his bleeding fingers down on the eject button, and at the same moment blinding white light filled the Transport Room from the hall.

He got just enough time to recognize Roman’s unmistakable form stumbling into the room behind Remus, and then the entire pod lurched backwards.

[Part Three]

#Aliens #Space and Everything In It #virgil sanders #remus sanders #sanders sides #anxceit #Remus what the fuck are you doing #Virgil needs a hug. desperately #tw: blood #tw mentions of murder #tw: mentions of forced suicide #Virgil would really do anything for Janus #and thats the core of this tragedy #humans are space orcs #the fluff has died and I'm sorry

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sera-cb · 3 years ago

Text

Kaz thinks it’s weird that I almost always play as girls in my games to such an extent that I’ve dialed it back a bit and will actually Play My Gender™ for something like Outer Worlds or Elder Scrolls, except what I don’t tell her is that the real reason I don’t play as women in those anymore is because if you do suddenly men flirt with you in-game, and that’s only entertaining when it’s a real-ass person on the other side doing it that you can then proceed to fuck with guilt-free because you know this dweeb has absolutely chased actual women off the game you love by being a fucking creep and now he’s made the mistake of thinking you’re a target for his boner. It’s less fun when it’s just some rando NPC romance option, because frankly the last thing I want to experience is what a video game writer thinks male flirting is and/or should be like, it is a miserable experience and it comes with the threat of an actual honest-to-god sex scene or awkward post-cut-to-black cuddle conversation, none of which I have any interest in dealing with.

Anyway I still play as a girl in my dumbass space MMO and take great joy in dressing her up in various stupid assassin outfits ranging from legit to extremely loud to “ma’am you can’t go out in public like that” and nobody can stop me and I absolutely do not care if it leaves certain members of my guild guessing if I’m a man or woman or whatever for the rest of time, especially if the ones left guessing happen to overlap with the ol’ venn diagram of the ones who leave vaguely transphobic weeb jokes in the group Discord that I then react to absolutely straight-faced with wholesome positivity like some kind of passive-aggressive eldritch gender nightmare.

I am a stinky hairball who cannot be bothered to wear any outfit more complicated than “t-shirt and pants” in real life or even really sort his own laundry, and I shall thus live my fantasy of not being some gross fuzz blob and not being scared of wearing colors or exuding some manner of confidence in my nerd games where I and a couple million other people are all the Space Chosen One™, and nobody shall judge that it did in fact result in a brief obsession with shoes, because the shoes where also murder weapons and looked rad as hell. If you think heelies are cool then holy shit dog imagine lethal laser rollerblades and now you understand.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here except maybe “sorry honey I know you think it’s weird I play as a girl all the time but please understand that men are boring and I get to do that enough in real life, but also if a fake digital man flirts with me I will overhaul my entire save file into being a dude just to avoid that conversation with him.”

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delcat177 · 5 years ago

Photo

Text in captions, if that won’t read on text to voice please let me know <3

This is a half-year old, but I only paid Blobs Magician to help me out once and I’m fresh out of delicately painted acorns and he gave me commission rights so I’ll be tipping him a ziploc bag of goldfish later

I feel awkward writing about all of this--there was a bit of jealousy when I got my hyst (not projecting, I was told flat by a trans friend), and I worry that I may be making other people feel alone, anxious, or less-than in their gender by talking about it. If you feel that at all, please, stop right now. Don’t look in the mirror, because mirrors are scary. Like, really scary, they have ghosts or stuff probably, but also in the genders sense, so instead, look in your head. Look at your self. It’s in there, because it is you. What is happening to me now is a shell upgrade, a hermit crab moving domiciles. I was a boy once, then a young man, then a oldman, and now I’m a oldman with a society man shell. Never mistake the shell for the crab, go “hey crab, I like your shell, I hope you find the perfect shell, because you are the perfect inhabitant” and celebrate that crab. Because we are all crabs, and we are all beautiful, and we all deserve the shells that reflect us as individuals, and anyone who says otherwise can fuck off into a spiny urchin bush and not have a shell. Or. Something. Did I say I felt awkward? I AM awkward. But anyway, drive-in movie totals and such after cut, potential TMI, and protect yourself love yourself, you lovely crabs <333

(with cut ‘cause longtext is looong)

(ORIGINAL POST)

Alt-text: I'm always the last one to know

so uh

I'm a blithe idiot and somehow never processed or dared to dream that this was possible

which makes the timeline look SPECTACULARLY dumb but I was going through SO MANY LIFESTYLE CHANGES

HYST DATE: SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

2017: Me: Man, living in the townhouse has really amped up my leg game, all that up and down stairs.

Me: I'm down ten pounds since the hyst! Megan: That's probably your natural weight. Me: That or getting there. Not surprising, I'm not feeding the beast constantly.

Me: *punches Megan playfully in the arm* Megan: OW goddammit Del that hurt like SHIT! Me: oh my God I'm sorry I didn't mean to! Megan: It's okay, just be careful! Me: That's so weird I'm sorry D8

Me: man is it just me or am I good in bed lately? oh right I'm the only one here...I guess it's because I'm more confident?

Me: ghghjh my hair's thinning out at the temples, well been expecting that one for awhile, at least it waited for 30

2018:

Me: Holy shit, the stairs plus the shopping is paying off! My thighs are HUGE! I wonder if cracking a watermelon with these bad boys is hyperbole. I bet I could though. I BET.

Me: Down to 162 and holding, fuck you past doctors! I just needed ENERGY goddammit!

Me: Wow, I've lost a lot of weight from my face especially. That makes me super happy. Anyway better pluck these stray hairs. ...have I been yanking these more lately? Getting old is weird.

Me: (struggling with shorts) Megan: Do you need a belt? Me: I'M WEARING A BELT (lifts shirt to reveal belt double wrapped around hips) Megan: Well then Me: I just need to buy new shorts, my ass is just GONE Megan: In the meantime maybe pay attention to what underwear you have on Me: yeah thank God for boxers

Me: My acne scars are heck of acting up. I wish I hadn't picked at my face so much as a kid, I guess the pores are just kinda fucked, I've read about that happening.

