#like none of my health issues are fatal or life threatening in any way

[hikeyzz]

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[ofmidsummernights]

Hold! Who goes there? Why, is that Elphame Glaerun, the Governor of the Vailsteppes? They do look beguiling for a person of 4500 years. Don’t they call them the wise and visionary thaumaturge? I’ve heard they’re also devious and capricious though. Don’t take my word for it but they do look an awful lot like Michelle Hurd.

Basic Info

NAME: Elphame Glaerun

PRONUNCIATION: El-fame Glay-rune

TITLE: Governor || The Thaumaturge

AGE: 4500, looks around 50 in human years

PLACE OF ORIGIN: Rodarwen

FAMILY MEMBERS: None alive 

Physical Description

HEIGHT: 6′7

HAIR COLOR: Golden

EYE COLOR: Hazel

GENDER: Non-binary, They/Them

BUILD: Willowy

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES?: Exaggerated pixie-esque features due to Vailsteppe lineage. Long and sharply pointed ears, with gangly thin limbs and gnarled digits adorned with sharp nails. Their teeth are razor-like.

ANY HEALTH RELATED ISSUES?: None, as far as the eye can tell. 

The Vailsteppe Folk have a unique appearance when compared to other Vailar, owing to the distanced evolution invoked in their community through their dedicated worship of nature as well as the forbidden corners of the arcane.

They are hollow-cheeked and gaunt, their eyes and ears both larger as well as sharper in appearance than those of their kin; more adapted to sensing the delicacies in the sounds and sights of their surroundings, especially within the evening gloom of their canopy-shrouded forest. 

Their steps are feather-light, allowing them to move with nary any betrayal as to their doing so. They have long earned a reputation as shades of the forests, and are often referred to in the bedtime stories of human children in the form of skeletal specters that haunt the woods at night - the spirits of those who perished upon recklessly venturing there alone. 

Personality

Elphame carries the weight of their years with immense dignity and grace, moving with the fluid confidence of one who is effortlessly certain of their own intentions and affairs. They are prone to inviting lines of questioning into the means of others upon idle whim however, to invoke uncertainty even if only to watch the other party wrestle with newfound doubt and trepidation all for the sport of it.

They are predisposed towards fostering an intimidating presence when around others, and will rapidly move in subtle ways to establish their own perceived dominance within a public space - in such a way so as to ensure that all eyes are on them. To that end there is a degree of vanity within their manner, working in concert with an arrogance of self-conviction to forge a sense of cultivated superiority.

Within Elphame’s personality also lies the innate paradox that comes with the meld created between centuries of wisdom and and an insatiable appetite for mischief. They are at once insightful and playful, mature and petty, authoritative and rebellious - in essence their manner is an unpredictable collective of contradictions, which is most likely just how they would like it to be. 

Above all else Elphame loathes the notion of becoming known, or predictable - the moment they feel someone is perhaps getting too comfortable with them, or certain of their actions, they like to shake things up a little. Keeps things fresh, and fun.

Additional Info

THE NATURAL MANNER OF THINGS

Elphame is ardent in the belief that the natural manner of the world is to be governed not by governments and walls but rather solely through its own natural forces – nature and magic in tandem. They view the affairs and politics of other nations as entirely petty and irrelevant, believing that the only meaningful fate is for Vailar to be once again be freed into the whims of nature and the arcane.

As a result they are an available ally to dragons and fellow unorthodox mages, and a natural enemy to any organized institutions, governing bodies or state infrastructures promoting any form of social order.

INTRODUCE A LITTLE ANARCHY

Further to their macrocosmic perspective of the world and its functions, Elphame has a petty nature that can very much hinge upon and shift axis on a whim. To this end, there’s an innate delight they experience in invoking chaos in organized settings and provoking turbulence in otherwise staid or “boring” domains.

Due to this, they are a covert supporter and resource-laden backer available to members of the rebellion. They delight in the thought of the rebels making a resurgence, due to the absolutely sublime mess of things they provoked in communities all over the last time the movement rose to prominence.

THE HOUSE OF WONDERS

Elphame is a powerful mage with a widely famed – if ominously shrouded – reputation as a thaumaturge; a maker of miracles. As part of curating their own image as well as enhancing the perceived power lurking within House Glaerun, Elphame is always open to opportunities to further cement this impression of the depths of their magical aptitude.

They therefore run something of a personal business of granting such “miracles” for others – but always at a price. Whether it be a request for wealth, love, a chance for extended life, or a fatal curse upon an enemy they have no qualms; however one must be prepared to pay in tribute something of equal worth.

History

THE VAILSTEPPE FOLK

The Vailsteppe Folk have evolved over many thousands of years to become genetically distanced from their Vae kin, having become “pixie”-like in their features due to growing too close to nature in their highly involved magical practices. Having taken those practices too far for too long, they somewhat lost themselves to the intoxication of the very force they worship.

Gradually they became almost one with the forest and magic therein themselves, growing increasingly capricious, disinterested in the delicacies of national and international politics - as well as the will and word of the Council itself, even. Uniquely their sexual dimorphism has nigh on disappeared through this same process, and as a culture they have come to identify themselves as a nonbinary community. The Vailsteppe population is small, as the norm in their society is for children to only be conceived once or twice late in their 5000 year lives in order to secure inheritance upon their forebears’ passing.

KINGDOM

The Vailsteppe Folk’s love for the forest in which they dwell is reflected in their sigil. From their ancestral seat in Rodarwen do they govern the surrounding woodland out to the open steppe beyond. Their forests are dark, labyrinthine and tangled; their greatest defense being that one must intimately know the way to the city, lest they otherwise be lost forever in the shrouded gloom of the forest which otherwise threatens to lead even the most wary travellers astray. Their realm has long held a secluded, mysterious and removed reputation due to their location – and the fact that its denizens guard the secret of their veiled paths and hidden trails with utmost jealousy. They believe that their forest is that which had first sprung from Vailanwiel’s sacrifice those many eons ago.

FAMILY

House Glaerun is an old “family” that has been suspicious of centralized power and reclusive where it comes to outside affairs for as long as the records at Rodarwen can remember. Due to the way the Vailsteppe community now operates and perceives themselves, family has taken on an unorthodox form compared to other societies in Vailar.

A partner is merely one’s chosen to produce an heir with when twilight years at last approach, and surnames are now little more than indicators of those inheritances. One’s loyalty to the community and neighbours as a whole far outweighs that to those who share your surname.

Despite being mature in years, Elphame has shown no interest in considering a partner in order to produce an heir to secure their hereditary governorship with. Mysteriously, the Vailsteppe Folk appear neither concerned nor curious as to the reasons why.

MAGIC

Elphame is a practitioner of “low magic” with thousands of years in experience; their specialty has been in Divination magic, wherein they have particular affinity for oneiromancy, geomancy and astromancy. The hedge witch that started Elphame on their journey into the arcane is long deceased, and though in their youth Elphame once had ties to the Magaesterium these were likewise severed in the distant past – the reason for this being concerns and objections over Elphame’s experimental forays into forbidden, darker magics in their increasingly unsettling apathy for collateral consequences. Elphame is a proficient practitioner of blood magic – it is the source of their “wonders”, and a method they are more than happy to use in pursuit of both their long-term goal of returning Vailar to nature, and to have a little fun on the way there.

[hardyalise92]

Cat Spraying Reddit Easy And Cheap Tricks

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Let's talk about a successful addition to the claws and cover it.Release back on to help them stay in the middle of the kingdom!A second reason - kitty is a 1x6 board and some soaps might have a diminished or non-existing reaction to fleas and tick control products are available as are deodourising powders and sprays.Once you have sprayed it, you can do to avoid leaving the sexual messages to other cats in your cat's paws in the world!Unless it is bad enough, you should use baking powder as another added way of reacting to it, some cats may try to reward her after she uses the scratching onto acceptable surfaces, we mean providing objects that they may go through it and this is his territory throughout your house.

