#in our defense literally no one could find a good vantage point

[applesfrombanora]

…

It took two of us to place it correctly

[phykios]

volcano kiss scene but make it medieval, for @perseannabeth 💙 note that this is little more than a fancy rewrite, but... marble king verse is too good to be done with completely

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June, 1446

As Percy led his little band of adventurers through the tunnels of the Labyrinth, himself, his questing partner Ana Zabeta, his childhood companion Aegidius, and his half-brother, the cyclops Tison, following a marvelously clever creation of the god of fire, he allowed himself, for a brief moment, to feel a small sense of pride. They had finally located a deity who not only did not appear to have any negative designs on their characters, but had also promised them his help--after they had performed him a small favor, of course. 

Hephaestus had fashioned for them a little spider made of metal, who moved about as though it had a beating heart, darting this way and that, nearly invisible, were it not for their torchlight flickering off its shiny, shiny legs. Though he would never speak it aloud, Percy felt a particular kind of pride on Annabeth’s behalf, as she followed the eight-legged creature with neither complaint nor fear. He knew full well just how totally she detested the beasts, her eternal and forsworn enemies, just as their mother had been an enemy of Athena. 

They rounded a corner, moving from a passageway lined with a strange, shiny substance which felt cool to the touch to one of crudely-cut stone, when he spotted a tunnel off to the side, dug from raw earth, wrapped in thick roots which pried their way through the holes in the stones. Aegidius had noticed it as well, slowing his pace until he stopped entirely in front of the dark, gaping maw in the wall. “Aegidius,” Percy said, stopping as well. “What is it?”

It was as if he had not heard him. The satyr merely gazed into the black tunnel, his curly hair rustling in an impossible breeze.

“We cannot delay!” said Annabeth. “We must keep moving!”

“This is the way,” Aegidius muttered, hushed and reverent. “It is here.”

He couldn’t possibly mean… “The way to Pan?”

But Aegidius ignored him, turning instead to Tison, the creature whose very nature often rendered him speechless with fear. “Do you not smell it, too?”

“Yes,” said Tison. “Earth. The forest.”

Before them, the spider skittered further down the stone corridor. If they delayed any further, the trail would be lost to them. 

“Once we have finished our errand for Hephaestus,” said Annabeth, “then we can return for Pan, I swear it.”

“The tunnel will have gone by then,” said Aegidius, with a confidence Percy had rarely seen before. “A door such as this will not remain open for long--and I must enter it.”

“But,” she said, desperate, “the forges!”

He looked at her sadly, but firmly. “I cannot go with you this time, Annabeth.”

Percy had forgotten--Aegidius was not only his companion. He had been Annabeth’s as well. He had been responsible for seeing her safely over the magical boundary in Sigeion. But the spider was nearly out of sight, and they could not tarry any longer before the gateway to the god. “We will continue to the forges,” he decided. “Aegidius, you go on to seek Pan.”

“No!” she gasped. “It is far too dangerous. If we part ways, we might never find each other again! And I cannot let you go alone.”

It was then that Tison, gentle creature he was, put his hand on Aegidius’ shoulder. As much fear as satyrs held for cyclops, Tison, for some odd reason, held just as much, if not more, for the satyrs. They had made an amusing pair at times, two of the sweetest, kindest people Percy had ever known, cowering in fear at the other. But Tison showed no fear now. Now, he was brave. “I shall go with him.”

Percy could not believe his ears. “You will?”

He nodded. “The satyr needs help. We shall find the god of the wild--together.”

Aegidius took a deep, steadying breath. “I wish I could see this through to the end with you, but--”

“I understand,” said Percy. The search for Pan was his life’s goal, the final prize in a quest which had taken his father, his father’s father, and so many searchers before him. If he did not succeed on this journey, the Council of Cloven Elders would never give him another chance. “I pray that you are right.”

Shoulders square, suddenly possessed of a confidence Percy had rarely ever seen from him, save for when he deliberated on how keftedes paled in comparison to spanakopita, he grinned. “I know that I am.”

Percy took a heartbeat to gaze on him one last time, imprinting him in his memory--just in case. “Be careful,” he told him. Then, he looked towards Tison, and opened his arms to his half-brother, who went into them willingly, squeezing Percy so strongly his eyes just about burst from his sockets. 

Tison and Aegidius then disappeared into the darkness of the tree roots, lost to the wild. 

“This was a mistake,” said Annabeth, her voice trembling. “We should not have let them go.”

“We will see them again,” Percy replied, attempting to summon Aegidius’ confidence. “Now, come on. The spider will not wait for us any longer.”

“Do not remind me,” she said, shuddering.

Before very long, the tunnel grew warmer, the stone walls red and glowing. The air felt as though they were walking through a giant oven, as though they had been transported into one of the forges beneath the villa for Hephaestus’ children, and he supposed, in a way, that they had. The tunnel sloped down, deeper into the earth, the spider nearly tripping over itself to reach the bottom, Annabeth right behind it.

Percy jogged to catch up. “Annabeth!” he called. “A moment?”

She glanced back at him, but did not cease her quick pace, forcing Percy to match her. “Yes?”

“I have a… question,” he panted, “regarding what Hephaestus… said, about your mother.” 

“She swore never to marry,” Annabeth said, easily. Curses, Annabeth did not appear to be even remotely out of breath. He felt like such a fool compared to her, always. “She is one of the maiden goddesses, alongside Artemis and Hestia.”

Percy frowned. He had not recalled that detail about the war goddess--though, he was rather infamous for nodding off during lessons. Perhaps he had simply slept through that particular lesson. “But, if she is a maiden goddess, then--”

“How is it she came to have demigod children?”

Blushing, he nodded. 

Now, this was not at all appropriate conversation, he knew. Young boys and girls were not meant to discuss such things with each other--not yet anyway. But Percy was nearly a man, and besides, he had spent enough time with Carlos and the older boys at the agoge to pick up a few pieces of knowledge here or there. Hopefully, Annabeth would think the flush on his cheeks was due to the heat of the cavern. 

“Do you know how Athena was born?” she asked him. 

“She was born from… the head of Zeus? In armor?”

“Precisely. She was literally born from his thoughts--and thus, her children are born the same way. When Athena falls in love with a mortal partner, it is a purely intellectual affair, just as it was with Odysseus in the epic tales. Our mother says that it is the truest kind of love.”

“So,” said Percy, frowning. “Your father and Athena… you were not--”

“I was born from their minds,” she interrupted, quickly. “Sprung from the divine thoughts of my mother and the mortal ingenuity of my father. Her children are gifts, blessings on the mortals she favors.”

“But--”

She turned to him, exasperated. “Percy, the spider has nearly vanished. Do you really wish for me to explain the precise details of my birth?”

Flushing even harder, he snapped his jaw shut.

Victorious again, she smirked. “I thought not.”

Running ahead to catch their guide, Percy followed, very neatly put in his place, and not certain he would ever be able to look at his friend the same way ever again. Some things, he decided, were perhaps better left as mysteries.

After another few minutes or so, they emerged into a cavern, larger than any stadium Percy had ever seen. It felt to be five times the size of the mighty Colosseum. There was no floor, just miles of bubbling lava beneath their feet. Standing on a rock ride which encircled the cavern, Percy saw a complex, overlapping network of metal bridges spanning the width of it, meeting on a huge platform in the center which housed the largest anvil he had ever seen, a block of iron the size of a villa. Dark, strange shapes moved about them, like formless shadows, too far away to discern what manner of creature they might be. 

“We cannot sneak up on them,” said Percy, noting the distinct lack of places to hide with some despair. 

With a slight grimace, Annabeth picked up their metal guide, its form having changed to a small ball, and slipped it into a fold in her dress. “I can. Wait here.”

“Hang on--” But Percy was too late, as Annabeth put on her magical cap, a gift from her mother, and vanished from his sight. 

Percy cursed. He did not dare call after her, not willing to draw attention to her tactics, but nor did he appreciate the idea of her approaching the forge on her own. If those creatures could repel the likes of Hephaestus, what hope did Annabeth have? It was not safe. She was their leader--they could not risk her life. Percy would not risk her life. 

Alas, he could never sit still for very long. Creeping along the outer rim of the lake of molten rock, he darted from stalagmite to stalagmite as best he could, hoping to find a better vantage point. Really, Annabeth should have known better.

The heat was horrendous, heavy and oppressive. Drenched in sweat, and eyes stinging with smoke, he moved along, staying as far from the edge as was physically possible, until he found his way stopped by a large metal box, fitted on wheels. Peering inside, he saw it was full scrapped metal, bits and bobs of broken swords and lumpy shields, piled on top of one another. Nothing he could reasonably use for an extra weapon, or even some kind of defense. Making to squeeze himself around it, he suddenly heard from up ahead a voice, rough and grating, speaking an ancient language which no man alive had heard for a thousand years. 

Monsters, he knew. 

There was no time to run away, no place to hide… except for the box. Leaping inside, covering himself with a dented aspis, he curled his fingers around his father’s sword, that blade Anaklusmos, hissing as the sharp metal of his bed cut between the soft parts of his armor, biting his tongue so no curse could escape. 

With any luck, the monsters would pass him by, and he could continue along unmolested. 

That was when, of course, that the box lurched forward, pushed along by the monsters, carrying Percy along with it. Malaka! Was he about to be tipped into a smelting pot?

All around him, he heard the chatter of terrible beasts. He was not so skilled in the ancient tongue as Annabeth, but even he could recognize a few words here or there, “weapon” and “cyclopes” and “furnace,” and some names as well: Zena, hissed with scorn, Posidaota, spat with bile, and, most chillingly of all, Kronos, spoken with reverence and awe.

Percy blinked against the sudden light as his cover was removed from his person, revealing himself to the monster, who was so taken aback by his presence, that it blinked back at him in return. For a few moments, neither of them moved, so shocked were they by the other’s sudden appearance. Then, springing into action, Percy slashed upwards, dissolving the beast in a cloud of golden smoke. Snatching up another shield and leaping from his bed of spikes, he saw with his preternatural vision a small army of at least twenty monsters, black like dogs, but with sleek, shiny skin, and legs which looked to be more suited for swimming than scrambling around the rocks of Aitne.

With a hearty battle-cry and another wide swipe, he repelled the front row of these creatures, carving himself some space to jump, sprinting for the mouth of the tunnel. The monsters followed after him, baying and growling as a pack of ravenous wolves, and they would have caught him, tearing him to pieces, had they been but a little bit faster. Thinking quickly, at the top of the tunnel, Percy hurled his shield into a column, the rocks crumbling upon impact, burying the monsters and blocking off the path with a great, noisy cave-in. 

He doubted it would keep them trapped for very long. Not only that, he very much doubted that they had been the only monsters in the cavern. Percy had just announced his presence to anyone who might have been listening, destroying their chance for any sort of subtle reconnaissance.

And Annabeth was still out there, somewhere, invisible.

“Annabeth!” He yelled, running towards the platform at the center of the ocean of lava. “Annabe--!”

An invisible hand clamped over his mouth, wrestling him down behind a large, bronze cauldron. “Silence! Do you mean to have us killed?”

Arms flailing, he managed to locate her head, slipping off her cap of invisibility. She shimmered into view as an island emerging from the mist, scowling and covered in ash and grime. “It’s far too late for that,” he said, grimly. “I came upon a group of monsters, and brought the roof crashing down on them.”

Hissing curses, her hands clenched, as though she meant to strangle him, before she visibly managed to control her temper. “You said there were monsters?”

He nodded. “I know not what kind. I had thought they may have been dogs, were it not for their flippered feet and human hands, adorned with claws. They spoke of furnaces and weapons, making arms for the first Titanomachy.”

“Telkhines,” she gasped, eyes wide. “Of course! I should have known. I had wondered when I saw… well, look.” 

Together they peered over the lip of the cauldron. In the center of the platform stood four of these demons, larger than any Percy had seen before, standing at least the size of a fully grown man. Their black, scaly skin glistened in the light of the fire as they labored, sparks flying between mighty hammer strikes on a long piece of glowing, hot metal, hissing to each other in the ancient language. “What are they saying?” he whispered to her. If he could not understand them, Annabeth surely would. 

“They are talking of fusing metals,” she said, frowning. “Other than that, I--I cannot say.”

“Is that bad?”

She stared at him, incredulous. “The telkhines betrayed the gods,” she said, “for practicing dark magics. For their transgressions, Zeus banished them to Tartaros.”

“Alongside Kronos.”

She nodded. “We must return to Hephaestus at once--”

But no sooner had she spoken than a sharp, clawed hand pierced its way through the rubble of Percy’s cave-in, pushing aside the rocks which blocked its path, followed closely by its snout, teeth long and sharp and dripping with saliva. “You must return to the god,” Percy said, moving into a crouch. “Leave me here.”

“What?” she shrieked. “No! I will not leave you!”

At any other time, he would have praised her for her courage, but not now. “You must! Let me distract the monsters, and perhaps the spider can lead you back through the Labyrinth. You are the leader of this quest--you must take the message back to Hephaestus.”

“But you’ll be killed!”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, turning to face her. “As well, there is no other choice.”

She glared at him, her lips pulled back almost in a snarl worthy of one of the monsters. He knew this look of hers well--it was the one she wore whenever she considered hitting him for his foolishness. 

But rather than hit him, she did something which shocked him even more.

She grasped the collar of his tunic, pulled him close, and kissed him. “Be careful, phykios,” she murmured against his lips, breath hot. Then she put on her cap, and vanished. 

Percy couldn’t breathe, and not for the smoke. Had it not been for the lava, the monsters, the weapon, the quest, he would have been quite content to sit there all day, thinking of nothing but the softness of her mouth and the way her eyes sparkled in the firelight, unable to even recall his own name. 

A sea demon screamed, jolting him back into reality. 

The horde of monsters, freed from their prison, charged across the bridge towards him. Percy scrambled up from the ground, running for the middle of the platform, startling the large monsters so thoroughly that they dropped the red-hot blade over which they labored. It was as long as they were tall, curved like a crescent moon, its shape burning into his vision, sending shivers down his spine. 

Unfortunately for Percy, the monsters recovered quickly from their shock. Every which way he turned, his exit was blocked by a small army, surrounding him. Cutting him off. 

Raising Anaklusmos, he prayed that they could not see the blade shaking. 

“Son of Poseidon,” rasped a demon, speaking Percy’s own language now. “We are honored by your visit, fish-blood.” 

He spread his senses, casting about for an escape, but there was none. He was trapped. 

“Will you strike us down, half-blood?” asked another one. “An you try, the rest of us shall tear you to shreds.” Licking its lips, it advanced on him, claws glinting in the glow of the forge. “Perhaps we shall deliver you to your father in pieces--an omen of the horror we shall visit upon him, and all the rest of the twelve, for their betrayal.”

Annabeth would not have allowed herself to be cornered this way, but Percy was no strategist. If the gods favored him at all, they would have seen to Annabeth’s escape, leaving him to his doom. 

Was this to be his doom, he wondered? Trapped in the heart of a volcano, overrun by monsters which would use his bones to pick their teeth? 

The tallest of the demons plunged its hand into the furnace, scooping a handful of molten rock. “Let us see the might of Olympus,” it said, grinning. “Let us see how long it takes him to burn!” And it threw the lava at Percy.

Dropping his sword, he swatted at his clothes which had been set alight, as though he had merely had an unfortunate run-in with the lava trap at the agoge, but it was not nearly enough, the fire engulfing him with each passing second. At first, oddly, it had only felt warm, though it grew hotter and hotter with every heartbeat. 

“Your father’s nature protects you,” one monster sneered. “Makes you hard to burn. But not impossible, fish-blood. Not impossible.”

Later, Percy would struggle to remember the particulars. He would recall only the fire, and the pain. He would not remember how he crumpled to the floor in deepest agony, the sea demons howling in delight at his terror. 

Nor would he remember the voice of the naiad at the farm of the giant Geryon. The water is within me, she had said. 

Between waves of torment, there was a tugging sensation in his gut, calling vainly for water where there was none: not a river, nor a stream, nor even a petrified seashell. Percy called for the sea, the towering waves which could wash away villages, the currents which could destroy ships in a single blow, the endless power of the ocean, and he called for these things inside of himself, letting it loose in one terrible, horrible scream.

Fire and water collided, a typhoon of unearthly power shooting him up from the beating heart of Aitne on wings of superheated steam, peeling his skin away, another piece of flotsam flung from the earth by the force of the blast. Higher and higher he flew, further than Icarus, than Bellerophon, than Zeus himself, so high that the lord of the heavens would not be able to reach him--and then he fell, a shooting star, hurtling towards the sea which would not save him. Not this time.

[petri808]

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33-Epilogue

~~Day 2 of Lucy’s testimony

“Ms. Heartfilia, on the night of the kidnapping please start from the moment you got off the train and were walking back towards your apartment building.”

“O-Okay.” Lucy closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. ‘Just tell the truth, let the prosecutor direct her answers...’ She opened her eyes as she began. “We had a system in place, so whenever I was out alone, I would stay on the phone with someone. That night, Natsu was on the other end. He talked and kept me company. I was maybe halfway to the apartment building when I heard something behind me, but before I could turn to see what it was, I felt a hand wrap around my face and a cloth placed over my mouth. I-I screamed, and I heard Touka’s voice, and Natsu screaming over the phone but everything went black as I passed out. It happened really fast.”

“What was the next thing you remember?”

“I woke up in an apartment that I didn’t recognize. I remember being dizzy, my head hurt, and my eyes were all blurry. My... m-my hands and feet were tied up, and I was lying on my side on the floor.” Lucy stopped again to take another deep breath before continuing. “That’s when I heard noises like drawers opening and closing. I couldn’t see where it was coming from at first, but I guess my mind told me it must be Touka. So, my survival instincts kicked in at that moment. I stayed still, pretending to be asleep, but I cracked my eyes open to see what I could.”

“And what could you see?”

“I s-saw, like a couch, and a wall, and it was covered with photographs of Natsu— just completely covered. And I could see there was all kinds of them, close ups, far shots, old stuff, new ones, clippings... but they weren’t just Natsu. I could see a lot of me and our friends too, and that really creeped me out cause I knew she was watching us, but just, you know, to see it— that was really hard. I tried so hard to stay focused on what was happening. I just kept thinking, I’ve gotta find a way out of there.”

Lucy took the jury through that night, step, by step just as she’d been coached by the prosecutor. The closer she got to the main event, the slower she moved through each detail. They covered all the visuals she saw from her vantage point, inching their way to the moment Touka had begun her physical assault. Lucy’s hands sat in her lap, but they constantly opened and closed into fists to disburse the building anxieties in a physical way. It was a technique her therapist had shown her specifically to use during the trial. Thank goodness for all the preparations by her therapist, because recalling these memories were to re-live them and that was all extremely difficult.

“You testified that Ms. Shiromajyo did not know you were already awake. So, how did she wake you up?”

Lucy took a deep breath knowing this was the hardest part, but the prosecutor needed her to tell the tale. “She kicked me really hard in the back which made me roll over to try and defend, but before I could she stomped me in the stomach, and just kept kicking me over and over...” Lucy’s body trembled as she relieved the event in her mind. “I-I couldn’t do much because I was tied up tightly, so I kept rolling to the side and curling up in a ball. I didn’t wanna scream, because... b-because I thought that’s what she wanted to hear, and I wasn’t gonna give her that satisfaction. But I think it only made her angrier.”

“Was she saying anything through this attack?”

“Y-Yes...” Lucy’s voice cracked. “S-She was calling me a slut and a bitch and blamed me for the pain she was feeling. Said if only I’d walked away like she’d warned me to, I wouldn’t be in this situation. So, I snapped back that hurting me wouldn’t make Natsu love her. That killing me...” Lucy sucked in a breath, “wasn’t worth going to jail over. I thought— that maybe if I try to reason with her, get her to see this wouldn’t change anything, she’d stop, but— it didn’t faze her.” Lucy shivered at how cold Touka’s eyes had been at the moment. “She said, “if I can’t have him, neither will you.” That, “don’t you think I know that?” But she didn’t care. This woman was going to kill me, and she said it with a straight face. That’s when I knew she was serious, and I started preparing myself to die.”

Eventually, Lucy couldn’t even look in Natsu’s direction. She could see the utter turmoil on his face, and it only added to her anxiety. So, instead, she looked at the jury members themselves. That was another tactic the prosecutor instructed Lucy to do. ‘Talk to them,’ he’d explained. ‘Think of this as your opportunity to tell your story. Let them see all the emotions you were feeling then, or feeling now, because they need to know how much Touka’s actions have affected you.’ So, that’s what Lucy did her best to do, scanning just above their heads. She still couldn’t make eye contact because just like Natsu, listening to her story brought a lot of pain to many of their faces.

