#i taped off the edges of the areas i was hatching!!!!

[uhhhhmandart]

Finktober day 28: fold.

[graedari]

Bisexual to Bisexual communication between myself and one Timothy Stoker

[Image ID: A page of digital drawings of tumblr user @/graedari's interpretation of the character Timothy Stoker from the horror Podcast series "The Magnus Archives". He is depicted with an undercut that has the hair parted slightly to the right. He is drawn as having Asian heritage, his hair black, and his eyes brown. He has an eyebrow piercing on his left side, and has the part of his eyebrow it goes through shaved. He has two hoops in his right ear along with an industrial piercing. On his left ear he has a singular regular stud. He is depicted with a small stubble and a smug expression in most of the drawings.

The drawings going from the top left of the page going to the bottom right of the page:

1. A bust drawing of Tim, wearing a teal Hawaiian shirt that has yellow pineapples and peach colored hibiscus. He wears a white v-neck under and a black short necklace. He is smiling and looking up to the viewer's right.

2. A drawing of Tim leaning over the back of a grey office chair. He wears a purple button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He has a tired and agitated expression on his face as he grimaces, pointing up to the viewer's perspective. He has circular scars up his forearm, on the left side of his neck, and on the left side of his face from the attack from Jane Prentiss in S1. A brick orange text box beside him reads his dialogue from episode 104, "So my proposal for you is this: either kill me or FUCK OFF."

3. A full-body drawing of Tim in simplified style. He is wearing an orange shirt that has a yellow cross-hatched pattern on it. He holds his right arm out and holds his belt in his left hand. His dark blue jeans are pooled around his ankles above brown boots. He is wearing white boxers with a repeating red heart pattern. His face is detailed with the area around his cheeks paler than the rest. He has an aloof smile on his face. Dialogue in green and brick orange show a conversation between him and Jon from episode 39. Jon: You're not bitten, are you? Tim: No, I don't think so! Have a look! Jon: Yes, alright Tim, you look fine. Put them back on, please.

4. A more detailed render of Tim from the waist-up. He is holding a C4 detonator up in his left hand, his right hand holding his side where a red spot is forming. He wears an aqua Hawaiian shirt that is detailed with dark blue fish and yellow pineapples. It hangs slightly off of his right shoulder. He has a determined and angry expression on his face, blood dripping over his left eyebrow and over his eye from a cut above. His hair is slightly out of place and a small amount has been left to grow out near the bottom. A dark shadow is behind him and some yellow light is used around the edges to offer a dramatic lighting. Behind him and to the viewer's left is some white text in all caps that has been blurred. It reads Tim's final lines, "I KNOW."

5. A drawing of Tim leaned over a portable tape recorder, he is making a wagging motion with his right hand, an amused expression on his face. He is wearing a peach-colored Hawaiian shirt that has red fish and yellow hibiscus detailed on it. Under the Hawaiian shirt he wears a white v-neck. His nails are painted with the colors of the bi flag. A text box next to him reads, "Statement of Joe Spooky~" in a swirly font.

6. A portrait of Tim from the knees up, drawn in a simplified smile. He is making a finger-gun with his right hand and holding a coffee cup in his left. He is wearing aviator sunglasses and is flashing a bright smile. He wears a green Hawaiian shirt that has black palm trees and yellow coconuts on his shirt. Under the Hawaiian shirt he wears a white tee shirt that has a the graphic of the saying "Bi and Ready to Die" colored with the bi flag colors. He is wearing black skinny jeans and his nails are painted to match the bi flag as well.

The bottom right corner of the page has tumblr user @/graedari's signature surrounded by pink hibiscus flowers and yellow pineapples. /End ID]

I couldn't resist also making a Speedpaint for my new favorite Bisexual 🥺👉👈

Taglist Below the Cut:

@booklover223 @anitamta

[tammythompson-singslikea-muppet]

Reconciliation (Stan Uris x reader x Richie Tozier, Reddie)

I'm finally back! It's probably been a year since I posted Betrayal and shit has really hit the fan since then, but here I am a year later with part 2!

Here is a link to part 1

Warning: swearing

Aged up: 18/19

You tried to catch up with Stan as he power-walked out of the house. He stopped short when he realized his car wasn't there. "Stan" You catch his attention and he turns around. His chest rising and falling at a quick pace, "You heard everything in there?" Stan's voice was quiet, much quieter than just a minute ago. You nod and he sighs. "I'm sor-" You cut him off "Don't be" You take a step forward and bring your hand up to push some curls out of his face. He leans into your hand, not stopping himself for once. No yearning, no shouting in his head over his actions. Just the feel of your soft palm against his cheek. Stan takes a deep breath, feeling himself calm down in the wake of your touch. "Can we go somewhere?" Stan's voice barely above a whisper. "Of course."

Richie leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor. He brushed his hands through his hair 'God I fucked up' "Man you really fucked up." Richie looked up. "Thanks, Bill your a real help." Bill put his hands up in defense. "I gotta say I really didn't see that one coming," Eddie spoke up. Bill and Mike nodded in agreement. "I mean I knew *something* was going on but holy shit I didn't think they were in love with each other," Beverly added. "We know Stanley's in love with her but is she in love with Stan? I mean she was just in a serious relationship like a week ago" "Yeah I wonder what happened to that relationship?" Ben's eyes sharp at Eddie, voice stiff and slightly viscous, "Alright! Alright!! None of that!" Mike's authoritative voice made it known he was seriously done with all the fighting. "She loves him" The group turned their heads at Richie's small voice, Ha stared down at the floor and spoke softly. "She may not be in love with him right now, but I could see it. She's falling for Stan."

Eddie looked over at Richie. A mix of emotions reached throughout the boy. He hated seeing Richie like this, but he also hated that it was about you. Mostly he hated that it was about you. He couldn't control it, no matter how much he wished that he could. What is it exactly that Richie is so mad at? Is he upset that he potentially ruined his relationship with Stan? Is he upset that Stan is in love with (Y/N) or that Stan claimed he neither loved nor cared about (Y/N)? Is Richie still in love with (Y/N)? If so is he mad that (Y/N) could be in love with Stan or that she is moving on so quickly? Eddie couldn't help but feel like he was still second to you. It's not like Richie chose to tell you. He kept telling Eddie that he would for at least 2 weeks, but then she found out in her own way. Eddie feared that maybe he was never gonna tell you. Or now that you found out does Richie regret it? 'Alright, Alright Eddie calm the fuck down! Just go talk to Richie.' "Eds?" "Yeah Rich." "I'm gonna go." Richie's tone sounded soft, defeated. It broke Eddie's heart to see him like this. "Yeah sure I'll go grab my keys-" Richie cut him off politely. "I'm just gonna walk. I think I wanna be alone right now. I'll call you later." Richie placed a hand on the back of Eddie's head pulling him close and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "OK. Be safe please."

"Where are we going?" You ask Stan who is driving and keeping silent. "You'll see. Um, go into the glove compartment a find the clear tape." You scrunch your eyebrows together. "You been stashing things in my glove compartment, Uris?" You found a clear tape and put it into the radio. Temptation by New Order flooded in through the speakers. A smile grew on your face as you turned the volume nob up. Stan looked over at you for a second just to see your growing smile. "I made you a tape and left it in here for the next time you complain that there's nothing good on the radio." A fit of giggles came from your mouth. "Stanley Uris made me a fucking mix-tape." You continued to laugh. It brought a smile, growing wider by the second, to see you so happy and blissful listening to your favorite music, a song he loved as well.

And I've never seen anyone quite like you before. No, I've never met anyone quite like you before.

Richie's emotions were confusing him now more than ever. He loved (Y/N). He truly did, but he just wasn't in love with her. Guilt consumes him every night before sleep and every time he sees you. He never wanted to hurt you. But when it comes to Eddie he's impulsive even a little reckless. Richie knew that he fucked up massively. Not only with you but with Stan and he even feels so with Eddie. He felt that if he just would have been honest with you before jumping into things with Eds maybe Eddie wouldn't have lost his best friend. He still couldn't wrap his head around how much of an idiot and a dick he was about Stanley. What in the fucking hell would lead him to believe that Stanley Uris of all people would fuck around with someone's feelings like that? He had already caused (Y/N) enough pain maybe he was trying to be a hero or something. Do something right for once, but of course, it was just another gigantic fuck up! Executed wonderfully by your very own Richie Tozier. Richie had noticed that he walked straight to the quarry. He picked up a stone and skipped it across the water.

Stan pulled the car over along where the road stopped and the tree's started. "Come on." Stan walked over to your side of the car and opened the door for you and held out his hand. You took his hand and walked beside him into the woods. "You trying to get me to some secret secondary location?" "What, you don't recognize where we're going?" You looked around a bit and shook your head. "Well, then I guess it will be a surprise." "I guess this is the day I get murder in the woods. Goodbye world you were never all that good to me but at least my murder is hot as hell." You almost couldn't see Stan's blush from how much he was laughing. You're hands brush as you walked close together. Stan felt a little nervous to take it, it's not like he hasn't held your hand before but right now he feels it holds so much more. 'Good' he thought to himself. 'It does mean more. Let it mean more.' He took your hand in his and warmth spread throughout the both of you. Just the two of you holding hands walking through the trees with Stan pointing out some birds to you, felt so blissful. At this moment you realized you had never felt this way with Richie. The two of you had a lot in common and play off each other well jokes and conversation-wise. But maybe that wasn't all a relationship needed. You had felt that's why Richie and you were so perfect together. Maybe this was finally the start to forgiving Richie and regaining some normalcy, realizing that maybe we weren't perfect or meant to be after all. If this is how Richie felt with Eddie you felt that you could somewhat understand why he was so in a rush to have it. It was scary how new this thing with Stan was yet how important it felt to you. You would go to the ends of the earth to protect what you had with Stan, no one in the world made you feel as safe and comforted as Stanley Uris. What Richie did, going behind your back, was in no way how he should've handled the situation. You let him into some of the most vulnerable spaces in your mind and life, entrusting him with your heart and your deepest thoughts, that you were his only person. That wasn't something easy to forgive, not something to easily recover from, especially having that trust broken with someone else with who you were very close. You may be happy and blissful at this moment, but you definitely knew the consequences of Richie's actions would come back to rear its ugly head sooner or later. But you believed that understanding was one of the first steps toward forgiveness. The more you walked the louder the sound of running water became. Soon you could even see the running water. You realized Stan had brought you to the barrens.'But why the barrens?' you thought to yourself. You reached the edge of the water and looked over to Stan. "C'mon" he grabbed your hand and stepped out onto a rock in the water. You did your best to follow, it finally dawns on you that you were headed toward the clubhouse.

When you got to the small clearing Stan went ahead and lifted the hatch to the small underground area where the losers used to hang out. "I've only been here a couple of times." You said as you climbed down the ladder. "Yeah, I guess we started hanging out other places more." Stan walked over to the hammock getting in. He smiled and reached his arms out like a little kid asking for a hug. You raised an eyebrow at him. "I know. I always feel like I'm gonna fall out of this thing, but it's safe I promise." "Okay," You say drawing out the word in a skeptical tone. You yelped as it wobbled and Stan gripped his arms around your waist as the hammock swung a little. "See, safe." You let out an amused huff and relaxed into Stan. Your back was pressed against his chest, both of your heads finding slightly uncomfortable spots in the crooks of the other's neck. "I remember one of the first times Eddie ever brought you to hang around with us was down here." Stan played with your hands in your lap. "I remember looking over and seeing you smiling, talking to Beverly. It was really hot out, your cheeks were pink. Richie gave you his shower cap and you, him, and Bill talked about comic books." You closed your eyes just listening to Stan talk softly into your hair. "Beverly came over to me when she noticed. She was joking around told me to stop staring, that it was rude. I hadn't even noticed that I was staring. I got nervous cuz, -hoping you didn't notice. You were so beautiful I couldn't help but stare." You blushed and let out a chuckle, your stomach filling up with butterflies. "I don't expect you to say back any time soon, and I in no means want to rush you, but I-" Stan paused, thinking about the impact of his words. He started to think maybe he should give you a little time, but then you leaned your head up to look at him. And when he looked down into your eyes there was no way stopping the words from falling out of his mouth. "I love you." The look in Stan's eyes was intoxicating, you could have stared in his eyes for the rest of both your lives, but instead, you brought your hand up to his jaw and tilted your head bringing yours and Stan's lips together. Equally as intoxicating as the look in his eyes. The two of you felt as if you were floating on clouds. Like you two were the only two people in the world. You pulled away and smiled, Stan pressed his forehead against yours. "I know" You and Stan laughed.

"Ok Rich. You just need to apologize. I'm sure they'll forgive you. They're your friends, basically your family." Richie walked back into town talking to himself. "And you hurt them and accused them of shitty things and now all your friends will hate you forever cuz you were a total dick and even their grandchildren will hate the name, Richie Tozier." Richie stopped for a second and groaned, rubbing his hands up and down his face under his glasses. He took a deep breath and continued walking.

Mike opened the door to Richie. "Hey man, come in." "Is Eds still here." "Yeah, he's in the living room. Rich," Mike put a hand on his shoulder. "He's worried about you. We all kinda are. There's been a lot going on with you four I just want to remind you that if you need someone to talk to we're all here for you buddy." "Thanks, man." Richie continues into the living room and sees Ben and Eddie talking. He breathes a sigh of relief, knowing how much it hurt Eddie that Ben wouldn't talk to him. They hugged and Ben got up off the couch and saw Richie. "I'm really sorry Richie. It was really rude to treat you like that-" Richie cut him off. "It's ok man really, I get it. She's your friend, I was a dick." "Yeah but you and Eddie are my friends too." "Well then what do you say Haystack," Richie extended out a hand. "Back to buds." Ben agreed and shook Richie's hand. Richie took a seat next to Eddie on the couch. "Hey, I'm glad your back I wanted to-" Richie leaned in and kissed Eddie. "As much as I love you and your adorable rambling I wanted to apologize." Eddie was suddenly very nervous. He thought to himself 'Shit this is it. He still loves Kassidy.' "Sure, Sure yeah. Umm a-about what Rich?" Richie took Eddie's hands in his fiddling with them out of nerves. "About everything. About not telling Kassidy. About not even being decent enough to break it off first so neither of you would get hurt. All of this would have been so much easier and nobody would've had to lose any friends. I'm just so sorry Eddie, I love you and I never wanted to hurt you like that." Eddie was so relieved to hear those words come out of Richie's mouth. He put a hand up to Richie's cheek and leaned to kiss him. "I love you too Richie." Richie chuckled in relief "Thank fuck."

You and Stan walked back to the car hand in hand. "So what do you wanna do now? " You leaned your back up against the car door "Oh I don't know maybe some more of this." Stan leaned himself against the car by his forearm and with his other hand lifted your chin, leaning down connecting your lips. You hummed against his lips. "Well, I do love doing that." "Do you want to go back to your place-" Stan pressed a small kiss on your neck "Watch a movie." "Shit!" Stan's head shot up. "I left my house keys at Bens." "We can sneak through your bedroom window." You push yourself off of the car, past Stan, and walked to the other side pulling your door open. "I don't wanna go back there either but with any luck, Richie won't be there." Stan groaned and got into the car.

You wrapped your knuckles on the door and Mike opened it with a smile. "I just forgot my keys." Mike let you in past him to the table where the keys sat. You quickly walked over to the table and grabbed your keys. Turning around back towards the door you catch Richie staring from the couch next to Eddie. For once you didn't feel the wind knocked out of you. But you couldn't say that the feeling of wanting to punch him had dulled any. You carried on toward the door when Richie called out your name. You sighed and banged your head on Mike's front door and contemplated for a second whether or not you should pretend you didn't hear him and keep walking. Apparently, you had stayed there a bit too long. Richie tapped two fingers on your shoulder. "I was just wondering if you would let me talk at you for a second. You don't need to say anything, or react in any way really-" You turned around and put your hands on his shoulders. He froze silent as you drew a deep breath. "I forgive you." It wasn't easy to say, you weren't even sure it was true. A part of you wanted to keep him dangling in wonder and guilt but you knew that you would eventually fully forgive him and the more you saw him moping around the more you would most likely enjoy watching him suffer for what he did. But if he just thought that you had forgiven him then maybe he would go back to his old trashmouth self and you all could move on.

Richie was taken by surprise, to say the least. He felt relief for a fleeting moment until he remembers Stan. "He's out in the car" He heard him speak softly. She somehow always knew what was going on inside his head, that's what made him think that she was so great, that they would be so great together. Against your better judgment, you grimaced and said, "I can give you five minutes. But he has the car keys so I can't promise he won't dive off on you." Richie threw his arms around you and squeezed you, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" "Yeah, sure get off me" He smiled at you, "Sorry." As Richie walked out the door he turned back to you, "He wouldn't drive off without his best girl." Richie started making trumpets sound in the tune of 'A Long Long Time' by Kitty Kallen and closed the door. You rolled your eyes as you and Mike laughed

Richie fell silent as he walked up to your car with Stan in the front seat. He raised his hand and tapped on the window. Stan kept his stare forward and locked the car door. Richie sighed. "Stan please." Richie heard the click of the car doors unlock and walked around to the other side and got in. "I'm so sorry. I was being a complete shit of a person and totally overreacted. I do care about her, I do! That's why I got so angry and it totally fucked up my judgment." Stan wasn't saying anything and it started to make Richie even more nervous. "I was angry and confused and I honestly don't know where all of that came from. That's not what I think of you at all, you gotta know that, Stan. You're one of my best friends and the best dude I know and I'm so sorry I said all of those things. I know I really fucked up." The two of them sat and stared out the windshield, Richie's leg bounced up and down from nerves until Stanley broke the silence. "I'm sorry too. That I turned my back on you. I couldn't understand how you had the most perfect girl right in front of you and seeing you hurt her made me angry too. I mean we all saw you and Eddie happening eventually, but I didn't think you two would go and do that. I love her and I guess I let that get in the way of our friendship." "I mean dude I don't really think I could blame you. I've seen the way she looks at you. It can make someone do stupid and crazy things." "Well then I guess that explains why you are so stupid and crazy," Stan laughed, "Eddie looks at you like that 24\7." Richie turned away laughing and hoped it hid the bright red flush on his cheeks. "I can't believe she actually forgave me." "Yeah me neither, to be honest." Stanley dead-panned. "Buuut," Stan took a calming deep breath, "If she can forgive you, then I guess I should too."

Eddie walked up to (Y\N) hesitantly as she was laughing with Mike. Mike saw Eddie and took that as his cue to leave, or rather to eavesdrop from the kitchen with Beverly, Ben, and Bill.

"Thanks for uh.. for forgiving Richie, he's been a wreck," Eddie said. "N-not that I've been fine! I-I feel completely terrible for what I did. But I mean I-I-I'm not trying to make you feel bad for me or anything. O-or for Richie. I just mean that we're both really sorry. I'm so, so very sorry (Y/N)." Eddie stammered through quickly. Man, do your shoes look mighty interesting at that moment. 'You forgave Richie why is it so hard to forgive Eddie. Maybe because we only gave Richie a premature apology so we could all get back to normal? Should I have to do that with Eddie too? Fuck that neither of them deserves it!' You fought back and forth with yourself in your head before finally looking up at Eddie. You took a deep breath, "I know...I-" Eddie cut you off "You don't have to." "I feel like I should." "You already kinda forgave Richie I know that's a big thing so you can hate me for as long as you need I deserve it." You smiled at Eddie and walked out of the house. Richie saw you walking towards the car and stepped out leaving the door open for you. You got in and leaned over to Stanley cupping the side of his face to bring him closer and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Stan started the car as you buckled. You tucked your legs up onto the seat and curled up to get comfy. Stan rests his hand over on one of your legs as you closed your eye

taglist: @elisaa-shelby @trashxqueen @igotahammer @pillowjj @screechinglawyer @campcampie

[katehuntington]

Title: Ride With Me (part nineteen) Fandom: Supernatural Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader Word count: ±7500 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family.  Summary part nineteen: The Flagstaff Horse Fair is about to kick off, but not without a hitch. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: ‘Fortunate Son’ - Creedence Clearwater Revival, ‘Backwoods Company’ - The Wild Feathers.  Follow ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Prepare for cuteness and a bit of angst! Thank you @kittenofdoomage​​, @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish​​, @manawhaat​​ and @winchest09​​ for helping me. I especially want to thank Kay, who has beta’d Ride from the very beginning, but needs to take a break from Tumblr to focus on school. I will miss her dearly, but I’m super thankful that Mana is willing to take over. Also a special thanks to @jules-1999​​, who has offered me her knowledge about rodeo events like these.