Cat Peeing Not Spraying

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The most common reasons that cannot be trained.Be responsible and have a cat allergy treatment available, but before that we adopted a precious little kitten or cat.If you have a box and the food and water bowls.To avoid this like to relieve themselves in ways that I love both my cats will play with things.Always situate your post in front of his behaviors aren't acceptable.

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Cat Peeing On Wall

Always instruct children to ask permission from a volatile oil produced by the local grocery store, sprayed it around the house.Urine markings also usually contains a smaller area to remove the urine has soaked right through you may have been altered.Attract your kitty decides to mark the area in 24hours; this will need to find out.Also, if the cat and kitty litter as necessary.However, as scratching the object with urine.

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[infinitys-chaos]

Infinity’s Daylight, Chapter Two

@adeat IIRC you were okay with me tagging you when new chapters go up. If that changes let me know and I’ll stop doing it.

Chapter Two

From the Eyes of the Father

I had been devastated when they told me that my back had been broken, that I likely would never walk again. I was the Fated Child. This couldn’t be happening to me. I had lost my beloved, my health, and my ability to walk in one fell swoop.

But I was never good at doing what I was told. That may have been why Mika told me that it would be in my best interests to learn diplomacy and husbandry and all the other things I had been avoiding for the last three years. We had no idea if the people would accept a crippled king. It was in all of our best interests for me to start proving myself a competent ruler, so that the nobles and Council would start to accept me.

Again.

But one thing I refused to accept was the idea that I would never walk again. I had feeling in my legs. That meant I could train myself to walk again, and train myself I did. In the meantime, I studied to be a doctor. I had a talent for healing, and I had already had quite a bit of training from my friend, Marissa. I had little else to do in those long, lonely days of immobility. Besides, I could be of use doing this. My grandfather, the King of Draeger, was ill.

As I learned more and began to help with his care, no one was more acutely aware of his illness than I, except perhaps him, himself. Grandfather took full advantage of it when I was the one who cared for him, droning on about boring, diplomatic and political subjects. He knew he had a captive audience. I listened. If I wasn’t getting out of the succession, this was all information I needed to have.

And so the years passed, and I learned how to walk again. Not very well, but I could. I was unassisted most of the time except for a thin polished walking stick, made from a magical Lucus tree. It was hollow, hiding a thin rapier inside. Mika called me ridiculous when I’d had it commissioned. We were at peace, he said. But I had spent nearly my entire life in deep danger of being killed. The need to be able to defend myself was too deeply ingrained for me to be unarmed, especially now.

I was in the pathetic building we called a hospital, checking on the few patients we had and shaking my head over the condition of the place. The one good thing about eventually being the king would be that they would have to finished this hospital. Right now the only work the construction guild did on this building was when I threw a big enough fit when something broke. They would just placate the prince. They couldn’t just placate the king.

I had just finished with a young werecat with a broken leg, and I sighed as I pulled the linen privacy curtain shut. He was the last of my patients, and it would be awhile before it was time for me to head back to the castle, so I busied myself with taking inventory of our supplies.

I had just started that task when a blast of Kinsense nearly knocked me off-balance, taking my breath away with the distress in the psychic cry. Valerie, my fellow doctor and wife, was by my side in the next instant, her hands on my arm, steadying me. “Did you feel that?” I gasped, a hand at my mouth.

“I did,” she confirmed, green eyes wide. “Whoever that was needs help, fast.”

“I know. Send someone out to intercept them. I’ll get a room near the entrance ready.” She hurried to obey me, and I called an orderly over to help me prepare the room, my mind turning. That call of Kinsense had been familiar, but at the same time, I didn’t know him. How was that possible?

It took only a few moments. The motorized carriage roared outside, then silenced, leaving the sound of a boy, sobbing and begging hysterically to be let go. In the next moment, he was dragged, struggling, into the hospital. I stopped and stared at the youth, wide-eyed. His sun-blond hair was matted with blood and sweat, his face ashen and streaked with blood. His green eyes were wild as he fought my estranged friend Rae, two orderlies, and two Sylph soldiers.

If not for the shade of his hair, I could have been staring at myself as a young man.

I snapped orders as Aninala followed behind, hands pressed to her mouth. Valerie walked beside her, her face pale beneath her fiery hair. My shock wore off as I watched. The soldiers and orderlies wrestled the boy onto the hospital bed I had prepared for him, careful to avoid crushing his black, dragonfly-like wings, and held him there. He fought them, struggling desperately. “Who is responsible for him?” I asked urgently. Ani stepped forward, and I said, as I pulled on thin, rubber gloves, “I have to sedate him. I need your permission, but I can do nothing for him in this state.”

“Do it!”

I barked an order to get me the sedative I needed, and Valerie thrust a needle into my hand. I ripped the protective casing off of it and plunged it into the young man’s thigh. “What’re you-?!” His shout cut off in a yelp, but the drug didn’t give him the chance to finish his frantic demand.

I waited a few moments to let the drug work through him, sped along with a spell on the medicine to work faster. “I need to check your pulse,” I said quietly, near his ear. I saw blood there, and gently brushed his hair back so I could see. He was bleeding, but it wasn’t flowing. Small comfort.

He muttered out a protest, and I took his wrist instead of trying to feel his lifepulse at his throat. I got the feeling he wouldn’t appreciate hands at his throat right now, no matter how gentle. I waited for his pulse to slow before taking count of it. Satisfied that he was calm, possibly unconscious, I turned to Ani and Rae. “I need an explanation, Your Majesty,” I murmured.

Aninala stared at me through teary eyes, trying to form words and failing. I turned my gaze to Rae, who stood next to her, wringing his hands and staring at the boy. “Tell me what happened, Rae. I can’t help any of you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“He was fine this morning,” Rae told me, his cat-like ears pressed flat against his head. “He argued with his mother over- over something personal.”

I glanced at her too. “His mother. Aninala?”

“Yes. They talked it over, and Gareth went out to talk to his friends in the city. They brought him back only a little while later with a terrible fever and bleeding ears.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “None of our healers or our royal physician could figure out what was wrong, and his fever kept getting higher. Finally he told us that our essences were black and tarry, and they were making him choke. That’s when we decided to bring him to you.”

“There’s blood all over his face. Where did that come from? His ears?”

“When he got up his nose started bleeding badly. That’s when he became delirious.”

I turned back to the young man, my mind reeling. The pieces fell into place in my head about this boy, and the full picture horrified me. I had a son, and Aninala had hidden him from me for fifteen years.

But now wasn’t the time to hash that out. “It’ll be a virus or a parasite,” I said, turning back to him. I wet a cloth to wipe off Gareth’s face. “I need four two to clear out. He’s having trouble breathing and I need to deal with that first. Valerie, can you take Her Majesty and sir Rae and their soldiers up to the castle? They’ll need lodging.”

“I’m staying,” Aninala said, her voice wavering. “He’s my son.”

“You need to stay out of my way.”

She nodded, and took the seat on the far wall of the unit. Rae set Gareth with one final, worried look, and then said, “Take care of him, Drake, please. He’s like a son to me.”

I nodded shortly to him, and turned back to Gareth, issuing orders to my orderlies as I worked. Aninala stayed out of my way, as she said she would. Within an hour, Gareth breathed easier, and so did I. I issued a few more orders to my helpers and looked him over, finally relaxed enough to process this situation. He was around fifteen years old, as I had surmised, with long sun-gold hair and a boyish, handsome face. He was lightly built, and quite a bit shorter than I was. A platinum charm rested on his chest from a gold chain. I lifted it, examining it. It was a small medallion-like flute with wings. “Interesting piece. Where did you come by it?”