With tears trickling down, Lucy continued giving a blow by blow account leading up to Natsu’s arrival, and what happened before the authorities arrived. How she got the cut on her neck and other injuries, and how they were fighting against Touka as hard as they could. Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks as she spoke, but she didn’t stop talking. She told them how Natsu begged Touka to leave her alone, even willing to give up his life for it, but once Natsu admitted that he loved her, that really set Touka off. “That— T-That not how I wanted to find out he loved me!” Lucy screamed through the tears. “That’s not how anyone should find that out! And she took that beautiful thing away from me!” Lucy slumped in her chair, trying to stop the heavy sobs wracking her body. Saying it out loud, the anger was seething inside of her because she hadn’t expected to have this reaction. Maybe she’d buried it for far too long?

“Ms. Heartfilia, do you need a break?”

“N-No,” she wiped away the sloppy tears. “I can finish this. I-I need to keep going.”

“Take a moment to compose yourself,” the judge explained, “then continue.”

Lucy nodded to the judge in acknowledgment, then after a long deep exhale, continued to tell the jury how she’d watched as Natsu defended her and what was going through her mind as she saw him stabbed. “All the blood...” she whimpered, fighting the urge to bawl again. “There was so much blood from Natsu’s injuries. I started freaking out because I didn’t wanna die and I didn’t wanna watch my boyfriend killed! So, I-I grabbed the closest object which was a hardcover book— her school yearbook and just started swinging as hard as I could despite my wrists being tied. I was just running on adrenaline at the point knowing it had to be either her or us, and I’m sorry, but I did not want to die.”

At that stage of the testimony, Lucy took the jury through the police’s arrival from her perspective. What she’d observed, and how they finished subduing Touka. “Once they took her into custody, I think I was just in shock. Frankly, I don’t even know how I managed to stay focused through the whole ordeal, I just remember thinking if this woman was gonna kill me, I’d make it as difficult as possible.” Finally, Lucy covered the timeline for the jury between the scene and going to the hospital for treatment, including the panic attack and his she had to be sedated.

“And how has this affected you since the incident?”

“Objection! Leading! This has no relevance to the case!” The defense attorney argued to the judge. “The witnesses state of mind after the fact could be contributed to multiple factors and there’s no way to attribute it solely to my client or the events revolves around my client.”

The prosecutor countered, arguing that Lucy’s continued reactions to the events over the ensuing months was relevant to the case.

But the judge only ruled partially in the States favor. “Re-word you question counselor to the event itself.”

“Ms. Heartfilia, please provide any specific factors you’ve suffered relating to your experiences with Ms. Shiromajyo.”

“W-Well, my panic attacks and nightmares are because of what happened. I keep seeing and reliving things like a movie replaying in my mind. Especially the attack, I literally wake up screaming because of bloody dreams, and this causes me problems, like I don’t get enough sleep, I couldn’t focus on school. Just the fear of leaving my apartment has kept me from doing anything really for months. I’m scared of being kidnapped, even though logically I know Touka is in jail, it doesn’t just make those feelings go away. I wish it did— Heaven help me, I wish it would just go away, but it doesn’t.”

“So, you still fear Ms. Shiromajyo?”

Lucy stiffened and nodded her head vehemently as she shrunk down in the chair. “Yes.”

“Thank you, no further questions at this time. We reserve the right to recall the witness.”

“Cross?” The judge asked the defense, to which they also responded with reserve the right to recall. “Then Ms. Heartfilia, you may leave the stand, but be available in case of being recalled.”

Lucy nodded quietly at the judge, then slipped out of the courtroom. The bailiff lead her to a back room, along with her therapist so she couldn’t hear what was going on. Once in the safety of the room, she broke down. All the emotions she’d tampered down to get through the testimony, rushed out. She’d shed tears during her testimony, but now she was free to sob openly.

“You did great,” the therapist cooed, soothing the young woman. She tightened her hug, “that’s good, just let it all out.”

A knock at the door came, as Natsu and Levy were allowed inside. Natsu immediately went to his girlfriend and took over for the therapist. “Shh,” he spoke softly and smoothed his hand against her hair. “You did amazing babe!”

“Lu, you did great up there! We’re really proud of you!”

“Thanks, guys,” Lucy sniffled into Natsu’s chest. She was proud of getting through it without having a break down, but the nagging knowledge of this wasn’t over yet, still loomed large. The defense was surely going to recall her at some stage, and even if the attorney didn’t, the prosecutor could, plus just the waiting sucked! “Can we please go home? I-I just wanna go home.”

[yue-muffin]

I finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the first time and wow, am I impressed. Having only played the 3DS era games and started Sacred Stones recently, I came to expect a certain range of quality and reach in terms of story. There are games that I found not overly complex but executed well (Echoes) and ones with a good premise and sloppy execution (Fates). Sacred Stones, so far, is one I find with a simple story done well. I’m not terribly enthralled with it, but there’s nothing there to annoy me either.

Path of Radiance is one of those games that takes the ‘simple/standard FE plot’ path, but the execution is brilliant, filled with both depth and heart despite the story having the same basic beats as many other FEs. I was really impressed with the worldbuilding, the character writing, the gameplay/story integration...

My biggest gripe with Awakening and Fates was that the characters were colorful, but few of them were compelling and many lacked the depth to take them beyond their archetypes. Path of Radiance did a good job making me feel that its characters all had a stake in the outcome of the battles, that they had an actual cause to fight for and didn’t just join the army just because. There is always a bit of contrivance in an FE game, but the quality of the writing can lessen or emphasize that feeling.

The gameplay mechanics change from game to game, and I find it really fun to test out the unique features of each installment and see how they influenced each other. the shoving animations are amazing

People also say this is one of the easiest FE games and I have to say, the bonus exp mechanic is probably why. I love this mechanic because of the way it allows the game to reward the player for taking certain actions encouraged by the story (like wanting to spare as many of the enemy as possible = we’ll give you bonus exp if you do). I, uh, am never doing a stealth run of the prison break chapter again though.

I went ultra vanilla and restricted myself to using only the Greil Mercenaries for this run, and I’ll leave my impressions on this post because half the fun of a FE game is building up your team.

I went with the Greil Mercenaries (+ Mia, because she joins them for the second game) for my first playthrough because otherwise I would have no reason to use both Rolf AND Shinon at the same time and Rhys would just warm the bench the whole game lol. And I was really curious to see Rolf and Shinon’s support line and actually have a use for all of those light magic tomes.

Ike: My Ike didn’t get screwed over in any stat, so absolutely no complaints other than the fact that he refused to proc Aether more than once in the Black Knight fight, making Nasir bail him out at the end of the allotted turns. I supported him with Soren because I wanted to see their support line, and have to say that it worked out really well. I was between Soren and Oscar, but it worked better this way because Oscar was always riding off with Titania at the front and Ike just lags behind unless you dedicate several units + Reyson to shoving him to the frontline. And when you’re using Mist, Rolf, and Soren, that really cuts into the units available for shoving.

Oscar: He, uh, ended up the MVP and netted the most kills in the run. Oscar can become an amazing paladin, but mine was so screwed in the strength stat for much of the early game that I had to abuse the bexp mechanic at the base to ensure he didn’t keep lagging behind. His defenses were super good by the end, and the little damage he did take was mitigated by activating Sol every other hit. Also, I have a bias for calvary units, so. Oscar. Loved him.

Titania: I...I love Titania. I love her character. She plays her role perfectly as the super strong unit who is there to support you in the beginning and falls off a little towards the end. She can still hold her own in the endgame, however, and I have no regrets for relying on her early on. There is so much experience to be had in normal mode that she doesn’t really rob anyone else of it unless you go ham and let her destroy everything. In the end, I gave her Savior so she can help deliver chip damage and save Shinon’s ass, I mean, rescue drop people.

Boyd: Super frustrating and nerve wracking to train, super hard hitter who still keeps you on your toes by the end. He is the most lopsided unit I have ever used (comparatively low defenses, speed, and skill compared to his attack and HP) but he was definitely fun and made sure I didn’t get too complacent. I don’t normally use fighters/axe units in the modern games because their accuracy is shit, their defenses are even more shit, and why bother with the headache. Once you can forge Boyd a good iron axe, though, his performance becomes more consistent. I did keep Tempest on him for a while, because I find it fun to use the skills a unit comes with, but I took it off eventually. It does help in certain situations when his hit rate isn’t so good (having the biorhythm doubled then is helpful).

Soren: I have a bias for this little asshole, lol. He’s a standard mage, basically. Kind of annoying to train in the beginning because he can barely take a hit, his movement is low, and MAGIC MAKES THE EMULATOR CRASH SOMETIMES, but if you can stick it out, you’ll be rewarded in the end with a unit that doesn’t care about how physically bulky any enemy is and can take down dragons with ease (plus, he heals A LOT because of his high magic stat even with a basic heal staff). I will admit, he’s a walking liability if Ike isn’t his support partner and magic in this game is slightly annoying because each element has its own weapon rank. He basically ate all of my Arms Scrolls because he has FOUR ranks to build (including the staff rank) and all of them have their uses, so I didn’t have him concentrate in one or the other. Although he gets weighed down by a lot of tomes because he is a twig, mine capped speed and didn’t have a problem doubling the dragons in the endgame with Thoron.

Rhys: One of the reasons I did a Greil Mercenaries run haha. He’s not a bad healer. It’s just that there’s benefit to training Mist as your main healer for that one fight later on, and having a team with THREE HEALERS is overkill (unless for whatever reason you made one of your mages use knives...). The problem is that while Soren can take a hit and Mist can run away, Rhys can do neither. His magic stat is very good though, and he was objectively better than my Mist by the end except that he wasn’t on a horse. He was really useful for the endgame since I gave him the Purge tome. Finally, he didn’t have to risk his neck to actually fight. I lowkey love his character though. 

Mist: She is so cute, but mine was so screwed in the stats department. If not for bexp, it would have been a nightmare to train her and Rhys at the same time. I early promoted both of them, but getting her to level 10 was hard. Mine ended up getting magic on so few level ups, that I gave her two spirit dusts by the endgame and it was still amazingly low. Her strength stat was 13. 13!! I love the horse, though. Makes her a lot easier to use once promoted. She has no shoving capabilities, though, whereas Rhys (frail, sickly man he is) can shove like half the army. Go figure.

Mia: I love Mia. She can have my heart and run with it. In newer games I tend not to use mercenaries/swordmasters because their movement is kind of eh, their dodge-tank capabilities are not that impressive, and I don’t like relying on crits too much, but Mia was such an awesome addition to the team. It can be a bit difficult to train her in the beginning given her low defense, HP, and strength, but once she gets going, she wrecks things like nobody’s business. Would have liked to do some Wrath combos with her, but mine had Vantage and Adept and that worked just fine with a Killing Edge or a forged sword of some sort. The only issue is her super low strength cap (22?? really??) but the reliability of her crits and/or skill procs make up for that if you can get her past the early game.

Rolf: ROLF. Literally only viable because of bexp. I actually really love how they wrote his character, but what were they thinking by making him join so late, with such low bases AND his strength growth isn’t even that good (40%, less than Oscar’s). All else could be forgiven if his strength growth was at least 50% like his speed. If you can’t actually do damage, there’s no point. Once you pour exp into him like nobody’s business, he can actually be a good unit. I do really like using him, and mine got enough defense and resistance that he wasn’t a liability, but he definitely needs investment. On the other hand, his hit rates were so good that Gamble actually worked well on him.

Shinon: The racist asshole whose only redeeming quality is his relationship with Rolf. I loved their support chain, and actually I do like how the game put him on our team (after giving you a hard time recruiting him) because of how it brings an element of realism makes these characters more human, but yikes he’s potentially worse than Rolf to train because of how long he’s gone for. If you put aside the need for even more bexp to use him, he’s a pretty good crit unit. And he can surprisingly take a hit once trained. I left Provoke on him and BOY he nearly got himself killed in the endgame, but it is pretty nice to draw aggro in order to get some enemies closer for the foot-locked units to kill.

Gatrie: I miss tanks. Newer games make them so much less fun to use because they don’t tank very well (I’m looking at you, Fates...). Gatrie can’t get places fast and only laguz can shove him, but it was fun having someone who can take a million hits and soften enemies up for the others to take care of. He can’t really one round anything because he can’t double and leaves them with a few hit points left (except if he procs Luna) but he’s a worth while addition to the team. Takes a bit of bexp though, since he often doesn’t get as many kills as the rest.

Reyson: Not a Greil Mercenary, but like I was going to pass up a dancer singer who can refresh FOUR units. It was a pain in the behind to get the Knight Ring, but he does make really good use of it. He can also use the Full Guard ring so he can enter certain areas without being murdered by ballistas. I love his bird form, and the fact that frail heron man can SHOVE people who the tiny people in my army can’t (Mist, Rolf, Soren, I’m looking at you). no but really, Reyson’s character is actually really good too, I like him. 

It was, uh, interesting getting through some of these chapters without a flier. Absolutely not necessary to have one, and if it was a chapter where I kind of needed someone, I just used Tanith or Janaff (the Naesala chapter was the only one that was annoying without a trained flier).

I genuinely had no idea who to stick skills on, haha. This was an interesting system where you really had to think about who to give a skill since they’re like old TMs in Pokemon...one use only. I like to have some limitations in the skill system though, unlike Awakening and Fates where it’s a free for all. I just like the more limited set of options.

[angelbabylu]

Rivals // AI

pairing: gryffindor!oc x slytherin!ashton

warnings: hogwarts au, enemies to lovers, smut 

word count: 4.5k

notes: so basically kelley ( @sugarcoated-pain​ ) met ashton and luke on saturday night (i think??? i’m really bad at keeping track of dates lmao) and like the real mvp she is, she asked them what their hogwarts houses were. ash said slytherin and luke said gryffindor. thus spurred talks of a gryffindor (like kelley) falling in love with ashton (a slytherin) bc who doesn’t love a good enemies to lovers fic?? to give yall an idea of how neurotic i am,,, we literally had this conversation at 8 am sunday morning and thirteen hours later i somehow had an entire fic written about it. i hope yall enjoy!! 

-- 

“I just think that the seeker is a pointless position, is all. Like, why wasn’t the game timed or something? They have too much power and, unless the other team somehow gets a 150 point lead, which we both know is rare, it basically renders the other players useless.”

Calum had to duck as an errant bread roll came sailing through the air towards his head.

“What the fuck, Layla?” He yelled, indignant, as he gaped at the bread roll on the floor of the great hall.

His friend was sat across the table, looking unamused as she tore into another roll. She slathered jelly all over it as a means of satisfying her sweet tooth. “Fucking muggle-borns.” She grumbled before biting the bread.

“Hey!” Calum protested.

He got an eye roll in response. Muggle heritage or not, Calum felt he had a point. As much as he loved quidditch, the seeker position just didn’t make any sense. Before he could argue this, however, their housemate and resident peacemaker sauntered in.

“Hey, man.” Calum greeted Luke as he sat across the table next to Layla. “Layla tried to kill me with a bread roll a second ago.”

“Layla, why were you trying to kill Calum with a bread roll a second ago?” Luke parroted. The truth was Layla had a reputation of throwing things, especially when she was anxious, so this came as no surprise to Luke.

Layla rolled her eyes. “Cal is talking shit about seekers. He’s lucky I didn’t hex him into next week.”

“No riling up our seeker before a big game, Calum. You know the rules.”

In less than 24 hours, Gryffindor would be facing Slytherin in the last match of the season. A match that would decide who got this year’s Inter-House Quidditch Cup. As Calum had pointed out earlier, the game all but rested on Layla’s shoulders. And her opponent, the Slytherin seeker Michael Clifford, was talented. Probably the only one on the whole campus who could give Layla a run for her money.

Calum was a chaser, and Luke was a beater. Their friendship had blossomed when the three of them had been chosen to join the Gryffindor team in their first year. It was rare for the team to have one first-year member, much less three, but Gryffindor had been down some key players, and they were all very good.

Almost every year since then, Gryffindor has faced Slytherin for the championships, and every year it was a close game. Slytherin had won two consecutive championships in a row now, and no one at the table had been able to forget that. The Slytherins wouldn’t allow them to.

“Wood has the field reserved for five hours this afternoon, which should be illegal. I will not be playing quidditch for five hours, I’ll be sore as hell tomorrow.” Luke complained.

Layla shrugged. “I think he did that to prevent the Slytherins from getting it, actually.”

Neither of her friends had a chance to respond before a grating voice pulled her attention to two boys standing behind her.

“The fact that Wood has to resort to such petty shit means y’all are really worried about tomorrow, huh?”

Layla had to take a deep breath before turning around. Admittedly, she had an issue with her temper, and no one got a rise out of her like Ashton fucking Irwin.

He was standing there with a smirk on his face, his massive arms crossed in a position of dominance. The sleeveless shirt he wore put his toned muscles on full display. Layla could even see the Slytherin tattoo on his bicep. She hoped he missed the way her eyes raked over his body. Clearly, he had just come from the field, and fuck if Ashton Irwin in a sleeveless shirt and quidditch breeches wasn’t hot.

Too preoccupied with his allure, Layla almost missed the blonde standing behind him.

“Tell me, Clifford,” She said addressing the blonde, also in quidditch breeches and a t-shirt. “Does Irwin bring you with him everywhere he goes because he knows if he comes alone, I will kick his ass?”

Forgetting himself, Michael snorted. At that sound, Ashton’s glare deepened. “Kick my ass? Didn’t you almost fail Defense last year?”

Before anyone could blink, Layla was out of her seat about to launch at Ashton. Luke pulled her back at the last minute.

“Don’t say that shit unless you want a broken nose, mate.” Calum growled at the same time as Luke said, “You’ll get suspended from the team, Layla. Relax.”

Ashton smirked at the exchange, clearly pleased that he so easily got under her skin. “See you losers on the field tomorrow.” He said, and the taunt in his voice almost had Layla launching after him again.

--

“Alright,” Wood began. “It’s the last game of the season. Everyone knows my speech by heart already, so all I’m going to say is don’t fuck up, okay? We can’t let them win three years in a row.”

Layla’s pulse was skyrocketing at this point. It was late afternoon, and she was scorching in her quidditch robe. Once she got off the ground and into the air, she wouldn’t notice it anymore. For right now, however, focusing on Oliver Wood’s words felt almost impossible over the pounding of her own blood in her ear.

Minutes later all fourteen players were on the field with Madam Hooch between them.

“Mount your brooms, please.”

Layla climbed onto her Nimbus Twenty-Five Hundred. The teams rose to the skies, a couple of people, Ashton Irwin included, showing off by zooming around and nodding to their friends. Eventually, they settled into a semi-circle high above the crowds. Michael and Layla were higher than the rest. She looked over into his grey-green eyes and tried to summon all that courage Gryffindors were known for.

Then a movement below her caught her eye. Ashton. He had one hand on his broom and the other on the beater’s bat slung over his shoulder. When he winked up at her, her competitiveness kicked in full force.

They all watched as three balls zoomed into the air, the snitch flittered in her field of vision for a moment, then disappeared. Michael was watching it too.

Then, a loud blast came from Madam Hooch’s whistle, the Quaffle was released, and they were off.

“And Calum Hood of Gryffindor immediately takes the Quaffle. Hood is the best Chaser Gryffindor has had in years. And he’s got that tall, dark, and handsome thing going for him too – Oh! Flint is on his tail – Irwin sends a Bludger his way – Hood dodges – neat pass to Johnson – back to Hood – wait, the Slytherins have taken the quaffle – Pucey has moves, but his Cleansweep is no match for Hood’s Firebolt, and Hood is right on his tail – WHAM! Pucey gets hit by a Bludger, nice aim by Hemmings – Hood regains the Quaffle – and he’s off to the other end of the field – GRYFFINDOR SCORES!”

The Gryffindor stands erupted in cheers, drowning the boos from the Slytherins.

Layla ignored the commotion as much as she could. Her goal was to find the snitch and to stay away from stray Bludgers. To be honest, she was wholly unaware of the screams coming from the stands. Who was in the lead? If she focused on that, she would psych herself out.

Surfing above the crowd, she kept her attention split between Michael and searching the field. Once, she thought Clifford had seen something. He dived, fast and focused, moving towards the ground. Heart in her throat, Layla dove after him, but he pulled up at the last minute and started to laugh.

She didn’t rise to his taunts; instead, she stayed vigilant from a vantage point now below the game. A stray Bludger came sailing towards her head at full speed, and she rolled, going upside down on her broom before righting herself. Luke came chasing after it, hitting it towards Flint.