Ride With Me Masterlist

     With a black bumper-pull trailer in the rearview mirror, Dean’s beloved ‘67 El Camino rolls up Interstate 17. The windows are down, allowing the wind to wash in, like waves crashing onto the beach on a hot summer day, the cool air welcome and refreshing. 

     The Gold Canyon Ranch caravan left around three o’clock, the column of three pickups and trailers now heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona. Bobby and Jo lead the company in his powerful Ford with an impressive gooseneck in tow, which currently accommodates five horses. Benny follows in his four by four, with three horses on board another large trailer, facilitated with a small living quarters. Dean is the last wagon of the train, Meadow and one of his calmer geldings in the back, and Y/N beside him in the passenger seat.

     The cowgirl is soaking up the scenery, the hills that flow next to the highway, the mountains in the distance, the blue sky above them. The tall saguaros that dominate the landscape at home are swapped for ponderosa pines, dusty desert for green grasslands. The forest is already beginning to change color, autumn painting deciduous trees in shades of yellow and orange. It’s remarkable how different her current surroundings are from the Phoenix area, only two and a half hours south. 

     With Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival playing on the old cassette deck of the classic car, Dean drums against the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song. He absently hums along, mouthing a few words every now and then. When he glances aside, a small smile forms on his lips. The woman, who managed to calm him after the disturbing news Bobby delivered, is breathtaking without even trying. Loose strands of hair have escaped her ponytail and dance in the playful wind, her maya blue blouse fluttering against her Arizona sun-kissed skin. She looks at the world through her shaded Ray Bans, lost in thought and wonder.

     He returns his gaze to the road as he reaches for her, laying his hand on her knee to get her attention, softly rubbing his thumb over the denim. Awoken from her daydream, she glances over, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she lays her hand over his, warmed by the touch.

     “Nervous?” he wonders, dropping her hand just long enough to turn down the stereo before he laces their fingers together once again.      “A little bit,” she confesses.      “Don’t be. You’re gonna do fine,” he reassures. “Besides, your class ain’t till tomorrow.”      “I’m not nervous about riding.”      The wrangler moves his focus from the asphalt to his girlfriend. “What about then?”      She’s quiet for a second. Shy, just like she was the first time they met. “Just… This is your scene. People know you, and I don’t know anyone.”      He smirks, lightly. “Concerned about former flings?”       The cowgirl shrugs, half admitting her insecurity.      “Yankee, you have nothing to worry about. Hey…” He squeezes her hand, glancing over again. “I’m with you, okay?”

     A smile breaks through the surface as Y/N glances at the handsome wrangler she gets to call hers, his green eyes making a silent promise. For a guy who claims not to be good with words, he’s doing a pretty great job. She takes a breath when he concentrates on the road again.      “So, how are you going to introduce me?” she wonders.      “As my girlfriend,” he returns, matter-of-factly, cool confidence sitting on the edge of his mouth. He honestly can’t wait to introduce her as his.

     Y/N is unable to hide her contentment, the corners of her mouth creeping up further as she gets lost in the sight of him. There it is again; that tingly feeling, his confirmation breaking down the doubt bit by bit.      “What about Bobby?” Y/N checks. “He still doesn’t know.”      “Believe me, Bobby will be too busy strikin’ deals and sellin’ horses. He’s not gonna notice us,” Dean states, not concerned about his uncle. “It’s gonna be fine, you’re gonna have a blast, trust me.”

     After shooting her that grin she’s loved from day one, he glances past the trucks and trailers in front of them. They drive by a large sign made from stone and wood, that says ‘1882 - Flagstaff, Arizona’, the city up ahead and Humphreys Peak in the backdrop. The caravan turns onto I-40 going west, before taking the exit a couple of miles later.

      When they come over the hill, the competition grounds come into view. Flags reach skyward and wave proudly in the Western breeze, the stars and stripes alternating with the state flag of Arizona, the American Reining Horse Association, and many others. There’s the main arena, several training areas, stables, and amusement rides, complete with hundreds of trucks,  trailers, and RV campers filling the fairgrounds. Observing the scene, it becomes clear to Y/N that this isn’t just a local show.

     Dean was right, this is the perfect practice run for her and Meadow, but the sight of the large event has her stomach in knots. Right, those lovely performance nerves that never fail to torment her. She hopes she can survive tomorrow and still be able to eat without throwing up, because it wouldn’t be the first time that the highly strung feeling she experiences right before a ride has her physically sick. 

     The Gold Canyon Ranch caravan enters the show grounds, Bobby following the directions of the parking officer. After a short drive, they park the trailers next to each other on a large field, adding to the rows and rows of pickups, trailers, and even semi trucks with pop out living units.       “I’ll check in with the stable manager,” Jo announces when they get out of the cars, heading over to the stable office to check which boxes are assigned to them.

     Y/N picks her hat off the seat and pushes it on her head, leaving her shades on the dash now that she doesn’t need them anymore. She opens the hatch of the black trailer behind Dean’s Chevy, peeking inside. Meadow greets her with a slightly nervous neigh, eager to get out now that they’ve stopped moving. Lovingly, her rider pets her nose, trying to calm her a little, but the spirited mare begins to scrape her hoof on the rubber coated floor, nonetheless.      “She okay?” Dean asks.      “Yeah, she just wants to get off the trailer. I’m going to unload her, let her graze a little,” she says, attaching the leadrope to her halter. “Could you get the lid?”

     The wrangler nods and walks around to the back, opening the latches as Y/N unties her horse. The cowgirl pushes the divider away and gently leads Meadow down the ramp. The beautiful bay Quarter Horse takes in her surroundings with large eyes, alert and ready for action, belting out another loud neigh to announce her arrival. She circles around her owner, who can’t help but laugh at her cocky attitude; she could have sworn her granddad bought her a mare, and not a stallion, even though Meadow behaves like one at times. Eventually she drops her head and cuts a few bites of grass, before pulling up her head again while chewing, staring at another animal in the distance.

     “She really is a character, ain’t she?” Dean laughs, watching the pair.      “Sure is,” her owner chuckles, rubbing the mare’s withers. “She knows it’s showtime. She can feel it.”      Y/N crouches down to remove Meadow’s travel leg protection while Dean holds the feisty horse, glancing in the direction of the stable office, from which Jo returns.      “Tent B. Box sixty-four to seventy-three,” the ranch owner’s daughter informs. “Let’s unload.”

     Within thirty minutes the ten stables are ready, the heavy trunks installed, the tack rooms decorated and the horses unloaded. Y/N does her bit, rolling the wheel barrow from the truck to the stables with hay bails and wood shaving bedding, but it’s clear the Gold Canyon crew has taken this many horses to a competition before. Benny, Jo, Dean, and Bobby operate like a well-oiled machine, although the head of the ranch is moving a little bit slower these days. 

     Y/N tapes a form to the stable with Meadow’s name and an emergency phone number when Dean comes back from the water point, a full bucket in each hand. He and Benny have been going back and forth a couple of times now, supplying the ten horses. When the head wrangler walks by carrying the water, she’s distracted from the task at hand. Watching his shoulders work under his plaid shirt, she can’t help but get a little lost in the view. His biceps flex against the fabric, back strong and firm while he transports the heavy buckets with steady steps. God, he is good on the eyes.

     “Are you gonna continue to drool over my cousin or are you gonna come with me to the show office to pay our fees?”      Y/N’s eyes shift to Jo, who’s leaning against the stable door with her arms crossed in front of her chest and an amused smirk on her lips. Without a doubt, the blush that fires up her face is hard to miss.       “Let me get my bag,” she says, straightening her back and turning to the head wrangler. “Dean, is the car still un--”

     Before she can finish her sentence, her boyfriend has dug up the keys to the El Camino from his pocket and tosses them to her. Y/N catches them skillfully.      “Awww, so you can read each other’s mind now, too?” Jo comments, earning a glare from Dean, causing her to shrug. “What? It’s dead cute!”      “I’m not cute!” Dean counters, his face contorting as if she just called him something foul.       “No, you’re a tough, manly man. We get it, Cowboy.” She passes him, patting his shoulder. “Keep tellin’ yourself that.”      “You keep tellin’ yourself… somethin’,” he stammers, struggling to stand up to the reputation Jo is undermining.

     She walks on, laughing, not even granting him another look. Bothered with his own unimpressive reply, the wrangler watches his cousin catch up with her father. God, sometimes he wishes he could shut her up without having to deal with her sassy attitude.      Annoyed, he turns back to Y/N, who can’t hide her amusement as she steps closer. He eyes her, which only causes her to chuckle.      “I’m not cute,” he underlines.

     The cowgirl smirks and pushes him into the tack room, out of sight and safe from Bobby’s judgement. She takes his hat from his head and leans in, connecting her lips with his. The kiss is short and sweet, but it’s long enough to make Dean’s head spin. When she parts from him, he opens his eyes again, taking her in as she places his Stetson back over his tousled hair.       “You’re adorable,” she says.      Dean half pouts while furrowing his brow, still trying to establish that he is neither cute or adorable, but breaks character when his girlfriend smiles widely before she spins around. Fine, maybe he is turning a bit soft, but it’s all her doing. 

     Jo joins Y/N with her father’s wallet in hand, the two friends almost skipping to the exit of the stable, joking and laughing as they go. Dean watches the pair and shakes his head, not missing Benny’s wide grin coming his direction. The lovebirds might have stayed out of the ranch owner’s line of sight, however, Benny had a clear view of the endearing interaction. He’s leaning against a tack trunk, arms crossed in front of his broad chest, blue eyes sparkling with mischief and playful judgement that’s impossible to miss.       “Get it over with,” the head wrangler mutters. “Got anything to add to that?”      “Nah, I reckon the gals made their point,” the Southerner chuckles.

     “So, you two are still doin’ good, huh?”      Jo glances at Y/N from the corner of her eye while pushing her father’s wallet into her back pocket. She leans against Dean’s car, careful not to scratch it, knowing that all hell is going to break loose if she does.      “Surprised?” her friend counters, picking up her bag from the front seat, before closing the door.      “Just checkin’ if the woman-oholic isn’t suffering from tremors, hallucinations, insomnia,” the cowgirl states.       Y/N grins at that, pushing the strap of her bag on her shoulder, ready for her friend to lead the way to the show office. 

     “He’s not, don’t worry,” she claims, very much aware that Jo is just toying with her. “He’s been really wonderful, actually. I honestly didn’t expect him to be so attentive and sweet.”      “No one did. Hell, I don’t think even Dean knew he had it in ’im. Guess you bring out the best in my notorious cousin.” She hooks her arm around Y/N’s neck, pulling her in for a side hug.

     On their way over to the show office, Jo is greeted by multiple familiar faces, asking her how she's doing and the ranch owner’s daughter returning the question in a quick exchange. It becomes clear to Y/N that this isn’t just Dean’s scene, but Jo’s as well. 

     She soaks up her surroundings, glancing left and right as they walk up a two story building, a little further up the slightly hilly property. Stalls are lined up along the boulevard, selling all sorts of things, from horse gear to fashion and interior design. It’s not incredibly busy yet, the people waiting in the short lines for the food stands mostly riders, trainers, and horse owners. The organisation is probably expecting a bigger crowd on the weekend.

     A ferrier is hammering a loose shoe under a horse’s hoof, the large animal waiting patiently until the job is done, while a promoter tries to sell a new tractor to an interested party. Cheers roar from one of the arenas, excitement heard in the voice of the commentator, who echoes over the terrain through the speakers. The smell of cotton candy when they pass a concessions truck reaches the cowgirl’s nose as she watches children having fun riding a Shetland pony from the local riding school.

     Content, Y/N smiles, because apart from the temperature, the atmosphere on this show isn’t different from the events she’s been to when she was still living in Freeport. The nerves she felt in the car earlier seep away with the familiarity, excitement taking its place. Before she came to Gold Canyon Ranch, she was buried under pressure and books, working on her thesis around the clock. The last competition she rode was the State Championships. God, she missed this circus. This life. This is where she belongs, not behind some desk, no matter how good the salary.

     “Jo Singer, it’s good to see you again, my dear,” the woman behind the counter in the show office says, recognizing the blonde cowgirl instantly. “How are you and your family doing?”      Reading glasses balance on the tip of the nose of the kind secretary, who smiles at both the girls. Her ash blonde hair is short, and worn in a fashion you would expect for a lady in her sixties.      “Good to see you too, Mildred,” Jo returns, pulling Bobby’s wallet from her pocket. “We’re okay. How are the boys?”

     Y/N glances at her friend from the corner of her eye as the two acquaintances make small talk. She noticed the hint of doubt in her claim that everything was fine with the Singer family, followed by the quick counter question to avert the attention back to the woman on the other side of the desk. Aware that the information Dean shared with her is confidential, she didn’t discuss it with Jo, even though she wanted to. While she didn’t want to get the head wrangler in trouble, she was also unaware of how up to date the youngest Singer actually is. Now that she heard the slight hesitation, however, she’s getting the idea Jo knows more about the ranch’s financial struggles than her bubbly and carefree personality leads on. 

     “How many horses are you competing, hon?” Mildred asks, pushing her glasses up her nose as she searches for Jo’s name on the competitors’ list.       “Two. I’d like to pay for Dean as well, and one entry for my friend here. She’s riding one of ours.”      “Winchester, right?” the secretary checks, crossing off names.      Jo nods, picking at her father’s credit card. “Yeah.”      Mildred flips the page until she finds the one on which the riders filed under the letter ‘W’ are listed.      “Four horses for Dean? Your cousin has a busy weekend ahead of him,” she chuckles, warmly, and looks up at the young woman that accompanied Jo. “What’s your name, sweety?”      “It’s Y/N L/N,” the intern answers. “I’m competing two horses, one of my own. I’d like to pay for Meadowsweet separately.”      “Not a problem.” Mildred focuses on the blonde cowgirl again. “So that's an entry fee for seven horses, plus the stable fee for nine. Y’all brought two horses for auction, am I right? I remember because I had your father on the phone just this morning.”      “Yeah, we do. Do we have to pay to enter the auction too?” Jo wonders, nervousness lacing her tone.      “Yes, the auction entry is 200 dollars for each. After the sale the amount will be settled, together with the commission,” the elder woman informs. “Entry fee is three bucks per horse, stable fee is fifty each, so that will be 877 dollars in total.”

     Jo takes a breath and offers Mildred the card. The normally confident cowgirl seems on edge all of a sudden as she watches the secretary swipe it. Several seconds tick by while they wait for the machine to accept payment, and apparently it’s getting on Jo’s nerves. Y/N’s friend fiddles with her father’s wallet, tension coming off her in waves. Then the machine bleeps, a long high tone cutting through the heavy silence.

     Mildred looks up at the blonde rancher, sympathetically. It’s in her eyes and Jo’s heart drops to her gut before she even speaks. “I’m sorry. It’s declined.”       “W - what? No, that - that can’t be,” Jo stammers. “Can you try again?”      The kind lady swipes the credit card a second time, even though they know it’s not going to make a difference. The same message appears on the small screen, followed by the monotone beep. The sound is interrupted by the door opening and closing, two other competitors now entering the show office, getting in line to pay as well. Jo curses under her breath.

     “Any other way you can pay, darling?” the secretary asks, kindly.      “Uh - I have…” She leafs through the banknotes with trembling fingers, counting the money, her face turning red. “I have 300 dollars. I’ll check if there’s more in the truck--”      “I got it.” Y/N steps closer to the counter, pulling her wallet from her purse.      “What? No, c’mon,” Jo objects.       But her friend isn’t taking no for an answer. “It’s not a problem. I’ll sort it out with your dad later,” she assures, handing over her own card. She returns her attention to Mildred again. “Could you add my fees as well?”      “I sure can. That will be 930 dollars,” the elder woman states, changing the number on the terminal before swiping the credit card. 

     This time it beeps three times, confirming payment without a hitch.      “Alright, all good to go. Good luck on your runs, ladies,” Mildred says, cheery, trying to clear the awkwardness with her warm smile.      “Thank you,” Y/N returns genuinely as Jo gives the woman behind the desk a nod.

     The girls exit the show office, Jo pulling her hat over her eyes a little deeper to mask her flustered face. The redness slowly starts to leave her cheeks again after a minute, as they walk down the boulevard in silence. Y/N isn’t sure if she should say something, and so decides to give her friend some space. Her mind is going over the incident, however. A maxed out credit card; that can’t be good. The writing on the wall is applied with a paintbrush, the black letter getting bolder the more she learns about the suffocating situation. Her mind hasn’t stopped reeling since her talk with Dean in the cafeteria earlier this morning. There has to be ways to tip the scale. 

     Jo eventually speaks up, voice clipped with embarrassment. “I’m sorry ‘bout that. My dad will pay you back.”       “I know,” Y/N responds, not doubting it for a second. “It’s no big deal, seriously. No reason to apologize.”      “Still... Thanks,” the blonde cowgirl utters, embarrassed nonetheless.      It’s now Y/N’s turn to wrap her arm around her friend’s shoulder, hoping the gesture will ease Jo a bit.      “That’s what friends are for, right?” she comforts her. “Come on. Let’s head back. What’s your starting time?”      Jo glances at her watch. “Eight thirty. Thirty minutes after the opening. So that gives me an hour and a half.”      “Better ready your horse then,” Y/N smiles. “You’ve got barrels to race.”

     “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome on this Friday night to the eighteenth annual Flagstaff Horse Fair!”

     With Y/N’s hand in his, Dean walks up the bleachers, as if he’s afraid to lose her in the crowd. Plenty of people have settled down in their seats already, only a few spots left now that the opening ceremony is about to begin. She’s glad he’s keeping a hold on her, though, because once again she feels slightly overwhelmed by the number of strangers who all seem to be very much aware who her boyfriend is. 

     Several times Dean was held up on their way over to the main arena, by acquaintances, former and current clients, old friends and forgotten faces. She could tell he was doing everything he could to ease her nerves, his hand on the small of her back, engaging her into the conversation by introducing her. Yet she felt relieved when the ring came into view, hoping to find a time to take a breather from keeping up appearances and pretending she’s comfortable amongst new company. 

     “Dean!”      Y/N almost flinches at the female voice calling out for the cowboy. For a brief second Y/N shuts her eyes and takes a breath; guess she needs to keep her mask on a bit longer. She turns to face two women, who greet the wrangler, the one with dark, boy cut hair the first to embrace him.      “It’s so good to see you again,” she says, warmly.      “Hey, Jody.” Dean returns the embrace, genuinely pleased to see her too, before he directs his attention to the happily smiling blonde. “Donna, it’s been a while. How are you doing these days?”      “Hiya, handsome. I’m doing just fine, thanks.” The woman with a strong Minnesota accent pulls him into a tight hug as well, pressing her dimpled cheek against his. She backs away, her delighted eyes bouncing from him to the girl behind the cowboy. “Are ya gonna introduce us to this lovely lady?”

     Dean adjusts his hat and reaches for Y/N, his hand slipping behind her back when he nods at the brunette. “That’s Jody Mills - she takes horses off our hands regularly and finds us buyers - and her business partner Donna Hanscum. Good friends of mine, good friends of the Ranch.”       He then gently pulls her a little closer, the pads of his fingers lingering on her hip.      “Jody, Donna, this is my girlfriend Y/N,” Dean responds, unable to hide his proud smile. 

     Both women share the exact same reaction, their jaws dropping to the floor. If Y/N wasn’t so nervous, she would have found it comical.      “Shut the front door!” Donna exclaims. “Are you tellin’ me that Dean Winchester is off the market?”      Dean nods, his grin not faltering. “I’m spoken for.”      Delighted, Jody laughs. “Well, I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”      “Took you long enough,” Donna jokes, teasingly pushing his shoulder, before she winks at the cowgirl next to him. “You must be one heck of a gal if you managed to tie this one down. C’mere!”

     Before Y/N can escape, the woman with the vibrant personality pulls her in and gives her a warm hug as well. She can’t help but to chuckle, because both Donna and Jody seem like sincerely kind people. The warm welcome eases her, helping her to feel more comfortable amongst these new friends.      “Why don’t you sit with us?” Jody suggests, after Donna lets go. “Because I wanna hear all about this miracle woman.”