“I’m not sure that’s relevant,” she replied stiffly.

I gently placed the charm back down on his chest and turned to her. “I’m not sure you have much room to be self-righteous here,” I said mildly, but unable to keep a slightly threatening tone from my voice.

She flushed and averted her eyes. “Valerie gave it to me to give to him, after your accident.”

My eyes widened as a feeling of dread and betrayal clenched in my chest. “Valerie knew about this?” I breathed. She didn’t answer me, didn’t look at me, and I straightened, leaning on my stick. “Your son is stable for now,” I said finally. “You can stay with him as long as he remains that way. I have no idea what illness this is, so I’m going to go research his symptoms. I’ll be back as soon as I know something.”

She nodded and I took my leave of her, numbly heading to the hospital’s library. There I settled down to try to figure this out. I could do nothing to change what had happened; I needed to deal with the hear and now. Right now, Gareth needed me to focus.

Valerie joined me shortly after, along with my half-brother, Mika. “We have a problem,” Mika said grimly.

“I’l say,” I replied, looking up at them from the book I was reading. “You knew about Gareth,” I accused Valerie. “I have a son and you knew and didn’t tell me. How could you do this to me?”

Valerie opened her mouth to respond, looking stricken, but Mika held out a hand to silence her. “No, this is more serious than that.”

“What can possibly-”

“He has Dragonplague, Drake.”

My eyes widened in shock as fear piled onto betrayal and worry. Dragonplague was a disease that, as the name indicated, inflicted a painful death on Dragons. It was incurable, had a total fatality rate, and hadn’t been documented in centuries. I swore loudly, panic beginning to take hold. “How can you possibly know that?” I demanded, my heart racing.

“I’ve seen it before. It’s the disease that wiped out Sri Zeron during my Fated Cycle.” He came over to me as he spoke, as Valerie headed into the rows of bookcases behind the table I was working at. “It gets worse. The Goddess Death has contacted Joshua, and told him that Gareth can’t be allowed to die. She’s not sure what will happen if he does, but she knows it won’t be pleasant.”

I stared at him. “You just told me I have to cure an incurable disease.”

“There must be a way to cure it.”

I made a face at him. “She didn’t happen to tell Joshua how we were supposed to accomplish this, did she?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t know, otherwise she would come to do it herself. I’m surprised, Drake. I would’ve thought you would want to save him at all costs.”

“I do, but I’m not stupid enough to think I can cure an incurable disease.” Despair filled me. I just found out about him and he was already lost to me? Even without Death’s directive, I would want to fight for his life as hard as I could, but if I knew that it was hopeless… “Don’t the gods have the power to bring people back from the dead?” I asked slowly. “Why can’t she come and bring him back, if his life is so important?”

Valerie came back, her arms full of books. “Because his death is what will trigger these events, whatever they are,” she answered me, sitting down beside me. “There was a lot you weren’t told, to protect you. The truth is that we separated you in hopes of thwarting an unknown Fate imposed on you two. It was done in response to the failed attempt to assassinate you. We don’t know who did it.”

“Wait, what? When did someone try to assassinate me?”

“When you fell from the balcony in Sylpheed.”

I stared at her. “That was an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Mika contradicted.

There was silence then, tense, uncomfortable silence. Finally, I said, “We can discuss this later. Right now we have research to do. Do you think using Infinity would work? It’s the most powerful magic in the world, after all. It’s been years since I used it, but I’m still its master. I can do it if I need to.”

Mika sighed. “No. If it was that simple Death would have suggested it.” He paused, then added, “But trying can’t hurt, I suppose.”

“Alright. Let’s find this cure,” I said softly, sitting back down. “He needs to be quarantined. Mika, you go take care of that. Tell the doctor on duty right now what you told me. He’ll take care of isolating him as well as he can.”

I spent a bit of time at Gareth’s side, relieving Aninala when she absolutely had to sleep or eat. The course of his illness was only a few days, but I became extremely attached to him in those few days. The situation, as hopeless as it looked, must have a solution. The alternative was unbearable to think about.

My research was interrupted on the fourth day, by Mika and a young woman, a Dragon, with pale hair and pale eyes. I hated her the moment I laid eyes on her. It was completely irrational and I fought the reaction down. “Yes?” I prompted, not bothering to mask the impatience in my voice. I was running out of time and I didn’t have time for these interruptions.

“Drake, this is Serra,” Mika said, gesturing the girl forward. “She’s been trying to get an audience with you for a couple days. She thinks she can help. I think you should hear her out.”

Carefully controlling my irritation at being disturbed, I set my book on the table and looked at her expectantly. “You have my attention,” I murmured, crossing my arms over my chest.

The girl stepped forward and bowed, and avoided eye contact. That irritated me more, although there was nothing that could be done about that. It was respectful in this culture to avoid eye contact with someone above your station. It was one of the many things I thought was nonsense, but it was what it was. “As Prince Mika said, I am Serra. I believe I can cure your son.”

Her words caught me off guard. “That’s not common knowledge,” I said in a low voice. “How did you come by it?”

“Is that really the important thing here, Your Highness?”

“I’m not letting you near my son until you’ve answered me satisfactorily. How did you know about this situation?”

Now she did make eye contact with me, and I shivered as I felt a brusque pass of Kinsense, communicating power and disdain. I expected her to tell me she was a Dragon after that, as if that explained everything “I am a goddess,” she said instead.

“A- a goddess?” I shook my head in disbelief, not wanting the thread of hope she had just instilled in me grow. Could she really cure Gareth? I knew quite a bit about world mythology, and to my knowledge, there was no goddess named Serra. “I’m going to need a bit more explanation than that.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“In a word. I-”

My daughter Sorrow and Rae crashing into the library interrupted me. “Father!” Sorrow cried. “It’s Prince Gareth! He’s- he’s-”

I looked from them to Serra and Mika and back, torn and confused. Gareth was more urgent, and I turned to them fully, following them out of the library. Serra and Mika followed. “What’s happened?” I demanded, forcing myself to be calm.

“He’s barely breathing,” Rae answered, far less calm than I. “And he’s almost too hot to touch. I think he’s dying, Drake!”

“I can’t move fast enough on my own.”

Without further prompting, the Werecat knelt and I climbed onto his back. He lifted me and we continued, faster than I would have been able to of my own power. Ani stood by his bed, one hand on his forehead, tearfully begging him to open his eyes. “Back off!” I snapped, as Rae let me down. I hobbled over to the bed. “Where’s Valerie? Sorrow, go get Valerie! How long has he been in this state?”

“I fell asleep and he was like this when I woke up- I don’t know! Do something, please! Help him!”

“Stand away! Rae, keep her back with you. Mika, help me. I need to ease his breathing- yes, I know you’re not a doctor but you’re a healer, just get over here!”

I didn’t trust Serra, at all, and I wanted to do this the way I knew how first, stabilize him again, and then talk to her more, try to vet out her divine claim. If Death herself couldn’t cure this thing, what made this Dragon girl believe she could? It was too big of a question for me to just step back, and place Gareth’s life in her hands.

Valerie joined us, along with Sorrow, and the four of us struggled to ease Gareth’s breathing and drive his temperature down. I kept feeling his presence in my mind, begging, pleading with me, but I couldn’t spare him the attention. He became more and more persistent, finally clawing frantically at my mental shields. I dared not let him in then. I was too afraid of what I would find.

All at once, he managed to rip my shields down. An overwhelming sense of desperation flooded over me, of despair. He just wanted to give up, was begging me to let the pain end.