2019:

Megan: New shorts look good Me: I am so bad at shopping Megan: At least you have them now Me: I'm an assless chap is all Megan: Go to bed Del Me: It's four in the afternoon

Me: My throat feels so *thick* lately. I haven't been hitting the vape that often, why does it feel weird? And why am I noticing my own voice more? I NEVER notice my own voice, I make a point of it. Am I subconsciously pitching it lower like I used to do talking on Skype because I'm more socially active? What is my brain I'm so AWKWARD Me: UGH I'm falling back into derma habits, I haven't picked in my face in years, I think I need to change cleansers. But...my face looks...good? I guess I had this hiding under that baby fat all these years. ...I guess? Me: Am I getting a hump from my bad computer posture? Shit. Me: Oh no, it's not a hump, my shoulders are starting to put on muscle! That's a relief. That must be from the...laundry? Carrying...laundry?

AUGUST 5, 2019: Me: (lying in bed) 2 + 2

Me: wait why am I putting on shoulder muscle now? I've been doing laundry for years, and it's never done that. And my legs didn't get this buff with a routine job where I was walking three hours a d--

Me:

AUGUST 14, 2019:

New Endocrinologist: We'll test your levels to make sure it isn't a pituitary gland issue or (some syndrome I've already forgotten the name of), and it could be because there's some small element of testosterone in the estrogen replacement, but the brain does produce androgens. We can definitely look into switching you to T if you want, but if it's facial hair you're worried about...well, once the follicle is there, it's there. These are irreversible changes.

Me: No on that then but irreversible,, like,, what I have now,, is forever,,,,,,,?

New Endocrinologist: Forever, and I would expect to continue to see muscle gains if you work out.

Me:

welcome to my second puberty please be aware it apparently involves as many mood swings as the first one but i'm tryin'

Since then, it’s been continuing confirm, confirm, confirm.

My acne turned out to be little follicles growing in odd places--not fullblown hair, just enough to irritate the skin while it was developing. Tiny tufts of 1-3 entirely white, downy hairs have popped up in a few places on my breasts. The real fuzz proliferation has been in the southern quarters--with all delicacy, there is no itch like the itch of hair beginning to grow anywhere sweat can proliferate, and I now understand why cis men scratch privates in public. Having NOT gone through a unified social experience with a peer group accepting of such measures, I am sure there is footage on grocery store cams of someone with an agonized expression walking like he has a weasel down his pants and worrying that 30 is early for hemorrhoids. Both have settled in for the most part, leaving me with a very fluffy, barely-there peach fuzz mustache that’s only noticeable in the right light, some spare hairs across my chin and neck that I keep in order, and a profound relief that I prefer boy shorts and swim trunks.

I went through a few weeks of being especially rank despite all the showering and was worried that was my new normal, but apparently T sweats be like that, and I’m back to smelling like...whatever I smell like, probably lavender with our fabric softener. I experienced what I believed was a relapse a month later that turned out to be a false positive--specifically, our thermostat was slowly dying and frog-boiling us until it got hot enough that my sister also went “dear God it is a sauna in here”, leading to replacement of the faulty element and another notch in the “my life is dumb” bedpost.

My face bonebs, which I frankly expected the least out of (when I wasn’t expecting at all), have slowly but surely been rearranging, a visual effect doubled by the much faster redistribution of fat. I honestly have no idea how this one works. I know more about dead bonebs than live ones. I would doubt it if I didn’t have pictures to back it up. I would say it’s easier to look in the mirror now, but I already stated my opinion on mirrors, do it too much and a skeleton will pop out. It WILL. My brain tells me this and it is never wrong about fears and or phobias. Don’t do it kids.

If there’s been a single most beautiful moment so far, it’s been getting back into Steven Universe after a long hiatus, opening my mouth to sing the opening like I did years ago, and realizing all at once that I was singing falsetto. I ran it back, dropped a register, and the first names I sang became those who would believe in me most. There were tears, and later, showing it off, there were fierce hugs. (Yes, the first ep I watched once I realized was Stevonnie, and YES GARNET GOING “GO HAVE FUN” wah)

I can’t begin to express the validation--I am no gender essentialist’s data point, this is MY experience and no one else’s, but I keep going “my aunt had a hyst and didn’t transition and I had one and I am because my brain makes androgens my brain makes androgens MY BRAIN MAKES ANDROGENS IT HAS BEEN MAKING ANDROGENS ALL THIS TIME IT HAS BEEN TRYING” and living in that, living in “not even SCIENCE is against me”, which is a tremendous thing as a scientist. (As a scientist, I would be a blithering dullard to claim this is the only thing that affects or proves my gender, and I do not. Again, TERFs fuck off. This is simply a very validating thing to me, personally, in my experience. I’m not thrilled that I have to underline that this hard dammit internet.)

What lies ahead is...I don’t know! I thought I was done changing, but the post I saw that nudged me to finally do this on here went “you may stop being able to cry for awhile” and this is Important because I have been trying to figure out if I have Sjogren’s but apparently I have androgens which is slightly easier to pronounce. I’m not sure how I feel about that, because transitioning is a lot of “I’m not sure how I feel about this” and then things being okay. I would definitely say that the more I learn, the easier it is to feel steady and normal, which is important because the mood swings have been REAL. This is more than I asked for or bargained for, but I still only have one regret, and that’s that my hyst scars are just slightly asymmetrical and it Bothers Me, but even that is growing on me.

I don’t know how to end this post. I love you all to death, and I hope if you’re seeking transition, you find it and twenty dollars, and if you’re not seeking transition, you still find twenty dollars. Thank you so much for you and all you do and are. Remember--you are great!

Unless you’re truscum. Then this post isn’t for you (dammit Internet) and you can fall off a boardwalk onto a dead fish. Have fun with that!

hekk

#trans #trans mtf #trans timeline #del is a trans guy #gender #gender*#blobs magician #i'm sorry this wasn't sooner i was shy aaaaa #you are all tock to me #and you are all wonderful crabs #let us go for a scuttle #longpost #long post #scrolling

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pikkish-moved · 6 years ago

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Best of Both Worlds ~ 10

In which a new creature is discovered

Chapter 10

In all honesty, Alph was more than happy to be going on today’s expedition with both Charlie and Olimar. Aside from Grandpa Drake, he had decided, they were just about the two people he had come to respect most in the world. Charlie was a war hero and an amazing captain, and Olimar, though not as galactically recognized, had more than proven himself to Alph through his repeated survival on the planet as well as his mechanical knowledge and excessive research on the planet’s biology.