     They take a seat and Y/N soon engages in conversation with Dean’s friends. Contently, he watches his girl, listening to her enthusiastic voice as she tells them about their meet cute. Dean chuckles at the memory himself; never in a million years could he have guessed he would be where he’s standing now, together with the then so timid and slightly prissy intern. She opened up like a wildflower in spring, blossoming into the carefree spirit that years of studying and discipline hid away. 

     Damn, he fell hard for her, didn’t he? She isn’t the only one who developed; because Jody wasn’t wrong. He too never expected to be able to commit, to be faithful to one woman, yet he can’t even imagine being with anyone else but her now. She taught him to look further than tomorrow. He has to admit, he has been thinking about the future more in the past week than he has in all the prior years combined.       His thoughts are interrupted by the commentator, who’s voice echoes through the speakers, mentioning the sponsors of the event.

     “We thank you for comin’ out here this weekend. Folks, right now I would like to ask Alex Jones to enter our arena floor with the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America.”

     Dean glances at Jody, who proudly watches her adopted daughter trot into the ring on a palomino. She’s dressed in a red shirt, blue and white fringe on her sleeves and chaps playfully dancing in the breeze. The end of the flagpole rests on her stirrup, the American colors fluttering in their wake. The crowd rises to their feet as the flag is carried in, respectfully doffing their hats. 

     “As we gather in the spirit of the Old West, let us be reminded of the part that the horses we cherish have played. They offered our forefathers safe travel, partnership, and the freedom to roam this great land. The same unbreakable bond between man and horse still remains today, as we ride for our country. We ask you to remain standing for the playing of the national anthem.”

     Y/N holds her hat by the brim and squares her shoulders, following Dean’s example when he places his right hand over his heart. A calm falls over the bleachers, every single soul watching the flag with the same steady reverence that only blue-collars truly can. The riders in the warm up area are standing side by side, facing the Stars and Stripes, and even the younger inexperienced horses seem to pay their respect.

     “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light      What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?      Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,      O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?”

     The hairs on her arms rise up as Y/N softly sings along. She knows every word, taught in school of course, but it’s more than that. She believes them. And since she was a little girl, she has dreamed about the Star-Spangled Banner. She imagined it would play while she was standing on the highest step of the podium at the major events: Congress, the Derby, and who knows, maybe one day at the World Equestrian Games. It’s a long shot, maybe, but a goal nonetheless, one she will continue to chase until the day comes that she fulfills that dream. 

     “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,      Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.      Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave      O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

     The cowgirl and her horse began circling as the end of the anthem neared, speed increasing. Alex is galloping along the boarding of the arena, the Stars and Stripes flaunting proudly, standing tall. After the last note, the crowd cheers and claps, rallying the rider on as she takes the flag out of the arena at high speed. 

     “Give it up for Alex Jones!” the commentator encourages. “Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, get comfortable, take a load off your feet, take a seat, and get ready. We’re gonna kick off the competition with Barrel Racing for three year old horses. Let’s ride!”

     “Jo is sixth, right?” Y/N checks as they sit down.      Dean nods, leaning his elbows on his knees, watching his cousin in the warm up pen. “Yeah, after the drag.”      “Smooth footing. Could work in her advantage,” Y/N notes, linking her arm with his. “I was wondering; why don’t you teach Jo?”      The wrangler snorts. “Because she would claw my eyes out.”      His girlfriend laughs now, leaning into him and sweetly resting her cheek against his shoulder.      “Hey, we’ve tried, but we just fight like cats and dogs. It ain’t a good fit,” he chuckles.

     The first horse and rider combination shoots from the holding box and the audience’s motivating cheers rise from the stands into the Arizona air. Being a good sport, Dean claps too.       “Ever raced barrel, sweetcheeks?” Donna wonders, leaning forward to make eye contact with Y/N.      “Once or twice when I was a kid,” she admits. “You?”      “Oh, you betcha!” the cheery blonde states. 

     The rules to the game are quite simple. Three barrels are set up in a cloverleaf in the arena and the horse and rider pair need to cleanly negotiate the pattern. The cowgirl who’s the fastest without knocking over any barrels wins. It’s a thrilling sport to watch, perfect for a horse’s speed and agility when the rider knows how to bring it out in them.

     The second rider kicks off, setting a better time that pushes her up the board. The third follows, knocking over the second barrel, landing the poor girl a five second time penalty.

     Y/N keeps an eye on Jo, who gets instructions from Bobby. The ranch owner’s daughter is riding a mare called Sundance, who she started up about eight months ago, being the first person to ever ride her. The young horse had her first practise run a couple of weeks ago, but today is her show debut. The atmosphere of a big competition like this can be quite daunting for an inexperienced horse, but Jo prepared her well.

     The fourth goes wide around the first barrel and swerves to the third, wasting valuable time. Number five has a clean run and betters the leading result; 17.13 seconds is the time to beat.      A tractor enters the arena and the crew removes the barrels, white spray paint indicating where they need to be put back once the sand around it is dragged. When the footing is smooth again, the barrels are placed back.

     “Next up is Joanna Beth Singer with Sundance. Now, this young lady knows how to ride, with multiple wins under her belt, so let’s see what she will do with this youngster today.”

     Y/N moves to the edge of her seat, her heartbeat picking up. She might not be the one competing, but sometimes being the person on the sidelines is more nerve-wracking than actually being the one in the saddle.      Bobby walks with his daughter to the entrance of the arena, the young mare next to him already bouncing with excitement. Rousing music only adds to the exhilarating atmosphere surrounding them, the spectators waiting for the thrilling ride that is about to start. The second Jo’s father lets go of the rein, Sundance bolts away, locking on the first barrel like she has been doing this all her life.

     “And she’s off! Look at that speed, people!”

     “C’mon, Jo!” Y/N encourages, joined by Dean, who has gotten on his feet in anticipation.      The crowd cheers when the fast horse turns sharply. Focused, Jo pushes her heels into the bay’s flanks, hands towards the mare’s ears, guiding the youngster through the pattern to the second barrel. They are making good time.      “Smoke them, Jo! You got this!” Dean shouts, voice lost to the crowd that seems to favor Jo and Sundance.

     The clock ticks; eight seconds, nine, ten. Sand clatters against the metal as the eager horse cuts the third obstacle, so tight that you could barely fit a piece of paper between her boot and the barrel. It starts to tip, and Y/N grabs Dean’s arm when the drum almost tumbles over, but Jo pushes it back with her reins in hand so that it stays upright and the audience erupts. 

     “Yeah! Bring it home!” Y/N squeals, excitedly.      At full gallop the two shoot back to the gate, Jo flat on the Sundance’s neck, the energetic horse accelerating until they pass the finish line. The clock stops at 16.35.

     “Folks, if that ain’t horsemanship, I don’t know what is. What a ride and what a horse! Jo Singer and Sundance are in the lead!”

     Dean grins proudly and whistles on his fingers, glancing down at his girlfriend, who is still applauding excitedly.       “Dean, is that mare for sale?” Jody checks, the trader clearly interested now that she has witnessed the talent.       He chuckles. “Depends on your offer.”      “Fair enough. I’ll go have a talk with Bobby then,” she returns, aware that for a horse like that, she needs to raise the stakes.      “We’ll walk with ya,” Dean states, glancing aside when Jody’s friend doesn’t follow. “Donna, you comin’?”      “I’ll meetcha guys later. I’m gonna watch some more runs with Alex.” She nods at Jody’s surrogate daughter, who just sat down in one of the first rows. 

     They say goodbye and the wrangler places his hand on Y/N’s lower back as they walk to the stairs and get down from the bleachers. She can tell he’s trying to play it cool, but she senses his relief. Jo delivered and just secured more than just a place on the podium with that solid ride. The buyers are going to be lining up for Sundance, which means they can keep the price high. It’s a win Gold Canyon Ranch so desperately needs. The cowgirl bumps her shoulder against his, drawing his attention. The smiles they exchange say enough, she knows what’s on his mind, and he knows she understands.      “I’m gonna see if I can catch Jo. It was really nice to meet you, Jody,” she announces, shaking Jody’s hand before turning to Dean. “See you in a bit?”      He nods and meets her in a sweet, short kiss, before she runs off to the stables. His gaze stays fixed on her, lovingly, until he loses track of her in the crowd. Only then does Dean notice Jody’s knowing smirk.      “What?”      “You got it bad,” she comments, an earnest laugh falling from her lips.      He tilts his head, nodding; there’s no denying it. He’s known Jody for a while, and even though they only see eachother every now and then, he considers her a dear friend. 

     “She’s amazing, really. It’s all still kinda new, though,” he admits, comfortable enough to let some of that softness show. “Oh, which reminds me... Bobby doesn’t know yet. So could you not mention it?”      The raised eyebrow and judgemental look she sends him says enough. Jody stares him down as if she’s about to use her mom-voice, causing Dean to slightly cower.      “She’s the intern and it’s kind of a touchy subject. I wanna time it well so that he doesn’t bite my head off,” the cowboy excuses.       The woman who is tough when she needs to be, turns soft now, rolling her eyes slightly.      “Fine, I won’t tell him. Don’t wait too long, though. It’s Bobby, he wasn’t born yesterday. He’s going to find out sooner than later,” she reminds him.      “I’ll tell him soon,” he promises.      “This is a big first for you, ain’t it?” The female ranch owner smiles at him warmly, apparently amused with the somewhat uneasy behavior of the cowboy.       “It is,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “But it’s good. Never thought I’d say it, but I could get used to this.”      “I’m glad you’ve met someone, Dean. You deserve a slice of that apple pie life.” 

     Dean smiles at his boots, knowing she means more with those words than would seem so at the surface. From a young age, even before Dean moved in with the Singer family, she has kept a watchful eye on him and his little brother whenever they were at the same shows and rodeos. Even though she’s only a few years older than him, she was always taking care of others, protecting those who needed it, and apparently she sensed the Winchester boys could use some support. To be honest, she wasn’t wrong. She has seen a few things, picked up on the tell signs. That knowledge adds to the weight of her kind message.

     “And if you ever are in the need of advice only a woman can offer,” she continues, “may it be suitable birthday gifts for the lady, or choosing an engagement ring, you know who to call.”

     Dean’s eyes widen, glancing aside at the fierce woman, walking beside him. He thought about what is to come, but he didn’t think that far ahead. Especially with her internship ending March next year, he’s slightly careful to presume she is going to want to stay with him. Yes, he will fight for her, but he can’t predict the future. Who knows what will happen when she’s due to leave.      “Whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” he laughs. “We only just started dating, y’know?”      “Yeah, I know, but she’s a keeper, I can tell,” Jody counters, sure of herself. “Give it some time, I’ll remind you of this conversation at your wedding.”

     The cowboy chuckles, but doesn’t contradict her. Jody Mills is a smart woman, one who usually is right. She can read people, and despite the small age difference between the two of them, his caring friend often mothers him with her wisdom. He can’t believe the thought crosses his mind, but it flashes through his conscience nonetheless. I hope she’s right.

     He doesn’t want to dwell on it too long, though, because the glimpse of what he secretly hopes one day will come true, takes him by surprise. Somewhat daunted, the wrangler redirects the focus.       “I’ve haven’t spoken to Gabe in a bit. How’s he doin’ these days?” 

     There’s a hint of guilt in his voice, even though he tries to suppress it. Gabriel had worked at Gold Canyon since 2005, until Bobby had to let him go last year. The head wrangler felt horrible, especially since he taught Gabe the ropes when it came down to training horses, and getting fired was the last thing his friend ever expected. Just like with Ash, he would have done anything to prevent the lay off, but their boss didn’t have much of a choice.       Thankfully, Gabe got a job as a horse trainer at Jody’s ranch. They kept in touch, but over time the calls came and went less frequent. Lately, it’s been quiet, though, and the woman next to him looks up at him stunned, a mixture of remorse and empathy in her eyes.

     “You haven’t heard?” she asks, appalled.      Dean shakes his head. “Heard what?”      “Oh, honey, I’m not sure how to tell you this,” she starts, averting her gaze to the ground, as if she’s trying to find solace in the dirt underneath her feet. “He had an accident earlier this week. He’s in hospital.”      The wrangler snaps his eyes at her in shock, a frown puckered between his brows. “W-what?”       “Yeah, he--” she pauses, shaking her head as if she still can’t believe it, “- he was working with a stallion, quite a special case. He turned aggressive and Gabe got trampled. He suffered multiple fractures in the vertebrae.”      The head wrangler stops dead in his tracks, causing his company to turn to face him. In shock he stares at Jody before his gaze drifts off, the unpleasant surprise still evident, though. Not sure what to say, he moves his hand to his face, tracing his stubble as he tries to digest the news.      “Fuck…” he stammers. “Is he - he’s gonna be ok, right?”

     “The doctors haven’t given us much yet. From what I’ve heard, the first tests showed very little reflexes, but there was still a lot of bruising and swelling. They hope to be able to get better imaging soon, but right now it’s not looking good. He most likely damaged his spinal cord; he can’t move his legs,” Jody explains, observing the disoriented man before her with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know he is a friend of yours. Honestly, I expected you would’ve gotten a call from his brothers.” 

     The cowboy still stares at nothing in particular, unable to grasp what he just learned. “We - uh, we didn’t talk as much as we used to. Kinda fell out of touch after he left Gold Canyon.”       Jody nods at that, the endearing smile that was there when they were talking about his newfound relationship now gone. The corners of her mouth are drawn down, the worry and guilt aging her in a matter of moments.      “It’s really tragic. Honestly, I feel awful. It happened on my land, the horse was my client’s.”      “Hey, this is not your fault, you hear?” Dean replies, gently gripping her upper arm. “These accidents can happen. We forget sometimes, but we still work with thousand pound animals who have minds of their own. It’s dangerous, and he knew that.”

     Jody swallows down the guilt and turns to slowly stroll to the warm up area, not walking away from it entirely, but giving herself something to do. Dean adjusts to her pace, shoulder to shoulder with the rancher.      “I found him in the pen. He was screaming in pain,” she tells. “Of course I happened to be the only other person on the premises. Donna was delivering a horse to a new owner.”

     Shaking his head, Dean glances aside. Damn it, he wishes she didn’t have to go through that. Waiting on an ambulance must have been horrible. Dean knows Jody treats her staff like family, their bond much like the dynamic between the Singer family and their personnel. Dean cares about those he works with deeply, he would never forgive himself if an accident like that would happen to a member of the crew.       “He’s gonna bounce back. Gabe’s a tough one,” he soothes, hoping to offer at least a little comfort.      “Yeah, I hope so.” She sighs as they reach Bobby, who is having a conversation with two older men on the sideline, without a doubt doing business. “I’m gonna talk to your uncle. See if we can come to an agreement on that horse.”      “Better get in there fast, before he sells her to someone else,” Dean advises, after which he turns around. “See you at the party tonight?”      “Depends on how much money I spend at the auction, but I’m certain Donna will drag me there anyway,” she says, doing her best to pull together a playful grin.

     Dean watches Jody step up, politely interrupting the negotiation, not even a bit intimidated by the possible buyers who have already named a price. She’s tough, something that he has always admired. The woman stands her ground in a man’s world of horse traders, runs her own ranch and built her own network. An extraordinary person, who always has his back. He carries nothing but respect for her.

     As he makes his way to the stables, tipping his head to the people he knows on his way over, his thoughts go to Gabriel. Jody is not the only one who feels guilty about his current condition. He just told her she shouldn’t blame herself, so why is it that he wishes he would never have let his good friend go? Maybe if Gabe had stayed, he wouldn’t have broken his back. Maybe if he had taught him better, he would’ve still been able to walk. 

     He shakes his head, trying to dismiss the notion. But like a mosquito the mental picture keeps patronising him, buzzing into his ear, draining him and stealing the wrangler’s peace. When he nears the stable tent B, he picks up pace, however. Because he knows that the one person who will calm his mind and make him feel better with just her smile is right around the corner.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part twenty here

[arrow-guy]

Broken Flock (5/??)

Summary: It’s been two years since you uprooted your life and left to figure out who you really are, leaving behind Bucky and Clint with little more than a note as a warning. Now, New York is calling your name and it’s time to go home. How will Clint and Bucky react to your return, and how will the time have affected your relationship?

A/N: Hello, hello, we return with a new episode of Disaster Boys and their Winged Friend. We’re picking up right where we left off last time. Please enjoy!

Page dividers by @carryonmyswansong

Word Count: 3k

Pairing: WinterhawkxReader

Warnings: Heights, falling

Part 4

“You sure you’re alright staying behind?”

“(Y/N), I’ve already told you, the two of you need some time outside of the city.” Clint pushes Bucky and I out the door. “Get your asses upstate and get some fresh air. If you’re back before dark, there’ll be consequences.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “Consequences? What’re you gonna do? Spank us?”

Clint grins. “Don’t tempt me.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and hooks his arm around my waist. “We’re leaving.”

“Good.”

“We’ll pick up a couple of pizzas on the way home!” I add before Bucky can get me too far down the hall.

Clint shouts his approval and Bucky shakes his head. The smile on his face betrays his annoyance and I laugh. Bucky gives me a half-hearted glare and reaches over to take my hand.

“You think this is hilarious,” he grumbles.

“I think it’s hilarious that you refuse to smile in public.”

“We’re in a hallway.”

“And you treat it like a public space!”

"Other people live in this building, (Y/N), it's not just us!"

"Is this the moment when you finally admit you live here, too?"

“How is that what we were talking about in any way?”

“You said us when you were talking about who lives here, not just Clint and I!” I poke him in the side. “You live here too. Admit it.”

“I’m not admitting anything.”

“Seriously?” Bucky rolls his eyes and moves in front of me to walk down the stairs. He doesn’t let go of my hand. “Bucky, you have spent more nights in either my apartment or Clint’s since I moved back in. You live here.”

“I don’t pay rent. I don’t live here.”

“Then you’re a squatter. A really well-paid squatter.”

“You’re an awful person.”

I hummed. “I know, but you like me anyway.”

“Unfortunately.”

I cackle and follow him down the last few flights of stairs. We load up our bags, the picnic basket, and the umbrella Bucky wanted into the back of the car. The umbrella tries to escape a few times and Bucky has to climb into the car and hold it in while I close the back hatch. Once it’s secure, Bucky helps me get into the car by, first, laying the back of the passenger seat down flat. I tuck my wings as tightly to my body as I possibly can and lay down on the passenger side and Bucky buckles me in as soon as I settle. I pillow my hands under my cheek and wait for the car to warm up so that we can leave.

“You look comfy,” Bucky says.

“This sucks, and you know it,” I grumble.

He laughs. “Maybe.”

As soon as we’re out of the city, Bucky reaches over to me and I take his hand. He softly tells me to get some rest and that he’ll wake me when we reach our destination. I do my best to stay awake as long as I possibly can, I eventually nod off and sleep for about an hour and a half before Bucky gently shakes me awake. It takes me a moment to wake up and realize where we are.

“We’re here already?” I mumble.

“Mhm.” Bucky squeezes my hand. "Come on. Let's set up."

I nod and unbuckle my seatbelt. I open the back passenger door and crawl out across the back of the car seat. I shake out my wings as soon as my feet hit the grass and stretch my arms over my head. I pop my back all the way up and down my spine and I sigh loudly. It takes me a moment to register that Bucky’s driven us out the literal middle of nowhere and parked at the edge of a massive grassy field. Behind us stands a giant wall of trees and beyond that is miles of rolling hills and fields of grass, rippling in the wind. I look at Bucky and grin. He smiles and shakes his head before jerking his chin at the back gate of the car. I grab my bag and the umbrella and trail after Bucky while he looks for the perfect place to set up.

After wandering around for nearly five minutes, Bucky finds a spot he likes and spreads out his blanket. I open the umbrella and drive the stake into the ground at one corner of the blanket. Bucky immediately stretches out across the blanket and I lay on my stomach in the sun beside him.

“Seriously?” he asks.

I shrug and spread my wings. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do this.”

He shakes his head. “You’re nuts.”

“Not all of us have metal arms, Buck. I'm not gonna burn myself if I sit in the sun for a bit.”

"You could still burn," he mutters.

I hum and fold my arms under my chin. "Worth it."

He shakes his head. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

“Someone has to be, and seeing as Clint’s not here, I’ve gotta pick up the slack.” Bucky laughs and I smile. “How’d you find this place, anyway?”

“Stark moved operations upstate for a while. Things got loud and crowded so I left and drove around for a bit. Found this open field and filed it away for later.”