The intensity blurred my vision, and then it was gone. I stood gasping, gripping my stick and the side guard of his bed, staring at his still, unmoving face. Everything seemed to have stopped. I reached out with Kinsense, and met with nothing at all, like he simply wasn’t there. I pressed trembling fingers under his jaw, at his lifebeat. It was still. “No…”

Things fell apart around me, and my weak legs wouldn’t hold me anymore. I sank to the floor, swallowing back tears. I tried not to listen to Ani’s pained cries, or Rae’s grief-filled weeping. Mika put his hands on my shoulders, and I let him pull me away from the bed. I turned and cried into his shoulder, broken-hearted. The realization that I had failed to prevent the dread event that Death had warned Joshua about barely registered in my mind. The son I had just met a handful of days ago was dead. I couldn’t cope with that.

Valerie’s voice cut through the haze. “What are you doing?”

I looked up to see Serra at Gareth’s side, sadness in her face and eyes. She reached into a pouch tied to her belt and pulled a short dagger in a hard leather sheath from it. “What are you doing?” I echoed my wife sharply. She ignored me but for a glare shot over her shoulder.

Mika stood, and I didn’t resist it when he pulled away from me. “I searched her before I brought her here,” he said in a low voice. “I swear I did.”

She had drawn the dagger and was sketching symbols in the air above Gareth’s body. “I know,” I replied quickly. “Stop her!”

He advanced on her, drawing his sword. She glared again as the air in the room darkened with power. I felt her essence tug at min, drawing my power and my breath out of me. “You want this undone, don’t you?” Her voice was hollow, echoing in the power she was gathering. Mika hesitated only a moment before taking a few more steps, and meeting an invisible barrier. He struck at it with his sword, then yelped as the barrier flared for a moment, letting us see it: a bright red sphere circling around Serra and Gareth. “That was stupid,” she said stiffly. “Don’t do it again. It bites back.”

Then she raised her voice, chanting, almost singing, in a foreign, musical language. Infinity twisted inside me, screeching at me to let it free. It took all of my strength to keep it controlled, taking my focus off my efforts to restrain myself from feeding whatever magic Serra was working. The pressure and pain became too much for me, and I howled as I felt Infinity’s power dragged out of me and into Serra’s spell.

It was over in another moment. Infinity writhed inside of me, retreating. I opened my eyes, panting with the exertion that had just been inflicted on me. Gareth’s confused, green-eyed stare met mine.

He looked around, his gaze settling on Aninala. “Mom?”

Serra leaned over him. “How do you feel, Prince?”

“I- I feel fine.” He hesitated, drawing himself up onto his elbows as he gazed around again, then looked back at her. “Better than before I got sick, actually. Who are you?”

She smiled, an expression that sent a shiver of dread through me. “My name is Serra. And I just brought you back to life.”

I didn’t immediately question how Serra had done this. My first thought was to make sure Gareth was cured of his disease. I kept him at the hospital for several more days, running tests and checking his health in every way I could think of. Soon enough, though, I was satisfied that he was healthy and whole, and mystified over the whole thing.

I wanted to send Serra away, but I couldn’t very well do that after she saved my son’s life. I had her quartered in the castle while I made sure Gareth was alright, on Joshua’s recommendation. Gareth’s death and resurrection, he told me, had most assuredly done damage that Death wasn’t sure could be healed. He finally told me what was going on: a demon of enormously dangerous caliber had used his resurrection to latch onto his soul and break the seal binding him to Infinity’s realm.

The only problem was that the demon hadn’t manifested in the world as Death had predicted. What had happened to him? Until this could be investigated fully, Joshua told me, Serra needed to stay close. Keep her in the castle, and Death would come to get her when the gods understood what had happened.

The thought made me rather unhappy. What if Serra was working with this demon? Joshua was sure she wasn’t that her involvement was innocent, that her goal had truly been to save Gareth’s life. But if that wasn’t the case, then that made it all the more important that we kept a close eye on her.

After I had cleared Gareth’s health, I quartered him in the castle as well, near his parents. I gave them space to process what had just happened and comfort each other. As much as I wanted to hash out Ani and Rae keeping my own son a secret from me for a decade and a half, I wanted them to be alright, all three of them. The animosity I held for Ani and Rae had faded long ago.

And with this new situation, I realized I needed to at least try to be friendly with them, if not friends. For Gareth’s sake.

About a week after moving Gareth to the castle, I was preparing for bed- alone, as this had fractured my relationship with Valerie, perhaps fatally- when a firm but quiet knock on my chambers door startled me. I wasn’t cold or cruel but I was aloof, and the number of people in the castle who would approach me directly was rather small. “It’s open,” I called, setting aside the cup of tea I had made for myself.

The door opened and Gareth, timid, came through and closed the door behind him. “Gareth,” I said in surprise. “Come in. What can I do for you?”

“I want to know why you just stuck me in a room and then ignored me for three days.”

If I didn’t think he would be offended, I would have laughed. “Well, I guess I knew you were blunt,” I answered, and gestured to another seat close by the one I was in. “Have a seat. You’re right, it’s time we talked. Tea?”

He came over and sat down where I indicated, shaking his head. “No, thank you. I just want to know why. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It wasn’t my intention to ignore you. What happened to you… that was…”

“My death, you mean?” he prompted flatly.

I paused, taken aback momentarily by his tone. “I knew you were blunt,” I repeated in a murmur, to myself. “Yes, your death, but also your resurrection. Normally when people die, they stay dead. It wasn’t my intention to ignore you, it was to give you space to process everything that’s happened.”

He thought about this for a moment, seemed to accept it. “So you’ve never done anything like this before?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve never resurrected someone.”

“Goodness, no! What makes you think I can?”

“You’re the Fated Child.”

I eyed him incredulously. “I think I need to have a talk with your parents about what they’re teaching you about the Fated Cycle.”

“No no no, they haven’t told me anything like that. They have told me you’re incredibly powerful, though.”

“Infinity’s incredibly powerful,” I corrected him. “Without Infinity I’m just a man, same as you. And I haven’t used Infinity in- gods, almost twenty years.” I chuckled. “No, I can’t raise the dead. I’m just a mere mortal.”

He seemed to accept this, moving on to his next concern: “Do you think Serra is really a goddess?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately. “My nephew- your cousin- Joshua, is Death’s champion. He says she is.”

“Do you think she can explain what happened to me when I was… when I was dead?”

That got my attention. “I don’t know. What happened to you when you were dead?”

Clearly uncomfortable, he said, “There was a- a copy of me, except it looked like a monster. Its hands turned to claws as it reached for me, and an angel of fire pulled me away from it. It was furious, but the angel kept me away from it. And after a few moments, the angel dragged me back down into my body.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “It sounds to me like that was a dream from the seconds before you died,” I said finally. “There’s a saying, that a person’s life flashes before their eyes when they die. That dream was what your mind did instead.”

“Maybe, but…”

I waited for him to finish his thought. He didn’t. “Yes?” I prompted.

He fidgeted uncomfortably. “I feel… I feel like I’m being controlled. I- Everything I do, I am doing myself, and I know this, but I still feel like nothing I do is of my own volition. Does that make sense?”

“That’s disturbing. Hold still for a moment. I’m going to check you out.” He nodded, pale and worried, and I leaned forward. I kept as still and calm as I could, reaching down into myself and nudging Infinity awake. Fear gripped me as it unfurled in my consciousness. The last time I had used it, I lost control of it and nearly killed everyone in the area.

But this situation and that one were very different, and I was calm. I could control this thing. And this was something that needed to be done. I needed to know if that demon had indeed attached to him, and managed to avoid detection. I silently told Infinity what I needed, and it languidly responded, merging into my magic as I swept it over Gareth.