Landing in the sand beside the Drake, Alph took a moment to appreciate the stunning beauty of the surroundings. Charlie and Brittany had described the place, and he had seen the images from the Drake’s scans, but nothing could quite compare to the actual sight, the wide stretch of white sand, the water as far as the eye could see, the enormous waves.

But, Alph reminded himself, shaking his head, they had work to do here, and not a whole lot of time for appreciating scenery.

As he turned back to Olimar and Charlie, he found they were already deep into consideration of their next move. “It’s a definite possibility,” Olimar was saying, “but I still think we ought to try the tidepools again. We have the time right now, and we can come to explore the grass forest when the tide is high and we don’t have access to the tidepools”

Charlie nodded sagely. “I guess it is true that Brittany and I could have missed the pikmin, if they were there. You have much more experience in locating them than we do, so it bears worth checking again.”

“And you’re right about the tides,” Alph jumped in. “We’ve only got around nine hours left before we wanted to be back!”

With that, it was decided, and they set off towards the tidepools.

Thanks to Alph actually landing the ship today rather than a crash landing, he was able to get them quite a bit closer to the tidepools than yesterday. However, at Charlie’s request, to minimize the likelihood of some form of attack, there was still some distance from both the tidepools and the grass forest, so they still had a little ways to walk. Unsurprisingly, as captain, Charlie took the lead, and Alph quickly fell in behind him.

“So, Captain,” Alph began, “what are the animals like in the tidepools?”

Charlie shot a mildly amused glance back at Alph. “You’ll be able to see soon enough for yourself.”

“Actually,” Olimar joined in, jogging a little to catch up to walk beside Alph, “a little preparation would be nice. As your designated xenobiologist, I wouldn’t mind a little more information on what I’m going to be dealing with. You didn’t really tell us a whole lot last night.”

Not looking back this time, Charlie just kind of gestured vaguely. “That’s because we didn’t really do a whole lot of investigating. We decided that since we didn’t have any pikmin with us, it would be smarter to avoid any conflict.”

Alph thought that seemed fair enough, and going by Olimar’s lack of a response, he thought so, too.

Presently, they arrived at the tidepools. On reaching the pools the size of large ponds or even small lakes, Alph paused.

The tidepools were stunning.

After another moment or two, he shuffled forward a bit, kneeling down to peer over the edge of the pool. There was a little school of puckering blinnow darting around above a waddlepus, and a couple sputtlefish chasing after wogpoles. And, kneeling next to Alph, Olimar pointed out towards the bottom of the pool a pearly clam clamp, commenting that he hadn’t seen one of them since the first time he had been on the planet.

“They’ve usually got a pearl inside, but getting it can be tricky. They’ll snap shut as soon as pikmin go for it, and any caught inside will be killed.”

Alph didn’t have to ask how Olimar knew the pikmin would die. The very nature of PNF-404 was more than enough evidence.

Still, Alph thought, it was impressive that Olimar could pick out the vaguely shiny shape, distorted by the water, and still know well enough what it was.

“So, what, they’re mollusks?” Alph asked.

“Yeah. Though, I don’t think the pearl is a real pearl. It’s too weak, and breaks too easily.”

Alph frowned thoughtfully, looking at the shape underwater. “Huh.”

Then Charlie was calling out to them. “Hey! We’re still on a time limit, here!”

Olimar nodded a little, standing up. “He’s right, we’ve still got to find the pikmin.” He offered a hand out to Alph.

Accepting Olimar’s help up, Alph nodded in agreement, and then they were off.

As they wandered between tidepools, avoiding the more wollywog populated areas, Charlie began, “Olimar, you’re the pikmin expert here. What exactly should we be looking for?”

“Well seeing as there’s so much water here, I’d expect that, if any, blue pikmin would be the ones we’d find here.” He paused a moment, peering into a pool as they walked by. “Though, in my experience, the onions are typically landed in relatively sheltered areas, and I don’t really see anywhere like that.”

Following Olimar’s gaze, Alph couldn’t help but agree. All the tidepools he’d seen so far were well populated with hungry animals, and the rocks they were walking on were hardly any safer, with yellow wollywogs in the immediate vicinity. The area off in the distance didn’t seem much better, either; Alph was able to spot a bulborb off a ways, thankfully sleeping, though a handful of dwarf bulborbs were close by, sniffing at what looked like a lump of seaweed. The other way, swooping snitchbug was flying around a tall rock peak- though, it swooped down once, and a peckish aristocrab darted out of a dark crack in the rock, snapped up the snitchbug in its claw, and disappeared back within its cavern.

Alph pointed to the rock in which the aristocrab must’ve now been enjoying its meal. “We should probably avoid that way for now.”

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed.

And they continued walking on.

Until, as they passed a pool, Alph saw in his peripheral vision a pinkish blob sliding out of the water, onto the rocks behind them.

Letting out a startled shout, Alph spun around, stumbling into Olimar as he backpedaled.

The creature was a large one, though not especially so by PNF-404 standards. It’s body was a bright pink, sluglike mass, though its head was lifted off the ground, and it sported a long, thin, tubelike snout no doubt used for sucking up food, two round, black eyes, and a pair of antennae covered in a fine, pink fuzz. And worst of all, the creature was coated in a thick slime, only its snout and antennae penetrating the gooey armor.

As Alph continued backing up against Olimar, who was, in turn, forcing Charlie to keep backing up, the creature continued forward, slowly sliding towards the trio.

“Olimar,” Charlie breathed, voice barely audible, “What is that?”

Olimar’s reply was short, quiet and contained just as much nervousness as Alph felt. “I have no idea.”

Alph’s heart leaped into his throat. This thing was completely new. Even Olimar didn’t know what it was, had never seen it before. They had no idea how to deal with it, and no pikmin to protect them.

And then, the creature stopped, looked at the three of them, and turned and glided away.

For a long, long moment, all three of them were still. Then, as Alph turned to look at his companions, Olimar let out a nervous chuckle. “Well, I guess it doesn’t want to eat us.”

“That,” Charlie replied, his brow furrowed, “or it just isn’t hungry right now.”

Alph cast a glance at the pool the thing had sunken into. “I don’t know about you guys, but whichever one of those it is, I think we shouldn’t be here to find out.”