“Have you brought Clint out here yet?”

“No, not yet. He doesn’t need quiet like we do.” He takes my hand in his when I reach out to him. “He’ll get his turn at some point. But today it’s just you ‘n me.”

“I’m kinda glad it’s just us today,” I confess. “We don’t get a lot of time alone together, what with you living at the tower.”

“I know. I get sucked into a lot of work with Steve.” He sighs. “I love him, he’s my best friend, but he’s such a fuckin’ work-a-holic. Acts like he’s still got shit to prove, even though he ‘n Tony are probably two of the most respected people on the planet.”

“Well, you know how it went the last time I tried to talk him into taking a vacation.”

“You jumped out a window.”

“He started having a panic attack thinking about the paperwork that could potentially pile up while he was gone.” I sigh. “I worry about him sometimes.

“Don’t worry about him too much. Sam and Rhodey have been helping more, recently. Rhodey is great with the leadership stuff, and Sam is the perfect backup when training starts getting a little out of hand.”

“That’s good.”

“Stark’s talking with that Pym guy to see if he’ll loan his guy to us for a while.”

“Scott, right?”

“Yeah, gave Sam a hard time a few years back, but…” he lowers his voice conspiratorially, “We’re not supposed to know about that.”

I laugh and he turns his head to grin at me. “And how do you know this?”

“Confidential, sweetheart.”

“Aw, Buck, come on!”

He laughs. “I was going back through old security tapes a while back and found the feed.”

“Putting all that training to good use, I see.”

“I gotta find my fun somewhere, (Y/N).”

“And you’re not one to go tugging on Clint’s pigtails, or anything.”

“Nah, he’d like it too much.”

I giggle. “Probably.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Anyway, Steve’s doing better than he was. Work might slow down enough that I could spend more time at the building with you guys instead of stuck at the tower. Well… more than just the evenings and the occasional weekend.”

“That’d be really nice.”

He nods and hums in agreement. His eyes flutter shut as he relaxes and I watch him doze for a bit before I pull my hand from his and wander out to the middle of the field. I close my eyes and tip my face to the sky, spreading my arms and wings, just to soak up the warmth. A gentle breeze kicks up around me and the faint rustling of grass slowly reaches my ears.

I sigh and begin to move my wings, lifting from the ground with each downbeat. When I can see nothing but the tops of the trees and the rolling hills of the countryside, I angle myself and fly in several wide, lazy circles over the field. Bucky and his umbrella are little more than a speck on the ground below when I circle back around the fifth time.

With one strong stroke, I break off from my course and glide out over the treetops. I climb higher and higher through the clouds until I can’t see the ground below me. I relish the strain of the muscles all up and down my body, groaning through months of disuse, but pleased to finally move after being stuck on the ground for so long. Up in the clouds, I swear I can breathe a little better than I could not even ten minutes ago. My head is clearer than it has been in nearly a year. I feel wonderful. Wonderful enough to pull my wings in tight against my back and free fall through every single inch of cloud cover before unfurling them and gliding out over the countryside.

I do a few loop-the-loops and have to pause after to shove my hair out of my face. Embarrassed, I glance around and laugh when I realize that absolutely no one could’ve seen me.

I take off again, dipping down below the clouds, only to find that I’m in a completely different place from where I started. I squint at the surrounding area, searching for any kind of defining landmark, and immediately backpedal when the Compound comes into view. I angle my wings into a sharp turn and take off in the direction I came from.

I figure I’m home free when I see the umbrella and I put on an extra burst of speed in an attempt to reach Bucky faster.

“Long time no see, (Y/N)!”

I jerk my head from side to side in an attempt to figure out where the voice came from. A second look over my right shoulder reveals Sam, slowly emerging from some kind of cloaking shield. Startled, I forget to move my wings and Immediately lose altitude.

“Fuck!” I yell out, flailing my arms as I plummet to the earth below.

I manage to roll and face the sky and I take several deep breaths to try and calm myself. When I open them again, Sam is diving, arms outstretched in an attempt to catch me. His yells reach my ears and I pull my wings tight against my body, arch my back and flip myself to face the ground once more. About fifty feet before I hit the ground, I snap my wings open and streak across the field. Sam pulls up just in time to avoid crashing into the dry grass below.

I bank sharply and land a short distance from Sam. Anger rises in my chest and I ball my hands into fists.

“What the fuck was that, Wilson?!” I shout. “Are you trying to fucking kill me? If I had something on me right now, I’d throw it and your head!”

"I am so sorry, (Y/N)," he says, hands raised in defense. "I didn't think you'd get spooked like that."

"You were cloaked. How the hell was I supposed to know you were there?"

He freezes. “I… I don’t know.”

I let out a frustrated yell and, with one strong stroke of my wings, I send him tumbling to the ground with a massive gust of air. I storm off in the direction of the car shouting back at Sam each time he tries to defend himself.

“Come on, (Y/N), it was an accident! I’m trying to apologize.”

Bucky lumbers over, raking his hands through his hair. “What’s going on?”

“Sam just about killed me,” I grind out.

“What?”

I fold my arms and shake my head. “I got distracted and didn’t realize how far I’d flown and wound up a little too close to the Compound. I got out of there as fast as I could, and I thought I made it. But Sam followed me all the way back and decided to do so cloaked-” I look back and Sam and glare. He has the decency to look guilty. “-And startled me bad enough that I stopped flying. I fell a few hundred feet before I could get my bearings and get my wings out again.”

Bucky looks past me at Sam, brows pulled together in a scowl. “What the hell, man?”

“Look, something appeared on the scanner, I had to go check it out. How was I supposed to know it was her? We didn’t even know she was back in town!”

“Yeah, but you figured out it was her, right? Why would you follow her back after that?”

“I don’t know. None of us have seen her in two years, man. I guess I wanted to make sure it was actually her.”

“You could’ve done that from a distance, Sam,” I counter. “You know I’m not a threat. Scaring the shit out of me put us both in danger.”

“You’re right.” Sam looks between Bucky and I and sighs. “I’ll get outta your hair.”

“I hope this doesn’t end up in a report, or something,” Bucky says.

Sam laughs. “Don’t worry, it won’t. My lips are sealed.”

I give him a tight lipped smile. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Don’t mention it, (Y/N).” He lifts off the ground and grins. “I’d hug you, but I’m pretty sure you’d just punch me.”

“Damn right I would,” I mutter. Bucky laughs and bumps his shoulder against mine.

“See you next week,” Bucky calls.

Sam nods and Bucky and I watch him disappear into the clouds. Bucky sighs and shakes his head and leads me back to the umbrella, muttering to himself about hating his job. I slip my arm around his waist and tell him he doesn’t hate his job, he just really enjoys his time off.

We spread out on the blanket and eat our lunch. We don’t talk much and I take off to fly again when I’m finished. I stay much closer this time, choosing to just do laps around the field instead of exploring like I had been earlier. Instead, I content myself with doing different aerial maneuvers and buzzing by the umbrella every once in a while.

I fly for another three hours before I get tired. I drop down in front of Bucky and he cracks one eye open to look up at me.

“Done?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“I know Sam said he wouldn’t tell anyone, but I can’t help being a little paranoid,” I say. I offer him a hand up and he takes it.

Bucky yanks the umbrella from the ground and shrugs. “I’d say that’s just smart thinking, on your part.”

I hum and begin packing things back into the picnic basket. I shake out and fold up the blanket and tuck it under my arm as we head back to the car.

“Did you at least get to relax a little?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah. I think I napped most of the time.”

I laugh. “Good.”

Once everything is packed in the car, Bucky helps me back into my seat. The interior is warm and my overworked muscles are crying out for me to rest. The hum and rhythm of the car isn’t helping my case much, and I grow drowsy the further we drive. Bucky takes my hand as I begin to doze off.

“Did you have any kind of fun today?” he asks.

“Mhm.” I nod and squeeze his hand. “Gonna be sore in the morning.”

"Sounds like you had a really good time, then."

"Yeah." I nod off for a moment, but suddenly remember something. "We gotta get pizza on the way home. I promised Clint."

"I know, sweetheart, don't worry. We'll grab a couple'a pies on the way back into town."

"Okay."

I sleep the entire way home.

Bucky gently shakes me awake when we arrive and I groggily crawl out of the car. I grab the bags from the bar and Bucky shakes his head when I reach for the umbrella and picnic basket. He gestures for me to follow him into the building and we trudge up the stairs to Clint’s apartment. Lucky is at the door as soon as we’re inside and Clint barely looks up from what he’s doing when Lucky barks and announces our arrival.

“What’d I say about coming home early?” Clint asks. “It’s not even dark out yet!”

I shake my head and drop the bags near the door.

“(Y/N) got a little too close to the Compound and Sam followed her back after she got picked up on the scanners,” Bucky explains.

“He decided to surprise me and I nearly fell to my death.” I grab plates from the cupboard. “So there’s that too.”

“Holy shit,” Clint says.

“Yeah… But we have pizza.”

Bucky holds up the two boxes and Clint grins and clears his arrows from the coffee table.

“I knew there was a reason I kept you guys around.”

I roll my eyes and hand him a plate. “There’s more benefits to us than pizza.”

Clint flips open a box as soon as they’re on the table and takes three slices. “Right now, the main benefit is pizza.” He leans over when I sit beside him and kisses my forehead. “You’re still pretty great without it, though.”

“Aw, thanks, Clint.”

We eat in relative silence, doing our best to ignore Lucky’s pleading looks, though Clint gives in and tosses him his own slice. Bucky admonishes Clint but Clint just laughs and jokes about throwing Lucky another slice.

When I finish, I lean forward on the table, stretching the muscles all up and down my back. Clint reaches over and presses his knuckles between my shoulderblades, gently massaging away the steadily growing soreness. Clint and Bucky talk between themselves and I watch as Lucky climbs into Bucky’s lap and curls up.

I smile and listen to their conversation and let their voices and Clint’s hand on my back lull me into soft relaxation.

---------

Part 6

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This fic:

@avengerscompound, @nerdy-bookworm-1998, @shirukitsune

[siribear]

with the paint job finished and dried, all that’s left is to prepare for the trip. the sun creeps overhead as minutemen continue to bustle about the castle. her people strap the minigun she took from the museum of freedom to the back of her new power armor; others load in enough ammo to take down another deathclaw. 

meanwhile, whisper and deacon sit underneath a canopy, double, triple checking their usual weapons of choice.

‘you’re sure this old thing will protect you out there?’ whisper rolls the fabric of the hazmat suit between her fingers. the material has thinned and worn over the past couple centuries, and even now her hands come away with dust.

‘no rips or tears,’ deacon says confidently. ‘des and carrington looked it over.’

this time, she switches to the helmet. the surface is scuffed and dirty, but intact. ‘the respirator? all the valves work? does it - ‘

‘yes.’ he sets aside his rifle and snatches the helmet from her hands. ‘it’s not as sturdy as your walking death machine over there, but it’ll do.’

whisper frowns. ‘i’m just trying to make sure you’ll be safe, deacon.’

‘then keep you and that minigun between me and any glowing sea creatures.’

another minuteman drops by with a bag of supplies: more stimpaks than she can count, a few bottles of rad-x, a handful of radaway. they’ve already packed away their rations and ammo. now they’re down to basic necessities and however many rolls of duct tape whisper can find. just in case.

the longer they sit, the more anxious she gets. every step brings her closer to shaun, but she has to take those steps. ‘i’m sure no one would notice if we just snuck out now.’

‘with the power armor?’

‘sure. i’ll distract them.’ he stands and points in a random direct. ‘everyone, look over there!’

they share a laugh when a few minutemen do stop and look, only to stare at them when nothing appears. though whisper has to wave them off in apology, she feels her nerves abate, if only a little.

-

an hour later, she’s back in her quarters, slipping into a spare suit of underarmor danse found for her. the muted black bodysuit offers little protection itself, but danse had said it would make walking around in the armor feel a little less awkward. pulling on the gloves, she finds they fit well enough just over her wedding ring. a break between the wrist guards and gloves gives her enough room to reattach her pipboy. the needle stings more than usual going under her skin, thanks to the mottled black and blue bruise around her wrist.

somewhere, back at home, is a picture of nate wearing a similar suit under a set of combat armor. 

all dressed, she returns to the courtyard. there stands deacon, just outside and away from the crowd, ready in his bulky hazmat suit. ‘well,’ he says when he sees her, ‘you look good.’

she adjusts her collar. ‘not as good as you, partner. are we ready?’

deacon nods his head toward the others, gathered around her new navy blue power armor. ‘they’re ready for you. careful you don’t get caught up in a parade.’

preston, sturges, ronnie shaw, and alan, who runs radio freedom, do look like they’re gathered with purpose. organized. preston better not have made this into an old minuteman ceremony she doesn’t know about. when she approaches, she asks preston the same question.

‘would have killed them to give ya a new suit of armor, huh?’ sturges puts a hand on the arm of the suit. ‘but she shouldn’t give you any trouble out there. she’s even an even better model than the one you picked up at the museum, and that survived a deathclaw, too.’

‘she gets the sturges seal of approval?’ she says with a hint of a grin. ‘maybe the brotherhood doesn’t hate me so much.’

‘but don’t take any unnecessary risks,’ preston argues.

‘can’t have the minutemen fall apart again so soon,’ ronnie chimes in. ‘not when you’re doing some actual good, here.’

whisper shakes her head. ‘if anything happens to me, preston becomes - ’

‘nothing’s going to happen,’ her second-in-command interrupts, shaken. ‘you,’ he says to deacon, approaching, ‘you’ll keep her safe.’ his tone brooks no argument.

‘of course,’ deacon replies easily, too easily, in preston’s opinion, because he frowns.

‘well then!’ sturges claps his hands. ‘let’s get you in this thing, boss.’

at the press of a switch, the back of the armor opens. arm and leg plates unfold, and she steps into it, fitting herself once more into the frame. the thin material does help, as danse noted, and the metal joints barely dig in with the protective padding the underarmor provides. sturges hands her the helmet and, because she has to try it once, she tosses it in the air and flips it like she’s seen danse do before. she catches it and clicks it into place, hiding the giddy grin she’s now sporting.

the heads up display boots up immediately, picking up information from her pipboy and feeding it into the edges of her vision momentarily. she checks the fuel levels, and it’s at - ‘uh, sturges? this is reading me at half fuel right now.’

‘ah, right. we took your old fusion core from the other set of armor. figured it’d give you a little more oomf to get you out there.’

‘everything else good in there, partner?’

‘one thing,’ she says, almost to herself. there was one modification she specifically asked sturges to handle, other than the new paint job. she flips on her headlamp and aims at the ground.

‘little early for the floodlights, isn’t it?’ deacon asks, looking at her. but when she directs him to look down, at the picture that will be lost when the light is cast into the distance, he smiles. in the center of the light, in a shadowed grey, is the silhouette of the railroad lantern. she turns off the headlamp, pleased.

‘everything looks good in here, then. time to head out.’

their escort takes them to the edge of the castle’s new neighborhood. minutemen fall in line behind preston and the others walking behind her and deacon. it is a parade, in its own right, but the entourage breaks off before travis can start a rumor about the minutemen marching through the commonwealth.

and then it’s just her, deacon, and the sound of metal footsteps on broken pavement.

-

whisper leads the way west across south boston, sticking to the flat roads. anything to conserve fuel. december hits the commonwealth differently than she’s used to. by her birthday she’d normally be bundled thicker clothes. long sleeves, jackets. but now that it’s passed, she’s content in the underarmor, and deacon hardly looks cold in his suit.

beside her, he stretches his hands upward. ‘you’re carrying me there if i get tired, right?’

she holds her arms out in front of her. ‘feel free to hop on whenever, as long as you return the favor.’

‘sure thing, partner. as long as i get to take that armor for a test drive.’

‘what? no. after all i went through for this, you’re carrying me and the armor.’

he takes a deep breath. ‘did i ever tell you about the time i carried a whole suit of power armor on my back?’

deacon proceeds to tell her a story of how he once saved a brotherhood soldier in the capital wasteland. ‘couldn’t get that hatch to open,’ he says, pointing toward the back of her armor. ‘so i had to carry him all the way back to the doctor in rivet city. mind you, that took hours.’

she doesn’t try to keep her indulgent hum even remotely convinced. he continues anyway.

‘dropped him off at the entrance to the city, where he finally woke up. didn’t know where he was, just remembered almost getting gunned down by super mutants. so, i told him that i,’ and he flexes, ‘brought him all the way to the city.’

‘let me guess, the city threw you a party for being a hero?’

he shrugs. ‘nah. he accused me of being a synth and held me at gunpoint until the guards stepped in.’

‘i see. there’s a lesson in there somewhere, isn’t there?’

his gaze catches somewhere to their left. the landscape is different. even from the road, she can see the metal fences and structures obviously erected long after the war. even the coast looks too close, with buildings half swallowed by the sea. massachusetts bay university. whisper remembers a few friends that went there. along with the poisoning incident that appeared in the news.

‘what’s over there?’ she asks when deacon steers them further away.

‘institute took over university point a few years ago,’ he says, gravely. ‘get too close, we might run into the stragglers.’

there’s something more to it, she figures. he’s too tense for fear. but she doesn’t fight him, instead finding a road outside jamaica plain to travel further west.

-

just outside milton general hospital, whisper picks up a faint distress signal. deacon stops his patrol of the area as she plays it through her speakers.

‘if anyone is out there, please... help.’ deacon sits next to her, face illuminated by her pipboy light. ‘what’s going on out there? i felt the ground shake, and nothing since. it’s been... four days, i think?’

‘this is... pre-war,’ she says. felt the ground shake. they’re still a few days away from the impact sight, but even from sanctuary hills, she remembers the sound of it. loud above even the grind of the elevator. a crack of thunder, then the shockwave coming over them like a wave only seconds later.

‘i’m so thirsty. please... somebody, hurry.’ the message ends with the woman crying, and the jarring monotone voice notifying them that the message will repeat. and it does. trapped in the jewelry safe - please help.

‘hey, shut it off.’ deacon reaches for the dial himself when she doesn’t move. ‘it’s been hundreds of years. you can’t do anything for her now.’

she snaps out of it. ‘i know. i know, but - ‘ four days. longer? no water, no one to save her. trapped in that small hole in the wall, like - like her neighbors in the vault. suffocating in their pods. and she just - slept. ‘i know.’ travis comes over the radio and flips to a new song. she lets it play through the night.

-

days later, they finally approach the edge of the glowing sea. blown apart trees and scattered car frames cover the area. the air grows thick with yellow-tinged fog. her geiger counter clicks slowly in her ears.

deacon snaps his helmet into place, the respirator hissing as it begins to recycle the irradiated air. ‘shit. never really thought i’d have to come out here.’

‘you can still turn back.’

he rolls his shoulders. ‘the walk back to hq would be boring without you. come on. sooner we get in, sooner we get out. maybe des will finally approve my vacation request after this one.’

stepping into the glowing sea is like diving head first underwater. whisper leads the way, branches crunching underfoot. with every step, the ground looks more cracked. ‘if not, you could always be a full-time minuteman.’ she pushes aside the shell of a car so they can pass. ‘i’ll approve your vacation myself.’

‘well, then.’ he gives her a salute. ‘yeehaw, sugar.’

through the fog, the entire landscape looks the same: stretches of fallen highway, buried underneath irradiated dirt; pools of orange water, feral ghouls wading through the sludge. one group notices them, and though whisper tears through them with the minigun, her geiger counter becomes a stream of noise instead of a steady click. deacon raises a hand in a thumbs up, unscathed.

they hardly speak, for fear of attracting unwanted attention. neither of them can tell what’s over the next hill, or the next. is that the sound of her steps or something else? did she breathe too loudly in her helmet? even though there’s nothing around them, whisper feels surrounded. even deacon is silent as he scouts ahead. quieter than her, he presses forward, keeping them away from roaming deathclaws.

though he can scout over hills, she has the advantage when the land becomes flat. a scanner built into her power armor picks out enemies in the distance, too far for him to see without a scope. when the yellow fog camouflages another pool of feral ghouls, she leads them out of the way.

as night descends upon the sea, it becomes almost untraversable. whisper keeps them at a slow pace with her night vision, but deacon is forced to stick close. a church steeple becomes her beacon in the night as she aims for a place for them to stay. though it’s half-buried, when she looks through the hole in the roof, she can see the sanctuary is still safe. mostly. she picks off the few feral ghouls she can see through the holes.