“Gryffindor in possession,” the commentator was saying. “Johnson ducks a bludger – passes – OUCH! Irwin’s Bludger hits Hood right in the chest; he’s going to need a minute to recover from that one – Slytherin takes the Quaffle – wait a minute – that’s the snitch!”

The crowd stilled for a moment as everyone, including Layla, searched for what the commentator had seen. Michael saw it at the same time she did, and they were off. He was above the game, and she was below, but their speed as they moved towards the snitch was evenly matched. Everyone stilled as players and spectators alike watched the two Seekers race neck and neck.

Grabbing the head of her broom, Layla pitched forward, increasing her speed, never taking her eyes off the snitch. Then – shit – it flew into the rafters, little wings taking it where Layla couldn’t follow.

“Fuck!” Michael exclaimed, and Layla felt inclined to repeat the sentiment.

It felt like forever before the snitch appeared again. That time, Layla was the first to notice it, but by the time she moved, Clifford was after her. It didn’t matter – she was faster and nimbler than him. She could get it. Inching closer and closer, her fingers were so close she could almost feel the cool surface of the ball. Clifford was so far behind her, it didn’t even feel like a competition at this point. Pitching forward, she gave herself just enough speed that she needed to –

SMACK! A Bludger hit Layla in the back, launching her forward, almost off of her broom, but she kept hold with one arm, even as she plummeted towards the ground. People were in an uproar around her. She heard Luke scream, “Foul!” and some other curse words were tossed around. Was that Calum yelling her name? At the last minute, she gained her wits about her and pulled up, but it wasn’t enough. She hit the ground with a nasty skid.

“Ugh,” she grunted. She felt almost woozy as she opened her eyes. It took a moment for everything to come into focus.

Madam Hooch was standing over her. “Are you okay, dear?”

Layla didn’t respond. She pushed past Hooch on slightly wobbly legs to where Ashton and Luke had dismounted their brooms and were fighting.

“You could have killed her, asshole!” Luke pushed him, and he stumbled back, a look of astonishment on his face.

“I didn’t mean –”

Layla interrupted Ashton, coming to stand between the two. “That’s okay, Luke.” Layla knew that the smirk on her face was wicked. “That Quaffle gave me the push I need to get this.”

In her open palm was the snitch. The entire crowd gasped, Gryffindor erupted in cheers, but Layla was wholly focused on Ashton.

A look crossed his face – a mixture of anger and something else.

“You –” He raised his hand towards her. Before he could touch her, however, Calum had his wand up.

He was yelling a binding spell, but something must have gone wrong because all of a sudden, Layla’s world went dark.

--

The last thing any student wanted to see when they opened their eyes was McGonagall standing over them, hands on her hips, glancing down disappointedly. Layla’s friends, Calum and Luke, were standing behind the headmistress looking sheepish. And her head – god, why did she feel hungover?

It wasn’t until she moved to sit up that she realized other people were in the room.

“Don’t try to move too quickly, dear,” came Pomfrey’s voice from somewhere to her left.

“Yeah. Hurts like hell.” That was one voice she didn’t want to hear. Glancing over, she noted Ashton, sitting up in his bed, as Pomfrey checked him over with her wand.

Defiantly, Layla sat up anyway, only to be met with a massive headrush and a dizzy spell strong enough to knock a troll over. But she was stubborn and refused to give Ashton the benefit of seeing her faint. Gritting her teeth, she waited until the dizzy spell passed. As it subsided, it was replaced by a heavy feeling in her chest.

It was uncomfortable but manageable enough for her to turn her focus outwardly to on to the occupants in the room.

“What happened?’

“You boyfriend doesn’t know how to cast a fucking binding spell – which, seriously? A first year can cast that spell.”

There were a lot of things Layla could have addressed in that comment, but for some reason, she chose to clarify, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Ashton smiled at that, and she didn’t want to think about what that meant, and why her stomach was doing flips at the sight. “Either way, he fucked up.”

“Mr. Irwin!” Poppy Pomfrey exclaimed. “Watch your mouth, young man.”

McGonagall, Layla noticed, was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Is it bad?” She asked, glancing between Pomfrey and McGonagall, hopeful. Maybe whatever had gone wrong with the spell she had managed to sleep off. If the way Calum looked was any indication, however, that would not be the case.

“Mr. Hood accidentally bound you to Mr. Irwin,” McGonagall explained.

Layla sputtered, but McGonagall wasn’t done. “For fighting on the field, I have deducted one hundred points from Mr. Hood and Mr. Hemmings each. But, seeing as you and Mr. Irwin will be bound to each other for the next twenty-four hours, I figured that would be punishment enough.”

“What? Bound to each other? What does that mean?”

Ashton obviously had already asked these questions because he didn’t look confused, just angry and downtrodden.

“It means,” Madam Pomfrey answered. “That Mr. Hood made a mistake with the motion of his wand, and instead of binding Mr. Irwin’s arms to himself, he bound him to you. From what I can gather, you two can’t be more than five feet from each other at all times. That heaviness in your chest? That’s a pull towards Mr. Irwin you’re feeling. Luckily, there’s quite a bit of animosity between the two of you, and a spell like this would only react to whatever attraction was already there.”

The moment from earlier when she drooled over Ashton’s frame in his Quidditch breeches flashed before her eyes. Nobody needed to know there was an attraction there, and, with it only being on her end, she hoped it wouldn’t affect the spell.

“Thankfully, the effects should dissipate on its own in. You will have to sleep in the hospital wing tonight, but, by this time tomorrow, everything will go back to normal.”

“You can’t leave her bound to this asshole!” Luke complained. “He tried to hit her.”

“I did not try to hit her!” Ashton exclaimed, indignant, at the same moment as Pomfrey said, “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do, Mr. Hemmings.”

Luke chose to respond to Ashton. “I saw you raise your hand –”

“I wasn’t going to hit –”

“Oh yeah? Then what were you going  –”

“There were leaves in her hair!”

Everyone in the room stopped, all eyes on Ashton whose cheeks were now the color of his hair.

Calum’s brow furrowed. “You expect us to believe that you were just, what, going to pick a leaf out of her hair?”

Ashton didn’t respond, but for some crazy reason, Layla believed him.

“Regardless of what Mr. Irwin’s reasons were, there is nothing we can do about it now. I expect you all to be on your best behavior for the next twenty-four hours. Don’t make me get involved.” With a flurry of robes, McGonagall rushed out the room.

--

The more the feeling in her chest grew, the more Layla tried to ignore it. Calum and Luke stayed with them most of the night, and Michael came to visit Ashton as well. At just past ten p.m., however, Pomfrey left, and took the visitors with her, leaving Ashton and Layla to lay awake, silent, awkwardly keeping to themselves.

It was hard to believe that just a couple hours before Layla had caught the snitch, breaking Slytherin’s victory streak. The celebration had been postponed to the following night, and Layla felt gipped. She was supposed to be getting acquainted with the bottle of Firewhiskey stashed underneath her bed right about now, but instead, she was laying quietly on her cot, trying to ignore the fact that it was getting hard to breathe.

Closing her eyes, she wished for sleep. At least then she wouldn’t be tormented by the palpable silence in the room and the ever-growing tightness in her chest.

Sleep never came. Instead, both the silence and the tightness grew almost unmanageable. Eventually, Ashton spoke up.

“Can you feel that?” He gasped out. Of course, she knew what he was talking about, but she was nothing if not stubborn. A part of her wanted to lie, to say no, to pretend that she wasn’t affected by whatever was going on between them.

Honesty won out in the end. “Yes.”

“Pomfrey said,” She swore her senses was so heightened to him, she could hear him gulp all the way over in his cot. “Pomfrey said that if it got bad, we might have to get closer together.”

Before responding, Layla assessed her options. If she let Ashton into her bed, the pain in her chest might subside, allowing her to get some rest. Or she could be tormented by his very presence, especially since just being in the same room as him had the tendency to get her skin tingling. Then again, the alternative was braving the pain, which she feared meant spending the night tossing, finding no relief.  

“Fine,” she gritted out. “But don’t touch me.”

Rolling from her back to her side, Layla curled in on her self, shivering when Ashton lifted the thin infirmary sheet and slid in. Something inside her still wanted to get closer. This magnetism, this hold Ashton had over her, even before the spell, it was pulsating full force. She ignored it for as long as she could, but Gryffindors weren’t known for their ability to delay gratification. She rolled over, pointedly not looking him in the eyes, and tucked her face into his chest.

“Don’t say anything.”

And he didn’t. But his body spoke for him as his arms wound their way around her frame and a leg pushed between hers, effectively tangling them together.

The next moment, they could both breathe again. Had this been anyone else, the conversation would have been over and Layla could drift off to sleep. But this was Ashton. Overthinking and over talking was kind of his M.O.

“I really wasn’t going to hit you.” She could feel the deep rumble of his voice as it vibrated his chest.

It was silent for a moment, as she contemplated how to respond.

“I know.”

“Why do we. . .”

When Ashton trailed off, his hand started tracing patterns down her spine. She could almost imagine the look of focus and sincerity in his eyes. But, instead of looking up at him, she kept her face buried in his chest.

“Why do we hate each other?”

Layla sucked in a breath, suddenly aware that the air was thick with. . . something. Could it be she was wrong? Was the attraction between them mutual?

After a brief search through her mind for the origin of their contention, she shrugged. “You’re a Slytherin, I’m a Gryffindor. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Plus, we’re rival athletes. That’s not exactly grounds for friendship.”

Ashton contemplated that for a minute. “You know I still remember the first time that I saw you?”

“At the sorting hat ceremony?”

Layla felt him shake his head. “Diagon Alley, the summer before first year. My family had just moved to England, and I didn’t know anybody. While I was shopping for a cauldron, you and Hemmings walked into the shop, arm in arm, chatting about how excited you were to go to Hogwarts, and what houses you thought you’d be sorted into, all that.”

The memory washed over her, leaving her feeling warm and content. Luke had been her friend since they were in diapers; of course, their families shopped for yearly supplies together.  

“I wanted to say hi,” Ashton continued. “But I was too nervous to. I suppose, as always, what I’m lacking is that signature Gryffindor courage.”

“You’re plenty courageous,” Layla protested. “Being a beater? Getting up on that broom each game? That takes courage.”

Ashton scoffed. It was a derisive sound, but Layla felt it was more geared towards himself than her. “If I’m so brave, why can’t I tell the girl I’ve been in love with since first year that I don’t want to fight with her anymore.”

Layla’s heart was pounding harder than it had been on the quidditch field earlier that day. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt dry. Pushing back from Ashton a bit, she met his eyes.

“Who –?”

“I think you know who.”

And Laya thought so too, but she needed to hear him say it.

“Uh uh. You have to tell me.”

A large, calloused hand brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

“It’s you,” He said, using every bit of courage he had. “ It’s always been you.”

Surging up, Layla kissed him. It was tender and sweet as he worked his lips against hers, one hand curling at her nape, sending pinpricks of electricity down her spine. A shiver ran through her as she was possessed with want. Emboldened by desire, she sucked on his plump bottom lip and tugged on the front of his shirt, trying to pull him over her. He came easily, his body dwarfing hers as he rested on his knees above her, lips still connected to hers.

When she tried to lick into his mouth, he pulled away. A strangled whine rose from the back of her throat as she strained to get him back onto to her. Instead, he ran a thumb over her lip and tsked.

“So eager.”

“Yeah,” She breathed, “Come on.” Her next pull was also met with resistance.

“I’ve waited so long to do this,” He told her, honesty shining in his eyes. “I wanna take my time taking you apart.”

Her mouth was woefully neglected as he kissed up and down her neck, lapping up the salt of her skin. For every one of her movements driven by desire, she was met with a languid response. When she ground up against him, seeking friction, he held her hips down. He ignored the tugs on his hair and her breathless pleas. Rather than give her what she craved, he took his time, exploring every bit of naked skin he came upon.

Want inundated her body when he stripped off her shirt off and began playing with her heaving chest.

“Please.” Layla tried to sneak a hand between them, but Ashton pushed that away.

“I’ll give you what you want, baby. Just be patient.”

And Ashton was nothing if not a man of his word. By the time her shorts were slipping down her legs, however, she was consumed by her arousal. Her stomach would be a landscape of teeth marks and bruises the next morning. Not one inch of her torso was left unexplored.

Relief washed over her as his mouth attached to her clit the first time. The insistent motions of his tongue and sinusoidal dip of his finger in and out of her brought about her first orgasm. He kept tasting her long after she came. Overstimulated and needy, she begged for him to fuck her, but he didn’t pull away until she came again. The second time, she came with her legs wrapped around his head, pushing him forcefully against her. He didn’t complain, just patiently licked her through her aftershocks.

They were both breathing hard when he came up for air, lips wet and glistening from where he had been drowning in her.

“You know the problem with Gryffindors?” He asked as he crawled back up her body.

She shook her head, a little bit peeved that he was capable of coherent thought when all she could think about was the lust burning through her like a roaring flame. “You guys are always too rushed. You need a Slytherin to teach you how to slow down, how to savor something sweet.”

“You’re too chatty for your own damn good, Irwin.” She complained. “What, are you afraid to fuck me properly?”  

A genuine, full body laugh erupted from him in response to her taunts. “Trust me when I say I have no issues in that department.”

“Then fuck me.”

“Patience, princess.”

Then, his mouth was on hers again, and she could taste herself on him. They spent a moment getting reacquainted with the taste of each other, after which Ashton finally muttered a protection spell over them. She was grateful at that moment for sex spells; not to mention the talented wizard above her who could cast them wandlessly with no problem.

Ashton eased into her, satisfying a craving that had been buried deep for years now. Gasping, she clawed his back hard, leaving her own angry red marks on porcelain skin. With every slow plunge inside, she dug her nails deeper and shuddered with desire. His movements might have been slow, but they were deliberate and overwhelming, heating up her inside with every snap of his hips. Having come twice before, she was so sensitive, feeling everything tenfold. Stars blurred in her vision, and tears streaked her cheeks.

Not that she would ever admit it, but Ashton taking his time opened up a new level of sensitivity for her. She had never been overstimulated like that before, and it was no surprise to her when she came a third time, with Ashton’s teeth stinging the skin of her neck. Soon after, he was coming inside her, fingers digging into her side, no doubt leaving more bruises for her to find the next day.

A moment later, as they were lying in post-coital bliss, wrapped around each other, Ashton asked, “That wasn’t just the bond right?”

He suddenly sounded small, unsure of himself.

She shook her head. “I’ve wanted to do that for years now.”

“Good.” He said, clearly pleased.

In an act of possessiveness, his thumb pressed against one the marks he had left on her neck, and if she hadn’t just orgasmed three times in a row, her pussy would have throbbed at the sensation.

--

The next morning, Luke glared and sputtered, while Calum announced, “We still hate you.”

To which Ashton responded, ”Feeling’s mutual.”

--

end notes: i hope yall like this!! let me know what harry potter houses you think calum & mikey are in lol. i choose gryff & slytherin bc it was easiest for the story. love yall!! 

tag list:  @5sosnsfw / @bloodmoonashton / @lukescaboose / @5sex-of-summa / @deviantnines / @halcyonnhood / @gh0st-0f-y0u-95 / @aspiringwildfire / @cal-pal-cuddles/ @sweetcherrymike / @hereforlukescruff / @softforcal / @ohhmuke / @fratcalum / @calumamongmen / @ashtonandcalslefthand / @asht0ns-world / @colorful-queen-of-the-roses / @heavenlydrarry / @slowlyelectronictragedy / @myemptywallets / @pagesuponstpages / @fallfrxmgrace / @thefireisgone / @michaelorwhat / @dammitbands / @sugarcoated-pain / @sublimehood / @cal-puddies / @singt0mecalum / @irwinkitten / @myloverboyash / @pinkbubbles-and-bigtroubles

[help-its-a-dot]

Alright so when I took this job they said all I had to do was narrate. You know, just follow this guy around and relay what he’s doing, make it sound interesting, yada yada yada.

Ok now that I say it out loud I realize that I’ve probably looked like a stalker for the past few days.

Fun.

ANYWAYS I was going somewhere with this; I had a point. Right. My point was that I didn’t think I’d end up in the middle of a burned down park, cowering in absolute terror behind some rocks that I really wish were bigger, and longing with all that's left of my heart that I could be one of those people that are, given the situation, naturally sprinting away whilst screaming at the top of their lungs.

Should I run away? I mean, it seems like the more logical option here; If I could get over that bridge, then I’d-

*bridge disintegrates*

Well there goes that.

Looks like I’ll be narrating then! Yippee. So, I should probably warn you, I haven’t exactly been paying attention to my assigned main character, ergo I don't have that much background knowledge. Oh who am I kidding, I have none.

Anyhow, sorry, I know I should be narrating. I’m getting to that. Background knowledge. What do I know?

Uh, actually nothing much happened to this dude. A few weeks ago he found a dead body in his bathtub. Now that I think about it, that’s probably where I should’ve started paying attention….

Ah, fucked this up, didn’t I.

Also, as a side note, I’m gonna be calling this dumbass Jake because my dumbass kind of sort of didn’t ever really at all catch his name.

Alrighty folks! I’m gonna…. Be brave…. And peek out from behind these rocks…. Did I mention how much I wished they were bigger? 

Ahem. *clears throat*. Narrator voice. *nods decisively*. Lets go.

There’s fire everywhere. On the tops of trees like snow at the peaks of mountains (how are there even still trees here) bushes have morphed into bonfires, while patches of grass are practically leaking little flames like a dope game of ‘the floor is lava’.

Jake stands, looking at the devastation with wide eyes. Smoke billows out into the sky, painting the already grey clouds black.

A deafening crash sounds behind him- you know, the kind you get when a boulder squishes a four story building like it’s a three year old’s structure of off brand legos. He’s thrown to the ground, and waits, breathing heavily.

Aw god why did I forgot my flask of vodka today? I freaking need it.

And as if that weren’t enough, a spaceship just blipped into the sky.

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Sorry, sorry, I’m not very good at this narrator thing. In my defense, I didn’t think they were serious! Alright, I’m gonna try that again.

Suddenly, and quite literally out of nowhere, there’s a fatally blinding blue-red light, making everyone in the immediate vicinity-- which isn’t that many people anymore, most have used their last few remaining drops of common sense and fled for their lives --squeeze their eyes shut and hastily bury their heads in whatever was nearest and most convenient to shield themselves from impending blindness, wailing in a mix of surprise and agony. All flames previously terrorizing the verdure are extinguished and the smoke is blown out as a single gust of forceful wind, which also effectively topples the few remaining, yet charred nonetheless, trees, buildings, and people.

Augh, ew, eurgh, I got a mouthful of Martin’s grocery bag. How do I know it’s Martin’s? They have a distinctive taste of mild sadness and resignation. Right, right, the spaceship. 

See, when I say spaceship, I mean cool looking flying saucer thingy appearing like it was plucked right out of a conspiracy theory and given some upgrades. It’s a giant, azure/ultramarine blue, except for the bottom which shines in a weirdly mesmerizing yellowish glow, squished sphere. Oval. Pancake. Sorry, I don't know my shapes. It seems to be practically thrumming with energy, like it drank five red bulls followed by ten extremely caffeinated coffees and finished it all off with a few five hour energy drinks. 

I cannot tell you how much I hope it doesn't do what it looks like it’s gonna do and explode.

Meanwhile, Jake has picked up… a sword. Well shit. Medieval, much? Not a gun? No? Personally, I think a gun would be extraordinarily effective against the horde of what looks like blobs but are probably extravagantly dangerous aliens filing in a weirdly orderly single file line out of the saucer and immediately beginning to lomp closer and closer and closer crap did I mention they were getting closer?

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Hold up, no, that reminds me, I’m supposed to be narrating. God, I’m atrocious at this, aren’t I.

He feels sweat break out on his brow. The sword is heavy in his hands, and he can barely lift it, let alone decapitate a blob, but he’s in too deep to let his weariness show. He’s gotta be strong and save what’s left of these people, this city, or die trying. Which is probably what’ll happen in a few minutes. But ah, well, he’ll die fighting for Americanos , which can’t be all that bad.

Technically, if you think about it, he’s suicidal, because his colossal ego will not, quite literally, for the life of him, allow him to take a smart route, like getting into that convenient truck and bowling over all the blobs, or snatching up a gun from that store across the street, or even just alerting someone who is actually capable at dealing with an event like this like the authorities.