I found nothing but himself. Again, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. After a moment, I said, “Thank you. I can assure you that you aren’t being controlled by an outside force.”

“What was that?” Gareth breathed, putting a hand to his chest.

“That was Infinity.” I paused to let him process that, and continued: “That feeling could be the trauma of what happened. I’ve never seen anyone brought back to life, so I have no experience with it, but I can’t imagine the process would be pleasant. You’ll start to feel normal again in time, I’m sure of it.”

“If you say so,” he murmured, unconvinced.

A thought occurred to me. “Do you have any memory loss?”

“... no, no I don’t think I do.”

“Then tell me about yourself,” I said with a smile. “It might help ground you and help you feel like you again.”

He smiled back. “Alright. Where should I begin?”

We talked well into the small hours of the morning, until Gareth fell asleep in his chair. I gently tucked a blanket around him. Then, grabbing my stick, I headed out of my rooms and down the hall to the guest quarters. I owed it to Ani and Rae to make sure they knew where their boy was.

Ani and Rae had separate quarters, with Gareth staying with his mother until a more permanent arrangement could be made for him. I wanted no trouble with Ani or with Sylpheed, but now that he was here, I wasn’t letting him go so easily.

I reached Ani’s room and raised a hand to knock on the door when I heard voices coming from within. “- time is really possible?”

I frowned sharply as I recognized the other voice. Serra. “Why wouldn’t it be? I can raise the dead. You saw that yourself.”

“Yes, but reversing time… I’m not sure even the Creator Gods are capable of doing that.”

“So if I can’t do it, then I can’t. Look, you wanted another chance with Drake, didn’t you? You said yourself that the way things ended wasn’t fair. What if he never fell from that balcony? You could’ve talked it out, and you’d have a king now, and your son would have his father. What have you got to lose if I try?”

I had heard enough of this conversation, and knocked firmly and insistently. “Oh, that’s Drake,” Serra said brightly, and opened the door. “Good evening, Your Highness!”

“Good evening,” I replied shortly. “Your Majesty?” Serra moved aside to give Ani a clear view of me, and I said, “I just wanted to let you know that Gareth is in my rooms. He fell asleep while we were talking and I don’t want to disturb him.

“That’s-” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “That’s fine. Thank you for telling me, Drake. I’ve been worried.”

“I apologize. I should’ve sent a message to you that he was with me when he showed up. I will in the future. It’s late now, though, so I’ll take my leave of you. Good night, Aninala, Serra.”

I closed the door behind me, hoping my interruption was enough to put a stop to that conversation. Aside from the fact that reversing time sounded dangerous, I was no longer in love with Aninala. I felt bad for her that she seemed to still have feelings for me but I had long ago moved on. Nothing good could come of reversing time.

I got most of the way back down the hall when the pain started. At first, I thought I had simply overextended myself, something that happened with fair frequency. But it took only a few breaths to realize that something was very wrong. I sank to my knees, one hand going to my head as pain and heat erupted behind my eyes. Pain ripped through me and I choked out my wife’s name, feeling as though I was being torn apart.

“Who’s Valerie?”

My eyes snapped open in the dark, breathing heavily and disoriented. It took me a second to realize where I was, in Aninala’s bed in Sylpheed. As the memory of the nightmare began to fade from my mind as I calmed, I turned my attention to my lover. “What?”

“You called for someone named Valerie. It sounded like you were in pain.”

“I-” Why had I called for Valerie? And what else had I revealed in my sleep? Valerie had been my lover while I was in Draeger, fighting the brief but vicious civil war that had erupted after my fight with Ani. We had both known it was just while I was there, that after the war I intended to come back to Sylpheed and work things out with Ani. Had I just thrown away the relationship we had barely saved tonight? “Valerie was one of the physicians at the front lines of the war,” I lied quietly. “I was wounded at one point. I was probably dreaming of that.”

“I see. You didn’t tell me you had been wounded.”

“I don’t like to think about it.”

She seemed to accept that. She put her head back down on my chest and I tightened my arms around her, kissing the top of her head. Just as I was beginning to relax and drop off back to sleep, Ani stirred again. “I’m sorry,” she giggled excitedly, “but there’s something I meant to tell you when you first got back, and then the fight happened, and I was going to wait for morning but-”

“Breathe!” I laughed. She laughed as well as I said, “Calm down and tell me. I’m not going anywhere.”

She paused, her blue eyes glittering in the moonlight filtering through her bedroom window. “We’re having a baby, Drake.”

My breath caught in my throat. I put my hands on the sides of her face, Valerie going right out of my mind. “Are you serious? That’s- that’s incredible!” She nodded enthusiastically, and I pulled her down to me to kiss her deeply. Once we pulled away, I grinned at her. “We need to talk more about this tomorrow. Although, about our engagement-”

She huffed, although she was still smiling. “Yes, Drake, my parents will have to agree to let us marry now instead of when the treaty is finished. Gods alive, man, you have a one track mind.”

My grin turned sheepish. “You know you love it.”

“Yes, I do.” She kissed me again, then settled back down in my arms. “We should get some sleep. Papa’s not going to be happy with us at all. We might have a rough morning until he calms down.”

“Mm. And I’m exhausted. You wore me out earlier.”

“You’re going to have to stop being so vulgar, you know.”

“I know, but the kid’s not here yet. Let me get it out of my system, eh?”

She laughed. “Go to sleep, Drake.”

“Yes, Princess.” I kissed her on the top of her head again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I closed my eyes, trying to force my mind to stillness, to put away my excitement until the morning. But I couldn’t get the feeling that something was horribly, horribly wrong out of my mind.

[azveille]

New treatments for peanut allergies sound promising, but questions remain

Whenever I see a report touting possible new peanut allergy treatments, I devour it. I can’t help it. It’s an occupational hazard for any health journalist whose reporting specialty and medical history intertwine.

I write about the business of health care, focusing on how consumers interact with the system — what we pay, what we get and why American care costs so much. But in this particular instance, I have another kind of authority: 26 years of life-threatening allergies to nuts and peanuts.

So when Brisbane, Calif.-based Aimmune Therapeutics recently sparked optimistic headlines after releasing clinical trial results that its allergy product, AR101, would reduce the risks linked to an accidental exposure to peanuts, I received the usual wave of questions from friends, co-workers and my parents: Would you try it? Could this help?

Aimmune is just one company eyeing the prize. Childhood peanut allergy diagnoses increased more than 20 percent in the United States from 2010 to 2017. The global market for relief is worth as much as $2 billion. The French drugmaker DBV Technologies is also working to commercialize a peanut allergy patch. Other companies, including industry giant Sanofi, are following their lead.

If any one of them succeeds, it could change my life.

My friends call nuts “Shefali poison.” My allergies to peanuts first surfaced when, as a 15-month-old, I picked Thai noodles off an aunt’s plate and developed hives on my face. A few months later, I ended up in the hospital after I tasted my mom’s kaju barfi — an Indian dessert with cashews (to which I am also allergic). Nobody in my family had ever heard of peanut allergies.

Writer Shefali Luthra, second from right, as a seventh-grader. She says she has carried epinephrine for her allergies to nuts and peanuts since she was 7 years old. (Courtesy of the Luthra Family)

I’ve carried epinephrine since I was 7 years old. My friends are trained to inject it in my leg, the standard procedure for an emergency allergen exposure, although I luckily haven’t had to take a shot of it since I was 4. (Another child in my Montessori class had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.) My mom also recalls another incident when she had to pick me up early from day care because the class was making peanut butter bird feeders. And I spent too many years of pre-adolescence eating lunch at the designated “peanut-free table.” Now, I can only dream of flying to visit my parents for Christmas without worrying about whether my seatmate’s snacks might induce anaphylaxis. And yes, kissing someone who has just eaten peanut butter would put my life in danger.