‘we can climb in through the steeple,’ she tells deacon, crouched at her hip. ‘clear out the last ghouls and we’ll be safe for the night.’

‘and how are you getting in there? you step out of that suit, you’ll die.’

he’s right. though the power armor has kept her safe from most of the radiation, her rads are still ticking upward every second. she won’t last an hour without it.

‘i jump through the roof, obviously.’ she turns on her headlamp, illuminating the broken roof for deacon to see. it’s definitely large enough for her to fit through, and with the armor she won’t even feel the impact. ‘the steeple is big enough for me to climb back out in the morning. it’ll be fine.’

they aren’t left with very many options. the area is dangerous enough during the day, but at night? and with deacon unable to see, they have to stay somewhere. there’s nowhere else nearby that she can see, either.

deacon laughs, shakily. ‘you first.’

-

they find a room underneath the stairs for shelter. a priest’s room, it looks like, with a now-broken desk and filing cabinets full of faded sheet music and sermons. a wooden cross still hangs stubbornly above the desk.

‘feel at home?’ whisper asks, taking up the space near the door. if anything gets curious about the gunshots, they’ll have to go through her solid power armor first.

‘ha-ha,’ he intones. ‘haven’t heard that one before. you’re as bad as glory.’

‘don’t compare me to her. you’ll hurt her feelings.’

deacon settles himself in a corner, helmet hitting the back wall with a dull thunk. whisper remains standing, fearing if she sits she’ll never get back up. ‘we’re in a church, sugar. i’m a deacon. anything you want to confess?’

‘bless me, father, for i have sinned,’ she begins, and deacon leans forward to listen. ‘i made fun of a brotherhood paladin, once, for sleeping in his power armor. and now i find myself in such a situation.’

‘i see.’ deacon sighs heavily, playing the part. ‘your penance will be to step in his shoes. rest in your armor for the night and pray we don’t have to do this again,’ he finishes, breaking character near the end. she laughs.

‘amen.’

-

her alarm wakes them just before dawn. deacon climbs the steeple first, stairs creaking beneath his feet. he calls to her when he’s outside, and then it’s her turn to mount the stairs. she climbs quickly, each one threatening to give with every step. but it’s only when she ducks under the steeple roof to jump to the ground that it gives. the tower leans, wood cracking beneath the power armor’s weight. she jumps, landing hard on her knees. the wood snaps, tower crashing to the ground.

‘uh,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘that’s not blasphemous, is it?’

deacon raises a hand, makes the sign of the cross. ‘you’re forgiven. but let’s get out of here before something comes and smites us.’

they head west, toward a building barely visible on the satellite view of her pipboy. given that they have little information to go on, checking any potentially sealed building sounds like their best bet. there’s nowhere for him to survive anywhere else out here.

keeping up their previous strategy, they make quick work across the sea. any heavy footfalls that don’t belong to her drive them slightly off course but they continue to follow her map west. they’re almost upon it when deacon holds out his hand to stop her.

‘do you hear that?’

whisper holds her breath. her scanner doesn’t pick anything up on the horizon, but she does hear... something. a slight rumble, then - rain. light patters turns to a downpour in moments. she relaxes, thinking it’s just the storm, until something shifts in her peripheral. she only has time to turn before a giant creature bursts out of the ground.

she sidesteps an oversized stinger before drawing her minigun. the thing steps back, large, black claws held high and threatening. it looks like a scorpion, but its size easily dwarfs a car. its body is covered in a hard, black carapace, broken up only by its exposed joints, glowing a faint green. the thing screeches, high and piercing, and whisper brings the minigun to life, firing directly into its face. green blood splatters across the ground, but it doesn’t stop the thing from charging.

deacon fires, hitting the stinger hard enough to send it plunging into the ground instead of her face. whisper continues to spray into its head, bullets flying wildly. the scorpion squeals again, and a roar answers to her right.

a deathclaw stares the trio down with pale red eyes.

‘the building!’ deacon yells, and she spins without a second thought. stinger still stuck fast in the ground, the scorpion doesn’t follow immediately, but the thundering footsteps that follow tells her they aren’t the only ones running.

she looks behind her to see the deathclaw tear into the scorpion. its massive jaw closes around the tail, snapping it off with ease. though it tries to fight back, the damage it sustained from the minigun keeps it from lasting very long. another roar, victorious, the albino deathclaw turns its attention toward the fleeing humans.

deacon turns the corner on the building’s second floor, easily accessed from a nearby hill and a hole in the wall. she hears two gunshots before she’s upon him, two feral ghouls dead on the ground. the footsteps grow closer. he runs toward an elevator at the end of the hall, and she pries open the doors to - an empty shaft.

rifle held ready, he turns back toward the hall and the albino deathclaw, slowly turning the corner. no need to chase prey it knows is cornered, apparently. but whisper has other thoughts. she grabs deacon without warning, scooping him into her arms, and jumps. they land on top of the elevator cart, the crash echoing through the shaft. above them, the deathclaw roars, thundering down the hall. it tries to fit through the elevator door. head first, then shoulders, then -

‘down!’ deacon yells, lifting the elevator hatch at her feet. this time he jumps and she follows, down into the basement. the deathclaw roars long and low, but never follows.

-

they head deeper into the building’s basement, clearing any feral ghouls in their way. ground zero, she thinks with each one they kill. each feral wears the tatters of office suits and dresses, likely still working before the bombs fell. too late, before anyone saw it coming.

she doesn’t know when, but her geiger counter stops clicking at the constant presence of radiation. she double checks it, just to make sure it’s working, but her screen still shows her status. and if those numbers are correct, then likely she and deacon need to stop regardless - their rads are at the edge of ‘healthy’ levels.

stepping out of her power armor in a back room, she breathes a sigh of relief. she unzips the top of her underarmor and peels herself out of the sleeves. the cooler air of the basement chills the sweat on her skin. after a moment, she returns to the main room they’ve made their shelter with a bundle of food and radaway. deacon sits, legs outstretched, in front of a fire he’s built out of old papers. whisper rests her legs atop his as she prepares to hook up their bags of radaway.

deacon flinches when she pulls away from inserting his IV. ‘what happened to you, hero?’ he reaches out toward her neck, fingers brushing against her throat, down her arm, to her wrist. she follows the trail he leaves, and sees what he means. illuminated by the firelight, her bruises stand in stark contrast to the orange glow against her skin. ‘maybe i should have gone with you, if this is what going with the brotherhood gets you.’

‘danse stopped it from being worse,’ she says, leaning back to set up her own radaway.

‘is this the lead up to, you should have seen the other guy?’

her stomach churns from the radaway. ‘considering the supermutants are dead now?’

‘i should have gone with you. the brotherhood - ‘

‘i know! look, i don’t like the brotherhood either, but danse and his team - ‘ well, haylen, if anyone. ‘ - they’re not bad people. if i hadn’t found preston first, i could have been in the brotherhood.’

‘you wouldn’t have lasted.’

‘how do you know?’

when he shifts, his knees brush against hers. she refuses to move. ‘i know what kind of person it takes to be in the brotherhood,’ he says as she stares him down.

‘deacon - ‘

he sighs, and turns the basement of the abandoned offices into his confessional. ‘you’ve put up with enough of my bullshit. if there’s one person i should come clean to, it’s my friend, right?’

whisper swallows, throat as dry as her bag of radaway. she removes her needle as he does the same. ‘i’m a liar. everyone knows it. i don’t try to hide it, because the truth is: i’m a fraud. to my core.

‘when i was young,’ he tilts his head. his eyebrows rise just above his sunglasses. ‘a hell of a long time ago, i was... scum.’ his voice cracks on the word, voice rough. she wants to tell him to stop. it’s okay if she doesn’t know if it hurts him too much, but she finds that she can’t.

she wants to know.

‘i was a bigot, like the ones in the brotherhood.’ he tosses his empty bag into the darkness. ‘a very violent bigot.’

‘like the brotherhood?’

‘worse. i ran with a gang in university point.’ he pauses, lets the pieces fall into place. that’s why he was looking at the old university. running away from his past, not the synths. ‘we called ourselves the UP deathclaws. for kicks, we’d terrorize anyone that we thought was a synth.

‘we kept egging each other on. started with some property damage. broken windows, broken fences. graduated to some beat downs in back alleys. then, inevitably,’ he swallows, ‘a lynching. the claw’s leader was convinced we’d finally found and killed a synth. looking back, i’m not so sure.’

she blinks. doesn’t say a word. nods when he continues to stare. she isn’t running away, not from him.

he hangs his head and continues. ‘i broke all contact with my brothers, after that. time passed, i became a farmer, if you can believe that.’ he laughs, smiles, wistful. then, ‘one day, i found someone.’ he removes his sunglasses and looks to the dark ceiling, blue eyes bright. watery. ‘she saw something in me i didn’t know - didn’t think - was there.’

‘what was she like?’ she asks, curling her legs against her chest, resting her head on her knees.

‘barbara,’ he sighs her name, ‘she was... she just was.’ he looks to her. ‘when she smiled, it was like those old magazine covers. her eyes - ‘ with a hand on his face, palm pressed against the bridge of his nose, he laughs softly. ‘ - we were trying for kids.’

she sits up straight, at that. a family. he wanted -

‘then one day, it turns out, my barbara? she was a synth. she didn’t know that. i certainly didn’t. i don’t know how the deathclaws found out, but... there was blood.

‘they killed her,’ she says, knowing. blood - nate’s vault jumpsuit turning red with it.

when he croaks out a, ‘yes,’ she slides in next to him. barely touching. ‘i don’t remember much clearly after that. i know i killed most of the claws.’ he laughs again, this one broken. ‘i must have made a big impression because the railroad contacted me. figured i’d be sympathetic, seeing that i lost my wife. and, well, what i did afterwards.’

‘you know i know what that’s like.’

‘yeah. you against kellogg? that was - i should have said something sooner. i’m sorry. i don’t even know why i lie anymore, but i can’t tell the truth. everyone - tom, des, you, even carrington - they deserve to be in the railroad.

‘i don’t. i’m everything wrong with this whole fucking commonwealth. but you’re the only friend i got. i don’t deserve you being okay with this, and i’m not asking for forgiveness. i just... figured you should know who you’ve been traveling with.’

‘i know who i’ve been traveling with,’ she says quickly. takes her own sunglasses off, just to prove it. ‘you’re deacon. the one friend i’ve got in this place. all that you’re doing with the railroad, everything you’ve been helping me with - you’re trying to make up for your past. that’s admirable. i’m on your side, you know?’

deacon shifts back against the wall. ‘well, i’m not really the hugging type so. good talk, partner.’

and yet, he doesn’t move away when she shifts that extra inch closer to lean her head against his shoulder. nor does he move to put his sunglasses back on. instead, he rests his head against hers. ‘john,’ he mumbles, eventually. ‘my name’s john. feel free to forget that in the morning.’

together, they watch the fire burn down to embers before bedding down, back to back in the shadowed corner of the basement.

[guidedbygunpla]

Gundam Redux Prequel Chapter 4: side 7

“continue pursuit, this ship is willing to continue the fight well beyond its own means….I am intrigued” Char said, resting against the captains post aboard his Musai. On the screen in front of him, a great two hulled battleship roared towards Side 7’s Green Noa.

             “captain, heat scans show large hollow areas aboard the ship, think this one of the transport ships like Prince Garma took out on Earth?” one of the crewmen called back to his captain

             “it’s possible Slender, though what a cargo carrier would be doing this far out……no, that couldn’t be possible” Char said, shock showing in his eyes as he began to ponder what this could be

           “crew, we are likely going to need to launch mobile suits, its possible that, because this suit hasn’t launched any mobile suits yet, and the carrier earthside that Garma was able to knock out was a mobile suit carrier ship, we might’ve caught this thing before it was able to pick up its cargo compliment…we might be able to stay a great victory for Zeon today soldiers. Keep our distance from that ship, let it dock, once its docked, launch in mobile suits and prevent from what its trying to onboard from leaving that damned colony!” Char called out, his crew cheering him as he called out. _________________________________________________________________________________

Denim Launching

Slender Launching

Gene Launching

Char watched the 3 Zaku launch from the Musai and approach the sunward airlock of the colony.

           “keep me posted on what you see in there boys, send back video if at all possible”            “sir___ble to send__ideo____minovski densi____ery high” Slender called back

           “sir….minovsky density is incredibly high within the colony super structure, it cant just be all from the Trojan Horse” Darius called back to Char, just as a burst of pink light fired inside the colony

           “Darius what was that?” Char called back            “ugh…..judging from the minovski signature, a mega particle burst….inside the colony”            “that’s impossible, it didn’t pierce the structure in any way so it couldn’t have been from the Trojan Horse…..theres no way, Slender, Denim, Gene, report”            there was a long silence

             “theres a ______ite Mobile Suit, four of ______ an’t sto_____” followed by static            “Ramirez, get the Musai over the main window, I need to see whats going on” Char yelled at the man at the helm of the ship.”            the Musai moved up, and over the great window of the colony. Light from the sun blasting through the Musai as the giant mirror arms hovered over them. Below them they could see four figures overtop of 2 Zaku, and an exploded husk of another. One looked like a tank, another a great red mobile suit, and then two slender suits, one carrying a sword and a great red shield, and the other a beam cannon as long as a Zaku was tall.

           “shit, captain Char those are mobile suits….like the ones Garma met on Earth”            “hush, Ramirez, move the ship back to orbital distance, I am going to go in there and see if I can get a few pictures of what is going on. ______________________________________________________________________________

 Char floated in through the open hatch of the sunside dock of the colony, air rushing out at him as the door on the other end of the dock had been left open by the zeon troops he had sent to their death.

           “Ramirez, Darius if you can hear me, I am now entering the Colony, I can see the suits from here, they appear to be lifting pieces of the Zaku, and of additional mobile suits similar designs to themselves. I will get closer to see if I can take photographs directly of these suits

 Char continued down the hallway, and out into the colony proper, he slowly allowed adjusted his jetpack, so that he matched the colonies rotation, and began to fly towards the ground,making a less than dignified landing, rolling in the dirt near the outskirts of town.

             He could see the great mobile suits working away to lift parts of the suits that had been laying out on carrier trucks onto a great conveyor belt, heading towards one of the other docking bays, likely the one where the Trojan Horse was docked. Char grabbed the camera he had brought with him, and began to snap away at the suits. Adjusting the lenses and settings to get heat, and minovski readings of the suits. After he had been taking pictures of them for a while the suits themselves made their way onto the belt, and they too were loaded aboard the ship. A few dozen jeeps and ambulances coming down the ramp and going out into the city            “well, Darius, Ramirez, if you can copy me…I have taken around 100 pictures of the four suits and I am heading back to the dock. Luckily it looks like they are also loading a lot of refugees onto the Trojan Horse, so I should be able to make my escape through the dock without too much worry, see you guys in a few” Char said, putting the camera back into the small case on his belt loop. He turned and began walking towards the great faux mountain at the edge of town that lead to the dock. A staircase rose all the way up its side for emergency situations when the roads or conveyor were turned off, unsafe or simply down for maintenance.            “stop right there….drop the gun and take that mask off” Char heard call out to him from the bushes as he made his way to the exit. A woman holding a revolver looked out at him as she stood from behind the bushes and approached him            “….you’re pretty brave ma’am, you don’t look like a soldier, and you definitely aren’t a guerrilla” Char said walking towards her

           “take one more step and I’ll shoot, I swear it!” she said cocking the gun. Char stopped and stared at her, she looked familiar, like a memory, someone from a past life

           “take the mask off, and turn around!” she said again, motioning with the gun for him to turn around. Char undid the clips to his normal suits helmit and slid it back onto its resting position above the normal suits backpack. And undid his mask, sliding it off his head the red tint of the lenses fading allowing him to see the world in its true colors for the first time in weeks.

           “wha…..what?” the woman said as char did so, a look like she had seen a ghost across her face, char smiled. Lunging towards her, kicking the gun from her hand.            “nice to see you too, Artesia….it’s been too long” Char said standing overtop of her, just then a Jeep drove up, and one of the soldiers riding in it fired a shot at him. Char pulled his mask back on, as he used his jet pack to launch back towards the Dock, another shot firing up at him, cutting through his side, piercing his kidney. Pain rocking his body. He made his way to the docks inner wall, and once he saw that no one was following him, he reached into the pouches around his belt and injecting himself with pain killers, and then covered the area where the shot pierced his normal suit with a bit of 0G tape to prevent air loss.            “Ramirez! Darius! Fire up the engines! Catch me, and begin pursuit of the Trojan Horse!

   a zaku launched from the front of the Musai, and grabbed Char just as he launched from the Dock, the fuel in his Jetpack largely spent. The Red Zaku grabbed him, and then turned to head back towards the Musai. Once aboard they felt the ship launch forward, lunging towards the Trojan Horse, as it began to leave dock. Char Stumbled onto the bridge, looking at the great view screen ahead of him, the Trojan horse moving far faster than they were.            “Darius, track the ship, follow its heat trail, and ready the med bay, I got shot….think its bad” Char said clutching his side

             Char awoke in the medbay hours later, an IV pump next to him whirring away slowly pumping pain killer into his vains.

           “ugh…..Where are we?” Char groaned out, the intercom in the room, mounted near the door called back            “we’re nearing Luna 2, looks like the Trojan Horse is trying to get repairs or something near the Federations last real strong hold near earth.”