But what can he do, he is American, after all. It's simply unavoidable; part of the culture description. *white people i swear

He watches morbidly as Martin’s grocery bags blow past from the ruins before him, and glances up as the spaceship above him gives one final thrum and blips away, probably back to wherever it came from, leaving him alone with an army of blobs bouncing threateningly towards him.

In truth, he didn’t know what they were. All he knew was that if they kept destroying everything at this rate, there won't be a single McDonalds left in America, and he couldn’t have that. Of course, by then there wouldn’t even be an America, and everyone would have to go to the McDonalds’ in Russia. Russia has McDonalds, right? Oh, he simply could not do that to his fellow citizens! 

He pondered this, along with whether or not Australia exists, all the while counting down the seconds (...7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… dammit 3, 2, 1… 3, 2, 1… 3, 2-- he’d get it eventually) until his doom and willing his arms not to shake with the incredible weight of the sword in his hands. Whose idea was it to make swords out of metal, anyways? It’s incredibly stupid-- nowadays 90% of America wouldn’t even be able to muster the courage to touch one, let alone the strength to lift one. 

Ugh, he knew he should’ve gone with that plastic light saber he’d seen at the mall. At least then he could’ve gone down with style.

As if on cue, there’s another, at this point expected, crash resounding behind him, and he turns to watch in despair as said mall tumbles almost comically to the ground. 

There goes the light saber.

And another McDonalds.

Ohh, things were getting bad.

The park, if you could still call it a park, is deserted now save for the occasional Martin’s grocery bag skittering about, and he can’t help but give in to the desire to reflect upon his life. He wasted it, playing video games and other shit like that all day, every day. This is the first time he’s been outside in a long time. He now knows with absolute certainty that if he were ever granted such an opportunity he’d go back and redo it all. He’d try harder to beat that level, he’d get the better controller, he’d stay up later working on his technique. But all that was a distant dream now, something he could not hope to accomplish now.

He wished that maybe, just maybe, heaven would have a nice game console for him.

When he’d gotten selflessly sucked into this adventure, he never thought he’d actually die, never expected anything to really happen- If he had, he of course would never have turned the power of his last 8 braincells away from a computer screen and into the real world to start investigating.

Ah fuck, sorry for interrupting, I think I twisted my wrist or some shit while trying to get a better vantage point on these still too small rocks. 

Should I run?

I should probably run.

On a different note: I’m really sorry guys. When you take a narrator job they never tell you anything about your person. Had I known he was American, I would have immediately sabotaged this entire thing; I could never in good conscience have subjected you guys to.. well.. this.

But alas, now I’m stuck narrating an American who is going to get me killed.

Unless… Unless there’s a loophole. My parents were lawyers, so I excel at finding those.

The rules are, you have to stay with your hero and narrate their adventure. How an American turned out to be one of the heroes, I know not, it must be a glitch in the system. But I’ll be fucking damned if this glitch gets me killed. Literally. So! Once the hero, inevitably, dies, you’re free to go. There’s nothing much left to narrate afterwards. And since Jake is closer to the horde of blobs coming our way than I am, as soon as he’s bowled over I’ll sprint. To the side, like a smart immigrant would do. Not straight back, because then the blobs’d just follow me and kill me, so the only logical conclusion is to circle around them and see if my apartment is still intact. I didn’t finish my cream puffs and I really don't want them to melt.

They’re getting closer. He can hear their squelching, and the chicken nuggets in his stomach churn unpleasantly. There’s bits of goo flying off them in all directions, and when said goo makes contact with something it immediately disintegrates that unfortunate something, leaving nothing behind. Is this really the fate that’ll befall him? Is this how the world ends?

Well, death by disintegration it is then. Oh, he can’t wait to brag to his boys about this.

Oh, wait, no, that’s not right. He’ll be dead.

And, in the last few moments before the blobs reach him, he reconsiders. There’s still so much this cruel world has to offer, and he never took advantage of any of it. Nor was he ever grateful for much of it. 

He suddenly feels a new feeling. Determination. He will destroy every single one of these vile creatures, and he WILL come out of it intact. He has to. 

With new resolve he scrapes together the last of his strength and raises his trusty sword over his head, every nonexistent muscle tense, ready. They’re getting closer. Closer. 50 yards. 30 yards. 20. 10. Just a few feet.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes dramatically. Swings his sword.

And is immediately squashed with the most sickening squelch there could ever be.

Ew.

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Yeah, I’m gonna run.

[imagine-loki]

The Witch's Familiar

TITLE: The Witch’s Familiar CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 24/? AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine getting so attached to Lokitty early on that you insist on carrying him just about everywhere.  RATING: T (so far) NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3 Click here

    “This is the family wing,” Loki explained as he led you down the hallway. Your hand was on his right arm. He was taking the position to the inside of the corridor, the more ‘vulnerable’ position as if there were an attack, or someone not paying attention to where they were walking, he would be between you and danger. Silly overprotective Lokitty… “Odin and Mother have suites and workrooms and such a floor up. Thor lives down the hall,” he gestured back the way you’d come. There were plenty of empty rooms, probably in expectation of a larger family.

    Loki pointed out more landmarks of interest as he led you through the wide, airy, beautiful halls of the palace. You strolled leisurely, not in any apparent rush to reach your destination. For all the world, Loki acted a polite, maybe a little reserved, courtier.

    “I still can’t believe you grew up here,” you commented at the literal palace you were walking through. You knew you didn’t belong here. You could make yourself comfortable in almost any facet of human/witch society back home, but this was completely different. Loki was just so comfortable and comforting. He didn’t seem…different, per se, this just wasn’t a side of your Lokitty you saw often on Earth.

    He chuckled. “I did grow up a prince, darling,” he reminded you gently, kindly. He was amused by your awe at the palace, though had obviously been expecting it and was preening over showing off his culture and home to you. You couldn’t help wondering, though, why he was interested in you when he was a prince. A prince of an alien world no less. You were just a little witch from Midgard…

    You also noticed the blatant stares of the palace stares, nobles, basically anyone and everyone you passed. They all stopped to stare at the pair of you. “Why are they staring?” you asked Loki softly enough that they couldn’t overhear. You couldn’t tell if it was because you were Midgardian, or if it was because of Sera.

    “Because you are a beautiful lady,” he replied warmly, the words gliding off his silver tongue. You gave him a look. That wasn’t true. He gave you a warm smile. “They are unused to the sight of a gorgeous woman on my arm. My idiot brother on the other hand…” he grinned and you couldn’t help smiling. Thor liked women and probably would have sought your attention if you were even slightly more his type.

    “Surely the sight couldn’t be that uncommon,” you teased, back to normal friendly territory. Light teasing was safe. Loki was over a thousand after all, there was no way that some lady hadn’t caught his attention in all of those years. You’d had your share of relationships over your 500 years, they hadn’t gone well, but that was a different problem.

    He scoffed. “Most of the court ladies have feathers for brains and I’ve met rocks with more personality. Plus it is hard to remain interested in their flirtations when I can hear-” he tapped his forehead to indicate telepathically. You knew he didn’t pry with his telepathic abilities, but he could overhear things even when he wasn’t trying. “-that they are only interested because of my station, or believe me to be a poor substitute for my brother, or don’t understand and fear my magic,” he explained. “You, my darling, loved me when I was nothing more than a cat, a friend, a teammate, and finally your suitor. It is refreshing to be the pursuer instead of the pursued for once and even more refreshing that you have never once wanted me for my station, wanted my brother over me, or feared my power,” he added warmly and kissed your cheek,

    “You’ve been my dearest friend since we met, Lokitty. I never wanted that to go away, just become…more,” you reminded him just as warmly. You flushed then and realized that you probably shouldn’t call him ‘Lokitty’ here. He did have appearances to maintain after all.

    “That is all I desire as well, dearest,” his voice was a warm purr. His smile changed to a mischievous smirk. “You said you were uncomfortable with having maids because you used to be one?” he asked. He was genuinely curious, but also teasing a little, probably your discomfort with the maids in general.

    You rolled your eyes. “Not everyone grew up in a palace,” you reminded him sourly, hoping he wasn’t looking down on your for your background. Though you saw from his expression that he wasn’t. “Mom was a hearth witch, a garden witch without a lot of power,” you reminded him. He nodded, remembering that you’d said you were much more powerful than she was. “I started outstripping what she could teach me about magic by the time I was five and that was much too young for me to start attending the magic school. As you well know, magic needs to be taught and used or it goes wrong.” That was answered with another inclination of his head. “We didn’t have the money for tutors, but one of the Grandmother witches was rich and powerful. She agreed to teach me if mom and I helped her with the chores she couldn’t do anymore. She let me keep the position through school. She paid decently and knew everything… I learned a lot more than just magic from her. Mom hated that I worked through school, but hearth witches aren’t in high demand and she didn’t make a lot of money…”

    Loki stiffened a little at your defensive tone. “I didn’t mean to insult, I was simply curious about your life,” he explained.

    “Sorry, I know. People just used to make fun of me for my secondhand books and robes. They were jealous that I was nearly the strongest in the class, since I didn’t come from a super powerful family, and I got top marks…. They didn’t care that I worked my ass off for those grades. They also seemed to have forgotten all about that since we graduated. I’ve been one of the most desired witches for my skills since then and have lived and worked in all facets of society from helping the poor to being a court lady… I didn’t really find anything I wanted to settle down to doing until I joined the Avengers,” He looked impressed at that part of your explanation, and was pleased at the glimpse into your past.

    “Children can be cruel no matter the realm,” Loki’s voice was consoling. “Thor was always the favorite as physical strength is prided here…” It seemed he did understand. You reached a pair of double doors. “Ready, darling?” he asked. You didn’t know what was waiting for you, but you nodded. You would face whatever challenge arrived. Loki shifted so he was holding your hand, your joined hands lifted in an older escort style than you were used to, but you recognized it for what it was. He nodded to the doormen and they opened the double doors. He led you past the long dining tables to the stares of the court seated there. He looked straight ahead, not allowing himself to get distracted by the open stares, nor did he look at all like he noticed or cared about the attention.

    He stopped in front of the head table where Odin, Frigga, and Thor were seated. “Allfather, Mother, may I present Lady Y/N, sorceress from Midgard, member of the team Thor and I work with to defend Midgard from threats, and the woman who has graciously allowed me the honor of courting her,”

    You knew your cue and dipped a low, elegant, graceful curtsy. You were very well practiced over your 500 years in the art of the curtsy. Sera balanced herself on your shoulder effortlessly. Loki didn’t drop your hand while you did, just lowered his to accommodate. “Your majesties,” your words were simple and polite, and thankfully all you needed to say at this juncture.

    “Welcome to Asgard, dear,” Frigga greeted you warmly, kindly, gently. Loki had been correct that she wasn’t going to hold the state you had been in when you arrived against you. Loki lifted your hand, a silent indication that you should rise. You did just as gracefully and Loki led you to your place at the table, he was next to Frigga and your place was next to his. Servants pulled your chairs out for you and seated you. It was something you hadn’t experienced in years and you had to pretend that it wasn’t weird. “Is this the creature from the egg?” Frigga asked you when Sera crawled to your other shoulder for a better vantage point.

    “Yes, your majesty, this is Seraphina. Her true form is a dragon,” you added and lifted the cat off of your shoulder to show Frigga properly. Frigga questioned you on the little cat-dragon, and about magic on Midgard. She wanted to hear all about Loki’s adventures there and get to know the woman he spoke so highly of. She was so open and kind that you couldn’t help liking her and it stopped being important soon that she was the queen. She was just Loki’s mom and she seemed to absolutely adore you. It warmed your heart that she did and you saw Loki’s relief as well. “Loki has done quite a lot of work with me teaching at the magic academy,” you told Frigga. That was a safe story to tell and one that would befit his standing as a master magician here. Frigga was interested in the magic school and you and Loki could both tell her about it.

    “Your Asgardian is quite good, dear,” Frigga told you, questioning your ability. Loki raised an eyebrow. He was so used to using Allspeak on Earth that he forgot you could actually speak his native tongue. Most times it didn’t even register with him or Thor when you switched over. The record without them noticing was two hours, and they only did then because Tony grumbled that he couldn’t understand what you were talking about and it wasn’t fair.

    You gave her a smile. “I learned it as a child, studying other magical cultures was part of our education and since the Asgardians had visited Midgard previously, I felt it would be best to start with your language,” you’d learned a lot of languages over the years. You had fun annoying the others by speaking Russian with Nat, or Asgardian with the boys. Nearly everyone signed because of Clint, so that wasn’t as much fun. “You’re quite kind. Thor has reminded me that my accent is atrocious,”

    No one questioned how much Sera ate and you wondered just how much bigger the dragon was going to get. You had a feeling whatever that magician had done was what had made her grow as fast as she had already.

    After the meal, you had to put up with being shown off by Loki and Thor. Thor introduced you to Lady Sif and The Warrior’s Three. “Thor’s stupid warrior friends,” Loki whispered in your ear. You grinned.

    “You best be saying nice things about us, Loki,” the taller blond one warned as he bowed over your hand to kiss it. “I may just have to woo your lady away if you cannot play nice,”

    You rolled your eyes. “Good luck with that, flirt,” you replied, teasing. He gave you an overly elegant bow while Thor and the others boomed their laughter.

    “This one ought to keep you on your toes,” he teased Loki. You leaned up and kissed Loki’s cheek.

    “That she does,” Loki replied warmly and kissed you, claiming you in front of Thor’s stupid warrior friends.

    “So why are you two back on Asgard? The Queen said this was a surprise visit,” Sif asked, concerned as to what trouble brought you here.

    “There was trouble on Midgard,” Thor finally explained. “There is a group of…”

    “Evil men who hunt and kill sorcerers,” you supplied when Thor couldn’t come up with a translation of the concept of witch hunters. Sif and the warriors all looked shocked and horrified by that.

    “But magicians are treasured,” Sif protested, still horrified.

    “They are,” Loki agreed and kissed the top of your head, reassuring. “These men are evil and posed a very real threat to my lady. We brought her here for safety and to recover from their attack,”

    “We will take care of the menace upon our return. Our priority was getting Lady Y/N to safety. Our teammates are questioning one of the attackers and should have more information for us upon our return,” Thor added the explanation. They all got distracted talking about battles and fighting and things that happened on Asgard since Thor had been gone.

    Loki wrapped an arm around your shoulders and escaped with you from the hall before the warriors noticed. He gave you a tour of the rest of the palace and finally led you out to the gardens. Sera leapt off of your shoulder when you were outside. You grinned up at her. “Go fly, Sera. I’m sure you want to stretch your other wings. Just don’t go to far,” she made a musical sound in reply and shifted forms as she flew higher. A sleek black dragon who was somehow now about the size of Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon movies. You were still shocked at how fast she grew, but realized at the same time that you wouldn’t have to treat her like a child, which she was never meant to be, but as a cherished best friend, which is what the familiars were. She flew around the gardens trilling in delight while you and Loki strolled leisurely. She also didn’t give you away when you and Loki found a quiet alcove for stolen kisses.

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #75

UPDATE 75: Get Ready to Fight Back

Last time Mannequin had started his revenge on Skitter, to moderate success. He also got beaten up badly with explosions. Before the Undersiders could continue doing that, Burnscar arrived and got ready to do her part of the fun. Let’s continue.

Bad, bad, bad, bad.

Kind of an understatement, Skitter! This is way worse than bad. It’s a new opponent after you and the rest got wounded, injured and exhausted. It was already bad you had to fight Mannequin, and you weren’t so hurt back then. Fighting Burnscar now will be very difficult.

Also, now that I think about it, I hope someone has the courtesy of informing everyone else Mannequin withdrew his turn. Wouldn’t want anyone to modify themselves senselessly.

Burnscar had flipped things on us; she was in a totally different ballpark from Mannequin. If I had to guess, her offensive capabilities were top-notch, even if they didn’t break the scales like some other members of the Nine.  I couldn’t even guess where she fit on the spectrum of defensive ability, but she’d been with the Nine for a little while and she was still alive, so that was some indication.  And utility? She had every trick a pyrokinetic like Lung had at his disposal and she could teleport through flames as well, opening up a mess of tricks and avenues of attack.

Right. Burnscar’s powers seems to be especially good for fighting. She did great against Faultline and the rest of her crew. It seems the more fired up she gets – pun intended – the more frantic, stronger, desperate she gets. The Undersiders will have to do some very decisive moves if they want to have a chance, since I don’t think they’ll partake in any tests.

I remember it was said Cherish failed Burnscar’s test twice. I wonder if she’ll have time to say what it is before things go badly. It must be quite the test if she failed it twice.

“I am following the rules, now.  Let’s see. Trying to remember how this is supposed to go. Test you, you pass or fail, and then I kill you.”

“You only kill Bitch if she fails,” I said.

I’ll point out according to these rules there’s nothing stopping her from killing Skitter, Grue and anyone else who wants to get in the way. Heckpuppy is the one who is safe...for the time being. I doubt she’s in mood to play along anything Burnscar will propose, and that will count as failing, marking her as a valid target for murder.

Skitter is woefully underprepared for fighting someone with fire abilities, just like it happened with Lung. Her bugs can’t resist fire at all, and her costume isn’t fire-resistant. All in all, it’s like she’s in a Pokemon game, fire wins against bugs.

Burnscar realized what I said about ‘alien girl’ and ‘tall dark and handsome’ being valid targets. Thankfully, she’s more focused on giving the test than in killing. They’ll be safe for a little while longer. So! What’s the test?

“You’re going to have to face your greatest fear.  Destroy any hold it has on you with violence, blood and death.  I don’t want you to just conquer your fears.  I want you to murder them, before anyone else can use your feelings for them against you.”  She put a special inflection on the word ‘murder’, making it clear she was being quite literal.

Does that mean Heckpuppy’s worst fear can be murdered? Just what kind of worst fear is it? My first thought is that it could be related to her past, to that strict woman who hosted her in her house, but she doesn’t seem like she’d be afraid of her anymore, more like extremely angry. Anger is not the same than fear.

Her immediate reaction is that she won’t kill her dogs, meaning her fear is losing her dogs. For a worst fear she sure faces it way too often for comfort. Burnscar doesn’t seem satisfied, saying that dogs are replaceable. Technically she’s got a point there, she has gotten new dogs and all. Emotionally those dogs can’t be replaced, and I’m sure Heckpuppy feels that. What’s Burnscar trying to do if she’s not trying to get Heckpuppy to kill one of her own dogs?

“I think you’re underestimating how much she loves her dogs,” I said, “A wound like that never heals.”

Not helping, Skitter. You keep wondering if calcified muscles classifies as hackles until Burnscar is done with the explanation.

“Kill them,” Burnscar said.  She pointed at Grue and I.

I know she values her friends and holds the rest of the Undersiders – except Skitter – as her family, so to say, but you wouldn’t think they’re close or anything because of how she acts so confrontational and angry towards them. Well, not that they’re close. She really doesn’t want to show them how she feels. I admit I had a fleeting thought she may actually consider doing what Burnscar says.

Bitch laughed, if you could call it that.  It was more of a snort, with zero humor to it.  “That’s supposed to be my biggest fear?  I don’t give two shits about them.”

Well if Burnscar says it’s that, then it is. Apparently she knows this thanks to Cherish. Her powers over emotions gave the Slaughterhouse Nine a lot of information about their candidates, and this is one of the many pieces of information they have. What’s more, I think it’s one of the few things they can take at face value, no matter how much anyone denies them.

They’re the best you’ll ever get, and according to Cherish, you’re losing them.  Whatever bond you made with them, it’s fucked up now. Maybe you did it, maybe them.  Maybe both.  But it’s dying a slow death, dog girl.

I hesitate about saying this, but seems to me more like it’s Heckpuppy’s fault than the rest of the team’s fault. She has a difficult personality and even teammates don’t know how to handle her. The one person who was getting some insight – Skitter – isn’t in good terms with her. In fact, she hates her guts. Want it or not, Heckpuppy is slowly becoming more isolated and less agreeable. Of course her relationships are eroding. It’s pretty tragic, frankly.

Not listening to Burnscar of course means bad things. Attack her, run away, refuse to cooperate, it all means she fails. Sounds pretty standard, I’d say. Either Heckpuppy starts killing, or she becomes a valid target for murder.

“Fuck you,” Bitch retorted, but she glanced at Grue and I, and I could have sworn I saw doubt. Was it indecision?  The way Burnscar had framed this, Bitch either had to admit she cared about us and fight for our sake, or Bitch could attack us to secure her safety and her dogs.