But are these pills and patches a true breakthrough for people like me?

I approached the question as I would any other assignment. I read the research, called immunologists, and spoke with economists and drug pricing experts about whether these treatments offer meaningful benefit.

One of the first things I heard: “We are still in the infancy of these treatments,” said Corinne Keet, a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Medically, there’s a lot we don’t know about the risks, how much these drugs could help and how long any effects would last. “None of these treatments have been shown to prevent fatal reaction,” Keet said.

The idea behind them is to desensitize people. Aimmune’s “peanut pill” is modeled on the oral therapies some specialists use to slowly wean allergic kids back on to nuts. This approach has gained popularity in recent years, especially for children with multiple allergies, or when it’s a substance particularly hard to avoid.

A colleague’s young daughter, who was born with multiple allergies, used that very treatment, as did a younger cousin of mine who, for the first several years of her life, was allergic to — not joking — almost everything but fruits and vegetables. In my case, this therapy came into vogue after I was too old to have a good chance of it weakening my sensitivities.

How it works: Kids ingest tiny, escalating doses of peanut protein. They then stay on peanut protein — Aimmune recommends the pill, although other doctors I spoke to suggested a little bit of peanut — as a maintenance drug.

But it’s unclear how much the new therapies would improve upon that ad hoc oral immunotherapy that are already being offered by allergists. Instead of drugs, they use store-bought peanut protein, usually defatted peanut flour available online for as little as $1 a pound. This method isn’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and often isn’t covered by insurance — although doctors’ visits can be billed as “food challenges” or other visits that are typically covered.

In contrast, Aimmune’s product is expected to cost between $5,000 and $10,000 for the first six months of use, and $300 to $400 per month after, although the company declined to confirm these, or provide other, pricing estimates. DBV, Aimmune’s chief rival, has come up with a wearable skin patch that would transmit tiny, desensitizing protein doses. Analysts predict DBV’s will cost more than $6,000 for a year’s supply. The company says it has not yet determined a price. ­Joseph Becker, a company spokesman, said it does not view oral immunotherapy as a competitor.

“There’s excitement, there’s caution and a lot of unanswered questions,” warned Erwin Gelfand, a pediatrics and immunology professor at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine.

According to Aimmune’s results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, two-thirds of allergic children could ingest 600 milligrams of peanut without harm after going through treatment.

To be clear, even with Aimmune’s help, someone like me still couldn’t safely eat PB&J. But it would desensitize me enough that I could taste a friend’s wine if he recently ate peanut-topped pad thai.

Still, the treatment comes with caveats.

While 496 children started the trial, only 372 completed it. Of the 20 percent who backed out, half did so because of adverse events. About 14 percent of children getting treatment still had to take epinephrine, and one experienced anaphylaxis, a severe reaction that can involve rashes, vomiting, a tightening throat and difficulty breathing. (For an allergic kid, even the possibility is maybe one of the most terrifying things you can imagine.)

Children who completed the regimen still had to take small doses of peanut protein daily, either the Aimmune drug or a controlled peanut serving. Statistically significant benefits were clear only in patients through age 17, although Daniel Adelman, the company’s chief medical officer, said Aimmune plans to do a follow-up trial for adults.

And the results don’t indicate who would probably benefit, or how long improvements would last. That’s impossible to know, Adelman said. He said, however, accidental peanut exposure is scary enough — and pure avoidance ineffective enough — that the treatment is still worth it.

But all this means that anyone who has gone through Aimmune’s regimen would still want to carry epinephrine, and try to avoid peanuts.

“Not everybody responds well,” Gelfand said. When you factor in those details, the results are “not all that impressive.”

Tina Sindher, a pediatric allergist at Stanford University, pointed out that the Aimmune pill is a repackaged, clinically tested version of that homegrown oral therapy many allergists have been using. DBV’s peanut patch, Viaskin, to a lesser extent, is the same — more convenient, perhaps, and more regulated, but still a variation on the existing medical approach.

“This concept has been around for a long time,” she said.

What’s new is the addition of labor, standardization and federal oversight — which companies then say demonstrates increased value.

It highlights a pattern I’ve noticed from my reporting: Drugmakers develop medication that refines a low-tech remedy, run a clinical trial to secure FDA approval and then sell it at a higher price.

For pharma, it’s a logical way to profit. But it puts patients in a bind.

“The hard outcome is we have these new products and they’re just about as good or slightly better than what we have,” said Nicholson Price, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, who studies drug pricing. “And they’re a lot more expensive.” He noted: “That’s when the choices get hard, and we’re not good at making hard choices.”

Also skeptical? The closest authority I know: my mother, who raised me with peanut allergies when they were more or less unheard of, and is now doing it all over again for my 10-year-old brother. (Another brother, my twin, was allergy-free until about a year ago. Adult onset peanut allergy isn’t that uncommon)

“It’s not worth it,” my mom told me. Her concern? Getting any of us to maintain a peanut dose — without knowing how long that reduced sensitivity would last — could induce what she called “a false sense of security.”

This thinking isn’t out of line, Sindher said. The way these studies are touted, she said, often “gloss over the fact that there’s a lot we don’t know.”

So for now, I’ll have to maintain my distance from the newsroom stash of Reese’s Pieces. My epinephrine and I aren’t parting ways anytime soon.

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

[sunshinea12]

So I needed to vent or write my feeling out or something

Hi Tumblr universe. No one knows me here which is exactly what i need. I couldn't write this on facebook or twitter and most definitely not a text.... and most importantly nobody will read this which is okay by me.

Today i had an appointment at the eye doctor. I've been having these headaches for a little while now, a few month. I was thinking that maybe it was my glasses because it happens mostly as my day goes on and on as i stare at my computer for work. I think it started when i was stressing about my program ending at work and the load just continually increasing at a rapid pace. I was stressed as hell and i was a little overwhelmed. My program ended and then i had time at home to do whatever i wanted,3 weeks of a potential vacation before i started my new job. As the first week came to a close, the headaches came on really strong. Like i couldn't move my head without getting these pains, like sharp pains right above my left eye. I researched online and thought it might have been my sinuses. I also thought that i was really really dehydrated as i seriously don’t drink enough of anything, another reason i didn't want this to go out to anyone i know because then i would totally be a hypocrite because i am always on everyone else about taking good care of themselves but who am i? honestly I really don’t care I think.Anyway, the headaches remained through all of the time i was out of work. So my assumption was maybe it was because i went from having this crazy ass schedule to like doing nothing, I mean I left my house at 325 am and came home after 7 pm and then come home to work OT for a few more hours, unless one of my shows came on or I passed out. Some nights I couldn’t even find the time to eat dinner and this was every day during the week for about 3 or 4 years. I started working my new job and my schedule has changed once again but it was not as crazy as it once was. I am now looking at a computer screen from 9 in the morning until 630 at night which is a hell of a lot better than the before times so so long ago. So now by 3 in the afternoon my head starts throbbing and my eyes start twitching at work. this is starting to happened everyday now. I don’t get any of the sharp pains anymore, but my eyes feel tired and my head just hurts. Which is what leads me to want to go get my eyes checked for possibly get a new prescription for my glasses.