“Agreed.” Charlie took a few steps forward, then suddenly slipped, apparently not having anticipated the gooey residue the creature had left behind on the rocks to be quite so slippery. It was only Olimar’s quick action, reaching out to grab Charlie’s life support pack, that prevented the Koppaiate captain from plunging headlong into the very same pool the creature had disappeared into.

“Now we really should get out of here,” Olimar said, helping Charlie regain his balance, “before anything else can happen.”

And making their way carefully across the slimy trail, they did just that.

PIKLOPEDIA: The Slippery Heiliug

#pikfic #Captain Olimar #Alph (pikmin)#Captain Charlie (pikmin)#pikmin #pikmin fanfiction #BoBW fic #hey a new creature!#that’s what took me so long #coming up with a name for this thing #the slippery heiliug #also #I’m still not sure how I want to link to the Piklopedia #so bear with me on that

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noitsbecky127 · 3 years ago

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rebecca watches tos: day of the dove

alright here’s our cast for the episode! I wonder which one is gonna die :)

what the hell is that

damn rip settlement

and the klingons are here

and things are not going well

why are there so many life forms that are just weird blobs of light

“federation ships don’t specialize in sneak attacks” and klingons do?

and now he wants the enterprise

“go to the devil” bc he can’t say go to hell lmao

“who will be first” the redshirt obviously

“you killed my brother” chekov you don’t HAVE a brother

alright ig chekov is first

kirk pressed a thing on the communicator and ig it put on yellow alert

the light blobs are coming too ofc

the klingons are just chilling in the transporter limbo? that’s a thing?

ah more klingons

lady klingons! they exist!

“what proof do we need?” man it’s even gotten bones

man this thing is just spinning along

does NO ONE see it?

and now the ship’s gone mad

what, they’re just leaving the galaxy now?

that’s a lot of trapped crewmen

everything’s turning into swords???

terribly choreographed fight scene!!!!

jim I don’t think you should be holding your sword like that, seems like a good way to cut your hand

yeah if it were the klingons they wouldn’t have done it like that

sulu has a sword, best day of his life

alright so chekov actually doesn’t have a brother, it’s not just the show making things up on the fly

why does that sword have a pink pom pom

how does NO ONE see that thing

everything changed when the klingons attacked

ah, the thing has been detected

wait did the colony not exist either?

yeah bones would never talk like that, he’s not a fight-to-the-death kinda guy, he’s a doctor not a soldier

well then! that’s definitely not good

fuzz-faced? bc they all have stupid beards?

I’m pretty sure scotty just said fuck

can we go one episode without spock experiencing a microaggression

I think this is more than fascinating Spock

ah everything’s back

and the klingons didn’t do it

I guess the alien wants a war and it can’t get one if one side is dead, it wants an endless war

are they gonna fight the alien with swords

chekov stop

CHEKOV STOP

jim simply lifts chekov

the alien is healing them real fast so they can keep fighting

that thing is always just out of sight

THEY FINALLY SAW IT

so when it absorbs hatred it turns red?

klingon lady why are you trying to sabotage them

I don’t think she believes

she should probably believe

stardate armageddon???

kirk: i’ll kill your wife kang: whatevs

just gonna beam them through the ship

ah yeah, you should probably leave the sword jim

negotiating with kang is not gonna me easy

and here comes the cavalry!

kang please listen to kirk

and the battle is over

the thing has left!!!

that was definitely one of the episodes of star trek

#star trek liveblog #star trek tos liveblog #star trek the original series liveblog #star trek tos #star trek the original series #tos #day of the dove #liveblogging

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j-has-thoughts · 4 years ago

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I have this weird fear....

I’m not like... afraid of the dark. It’s specifically masses of black. Black blob things and looking at them. Knowing they’re there is fine bur the moment I look at them I get scared shitless. I guess it was more when I was younger but even now some things I still can’t look at cuz I just freak out.

Examples: - This one painting I saw in an art gallery once that was just two very large black circles on a canvas and dripping slightly. - The sootsprites from Totoro used to scare me when I was smaller especially that one bit where they all moved together. (They’re kinda cute now but I still get a little nervous sometimes) - If there is a room that’s pitch black and the door to it is open I can’t look into the door so sometimes I walk backwards into rooms. - Some of those drawings of cats where it’s just black fuzz with two eyes. Bonus scare points if it’s animated. - Anything that’s just one large black circle

Thing is that if there is even a tiny bit of light in the blackness that I can see then I don’t get it. It’s only if the thing is completely #000000 black black. I’m note sure if there’s a name for it or why I have this cuz apparently a child is only born with one fear and the rest are picked up. My fear of spiders makes sense because I probably touched a cobweb when I was small and it felt weird and I got scared (Also they’‘re leggy and move weird). But this doesn’t makes sence because I’m not afraid of the dark, just looking at it.

#fears #my fears #i'm scared of this weird thing and idk y #is there a name for this?

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chimpanzeemusic · 7 years ago

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We wandered along the edge of the deepening canyon. With every step, the stream’s chill, clear waters cut ever more deeply into the volcanic basalt that formed the ground beneath our feet. Gusts of wind pulled on the storm-twisted shrubs and tawny shocks of long grasses, pausing to tug at our jackets before rushing down to join the water cascading steadily into a valley hazey with distance. We stopped and squinted again at the black and white map we’d printed off at a cafe and compared it with a picture we’d taken of a map on a sign the day before. Somewhere in Colombia’s Los Nevados National Park, we guessed we were in the Valle de los Perdidos. What we didn’t have to guess was that we were lost.

As a side note: thank you, America, for having drinking fountains. On another note: thank you, Colombia, for having syrup chicken.

Some days prior we’d arrived in Bogotá on a Sunday, and on a holiday, Dia de la Virgen. Consequently, the city of eight million souls had felt almost deserted. We’d known immediately what we wanted to do in Colombia: we sought the páramo, the high-altitude tropical grasslands so characteristic of the Andes. We managed to find the National Parks office downtown and discovered when they opened (a day later) and when we returned that their own maps and information on their parks, well, sucked. National parks in America arebasically chock-full of maps, info and trail routes you can grab from a visitors’ center with as easily as you’d find a drinking fountain. As a side note: thank you, America, for having drinking fountains.On another note: thank you, Colombia, for having syrup chicken.