             “do we have reinforcements in the area? We aren’t going to be able to take those suits on, even with my Zaku” Char called out, sitting up on the operating table, pulling the IV line out of his arm, bubbles of fluid floating freely out into the room

             “well…Captain Gadems Papua should be in the area, we could radio for assistance”

             “call him, we’ll need more Zaku, those Federation suits are monstrous”

[mysticsparklewings]

Light in the Darkness

For Qinni. May she Rest In Peace. ____

I'm sure many of you have heard the news by now, but in case you haven't: Qinni passed away on February 8th, after years of struggle with a heart condition and a relatively new cancer diagnosis. The first tweet I saw saying she'd passed...I thought it was a mistake or some kind of sick joke. She'd said in recent updates she was estimated to have a year, year and a half. That was one of my first thoughts, She was supposed to have another year. But, sadly, it wasn't a mistake. And soon, everywhere online was alight with those of us that had been touched in some way by Qinni's work. She is gone, but she is not forgotten. I never knew Qinni personally, but she was one of the first really popular artists I found myself drawn to here on dA. And a lot of my artistic style circa 2016 was influenced by her work, though I don't think I realized it at the time. This includes the artwork I would go on to make into the wallpaper I use for my banners all over social media. And thus, it only made sense to use that piece as a reference for this tribute piece. A piece that I had to drop everything to make, despite whatever else I had planned. I also decided to draw on an idea I'd been thinking about for a while; the original idea being a mermaid wearing a space helmet, but the helmet is also a fishbowl. I didn't include the mermaid part here, as I mainly wanted to focus on space and star themes since those are elements that Qinni's art is really known for. (Although, after having spent some time going through her gallery and social media posts, it seems the Little Mermaid was a subject she frequented too, so it still would've worked, I think.) I started with a sketch, using My Fantasy, My Insanity for a reference for the face as I mentioned, and some graphics from pixabay.com for the helmet. I did modify the hair to be more like Qinni's, made the eyes match, and turned the previously neutral mouth into more of a smile, but other than that the basic lines are largely the same. At some point, though I'm not really sure where the idea came from, I had the idea to do the whole sketch of the face out like a constellation. (My original plan had been to just have a galaxy in the blank space between the face and the helmet or just do the hair that way.) This is something I'd never tried doing before, so I stopped and did a couple of test pieces to see if what I wanted to do would be possible traditionally. I knew it would be digitally, but I wanted to stick largely to a traditional piece since Qinni became known for her watercolor work. Fortunately, those test pieces turned out really nicely, aside from me discovering watercolor paper was my better bet over mixed media for the gradient effects I wanted (which in hindsight I really should've seen coming, but this is why I did separate tests in the first place). And I will be posting these test pieces at a later time since they did work out well, talking more about how I figured out the process I'm about to go over as relates to each of those. With those tests done, I was finally able to start on the actual artwork. (Although I did stop a few more times as I went to do other tests.) I started by scanning the sketch in and booting it into Paint Tool Sai to break it down into the more simple lines and spaces I'd need, like making a connect-the-dots puzzle in reverse. First I just went over the sketch with connected (but straight) lines, making corners at curves, and then I made a new layer and broke those lines down a bit farther, leaving dedicated spaces at certain corners and where lines intersected for stars later. Then I printed off the lines and, after inking the helmet onto watercolor paper (including the ink-technique shading), used my lightbox and a ruler to carefully trace the face lines into the helmet. I taped down the edges of the paper, covered the shine spots on the helmet near the face space just to be on the safe side, and then got to work with painting. It may not look like much, but I spent a long time going back and forth with the paint to get the blending and colors right. I wanted just the right amount of pink, just the right amount of blue. A little dark over here, but lighter over there. Lots of blending and lifting involved. As is typical of me, I'd put paint on, blend it out, then put more on and start the cycle again. But eventually, I found the right balance and got something I was happy with. (And fortunately, I was smart enough to use some of my 100% cotton watercolor paper to make this process easier; it would not have blended this nicely over this large of an area if I'd used anything else.) That had to dry overnight since by the time I finished with it, it was approaching 4 in the a.m. and I was exhausted. The next day, I used a ruler and a white gel pen to go back over the constellation lines and make the notable stars (dots) attached to/connecting them. As well as I used a yellow Gelly Roll moonlight pen to place yellow stars in certain places, a specific nod to the stars in many of Qinni's artworks. After I'd given the gel pen a few minutes to dry, I pulled out the white gouache and got busy splattering to really bring home the galaxy look. And then after that, I went in with some PanPastel to give the lines a glow so they'd pop a little more. It was good, but even after I filled in the two top elements on the helmet to be black to balance a little better (they'd just been cross-hatched before), it still wasn't quite what I wanted. I'd known for a while I was going to be taking out the extra white of the paper background in Photoshop, so I decided if I had time (it was a busy few days surrounding this artwork's creation) I would try fixing the yellow stars in Photoshop and maybe a few other experiments to finalize it. This turned out to be a good thing, as just as I was finishing up the now-digital stars, I realized I'd completely forgotten one of the main elements I'd wanted to include: The fish!   And to be honest, I'm still not sure how that happened. They just totally slipped my mind during the initial planning and testing phases.   But since I was already there, it wasn't too hard to pull up some of Qinni's artwork as a reference and draw a few fish in digitally, then turn down the opacity a little so the orange wouldn't be too overbearing. And that worked out, as originally the piece had still felt kind of empty somehow. The fishies fill in some of the more bare spots pretty nicely. There are a million other little ideas or tweaks I could do if I went back in and gave myself more time, but it's already more than what I had imagined. And I can fiddle with it all I want, but all the art in the whole world that I could ever make will never fully express my gratitude towards Qinni and my sorrow that she's gone. That one of the brightest lights in the art community has moved from earth to the stars. Qinni's work reminds me of one of my favorite poems by FridgePoetProject (another wonderful artist that passed away all too soon), The Daily Magnet #106, which reads, "You write love into my eyes with starry ink." Although, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say she painted it into our hearts with starry watercolor. Rest In Peace, Qinni. <3 ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings

[kieranmcli]

Silicone casting for stop motion: obscure tips

Even with books and the internet I found it surprisingly tricky to find actual detailed information on casting silicone specifically for stop motion puppets.  There’s a lot of word-of-mouth-only stuff and weird little issues to trip you up, and there’s plenty of useful tricks that I only stumbled on in obscure comments sections, vague offhand references or through what little experience I’ve gained.

Point is, here’s an incomplete list of some of the little things I found useful that never seem to be in one damn place.  I’m still very much figuring this out myself, so if some of these are more obvious or strange than others don’t laugh too hard.  Hopefully somebody’ll find them useful (taken with a hefty pinch of salt).

Even with soft, deadened silicone, the thinner it is the better, so every joint in the armature should be packed out fully with soft sponge-y upholstery foam beforehand

It’s better to take a big block of this foam, punch a hole in the middle and slide it over the joint like a sleeve - before attaching the other end if necessary - than to try gluing or sewing two halves back together

If you make a maquette around the final armature, which already has neatly-carved foam on it, trace around the thing on a piece of paper so you’ve got a reference for the shape and size it’s meant to be - when you sculpt NSP clay on top the foam will squish and it’ll be otherwise impossible to tell if you’re laying it on too thick or unfaithfully

When casting silicone around an armature covered in spongy foam, seal the foam first with a thin layer of silicone and allow it to cure outside the mould so the final ‘flood’ of rubber doesn’t just soak in and solidify the joint

Also do this to stop air bubbles getting trapped in the silicone and moving throughout the cast when you pour on it

If the brush you paint this on with is too stiff the silicone will get pressed into the sponge instead of sitting on top like a thin film.  I usually spread it like butter using a flat tool eg. a lollipop stick

Put texture/hatching/lumps and holes on the armature’s solid bones to get as much mechanical grip with the silicone as possible, since it doesn’t properly stick to anything but itself

Joints work better with big, defined creases in them and very stiff hinges/wiring to counteract the silicone’s natural springiness

If mixing silicone in a plastic cup, make sure it’s not full of static electricity or everything you pour in it will fly around and stick halfway up the sides, which is all kinds of a pain in the arse

To get all the silicone casts tinted the exact same colour, tint an entire batch of Part A (ie. set all you're planning on using aside in a good sealed container, like a jam jar) with the pigment then use bits of that same batch for all casting and patching

If possible, brush on a thin backfill layer inside the mould before flooding or adding the armature, and allow to cure to a level of tackiness before mixing up and adding the rest of the silicone - this both prevents ugly air bubbles rising to the surface of the cast and stops the armature from poking through

Flip the mould over now and again while the backfill cures or it’ll all just pool at the bottom

If the backfill skin you’ve just done is too thick, or the silicone’s supposed to be very thin around the armature, start mixing up the flooding batch pretty much immediately after applying the backfill, so when you pour it it’s tacky enough that the armature can sink in a little to the outer skin if pressed by the mould halves

For god’s sake don’t forget the clamps

You’ll thank yourself later for winding the clamps to the right distance to fit around the mould before you’ve filled it and it’s slowly seeping out onto the tabletop

Coloured silicone can be backfilled into tiny spaces with a syringe for little details

You don’t technically need to put release agent - like Vaseline - in a plaster mould when casting silicone in it, but sometimes it makes life a little bit easier.  And if you’re using a plaster mould, it’ll chip and break and crumble away details more quickly without it, so it’s worth using

No ordinary paint will stick properly to silicone (but if it’s a solid unmoving piece of the model and you’re both careful and lazy, you might get away with a couple of little details)

You can add minor shading and weathering with powders like chalk and charcoal if you need to

If adding this before the silicone’s been cast (the easiest way IMO) you can draw on the inside of the mould with, for example, a charcoal pencil, and it’ll be set in the surface of the cast afterwards

If adding it after the silicone’s done, you can apparently grind the chalk into powder, mixing colours to taste, then apply it to the silicone surface with a brush.  Then you seal it in by airbrushing on a thin, clear solution of cheap silicone (eg. sealant) mixed with lighter fluid (I think).  I have not tried this one.

I was suspicious, but it turns out filling both halves of a mould with silicone, adding the armature and then just sandwiching them together is a totally normal and legitimate way of casting that doesn’t somehow give you a ton of trapped air bubbles.  Injection moulding seems much trickier, if cooler-looking

Exposed K&S tubes at the end of extremities are an extremely useful way to float an armature in the centre of a mould without it sinking into the silicone - if you don’t have any solid bits like that I hear pins can be used to support the armature, if you fill the holes afterwards

When repairing patchy bits of silicone by applying more to the surface of a piece, you can secure something a little rough (tissue, gauze, tape, etc.) on top while it’s curing so it ends up with a fine matte texture.  Alternatively just sprinkle a healthy coating of cornflour or talc over the whole thing, then wash it off when it’s done (this is easier IMO and gives a smoother, clean finish).  Left to its own devices outside a mould silicone always ends up with an ugly liquid gloss

When seaming, trim off as much as you can with small scissors then apply Vaseline to the cast before filing the seam lines away with an emery board or a dremel’s stone tool.  The idea is that the Vaseline acts as a lubricant to stop the tools snagging on the silicone and tearing it up (I’ve heard lighter fluid works for this too, though I didn’t have much luck with it)

Alternatively you can cut a small trench into the seam area and patch it up with more silicone afterwards, which may be a little smoother.  Personally I found this gave a nicer finish, but beware peeling patch edges.

If your silicone’s still tacky or jelly-ish after the recommended 45 minutes, don’t immediately panic.

If it’s still like that after another two hours, then yeah, sure, maybe it’s time to panic

A decent estimate of how much silicone you’ll need to fill a mould is to weigh the clay you stripped from the maquette, then add 15% or so for safety.  Obviously this isn’t at all precise given clay and silicone have different densities, but I find it pretty useful

Make sure to write down how much silicone you’re going to need - the scales won’t tell you much Part A you put in after the cup’s got pigment and a lolly stick sitting in it too

A few grams will always stay in the cup no matter how hard you try to scrape it all out, so compensate

And for good measure here’s where I bought materials when I ordered them online (I’m based in Scotland btw):

Crystacal R plaster (more durable and detailed than normal stuff)

Mouldlife silicone pigments

Dragon Skin FX-Pro platinum silicone (1kg)

Also here’s some other useful links:

The How And Why Of Silicone (Part 1)

Misadventures in Mouldmaking

Making silicone puppet - Stopmotionanimation.com forum

Big questions regarding silicone - Stopmotionanimation.com forum

Casting the puppet body - Nathan Flynn’s blog

[marshmallow-phd]

The Experiments

Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller, Experiment AU

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Exo (????)

Summary: You were a med school graduate who just wanted to help research cures for the world. Instead, what you got was a dream job at EXO Applied Sciences. That is, until you discover the secrets of Level Sixty-Six and the nine inhabitants that are stored down there….

Warning: none

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I 15 I 16 I 17 I 18 I 19 I 20 I 21 I 22 I 23 I Final

The safe house was located in the middle of the woods, surrounded by tall, nearly impenetrable trees. No clear road actually led to the house, just an opening wide enough for the car to mow down the overgrown grass. A little barn sat on the right side with thick cords coming out of the roof. Your best guess was that it was a giant generator to power the lights and other modern conveniences. Giant gas barrels and an up-to-date well covered the remaining necessities.

“Well,” you turned around to face everyone, still avoiding eye contact with Yixing, “this is home for now. Let’s go.” Throwing open the door, you shuffled to the back of the suburban, lifting up the hatch and grabbing the different bags stored there. A few of the boys came to help you and they all cautiously walked behind you as you neared the front door.

According to the last note in the directions, a key was hidden in the rocks on the left side of the door. It took a few tries, overturning the multicolored stones that were bigger than your hands, but eventually you found the one that was hollow and shook the key free.

The front foyer was dark, barely visible in the midday light. You had driven for hours and all you wanted to do was find a place to lie down and be alone.

Junmyeon tested out the main light switch which thankfully had no problem in slowly flickering on the bulbs above. The house really was more like a cabin-themed mansion. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of a medium colored wood, not too bright but not depressingly dark either. Right across from the front door was a staircase that twisted up into the second floor.

“I think we should find places to rest for now,” you suggested. No one protested, following your lead as you headed up the stairs. The second floor consisted of only one hallway with several doors on either side and one at the end. Letting out a deep breath, you turned around. “My guess is that almost all of these are bedrooms, maybe one or two a bathroom. It looks like there’ll have to be double bunking, so just kind of shift into the groups that you want to room with.”

“Is this where we’re staying for now on?” Sehun asked timidly.

“Just for now,” you replied. “Soon, someone else is going to come and help us get you situated back into the world. So you can live a normal life.”

Minseok scoffed. “There’s no such thing as normal life for us.”

He stormed off, opening the first door he came to, and disappeared into the room, slamming the door behind him. You flinched at the loud bang, trying to not let his attitude be the hit that broke the dam.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jongdae said, sliding up to you and throwing an arm around your shoulder. “He’ll loosen up. He just doesn’t like strangers.”

“She’s not exactly a stranger to us,” Junmyeon pointed out.

Jongdae just shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll go make sure he doesn’t break anything.” He went into the same room as Minseok, shutting the door a bit more gently this time.

Shaking his head, Junmyeon turned to the rest. “If someone finds the master room, shout it out. (Y/n) should get that one.”

“What?” you looked at him, frowning. “No, that’s okay. I’ll take the smallest one. It wouldn’t be right for me to take the big room.”

“It wouldn’t be right for you to have to sleep in the same room with one of us or share a bathroom,” Kyungsoo countered. “You might get hurt. Besides, we’re use to a small room.”

In your peripheral, you saw Jongin look down, ashamed. He still thought he’d hurt you from that session. Helping him get over that was going to take time. Time that you really didn’t want to spend right now. Seeing how it was seven against one, you gave, in throwing your hands up.

“Fine,” you sighed. You were too tired and jumbled up to argue.

“My best guess is that one is the master,” Junmyeon pointed to the single door that ended the hallway. “If it’s not, just let us know.”

You nodded, adjusting your duffle bag on your shoulder before heading into the room.

It really was the master, running the entire length of the second story. The king size bed was pushed up against the opposite wall, a simple gray duvet laid across the mattress along with a toned down headboard. To your right was the bathroom which, on further exploration, lead into the walk-in closet. Across from there were two floor-to-ceiling windows complete with the metal crisscross framework.

Dropping the bag on the floor, you walked over to one of the windows, staring out at the sun. You’d driven for hours, unable to decipher where exactly in the country you were – if you were even still in the same country. The sun was starting to go down, although it couldn’t have been any later than four in the afternoon. With a rumbling beginning in your stomach, you began to worry a little.

There were ten of you here, ten mouths to feed three times a day. In a rush and forgetting about your exhaustion, you headed down to the kitchen. Relief washed over you as every cabinet was stuffed full of boxes and cans of fresh food. The overly large fridge was also packed with a separate deep freeze positioned off to the side. With nothing else to do and unable to fully rest on an empty stomach, you started pulling out ingredients, trying to come up with something cook.

That area wasn’t your strong suit. You could make several dishes without incident, but you were no gourmet chef. Living alone caused you to fall into a mundane routine of quick meals, only serving up a complicated recipe when you were particularly bored and needing a small, non-drastic change on a lame Thursday night.

It was only a matter of time before the kitchen began to slowly fill up with ravenous hybrids. The smell of the meat sizzling in the pan was making your own mouth water. Kyungsoo stood close to you, almost hovering as he watched you mix the vegetables in with the spices and sauce. The others simply stood around the island awkwardly.

With the food finished, you found plates and cups, setting one of each in front of the boys as they sat down on the stools. That’s when you finally realized that there were only eight boys in the room.

“Where’s Chanyeol?” you asked.

Baekhyun shrugged. “He said he would be down in a minute. But that was about ten minutes ago.”

Concerned, you laid everything out and told the boys to just go ahead start eating. It didn’t occur to you until you were already halfway up the stairs that they might eat everything before you or Chanyeol got a bite.

Unsure of which room he might be in, you started opening doors, hoping to that he was just resting or got distracted. When you came to the third room, you opened the door slowly upon hearing slight movement. Chanyeol was standing there near the large bed, shirtless. He had taken gauze from the first aid kit and seemed to be trying to wrap it around himself. At the sound of your entrance, he froze, those large round eyes meeting yours.

“What happened?” you exclaimed, running to him and undoing his sloppy work.

“It’s nothing,” Chanyeol, insisted, trying to turn away from you. “I’m fine.”

You swatted his hands away when he tried to take back the gauze. At the sight of four gnarled holes in his right side near his hip, your jaw dropped.

“Is this from the Taser?” You’d completely forgotten about Chanyeol taking the hit for you. Sighing, you dug through the kit on the bed. After pulling out some disinfectant, you shook your head, going to work on the wound. “You should have just came and got me. Simply wrapping it up isn’t enough.”

“I told you I’m fine,” Chanyeol argued, though his voice came out more as a pout than a snarl. “It’ll be scabbed over by tomorrow morning, gone by tomorrow night. My temperature would burn off any infection.”

He was right. Your doctor instincts were fighting with your knowledge of their super cells; this treatment was technically useless with how fast these boys healed. There wasn’t even a trace of Sehun’s cut from a few weeks ago.

“I’ll still feel better with it patched up.” You took out a thick, square patch of gauze from the kit and covered the holes completely. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but you taped up the edges anyway.

Just as you finished, Chanyeol placed his large hands over yours, stopping them from leaving his scorching skin. You peaked up at him, your breath hitching in your throat when you noticed how close his face was to yours. His breath was warm against your nose and lips and you were frozen in place.

“(Y/n)…,” he whispered.

As if you were back in the basement running from the guards, your heart was on high alert, pounding against your sternum in your chest. One of Chanyeol’s hands softly crept up your arm until his palm was cupping your face. Centimeter by centimeter, his face came closer to yours, his lips hovering above yours, achingly close. In the moment before they were about to touch, you came to your senses, pulling out his embrace.

“I-I’m sorry.” You ran out of the room and back downstairs, stopping just outside the kitchen. Pressing against the wall, you put your hand over your heart as if that would get it to calm down. You tried to concentrate on the chatter from the boys in the kitchen instead, but you couldn’t latch on to anything that was being said. Footsteps echoed off the top of the stairs and you pushed off the wall, trying to seem as casual as possible as you sat back down to try and get any food before it all disappeared.

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 4

The low growl of the engine echoed strangely along the walls and off into the darkness. They’d been driving for almost an hour down a series of winding subways and rail tunnels that had been used to ferry workers out into the mining pits. Now, illuminated only by the floodlights of their vehicle, the tracks were empty.

Inside the Taurox, things were quiet. The Hellbats sat watching the shadows cast by the floodlights. Reddy and Abel sat with their eyes glued to their wristcog dataslates which showed live pict-feeds from the pair of servo-skulls that roved in front of and behind them. They cast about with auspex readers, scanning the darkness for things unseen. They were moving closer and closer to the heart of Scarist Hive and the odds of them going undetected were shrinking by the moment.

Naemi concentrated on the map in her head, seeing more than what the dataslate on her arm could show her. They were close to the Archives now, barely blocks away from city center. She was amazed they’d made it this far without encountering any of the deranged cultists that had taken over the hive. By all accounts, they had swarmed up from the underhive and taken control of every major building, system, and office in the city. Perhaps none remained down here. The Archives was on the surface, however, and a lump formed in her throat at the thought of facing down those killers.

She shook herself mentally and steeled herself. They’d have to get there first.

“It should just be up there,” she said in a whisper.

“Lights ahead,” said Sergeant Alcoin.

“Abel?” said Sorn.

“Yessir.”

With two fingers, Sorn punched runes on his wristcog and brought the view from Abel’s servo-skull onto the bulkhead pict-screen. It hovered high in the tunnel, creeping along ahead of them. The tunnel widened out into a large railway loading area for people and cargo that would have gone down to the mining pits. Only a few of the vapor lamps were still on, but the pools of light revealed the grand vaults of the Archives stop, where countless scribes would bring their daily tabulations and recordings to be stored at the end of each shift.

“I don’t see anyone.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of those tunnel scuttlers. Makes me nervous,” said Sorn.

“Think the Hallowed Starborn cult is big on reading?” asked Naemi. Her voice was strained, but the Hellbats chuckled around her.

“No I don’t, professor. All right, Caissy, bring us in. Aime, look alive on those guns.”

The Taurox pulled into the train station and up onto the equipment loading ramp, its treads biting into the fractured tile and ruined mosaic floor. They came to a stop and opened the back hatch, piling out with guns ready. Caissy and Aime stayed aboard, covering the Hellbats’ advance with the heavy guns.

Water dripped from pipes in the vaulted ceilings, lending the loading platform an echoing, spectral quality. Naemi was squarely in the middle of the formation, protected by Scions on either side and a slab of armoured vehicle at her back. She still wasn’t used to the carapace armor she’d been fitted with, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it looked and she found that her movement was mostly unrestricted. They slunk quickly to the grand staircase that led to the surface. Wrought iron gates had been reinforced with heaps of scrap metal welded together across them to form an impassable wall much like they had encountered on the surface.

“We’re blocked, sir,” said Reddy over the vox, “should we blow it?”

“Maybe not,” said Naemi, searching her memory, “there’s another way, I think.”

She broke away to the side of the main pedway where she followed a pair of tramrails sunk into the floor. They led to a loading ramp that was closed off with two heavy blast doors and big enough to move mining equipment on and off of the trains that would depart from the platform. A freight elevator. And it went up to a storage garage on the surface, adjacent to the Archives. This was their way up. She found the control panel under a pool of light cast by one of the few remaining lamps that shone.