Well that’s no good. She’s definitely not going to admit it. If anyone’s expecting her to say a friendship speech about how she values her friends and stuff then...what story have you been reading? It’s a pity, but hey, that’s how Heckpuppy is. Skitter realizes it too and decides to intervene – not through appealing to her teammate, but through attacking the enemies. She’s using her capsaicin-laced bugs. Grue coincidentally provided a distraction by telling Burnscar was doing everything wrong, potentially killing the candidate without even trying to do the test. Since Mannequin can’t speak and Burnscar isn’t in the best state to think, it’s his chance to pull the wool over her eyes.

Nevermind, Mannequin indicated her Grue is lying. That was worth a try, I suppose Grue underestimated the capacity Mannequin has to communicate, especially with those he has spent who knows how long with. Subtlety is out of the window. Attacking is the only option before they all suffer their horrible deaths. Skitter abandons all intention to be stealthy and throws her bugs forward, actually managing to sting Burnscar a couple times before Mannequin tosses her into the fire. It sure is convenient you can teleport through fire when the place you’re at is full of flames because of a couple explosions. Without that, I imagine Burnscar would have lost the upper hand.

Not having the strength to fight nor the chance, the good option left is to run. Get on the dogs and flee. That’s not going to work, is it?

It didn’t work. They barely got like five steps away when they fell down, looks like they were impacted by fire, and their costumes are ablaze. The water is too shallow to extinguish it, Grue cloaks them with darkness and helps her. Judging by the narration, it seems the fire has charred some parts of Skitter’s costume enough to reveal her bare skin. I hope her armor is intact. If she loses that protection, she loses a bit of an advantage. True, Burnscar’s fire won’t be deterred by armor, but...I kind of think Mannequin would cheat and attack them if he can. He already helped Burnscar, after all.

Running is difficult. They’re in pain, they’re wading in water, Skitter can’t see because there’s darkness over her and her bugs are finding fire. It’s like stumbling blindly. Truly not the best situation to fight a couple of crazy killers.

We half-slid and half-climbed down the ruined area to the beach, and walked over to the water’s edge.  From our new vantage point, we could see what Burnscar had done.

My territory was on fire.

Skitter is going to beat herself so much over this and the deaths of her subordinates – rightly albeit excessively. It really is a tragic loss of lives, and a tragic loss of infrastructure. The residents of her territory will also hold this against her, because they must have expected her to defend them against anything bad. Once again, what little positive reprieve she had has now gone up in flames – once again pun intended. It’s just so easy to make fire puns.

The priority right now is to survive, and Skitter seems to be a bit too numb not to resist. They run, she thinks about her trajectory so far in Worm. It’s more or less the stuff she has said before: she doesn’t consider herself a hero and berates herself for ever thinking she could be one. She counts her sins, and remembers how she pretty much threw away her past life. It’s nothing she hasn’t said before, so I won’t go in much depth about this.

“We’re too hurt to do anything,” Grue answered, “Genesis can handle herself.  She can always make a new body with her powers.”

“And her real body?  She had it sent to my lair.”

Grue paused. “Your lair could be on fire.”

“Exactly.”

If Genesis dies, the Travelers are never going to forgive them. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s unlikely she could die. She’s a minor character, she’s in danger, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the world keeps pummeling the Undersiders. Turning the Travelers against them sure would be a way of doing that.

Since they can’t leave Genesis in possible peril, they return to the lair. It’s not on fire. What it does have is orphans, and Charlotte is taking care of them. Mannequin didn’t hold back, he killed a lot of parents and Charlotte brought them here, seeking for a safe place to hide. Charlotte even pleads Skitter not to get angry about this. She won’t get angry, I’m sure.

The situation is dire. The people were divided in teams and told to run and alert as many people as possible, and take them to a safe place. It doesn’t seem like there has been any contact since they left. When Skitter feels around and throughout her territory, she finds out things are just as bad as she expected: very bad.

Very few were still alive and in this area.  Too many had died.  How many bodies were there?  Thirty? Forty?

I didn’t want to think about it.

Way too many for anyone’s tastes. Mannequin succeeded in hitting Skitter right where it hurts. Even if Mannequin dies, somehow, nobody can deny he caused a lot of bloodshed.

Once Charlotte is given instructions as to where to take all the kids, she starts thinking of a plan of action. First she’ll look for Genesis’ current form, and try to run away with her asleep real body. Run away with her in her wheelchair. Right, I had forgotten she needed a wheelchair...I suppose they should plan ahead for the possibility they’ll have to carry her in their arms.

Genesis was fighting Burnscar. There’s not much time to find out what’s going on, because Genesis’ form is bizarre and her bugs can’t grasp them, and the bugs aren’t faring well with all the fire Burnscar has.

Nearly half a year ago, I’d gotten my powers when I was trapped in a locker, wanting to be anywhere but where I was then.

It hasn’t even been six months since the first arc? It sure felt longer than that! What’s more, it’s not like the story started the next day after Skitter got her powers, so it actually may be like...two, three months since Worm started. So much has happened in so little time. Bakuda terrorized the city, then Leviathan terrorized the city, and now the Slaughterhouse Nine terrorizes the city. Brockton Bay got destroyed with bombs, then it got destroyed with water and tsunamis, and now with serial killers, I guess. Brockton Bay can’t last three weeks without someone destroying half of the town. It’s an awful place to live if you want stability, seriously.

Helplessness and frustration over the deaths of her subordinates rile Skitter up. She’s so angry, and she knows the Slaughterhouse Nine preys on weakness. They have the deck in their favor, they will annihilate them and then continue towards any other candidate in the list. It’s a moment where Skitter sounds very angry and ready to go fight, while Grue tries to appease her so she doesn’t do anything reckless.

“Don’t do this. If you want to get revenge on those guys, if you want to help your people, you need to stop, rest, recover and plan.”

Is there time to stop, rest, recover and plan? Burnscar is going to give her test to other candidates too, I imagine. Depending on who receives it, there’s a chance someone will do what she says. Time is the essence, if their intention is to impede everyone from following the game. All these injuries aren’t the type to get better soon, and unfortunately Panacea isn’t going to aid anyone. There’s no way to really do this the right way.

Genesis wasn’t defeated, yet she wakes up. Turns out Burnscar couldn’t defeat her, and Genesis could defeat Burnscar. It was more like a standstill. It seems Burnscar is running away, leaving Skitter’s territory. Or perhaps she’s looking for Heckpuppy. Who knows what her exact plan is, and since she can incinerate the insects that approach her, it’s not like Skitter will be able to find out unless she sees stuff happening right in front of her eyes. While Genesis maybe makes a body to put out fires, Grue and Skitter take a moment to realize just how deeply messed up everything is.

So many dead because I couldn’t save them.  I felt doubly guilty because my reasons for regretting their deaths were partially selfish. It was a deathblow to my plans to seize my territory, earning Coil’s respect and make inroads into saving Dinah, one way or another.

When you put it like that it does sound pretty selfish. I mean, I see the logic and stuff, but it does seem selfish when she mentions her plans, even if the end result is saving Dinah.

Had Jack calculated things so everything would play out the way he wanted, like Mannequin was?

Unlikely. I don’t think Jack would have guessed Mannequin would get beaten up so badly he’d have to surrender and give his turn to Burnscar. Or maybe he did, since he was interested in getting Hookwolf or Heckpuppy into the group. Mannequin losing would mean Heckpuppy wouldn’t die. Who knows, maybe this fits in Jack’s plans.

Stewing in her own anger only makes Skitter be even more willing to go out there and kick ass. They can’t get in contact with their teammate, looking for her is the only option they have right now. Did she get captured by Burnscar?

Grue even gives Skitter a hug! He sees she’s in great distress, and even though he’s not nearly as upset – outwardly, it’s just that if he’s upset it’s because his teammates are suffering – he’s willing to try to calm Skitter down.

We fight them every time they come, we’re going to be worn out, exhausted from always being on our guard, and if these past fights have been any indication, we won’t make it through eight rounds of this.

It’s not like they can avoid fighting them, not after what happened. The rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine are going to be in high alert and ready to strike back at the first sign of danger. There’s also the Siberian’s game of cat and mouse, and Crawler wanting to get a few good attacks onto him. It’s unavoidable there’ll be more fighting. Maybe the Undersiders would survive, but...it’s going to be really rough when these fights happen one after the other. No time to recover properly.

Because I’ve realized Jack wants us to focus on each of his people, one by one, because he knows it’s going to play out like it has so far, and that we won’t make it through eight rounds of this.  Let’s change that dynamic.  We take out testers before they get their turn.  We go on the offensive

I see. They’re going to attack them before they can get into the tests. They’re going to dismantle the Slaughterhouse Nine’s recruiting scheme. Hm. You know, I like the initiative. I like they’re going to not take any of this lying down, instead they’re going to fight as much as possible, even if it’ll be dangerous.

At the same time I’m a bit disappointed...the tests plot was interesting. I wanted to see how the candidates would react to the tests, how they’d do in them, what Skitter and the rest would do to ensure the candidates’ survival...it had a lot of potential, and many possibilities of development for the characters. Looks like that plot got scrapped. It’s a shame, I was looking forward to this.

“Offensive? Dinah said that a direct attack would be suicide.”

“So we go for the indirect attack.  They want to play dirty?  Let’s play dirty back.”

I don’t have the slightest idea what Skitter means by ‘the indirect attack’, or by playing dirty back. I suppose it could be something like ambushing the Slaughterhouse Nine and sabotaging them so they can’t do the tests in the first place. That could be fun. It’s going to paint a large target on Skitter’s back, but it could be worth it. If there are no tests, you can’t say they failed.

I hope they get some help first, though. An injured Skitter and Grue aren’t going to be of much help against anyone.

The chapter ends here. I’ll start the next one now.

Rachel is okay! Fantastic! Burnscar didn’t finish her off. Maybe she did manage to run away from her despite failing the test! And now she’s helping her dogs, despite the wound on her abdomen I sure hope Mr. Wildbow didn’t forget. She’s trying to cut Bentley out of the supersized monstrosity that’s enveloping it. This is the dog that got gassed, isn’t it? Looks like he survived!

...Mr. Wildbow always manages to overdo himself every time he describes how the dogs’ outer shell decomposes. You ought to stop doing that, Mr. Wildbow.

Skitter lends Heckpuppy her knife so she cuts the protective sac, and she manages to retrieve the dog. Luckily he’s breathing. He may be okay, despite Mannequin’s efforts to kill him. Today the casualties were a lot of civilians, one of the dogs, and any willingness Panacea had about facing the situation. Not a good day, but also could have been much worse.

Just like I expected, Heckpuppy isn’t welcoming at all. She’s very confrontational, yelling at Skitter and rejecting the help. She even says that because Burnscar said she cherished her relationship with Grue and Skitter that meant she liked them. No, Skitter isn’t so pretentious she’d act different because of that. Even if Heckpuppy can’t kill her, she would like to injure her. She’s really upset right now, yep.

“If you were going to hurt me, you would’ve done it while Burnscar was threatening you.”

“I don’t like being told what to do, so no, I wouldn’t have.”

Does that mean she wouldn’t do it? Because even if she does it later and because she really wanted to, say, kill Skitter, it’d still mean she did what Burnscar wanted. Even if she just hurts them, it’ll be as if she listened to Burnscar and let her give her an order. I for one am kind of glad. Less chances of Heckpuppy doing it.

I doubt that, I thought.  You don’t like being told what to do by a stranger, maybe, but I’d bet you could be happy if you had a stable environment and consistent leadership.

In other words, not what the Slaughterhouse Nine has. There’s nothing stable about their environment. Maybe it’d qualify as consistent leadership, since Jack would be there and it’s unlikely he’ll be removed from power before his demise. Besides, Burnscar isn’t the leader, she’s just another member. It’d be like another stranger told her what to do.

“I don’t care about the test!” she shouted.  I could see Sirius tense, ready to attack.  “I just want to be left alone!”

That sounds about right. She’d prefer not to have anything to do with it, I’d say. Nothing to do with being a candidate, nothing to do with having to fight them and defend herself from their attacks...she just wants to be left alone. Tough luck, gal, they’re not going to just go away.

When Skitter tries to sympathize, she keeps getting rejected. The attempt to tell her she has been in similar situations make Heckpuppy think it’s an attempt to get into a pissing contest, and lashes out. It makes Skitter lose her patience and simply tell her she needs them, and they need her, and that they’re a team.

“All you’re spewing out of your mouth-hole are words.  You only want to help yourself.”

Looks like her problem with Skitter is that she doesn’t believe her at all, she thinks Skitter is saying all this just to help herself. Can’t say I’m surprised. The betrayal Skitter did still stings, and the reason why they ran around on the dogs and tried to get help today was because Mannequin was going to attack her territory. In terms of immediate results, Skitter was the one who’d win the most.

What’s it going to take to convince you!?  Why can’t you understand that I can and have put myself in harm’s way for you?  That despite all the shit between us and everything we’ve gone through, you’re my friend?

At this point? I think that boat sailed looooooong ago, Skitter. She’s not going to trust you. After the betrayal, the amount of trust she’ll have towards Skitter is minuscule. She’ll work together with her just because that’s what’s expected from a team. Getting her to believe her is impossible. I don’t expect that to happen ever again in what’s left of Worm – and there’s a lot of Worm left.

“You are not my friend,” she didn’t look up at me as she uttered the words.

“Fine! I’ve accepted that.  But you’re my friend, even if I don’t like you half the time. You’re my teammate.  We’re similar.  The only difference is that you went through your shit years ago, and I just got through dealing with mine a few weeks after I joined this team.  We’ve traveled down the same paths.  Whether you like it or not, we’re kindred spirits.  We both struggle with the social-”  I trailed off.

I’m sure what got her to flinch was the kindred spirits part, because she doesn’t want to be kindred spirits with Skitter. I am...not...sure they really are? True, Skitter has gone through a lot, and she has suffered, and some of her experiences were similar in some way, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying she’s a kindred spirit with Heckpuppy. To me it seems like both of these characters are entirely different in every way possible. Not really kindred in any way.

Right when it started to sound like Skitter was giving up, Heckpuppy says something new. It’s character development time.

She broke the lingering silence, “Coil told me that people would leave me alone if I got powerful enough.  If I had allies, if I had money, if I scared my enemies enough.”

“When was this?”

“Before I joined the Undersiders.  He didn’t tell me who he was.  Left me a phone with some cash, then called me a while later.  Fucking words that sounded good.  Learned my lesson.”

Ah. Well, can’t say that went like she expected, then. Coil gives orders, she makes her be with the team, and although she has gotten a lot of money – given how well paid the Undersiders are – it’s not like it has been of any use towards ‘people leaving her alone’. Something I have noticed about Rachel is that she really doesn’t want to make the same mistake twice. She doesn’t want to trust Skitter, she doesn’t want to do something that gets herself or her dogs in danger...

...maybe that also means she won’t join the Slaughterhouse Nine. The Siberian tried to cajole her into joining, with pretty words and appealing to her interests and hopes. She already listened once to someone who did that, she won’t want to do it again since it didn’t really lead to something she likes.

This girl would be happier if she was living far away from everyone, out in the countryside, with her dogs, with nobody else and without anyone to bother her. All contact with people would be initiated by her, in her own terms, by going to the city to buy supplies or something. Consider that for her post-Worm life if she survives this story.

I itched to ask her if she’d suddenly had an increase in the amount of trouble she faced before she came to Brockton Bay.  Trouble that could be precipitated by a certain ambitious supervillain?

Well...that’s obvious, isn’t it? Before coming to Brockton Bay I don’t think she would have crashed a superhero party, assaulted a bank, fight an Asian gang who was holding the entire city hostage, or...okay, perhaps the Slaughterhouse Nine would have found her anyway. Still! There was an increase in trouble alright!

Skitter stresses joining the Slaughterhouse Nine won’t get her what she wants, to which Heckpuppy shouts she already knows that. Skitter also enumerates their list of crimes, wisely putting first the offenses against Heckpuppy, and then telling her she wants to attack, no holds barred.

“You had me at no holds barred,” she growled, rising from her crouch.

I didn’t dare to open my mouth, not with the risk of angering her and changing her mind. I nodded instead.

Well then, crisis solved! She’s in. What now?

Together, they return to the lair, Heckpuppy not doing any effort in helping Skitter, and that bothers her. Are you surprised, Skitter? At this point is this really something you didn’t see coming from a mile away? Along they way they stumbled upon Genesis – or at least Skitter guesses it’s her. She’s dousing the fires through a...rabbit...slug...thing. That’s...an unorthodox creature, but hey, if it’s dousing the fire then it doesn’t matter what it looks like.

One of these days, I was going to run up against something strange and assume it was her, only to be unpleasantly surprised.

Hah! Okay, that’s a good one.

Once they arrived back to the lair, Heckpuppy went to tend to her wounds, rejecting help with all the grace and charisma you’d expect from her when Skitter offered to help, so what follows is a few paragraphs of Skitter tending to her injuries. Burns, mostly. Second degree burns, plastic and spandex melted against them, disinfectant hissing as it touches the burns...this would be the worst time ever to get sick because of an infection. I hope she gets lucky and doesn’t suffer one.

Genesis arrives some time afterwards, looking exhausted and apologizing for not being able to put out any of the major fires. She also asks what’s going to happen now. Skitter informs she contacted the rest and once they arrive they’ll discuss the plan of attack.

“Attack?”

“Being careful and being on the defensive isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“It’s keeping us alive.”

...ah. I’m already getting the feeling Genesis won’t want to take part in this. Better think of a plan that doesn’t rely on Genesis helping, Skitter, just in case.

Although Genesis is clearly hesitant, she’s not outright saying no. Good? She does point out the odds of winning yet another confrontation aren’t high. She also answers the questions Skitter has about the limits of her power. I suppose that means she will be a vital part for her plans, then. There’s special attention as to what kind of materials she can use in her creations. It sounds like it’s possible to decide the materials, but it’s not like Genesis has complete control over her creations. It’s like her mind subconsciously fills it all. I want to know what kind of stray thoughts and imagination led to the rabbit/slug thing from before.

“And special abilities?  You can give them to your forms?”

“I have to visualize the mechanism, the organs or whatever that make it work.  I only have a limited time before I’m knocked out, so time I spend on that is time I’m not working on other stuff.  Like the form I was just using, you didn’t see it, but-”

“I saw it.”

“Right. The bugs, right.  Well, I visualized the water suction system and the water gun, but because I didn’t focus on the body, it didn’t have arms or legs, and it was slow, and because it didn’t have vital organs, it drained me.”

What I’m getting from this is that she has to plan her creatures carefully to make them as stable and useful as possible, but she doesn’t have enough time to do that before she falls unconscious. She has to think of everything in a short amount of time. I wonder if she could plan little by little beforehand, without making the body. That may fit whatever Skiitter is planning. My first thought is that she’ll want to make a doppelganger of some sort, and that’s why she’s asking about special abilities.

A while passes, and Skitter gives meaningful glances at her wheelchair and at Genesis’ legs. She’s wondering if Genesis gaining powers is what led to her disability. It’s actually backwards, looks like her power happened because of her disability. Maybe she got her trigger event shortly afterwards.  

As I mentally categorized my musings, I felt them connect with a bunch of other thoughts. Of the six Travelers, three were among the more powerful capes in Brockton Bay that I’d met.  In terms of sheer destructive effect, Sundancer and Ballistic were top-notch.  Genesis was top of the line in sheer utility and versatility, a combatant that could endlessly return to the battlefield with whatever form she wanted, provided that her real body was left unmolested.  Topping it off, Noelle was apparently so powerful she had to be kept in quarantine.  Trickster was impressive, if not quite in the same class as his teammates, and I had no idea what Oliver was all about, since he didn’t have powers, as far as I knew.

How had they come together?  If I ran with the theory that Genesis somehow had her trigger event at four and was more powerful as a result, did that mean the other powerful members of the group had done something similar?  If so, how were they connected?

You know...now that she mentions it, I realize that’s correct. They all are impressively powerful people. If they wanted to, they could be very destructive villains. They have their thoughts and moral judgments; they don’t want to be known or anything like that. They used to roam around the world before Coil hired them. Hm. It can’t be coincidence capes as powerful as them gathered together as a group. It’s clear they all have some history with each other, but what is it?

My current thought is that maybe it’s related to Cauldron. Gaining powers from their product somehow, willingly or unwillingly, and being grouped together. They’re not Case 53s – as far as I know – so that’s discarded, but that’s not the only way they could have gotten access to Cauldron powers. Can’t say I have any idea how this may have happened. It’s just...a vague idea I’m not even sure can be backed up.

While Regent and the rest of the Travelers arrive, Skitter keeps musing.