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There was enough information to figure out which parks were closest to us and Bogotá, and with the help of some outdated guidebooks we’d sniffed out in a secondhand bookshop we’d ultimately selected the promising slopes of Los Nevados National Park. The bus ride to the town nearest its base was a thrilling introduction to one of South America’s most beautiful and often shunned countries possessed of all the amenities a world traveler could ever desire. “Hey, Shawn, look, they have food here! There’s bananas! Also, rice!”

They even have those beefed-up weasel things!

Indeed, the casual charm of nearby Ecuador and the ever-Instagrammable llamas of Macchu Picchu—paired with Colombia’s decades of rebel insurgencies and drug wars— seems to have dissuaded many travelers from visiting Colombia. Things have been on a slow chill-out since 2012, though, and a final peace accord was ratified on November 29, 2016, like, at least a week and a half before we bothered to show up. Correspondingly tourists are a flockin’. Flockin’ tourists. All up in Colombia’s bizness.

Passing through the larger city of Ibague, we finished our bus ride in Armenia. Armenia, Colombia, is incredibly like Cotopaxi, Colorado and Cuba, New Mexico (both of which I’d seen in the weeks prior) in that it scarcely resembles its foreign namesake. Fascinating, I know. Somewhat more interestingly, According to a Wikipedia article without any sourcing, “it is believed that the name [of the city] was changed to Armenia after the country of the same name, in memory of the Armenian people murdered by the Turkish Ottomans in the Hamidian Massacres of 1894–97 and later the Armenian Genocide of 1915–23.”

The tourist office informed us hikes into the páramo could only be done with a local guide, and so they’d gotten rid of all local maps that showed us the way to go.

We stopped at an hospedaje in Armenia and ferreted out some basic topographic maps of the national park with Google-fu. The next morning, we took a minivan uphill to the small town of Salento, which we walked around in search of additional information. The tourist office—according to old blogs, a good source of mountain intel—now informed us hikes into the páramo could only be done with a local guide, and so they’d gotten rid of all local maps that showed us the way to go. But if we wanted, they explained, they knew a guide who could take us where we wanted to go, for a reasonable price. We said thanks, said we’d keep them in mind, and marched off to the mercado, where we bought some bread and apples. Back in the main square of Salento we hopped aboard one of the many tourist jeeps that regularly ferried tourists uphill towards the famed Cocora Valley, an Instagram-famous land replete with wax palm trees whose lofty fronds once soared above the rainforest canopy and now stood vigil picturesquely above grassy, denuded slopes of grazing cattle.

We decided the Cocora Valley would best be enjoyed as the downhill section of a loop, and so we instead set off towards up the first bit of the loop, a side canyon leading to a placed boasting to be the Casa de los Colibris—the Hummingbird House.

As we advanced beneath lumbering packs, we attempted to avoid stepping in water and mud, which Shawn was able to do for a grand total of three seconds when a stream-embedded log capsized underfoot. We eventually made it to a hummingbird sanctuary which was full of, like, day-tripping Europeans drinking tea and stuff. As we sipped the warm, sweet cinnamon tea we’d purchased we happily discovered an old topographic map affixed to the wall. The caretakers told us the páramo was still several hours uphill. Unfamiliar with the path and just a couple hours from dusk, we decided to stay the night and resume our trek early in the morning. We paid them a couple of dollars and slept on the floor of a wooden building still under construction, doors left open to the mist that crept in as the sun set.

COATI TIME!!

Out on the trail the next morning, we passed two men folding a tarp in a trailside clearing in the early light. Dressed in knee-high rubber boots, shorts and t-shirts, one wore a white beanie, the other donned a bowler hat and carried juggling pins. Just then, a group of European trekkers descended in boots slathered with mud. Their Colombian guide seemed upset when he learned we were on our own. “You need a guide,” he said sternly, “the National Park guard at the park border won’t let you pass on your own. Also, not only could you get lost in the fog, you could die.” We shrugged at his empty warning—we’d died inside long ago. The group then continued onward, the guide apparently forgetting to ask our Colombian companions where their guide was.

Alone again with our new Colombian friends, we learned their names and talked a little bit more. Somewhat dismissively, I decided they seemed friendly, buena onda chaps but people I’d likely never see again, being the expert hiker and Fast-Walker-Up-Things I so obviously was. We bid them good-luck and good-bye, and good-walked all up the trail at a good pace.

Before long, we came across the National Park office, inhabited by a kind human being and a raucous, tethered dog. We didn’t ask this kind sir if two Americans needed a guide, and neither did he. Instead, he gestured for us to sign our names on the trail register and he told us about a time when he’d spied the elusive Andean sun bear, a shy species that eats a nutritious variety of bromeliads, grubs, and Michael Bolton fans. He told us one of the greatest difficulties in managing the park was the presence of families who had been settled on the high plain a generation or two ago, and now they had always lived there, darnit, depending on cattle to eke out an existence. The cows pooped everywhere, he complained, and their manure tainted many of the streams and rivers the cities below depended on for water, including the brook that ran nearby. Cows, I concluded, are terrible people.

We’d packed some snazzy Gatorade-brand protein bars, a strange colloid of high-tech Rice Krispies and caramel whey stuff generously lacquered in chocolate-flavored palm oil coating.

Wheezing, hungry and sun bear sighting-less, we busted out our grub for lunch, consisting of the last of our bread and apples from the Salento mercado and some snazzy Gatorade-brand protein bars, a strange colloid of high-tech Rice Krispies and caramel stuff generously lacquered in chocolate-flavored palm oil coating. “This is delicious,” remarked Shawn, and I agreed. We’d packed enough for the duration of our journey in the páramo, some three dozen 250-calorie packages of coagulated-whey America.

Whilst we feasted upon this chocolaty bounty, we were joined by Camilo and Andres, who apparently hadn’t been trailing too far behind us. After chatting for a bit. we started up the hill again, this time together. The trail was a downright slog, ofttimes covered wholesale by deep patches long blob areas of mud. Resistance was futile, and before long our shoes and legs had been assimilated by the mountain.

Weary hours passed as we made our way beneath the drab green cloud forest canopy, each tree trunk and branch covered in a profusion of feathered, silvery lichens, ruddy mosses, and bright fungi.