“Can you get it working?” said Sorn, coming up next to her. He made a series of hand motions to the other Hellbats and they fanned out around them, taking covering angles, some facing the elevator and others the approaches.

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

She pulled her Logos icon from underneath her chestplate and turned it over. From the back, she unspooled a fine interface lead that she plugged into the elevator call panel. The solar icon around the stylized tome lit with green light as the cipher-gheist inside did its work. With the scrape of metal on metal, the doors to the freight elevator ground open and glowglobes flickered on inside, revealing a platform big enough to hold a full dump-loader.

Satisfied that nothing was going to jump out at them, Sorn motioned the Taurox forward. With a low grumble, it moved up the loading ramp and onto the elevator. Aime rotated top turret to face back the way they’d come. The brake lights cast a sullen red glow out into the darkness. The Hellbats followed their vehicle up the ramp and took defensive positions along the outer edges of the lift platform. Naemi unplugged her icon and followed.

The doors slid closed with the push of a control rune and the platform lurched upward.

They were dumped out into the storage garage meant for the Archives adepts, mine-boss vehicles, and materiel destined for the railway below. A quick jog up the ramps brought them to ground level where the garage connected to the Archives. They stopped in front of the doorway that led to the building next to them.

“Caissy, Aime. Stay here with the Taurox and keep our getaway secure.” Acknowledges came back from the two troopers and Sorn continued. “We’ll be in an out before anyone knows we’ve been there.”

Naemi followed the Hellbats through an archway that led to the Archives’ main foyer, using her icon’s cipher-gheist to get them through the biomantic scanners and lockouts.

The main hall of the Archives was a soaring edifice of rib-vaulted stone and stained glass, but its grandeur was despoiled by looting and vandalism. Scrivener’s desks were overturned and staved in, the tall tome-stacks had been pushed over, scattering books, dataslates, and mnesis-tapes all over. The great stained glass windows that had once shown the full glory of the Administratum were smashed and huge sack-cloth banners painted with the Starborn’s heretical symbols hung in their place.

“Spread out. Search pattern delta-tertius,” came Sorn’s order, “I feel like a whiskerfish in a river full of swampcats.”

The two servo-skulls that accompanied them zoomed ahead, their auspex scanners searching the darkness for threats unseen. The Mercier boys followed close behind, disappearing into the ruined stacks, their hot-shot lasguns held at the ready. Lufleur hefted her own weapon, a heat-scarred meltagun, and moved quietly for a soldier of her size.

It was eerily quiet amid the stacks. The musty smell of old paper and books made it through the omnishield mask that covered Naemi’s face. It almost comforted her. It was familiar, yet sinister, reminding her of the scriptorum back on Terra, but tainted by the smell of smoke and fresh aero-paint.

Her vox crackled in her ear. “Found something.”

They passed into the great narthex where the High Archivist would have watched over the entrance to the data-crypts, the repository for the planet’s most sensitive and important knowledge. Abel and Reddy were already there, standing over the cracked marble desk and a mound of blue cloth. As she drew near, Naemi realized it was the High Archivist’s corpse. Blood had seeped out onto the white stone floors and dried to a dark brown.

“Been here for a week, maybe?” said Abel.

“Went down fighting,” said his brother, pointing to the huge chunks blasted out of the stone desk.

Naemi stared down at the High Archivist’s body and swayed. Dead eyes stared up from a slack-jawed face.  She felt bile rise in her throat and had to look away. She felt a hand on her arm.

Sorn steered her away from the corpse and towards the data-crypt’s doors. “Come on, professor. The quicker we can get into those data-crypts, the faster we can get out of here.”

“Right,” she said, swallowing hard and unspooling her Logos icon’s interface lead once more.

The back wall of the narthex was dominated by a heavy vault door. A gene-scanner and voiceprint analyzer would have to be passed for the High Archivist’s key to be accepted, but Naemi wouldn’t need to go to such lengths. She prised the front panel off of the crypt’s access cogitator, mouthed a quick apology to any red priests who might be watching, and connected her icon to a data port hidden within. Once again, her Logos icon glowed green as the cipher-gheist went to work.

Runes and tech-script scrawled along the pict-screen as the panel went haywire. A loud clunk echoed through the Archive as the data-crypt’s maglocks disengaged and retracted. Lufleur hauled on the huge door and it swung open, revealing a cavernous structure built of ceramite-reinforced steel and it stretched back into the darkness. Rows of glowglobes clicked on in succession, flooding the data-crypt with clinical, white light. Towers of datastacks and mnemono-matrices rose from the floor, lights winking across their surfaces in dizzying patterns. Along the outer walls, bookshelves containing musty scrolls, tomes, and volumes were neatly organized. It seemed that the Hallowed Starborn hadn’t managed to get into vault. Naemi’s heart leaped at the prospect of the Iterator Soldatta’s greatest work still being intact.

“Neatly done, professor,” said Sorn, coming to stand next to her.

“There’s still power, which is better than I’d hoped,” she said, stepping over the threshold, “The stasis vault should still be functioning. We might even find Soldatta’s work undamaged!”

“Let’s have ourselves a look,” drawled the colonel. He motioned quickly with one hand and Leger and Monpremier bustled in with their equipment. Out of their packs, they brought out black plastic boxes with retractable cables. The two troopers went to work connecting them to the stacks’ dataports, flipping the small switches on their boxes. Small red lights blinked as their exhaust fans revved up with an electric whine.

Naemi started to speak, but remembered the colonel’s face the last time she asked what he would do with the data he was taking from Scarist’s vaults. She decided not to press the issue. Hopefully, she’d be well out of this Emperor-forsaken subsector before it came back to bite her. She affected to not see them and push on deeper into the data-crypt.

The two of them proceeded towards the far end of the chamber where a glass panel separated a section of the vault off from the rest. Arcane machinery hummed around it, projecting a stasis field to keep the contents within protected from the ravages of time. At the center of the stasis chamber, atop a small plinth, Naemi could see the object of her quest. The Rise of Empire, Iterator Soldatta’s greatest work, was a tome the size of a paving stone and engraved with the head of an eagle over crossed thunderbolts.

Naemi began to manipulate the stasis controls though her Logos icon. She could have shut the entire chamber down and retrieved the book, but there was a chance that the Archives might survive the Imperial assault on Scarist and she wanted to keep the accumulated knowledge of the planet safe within the time-warping fields. The entire data-crypt was hardened against attack and she would give it good odds to survive even an orbital lance strike. By adjusting the edges of the field generators in a precise way, she could open a path through the stasis chamber and retrieve the Iterator’s tome without disturbing the rest of the precious objects inside.

The vox channel came alive and she could hear Reddy’s voice whispering, “I’ve got movement out here, chief.”

“Visual?”

“I’ve got mining vehicles and groundcars pullin’ up to the front of the building. They’re packed to burstin’ with some of the meanest characters I ever did see. I think they know we’re here.”

“Pull back to the crypt, we’re almost out of here,” voxed Sorn before giving her a serious look, “Wrap it up, boys. Time for us to go! You too, professor. If you’re gonna grab this thing, it’s got to be now.”

[thesiplingartdaily]

Gettin’ a lil Rusty - a new experiment

This experiment was set up a week before I would make an outcome with them. But we were told its called rust printing. 

To start I had to get a piece of fabric and wrap it tight with rusty objects in the fabric (when i say tight i mean tight) This was then fortified by elastic bands and placed in a selection of teas diluted in water. The fabric was then submerged in the tea and left to soak for a week. 

After this, I made a paper concertina and placed rusty objects within each fold of the paper. Gently, I placed the concertina into a sealable plastic bag and filled it with hot tea. I had to make sure all the air was out of the bag before i sealed it again. Just like the fabric these were left for a week submerged in the teas and rust. 

After a week had passed, we were able to unwrap our rust print fabrics and and see how they had turned out. 

As the fabrics were wet I hung them out and left them to dry for the rest of the day. My fabric was pink and checked, so the dye in the fabrics had an interesting bleed effect to it, which bled into orange and discoloured imprints of the rusty objects. Some of the areas were highly contrasted where others were washed out and rust coloured. I liked experimenting with the coloured fabric and not a plain fabric as the contrasts and colours were bold and showcased an array of different effects. 

I was able to remove my rust printed paper from the sealable bag. Similar to the fabric i had to leave this to dry for the day. 

For the paper outcome, I started to make a collage with masking tape and old paper, that fits with the aesthetic of the rusted paper. I thought about the composition and started layering paper and masking tape. The paper feature large contrasts of dark rusted areas and light sections where the rust and tea haven’t been able to reach creating some nice dynamics between dark and light. I needed to find a way of balancing the collage with these areas to highlight and make them cohesive within the piece.

A skill I revisited was mono printing. Letitia did a little demo just to remind me how it works. It starts by placing a piece of paper on the printing surface and then imprinting with it either you finger or something with a sharp edge depending on the desired effect. I decided i would do cross hatching and rubbing my finger over some old book paper, to create sharp and blunt effects. I then stuck this onto the paper by tearing it up and sticking it up.

At this point, Letitia came over and gave me some guidance on my collage. I had used many directional qualities ( Horizontal, Vertical and Diagonal ) however she stated that the diagonal lines need some sense of direction and structure, as they’re just going off the collage. Furthermore, the collage was lacking contrasting qualities and all the textures seem to blend together; especially if you squint it all just looks like the same thing.

REFLECTION -

all my textures are the same and need some contrast.

- line  line direction needs balancing 

- do some gelli prints to block in some more colour

- sew in some white fabric sections

I decided to take some time away from the collage and thought about how i could use gelli plates to add block colour in horizontal and vertical directions to help add contrast and balance the elements of the collage, it also helps break up the crowdedness of the busy textures.

This is the outcome for my fabric collage, I followed similar techniques to the paper collage as it was the same style of collage but on a different base. The fabric was quilted, which i sewed together. I decided play with sewing techniques and attempt a seed stitch in a purple thread. However, i don’t think this was effective, as it looks too busy and blends into the background. Similar to the paper, the fabric collage needs contrasts. So, i decided on gelli prints again with circular markings on them to bring them out of the checkered background. As well as this, i sewed on buttons in blue to create contrast from the pink blue colours of the background. One of the more interesting additions to the fabric outcome was the tape transfer, which was surprisingly simple. This involved me taking an image and covering it in sellotape. Then i wet the back and scraped off the paper. This created a clear print on the sellotape which had clear areas, which would be fun to experiment with on the background.

This was a scrap outcome of the bits and bobs i had left over. I had some photocopies left from the photogram experiments, that i decided i would use to do an acrylic transfer. This involved me painting my fabric with white acrylic then placing the image on the acrylic. Next, i would wait till its bone dry and then wet it - scraping all the paper off to reveal the printed image on the acrylic.  I really enjoyed the effect and the distressed but bold outcome it creates. For the rest of the scrap, i decided just to layer paper around the really nice spanner rust print in the center.  

Overall, i loved this experimentation. The grunginess and the distressed effects are something I really enjoy, they would be good in the future if i needed to achieve these kinds of looks.

[writecome-blog]

What I Learned From Throwing Darts At The Ceiling.

...imagine a 13-year-old bored teenager lying on his bed.

Looking up at the wooden hatch door that lead to the attic space, he had a clever idea.

‘I wonder if I threw a dart vertically straight up from here, could I stick it in that door?’

One minute later, I’m playing the most idiot game of chicken with a dart as I began tossing it up higher and higher.

I’d watch the dart go on its journey, fall short and then watch it’s return to earth. At that point, I had to turn my head quickly or have it as part of my face.

No brains, or health and safety back then folks 

Now I know what you’re thinking, I know how this is going to end.

You’d be wrong.

The final time I tossed it, it missed and fell back to earth, bouncing on the edge of the bed it vanished down between the bed and the nearby wall.

Reaching for the dart and unable to see it, my hand felt a puddle of warm water. Which could only mean one thing, I’d just punctured the central heating pipe that fed the radiator in my room.

Pulling back the bed, I stared at the little fountain that was now spouting rust colored water into an ever growing pool on my carpet.

Panic stations!

At that point my mind went into overdrive. I don’t know if my life had time to flash by, but I saw enough in those few moments. One was of my father throttling me. – He’d done the plumbing himself a few months beforehand and the thoughts of asking him to do it again was a no, no.

Sweet Jesus what am I going to do?

I panicked and grabbed the first thing I could, a roll of Sellotape. I began wrapping the pipe for all I was worth. – I stopped the squirt, but now the water trickled out from under the tape three inches from the hole.

Who knew you couldn’t plug up a hole in a copper pipe with wrapping tape? – Me.

Panic stations!

‘What goes in a hole? What goes in a hole?’ I asked myself over and over again.

Nail? No, it’ll pop right out.

Screw? – Yeah, a screw. I can screw it in and it’ll hold in place – I hope.

And that folks, is how a small brass wood screw became part of the central heating system of the McDonald family home. – And still is there to this day.

I cut the top off, dabbed a little paint on the piece sticking out, and lo-and-behold, it looks like paint just dripped down from the ceiling and settled on the pipe.

Disaster averted.

Thing is, we’ve all had those moments of panic and come up with ingenious solutions when we had to.

How? By asking ourselves better questions and not having a way out of the problem.

When you ask a better question, you get a better answer?

Ask yourself why you’re writing sucks? You’ll get plenty of answers that’ll keep you there.

Ask yourself how you can get better? You’ll get plenty of answers that’ll steer you that way.

You might call yourself dim, think you haven’t got what it takes when it comes to writing, having a home based business, or whatever.

But the answers to the stupid questions and the better ones, are locked away in that noggin of yours. – Yes, even in that head of yours.

Ask better questions, and you’ll get better answers.

Now a good question you could ask yourself is, how I can I make some money doing less work than I am right now?

The answer’s here.

PS – It’s going away for good tomorrow and won’t be available outside the WriteCome member’s area.

So unless you’re a member you better move quickly.

The post What I Learned From Throwing Darts At The Ceiling. appeared first on WriteCome.com.

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[warriorwolves4]

This Little Light of Mine chapter 16

The Enemy within

Before the mission with Tracer and Genji...........

There was a mission for blackwatch, a retrieval mission whom Gabriel Reyes was leading.      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Code-Name-Spiderweb-

-Retrieve-

-Leading-Blackwatch-Comander-Gabriel-Reyes-

-___-Spy-Plane-

Location---_______---date---__/__/_____

___________________________________________________________________________

The most beloved person you know can be turned in to the most deadliest thing to your heart......

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Mccree-

The skies were clear when we left the base, Gabe was acting very different. It was put-en me on edge, he has been acting different ever since he got a call from some government agency. I didn't pay much attention to it, but for some reason in my gut I feel like I should have listen in on it. Stop it Mccree!he is your boss, your buddy, your d....I quickly tried to turn my thoughts back on the mission at hand instead of thinking what is up with Gabe. The mission was to retrieve a person from some group called Talon, I really wasn't told much about who the person is and Gabe wont tell me ether. Something was really off about this mission, but I can't put my finger on it. I should just let it pass, this was a dirty mission anyway. Then only send us in if normal overwatch agents can't.

I looked out the windows into the brisk dark sky, it was the witching hour. There were no starts in the sky, not a single bit of light in the darken abyss. I was told when I was young that sins were made on starless nights. That the damed would rise and shoot the innocent. Then the intercom came up with the pilot saying  that we were on top of the Talon base. The back of the spy plane opened up, then I was passed a winged-pack. We could only use these things to glide down undetected from enemy radar they can also slowly drift straight down if necessary. They had small thrusters with medium light weight wings that when activated pop up at the back of the user. You were also given a black front cone shaped helmet it was meant for fast gliding down purposes. They are pretty hard to use and if not used carefully can lead to injury. I have only use them about three times in training with Gabe and fell on my ass on twice, the third time I was a it close on falling over. The other problem with these wing-packs is you can only use them to fly down, so its not like a jet-pack in a way.

I looked up at Gabe waiting to see if there was anything else he wanted to tell us. "Kill everyone in the base, leave no prioress. We need only a woman named Amélie Lacroix.." Right when that name left his mouth everything slowed down like an old western movie where the bad guy points his gun at the hero. I held my breath,  I knew something was not right about this mission. There was one question on my mind now, why are we saving her. Why isn't Overwatch doing this mission it just doesn't make any sense. 

Next thing I know is blackwatch agents are jumping out of the plane. I look over at Gabe, he was staring right back at me. It made me wounder whats really going on, he had a look like had all the lintel on these people without even tell anyone. Then the pilot chimed in saying  "A6 drop zone" echoed from the speakers, guess-en its my stop. I slowly got out of my seat and headed towards the end of the plane. My legs felt like jelly as I reach the hatch. I have jumped out of many plans when I joined Blackwatch, but I felt sick to my core that I didn't jump at the right time. Aw hell.. Was the last thing I could think of as I jumped out of the plane. I had to put a hand on top of my hat so it wouldn't fly off.

I fell from the plane like raindrop from a cloud. The air was as cold as falling into winter water, as for the sky it's was as dark as Gabe heart. Coming back to reality, I was told to fall near a rig next to the base with out being spotted. The rig was a best place to land since it had a lot of rock cover and small trees and shrubs provider extra camouflage. While I was falling closer to the base I started to study it with a eagle eye. Then so I could hold this position in the sky for a tiny bit to locate every thing in their base. The wing-pack  I activate the wing-pack at a point so I could hover a bit over the base with out being seen. The place had many crates with tarps over some of them. They had barb wire and fencing lining the outside of the bounders. There were two medium sized buildings on the north and south side of the base. I was even able to see their cameras, which were on the south and West side of the base. I also saw squads of guards wandered the east and north. Which meant that the southwest was where the captive was located.

In all my time in blackwatch  the area with the most security meant my target was hiding in there or the leader of this operation. I slowly made my wing-pack glide down to the rig making sure nothing saw me. All I had to do now was report my findings to the others. I taped on eye to send my message to everyone, hopefully they were listening to their coms. I was then told to wait for a signal from another agent. The signal was to tell me I was able to head to the south side building. After that, I stared down on the base looking for the signal. Still something didn't feel right about this mission, I know it in my gut. While watching the base I saw a black hooded figure headed for the north side of the base. I was about to report it back, but something told me not to say a word. Instead I watched them from my post. He or she was sticking to the shadows, but the clothing the person was wearing for some Reasoner at this distance looked familiar.

Suddenly, my com sparked up, " Its your turn cowboy." By the way the person said cowboy it was probably Rick. He was are assassin or biggest pain in the ass. His job was to clear troops of enemy's with silenced weapons. He mainly use a G18 with a silencer and a PG52 which was some sort of heavy cal mixed with a pistol. He was like I said a big pain in my ass scene he was one of the guys who killed for sport in Blackwatch. It made a lot of us look bad in blackwatch, but he did not give a crap.

I rushed down to the main gate of the base pulling out my peacekeeper just in case if Rick missed some. When I reached the side I could tell the cameras where taken down by G, but when I got to the guard post, I wanted to vomit. Rick went a bit to overboard on his killing spree. All the bodies were mangled with blood all over the ground. I hated seeing how Rick treated people even are enemies. It was like letting a ravaged dogs lose on little kids. I had to pull myself away from the gruesome site to head where Rick was located. My hand reached for my com when I saw the something in the shadows behind one of the crates nearest to the one of the buildings. I slowly put my hand on the handle of my peacekeeper. My body went still as everything went quiet and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of my heart beat. I slowly made my way to where the shadow was. As I reached to front side of the crate, I carefully peek around it to see the shadowed person leek in to a door leading in to the building.

All my sense were telling me to call for backup and hold position, but my curiosity got the best of me and I followed the Shadow. I kreeped into the building which the door to this building just lead to a long as hallway. There were no lights in this part of the building, but the only thing there was broken glass and blood on marking up the floor leading to the end of the hallway. In the corner of my eye I saw the person. They went left at the end of the hallway, so I followed. We passed by several broken rooms and hallways. I tried to keep my distance from this person. Until the person stopped at a room. They opened the room door and walked in, it looked like they melted in to the darkness of the room. I slowly walked up to the door to see what was going on.

When I reach the door I saw Gabe in all black with two Talon members. I tried to stay quiet.