She smiled a little, but it was almost a sad expression.  Resigned.

Back when I’d first talked with Sundancer, I could remember asking her about her experience with the Travelers.  What was it she’d said?  Intense, violent, lonely.  Lonely despite the fact that they were constantly in each other’s company.  I couldn’t exactly remember what Sundancer’s explanation for that loneliness had been.  It had been vague, hadn’t it?

Seeing Genesis’s expression, I suspected Sundancer wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

I had the impression the Travelers generally got along each other, but...I don’t know, this seems to hint maybe they would rather not to be together if they could help it? Like this is something they have to do out of obligation or something, and don’t have a real friendly connection with each other. Just a bunch of people sticking together for one reason or another – for Noelle, I suspect. Noelle may be the thread that keeps this group united. I think this all will be clear once there’s more information about Noelle.

Everyone is reunited, except Tattletale and Coil, who are present through phone speaker. The reason for this meeting is said immediately: Skitter wants to remove a tester. Nobody outright dismisses this as a bad idea, which I think is kind of encouraging. Good! So Skitter tries to appeal to them, explaining her reasoning.

How many teams and heroes have tried to bet the Slaughterhouse Nine? A lot. The Slaughterhouse Nine win because they choose their fights – I think it’d be more accurate to say they know how to defend – and avoid confrontations they can’t win. That’s more or less what the Undersiders do, Skitter says.

Look at what Regent did to Shadow Stalker, what I did to Lung on both occasions.  And they terrorize their victims.  We do the same thing, unintentionally or not.  Grue is scary with the darkness, Bitch’s dogs make people shit themselves.  Me? Everyone’s at least a little creeped out by bugs.  Tattletale and Regent are unnerving in a whole different way.  The Nine are us on steroids.

“That’s not a very flattering comparison.”  Grue folded his arms.

Oh my god, hah! Okay, I find this hilarious. I sure disagree with Skitter! True, they do have a certain uncanny ability to strike fear in many ways, it’s just that I don’t think it’s as in-your-face and terrifying as the Slaughterhouse Nine, and I don’t think they ever would reach such heights. Even if Skitter says the Slaughterhouse Nine are like the Undersiders ‘on steroids’, I don’t really think it’s accurate. There’s a...I don’t know what these antagonists have the Undersiders don’t, but yeah, they lack that.

She’s right that it may not be a coincidence two of the candidates are from the Undersiders, though.

So let’s avoid playing things like Jack wants us to, let’s not do things the way better heroes have tried and failed.  We play this like they play this.  Unpredictable, calculated recklessness, we don’t get caught up in a fight, and we think through every part of the plan.

I like the sound of this, simply because they’ll think things through. That can be the difference between life and death. I still have no idea what’s an ‘indirect attack’, though. Taking a tester out of commission doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that can be done indirectly.

Hm! Coil is willing to give this a try. I suppose that means he finds no contradiction with Dinah’s prediction about engaging the Slaughterhouse Nine. That’s a good sign. Heckpuppy joins too, for obvious reasons. Grue wouldn’t leave Skitter out to die because of this plan, so I think he’ll cooperate too, even if he doesn’t say it aloud. Regent...well...it’s not like he has an option, I guess. He’s a candidate. Imp isn’t here and I don’t think anyone remembers her, but I think she’d agree to help. The Travelers are a different story, though.

Sundancer, Ballistic, you guys have been holding back for a long time.  I know it’s asking a hell of a lot, but… are you guys prepared to kill?

Ballistic replies he can bring himself to kill Slaughterhouse Nine members, despite his moral objections. Sundancer doesn’t reply yet, she clearly is hesitant to cross the line. Peer pressure, peer pressure, peer pressure. Trickster says she has killed before – accidentally – and Ballistic says they’re not innocent people, they’re seasoned killers, so it’s okay to get rid of them. Skitter adds that by killing them, hundreds of lives will be saved. Sundancer really doesn’t want to do this, and she’s not pressed anymore, she just is told to take a decision before they start with the plan. Honestly I sympathize with Sundancer here. It’s not easy to do such a thing, no matter how guilty the person is. Pretty realistic reaction, I’d say.

Grue finally says he’ll join, with the condition everyone is well-rested and gets at least six hours of sleep. It’s no secret that’s a jab towards Skitter, who will need sleep and he knows that. Hah! Well this sure is a way to get her to rest! Doubt it’ll work because her guilt maybe will keep her awake, but...it’s a good try.

“Is there any possibility that we could deploy Noelle?”  I asked Trickster.

“No,” Trickster said.

“If she’s as powerful as you say-”

“If Noelle used her power in this battle you’re talking about, everyone loses.”

The Travelers were way, way too fond of that line.

What’s she, some kind of parahuman of mass destruction? It’s starting to sound like there’s absolutely no scenario where she can be outside the vault without things going badly. Crawler wanting to face her for a fight also hints she’s extremely powerful – Crawler wants to get really hurt, and if she can do that...

The power of money will provide ammunitions and the such at Skitter’s request. Thanks, Coil.

“I’m thinking explosives.  How much can you provide?”

“Hold on,” Lisa cut in.  “You’re talking about Ballistic and Sundancer using their powers without limits, you want to use Noelle, now explosives?”

“And I’m talking about me using black widows, brown recluses and every nasty bug I have at my disposal.  I’m talking about us packing guns and grenades.  All of us.  No holds barred.”

She’s not kidding, that’s an outstanding amount of offensive attack – adding more and more to my doubts this won’t be a direct attack. Everything about this screams ‘we’re going to attack as hard as we can’. I hope you know what you’re doing, Skitter.

But do you actually have a plan?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “Keep in mind that this could change pretty dramatically depending on where we find them and what they’re up to when we run into them.”

Oh, alright, she has a plan. Must be a really good one, if she feels confident talking about it to everyone, even if it has been such a short time since the fight versus Mannequin and Burnscar. That kind of assuages my doubts.

Then I told them what we’d be trying to do.

Of course that’s the last line of the chapter. Of course. No telling to the reader what the plan is until it’s in action. I should have expected the cliffhanger, hah! Well then! This is the fifth chapter of this arc. I would think the plan would be in the next, but since the arc is named ‘Snare’ and what’s going to happen is a snare, I think there’ll be few more chapters left. Three or four, perhaps?

That’ll have to wait for next time.

Next time: next update

[paulinedorchester]

I can’t say that I really enjoyed Juliet Gardiner’s book Wartime: Britain 1939-1945, which I read a couple of years ago. Particularly coming right after Norman Longmate’s How We Lived Then, it left a sour taste in my mouth. (In a nutshell: Longmate, a veteran of the war, wrote a book about courage and sacrifice; Gardiner, born a few weeks after V-E Day, wrote one about fear and suffering.)

However, Gardiner does introduce the reader to several eyewitnesses to the war about whom I immediately wanted to know more, particularly an American expatriate who when the war broke out was living with her family in an apartment in St. John’s Wood, London. Gardiner, who refers to this woman as Margaret Cotton, quotes several times from her wartime journal. She really could write. A litany-like summary of the damage caused by a V-2 attack is particularly powerful:

The act of destruction and death took a few seconds. The rescue of victims took a few days. The billeting of the homeless will take a few weeks. The healing of the injured will take an indefinite time. The clearing of the bombed and burned site will take months. The rebuilding will take years. The dead are dead.

In her back-matter Gardiner credits these excerpts to an Imperial War Museums file with the assigned title Private Papers of Mrs E H Cotton. (”Mrs,” let’s remember, has traditionally meant “the wife of,” so I simply assumed that those were her husband’s initials.) Since my chances of being able to examine those papers - Mrs. Cotton’s wartime journal, and an apparently unpublished memoir derived from it - any time soon are just about nil, I decided to see whether I could find any more excerpts online. Searching for <”margaret cotton”> didn’t turn anything up, but <“mrs e h cotton”> led me to several books published since 2000. Some of what I found there has turned out to be false: it turns out that she was neither married to a British businessman nor “a young mother at the time of the war,” as certain self-described historians would have it. And one book asserted that her name was Ernestine - not Margaret. Hmm.

Somewhere, I picked up the information that Mrs. Cotton wrote the memoir for the benefit of her grand-daughter, whose name was Penelope. So I searched for <penelope cotton> (not as a phrase) and, to my great surprise, hit the jackpot.

Cotton, Ernestine Hunt.1 Journal for Penelope. New York: Vantage Press, 2005. 

Ernestine Hunt Cotton - nicknamed Peg, which may explain Gardiner’s confusion - and her husband, Dick, both Mayflower descendants,2 relocated from the suburbs of Boston to London during the winter of 1934-35, when he became the managing director of British Rola, an offshoot of an American electronics manufacturer. When the war began they had two daughters in their twenties, Alix and Martha, and an adolescent son, Gerry. Alix was engaged to a Fleet Air Arm pilot; as commonly happened during the war, the wedding took place earlier than originally planned, and it gives very little away to say that Alix soon found herself a widow with a small child. Martha was training as a speech pathologist, possibly after a year in medical school. (Mrs. Cotton doesn’t make this clear, and may have conflated the two.) Regardless, Martha had to give up her studies in 1940 when her training school closed for the duration. She joined the British Red Cross.

Mrs. Cotton writes that the family’s move came about as a result of the Depression, but I am skeptical. The Cottons were clearly very well-off: Gerry attended La Châtaigneraie, near Geneva, before the war; when this became impractical he was sent instead to Bryanston, in Dorset. The growing unavailability of household help during the war - the Cottons were accustomed to employing a cook, a housekeeper, and a maid - was a recurring problem. For the  last year or so of the war they had homes in both city and country. All of this, along with Martha’s post-secondary studies, whatever they were, had to be paid for somehow.

No, my hunch is that Dick Cotton was doing some sort of classified government service. His initial mandate at British Rola seems to have been to shift its output from loudspeakers and make it “a main artery for pumping life blood into the R.A.F. - literally, for the factory produces a certain type of mechanical pump, built into the planes,” Mrs. Cotton wrote in 1940. Throughout the war he dealt with people at very high levels of the war effort, in both the U.K. and the U.S. He made several return trips during the war, sometimes traveling under very difficult conditions and spending a good deal of time in Washington, D.C., and was one of the organizers of The American Committee for the Defense of British Homes, which donated weapons to the Home Guard. He also appears to have been aware of the existence of the V-weapons, and of precisely how dangerous they would be, several months before they came into use. At one point his wife writes of him talking “in the usual cryptic way of men nowadays - men who are doing a job a bit on the hush-hush.”

In any case, the British Rola factory was located in Acton until October 1940, when severe bombing in that area led the Ministry of Defence to approve (in the form of an order, mind you) its immediate evacuation to a pre-selected site in Bideford, Devon. The entire Cotton family followed suit, and the memoir becomes in part a story of adjustment to country life. With some difficulty, they found a place to live in Instow, three miles from Bideford: Springfield, a nine-bedroom Georgian mansion in a questionable state of repair. While they lived there, the house became a center of hospitality for Allied service personnel generally and, beginning in 1942, for Americans in particular. (At one point the household realize with alarm that they’re sheltering some AWOL sergeants.)

Mostly, though, this book is about the day-to-dayness of the war as it affected one family whose circumstances were a tad unusual. It is clearly the memoir part of the IWM’s papers, and the only clue as to when Mrs. Cotton wrote it is her observation that

This type of fog - a “pea-souper” - is now practically non-existent in London. New buildings have central heating, and there is a law prohibiting the use of any coal save that which has been rendered almost smokeless.  

Some passages seem to be lifted directly from the wartime journal, so that we get dizzying transitions between events in progress and those that have occurred some time in the past. And Mrs. Cotton herself can be a bit dizzy at times. After leaving Bryanston, Gerry made multiple attempts to join first the American and then the British armed forces, but was foiled by his susceptibility to what his mother persists in referring to as “anti-philatic shock.” I can only assume that she means anaphylactic shock. (Gerry ended up on the assembly line at British Rola; Alix was a V.A.D. at Bideford Hospital.)

There is also the matter of the book’s production. Vantage Press, which went out of business in 2012, was one of the original vanity publishing operations. Authors’ typescripts - this one was created with word-processing software that was already out-of-date in 2005, and was apparently produced on a dot-matrix printer - were treated as camera-ready copy and were not subjected to any editing whatsoever. The result in this case is a book riddled with typographical errors. The substitution of it’s for the possessive its is so consistent that it becomes annoying all by itself.

Journal for Penelope is nevertheless worth reading. A Republican (of an era long before ours) married to a Democrat, deeply generous in her impulses, a mistress of the vivid simile (”My stomach curled up like a caterpillar”), Ernestine Cotton is very good company. I’d still like to read the original journal - something tells me there’s a good miniseries lurking there! - but this book is an acceptable, and welcome, substitute.

1For anyone unfamiliar with this usage, which as far as I know is purely North American and which seems to be fading away, Mrs. Cotton took her husband’s surname while using her maiden name as a middle (second) name to be included or not as the occasion required. My mother did the same thing; likewise Mercy Otis Warren, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Florence Prag Kahn, Oveta Culp Hobby, Marian Wright Edelman, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and many others.

2The Mayflower was the first ship to bring non-Native settlers to the region now known as New England, arriving from Plymouth in November 1620. Stereotypically at least, descendants of its passengers are wealthy, entitled, clannish, repressed, highly conscious of their status, and found primarily on the Atlantic seaboard.

[pjbehindthesun]

chapter 4: acoustics and interruptions

Saturday, June 23rd, 1990

“Wait, where am I going??” Lucy squints over the wheel of her Corolla.

“Straight, straight, it’s just at the end of the block…” I do my best not to laugh at her, honestly, the girl has the world’s worst sense of direction. She could get lost in a paper bag with a map and a flashlight. “Ooh, ooh, park here, park HERE!” I shout, pointing to an upcoming parallel parking spot. Honestly we could have walked here too, but Lucy thought it was too far and she was nervous about the neighborhood.

My friend somehow works her car into the space, and I somehow occupy myself with something terribly interesting outside the car window to avoid laughing at the Morse code-like taps against bumpers and curbs that ensue in the process. “Hey, we made it! Will you relax now? Why are you so worked up anyway?”

“I’m just nervous! You’re not?? God, Cora, we saw them back in February, he’s like a legitimate rock star!”

“And also a legitimate pest.”

“But seriously, he’s so intimidating-looking…”

“Nah, you’ll see, he’s like… he’s like this big, lovable older brother you never wanted.”

“Well, it’s too bad Alex couldn’t come tonight to meet your brother…” she raises an eyebrow at me as she shuts off the car.

Yeah. Too bad. She knows me too well. Chris and Alex would have gotten along like cats and dogs, which is so stupid, because there’s absolutely no reason for Alex to be jealous. Chris is married! But Alex always gives me a hard time about guy friends. It’s just easier not to have them, usually, but Chris has been pretty persistent. I smile inwardly. I’m actually kind of relieved Alex decided to go out with the guys instead, but I can’t admit that, not even to Lucy. “Yeah, too bad, he just wasn’t feeling up to it tonight, poor guy.”

We walk under the overpass and along the brick wall to the door of the Off Ramp and make our way inside, where we are instantly greeted by the loud, sludgy chords of the opening band, so heavy that I can feel the air in my lungs shaking with the beat. Tad, I think Chris said? I’m way too short to see much of anything through the crowd, but they sound amazing. My Chucks stick slightly to the floor and the air smells thickly of beer and smoke, and it makes me grin ear to ear. School hasn’t left me with a lot of spare time to explore the music scene out here yet, but I missed the hell out of divey clubs like this one. I nudge Lucy and we head over to the bar. I squeeze past a pretty English girl with long, curly dark hair who’s even shorter than me and deep in conversation with some guy about acoustics in outer space. I have to will my not-so-inner science nerd not to barge into their conversation, so instead I flag down the bartender and check on my friend. Lucy is her usual willowy, tall, beautiful, unassuming self tonight in a cute floral dress and white Keds, fidgeting nervously next to me. Meanwhile, I might get mistaken for a roadie any second in a white T-shirt and old jeans that are literally acid-washed from a lab accident last fall. In my defense, I did spend the whole day in the lab, and at least I put on a shirt that doesn’t have soil stains on it.

The band wraps up their last song just as the bartender comes back with our beers. I look around for Chris, futilely, of course… even trying to lean up on the bar edge is not exactly helping my vertically challenged vantage point…

“CORAAAAAAA!” And suddenly my field of vision is obscured by a crazy tangle of black curls as a shirtless guy sweeps me off my feet and parks me on the bar itself. “You made it!”

“Hi to you too, Chris,” I grin lazily, as if this is a totally normal human interaction, mostly because Lucy’s jaw is on the floor and it’s hilarious to see her all shaken up. The bar is tall, putting me above eye level with Chris. I rest my hands on his shoulders and squint at him through his curtain of hair with mock concern… “say, did you get shorter or something?”

“You wish, baby bear.” He turns around and gestures to a group of guys over by the stage, who descend on us. “Guys! This is Cora!” He picks me up like I weigh nothing at all and whirls me around, setting me down on my feet in front of this newly arrived wall of musicians. “And you are?” he asks Lucy, who’s looking dazed as I introduce them and Chris shakes her hand.

“Matt, Kim, Ben – Cora, these guys are my posse – guys, this is Cora, the girl I was telling you about! And this is Lucy!” Another guy, one I actually recognize, nudges his way to the front of the pack to figure out the source of Chris’s commotion. “And this is Jeff” – he points to my neighbor, and I can’t help grinning as Lucy turns bright red – “and oh hey, Stoney!” he bellows as he flags down another tall, slender guy to come join us. Fuck, is everyone in Seattle tall but me? I feel like a Hobbit.

“Stone, just Stone,” the guy corrects with an eye roll in Chris’s direction, before looking back at me. “Nice to meet you, Cora,” Stone says in a lazy voice. “Chris has been talking about you nonstop for like two weeks. Had to see if you live up to the legend he’s told us,” he smirks down at me and flips his long brown hair over his shoulder. Based on the “dude, seriously?” look he just got from Jeff, I can tell that it’s not unusual for him to try to make people uncomfortable, so I fire back.

“The legend? Oh no, Chris, you told them about the tourists we killed and ate on the trail? That was supposed to be our little secret,” I say innocently, licking my fingers and picking my teeth. Lucy’s looks like she’s about to implode from embarrassment. Jeff’s smiling at her and Chris is hanging back, watching the scene, grinning like Satan himself.

Stone sputters with laughter. “Careful, I hear those tourists will go straight to your ass, very fattening.” Jeff tears his eyes off Lucy long enough to scowl at Stone and punch him in the shoulder.

“What the fuck, man?” Jeff glances sideways at me and then back to his friend. Aww. Defending the lady. I try not to roll my eyes. Bless his heart.

“Beats all these skin-and-bones Seattle boys, like a bunch of plants that have been kept in the dark,” I poke Stone hard in his skinny chest and pull a scowl. He blinks down at me with big doe eyes, and for a split second I can see he’s stumped for words. Time to ease up, I just met the guy.

“So you’ve been hearing about me for weeks, huh? What’s this moron been telling you?” I nod in Chris’s direction and try a gentle smile, more to make Jeff and Lucy feel at ease than anything else, although it seems like they don’t need my help because they’ve already turned away from us and are chatting in an appallingly cute and wholesome manner.

Chris is the one who answers. “Just that you’re a sexy soil scientist who’s going to save the world from pollution… and forest fires.” I shoot Chris a dirty look that makes him chuckle. “Ok, ok, I know when I’m not wanted… might as well go play a show!” He winks, rounds up his band, and makes toward the stage.

With Jeff and Lucy flirting animatedly over at the bar, I’m left with Stone, who raises an insolent eyebrow.

“So, sexy soil scientist… tell me about these sexy soils…”

My eyes roll so hard I fear I’ve maybe pulled a muscle. “Chris is unreal. Honestly, I study dirt and it’s the least fucking sexy thing imaginable, he just said it to piss me off.” The snap in my voice surprises even me, and I can tell it surprises Stone too. The poor guy blinks down at me with a stunned look on his face. How could he know I spent my entire Saturday in the lab troubleshooting an ancient ion chromatograph that will be waiting for me tomorrow, just as obstinate in its refusal to give me data as it was when I first got to the lab this morning. Or that my advisor is absolutely no help and there’s no one else around in the department I can even ask. Or that the lab fridge was out of beer so I couldn’t even day-drink my way through the two hours on hold with tech support because even they didn’t know what to tell me. Okay, enough moping, time to recover before this poor guy thinks you’re a total psycho.

“Sorry. Long day. I just don’t want to talk about work. Surely you don’t like to talk shop when you’re not… uh, doing whatever it is you do?” I give him what I hope is an encouraging smile.