The 50% Great Worm

Abruptly, the thick forest gave way to amber sedges and tufted grass. Interspersed among the lower vegetation were curious plants, solitary stalks the width of a child’s wrist growing anywhere from several inches to several times the height of a deer in platform shoes. Topping these stalks were leaves covered in fuzz, a soft, green flannel. These curious plants, these frailejónes, indicated we had reached the páramo.

Camilo, Andres, Shawn and I rejoiced as we followed the trail up tawny ridges, marveling at the views and shivering as the alpine winds–no longer slowed by trees–tore at us and our belongings.

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At length, the trail led us to a farmhouse and hospedaje, the first of two in the area. But we had a tent we’d lugged up the mountain, darnit, so we advanced on to the second hospedaje, leaving Camilo and Andres behind.

begone, peasant…

A European sort excoriated us when we told him we’d flown to Colombia and would be flying out. We took no offense, knowing without having to ask he’d walked slowly across the entire Atlantic seafloor from Western Europe to arrive.

The hospedaje was a bit further than it’d been made out to be. Even if we’d wanted, they didn’t have any available rooms with beds—a European tour group presently infested these—but they did have a toilet, and this sneaky fancy-person house feature nabbed us right in the comfort organ, pzang! For a couple dollars we set up our tent in a room consisting of a concrete floor walled off from the wind. Our shoes were a mess from the day’s mud slog, so after a scrub in a tiny rivulet we hung them by their shoelaces on the eaves of the house, where they dripped and swung in the stiff nighttime wind. We talked a bit with the other guests; one guy who told us the national park was under threat of huge mining developments and another sort who excoriated us when we told him we’d flown to Colombia and would be flying out. We took no offense, knowing without having to ask he’d walked slowly across the entire Atlantic seafloor from Western Europe to arrive.

View from the hospedaje, and a distant valley to be explored some other day

We woke up before dawn and set out for some hot springs a number of miles away. The hike was visually nice and not too chilly. As we walked, we breakfasted on a protein bar each. We’d now eaten them for three straight meals, and they didn’t seem to be as good as we first remembered them.

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We dropped in elevation from our spot the night before, passing through frailejónes and emerging onto a flat, grassy plain. Uphill to our right, a 20 m waterfall slipped over orange-ish rocks, indicating geothermal activity. Ahead of us, the trail seemed to go through the center of the wide plain and through a herd of cows.

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We walked for a while, the trail petering out. We continued gamely, figuring it would re-appear as is often the case with less-used trails. It didn’t, but we headed anyways in the general direction we thought we were supposed to be following and walked along an chill river which deepened into a gully, then a gulch, then grew into a canyon. We kept the canyon to our left side, still keeping a lookout for the trail. Ahead, the canyon could be seen descending far, far, below. It didn’t look impassable, but it also seemed… wrong.

The canyon begins to deepen

It was almost as if OKAY LOOK WE GOT LOST AND I THINK THIS HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED I HAVE RUN OUT OF FANCY FEAST DESCRIPTION POINTS FOR THIS OTTER MEMORY AND IF I KNEW HOW WE HAD GOTTEN LOST WE WOULDN’T HAVE DONE SO so anyways we finally halted when a steep ravine cut across our path from the right, and consulted what little information we had. A future version of ourselves would have a GPS-enabled smartphone with offline locating-powers to divine our location, but present-us had a small paper map, some grainy pictures and a desire to not lose any more of our hard-gained elevation. Maybe… eating would help us think. “Hey, do you want a protein bar?” I asked my brother, waggling one temptingly in front of his face. “Ugh,” he said in revilement, and rose to leave instead. “You might be lost,” he continued, “but I was just a little disoriented. The trail is up that way.” He pointed up the ravine towards Tolima above. “Good thing it’s not foggy.”

We climbed for a while, seeing nothing besides sweet fuzz-plants and weird moss.

Then, movement, up ahead. Two figures picked their way into the ravine—one with a beanie, the other with a bowler hat and juggling pins: Camilo and Andres.

Enthused but tired, we slithered up to meet them with the sudden enthusiasm of weasels that have just encountered a roadkilled ‘possum—astounded, thrilled.

Enthused but tired, we slithered up to meet them with the sudden enthusiasm of weasels that have just encountered a roadkilled ‘possum—astounded, thrilled. They seemed pleased, but not surprised to see us. They’d also lost the path for a bit, but had stayed closer to the mountain above and hadn’t gotten lost. As we chatted, I noticed what appeared to be a twisted piece of aluminum, two feet long, torn jaggedly at the edges and bearing many small rivets. Curious.

We left the ravine together, Shawn and I trudging from exhaustion. The trail would rise and fall several times and traverse some marshy, sulfurous areas before finally cresting a ridge somewhere around 13,500) feet elevation.

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We dropped and walked around a bend and beheld a green carpet of verdant grass far below us. A handful of small corrugated-roof buildings clustered alongside two small pools which steamed visibly. We had arrived at the hot springs. (12,795 ft elevation)

We sat in the warm waters of the pool and soaked as the the sun set. We’d hiked up the hill above the settlement fifty feet at a time before we’d collapse to the grass, breathing ragged with exhaustion. “Why… why are we so tired?” Shawn muttered querulously, “The elevation… maybe?” We were somewhere around 13,000 feet, so this was certainly part of it, but it didn’t seem complete. I was doing better, overall, and this gave me an idea. “Shawn, how many of those bars did you eat?” “Bars?” “The protein bars.” “Oh. Gross. Um, one in the morning, one later… two?” ‘You’ve eaten 500 calories today. I’ve eaten 750. We should be eating maybe… 3,000 calories each up here. That’s why we can hardly move.” Indeed, though our bodies desperately needed food, our minds had concluded nauseously we they wanted nothing to do with our Gatorade-endorsed mainstay. Unfortunately, it was also all we had left. We weren’t in danger of running out, but actually stomaching the things was becoming most unpleasant.

View above the hot springs, our green tent can be seen below. Note where grazing takes place.

The view from the top of the ridge had been tremendous, but the simmering waters of the springs were better. It was easy to forget we had been too weak to reach the very top of the hill, and more relaxing to consider the mysterious pictographs we’d seen on the rocks partway up the slope. The caretaker didn’t know how old they were, but by their faded condition it seemed people had been visiting this area for a very long time. What kind of world had it been, then? Did people live up here? How far had the cloud forests extended below? Had there been pizza? What about syrup chicken?