The dilated my eyes and looked into them with that super bright light. The doctor wanted me to have another test, which i never had to do before. After the screenings were complete she brings me back into the room and tells me that she wants me to go see a specialist for my eyes. She said i have a bulging nerve that is raised. It is showing fuzzy around where the nerve is supposed to lay flat. With me asking questions she was not clear in the things that she told me. Just that i need a second opinion because she is not sure what it is. She said there was diffidently something wrong with the nerve but it could be borderline something emergency or something that medication could fix. When i asked her if i could go blind or even die she told me that the specialist would have to determine that. It could cause blindness or be fatal to my health. She gave me a bunch of numbers to call as well as advice for what to do but i don’t even know. But like do I even call those numbers? What is the point of paying way too much for my premium to be told i have something threatening. What are my chances, what will happen if i don’t, does it make a difference if i do something to begin with? Do i even fucking care enough about myself to look further into this. I am 32, I have absolutely nothing going for me. Terrible job, no one to love or that loves me, friends that aren’t the best kind, family that don’t talk about ANYTHING except the bar that is owned by my father or the latest gossip going around. I wanted so much for myself in my life but i know that none of it will be a reality. SO once again do i fucking care enough to look further into this.

I cried for 10 minutes when i got home and i went to call my “like” mother. My mom passed away 12 years and her birthday is coming up in 2 weeks, So i am super blue. I am always super blue around this time of year. All i do is cry around this time of year. Christmas is coming, and as i said her birthday is coming. it is a very lonely time of year for me. I like have no family or friends to be with that i am really close to. I have some people around me but i can’t/don’t really rely on them. Whenever i feel the need to talk i don’t get a response. The people in my life tend to make my issue more about themselves than what it is that i am talking about. My “Like Mom” is classically known for this. since i was a child this has been something that has gone on in my life. I struggled with depression since i was 13 and her and my mom would sit me down to talk and sometimes it just seemed like i wasn’t allowed to talk. Like how I was feeling wasn’t the subject. They cared for me, i know this in my mind and in my heart, but i never got to communicate the feelings I had been feeling way back when. Maybe it was because they couldn’t understand. Maybe it was because they could not believe someone so young could be so hurt, feel so low and lost that they tried to turn me into the opposite. And it worked, kind of.... On the outside, i am not sad, low, lost, insecure. I am bubbly, happy, fun loving, confident like always. This is the skin i wear when i leave my home, when i’m walking down the street, at work, a bar, and hanging out with friends. But when i am in my room I am still sad, lonely as fuck, scared,depressed. it gets to the point where i ignore my phone, turn off my tv and computer and just stare at the ceiling thinking about what if things could be different. I was in a very toxic relationship with a person who i had no business with. I think we poisoned each other. He has been the only person besides those related to me whether by blood or time to tell me that they loved me. He love ME, i would think. How could someone love something like me, shit most days i can’t even find a single thing about me to love. But he told me every day. He also hit me most of those days too. I guess it was tough love that we had. Now sadly i can’t look at anybody without thinking that they will be like that, they will love like that so i don’t/refuse to get close to anybody, including those i have none ALL my life. Now i am just a shell of a person walking around, being there for anybody but screaming inside of my own head. I have felt this way for quite some time but last time i brought it up I was told my period must be coming and i will be over it once my hormones balance out. Funny that was well over a year ago and here we are in November and it is the start of the worst time of year for me because nothing says sad and lonely than spending Christmas with your cat and not getting a call or a text from a soul. Everybody has lives to live and families and their own things they are trying to get past. I just wish that this one time I could have someone there for me. To not brush away my feelings, to let me cry or vent or be sad, to let me tell the whole damn story before you bring in what is up with themselves or how they would do things. I’ve said it to plenty of people in the past and i guess it is my own turn to hear it. People are not always going to love you the way that you love them and they are also not always going to love you the way you want to be loved or think you deserve to be loved. Especially if you don’t tell them and I for one am not a speak up kind of person. I am most definitely the I am all ears, tell me whats wrong because I don’t want you to be sad kind of person. I will come to you if all you need is a hug and some kind words. I am the one who will listen to you cry and maybe even cry with you, but i will also keep checking on you to make sure you are alright, even though the storm has passed. I am what they call the strong friend. The one who is always in good spirits who wants everyone to feel good or be good sometimes even if I have to make an ass out of myself to do it. I am searching for someone like that for me right now. Someone who will know what to say or what to do to just be there. I just really need a hug, I haven’t had a hug since 2016 when i randomly met one of my twitter followers when I flew from Philly to San Francisco for 36 hours to see Darren Criss as Hedwig and she told me she was there as well. Unless we can say hugging means loving my cat, because I hug him everyday. He is my world, my Knight(that is his name). He saved me. He gave me something to do, I get out of bed every morning because of him, granted he is screaming at me to feed him but still. I love him more than I could ever even think to explain. I am not saying that i wouldn't be here if it weren't for Mr Knight, I am just saying he helps me get threw my nights and for that i am thankful.

[dorukhaber06]

finds clues to teen's suicide in blue whale paintings.

he walls and décor of 16-year-old Nadia's room looked like that of any other high school teenager. Her real name is not Nadia; we are keeping her identity hidden at the request of her family, out of respect for her memory and their privacy.

A beautiful painting covered the wall along the length of her bed; the bookshelf was adorned with books, knickknacks and childhood photos. Near a full-length mirror, recent artwork showed a printed photo of a blue whale overlaying a hand-painted background. This girl was a gifted artist, sister, daughter and friend. Nobody who knew her suspected that she would take her own life one early morning in May. Nobody who knew her could have anticipated what they would find after her death. Almost immediately, her devastated older brother, Marty, started going through her things to look for signs. He noticed an unusual pattern among drawings and journal entries, including a small sketch of a girl with a name beneath it in Russian. An internet search of the name turned up the story of Rina Palenkova, a 17-year-old girl who posted a "goodbye" selfie moments before committing suicide in Russia in November 2015. The photo went viral on the Russian social media site VK.com, and the attention from her death led to the discovery of her supposed involvement with something online called Blue Whale.

Nadia's sketch of Rina Palenkova was the first clue her brother found. Continuing to research, Marty remembered the picture of the blue whale taped next to the mirror in his sister's room. He looked through her sketches and found pages of whale drawings and magazine cutouts with the words "I Am a Blue Whale" pasted over them, accompanied by drawings indicating self-harm, suicidal statements with words of goodbye and multiple entries written in Russian.

Entries with photos saying "I Am A Blue Whale" were found in Nadia's journal. Marty said the discovery startled him. "None of us knew about the Blue Whale game. I spend a lot of time online and hadn't come across it until it happened."