“I’m a musician, I play guitar,” he says laconically, looking around at nothing in particular but clearly endeavoring to seem cool.

He’s got an affected manner, which usually makes me want to run screaming, but he’s not very good at it. Just below the surface you can see he’s a dorky, awkward kid (takes one to know one), so his pretension just makes me laugh. “Oh, sorry, so I guess you’re still at the shop then. What’s the name of your band?”

“In between bands at the moment. I had this one band with Jeff for a while but that, uhm, ended in March, so I’m kind of just writing songs on my own right now, or with a friend here and there, just trying to figure things out.”

“Oh, yeah?” I was about to ask more about the kinds of songs he’s writing, or what happened with the old band, but before I can say anything else, the crowd starts screaming and I hear the first notes of Hands All Over, my favorite song from the cassette I picked up at the show at the Moore.

Stone and I are both quickly absorbed watching the show, or what I can see of it from here. Chris really is amazing. I can see what Lucy finds kind of terrifying, maybe, with his black cargo shorts and huge boots, and that brutalizing, scorched-earth voice. But it’s beautiful, too. A voice that can sing while screaming. A voice that sounds like the terror of a plane crash, but also a voice that somehow manages to put the whole thing gently back on the runway in one piece. And then there are his lyrics. These intensely heavy songs laced with frighteningly fragile thoughts. I’ve never heard another singer like him.

“I think he’s possessed,” Stone whispers in my ear, as if reading my mind. I look up at him and he widens his eyes and gasps in mock horror.

“Maybe, but you never met a nicer demon,” and we share a smile before turning back to watch the show.

Stone and I watch the rest of the set together over our beers, cracking jokes occasionally but mostly just enjoying the music. When the show’s over, he motions his head to the rear exit and produces a little glass pipe from his pocket. I grin and trail after him as he heads over.

We sit down on the curb outside the club. “So Stone’s not just a clever name, huh?”

“I don’t have to take this abuse, new girl. Do you want the pot or don’t you?” I bite my lip to tamp down the smile and nod.

“So how long have you lived here?” he asks as he packs the bowl with a furtive glance around.

I chuckle at the ground. “Is it that obvious?”

“Y’all ain’t from around here, are ya?” He smirks off into the distance, doing possibly the world’s worst imitation of a Southern accent before taking a hit and passing me the pipe.

“Ha! Something tells me you don’t get out of Seattle much. And no, I’m not from here. Asheville North Carolina, originally. I moved here a year ago.”

“For school, Chris said? Didn’t get enough book learning back in the hollers?” His words are barbed but the smile that accompanies them is welcoming, disarming, as if to say don’t listen to me, I know I’m full of shit, I’m just playing around, please play along.

“Welllll I started to have my doubts after they taught us in 3rd grade that Jefferson Davis rode a pterodactyl to victory in every major American war…” I say, stretching out what little drawl I still have as far as it’ll go before I hit the pipe.

He chuckles. “Yeah. I think you belong out here with us.” It’s an odd thing to say to someone you’ve just met, so I look up to try and catch his meaning, but he’s still looking away, scanning the street. Not big on eye contact, this guy.

“Well it beats the sticks, at least. You grew up here, I take it?”

“Born and raised.”

“Always wanted to be a musician?”

“Yeah. Always. I went to art school and I have unrepentant hippies for parents, so there was never much hope.”

“Hippies, huh?”

“What, the name didn’t give it away?” He rolls his eyes and glances over with a small smile.

“I like it. Earthy. Grounded. Solid.” I can’t pun with a straight face to save my life. Or maybe the weed’s kicking in already. I stifle a giggle.

“Says the professional dirt worshipper!” he laughs.

“Unabashedly.” I hold my hands up like I’ve been caught robbing a bank, shuffling my sneakers on the pavement. “Honestly I’ve seen people worship stupider shit.”

“Well you’re not wrong there. Probably more of us could stand to find something like god out in the woods. Maybe we’d take better care of things that way.”

“Oh, a fellow tree-hugger then?” I grin.

“Afraid so.” He finally flicks his eyes up to mine with a serious expression. And his eyes are striking. Olive green, with eyelashes most girls would probably kill for.

“Yeah, well, Alex thinks I’m wasting my time in school for anything related to the environment, thinks we all just need to focus on getting the fuck to Mars so we don’t have to worry about conservation. Says the damage is already done, so why should our generation have to fix everyone else’s mistakes?”

“And who is this Alex? Some kind of Nobel laureate, clearly.”

“Oh, Alex is my boyfriend.” Hadn’t I mentioned him already?

“Huh,” is all Stone says. Evidently not. The pause that follows is uncomfortable after the steady rhythm we’d fallen into.

“He moved out with me from Asheville,” I say. Why I am answering a question Stone didn’t ask? Why did he clam up?

“So this Cletus fella, he’s not in graduate school with you?”

“Alex! And no. We met during the first week of college. He’s a programmer, and he’s brilliant.”

“I’ll bet he is. And how long have you and Jimbob been a'courtin’?” The momentary thaw seems to have vanished and he’s back to teasing me. I pull a face and elbow him in the ribs.

“ALEX. Five years now.” Stone raises his eyebrows and nods down at the curb. “So tell me about your glamorous guitarist life,” I ask, figuring it’s time for a change of subject. “You had a band?”

“Yeah. Me and Jeff did. Guitar and bass,” he points at his chest and then vaguely back at the club. “Mother Love Bone, maybe you’d heard of us?” he says, passing the pipe back without looking up.

I shake my head and take another hit. “Sorry. You forget I’m still pretty new here. What happened, why the past tense?”

“We uh, lost our singer,” he says quietly. “Couple of months back. Overdose.”

Gone is the imperviousness. The sarcasm. The insouciance. What’s left is an awkward kid sitting on a curb, boring a hole into the ground with his stare, cradling a raw wound. That I have just rubbed salt into with my blundering curiosity.

“Fuck… fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. I mean, you didn’t know, it’s okay.” He recovers his bearings a little. “Not okay that it happened, obviously, but it’s okay that you asked.”

I figure silence is my best bet right now, because what can I say? After a little while, Stone goes on.

“Andy. Andy Wood. He was our singer. And a really good friend. He… Jeff and I are still promoting the stuff we did as a group before he died. We put all this work in for two years on this album, so we’re trying to show that to people now. And trying to figure out what comes next, if anything. I’ve been playing guitar with this guy Mike, and he wants the three of us to pull something together, but I don’t fucking know.” He kills the rest of the bowl and taps out the ashes on the curb before stowing the pipe back in his pocket.

“Will it still be Mother Love Bone, or something else?”

“I think we would all need it to be something else. It’s hard, we’ve had people ask us about keeping the band going, sending us tapes of weird Andy tributes… I have no idea how –”

Stone is abruptly cut off by a pair of wasted guys who stumble outside and almost trip over us. “Watch where the fuck you’re going, would you?” I grumble. One of them gapes down at me.

“Hey, girl… your hair’s so red…”

“You’re quick.” My voice is level, but Stone’s watching me carefully like he’s unsure whether he should speak up or not.

“So baby, does the carpet match the drapes?” his friend slurs.

Stone’s mouth flies open, but before he can say anything, I respond in complete deadpan, “it’s tile.”

“What the fuck… god, whatever, these fuckin’ weird chicks, dude…” the guys stumble off into the night as Stone dissolves in hysterics on the curb next to me.

“That was great! Wait a second, did he think I was a chick?” he manages to gasp out between laughs.

“And you find that more offensive than what he thought about me??” I tease.

“Hell yes, I am as macho as they fuckin’ come.”

“My mistake, Stoner.” We’re still cracking up like a couple of fucking potheads when another pair comes tumbling out of the door, but this time I’m the one gaping as I see Lucy pulling a beaming Jeff by the hand out behind the club.

“See, that’s better,” she’s giggling, “we can actually hear each other out –”

Then she and Jeff notice us and shout, “Cora!” and “Stone!” at the same time, and he and I break down laughing all over again.

“Shit, they’re fucking high,” Jeff laughs. “You save us any?”

“Didn’t know you were coming out to sample the night air, otherwise we would have,” I’m grinning so broadly at Lucy that my cheeks hurt. She bites her lip sheepishly and mumbles something about it being too loud inside to hear.

“I bet. Stone, let’s give these guys some peace and quiet,” I say as we get up from our spot on the curb. Lucy’s stammering apologetic nonsense for no good reason at all, but Jeff’s smiling like an idiot.

“Oh yeah, carry on, children,” Stone purrs before following me inside.

***

Cora grabs me by the hand and pulls me back towards the bar. “WE NEED BEER!” she hollers over the din. I’m not arguing with that.

The club hasn’t emptied at all, but for a tiny little person, she cuts through the crowd like a knife. She drops my hand to flag down the bartender and puts down $2 just as I’m trying to get my wallet out of my back pocket.

“No, let me get it –”

She cuts me off. “Your macho is showing again. Come on, let me pay you back” she mouths the last three words “for the pot.”

“If you insist.”

“You bet your ass,” she hands me a bottle and smiles at me with those big, sparkling dark brown eyes. I wish she wasn’t so pretty. And unavailable. And hilarious, and kind, and warm. And unavailable. 

“So do you and Billy-Bob – OW” I clutch my shoulder where she’s just punched me “– fine, Alex, do you guys live around here?”

“Yeah, we live on the same floor as Jeff, he didn’t tell you?”

Oh hell, it’s that Alex? This poor girl. I had no idea Cora was Jeff’s neighbor, but I’ve heard a fucking earful about Alex. “No, uh, he didn’t.” No need to tell her what he has actually told me, then.

“And what do you think of our fair city?”

She finishes a swig of beer and says, “not much at all yet, I don’t get out a lot.”

“But you’ve lived here a whole year?”

“Yeah, but I work a lot, and I go to Alaska every summer, and –”

I’m just cutting her off to ask what the hell she goes to Alaska for when Mike materializes out of the crowd and slumps against my shoulder.

“Heyyy Stone,” he slurs with a big dopey grin, and Cora smiles back with a quick bite of her lip.

“Friend of yours?” she asks with raised eyebrows.

“Mike, Cora. Cora, Mike. Cora, Mike is a guitar genius and a stinky drunk. Mike, Cora is a nerdy redneck and a friend of Chris’s.”

Mike garbles something about how any friend of Chris’s is a friend of his, much to Cora’s amusement, just as Chris appears over Cora’s shoulder with his arm around Susan.

“Looks like we got a drinker,” he says with a gentle smile. “You good, Cready?”

Mike hiccups and gives a thumbs up.

“How are you guys getting home?” Susan frowns. “You all look a little south of sober.”

“I left my car at Jeff’s place, we were gonna walk back in a little bit.” Whenever Jeff’s done putting the moves on Lucy, I guess.

Cora pipes up. “Oh, we drove, Lucy and me, I bet she’s still sober. Wanna ride?”

“Thanks, friendofChris’s,” Mike mumbles drowsily, still leaning heavily on me.

“You and Lucy?”

“Yeah, she lives in our building. Keep up, Stoner,” she winks at me. “Let me go find her.” She ducks off into the crowd, leaving me to support Mike and catch up with Chris about the tour they’re about to go on.

A few minutes later, she reappears with the two lovebirds in tow, and I notice they’re holding hands.

“I found your bassist,” she says with a sly smile.

“Fuck yes,” muses the drunk on my shoulder.

“Former bassist,” I roll my eyes and Jeff uses his free hand to flip me off with a lazy smile. “Lucy,“ I go on, “would you take pity on a bunch of drunks and give us a ride, please?”

“Of course,” she says with a smile, but she’s looking at Jeff when she says it. These two are so sweet it’s nauseating.

We say our goodbyes to Chris and Susan and make our way out to Lucy’s beat-up Corolla. I unload an almost-passed out Mike into one back seat before heading around the car to get in on the other side. Jeff’s lining up behind me, but Cora cuts in front of both of us.

“You’re the tallest, Jeff, I can’t let you squish back here! You should sit up front.” She sounds sincere, but there’s something in her face that loudly broadcasts mischief. Jeff just shrugs, clearly not willing to argue with anything that puts him closer to Lucy, and Cora tucks herself into the middle and pats the vacant seat impatiently. “You’re bossy, Red,” I laugh as I climb in.

“You’re ungrateful, Stoner.”

“God, you two are like an old married couple already,” Jeff grumbles from the front seat as Lucy brings the ancient car to life.

I breathe a sigh of relief as we pull into the parking lot of their apartment building. Lucy’s a very sweet girl, but I almost feel like we would have been safer with one of the drunks at the wheel. I hate to use the fucking stereotype, but she legitimately is one of the worst drivers I’ve ever seen.

On the other hand, I spent the entire car ride crammed in next to Cora and having a fabulous time bickering with her relentlessly about the music on the radio. As we wave goodnight to Lucy on the 3rd floor and Cora on the 4th, I already miss the way her hair smells and the way she talks with her hands and the way she swats at me when she’s annoyed and the way she gets my humor and the way she makes me feel like we’re the only ones around for miles. So, it’s not all bad.

[n3rdybird]

Reciprocal Altruism Chapter 1

Hey guys, I got some good feedback, so I decided to really work on this. Hope you enjoy!!

Reciprocal Altruism Chapter 1

___________________________________________________________

Running was never a favorite pastime of yours, even before the apocalypse.  Hell, even before you turned, you were more of a leisurely walk type of person.

Luckily, your vampire traits came in handy at the end of the world.  Rather than waste time finding a working car with gas and hot wiring it, you just reverted to using your vampire speed.  It was easier, and more discreet, especially when you were following someone.

Even so, you still hated running.  If your lungs weren’t dead already, you were sure they’d be on their last rattling breaths.  You had been following the convoy for about an hour, making sure to keep far enough back to not be noticed, but close enough not to lose them.  Hopefully they would stop soon, you could only run this fast for so long, and you were flagging.

You wrinkled your nose as you kept pace.  They didn’t stop to scavenge, but instead kept moving.  Even though there seemed to be several potential neighborhoods you were passing.  That told you two things. The convoy had already ransacked all the neighborhoods near their home, and they were highly organized.  This group had reach.

But it was the smell that kept your attention.  The smell of death was growing.  You wondered if there was a herd nearby.  That would throw a wrench in your plans, especially if the herd destroyed the group you were following.  You were brought out of your internal musings when the trucks turned off the main road and you stopped.

It wasn’t the building that gave you pause, though the tall factory was impressive.  It was the chain-link and concrete fence surrounding it.  And the dozens of walkers chained to the perimeter.

“Well that’s what I smelled,” you murmured to yourself, as you stuck to the shadows, keeping out of sight.

The trucks were ushered through a gate, heavily armed men waving them through.  There were also guards along the fence, and you spotted the glint of scopes from various vantage points on the factory itself.  These guys took security seriously.

So you watched the coming and going of the people living in the abandoned factory. The community seemed to run like a well oiled machine.  It was impressive, if not intimidating.  You had to hand it to the survivors. Not everyone was equipped to deal with the end of the world, literally or figuratively. But these people were definitely doing more than just surviving.  They were flourishing.

More people meant more sources of blood, if you got to that point and weren’t killed on sight.  You could continue to subsist on animal blood, as you had been the past month, but it took twice as much to slake your thirst. Not to mention it wasn’t as palatable or substantial.

You weighed the pros and cons.  More people means more blood. More people also meant more danger.  You preferred to keep your affliction on a need-to-know basis, until you felt safe.  And from what you gathered from watching, this group had a long hierarchy. If the wrong person found out what you were, it could spell disaster.

But, the truth of the matter was, no matter how much animal blood you drank, you would need human blood eventually.  With your age and your willpower, you could probably last, at max, another two months without human blood.  After that, it would be a free for all.

You stood up, brushing the dirt and debris off your pants.  If it all went tits up, hell, you’re a vampire. If you had to fight your way out, you would.  For now, you just had figure out your point of entry.

———————————————————

Simon was leading a convoy back from the Kingdom.  He rubbed the bridge of his nose, a headache brewing behind his eyes. Ezekiel was, a character, to say the least.  All the renaissance fair reject shit was something he put up with since the community supplied them with fresh meat.  But it didn’t mean he liked it. He just wanted to get back to the Sanctuary and sleep.

He returned his focus to the road, narrowing his eyes when he saw movement.  A group of walkers were converging on the side of the road.  A small figure seemed to be dodging the walkers, swinging a machete.

Simon flashed his lights, and pulled over, the two trucks following him doing the same.  He got out of the cab, taking his gun from his holster.

He shot one walker that was creeping up behind the woman.  She turned in surprise before continuing her assault on on the walkers.

The other Saviors looked to Simon for instruction.

“Well fucking shoot them,” he said exasperated, raising his gun to take another shot.  The soldiers followed suit, mowing down the walkers with ease.

The woman wiped off viscera that had coated her button up, but kept her machete out, eyeing them warily.

“You okay doll?” Simon asked, keeping an eye for more walkers.  One of her eyebrows jumped above her dark glasses.

“Doll? I’d be insulted if you didn’t just possibly save my life,” she quipped.

Simon chuckled.

“That’s right I did, you gonna say thank you?”

“I might, but I suppose that depends on what kind of “thank you” you want in return,” she said, tightening her grip on her machete.

“Easy now,” Simon said, raising his hands in defense.

“Why don’t we all put our weapons away, and you tell me your name?”

____________________________________

Even though you could have dispatched the small group of walkers with ease, you needed to be seen as capable, but not a threat.

Luckily you had timed it right, and the group you had been stalking actually stopped to help.  You tried not to wince as they used their guns to ‘save’ you.  Gunfire was always rough on your delicate hearing.

So they had guns, and weren’t afraid of wasting ammo. The leader of the group was an older man, maybe mid to late forties. It was hard to tell, people seemed to age faster nowadays.

You dropped your machete to your side, but didn’t sheathe it.  You could decapitate at least four of the group before anyone knew what was going on.

Your eyes darted imperceptibly fast under your dark glasses, as you took in your ‘rescuers.’ There were ten total; all armed, fingers off the trigger, but that could change in a moments notice.  It was a mix of men and women, so at least they were equal opportunity.  You tilted your head slightly, picking up on an additional four, still in the trucks.  You could decipher who had been in the group longer than others, their eyes staying trained on you, rather than the few newbies who seemed to dart from you to the mustached man, and back to you.  They were clearly unsure to what the procedure was in the case of finding a random survivor.  Or, this was against normal procedure.

You sheathed your machete, a sign of compliance, before reaching down to grab your bag.

“What’s in the bag?” the mustache asked, resting his hand on his hip and his pistol.

You tossed the bag to the nearest soldier, keeping your face straight as he fumbled, nearly dropping both your bag and his gun.

“Go ahead and look.  Just some clothes, food, a book,” you said offhandedly.  The soldier opened your bag, and showed the contents to Mustache, who nodded and your bag was tossed back at your feet.

“You don’t have any other weapons?” he asked.

“Other than my cutting wit, no,” you replied with a toothy smile.

Mustache groaned.

“Great, another smart ass.”

“I’ve been told we tend to flock together, so I’m not entirely sure what that says about you,” you said with a shit eating smile.

You held out a gloved hand.

“Y/N,” you said.

“Simon,” he responded, taking your hand in his.  Even through your glove, you could feel the warmth of his hand.  

It was always a surprise to feel the heat coming off humans.  Your own skin had been cool like marble for the last several decades.  It was sometimes unnerving when people felt how unnaturally cold she was, hence the gloves she wore.  Saying she was anemic, only got so far.

“You alone?” he asked.

“If I wasn’t, I’m sure you’d know by now. But yeah, just me, myself and I.”

Simon nodded thoughtfully, and stroked his mustache.

“Are you looking for a group?”

“Is that an offer? Do you guys have dental?”

“Roof over your head. Food. Protection,” he listed.

“And to get that?” you probed.

“Let’s just leave that for the boss man,” Simon said leading you to the truck.  He rested his hand on your lower back.

“Easy there Burt Reynolds,” you said, pulling away from his touch.  He smiled slyly and removed his hand slowly, giving you a wink.

He took you to the back of the truck, where another soldier was waiting with zip ties.

“Just a precaution doll,” he said when he saw you pause.

You held out your hands, knowing you could break them easily.  After the soldier secured your hands, another took your machete.

“I’m gonna want that back later, please and thank you,” you sassed, as you climbed into the back of the truck, plopping down in the center of the bench.

Simon just shook his head.

“Alright, everyone load up. Let’s get home.”