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The springs themselves had certainly been changed. The water was piped from slightly above the settlement to a series of two pools. The first was a sitting-depth pool the size of a large hot tub and very warm indeed, the water exited this pool and dropped about ten feet until it reached a larger, more tepid pool below, probably 20 feet/6 m across. The water here ranged from 3-6 ft deep, the floor a slick bedrock in places. The edges of the pool were made of long bands of riveted aluminum. Investigating further, we noted these same pieces of metal could be found supporting various parts of the spring pool complex and its surroundings, including the walkway between the pool and the mud-daubed structure above it. Two shedlike areas were full of scrap metal, all made of the same riveted aluminum.

They were pieces of a wrecked airplane.

As I’ve written this overly long, boring account I’ve wondered about the identity of this plane. When did it crash? Who did it carry? Where were they headed? I tried to suss out its identity online, and followed many wrong leads before learning there had been many, many crashes in Colombia. Eventually, I found a site that explained there were had been 55 crashes in Colombia from 2000-2015, and 414 total crashes since 1920. This site helpfully mapped out the more recent crashes, and of these just one was anywhere near the hot springs, near La Venecia on the map below.

The site of the crash is less than a day’s walk from the springs.

This particular plane crash was flight FAC-1659, a Vietnam-survivor Douglas C-47 Skytrain apparently used in anti-rebel fighting.

Military plane—->leisure pool?

Further e-search into its demise begins to reveal conflicting information—supposedly crashed on an 11,200 ft tall mountain called Cerro Montezuma: actually a mostly-flat area 4,400 f/1350 m in elevation, but actually it crashed on its return to the airbase, and actually it crashed in either the Serrania de la Tatama or the Nevado del Tolima mountain areas, which are in completely opposite directions a hundred miles apart. Was this our mystery plane, carefully packed mile by mile in manageable pieces by horseback to the springs, or was it the remnants of some other hapless flying machine?

I have no idea. When I would try to find the caretaker the next morning to ask him where he’d come across the metal, I’d learn he’d gone into the hills.

We spent the evening hanging out with Camilo and Andres and discussed plans for the morning. “You guys staying tomorrow?” I asked. “Well,” Camilo said, “We thought there’d be more people here. We thought maybe we’d do a little juggling for the crowd to offset the cost of coming here. But it’s just us. And we still have to earn enough for our bus fare back home somewhere.” Indeed, it was just the four of us, besides the quiet, but enigmatic caretaker, who had told us at times there were dozens of people camping at the springs. “We’re just going to go back the way we came,” said Andres, “make it home by the evening. What about you?” “Our flight leaves in two days, so we’re taking off tomorrow as well.”

We spent the rest of the evening companionably. I choked down a Gatorade bar. Shawn demurred. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said.

The next morning dawned cold, clear and beautiful, with few clouds, illuminating a mountainside frailejónes in rosy morning light. I returned to the tent to find Shawn awake, but reluctant to leave his sleeping bag cocoon. “Is my swimsuit out there?” he asked. “Here,” I said, and handed him frozen swim trunks. Shawn glared at the fabric Frisbee and considered for a moment. Looking outside and seeing the coast was clear, he ran across frosted grass a short distance to the pool and jumped in, swimsuit in hand. “Thawed at last,” he said as he pulled it on.

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After the tent had dried in the sun, we reluctantly left the spring behind for the last time. As we packed up our stuff, we came across our protein bars. They weren’t bad, per se, they just needed to be eaten in reasonable quantities. I had an idea. “Hey, guys, would you guys be interested in trading for any protein bars?” “Sure,” Camilo and Andres responded. They didn’t really need the food, but now they were headed back down to the city they had more than they wanted. Trying a bar might be alright, though. I returned with four of our eight remaining bars, trying to be generous. After a minute they emerged from their tent with a massive bag of roasted, shelled peanuts, a couple pounds, maybe, and handed them over with a smile. This bag of legume loot even had candied toffee peanuts mixed in. It was a treasure, a thing most crunchy and sweet. We’d just traded for peanuts, and it was glorious.

We’d just traded for peanuts, and it was glorious.

******

After we’d said our goodbyes to our friends—for real, this time—we’d taken off to the south, leaving the high mountain plains behind and entering the cloud forest. Energized and enthused by our peanut bounty, we walked for hours.

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We reached the small town of El Salto (elevation 3376 m/11076 ft), and waited by what seemed to be some kind of hospedaje. After an hour or so, a lady returned and informed us the beds were $3 dollars each, or we both could stay in another room sans beds for $2.

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An oddity of traveling in another country is that regardless of the coin you bring, you quickly acclimate to whatever the going rate is for things. Dollars stretched reasonably far in Colombia, and so Shawn and I began to debate whether or not we had the money to pay for such a luxury as a bed. By the time we concluded that yes, in fact, the two extra dollars would not ruin us, six Colombian teenagers on a hiking trip (an energetic teen guiding them) had nabbed the beds and guaranteed our spot in a room with bags of potatoes and wet saddles and bridles hung out to dry, eau de shoe complimentary. The landlady informed us that a meal was just a few thousand Colombian pesos, a couple of dollars. It seemed expensive, but anxious for variety we decided just to go for it. As we warmed alongside the teenagers sitting on kitchen benches raised by the wood-burning stove, we marveled at just how good rice, red beans and a fried egg could be (we’d later learn we were charged more than our Colombian friends… oh well).

We awoke the next morning just in time to see the dawn’s light warmly suffusing the southern slopes of Volcan Tolima. Returning to our humid mud room, we concluded our evil plan to pitch and dry our tent by sleeping in it inside had failed. As we aired it out in the sun that soon crested the valley ridge, the teenagers arose, chattering excitedly about a waterfall they planned to visit that day. Their leader was particularly enthusiastic. The hike would be quick, he claimed, not more than an hour. Skeptical, we concluded even if the expedition went overtime we’d probably still have plenty of time to make the descent to Ibagué, our bus back to Bogotá, and our flight to Peru in the wee hours of the morning.