Nadia hid secrets in her paintings that her family discovered after her death What is Blue Whale? As Nadia's family researched the Blue Whale connection, they discovered what appeared to be an online suicide challenge that reportedly began in Russia two years ago. Since then, suicides suspected to have been inspired by Blue Whale have been reported in parts of central Asia, Europe and South America; Nadia's suicide appears to be the first in the United States influenced by the concept. The Washington Post reported about another teen suicide in Texas that occurred in early July and is suspected to be linked to Blue Whale. The "game" is said to be administered by an online curator and takes place over 50 days. The curator gives players daily tasks to accomplish and requires them to submit photographic evidence that they have completed each, keeping their communication private. One man who may be connected to Blue Whale is a 21-year-old psychology major named Philip Budeikin. According to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he was arrested in November. Authorities from the St Petersburg District Court confirmed in a press statement that there is an open investigation into his charge of "incitement to suicide." The Investigative Committee press release says that Budeikin has confessed to creating the game and used the VK.com social site to encourage 15 to 17 teenagers to commit suicide. While authorities investigate whether there are curators who directly communicate with teens or whether the game is simply internet folklore, the challenges are said to begin at 4:20 a.m. and vary in intensity. Some reportedly start with simple things like drawing a blue whale on a piece of paper. Demands may increase to watching horror movies all night or secretly cutting oneself. It is reported that the curator sends teens to scope out the location of their deaths in advance as one of the challenges. In some cases, they go to the top of a tall building, in others a train station. Each task becomes riskier, and on the 50th day, players are reportedly instructed to commit suicide. Dr. Dan Reidenberg, executive director of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, a national nonprofit for suicide prevention, warns that parents need to be watching their children for any of those signs. He encourages asking kids whether they are playing Blue Whale or have friends who are playing. However, he reiterated that "there is no need to panic, because this is not yet a crisis, rather a caution to alert people in advance." The colonel of justice for the Investigation Committee Department of St. Petersburg, Anton Breydo, launched an investigation on Blue Whale in Russia and was working with a girl who had survived a suicide attempt, according to the news outlet Novaya Gazeta. She informed him that players are told that once they start playing, there is "no way back." And if they try to change their minds, they are threatened by the curator, who claims to have all their information and says he will come after them or their family. Russian officials did not respond to CNN's requests for comment. Novaya Gazeta reported that Palenkova's death exposed a community of suicide fans who turned her into an icon, writing messages such as "Rina, you're the best!" "You're my hero" and "I love you." After her death, Novaya Gazeta reported that in the span of six months, 130 teen suicides could be linked to the game, because almost all the victims were in the same internet group. However, it later said that only 80 of those could be proved and was criticized as exaggerating numbers that could not be definitively linked to the game. Warning signs Gathering evidence of such a game is difficult, and catching warning signs can be even harder for those unaware. In Nadia's case, her family said that in hindsight, the signs were everywhere. "She was an artist," Marty said. "She drew a lot of random stuff, so if I had come across the Blue Whale game online or heard about it from somewhere, maybe I could have pieced it together a little bit faster, just like I did when I found the sketch of Palenkova. It took me less than 20 minutes to figure that out." Nadia did an abstract painting of blue whale skeletons for a school project, and the school had it framed and displayed. The painting took on a new meaning in the aftermath of her death.

Nadia's paintings were framed and displayed at her high school. Along with the contents of her journal, the family recovered some of Nadia's social media posts from the days leading up to her death. A photo of her legs dangling over the roof of her house, pictures of self-inflicted cuts on her body and a final post of train tracks with the words "good bye," made the morning she died, all bore resemblance to the other reported accounts of Blue Whale victims.

The family believes this photo was one of the "challenges" Nadia completed. Nadia's mother, just as confused and upset as Marty, said her daughter never showed interest in computers. "She never had Facebook, never posted pictures. Most of the time, she only wanted to draw. I never thought she would go and try to find a site or a way to chat with people and believe them." Nadia's family also found letters in Russian among her things. Some appeared to be love letters, while others showed signs of correspondence with someone. They don't know who the letters are directed to or whether that person was involved in Blue Whale. These writings surprised Nadia's family the most, since she had never spoken about learning Russian or even being interested in it. The family continues to ask questions that might never be answered. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has opened a Child Fatality Review of Nadia's suicide and is aware that the drawings and Russian writings may have a connection to Blue Whale. Special Agent Trebor Randle confirmed that this is the first case in Georgia potentially related to Blue Whale. "Obviously, doing nothing about it has seen a rise," Randle said. "Kids know about it and may already be doing it. Parents and educators are the ones who don't know." Why tell these stories? Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among Americans age 10 to 14 and the second among people 15 to 34, according to 2015 statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Randle says people have been nervous to talk about suicide and very sensitive to the topic, leading the issue to be under-reported. "We are doing a disservice if we're not working with parents and educators about how to prevent it." According to Randle, Nadia was the 20th reported teen to commit suicide in Georgia this year, and since her death in May, there has been one more. Marty warns that the signs might be hiding in plain sight. Some of Nadia's drawings were done in class: "She wrote some of this stuff right in front of her teachers. Right around her friends. This is a thing that is happening, so people should know, especially parents that have kids that could potentially be subjected to the same thing and also to ask for help." "I never had problems with my teenage girl," her mother said, "and I never thought that this was something that could happen to us." Google data show that online searches for Blue Whale in the United States began in late February, with interest spiking across the country in mid-May. They may be linked to media coverage in the UK around that time. US investigators are looking into the details of what the game is -- if anything -- and it's important to note that it has remained relatively unknown. Meanwhile, authorities say that Nadia's death provides enough evidence to issue a warning to parents and educators that the ideas spread by something called Blue Whale pose a threat to vulnerable teens. One way to address the topic is head-on. Jane Pearson, chairwoman of the National Institute for Mental Health Suicide Research Consortium, advised, "It's important to provide opportunities for people to say 'if you're feeling this way, here's what you can do about it.' " Pearson says there is good information available for parents to help children and teenagers recognize dangers online. Reidenberg echoed that sentiment: "Kids don't often know about predators online who will lure them into these tragedies. We want to encourage parents to talk to their kids about online safety." 'Always an opportunity to intervene' Reidenberg warns that in some instances, there's a contagion surrounding suicide. "Youth are particularly sensitive to the topic of contagion. There are kids that, when someone dies by suicide or there's media coverage or an overwhelming amount of attention, other kids may see and attempt suicide because of the same thing." Reidenberg also warns that sensationalizing a topic can lead to more harm than help, but he hopes that telling the story of Nadia and her family can ensure awareness. "There's always an opportunity to intervene," he said. "Always a chance to give a message of hope, always a way to tell them it can get better." Pearson says social media can influence the mental health of teens, though she questions whether it causes suicidal behavior or serves as a vehicle to move it along. "You could argue that kids who are troubled will seek out other troubled kids, and we actually know that from looking at social network patterns. They might actually get online and look for other troubled kids, versus finding someone who is helpful or therapeutic." Preventive measures Even Nadia's family says they don't know exactly how big of a role Blue Whale played in her suicide. "Based on the stuff I found, it seems like she was talking to somebody," Marty said. "How much that person had influence over what happened, that we don't know." Steps are being taken nonetheless. The social media site Instagram issues an automatic warning to users who search hashtags relating to the game, possibly the first cyber security step of many to come.

Instagram issues a warning whenever hashtags related to Blue Whale are searched. "Instead of chasing down every trend, a better approach might be to improve social media literacy, to help kids understand how to manage it," Pearson advised. Law enforcement and school faculties in some areas have started issuing warnings that Blue Whale may be trending in schools. The Miami Police Department created an awareness video, and school administrators in Alabama, California and elsewhere have posted parent alerts on their Facebook pages. Internationally, police and schools in the UK and New Zealand issued warnings last month. In this Social Media 101 installment, we address a new sinister game or challenge that is starting to trend on social media and our schools. This challenge encourages young teens to commit suicide. Please watch the video and share with all your friends and family. Nadia's family is trying to uncover conversations she may have had with someone online. They're working with the GBI's Child Fatality Review Unit, which says its goal is to "promote more accurate identification of child fatalities and monitor the implementation of a statewide injury prevention plan to reduce incidents." On a national level, the FBI says it would open an investigation if a teen has been extorted and if the extortion is coming from outside the country. Until then, it must be invited into an investigation by state and local authorities. While the search is ongoing, Nadia's family is left with pieces of a puzzle and a message they want to share, hoping that others won't have to experience their pain. "It's a real thing. I lost my sister to it, or at least part of it," Marty said. "There needs to be awareness. People need to know; parents need to know, to look for signs, to monitor their kids a little better." Holding her daughter's favorite stuffed animal, Nadia's mother said, "I still don't believe it. I still think that it's a bigger dream. Some bad dream, and I will wake up, and she will text me." Wiping tears from her eyes, she urged, "parents need to know that it's true, that it's not some story that is coming from somebody to get attention. It's true." Click to Post