"You have done well Gabriel, all the information you've given us shows us your devotion to Talon. Now what do you want from us except the destruction of Overwatch." "All I want is to see Jack fall and the agents of my choosing to join Talon. Mccree froze he could feel his whole body start to shake with anger. Was Gabe trying to trick talon or was he just a spy. Mccree needed to get out of here has fast as he could. Mccree turned down one of the hallways leading the exit. When he saw G, holding his HDP21 at Mccree's head. G had a black and dark blue suit, with five micro-hackers on his chest. He wore a fully militarized battle helmet with a display hub which tracked any tek in the area.  He used HDP21 and a 2A1C as his secondary, he was are hacker. In his arms was a body of a women. Dark hair and pal skin, she looked like she was barely even breathing. He looked up at me and slowly put his gun down. " Mccree you are lucky I didn't shoot that hat off your bloody head. Now we need to go I have are target, also why weren't you at your post. Gabe was about to pull this place apart looking for your sorry ass." G then literary put Amélie in his arms. She was a little heavy, but nothing that Mccree couldn't handle. On thing is for sure as Mccree made his was to the escort spy plane with Amélie in his arms that she should hopefully be ok. I don't know how G. found her and I don't know what they did to her, but I can only hope she will be ok.

On the way back Mccree sat alone with thoughts, about what had just happened. Gabe didn't tell him about reasoning with the enemy. He only told Mccree to retrieve and kill. It was a search and destroy mission. Only thing now was for Mccree to keep an eye on Gabe an make sure nothing will harm the agents Overwatch, because to Mccree they were his really family.

________________________________________________________________________________

Hey guys WW41 here with an apology.

Sorry guys I haven't updated in awhile and I know I promised to update all this summer and failed that promise. I don't want any forgiveness, but I hope you have enjoyed this chapter. I will say that I rushed at the end so sorry there.

Also if you like Genji x tracer check out Wizardwolf1020 book it is amazing and this whole chapter is dedicated to them, so please thank them!

In other terms what do you think almost 2032 words!!!!

Also what do you think will happen next on this little light of mine?

Will Genji or tracer finally confess?

Is Gabe really trying to destroy Overwatch?

All I have to say is: 😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈

hahahahahahhahhahahhahahahahaa.

[barpurplewrites]

Pumpkin Problems

MacAvoy & Belle friendship, problematic pumpkins.

-x-x-x-

It all started with a cardboard box, a hungover priest and a high heeled shoe. MacAvoy had been doing well with cutting down the drinking, but after a double funeral yesterday he’d hit the bottle hard. Belle had been there to listen to him rant against the unfairness of God’s plan and sob over the loss of two young lives. A fucking car crash, nobody’s fault, a tire blowing out, a car spinning out of control, and two kids walking to college became the latest deaths on the road.

His hangover wasn’t as bad as it could have been; Belle had cut him off after only half a bottle and got him to drink a couple of pints of water before he passed out. The pot of coffee and paracetamol he found in the kitchen were a blessing. Belle was an angel, he’d called her that a lot since she’d turned up at his church.

Belle was up a ladder when he shambled into the church hall after two quick cups of coffee. It took him a moment to find her because he was used to seeing all of her, not just her legs dangling out of the loft hatch. Her upper half was struggling with something in the loft, but judging by her constant stream of chatter she was winning. Belle was in one of her usual short skirts, but in deference to the chilly weather she’d teamed it with a thick pair of green and black striped leggings. Joseph realised that he was practically looking up her skirt and averted his eyes with an embarrassed cough, which started Belle. As she slipped down the ladder he darted forward and caught her before she tumbled backwards. He even managed to get an arm up to shield their heads from the box that followed her down the ladder. His yelp of pain and the swearing that followed were caused by Belle’s heel landing squarely on his toe.

“Sweet Mother of God!”

Belle jumped to the side narrowly missing the ladder and removed her heel from his toe. Why in God’s name had she been climbing a ladder in high heels?

“Are you alright, Padre?”

“Ow! Aye, you’re such a wee thing, how did that hurt so much?”

Belle tilted her head to one side; “Small surface area of the heel and my weight makes for a hefty amount of pounds per square inch of pressure.”

He’d understood all the words, but the explanation eluded him, sounded like a maths thing and that had never been his strong point. He gave her a wonky grin; “Just remind me to invest in steel toe caps if we ever dance.”

She gave him a haughty look that was softened by the twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

“I’ll have you know that I am a very graceful dancer.”

With perfect comic timing the universe contrived to prove her words false as she turned and tripped over the box that had fallen from the loft space. Belle sprawled on the floor before he could catch her and landed with an ‘Umph’ that quickly turned into a giggle.

“See, that would have look very graceful if there had been music.”

Joseph crouched down next to her, his hangover headache was throbbing in time with his abused toe, but it was hard to care about while Belle was enthusiastically tearing at the tape that sealed the box.

“What are we hoping to find in here?”

“Halloween decorations for the Youth Club party.”

A sluggish memory stirred through the fog of last night’s whiskey. Belle gave him a small smile; she never chastised him for forgetting things. She had her own problems with memory, and while they weren’t self-inflicted like his, she understood how difficult it could be.

“Mary Margaret spoke to you after Mass on Thursday,” - He gave her a blank look, - “She was wearing that green parker that you think makes her look like a frog.”

That did kick his memory into gear, “Of course I remember now.”

Talking to Mary Margaret, who ran the Youth Club, was still a bit hazy, but he did recall Belle joking that they would have to find him a costume. At least he’d hoped she’d been joking. She won her battle against the tape and tore the box open, sending half a dozen spiders scurrying for the skirting boards.

“Looks like we won’t be short on cobwebs.”

“We’d need an Igor to train them,” – at his puzzled look she explained, - “Discworld Carpe Jugulum, never mind.”

Belle had suggested he read the Discworld book, and he’d been working his way through the series, but that must be one that he’d not got to yet.

“No spoilers.”

“It’s only a tiny one.”

She was already digging in the box, pulling out a number of tatty decorations, but their shabby appearance didn’t put Belle off; “They’re perfect. We’ll go for a ruined haunted house look.”

Joseph poked at the brown paper at the bottom of the box, it was covering a solid something. He lifted it out carefully and offered it to Belle.

“You want to do the honours?”

She gave him an excited grin and tore at the paper. The contents caused them both to frown; a large brass bowl, and a wickedly sharp looking knife.

“Why would these be in with Halloween decorations?”

To be honest he was surprised that there were even decorations in the box, he certainly hadn’t put them up there, at least he didn’t think he had; they had to be left over from the previous priest. Belle’s curiosity meant that she knew the church better than he did.

“It’s got jack-o-lanterns on it.”

He peered at the bowl. Belle’s description was charitable, the grinning faces did look vaguely like carved pumpkins, and they were certainly creepy.

“Punch bowl maybe?”

“Aye, well I don’t know how long it has been in the loft and I don’t need the Bishop breathing down my neck about accidentally poisoning the kids, so let’s just use it as a decoration, hey?”

Belle pulled a face at some of the yuk clinging to the bottom of the bowl; “Yeah, sounds like a plan. That knife might come in handy for carving pumpkins.”

  A few days before the Halloween party Joseph discovered his kitchen table had broken out in a lumpy mass of orange and yellow. It turned out that Belle had persuaded the local fruit and veg shop to donate all the wonky and misshaped pumpkins, they now had thirty gourds to carve. Since Joseph had one serviceable kitchen knife the strange knife with its creepy face patterned handle was very useful. Its blade slid into the thick orange skin with ease and it was no effort at all to carve a rough circle lid. He pushed the pumpkin over to Belle who began attacking the insides with a spoon. She giggled at the squelchy feel of pumpkin guts between her fingers as she pulled out a handful and dropped into the brass bowl they’d found.

“A few of those eyeballs I got from the pound shop and maybe one of the fake hands and we’ll have a witch’s stew decoration.”

Joseph wrinkled his nose at the goop in the bowl, “That sounds disgusting.”

“That’s the idea.”

He laughed and began cutting a face into the pumpkin Belle had already scooped out, the mouth was lop-sided, but he hoped that wouldn’t matter. He was concentrating on getting the first eye cut when Belle suddenly grabbed his arm with her pumpkin covered fingers.

“Erm, Padre?”

He followed her pointing finger and gaped at the bowl. Orange smoke was curling from it, and that made no sense at all because pumpkin was far to soggy to burn. The pumpkin he was carving shifted under his hand causing him to jump backwards. The knife was still stuck in the orange skin, but that didn’t hinder the vines that began sprouting from the gourd. Joseph had the presence of mind to drag Belle away from the table. She was shaking a little, but her curiosity was winning out over her fear.

“You are seeing this too, right?”

“Oh aye.”

The vines were twisting around and creating a spindly body. It took the pumpkin creature two attempts to get to its feet. Joseph felt a pang of sympathy for it, as it wobbled drunkenly before it found its balance. That feeling vanished as a leafy hand pulled the knife from its half-carved eye. It stood there starting at them for a very long moment. Joseph almost jumped out of his skin when Belle whispered in his ear; “Do you think we should run?”

That would probably be a great idea, but before Joseph could get his feet to work the pumpkin-man swiftly turned and began hacking at the other pumpkins. If they were going to get out, now was the time to do it. He wrapped an arm around Belle’s waist to help her keep her feet as they backed out of the kitchen; he’d seen enough horror films to know what happened when the pretty woman in high heels tripped. They made it to the kitchen door and through into the living room without the pumpkin-man turning on them.

“What do we do?”

Belle didn’t respond to his frantic whisper. Her head was tilted to one side, her habitual thinking pose. Joseph was glad one of them was keeping a cool head, because all he could think about now was how desperately he needed a drink.

“It only went for the pumpkins, which was all we put in the bowl.”

Joseph wasn’t following her line of thinking and panicked as she edged along the living room wall behind the sofa. There was a serving hatch in the wall between the kitchen and the living room, a feature from the fifties that had never been altered. Very slowly Belle lifted the latch and eased open the door to peek into the kitchen. She gave a soft chuckle and beckoned him over.

In the kitchen the pumpkin-man was attacking another pumpkin with terrifying speed. Somehow the off cuts and guts were ending up tidily in the brass bowl, which was still smoking. Along one side of the table were rows of neatly carved, grinning pumpkins. Joseph watched in dumb shock as pumpkin after pumpkin became jack-o-lanterns.

Their unexpected helper finished the final one and turned to face them. Belle grabbed his arm and Joseph’s fingers found the edge of the hatch door, ready to slam it shut if the thing charged at them. They both winced as it jabbed the knife into its head, right where Joseph had planned to carve the second eye. The leafy hand twisted around and with a wet plop the unwanted piece of pumpkin was pried free and landed in the bowl with a splat. The pumpkin-man gave them both a slow bow, as the knife dropped from the shrivelling vines of its hand. The finished pumpkin settled on the table in line with the others just as the smoke from the bowl trailed away in a final wispy curl.

Belle made a sad little noise, while Joseph breathed a sigh of relief. When they made their way back into the kitchen he carefully poked the pumpkin that had been animated, while Belle considered the now empty bowl.

“I was going to put fake eyes and a severed hand in here.”

Fear gripped Joseph’s chest at the thought of what chaos that might unleash. With shaking hands, he fished his flask from his inside pocket. To his surprise Belle reached out and took it from his hand and helped herself to a fast slug. She handed it back with a small smile.

“I think this time I’m happy to let my curiosity go unsatisfied.”

“Oh, thank God for that.”

 The Youth Club’s Halloween Party was a great success, everyone loved the jack-o-lanterns, although nobody understood why Belle and Joseph kept randomly poking them during the evening.

[ariel-herman]

Frost Methane is targeting arctic methane release to avert climate catastrophism.

  It’s a sunny morning in Alameda, California. Olya Irzak and Ethan Caleff carry the white octagon draped with seaweed over their heads, up the path towards the USS Hornet Naval Museum. The prototype is a white tarp bound to a PVC octagonal frame, and the seaweed is from their initial launch from the beach into a strong headwind. Olya flashes a wicked smile as they march to the pier opposite the USS Hornet where a small, retired Icelandic ferry called the Maritol is moored. From their micro puffies, sports glasses and sharp jogging shoes, they look like happy campers toting a tent to another site. Olya and Ethan walk the prototype to the edge of the pier. On three, they drop the 8’ diameter prototype over the pier into the San Francisco Bay behind the Maritol.

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Unfortunate for us, the human race cannot simply move campsites at this stage of our development. Global warming has caused thawing in the Arctic Circle, releasing stored methane from the bottoms of over 150,000 previously frozen lakes. If CO2 is a single-walled tent in direct sunlight, methane (which is 28 times more insulating than CO2) is the rain fly sweltering the inhabitants alive. The mid-range and long term effects were reiterated in this report, which was subsequently declared false by the Trump Administration, highlighting the need for stronger political will to address the climate crisis. In a short few decades, climate refugees are all but certain. According to a World Health Organization report from earlier this year, millions of lives are at stake.

And so, Olya Irzak, Ethan Chaleff and Laughlin Baker are launching Frost Methane to mitigate climate change by capturing arctic methane and igniting it before it hits the atmosphere.

  Creating a Team and a Technology

The ferry’s rear loading hatch is open to the bay and the team is sorting through equipment. The interior of the ferry is something straight out of a Neal Stephensen novel. Where commuters once parked is an electronics shop with hundreds of parts in numerous drawers. In the very back is an extemporaneously decorated lounging area with bits of bedding and tapestry beneath a ramada. There are stations with optical equipment and soldering guns beneath the oceanic viewing ports, and the chandelier is some kind of geodesic with every point connecting to every point across the interior.

Olya suits up in her neoprene as Ethan and Laughlin motor the zodiac beyond the stern of the Maritol to scout the deployment. The team attaches milk jugs for positive buoyancy and free weights for negative buoyancy to control ascent and descent. Their prototype is shaped like a patio umbrella with vacuum hose in the center. The hose leads to a 4″ cylinder where the electronics will be housed at the water’s surface.

Water gently laps against the hull of the quiet ship. The team co-directs the slow descent of the white tarp into the emerald green waters of the San Francisco Bay. The vacuum hose noodles from the middle of the baggy tarp, extending out to a methane collector and ignition unit. It is designed to be deployed concavely over a methane breach in an arctic lake. The collector will communicate through satellites, reporting on the amount of methane captured and ignited. Carefully, the team ascends the device, and lugs the components to the loading bay.

The entire time, I have listened to them communicate to enable the best ideas to be found by solution-based thinking. Today was a relatively problem free, but success is still far away. The following week, the team will attempt a second deployment. This time they must attempt to assemble on the water. They will need to know how to launch the disassembled device from two kayaks and a dingy at their test site near Kotzebue, Alaska.

Laughlin and the USS Hornet. Alameda, California.

Frost Energies. Circa 2018. Alameda, California.

Olya and Ethan. Alameda, California.

Sunlight ripples off the water beneath the flight deck of the USS Hornet. The flags of the USS Hornet lift to an urgent whip. On the pier, the octagonal white tarp catches the wind in long swells, simultaneously rising and falling like sand dunes crawling across the deserts. Olya, Ethan and Laughlin assemble the prototype as tourists enter the decommissioned aircraft carrier.

Olya walks over to Ethan and Laughlin toiling over the flapping corner, “What can I do to not be useless?” she asks. They ziptie the white tarp to the frame. Ethan inserts the exit port at the center, securing it with blue duct tape and more zipties. They origami the now 35’ diameter prototype into a bundle and descend into the Maritol.

On the water, the stronger current and high wind create issues for the team. Connecting the elbow joints proves difficult at this scale. Components begin to sink before they are connected. The entire rig is pushed against the pier as the two boats manipulate the piping and tarps.

The team moves quickly to even out the descent. Their hands become cold in the extended deployment. With so much at stake, there is nothing as reassuring as strong teamwork in the face of small details, all of which the team addresses with support and deference to the best ideas being offered up. They are even kind enough to let me unprofessionally chime in. My specialty, really. The desire to feel helpful is difficult to resist.

Second prototype deployment. The team folds the tarp for deployment from the Maritol. The wind makes this task a bit unruly. Alameda, California.

The team descending into the Maritol with the folded gear. Alameda, California.

Beginning deployment. Alameda, California.

The larger design created difficulties for the team. As the tarp was opened, it began to sink under its own weight. The team is shown here working quickly connect the PVC frame and buoyancy control devices. Alameda, California.

The evening light diffuses in the San Francisco fog. Shadows soften and disappear. Today was a success, in the sense that redesigns were identified and protocols were reality tested. In two weeks, the prototype will be on its way north of Fairbanks for testing in far colder conditions.

Olya gets out of the kayak and goes below deck to change. “Evaporative drying is a bitch,” she says with a smile, shivering in her wet suit. The team breaks down the components and debrief over a spread of Thai food. None of them eat meat for carbon and health reasons. They sequence their experiences, creating an education for themselves based on what went wrong. Their chemistry is easier for me to appreciate than the technical aspects of their discussion. Ethan feels organically like a big brother, Laughlin like the negotiator middle sibling, and Olya the silly younger sister; with the addition of professional respect as peers. They agree to scale down the prototype for the field test in Kotzebue, Alaska.

  Perseverance and Lost Permafrost

The effects of climate change are already here. Two years ago, the Mendocino Complex Fire destroyed 459,123 acres of woodland in Northern California. The next year, we saw the deadliest yet with the Camp Fire, where 86 people lost their lives and 18,804 structures were destroyed. The cause is thought to be a combination of human intrusion into woodland areas as well as a 3° Fahrenheit increase in California over the past century. My home, Sonoma County, is already redrawing topo maps to account for the potential rise in sea level.

Firefighters back burn the forest east of Kenwood, California, in order to stop the Tubbs Fire, October 2017. Sonoma County, California.

The trip to the Arctic Circle taught the team what the field conditions would require. Unable to attend due to a wedding at Burning Man (my own, alas), the team agrees to make daily logs of their experimental deployment in Alaska. Olya and Laughlin spend many hours debugging the electronics. Ethan punch-drunkenly reports the daily toils and the numerous obstacles. In areal footage, the team demonstrates the collapsing of the shoreline due to the loss of permafrost.

It is a bewildering sensation coming back from your own high-carbon footprint wedding to the video logs of three scientists in the Alaskan bush, explaining how microvolts fried  the iridium modem (but they had a backup!) in their save-the-world prototype, not to mention the meta-encounter with a reporter from the Washington Post doing a story on this very subject. Do follow that link for a professional summation of this topic.

Each log entry reminds me how frustrating these small steps can be. No matter how good a collaborator you are, camping food is always bad. And although a persevering attitude is important in the creation of reliable technology, don’t forget to bring a shotgun in case a bear decides to attack your only computer scientist, too.

Everyone seemed tired yet optimistic by the end of their trip to Kotzebue. Their last video correspondence was from a bar in Seward, Alaska. Everyone agreed it was more work than they’d expected. The asymmetry of the tarp caused the gas to collate unevenly and escape out the sides rather than at the port in the middle. As Ethan put it, it was not a #success. His tarp design needs to be more conical, and Laughlin’s electronics and batteries could be lighter. The team was able to measure the flow rate and uplink to the satellite, which was a huge bit of progress and not to be understated.

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Frost Methane is drawing nearer to a design that could be part of a global solution to climate change. According to a critical report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the UN’s body for assessing science related to climate change) we have 12 years left to avert global disaster. In the back of our minds is the same understanding – The time to triage climate change, like cancer, is before it metastases.

Frost Methane could be among many future companies that can curb greenhouse gas emissions — provided an economic incentive, such as a carbon tax, is available. In a comforting display of rational self-interest, a hedge fund representing 32 trillion in global investments demanded governments do more to mitigate the global rise in temperatures by implementing carbon taxes, among other measures. For every ton of methane eliminated, Frost Methane could be paid from these carbon tax revenues. Such potential revenues are essential to incentivize broader investment in climate change mitigation.

For Olya, hacking the problem is their first goal. Frost Methane’s priority is rapid deployment to avert an increase in global temperatures. For them, the business side seems to be a means to an end more than anything else.

  Update: This article was written almost a year ago. With the confluences of seasonal flooding in and new babies in the author’s hometown, it was not edited and published until August 2019. Since then, Frost Methane has made significant progress in their organization and refinement of the technology underpinning this critically necessary advancement in planetary stewardship. A potential followup article will address those updates.

A Startup to Save All Startups Frost Methane is targeting arctic methane release to avert climate catastrophism. It’s a sunny morning in Alameda, California.