The descriptively named waterfall of El Salto (you guessed it, “waterfall”) lay just downstream of the town that bore its name. The ringleader/tour guide of the boys had previously visited, but as his flitting attention span, tremendous amounts of energy and scant patience took us several times through thick forest to the cliff’s edge near the head of the waterfall our confidence in his abilities began to wane. Nonetheless, the path to the falls’ base was at length discovered, and after a steep descent using mossy trees and rocks as handholds we arrived.

The damp clay soil banking the trail had the precise color and texture—tragically, not the flavor—of a rich, fudgy dark chocolate ganache.

Over two hours had passed by the time we returned to El Salto. Shouldering our packs, we passed a farmer digging a field by hand as we began to slog up the mountainside. The damp clay soil banking the trail had the precise color and texture—tragically, not the flavor—of a rich, fudgy dark chocolate ganache. The trail snaked back and forth across the slope, but for the most part carved straight up the mountainside. Foot traffic, cattle and water running along its length had slowly transformed it into a deep gash into which frustrated, motivated people had occasionally wedged timber in an effort to reduce the number of times plunging a foot into deep mud was a requisite, but cows, remember, are terrible people and had jacked up a lot of it.

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Muddied feet at last gained the pass at the ridgetop. Far beneath us, clouds obscured the view of distant Ibagué like dirty clothes hiding a dorm room floor—we’d see it eventually, but not without a day’s determined effort.

The hike from Ibagué had gained a reputation among online forums and blogs as an arduous, ugly descent but instead was one of the most beautiful hikes through cloud forest I’ve ever had.

Mountain descent to the famed city of Alternate Istanbul

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The other Istanbul

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At the base of El Secreto Preserva Natural

As we entered Combeima Canyon, cloud forest occasionally gave way to steep slopes of coffee. Waterfalls slipped into the river far below and we saw fields and houses perched precariously on the few flat areas.

As we descended the slopes from Tolima a strange copper-colored stream crossed the trail from our left, eventually disappearing into the forest. Did it harbor some fascinating microbe from geothermal activity, or were these mine tailings from the illegal gold mine we’d heard hid somewhere in the hills above Ibagué ? Shawn thought geothermal. I wasn’t so sure.

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After some time, we reached the outskirts of a town. Seeing a child playing among the barbed-wire clotheslines of a yard, we asked if we were headed in the direction of Ibagué. He responded, but with a heavy speech impediment we found difficult to understand. We continued to speak with him until his mother called him sharply from somewhere inside the house. Not long after, we came across another two children playing. Oddly enough, one of them also seemed to have some sort of mental or communicative disability. Their mother called them inside when she spotted us. I have no experience whatsoever in identifying developmental issues in children, but it seemed odd that two of three children we’d met had various conditions. I was reminded uncomfortably of the copper stream and the gold mine somewhere far above.

We spotted a man on the slope above us, who gave us directions at last. We confirmed them with a father and son busy at work planting a field that sloped steeply into the ravine below.

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Several more hours yielded the end of the trail. We caught a jeep in Juntas, the small town above Ibagué, riding past outdoor restaurants that looked to be a popular weekend spot for locals. Fun fact: A city just like Juntas was destroyed almost completely in 1985 when the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz (a volcano within sight of Tolima) unleashed a lahar of mud, ash and melted glacier.

One of the lahars virtually erased Armero; three-quarters of its 28,700 inhabitants were killed. Proceeding in three major waves, this lahar was 30 meters (100 ft) deep, moved at 12 meters per second (39 ft/s), and lasted ten to twenty minutes. Traveling at about 6 meters (20 ft) per second, the second lahar lasted thirty minutes and was followed by smaller pulses.

Over 23,000 people were killed, making it the fourth-deadliest volcanic disaster in recorded history and rendering the town of Armero a ghost town. Juntas, at the base of Combeima Canyon and the active Tolima, is at high risk of destruction. from Tolima. But anyways, here’s some recycled plastic art.

On the way to Ibague, we spoke to our fellow passengers, Colombians who had been doing a small modeling shoot in some abandoned buildings in the town where we’d joined them. We chatted amicably as we approached Ibagué . When we arrived, they gave us a general outline of the town and gave us a few suggestions of places they recommended and a few better left alone. We ate delicious food—reveling again in how little it tasted like Gatorade bars—until we remembered we had to catch our flight out of Bogotá later that night.

After a few frantic minutes locating a bus and purchasing tickets, we took turns showering in the public bathing rooms (maybe about 30 cents) of the bus terminal in an attempt to smell less like the mud and sweat of three days, using the small bar of soap to scrub some of the mud out of our clothes. After boarding the half-empty bus we made a beeline for the back and cracked open the windows, trying to set up our clothes and shoes in such a way that they might ride.

Though I’d like to pretend it is better, my memory is actually pretty bad, but I do remember this about our evening journey:

As the bus returned to Bogotá, the feel of the warm, humid wind drifting through the bus window and the rhythmic sounds of spinning tires on the wet highway wove a tapestry of sensation, wrapped us gently into sleep. Right. That’s beautiful prose and whatnot, but like much of the crap you read in travel blogs (some unintentionally here, hopefully mostly elsewhere)–overly romanticized, flowery and at least partly untrue. Luckily, oddly and surprisingly for us all I have a journal entry penned on this very bus, which in distressed letters scrawled thusly:

“The bus from Ibagué to Bogotá is stupid, smelly and shaky.”

An entry several hours from the plane from Bogotá to Lima elucidated.

“Remember the stupid smelly bus from Ibagué ? I couldn’t really get to sleep. A maniacal child boarded the bus and began to entertain himself by opening and closing the window, grabbing my hat while I was wearing it, and singing. Perhaps believing himself to be the next Colombian pop star, this [nascent Shakira] kindly treated us to his own renditions of mutated songs. [Alas], this lad’s caterwauling left something to be desired. His voice was the musical equivalent of placing thirty-eight gerbils in a centrifuge: intermittent garbled shrieks and a decided disregard for social norms.”

Shakira, Shakira.

Will Trade for Peanuts: Three Days in Los Nevados NP We wandered along the edge of the deepening canyon. With every step, the stream's chill, clear waters cut ever more deeply into the volcanic basalt that formed the ground beneath our feet.

#adventure tourism #backpacking #colombia #Ibague #Los Nevados #national parks #paramo #rural tourism #Salento #trekking #Valle de Cocora #volcano #Volcano tourism

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