————————————————————

The ride to their base was relatively quiet.  You took the the time to not only survey your riding companions but to note the distance you rode and turns the truck took.  If they took you anywhere else, other than the main base you found days prior, you would know.

You were sandwiched between two burly men, with a woman in front of you.  She had her pistol sitting on her lap, a bored expression on her face.  You seemed to have gotten the stoic group, not much for conversation. Either that or they didn’t want to talk around you.  Which was fine, you were used to being alone.

The smell of human blood was enough to lift your spirits. If this worked out, then you’d not only have a place to stay, but hopefully a source of food too.

The truck took the final turn, and the truck slowed.  You could hear the groaning of the dead on the fence and the creak of the gate.

When the truck stopped, the two men sitting next to you pulled you to your feet.

Your appointed guard took point, getting out of the truck first, before nodding to the men.  The duo helped you out of the truck, keeping a firm grip on your arms.

A booming voice caught your attention.

“Well who did you bring me Simon? I know she’s not one of Ezekiel’s.”

You were brought to another man, this one almost as tall as Simon, but more built, whereas the Burt Reynold’s mustache twin was wiry.

He had dark hair peppered with white, a leather jacket, and a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire propped on his shoulder.

Simon shooed your guards away, and held your elbow.

“This is (Y/N).  Saw her fighting off a group of walkers.”

The man, obviously the leader, raised his eyebrows and gave Simon a wink.

“And you decided to play Knight-in-shining-armor eh?  Don’t blame you, she’s pretty cute,” he said, not caring if you heard him.

“Well then (Y/N), my name is Negan, and this-” he said, gesturing at the busy community.

“Is my humble abode. Sanctuary.”

You glanced around, as if taking in your surroundings for the first time.

“Looks like a pretty safe place,” you said evenly, nodding your head in acceptance.

Negan grinned, obviously proud of his home sweet home.

“Oh and it is.  But to keep this place safe, we have rules.  Number one, I’m big dick in charge. What I say, goes.”

He glanced at your face curiously, and pointed to your face using his bat.

You could smell the blood permeating the wood, a mix of walker and human blood that would always linger in the porous wood.

“So Simon says-” he started sharing a quick smile with his right hand man, laughing at his joke. “-Take off your sunglasses.  I don’t like talking to people when I can’t see their eyes.  Too many untrustworthy folks nowadays.”

You brought your bound hands up to your face, and pulled your sunglasses off.  You folded the stems, keeping your eye protection securely in your hand.

You squinted a bit, it was still fairly bright out, being middle of the afternoon.  You forced your lids open, and allowed your eyes to semi-adjust to the light.

“Apologies Mr. Negan.  I have photophobia.  My eyes are a bit sensitive to light,” you said looking at him.

Your eyes, which were a normal color before your turn, now were several shades lighter.  It gave your eyes a sort of pastel color, usually only achievable with contact lenses.

Negan and Simon took turns studying your eyes, watching when you would avert your gaze when a particularly strong beam of light would hit them, but not when they were looking directly at you.

“Well whaddya know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes so pretty,” Negan declared, motioning for you to follow him into a shadier spot.

Simon followed the two of you, keeping close in case you decided to try something.

“So (Y/N), what can Negan do for you,” he asked, referring to himself in third person.

“Well the real question is what can I do, to stay here?” you asked.

Negan slapped his leg.

“Shit, you picked a good one Simon.  Ready to follow the rules and everything. Look at her, eager to do some hard work.  Don’t that just beat all.”

“There are three levels here.  Those who work for points in exchange for food, clothing, and the like. Maintenance, cooking, or scrubbing shit.  Saviors, like my man Simon here, who do the scavenging and are my trusted soldiers and lieutenants.”

“And the third?”

Negan smiled toothily.

“Ah, the third. I alway save the best for last.  The third position, only handed out to a special few, is to be one of my wives. Mine to have and hold in holy matrimony, in exchange for whatever you could possibly want in this life.”

He looked you up and down.

“Even under that layer of dirt, I can see you’re pretty sexy.  What do you say?  Wanna be wife number three?”

Wow, he really went there.  You could see why some ladies would take him up on his offer.  He was attractive, there was no denying that. And there was nothing wrong with easy, but you didn’t think you’d be able to survive that way.  Besides, it wasn’t like you couldn’t work, and you had never been one to sit around.  The audacity of the offer was what really threw you. He didn’t even know you.  He must really think with his dick when pretty ladies were on the line, especially when his position as leader was stable.  He was indeed king of this castle.

You bit your lip to keep from laughing, and hoped your face seemed more shy and less flabbergasted.

“If it’s all the same to you sir, I’ll work for my points.  Not really big on sharing.”

He laughed, not at all insulted by your decision.

“Well, I am big enough to share, but if you change your mind, just let me know.”

He pulled out a knife, and cut your bonds.  You rubbed your wrists more out of habit, than from pain or loss of circulation. He kept the knife out, and rested the tip on your chest.

“I’m only saying this once, and I say it to everyone, so don’t think I’m singling you out.  You follow the rules, you work, and we will get along nicely. I’d hate to add you to the fence club,” he said, nodding his head in the general direction of the walkers chained to the wall.

You kept your gaze firm, but not combative.

“Yes sir.”

He laughed again, and re-sheathed his knife.

“Welcome to Sanctuary.”

——————————————————————————

Whatcha guys think? Let me know! Writing Negan was super fun.

[hl-herewegoagain]

A court-appointed interpreter’s account of the May 12, 2008 Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on Agriprocessors, Inc., the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States. 900 agents were involved in the raid. He says, “nothing could have prepared me for the prospect of helping our government put hundreds of innocent people in jail.”

Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the following days, notepad in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10. They appeared to be uniformly no more than 5 ft. tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names, some being relatives (various Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí...), some in tears; others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment. They all spoke Spanish, a few rather laboriously. It dawned on me that, aside from their Guatemalan or Mexican nationality, which was imposed on their people after Independence, they too were Native Americans, in shackles. They stood out in stark racial contrast with the rest of us as they started their slow penguin march across the makeshift court. “Sad spectacle” I heard a colleague say, reading my mind. They had all waived their right to be indicted by a grand jury and accepted instead an information or simple charging document by the U.S. Attorney, hoping to be quickly deported since they had families to support back home. But it was not to be. They were criminally charged with “aggravated identity theft” and “Social Security fraud”—charges they did not understand... and, frankly, neither could I.

The offense clearly refers to harmful, felonious acts, such as obtaining credit under another person’s identity. Obtaining work, however, is not an “unlawful activity.” No way would a grand jury find probable cause of identity theft here. But with the promise of faster deportation, their ignorance of the legal system, and the limited opportunity to consult with counsel before arraignment, all the workers, without exception, were led to waive their 5th Amendment right to grand jury indictment on felony charges. Waiting for a grand jury meant months in jail on an immigration detainer, without the possibility of bail. So the attorneys could not recommend it as a defense strategy. Similarly, defendants have the right to a status hearing before a judge, to determine probable cause, within ten days of arraignment, but their Plea Agreement offer from the government was only good for... seven days. Passing it up, meant risking 2 years in jail. As a result, the frivolous charge of identity theft was assured never to undergo the judicial test of probable cause. Not only were defendants and judges bound to accept the Plea Agreement, there was also absolutely no defense strategy available to counsel. Once the inflated charge was handed down, all the pieces fell into place like a row of dominoes. Even the court was banking on it when it agreed to participate, because if a good number of defendants asked for a grand jury or trial, the system would be overwhelmed. In short,“fast-tracking”had worked like a dream.

Of Agriprocessors’ 968 current employees, about 75% were illegal immigrants. There were 697 arrest warrants, but late-shift workers had not arrived, so “only” 390 were arrested: 314 men and 76 women; 290 Guatemalans, 93 Mexicans, four Ukrainians, and three Israelis who were not seen in court. Some were released on humanitarian grounds: 56 mostly mothers with unattended children, a few with medical reasons, and 12 juveniles were temporarily released with ankle monitors or directly turned over for deportation. In all, 306 were held for prosecution. Only five of the 390 originally arrested had any kind of prior criminal record. There remained 307 outstanding warrants.

This was the immediate collateral damage. Postville, Iowa (pop. 2,273), where nearly half the people worked at Agriprocessors, had lost 1/3 of its population by Tuesday morning. Businesses were empty, amid looming concerns that if the plant closed it would become a ghost town.

Some American parents complained that their children were traumatized by the sudden disappearance of so many of their school friends. The principal reported the same reaction in the classrooms, saying that for the children it was as if ten of their classmates had suddenly died. Counselors were brought in. American children were having nightmares that their parents too were being taken away. The superintendant said the school district’s future was unclear: “This literally blew our town away.” In some cases both parents were picked up and small children were left behind for up to 72 hours. Typically, the mother would be released “on humanitarian grounds” with an ankle GPS monitor, pending prosecution and deportation, while the husband took first turn in serving his prison sentence. Meanwhile the mother would have no income and could not work to provide for her children. Some of the children were born in the U.S. and are American citizens. Sometimes one parent was a deportable alien while the other was not. “Hundreds of families were torn apart by this raid,” said a Catholic nun. “The humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone in Postville. The economic impact will soon be evident.”

His case and that of a million others could simply be solved by a temporary work permit as part of our much overdue immigration reform. “The Good Lord knows I was just working and not doing anyone any harm.” This man, like many others, was in fact not guilty. “Knowingly” and “intent” are necessary elements of the charges, but most of the clients we interviewed did not even know what a Social Security number was or what purpose it served. This worker simply had the papers filled out for him at the plant, since he could not read or write Spanish, let alone English. But the lawyer still had to advise him that pleading guilty was in his best interest. … To him we were part of the system keeping him from being deported back to his country, where his children, wife, mother, and sister depended on him. He was their sole support and did not know how they were going to make it with him in jail for 5 months. … Before he signed with a scribble, he said: “God knows you are just doing your job to support your families, and that job is to keep me from supporting mine.” There was my conflict of interest, well put by a weeping, illiterate man.

We will never know how many of the 290 Guatemalans had legitimate asylum claims for fear of persecution, back in a country stigmatized by the worst human rights situation in the hemisphere, a by-product of the US-backed Contra wars in Central America under the old domino theory of the 1980s. For three decades, anti-insurgent government death squads have ravaged the countryside, killing tens of thousands and displacing almost two million peasants. Even as we proceeded with the hearings during those two weeks in May, news coming out of Guatemala reported farm workers being assassinated for complaining publicly about their working conditions. Not only have we ignored the many root causes of illegal immigration, we also will never know which of these deportations will turn out to be a death sentence, or how many of these displaced workers are last survivors with no family or village to return to.

I remember reading that immigration lawyers were alarmed that the detainees were being rushed into a plea without adequate consultation on the immigration consequences. Even the criminal defense attorneys had limited opportunity to meet with clients: in jail there were limited visiting hours and days; at the compound there was little time before and after hearings, and little privacy due to the constant presence of agents.There were 17 cases for each attorney, and the Plea offer was only good for 7 days. In addition, criminal attorneys are not familiar with immigration work and vice versa, but had to make do since immigration lawyers were denied access to these “criminal” proceedings.

One of my colleagues began the day by saying “I feel a tremendous solidarity with these people.” Had we lost our impartiality? Not at all: that was our impartial and probably unanimous judgment. We had seen attorneys hold back tears and weep alongside their clients. We would see judges, prosecutors, clerks, and marshals do their duty, sometimes with a heavy heart, sometimes at least with mixed feelings, but always with a particular solemnity not accorded to the common criminals we all are used to encountering in the judicial system.

The interpreter is the only one who gets to see both sides of the coin up close, precisely because he is the only participant who is not a decision maker, and is even precluded, by his oath of impartiality and neutrality, from ever influencing the decisions of others. That is why judges in particular appreciate the interpreter’s perspective as an impartial and informed layperson, for it provides a rare glimpse at how the innards of the legal system look from the outside. I was no longer sorry to have participated in my capacity as an interpreter. I realized that I had been privileged to bear witness to historic events from such a unique vantage point and that because of its uniqueness I now had a civic duty to make it known. Such is the spirit that inspired this essay.

The essay points out that the criminalization of “illegal immigration” arose with the creation of ICE as a part of the Office of Homeland Security. ICE was created “as a law enforcement agency for the post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcement authorities against criminal and terrorist activities, including the fights against human trafficking and smuggling, violent transnational gangs and sexual predators who prey on children.” This charge does not provide enough work for an agency that employed 16,500 in 2007 or justify its $5 billion 2007 budget.

The real numbers are in immigration: “In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens.” ICE is under enormous pressure to turn out statistical figures that might justify a fair utilization of its capabilities, resources, and ballooning budget.

[coffeeandmoonthoughts]

04.05

It feels like it’s so easy for me to fall right off the side of the planet. Which leaves me feeling like I need to death-grip the whole thing just to stay afloat. It’s so easy for me to get distracted. Or my mind to fill with the wants, needs, opinions, the clutter of others’ ideas. I don’t want that. I want to feel crystal clear with myself. I want to listen carefully and hear my own intuition. It’s so effortless to get caught up with literally anything else. That tiny little whim can be so easily drown out behind the clutter of everything else I’m picking up on (a highly controversial subject of something called mirror-neurons and emotional contagion, among other things). And when I can’t hear myself, I become afraid. It’s scary to soak up everyone else, until there is no room for you. At least, it feels that way. It’s hard to recognize the difference between something stemming from roots deep within myself, or from someone else near me. It forces me to defensively cling to myself. Which, after a while, doesn’t always feel good either. I don’t want a death grip on life. Lightly, lightly. Life is too easy for it to feel this hard. Easy and lightly. It seems I can go weeks before I finally find a way to shut out everything and sit in singularity. Shut out… that’s not the right word. “Shut out” hints at closing a door, putting up a wall or tightly boarding up windows. No, it’s more of a clearing out. The sweeping out of some unwanted, unasked-for clutter. Everyone else’s mess. But, I’m not boarded up or sealed shut. I’m clear with myself. I guess that would be the word to use… It sounds so strange to talk about. Feelings. Because it requires a leap of the imagination into the unknown or unknowable. It’s a risk of sounding stupid to someone who cant think more abstract. Something science can see, but not see. I (with all my facts and scientific brain) am still learning to be okay with it. My right brain and left brain wrestling with each other when they should be working in unison, fusing different vantage points into one idea I can actually work with. I think, this is what you call surrendering to life. I can understand it, barely wrap my head around it but see it crystal clear. And instead of fighting it, find a way to work side by side with it. Flow with it. Stay clear with it. Embrace it. Rework it in a way that benefits me, or allow it to rework me in a way that benefits my life. Understanding that there is so much that I do not understand, but by having faith, it will simply be. Eventually, when I’m able to feel clear, I wont feel like I want to jump out of my skin anymore. Yes, sometimes it feels that way. When my neurons are firing so fast that all I want to do is jump out of my brain, my body, that for some reason was built/wired this way, fine-tuned and developed over time. But if I can learn a way to work with it, to bend not break, to have more flex and give, it will make things easier. Less resistance. It’s kind of like a feather in the wind. The feather gets blown around but it’s so light that it doesn’t get ripped apart. It simply floats back safely to the ground, intact. This is the reason skyscrapers are built flexible. Because if they weren’t they would snap. This is why humans, in futile resistance, might subject themselves to more suffering than needed. The trick isn’t in finding a way to land on the ground, the trick is in learning how to maintain your feather spine while bending in the gusts of wind, even embracing them. I’d like to know how to do that. 

In this particular dream I was in a house. Not my house, someone else’s. I was coming over for something, with a number of people, and I was the first to arrive. In the dream I remember I was flustered because one of the rooms wasn’t clean for company. I mean, it was an utter disaster by anyone’s standards. But it wasn’t a main room. Still, I was so annoyed that the person hadn’t prepared for company or cleaned. I started cleaning myself even after the company had arrived. They stayed in a main room and I hoped they wouldn’t come into the other room while I cleaned. It felt like the more I cleaned, the messier it became. I cleaned the floor and for some reason (it’s a dream- it doesn’t have to make sense) the floor was paper thin and started peeling off. It came apart. And under it was broken strips of wood. The strips of wood were splintered and there were massive holes between beams. I tried to fix it as best I could. I even moved something over the hole to cover it but it just got worse, until everything came in swirling around the room. It was like a black hole except I was in it. Debris came in through the hole in the floor and it was utter chaos. Paper and things came flying into the room in a whirlwind and I couldn’t stop it. Eventually I gave up. I got the host and told the host that this was on them. I did what I could. It wasn’t my fault and any unfavorable opinion from the guests (three men sitting at a kitchen table) was on them, not me. I washed my hands clean of it, even though I was a mess and practically furious from frustration. Like I said, its a dream. It doesn’t have to make sense. Usually in dreams, none of it makes sense and its all a bit wonky (our vision is spotting, sometimes actions are just mere flashes or feelings, sometimes the whole dream takes place in a matter of a couple seconds and in order to remember it we need to run through the feeling and flashes immediately after we wake up). But we always remember the feeling. Because despite the facts, however exaggerated or omitted they may be, the feeling is what remains with us - you cant fake it. It sticks around with us even after the fact. That feeling of uncontrollable flying debris. The feeling of trying to damn up a gaping hole. The feeling of being the black hole. Even right now it’s making me want to crawl right out of my own skin. 

Me: Well, seems that during this time Neptune was on top of Mercury. Neptune being the planet influencing our dreams and Mercury being the planet of communication. Makes sense. Everything feeling so water and foggy. This all taking place in Pisces, which is the opposite of Virgo which rules our logic and rational mind. Opposing sign. Which may mean our logical mind isn’t working the way we like and may send us inward to listen to our intuition. Needing us to be able to discern between what is true, rooted in reality and what is coming in through intuition or what is based in fear or old patterns, programming or reverting to the past because it’s what is comfortable. And Venus (planet of love) and mercury will be moving out of Pisces and moving into Aries which is way more direct and fiery and even playful. So, thank god that watery abyss is over now.

Also me: Astrology isn’t real. You’ve had a migraine for two weeks straight. I think thats foggy enough. But good news, girl, you finally broke through your migraine. 

04.09

I was walking down a pathway. A sidewalk of sorts. It was between shops and brick buildings and I was walking with my dog and my sister. The concrete was old and cracked and weirdly poured and shaped. I remember telling her about a way to make caramel cake that I saw someone doing and I tried it myself. Then, I remember the sidewalk slanted rapidly and twisted around a tree. Part of it was broken and you had to let yourself down and then jump over something. I tried it first and was explaining to my sister how to do it. Then we kept walking. But all of a sudden I was on an old street I used to live by. I was walking down the sidewalk by myself. A truck came up behind me, still a distance away, and I turned around to get a look at it. It was an old white ford and it was swerving back and forth. The driver was drunk. He could barely keep his eyes open. I thought to myself, oh no I have to get out of his way. He wrecked his truck into a building and stumbled out with a shot gun and started walking. Oh my god, I thought. This looks really bad. He didn’t look like he was going to shoot someone up though. He looked like someone who was two sheets from the wind and trying to save the shotgun he didn’t want to leave in his truck. He carried it around and stumbled into buildings like a video game character stuck in a glitch. I looked around to see if anyone else was seeing this. No one else was around, except for his equally drunk friend who was walking far ahead of me in the exact same scenario. I quietly panicked, not wanting them to notice me but felt like I had to find someone, to get their attention. Although they weren’t causing a trouble yet, no one in their right mind walks around drunk on the street haphazardly carrying a shotgun. I felt like it had bad news written all over it and then I woke up.

Last night I fell asleep around 8 pm. I didn’t mean to. I was sitting in bed working on my laptop with my dog by my side. A sense of overwhelming drowsiness suddenly swept over me. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. There was no reason for me to be falling asleep that early, it just sort of came out of nowhere. I actually nodded off a few times before I let my laptop drop to the floor next to me. When I woke up from this dream it was 3:08 am. Despite my sleepy haze I noticed the bedroom door was wide open and the hallway light was glaring at me. That’s weird, I thought. I always keep the door shut when the dog is with me because he roams and gets into trouble. And I always keep the light off because it pours into the room and right into my eyes. I rolled over and went back to sleep until I woke up at 5 am and found my phone floating around in the blankets, no alarm even set. Most of the things in this dream make sense. Earlier that day I saw a large white truck that was driving too slow. I also saw a hack to making a homemade caramel that some woman put on a cake. I guess it hit me in my feels because it carried over into my dreams. The rest of the dream was just little bits and pieces I don’t remember. The thing I don’t understand is the two drunk men toting shotguns and why my door was wide open and the light was on. Most things I can usually link to mental processes, but sometimes they don’t make sense at all.